“Tanner Anderson, Carl Skildum and Matthew Kirkwood unofficially formed Majesties in 2016 with melodic death metal in mind and Gothenburg, Sweden in their hearts. It wasn’t until 2022, however, that their debut album, Vast Reaches Unclaimed, coalesced to present a classic conundrum for conscientious music reviewers: how do we talk about a really good pastiche?” Majesty and decay.
“It has taken some time for me to warm up to Big|Brave’s brand of noise/drone/doom. I didn’t love 2017’s Ardor, but it did pique my interest. Minimalist formalism in music doesn’t offend me the same way it does others, but their single-chord experiments didn’t resonate at the time. Still, the pairing of Robin Wattie’s waif-ish vocals with heavy drone was something new, so I kept an eye out for them. I warmed up to the stark elegance on follow-up A Gaze Among Them, but it wasn’t until Leaving None But Small Birds, their collaboration with The Body, that the appeal became revelatory.” Bigly braveness.
“How I came to pen this review is kind of a funny story. Upon entering our promo pit and undergoing de-lousing, this record was tagged as death doom. Whether that was an honest mistake or something more nefarious is an ongoing discussion. The advance material does tout a guest spot by Jaani Peuhu, briefly a member of death doom luminaries Swallow the Sun (more on that later), but Steel has also openly admitted he sometimes lays promo traps for unsuspecting writers to unwittingly claim metalcore. Spectrums, the debut full-length by Saudi one-man band Dusk, has nary a hint of death doom. I’ll give you one guess what it is.” Traps in the glooming.
“When one considers the state of Iowa, one is unlikely to think of black metal. Be-masked hard rock radio metal? Yes. Black metal, no. Likewise, Iowa conjures images of corn fields, wind turbines, college football Saturdays and James Tiberius Kirk. But the ocean? Not unless you’re a paleontologist. You see, the verdant rolling hills of all those Grant Wood paintings were once covered by an enormous prehistoric inland sea. As a result, the place is absolutely lousy with fossils of trilobites and giant sea scorpions. I wonder if this was at least part of the inspiration for Iowa City, Iowa’s very own crusty black metal quartet Dryad as they were writing their debut full-length, the marine-themed The Abyssal Plain.” Flyover seas.
“That night in my bedchambers, I had just changed into my dressing gown and settled before the fireplace when a song began playing, faintly, but growing louder until, alarmed, I recognized it as “The Hammer” by Skelator. “How?!” I cried. “Such drivel in my house?!” Just then, a ghostly apparition burst into the room and strut about like a pro wrestler winding up the crowd. I shuddered, for I knew its face.” Right in the Dickens!
![Cherd’s Raw Black Metal Muster [Things You Might Have Missed 2022]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/GravePilgrim-MoltenHandsReachWest-768x768.jpeg)
“There are two types of people in this world: those who appreciate raw black metal, and those who live fulfilling lives with friends and careers and family who speak to them at holiday gatherings. I’ve declared my love of raw black metal here before, and since the advent of Bandcamp, the kvltest of all metal genres has become infinitely more accessible. Every year I wade through acres of tape hiss and tinny treble, looking for the half dozen or so raw black releases that rise above the buzzing tangle of cobwebs to rarified, putrid air, and this year, I’ve finally decided to document my findings.” Colonel Muster in the basement with a spiked club.
“Submitting a new metal record for review in December is a hard row to hoe. The List Industrial Complex is gaining critical velocity, which means folks in our position are re-listening to the albums that most impressed us over the last 11 months and catching up on the highly regarded albums we haven’t yet heard. Unless you’re bringing your A game – or maybe the A game of a better band than yours – there’s a really good chance your album is going to be underwhelming by contrast. Dutch sludge doom band Gavran boldly present their sophomore full-length Indistinct Beacon this first week of December, the official start of EOY activity.” Indistinct scheduling.
“On the grind spectrum of death metal to hardcore, Houkago Grind Time skews heavily toward the former, with knuckle-dragging riffs and pounding drum fills played at double speed. Lee’s vocals are so deep and guttural that even with the lyrics generously provided on Bandcamp, it’s impossible to match sound to syllable.” Death, grind, and anime.
“Maurice de Jong has had a rough go of things within the hallowed halls of this website. Perhaps best known for Gnaw Their Tongues but involved in no fewer than 15 current projects according to Metal Archives, many of them of the one-man variety, the Dutchman has been reviewed here in his various forms eight times by my count. His scores? A shocking 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.5, 2.5, a 3.0 that our resident shark person has since demoted to a 2.5, and two presumably un-recanted 3.0s from former site writers long since missing under suspicious circumstances. Hagetisse is straightforward, riffy black metal and a far cry from the experimental blackened noise shenanigans de Jong is best known for.” The law of averages.
“As one of the primary reviewers of doom metal ’round these parts, I find it challenging to continue finding different ways to say “this music is unhappy.” I can only use adjectives like mournful, miserable, wretched or despondent so many times before I’m tired of typing them and you’re tired of reading them. Before me is the prospect of reviewing not just doom, but death doom, and not just death doom, but funeral doom in the form of The Weight of Eternity by Dutch act Angmodnes, and friends, I just don’t have it in me to google more synonyms for “sad.” For this post I propose a change. In the pursuit of more robust ways to say “unhappy,” I’ll employ metaphor.” Weighing the feelz.
