“Ahab has been the proud flag-bearer for funeral doom during the last ten years, with three full-length releases fleshing out a decade which has seen them achieve great popularity for such a niche genre.” Whales and snails and squids, oh my!
El Cuervo
I'm not deliberately contrary.
Coffins – Craving to Eternal Slumber Review
“Fresh from their evidently finite dormancy, Japan’s popular death-doom export, Coffins, is back with the mini-album Craving to Eternal Slumber. The legend that is Happy Metal Guy favorably reviewed their previous release, and this largely fits into the canon they’ve already established for themselves.” It’s funny you should mention Happy Metal Guy and canon in the same sentence….
Antropofago – Æra Dementiæ Review
“France has become quite the hub for memorable extreme music in recent times: Deathspell Omega front a dissonant black metal current; Blut Aus Nord fluctuate between various avant-garde stylings but have been a driving force in modern black metal; Cowards fiercely object to perceived façades of beauty and political correctness in their hardcore-influenced anger. Now Antropofago has stepped up to the mark, attempting to wrestle the tech-death reins from their compatriots Gorod, new material from which has been notably absent.” France wants to be the new Sweden.
Black Space Riders – Refugeeum Review
“Psychedelic rock with lashings of proggy jam, a smooth layer of spacey ambiance, and a heavy crust to ensure conformity to a metal-lover’s palate. This is what I was promised by Germany’s Black Space Riders on their fourth full-length, Refugeeum. As it goes, this is more of a confused hybrid of baked goods in concept, and a bland homemade cake in execution, rather than a luxurious Victoria sponge, with some serious identity problems.” The cake was a lie…again.
Sacri Monti – Sacri Monti Review
“Vibrant green fields, replete with young men and women frolicking with each other in their natural environment, adorned with flowers and flowing locks. Loose-fitting headbands and azure jeans which gently swell at the bottom. A world of love where acceptance is life, difference is disregarded and war is abhorrent. And drugs. A fucking shitload of drugs.” Get off my lawn, you hippies!
Luca Turilli’s Rhapsody – Prometheus, Symphonia Ignis Divinus Review
“Here’s a fun fact for you stat geeks: the average score gaily awarded to full Rhapsody releases by the resident Turilli fangirl (our great leader himself) is 4.83/5.0. Check ’em here. Clearly a much more objective party needed to intervene to prevent further such madness, offering a view impervious to Turilli’s rugged Italian charms.” Stop the madness. Lightning bolt!
King Giant – Black Ocean Waves Review
“Czar Behemoth. Kaiser Leviathan. Sister Fluffyheart. These are just three of the names left on the drawing board when King Giant landed on their identity. The cunning subtlety of this name obfuscates great simplicity in their chosen style, drawing on the likes of Kyuss and Down for a Southern-influenced, rollicking doom metal release, entitled Black Ocean Waves.” I’d have gone with El Presidente Gigante myself.
Nekromanteion – Cosmic Horrors EP Review
“Cosmic Horrors is a raw and rudimentary 12-minute EP by Nekromanteion. A short blast of Bolivian blackened death, with a brand which doesn’t exactly squeal innovation. But that’s what some bands are for: fleshing out over-saturated genres which are in dire need of more newcomers contributing their feces to the tidal wave of metal excrement. That’s not to say that Nekromanteion is bad, but there is certainly is a lot of crap floating out there and they merely attempt to execute the bog-standard very well. Is it possible that they can rise above the murky deluge like a surfer-dude Nergal?” Come and ride the poo tide!
iwrestledabearonce – Hail Mary Review
“Let’s talk metalcore. The much-maligned genre derided by all the ‘cultured’ as trash, which shifts off the shelves faster than a jet-powered jaguar amongst those with ‘plebeian’ tastes. You, loyal reader, have disparaged the genre at one time, just as I did – there was a phase where the merest hint of a breakdown induced spontaneous and forceful ejection of my stomach’s contents. As a younger chap, I was taking my first tentative steps into the self-absorbed swamp that is metal just as metalcore was taking off, and I’ve observed its explosion and subsequent implosion with due care.” It’s down to the wire, can we get a Hail Mary over here?
Indefensible Positions: El Cuervo Defends Chinese Democracy
“Every once in a while the metal scene collectively pisses on a band or record and someone needs to step up and defend why they like it. We normally don’t spend a lot of time defending shitty records, but sometimes genuinely interesting or good records get lampooned by an overly conservative heavy metal scene and that calls for a professional contrarian to defend it! If ever there were professional contrarians, it would be the staff of AMG.” Cold Lake would be easier to defend!
