Kronos

Abysmal Dawn – Obsolesence Review

By Kronos on October 23, 2014 in 2014, American Metal, Death Metal, Relapse, Reviews, Death Metal, 24 comments

“Those readers familiar with my reviews may have guessed that I have a bone to pick with modern death metal. In reality, it’s more like a small skeleton. I love death metal, and I’m no retro-fanatic, but the vast majority of death metal that’s been made this decade is about as inventive and impactful as a marshmallow gun. The genre has always risked stagnation through competition, but as of late it’s a pissing contest between dozens of bands trying to be more technical, more brutal, and louder than everyone else, and none of them succeed.” The wrath of Kronos is terrible to behold when it comes to sub par death. Can Abysmal Dawn sooth the savage beast that dwells in his jaded heart?

Mono – The Last Dawn / Rays of Darkness Review

By Kronos on October 20, 2014 in 2014, Japanese Metal, Not Metal, Post-Rock, Reviews, Shoegaze, Shoegaze, 12 comments

“Intensity and drama unify my musical palette. As unalike as Count Bassie and Ulcerate are, they’re both able to serve up a shitton of excitement, albeit in quite different ways. But the differences between dramatic genres are still immense, which makes a Mono record quite the refresher in between this year’s big tech-death releases.” Here’s something a little bit different.

Bloodshot Dawn – Demons Review

By Kronos on October 18, 2014 in 2014, Death Metal, English Metal, Melodic Death Metal, Reviews, Thrash Metal, Death Metal, Melodic Death Metal, 11 comments

“Bloodshot Dawn appeared in 2012 brandishing a sword whose fiery arc emblazoned their thrash-influenced melodic death metal into the skies. Their self-titled debut impressed many and was hailed as a unique and creative offering in a genre that’s been riddled with Soilwork clones for the last decade. Now, they’re returning with their second-most creatively named album Demons, and with a moniker that inventive, one has to wonder if they’re falling victim to the much maligned ‘sophomore slump.’” Well, that’s an original album title.

Pig Destroyer – Mass & Volume EP

By Kronos on October 10, 2014 in 2014, American Metal, Avante Garde, Death Metal, Relapse, Reviews, Avante Garde, Death Metal, 13 comments

“Pig Destroyer. EP. Are you ready for 20 minutes of aggravated, misanthropic deathgrind anthems in the vein of Phantom Limb? Because you’d better not be.” What the hell does that mean? Kronos is such an enigma.

Revocation – Deathless Review

By Kronos on October 9, 2014 in 2014, American Metal, Death Metal, Metal Blade, Progressive Death, Reviews, Thrash Metal, Death Metal, Technical Death Metal, Thrash Metal, 16 comments

“I was worried about this album. Revocation have had it too good for too long, releasing large quantities of absurdly excellent music with extreme consistency over a timespan that most other artists would take to write just one album. They’ve been cranking out yearly releases since their magnum opus Chaos of Forms in 2011. Yearly releases. For four years. The honeymoon has to end sometime, right?” Or does it?

Rings of Saturn – Lugal Ki En Review

By Kronos on October 7, 2014 in 2014, American Metal, Death Metal, Deathcore, Reviews, Unique Leader, Death Metal, Deathcore, Technical Death Metal, 29 comments

“I want one thing to be perfectly clear in your mind before you begin reading the body of this review: I hate Rings of Saturn. The band is the antithesis of everything I like about heavy music: they’re popular, smug, and have a fanbase largely made up of teenagers with gauged earlobes and fitted caps. Their guitar tone is incredibly clean, their drums make St. Anger look like The Destroyers of All, they have no bassist, and they throw around breakdowns as often as they throw around new age/horror sci-fi horseshit lyrics.” Kronos has a deeply conflicted relationship with this band. Please support him as he works through his issues.

Decapitated – Blood Mantra Review

By Kronos on October 1, 2014 in 2014, Death Metal, Nuclear Blast, Polish Metal, Reviews, Death Metal, Technical Death Metal, 22 comments

“August. Cicaidas scream in the oaks. The punishing sun presses vapors from the Earth, rendering the air nearly drinkable. You could brew tea in the steam rising in the morning light. Even the dogs relinquish their rightfully-given portion of summer in favor of an air-conditioned shelter. Inside of that shelter, complete with the high-speed internet needed to distract one from the horrors of the season, a terrible, moments-long sound streams from the wide, unblinking eyes of the speakers. It sounds like fucking Decapitated.” Death, thy name is Decapitated.

Shards of Humanity – Fractured Frequencies Review

By Kronos on September 21, 2014 in 2014, American Metal, Death Metal, Releases, Reviews, Thrash Metal, 4 comments

“Death-thrash is the ultimate extreme metal throwback, harkening to the days before death metal was death metal by re-investigating the genre’s roots and reinvigorating its gloominess and brutality through fast-paced, angry guitar abuse. It’s never going to push boundaries, but that’s not really the point – at this stage in its life, thrash has become ever more nostalgic for the days of yore, and what better way to tint one’s glasses rosy than to splatter them with blood. Memphis-based three-piece Shards of Humanity is ready to render those lenses opaque with their debut, Fractured Frequencies, a dirty, riff-obsessed tribute to the birth of death.” Man, old school tribute music really can hit the spot sometimes. But is this one of those times?

Kronos Comments: On Sampling Bias and the Seedy Underbelly of the Australian Metal Scene

By Kronos on September 14, 2014 in Australian Metal, Black Metal, Death Metal, Djent, Groove Metal, Metalcore, Post-Rock, Unsigned Bands, Death Metal, Deathcore, Djent, Metalcore, Post-Metal, Technical Death Metal, 25 comments

“Just about every day, Angry Metal Guy pushes out a review of an upcoming or recently released album, producing press for the album whether we love it or hate it. It exposes readers to a lot of material, but disadvantages artists who aren’t putting out music at any given time. Given a small temporal window, this creates a very biased sample of the music scene. I love reviewing albums, but a lot of great and criminally overlooked bands are in between releases right now, and it kills me to see their hard work go unseen. So in order to rectify their invisibility, they’re being talked about here, where my shitty opinions have the outsized soapbox needed to fling themselves out onto the populace like fetid water from a fire sprinkler.”

Xerath – III Review

By Kronos on September 12, 2014 in 2014, Candlelight, Death Metal, English Metal, Groove Metal, Progressive Metal, Reviews, Symphonic Metal, Death Metal, Groove Metal, Progressive Metal, Symphonic Metal, 12 comments

“Let’s face it: traditional symphonic metal is a playground of melodrama that’s nowhere near brutal enough. That’s why Fleshgod Apocalypse and Septicflesh (get mad about that concretion) are such popular bands – no matter how much we complain about their loud as hell albums here, there’s no denying that symphonic death is the perfect step forward for the maligned fusion genre.” Madam X will not take kindly to this Septicflesh bashing….