“In the days before my now sporadic position at Angry Metal Guy, I scoured the deepest reaches of the web for new music. It was a daily addiction, a constant trawl through a multitude of websites and hyperlinks. One band who caught my attention during those chaotic days was The Lumberjack Feedback.” They work all day and they sludge all night.
“As I stare into the night sky, casting wishes and cigarette smoke to a lonely moon, a faint tapping sound breaks the silence and the grip of my reverie. I peer into the surrounding dark, curious as to who or what might be sharing this moment with me, but the hushed scenery offers no evidence of an intrusion. I shrug off this immaterial disruption and redirect my gaze towards my lunar companion, when something catches my eye; there, at the skirt of the moonlit lake that I’ve come to sit and think beside, stands a ghost. Before the icy grip of panic can steer my body into a flight of terror, I realize that this spectre is but a reflection in the water—and I am no less relieved.” Keep your sock puppets inside the ride at all times.
“Editing is a big part of the creative process that few non-creators see. For every song set to record, there are others that remain demos or are simply never recorded. For every painting in a gallery, others sit in storage or are scraped away to salvage a canvas. Novelists work with editors before their books hit the shelves, and this is after they’ve already narrowed down their own ideas. When a band announces a new album in consecutive years, it’s reasonable to worry that whatever they’ve been baking is still doughy in the middle. So when I saw that the mad Frenchman behind blackened death metal project Esoctrilihum was set to release his FOURTH MOTHERFORKING ALBUM SINCE 2017, I was dubious.” Too much too soon?
“I rarely write my introductions first. This paragraph, the one right here that you’re reading right now usually appears later on, as if by magic, after I already have an idea of where exactly the review is going. I tell you this so that you’ll understand when I say that I’ve already squandered most of my allotted word count gushing over Deus Sive Natura down there, so I don’t have much time to be all flowery and introductiony. So here’s what you need to know: Evohé hail from France, play pagan black metal, and Deus Sive Natura is their third full-length.” No introductions necessary.
“Somewhere in my timeline of metal fandom, the term “symphonic metal” ceased to act as a flame for my moth-like tendencies. It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly when this occurred, but the source is not. Over time, artists began to implement symphonic elements as less of an enhancer and more of a blatant crutch. Bands utilizing full orchestrations have proven so successful under the Nuclear Blast banner that the ensuing deluge of Nightwish and Dimmu Borgir knock-offs still taints the AMG promo sump to this day. And that’s part of what makes Qantice so dadgum charming: they play highly ambitious symphonic power metal on their own terms.” Symphony for the Devil.
“‘Dark’ is my thing. Dark dreams, dark thoughts, and dark music make me who I am. For most that know me, this comes as no surprise. For those that think you know me: surprise! But, as of late, my dark place has become a living hell. I could always escape there when things got tough and it was a place I could go to avoid judgment from this pathetic, untrusting world. But, four months ago, things turned real dark. Too dark. And the little room in my head wasn’t dark enough to handle it.” Dark music for dark minds.
A quick glance at my bio will reveal that besides large helpings of bourbon, red meat, and snuggling, the quickest way to the Hol where my heart should reside is groove and thrash infused heavy/power metal. If asked to pack my metal suitcase for an involuntary extended stay upon a remote desert island, I would probably just quickly raid the discographies of Nevermore, Iced Earth, Theocracy, and Symphony X and call it good. So, anytime a band gets compared to any of these genre heavyweights I must take notice. Needless to say, such comparisons mandated that I pick up Every Hour Wounds… The Last One Kills, the sophomore album from French band Parallel Minds.” The mind is a terrible thing to waste.
“Genre can be a weird thing. Ultimately, it’s just a set of signposts, so on occasion you can end up with an album that fits one genre while drawing influences from another. Usually, this is a sign of a new subgenre forming, at least if others come along to rip off borrow from the album in question. Take France’s Stonecast and their third album, I Earther, for instance. Despite drawing extensively from the power metal scene, and mostly Europower at that, they’ve crafted a solid, no frills heavy metal record. Is it a game-changer? Well, no, but is it worth checking out regardless?” Stones of many sizes.
“The vaunted sophomore album. The dreaded sophomore album. It’s a metal rite of passage nowadays, fully reflective of our hyper-streamlined society, for the raw and promising to go from who-the-fucks to our favorite bands in an insanely compressed period of time. This tends to be especially true for AMG favorites—see Wilderun, Æther Realm, Khemmis, Cân Bardd, Altars of Grief, Hamferð, etc., etc. Since the opening bars of their 2016 debut Momento Mori, I prayed that someday Aephanemer would assume their rightful place in that most hallowed legion.” One giant step.
“If life really is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing, then France’s Ataraxie have an unenviable inside line. Doom metal is always downtrodden, and its more extreme iterations never fail to manifest the maudlin. But the inherent ceremony and circumstance rarely coalesce into as voracious a sonic black hole as heard on Résignés. The band’s fourth album is an unnatural aperture into a single moment of crushing and immutable understanding. Although it doesn’t deviate from their discography’s trajectory, it just might perfect it.” Welcome to the end.
