Record reviews
“Between post-rock and post-metal, the former is the only genre I prefer over its metal equivalent. In both cases, the genres are known for their atmospherics, long cyclical instrumental sections and overall floaty dreamy attitude. But where post-rock seems to have mastered the art of supplementing the reverberating guitars with great ebb and flow in the composition, post-metal often seems satisfied with turning up distortion and echo and calling it a day.” Post-it notes.
“Our readers seem to know our tastes better than we do. So, it’s probably not surprising to anyone that I’m reviewing (and loving) the new Mors Principium Est record. Especially when you compare it to my top picks of 2016. This is my bread ‘n’ butter and MPE’s crushing melodeath (from Inhumanity to their new record, Embers of a Dying World) is as much a part of me as my gray hair.” Thrash that olde gray head, he said.
“Sunlight’s Bane describe their sound as ‘grinding death and audio terror,’ and they draw their influences from far and wide. Try your best to imagine what Anaal Nathrakh, Black Breath, and Nails would sound like if they were mashed up into one band and you ought to get a pretty good idea of what these guys are all about. The band’s stated aim, simply put, is to return the quality of aggression to heavy music, and listening to The Blackest Volume is like being hit square in the face with the flat side of a shovel; it is loud, unrelenting and violent.” Sunlight can be bad for you.
“We’ve experienced the highs of weirdness with European stalwarts Dødheimsgard and Thy Catafalque but we’ve also experienced the very real lows with bands like Aborym twisting the weird nozzle just a bit too far. Mord’A’Stigmata, unwilling to release a plain-Jane of an album, have released Hope, a hopeless mixture of sullen atmospheres and ritualistic ominousness with the occasional bluesy lead. It sounds fantastically enticing on paper, but does the conceptual fantasy match up the aural reality?” Black metal hates paper!
“Treacly melodies, sub-dermal hooks and pop-infused synths, Ember Falls are gunning for stardom by way of your mental taste buds with their debut, Welcome to Ember Falls. Fame is an elusive, fickle beast and Ember Falls is but another band hoping to stand out amongst a deluge of delicacies jostling to whet our collective appetite. It remains to be seen whether Welcome to Ember Falls sluices down an eager gullet, hitting the bliss point like an Olympic sharpshooter or is instead a bitter pill to swallow.” Take your black medicine!
“I’ll be honest, 2017 has been tough on Huck N Roll so far. It seems like every promo I open says “Black Metal,” or “Death Metal,” or “Brutal Blackened Death Metal,” all of which make my sphincter tighten and send me back to my knitting, losing hope by the minute that something softer on my olde ears will eventually arrive.” Wrath of the Knitting Circle!
“I’ve begun this year somewhat jaded. I’m not feeling the negativity in the same way as at 2016’s end but I’m disgruntled at many things. January failed to impress me musically and I selected a couple of promos for bands with which I’m unfamiliar, in the hope that I’d experience the joy of the unknown excellence. Dool’s debut album, Here Now, There Then, promised to at least be something with note-worthy subject matter: the enigmatic blurb on their website describes an exploration of the seediness of their hometown of Rotterdam through the medium of ‘dark rock.’ But my reactions to music in recent times requires quality to pique my interest.” One man’s struggle with mediocrity.
“Before we begin, there is something that needs saying: Marta Gabriel kicks ass. And not because of Crystal Viper’s newest album, Queen of the Witches. No, she’s ruled since her first note on 2007’s The Curse of Crystal Viper. This may not be news to Viper fans, but someone needed to put it in writing.” And the Doctor is just the Medical Deviate to do it!
“Monotone is modern; when we look at Helenistic sculpture or a Gothic cathedral, we see the beauty of shape set in stone without the competing influence of color. But when these wonders were first sculpted and erected, they were painted as part of the vision of their creators to reflect the heavens and the earth. Only with time did the colors erode, the bare contours scoured of their pigmented cloak, the first piece to yield. Gloson operate in this space, with phrases more suggestive than descriptive, the contours of metal worn but still noticeable.” Even masterpieces turn to gray.
“After scaling back the blackened and melodic tendencies that marked their 2000 self-titled debut, French loonies Benighted rapidly morphed into the finely-tuned deathgrind butchering machine they are today, releasing a consistent string of high-quality albums drenched in blood-spattered brutality, while keeping the fun and creepy factors cranked. Their sound may be set in stone, but the beauty of Benighted is the distinctive quirks and curve balls they splice into their brutal and musically dynamic brand of pig-squealing lunacy.” Hurls before swine.
