I made comments earlier to the effect of that I’d not heard the 2011 death metal record of the year. Nader Sadek definitely fills in that gap deftly, but Beyond Creation’s 2011 release The Aura from some obscure Canadian Label that is going on a 6 month vacation so you can’t actually order records from […]
I’ve never been an Abigail Williams fan. Their debut was lackluster and derailed by metalcore underpinnings. In the Absence of Light had some actual potential but was far too generic. Needless to say, I had modest expectations as I sat down to examine their new album. Well, Steel Druhm was nearly knocked from his stately Chair of Metal Judgment [Metal Chair of Judgement? – AMG] by what he heard on Becoming. Gone are the tepid attempts to recycle left-over Dimmu Borgir and Cradle of Filth riffs and horror movie symphonics. In their place is raw, shoegazey, post-rocky, contemplative blackness, loaded with doomy atmosphere, close in spirit to Wolves in the Throne Room and Agalloch, with elements of Aurvandil and Emperor mixed in. It’s a startlingly major change to be sure (even more so than their previous shift from black-core to Dimmu-worship), and proves there’s no wagon they won’t gleefully hop onto. Surprisingly though, their newest disingenuous switch works well and they may have found the style they can excel at. That is, if they can stop pursuing every new fad and trend (the technical term is “chasing their own fail”).
Sear Bliss are a black metal band from Szombathely, Hungary. They have been active since 1993, founded by vocalist (who is also the) bassist (who plays some) keyboardist Andras Nagy. Eternal Recurrence is their seventh full-length album. Sear Bliss began recording Eternal Recurrence in late July of 2011 and spent two months in the studio. Known for their complex and multi-layered instrumentation, the band have incorporated wind and brass instruments into their sound, as well as synthesizers. With Eternal Recurrence, Sear Bliss are opting for an even more progressive, experimental approach to black metal.
Lacuna Coil is a band that I used to like pretty well. I’ve seen them live a few times and I thought they put on pretty good shows and I have a lot of respect for them as a hardworking touring band. Musically, though, I think they’ve been pretty hit and miss. While I enjoy In A Reverie, Unleashed Memories and liked a few songs off of Comalies, their modern sound has developed into something that is really quite derivative of the American “nu-metal trend” and specifically their last record Shallow Life was produced in a way that sounded exactly like Linkin Park and was entirely unlistenable to these ears. So I have to say that it was with consternation that I elected to start listening to this album in the first place.
Here’s something slightly different for us here at Angry Metal Guy Worldwide Industries. Vise Massacre is a Brooklyn-based hardcore/punk-thrash power trio and Expendable Humans is their debut full-length (a very short one at thirty-one minutes). Although it’s fairly thrashy and abrasive, there’s no mistaking that this is pure hardcore with similarities to vets of the past like Cryptic Slaughter, Cro-Mags and Sick of It All. It’s all short bursts of fast, chunky punk rage, with most songs (fourteen of em) clocking in at, or under, two minutes. There are some decent riffs scattered about and some really aggressive, herky-jerky, pissed-off material, but sadly, not much here really interests or grabs me in the slightest. Now, let’s be clear. I’m not anti-hardcore at all. In fact, I really like the bands mentioned above. This just feels entirely generic and flat to me, almost like paint-by-numbers angry punk. This somewhat surprised me, since these guys have a fair amount of underground buzz swirling around them.
To say that Italian symphonic black metallers Opera IX have been keeping a low profile would be an understatement. The last time I even heard their name mentioned was back in the days of Napster and the Y2K virus. At the time, their mix of black metal with gothic imagery and female vocals was pretty rare in the scene [Yeah, if you had never heard of Cradle of Filth, I guess. – AMG], and it seemed like the band was poised to do great things. Now, they have returned in 2012 with Strix Maledictae in Aeternum, their first album in 7 long years.
Every once in a while the scene gets a hair up its ass and decides that something that is explicitly not metal is totally OK to love. So, in the 90s, when I was first cutting my teeth on the extreme metal scene, Anathema and Katatonia were both giving up their extreme pasts and putting out records that were much more akin to sort of depressing alt rock than anything they’d previously been doing. Then there’s black metal guys’ love of swirly keyboard soundscapes (such that it ends up on Metal Archives, despite them actually banning other bands that I, and most others, would consider metal. Well, since the release of Amesoeurs really broke this sound in 2009, this sort of post-black metal shoegaze stuff has becomes the scene’s favorite non-metal thing. And, really, the description of it by one reviewer I read really sums it up: “Black metal that pisses off the indie kids and indie rock that pisses off the black metal kids. Brilliant.”
One of the simplest facts about Zebulon Pike is that they are a band based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. After that, things become much more complicated, as they engage in a genre of music that can only be described as auditory mad science. Formed in 2002, every single one of their albums has been a brain-demolishing piece of experimentation: And Blood Was Passion in 2004, The Deafening Twilight in 2006, and Instransience in 2008. With each release, they have become more dense, more intelligent, more volatile. Space Is the Corpse of Time continues this progression, spiralling out in a universe of it’s own making.
Various sources are reporting Mark Reale, founding member/guitarist of New York metal legends Riot, has been hospitalized with severe complications related to Crohn’s Disease. Though there are conflicting reports as to his current condition, all suggest this is a serious and life threatening situation and at a minimum, will impact his participation in Riot’s upcoming […]
Well, after months of pimping this record (a lot) for everyone and bugging promotional people for copies of it and so forth, I finally have The 11th Hour’s follow up to the masterful Burden of Grief which hit home with this Angry Metal Guy in 2009. As a guy who has never really been a huge doom fan, I can say that Burden of Grief was an eye opener on several levels. First, it’s safe to say that the songwriting was fantastic. Slow, dirgey and depressing, but never wandering into the areas of mind numbing dullness that other doom bands reach (it must be my Angry Metal Attention Deficit Disorder). But also, the record contained deeply personal lyrics, haunting clean vocals and a concept that made the whole record sit together in a way that few other albums do. Indeed, Burden of Grief is easily one of the best albums I own and so, I guess, that and all the anticipation made the danger that I would be disappointed high. But this isn’t just about psychology, either. There is also a thing called “sophomore slump” for a reason. Burden of Grief probably had a lot longer to percolate than Lacrima Mortis did and was coming from a different place both psychologically and in the time line of Ed Warby’s career. With partner in crime Rogga Johansson unable to record vocals, it’s safe to say that this record could have really lost a step.
