“What’s in a name? For Obscurity, an awful lot. Two decades of hammering away in their Viking forges have produced an armory’s worth of albums, but none particularly sharp. Their Amon Amarth-worship has suffered steep decline since 2010’s Tenkterra, but eighth entry Streitmacht is girding itself for a long raid up the coast.” Gone coasting.
“River Black, a new project featuring members of Revocation, Municipal Waste, and the long-defunct Burnt by the Sun, doesn’t feel like an attempt at outclassing those bands so much as spruced up recordings of jam session spitballing.” Supergroups in the river.
“Glance at the cover art for this grotesque slab of stripped-back brutality and immediately you get an insight into the album’s grimy and barbaric death metal aesthetic, unleashed in all its fury in what is likely to be one of the most gruesome releases of 2017. Crafted by the hands of Aussie underground scene veterans, Contaminated live up to their chosen moniker with uncomfortable ease and while the album has some issues and certainly isn’t for the faint-hearted, it’s a hell of a punishing ride.” Clean the Toilet ov Death.
“This is a late review, but that’s what happens when you live in Canada and get eight days of summer per year: you spend all your time frolicking amongst the dandelions instead of in a darkened room blaring metal. Anyhow, this new release from Stallion grabbed my attention for only one reason: in 2013 they had a song called “Canadian Steele.”” Of Northern pride and metallurgy.
“Billy Milano is 53. Let that sink in a while. If you grew up worshiping S.O.D. and his later offshoot act, M.O.D., or had the pleasure of being annihilated by him in the mosh pits of L’Amour Brooklyn, it’s almost impossible to imagine the man as anything but the loud mouth, barrel chested bruiser he was back in the 80s and 90s. We all grow up though. We all get older, change and evolve. All except Billy, that is.” Hardcore is a lifestyle choice.
“In a year when two bands already dropped ill-conceived wild west themed albums with naturally disastrous results, well-respected Germanic power metallers, Orden Ogan choose to ride into Devil’s Gulch on a white horse. And cheese followed with them. Gunmen is the bands unusual follow up to 2015s slick, enjoyable Ravenhead opus, trading in their armor and axes for six shooters, pemmican and saddle sores.” Mamma, don’t let your Euro-power grow up to be cowboys.
Thanks to divine intervention and a quark-sized attention span, I find myself faced with my second super-dense slab of black metal in two weeks. I could take responsibility for this and actually look at my upcoming review calendar from time to time, but I’m American and my right to complain about things I have total control over is in the Constitution. A disclaimer on MRTVI’s bandcamp warns that “Negative Atonal Dissonance is not an album. It is a statement.” Under this guise, it’s quite easy to recommend this eclectic work of art. For many, myself included, it will be one of the most memorable experiences of the year.” Hold onto something firm.
“18 albums into their crusade to bring Kansas proto-metal to the masses and Manilla Road keeps right on truckin’. To Kill a King is yet another cobblestone on their pathway to Vahalla and predictably delivers a flying buttress of epic, olde-timey metal mixed with doom and 70s hard rock, sounding like Atlantean Kodex would if the current members were replaced by dirty bikers.” The crime you’ve selected is… regicide.
“In terms of sound, little has changed in the Origin camp since Antithesis. The excessive hyper-blasting, the tandem bass and lead guitar sweeps and taps, the switch to chunkier riffs before going back into hyper-technicality; it’s all here in fine enough form. Of course it’s more restrained than Brain Drill (really, what isn’t?), but Origin still traffics in very clinical chaos.” Legacy of br00tality.
“I’ve been lurking the metal blogosphere for around a decade now, and while I hesitate to call myself a scene vet, I’ve read enough write-ups from various webzines to know how coverage of a record like the self-titled debut of France’s Les Chants du Hasard generally plays out. Most scribes hunger for the discovery of some nebulous ‘next big thing’ that carries the potential of turning a genre on its head. As such, many writers are overly eager to gush over potential innovators; when met face to face with what their promo sheet describes as an all-orchestral black metal album, they’re often too willing to jump on the hype train, regardless of quality.” Classical darkness.
