“There’s never a shortage of songs dedicated to the happiest of cities, where there is absolutely no corruption, everyone is peaceful and copacetic, and the smiles are as wide as the iconic rivers. Are we talkling about Disneyland? Hollywood? No, silly! We’re talking about the most pure of American cities: Washington, D.C.!” That nest of serpents gets an unappealing expose and honestly, it had it coming.
“The first time I heard Mors Principium Est was at the end of 2012 when I discovered that they had been slotted to release their first record in five years in December. Somehow in the course of my metal journey I’d managed to miss a band that few have anything bad to say about. In fact, despite being a bit late to the scene—with a debut record in 2003—Mors is one of those bands that everyone I know seems to either not know or love. And AFM releasing your new record in December? Not helping. This time of year is when lists blossom and we bloggers start going through all the stuff we’ve heard and a lot of the stuff we haven’t: new records have trouble finding their way on to our radars in December. AFM seemed to be telling them: ‘No end of year lists for you.'” December? Must mean AFM is releasing a new Mors Principium Est record. AMG has the scoop.
“Here at AMG, despite being metalheads and craving the extremest of the extreme and longing for the shock factor, at heart we’re still a puritanical bunch of wussies. Case in point, when faced with a band that chooses a name that’s unconventional to the point of being offensive, the band gets branded with a big scarlet letter, Twitter feeds blow up, public shunning takes place and no review is forthcoming.” While the rest of AMG ran for the hills, Madam X fearlessly tackled Ass to Mouth.
“Archspire are, first and foremost, fast. Everything about The Lucid Collective is tight, taught and percussive, from the brutal-death-leaning snare tone to vocalist Oli Peters’ inhumanly pummeling rap-growled vocal lines.” Kronos brings you another slab of rotting death you may have missed. Have at it!
“Being quite the Revocation fan, I was pleasantly surprised earlier this year to see that Dave Davidson’s partner in crime, Dan Gargiulo, was involved in a death metal side project. That band, Artificial Brain, released their first full-length, Labyrinth Constellation this February, and we unfortunately didn’t get the chance to review it. As some of our more kvlt readers pointed out, this was a mistake.” We missed it, you bitched about it, now we make recompense.
“England’s Eye of Solitude floored the unsuspecting masses last year with the epic Canto III, a funeral doom masterpiece that made them a band to watch out for. Hell, it even landed at #2 on my Top Ten(ish) Albums of 2013 list. Not ones to sit back and rest on their funeral wreaths, they return with Dear Insanity, an ambitious 50-minute, one song EP chronicling a man’s decent into utter chaos and insanity. Seeing as how they quite remarkably captured feelings of doom and despair with Canto III, they’re sure to replicate that magic again, right?” Insanity is calling 50 minutes of music an EP!
“The Spaniards in Dantalion have been knocking around for quite some time in Iberian obscurity. Having never heard of them, it was the cover for their fifth album, Where Fear is Born that grabbed my steely eye and got me to listen, and I’m quite thankful I did. Though their older albums feature a blend of depressive black metal and melancholic doom, they abandoned the blackened aspect of their sound in favor of melodic, goth-tinged doom death, and from what I’ve heard of their older style, they’re all the better for the switch.” Don’t you just love a surprise? Steel Druhm does. He also loves arts and crafts and long walks in the woods.
“Ghost Chorus Among Old Ruins is the last album out this year that I expect to give a shit about, and what a loose, worm-riddled mass that shit is. Baring Teeth’s first offering, Atrophy, is a must for those who want to understand the future of death metal – discordant, abstract, disturbing and forward-thinking as a Rodin sculpture strapped to a freight train. If that intro didn’t get you reading, there’s nothing else we can do.
“Hailing all the way from sunny Russia, Estate are the proud bearers of good ol’ fashioned Europower. Fantasia, their début effort, is brimming with cheesy keys, up-tempo riffing and questionable English accents – the hallmarks of power greats such as Sonata Arctica and Helloween. Nonetheless, the musical term ‘fantasia’ implies a nonconformity to a specific style, and there are certainly a few curve balls here.” Starting with that Pan-tastic album cover!
“I was only quite recently introduced to The Flight of Sleipnir. Since their formation in 2007, they have produced a steady stream of albums, with last year’s Saga being their best effort so far. Though based in Colorado, The Flight of Sleipnir follow the path of figuratively every folk metal band ever and take inspiration from Scandinavian folklore; yet both aesthetically (just look at that gorgeous album cover!) and sonically they have managed to distinguish themselves from the hordes of other Viking worshippers.” Stoner Viking doom sounds cool enough, but can this eight legged horse get off the ground?
