“In their first two albums, Altarage began a career—and a successful one at that—by walking just a few steps behind Portal. Sure, Portal’s most avant-garde ideas never made it into Nihl or Endinghent, but the Australians’ influence on Altarage has always been as clear as either band’s music was murky.” Now THIS is Portal racing!
“Although we all love and respect the genre’s marvelous ’80s heyday and the myriad of timeless albums that particular decade produced, thrash shouldn’t just be some endless fucking nostalgia trip either. Necropanther probably released the best thrashy album I heard last year, but it doesn’t exactly qualify as straight-up thrash either. Meanwhile the future of the mighty Vektor remains clouded in uncertainty. But I’m determined to forage around the promo portal throughout the year and hopefully stumble across a thrash album deserving of high praise. Perhaps a new shining light to guide us to a pot of gold at the end of the thrash rainbow.” Light the fusion.
“Back in the olden days of… er, 2012, Hour of 13 mainman Chad Davis teamed up with former Nàttsòl vocalist Anette Uvaas Gulbrandsen to form The Sabbathian, dropping a convincing three-song EP in 2014’s Ritual Rites. While musically it was a logical continuation of the Hour of 13 sound but with the angelic vocals of Gulbrandsen, Ritual Rites turned enough heads to leave those salivating for their unique brand of occult doom metal wanting more. But in those five years, so much Scoobie Doobie Doom occult metal has saturated the market to the point that all that’s missing from the albums are hoods, masks, and drawn-out lawsuits. Davis and Gulbrandsen know this, and on the long-awaited follow-up, Latum Alterum, an about-face was performed to steer clear of their contemporaries.” Devil in the details.
“The most widely known motto by the late legendary movie reviewer Roger Ebert is probably “It’s not about what [it’s] about, it’s how it’s about it.” It’s an elegant way to say that a self-effacing B-movie may be just as (or more) successful as a grandiose historical epic at doing what it set out to do. Similarly, metal albums can be intended as highfalutin, genre-defining epics and fail miserably, or be highly entertaining and successful at simple and straightforward goals. The curiously named Floridian outfit Hollow Leg is among the latter category.” Head up, leg empty.
“Let me congratulate you. If you’re reading this, it means you’ve managed to survive “The Great Thrash Drought of 2018.” Thrash is one of my favorite genres in both its single malt and blended-with-other-genre forms, so it was rough having only one album of that style amongst my favorites of last year. There’s just something about the combination of riffs and attitude that makes well-performed thrash untouchable in my book. I’ve been tempted to give in to a sense of hopelessness when it comes to modern day thrash, but rather than relent to this urge, I’ve decided to opt for immersion therapy.” No speed kills.
“I first heard of Gorgon several years ago, when someone posted their song “From Red to Violet” in a forum thread titled “Worst Metal Songs Ever.” After listening to the song, I found I actually liked it, leading me to download their album The Jackal Pact and do a bit of research on the group. It turns out Gorgon were a cult French black metal act who released four albums in the 90s before ceasing activities in 2001. After “From Red to Violet” fell out of my listening rotation, I all but forgot about the group until I saw The Veil of Darkness pop up in our promo bin.” Gorgon will eat you.
“When it comes to my favorite metal guilty pleasures of the past decade, Ancient Bards’ first two records have locked down a pretty sweet slot. Arriving at a time when even the first wave of Rhapsody imitators were beginning to lose relevance, the Bards fully embraced the irony of their “Ancient” moniker, injecting a well-worn formula with Power Quest-levels of sugar-coated melodies and the invigorating folk overtures of Equilibrium to formulate something that was fully cheesy, yet fully fresh.” Bards, beets, Battlestar Galactica.
“My serious pursuits see me swimming in the olde. Philosophy’s greatest treasures are centuries and millennia old. One area of Ontarian contract law is essentially governed by a case concerning seafaring during the Napoleonic Wars. Romantically, well, I’ve gone grave robbing instead of cradle robbing, my affections being towards a lovely woman a few months my senior. It seems only fitting that French death-thrashers Mortal Scepter caught my eye.” Born too late.
“Dissonant black metal is having a bit of a moment. With the late-aughts explosion of woodsy atmoblack now a decade old and on the wane—if ever so slightly—and artists turning to other inspiration for blackened evolution, those reclusive and mysterious French musicians of Deathspell/Aus Nord who first pioneered a more technical, terrifying sound are suddenly elder statesmen of a mini-movement. Now there’s K. M., the appropriately cryptic single member of Poland’s Ars Magna Umbrae, with a new album of dissoblack tunes.” Magna opus.
“Eating is metal. We survive by threshing matter to an unrecognizable paste, forcing it down a lightless cavern and then, in the darkness, boiling it in acid. The act of feeding ourselves encapsulates the blend of violence, intensity and profundity we reach at when we use ‘metal’ as an adjective. Horrisonous drive this point liver-deep with their debut full length, A Culinary Cacophony. Its members have been slinging death around the Sydney scene in bands such as Temple Nightside, Backyard Mortuary, and Illimitable Dolor, and they’ve put their overstuffed CVs to work chopping, searing, and seasoning a viscous trough of old school death metal.” It’s a gutter buffet.
