“Hailing from Austin, Texas, Duel have spent their relatively short lifespan building a strong body of work in the stoner/doom metal/rock style. In Carne Persona is the band’s fourth full-length album since 2016 and follows in the footsteps of 2019’s strong effort, Valley of Shadows. Take a whiff of Duel’s sound, and you’ll detect notes of pure doom in the tradition of Sabbath mixed with the melodic sensibilities of Thin Lizzy and the creepy, doomy rock of Danzig.” Flavored stones.
“A hefty chunk of metal has to do with reckonings. Whether about the absence of God, the rejection of the superficially “beautiful,” or the fact that we will all be worm-food one day, bands use the medium to highlight the darker side of a showdown we all must face. If pop is about how we’d like things to be, metal is about how things are. Part of reckoning is looking back honestly at our lives as we get older. Zeitlang (Yearning), the debut album by Gràb—a German black metal trio created by former Dark Fortress front-man, Grant—centers on an old man who retreats to a cottage deep in the mountains to reflect on his life.” Gràb life!
“I had an acquaintance once that said industrial metal is ‘sex music.’ That’s one of the reasons I don’t talk to this person anymore. That and it’s difficult to communicate when you’re bricked up in a wall. But, seriously, I must be doing something wrong if I don’t get an erection to Rammstein’s ‘Bück Dich.’ Babe, it’s not you. It’s me. The same goes for Ministry. There’s nothing about imagining Al Jourgensen gut and crucify the entire Bush family that pricks my pecker.” Good hygiene and bad manners.
“Fear Connection traffic in a very familiar, very comfortable style of death metal. You get what you pay for with these gents from Bremen, and that’s to their credit: guttural growls interspersed with higher-pitched snarls, crunchy riffs, neck-breaking grooves, and plenty of fretboard brutality, with a dash of thrash for good measure. Fear Connection haven’t reinvented the wheel on Progeny of a Social Disease. If you’ve ever taken a dive into the classic death metal deep end, you’ve definitely heard much of this before.” Fear is the beerkiller.
“Kryptos have made quite the successful little niche for themselves over their 20-something year career. Hailing from India, they’ve slowly but surely made a name for themselves internationally by crafting faithfully retro heavy metal material reeking of the 80s but with slightly more extreme vocals in place of the expected balls-in-a-vice wailing. Albums like 2016s Burn Up the Night and 2019s Afterburner were solid slabs of hook-tastic 80s metal loaded with more killer riffs than a 70,000-ton cruiser could safely take out to sea.” Danger in the Krypt.
“Iskandr is a duo hailing from the Netherlands who purport, on their third full-length release Vergezicht, to play black metal with “battle-hardened” aggression and mythical atmospheres. I mean, what a great intro. I was already intrigued when I learned that the band drummer is one M. Koops, who makes up one half of Fluisteraars, a different black metal band from the Netherlands who stole my heart early last year.” Flying the banners of Dutch black metal.
![Record(s[es]) o’ the Months – July and August 2021](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/210708-square_splash.jpg.webp)
Another embarrassing doubled up Record o’ the Month post? Wow, man. Just, wow. Just wait until you see how I didn’t choose the particular thing that you worship, again. I’m sure the comments section will be a delight.
“Who doesn’t love international cooperation? Well, I suppose we’re bound to have a few hardcore nationalists in our readership who don’t, but in our increasingly connected world, getting cozy with the neighbors can go a long way. The same goes for metal; people from all over the globe, or even just the continent, working together can result in some magical things. Case in point: newly erected international project The Answer Lies in the Black Void, which is quite a mouthful as band names go. The duo consists of Hungarian citizen Martina Horváth (Thy Catafalque) and Dutch breakcore specialist Jurgen Köhnen (Servants of the Apocalyptic Goat Rave).” Fellow metal travelers.
“Three years have passed since their Negative Life debut, and by the sound of it, Replicant spent not a moment of them fucking around. With a sound newly honed to scalpel precision, the New Jersey trio radiate a septic valor, the fearsome pride of the canny skid row pugilist whose sweat-slicked wounds repel as many challengers as their calloused knuckles. They dominate each bout and dedicate the win to those who taught them: Steve Hurdle and John Gallagher.” Replicating nasty realities.
“Sometimes, an album seems to come along at just the right time, as if the capricious gods of the promo bin have taken a break and their serendipitous cousins, briefly, have the run of the joint. I recently went back to my homeland for a visit after a Covid-induced absence of nearly two years. When you return home after being away for so long, the earth feels more earthy, the sky deeper, the sea icier and fresher. It’s a sensation that’s hard to describe to anyone who has never left. But German band Waldgeflüster know. Their sixth album, Dahoam (“At Home”) is all about rediscovering the beauty of the familiar through wiser, more traveled eyes.” Homely.
