“I grabbed this promo from the rattlesnake and scorpion-infested bin at AMG’s Southwest office because I thought it was thrash. See, I’ve been on a thrash kick lately and I had no qualms grabbing another thrash release to review. The band name didn’t exactly strike me as a band that played thrash. But, who am I to judge? Maybe they’re swampy thrashers from the South, like Pantera and Exhorder. But, this is no thrash band. Everything I know about life is a lie.” Swamp romps.
“One of the only true perks in this gig, besides the callous hazing of my fellow writers and the mindless braying of the commentariat, is getting highly anticipated releases weeks in advance. When that happens, a swarm of reviewers pilfer the promo pit, greedily clutching the release like so many Gollums with the One Ring. If you’re the lucky reviewer actually covering said album (we hates them), it’s a boon, as you get peer reactions in real time. But for everyone else, it means it becomes that much harder to focus on the album you’ve actually chosen that week. This is especially unfair to the band you’re reviewing when the Big Release is the same genre. This week, Archspire’s follow up to tech death masterpiece Relentless Mutation ran through the writers’ room like rancid chili. My own official assignment was Indianapolis, IN tech death newcomers Fleshbore’s debut Embers Gathering. ” Flesh and golden arches.
“For a relatively young genre, metal has found its fair share of adherents who quickly discovered their musical niche and haven’t budged from that sound. While this applies to both listeners (I’ll proudly wave the tattered OSDM banner until the day I die) and practitioners, it’s most noticeable with new and emerging bands not only harken back to a particular sound, but actively refuse to grow beyond it. Much like the Vogons in the immortal tome A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, these bands refuse to evolve. This may merely be my own bias showing, but this phenomenon seems to be most pronounced amongst the black metal set. Ever committed to all things trv, it would appear these corpse painted cretins believe that metal peaked somewhere around 1993. So when I picked up Viserion’s debut Natural Selection, I was understandably apprehensive.” Status woe.
“Melodic death metal is a genre I want to like more than I actually do. Describe it to me and, on paper, I should love it. Not a death metal fan but desperately wanting to be so that I can hang out with cool kids Kronos and Ferrous Beuller, dialling up the melodic quotient should be just the ticket. While there are, of course, bands like Dark Tranquillity and Insomnium, that I love, I find that melodic death metal is a genre plagued by mediocrity.” Melo-ego and super-death.
“Prestige are a Finnish thrash band with a really, really awful name. They’re not a new act either. They were around at the tail end of the 80s thrash heyday, releasing their debut way back in 1989. According to their bio this earned them the distinction of being “one of Finland’s very first thrash metal bands.” They managed two followup releases, the last of which coming in 1992, before going into a Winter Soldier-like cryofreeze. They reformed in 2020 and now we get their first album in 29 years, Reveal the Ravage.” Thrash redemption.
“I’ve had my eye on Ænigmatum for two months now. As with most things that cross my path on the river Bandcamp’s neverending stream, the colorful but still fleshy and spiny cover for the Portland, Oregon quartet’s sophomore effort Deconsecrate caught my attention—and, thankfully, so did the advance track. It was a twisty, gnarled hurricane of blackened death metal from a label I normally associate with more knuckle-dragging fare. Needless to say, Ænigmatum seemed poised to deliver something fresh in a summer that’s been remarkably dry for this sponge.” Songs for scouring.
“I’ve spent the better part of 2021 trying to figure out if I’m tired of thrash or if there’s just been a drought of speed worth getting excited about. Whichever the case may be, I keep poking the thrash/speed promos looking for something that speaks to my inner thrashard and makes me want to slam like it’s 1985 again. California’s Infex have been lurking around since 2012, billing themselves as crossover thrash. They’ve released two album already but I never heard of them until we received the promo for third platter, Burning in Exile.” Sound of the times.
“Hi gang, what did I miss? Having taken July as a mini sabbatical following the arrival of a second shark pup, it’s nice to find the site still standing (no thanks to the readers or most of the staff) and to get back into the swing of things with a familiar face. Unreqvited and I go way back to my nameless_n00b days, when its third full-length album, Mosaic I: L’amour et l’ardeur, became the very first to get a 4.0 out of me. Its sequel, Mosaic II: La déteste et la détresse, failed to scale quite the same heights due to a very weak final third, which really held back an otherwise very good album. We somehow missed Unreqvited’s next full-length installment, last year’s Empathica, altogether and so we here we find ourselves, exploring love and passion on sixth outing, Beautiful Ghosts.” Ghosts or just ghosted?
“C’mon, plague doctors are fucking rad. Who else can look like that much of a bird and still come across as badass? Throw in a sickle, a full moon, and an aura of divine punishment, ignoring that the graphics look straight outta some 2008 Assassin’s Creed DLC, and you’ve got yourself a pretty neat lil’ cover there. So, fancy cover? Check. Black metal? Check. Band from Eastern Europe? Czech. All my rambling to say, my interest is piqued. Bohemyst better get my motor running or else I’ll verbally smite it into the next dimension.” Motivational plagues.
“In my travels I have run across a handful of large nocturnal birds, and when I do so I am sure to ask them who their favorite Pennsylvania-based progressive death metal band is. As any fan of the genre would expect, they invariably give the same reply: Alustrium. Wise, indeed, but their distant, diurnal relatives have keyed me in to a different group who slake their hunger: Philadelphia’s Burial in the Sky.” Birds die in the sky.
