“Australian black metal is strong, and hoping to add their names to the list of Strayan luminaries is Lumen Ad Mortem (The Dying Light). Formed in 2019, Upon the Edge of Darkness is their debut, and promises grim melodies from the “floor of the Australian forest.” The question of whether Australia has forests or not crossed my mind, but over-analysis is rarely a good idea with metal.” Under the Down Under moon.
“One of my good friends hates Dutch tilts. His vehemence against the technique stems from its serial overuse, especially in the horror genre. Much like him, struggling to love anything that generously applies Dutch tilts, I struggle to love much of HM-2 death metal. Outside of the classics and a few modern upstarts, this particular guitar tone, for whatever reason, brings with it an overused set of songwriting tropes that render many albums of this style totally forgettable. Australian newcomers Ashen aim to change my mind with their debut record, Ritual of Ash.” Ash lovers.
“Perhaps the most awesome thing about Battlegrave is the way that they combine their genre influences together. Many bands blend genres in such a way as to make it difficult to pinpoint where one ends and another begins. Not so with Battlegrave. Cavernous Depths sounds like Morbid Saint, Demolition Hammer, and Oxygen Destroyer were each run across a table saw and had their constituent parts randomly and brutally sewn together.” Snitches and death thrash fans get stitches.
“Nasty things can happen in the blink of an eye. A stroke, a car accident, a sucker punch that leaves you concussed and picking up teeth like so many spilled Tic Tacs… now feel free to add the songs of Cryptivore to that list of fleeting but brutal mishaps. Celestial Extinction delivers ten tracks in twenty-seven minutes, each one of which wastes no time beating your ass bloody and then fleeing the scene before anyone can hold it accountable. This is mixed martial songwriting, a blitzkrieg of techniques and styles designed to probe your feeble defenses until something yields.” You are what you beat.
“I’ve soaked up more death metal in 2021 than in the past five years combined. Why? Hard to say exactly. Perhaps the combination of an unending pandemic and the generally chaotic state of world affairs helped rekindle my love of the extreme and ugly side of metal. The Ottawa-based duo behind Dead Soul Alliance also prefer things ugly and extreme. On their full-length debut Behind the Scenes, they’ve conjured the worst angels of old school death metal, going hard for the heavy and unpleasant without entirely forsaking hooks and memorable dynamics.” Dead collective bargaining.
“I’m not exactly sure why, but I’ve been spinning Black Breath’s Sentenced to Life a lot recently. Maybe it was the epic face-kicking that I received from the recent Enforced release, but something made me seek out even more crossover bludgeonry by which to flagellate myself. Sentenced to Life saw the Seattle band blending crossover thrash with the rumbling HM-2 Swedish death metal of Entombed and Dismember, and the results were pretty glorious, earning the coveted 5.0 from my predecessor in unbridled optimism, Happy Metal Guy himself. Well, between this preparation and my recent Entombed kick following the passing of L.G. Petrov, I was primed to reach for the next buzzsaw promo I found. It sounds distasteful to say at a time like this, but bring on The Plague!” Get down with it.
