“Anyone passingly familiar with the Chicago metal scene in the past few years will have at some point encountered Immortal Bird. In Dr. Fisting and my neck of the woods, they’re one of the better groups to grace the dingy ex-speakeasies and frostbitten holes-in-the-wall. Their tight live performances do their sludgy, blackened death metal great justice and a full-length release has been awaited for a while in la casa de Kronos.” La casa de Kronos has a big old birdbath.
“Not having heard anymore from the Graveworm camp after their 2011 release, you can hardly blame me for assuming the band had realized their obsolescence. Imagine my surprise at getting promo from AFM Records for Ascending Hate. I had to hear it, it was that simple.” Madam X needed to hear some blackened death? In other news: the sun is hot and dogs like steak.
“If you’re like me (and you should be, because come on) instrumental metal has never gripped you deeply. While Pelican or Scale the Summit are fine now and then, typically the music just induces a pleasantly reflective mood, with occasional thoughts of “hey, that’s pretty” or “well, that’s a neat riff.”” Metallic mood music has a place, doesn’t it?
“I try to be a very fair, objective reviewer. Note the italicized “try” there, because certain bands and styles will have me drooling more than Pavlov’s dog after ringing the goddamn bell. French black metal has that effect on me. Whether it’s the “what’s to the left of left-field?” stylings of Blut Aus Nord, or the angular headfuckery of Deathspell Omega, the French know what’s up when it comes to the black arts.” The French cannot be stopped, except by whatever army happens to be nearby.
“Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: in an alternate universe where musical ideas are themselves beings, three idea-beings walk into a bar. The first one is incredibly boring and pretentious yet still quite popular, and his name is Nachtmystium P. Floyd. The second is loud and already drunk, and his name is Rattus Kaaos; upon spying him the bartender mutters “raucous Finnish punk” under his breath. The third is Ornassi Pazuzu, who categorically refuses to stop droning on about anything and everything psychedelic. The nightly cover band got food poisoning, so there was an impromptu call for music. These three all wanted to jam so went up together, played, and wondered if they should keep this gig up. They did, and now we have Abyssion.” Good bar to avoid on cover nights.
“It’s exciting when you discover that a member of one of your favorite bands has a side project. It gets weird though when you realise the project’s been around and producing for going on twenty years. Between considering the merits of becoming an Agalloch roadie/fangirl back when Steel Druhm reviewed Marrow of the Spirit and later writing up my own reviews of Agalloch’s The Serpent and the Sphere and Nothing’s Guilty of Everything, I can’t help thinking I should have come across some utterance of Agalloch bassist, Jason W. Walton’s side-project, also branded Nothing.” Prepare for nightmares made audible.
“Electing to join the I Am the Wooden Object Club before The Table Himself even did, I Am the Trireme’s name can be described as “I am the Phoenician, ancient Greek, or Roman naval vessel with three rows of oars.” Luckily they didn’t pick that one, but in the spirit of needlessly long names, they’ve called their first full-length Gnosis: Never Follow the Light. We know right off the bat that these guys can produce pretentious sounding names for things, but that’s not what we’re here for; we’re here to see what they bring to the Hetfield musically.” We are also the table. And the oar bench.
“From Vardan to Valdur, the jump doesn’t seem huge from a naming perspective, but in terms of what the two bands offer, the chasm couldn’t be wider. Hailing from a small mountain town in the beating heart of the Sierra Mountains where the Death Valley desert meets Mt. Whitney, Valdur drew its first rattling breath back in 2005 with a short independently released demo. What I can tell you is that if you go all fanboy over Bathory’s The Return… then Pathetic Scum could be the return you’ve been waiting for.” American Bathory? That sounds like a great movie title.
“Cosmic Horrors is a raw and rudimentary 12-minute EP by Nekromanteion. A short blast of Bolivian blackened death, with a brand which doesn’t exactly squeal innovation. But that’s what some bands are for: fleshing out over-saturated genres which are in dire need of more newcomers contributing their feces to the tidal wave of metal excrement. That’s not to say that Nekromanteion is bad, but there is certainly is a lot of crap floating out there and they merely attempt to execute the bog-standard very well. Is it possible that they can rise above the murky deluge like a surfer-dude Nergal?” Come and ride the poo tide!
“To pilfer a phrase from the revered postmodern philosopher Christopher B. Bridges, “there’s something wrong if you can’t stand still.” If his words are to be taken at face value, Germany’s Thornesbreed must have sensed a problem in their sound. Consisting of competent but unexciting death metal, their 2003 debut The Splendour of the Repellent was followed up eight years later in 2011 by the 273.15 Degrees Below Freezing EP, which can, for the sake of expediency, be described as “Profanatica but not as good.” 2015 sees the band releasing their second full-length in the form of the enigmatically titled GTRD, marking another step in the band’s perpetual musical wanderings.” Wandering, meandering and change for change’s sake. Is that a recipe for success?
