“I won’t lie, when I heard there was a new Sarke poised to drop on the unsuspecting masses, I scrambled to get my hands on it before Steel Druhm could review the unholy hell out of it.” And I would have too if it weren’t for you meddling kids!
“”New year. New me.” Those four words were uttered by practically everyone on my social media feed at approximately 12:01 am on January 1st of this year. All great and everything, but why must you be entirely new? I, for example, am quite happy being a cantankerous dude whose alter ego is one-half adorable internet meme, and one-half winner of last month’s Record o’ the Month honors. Another thing that won’t ever change is my luck when it comes to reviewing one-person black metal bands.” Grymm is rolling the dice at Casino Vardan.
“It’s been four years since Urd was released and Winter Thrice builds upon the back of Urd while trying to expand its vision. The album is sixty minutes of epic, blackened, progressive metal which builds on the back of excellent vocal performances, including the unexpected—but totally suggested by me—inclusion of Garm’s cleans in the growing vocal mosaic.”
“It’s really no secret; I fucking love Arcturus. There is nothing that can be done about this fanboyism of mine and I don’t care to fix it. Since the first time I heard The Sham Mirrors in 2002, I have not only loved them, but find Mirrors to be one of my favorite albums ever. I don’t expect everyone to agree with me and, again, I’m not going to fix it.” Well look who’s back!
“Talk about coming full circle. I remember visiting the pages of Angry Metal Guy for the first time in 2010 and reading the review for Heidevolk’s Uit oude grond by our esteemed Mr. Angry Metal Guy. I bought that album and the two previous ones that fucking day (so don’t lose too much sleep over spending money on AMG recommendations; it’s been happening for years).” We review, you buy. That’s just how it folking works, sheeples!
“Norway’s Einherjer were a band I always meant to check out, but never got around to back in the late 90’s. With all the big releases that were popping up left and right back then, it was hard to keep up in the days before the Internet, and with me being a young’n with limited funds and no means to check out bands save for issues of Metal Maniacs, I was thrown out of the loop on many groups, Einherjer among them.” These chaps are vestiges from the olden days of Viking metal, but once a Viking, always a Viking!
“There’s something to be said about wearing influences on your sleeves. I may hail from the blackest forests of Southern New Hampshire and primarily enjoy black metal, but I have a soft spot for well-played power metal, old-school thrash, and melodic death metal. I’m known to geek out at the sound of a well-crafted guitar melody, soaring vocals, and urgent drumming. But, never in a million years would I picture it all on one album.” Grymm gets a shock, and you just might too!
Persefone is in a bit of a strange position; a darling of the underground progressive metal scene, while still not being particularly well known. Formed in 2003, these Andorran prog metallers have a sound deeply influenced by the ’90s melodeath, progressive black and prog scenes including Opeth, Borknagar, Arcturus and Symphony X. In 2004 they released their debut record Truth inside the Shades and followed up quickly in 2006 with the epic Core. But it wasn’t until 2009 when Persefone blew the world of progressive metal up with Shin-Ken. The record was long, in-depth and gripping — with a unique sound palette that still hit home with metal fans. Technical, sprawling and unique Shin-Ken set the bar for Persefone tremendously high.
In Vain hails from Norway, famous for its black metal, its fjords, its oil, its social democracy, but certainly not its progressive death metal. It’s actually a little strange that the land that brought us Borknagar, Enslaved, Ulver, and Solefald has never really produced its own Opeth or In Mourning, instead outsourcing that to its less affluent and pampered neighbor to the east (that’d be Sweden for the geographically challenged). Without getting too much into regional politics, it’s safe to say that given how high on the hog these Norwegians live—exploiting their Swedish workers and guzzling crude oil at the state’s expense—it’s surprising that none of them have wandered into the melodic, progressive death metal genre. They certainly have access to enough subsidies for the arts to do so if they wanted to.
“After the tragic, but remarkably metal, death of their vocalist, Windir was laid to rest in 2004. From its ashes came Vreid (“wrath” in Norwegian), which barreled onto the scene, knocking ten tons of shit out of listeners with machine gun riffage, under the command of ex-Windir bassist Hváll. Vreid have a black metal flavor that bears more than a few striking similarities to the misanthropic, war and history flavored style of Windir. Outside of that, Vreid have riff-heavy, black ‘n roll similarities to the likes of Carpathian Forest, some of the attitude and energy of Borknagar’s Universal album and a blend of the rocking grooviness of Sepultura and the more traditional and melodic elements of Taake, Koldbrann, Ragnarok, and middle earth’s own Carach Angren.” With a list of comparisons like that, you’d think it wouldn’t be possible for Madam X to get angry about this…
