“Springing to life some twenty-five years ago, France’s Benighted have carved a legacy of quality output. From rougher beginnings, the deathgrind powerhouse developed and honed their potently addictive formula to a fine point, throwing down technically proficient, slammy deathgrind fireballs with plenty of gusto, a deliciously unhinged bent, and a pig squealing, asylum rioting sense of fun.” BREEE careful!
“After the slamaissance of 2023 which brought us genre-blended success from Afterbirth and Wormhole, the prospect of slam bringing the same kind of heat in 2024 felt hopeful, but as an enjoyer of the hammer-dropping arts, I remain ever so. You see, sometimes a name and cover say it all, and in a genre like slam, those kinds of gaudy statements may be the most worthwhile attributes of the sonic whole. So when I saw festering in our full and plump sump the name Mutilation Barbecue and the fanciful display of human consumption that adorns their debut full-length Amalgamations of Gore, I slapped my name on it with equal parts wonder and fear.” Eat the poors.
“Where do you even start with a band like Defect Designer? Part Trollfest, part Diskord—one fewer part now that bassist Eyvind Wærsted Axelsen has moved on since his brief participation on 2022’s blasting EP Neanderthal—and three parts weird, this eclectic Russian-by-way-of-Norway export hasn’t defined one singular sound for itself over the years.” Genre inwasion.
“First, 2024 gave us NASCAR-themed heavy metal, then shortly thereafter Mortal Kombat-themed heavy metal. In this world of extreme tunes and extreme niches, artists look even more granularly into their fascinations for artistic inspiration. In turn, Arthouse Fatso, chooses Orson Welles—acclaimed and controversial American filmmaker—as its hammering theme for an industrial deathgrind adventure. It’s not often that such a grimy genre finds a muse in a figure that’s not a serial killer or something fictional and equally macabre. But Fatso seems ready to revive Welles as an industry outsider fit for patch-vested punk fixation .” Citizen Pain.
“I got a chance to see Knoll live in 2022 shortly after the manic Metempiric dropped. All in all, only twenty people scattered about my favorite hometown venue—a homely bar with a solid stage attached to a bowling alley. This ragtag group of kids who looked to be no older than high school graduates gave the performance of a lifetime—gut-churning rhythms, sudden breakaways from ripping guitar phrases to crying trumpet blares, a vocalist whose life depended on the successful bleeding of the audience’s ears. Knoll represents the ideal of youthful ambition. As Spoken is the result.” Young horrors.
![Massen – Gentle Brutality [Things You Might Have Missed 2023]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Massen_GentleBrutality_01-768x768.jpg)
“If you know me—and most of you should by now—you know that I love bands who fearlessly combine multiple genres into one pot. I want to be blown away by their exploratory vigor, dismissing all pretense of genre loyalty with gusto. Give me something that challenges my advanced ability to categorize and compartmentalize, and you are likely to garner an instant fan. Enter Massen, a Belarusian/German Frankenstein monster who unleashed one of the best records of the year, Gentle Brutality.” Polite hooligans.
“There’s disgusting death metal, there’s brutal death metal, then there’s death metal that walks into a room and makes you wonder if anyone else in that room has a restraining order against it. Autopsy may have pioneered this brand of whiplash, burner phone grooves against parole-violating subject matter, but Jarhead Fertilizer—featuring mostly current or former members of grinders Full of Hell—has taken the campy idea of that putrid stance and added to it a real-world violence.” Feel the Fertilizer.
“Elitist’s debut A Mirage of Grandeur incorporates the grind velocity without being called “deathgrind,” with elements of dissonance, noise, and blackened death, for something that is indisputably death metal and unquestionably punishing.” One-percenter death metal.
“The “for fans of” line in any given promo is a true test of character. While most bands crank out their faves, there are intriguing blends that grab attention. Most of these are disappointments, often running the gamut of extreme metal buzzwords only to be the latest act to sound exactly like In Flames, but there are others whose combinations are pretty accurate, like the tantalizing combination that the California-based Owdwyr boasts in its debut Receptor: from Car Bomb, Human Remains, and Fleshgod Apocalypse to composers like Bach, Allan Holdsworth, and Heitor Villa-Lobos. In essence, Owdwyr may be genius or not, but this trio is always batshit crazy.” Owdwyr812.
“The life of the unpaid, overworked metal reviewer is not an easy one. The reviewing collective at AMG lurches from one new release to the next, errors and n00bs strewn in our wake. But what if, once in a while, the collective paused to take stock and consider the discography of those bands that shaped many a taste? What if multiple aspects of the AMG collective personality shared with the slavering masses their personal rankings of that discography.” UnDying Fetus!
