“December is the month where my favorite beers and coffee beverages make their welcome reappearance, and all is right with the world once more. Also making their welcome reappearance? Long-dormant Norwegian doom legends, Funeral. When we last heard from them, it was 2012’s Oratorium, but with a new label and members, how does Praesentialis in Aeternum stack up against their legendary classics?” Funeral for Christmas.
“Malady might be the best-kept secret here at Angry Metal Guy World Headquarters. Aside from myself and old-soul-in-a-youthful-body El Cuervo, I don’t think anyone else has heard of them, let alone loved their first two albums the way we did. Maybe it’s because ElC and myself love to find obscure prog acts. Maybe it’s because these guys aren’t even remotely metal – in fact, maybe it’s because they remind us of early-era King Crimson and other prog-rock acts from a half-century ago that they tickle our fancy.” House calls with Doc Huck.
.
“Five eventful years after EP Dimensions Obscure enticed Grymm with its fusion of old school death metal, occult rock, and Gallic idiosyncrasy, these Frenchmen have released their first full-length Echoing Chambers of Soul. This debut is also a swan song, as the band is now calling it quits. Is Cadaveric Fumes leaving the stage with the grand statement hinted at by their early work, or has their creative engine sputtered to a stop?” It feels like a “or does it smell like a corpse” joke was the obvious thing to do here, doesn’t it?
“Some bands are infuriating. I don’t think that comes as a surprise to anyone who reads a blog called “Angry Metal Guy,” but the point still stands. Certain bands seem to have a knack for getting your blood boiling, and not in the “flipping merch tables you’re having so much fun” kind of way. Often, this can be put down to one simple, rage-inducing attribute: wasted potential. It comes in many forms: phoned-in performances, lazy writing, creative stagnation, poor production, and the list goes on. When it comes to The Warriors Awakening Brings The Unholy Slaughter, the first full-length from Stockholm-based thrash/speed outfit Eternal Evil, this abiding truism is the reason I’m seeing red (and this time I can’t blame it on a rash).” Speed kills.
“Since joining the AMG staff, a lot has changed, both personally and in the world. Everywhere you look, something is completely fucking different from how it was a mere half-decade ago. Poland’s Dormant Ordeal, however, are immune to the trend. Their 2016 opus We Had It Coming certainly had its spot on that year’s Best Of lists coming, and their tech-death sound remains exactly as it was, stalwart and monolithic. But if you aren’t moving forward, you’re moving backward, and Dormant Ordeal can’t risk falling behind in a strong year for a crowded tech-death field.” Of grand schemes and heavy things.
“”Heiress, wonder where they came up with that name,” snickered a member of staff called … um … Pronos, as I alerted all the writers who care Cherd to incoming melodic sludge. Now look, I get what Pronos was getting at but there was a time when Baroness were not a meme nor a byword for some of the worst production in metal alt rock. When split A Grey Sigh in a Flower Husk dropped in 2007, followed later the same year by Red Album, Baroness were offering something genuinely different and interesting, and there is a reason they have come to be such A Big Deal. Of course, they have now become a parody of themselves but that doesn’t mean other, less well-known acts need go down the same path.” Let them eat sludge.
“Unanimated is a historical oddity of sorts. Emerging from the Swedish death metal scene in the late 80s, they were one of the first bands to play what we now think of melodeath. Their 1993 In the Forest of the Dreaming Dead debut hit the same year as Dark Tranquillity’s debut and At the Gates sophomore platter, but Unanimated’s music was darker and creepier with a strong black metal element winding through its twisted core. Though the debut has gone on to become a minor cult classic, the band was quickly left behind as their contemporaries garnered all the fame and attention. There was a gap of some 14 years between their second and third release, and now after 12 years, we get their fourth outing, Victory in Blood.” Transcending obscurity.
“Indeed, Sharing is Caring! In the spirit of sharing, allow me to share my opinion on Cutterred Flesh’s cheekily-named fifth album’s artwork. It’s brilliant, and my current favorite piece of 2021. On the surface, it follows a common aesthetic approach endemic to brutal death metal. Look closer, and notice that the subjects’ roles are flipped. The innocent, fragile hoo-mahns are the ones doing all of the flesh-tearing, stabbing and vivisecting of the big, scary monsters.” We care a lot.
“A doom band emerges from the hills of Southwest England. So does a dark neoclassical outfit, along with a group of ambient specialists dedicated to building sound collages… oh, and a neofolk collective is there, too. They’re not going to do battle, as metal as that might be—they can’t, because they’re all the same unit. Dead Space Chamber Music channels their restless muse into The Black Hours, an ambitious fusion of techniques that spends much of its run time reinterpreting material from the medieval and Renaissance periods.” Chamber of horrors.
“Let me tell you something which you might already know but have most likely never heard stated directly: Master-baiting is incredibly easy. To set a Muppet trap, one only needs a handful of specific pearls to effectively get me off of one musical tangent and thrusted furiously into another. Slap the black metal tag on something, slather it in cvlt artwork and croon it to me in a foreign tongue and I’m about as sonically revved up as they come.” Muppets are cheap dates.
