“First things first, that artwork: a hulking antediluvian fish bearing down with spread fins and tangled tentacles on the tiny figure illuminated in the depths. If that doesn’t indicate musical magnitude I don’t know what does. Abyssius, on their debut, self-titled LP, explore the concept of one overcoming the confrontational nature of life’s meaninglessness—just as that behemoth looms, so does the bleak and hollow void.” Fish and nothingness.
“F is for friends who do stuff together. U is for u Kronos and me. N is for anywhere and anytime at all down here in the rad-soaked sea. Fuck that! F is for fire that burns down the whole town! U is for uranium…. BOMBS! N is for no survivors, when you listen to Nuklearth!” Containment is for posers.
“Remember back in March, when I brought up the subject of musical complexity? Well, here we go again with the things and the words and the stuff. But this time, my choice of symphonic technical death metal perfectly exemplifies the opposite side of the coin. Originating from the hot, dry hell that is Arizona, tech-death quartet Singularity specialize in restraint. Rather than inundating their sophomore record, Place of Chains, with layer over layer over layer of rich instrumentation, this newly-signed band chose to strengthen their compositions by dispensing with excess entirely.” Wank-free zone.
“Five albums in, California’s Inanimate Existence still find themselves in an ironic perpetual animation, racing through phrases song by song while never quite making headway. Since the band ditched the whole Nightwish goes tech moments of Calling from a Dream – a record that I, oddly enough, quite liked – the band have returned to the vivid progressive and technical death metal that they’ve more or less always peddled.” Existence is pain.
“I love to see a band you can’t quite pin down. I picked up the thread on Inanimate Existence with their sophomore effort, A Never Ending Cycle of Atonement, an album which couldn’t decide whether to be brutal or proggy — and was much better at the latter. Then came Calling from a Dream, and a radical redirection towards the band’s strengths. It was concise, melodic, interesting, and above all, memorable, an experiment in storytelling and fantasy that worked remarkably well. Just a year later, the band is back, this time with yet another new direction.” Tech-mech.
“In recent years I’ve shied away from tech death. Sure I loved Origin back in their Antithesis era, but these days if I want noodles I’ll just make some fucking pasta. That said, a band name as cool as Infinite Earths was tough to ignore, particularly in how it invoked notions of parallel universes and promises of sweet purple cover art with a cosmic beast devouring a planet or some shit.” Take all you can eat, but eat all you take.
“Advice is a tricky thing, really. I try to give only when asked and take only what’s given freely, but the general advice economy moves much faster than I like to. So instead of giving advice, I prefer to just point out issues and have people come up with their own solutions. This works well when you’re reviewing music since most of the job is explaining why that music isn’t as good as it could be. A case in point would be the last album from Inanimate Existence, A Never-Ending Cycle of Atonement, an album about which I had many complaints.” Is this an atonement?
“In order to prepare myself for Rivers of Nihil’s sophomore effort, Monarchy, I naturally went back to The Conscious Seed of Light, which I initially hated. And lo and behold, this time I found that I liked it – even less.” Kronos the Merciless hath damned the rivers.
“Hey gang, it’s time to play a game. A fun game – but also a dangerous one, so make sure you’re qualified for it. In order to play you’ll need a few things: a bucket, a glass, a strong liver, and a large amount of (ideally) a slightly less strong drink. That’s right, we’re about to engage in every tech-death nerd’s plastering procedure: the Unique Leader Records drinking game! Here are the rules; I’m going to review an upcoming album from Unique Leader, and every time a Unique Leader trope appears, you take a shot.” Everybody grab a Zima and brace yourselves!
