For your amusement we present two very different perspectives on the new Autarkh opus, Emergent. Will their divisive industrial/post/black metal sound bring an ugly end to a lovely friendship?
Industrial Metal
Catafalque – Dybbuk Review
“Good drone swallows you. Drone is not meant to invoke movement or adrenaline, but to evoke a mood or place. It sweeps away like the tides, not with rhythmic intensity but with mammoth weight, and dwells with you. A dybbuk is a Jewish mythological creature that sits on your chest while you sleep, and at its best this album attaches to you like a parasite. Wailing and gnashing of teeth echo across the fray, visceral and ritualistic, and as haunting as it is devastating. The place Catafalque takes you to is not the foot of great mountains or grey cityscapes, but a shadowy place that is as possessed as it is otherworldly.” Honing the droning.
Stuck in the Filter – July’s/August’s Angry Misses
When 2 months of Filter crud collects, things get sticky. We got our hands dirty in July and August so you could have nice, fancy fingernails.
Harm’s Way – Common Suffering Review
“Power. No, not power in the flamboyant nature of a curl-adorned Italian cosplayer wielding sword to fire-breathing dragon. Power. The fast-twitch response to anticipating joints bearing weighted-iron that engorges relaxed fibers with blood, with breath—this is where Harm’s Way lives. Straight-edge, hardcore, beatdown, just a few of the words that explain Chicago’s own and their method of compressed and concerted attack.” In gainz way.
Rorcal – Silence Review
“Rorcal’s approach to auditory darkness is nonetheless unmistakable, post-hardcore and post-metal coursing through every vein. Dissonant and ominous, tar-thick slogs of drone/sludge contrast mightily with raw wounds of blackened shreds with impeccable balance.” Silent but deadly.
Orbit Culture – Descent Review
“Sweden’s Orbit Culture became a poster child for extreme metal with their 2020 full-length, the formidable Nija. While undeniably heavy in neck-snapping thrash grooves, ferocious roars, and an unforgiving edge of industrial atmospherics, the band showed its roots in the lush forests of melodic death metal. Soaring clean choruses and earworm melodies assemble in the darkness with an often unmatched colossal quality, creating a sound both catchy and devastating. Orbit Culture became the “it” band, not forsaking any of their uniqueness. After 2021’s solid EP Shaman, we are met with 2023’s Descent.” Culture rot.
Nuclear Winter – Seagrave Review
“The first thing that interested me about Nuclear Winter is that they’re from Zimbabwe. I don’t know much about Zimbabwe, and I’ve never reviewed or even listened to a record from Zimbabwe, but I thought that maybe metal produced there would have some unique sounds and textures. I quickly found that not to be the case. Seagrave sounds like a thousand other European symphonic power metal-type records.” Uranium graves and winter burials.
Godflesh – Purge Review
“Tons of things have been said about industrial pioneers Godflesh. Unrelentingly brutal. Hypnotically trance-inducing. Pairs alarmingly well with Destiny’s Child. Whatever your stance or point of reference, there’s no denying the long-standing Birmingham duo have carved their way into the minds and hearts of the industrial scene since their arrival in the late 80s, and have bludgeoned and captivated over the course of eight highly-influential albums.” Streetcleaning or street cluttering?
JAAW – Supercluster Review
“Smashing together the legacy talents of performers from Therapy? (Andy Cairns), Sex Swing (Jason Stoll), Petbrick (Wayne Adams), and Three Trapped Tigers (Adam Betts), one would expect Supercluster to live up to its namesake in wild, noise-drenched grandeur.” UTINI!!
Vvon Dogma I – The Kvlt of Glitch Review
“The Kvlt of Glitch pushes a fusion of EDM-pulsing industrial metal colliding with wantonly djent and noodling progressive metal. The more than qualified ChaotH (Humanoid), formerly of the departed Canadian darlings Unexpect, steers Vvon Dogma I through this blasphemous foray.” Good Dogma.
