“Here’s a fun fact for you stat geeks: the average score gaily awarded to full Rhapsody releases by the resident Turilli fangirl (our great leader himself) is 4.83/5.0. Check ’em here. Clearly a much more objective party needed to intervene to prevent further such madness, offering a view impervious to Turilli’s rugged Italian charms.” Stop the madness. Lightning bolt!
“There’s such a thing as too much of a good thing. Imagine if Agalloch had released Pale Folklore, The Mantle and Ashes Against the Grain over a four-month period. These are all great albums and given time, you can appreciate every glorious nuance that makes them the timeless beauties they are. But over such a condensed period, crammed together, each vying for your attention, you appreciate absolutely nothing and eventually they gather dust. This is the problem that plagues the “busiest man in black metal.”” Enjoy of deep catalog.
“We don’t know what “progressive” truly entails anymore, what is or isn’t really black metal seems to always be up for debate, and through the salt and the flames I’m still confused as to how “brutal death metal with hardcore breakdowns” somehow isn’t deathcore. Eyes already glazed over?” Incantation worship…again.
“It took two lines in the Artaius promo blurb to stop me in my tracks – Artaius has shared the stage with well known metal acts like Ensiferum and Primal Fear and Torn Banners features special guests Tim Charles (Ne Obliviscaris), Lucio Stefani (Mé, Pek e Barba) and Dario Caradente (Kalévala). Those be some big selling points right there!” Madam X willing reviewing folk metal? The end is nigh.
“Forgotten Tomb aren’t new to black metal and they’re a dish best served cold. Following the disbandment of his earlier project (Sacrater), Ferdinando “Herr Morbid” Marchisio masterminded what we now know as Italy’s Forgotten Tomb.” Is it possible Forgotten Tomb forgot something important?
“Italian power trio Ufomammut, now with eight (or nine if you count collabs) studio releases under their belt, return to form once again playing their signature alloy of psychedelic space doom, sludge, and stoner…. Actually, we don’t really need a formal and formulaic intro when we’ve got an album of this magnitude at hand.” Big things are in the offing. Big, big things.
“When I hear someone mention a band with nearly as many active members in its ranks as the starting lineup of a baseball team, I immediately think of that one band from Des Moines (which is, honestly, the worst kind of buzzkill). There is always the risk of biting off more than you can chew when trying to incorporate so many musicians/instruments into an album, not to mention trying to balance everything on the stage.” Celtic themed folk metal from Italy? Now that’s fooking international!
“Yer Metal Is Olde was started to honor records that we’re 10, 20, or 30 years old. Kronos noticed, however, that we’ve never reviewed Fleshgod Apocalypse’s magnum opus and, not only that, but that Oracles has turned five in 2014! So in honor of one of the best brutal/technical death metal records ever made, here’s a Yer Metal Is (Not Particularly) Olde for this brilliant work of art.”
We don’t often do double reviews, and when we do, it’s for far bigger and more noteworthy bands. But when a review assignment gets double booked due to administrative malfeasance, and the opinions are as wildly varied as they are here, you get a bonus holiday double! For your Thanksgiving reading pleasure, we present two divergent thoughts on the tech-death insanity of Resumed and their debut album, Alienations. Don’t read with your mouth full!
“After the medieval dumpster fire that was the last Kaledon album, you’d be justified in asking why your friendly neighborhood Steel Druhm is reviewing their latest platter of hobbit beshirted LARP guild metal. Call me a glutton for punishment, but a certain morbid curiosity drove me to give the promo a spin to see if there was any improvement from last time.” They say morbid curiosity killed the cat, so will Steel pay for his wonderings ways or can this band step up to the big leagues…of orc metal?
