“The Realm Beyond is the second album from Germany’s Lebensnacht, a German duo, which has been active since 2008. They specialize in mid-paced, atmospheric BM, with a heavy emphasis on ethereal synthesizers, like early Wolves in the Throne Room or Lustre. This is all mashed together in an incredibly raw and harsh mix. Where Lebensnacht differs from many other bands is the strong depressive black metal element that pervades its work, providing an ominous air to the music.” Birds in the Mud Room.
“Supergroups have always stuck me as a weird concept in metal, and a dated one in rock. That sort of fits Tomahawk, the famous(ish) oddball alt-metal/heavy rock outfit founded by Mike Patton (Mr. Bungle, Faith No More) and Duane Denison (The Jesus Lizard). Over the last 20 years, the gritty quartet haven’t aged a day, forever rocking like it’s 1998 and they just walked out of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas for the tenth time.” Toxic creativity.
“Thanks to that one boozy pirate-themed power metal band whose name rhymes with “Sail Dorm,” it’s difficult to take oceanic themed albums seriously. There are plenty of bands that have torn it up, Ahab showcasing mammoth waves with their breed of crushing funeral doom, Isis displaying the uncaring expanse with shoegaze-y post-metal, and Firtan and Déluge offering some respective symphonic black and post-black to reflect he majesty of the oceans. Scrolling through my black metal collection and each album’s respective themes goes something like this: winter, winter, occult, winter, occult, occult, evil, winter, etc. Oceanic-themed black metal is few and far between, and you’d be hard-pressed to find the good stuff. Will Thermohaline kickstart a new trend or will it end up drowning in its own ambition?” The sea was angry that day, my fiends.
“There’s a lot going on in death metal: there’s the swampy, smelly, drag-your-corpse through the mire old school sort; there’s the cosmic, existential, ponder-the-time-signatures-of-the-universe sort; there’s the thrown down, bro town, drag-your-grandma-through-the-pit sort; there’s the corpse riding, shriek gliding, casual-blasphemy-on-a-weekday kind. Then, there’s also death metal – the angry sort that starts angry and stays angry. Cambion’s gimmick is angriness and speed.” Spree-Cambion era.
“Ah, the random promo pick. It worked well for Gardenstale, who wrote some fancy algorithm that randomly assigned him a Record O’ The Month in Iotunn. Hoping for lighting to strike twice, Yours Truly dug into his hope chest and unearthed his multi-sided dice set. A quick throw of the d30 yielded The Omega Evangelion, the debut album from Finnish upstarts Byron. What started out as a solo project by ex-Church of Void drummer Johannes Lahti.” Dragons, dice, destiny.
“The best way to get my attention is with an awesome album cover. More than genre tags, credits, stylistic themes, or lyrical themes – more than nearly anything else – an awesome album cover is what I go by when I explore the wonderful world of metal. That’s how the English band known as Ghosts of Atlantis got my attention, although the rest did line up very nicely: they credit themselves as something of a supergroup, boasting experienced musicians from bands across various well-known labels trying out something different, tagged in my promo package as “symphonic progressive extreme metal.”” Ghost in the calculator.
“Revenant Marquis is a raw one-man black metal act from Wales, where the title of his latest album Below the Landsker Line originates. Sole member S offers a unique aesthetic: while older 2018-19 releases feature your typical kvlt “corpsepaint in the dark with fire or some shit” look, 2020’s Youth in Ribbons offered a black-and-white picture of a smiling young girl, a trend continuing into the fifth offering.” Innocence and wrath.
“Wow. Thrash is kind of having a year, folks. There are large swaths of the metal community who feel that the fires that heated the furnace in which all great thrash was forged went out decades ago, while others feel that those flames still sputter and cough and produce a great record every now and again. Well, something about a worldwide shutdown secondary to a pandemic seems to have stoked whatever embers remained within that furnace into a raging inferno, because the first quarter of 2021 is basically littered with quality thrash releases of a variety of styles. Therefore, I didn’t hesitate to pick up Bionic Swarm, the debut record from Dutch thrashers Cryptosis, a band who’d like to throw their hat into the progressive cyber-thrash ring with Paranorm.” 4 Swarm to wengeance.
“It brings me no joy to write that, to my ears, Royal Destroyer does not meet the high bar set by Cobra Speed Venom, one of The Crown’s finest efforts and 2018’s best record. With that bit of unpleasantry dealt with, I can thankfully write that Royal Destroyer is still a good record, and nowhere near the misstep Death is Not Dead was.” Crown Royal?
“No one likes to be misled. Money is tight, we have bills to pay, so we all wanna know what we’re spending our precious cash on. When you see an album entitled “Sworn to Profound Heresy,” with a cover featuring malevolent-looking priests surrounding a burning church, you probably think you know what’s in store. When those clouds of billowing smoke feature an image of the dark lord, and the band is named after a church sexton, you might think that this was some satanic, second wave-worshipping black metal, probably from a bunch of European veterans. Well… you’d be absolutely right!” Maximum Satan.
