The Black Dahlia Murder is without a doubt a Top 5 band for me. I honestly don’t know when it happened. When I started listening to them I never considered them to be that special, they were head and shoulders over the melodeath glut that was being puked out in the early 2000s, but a […]
“I have to admit, I’d never heard of Syn Ze Șase Tri before I grabbed their 2017 release Zăul moș. For six years these Romanian black metallers have been roaming the earth without my knowledge—dropping their unique brand of symphonic black/death on the planet. Though these Transylvanians hail from the same hometown as Negură Bunget, things are done differently. Both bands have their folky songwriting and both have their native mythologies and concepts, but Syn Ze Șase Tri focuses on bigness.” Transylvania? Symphonic black metal? Big? Just in time for Halloween.
“Horrified is in a bit of an odd place. Parallels to Philadelphia death outfit Horrendous are apt, with Horrified’s first two albums delivering exactly the slabs of modernized Swedeath you might expect. Though 2016’s magnificent Of Despair put the band on the map, Horrified mastermind Dan Alderson himself immediately touted their next album as ‘something with an even larger and dynamic range of influences… more original and diverse than the material presented on Of Despair.'” Big words. Big album.
“Eating, or looking for things to eat. Boning down, or looking for people to bone down with. Shitting, or looking for music to shit on. The angry metal life devotes countless hours to these simple activities. How Rogga Johansson makes time for even one of these is a mystery. Metal Archives lists The Darkside, the debut of Stass, his project of the month with Crematory’s Felix Stass, as his 11th release of 2017.” No rest for the Rogga.
“Melodeath bands often fall into the trap of monotone execution, plying their Entombed trinkets and Insomnium baubles with every riff of every song. Poorly-produced Winter Jari bobbleheads might make a nice collector’s item, but unless you’re the American Wintersun utterly convincing in your ripoffs, playing songs that never form their own identity is a one-way ticket to the Dumpster of Destiny. Darkfall, est. 1995, register on the more vitriolic end of the melodic death spectrum, though they may protest otherwise.” Dumpster death.
“It’s a ritual most metalheads born in the 80’s have participated in. At some point, that guy who got into metal a few months before you did comes up to you, brandishing a discman, and says: “You gotta hear this, there’s a band with a chick who can growl!” In 10% of the cases, he’d have Kittie or Otep with him, but most of the time he’d be talking about Arch Enemy, the melodic death metal band whose primary distinguishing feature is having a chick who can growl.” Growlers, man.
“Some days, identifying influences is the worst part of this job. Reference points flutter atop tongue tips, tantalizingly close but ever out of reach. Vinsta provides no such difficulty. This Christian Höll (Outlawed) solo project gins up a tried-and-true formula for its debut: two parts Opeth, one part Anything Else, stir ’til frothing and mustachioed. The genre of the day is folk, but Vinsta Wiads ends up heavy on the former, light on the latter.” Heavy Opeth sounds good, right?
“It’s strangely liberating to write about a high profile record after its official release when, presumably, all those interested in hearing it have done so and made their decisions on its merits or lack thereof. Such is the case with The Haunted’s new record, Strength in Numbers. Those who are longtime fans will already be enjoying their disc or LP, and those on the fence will likely not be swayed in their opinion by the prose of a halfway decent writer on the internet, but instead by another run-through on Spotify.” Revisiting old haunts.
“Who says being generic is a bad thing? Loads of people love mashed potatoes. Applebee’s makes millions off of Stockholm syndrome victims everyday. Ed Sheeran gets universal radio play despite being the musical equivalent of 160 pounds of Applebee’s mashed potatoes. Eons ago, before departing for the Undying Lands, Happy Metal Guy dropped the G-bomb a whopping seven times to describe German melodeath act Dawn of Disease.” We can’t all be trailblazers.
“Despite their obvious affection for the meat and potatoes roots of old school American death, Soul Remnants craft a distinctive sound that weaves elements of thrash, melodic death and the occasional blackened and proggy moment into their tough, groove-laden death assault.” Meat, potatoes, death, fun.
