With its (albeit impressive) focus on sprawling song structures and meandering songwriting, progressive metal just never tickled me pink in a way that’s really stuck. Serbian five-piece Dead Frog, who I can only assume repeatedly lost at Frogger, offers their own contribution, channeling in equal measure the progressive metal giants, the alternative rock of Linkin Park, the classic heavy metal feel of Iron Maiden.” Splat.
“I didn’t know this album was coming. I thought The Odious had faded out of existence long ago, trapped behind an ever-thickening glass of ‘what-if’s’ that both magnifies and distorts the legacy of bands that disappear just as they reach their creative zenith. You’ve heard swansongs before, but never from as fluffy and yolk-drenched a cygnet as The Odious were, releasing a career’s worth of great ideas over the course of two years and two releases – 2012’s Joint Ventures LP preceded by the That Night a Forest Grew EP in 2011. Now reaching for an altogether opposite avian metaphor, the band have reformed.” From swansong to phoenix.
“A man walks into a bar after a long day at work. A mushroom sits beside him, a real fun guy. The man orders a Stella Artois from the bartender and asks for it in a two-ounce glass. Perplexed, the bartender knocks eighty percent off the price and does what he is asked. “Bottoms up” says the man to the mushroom, who toasts to feces and personal growth in return. The man sets down the empty glass roughly, which gets the bartender’s attention. “That,” the man says to the bartender, “was some terrible whiskey.” This is how most metalcore reviews read by writers who never could stand the genre to begin with. They want it to be something it’s not, and when it inevitably fails, it faces the wrath of the mighty pen.” Pull up a toadstool.
“In their first two albums, Altarage began a career—and a successful one at that—by walking just a few steps behind Portal. Sure, Portal’s most avant-garde ideas never made it into Nihl or Endinghent, but the Australians’ influence on Altarage has always been as clear as either band’s music was murky.” Now THIS is Portal racing!
“In the past couple of decades, metal has generated extremity along both rhythmic and harmonic paths, but the two have been largely insulated from another. Meshuggah and The Dillinger Escape Plan meticulously machined immensely complex rhythms, while Deathspell Omega and Ulcerate twisted strings to wring out sickening chords and chilling melodies. And while accusing Meshuggah or Dillinger of harmonic simplicity would be as absurd as dismissing Ulcerate or Deathspell’s considerable rhythmic weight, the approaches of the two schools are rarely invoked at once. That’s where Noise Trail Immersion come in.” New maths.
“A calamitous ray of hope against the JNCO, Meshuggah’s Chaosphere seized metal’s conventions by the throat, flayed them alive and curb-stomped the body. Atonal chords, time signature seizures, and insane, prosaic insight screamed with voice of Hell itself and more were wrought unto those caught within the ‘sphere, and this piece is dedicated to the memories of life and heaviness as we knew them before Chaosphere ripped those scandalous bitches in two.” Birth of an abomination.
“Who remembers Scion AV? Scion was a Toyota offshoot that clearly had headbanging executives in charge: for a few years they sponsored the release of tracks by metal acts ranging from Meshuggah to The Melvins. And there’s the tie-in: the first time I heard Witch Mountain was from a Scion AV download back in 2010. Those two songs became bonus tracks on a European vinyl rerelease of Cauldron of the Wild, so still relatively unknown, but they showed us what Witch Mountain were: heavy traditional doom influenced by Black Sabbath and Saint Vitus, with chillingly mesmerizing vocals courtesy of Uta Plonktin.” 99 problems, but a Witch ain’t one.
“Since the time before time, the Angry Metal Promo Bin has relegated one specific sub-genre to its shadowy recesses, solely to be invoked for the most incensed, no-fucks-given of contemptuous insults. I’m talking, of course, about metalcore, the bastard product of bastard children bastardizing metal with their bastardly ways, the bastards. Ye Angry Metal Faithful know that metalcore is a damnation typically reserved for the most hated of Jørn’s children, so why in His name have I delivered His flock directly unto the wolves?” Misery loves muppetry.
“Scene: German dancy folk metal band In Extremo play on a stage built on the deck of a giant ship. In the hot tub in the audience, a woman wearing a unicorn mask headbangs. A conga line lead by Jesus winds its way through the crowd.” Join the Metal Navy!
“Kill to survive; metal in 2018 is facing a similar conundrum, and has been for years. As the scene gets busier, it bleeds and struggles, much like extreme metal did in the mid-late nineties. Albert Mudrian’s Choosing Death showcases the problem ably: extreme bands simply had nowhere left to go. The glut of boring material is exhausting, and it gives the impression of an enervated scene. Pestilence, releasing their eighth studio record Hadeon this year, seems to feel this climate and have wisely decided to sound like a death metal band who loves making death metal.” A plague of death.
