![The Ridiculous Year o’ Death Metal Round-up, Part 1 [Things You Might Have Missed 2018]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/dmwm-roundup1-768x403.png)
“A lot of good death metal came out this year. In the last six months, it has become an outright deluge, and Ferrous Beuller and I have doggy-paddled through it, coughing and sputtering and generally being overwhelmed. But even if great albums were few, enough good albums came out—and got passed over—that we’re in dire need of a recap. In fact the need is so dire that we can’t hope to cover it all ourselves.”
The top tens are marching, and Huck N’ Roll and Eldritch are ready to spread the gospel of good metal across the land. You wanted lists, you got lists!
“I’m surprised so many people are there early enough to see Exist, especially given that the show started at seven. Presumably, I also missed Anisoptera before them, since I will later find one of their shirts in the pit during Obscura’s set. That doesn’t matter so much to me; I’m here for the first show of what is likely the best tech death tour that the US will see for a decade, hand picked by the big shots in Obscura. Beyond Creation, Inferi, and tucked into the middle, Archspire. What a time to be alive.” Death in Oakland.
“Since the label’s inception, The Artisan Era has been edging into Unique Leader’s territory like it’s the South China Sea. With Inferi, Augury, and a slew of up-and-coming tech-death acts under its thumb, the label has established an ear for quality in an overindulgent niche. And as much as The Artisan Era’s output tends towards the frilly, keyboards-and-synth-orchestra side of the genre, I’m still keen to hear from their bands, and Washington’s Aethereus have my attention.” Absentia makes the heart grow brutal.
“Look past the front pages, beyond the newest Kalmah or Omnium Gatherum, but to the fringes. What do you see? Melodeath, by inch and by foot, grows longer by the year. This lengthwise legacy has nascent foundations as far back as Crimson before acts like Insomnium and Be’lakor (for better) and Wintersun (or worse) exposed that phenomenon to the masses. The most impressive returns rely not on track listings overstuffed with a dozen taut melobangers but long-form songs pushing the boundaries of melodeath’s expectation. Sacrificed Alliance assume this mantle.” Melodeath and the universe are ever expanding.
Below you have my Record(s) o’ the Month for July of 2018 drawn from July’s embarrassment of riches. Normally, July is a throw-away month. It’s the heart of festival season—everyone is torturing me with their pictures from Wacken and GenCon right now—and labels are careful about releasing new stuff. So it was a happy surprise that there was an intense crop of stand-out records that we enjoyed here at Angry Metal Guy Industries, LLP. Alas, we can only choose so many and—alas (for everyone but me)—my will is law.
“It’s good to have friends in high places; for prospective subjects of a review here, that means being buddies with an Angry Metal Guy hall of famer. Such were the means by which I became aware of Parius, a melo-prog-tech death metal act that shares a state — and on multiple occasions, a stage — with fellow Pennsylvanians Lör, the toppers of this blog’s 2017 aggregated list. Their enthusiastic social media plugging of Parius’ second LP, The Eldritch Realm, intrigued me as it came from a group that clearly has an ear for talent. Plus, given the record’s title, it would have been an irredeemable crime to not cover it personally.” Tales of the Elitist.
“Obscura’s 2009 release, Cosmogensis, dropped right when I was getting back into metal in a big way. I, like most people who heard it at the time, hailed it as the spiritual successor to Necrophagist and crowned the band the Kings o’ Noodly Death Metal. They have, in my estimation, never lived up to these expectations. Both Omnivium and Arkóasis fell flat, and both suffered from similar weaknesses; ballooning song and album-lengths, often at the cost of compositional focus and coherence.” If that’s not a cliff-hanger that makes you need to click, nothing is!
“Obscura is flat out the most influential technical death metal album ever written. Steeve Hurdle and Luc Lemay’s paradigm-establishing use of dissonance and deliberate composition drew up an instant classic almost de novo. If ever a death metal album was divinely inspired, Obscura was, and once this box was opened, there was never a chance of resealing its contents.” The birth of evolution.
“AV Club ran a recent piece on the best ever back-to-back-to-back run on an album. That site may not be brutal enough for you malcontents, but you know who is? Me. Inferi. 2014’s The Path of Apotheosis stands on its own merits, but the 6-7-8 of “Destroyer,” “Onslaught of the Covenant,” and “Marching Through the Flames of Tyranny” made that record. Alone, each could have been a song of the year contender; together, they drove me to get “Inferi” tattooed directly on my heart. Needless to say, the Nashville quintet set the bar for follow-up Revenant at an unrealistic level.” Expectations and tattoos.
