The List of Steel is upon you!! Now you will know trve power and glory as Steel Druhm‘s Top Ten(ish) unfolds and expands to fill all the metalverse.
Phobocosm
Phobocosm – Foreordained Review
“Montreal’s mega-heavy death metal merchants Phobocosm have a distinguished track record here at AMG, scoring high marks both times they were featured. It’s been a long time since their last appearance for 2016s Bringer of Drought, which Lord Kronos himself blessed with a righteous 3.5. He appreciated their nods to Incantation and Ulcerate and the no-nonsense way they steamroll and crush the listener with grim atmospheres and a massively heavy sound. Not the most productive of acts, nearly 7 years have creaked by since then, but we’re finally poised to receive third album, Foreordained.” Fear of caverns.
Concert Review: Ulcerate, Zhrine, Phobocosm, and Vukari at Reggie’s, Chicago, Illinois – November 27th, 2016
“So it was with great portent that night fell upon Reginald’s Emporium of the Fine Arts, cloaking Chicago in a sickly sodium glow. Just on the edge of Chinatown, next to a bombed-out taco joint under the Green Line, brutality was brewing, summoned in darkness from the ragged edges of the Earth. And as the sun set, than the venue was assailed by… no one at all.” The abyss is a lonely place.
Phobocosm – Bringer of Drought Review
“One of the complications of writing about and conceptualizing metal in the past – well, almost a decade – has been the music’s incredible diversity and availability. With bands able to record and distribute music so easily, scenes and trends have become less important and less centralized. Sure, there’s been a huge interest in nostalgia-core – occult rock and retro-thrash albums arrive in AMG’s inbox monthly – but it’s doubtful that in 2026 we’ll think of the first half of the ‘teens as being dominated by musical throwbacks. Metal as a whole lacks a zeitgeist, and in some ways that’s frustrating, because it’s hard to keep up with such a decentralized and broad genre – but death metal, as a smaller and more manageable entity, does indeed seem to have direction.” And that direction is interesting indeed.
Phobocosm – Deprived Review
“One of the most frustrating trends in modern death metal is the influx of these so-called “cavernous” bands – groups that huddle together around the altar of Incantation, strumming buzzy nothing riffs over indecipherable grizzly bear vocals, apparently recording everything through two layers of drywall using microphones caked with dried mud. They’re all maniacally focused on conjuring a dark and otherworldly atmosphere, but utterly incapable of writing a single memorable song (I’m looking at you, Teitanblood).” Some people just don’t respect a good murk.
