“I got a chance to see Knoll live in 2022 shortly after the manic Metempiric dropped. All in all, only twenty people scattered about my favorite hometown venue—a homely bar with a solid stage attached to a bowling alley. This ragtag group of kids who looked to be no older than high school graduates gave the performance of a lifetime—gut-churning rhythms, sudden breakaways from ripping guitar phrases to crying trumpet blares, a vocalist whose life depended on the successful bleeding of the audience’s ears. Knoll represents the ideal of youthful ambition. As Spoken is the result.” Young horrors.
Post Death Metal
Aphotic – Abyssgazer [Things You Might Have Missed 2023]
“Abyssgazer presents as the kind of echoing incantation that must ring through ears from first to last note. No mere synthesis of the acts who fed Aphotic into existence, this sometimes blackened, sometimes funeral doom-weighted, always death metal assembly expresses itself in a peerless manner.” Abyss from a dead rose.
Baring Teeth – The Path Narrows Review
“No stranger to this trendy, oddball scene of death metal dependent on heavy use of dissonant harmonies, Baring Teeth smiles crooked once again. Gracing these halls not once but twice with commendable offerings, our own Kronos revealed that “Baring Teeth’s greatest strength is their peerlessness” and the Texas trio “shuns accessibility”—these veterans scream the nature of this high-brow form of technical death metal. Alien yet organic, obtuse yet hypnotic, the contradictions and shades of humanity that this boundary-agnostic act continues to find allow enough of a footing in an amorphous sound to drive a crowd from navel-gazing to circle-pitting at will.” TEEF!
Anachronism – Meanders Review
“The word ‘meanders’ itself describes more than just the state of lesser dissonance heavy or atmospheric acts who clash songs out of existence with contrapuntal Tetris. Rather, Anachronism with their latest leans on the artistic concept of the meanders as they might appear in a mosaic, ornamental patterns of winding or interlocking lines.” Musical blocks in sonic temples.
AMG’s Unsigned Band Rodeö: Floating – The Waves Have Teeth
“Back in the primordial days of this here blog, we attempted something called “AMG’s Unsigned Band Rodeö.” The basic idea was to select a bunch of unsigned bands and give them the collective review treatment to find the most worthy buried gems. It was our humble effort to remind folks that the metal underground is still an important part of the world of metal.” Post-death is a thing. A Rodeö thing.
Fallujah – Empyrean Review
“Fallujah has a contentious history here at the house of AMG. From the first flirtations Angry Metal Guy himself had with The Harvest Wombs, to the loudness wars that consumed The Flesh Prevails to the unenthused success of Dreamless—all ending in the nonconsensual torture of our very own TheKenWord with his harrowed recount of 2019’s Undying Light, which left the poor poriferan in a state most unfit for attacking this newest, Empyrean.” Fuss and bother.