“Fabricant is the shiny, new progressive tech-death project founded by two members of Berkeley-based prog deathers Mefitis. On their excellently named full-length debut Drudge to the Thicket, the trio involved pull out all the stops to take you on a bouncy, jouncy, unpredictable ride through the progressive side of death metal, and by the time it’s all over, you’ll feel like you’ve been drudged THROUGH the thicket backward.” Tangled bush wrangling.
“Back in 2020, before things would go pear-shaped in literally everyone’s lives, I reviewed Reflections, the debut album from Godthrym, the new band featuring former My Dying Bridesmen Hamish Glencross (guitars/vocals) and Shaun Taylor-Steels (drums). I was enamored by how heavy, dirge-y, and Paradise Lost-y the entire album was. However, once the pandemic went into full swing, Reflections only gained in momentum and solace as everything around us quickly turned to shit on a planetary scale, bringing with it a sense of comfort and catharsis and landing itself on my Top Ten of a year we all would love to forget (but can’t). Now, in a happier(?) time and with a fuller line-up, Godthrymm are back with their highly-anticipated follow-up, Distortions.” Doom for End Times.
“Lacking imagination or originality is not a charge that I have seen directed at Mizmor, and certainly Prosaic launches out of the blocks in an onslaught of blackened doom, with even some sludgy nods thrown in. Fast, bludgeoning, and furious, initially it feels like a cleaner version of Mizmor’s self-titled debut, with more than a bit of Yellow Eyes and Primitive Man thrown into the mix.” Mizmor or Mizless?
“God probably hates me. The Big Man Himself, the Most High, was like, “wow Dear Hollow, look at all those shitty albums you 4.0ed last year. Eat shit, loser.” And *record scratch* here we are. I guess we all got tired of actually good albums, so I’ve been blessed with an incurably bad taste this year – yeah I know, worse than usual. So take this post with a grain of salt, and maybe try a few of these buttery, greasy morsels. Or don’t, and trash my bad taste like popcorn in a darkened movie theater for me to clean up later.” Defending the indefensible. Again.
“Mirror Reaper expanded the scope of what doom could be, delivering a towering epic dedicated to the band’s original drummer Adrien Guerra, who passed away in 2016. Any reasonable human would look at this accomplishment and probably decide it was time to scale things back. Dylan Desmond and Jesse Shriebman are not reasonable. One wonders if they’re even human as they prepare to test the limits of attention span again with Future’s Shadow, a proposed tryptic of one-song records of which the 83-minute The Clandestine Gate is first.” Gate Reaper.
“Portland, Oregon’s Tithe has been plying its trade since 2017. Starting out as a two-piece, with Matt Eiseman on guitars and vox, and Kevin Swartz behind the kit, the band released a self-titled EP that year. In 2018, bassist Alex Huddleston joined the fold and Tithe began work on their full-length debut, Penance. Despite dropping at the height of the pandemic, that record generated a little buzz around the band, with its fusion of death, black, grind and even hints of doom packed into its modest run time. Three years on and the trio is back with sophomore effort, Inverse Rapture.” Rise and Tithe.
![Gevurah – Gehinnom [Things You Might Have Missed 2022]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Gevurah-Gehinnom-01.jpeg)
“I was unaware of Gevurah prior to this year, and I’ve really been missing out. The mysterious Quebecois duo utilizes an eerie, dissonant flavor of black metal to explore Jewish mysticism and the esoteric left-hand path. Their name, Gevurah, refers to one of the emanations of the infinite—to be reductive, God—specifically the ‘left hand’, denoting judgment. Previous LP Hallelujah! traded in the dark obscurantism and enigmatic melodies of the esoteric, and looked upward in awe. But Gehinnom—whilst retaining notes of dark atmosphere—has the force, bleakness, and inevitability of the unfathomable eschatology that follows with the divine.” Blackened pathways to the obscure.
“Briefly summarizing Dreadnought’s music is impossible. You could clip a 5-minute passage from anywhere on The Endless and encounter something different from any other 5-minute passage. But, in short, the key ingredients include progressive, post and black metal, and also jazz. Occasionally shimmering guitars, looped rhythms and a dense, textured approach lean into post-genres, while the overall package is delivered through rangy, expansive songs which demonstrate progressive proclivities.” Endless dread knots.
As a hippie vegan with a houseplant obsession, I know all too much about blood and bone meal. If you’ve ever bought organic fertilizer, it likely contained these horrifying but nutrient-rich byproducts of slaughterhouses. While much less objectionable, Reeking Aura’s debut Blood and Bonemeal is no less vile than its namesake. Boasting band members from Grey Skies Fallen, Artificial Brain, and Buckshot Facelift, Blood and Bonemeal harks back to the halcyon days of Autopsy and Asphyx, dishing out grimy death metal riffs across the tempo spectrum.” What’s that smell?
“To non-metal listeners, all metal sounds hostile. Stray far to the edges of the dissonant and avant-garde in the genre, and you’ll find a breed that even experienced acolytes can struggle with. One’s first Portal experience is a conceptual case in point. From out of this dark corner of disturbing and unfriendly sounds, Hissing has emerged.” Crawling dread and slithering heads.
