“I, Dr. Fisting, am back—but much more importantly, so is Voivod.” Strange never dies.
Sep18
Wrestling – Ride on Freaks Review
“Few metal bands use wrestling as a conceptual driving force and I don’t know why. It has everything a band needs to produce chaotic, vibrant, wildly imaginative music. Well, ladies and gentleman, boys and girls, weighing over a thousand pounds for sure (five members), hailing from Oulu, Finland, please welcome old school heavy-metal body-slammers Wrestling. They’re here to bust your spine and insult your mothers with their speedy mix of Accept and Judas Priest on Ride on Freaks, their debut release.” Sweat and regret.
Ominous Eclipse – Sinister Review
“Sinister operates around a core of speedy, technical death metal. This tech style is tinged with streaks of melodicism and thrashy grooves such that sheer technical ability at their respective instruments is not the sole focus, as is often the case in the sub-genre. The vocals are split between slam-inflected lower pitches and higher-pitched growls so are somewhat varied. The band evoked to me is Shadow of Intent although Ominous Eclipse features far less of the faux-symphonics and core-style breakdowns.” Total eclipse of the tech-death?
Irreversible Mechanism – Immersion Review
“Irreversible Mechanism’s debut caused a bit of a stir when it came out in 2015, becoming one of the most successful new releases at the time for the now well-known metal/synthwave boutique label Blood Music. The appeal of Infinite Fields came from both its epic scale and technical wizardry, but like a lot of metal acts, the band achieved that scale via levels of choral and orchestral synthesis that would make Jari Maenpaa himself blush. As fun as it turned out to be, it was easy to write off the band as a young guitar wizard’s opulent vanity project, accomplished but ultimately lacking in the sort of levity that such maximalism chafes against. It’s not so easy to do the same with Immersion.” New flesh prevails?
Diabolic Force – Praise of Satan Review
“One dark and stormy night many years ago, some guy was in his attic listening to his vinyl copy of Bathory’s debut when he thought to himself, “I could make music like this!” It didn’t end there. It happened again. And again. And again. Now it’s 2018, and the number of bands that have taken influence from first wave black metal is so great you could probably build a bridge to Hawaii made solely from their goathead T-shirts. Diabolic Force is one of those bands, and if you thought this Brazilian trio were here to breathe fresh life into the style, you must have missed the fact that their new album is called Praise of Satan.” Satan is overexposed.
Crippled Black Phoenix – Great Escape Review
“Yes, this album cover needs a unicorn. It’s the first and foremost thing any of us noticed in the AMG World Headquarters break room. I don’t know what’s going on with this horse, but it won’t be good when and if it comes back down to earth. I suppose it’s escaping, although maybe it’s just simply jubilant. At eleven songs and over 74 minutes, is Great Escape going to make me jubilant, or am I going to want to make my escape?” Unicorn in the sky. Making little children cry.
Bosse-de-Nage – Further Still Review
“When Bosse-de-Nage’s All Fours released in 2015, my familiarity with post-metal started and ended with the clusterfuck that was Deafheaven’s Sunbather. All Fours, needless to say, caught me completely off guard. It was raw and intense, evocative without overacting, and certainly more committed to metal than the internet’s collective bitching led me to expect. Further Still has some big expectations to live up to.” Bosse or Bath.
Hessian – Mercenary Retrograde Review
Firstly, yes, I see the classic Playstation game, Medieval badly reflected in that craptastic album art, and that makes me more kindly disposed toward the album. And Hessian seem to be my kind of jam, being retro metallers from the wilds of Portland, Maine with a bit of swagger and Devil may care attitude.” Steel gets Medieval on yer ass.
Potmos Hetoimos – Vox Medusae Review
“The typical pitfall of pseudo-experimental metal bands is their tendency towards buffoonish self-aggrandizement and the accompanying insistence on pompous philosophical themes. Often drawing inspiration from edgy, coincidentally anti-humanistic philosophies and providing a “thinking man’s take” on black metal, they immerse themselves in childish interpretations of nihilism and neoreactionary doctrines. The similarly arty and bombastically theatrical Potmos Hetoimos, the long-standing one-man progressive sludge project of Baltimorean Matt Matheson, is an antipode of such acts.” Humanistic is as humanism does.
Deicide – Overtures of Blasphemy Review
“Despite being a household name in Floridian death metal, Deicide have had a track record as consistent as Nicolas Cage’s acting career. The godslaughtering murder machine fronted by the ever controversial Glen Benton set the tone with a couple of fledgling gems but since then, the quality of their output has been dice rolls all around. The only reviewed records on AMG were the sterile, unconvincing To Hell With God, and In The Minds Of Evil. Though the latter was a step up, its lack of spirit utterly failed to impress Lord Druhm. With no big wins under their belt since 2006’s The Stench of Redemption, Glen and the boys desperately need a slam dunk to convince the world they still belong at the top of the geographical niche they helped create.” Rebranding the cross of Floridian death.
