“Those familiar with the career of Anders Biazzi, know he’s one of the premier death metal riff maestros active today, and his Blood Mortized and Just Before Dawn material offer ample proof of his mastery. Recently Mr. Biazzi decided to close shop on Blood Mortized and launch a new project called Gods Forsaken.We’re a bit late in covering their debut In a Pitch Black Grave, but don’t take that as apathy or indifference.” Grave new world.
“Assumptions. No matter how hard we try not to make them, we always end up drawing conclusions about something without checking it out beforehand. In this case, with a description in our promo list as “melodic death metal,” and seeing that they hail from Sweden, I grabbed >i>Monolith of the Malign, the debut album from Pale King, expecting some twin-guitar Gothenburg melodies. And man, was I off. After much investigation, Pale King is a side-project of Jonny Pettersson and Håkan Stuvemark of long-running death-dealers Wombbath, aiming to capture an old-school melodic death metal feel, but with modern-day songwriting chops.” Olde school, new school, so many educational options!
“I’ve never been big on punk. Once in a blue moon, the mood might hit me and I spin some Social Distortion or Dead Kennedys but it’s never gotten beyond that point. It’s rarely on my mind, as well, so rather than an active dislike, it is simply a blank spot on my list of genres. With this established it should stand to reason that upon reviewing retro heavy/doom metal outfit Devil, the lightbulb for punk shouldn’t even flicker. Yet, early into To the Gallows, the third album by the Norsemen, the bulb was glowing bright enough to cast shadows on the walls.” Punks can’t play doom, can they?
“We know that art is often wrought in the forge of circumstance but beyond the personal biases, trials and tribulations of everyday life can the very climate we live in serve as a catalytic muse? Louisiana’s turgid humidity spawned swampy sludge metal and the pallid, frozen wastes of Scandinavia formed the backdrop against which black metal performs its danse macabre. It’s the latter’s frigid fingers that grip Magna Adversia, the latest release by Patria. But rather than hailing from Norway or Sweden, the band inhabits the mountainous south of Brazil.” Brazil is not a frostbitten kingdom.
“I like to imagine the absurdly prolific Rogga Johansson’s inner monologue to be similar to Pinky and the Brain’s introductory bit, with him eating whatever the Swedes eat for breakfast, wondering ‘what should I do today?’ and answering, ‘the same thing you do every day, Rogga: write and record a death metal record.’ Our hero would then draw a band name from a hat or make one up depending on his mood, and by lunchtime would have written about seven songs and called up whoever was needed to complete the lineup. Johansson & Speckmann had clearly been drawn from what must be a very large hat by now, and before the traditional Swedish dinner bell rang that day, Edge of the Abyss was born.” Pinky and the Brawn.
“I find black metal deeply polarizing. While helplessly captivated by the cold, desolate aura of much of the genre’s higher quality output, I also find myself mind-numbingly frustrated when magnificent records are in my view ruined by intentionally dreadful production, sounding as though they were recorded not in a studio but rather in a metal bin at the bottom of a distant lake (Transilvanian Hunger anyone?). Founded in Bergen in the early nineties by frontman Aphazel, the aptly-named Ancient have been diligently plying their trade for almost a quarter of a century now, establishing a back catalogue of uncharacteristically lush-sounding black metal and recruiting a small but loyal following along the way.” Old and cold, or old and bold?
“I’m a sucker for HansFyrste’s ghastly vocal style, he could probably read from the phone directory and I’d be very okay with it. The bug in my ear took effect around Ragnarok’s Malediction and it only got worse when I discovered Svarttjern’s
“Watching Gorgoroth grow up is like watching your dipshit nephew grow up. Getting busted for stealing Bazooka bubblegum as a child, knocking up his high-school girlfriend, marrying her, divorcing her, running out on his kid, and then fighting his ex for full custody of a child he hates. The biggest difference between the trials and tribulations faced by Gorgoroth and your asshole nephew is that Gorgoroth’s are worse.” Those wacky Satanists….
“The Dutch death squad known as Entrapment named their sophomore release Lamentations of the Flesh presumably because a) that’s the title of a song on the record, and b) Swe-death Riff-fest 2014 is an incredibly unwieldy album title.” Some say this is the best swede-death album of 2014. We hope it isn’t because then this miss is really embarrassing.
Well, this is a bit of a surprise. I never heard of Bloody Hammers until I reviewed their self-titled debut in February, and now they’re back with a follow-up a mere seven months later! Talk about productivity! While I liked aspects of the debut and their Hour of 13 and Witchfinder General meets Danzig approach to retro “occult rock,” things felt a bit underwhelming as a whole and suffered from inconsistent songwriting.” With so little time between releases, is it realistic to expect big improvement on Spiritual Relics? Steel Druhm is here to prep your expectations accordingly.
