“After a lengthy North American tour as the special guests of Kataklysm, beginning in California, traversing the outskirts of Long Island (New York) and wrapping up in Florida, I’m expecting some Kataklysm melodic death-isms to wheedle its way into Dance and Laugh Amongst the Rotten. In short I was expecting a shakeup.” Don’t shake the rotten.
“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.
“By the time you read this, Halloween 2016 is long gone. Oral surgeons have deposited their paychecks earned at the expense of children unfortunate enough to chomp down on razor blades, and your cranky olde neighbor is probably marching across the street right now to ask when the hell you’re getting that damned rotting jack o’ lantern off your porch. As I’m writing, however, the night of Halloween is still young, and I have an appropriately eerie soundtrack to accompany the festivities.” The pumpkin stays right where it’s at, bub.
“Until recently, I believe Italy’s Darkend promoted the kind of symphonic black metal that chased the coattails of bands like Cradle of Filth. With their fourth release, The Canticle of Shadows, I was unsure of whether to expect more of the same or something entirely new. I succeeded in missing their earlier releases like Damned Woman and a Carcass, Assassine and Grand Guignol, despite them receiving mostly positive reviews.” What the hell is a canticle?
![Lychgate – An Antidote for the Glass Pill [Things You Might Have Missed 2015]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Lychgate_an-Antidote-for-the-Glass-Pill-768x768.jpg)
“I vividly remember my first encounter with black metal (Burzum), a music so dissonant and evil-sounding that it left twelve-year-old me completely bewildered and flabbergasted. In metal, it was rare and legendary extremes like Gorguts that came close. Until recently, that is, when my ears were graced by the insanity that is Lychgate’s An Antidote for the Glass Pill.” The weirdness is strong with this year’s TYMHM selections.
“American Horror Story: Freak Show puts faces to the monsters that walk among us, case in point Twisty the Clown! Lords of chaos and insanity, Orion (Behemoth), Daray (Dimmu Borgir, ex-Vader) and Heinrich (ex-Decapitated) of Vesania, give these monsters a soundtrack.” I hate clowns. All of them.
“Suffolk extreme metallers (and eternal underground whipping martyrs) Cradle of Filth, have given Mordgrimm the official go-ahead to release their infamous third demo, Total Fucking Darkness, to the masses over 20 years after its initial release, remastered with more tracks.” Grymm gets pulled underground into Total Fucking Darkness, will he make it out unscarred?
“While first wetting my feet with black metal I came across Chthonic’s 9th Empyrean, Relentless Recurrence and Seediq Bale albums. I felt a distinct pull towards their use of traditional instruments, their dramatic, aggressive, melodic sound and their bleak, nihilistic undercurrent and for a fair while their screams gripped my attention. Eventually though I felt the inevitable allure for darker and uglier and sank deeper and into the blackness discovering Nattefrost, Carpathian Forest, Shining (Swedish), 1349, Marduk and so on and to be honest I got distracted and I guess I just forgot about Chthonic….” Will Madam X have a happy reunion with the once beloved Chthonic or has absence made the heart grow bitter? So much drama!
“It was seven years ago that I purchased my very first CD as a teenager who knew nothing about music other than the fact I absolutely loved it and wanted to find something completely different and obscure. I opened up a metal magazine and was instantly pulled in by the mysterious description and album cover to Summoning’s Oath Bound. The nature-influenced album cover, the Austrian black metal description, all of it seemed incredibly alluring so I bought it blindly — my first ever musical purchase. Needless to say, Oath Bound arrived and floored me.” Noctus has a heartfelt history with this group of Tolkien-obsessed black metal maven, but does their new album live up to his lofty (and insanely fanboyish) expectations?
It isn’t often these days that I review something that I found on my own. In fact, given that the amount of time that we here at Angry Metal Guy for reviews has gone down immensely compared to the huge numbers of promos we receive, it’s probably irresponsible for me to do so. But this Angry Metal Guy is always worried that we’re still not getting every CD of golden worth and highest quality. Once again this fear has been vindicated, but fortunately for you guys, I still love metal enough that I actually go looking for shit that we haven’t received here. And because of that, I stumbled upon Winterhorde a melodic or orchestral black metal band from… Israel? Yeah, turns out, even Israel which lacks for snowy winters has black metal guys who think that snow is the ultimate eviiiil. But don’t let the silly name fool you, because Winterhorde is not just your average melodic black metal band and Underwatermoon, while excitingly ESL in name, is anything but lackluster.
