“While other bands focus on heavy hits and constant pummeling, Gorod have made themselves the Muhammad Ali of death metal: light on their feet and surgically precise, and incredibly fun to bear witness to.” But will this be a Thrilla in Manilla or fall flat on its face? Anything can happen in a fight.” Kronos vs. Tech-death. FIGHT!
“France has become quite the hub for memorable extreme music in recent times: Deathspell Omega front a dissonant black metal current; Blut Aus Nord fluctuate between various avant-garde stylings but have been a driving force in modern black metal; Cowards fiercely object to perceived façades of beauty and political correctness in their hardcore-influenced anger. Now Antropofago has stepped up to the mark, attempting to wrestle the tech-death reins from their compatriots Gorod, new material from which has been notably absent.” France wants to be the new Sweden.
“Russian tech-death machine Defect Designer had an interesting couple of years since their 2009 debut, Wax. Bassist, guitarist & vocalist Dmitry Soukhinin decided to relocate from the Russian city of Novosibirsk to the much-easier-to-pronounce Olso, Norway, taking everything but his band with him. To help round out his recording line-up, Dmitry enlisted members of SepticFlesh, Trollfest, and Cryptopsy to aid in recording what would become the oddly spelled Ageing Accelerator. Now, you would think that having people from the aforementioned bands perform for your record would have the masses salivating for progressive tech-deathy goodness, and in words on a screen, it does look inviting, doesn’t it?” So where’s all the drool?
“If you know jack shit about extreme metal drumming, you already have a good idea of what this album is going to sound like. If you don’t know jack shit about drumming, it’s time to learn.” It’s time for some schooling.
“When you think about globalization, and by extension the internet, you either think of it as the bee’s knees or just another plan of the Illuminati and the Bilderberg Group to control humankind. Whichever it is, such processes are almost beyond reproach when it comes to the way they’ve exposed us to a whole new dimension of quality music from all around the Earth that would have remained “underground” and in complete anonymity 20 years ago.” And that brings us to sunny Costa Rica for some tropical tech-death.
“Oh math, how I hate you. Next to physics (which ruined my day with its so-called “gravity” as I scaled my childhood tree fort and refuses me the privilege to smoothly glide around corners in my front-wheel-drive Pontiac Vibe), math straight-up pisses me off. You’re probably asking yourself, what does Dr. Grier’s Rant of the Day have to do with Continuum’s debut release?” You may or may not get an answer to that over all this loudness. Sweet Fallujah!
“Archspire are, first and foremost, fast. Everything about The Lucid Collective is tight, taught and percussive, from the brutal-death-leaning snare tone to vocalist Oli Peters’ inhumanly pummeling rap-growled vocal lines.” Kronos brings you another slab of rotting death you may have missed. Have at it!
“Ghost Chorus Among Old Ruins is the last album out this year that I expect to give a shit about, and what a loose, worm-riddled mass that shit is. Baring Teeth’s first offering, Atrophy, is a must for those who want to understand the future of death metal – discordant, abstract, disturbing and forward-thinking as a Rodin sculpture strapped to a freight train. If that intro didn’t get you reading, there’s nothing else we can do.
“I was worried about this album. Revocation have had it too good for too long, releasing large quantities of absurdly excellent music with extreme consistency over a timespan that most other artists would take to write just one album. They’ve been cranking out yearly releases since their magnum opus Chaos of Forms in 2011. Yearly releases. For four years. The honeymoon has to end sometime, right?” Or does it?
“I want one thing to be perfectly clear in your mind before you begin reading the body of this review: I hate Rings of Saturn. The band is the antithesis of everything I like about heavy music: they’re popular, smug, and have a fanbase largely made up of teenagers with gauged earlobes and fitted caps. Their guitar tone is incredibly clean, their drums make St. Anger look like The Destroyers of All, they have no bassist, and they throw around breakdowns as often as they throw around new age/horror sci-fi horseshit lyrics.” Kronos has a deeply conflicted relationship with this band. Please support him as he works through his issues.
