Things You Might Have Missed 2014

Things You Might Have Missed 2014: Amaranthe – Massive Addictive

By Angry Metal Guy on April 1, 2015 in 2014, Reviews, Spinefarm, Things You Might Have Missed 2014, 75 comments

“To say that I’ve had an ongoing “love/hate” relationship with Amaranthe would be a far too forgiving description of my feelings towards Sweden’s very own ’90s pop-commodity-metal band’s first two albums. I even took a moment last year to openly admit that I had spent far too much time and energy hating Amaranthe, and that frankly I couldn’t cope with listening to another one of their records. I have to admit, this was partially a lie: I actually have been listening to the band’s new record far more than I’d like to admit publicly.” We messed up.

Things You Might Have Missed 2014: Mantar – Death By Burning

By Saunders on February 15, 2015 in Black Metal, Doom Metal, German Metal, Sludge, Svart Records, Things You Might Have Missed 2014, Black Metal, Doom Metal, Punk, Sludge Metal, 21 comments

“Say what you will about the quality of metal in 2014, there was certainly no shortage of impressive debut offerings from hungry up and comers led by killer full-length debuts from Artificial Brain, Black Crown Initiate and Dreamgrave. Another band that released a stellar first effort worthy of your time and cash was Hamburg-based duo Mantar.” We missed this, and it never stops hurting.

Things You Might Have Missed 2014: Idylls – Prayer for Terrene

By Mark Z. on January 31, 2015 in 2014, Australian Metal, Grind, Hardcore, Things You Might Have Missed 2014, Hardcore, 7 comments

“I once had a roommate who assured me Converge was “really just noise.” At one point in his life he had played guitar for a metal band, so my naïve young self believed him. My surprise when I finally listened to Jane Doe and was blown away by the sheer emotion inherent in the spastic, ballistic dissonance. Idylls have much the same thing going on – traditional melody is eschewed, and at times, it does sound like four guys trapped in a room trying to make as much commotion as possible.” Bring forth the noise room!

Things You Might Have Missed 2014: Sentience – Beyond the Curse of Death Demo

By Saunders on January 29, 2015 in 2014, American Metal, Death Metal, Things You Might Have Missed 2014, Death Metal, 5 comments

“Long gone are the days of demo releases being the lifeblood of underground metal. With the tape trading days of circulating a raw and rough cut demo to create word of mouth buzz and build street cred a thing of the past, and the digital age having firmly taken over, the format has become a fading relic in the modern metal landscape.” But this putrid gem might just take you back to the rancid demo days of yore.

Things You Might Have Missed 2014: Serdce – Timelessness

By Kronos on January 28, 2015 in 2014, Belarusian Metal, Blood Music, Death Metal, Progressive Death, Things You Might Have Missed 2014, 19 comments

“Never heard of Serdce? I can’t blame you. The Belarussian prog-death group has been tramping around the metalsphere in undeserved obscurity since 1997 and Timelessness is the fourth(!) LP to spill from their obscenely talented hands and the first to be released by the metal messiahs at Blood Music.” Did you miss this slab of prog-death in 2014? Well, fix that in 2015!

Things You Might Have Missed 2014: White Empress – Rise of the Empress

By Angry Metal Guy on January 17, 2015 in 2014, Black Metal, Death Metal, Melodic Death Metal, Peaceville, Reviews, Things You Might Have Missed 2014, 19 comments

Twenty-fourteen was a busy one for me, but that’s no excuse for me not covering White Empress’s début record Rise of the Empress which came out in September from Peaceville Records. It’s hard to know whether or not to call White Empress a super group, per se, but the heart of the band is Paul Allen and Will Graney—previously of Cradle of Filth. From the Empress’ mouth herself, Allen and Graney put together some demo tracks and started working with Mary Zimmer, formerly vocalist for Luna Mortis. This developed slowly, spawning a Bandcamp site and some pretty wicked imagery The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe imagery before the band finally got picked up by Peaceville. Next thing you know and Rise of the Empress was released and I completely biffed on it. Regardless of my schedule or whether or not White Empress qualifies as a “supergroup,” Rise of the Empress is a strong showing that shouldn’t be overlooked.

Things You Might Have Missed 2014: Hoth – Oathbreaker

By Diabolus in Muzaka on January 16, 2015 in American Metal, Black Metal, Death Metal, Melodic Death Metal, Things You Might Have Missed 2014, Death Metal, Melodic Black Metal, Melodic Death Metal, 27 comments

“Do you ever wonder what Dissection would have sounded like after Storm of the Light’s Bane if Jon Nodveidt made much better life choices and became obsessed with death metal and the original Star Wars trilogy? Yeah, neither did I, but Washington’s Hoth decided to answer that question in the form of their sophomore album Oathbreaker.” Some ideas just don’t look good on paper. This is one of those.

Things You Might Have Missed 2014: Striker – City of Gold

By Diabolus in Muzaka on January 14, 2015 in Canadian Metal, Heavy Metal, Napalm Records, Things You Might Have Missed 2014, Heavy Metal, Thrash Metal, 17 comments

“I’ll fully admit that I have a soft spot for fun in my metal. After all, a man can only listen to Ulcerate growl about entropy, Triptykon purging Tom G.’s demons, and Kvarforth whining about how long it took him to clean out his bathtub after his fateful promo video (I don’t speak Swedish, so this is conjecture) so much, and even though I greatly enjoy all of those artists and listen to their great work regularly, sometimes a change of pace is needed. Enter Alberta’s Striker, and their excellent third album City of Gold.” For the record, bathtubs are a real pain in the arse to clean.

Things You Might Have Missed 2014: Falconer – Black Moon Rising

By Diabolus in Muzaka on January 8, 2015 in 2014, Metal Blade, Power Metal, Swedish Metal, Things You Might Have Missed 2014, Power Metal, 26 comments

“Falconer’s 2011 record Armod was not only my introduction to the band’s music, but to AMG as well. I don’t remember how I stumbled across our eponymous overlord’s review, but I’m glad I did… This year, Falconer released their follow-up to Armod in the form of Black Moon Rising, and I’m going to come full sphere by writing about it here on AMG.” Once beloved by AMG Himself, is Falconer still the adorable moppet it once was?

Things You May Have Missed 2014: Entrapment – Lamentations of the Flesh

By Diabolus in Muzaka on January 7, 2015 in Death Metal, Dutch Metal, Soulseller Records, Things You Might Have Missed 2014, Death Metal, 5 comments

“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.