“Forever Below is what I’m going to (cheesily) call old-school grit with new-school wit. The chilling tone of the guitars, the spidery, urgent riffing, the howling vocals, the thrashy tempos, pull from the best of second-wave black and blackened thrash–think Dissection and Goatwhore. But the intelligently dynamic and melodically-developed compositions pull this base sound into the modern world, and deepen their impact.” As above, so below.
“A steady stream of music since 2016 and a consistent touring schedule has resulted in the increasing popularity of Oregon’s Uada. I’ve long since established that their debut marks my favorite of their work but the band clearly feels a positive progression indicated through their releases’ artwork. Beginning with a tortured skeleton with lifeless child in tow, they’ve developed through a figure casting a spell, a djinn rising and now a cosmic deity wielding the earth in space. Perhaps they suggest their growth in form and power, but I feel that their subsequent releases haven’t matched the unbridled vibrancy and massive hooks of the debut.” Final form?
“As someone allergic to major keys, I find a natural home with metal, which tends to focus on the minor, or indeed, dissonance. We’ve all heard non-metal-listeners in our lives pontificate about how angry metal sounds. We all also know that it can bring happiness no matter how nasty it seems on the surface. Allow me to introduce you to some extreme metal out to prove this with a vengeance. Spain’s Frozen Dawn make their Transcending Obscurity debut with LP number four, a slice of melodic black metal fizzing with rambunctious energy. Polished and fresh, yet still retaining an air of the dark, occult past.” Stay frosty.
“Malist’s previous album Karst Relict was a decent but not outstanding piece of atmospheric black metal. This latest outing, As I Become Darkness, mainly follows in its predecessor’s footsteps in terms of quality, though Malist has now largely dropped pretensions to atmosphere. As Twelve—who rescinded reviewing rights after a couple of listens—informed me, it is essentially “atmospheric black metal, without the atmosphere.”” Now 100% atmo-free.
“The Route of Haeresis gave me a rare opportunity to nab a band that earned praise from the mighty Grier. The angrier doc gushed about Mimorium’s second release Blood of Qayin in 2020, comparing it favorably with Dissection’s classics. Mimorium is back with another album of energetic melodic black metal that tries to scratch the same itch as the iciest Swedish bands of the mid-90s. Many have tried this, and few have succeeded.” Theft in the autopsy suite.
““Nuclear hot riffs.” A commenter recently wrote beneath another review that the way black metal in 2021 is shaping up, to even begin to stand out, bands need to bring some serious, “nuclear hot,” riffage to the table. They weren’t wrong. We can ramble on all day about clever technical flourishes, dissonant chords, and foreboding atmospheres, but when all is said and done, we metalheads respect the almighty riff. The riff is the period that concludes a sentence, the punch to the jaw at the end of a fight, the incontrovertible law that even Steel bows down before. So what if I told you that a German duo had managed to jam more riffs into its debut release than many other bands in their entire careers?”” Fooked with a Kankar.
“Uada have captured the hearts of many fans searching for plenty of melody with their fury or Mgła without the controversy. I was (and remain) a huge fan of the tight, energetic debut, but 2018’s Cult of a Dying Sun left me colder. I felt that the band were going through the motions, which concerned me given it was but a sophomore release. Take the essential formula of these two albums, ladle on more melody and add a few pinches of Mgła controversy and you have Djinn.” Djinn and juice.
“There’s something distinct, and distinctly satisfying, about the mid-90s surge of Scandinavian melodic death and melodic black metal. When the likes of Emperor, Sacramentum and Dissection were changing the face of metal they were precocious kids with precise and warped visions of what they wanted darkness and evil to sound like. I feel an oxymoronic cold warmth when hearing bands which fit this sound. Many bear the torch but few get so high as those early pioneers.” Heavy is the crown of ice and darkness.
“Ov all the cruel ironies in this angry metal world, black metal’s oversaturated state, at this point presumably mere days from breaching mainstream radio status, is likely the one that yanks my unicorn the most. That the brave new musical world discovered by such wanderers as Burzum, Mayhem, and Bathory would be further explored and defiled in time was never a question, yet the rampant proliferation of new obsidian acts we find ourselves plagued with is less akin to expansion than to… well, frankly, a fucking plague.” Semi-cold.
Christmas is over, but the lists are still lurking! Next up is Dr. Wvrm and his highly important opinions on what ten albums you should hear in 2018.
