The juxtaposing contradiction that is Mithridatum’s debut album Harrowing makes it surprisingly difficult to reach a conclusion.
The Willowtip release sees the newly formed trio (featuring former members of Abhorrent, The Faceless) jockeying with a myriad of other bands in an ultra-saturated landscape that is just begging for a group to come along and shatter the mold. As such, it’s nearly career suicide not to stand out from the rest (unless you’re AC/DC). Continue reading
The vaunted Mariana Trench is nearly seven miles deep underneath the ocean surface. Or in other words, it plummets down into the Earth more than Mt. Everest stands tall. The creatures that occupy that type of ecosystem need to withstand unimaginable pressure, cold temperatures and a complete lack of light.
And if that’s not terrifying enough, Dryad took this notion to the next level and crafted a thirty-five-minute opus that does as good a job as anything else in positing what the environs found down there might actually sound like via the medium of biting blackened metal: The Abyssal Plain (Prosthetic Records) captures and exploits the paralyzing nightmare of finding oneself in such an alien, unknown world. Foggy, muffled production represents the complete disorientation that would be felt so far below.
There are (at least) two ways to ascertain if metal is going to be technically inspired: the cover or the song titles.
In fact, with an album entitled At The Foothills Of Deliration, maybe it was obvious all along.
Artificial intelligence is a concept seemingly ever-present in the modern day. But nobody talks about when musical instruments become sentient and develop their own mannerisms and consciousness.
In 2010 following the death of his father, Paradise Lost’s founding guitar player and principle songwriter Gregor Mackintosh formed Vallenfyre with Hamish Glencross (ex-My Dying Bride). The aim was to provide an outlet for his grief by recording the heavier black / death metal-influenced music he had been writing, with Gregor also on vocal duties, a role he had never performed in Paradise Lost. In 2018 after three albums Gregor announced the project had come to a close, but from the ashes rose Strigoi, formed with Vallenfyre bassist Chris Casket (Devilment, ex Extreme Noise Terror), which would continue in a similar vein with 2019’s debut album Abandon All Faith.
If Phobophilic was a tangible entity, it would resemble the abhorrent grime found inside of a dilapidated kitchen before Gordon Ramsay loses his shit.
It is not every day that one stumbles upon a one-person, blackened death metal band. However, today is that day! Vølus has dropped his sophomore release, entitled Thrown to the Abyss (Vargheist). The best way I can sum up this album has to be trancelike. I found time and time again that I would lose myself in the chaos that Justin Vølus has created while also bobbing my head in time.
Deceived by whispers of comfort from the dread pages, Richard Benton tarried too long among the blasphemous text of the Book Of Dead Names – and four eldritch nightmares followed him back.
Like all movements that promise to reinvent a genre, dissonant / experimental Death Metal collapsed into a messy trend of imitators focussing on the most obvious aspects of their influences’ sound and missing the nuance. Fortunately, it passed the test of leaving behind enough building blocks for worthwhile successors to construct something interesting – and New York four-piece Aeviterne are one of the most interesting in a while.
Even though Immolation have been around from the dawn of death metal, the New York four-piece have never enjoyed the same level of prominence as many of their peers. Debut album Dawn of Possession (R/C Records) is still widely regarded as one of the finest examples of the genre but the 1991 release also remains a millstone around the band’s neck, the general consensus being that, no matter how hard they try, their illustrious debut will never be bettered.