We’re back with the heavy this week! Plenty of new black- and death metal to dig into, as well as a good batch of weird shit. Oh, and new Rammstein and Watain!
Abhomine – Demonize Destroy Delete (EP)
Genre: Black metal
Subjective rating: 1/5
Objective rating: 2/5
I mean, there’s bad production and then there’s BAD production. I get that it’s probably (mostly) intentional, but this is just comical. Made it impossible for me to focus on anything else.
Beyond The Structure – Scrutiny
Genre: Technical death metal
Subjective rating: 2.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5
This is one of those tech death sounds that is so erratic in its approach that the overall impression that I get is one of stumbling around. There are a few instances where they find their footing, but not for long at a time. They’re clearly very proficient, but I find that too little of that goes into creating something actually coherent.
Child Bite / Black Rheno – Split (EP)
Genre: Progressive/hardcore/doom
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5
A short and sweet split EP with the first half (Child Bite) being a bit weird and chaotic, but still pretty entertaining, and the other half (Black Rheno) being much more aggressive blackened hardcore. It’s all on the dark side, and with good energy.
Crashdiet – Automaton
Genre: Heavy metal
Subjective rating: 2/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Some accessible, arena-oriented heavy metal that has enough thought behind it not to become completely generic. If you’re not one to break out in hives from ballads, you might like this.
Devil Master – Ecstasies Of Never Ending Night
Genre: Black/heavy metal/punk
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5
A very well balanced effort of blending black ‘n roll with punk, and it’s not as straightforward as you might expect. They try a few different things on here, and successfully manifest this vintage-cult atmosphere that makes everything stand out. The production is just right, and they manage a mostly high tempo without giving into the temptation of just going nuts and making it too chaotic. They have some spooky-melodic parts that remind me a lot of Tribulation, and overall good variation in rhythm. Give “Acid Black Mass” and “Enamoured in the Throes of Death” a spin.
Dischordia – Triptych
Genre: Death metal
Subjective rating: 2.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
This death metal is disturbing not so much in its content, but in the way it approaches disharmony. It’s super chaotic and incorporates a lot of sheer random noises. If you like getting a feeling of unease from your metal, then I think they’re onto something interesting here. To me it sounds a bit like an engine breaking down.
Enragement – Atrocities
Genre: Death metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Some furious, brutal modern death metal for you. The production is great, and allows for some crisp, raw guitars, to really make those riffs land. There’s also enough variation and dark melody to said riffs to please my need for a bit of variation, and although this is far from inventive, it goes a long way on entertainment value. Check out “Heavenly Inferno” and “Trade in Viscera”.
Helms Alee – Keep This Be The Way
Genre: Avant-garde sludge metal
Subjective rating: 2/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
I’ll be completely honest – this one goes way above my head. I don’t get much more out of it than a chuckle at the song titles. It’s too disharmonic, too wayward in the way it approaches structure and progress. It’s also not nearly serene enough to just get lost in. But the people behind it clearly had a vision, and it’s obvious from the concise tone and atmosphere.
Heriot – Profound Mortality
Genre: Death/doom metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5
This one has a lot of what I’m looking for in a great death doom album. A creepy atmosphere, good transitions between brutal aggression and sullen trudging, and a production that doesn’t sound like it’s filtered through a concrete wall. The problem is that there’s too little of the good stuff on here. Half of the eight tracks are interludes. And I actually don’t mind the interludes, cause they add to the atmosphere, but it makes the album feel like an EP, and kind of an incomplete one at that.
Introtyl – Adfectus
Genre: Death metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Some pretty classic death metal here, that I score lower because of some odd production choices. There is much less beef to support the riffs than I would have liked, and there seems to be a lot of metallic string noise included for some reason. Should still please genre fans, though.
Kaipa – Urskog
Genre: Progressive folk rock/metal
Subjective rating: 1.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Not only do you have to be a dedicated prog fan for this, but also not mind whimsical keyboard tunes driving a lot of the songs in place of a lead guitar. Or maybe it is just a highly processed guitar – who knows. All I know is that it’s not for me.
Lament Cityscape – A Darker Discharge
Genre: Industrial/noise metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 4/5
This is another one which, I’ll freely admit, I’m not nearly in tune enough with the subgenre to properly review. Everything is processed through a grating, static-y veil of digital compression, to create a very stark, artificial sound, that still goes very well with the industrial theme. And there are treasures in genuinely good songwriting behind that veil. It switches very gracefully from harsh to melodic, all the while maintaining a rock solid tone of expression throughout.
Lionsoul – A Pledge To Darkness
Genre: Heavy/power metal
Subjective rating: 2.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5
A modern, futuristic-themed heavy metal effort with power metal leanings, utilizing a few instrumental techniques from the more extreme end of the spectrum. The songwriting is still a little too generic for me.
Melvins & Dumb Numbers – Broken Pipe (EP)
Genre: Experimental sludge/punk
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Jump in for a bit of fun, why not? It’s a short one, where they play around with mixing space-y, tech-y atmosphere with straightforward rhythms and punky attitude.
Meyhnach – Miseria de profundis
Genre: Black metal
Subjective rating: 2/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Some low-fi, intentionally primitive black metal with a bit of a spooky thing going on. Nothing really special unless you’re looking for a specific fix.
No/Mas – Consume/Deny/Repent
Genre: Grindcore/thrash
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5
If you know and like that Misery Index blend of raspy, rampant aggression and thrash groove, you should be up for this one. It gets through no less than 15 songs in under 22 minutes, so that should say something about how little regard should be paid each individual song in favor of the greater whole. This is not really new and fresh, though, and reminds me a lot of a hardcore album in the way it’s mainly focused on provoking a certain mood.
Pyrithe – Monuments To Impermanence
Genre: Atmospheric/progressive black metal/noise
Subjective rating: 2/5
Objective rating: 3/5
A strong sense of foreboding prevails throughout. And a bunch of random shifts and twists in tone and intensity, of course. All with a distorting filter draped across.
Rammstein – Zeit
Genre: Industrial/heavy/alternative metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Just so it’s said – if you’re all about the heavy Rammstein songs, they’re mostly on the last half of the album. This time, the guys have embraced a slightly melancholy and 80s synth-infused sound, which is especially prevalent in the first half, which has some of the moodiest material I’ve heard from them in a good while. Like it or not, it’s at least not just a phone-in riff buffet. “Zeit” has a longing, epic quality which certainly expands my impression of what Rammstein should be. And then you have that good old, unbeatable mix of knockout punch and irreverent fun on the likes of “OK”. There’s a good balance of both on here.
Sacrilega – The Arcana Spear
Genre: Death/black metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Some fairly solid blackened death metal that’s still in need of some maturing in order to carve out a niche and really own its expression. It works, but it’s not particularly characterful.
Slowtorch – The Machine Has Failed
Genre: Stoner metal/rock
Subjective rating: 2.5
Objective rating: 3/5
This one actually has enough distinct flavor to it to stand out, it’s just not brilliantly executed. I like several isolated moments on here, but the band has a bit of a hard time binding them together into strong, complete songs.
The Spirit – Of Clarity and Galactic Structures
Genre: Progressive black/death metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 4/5
This is blackened death with emphasis on the black metal, and a progressive sensibility towards songs structures. It’s fairly cold, but allows for some instrumental playfulness, and they have a slight spacey theme going on, which I think they could have incorporated much more into the atmosphere, but that might just be me. For fans of regular black metal, it might be best that they kept it free from too much experimentation. While it’s really solidly put together, it falls slightly short on distinctiveness for me.
Teufelsberg – Ordre du Diable
Genre: Black metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
We’re heading straight for the root sound of that original second wave of Norwegian black metal here, with raw, primitive beats, a cold, thin sound and harsh, grating vocals. It has pretty much everything, which is why I find it a bit formulaic, But it’s certainly not bad.
Thorium – Danmark
Genre: Death metal
Subjective rating: 4.5/5
Objective rating: 4/5
An album that proves you don’t need all the bells and whistles in the world to make rock solid death metal. It might not be terribly sophisticated, have a super distinct atmosphere or display amazing, virtuoso musical skill, but it just entertains. Song after song after song. I love the production, and think there is just enough variety to make it interesting from start to finish. “Semen of the Devil” is one of my absolute favorite death metal songs of the year so far, and “The Silent Suffering” is a great example of how you make an instrumental interlude that still works as a song, and where the content matches the song title perfectly.
Tysondog – Midnight
Genre: Heavy/thrash metal
Subjective rating: 2.5/5
Objective rating: 2.5/5
A batch of heavy metal with some thrash umph, but sadly a bit lacking in execution. It sounds alright, but a bit janky, and not particularly fresh.
Void Of Vision – Chronicles II: Heaven
Genre: Metalcore
Subjective rating: 1.5/5
Objective rating: 2.5/5
Some fairly heavily processed, typically modern sounding metalcore. Lots of electronic elements, a little too ballad-y in the soft bits, and the heavy bits are that one-dimensional, single-tone djent chugging that I tire very quickly of.
Vulcano – Stone Orange
Genre: Black/thrash metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
A good bit of fun if you’re into unceremonious, fairly primitively produced blackened thrash. The songs are short and sweet, but there’s a bunch of them, so you get a wide selection to pick your favorites from. They could probably have trimmed a few songs off of here to allow the stronger ones to shine without too much distraction, but if you’re not going in for the most active listening experience, you’ll probably enjoy it from start to finish. “Ship of Dead” and “Night Terror With Satan” are good examples of what you get here.
Watain – The Agony & Ecstasy Of Watain
Genre: Black metal
Subjective rating: 5/5
Objective rating: 4.5/5
No matter what you expect going into this album, no matter the past of the band or the genre, this album just immediately grabs you and commands you to forget about all that, cause it no longer matters. Just hold on and trust that it’s gonna be a mind-blowing ride from start to finish, redefining what a black metal album can be. It’s dark, it’s complex, it’s catchy. The instrumental work is fantastic. After my first listening session I was honestly left speechless and in awe. Nearly every song on here is a nigh-on fucking masterpiece, and the fact that it’s so consistently great throughout should almost not be possible. Sure, I could have wanted even more punch in the final song to finish the album off with a bang, but that’s nitpicking, and I don’t need an album to be clinically perfect in order to give it top marks. If you’re still on the fence somehow, check out “The howling” and “Leper’s grace”.
As always, if you think I’m completely off on an observation, unfairly dissed your favorite band or need to give an album another shot, do feel free to express yourself in the comments section below.
The Metal Dispatch 