A week for the progressive and slightly different – pushing tried and tested recipes beyond the comfort zone.
Alcatrazz – Take No Prisoners
Genre: Heavy metal
Subjective rating: 2/5
Objective rating: 2.5/5
Heavy metal that sounds pretty much unchanged from the glory days of NWOBHM, in that its creators probably haven’t have an original idea since then.
Arjen Lucassen’s Supersonic Revolution – Golden Age Of Music
Genre: Progressive/heavy metal
Subjective rating: 2.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5
It’s no surprise with Arjen Lucassen (Ayreon) that the storytelling gets to take precedence over the instrumentation, but even as there are no surprises on here, it’s more balanced than you might expect.
Blindfolded And Led To The Woods – Rejecting Obliteration
Genre: Progressive death metal/deathcore
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4.5/5
A head spinner of an exploratory and technical death metal album, without the need for piling on alienating dissonance. It’s aggressive as hell, and extremely versatile, as the instrumentation changes on the spot at any given time to best serve the mood of the current part of the song. And somehow it’s not jarring at all, certainly not if you’re partial to any sort of progressive or technical extreme metal at all. With elements of deathcore, mathcore and even some nu metal styled riffs in there, it feels like a creative maelstrom that keeps turning interesting shades of brutality and darkness.
Highlights: “Methlehem” and “Funeral Smiles”.
Botanist – VIII: Selenotrope
Genre: Avant-garde black metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5
You might at first struggle to identify the cause of why you would naturally place this in the black metal category. There are no harsh vocals, tremolo or even noticeable distorted riffing. And yet you HEAR it, somehow, as if on an inaudible frequency. Part of it is because the drum and bass work is very much following a black metal approach, an there is a darkness to the tone that goes beyond the harmonious, even hopeful melodies. It’s like fixing your gaze on the sun through a partial opening in the forest canopy and letting it distract you from the cold darkness of the woods that surround you.
Highlights: “Epidendrum Nocturnum” and “Angel’s Trumpet”.
Chronicle – Where Chaos Thrives
Genre: Melodic black/death metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Black metal pouring on the brutality, as well as some vaguely eastern folk melody into something satisfyingly dark, if not terribly outstanding.
Frozen Soul – Glacial Domination
Genre: Death metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Frozen soul are back with more frigid, horror- and violence-themed semi-melodic death metal, and once again it’s a heaven-in-hell of a sinister-toned jagged-riff extravaganza. While not building up to the most jaw dropping moments, the good stuff keeps on rolling song after song, with no real weak moments throughout.
Highlights: “Arsenal of War” and “Frozen Soul”.
Henget – Beyond North Star
Genre: Progressive black/folk metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5
This is a dark progressive album that plays around with your expectations in really satisfying ways. The style swings between black metal and recognizably Finnish folk metal, but refuses to settle with any sort of conventional approach in either direction. Sometimes you’re convinced that this is serious blackened death metal, and some times it’s a mad amalgamation of cackilng laughter, gothic piano tunes and playful folk rock riffs. The rhythm goes from complex to catchy to whimsical, and while it can feel a bit random at times, it all adds up to a really flavorful experience.
Highlights: “The Chalice of Life and Death” and “Henkivallat”.
Inferion – Inequity
Genre: Melodic black/death metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5
A slightly clinical but still pretty great sounding modern melodic black/death metal album with plenty of enjoyable riffs and a uniform, warm tone.
Mystic Prophecy – Hellriot
Genre: Power metal
Subjective rating: 2.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Very catchy, heavy-riffed power metal about epic battles and, well… metal.
Nexorum – Tongue Of Thorns
Genre: Black/death metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
A darkly melodic yet aggressive blackened death metal album with an ominous, cavernous feel, although with clear and rich production.
The Ocean – Holocene
Genre: Progressive metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4.5/5
Thematically on point, this is a patiently unfolding listening experience that dives deep as much as it crashes up through the surface. There’s a bigger emphasis on electronic atmosphere this time around, but it’s not overstated and feels organically aligned with the rest of the instrumentation. The immersion is, perhaps unsurprisingly, sublime, and highly rewarding. From trickling melancholy to tempestuous triumph, this easily meets the expectations of being one of the most outstanding prog metal releases of the year.
Highlights: “Parabiosis” and “Boreal”.
Omen Astra – The End Of Everything
Genre: Hardcore/death metal
Subjective rating: 2.5/5
Objective rating: 2.5/5
This sounds like alternative hardcore that’s harnessed a bit more death metal power than it’s fully capable of handling.
Radien – Unissa Palaneet
Genre: Doom/sludge metal
Subjective rating: 2.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Strong on atmosphere, fortunately, as there’s a lot of it, and then a bit of dissonant sludge rage.
Shadows – Out For Blood
Genre: Heavy/gothic metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
This is ghost meets merciful fate meets old school heavy metal. Although the instruments speak catchy, playful traditional riffs and solos, there’s a lot of tasteful, horror-gothic atmosphere.
Sporae Autem Yuggoth – …However It Still Moves
Genre: Death/doom metal
Subjective rating: 2.5/5
Objective rating: 2.5/5
A gloomy, earth-encrusted death doom record that’s a bit too sluggish for its own good.
Thulcandra – Hail The Abyss
Genre: Melodic black metal
Subjective rating: /5
Objective rating: /5
This is melodic black metal with a flair for the epic, without dipping into the symphonic well like Dimmu Borgir, and that’s also pretty riff happy, without edging into thrash like Thron. You’ll find more similarities to Immortal/Abbath and Volcano-era Satyricon, with plenty of tremolo chills and some fairly crisp technicality, and melodic sections that bear more than a little relation to melodeath, Apart from letting the intensity fade out a bit towards the end, it’s a black-cloaked pleaser through and through.
Highlights: “Hail the Abyss” and “On the Wings of Cosmic Fire”.
VHS – Quest For The Mighty Riff
Genre: Death/heavy metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4.5/5
Imagine a dedicated and fun-loving, retro-oriented traditional metal band with a power metal penchant for medieval tales of swords and chivalry… only it’s a death metal band. That’s what this is, in a nutshell, with some thrash riffs thrown in there to make sure they keep it nice and lively. There’s lots of sound bites from old VHS-era cult classics to go with the theme, and the song length and rhythm complexity are way down, making this an album you can jump in and enjoy the hell out of at any mental state,
Highlights: “The Fighting Eagle” and “Adventurers, Heroes, Brothers”.
Yakuza – Sutra
Genre: Progressive/experimental metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
A restless, constantly shifting grunge-like progressive metal album with traces of Rivers of Nihil.
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 