A shorth but sweet, death-metal leaning week that’s as faithful to the fashion of today as it is to the class of the past.
An Autumn For Crippled Children – Closure
Genre: Black metal/shoegaze
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
An odd but interesting juxtaposition of depressing black metal and mildly positive indie pop/rock vibes.
Besta – Terra Em Desapego
Genre: Death/thrash metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Fast paced, dirty and wicked death thrash with traces of grindcore.
The Crawling – All Of This For Nothing
Genre: Blackened death/doom metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Crisp and heavy death doom with a strong, nihilistic black metal influence.
Crypta – Shades Of Sorrow
Genre: Death metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 4/5
A focused and well realized vision for a distinct death metal sound prevails on Crypta’s sophomore album. It borrows a bit from thrash and groove, and some from the more aggressive types of melodeath, but not enough to call it a genre hybrid. They keep the intensity up nicely all the way through, even with some interludes, but it’s not as varied as I might have hoped for.
Highlight: “Trial of Traitors”
Dun Ringill – 150-Where The Old Gods Play-Act 1
Genre: Folk/doom metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
A dark but melodic folk album slowed down to a doom tempo. Distinct, but slightly messily realized.
Eminentia Tenebris – Rise of a New Kingdom
Genre: Melodic/atmospheric black metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Sweeping, cold, but also fervent melodic black metal.
Hallucinate – From the Bowels Of The Earth
Genre: Avant-garde death metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
This is death metal that allows for an influx of doomy atmosphere, as well as heading into completely new, genre-unrelated territories.
Humanity’s Last Breath – Ashen
Genre: Deathcore
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Looming, ominous, apocalyptic deathcore that packs a lot of meat around a skeleton of fairly conventional, djent-percussive breakdown-iness. Intent listeners will find death doom, black metal and other nuances, aside from a dark, symphonic grandeur.
Highlight: “Passage”.
Icon Of Sin – Legends
Genre: Heavy metal
Subjective rating: 2/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Some sweet guitar solos and classic power metal feel aside, this feels a bit too much like a rehash of the more well-worn elements of traditional metal.
Körgull The Exterminator – Built To Kill
Genre: Thrash/black metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
This one loses a few points on some off-putting rhythm work, but otherwise it’s spirited and on point tonally.
Repentance – The Process Of Human Demise
Genre: Groove metal/metalcore
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
A straight, high energy pleaser of a groove-focused metalcore album, reinventing no wheels but burning plenty of rubber.
The Shredderz – The Shredderz
Genre: Shred/heavy metal
Subjective rating: 2/5
Objective rating: 2.5/5
Apart from awesome thrash- and heavy style shreds this is honestly pretty bland and weakly composed.
Skindred – Smile
Genre: Nu metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Wait, you’re telling me I wasn’t just magically transported back to 2005? Could’ve fooled me. Not saying it’s necessarily a bad thing.
Temple of Dread – Beyond Acheron
Genre: Death metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
This is rock solid old school death metal riding a wave of classic, brutal melodeath atmosphere. Which allows for some actual guitar solos, and yes, they’re great. The songs smoothly flex up and down from mid- to high tempo, and it’s all pitched for just the right amount of menace, while still allowing for a measure of grandeur in the more doom-leaning sections. It’s a consistently enjoyable affair.
Highlights: “Asebeia” and “The Plague”.
Tumulation – Haunted Funeral Creations
Genre: Death/doom metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Heavy, ominous death doom that makes a lot of the slow, threatening tempo, but perhaps not enough.
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 