Raw, inexhaustible aggression fuels the top outputs of this week, spearheading an assault that’s followed up with more heavy, yet slightly more complex, hitters.
Claret Ash – Worldtorn: Anemoia
Genre: Progressive black metal
Subjective rating: 2.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5
A short, mixed release of dark, progressive black metal offering some good ideas with simply okay execution.
Cystic – Palace of Shadows
Genre: Death metal
Subjective rating: 2.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Low-fi, dungeon-dwelling death metal with a real pronounced drum sound and a doom-like approach to atmosphere.
Hemina – Romancing the Ether
Genre: Progressive metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Essentially a one-song album divided into 6 parts, this is dreamy, soothing, melody and synth-heavy prog for those wishing to delve deep.
Kataklysm – Goliath
Genre: Groove/melodic death metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5
If you though Kataklysm sounded unusually angry and djenty on their last record, then you ain’t heard nothing yet. From the very first song, this album sounds like a scarred, chain-wrapped fist shaking with poorly contained fury. The over-distortion does drown out a lot of the guitar tone, but not all, so the grooves remain intact, although somewhat muted. It’s not exactly what you’d call innovative, but sounds potent and purposeful, and keeps bringing the heavy every step of the way.
Highlights: “Bringer of Vengeance” and “The Redeemer”.
Kind – Close Encounters
Genre: Stoner/doom metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5
With more than a hint of Stone Temple Pilots, this is southern rock-stoner with doom metal heaviness and a sense of catchy melody that isn’t utilized quite enough.
Lancer – Tempest
Genre: Heavy/power metal
Subjective rating: 2/5
Objective rating: 2.5/5
Tonally strong and riff-happy classic power metal that comes up short on melodic harmony, especially in the instrumental-vocal meld.
Megaherz – In Teufels Namen
Genre: Industrial/alternative metal
Subjective rating: 2/5
Objective rating: 2.5/5
Coated in a crusty veneer of Neue Deutsche Härte-riffs and alternatve grittiness, this is really mostly ballad-heavy, empty-calorie party metal.
Mycorrhizae – The Great Filtration
Genre: Avant-garde black metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Slightly hypnotic, heavily muted and bass-pronounced black metal that’s surprisingly big on intensity. It borrows tones from brighter and more artsy corners of the musical spectrum, but keeps pummeling you relentlessly with staccato drumming and tremolo. And yet, it feels organic in a single-minded sort of fashion, slightly tweaking its progress at every step but always moving towards the same goal.
Highlight: “Strength in Space”.
Nox Eternus – Eternal Night
Genre: Black/death metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Heavily muted, sinister blackened death metal that might be a bit too caught up on old school-genre convention for their own good.
The Rite – The Astral Gloom
Genre: Black/doom metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Doomy black metal caught somewhere in between Tribulation and Witchery, but strongly toned down.
Silverburn – Self Induced Transcendental Annihilation
Genre: Sludge metal/mathcore
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Jagged, hardcore-powered sludge that leans into the choppy, hostile prog-style of mathcore, without touching any of the metalcore elements.
Urne – A Feast On Sorrow
Genre: Sludge/thrash metal/metalcore
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Taking all the best parts of sludge, thrash and metalcore and joining them in something that also leaves room for band personality feels like quite a feat, and yet it has materialized in this album. At its most serious this is laden with doom- and black metal moroseness, but the meat of the thing is is engaging riffs and mature melodies. It has a little bit of everything, and yet succeeds in collecting into a coherent output.
Highlights: “Becoming the Ocean” and “The Long Goodbye/Where Do the Memories Go?”
Werewolves – My Enemies Look And Sound Like Me
Genre: Death metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5
The fourth flesh-rending, high-tempo, ultra-aggressive output from these Australian gents in as many years, putting many of their peers to shame with the consistent quality. At some point you will realize that there’s actually quite a bit of black metal sharpness in there, but as a blade in the hands of a ravenous madman, it becomes but an effective tool for the delivery of ferocious, violent punishment. You get both brutality and groove-driven riffs in heaps, proving that these guys’ appetite for morbid bad-assery isn’t close to being sated.
Highlights: “Bring To Me The Kill” and “My Enemies Look And Sound Like Me”.
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 