A week for the slightly weird and unpredictable, inevitably dividing opinions, as the traditional gives way for the experimental and eccentric.
Accept – Humanoid
Genre: Heavy metal/hard rock
Subjective rating: 2.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Licks on licks on licks! Accept delivers another attitude-flaunting, uncomplicated heavy metal record mostly built around hard rock rhythms.
ACxDC – G.O.A.T.
Genre: Powerviolence
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Spitting bile and pounding out heavy riffs like a rain of anvils.
Amiensus – Reclamation: Part 1
Genre: Progressive black metal
Subjective rating: 2.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
A bold attempt at melding black metal with much softer, clean melodic prog. The musicianship is clearly very accomplished, and the album feels like a complete work, although for some the juxtaposition of styles will feel like an unwelcome clash.
Arð – Untouched By Fire
Genre: Doom metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Restrained and ponderous doom with an awe-inspiring, epic tone. Labeled as “monastic doom” it feels properly medieval, but you need patience for this one.
Barbarian Swords – Fetid
Genre: Black/doom metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Undead, dirt-slow black metal with the scope of epic doom. It feels like being part of an adventure in a dying, festering land. At its best it’s a snarling, hostile beast covered in venomous thorns, but it also does get fairly sluggish at times.
Baron – Beneath The Blazing Abyss
Genre: Death/doom metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
A thunderous death doom album that’s all about apocalyptically heavy, at times hardcore-styled, rhythms and that awesome crunchy guitar tone. The tempo is suitably restrained, but never comes to a stall. I’d imagine this would work perfectly as the soundtrack to an erupting volcano.
Cypecore – Make Me Real
Genre: Metalcore/melodic death metal
Subjective rating: 2.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5
I remember this band from an earlier chapter in their career when they were more industrial melodeath. On this one they’ve steered well into metalcore and deathcore territory, and, while it feels impactful, it’s also robbed some identity.
Darkness – Blood On Canvas
Genre: Thrash metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Old-school, gruff thrash metal that feels just as unpolished and rowdy as it should. It’s got some real tasty riffs and good tempo variation.
Darkthrone – It Beckons Us All
Genre: Black/psychedelic metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Welcome to another album that makes it abundantly clear that Darkthrone is not bound by any one style, and will do pretty much whatever the hell they please at any time. The primitive riffs are definitely in place, with a crisp production highlighting the introduction of fuzz and psychedelic tone-bending. Personally, the conceptual and stylistic treatment of the album gave me very little, but it’s a solid and committed effort that will definitely find its audience.
Highlight: “The Lone Pines of the Lost Planet”
Deicide – Banished By Sin
Genre: Death metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Deicide is definitely on the attack on this one. The tone is just the way we like it, and the punch is all there. But at the end of the album, I had already kind of forgotten what I thought about it.
Diamond Construct – Angel Killer Zero
Genre: Nu/industrial metal
Subjective rating: 2.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Highly processed, heavy-rhythm nu metal that’s all beats and mildly dissonant artificial ambience.
Disbelief – Killing Karma
Genre: Groove/death metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
A rough-toned groove metal offering that will bring to mind Kataklysm and Devil Driver, but with some added death metal heft and sludge coarseness. The first half of the album is a blood-pumping output of rage and great riffs. The energy wanes in the second half, which makes for a slightly lackluster finish, although technically it holds up well all the way through.
Full Of Hell – Coagulated Bliss
Genre: Grindcore
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4.5/5
As grindcore goes, I don’t suppose this should be considered particularly unhinged. Maybe a bit eccentric. On here is everything from a 56-second all-out rampage to a 6+ minute dip into crawling death doom, oppressive noise and hard rock grooves. The impressive part is that, rather than feeling disjointed, it all adds up to welcome variation that keeps you engaged throughout. Don’t get me wrong, it’s all very hostile indeed. Harsh and fairly dissonant at times, but it’s not an all-out firestorm that wears you down after half its runtime. You could almost call it progressive, but you don’t get the impression that it’s being technical just for the sake of it.
Highlights: “Transmuting Chemical Burns” and “Coagulated Bliss”.
Hacavitz – Muerte
Genre: Black metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Murky, atmosphere-rich black metal that sounds like it’s coming through a fog as thick as soup. They’ve gone a little aboard with the echo-effects, but the riffs and tone hit the sweet spot.
Hellish Torment – Hellish Torment
Genre: Black metal
Subjective rating: 2.5/5
Objective rating: 2/5
A purposefully (I hope) helter-skelter black metal album that’s got the disorderly nature of grindcore and punk, and a bit of brutal death metal heaviness. It’s a bit of a mess.
Inter Arma – New Heaven
Genre: Experimental/sludge metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 4/5
For someone not familiar with this band, this is gonna be a difficult album to wrap one’s head around. It’s unsettling in its bleak tone and dissonant, violent attack, but in between all that it takes hard turns into territories of soulful, contemplative melody, proving that there are many facets to this band’s personality. There’s a lot of sludge in here, some black metal, a bit of doom, but none of it’s laid out in a predictable manner. A trip out of anyone’s comfort zone, for sure, and definitely in a purposeful way.
Highlight: “Desolation’s Harp”
Morgul Blade – Heavy Metal Wraiths
Genre: Heavy/black metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Full-on medieval fantasy from a ringwraith’s perspective. It’s got all the energy and melody of an epic heavy metal project, and added to that the sharp blade edge and dry snarls of black metal, with a rad guitar tone. The first half of the album is definitely the strongest, but there are cool moments littered across the whole thing.
Ou – 蘇醒 II: Frailty
Genre: Progressive metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 4/5
A wildly creative album that feels like it’s been born in some ethereal space up in the clouds. Particularly thanks to a truly outstanding vocal performance, the music has a shifting personality, that’s never outright hostile, but also far from balmy. Being co-produced by Devin Townsend, this definitely has his signature written all over it, which in itself is a stamp of quality, but also moors the whole thing in a very specific sonic territory.
Party Cannon – Injuries Are Inevitable
Genre: Death metal
Subjective rating: 2/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
From a purely subjective standpoint, the musical merit of this kind of stuff is pretty much completely lost on me. But if slamming brutality is your thing, there can be little doubt that you’re gonna get your fill here.
Exhumation – Master’s Personae
Genre: Blackened death metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
A very interesting and spirited blackened death project that incorporated some speed metal and a bit of sludge, for a chaotic experience that’s bound together by creepily mystical atmosphere.
Stormborn – Zenith
Genre: Power/heavy metal
Subjective rating: 2.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5
A project that combines the eager gallop of classic heavy metal with the high-reaching grandeur of power metal. At it’s best it’s epic fun, but it also har some moments where the harmony simply falls flat.
Tombstoner – Rot Stink Rip
Genre: Death metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
The band name and album art might lead you to think that this is gonna be a heavily stoner-leaning thing, but it’s really not. What you get is mostly old-school death metal mixed with a bit of hardcore and groove. What’s abundantly clear is that these guys dig their riffs, so when this rips, it really rips.
Vesperian Sorrow – Awaken The Greylight
Genre: Symphonic black metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
A majestic, frigid storm surge of a symphonic black metal album, unfortunately a little too uneven to leave a lasting impression, but certainly forceful enough to whish you away for a while.
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, why not pop a comment down below?
The Metal Dispatch 