Hardcore comes in swinging with barbed wire-wrapped fists this week, outmaneuvering a host of prog and death metal releases with its sheer brazenness, but also joining forces, to great effect.
Ad Patres – Unbreathable
Genre: Death metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Modern death metal that’s big on groove, with a mildly brutal-styled vocal approach and precise technicality, without losing sight of the simple, satisfying riff.
Brazen Tongue – Of Crackling Embers & Sorrows Drowned
Genre: Melodic death/doom metal
Subjective rating: 2.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Melodeath that gives you both thrashy agility as well as doomy sluggishness, interlayed with what appears to be intentional disharmony, which never really gets a poperly satisfying counterpoint.
Blynd – Unbeliever
Genre: Thrash/melodic death metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 2.5/5
Crisp and chugging, thrash-paced death metal with a simple, marching folk metal-like rhythm approach. It’s not the most dynamic stuff you’ll ever hear, but it’s groovy.
Candy – It’s Inside You
Genre: Hardcore/industrial metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
You gotta applaud a band that manages to make utilizing a bunch of different influences into a really good time, and not a stumbling mess. This is metallic, slamming hardcore for sure, but in here is a good bit of industrial, death and nu metal, as well as some pure electronica, all served up in a collection of mostly bite-sized songs. It’s heavy, it’s varied, it’s distinct.
Cruce Signatus – Cruce Signatus
Genre: Electronic heavy metal/darkwave
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5
I’m not a particular fan of straight up darkwave, but this is a lot of fun. Modeled around classic heavy metal, with some good chugs to it, this sounds like a proper adventure. It takes a good while to build up, and might have benefited from a format featuring more and shorter songs.
Darko (US) – Starfire
Genre: Experimental deathcore
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Heavily electronica-infused, percussive deathcore with a sharply split personality dropping in and out of brutal chugs, urban ambient sounds, anthemic synth and calm, pop-leaning melodic sections. It’s entertainingly chaotic, but fairly bloated at 1hr 11min runtime.
Deathwish – The Fourth Horseman
Genre: Hardcore/thrash metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Up for some punky hardcore with strong rock ‘n roll vibes and some enthusiastic thrash shredding? If this description brings to mind Motörhead, then you’re on the right track, certainly if you focus on their early material. This is fast and loose stuff, but certainly not without coherence. You sense that there was very little doubt involved with this project, as it seems to exude a very “no way but forward”-attitude.
Evergrey – Theories Of Emptiness
Genre: Progressive/power metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
This is the sound of a highly accomplished band flexing its muscles. Production wise this is on point, and the blend of mild, melodic prog and anthemic power metal done confidently and tastefully, as you would expect. Big focus on earworm-y choruses, to a dominating degree, but it does make the songs memorable.
From A Nightmare – Doom State
Genre: Groove metal/metalcore
Subjective rating: 2.5/5
Objective rating: 2/5
Working with some catchy beats and nice aggression, this unfortunately falls pretty flat as far as songwriting and band interplay goes.
Grand Demise Of Civilization – The Blaze Of Abaddon
Genre: Black metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Minnesotan black metal with a darkly majestic quality to it, telling tales of forbidden castles and creatures of the night. The atmosphere is on point, as is the slightly muted production.
Hippotraktor – Stasis
Genre: Progressive metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 4/5
This is a very mature-sounding, djent-powered prog metal album. It wastes no time setting the tone for a sober, moody soundscape, and doesn’t really stray from it for the duration. But rather than feeling limited in scope, it goes on to prove just how much it can stretch and bend the nuances of its musical realm, going from nervous, testing trickles to roaring pounces, and a whole bunch of shades in between. Very solid.
Highlight: “Renegade”
Holy Mother – Rise
Genre: Heavy/power metal
Subjective rating: 2.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Fusing a kind of 80s hard rock style with some 90s electronic elements and power metal grandeur, this certainly speaks to its crowd, although it could do with some more dynamic rhythms.
Holycide – Towards Idiocracy
Genre: Thrash metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Supremely shreddy thrash that’s all about those speed riffs. It could probably do with some more mid-tempo grooves, but if they’re in a hurry, then they’re in a hurry. The style is well practiced, to the point where it’s not terribly distinctive, but still rad.
Huntsmen – The Dry Land
Genre: Doom/sludge metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 4/5
I put the doom in front of the sludge in the description here, mainly due to how the pacing and mood feels overall. In the parts where the band is fully, technically engaged we are definitely talking more melodic/progressive sludge, but take a slice out of a random section of this album and you could end up with everything from ambient folk and americana to atmospheric black metal. You really have to apply patience to this one, as the buildups typically are several minutes long, but the overall vision for the album is both ambitious and expertly executed.
Highlight: “In Time, All Things”
Insect Ark – Raw Blood Singing
Genre: Atmospheric doom metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
This feels like a sonic manifestation of dark, disturbed thoughts, working their way step by step into the abyss. It takes shape as shoegaze-y doom, not really blackened, but adding avant-garde musical elements as flavors to steer the experience in new, sometimes very temporary directions.
Intranced – Muerte Y Metal
Genre: Heavy metal/hard rock
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
No, this is not a pure “metal-appreciation” party thrash record, but a love letter to the genre it is indeed. Walking the knife’s edge of faithfully retro-styled, over an ocean of copycats surfing on past glory, this one captures the essence of its inspirations spot-on, and decides to use it for good. They sail pretty confidently into the anthemic territories where their influences would have been accused of “selling out”, but mostly this feels vibrant, creative and perfectly balanced between considered and intuitive.
Mythraeum – Oblivion Aeternam
Genre: Melodic black metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 2.5/5
Leading with a dark medieval theme that unfortunately only partially comes through on the rest of the album, this is epic-tinged black metal that got the right idea concept wise, but has some work to do sharpening the band interplay.
Nightmare – Encrypted
Genre: Power/melodic death metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Big, pop-oriented melodies ascend into the heavens on power metal clouds powered by thundering, modern melodeath engines. It’s really catchy, though not original at all.
Noroth – Sacrificial Solace
Genre: Death metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Damn, this band’s album art is rad. They get 1/2 a point just for that. The music is unfortunately a bit predictable, cavernous death metal. It’s got just the right production, some really heavy rhythms and evil oozing out of its every orifice. I just wished they would allow some of those killers riffs to shine through a bit more.
Odio Deus – Spiritual Syphilis
Genre: Black/death metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 2.5/5
A heavy, threatening, death-backed album that turns progressively more into pure black metal the further in you go. Lots of good stuff on here, but the performances and mixing are fairly messy throughout.
Okular – Regenerate
Genre: Progressive/melodic death metal
Subjective rating: 2/5
Objective rating: 2/5
This project clearly tries to be as unpredictable as possible both in its approach to rhythms and melodies, but it simply does not work out that well.
The Omnific – The Law of Augmenting Returns
Genre: Progressive metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Bass! No, not in the booming, floor-shaking sense, but in the sense that brings no less than a pair of the instruments to the very fore of the experience, and appoints two sets of highly acrobatic fingers to play them. It’s an instrumental record, highly technical and vibrantly synth-melodic, definitely one for the prog nerds, but if you’ve got any sense of fun and/or wonder in regards to musical performances, you’ll be greatly entertained by this.
Ordalie – Indifferent Universe
Genre: Atmospheric black metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
As cosmic black metal goes, this is certainly not the most far out there, and that might be its main problem. The black metal parts are solid, but the scope feels a bit stunted.
Sect – Plagues Upon Plagues
Genre: Hardcore/sludge metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
This album feels like an exercise in delivering disgust and outrage in as considered a way as possible, without losing sight of the message or the core sensation of those underlying feelings. This is metallic hardcore taking detours into both metalcore and sludge, delivering raspy aggression, heavy gut-punches and surprisingly contemplative calmer sections.
Severe Torture – Torn From The Jaws Of Death
Genre: Death metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
The very essence of death metal haunts this album like a malign spirit, creeping into every facet of the band’s performances. Personally I feel like I’ve heard too much of this album before, but for fans of this kind of old school-leaning, no-nonsense death metal it delivers in spades.
Swelling Repulsion – Fatally Misguided
Genre: Experimental/melodic death metal
Subjective rating: 2/5
Objective rating: 2.5/5
This one falls on the wrong side of trying to find out how unruly you can make your rhythm approach before it becomes unlistenable, but has some pretty cool, groove-leaning playing underneath.
Titan – Forced Worship
Genre: Death/thrash metal
Subjective rating: 2.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Think Vader, but more overtly thrash-leaning, and you should have a good idea of the sound of this one. The production is quite muddled, which could, at least partially, be the point, but a crisper, crunchier sound might have brought out some welcome technical and melodic details.
Umbra Vitae – Light Of Death
Genre: Hardcore/death metal
Subjective rating: 4.5/5
Objective rating: 4/5
This album feels like a relentless, murderous spirit constantly trying new angles of attack, striking with both lethal precision and wild abandon, leaving absolute desolation in its wake. Every part of the performances is a weapon ready to discharge as soon as one of the others let up, and yet this is not some chaotic cacophony devoid of rhyme or reason. There is crystal clear intent, and just enough restraint to allow for tense, prowling melodic sections, distracting you as the pressure builds for the next outburst.
Highlights: “Belief Is Obsolete” and “Twenty-Twenty Vision”.
Vomit The Soul – Massive Incineration
Genre: Death metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Brutal death metal that’s got some surprisingly nifty rhythm ideas. Slightly hampered by a mix that muffles all but the vocals, this is still a massive slab of solid, thunderous riffage.
Withering Surface – Exit Plan
Genre: Melodic death metal
Subjective rating: 4.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
This is old school melodeath with a characteristically mellow melodic approach. It reminds me a lot of In Flames’ “Clayman”, in that it knows how to have fun and play around within the confines of the subgenre without feeling the need to get overly technical or progressive, and relying on the strength of its subjective style to lend it the distinction it needs in order to stand out. Some raw force, which might have given it a more powerful impact, is sacrificed in favor of a classic-metal-esque upbeat riff- and rhythm approach that carries the melodies along through every part of the songs, in a way that brings to mind the likes of Children of Bodom. It’s quirky, and just speaks to my taste in so many ways.
Highlights: “Finish What You Started” and “I Finally Lost – All Faith In Humanity”.
WyndRider – Revival
Genre: Stoner rock/doom metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Stoner doom that sounds like it’s emanating from a hollow log. It’s got groove in truckloads, and oozes cool, but could have done more with the majority of its songs.
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 