We’re out of the slump! For real, this week means business, going big on drama and sheer malevolent force.
All For Metal – Gods Of Metal
Genre: Power metal
Subjective rating: 1/5
Objective rating: 2/5
Cheese on cheese on cheese on cheese on cheese on cheese…
Alleviate – DMNS
Genre: Metalcore
Subjective rating: 2/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Heavy djent crunches on top of typical metalcore rhythms, added some squeals and dual clean/harsh vocals.
Buryfication – Gallows Rise
Genre: Death/black metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 2.5/5
A morbid whirlwind of a blackened death metal project out of Finland, with some great trash riffing in the vein of Vader. Unfortunately, the production is not great, robbing it of a lot of power, and it doesn’t help that the song compositions are a little messy.
Carmeria – Tragédie D’amour
Genre: Symphonic power/gothic metal
Subjective rating: 2.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5
A well balanced mix of earworm melodies, vibrant guitar work and excellent vocal performances, both clean and harsh. What drags it down for me is uninspired rhythm work and too many ballads on what would already be a pretty sappy album.
Chained Saint – Blindside
Genre: Thrash metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Back-to-basics, old school thrash metal in the vein of early Anthrax and Exodus. The best part of this is the energy, followed by the relative simplicity – not necessarily in the performances, but the layering of the different musical elements.
Dampf – No Angels Alive
Genre: Power metal
Subjective rating: 2.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Bombastic, thickly produced power metal with classic, arena friendly folk metal elements. It’s got some rousing melodies and cool solo work, but keep leaning heavily on frustratingly simple rhythms and structures.
Demiser – Slave To The Scythe
Genre: Thrash/black metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
There’s no end to the fuel being poured on this fire. Demiser delivers blackened thrash metal in that aggressively diabolical fashion, rather than going down the cold and husky tonal path. There is a tendency for the riff style and tempos to take strong cues from speed metal, which certainly keeps the motor running, but on some early tracks, this “speed racer” influence makes for a significantly less forceful output. This is, however, quickly regained, and the album finishes off very solidly.
Highlight: “Total Demise”
Fleshgod Apocalypse – Opera
Genre: Symphonic death metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Welcome back to the masters of extreme drama! For their first album with a permanent, female clean vocalist, Fleshgod Apocalypse goes big on the grandeur, serving the album name well. As a result, “Opera” can feel a bit more generic for the subgenre of symphonic death metal, and the fact that they front load the album with the three single-tracks certainly helps to reinforce this feeling, at least for the first half of the listening experience. But, very importantly, the fury and technical savagery that the band is renowned for is very much still front and center, and you can’t help but be awed by the blast wave of force they deliver again and again throughout. Couple this with the fact that the songs get more playful and unpredictable from the middle on, and you’ve got the best of both the “safe” and the more exploratory.
Highlights: “Morphine Waltz” and “Pendulum”.
Generation Of Vipers – Guilt Shrine
Genre: Sludge metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
This is sludge with the kind of vibe that makes you feel bad for being in a good mood. Using elements of doom, and progressive rhythm structures, it seems almost like the music struggles its way forward. That’s not to say that the flow is bad. It’s tied together with some excellent dark atmosphere and has a great, crunchy riff engine to keep it going.
Highlight: “Lux Inversion”
Koldbrann – Ingen Skansel
Genre: Black metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Classic, misanthropic black metal out of Norway. It scores low on distinctiveness, but delivers enough hissing aggression, cold tremolo and pummeling double bass to win over most any black metal fan.
My Fictions – Touch Of Glass
Genre: Metalcore/hardcore
Subjective rating: 2.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5
A downer of an emotionally laden, disharmonic metal/hardcore album. It feels like an uphill struggle on repeat – scaling a different metaphorical hill for each song.
Nile – The Underworld Awaits Us All
Genre: Death metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Are you ready to face, quite possibly, the busiest drums in death metal? Even for technical death metal, the ferocity of this is quite intimidating, especially because Nile employs a much more raw-sounding, old-school tone than a lot of modern peers. What they do share though, is a tendency to prioritize the technical performances over memorable hooks and melodies. The result is a raging firestorm, like a darkly divine retribution, the purpose is to leave the earth a scorched wasteland.
Highlight: “To Strike With Secret Fang”
Paralydium – Universe Calls
Genre: Progressive metal
Subjective rating: 2.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Classic, melodic prog metal that delves into a far-removed, fantastical realm where it creates a stage for itself to perform its vibrant instrumental acrobatics.
Simone Simons – Vermillion
Genre: Symphonic metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
On this solo album, Epica’s Simone Simons collaborates with Ayreon for a slightly restrained, yet still highly dramatic concept that involves mildly progressive instrumental work, a completely dominant focus on melody, and, naturally, ample space for vocal extravagance.
Spectral Wound – Songs Of Blood And Mire
Genre: Black metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Layering an avalanche of punishing drums with fiendish vocals and guitar-driven melodies that seem to simultaneously lament and hurl hateful accusations towards the sky, Spectral wound have found a solid path leading out from the core of classic black metal. They manage to simultaneously sound like vicious witchcraft and youthful rebellion, which lends enough depth for the album to be both entertaining and immersive.
Highlights: “Aristocratic Suicidal Black Metal” and “A Coin Upon the Tongue”
Within The Ruins – Phenomena II
Genre: Deathcore
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
If there’s one thing this album succeeds in doing, it’s being playful. There’s so much going on with the effect-laden guitars and spastic drums, you can’t help but sit back and grin, while also shaking your head a bit in disbelief. What doesn’t work so well is the way this cheerful instrumental approach mixes with the (clearly meant to be) furious vocals and low-tuned, wanting-to-be-threatening riffs.
Zeal & Ardor – Greif
Genre: Avant-garde/experimental metal/rock
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 4/5
This is an album that needs to connect to you on a personal level. Devoid of conventions, it’s not what you’d call inaccessible, but neither is it actively trying to make you stay. Doing its own thing, weaving into, out of and between metal, rock and folk, it is its own entity, hardly even throwing a glance in your direction, leaving it entirely up to you to find out if your sensibilities are going to end up matching. Some might take this as indifference, some even low-effort, but I can’t fault the artistic integrity.
Highlight: “Hide in Shade”
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 