A well-balanced mix of temperaments this week, lacking the heavy hitters but allowing for a sampling of different styles.
Anubis – The Unforgivable
Genre: Progressive metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Al album that goes from drifting around aimlessly in gentle currents of warm melody, to running into rapids of impossible physics.
Black Sites – The Promised Land?
Genre: Heavy/progressive metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
In essence, this is chugging, slightly gritty heavy metal with a light layer of dreamy melody, that every now and then decides to break out of the conventional, and take on a bit of a David Bowie-like vibe. Harmony-wise it’s not always a bullseye, but it’s distinct.
Black Sun – Black Sun
Genre: Heavy metal
Subjective rating: 2.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5
This has that Accept-like quality of hard rock amped-up to metal heaviness, and introducing some typical Finnish melodic affinity.
Blackstaff – The Storyteller
Genre: Doom/black metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
A blackened doom project with the abrasiveness of sludge, it makes its home in a dark, cavernous domain of grim fantastical elements.
Blitzkrieg – Blitzkrieg
Genre: Heavy metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
A NWOBHM-style band that has stuck firm to its path. The production is nice and rich, highlighting all the right elements. It’s an instrumentally driven sound, with a very fitting vocal quality, so you’re left with just the right feeling.
Castle – Evil Remains
Genre: Heavy/doom metal
Subjective rating: 2.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Evil Remains plays old school doom with a riff-driven heavy-metal-style mid-tempo that’s highly headband-able. The instrumental production is just right, and paints a gritty graveyard scene, while the vocals are more debatable. For me, they’re simply too detached from the groove and melody.
God Dethroned – The Judas Paradox
Genre: Death/black metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Demon-possessed death metal all the way, God Dethroned delivers a consistent package of darkly melodic, snarly heaviness. For those with the inclination to stay with it, the album offers up some solid sections of aggressive, catchy riffing and infectious hate-energy. The rest will probably be turned off by the repetitiveness of the thing.
Heinous Exsanguination – The Stench of Decaying Flesh
Genre: Brutal death metal
Subjective rating: 2/5
Objective rating: 2.5/5
This sounds like exactly the same repugnant, gurgly mass of a riff and tone base divided into sections with slightly different drum patterns to differentiate them.
Infrared – Mainfestation
Genre: Thrash metal
Subjective rating: 2.5/5
Objective rating: 2/5
Old school thrash that unfortunately lacks drive and coherency in their songwriting.
Killing Of A Sacred Deer – Killing Of A Sacred Deer
Genre: Deathcore/grindcore
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
An incredibly violent piece of grindy deathcore, like a little box with a world war compressed into it. The drums snap like gunshots, and bass beats land like detonations. If you’re into this sort of sonic punishment, it’ll beat you till you love it. If not… well… it’s less than 15 minutes long.
Misanthropia – Envy The Dead
Genre: Black/death metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
A band opting for an agile and sharper variant of the black/death combination, taking a few elements from the likes of Cradle of Filth, but wit no symphonic elements. Melodically, it’s a bit stumped, and has some work to do with creating a good flow, but it’s a promising start.
Mutant Blast – Soulsteeler
Genre: Thrash metal
Subjective rating: 2.5/5
Objective rating: 2.5/5
Groove-centered thrash with a good crunch and a good ear for catchy riffs. But melodically it’s dry as a desert tomb.
Officium Triste – Hortus Venenum
Genre: Doom/melodic death metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Let’s listen to this old tale of the forest, detailing loss and woes, the inevitable change of passing years, and old, dusty grandeur. It’s heavy, harsh doom with folk-like epic-melancholy melody that sits with you for a while after it’s played. It doesn’t do anything overly remarkable or new, but lets you sink into a world of dark, enveloping, and strangely uplifting currents.
Highlight: “Forcefield”
PeelingFlesh – The G Code
Genre: Death metal/hardcore
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Slamming brutal death metal with the distinct, stompy delivery and street-gritty delivery of hardcore. It’s very well produced, hitting with thunderous force and frightening precision, and creating a well-defined sonic soundscape for itself with the mixed-in samples and turntable elements.
Serotonin – Motiv
Genre: Black/sludge metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
A form of sludgy black metal that seems infused with the whispers of hidden history and forgotten knowledge. It’s not a slow or particularly atmospheric piece, but it has a tonal quality, and elements of mellow, melancholic folk melody, that places it on a shelf of its own.
Highlight: “Garrote in D”
A Swarm Of The Sun – An Empire
Genre: Doom/progressive metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5
A small cosmos of its own, of melodies swirling in spiral patterns – from eternally slow to a churning torrent. This thing builds so well, and feels majestically cinematic in scope, whether it’s doing understated ambience or soaring waves of fully involved outbursts. It’s a soundscape to get utterly lost in, feeling like you need a lifeline in order to find your way out again.
Highlights: “Heathen” and “The Pyre”
Vestige – Janis
Genre: Avant-garde sludge/progressive metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
An atmosphere-rich mix of sludge, prog, metalcore and a few other influences with clear artistic ambitions. The production wraps everything in a weird, balmy cocoon that feels a bit like everything’s been softly padded. The harshest elements still strike through, but the melody could use some more definition.
Vølus – Merciful The Dying Light
Genre: Death/black metal
Subjective rating: 2/5
Objective rating: 2/5
Taking blackened death metal to a near-comically harsh and simple place.
Wolfheart – Draconian Darkness
Genre: Melodic death metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 2.5/5
Solidly performed Finnish melodeath with some classic, catchy grooves. On the minus side, it’s lacking real force, and does very little new.
Zeit der Dunkelheit – Die Letzten Tage
Genre: Folk/black metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
A clearly schizophrenic mix of black metal and really rather upbeat folk. The folk goes “dance and frolic all night!” the black metal goes “I HATE YOU”. Then some seriously bombastic interlude kicks in, then some more dancing, then it slumps into bitter, doomy melancholy. It’s entertaining, but wildly inconsistent.
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 