A week where the heavy and complex goes toe to toe with the more easily accessible.
AntropomorphiA – Devoid of Light
Genre: Death/black metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Dark, sinister death metal from the Netherlands that moves at a confident mid-pace, calling for you to join it in the catacombs.
Blood Monolith – The Calling Of Fire
Genre: Death metal/grindcore
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5
This feels like the full force of the primal savagery behind all death metal unleashed, and further boosted by the ferocity of grindcore. Yes, it can be a bit overwhelming at times, but beneath the storm-whipped, turbulent surface grinds a steady wheel, steering the onslaught in a controlled direction. There’s an otherness to the tone, and meagre hints of melody that give the whole thing a slightly disconnected, unpredictable feel. If you can cope with the distressing nature of it, you might find it quite refreshing. It’s like a touch of industrial, but without the machine-like approach. It’s massively heavy, brutal in a non-caricatured way, and impressively constructed.
Highlights: “Prayer to Crom” and “Slaughter Garden”.
Confessions Of A Traitor – This Pain Will Serve You
Genre: Metalcore
Subjective rating: 2.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Distinctly modern metalcore out of the UK, going big and aggressive, but not overboard with effects or production. The riffs have some punch, and the melodies meld well with the harshness. The vocals are dynamic, and overall they seem very confident in their style. The main issue is that they seem to habitually coast along on unengaging, mid-tempo rhythms, which gives the album a slightly uninspired feel.
Death Whore – Blood Washes Everything Away
Genre: Death metal/crust punk
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Get ready for some real ear defilement. Death Whore is a French band that dresses crust punk in a thick layer of noise-tinged death metal, and seem poised to shake any stage apart with their monstrous, rumbling low end. The cool thing is that the rhythms are quite easy to follow, so you can headbang, jump and stomp your way through the whole goddamn thing. There’s a glimmer of levity beneath the brutality, which makes it all the more engaging, and allows you to accept it for not being all that conceptually fleshed out.
Highlight: “Infernal Terror Machine”
Détresse – Pessimismes
Genre: Black metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Primitive and slightly thin, but not underproduced black metal with a medieval vibe. The tone has a tragic tinge to it, and the snarling vocals sound bitter in a mildly theatrical fashion. In short, it does a lot of things right, but very little new.
Drouth – The Teeth Of Time
Genre: Black/death metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4.5/5
If you find the black/death combo to have grown a little stale and predictable of late, then allow this album the opportunity to change your mind, ’cause it will. It certainly lands more firmly on the black metal side, which is echoed in the ever so slightly (and intentionally) muddled production. But this is by no means a “trve cvlt” sort of traditional-leaning thing. It has an adventurous and daring spirit to it, like the feeling you get from great epic doom and conceptually solid prog metal, and without borrowing any of the technical tropes. The riffs are more often on the heavy, grinding death metal end rather than the cold and sharp one, and there is real force to the bass. The drum work is quite active, but easily stands on the engagingly diverse side rather than being overly precise and distracting. A release that deserves a lot of listens to properly take it in. And the album art is simply fantastic.
Highlights: “The Teeth of Time” and “False Grail”
Executionist – Sacrament Of The Sick
Genre: Thrash/death metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 2.5/5
With a sound best describes as a precise series of swift dagger strikes, this is technically sharp thrash metal with a bit of death viciousness. The melodies fall a little flat, it’s far too long and the vocals aren’t exactly dynamic, but they’ve got an infectiously aggressive energy.
Genune – Infinite Presence
Genre: Atmospheric black metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Romanian atmospheric black metal that flies through bitter, stabbing hail showers as well as peaceful, sun-bathed breaks in the cloud cover. The music is guided by subtle melody that manages to be both melancholy and comforting.
Gigafauna – Eye To Windward
Genre: Progressive metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
With this album, Swedish band Gigafauna try to be a lot of things at the same time, and casually transition between its different personalities whenever they please. Calling it progressive doesn’t quite cut it, and it’s not as experimental as it is a not-so-well organized potpourri of different influences, like Mastodon, Gojira and a few others. It’s fascinating in its variety, and not terribly executed, but lacks a clear vision.
LarcɆnia RoɆ – Extraction
Genre: Deathcore/brutal death metal
Subjective rating: 2.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
This is the sonic equivalent of stupidly vicious, power drill torture porn. It’s a bludgeoning mass of downtuned djent-riffs, animalistic vocals, ping-snare, a nightmarish tone and breakdowns. To me, it’s all the excessive brutality with none of the horror.
Highlights: “Desolation Hexx” and “Foeman’s Flesh”
No Raza – Tyrona
Genre: Melodic death metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
This band is originally from Colombia, and through its melodic modern death metal they spin tales of South American history and the current day repercussions. It’s technically tight and vigorous, if perhaps a tad too slick.
Pandemia – Darkened Devotion
Genre: Death metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
It’s the first album in ten years for these Czech veterans, and while they don’t sound “modern”, they do sound up to date. This is tight, hard-hitting death metal with old school-ish leanings. The production allows for a great deal of force, and they do the darkly majestic tone quite well. There is not much in the way of distinctiveness, but it’s solid stuff.
Pridian – Venetian Dark
Genre: Metalcore
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Rhythmic, energetic metalcore out of Estonia that employ cinematic melodies. The vocals have great variety and range, and their groove tendencies remind me of Bleed From within.
Slow Fall – Blood Eclipse
Genre: Melodic groove metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
A typically melodic Finnish project that falls somewhere in between groove, melodeath, metalcore and plain modern metal. It goes big and small, slow and fast, violent and careful. At its best it’s a sound to get lost in, and for more casual listeners it should work very well as an introduction into the heavier side of the metal spectrum.
Wounded Touch – A Vivid Depiction Of Collapse
Genre: Mathcore/metalcore
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Wounded Touch bring a confident, refined mix of moderate mathcore and non-melodic metalcore into something that manages to convey emotional depth while for the absolute most part going harsh and heavy. It’s rhythmically driven, yet kept from going stale or repetitive by impressively varied and beautifully transitioning drum work. It’s light on its feel, going for hardcore-levels of heaviness, with a rewarding complexity to the song structures.
Highlight: “The Damning Variable”
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 