Reviews of metal albums released January 31 – February 06
We’ve another week that’s on the verge of being overrun with violence and misery, but a few rays of riffy mood-boosters manage to balance it out.
Agenbite Misery – Remorse Of Conscience
Genre: Experimental black/death metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Review: This feels a bit like wandering into a mentally disturbed person’s dream. At times you’re just floating along, observing vaguely defined proceedings, and at times the subconscious takes notice of you and either sends out warnings in bursts of harshness or gives chase with hysterical anger. In the end, I find that too few of the slow buildups have a satisfying peak, and often deflate before realizing their full potential. But if you’re looking for a darkly offbeat dive into maddening, blackened death doom that both soothes and bites hard, then it will deliver.
Highlight: “Circe”
Ensanguinate – Death Saturnalia
Genre: Death/black metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Review: This Slovenian band dropped a solid, hard hitting debut of a blackened death metal album back in 2022, and I liked it quite a bit. It wasn’t what you’d call genre bending, but delivered strongly on conviction and forcefulness. On this follow-up they’ve partially set the death metal chugs aside in favor of loading on black metal venom. It sounds sharper, more sinister, eschewing low end heft and riff crunch for reverb and cutting tremolo. It’s a welcome style exploration for the band instead of simply making more of the same, although, at least to me, not with quite as consistent a result this time around. It pulls a bit from speed metal and gothic as well, and doesn’t seem to quite make up its mind about being an atmosphere-leaning, oppressive fiend or a rowdy, unholy rebel, not ending up as super convincing as either. Still, they do a lot of things right, and those caring a bit less about album consistency will likely find a good deal to like.
Highlight: “Gloaming” and “Angel of a Thousand Poisons”
Epinikion – The Force Of Nature
Genre: Symphonic metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Review: Dutch symphonic metal with a touch of melodeath-like folk flavor and heaviness. It doesn’t go overboard with neither the instrumental nor the vocal bombast, and doesn’t try to build a tower cake of layers in the production. It won’t blow your mind in terms of songwriting, but delivers both in terms of epic impact and dynamic melodic work, with solid performances and a good deal of pleasing riffs and solos to go with it.
Full House Brew Crew – Glasgow Grin
Genre: Groove metal
Subjective rating: 2.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Review: This deathcore-flirting heavy groove band is all about the beats. Harsh chugs and punishing rhythms are front and center, with actual groove taking more of a back seat role, although it’s certainly not missing altogether. It’s fairly nimble, aggressive and pretty catchy, but feels fairly hollow.
In Aeternum – …Of Death And Fire
Genre: Death/black metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Review: How about a blackened death metal sound that lets in a slight breeze of melodeath, but without most of the actual melody? In Aeternum is a Swedish band here releasing their debut full-length of highly aggressive, fairly stark, snarly and unholy-sounding death metal, built on classic riff styles and with a good deal of wailing solo work. It exudes menacing energy, but also has a slightly off-putting fascination with dissonance, breaking off ripping riff lines with plunges into disharmony, killing the groove and messing up the flow. If you’re into this kind of intentional ugliness, then no harm no foul. But if you want to get some headbanging done, then you might find it slightly disturbing.
Highlight: “Bow To None”
Induction – Love Kills!
Genre: Power metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Review: Extremely well-produced, 80’s leaning power metal blending superb vocals with smooth, full instrumentation for a massive dose of epic fun. There’s hardly a shred of originality to be found, and the lyrics are inane, but the synth work in particular is sublime and it scores high on style and consistency.
Karnivool – In Verses
Genre: Progressive metal/rock
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Review: Bursting with engaging, frail yet warmly supportive melody, carried on smooth, expertly controlled waves of winding rhythms, cushioning bass and impactful riffs, Karnivool returns with their first album in thirteen years. To those expecting soft melancholy first and intricate prog instrumentation and/or heaviness second, this should prove immensely rewarding. Personally I was hoping for a better balance between beauty and force, but much of the energy is burned off with the first three tracks, never really to return. Apart from this, it’s a sublime listening experience from start to finish.
Highlights: “Drone” and “Ghost”
Lomor – Sabouk Rouge
Genre: Thrash metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Review: Hailing from the French-owned island of Reunion, the remoteness of their origins doesn’t seem to have affected Lomor’s brand of thrash metal in any noteworthy way. This is all about the riffs, with a side of tastily rusty vocals. As tasty as the shredding might be, the spaces in between are lacking in substance, and the flow is impeded by less-than-smooth rhythm transitions. The anger and attitude is there though.
Mayhem – Liturgy Of Death
Genre: Black metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Review: This sounds like the distinctly un-theatrical theatre of death and disgust. Mayhem bring a surprising amount of drama on their seventh full-length, with accompanying sense of depth and scale. But unlike many other contemporaries that take black metal in a more expansive direction, they don’t for a second cross into caricature, nor do they really branch off from the trunk of the subgenre. You get influxes of frigid melody, symphonic grandeur and occult atmosphere, with bursts of fury approaching blackened death metal, but this is much less experimentation or any sort of departure from the core sound than it is expressing the same idea armed with a meticulously outfitted toolkit. It feels refined, which might not be in line with the band’s origins, but nor does it in any way feel blunted or overly polished. This is evil first and foremost, and convincingly so.
Highlights: “Weep for Nothing” and “Propitious Death”
Mors Verum – Canvas
Genre: Progressive death metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Review: Whether you want to call this a long EP or a short album, it offers more than enough twists and turns to leave a lasting impact. There is no straight path for the kind of death metal that Mors Verum plays. It scurries, pauses, charges and thrashes around in place and interestingly plays around, to great success, with both dissonance and melody. There is beauty, ugliness and engaging brutality in equal measure. It will poke at your brain with chaotic rhythms and instrumental wails just long enough to approach it being unbearable, and then quickly change it up for either controlled riffing or contemplative, sometimes almost meditative offshoots of relative calm. It doesn’t always feel fully purposeful, but showcases both excellent instrumental control and creativity.
Highlights: “Canvas” and “Your Apocalypse”
Night Of The Vampire – The Enchanting Winds Of The Dreamweaving Masquerade
Genre: Black/heavy metal/synthwave
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Review: Black metal fans in particular seem to love niche stuff, and this is certainly that. The really cool part is when this kind of weirdness actually makes sense, in that the blending of elements is complementary, resulting in not only a unique sound but one that both matches the thematic concept and is engaging, entertaining, or at least transportive as a musical experience. In this, Night of the Vampire’s mix of black metal vocals, catchy hard rock/heavy metal biker bar riffs and gothic synth melodies and atmosphere works very well. Once your brain adjusts and you’re able to take it for what it is, all of it makes complete sense. I will say that there are parts and moods that feel repeated and stretched out unnecessarily, but I nonetheless applaud the investment into this very peculiar style.
Highlights: “Chasing Shadows in an Ocean of Time” and “Mother Moon of the Astral Dawn”
Paganizer – As Mankind Rots
Genre: Death metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Review: It’s a new year and the Rogga Johansson train keeps chugging on. At this point in the rotation it’s time for old school Swedish, quasi-melodic death metal project Paganizer to deliver, and for already established fans of this kind of sound, meaning specifically those that can’t get enough of it, the Swedes do, indeed, deliver. It’s tight, crusty, well-produced and with just the right kind of death ‘n’ roll attitude. But other than being more corpse-garnished food for the ever-hungering morbid masses, I don’t know that there’s much purpose to this album. It sounds more or less exactly like dozens of its ilk, isn’t stupidly fun or exciting, and has a few less-than-impressive performances. I like it because it sounds more exactly the way I would hope it to, but objectively that’s not a massive feat to be rewarded.
Highlight: “Eon of Obscenity”
Phendrana – Cathexis
Genre: Progressive/atmospheric black metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Review: A four-track album with increasing runtimes, this is not for those seeking instant gratification, at least not in the black metal department. There’s a lot of folk-like, moody melody to before and in between, but luckily it’s a treat to listen to – serene and moving. When the harshness kicks in it’s direct and in line with the feel that’s been built up, although I’d say that the more dissonant prog twists and turns it gets into is unnecessarily off-putting. It gets into its stride about halfway through the album, which might be too late for some, but the following blend of anger and melancholy is one to be savored.
Highlight: “Sentience”
Sleeping Giant – The Beauty Of Obliteration
Genre: Stoner/sludge metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Review: A growling, fun-loving stoner doom project out of Iceland that’s much more forward-leaning into catchy grooves and driving rhythms than the bent-over, smoking orc on the album cover might lead you to expect. Every track on this fairly short album is entertaining in its own right, with approaches varying between slightly dragging stomps up to full on thrash gallops. There’s a bit of repetition to be found, and it’s not what I’d call inventive, but it’s a real good time with a punchy low end and great energy.
Highlight: “Slay the King of Hell”
Tailgunner – Midnight Blitz
Genre: Heavy metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Review: So it only took the two and a half years leading up to their second album for Tailgunner to grow their sound big, mostly ditching their slightly scruffy NWONHM charm behind to soar beyond the turbulent storm clouds into the blue skies and start dropping ballads like big squishy bombs of cheese. Oh-oh, sounds like the start of a scathing review, right? Well, although I do feel like a good bit of character and fitting roughness has been lost, and even though a lot of these new tracks seem to insist that they should be sad for some reason, this is, at the end of the day, still very fun and entertaining heavy metal with lots of cool riffs and solos, power metal bombast and thrash efficiency. Job done, right? Yes and no. It takes a bit more absent-mindedness now to ignore the silly lyrics, but it’s definitely more varied, and delivers in terms of performances and theme.
Highlight: “Blood Sacrifice”
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?
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