Reviews of metal albums released February 07 – February 13
Considering the date, horror, gloom and dark fantasy all accompany an appropriately high number of this week’s releases.
Ashbringer – Subglacial
Genre: Atmospheric black metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Review: Minnesotan sad, sad atmo-black metal band Ashbringer are unloading another collection of melodically devastating, depressive bitterness, this time eschewing clean vocals and going hard on the aggression as a contrast to the serenely flowing atmosphere. There’s plenty to get lost in, and the balance of intensity works very well. Too bad I, personally, can’t get past the (probably intentionally) awful production.
Highlight: “Subglacial”
Converge – Love Is Not Enough
Genre: Metallic hardcore/mathcore
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Review: Veteran bands wondering how to sound vital 30 years into their career should take notes from Converge. The energy level on “Love Is Not Enough” is fully on par with more fresh-faced peers, and while the album doesn’t set out to establish any new stylistic paths or show the band from any revelatory new angles, it’s an impressively well-balanced mix of menacing grooves and in-your-face harshness. That being said, I wouldn’t say that it excels at neither mosh-friendliness nor math-y complexity, and leaves a few gaps where it seems slightly unwilling to fully commit to either. Still, a very solid release.
Highlights: “Force Meets Presence” and “Bad Faith”
Eye Of Purgatory – Darkborne
Genre: Death metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Review: Soon it’ll be more helpful pointing out the Swedish OSDM bands that don’t have Rogga Johansson contributing than doing the whole “Rogga… again?!”-acting-surprised-at-his-inhuman-productivity-thing. Here he’s working with a couple of Americans to make some appropriately spooky stuff for Friday the 13th. It’s riff-driven, fairly high tempo death metal stuffed with horror-movie synth, both as atmosphere and driving melody, and propelled by some distinctly light-footed drum work. It’s nothing hugely out of the ordinary, but is just the right degree of flippant and retro-oriented to allow for a whole heap of fun. Could’ve needed some more punch in the low end, but it’s not a glaring deficiency.
Highlights: “The Slithering” and “Formless Figures Dance”
Fossilization – Advent Of Wounds
Genre: Death/doom metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Review: If I was to describe the effect of this album in one word, it would be “imposing”. This is slow-moving, abyssal-toned death metal whose rumbling presence seems to destabilize your spine to have you slither across the floor in supplication. It’s plenty ominous and consistently dark and oppressive, although not overly unsettling. The band would seemingly rather have you filled with awe than outright unease. The progression feels controlled and gradual, although certainly not missing heft or brutality. The production is excellent, and the only real things I find myself missing is bigger contrasts in mood and intensity.
Highlights: “Servo” and “Cremation of a Seraph”
Frostmorner – Orbital Kaos
Genre: Death/black metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Review: Space-horror blackened death metal with modern, chunky chugs, a bit of prog otherness, and very sparse, spooky vocal work mostly half-lost in the atmosphere. It’s interesting enough as a concept, with a cool meld of sinister riffing and spacey synth, but ends up lacking in impactful songwriting.
Frozen Ocean – Askdrömmar
Genre: Atmospheric black metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Review: Moody-melodied, Swedish atmo-black metal that adds some spacey electronica elements for a sense of otherworldliness to its otherwise fairly grounded approach of straightforward rhythms and classic, snarly harshness. Well crafted and fairly distinct, but feeling a bit repetitive.
Greyhawk – Warriors Of Greyhawk
Genre: Power/heavy metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Review: Adventure time! This is the kind of album that instantly triggers that childish, starry-eyed, stick-fencing dreamer in you. Greyhawk returns with a new vocalist on their third full-length, and certainly doesn’t come out lacking in that department. Be it fist-pumping battle charges or clifftop serenades to the heavens, the energy of the moment is perfectly matched by the vocals. The playing is tightly performed, vibrant, solo loving and suitably epic, grounded by 80s heavy metal riffs the likes of Accept. It’s obviously not meant to be serious, but is so competently performed, varied and highly enjoyable that it sort of demands your attention. The album starts off very strong, and even though it doesn’t quite keep that up for the entirety of the perhaps over-long runtime, I’d say there are no noteworthy missteps on here.
Highlights: “Ascension” and “Warriors of Greyhawk”
Overtoun – Death Drive Anthropology
Genre: Experimental death/thrash metal
Subjective rating: 4.5/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Review: This thing is not quite like anything I’ve ever heard before, and that in itself is pretty exciting. The fact that they’re using death and thrash as the base ingredients for their bold, style-melding experimentation is a further endearing factor in my book, and the choice of stretching conventionality pretty far, but not all the way to the breaking point, has resulted in an album that, although a bit uneven, will catch you off guard more than a few times, while also allow you to enjoy yourself. You get a punk-y disdain for rules, with a jazz-y, prog-y attitude to rhythm-, melodic- and mood shifts, adding a thrash- and hardcore-derived love for crisp beats and riffs and a splash of death metal savagery on top of that. In between are traces of black metal, and an overall strong influx of traditional Latin American music. The album flow does suffer a bit from all this stylistic wriggling, but there’s also clearly some strong ideas behind it all, with each track serving a different purpose. Takes a bit to get used to, but in the end I find myself loving it exactly because it’s a bit of a hodgepodge.
Highlights: “Death Drive Anthropology” and “Dur Khrod”
Ponte Del Diavolo – De Venom Natura
Genre: Doom/black metal/punk
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Review: This Italian band quickly won me over with their debut album “Fire Blades From The Tomb”. It took the slightly tongue-in-cheek occultism of early Ghost and took it to a gloomy, forbidden place, infusing it with black metal chilliness, but keeping the classic doom pace and relative accessibility. On their sophomore release, Ponte Del Diavolo have refined their sound, cleaned up their production and boosted the punk tendencies that were also present on the debut. The downside is that it simply doesn’t sound as mystical or shady as before, but on the plus side it’s got a wider range and stronger sonic impact, with most of the occult vibe still intact, now with a slightly more gothic flavor. The first two thirds of the album are really strong, then it feels like they ran a bit low on new tricks towards the end. Still, this is a band that still very much understands what makes them unique, and probably trying to nudge themselves ever so slightly closer to the spotlight without fully abandoning the shadows.
Highlights: “Lunga vita alla necrosi” and “Il veleno della Natura”
Slaughterday – Dread Emperor
Genre: Death metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Review: Slaughterday is a German, mystical horror-leaning death metal band that’s been going for a little while now, and are now on their fifth full-length. They deliver a meaty, ominous sound with good crunch to the riffs, and some eager solo work. It’s nothing unique, but solid stuff with a generous handful of standout moments that is sure to please fans of both traditional and more melodic death metal, bringing to mind Vader if you were to take the thrash out of their style. The album is a bit short on grooves for my taste, but delivers big on menace, energy and coherence.
Highlight: “Dethroned”
Sundecay – The Blood Lives Again
Genre: Doom metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Review: Canadian band Sundecay know how to move around in the classic doom space in a way that brings in elements that highlight their strengths, forging a sound of their own, without breaking out of the genre confines and becoming a hybrid. This is slow, solemn stuff with a dark tone, but with flavors of prog, psychedelia, sludge, stoner and a touch of alternative. There’s measured melody with a certain epic flavor, which builds the scope without taking off and leaving the earth behind. There are a few slightly stagnant sections throughout, but also sort of not more than you’d expect for something moving at this pace. It offers both engaging riffs and drifts into soulful calm, making for a highly impressive, style-confident debut full-length.
Highlights: “Here Comes the Wizard” and “The Tyranny Rushes In”
Worm – Necropalace
Genre: Black/doom/death metal
Subjective rating: 4.5/5
Objective rating: 4.5/5
Review: For most underground extreme metal bands, attempting to retain that charming murkiness and edge of experimentation, that “new to all this” wonderment and eagerness of stretching the foundational form of expression, doesn’t easily go hand in hand with maturing. In fact, it can probably seem contradictory. Not so for Worm. With “Foreverglade” and the EP “Bluenothing” raising expectations stratosphere-high, the solution seems to have been to start in the place they left off and stake out a fresh, but strongly related new course, that’s very much in the musical and thematic wheelhouse. And that course is symphonic, strongly gothic-tinged black metal, overarching, but far from completely overpowering the death doom that dominated before. There’s no subtlety about it. It’s as darkly epic as it’s damn near possible to imagine, while still hostile and just the right level of nerdy, with massive fun factor coming from the insanely strong melody and solo work. And it’s still heavy, ominous, expansive and moderately unpredictable. It would seem we’re in safe hands.
Highlight: “Witchmoon: The Infernal Masquerade” and “Necropalace”
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 