Reviews of metal albums released August 29 – September 04
The experimental, progressive and avant-garde seize power through subversive means this week, leaving only a few select slots for the more conventional.
Castle – Carrie Chains
Genre: Heavy/doom metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Review: On their seventh full-length, this US/Canadian duo let the fist-raising heavy metal part of their sound win out, even as the doom lingers in riff tone, vocal style and theme. As with a speed/black metal pairing, one part of their style contributes the cocksure, no-way-but-forward fun factor, while the other supplies the grit and depth, and plays a big part in setting the overall mood.
The songwriting is unusually characterful for a band in this niche, keeping things simple in terms of layering, but allowing distinct, individual elements to the fore at select moments where they have the strongest effect possible, as well as changing up rhythm style to significantly alter the flow and feel. As before, the off-key tendencies of the vocals are a turn-off for me, but they’re offset by great attitude and lots and lots of great playing.
Highlight: “3 Knocks”
Devil Master – Bloody Dreams
Genre: Gothic/black metal/punk
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Review: Strange yet alluring noises are emanating from your old VCR up in the attic. If you’re partial to a bit of devilry though, you need not worry. Devil Master have added a substantial coating of gothic charm on their third full-length, and cleaned up their production substantially. Oh no, are they trying to copy the Tribulation glam-goth stunt from a couple of years ago? Not quite – this is still fairly coarse and sinister, just a tad more fun.
The simplicity of punk meets the desire for conceptual consistency and creativity on “Bloody Dreams”, with short tracks full of restless rhythms, squeals and ear-scraping vocals contrasting a spoken-word storytelling interlude and a near-11 minute marathon track at the end. It doesn’t not work, but I’m missing standout musical moments throughout to serve as counterweight to the conceptual stuff. In the end it’s all pretty entertaining, if a bit unremarkable compared to similar, cheeky blackened speed/punk projects.
Highlight: “Sex with Succubus”
Februus – Construction Of Conflict
Genre: Progressive death metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Review: There’s no shortage of weirdo death metal these days, which makes it all the harder to stand out. Swedish one-man-project Februus is certainly deserving of notice though. For those unaccustomed (or simply not partial) to the dissonance factor in hostile prog death, this will take a little time getting acclimated to, but if you enjoy music that slowly unfurls as you go, revealing unexpected depth, you should definitely not sleep on “Construction of Conflict”.
The album features old-school, tunnel-drilling riffs and relentless drums, but doesn’t hide behind a muffling production. It’s not crystal clear, but it’s not coated in grime, either. There are parts of it that sound like they belong deep down in a lightless cave system, but yet more that charge freely through the woods or raise a contemplative gaze across a solitary lake or up at the wispy, amber clouds of a golden hour sky. There’s a bit too much apparent disharmony just for the sake of it for my taste, but this ugliness stands as a nice contrast to the more organic and pleasant.
Highlights: “The First Limb is Cut” and “Suppressing the Future”
Fog Wall – Gloomweaver
Genre: Technical death metal/deathcore
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Review: It’s nice to get some tech death that’s not entirely preoccupied with astrophysics, science fiction or existential philosophy. This one’s deep into fantasy, with Lord of the Rings soundbites peppered throughout, among other lyrical references. And yet it doesn’t quite go for the loftiness or epic scope to match its high fantasy theme. It remains dark, brutal and fairly oppressive throughout.
The low end in particular is a dominating presence that goes a long way towards defining the listening experience. The riff- and rhythm styles are recognizably tech death and deathcore in execution, and at times these become a tad generic. There are some chilly Black Dahlia-style melodic tendencies to contrast the savagery, but it’s rather understated overall. The intention of writing outstanding-yet satisfying, modern, themed death metal is clear, and for the most part the duo that is Fog Wall succeed. A strong debut, indeed.
Highlight: “Frantic Orb Wielder”
Godslut – The Art Of Deconstruction
Genre: Death/groove metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Review: It’s not every day you see guns so prominently featured on metal album covers, but don’t worry, this isn’t some numbnuts “right to bear arms”, war-glorifying thing. What you get is Polish death metal of the thrashing and groove-forward variant. It’s supremely aggressive and mostly as energetic as you’d hope for. There are a few parts that feel a little too close to Decapitated to claim mere inspiration, and overall the writing is not particularly original. But it’s got the right attitude, and easily got my head moving.
Highlight: “Druglust”
Green Carnation – A Dark Poem, Part III: The Messiah Complex
Genre: Progressive doom metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Review: It’s time for the conclusion to the album trilogy that is “A Dark Poem”, which started with “Pt. I: The Shores of Melancholia” almost exactly one year ago. And I am very glad to report that the Norwegian doom proggers have opted for the epic variant. Counting only three “regular” tracks and an entirely orchestral bookend, they still make the runtime count.
While this is still sorrow-tinged, heartstring-strumming, deeply melodic and folk-rooted doom across the board, each track takes on a distinct character of its own. confidently led by a standout vocal performance (which I admit I have questioned the quality of before). Even when reduced to the bare acoustics, this feels rich, vast and vibrant. The album spreads out across an already established landscape, painting it in a new light and exposing new nooks and crannies, as well as the way out. My main criticism is that it’s simply so short that it doesn’t quite work as a standalone full-length, but then I suppose, in this case, that’s not quite the point.
Highlights: “The Messiah Complex” and “Unconditional Artificial Chemistry”
Grimner – Stormvingar
Genre: Folk metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Review: “Oh great, another drink-along-sing-along, bombastic, viking-cosplay in musical form” you might think. And while that description isn’t entirely inaccurate, there’s a bit more to it than that. Grimner bring in the snarly aggression and slight tongue in cheek of bands like Finntroll and Ensiferum, and bring a touch of darkness and solemnity to go with it. The issue is that the generous handful of solid, original-feeling tracks are offset by an equal number of fairly generic ones, with some questionable clean vocal parts. Still, if these don’t bother you too much, I recommend sticking with it.
Highlight: “Irrbloss”
A Night In Texas – The Darkest Side of Humanity
Genre: Deathcore
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Review: Been a moment since I had this good of a time with a deathcore record. For those unaware, this band is not, in fact, from Texas, but from Brisbane, Australia. Their style is a tech’d up maiming machine, somewhere between the violence of Thy Art Is Murder and the symphonic scale of Lorna Shore.
Where most percussive-riffed deathcore typically gets real predictable real fast, these guys seem determined to keep changing things up and present alternatives to the easy and well-traveled path. While as relentless and precise as you’d expect, with the familiar penchant for topping off tracks with breakdowns, no tricks are overused, and whenever I hear something a little too recognizable, it generally passes me by before I have time to dwell on it. It’s a beast of an album, that manages an ideal balance between pure punishment and dark majesty.
Highlights: “Rot From Within” and “A Primal Conditioning”
Sigh – Goh-Ka
Genre: Avant-garde black/folk metal
Subjective rating: 4.5/5
Objective rating: 4.5/5
Review: Japans’ Sigh are one of those bands that you think would be much bigger than what they currently are – 36 years after their founding. But perhaps it is for the better (at least for us, the listeners) that they’ve remained more of an underground act, allowing them the creative freedom to write music as unbound as the one we find on “Goh-Ka”.
Avant-garde doesn’t truly cover it, but it’s also not inaccurate for the purpose of adjusting your expectations for what’s in store. On the album, black, doom, heavy, prog and psychedelic metal meets traditional folk with natural and electronic/industrial ambience. You never know if the next track is going to be a spooky-toned ripper or a serene, acoustic interlude. Compared to earlier releases, there’s perhaps not so much grim-, or ugliness as you’d expect from a predominately black metal-rooted act, but it’s also very far from tame, and certainly not without coarseness. Although I personally find the mood and thematic feel of the album to be a tad too diffuse, I’m left completely in awe at the band’s versatility. It’s an album I get a strong desire to stay with after only listening for a few seconds, and it doesn’t stop rewarding that decision for the duration.
Highlights: “Kuso-shi 1, 2, and 3” and “Jimmenjushin”
Sun Guts – Supervoid
Genre: Mathcore/progressive metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Review: Sun Guts is a one-man, instrumental project combining the straight-up riff bad-assery of metallic hardcore and thrash with the unconventional structures of mathcore and Meshuggah-style extreme prog. At its most whacky and electronica-boosted I can hear some Igorrr in there too, but for the most part it’s a bit more focused than that.
Yes, in essence this could be called a “shred” album of sorts, as there is limited melodic depth, and only a few measures more in terms of atmosphere. But apart from the undeniable, mind-bending riff gymnastics, there’s also a unifying, industrial theme to it, and the progression through the album feels considered, constantly unlocking new sides to the dystopian madness. It may not stay with you for days on end, but it’ll sure shake you up in the moment.
Highlights: “Jaw Maze” and “Redactor”
Sworn – Null Crowned The Infinite
Genre: Melodic black metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Review: I feel like a fool realizing that for the last 21 years, this band from my home town of Bergen, Norway, have completely eluded me. In its current state, five albums in, they play cosmically oriented, rather lofty melodic black metal that reminds me of fellow countrymen In Vain at their most “conventionally” blackened.
This is an album that, although containing its fair share of blast beats and riff attacks, feels like its movement is tethered to the rotation of the planet, yet somehow perpetually caught in darkness, gazing out at the infinity of the night sky. It’s grand yet solemn, melodic yet cold and grim. I find myself really impressed by it, but must take a slightly harsher stance for my objective rating, as I simply don’t find the band’s style to be all that distinct. The majority of melodic and instrumental elements, as well as the vocals, are quite recognizable from similar bands in the black and doom realms. They’re all well utilized though, so if what you’re mainly concerned with is the quality of the execution, then you should definitely dive in.
Highlights: “The Starless Origin” and “Fracture of Aeons”
Venomous Echoes – Ŋvęŧş: Violator Of Mater
Genre: Experimental death/black metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Review: If you can’t get enough of maddening I, Voidhanger-releases, then boy is this the time for you, as fresh horrors seem to seep out of cracks in reality on a near-daily basis. For someone like me, who’s not in tune with experimental metal by default, these releases are wildly polarizing. Every now and then, one hits just right, and yet other times I find the good and interesting to outweigh the weak and obscenely random. This album falls into the latter category.
My main issue with this album is the production, which causes the death metal instrumentation to sink into the atmospheric and dissonant-melodic elements to such a degree that it all blends together into a tumultuous mass, and ends up feeling flat. This isn’t true for every track though – there are several instances where the chaos feels as contrasting as it needs to in order to leave a mark. And at its best it feels like being sucked through a tunnel of smoke, multicolored light, fluids and shapes conjured forth from the deepest parts of your imagination.
Highlight: “Ẅęrð”
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 