Reviews of metal albums released October 10 – October 16
If you can’t stand death metal then you might as well skip this week altogether, because it’s completely dominant and present in pretty much all its existing shapes.
Carnal Desecration – Ancient Malediction
Genre: Death metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3/5
Review: The Belgian death metal scene is not to be overlooked, and from its churning innards here arrives a fresh beast in Carnal Desecration, bearing its second full-length album. It’s gloriously riff-heavy and moderately blackened in tone, sounding hungry and committed to tearing its prey into tattered ribbons. The mixing and overall composition is a little messy, with occasional elements smothered by the drums and bass, and some rhythm transitions leading seemingly nowhere. But if you want evil, groove-forward and relentless morbidity, there’s plenty to go around on this one.
Highlight: “The Casket Born”
Carnation – Symphony in Flesh
Genre: Death metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Review: With an album cover and title straight out of Fleshgod Apocalypse’s wheelhouse, you’d be right to wonder if Belgian death metallers Carnation have picked up the violin, stepped in front of an orcestra and veered off their old school ways on fourth full-length “Symphony in Flesh”. Most will be pleased to learn that this is not the case. But while the riffs feel like grinding gears, and blood comes seeping out of every gap and seam in the machinery, this is also not a straightforward repeat of old glories.
The thing that strikes me above all with the album is how willing it is to dive into sinister, protracted, semi-melodic sections dominated by a piercing, near-mournful lead guitar. It exists somewhere in between the epic, the somber and the menacing, and provides strong overall character. To me there’s too much energy lost in these sections, especially in those cases where the melodies aren’t brought into the following brutal chugging. However, my preferences aside, the combination of groove, dissonance, raw savagery and doom-like depth makes this a release that offers both much of the same and also far more than your run-of-the-mill crunchy-riff death fest.
Highlights: “Kingdom of Dreams” and “Symphony in Flesh”
Fracturus – The Synthetic Path
Genre: Technical death metal/deathcore
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Review: Brace your neck, or you’re in for a rapid series of whiplash. Taking tech death into melodic and deathcore-styled territory sounds like a surefire recipe for choking out the savagery of it, but while Fracturus don’t play the fiercest example of the subgenre, they achieve a great balance on their second full-length.
For one, the creativity of the songwriting doesn’t get buried in frantically scurrying drums and lead guitar, although the guys know how to crank the tempo when it’s suitable. The melodies are given presence without softening the impact too much. There’s great clarity and detail, and the low-end is tangibly present without becoming overly dominant. While it certainly doesn’t avoid all the tech tropes and has a few lulls in the excitement, it’s also far from just another instrumental show-off.
Highlight: “Roko’s Basilisk”
Iapetus – The Mother Void
Genre: Progressive/melodic death metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Review: Iapetus have no issue making their cosmically oriented prog death sound appropriately vast. Nor is it lacking in vibrancy, or sheer mass. At 1 hour 9 minutes, this is an album you put on in order to vanish into it. While not complex, it travels a winding path of great highs and lows, with protracted atmospheric sections and several interludes, which I find to be largely unnecessary. For me the strengths are the sections that manage to combine force and melody, with the female vocals being a highlight feature. But too much of the straightforwardly aggressive or calm stuff sounds overly polished, toothless and similar to so much else in the same niche, that I simply find my interest slipping at regular intervals. But if the band’s expression speaks to you, you’re getting what’s probably their finest work to date.
Highlight: “Red Giant”
Insomnium – Netherworlds
Genre: Melodic death/doom metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Review: If there ever was a perfect band to accompany you as you finally let go of the last strands of summer and embrace the October gloom, it surely must be Finland’s Insomnium. During the course of the last few years they’ve played around with some conceptual twists and turns, but never strayed too far from their core sound of melancholic, melodic death doom. With their tenth full-length they make clear that the intention is simply to sound like themselves. Does that mean that they’re out of ideas?
While “Netherworlds” is pretty far from envelope-pushing – so much so that I actually hardly latched on to any of the songs on my first, casual listen – it finds the band pretty much perfecting all the things they’re good at. The melodies are exquisite and subtly characterful, the vocals are both serene and loaded with venomous anguish. The calm sections feel both engaging and well earned, and the buildups into the more intense parts are exquisitely executed. If you just want the best possible iteration of “that Finnish sad-epic sound”, this could very well be it.
Highlights: “Gleam in the Black” and “Shadowlife”
Lugubrious Garment – In The Wide Vale Of Uncreated Night
Genre: Blackened death metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Review: This is the kind of band name that you’d expect to be hidden inside an absolute mess of spikes and thorns making up its logo design, but no, it’s actually quite legible. I suppose it refers to the tattered cloak of the reaper attached to it, but using it as the title of a hyper aggressive blackened death metal band is still peak understated humor. And the cool thing is that both its meaning and the irreverence of its use somehow also match the mood of the music.
You expect metal of this kind to be solemn, hateful, sinister and blasphemously brutal. And while all of those adjectives can be applied to Lugubrious Garment’s (try saying that with a straight face) debut album, it’s also not limited to them. The progression feels untamed, like you’ve tied a malevolent wraith to your carriage and it sets off in all the most hazardous directions in an attempt to tear free or shake you off. It feels moderately experimental, but never completely loses its way. There are elements of grindcore nuttiness and also clear traces of old school melodeath, both of which expand the dynamics of the sound. The production is the main limiting factor, with vocals, lead guitar, riffs and drums sometimes drowning each other out, and a general lack of crispness that takes a bit of getting used to. But once you have, you can start to appreciate just how creative this thing is.
Highlights: “Innocence As A Burden, Guilt As A Weapon” and “Eulogy Of Deliberate Malevolence”
Master – Among The Seeds Of Death
Genre: Death metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Review: If you prefer your death metal old school and light on its feet, you’re probably already familiar with now-Czech band Master. With Obituary-style vocals, a smidge of that Death technicality and tone, and plenty of thrash impatience, they still carry the torch for that original, pioneering sound of the subgenre.
“Among the Seeds of Death” is not the album where the band breaks with the style, goes rogue and forges a new direction. Far from it. If you latched on to the band for what they started out as, you can rest assured that they’re still making death metal for the likes of you. It sounds ferocious yet morbid, playful yet focused, with lots of surprisingly technical riffing and nasty solos. It’s neither a step forwards nor backwards, but laudably vital considering the point that they’re at in their career.
Highlight: “Injustice and Lack of Remorse”
Mother Of Graves – The Light That Keeps Us
Genre: Melodic doom/death metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Review: Since you may already be curled up in a dark corner listening to this week’s Insomnium release, why not stay there a bit longer? This one will make you want to build a casket, and probably crawl inside it to hide from the world afterwards. While Mother of Graves also play a slowed down and melancholic form of melodic death metal, in contrast to the Finns they go further towards funeral doom in terms of mood and pace.
The best comparisons I can think of are Paradise Lost and early Opeth, with some “Colony”-era In Flames mixed in there as well, but the band manage a different melodic expression, and have their own way of fluctuating the intensity, like slow ocean swells. I was one of the few people in 2024 not to fall head over heels in love with their sophomore album “The Periapt Of Absence”, which probably deserved a higher objective score, but as with that one, I struggle to truly connect with the music. I simply don’t find the melodies captivating enough that my attention doesn’t start to drift in the slower sections. It all sounds sublime though, and the heaviness is both perfectly blended with the serenity, and executed with obvious passion.
Highlights: “Through the Pale Shade” and “The Beggar’s Allegory”
Otras – Na Krídlach Morovida
Genre: Black metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Review: In a week dominated by death metal, this album strikes like a lightning bolt from a jet black sky. Perfectly matching its awesome album art, this is barbed-wire-wrapped, ultra-evil, punk infused black metal out of Slovakia. It’s the band’s debut full-length, but it sounds like they’ve been saving up spite and murderous intent for decades, only to unleash it all on here.
Let it be said that is very far from a pleasant listen (as if that’s anywhere near the point). This is the coarsest, buzzing, piercing ear-scourer I’ve heard in a good long while, and it’s a huge plus as far as producing a distinct sound and forming a jagged knife-edge to the aggression, which is already substantial. My only gripe is that the noise simply does not let up, so the slower, more atmospherically sinister parts are just as painful to listen to as the all-out-assault ones, which detracts a bit from the impact. Still, if you don’t mind your ears bleeding for a little while, this stuff will fire you up, and it makes me want to see them live more than anything else this week.
Highlights: “Kríže” and “Kropiť Polia Jedom”
Shores Of Null – Homesick
Genre: Melodic doom/gothic metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Review: It would appear that this week is out to crush your spirits. As if Insomnium and Mother of Graves weren’t up for the job by themselves, Shores of Null join the party of lamentations with their gothic-tinged doom. If you haven’t heard of them before, think Amorphis at their most melodic and sad, then cross it with My Dying Bride, and you should be pretty close. The vocals vary from death growls to straight up alt rock, and lay it on thick with the mournful emotion. Overall this is a bit too monotonously grief-stricken-yet-beautiful for my taste, and is fairly low on contrasts in general, but if the mood suits you and you feel like staying with it for a while, it will reward you with deep commitment and sublime performances.
Highlight: “Allies Before Defeat”
Temperance – Arcani
Genre: Symphonic/power metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Review: This is the place to escape to if the rage and misery of the week becomes a bit too much to bear. Temperance are an Italian symphonic power metal band with a highly proficient dual vocal approach, uplifting melodies and a magical mood. Sure, you get the odd chorus with primary school rhymes, and the album is fairly up and down in terms of originality. But the conviction and effort is all there, and a handful of really strong tracks go a long way towards winning me over. It’s flavorful, fairly varied and not at all too bombastic.
Highlight: “The Hanged Man: Petrichor”
Veilburner – All That Glimmers Is Gloam
Genre: Progressive death/black metal
Subjective rating: 4.5/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Review: The diabolic mindfuck theatre that is Veilburner forges on, pitiless and heedless of the inevitable turmoil caused by the reception of its revolting new form. Although there’s always a ton to unpack with a new release from these guys, the core of the chaos is undoubtedly blackened death metal, even as they lash you with progressive rhythm shifts, avant-garde stylistic jumps, haunted wails, unhinged atmospheric breaks and… wait… nu metal influences?!
Worry not, this is just a tiny part of the flavor spectrum on “All That Glimmers Is Gloam”, although a distinctly noticeable one. To me it’s a stroke of genius simply because it’s so unexpected, and plays its part in warping the album flow into new territory. It should feel borderline ill-advised, because a big part of the band’s charm is toying with your sanity and sense of safety. In this regard, if you’ve heard a few Veilburner albums already, it’s not what I would call a daring effort, but one that continues in the same vein and gradually explored new territory. If you, like me, can’t get enough of this particular type of madness though, you will almost certainly delight in it.
Highlights: “Vitriolic Hiss” and “Of Godslave and Blood Mortar”
Worm Altar – Pillars of Eternal Dusk
Genre: Death/doom metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Review: If you think that the releases this week have been just a tad too hygienic, then listening this one will make them feel completely spotless and sniffing of roses by comparison. Worm Altar play death doom from the deepest, sulfur-clouded depths, devoid of any emotion save the smoldering desire to defile, corrupt and destroy.
Riding on a rumbling, world-shaking low end are deeply guttural vocals, squealing feedback and abyssal riffs. It really feels like the coming of the army of the underworld, with the very sky darkening to herald their arrival. It’s far from unique within its niche, and isn’t as instantly captivating as some of the best to do it, but offers just the right mood and solid consistency throughout.
Highlight: “Virescent Fire”
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?
