 Welcome back, weary traveler! Firstly, if ye missed Part 1 of this mid-year extravaganza, we highly recommend checking that out first. If you're already familiar with what this is all about, however: thanks so much for reading and returning for more! As always, we appreciate your patronage and your support, particularly now that our humble halls are filled with an exciting array of guest writers who deserve to have their words read.
Again, this collaborative list is far from exhaustive, and represents but a fraction of our collective favorites. As such, please feel free to leave a comment with a recommendation or two! List season is a great time to show the musicians that we love a little well-deserved support, and if you wanna shout someone out, this is as good a time as any. In that spirit, I'd like to once again offer thanks to everyone who helped make this list a reality and a success. Without further ado, let's dive in! Today's list is a tad longer than the first, so pull up a chair, put up yer feet, and stay a while.
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Written by: The Administrator
My favorite albums of the year are, more often than not, those that sneak their way into rotation...and then simply never leave. The ability to maintain interest over months and months of listening is a surefire mark of a good album, and Asundre, the excellent debut from London's Vulgaris, has managed to qualify itself pretty damn handily. This thing came out towards the end of February, and it is a rare thing indeed to locate a week since wherein it hasn't reared its multifaceted heads. At this rate, Asundre certainly stands as one of my most-listened albums o' the year thusfar, which, in turn, probably means I should actually find a soapbox and start appropriately proselytizing. Hence: 
Written by: The Administrator
Typically, familiarity with a musician's past work will flavor an audience's reception to said musicians new endeavor. However, due to a certain inability on my part to absorb press kits details prior to imbibing, I listened to this absolute beast of an EP many, many times before realizing that the roster is chock full o' recognizable extreme metal talent. Featuring current and former members of *checks notes* Possessed, Abbath, Decrepit Birth, The Kennedy Veil, Black Crown Initiate, and Angerot, this quartet of blackened death thrashers evidently know their way around the ol' block. It shows. Glossolalia is a riveting three-track, and, needless to say, a very strong first outing. It is explosive, tastefully frenetic, and varied enough to avoid being pigeonholed according to the tenets of their prior work. Let's dive in, shall we?
Huge thanks to today's guest reviewer for the words! John Angel typically writes over at (the venerable) Noob Heavy, and can be found on twitter as well. Follow accordingly, dear readers! - Ed.
Guest post written by: John Angel
If you’ve read my previous reviews (hey mom) you might know that I lean towards the modern side of the old-school/modern divide of the current death metal scene. I like the crisp production and blending of a wider variety of genres that seems to be de jure in modern death metal. But there are OSDM records that catch my attention. It’s hard for me to put my finger on exactly what draws me to said ear-catching OSDM albums but I think it's having a little more aggressive riffing, production that keeps that lo-fi and cavernous vibe so many like about OSDM, but also allows the music to be legible to the listener. Today I’ve got a review for one such record, All Light Swallowed by Crypts of Despair. FRESH MEAT FRIDAY: April 9th, 2021, Feat. Gangrened, Heavy Feather, Onward We March, and Sublation4/9/2021 Every Friday, a wagon arrives at the Sleeping Village’s rusted palisade, stuffed to the brim with musical sustenance. Today is the day we must offload this week's new and noteworthy music, and so, in the process, we thought it would be worthwhile to share some of our choice picks from this veritable mass of fresh meat. This is what we’ll be listening to today at the Village HQ. We hope you join us in doing so! On the docket for today, April 9th, 2021: Gangrened, Heavy Feather, Onward We March, and Sublation
Written by: Blackie Skulless
There’s a time for riffs, a time for intricacy, and a time for both. Wode have been around now for a little over a decade, reigning over Manchester, England with a stylistically intense brand of black metal. Recently, they dropped album number three, entitled Burn In Many Mirrors, through 20 Buck Spin. It cashes in on sturdy riffage with appropriate doses of later black metal tactics to make for one of the better polished albums of its type. What’s nice is that despite this, Wode don’t feel the need to sink themselves in a pool of symphonies and atmosphere. Though the latter does play a bit of a role, it’s clear that strong hooks and transitions are the most important part. All six tracks come from a narrative standpoint, telling long, cosmic stories around the occult and world destruction. This leaves little room for extra nonsense, allowing everything to be straightforward within each phase of the songs. 
Written by: The Voiceless Apparition
This goes without saying, but I'd imagine that you, the reader, love extreme music. But extremity is a subjective topic, it could be born of a vocal style, a style of instrumentation--perhaps lyrics as well. But there are many other ways to explore and express extremity. That leads us to the review in hand. Feed Them Death is an extreme metal project blurring the lines of audial savagery: grindcore, death metal, black metal, doom, noise, and ambient. This project has been releasing a substantial amount of material in such a short amount of time with there being only a one year gap in between the debut album and previous album Panopticism: Belong/Be Lost. In 2021 the musician known as Void returns with his latest album Negative.  Written by: Blackie Skulless
For all the hype that surrounded the latest Necrophobic release, I figured it was necessary to visit their albums that went beyond the first couple. Dawn Of The Damned dropped in October of last year, and this was a clear sign from the start that I’d been mistaken to sleep on the later material. For those unfamiliar, they’re a Swedish black/death metal band, widely looked at as pioneers of the style. Despite sticking to this since the early ‘90s, it certainly holds up. What’s important for a veteran band is to know how to gradually move forward with the style without overdoing it or going the opposite and isolating yourself. Necrophobic have found that nice medium in their latest. Atmosphere plays a big part in this record, casting ferociously fast drum blasts for an entire gradient of noise to get around. This acts as a sturdy barrier to go with the contradicting riffing, as it’s mostly done with tremolos and flattened basslines. All of it together creates a thick and saturated foundation that’s heavier than a train car.  Let it be know: Sleeping Village stalwart Izzy doesn't skimp when it comes to year end lists. As such, we'll be publishing, over the course of the next few days, a series of genre-specific Top 20 lists proudly bearing the Izzy stamp of approval. As "death" in and of itself tends to be a broad descriptor the assorted sub-genres existing under the umbrella have been labeled for yer convenience.
Says Izzy in regards to this list: "A summary of 2020's death metal to me is "everyone else liked it but I don't get it", very few of the years most popular releases clicked with me, so while I don't think any of my picks here are controversial, I think there is more underground-ish releases. Enjoy!"  Written by: The Voiceless Apparition
Here's an interesting question for you fine folks: think back to what you were doing 16 years ago. What were you doing? 16 years ago the underground enigma known as Anders Odden was releasing what was the "last" Cadaver album, Necrosis. But sadly, not a lot of people know who Cadaver is, and that's a damn shame. Cadaver are arguably the first death metal band to have ever come from Norway. They released two stellar albums in the early 1990's before abruptly disbanding in 1993. After reforming, changing their name twice, and releasing two more albums, Cadaver have returned with Edder and Bile. Anders Odden is the sole remaining original member (a lone wolf if you will), but this time around he is joined by one of the best drummers in all of extreme metal, and one of my personal drumming influences, Dirk fucking Verbeuren! So what has this 16 year hiatus done for Cadaver? Let's dive right in... |
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We provide thoughtful reviews of music that is heavy, gloomy...and loud enough to wake us from slumber. Written by a highfalutin peasantry!
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