Written by: The Voiceless Apparition
Anonymity is a rarity in this world nowadays. Everybody is so preoccupied with getting their voice out there, and to push their products or agenda. Rarely does anybody let their product speak for itself--and this is especially true for music. But here we are. I received the link to this album from Impostrous Lord in the DM's of my Instagram page. I was immediately intrigued due to the members of this band not being listed, desiring instead for the music to, as aforementioned, speak for itself. This is a special review for me, and I'm so happy to have had this sent to me. This is the debut album from Impostrous Lord, entitled Devil's Veil.
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Written by: Tom Last year saw the return of Static-X, something I never thought would happen. Now, almost a year later, we are finally getting a new Fear Factory record! Which is another thing that I was beginning to have my doubts about happening, but on June 18th, via Nuclear Blast Records, that exact thing will be unleashed upon a legion of waiting fans. I've been listening to Fear Factory since 1995's Demanufacture, and they have always had one of the coolest band names out there; in my humble opinion, it still ranks very high on the list of excellent name choices. Not to mention that when one of their songs comes on, you immediately know that it's them; no one else had the same sound when the band's music was first introduced to us. This fact has not changed much throughout the years.
Written by: Blackie Skulless
Wow, let’s talk about some God-tier death metal! Taking formation last year during the hellish times of a global pandemic, Finland’s Morbific have come forth a year later with a full-length to follow up last year’s debut demo. Ominous Seep Of Putridity is a raw, sophisticated pitcher of bile meant to ooze into your pores as you slowly immerse into the harsh noise. Good luck crawling out of this mess! Most notably, this disc has some of the chunkiest riffing I’ve heard on a death metal album in such a long time. The doomy presence that keeps things mid-paced without falling into full doom/death territory is a tactic pulled off tremendously. Groovy rhythms are doused in this aesthetic, served alongside some disgusting guttural vocals that bury ever-so-slightly beneath the sand for sharper leads to grate your skin. If that isn’t enough, these drums pop out with a mechanical click, giving the snare such an elementary feeling for all the right reasons. The drumming itself is excellent, so that’s like a two-for-one standout.
Written by: Blackie Skulless
Boy howdy, what fun it is when you find something that reeks of a gory bloodbath taking place in the kitchen! Just the album cover to Cartilage’s 12-minute offering Gore-Met was about enough to sell me, and the music sounds exactly what you’d picture. Grindcore riffs with blistering, incomprehensible vocals, all themed around body-horror in the kitchen is what we’re in for. Get your apron and chef hat ready, this is a wild ride! “Enough To Make Your Skin Crawl” starts us off on the most conventional note, based around a failed experiment making beings become mutant and disgusting. The actual music is pretty death metal oriented, but the double-tracked vocals and smashing speeds are loads of fun. Helps it fit the overall idea as well. “Deranged Delikatessen” rails on with a bit more abrasion, tossing around guts and gore with slam-like rhythms and sharp blasts from the drumming.
Written by: Izzy
As a genre like metal ages, it is natural that there will be waves of innovation and experimentation. However, after decades, you sometimes may worry that we’re running out of ideas and closer to the end than the beginning. Like, at some point it feels like so much ground has been covered that anything new would come in the form of a ridiculous gimmick idea you’d think of while stoned, like jazz fusion nu metal or death metal played by a classical chamber ensemble (both of which already exist). It’s an exercise in both patience and persistence to continue the search for something that truly sounds like the next step. But of course, it always comes. If you don’t let yourself get stuck in the mindset that music stopped being good at one point or another, you will always find new artists doing new things and creating new sounds, and listening to the new Victory Over the Sun album reminded me exactly why it’s worth waiting and searching for those visionaries that challenge our common conceptions and assumptions about music as an art form. Written by: Blackie Skulless Back in 2013, I was pretty new to metal and the vast pool of bands and subgenres that it held. UK thrashers Evile, however, was one name that I was familiar with, and recall being blown away by Skull. Seeing how I still love it to this day, you can imagine my excitement upon hearing that, after eight years, we’re getting a new album. Take longtime lead guitarist Ol Drake and hand him the vocal duties in place of Matt Drake, enter Adam Smith, and you’ve now got another angle to look at this from. The end product is Hell Unleashed. So how different does the band sound with such a significant time gap and lineup change? Well, the musical direction is more or less the same. Speed remains the biggest selling factor, cranking out lightning fast riffs under crackling drums, all finished with some tight clear-coating. I’ve admittedly grown to dislike that kind of production in thrash, but it can be overlooked when the songwriting is extra stellar. The issue is, I don’t particularly think that’s the case here.
Written by: Lunar Fanatic
Dissonant black death metal is nothing new, in fact the subgenre feels a bit trite by this point. That being said Labored Breath’s debut album, Dyspnea, is a fresh, bludgeoning entry into what I’d consider one of metal’s darkest styles. This album from the one-man project from Oakland, CA wastes no time in setting the album’s tone. Cavernous (and that description is truly earned here), bleeding dissonant notes erupt into pure auditory violence on opening track "Hypothesia." The drumming is explosive, and the guitar work swirls around it, made even more prominent by the excellent use of panning. Both ears are under constant yet varied assault throughout the album, and the beautifully raw production obscures enough detail from the surface to make diving deeper into the ocean of the winding song structures featured throughout Dyspnea.
Written by: The Administrator
The term “post-apocalyptic,” as a descriptor, has always felt somewhat universal--a quality that is most likely a direct result of the extensive post-apocalyptic media that I grew up with. While the narratives and backdrops differ, there’s a commonality in depictions of the world after the end of the world. Barren, expansive, utilitarian, hodge-podge, cruel, mysterious, no-nonsense. Antiquated in a vaguely otherworldly sense. On Book 1: Medusa’s Revenge, blackened sludge duo Nehushtan have managed to apply that distinct aesthetic to the aural form in a wholly engrossing fashion. As such, much like the world their extensive narrative exists within, this album feels both intrinsically tough and enticingly uncharted.
Written by: The Administrator
Speaking exclusively from an admittedly shallow well of experience, there are few genres as situational as deathcore. Am I actively engaged in an a high-intensity workout? If so, deathcore is an appropriate soundtrack. Am I doing anything other than slangin' iron and sweating bullets? Deathcore is more than likely buried underneath a veritable mountain of genres I would rather spend my time with. Given this implicit bias, I have spent a lot of time listening to Osiah's latest while strutting around in the cobwebb'd cellar confines of my home gym. To their credit, however, this album has slowly started to escape the typical listening environments. The ability to hold interest outside of the usual arena is a pretty notable quality.
Written by: The Administrator
The Red Beard Wall experience has been--and always will be, I suspect--a deliberately jarring one, even for those who know to expect the immeasurable enthusiasm and bombast on display. This project's modus operandi is one of gloriously violent dynamics: every track is a sonic gladiatorial extravaganza. Unhinged screams, post-hardcore cleans, bouncy percussion, 90's-style alternative aggression, and thicc-ass sludgy stoner riffs meet head-on in the arena. However, rather than unleashing their pugilistic wrath upon each other, they somehow harness their unharness-able collective power, subsequently raining blood and thunder on the audience. Frankly, it's quite the sight to behold. On the appropriately entitled 3, I am happy to report that human wrecking ball (and nicest man alive) Aaron Wall delivers his best performance yet--which says something, if you happen to recall my praise of 2019's The Fight Needs Us All. Much like his prior work, this album succeeds because it capitalizes so well on Aaron's bright and earnest personality. |
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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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