Written by: Blackie Skulless
Since the band’s earliest demo at the crack of 2019, I’ve been following every Undeath output that gets tossed out at a close range due to the band’s immediate ear for outstanding writing in the death metal genre. 2020’s Lesions Of A Different Kind would take the structural brutality of the demos and bring them to a refreshing light. This quickly cemented the New York quintet as one of my favorites in modern death metal. There’s no sign of this discontinuing with the latest, entitled It’s Time…To Rise From The Grave. Fitting the imagery of the name and artwork, Undeath sees their second full-length as a step forward in technical tactic while strongly maintaining their ground in memorable riffing. Never is the muddy and unforgiving bottom lost with harsh and disgusting tones that draw the guitars as deep as the guttural vocals.
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Written by: Blackie Skulless
Since the debut demo Krønike I in 2020, Dødskvad were a band I’ve found quite intriguing. Crafting a clear sense for death metal in a very non-traditional fashion, these Norwegians brought forth a nasty taste of history and mythology coated in synths, blackened feel, and unsettling production. Now, they’ve followed this up with another treat simply titled Krønike II. In some ways it’s a clearer vision, more of what came before, but there’s certainly a brighter element of focus. By that, I mean this second onslaught of harsh and unlovable tunes seems to have a better idea of what it wants to be. Things progressively get a lot doomier, as the passages themselves slow down, with sharp percussion and bouncy bass popping through the surface to take precedence. Percussion is really big across the board, more so than before. Considering the synth overlaying and galloping rhythms aren’t going anywhere, this manages to pack so much into four songs.  Written by: The Voiceless Apparition
Hello everyone! Welcome to 2022. I feel like it's been a while since I've been here to provide you all an album review. I know that the 200 Stab Wounds album wasn't that long ago, but so much has happened since then. Thank you for sticking around with me, and with the Sleeping Village. We're kicking off the year with a new album from one of my favorite bands of all time, Amorphis, with their latest album Halo. Not much has changed in the Amorphis camp, with the exception of them leaving Nuclear Blast Records and signing with upstart label Atomic Fire Records. Now that we have that out of the way, let's dive in. First thing you'll notice with this album is that it is HEAVY. This possibly one of the heaviest albums in Amorphis' discography. They've dialed back on the symphonic elements and went for an outright progressive assault on their folk and melodic death metal sound. The songs are more concise than on previous album Queen of Time, but pack more into these 4-5 minute run times. "Northwards" begins on a typical Amorphis note with big double bass patterns and Tomi Joutsen's signature growls and epic clean vocals backed by grandiose choir vocals, and a tasty mellotron solo in the middle of the song. 
Written by: Blackie Skulless
I first discovered Fetid Zombie through their Death Covenant EP in early 2020. While pretty impressive, channeling the strong Obituary and rotting vibes, I certainly didn’t foresee them jumping to this level of intensity (this is also going in with no knowledge about the earlier full-lengths). Enter Transmutations, an absolute beast of a record that swings in a completely different position. Not only is the songwriting longer and more advanced, it’s so much more cohesive than I would have pictured. Across the board, you have a friendly dose of hoarse and cavernous wailing (vocally and instrumentally), melodic traditional metal riffing, dissonant and intense lead passages, and a plethora of different vocal varieties. Almost never does a death metal record of this type pull off the traditional growls, roaring echoes, and even clean singing at times, like in the soft intro of “Dreamless Sleep Awaits.” But don’t mistake this for some generic melodeath accessible serving; it manages its accessibility with writing tactic that winds up being catchy. Lots of bells and whistles, synths, and effects are tossed in for wonderful measure. FRESH MEAT FRIDAY - Feb. 4th, 2022, Feat. Golgothan, Titanosaur, Iōhannēs, and Krystal Swords2/3/2022 On (occasional) Fridays, a wagon arrives at the Sleeping Village’s crumbling gates, stuffed to the brim with our sustenance. Today is the day we must offload all 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, Feb. 4th, 2022: Golgothan, Titanosaur, Iōhannēs, and Krystal Swords
FRESH MEAT FRIDAY - January 28th, 2022, Feat. Rotborn, SARTORI, Mt. Echo, and Depleted Uranium1/28/2022 On (regrettably infrequent) Fridays, a wagon arrives at the Sleeping Village’s crumbling gates, stuffed to the brim with our sustenance. Today is the day we must offload all 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, January 28th, 2022: Rotborn, SARTORI, Mt. Echo, and Depleted Uranium
Written by: The Administrator
The first track on Abyssus' stellar Death Revival is entitled "Metal of Death," and if that alone doesn't tell you what to expect in the following 33 minutes, we should probably just pack it up and head home. No gimmick necessary: this is fun death metal that thrives in an environment where the genre's intrinsic over-the-top absurdity and bombastic flair is celebrated. It's an admirable dedication, and after digging myself out of a recent glut of gross death metal that reveled in putridity, some crisply high-octane fare serves as an excellent palate cleanser. Nothing here is drenched in gore or ensconced in the increasingly prevalent "cavernous" aesthetic. Rather, everything here is aggressive, and boisterous, and coated in a slick sheen of late 80's nostalgia. If you like that furious romping energy of Consuming Impulse-era Pestilence, or Beyond The Gates-era Possessed, or Cause of Death-era Obituary, or Spiritual Healing-era Death, you're most certainly in capable hands. Long live the ugly mutation of thrash into death. The golden age lives on. 
Written by: The Administrator
Maybe I'm alone in this opinion, but I find high quality death metal albums particularly difficult to review. The standard adjectives feel dead on arrival--"brutal" or "ripping" or "pulverizing" only get you so far with an audience who has heard it all before. Upping the ante in terms of gross-out description is similarly limited: there's only so many ways you can say "cranium-crushing" "intestine-splitting" or "cadaver-licking" before the hyperbole starts feeling stale and copy/pastable. You can only drop so many laundry lists of high-profile acts such as Morbid Angel, Revulsion, Incantation, Dying Fetus, Deicide, Suffocation, Hate Eternal, and motherfuckin' Cannibal Corpse before it starts to sound like comparison for the sake of comparison. Anyways. enough shop talk. Let's move on to today's high-quality death metal album in question. 
Written by: The Voiceless Apparition
Here we are. It's the last few weeks of 2021. Now is the time to ponder back on the past 11 months. This year has been insanely stacked with great releases, sometimes being overwhelming. The genre I feel with the most eyes this year was death metal. We had the debut albums from Frozen Soul and Sanguisugabogg, the second slab of brutality from Cerebral Rot, and the latest opus from Worm. But we're not done yet, because we have the debut album from 200 Stab Wounds. Just based off of one demo called Piles of Festering Decomposition, these Ohio death merchants already cemented themselves in the death metal-sphere. But do they keep the momentum on Slave to the Scalpel? 
Written by: Blackie Skulless
While Conjureth took me by storm, being the best album released through Memento Mori this year, Hexorcist is another band that came out alongside it. In a similar OSDM vein, they hail from Miami, Florida, much like many of the style’s originators. The striking debut is entitled Evil Reaping Death, and it shows little interest in subtly. Rather, it stays as straightforward as it possibly can. Musically, think something very similar to the likes of Morbid Angel. So it should go without saying that this effort consists of raw guitars resembling aggressive thrash acts, alongside pummeling and simplistic drumlines. All of the Azagthoth-like guitar tricks are there, including the screeching and wailing solos topped with harmonics to invoke panic and confusion. Fret-happy tapping and similar guitar tones? All checks out. Admittedly, this can feel a bit same-y, and obviously isn’t really anything original, but the brevity and incredible execution allows me to give this a pass. |
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