Lifvsleda: Evangelii härold
Out 30th April on NoEvDia
Integrates a rare balance of styles within an overarching atmospheric black metal package, working in strong melodic currents which are in turn offset by a background siren of depressive drone. Although the majority of riffs offer nothing new as far as frigid black metal is concerned, ‘Evangelii härold’ reemphasises how to allow percussion to inform phrasing and momentum from a compositional point of view. The drums are notable not for their technicality or originality, but for their ability to direct the pacing of each piece through simple shifts in tempo, or sparse but assertive tom fills calling to mind early Skepticism. The riffs circle around basic repeated refrains, offering only minimal development with each iteration. But not much more is required to create a feeling of development and forward motion owing to the use of individual drum hits as if they were a lead instrument in direct dialogue with the lead guitar’s linear drone. Vocals offer an amusical barrage of restrained melodrama, articulated via a mid-range ghoulish rasp that offers a pleasingly ugly counterpoint to the latent grace of the music itself. An understated – and perhaps unoriginal – rumination on black metal as an exercise in intellectual narrowing as a means to achieving depth.
ÓÐKRAPTR: Óðkraptr
Out 30th April on Signal Rex
Where early black metal lifted ideas from old horror film scores, ÓÐKRAPTR attempts to embed a form of droning DSBM into the haunting, half life of film scoring itself. In this sense, we should view this plodding and somewhat tedious attempt to recast “post” black metal (as in metal seeking to replace riffs with sonic mood boards) as a form of idea driven ambient. Interesting for the questions it throws up, but lacking in any real substance or purpose. There is something to be said for referencing older versions of explicitly “haunting” music by mimicking the decaying, half life they now enjoy, only reaching our ears behind walls of static as if to emphasise the temporal distance as well an ontological one in relation to the listener. In this sense the music achieves a kind of triple hauntology, a pastiche of music attempting to conjure the impression of an older past seeking to impose itself on the presence, leaving us thrice removed from the experience. But the combination of ambient drone, eerie keyboards, degraded guitar lines, and predictable rhythmic trudging grows old as the statement, once made, fails to reach any moment of epiphany or development.
Waves Idle Symmetry: Ametron
Out 3rd May, self-released
In many ways this curiosity of an album picks up where Enslaved circa ‘Isa’ left off, with a number of caveats however. ‘Ametron’ is far more subtle in how it goes about integrating a latent progressive flavour into what is essentially light, melodic black metal in the Southern European sense of the word (think Agatus’s ‘Dawn of Martyrdom’ as opposed to Sacramentum). That being said, many of the riffs seem to be directly informed by a psyche/folk crossover , one that bleeds into the clean vocal passages that at first strike one as jarringly out of place. But their effect is to enhance the contours of certain riffs, following not leading the phrasing of each piece by offering eerie, almost wistful calls across the distorted guitar. The riffs themselves circle around a package of fairly standard “epic” black metal trappings, the background spectre of heavy metal euphoria informing moments of finale or dramatic import. This is offset by the immediacy of the production itself, and the sharp, percussive flavour many counter riffs take on by way of contrast. Again, these seem to be borrowed from progressive music proper as opposed to latter day technical hardcore or math rock, although the comparison is not unjustified. Despite this uncanny mix of styles, Waves Idle Symmetry effectively integrate them into a coherent, tight, and decidedly modest brew of melodically charged narrative metal in a way that Enslaved repeatedly hinted at but ultimately failed to achieve.
StarGazer: Bound by Spells
Out 3rd May on Personal Records
StarGazer sit within that mid-tier of contemporary (or rather post 2000) death metal that managed to avoid overt nostalgia by replacing it with a detached sentimentalism alongside derivative “progressive” content that – owing to the fact that it fails to add anything meaningful to the compositions – seems to be deployed as a way to make eccentric the otherwise latent emo undertones. Where Morbus Chron or Execration frustrated for hinting at something new within progressive death metal but failing to truly realise a vision at the macro level, preferring instead to offer a series of unconnected suggestions, they at least came across as artists with identifiable styles. StarGazer’s ambitions are much broader in terms of audience capture, which makes them incapable of articulating just what exactly they are about. They are an artist without a voice or purpose of their own, existing (much like Horrendous) for the sake of delivering on-trend tropes to an audience requiring nothing more of music than intellectual validation. If this EP is to be believed they clearly want to lean into a drab, melodic, depressive “post” metal aesthetic as told from a death metal perspective. But seem incapable of fully embracing this because (frankly) that clutch of stylistic leanings is highly limited from a musical perspective, and StarGazer ultimately still see themselves as a prog band. A motivation that utterly dismembers any gestalt one might have garnered from these pieces. The melodic narratives are somewhat typical of modern extreme metal in its current neurotic state of hyper individualised self-therapy, but at least it’s there. But the endless divergences into dense, staccato jazz passages and redundant tempo changes hamstring this, segregating the entire entity into a coldly utilitarian checklist. One can almost hear the different audiences they are trying to reach with each new passage as it takes over from the last with no overarching motivation stitching each moment together. One can better understand the popularity of OSDM if this is the most convincing alternative currently on offer.
Vaticinal Rites: Cascading Memories of Immortality
Out 10th May on Everlasting Spew Records
A compact reiteration of thrash induced death metal, notably late Tampa smashed against early Vader or Sinister. The result is a mildly diverting cascade of riffs punctuated by moments reaching for greater melodic nuance. This latter feature is kept restrained and compact, nestled within what are generally short tracks. The result leaves one with mixed feelings. There are novel moments scattered across this album, but they remain frustratingly underdeveloped, but one can’t help but appreciate Vaticinal Rites’s efficiency when it comes to dispensing with convincing, slick, modern death metal. Occasional off-the-shelf thrash riffs are positioned as link phrases when one idea appears to run out of road and a recapitulation is required. Whilst this sets the overall picture back in terms of offering any sense of novelty, it’s hardly surprising given Chris Cleovoulou’s presence on rhythm guitar of Sawticide fame. Despite the conspicuousness of influences, and sheer number of obvious callbacks throughout the course of ‘Cascading Memories of Immortality’, Vaticinal Rites manage to avoid being insultingly derivative thanks to creative pockets of development, largely expressed via interesting interchanges between lead guitar and drums, and moments of sustained tension as a way to offset the at times rather clinical approach to riffcraft.
Desolus: System Shock
Out 10th May on Hells Headbangers
Although clearly derivative of Teutonic thrash, Desolus present a more fluid and explicitly blackened version of the linear chaos of Destruction or Kreator, bringing this closer to a form of blackened speed metal in terms of how smooth the content flows by, helped by a vocalist whose voice is a dead ringer for Mille Petrozza. Rhythmic disruption is tempered for the sake of delivering an undiluted barrage of blasting noise. The riffs themselves circle between older thrash and speed elements alongside proto black metal. These are defined by a hook consisting of a simple two chord interchange, onto which are hung rudimentary trills in order to make greater currency out of each passage through augmented chaos and momentum. More complex – given the context – material serves as a development section prior to lead guitar material whose sole purpose seems to be as agents of abrasion, heightening the tension and intensity prior to closing. Whilst par for the course for anyone familiar with Sodom, Bathory, or Sarcofago, there is a sincerity and pleasing professionalism couched within how Desolus go about constructing these pieces. This marks them out from the current crop of blackened thrash currently pivoting toward fanfare and self-referential bravado than the finer points of composing in this style. The package is basic, but intrigue arises from how one motivates it with variety and novelty whilst remaining true to the dogma. On this – somewhat limited – metric of success, Desolus pass with flying colours.
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