Beats and yelling shorts, 30th May 24

AO: kAOS
Out 13^th May on Nomad Snakepit Productions

Turns the nihilism of a certain strain of chaotic black meal in on itself. The driving violence of war metal is elevated by a rare melodic competence that sees sparse soundscapes of blasting tremolo riffing populated by minimal but creative lead refrains. Satire lurks in the periphery thanks to the mocking contours of the vocal performance. This is juxtaposed by a thematic package stretching from aggression to sorrow, imbued at one end by rich atmospheric flourishes and at the other by tightly bound riff dialogues. Warrants comparison to Funeral Mist’s latest offering ‘Deiform’ for its ability to unpack transparent by no less engaging melodies alongside a raging fury that stands apart from the usual ham-fisted attempts at emotive language within black metal. Narrative arcs of epic import are stretched across the macro level of this EP, granting the listener a sense of journey, of the passage of time, sonically framing the gravity of events unfolding before us.

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Cardiac Arrest: The Stench of Eternity
Out 17^th May on Hells Headbangers

Death metal veterans return for their long awaited follow up to the seminal ‘The Day that Death Prevailed’ released in 2020. Although unsurprisingly this lacks the raw excitement engendered by that release, ‘The Stench of Eternity’ manages to engage within the limited forms and raw materials Cardiac Arrest insist on working with. This is death metal at its most primal, referencing grindcore and early thrash in equal measure alongside choppy, percussive punches, adding much needed unpredictability to the picture. Although it lacks the angular precarity of its predecessor, which hinted at ‘Legion’ for its harnessing of unbridled chaotic energy, there is still an underlying menace to the Cardiac Arrest format lacking in the majority of ostensibly old school death metal. A throbbing guitar tone works its way through riffs referencing Blood, Repulsion, Entombed, and of course Slayer. Drums offer a rather linear performance, failing to disrupt the guitars in any meaningful way, which at times leads to a rather static, sluggish performance from the rest of the band. Despite this, Cardiac Arrest stand apart for their ability to renew archaic forms with modernist urgency.

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Trails of Anguish: Scathed Gaping Misery
Out 17^th May on Hessian Firm

Brings together all recorded material across two EPs from the brief early 2000s output of this Quebecoise entity. The opening track ‘Beyond Charismatic Sickness’ originally released as a bonus track on the ‘Relentless Abhorrence of Misery’s Grievance’ EP leaves a bad taste in the mouth via the bratty mathcore dressed in black metal clothing. Although the subsequent material improves on this somewhat low bar, it suffers from a similar penchant for an overly emotive hardcore undercurrent that serves the dual detriment of degrading the melodic character of the riffs and smothering every track in surplus percussive redundancies and unbearably hysterical vocalisations. But it should be noted that beneath this unfortunate packaging lies a curious entity of late melodic black metal, arriving at the tail of end of the genre’s halcyon period but the peak for the Canadian scene at large. Elements of bracing energy find dramatic payoff through moments of tense finale, aided by a tight rhythmic offering – when not engaging in meandering fills and breakdowns that lead nowhere. Sorrow and hope collide in moments of naturalist grandeur, only to be ruined by the domestic and near relentless whining of the vocals. Given the vintage of this material and its not insignificant flaws, the decision to resurrect it on this compilation constitutes a rare miss from the usually exceptional Hessian Firm. What enjoyment there is to garner from Trails of Anguish is highly conditional at best.

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Ultio: Cor
Out 23^rd May on Brucia Records

Bores more than it engages, but by the standards of black metal adopting an explicitly warlike spirit it achieves an effectively immersive framework upon which to frame basic yet engaging thematic material. Takes the blasting nihilism of mid-period Krieg and attempts to work it into a semblance of coherence by elongating each riff into a slow, unfolding melody, underpinned by rudimentary contrapuntal cycles syncing up at key junctures. Despite the mastery of this basic compositional toolkit, the majority of riffs populating this topography prove too generic to hold the attention for long. Where Ultio do succeed is in driving the lacklustre material to a place of profound revelation. Each piece manages to muster itself from a place of flat mediocrity into a dynamic and – given the context – unpredictable series of progressions unfolding in apparent slow motion. This latter is contrasted neatly with the near constant blasting drums as multiple timeframes unravel concurrently. Although there is a tendency for Ultio to shortcut their way to a finale by dropping the drums to half tempo, one of the most irritating and common facets of digital era black metal. Arpeggiated lamentations sprinkle themselves across the background fuzz of tremolo rhythm guitar, cutting through with minimal lyricism to supplement the background static of the vocals.

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Cult of Erinyes: Metempsychosis
Out 24^th May on Amor Fati

Essentially blackened caverncore punctuated by meaningless dark ambience with nothing to say. ‘Metempsychosis’ could be a case study in how vast swatches of modern metal value aesthetics and arrangement over substantive material. The album consists of two lengthy tracks stitched together from vignettes that hold an internal coherence, but make little sense as a totality. For extended passages the listener is left unanchored in reverb drenched dirge, motivated by only the most generic melodic throughlines that add nothing to the vocabulary of black metal. The echoey dissonance that makes up the bulk of at least five metal albums a week for the last decade constitutes the substance of this material, broken up by funeral doom segments, presumably deployed to craft a sense of theatre, but in reality landing with all the tension of an Ahab album. Industrial ephemera, emo and post metal riffing disguised as something darker, and a vocal package as diverse as it is terrible complete the picture on this waste of bandwidth.

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Black Sorcery: Plummeting into the Hour of the Wolf
Out 24^th May on Eternal Death

Probably more fun to record than it is to listen to. Were it not for the distinctively thrash drum performance on what is essentially a raw, energetic black metal offering, one could be forgiven for thinking this was recorded in 1993, just not in a good way. Yes, there are stretches of solid riff exchanges supplemented by creative lead material. Yes, the anachronistic drum style complicates the contours of these tracks to a degree. But ultimately, we can tell we are essentially listening to a modern hardcore band playing a facsimile of old school black metal. The construction, when not uncanny, is flat. It lacks any feral obscurity, giving the impression of a cook going through an ingredients list and attempting to add their own twist to an old recipe. But what new twists are present are a detriment to the experience (such as it is), and the stretches where Black Sorcery are able to string a coherent melodic sentence together are so worn, generic, flat, and unimaginative in 2024 that you might as well listen to Ungod for all the novel experience you’ll get from this EP.