Father Befouled: Immaculate Pain
Out 13th September on Everlasting Spew
Father Befouled’s by now lengthy career of Incantation mirroring has evolved from the uncanny to the surpassing, as their material has ascending in tandem with Incantation’s descent into a dull autopilot. This latest EP does little to shift the formula. Although one can hear other influences at play, something the band themselves appear keen to emphasise given their choice to cover Morbid Angel and Abhorrence. Indeed, one can almost switch off the mind and enjoy the experience on its own terms by this point, as tracks like ‘Abomination of Flesh’ work out an extended, meandering descant of surrealist death/doom. Ultimately, there is scholarship behind Father Befouled’s work, a deep and lasting understanding of how to craft well ordered death metal. The raw materials may sound derivative at first glance, but beneath the surface we see a new entity beginning to manifest, all of which allows us to place this into that nebulous category of “authenticity” over mere pastiche.
Black Mold: In the Dirt of Oblivion
Out 20th September on Hellprod Records
Metal – much like Western society at large – has an aging population. This has lasting and damning effects on its younger cohort. Sure, older people can and do stay creatively relevant. Darkthrone are not an example of this. Their creative will has long since expired, but their standing as a universal touchstone means that the scene at large is forced to listen and form opinions on whatever idle nostalgia craving they insist on scribbling together every few years. You don’t have to listen to Darkthrone for this to be true. I haven’t listened to the actual source material of all this inertia since ‘Arctic Thunder’. But their tendrils remain deeply embedded in metal’s direction of travel. As evinced by the existence of entities like Black Mold. The scene’s inability to move past itself is exemplified in albums like ‘In the Dirt of Oblivion’. This loathsomely flat, uninspired, lazy collection of black metal/crust punk tropes is the direct result of Fenriz’s midlife crisis. Ouroboros continues to eat itself. Many generations down the line, recycled data devolves from pastiche to mere cosplay.
Witchtrap: Hungry as the Beast
Out 27th September on Hells Headbangers
Aside from cleaning up their image, Witchtrap offer few surprises for their latest outing. An artist that has deviated little from blackened speed metal worship, their gradualist moves toward studio grade production has done little to dampen their enthusiasm. For all the sincerity and joy apparent in this material, one can’t help but feel rather flat for the experience. Lyrics lurch from tired cliché to metal dog whistles. Even the riffs fall into that navel gazing *metal celebrating its own existence* territory. For the rest, Motorhead and early Sodom offcuts with the requisite South American flavour are present and correct, every bit as enjoyable as the predecessor ‘Evil Strikes Again’, albeit with diminishing returns given how little things seem to have advanced. Witchtrap have always been a throwback to an earlier time, notable for their ability to outdo the majority of the not inconsiderable competition in that regard. Here, they do the bare minimum to avoid us condemning this as a total failure. But that in itself is hardly a glowing endorsement.
Häxenzijrkell: Portal
Out 4th October on Amor Fati
“Buys into its own mythology” is a fancy way of saying “insists upon itself”. What do we really mean here? Well, in the case of Häxenzijrkell they appear to be so enamoured with the pursuit of achieving that cathedralist, monolithic guitar tone decorated with only the most modest of harmonic signatures that they forgot to say anything with it. To give credit where it’s due, there are at least twenty minutes of serviceable material here. One could make a case for the runtime stretching to twice this length based on the value of repetition and mood building. The problem being that mood building is a very close neighbour to playing for time. Häxenzijrkell don’t come across as immersive or atmospheric so much as they do confused. Ironically the strongest material on ‘Portal’ is where nothing much happens. The closing number ‘Aeon’ trades on a repetitive, doom ridden dirge replete with an eerie mix of clean and distorted vocals echoing Urfaust at their best. This leads me to conclude that Häxenzijrkell’s problem is maybe not insisting on oneself enough. Lacking the confidence to lean into pure drone/dark ambient with a black metal flavour, they veer away from an explicitly experiential endeavour and into that crowded and tired realm of cavernous black metal.
Ignominous: Dawn With no Light
Out 4th October on Vinyl Store
Warm blackened thrash meets the regalia of Greek black metal in the form currently touted across Stefan Necroabyssious’s many projects. Ignominous appear to be frugalists at heart, bending each piece around a handful of riffs delivered from different angles and orientations. But they are not afraid of decorating this modest architecture with rich orchestral facades unique to Southern European black metal. The ideas are simple, but they succeed in dragging this limited material into unexpected directions, keeping the listener at least minimally engaged. Sugar coated licks and cliches are kept at bay by intelligent decisions in pacing and contrast, each melodic hook is answered by a blunt thrash riff, repetition subverts our expectations of over an amenability on the part of the musicians. An agreeable helping of melodically minded warm black metal is kept intact.
Life Abuse: Systemization
Out 4th October on Armageddon Label
D-beat seeking to update the formula without sacrificing the strict adherence to brevity and intensity. Within extreme guitar based music the prevailing instinct for developing self-limiting genres is to ramp up the extremity, relying on textural flourishes and increases in tempo to do the heavy lifting in creating the illusion of progress. This at least guarantees loyalty to the formula. Life Abuse opt for a subtler approach. Whilst linear d-beats form the backbone of this material, they are frequently interrupted by percussive punches, disruptive breaks in momentum augmented by the rhythm guitar, amping up the disorder whilst retaining the apocalyptic flow that made the foundational texts of this style distinctive. Added to this are recognisable melodic patterns within many of the riffs. They retain vestiges of a folk and even classically minded lyricism. This undergirds the music with melancholia. A deep sense of loss in conversation with the overriding aggression as the ultimate response to the robbery of meaning. The result is an experience every bit as invigorating as classic hardcore punk, but one flecked with inuendo, twisted formulas, and novel calling cards that mark this release out for special mention.
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