Thunraz: Incineration Day
Out 22nd November, self-released
Sterile, mechanical, jagged death metal meets an undercurrent of dark gothic atmosphere on the latest album from this Estonian entity. There is a clear intent to blend the abstracted violence of death metal with a more grounded, artificial aesthetic. Despite the clear industrial current running throughout ‘Incineration Day’, one hesititates to give it this label owing to the fact that Thunraz are more subtle and considered in their approach to bringing the two genres together. A relentless, tugging barrage of rhythmic death metal with little in the way of melody assaults each track, yet a clear emotive identity continues to struggle into existence, making those scant moments with a clear tonal centre all the more rewarding given the extent to which Thunraz tease and circle around resolutions through endless chromatic tangents. Drums retain an industrial persistence, but in a more round-about way than is common for this style, preferring to articulate convoluted patterns that revolve in metacycles, like the syncopation of complex machinery or the megatechnics of the production line. A humanist despair and anger still manages to assert itself as a key voice directing the tone and meaning of each piece.
Feral Forms: Through Demonic Spell
Out 29th November on Everlasting Spew
Devolves death metal back to its most basic iteration through down-tuned Slayer riffs delivered with greater rhythmic diversity. Such persistent reductivism would be tiresome were it not for the fact that Feral Forms have obviously deployed this to serve as a canvas for a dark, chasmic atmosphere, more frenetic and anxious than standard cavernous death metal. In this sense ‘Through Demonic Spell’ makes for a convincing synthesis between the razor-sharp violence of Malevolent Creation and a much darker, gothic infused atmosphere. By focusing on efficiency of riffs as opposed to originality or overly technical flourishes, they create space for a dramatic identity to take form, one far more striking than the majority of modern atmospheric death metal that tends to get caught in the weeds of textural arrangements and idiosyncratic tonal centres that do not serve the overall goals of the composition.
Duisternis: Relapse into Submission
Out 2nd December, self-released
For a short period in the late 90s, a marriage between industrial and black metal looked all but inevitable. And whilst there have been many noteworthy attempts to make this a reality, the compromises involved have always resulted in something weaker than its component parts. This Scottish entity bypasses these challenges by rejecting the substance of either genre. Instead using the aesthetics and textures of black metal and harsh noise/industrial to flesh out a diverse, genre hopping album bound together by a strikingly well realised atmosphere. Elements of sludge, DSBM, dark ambient, black metal, and even hints of post metal collide into a surprisingly fluid, idiosyncratic work whose identity transcends these raw materials. The lasting impression is one of grim futurism, an impersonal, crushing, atomisation aided and abetted by the advance of technology. Mournful lead guitar lines that could just as well have been composed for violin decorate an otherwise violent landscape of choppy rhythms and swirling darkness. All this amounts to one of the better efforts at synthesising industrial and black metal, achieved not by addressing either genre directly but through focusing on vision first, and leveraging techniques from a wider pool of influences to articulate it.
Diagenesis: Until Death Takes Me
Out 6th December on Aesthetic Death
Call me old fashioned, but this what funeral doom should sound like. Essentially ambient with a more defined chord structure through the medium of guitar drone. Stitching each extended interval together is a rich tapestry of synth lines kept persistently mournful. These make up both the atmospheric setting and the lead instrument, gradually working out subtle harmonic progressions over the course of each lengthy track. Guitars in this context merely bookmark the achingly slow rhythmic pulse, adding a sense of grating despair alongside the harsh qualities of the distorted vocals. Drums are perhaps an afterthought, an intermittent pulse following the emphasis of the guitars, the intervals between beats being beyond the perceptual present, meaning the listener does not recognise it as a rhythm in the traditional sense of the word. A gradualist, torturous piece of ambient metal that builds on the foundations of original funeral doom in the likes of Thergothon, Skepticism, and Esoteric, bringing the ambient qualities of this music to the foreground once again, and relegating the metallic elements to mere accompaniment, thus allowing the emotional and harmonic development space to grow and evolve.
Aabode: Neo-Age
Out 6th December on Godz ov War
Expresses a similar sense of anomie and contemporary alienation to the latest Khost release, despite the raw materials displaying some obvious differences. Where Khost – despite the more active attempt at eclecticism – submerge industrial metal material in a veil of deliberately incoherent drone, this French entity inject all manner of jagged rhythms, off kilter dissonance, and a plethora of random vocalisations. A riff language borrowed from the considerable body of dissonant extreme metal is combined with classic Godflesh style grooves, and inflections of more traditional death metal, a welcome returning character in an otherwise unfamiliar landscape. This is all put in service of harsh industrial tapestries intent on its own incoherence. The comparison to Khost arises from the idea that we are traversing a decaying, post industrial landscape, the concrete structures of which have long ceased to be used for their original purpose. Sound moves in unpredictable rhythms and from unexpected directions amongst these monolithic shells, with random noises occurring as if from close by, only to retreat into the peripheral. The result is an effective expression of the Weird and uncanny effects artificial environments have on our sense of perception and orientation.
Asenheim: Wolkenbrecher
Out 10th December on Dominance of Darkness
Streamlines the formula of later Nokturnal Mortum by refocusing folk black metal on a tight integration of homely lyricism and epic melodic flourishes. The orchestration is stripped back, the relatively limited textural range allowing the music to breathe and take form. An imaginative, broad ranging journey through light, melodic black metal decorated by woodwinds, percussion, and assorted stringed instruments comes to life thanks to the austerity of the overall presentation. Interludes break up the flow of the album but are certainly worthy of inclusion for their epic film score stylings calling to mind the likes of Lord Wind. It’s this intersection of grand sweeping soundscapes and intimate folk song ornamentation that makes ‘Wolkenbrecher’ such a breath of fresh air in the current context of folk metal. A work that, despite the honest to god fun it is to listen to, offers subtlety, nuance, and layers for the listener to unpack across multiple listens.
Hate Meditations 
someone was in a good mood this week
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