Grog: Sphere of Atrocities
Out 13th June on Helldprod
A collection of generic brutal and semi technical death metal furniture, delivered with the random freneticism of grindcore. Swirling between ideas, Grog are just as liable to hack up the momentum with abandon as they are to repeat themes and riffs in order to hammer them home. Drums and rhythm guitar remain tightly locked together through a dense cavalcade of chromatic violence, unsettling the flow and centre of each piece with pleasing nihilism. Although there is a tendency to lean on breakdowns to create a dramatic focal point, Grog are adept at bookending this material with unexpected vectors and a degree of tension through austerity to contrast with the busy material either side. Lead guitar work is sparse, trading on miniature licks and accents as opposed to elaborate solos. The grindcore philosophy is at work in both the briefness of the tracks and the underlying destructive impetus. Despite the lack of any discernible identity Grog play with such fluidity and conviction that the experience is an enjoyable one regardless.
Patristic: Catechesis
Out 20th June on Willowtip
Sometimes less is more. Patristic cite Aosoth on their list of influences, and one can see the connection. The trouble with this lightly dissonant form of muscular black metal is finding the balance between creating an enveloping vibe without letting it dictate the entire substance of the music. We still need the riffs after all. On paper therefore, Patristic make the right call by recruiting choppy death metal blows into their music, cutting up the atmosphere with percussive anomie at regular intervals. But the result is unfortunately confused, directionless, and ham-fisted. A swirling, mystical darkness emanates from the music certainly, but this doesn’t take it much beyond garden variety dissonant black metal. The execution and linking together of riffs are muddled, not conveying any clear message beyond the two axioms of power and darkness. Whilst one can maybe appreciate the effort, which is at least far more engaging than many aesthetically similar releases, the experience lacks any unique atmosphere to pull the listener in, and fails to compensate for this with any distinctive riff philosophy to speak of.
Witherer: Shadow Without a Horizon
Out 20th June on Hypaethral Records
A statement of avant-garde metal in the sense that – rather than attempting to explode or subvert established forms – it collates data from modern iterations of dissonant black metal, funeral doom, ambient, and death metal and evolves them into a post structural statement. Despondent and drab without redemption. The depressive elements are constantly beaten with an amoral dissonance, jagged, violent chords refuse to allow the emotional depths of the music to collapse into self-indulgence. In this sense, despite the dismal atmosphere, there is still purpose here. The drums deliver a stilted, staggering gait of link fills, unexpected punches, and rolling, meandering patterns that, despite their tangential methodology, drive the music forward in waves of progression, forcing the droning guitars to craft new and at least semi-structural material. Vocals adopt a similar degree of informality, offering a range of monstrous ejaculations only loosely following a rhythmic or cadential flow. Avant-garde in the sense that one can discern the ephemera of familiar genres, techniques, and traditions. But here split apart to the point of evolving into a new expression. One completely unpleasant at a visceral level, but offering an abundance of intellectual curiosities whilst delivering painful but somehow necessary barbs at the sub-intellectual level.
Hexella: The Ancient Gaping Mouth
Out 27th June on Hells Headbangers
Essentially an old school hardcore punk album articulated with a black metal accent. In this sense it leverages the dark, swelling atmosphere of the latter to inject a sense of gravitas and mysticism into the realism of punk. The production is crisp but oddly muffled. Neither explicitly nostalgic nor obviously contemporary. Raw drums cut through the mix neatly as they work their way through older hardcore and d-beat stylings laced with fluid blast-beats. The guitar tone is rich and warm, offsetting the black metal language with a degree of immediacy that speaks to the energy of the music. Mid-range black metal vocal stylings lifted from Quorthon in the late first wave integrate neatly into this mix. Whilst the release is hardly dazzling for its creativity or innovation, it deserves modest accolades for revamping rock oriented black metal with a sheen of dignity, sophistication, nuance even, whilst remaining entertaining and straight up fun without falling into the usual trite pitfalls of black ‘n’ roll.
Beyond Mortal Dreams: Devastation Hymns
Out 28th June on Lavadome Productions
Definitely one of the clearer statements of contemporary death metal to come out this year. Rallying an undercurrent of oppressive darkness, dramatic flourishes alongside mechanistic precision, compositional flair, all amounts to a highly intentional and well thought out presentation. Rhythms shuffle between choppy fills, streamlined blast-beats, and pulsing, violent regularity. Atop this, guitars unfurl an often simple central theme, around which several variations are gradually called upon to comment, before dragging the music into deviational complexity defined by darker but explicitly melodic currents. Solos, whilst elaborate and adept, are treated as decorative material, signposts to moments of dramatic import. Guttural vocals complete the rhythmic picture, cutting through the wash of tremolo picked riffs to anchor the music with a sense of realism to offset the gothic horror articulated by the melodic signatures. The amalgamation of these elements creates one of the more impressive statements in death metal in recent years, not for its originality, but for the depth and scope of its understanding of where death metal is today, what its strengths are, and playing to them with enthusiasm.
Beleth’s Trumpet: Chapel of Bones
Out 1st July on Korpituli
By stripping the formula of Nordic black metal back to a raw, basic expression of mournful melodic currents, Beleth’s Trumpet create space for a clear dialogue that, whilst not exactly spellbinding, certainly holds the attention more than the current crop of sugary black metal holdouts. There is an understanding that euphoria cannot be forced, that traditional melody is a means to an end, and contrast, however subtle, is essential for conveying motion and meaning within music. To that end they manage to leverage the ambiguity of early second wave material that has been sorely lacking in much overexcited material to come out recently. Gradations of darkness and light, hope and despair, heroism and fatalism in the face of nature’s uncaring vastness, all are conveyed with adeptness and efficiency across this debut. That this is achieved in such a superficially commonplace iteration of black metal once again corroborates the idea that, when it comes to modern metal of any genre, it’s not the raw materials that are the problem, but how newer artists configure them. Beleth’s Trumpet offer nothing new, but still manage to stand out through their efficient and engaging manipulation of longstanding forms.
Hate Meditations 
Leave a comment