Décryptal: Simulacre
Out 11th July on Me Saco Un Ojo/Rotted Life
Attempts to forge links between the old and the new in death metal via a survey of muscular old school traditions through the crushing swing of the Earache crowd to darker 2010s caverncore. In this endeavour it retains a refreshing focus and coherence, marking it out as a listen that at least “makes sense”, in that the musicians clearly have ideas to convey and communicate them successfully. Where it falls short is in motivating these ideas into anything beyond the merely serviceable. The bar of modern death metal has sunk so low that Décryptal clear it by merely stringing some competent riffs together and not relying too heavily on lavish aesthetic flourishes. But we should not lose sight of the fact that this was once considered the bare minimum for an album to be even worthy of a cursory spin. Here we have the blueprint of an artistic statement, leaving even the foundation down to our imagination, yet to be constructed.
Lepra: Mortuus Morgana
Out 14th July on BlackSeed (originally self-released in December 2024)
Ends up in the same place as black ‘n’ roll through less direct means. Obscure production and reverb drenched vocals do little to prop up clumsy lurches between factory settings black metal riffing, rock ‘n’ roll swagger, melodic dead ends that collapse into meaningless sentiment, and recycled heavy metal euphoria. This is what happens when artists take the wrong lessons from a distinctive older tradition, in this case Swedish black metal, which was able to digest overt heavy metal flourishes through the lens of early Mayhem mysticism and adventurous Bathory bombast. Lepra appear confused as to which influence to place where, resulting in nothing more than a checklist of features that fail to connect. There is no attempt to integrate a particular tonal or aesthetic tradition into a clear artistic statement, allowing the former to prop up the latter. The result is a disconnected set of threads, a thrust in multiple and often contradictory directions with no binding coherence. Any dramatic statements are unearned, divorced of context, but deployed with enough pomp and ceremony in the hope that the listener won’t notice.
Mouth of Madness: Event Horizon
Out 16th July on Darkness Shall Rise
Essentially a wacky take on early Vader through the deployment of USBM’s illogical melodic contouring. In this endeavour they are not entirely unsuccessful, largely owing to a clear focus on the development of theme. Each track starts with a clear intention that is then carried through a series of varying iterations, engaging in conversation with supplementary material, only to be brought to a climatic synthesis via some additional minor deviations. The material used to build this structure is largely drawn from Vader and early Morbid Angel, with a frantic, blackened thrash undertone acting as antagonist to the more intentional runs of traditional metal. In this, Mouth of Madness achieve that rare thing in modern metal through its balance of flirting with the avant-garde alongside a rigid compositional discipline. This is something that is maintained throughout despite repeated threats to sink entirely into quirky affectation for its own sake, a remarkable feat of restraint over and above the substantive riff signature articulated across this rather brief album.
Oskoreien: Hollow Fangs
Out 18th July, self-released
Post metal posing as melodic black, this album accepts the total pacification inherent to the former, whilst harvesting superficial materials from the latter to create a semblance of motion. The ponderous bounce of early Dimmu Borgir feeds into empty gestures of emotional catharsis, propped up by crowd pleasing but ultimately trivial harmonic material in lieu of any substantive development. Tracks extend well beyond their shelf life, relying on repetition to create the sense of profundity lacking in the core DNA of the music. Trite rock phrasing injects a degree of energy and contrast into this otherwise monotonous material, but as this is rooted in broadly non-metallic traditions any sense of dramatic payoff feels more like the cheap trick of a pop song. Peel back the layers behind generic black metal offcuts and one finds little more than a stadium rock band attempting to string together longform compositions via post metal defeatism.
Ancient Torment: Follow the Echo of Curses
Out 1st August on Eternal Death
Ancient Torment achieve an effective balance between sweeping “blizzard” metal and longform epic statements of narrative intent. The package may be a rather off-the-shelf mix of Nordic traditions, but an effective momentum is retained throughout, compensating for any lack of thematic variety or contouring through sustained energy and subtle shifts in pitch centre or rhythm. It echoes the likes of Forteresse in that it flattens off the jagged edges of early Enslaved in favour of linear, tremolo picked runs bolstered by blast-beats that rarely let up. In this sense it lacks the same shortcomings of Quebecoise black metal, specifically the fact that little of substance remains to sink the teeth into beneath the immediacy of the experience. ‘Follow the Echo of Curses’ by contrast stands apart as a remarkably coherent and confident statement of traditional but sophisticated black metal. But peering through this foreground reveals a lack of dimension, relegating this to an above average exercise in atmosphere with limited architectural complexity to offer.
Malthusian: The Summoning Bell
Out 8th August on Relapse Records
Early adopters of cavernous disso-death, Malthusian return after seven years for album number two. Credit where it’s due, despite retaining this distinctive aesthetic package, Malthusian have undergirded their offering with some substantive riff dialogues. The style is hardly surprising, drawing heavily from Incantation alongside some marked black metal influences. The energetic flow and density of riff placement presents the listener with a wealth of discursive material to ponder as each track unfolds. Tension is created for intermittent bursts of stark contrast, as rumbling atonal runs give way to jagged, high pitched chromaticism, or slumbering doom segments feed into bursts of irrational speed. There is a sense however, despite being relatively early adopters of this style of dark, powerful death metal, that Malthusian are somewhat behind the competition when compared to Cruciamentum or Father Befouled. There is enough here to mark them out from many of their followers, but I remain sceptical as to whether there is enough left in the tank to carry the style forward, despite it being a serviceable restatement of intent.
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