Temora: Demo
Out 13th March on Blood Harvest
At face value this is fairly run of the mill old school death metal, delivered with a pleasing sparseness that presents as authentic as opposed to another empty pastiche. Peeling back the layers reveals a degree of pomp and playful bounce to this material. Many riffs taking on multiple dimensions and developing in variations through their repetition. Characterful guitar leads, part solo, part counterpoint, further extend the expressive range of these otherwise rudimentary ideas. We could therefore read this demo as a lesson in efficiency, as rather limited material is given a new lease of life by allowing it to breathe and marinade instead of merely discarding it for the sake of the next disconnected idea. Drums make good use of choppy grooves, lending the guitars a push and pull flow, this is neatly contrasted with chaotic blasting moments. The latter of which is a weapon rarely used, as Temora insist on sticking to a mid-paced plod for the most part, a choice that lends these tracks a degree of weight and tension over and above the source material.
Throat: Beyond the Devil’s Shroud
Out 13th March on Primitive Reaction
As a companion piece to Cult des Ghoules or Sodality one could do worse than exploring the debut from this Polish entity, but whether a companion were even required remains in doubt. Throat lean into a dark, strained, ritualistic variant of black metal defined by extended passages of laboured noise more than riffs. But unlike their fellow Poles, they remain somewhat lacking in substance, making for a meal of limited nutritional value despite appearing to initially quell the appetite. There is virtue in the dark ambient template they have applied to black metal, emphasised by the neofolk cum martial industrial of the interlude ‘Summerland’, but the guitar and vocals are so dominant during the metal tracks that it remains impossible to analyse it from any other angle than a metallic one. And in this regard its virtues, whilst superior to the ‘Blood Exaltation’ EP, remain somewhat limited. Droning chords, rudimentary ideas, very little motion, all are papered over with a strong aesthetic and atmospheric flair, but digging deeper reveals a striking lack of identity or substance beneath. Something that even the tense, tugging drums cannot salvage, despite their effective use of pauses and silence to further elasticate the sound. There is a salvageable project at work beneath these shortcomings, but it remains redundant in the presence of their clearest influence Cult des Ghoules.
MORS.VOID.DISCIPLINE: Txketh)eke
Out 13th March on Sentient Ruin
As a synthesis of black metal and grindcore goes, this release succeeds in at least signposting their way through each track. A monotonous chaos is offset by at least one central theme that binds the piece together. Submerged vocals borrowed from the inhuman chaos of early goregrind, a domineering guitar tone intended to swamp all in muscular noise, and solid but choppy drums mixed at extremes of loud and quiet, all give credence to the idea that these musicians are motivated by nothing more than an extremity arms race. But in the process they have brought some distinctive riffs and bound them into a thematic whole that makes sense externally. The pure energy and amorality of grindcore riffing is melded into a more malevolent impulse, with inflections to minor keys and unambiguously evil accents lending this otherwise punk derived material a degree of gravitas. That, and the lurching rhythmic flexes of the genre in its heyday, with surprise breaks and contrasts between staccato punches and blasting noise all give this brief album a sharp identity that is worth regarding closer, even in spite of the somewhat obnoxious presentation.
Dodmoon: Demo MMXXV
Out 13th March on Signal Rex
Simple, direct, stripped back black metal achieves a degree of intensity through the performance and presentation alone. Coming across as a more melodically inclined version of Ildjarn at times, a more energetic Darkthrone at others, there’s nothing too remarkable to take home from this demo even if there’s nothing particularly offensive about it. The deranged vocals go some way to raising the stakes across each track. But the manner in which the guitars attack their way through even the most generic, off-the-shelf black metal riff lends this demo a degree of bite and prestige regardless of the sterility of the material. Tight, pulsing drums anchor the remainder in a rigid grid of well paced out sequences, something that aligns this closer with black metal as a misanthropic as opposed to merely contemplative project. Simple lead material ekes out additional mileage, thus aligning it with the philosophy of minimalism, even if materially it is closer to punk for its emphasis on the present moment and the sheer violence it wishes to convey. An intriguing tease of a debut demo that serves its purpose insofar as it garners our curiosity for subsequent releases from this outfit.
Calvana: Sub Janus
Out 20th March on Adirondack Black Mass
Presenting as an amped up version of the sparse Ukrainian style, landing somewhere between the intense jaggedness of Belgium’s Weigedood and the dry intensity of Marduk. The production attempts to supress the more generic aspects of this music with an atypically rich and warm mix. Homely, organic drums cut through with an air of domesticity despite the conviction of the performance. Whilst the guitar tone is befitting of the near constant tremolo riffing on display here, it is cushioned by a rich bass undertone, lending the entire mix an earthy, homely quality. The guttural grunting that counts for vocals on this album seems to further emphasise the rather boilerplate ideas by attempting to distract the listener with this oral eccentricity. Despite these minor shortcomings, the music flows neatly together, allowing ideas to breathe and develop with little more than repetition and subtle shifts and breaks enacted by the rhythm section required to refresh the picture. All make this an imaginative if modest display of experimentation with preexisting techniques in the hope of questing for something new. Ultimately this is often the best we can hope for in modern black metal. And even if Calvana are far from the best in this regard, they are worth spending time with for what they do bring to the table over and above their well worn source material.
Nachtgnawer: Medieval Devourer
Out 21st March on Purity Through Fire
Attempts to marry the high minded melodicism at one extreme of black metal with the genre’s id in frantic punk beats and restless surges of chaos at the other. Moment to moment it is not unsuccessful in this regard, but as ideas are forbidden the dignity of maturing beyond their germinal state, one is left with nothing but a highlights reel of what could have been. A suggestion box of fragmented thoughts, delivered in the rapid succession of a coked out monologue, the lasting experience leaving nothing but numbness. Although the EP is split into two halves, bifurcated by a brief but neat dungeon synth interlude, it suffers from the same shortcoming as 90% of modern extreme metal. Namely that it reads like fanfiction. Crafted with love and knowledge for sure. But spliced together with second hand material. And because all the ideas are predigested, they serve as nothing but reminders of what fresh food takes like (to extend the metaphor to breaking point). Nachtgnawer play the role of a middleman for authenticity and originality, a mere conveyancer of ideas lifted from a purer source material, once removing us from a genuine experience for the sake of this gestural love letter.
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