Rahaty: Bestial Lustmord
Out 28th August on Sentient Ruin
Another attempt to bleed the deathgrind sponge dry without refreshing the underlying template. This time by taking things in a blackened direction in the Finnish mould. Although this album nails a certain cavernous aesthetic, the underlying architecture fails to trouble anyone accustomed to the extremity foregrounded across this material. The problem is either one of too much order or not enough. Unlike Moonchapel for example, Rahaty appear musically coherent (the former deliberately allowing their music to decay at the edges as a device for further upsetting the listener’s sense of balance), rhythmically in the pocket, transitions make sense and any inertia is compensated by the relatively tight performances. The fact that the musicianship is on the tighter side would therefore require a more distinctive character to be expressed through the riffs themselves, something that, despite many serviceable ideas, is largely lacking from this material. This remains a cut above the majority of contemporary so called blackened death metal fodder, but it fails to carry the material over the line by simply relinquishing control, either by forcing the true nature of the music to breach the surface or by allowing the technical elements to slide for the sake of a more primal ambient experience.
Sev Lezu: Blood Conscript
Out 28th August on Ordovician Records
Absu alumnus offers choppy melodic black metal that conceals a valiant effort to stitch together multiple competing riff traditions into one. Angular death metal is repurposed for the urgency of this galloping material, muddying the rhythmic momentum without completely destroying the pace. Anthemic, borderline euphoric lyrical passages of heavy metal revelry are tempered by frenetic chromatic pockets, just as moments of apparent sentiment are juxtaposed with a peripherally aggressive tendency. Whilst one can certainly applaud the diverse brew worked across this material, by the second half of the album one is left marginally disappointed, as if we have witnessed a feat of admin rather than artistry. As an example of riff organisation embodying not only an internal consistency but one that manages its ambitious stylistic reach with ease the album cannot be faulted. But what all this activity is working towards, a guiding telos directing each microcosm, this slowly fades as the album progresses despite the strong showing immediately after the curtains rise.
Trench Warfare: Achtung! Destroy the Weak
Out 28th August on Conjuring Records
War metal only in the structural sense that the presentation and performance eschew loose, throbbing chaos in favour of tightly orchestrated blasting runs of flattened off death and thrash metal riffs. To compensate for the lack of atmospheric qualities the tracks do at least display a clear thematic development even as they stick to the minimalistic rigours expected of this style. Breaks in tempo to elaborate on simple doom derived passages create tension before the next release of speed. But ultimately these tracks pivot on the exchange of two or three simple ideas, worked with such intensity and almost mechanistic persistence that little more is required to bring this material over the line. Strained death metal vocals add gradations of intensity above the tight barrage, alongside screaming, siren like lead guitar wails that advance the position forward, allowing the underlying riff structure to chug along beneath with the same limited basket of ideas regardless.
Acausal Intrusion: Vomit Meditations
Out 4th September on I, Voidhanger Records
Essentially a mess. One that seems to land on solid ideas with the same frequency of a stopped clock telling the time. Loose dissonance, rhythmic ambiguity, an entropy of themes, random guttural vocals. Individual vignettes do occasionally arrive at interesting ideas that almost behave like satire of the technical death metal bedding they grew out of. But these are swamped by near constant lurches into random filler, chord sequences that seem to parade their meandering nature in coquettish fashion with little regard for how they are contributing to the wider picture. Drums are equally deficient in attention span, attempting to deconstruct the nature of drum fills and non-linear rhythms in metal by drawing on various jazz and avant-garde techniques, but rather than committing to the bit they all too often fall back on loose, mid-paced blast-beats as if unable to properly navigate or articulate this labyrinthine material with a convincingly diverse armoury. Acausal Intrusion are at their strongest when settling into repetition, thus allowing for a more thorough digestion of their interpretation of leftfield metal, but these musicians appear too impatient to properly give voice to this tendency, choosing instead to showcase their non-traditional credentials to the detriment of actually communicating anything through this material.
Demonic Manifestation: Grimshine
Out 4th September on Personal Records
On paper this is pretty route-one Swedeath worship. But unlike the countless OSDM acts attempting to build a career on guitar tone alone, Demonic Manifestation take a more longform view. This is to be expected from members who also play in the much more expansive project Ravenous Death. Basic, chugging riffs, so often the centrepiece for aesthetically comparable bands, are here little more than link segments, leading into more elaborate passages of darkly melodic material. There is also a greater churn of tempos at work, as the same riff is repeated across plodding rhythms underpinned by frantic double-kick work and blast-beats that serve to stretch the material past the point of comfort, as if the music is torturing itself into a confession. There is a gothic grandeur to the delivery as Demonic Manifestation work up to moments of dramatic import, whipping the music up into a frenzy with rich harmonic guitar layering and repetition of theme. Individual elements are simple enough, but each function like a tributary, feeding into a wellspring of quietly confident, direct death metal.
Hadopelagyal: Zalmathic Necroichorion
Out 4th September on Amor Fati
Atmospheric war metal that leans into a sense of hopelessness. Where some outfits in this style adopt a militaristic posture, seemingly jubilant at the prospect of mass conflict, Hadopelagyal are, if not fatalistic, then amorally accepting of total destruction. The riffs pivot more toward black metal than death, offering fluid speed runs that bleed into one another owing to the excessive levels of reverb applied across the mix. Distant, echoey vocals lend a sense of size and scope, appearing distant when compared to the drums that operate as a near constant churn of noise next to the ears. Guitars pivot on the repetition of deliberately simplistic riffs, hammering home a sense of inevitability through their sheer persistence. In this sense this EP offers a good demonstration of how to marry a distinct aesthetic quality to the underlying architecture, with each elevating the virtues of the other. Light percussive interchanges remind us of the sheer physicality of conflict, undergirding the heady ambience with a degree of welcome realism, grounding us even as the sustained tremolo runs drift off into the distance. All of which makes for a neat companion piece to Necropolissebeht’s ‘Taurunovem – Th’Astraktyan Serfdome’, the debut album from this musician’s other project.
Hate Meditations 
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