Armchair rhetoric on extreme metal
Coronation of the GrotesqueOut 15th August on Dark Descent Records Modern death metal is often guilty of running away from itself. Either gesturing at lofty, pseudo esoteric avant-garde affectations, or else leaning so aggressively into its own cliché that it begins to behave like novelty music. Castrator’s latest offering is something of a breath of... Continue Reading →
Incinerated: The Epitome of TransgressionOut 14th July on BlackSeed Lifts the clustered melodic density of late second wave black metal (think Cirith Gorgor or Gorgon) with a thread of fatalistic lamentation, topographically similar to modern dissodeath but pivoting more toward traditional melody, rendered abrasive by the freneticism of the performances. The strained emotion, and indeed... Continue Reading →
Sacrilege InfernusOut 25th July, self-released Access to culture has never been easier. Deciding what to access and spend time with near impossible. People idolise the traditional underground for its asceticism. The implied discipline required to enter an obscure channel of culture. The music itself a challenge of dense, alien sounds born of a hermetically sealed... Continue Reading →
Lord of NightmareOut 25th July on Hessian Firm (originally released in 2006) Endless Dismal Moan, the brainchild of one Chaos 9, who sadly took their own life in 2008, was an enigmatic Japanese black metal entity that typified or even perfected the dark, urbanist turn the genre took in the early 21st Century. Hessian Firm’s... Continue Reading →
Décryptal: SimulacreOut 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... Continue Reading →
Mortalha Negra: NecromanteOut 18th June on Helldprod Records Essentially a thrash metal rendering of ‘Under a Funeral Moon’. Excitable yet austere, riffs reach through the old school filter, reinjecting archaic speed metal elements into an unambiguously black metal setting. The latter elements of which are deployed as developmental material. This in turn injects the music... Continue Reading →
Vomitum TempestasOut 30th June on Nuclear War Now Productions Texan death metal engages in a distant but often proactive dialogue with the genre’s macabre roots. Blaspherian, Condemner, Imprecation, all are muscular, direct, energetic iterations of death metal. But on closer inspection it becomes apparent that their raw physicality is a façade, a delivery mechanism designed... Continue Reading →
Understanding Sacramentum I was as shocked as anyone to hear of the tragic passing of Nisse Karlén. Sacramentum were a very formative band in the development of my taste. I was lucky enough to catch them at the London Deathfest in 2022, and was looking forward to seeing them at Cosmic Void Festival in just... Continue Reading →
Lord of Two HornsOut 27th June on Nuclear Winter Records Drawn and Quartered remind us that – despite my growing cynicism – you should never write anyone off before their time. 2021’s ‘Congregation Pestilence’ was a tight but forgettable iteration of dark American death metal. One that led me to conclude that we could expect... Continue Reading →
Grog: Sphere of AtrocitiesOut 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.... Continue Reading →
Hate Meditations 