Armchair rhetoric on extreme metal
Tubal Cain: Slime AbyssOut 27th February on Darkness Shall Rise It remains curious to look at black metal as the completion of metal's evolutionary circle. A symptom of the hysteria and panic that gripped metal fans as death metal bands proudly displayed their tracksuits and time signatures. Black metal’s closer alliance with linear heavy metal... Continue Reading →
The official history of Immolation By Kevin Stewart-Panko Immolation are the band that made me fall in love with death metal. Having purchased ‘Dawn of Possession’ on a whim back in 2005(?) on one of many surreptitious trips to Guildford HMV, something about this album clarified the small print of this genre for me. For... Continue Reading →
A Touch of EternityOut 16th December on Loud Rage Music (originally released in 1997) Given the reserved, no thrills demeanour of my native North of England, it’s always puzzled me that a variant of overtly emotive, randy, flamboyant death metal bubbled up here in the early 1990s. The drab poise of the Peaceville bands certainly... Continue Reading →
Thunraz: Incineration DayOut 22nd November, self-released Sterile, mechanical, jagged death metal meets an undercurrent of dark gothic atmosphere on the latest album from this Estonian entity. There is a clear intent to blend the abstracted violence of death metal with a more grounded, artificial aesthetic. Despite the clear industrial current running throughout 'Incineration Day', one... Continue Reading →
The Skorian // The GreyleerOut 29th November on Profound Lore Records The existence of Mefitis within extreme metal is in many ways metatextual. They imbibe its raw materials only to churn it up into a cocktail of inuendo, subversion, duality of meaning that would go largely unnoticed by anyone not intimate with the legacy they... Continue Reading →
Musicians are organic entities subject to the laws of nature. Bands are abstract concepts theoretically capable of immortality. Musicians get old. Retire. Die. Bands often endure in Trigger's Broom form, limping on, replacing discarded limbs. Until we are forced to ask: what even is a band? In the case of Cradle of Filth, Asphyx, or... Continue Reading →
King Crimson’s ‘Red’ recently turned 50. And apparently it’s okay to broadcast one’s love of prog now. No longer requested in hushed tones, served under the counter in a brown paper bag. People are poring over this lurid filth in full view of the public. ‘Red’, ‘Close to the Edge’, ‘Mirage’, these were exceptions to... Continue Reading →
A life in death metal 1987-1997 By David E. Gehlke Death metal was rock’s first truly underground cultural artefact. One only has to look at the way it crumbled and fragmented whenever it sniffed the bright lights and fanfare of “mainstream” attention. Look at heavy metal by contrast. Perfectly comfortable with a little big budget... Continue Reading →
Skognatt: AndromedaOut 6th September, self-released Synths, arpeggios, drum programming, the futurist starter pack melded with a batch of traditionalist black metal riffing and vocalisations binds together this new space themed direction for Germany’s Skognatt. Berlin school ambient and drone modernism meets an undercurrent of antiquarian lamentation as the cold naturalism extends its outlook upwards. Skognatt’s... Continue Reading →
Hate Meditations 