Armchair rhetoric on extreme metal
Hateful Draugar from the UndergroundOut 28th March on Darkness Shall Rise Synthesises elements of early Enslaved with Burzum to great effect, but veers away from the detached cinematic narratives of the former, into something closely resembling the understated folk narratives of Isengard. The result is a satisfying reaffirmation of black metal as both an atmospheric... Continue Reading →
Words by Jason Kiss The Deep When we describe something as deep, we often imply that it goes beyond the surface and holds a kind of significance that eludes the realm of the superficial. Depth stands in opposition to shallowness and points toward a more reflective and nuanced reality than the socially accepted “truths” of... Continue Reading →
The Ichor of ChimeraOut 28th March on No Remorse Records Following the promising ‘Visions of Esoteric Splendor’ split in 2021 with Ezra Brooks, Serpent Rider return with an unapologetically heavy metal debut, sidelining the extreme metal elements of the EP. This is done for the sake of expanding on rich, longform tracts of classic metal... Continue Reading →
Sprung has spring There’re flowers everywhere. Something my son, who recently learnt how to say flower, repeatedly reminds me of every time we pass a dandelion, which is many. Rain still pelts the soil with sporadic and utilitarian urgency. But the pauses between showers are now defined by glorious stretches of sunshine, its inroads into... Continue Reading →
Zora: Scream Your HateOut 28th February on Great Dane Records (originally released in 2016) Direct, linear death metal benefits the form by stripping away any unnecessary fat, leaving a precision timed device of aggressive, energetic percussive noise. The format may be simple, but the playing is precise, with pin sharp rhythms forcing what are at... Continue Reading →
Oblations in AtrocityOut 15th February, self-released Captures a sense of amateur possibility missing in much of the overly curated gestures to lo-fi black metal in the contemporary landscape. In this regard it mirrors early Ungod in its bisection of idiosyncratic riff signatures that nevertheless thrive within traditional melodic forms elevated by a drab ambience that... 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 →
Vengeance EvangelOut 14th February on Lavadome Productions “Technical death metal” is a problematic label. Genre names often refer to some specific technique or dominant feature of the music itself. To apportion off a subgenre by simply asserting that it’s more technically demanding than its mothership can be something of a misnomer. Just exactly how or... Continue Reading →
How to avoid sex through music Spring is here. Trees are budding. Birds engage in their annual renewal of the housing stock. Days are lengthening, and somehow even the rainfall seems charged with heavy handed virility. The very air you breathe oozes sex. Of course this is all something I’m thoroughly against. The listening rotation... Continue Reading →
Aedes: Odius ImprecationOut 31st January on Blood Harvest (originally released in 2023) Essentially a modern love letter to early Morbid Angel via the more chromatic tangents of the mid-90s exercised by Trey and the gang alongside Immolation. Whether intentional or not, there is a rawness to the delivery, a sense in which the music is... Continue Reading →
Hate Meditations 