Armchair rhetoric on extreme metal
Auriferous Flame: The Insurrectionists and the CaretakersOut 8th November on True Cult Records/Stellar Auditorium Productions โThe album explores the theme of revolution and delves deep into the complexities of resistance and change, offering listeners an intense and thought provoking experience.โ Given the eagerness to share the complex subject matter that inspired this album, one might... 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 →
The World Down ThereOut 2nd November, self-released Croatiaโs Petrale return for another skirmish of suffocating, eerie, dissonant black metal. This latter descriptor is liable to evoke images of cold, clinical, sterile music replete with jagged edges, tempo change incontinence, and aspirations toward headier subject matter. None of which is completely absent from the world of... Continue Reading →
Bridges to nowhere October opens the gateway to winter. Darkness makes inroads into our lives. The vestigial traces of summer ebb away by the end of the tenth month. Declining temperatures herald the arrival of Novemberโs high autumn. This particular October has also brought with it a glimmer of the Northern Lights to my... Continue Reading →
Carmina Belli ApocalypsisOut 28th October on Black Mass Prayers Armed with a dark medievalist paint job, a murky atmospheric gloom, and a dynamic compositional package, this pleasing Italian oddity attempts a synthesis between early Satyricon and the suffocating malevolence of Demoncy. At times the results are about as unfocused as one might expect. Valadier have... Continue Reading →
Onslaught Kommand: MalignancyOut 18th October on Godz of War Productions Essentially a goregrind band with a blackened edge, Onslaught Kommand justify their rather limited existence by combining a playful package of classic grind riffs with an oppressively dark atmosphere, eschewing the cutesy play of goregrind at large. Riffs circle around the usual cocktail of early... Continue Reading →
ฮฆฮธฮฟฯฮฌOut 4th October on Tragedy Productions This may be purely anecdotal, but it feels like black metalโs popularity is waning. And that's a good thing. Finally allowing the genre to catch its breath and take stock. Sure, there are still the Goliaths of the genre that suck out the oxygen whenever they choose to resurface.... Continue Reading →
Adorior: Bleed on my TeethOut 27th September on Dark Descent Records The long awaited return of Adorior fails to pick a lane, and in doing so offers an experience more akin to a series of medleys than a coherent sound document. Melissa Grayโs vocals are a delight to listen to, boasting one of the most... Continue Reading →
King Crimsonโs โRedโ recently turned 50. And apparently itโs okay to broadcast oneโs 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. โRedโ, โClose to the Edgeโ, โMirageโ, these were exceptions to... Continue Reading →
PolemicistOut 27th September, self-released The paradox of well known phrases is that, by virtue of wide usage, their meaning becomes unknown. The commonplace phrase goes unexamined. Melodic black metal is one such example. Prima facie an obvious, self-explanatory subgenre. But one that has thus far avoided re-appraisal or revision since the subgenre's solidification in the... Continue Reading →
Hate Meditations 