Armchair rhetoric on extreme metal
Putred: Blestemul din adรขncOut 20th March on Awakening Records True to the formula laid out on the previous effort 'Megalit al putrefacโศโiei', for the most part Putred stick doggedly to plodding, Derketa-esque tempos as a means of both conjuring tension and allowing elegantly simple riff templates to extend their tendrils in multiple directions at once.... Continue Reading →
After my recent survey of modern black metal, a death metal follow up was all but inevitable. Commercially speaking, death metal seems to be in a healthier place than black metal, with bands like Blood Incantation threatening to transcend the genre in terms of their brand reach. Tastes in death metal also seem to behave... Continue Reading →
Witch Wife in an Alien WorldOut 9th October on Cruz del Sur Music As the erstwhile darlings of the new wave of traditional lesser spotted heavy metal, this album is a bold move for Smoulder. Sure, aside from a clear pivot away from doom into faster classic metal stylings, the material is contiguous with previous... Continue Reading →
Hรฆnesy: EsentiaOut 25th September on Purity Through Fire Five years ago this Hungarian outfit presented an interesting proposition with โGarabontziaโ, a black metal album crafted almost entirely from clean, reverb drenched guitar lines, working their way through oddly cathartic melodic hooks and chord sequences rich in pathos. There was no denying its proximity to post... Continue Reading →
Critical Defiance: Rivers of BloodOut 25th September on Dying Victims Productions 2024 was the year Critical Defiance suddenly caught the attention of a broader international audience with โThe Search Wonโt Fallโฆโ, a finely crafted treat of frenetic thrash fair alongside some well integrated oddball moments. The Chilean death and thrash metal scene has pulled well... Continue Reading →
DecayOut 25th September on Relapse Records Hellfest 2010 was a pretty special festival. John Garcia got 75% of the band back together as Brant Bjork and Nick Oliveri took the stage for a few numbers during his Kyuss classics set. Immortal, Asphyx, and Carcass were all in their post revival pomp, affording a younger generation... Continue Reading →
What does the metalhead do on their day off and why is it ambient? I listened to all the โblack ambientโ releases from the 90s to find out. Black metal ambient (Partย I) In Part I we ranged through Central Europe, taking in the Austrian syndicate, on to the bonkers peripheries of Franceโs already bonkers Les... Continue Reading →
What does the metalhead do on their day off and why is it ambient? I listened to all the โblack ambientโ releases from the 90s to find out. If you were to press me on a pithy definition of metal, I would say it's music written through the organisation of riffs. This means it can... Continue Reading →
Rahaty: Bestial LustmordOut 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... Continue Reading →
Ceremonial Worship: Between Sleep and DeathOut 31st July on Eternal Death Undergoing something of an orchestral refit since their previous offering โSeven Gateways to Eternal Misanthropyโ, the promo blurb accompanying this Greekโs outfitโs latest offering makes a lot of theirโฆGreekness. And whilst they certainly do channel the intangible arcane sensation inherent to early Greek black... Continue Reading →
