Armchair rhetoric on extreme metal
Appetite whiplash Appetites are strange things. Once an appetite returns it usually does so with interest. I lost my appetite for heavy guitar music last summer, when it returned it did so with whiplash inducing rapaciousness by late autumn, spurred on in part by what was actually a pretty solid year for metal. As spring... Continue Reading →
Blasart: Depravatus Christianis SacrisOut 28th March on Lavadome Productions Overwrought black metal cloaks repetition with subtle shifts in emphasis and pitch, alongside some welcome decorative accents. Chugging thrash articulation beefs up the more fluid intent behind these tracks, only somewhat hampered by the obnoxious domesticity of the hardcore derived vocals. What at first appears to... Continue Reading →
MorgongloฬdOut 27th March on Vidfare/NoEvDia Mortuus, aka Daniel Rostรฉn, continues his habit of saving his best for well outside the Marduk roadshow. This is the third album released under the DomJord moniker, his own contribution to the long tradition of black metal artists dabbling in various ambient side projects. Being a relatively late comer to... Continue Reading →
Morbid DesiresOut 27th March on Darkness Shall Rise Productions Being Tulus must be a thankless task. Even the promo blurb accompanying this release canโt quite muster the requisite enthusiasm, boasting โconcise mid-tempo songs performed by proficient musiciansโ, โMorbid Desiresโ is โby no means a one-dimensional albumโ and has โplenty of varietyโ. On that last point... Continue Reading →
Cruel Force: HanedaOut 27th March on Shadow Kingdom Sits at the playful end of German thrash, emphasising the melodic elements of Destruction circa โMad Butcherโ. On the basis of this material there is a clear effort to align with the rough and tumble of 80s thrash via the period correct mix and throaty vocals, but... Continue Reading →
A.H.P: Alltid Imot DegOut 21st March on Purity Through Fire Drab, pessimistic black metal lurches between torturous drone segments bolstered by little more than stumbling, slow rhythms into bursts of linear speed and open, humming guitar lines that retain a lackadaisical energy despite the blast-beat foundation. Raspy, mid-range vocals attempt to enhance the sense of... Continue Reading →
A Monument I Shall Raise in FlameOut 20th March on Werewolf Promotion Polandโs Deathlike Dawn continue the direction set by their previous album โNoc czarna czerniฤ otchลaniโ, extending their tendrils further into semi-chromatic, dissonant territory for this latest release, sacrificing the hazy atmosphere coating 2024โs โAmong the Graves of the Archetypesโ for a more stripped... Continue Reading →
Sette Cornici di PurificazioneOut 27th February on Masked Dead Records The third album from this Italian entity is an expansive, cinematic, and ambitious work of hyper charged melodic black metal. It manages to salvage the Cascadian style from its terminal blandness by recontextualising its open, cathartic demeanour into a more clarified, sharper expression of energised... Continue Reading →
Overspace and SupertimeOut 27th February on Metal Blade Records Itโs been a slow rise for Leedsโs own Cryptic Shift. From clunky sci-fi thrash beginnings in the early 2010s to emerging as local scene darlings by the end of the decade. They were perhaps about to break into international renown by the time their debut dropped... Continue Reading →
In a recent episode of 2 Promoters, 1 Pod, co-host and Damnation Festival organiser Gavin McInally launched what some took to be an all out assault on the music press. His contentions were three fold. That the music press no longer does โrealโ journalismโ, i.e. following up on leads and breaking stories. Secondly, that its... Continue Reading →
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