May 2014 – Page 5 – Wonderbox Metal

Primitive Man/Hexis – Split (Review)

Primitive Man are from the US and play Sludgy Doom. On this release they have teamed up with Danish Crusty Black Metallers Hexis. Each band contributes one song, each about 8 minutes in length.

This is my first time hearing Primitive Man, but I’ve heard good things about them and am not disappointed.

When Getting High Is Not Enough starts off crushingly slow and heavy with vocals so deep and dark they seem to swallow all light. After a while the bass adopts a crawling pose while the guitars transcend to an almost Post-Metal ethereality before falling back to earth with a weighty riff. This soon breaks out into an unexpected frenzy of speed and the vocals become higher and much more vicious.

The band have this ability to play slow, fast or chuggy-as-hell while still retaining their own identity and a sense of filthy, Sludge-fuelled blackness pervades everything. The song is a victory and I am left wanting to hear more from this impressive band.

Hexis are a band who I am very familiar with as they have produced some very strong material over the years, particularly their recent full length Abalam.

Their track Excrucio is a weighty beast that has their trademark Blackened guitar walls with shredding vocals seemingly buried just underneath the enormous tide of distortion. Hexis manage to write very emotive songs where the guitars are the main stars of the show and the vocals and everything else are their to support them and help to accentuate how rock solid they sound.

Hexis have struck a winning formula with their sound and Excrucio is no exception.

This is a great showcase for two talented bands that offer a lot for the discerning metal fan who wants something a bit more from their listening.

Black Anvil – Hail Death (Review)

Black Anvil are from the US and this is their third album of Black Metal.

As the first song Still Reborn slowly unfolds you know you’re in for a treat. There is a Thrash influence to the band that allows their songs to have somewhat of an epic feel to them rather akin to classic Metallica; cross this with an expansive Black Metal feeling the likes of which Enslaved create, (minus Viking influences), and give this whole idea a frozen Black Metal makeover and you’ve an idea of where Black Anvil are coming from.

Initial impressions? …And Justice For All being slowly eaten by Mardraum – Beyond the Within. High praise indeed.

And some of these riffs! Dear me. Excuse me while I have a sit down and compose myself. The band have obviously hit their stride with this album; each song is a powerful collection of riffs, solos, ideas, emotive passages and pulse-raising sections. The overall song is never sacrificed for any of these though, and each track is a delight.

The main vocals are Black Metal screams done in an Enslaved style, while additional vocals consist of everything from gang shouts to mystical cleans.

At over an hour and eleven minutes of music this never gets old or stale; Black Anvil have a lot to offer the listener and it’s easy to get sucked into their world.

A warm, organic production complements the songs and allows them to get under your skin and into your brain. There’s something particularly satisfying about the drum sound especially.

This is an exceptional album written by people who appear to be channelling the essential essence of Metal. This album deserves to be in your collection.

Black Anvil are just too good!

Dråp – En Naturlig Död (Review)

Dråp are from Sweden and play Crust/Hardcore.

The band have a thunderous sound that is heavy and belligerent.

The vocalist sounds rabid, dangerous and thoroughly pissed off. His vocals bark out over the ugly music like a bruiser looking for his next victim. A constant onslaught of abuse and bile streams forth with grim enthusiasm.

The music is muscular and without remorse. The guitars bash and smash their way through the short playing time like a determined beating that never seems to stop.

This is angry music for angry people. There is no subtlety or nuance here, just menace and barbarity. The drums beat, the guitars attack and the vocals snarl.

It’s relentless, it’s harsh, it’s not pretty, but it is good.

Hunt this down and listen to it loud.

Favourite Track: Höstmörker

Gomorrah – To the Depths (Review)

Gomorrah are from the US and play aggressive Thrash Metal with a minor Modern Metal influence.

This is heavy stuff, with a solid sound and production. It allows the riffs to come crashing around you causing maximum destruction.

And there are a lot of riffs, this is a veritable riff-fest of Thrash and caustic melodies. They know their instruments as well and can pull out some nice solos when they want to.

Their sound does have some modern influences to it, but I wouldn’t call them a Modern Thrash Band as they’re far too riffy, heavy and honest for that. Rather you can just hear some Lamb of God influence in some of the vocal inflections and they share some riff ideas with some of the more Melodic of Thrashers; but these are only minor aspects of the band’s sound as the core Gomorrah experience is based on Metal with a big fat capital M.

These songs, (and they are songs), are lively enough and even though there’s nothing innovative or new going on here the band manage to somehow avoid sounding tired and have produced an enjoyable EP. The key ingredient of course is passion; they clearly love what they do and this bleeds over into the instruments and song structures so that the listener can’t help but smile and start banging the old noggin along to it.

If I’m honest as well I think that the ever-so-slight modern influence to the band that I mentioned earlier also helps their cause. There are soooo many retro-style/Old-School Thrash bands around at the moment and a lot of them really do sound tired and stale. It’s nice to hear a band like Gomorrah who don’t fall into the retro trap but also don’t fall foul of trying to sound too modern or commercial either. They have the balance just right for me; it’s a precarious balance of course but at the moment they’re onto a winner.

The more I listen to this the more I like it. Give this a try, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed with them.

Deep In Hate – Chronicles of Oblivion (Review)

This is the third album from French Death Metallers Deep In Hate.

The band have a good line in both brutality and melody and combine the two nicely; crushing riffs and double-bass beatdowns compete with melodic leads and riffs.

This is a band who are fully comfortable at the modern end of the Death Metal spectrum without completely giving themselves over to Deathcore; although there is a healthy influence from that most maligned of subgenres it stays on the Death Metal side of the equation more often than not. The result? Aborted meets Beneath the Massacre meets Whitechapel with, as strange as this might sound, elements of Hypocrisy at their heaviest.

The sound is crystal clear and the band use this to show you exactly what they are capable of in all its visceral glory. This is modern Death Metal played proficiently and with the sole aim of battering and beating the listener into submission.

The added melodic parts are there to keep things from becoming one-dimensional however, and the sheer aggression and brutality of the band as a whole never allows the melodies to get too out of hand; you could never describe them as Melodic Death Metal, for example. It’s a winning brutality-to-melody-ratio; brutality clearly comes out on top but the melodic aspect holds its own when the songs need it.

The vocals are deep roars full of aggression and testosterone. These alternate with occasional higher screams. The singer takes his cues from the Aborted singer and shares a talent for interesting vocal rhythms and patterns.

Each of the songs has its own identity and is capable of being a ambassador for the band. No filler.

Kaotoxin Records seem to have a talent for sniffing out the very best of French Metal talent. Deep In Hate are their latest find; let them be yours too.

Fragarak – Crypts of Dissimulation (Review)

Fragarak are a Progressive Death Metal band from India and this is their début album.

This is intelligent and passionate music lovingly crafted to be more than straight Death Metal. The Progressive aspect of the music is real and almost tangible. The songs and song structures are considered and a lot of work has gone into these tracks.

The band has a keen melodic edge and there are bountiful leads and solos liberally spread throughout the almost 40 minutes of playing time.

The vocalist has a very accomplished voice with a thick, throaty roar reminiscent of the singer of Opeth when he was still doing such things.

Fragarak have a strong sound with all of the instruments being clear and well-defined. The bass should get a special mention for being used to good effect for a change instead of just shadowing what the rhythm guitar is doing, as in a lot of bands.

Most bands of this ilk tend to start out with a Death Metal core and add some Progressive leanings on top of it; or they cover everything up in hyper technicality and math-wizardry to the extent that there are no actual songs left. Fragarak have avoided both of these things and instead have essentially started off from a Progressive Metal standpoint and built the Death Metal into their sound as they went along. In this way they can be compared to, (old), Opeth once more, although it’s a stylistic comparison as musically there is not a lot of similarity beyond the aforementioned.

This is an exceptional album that mixes structure, dynamics, brutality, softness, atmosphere and pure class into a cohesive and enjoyable journey through the lands of proper Metal delight.

The Indian Metal scene is proving itself a fertile breeding ground for exciting and quality music – Fragarak can go right to the top of the list as ones most likely to succeed. A highly recommended listen.

Ghoul – Hang Ten (Review)

Ghoul are from the US and this EP is Thrash Metal with a healthy crossover influence; on this release their normal Death Metal influence is missing.

Ghoul have put out some good music over the years and this is no exception, although it is somewhat of a departure from their normal fare. This is feel-good Thrash-a-rama of the cinematic variety and with a bit of an old-wild-Western-crossed-with-a-biker-movie feel.

The songs each have that confident self-assured swagger to them and the bass is enough to plant images of run-down sleazy saloons in anyone’s mind.

The aural equivalent of a bar brawl in a seedy joint between rival motorcycle gangs; it’s ugly but you can’t help watch the spectacle unfold regardless.

Consisting of either instrumental tracks or tracks with spoken word on them, the traditional Ghoul vocals are absent and the music takes the front seat. As a showcase for the band’s ample musical talents this works fine and the emphasis is purely on the fun-time riffs and the driving tunes.

If you’ve never encountered the maniac ride that is Ghoul before then this is as good a stop as any to get on board with. But be warned, you may need a new set of underwear afterwards.

Eyehategod – Eyehategod (Review)

Eyehategod are from the US and this is their fifth album of Sludge.

Okay, so I’m not going to hide it – I absolutely love Eyehategod. Ever since first getting Take as Needed for Pain 20 years ago (!) I’ve been hooked, and they’re one of my all time favourite bands. I say this in the interests of full disclosure, because if you’re looking for a fully objective and impartial review then you’d best move along as I’m so excited about this album it’s ridiculous!

As soon as you press play it’s just so instantly familiar and welcoming, at least to someone who’s comfortable with this style of crawling Metal. Their trademark swampy sound that has spawned literally thousands of imitators is recognisable straight away and it becomes rapidly apparent that the band have lost none of the skill and talent that they’ve had over the course of their long career.

It would be easy to doubt whether this was going to be any good as it’s been a whopping 14 years since their last album, (Confederacy of Ruined Lives), but as any true believer knows these are false doubts, as this album, quite frankly, is fucking brilliant.

The songs are fantastic and the band effortlessly create That Sound that helped spawn and shape the Sludge genre with such ease that each track slides out of the speakers in a haze of murky guitars, Southern-fried riffs, squalling feedback and snarling vocals.

Eyehategod have come to show the pretenders and the wannabes how it’s done.

This is an essential record for any Metal fan. I can’t recommend this enough. Immediately go out and get everything that Eyehategod have ever done. This is important.

Flawless.

Boddicker – False Flag (Review)

Boddicker are from the US and play Grindcore with a healthy Sludge influence.

A short release at 13 minutes, this nevertheless allows Boddicker to flex their musical muscles and supply us with an all-you-can eat buffet of extremity.

Brutality and aggression are in bountiful supply as you would imagine and there is a Crust/Punk aspect that propels the delivery along with gusto.

Their sound is dirty and Sludge-fuelled and in addition to the standard Grind speed there is a relatively high incidence of slower, Doomier parts where the band take on the aspect of Eyehategod/Buzzov-en and destroy the listener with heaviness and slow-core battery.

The vocalist sounds suitably unhinged and bellows at the top of his lungs with anger and barely suppressed rage.

A very enjoyable EP, mixing a Punk Grind sound with a tasty bit of filthy Sludge. Boddicker are to be commended and recommended.

I bet they’re amazing live.

Interview with Agiel

Not so long ago Agiel released their latest EP Dark Pantheons, which is an exciting and inspired merging of Death Metal and classical orchestration. We caught up with Agiel vocalist and founding member James Taylor to see what makes the band tick…

For those that are unfamiliar with your band – introduce yourself

Great to speak to you! We are AGIEL, a blackened-death metal four piece band from the US. Our music integrates the brutality of death metal, raw intensity of black metal and significant orchestral arrangements to produce an intensely unsettling yet enigmatic style.

The band name comes from western astrology and symbolizes the intelligence of Saturn; a planet that represents agelessness and occult power. In the European astrological system each planet has a baleful and baneful influence; a positive and negative aspect that is. Because of its role as the intelligence and wisdom that is gain from knowledge of the occult, AGIEL is generally seen as the constructive aspect of Saturn’s influence on mankind. The focal subject matter of our music explores many aspects of the occult, theosophy, mythology and the limits of our spiritual potential as human beings.

Give us a bit of background to AGIEL

Time passes so quickly and it’s hard to believe that I started AGIEL over 15 years ago. Our origins go back to about 1997. That’s when we started making serious strides towards the creation of our own sound and style. To be honest I wish that I was a better chronologist because I’ve lost troves of AGIEL material over the years. I’ve gotten better at it, my erratic nature tempered perhaps by maturity, but the broad strokes of our history are intact at least.

We released our first full length CD The Works of War in 1999. The title was a bit of a play on the Christian concept of the works of peace (clothe the naked, feed the hungry, etc). I think we were 18 or 19 years old when that album was written, so there’s more than a small dose of blasphemy in that material. We moved past all that kind of thing really quickly once we began to study the Occult in a more serious way. Our experiences with that are what inspired us to begin writing music and continues to provide a source of inspiration to this day.

In 2000 or 2001 we started working on a demo titled Hymnos ex Maledicus Gemini, which would later become the 2002 release Dark Pantheons Again Will Reign. That album began a kind of tradition for AGIEL in that we would try and break out of our musical comfort zones and reinvent ourselves with each new release. One of the aspects of this band that I love most is that desire to constantly change and evolve, to never stagnate or stay with what’s safe. Musically we moved from a black metal sound to something that was much more like brutal death metal.

From then until about 2007 we continued that evolution and experimented with many different permutations of death metal. Like I said earlier, I wish that I had kept better track of that period because we were quite prolific with the amount of material that was written. Some of it is still available and we’ve made an effort to preserve it. There was a 10 – 12 song album titled Kuthula which was a big technical achievement for us. The songs in that collection were very intricate and extremely challenging to perform. I’m glad to say that we still have those. Next was another full length which we called Aeon and I’m sad to say that all of that material has been lost to the ages. And finally, we published a shorter work called Vessatu of which only 3 songs remain in our collection.

In 2007, for a variety of reasons, we decided to let AGIEL rest and it wasn’t until December of 2012 that we picked up its mantel once again. An improbable, but perfect convergence of opportunities brought us back together to create music once again. That brings us to this year’s release of Dark Pantheons.

What are your influences?

We draw from pretty varied sources and I think that is a reflection of the diversity of interests between the guys in the band. Jesse, our guitarist, has a lot of influence from classic melodic metal bands like Iron Maiden. Kevin, AGIEL’s drummer, is into more black-end death metal types such as Flesh God Apocalypse. Rich is into a lot of brutal death metal. I’m into a lot of different musical styles, but my listening habits tend to lean towards black metal bands like Emperor and Dark Fortress. I’m also pretty obsessed with modern orchestral music from composers like Mahler. He’s one of my favourites.

Then of course there is the music that we grew up on which was the second wave of European black metal bands like Emperor, Satyricon, Cradle of Filth, Dissection, etc . In terms of literal musical style we might not share too much in common with these bands, but that black metal attitude is engrained in our consciousness.

Agiel 1 What are you listening to at the moment that you want to recommend?

My current listening obsession is Mahler’s sixth symphony. It’s a devastating, powerful and downright brutal composition. At over 80 minutes it is pretty lengthy in comparison to most of the music that I listen to, but totally worth the effort. We’re gearing up right now to write a new full length album and I throw this piece on whenever I need inspiration. I think a lot of people that are into death metal would really like this particular symphony.

There is so much great music out there today and it is so much more accessible than it has ever been. It can be overwhelming really. One of my favorite ways to unwind is to just throw YouTube up on my laptop and start into a random playlist. I do that a lot actually. There’s always something filling up the background while I work on various projects.

You blend Death Metal and cinematic orchestration in a seamless way that’s effective and sounds unforced. Is this really the case or was it a challenge getting the two genres to fuse together?

I’m glad that you’re into that aspect of our sound. I spent too many hours to keep track of on getting the orchestral compositions to work in concert with the songs. It was a unique challenge in that we wanted it to sound as if the orchestra was integrated into the band on a really deep level and not just a layer that goes on top of a metal song. We took our time to get the interplay between the classical and modern instrumentation to a point that we were happy with. I also tried to write arrangements for each of the different sections in the orchestra and not rely on layered sounds. So for each of the songs I wrote up to sixteen separate parts that got layered up to create the final sound.

What does the writing process involve for you?

For me, everything starts with what I call a seed idea. This could be almost anything; a short melody that came to me randomly, a particular word that resonated with an emotion, maybe one of two bars from a song heard in passing or maybe a piece of visual art that was particularly inspiring. From there I let that seed grow in my subconscious mind until ideas start breaking through to my conscious thoughts. At that point I’ll start writing things down as they occur to me. It annoys the hell out of people though. I’ll stop mid-sentence, frantically look for something to write on and then scribble down a line of lyric or a tonal progression. It doesn’t matter what’s going on. Everything stops for me until that ideas is down on paper.

In truth, a lot of my notes make absolutely no sense when I look at them later on, but a few will actually stick with me and those are the ones that make it into a song. I consider it a vetting process and don’t panic if I can’t remember something. If it is not memorable then it probably wasn’t that great of an idea anyways.

Give us some background on how the lyrics came about.

The overarching message in AGIEL’s lyrics is a call to throw off all constraint and to embrace absolute freedom for the mind, body and spirit. I firmly believe that ridding yourself of external influence until the genesis of all action comes from your own true will is crucial to reaching our potential as spiritual beings. The lyrics that I’ve written attempt to convey both my own struggle toward that potential and the multitude of ways in which that potential has incarnated itself throughout the historical human experience. My personal experience tends to be represented abstractly as the emotional context that the lyrical narrative plays out in. The broader human experience is usually represented through the mythology of many different cultures.

How do you feel you fit into the wider Death Metal scene, and is this important to you?

I suppose that this would depend on what you mean by that. If we are talking about style and influence then I’d honestly say that this isn’t something that we’re terribly concerned about. There are so many talented bands out right now that are doing some really amazing things. I’m really inspired by the level of talent that’s in the metal scene right now. I just think that it’s more important to us as a band to concentrate on contributing something unique to the genre.

In terms of our message, what we’re about, I’d like to think that we stand apart in this respect. AGIEL’s music can be a dark, unsettling and difficult experience, but that simply reflect the reality of most occult experiences. They can be troubling, even dangerous in some respects, but beyond the chasm of the abyss lies a liberating truth. We’re not just looking at the horrific violence that fills the world or how fucked up this or that aspect of our society is. I suppose that’s why I see ourselves as a beneficial influence on the world.

Are you happy with how the release came about? Would you do anything differently?

Overall we are extremely proud of this release. We went at this with an energy level bordering on frenzy and I hope that comes across in the recording. Sure there are lots of things that I’d do differently, but that’s all part of the artistic process. You have to see it through until the end in order to gain insight into the future. Now that we are on the other side of Dark Pantheons I can look back and see where we have opportunities to create an even more intense album.

What’s next for AGIEL?

Our primary focus right now is on writing new material for our next album which will be a full length release that we hope to have ready for early 2015. That’s turned into an all-consuming pursuit at this point! We are trying a lot of different methods to break out of old, tired thought patters so that we can offer something truly new and unique to the metal scene. It’s been a lot of fun to push the boundaries of our musical comfort and attempt something really ambitious. So in the upcoming year we’ll be working extremely hard on achieving that.

But in the short term we do have a couple of projects in the works that will bring new AGIEL material to light. This includes live performances of the Pantheons material as well as a few brand new tracks. That’s in production now and I hope to have everything wrapped up later this year. It’s an exciting time for the band and we feel intensely privileged to share our music with the world.

We look forward to it.