February 2016 – Page 6 – Wonderbox Metal

Insision – Terminal Reckoning (Review)

Insision are a Swedish Death Metal band and this is their fourth album.

You know what they say – a day listening to Insision is a good day. Well, I say that, at least. Ever since I got their début album way back in 2002 Insision have been one of my favourite exports from Sweden. This is their first album in 9 years and it’s good to have them back.

So here we have 36 minutes of new material and I’m pleased to say that it’s as muscular, brutal and relentlessly satisfying as we’ve come to expect from the band.

Insision specialise in Death Metal that’s heavy, direct and has a good ratio of brutality to technicality. The songs pound and groove their way through the playing time and feature good songwriting and memorable ugliness. The band’s riffs are still a grade above a lot of similar bands and this is at least partly down to their sense of confidence and having an ear for good pacing.

Even though I love their speedy stuff, I also love how they know the virtue of not going fast all of the time. There’s more than enough mid-paced and slower parts here to give the album enough variety, all the time crushing you with their merciless assault.

Showing that they also have a more refined side, the band insert a few nice touches here and there, showing there’s more to them than just mindless violence. One of the latter sections in Infected is a good example, but there are numerous others, (such as the start of Old Ways).

The guttural growls of the singer are so deep that it seems you might fall into them. He barks with authority and his presence acts cohesively to add a focal point to the already focused music.

Insision’s first album in almost a decade is definitely a success in my eyes. They’ve done themselves and their legacy proud. Here’s to many years of Swedish brutality yet to come!

Seven Sisters of Sleep – Ezekiel’s Hags (Review)

This is the third album from the USA’s Seven Sisters of Sleep. They play Sludge Metal.

On this album Seven Sisters of Sleep combine a lot of influences from a wide array of nasty, extreme sub-genres into their potent brew of Sludge Metal. Doom, Hardcore, Death Metal, Black Metal, Grindcore…it pretty much all gets a look in at some point in these 50 minutes.

This is nasty music that seems to revel in the filth and dirt, with no stone of depravity left unturned or unsoiled.

This is a wild and dangerous ride through all things heavy, taking pit stops in the aforementioned styles and mashing them together with all of the subtlety of a maniac with a very big hammer. Having said that though, there’s a fierce guiding intelligence at play behind the scenes here, and the band obviously know what they’re doing with the material they have bloodily birthed.

There are a lot of giant riffs on this release and whether the band are playing fast, slow or anywhere in between, they steer this ship of gloom with unerring accuracy through the fog of Sludge. Or something. I think my metaphors got a bit out of control there. Regardless, think of Ezekiel’s Hags as the nastiest form of Doom, shot through with streaks of blast beats and a predilection for terror.

The vocals are every bit as nasty as the music, even more so as they have a real splenetic fury to them.

This is an exceptional release full of horrorful energy and a testament to what you can do with the variety and interest that can be had with Sludge Metal.

I can easily imagine fans of Ilsa, Serpent Eater, Secret Cutter, Colombian Necktie, Cult of Occult, Behold! The Monolith, Nightslug and Eyehategod taking a real shine to this. I know I have.

Frozen Ocean – The Prowess of Dormition (Review)

Frozen Ocean is a one-man Russian Melodic/Atmospheric Black Metal band and this is his latest EP.

Frozen Ocean return with more wonderfully melodic Black Metal that creates plenty of atmosphere. I have previously reviewed The Dyson Swarm, so this new release was most welcome.

This is mellifluous, melodic music that’s enhanced by keyboards to greater heights of atmosphere and mood. The feeling, for me, is very much one of following in the great Windir’s footsteps,

Vocals are deeper screams than are normally associated with the style, giving the polished, shiny music a rougher edge of aggression that suits it.

Grand, epic and richly melodic, (have I mentioned that?), this is a very enjoyable EP that it’s easy to like.

Check it out.

Avantasia – Ghostlights (Review)

This is the seventh album from this German Symphonic Power Metal band.

At over 70 minutes in length, there’s a lot of music on this release. Also, featuring guests from such notable bands as Queensrÿche, Twisted Sister, Nightwish, Within Temptation, Unisonic, Edguy and many others, this lives up to the title of Rock Opera with very little effort.

For all the different guest singers, the album has a coherent feel to it, partly due to the cohesive songwriting and partly due to the brains behind the outfit’s voice, which is a near-constant of these tracks in some capacity or other.

The music is bombastic, dramatic, emphatic, symphonic and suitably epic in nature. Unless you just don’t like this kind of thing it’s extremely hard not to enjoy Ghostlights. Great musicianship, high production values, quality singing and well-written operatic Metal…it’s a feast for the ears and proudly espouses the most extravagant side of European Power Metal.

Combined with the effervescent guitars, the orchestral elements are ever-present and a big part of what makes Avantasia so epic. These tracks have such a flair for the theatrical that every song seems to tell a story in bright, colourful pictures, writ large against a suitably ostentatious backdrop. Although the album does have darker elements it’s largely a performance of colour and fantasy, providing the listener with ample opportunity for escapism via the very textured world that the players portray.

Returning back to the guitars; it’s important to remember that this is, ultimately, a Metal album. Thankfully the band remember this too and have included a fair amount of tasty riffs among the orchestration.

Ghostlights evokes various different emotions, as all good operas should, but ultimately I’m left with the feeling of being uplifted and happy. Such larger-than-life music should be celebrated and it’s only appropriate that its lasting impact is a positive one more than anything else.

70 minutes of pure escapist showmanship. Loved it.

Favourite Track: Seduction of Decay. Geoff Tate, (Queensrÿche), has always had one of my favourite voices, and on this track he shines. The music backs him up to the hilt and the entire song is glorious.

Mano Humana – Sombras (Review)

Mano Humana are a Metal band from Chile and this is their début album.

Mano Humana play modern Metal that fuses aggressive Thrash Metal with the cold machinery of Meshuggah and the groovy heaviness of Soulfly.

The harsh shouted vocals are barked out in quite an abrasive, anti-social way. Mano Humana are not really on the commercial end of the Metal spectrum at the best of times, but these vocals really tip them over the edge into harsher territories. In my mind, of course, this is only a good thing.

Occasionally the brutality shifts up a gear too, and the vocals descend into deep growls and the entire thing is one hair’s breadth away from Death Metal at these points, recalling some of Brujeria’s work.

There’s some interesting parts in the music, with the band trying out all manner of different ideas to keep things from becoming formulaic as they tear through the 45 minute length. They take the time to add plenty of experimentation with the bass and guitars to their songs, resulting in relatively long tracks, (for the style), that keep their core Thrash Metal from becoming dull or one-dimensional.

This willingness to go that little bit further for some added depth ensures that Sombras is a more enjoyable listen than I was expecting, based on what most bands who can be described as Groove Metal offer.

Sombras is a very good listen and much more of a grower than you might think for the style. It’s brutal, heavy and full of good ideas and riffs.

Highly recommended.

Witchcraft – Nucleus (Review)

This is the fifth album from Swedish Doom/Psychedelic Rock band Witchcraft.

Playing the easy-listening proto-Metal Doom Rock so beloved in the 1970s, while also incorporating wider sounds from 60s psychedelia, Witchcraft have the retro vibe fully sewn up. It would be sickening if it wasn’t so damn good.

That’s the real central point about a band like this; they really are just that good. There’s a lot of music on Nucleus, but all of it is stamped with pure quality and it soars high over the heads of most bands that try their hand at this kind of thing.

Another interesting aspect of Nucleus is that even though it positively wallows in the past, and the production embraces this, it still sounds solid, professional and tight, despite an unashamedly old-school sound in many ways. Put simply, they manage to sound huge and polished without actually being overtly so. Impressive.

I like that there’s an exploratory sound to their music, influenced by the more progressive aspects of the 70s in some ways; it feels like the band are taking you along on their own personal journey and you’re not quite sure what you’re going to see. Which is another reason why they’re so good – this isn’t just your normal Trad-Doom-by-numbers release, as there’s a lot more going on here, hidden in plain sight.

There’s a wide range of song lengths on this release, from the short to the very long. Lighter, rockier moments share space with Doomier ones and the overall impression is of a well-thought-out album that has all of its bases covered for what it wants to achieve.

The singer’s voice is charismatic and easily-likeable. His performance is first-rate and speaks of a confidence of delivery honed through experience.

Very nice. Very enjoyable.

Cult of Lilith – Arkanum (Review)

Cult of Lilith are a Death Metal band from Iceland. This is their début EP.

Cult of Lilith play their Death Metal with muscularity, power and no little technical flair. Their style combines influences from both classic Death Metal and the more modern variants; this has equal respect for Death as it does The Faceless.

Melodic influences raise their heads in places, done in a thoroughly modern style, (not a million miles away from that of The Faceless). There’s even a touch of a Black Metal influence here and there, as well as a decent amount of technicality that both Gorguts and Death fans would be pleased with.

Deep growling shouts are the singer’s weapon of choice, although these are backed up with some quite savage screams where necessary.

These are quite involved songs that have a fair bit going on, but the band still know when to ease off the complexity and just go straight for the throat with a blasting assault when they need to. There’s a lot of good ideas and interesting added extras on these tracks and it’s clear that Cult of Lilith have high ambition for themselves.

A very promising start for this new band. I look forward to what they do next.

Necrosavant – Aniara MMXIV (Review)

Necrosavant is a one-man project from Sweden. This is his début album.

In an unusual move for a début album, this is one single track that lasts 45 minutes. Also unusually, this is Blackened Death Metal with a style that kind of falls between that of Behemoth and (old) Opeth.

Not content with doing vocals and playing everything on this release, the brains behind Necrosavant has also drafted in some other guests to add to the mix.

The music has the muscularity and occult auras of Behemoth and the progressive and melodic know-how of Opeth. The track ebbs and flows, picking up themes previously discarded, only to breathe new life into them again as the listener becomes re-familiarised with different parts of this immense song.

The guitars are nice and thick and there are a lot of tasty riffs on here. Plenty of solos and leads add colour, but it’s frequently the well-written rhythm guitars themselves that elevate this to a top-notch position.

The music has the feel of a dark epic in more than just length and the brutal atmospheres that are created reverberate with meaningful impact and emotive delivery.

If you think that a 45 minute Blackened Death Metal song would get old very quickly, you’re dead wrong. There’s so much on offer here and so much talented Metal being delivered that it’s hard to imagine that this is essentially the product of just one guy.

This is hugely impressive and enjoyable. This one is a must.