Aeonsgate are from Sweden and this is their début album.
This is a very ambitious release – one track, almost an hour in length, documenting the last few minutes of someone’s life.
This is a supergroup of sorts, with various musical contributions coming from people who have played in bands such as Candlemass, Therion, Ephel Duath and Necrophagist.
Doom Metal/Funeral Doom lends itself well to a release of this nature. The fact that the vocals are handled by Mats Leven, (Candlemass), means that it instantly has a very authoritative sheen to it. His vocals are on top form as always, and he seems to enjoy himself in the vaguely theatrical Doom atmospheres that are evoked here.
The song goes through many permutations/phases and takes in 70’s-style Doom, Funeral Doom, Doom Metal, synth/keyboard highlights and Progressive Rock elements. While a song of this length by its very nature won’t be for everyone it works well and slowly builds and grows throughout the playing time.
The winding, repetitive nature of the song is hypnotic and slowly develops the theme and narrative of the piece.
This is not without its flaws of course; any hour-long song would have to be pretty perfect to be flawless, but for the most part this is an involving and enjoyable Doom-opera that’s worth the time that needs to be invested in it.
Emblazoned are from the US and this is their début album. They play Blackened Death Metal.
This is music with an evil feel created by minions of some Dark Lord or other who worship and defile their way through 8 tracks of daemonic Death Metal.
The deep growls and high screams call out hymns to darkness whilst the crushing production allows the music to be both heavy and precise.
All of the instruments are clear and played with surgical steel. The drums have an especially crisp sound to them, the bass is audible and worthwhile and the guitars have a crunchy, crushing edge.
The riffs have a Blackened feel to a lot of the melodies which adds a touch of the underworld to the songs; they already have a malevolent feel to them as it is and as the band are mainly interested in creating a brutally evil atmosphere it’s only to be expected that a Black Metal influence should make its way onto the album.
The songs are very enjoyable and make the most of their relatively short playing time by effortlessly blending the brutality of streamlined Death Metal with the dark feeling of Black Metal.
Emblazoned combine parts of bands like Deicide, The Black Dahlia Murder, Satyricon, Behemoth, Arsis and Lvcifyre into their merciless sound and the result is a very strong album indeed.
It’s time for you to check out Emblazoned and join them in their war against the forces of light.
This is the new album from Swedish Doom band Snailking.
Having enjoyed Snailking’s previous work this album held much promise for me and upon listening to it I’m pleased to say they haven’t let me down.
If you’re unfamiliar with Snailking they play Doom Metal with an easy slowness and epic-length songs. Think Electric Wizard with a bit more of a Stoner edge added to the Sludgy Doom.
The band have a raw, earthy sound that has honest appeal to it and a good gritty tone to the guitars. It’s heavy and dirty with a carefree vibe.
The vocals are lazily melodic with a roughened melodic edge. They add deeper growls and other vocalisations when needed but these are not over-used. The singer is relatively low in the mix and his voice seems to fuse with the music at the cellular level.
Riffs the size of mountains regularly tumble out of the speakers and the band effortlessly ply their Sludge-tinged Doom with simple effectiveness. There is a drone-like hypnotic component to their sound that carries you along on a sea of distortion and the promise of Doom.
These are well crafted songs that may sound jammed out but nonetheless display good structure and songwriting skills.
Storm is 53 minutes of expertly played Doom Metal. Highly recommended.
Undermine the Supremacy are from Australia and this is their début EP. They play Metalcore.
After an atmospheric, expectation-building intro the first track, (and title track), starts and it’s actually heavier than I was expecting. It’s almost Deathcore in places. Almost, but not quite.
It’s groove-based and relies on heavy riffs and melodic interludes to propel the songs forward, as is common in Metalcore, but it’s more extreme than a lot of the more commercial-edged bands that populate this scene. It’s less Killswitch Engage and more Lamb of God; less concerned with anthemic choruses and more concerned with flattening everything with heavy rage.
The vocalist is quite the beast, with his voice being much more extreme than the norm for this style. It adds a layer of real bite to the tracks.
The constant level of aggression on display here is good to see and the band are clearly into what they’re doing. Also pleasing is their avoidance, (mostly), of some of the more obvious riffs that usually make up Metalcore. Okay they’re never going to be described as innovative but they don’t fall into the trap of being generic either, which is no mean feat for a genre such as this.
Fans of Lamb of God, Chimaira, Hatebreed, etc. take note.
Check them out and see if they can reduce you to ashes.
Kattah are a Power Metal band from Brazil and this is their second album.
This is Power/Heavy Metal with varied and exotic world influences and an Iron Maiden flavour. Mix in a bit of Kamelot and Queensrÿche and you have a good idea of the area Kattah inhabit.
The singer does his best Bruce Dickinson/Geoff Tate impression and for the most part pulls it off admirably. It allows him to have an instantly recognisable charisma without sounding like a clone.
Kattah have an ear for a good chorus, with plenty of the songs having decent hooks and catchy melodies. The band obviously have well-developed songwriting skills and they put these to good use.
The songs are able demonstrations of the Power Metal style with the Heavy Metal influence reining in the more extravagant tendencies that Power Metal seems to have. The songs are not devoid of ostentation, however, and the musicians are definitely a capable lot.
There are lots of good riffs and more than enough leads and solos to appeal. I’m very partial to some good shredding and this album features enough to satiate.
Another strength of this release is that it’s certainly no one-dimensional affair; it may stick within the Heavy/Power Metal template but it’s a much more varied release than most offerings from similar bands.
At 56 minutes in length there is a lot of material here and the band obviously have both ambition and talent. Given the right exposure Kattah have the potential to make quite a mark on the Metal scene, as they have both extravagance and accessibility in their favour.
Overall it’s a good collection of songs and Lapis Lazuli is a strong album.
Deathronation’s début album Hallow the Dead is a quality slab of Old-School Death Metal infused with a few extra elements to give their graveyard tunes a special mouldy sheen. Questions were asked, and answers were given…
Tell us all about Deathronation and where you came from
Deathronation, based in Nuremberg, south Germany, is now existing since 10 years and so far we released two demos and a split 7-Inch and played a lot of live-shows in that time. “Hallow the Dead” is our debut full-length album. For several reasons it took long time to record the album but finally it’s unleashed. All members of the band are long time metalheads and have been active in several bands for the last 20 years.
What are your influences?
Our influences are the 80’s and 90’s death metal bands like Morbid Angel, Deicide, Morgoth, Immolation, Death and so on. We grew up with these bands when we were 13, 14 years and we’re still very inspired by the old glory days of death metal.
What are you listening to at the moment that you would like to recommend?
I bought the début album of Sweden’s Vampire a couple of days ago and that’s an awesome album I would recommend for fans of Repugnant and Degial. True masterpiece with a great sound and good songs. A good trip to Sweden pre-death metal past is “Splatter Punx on Acid” of Swedish act “Black Uniforms”.
How did you decide on the style of Death Metal that you wanted to play – what appeals about the Old-School Death Metal sound?
As I mentioned in the beginning, we were always inspired by the old days of death metal and we wanted to play that style with that sound. We don’t like the modern overproduced sound where each single note has been edited by a pc. Use as less technical help as possible, that’s the way!
In my review I note that you have some Black//Thrash/Doom influences to your sound as well – would you agree with this?
Yes, you got the point in your review! We are big fans of the 80’s and 90’s thrash, black and doom scene. We still listen to many, nearly all styles of metal, so it’s nothing surprising for us, that the songs are maybe not consisting 100% of death metal riffs. As long as it’s heavy it can not be too wrong!
Where do you think you fit in with the wider Death Metal scene?
Well, I guess our musical style shows, that our roots and our destination is the old school style of Death Metal. But because of the different influences we are not limited to this special corner. I think our sound is also attractive for people from other genres of metal.
Do you have any goals for your album?
“Hallow the Dead” album is a marker from old times to the new things which will come. Many things change now. But most important for us is, that the music spreads around and people enjoy it as I did when I listened to the old death metal classics.
Is there anything on the album you’re not satisfied with?
Well of course there are some parts we’re not 100% satisfied with, but this turned out as it is and we can deal with it. Sometimes the mistakes can even make an album more real. We are very satisfied with the result at all, so some parts which are not perfectly in the way that they were meant to be, even turn out to have a kind of charm on their own.
Do you want to discuss any of the lyrics on the album and any themes/hidden meanings/etc. that might be there?
All lyrics are dealing with the topic of death, caducity, religion and related questions. We have no answers or solutions, but maybe some of the lyrics can inspire people who might be interested in essential questions like: “where do we come from?”, “where do we go to?”, “what is existence all about?”. Some lyrics are based on real events, others are charged with own imaginations and thoughts. “Deathchant Assyria” is about the rise and fall of the Assyrian empire and the rich heritage of cuneiform writings. “Spiritual Relief” is about the everlasting fight between enlightened rationality and religious views. “Ghostwhipper” is a fictive story which is about the fact that you might unleash powers which get out of your control. All lyrics have a short introduction where is more or less explained what the shit is all about. Well, be it for the album-title itself or the printed lyrics, there can be found some some grammatical experiments and we like to invent new words some times ha ha.
What’s your songwriting process?
Well sometimes one of us has a completely new song and we just modify it here and there. At other times we work together with different ideas of riffs and parts and try to create something everyone is satisfied with. Usually we are slow in writing songs but sometimes it goes very fast and and within a short time. So there’s no basic schedule at all.
How do you see your songs/direction developing in the future?
Well it’s not easy to say anything about the future, as the present is too dominating right now. Of course we will try to make new songs, more heavy, more doom, more direct, more up-tempo… well you see…a bit of everything. Most important is to create an album which is coherent and lets no questions open…
ART 238 are from France and play Industrial Extreme Metal. This is their latest EP.
Here we have three tracks lasting almost 22 minutes in total that showcase the band’s harsh blend of Industrial sounds and Death/Black Metal know-how.
Usually when bands attempt to merge these two genres the result is some half-hearted Death Metal with keyboards on top. ART 238 don’t fall into this trap, as the Extreme Metal they play is actually extreme, and the Industrial influences seem coded into the band’s make-up at the genetic level and then hybridised with cybernetics to create this fascinating beast.
ART 238 manage to merge ultra-brutal blast beats with more atmospheric Industrial workouts in a way that recalls Aborym if they had gone the Death Metal route rather than the Black Metal one.
Another thing I really like about this EP is that the songs take the time to explore their surroundings, like they’re genuinely trying to find the best fit for their various component parts. In a feat of ingenuity the band manage to work with both sides of their sound expertly and incorporate them into an Industrial Extreme Metal whole.
It’s a musical framework that not many bands try, as most that do usually sound weak, incoherent or like some 80’s synth parody. ART 238 sidestep all of this by going straight for the jugular with their creative brand of urban Metal.
For fans of and mixing influences from – Aborym, Mithras, Red Harvest, Axis of Perdition, Blut Aus Nord, Ministry, Dødheimsgard, Kekal, Invertia, etc.
Highly enjoyable and highly recommended. This is the sound of a mechanised apocalypse.
Dust Sculptures is a US Post-Black Metal band consisting of one person – this is his second release.
An album like this would be a very impressive achievement even if it was the product of a full band, never mind that this is all from one person. The musicianship and songwriting is first rate.
This is a blend of Black Metal, Shoegaze, Progressive Rock and Post-Rock; the various elements are skilfully combined into this release so that you never quite know what exactly you’re going to get next, yet it all gels together and flows seamlessly from one part to the next, from one song to the next.
All of the genre/sub-genre tags above essentially let you know that this is an album that takes a Black Metal base and builds it into something more. The songs have real depth and lasting power. There is a lot of music to explore here and that feels like the essence of the album to me; an exploration through an unknown wilderness.
Soft, crooning clean vocals share space with tortured screams and Blackened agonies. Like the instruments the vocals are perfectly judged and performed flawlessly.
Shades of modern-day Anathema can be heard alongside Blackened parts. Post-Metal highs and Shoegaze wanderings rub shoulders with blast beats and dark melodies. Progressive keyboards and chaotic riffs work together to build sound structures greater than the sum of their parts.
It’s clear that a lot of care, love and attention has gone into the making of this album. Every last part of it has had a lavish amount of focus placed on it and this has resulted in an album that’s a true revelation.
Fistula are from the US and play Sludge Metal. This is their sixth album.
Oh Mother Sludge! You have such sights to show us don’t you? Fistula are firm adherents to the cause and push Mother Sludge’s agenda as if their lives depended on it. And maybe they do, as Mother Sludge is fickle with her favours.
Fistula are a very prolific, (heh), band and it’s always a pleasure to hear Sludge played with passion and feeling like we have here. Sludge is such a rich sub-genre of Metal that it’s easy to make it your own but it’s also easy to fall by the wayside into sloppy Eyehategod worship.
Of course, all Sludge bands by the very nature of the style have some Eyehategod in their sound; as this is the basic template of Sludge what matters is what the band does with it. Do they follow the template strictly or do they make it their own?
Fistula have embraced their fuzz-soaked, feedback-drenched Southern roots but like all great purveyors of the style they have mutated and warped it to their own vicious desires. As such, Vermin Prolificus is an album that bears the weight of history on its hulking shoulders without even noticing it’s even there and the resulting noise-fest is a grim testimony to the love of all things filthy, dirty and downright heavy.
On Vermin Prolificus the band leave no fungus-covered stone unturned in their quest to uncover all of Mother Sludge’s mysteries. Slow, fast, heavy, ever-so-slightly-less-heavy…the band play it all with relish and pull all of it off very well indeed.
The songs have the instant appeal of a rotten landscape and the hidden depths of a foetid swamp. This is music to get buried in.
I love this kind of album especially when delivered by the desperate hands of true believers like Fistula. If you have even a passing interest in the Sludge style then this is a must.
Hegemone are from Poland and play Post-Black Metal. This is their début album.
With an album cover that promises mystery and rich rewards to those who reveal the music within, this is an album that doesn’t give up its secrets lightly. Even when they’re being overt there are hidden delights to be had here.
Luminosity is a sprawling album stretched across 6 tracks of dark Post-Black Metal with a good amount of Sludge thrown in for good effect.
The guitars sound like they’re coated in tar and the melodies are Blackened and deep. It’s a surprisingly heavy affair and the Sludge influence to their sound allows the band to get away with all sorts of mischief under its banner.
The vocals barks forth brutal noises over music that can be either harsh or beautiful depending on the mood of the band. The music itself may be capable of subtlety and nuance but his is a commanding presence that demands attention and floors all in front of him.
At times recalling second-wave Black Metal, at others recalling the darker side of Post-Metal in a Cult of Luna style; this is a heavier and Sludgier proposition than a lot of Post-Black Metal out there. Yes, they are perfectly capable of creating atmospheric and awe-inspiring musical soundscapes, (and they do), but they also like to make sure that the good old Darkthrone/Satyricon groove is felt to full effect when needed.
There are moments of unbridled creativity and flair displayed on these songs as well. Unexpected delights include appearances by a saxophone that don’t sound incongruous and rivals anything artists like Ihsahn have used.
This is a very accomplished, ambitious and rewarding listen. Hegemony have put together something special that they should be proud of.
This is a cold-hearted gem that’s just waiting to be discovered.
Aeonsgate are from Sweden and this is their début album.
Wonderbox Metal 