Death Metal – Page 146 – Wonderbox Metal

Sulphur Aeon – Gateway to the Antisphere (Review)

Sulphur Aeon play Death Metal. They are from Germany and this is their second album.

I love a good album cover, and this one is just brilliant.

Sulphur Aeon are not your standard Death Metal band. Sure, the ferocious riffs and brutal delivery are there, but they also add a lot more on top of this. Sound enhancements, effects, interesting vocals and chants, etc. add to the feeling of something special, mysterious and subtly disturbing.

A strong feeling of the underworld pervades this release, with mysterious sounds and otherworldly echoes aplenty.

The vocals are bowel-shakingly deep and sound as evil as they do inhuman. Added to this there are various shouts and chants also included that ratchet up the atmosphere and feeling as well as the aura of otherworldly darkness that these songs exude.

Musically this is interesting Death Metal in the grand tradition of bands like Behemoth and Nile; bands that are not content to play generic Death Metal and instead infuse their style with atmosphere and character. Sulphur Aeon have both in spades.

These songs are heavy and brutal yet still manage to make room for atmosphere and no small amount of melody and leads. The musicianship and songwriting skills of the band are all top-drawer and these 53 minutes speed by in a blur of remarkable Extreme Metal.

This is a very impressive release that is guaranteed to make waves in the Extreme Metal scene. There’s not enough individuality and differentiation in the Death Metal scene, (why fix what largely isn’t broken?), but thankfully Sulphur Aeon have produced an album that builds on all of the strengths of Death Metal and takes the genre further than most.

Essential listening. Go and get this now.

Psycroptic – Psycroptic (Review)

Psycroptic are from Australia and play Technical Death Metal. This is their sixth album.

Psycroptic’s brand of Death Metal is sharp and finely edged, honed to a fine killing point through years of mastercrafted precision and expertise.

As such, they offer us 9 tracks of advanced-level Technical Death Metal over 39 minutes.

They’re not a band to get overly technical at the expense of the song though, as there are plenty of songwriting skills on display here too.

They also know how to write some emotive passages that have a kind of modern Blackened feel to them, almost akin to some of the harder, faster sections that bands like Enslaved do so well.

The vocals are aggressive shouts that also bring in semi-cleans and screams as appropriate. It’s typically the semi-clean parts that are the most emotive and remind most of a Technical Death Metal version of Enslaved, if you can imagine such a thing. Well, imagine no more!

They’ve incorporated a decent amount of variety on this release too, which, alongside the well-composed song structures, stops the album from becoming a one-dimensional blur of technicality.

I love the Progressive Metal elements of these songs, which help impart the feeling of a journey through Hellishly complicated waters with only the band as guides.

The playing is impressive all-round, of course, but I feel compelled to give special mention to the drummer as he puts in an astounding performance, especially for someone with, (presumably), the normal number of limbs.

An exceptionally good album.

Garroter – Identity (Review)

Garroter are a Polish Death Metal band and this is their second album.

This is sharp and tight Death Metal that features a modern style and sound, but not overly so.

The songs feature lots of chug and groove alongside the faster sections. This is a band that has plenty of crunch and knows what to do with it.

Think of a cross between Decapitated and Malevolent Creation with a touch of Cannibal Corpse, Hate Eternal and even Behemoth; this is the Garroter sound, and it sounds pretty good.

The band has a slick, professional production that serves them well. Everything has bite and you can even hear the bass, which is always nice. The band can obviously play and there’s a good amount of technical wizardry on display.

Each song is a muscular collection of riffs that are shredded together into a coherent structure and then handed over to an inhuman monster to growl and roar over.

Their music is very precise, with a fair few objects of interest, atypical ideas and areas of mechanical playfulness strewn throughout these 11 tracks.

If you enjoy your Death Metal rhythmically mechanical like a well-oiled killing machine yet still full of infernal life, then Garroter fit the bill. They’ve created a crunchy, catchy album full of Death Metal devastation.

Listen at full volume.

Gian – All Life Erased (Review)

This is well-written Death Metal with some nice melodic streaks thrown in for good emphasis.

The band have gone for a song-oriented approach that is part Swedish Death Metal and part Modern Death Metal, not a million miles away from Illdisposed’s 1-800 Vindication in some ways; frequent infectious melodies with a firm heavy backbone to stop things from ever veering into Melodic Death Metal territory.

Gian frequently trade off crunchy, heavy riffs with melodic passages, all the time retaining an overall muscular presence.

The vocals are deep growls and angry shouts for the most part, but I must say that I was completely unprepared for clean vocals to appear on the second track Bloodstorm! They are performed extremely well and only appear on this song, but for a band who have a firm Death Metal sound with blast beats aplenty I was quite taken aback. Their scarcity works in their favour though, as when they do appear it’s just another aspect of the melodic delivery that appears among the brutal carnage that their music alternates between.

Gian have created a very enjoyable album that delivers something that’s an uncommon treat; songs that are equally brutal and melodic but without falling into the trap of losing their bite.

This is one to definitely check out.

Piah Mater – Memories of Inexistence (Review)

Piah Mater are from Brazil and play Progressive Death Metal. This is their début album.

This is Progressive Death Metal that’s expertly played and produced.

If you take Opeth (old) as a base template and then add in some more Progressive influences, (Wolverine and some aspects of Anathema spring to mind), then you’ll have a good idea of what Piah Mater sound like.

The singer has a top notch voice. His clean vocals are well performed and have the requisite amount of personality to them. His growls are deep with a slight rasp and work well with the melodic music.

The songs twist, wind and curl their way through the playing times. Quasi-melodic angular riffs meet Progressive melodies and it’s clear that Piah Mater obviously know exactly how they want to sound.

Memories of Inexistence is a very enjoyable 58 minutes of Progressive Death Metal that is easy to like and easy to recommend.

If you dislike the direction that Opeth have taken over the last few years then Piah Mater can help to soothe your discontent. This is an album that’s a return to the roots that Opeth put down, only updated for the present day.

Give them a listen.

Biopsy – Fractals of Derangement (Review)

Biopsy are from India and this is their début EP. They play Brutal Death Metal.

Biopsy take their influences from the USDM scene and even though they’re from India would fit in rather well over there.

The vocals are as deep as any I’ve heard, full of pignoise and bile. The singer is clearly interested in chewing your face off.

The music is nicely brutal with some good grooves and tight riffs amongst the butchery. An impressive amount of chuggery, (it’s a word), takes place here, enough to knock you over.

Moments of melody are few and far between, but there are some brief moments here and there incorporated into the brutality.

There’s enough skill and talent here to avoid dismissal as mere Suffocation-clones and based on this release Biopsy could have a bright future ahead of them in the underground Death Metal arena.

Each song hovers around the 3 minute mark, so the band make an impact without overstaying their welcome. The tracks are solid examples of the style and if you like USDM then Biopsy are waiting for you, surgical table at the ready.

Support the underground!

Dehuman – Graveyard of Eden (Review)

Dehuman are from Belgium and play Death Metal. This is their second album.

I enjoyed Dehuman’s 2012 début album Black Throne of All Creation and as such had high hopes for this new one as I first pressed play.

It did not disappoint.

This is solid Death Metal that flexes its musical muscles early and frequently. The band create an impressive racket.

Dehuman play classic Death Metal that has a timeless quality even though it’s delivered in a modern package.

Thick, heavy guitars blare out with spiky, take-no-prisoners riffs. The band are technically proficient in what they do and their songs reflect this. Riffs chop and change all over the shop and the occasional lightning speed solo, obscure lead or rare bout of melody strikes out from the coldly calculated mayhem to dazzle the listener.

Deep growls are shouted violently on top of this aggressive barrage and do their job well.

Dehuman have succeeded in creating an album of depth that has more than enough content to hold interest for repeated spins.

Top quality Death Metal.

Ur Draugr – The Wretched Ascetic (Review)

Ur Draugr are from Australia and this is their début EP.

This release is 20 minutes long and features Ur Draugr’s captivating take on Atmospheric Death Metal.

Unseen Golgotha is just under 7 minutes long and opens softly, with some light acoustic guitar guiding the way.

This slowly builds in atmosphere until the crashing guitars and thundering drums enter proceedings. Finally we get pitch-black growls entering the song and the dark atmosphere is ramped up by a factor of ten.

Tense melodies and charismatic music means that this song is an instant revelation.

Up next is the title track The Wretched Ascetic. This serves as the EP’s centrepiece at just over 10 minutes in length.

It’s a churning maelstrom of a song that builds like an oncoming storm with a heavily percussive backdrop and immense rhythms powering it along.

Like the first song, this second track is extremely impressive and ably showcases the band’s aesthetic of organic, atmospheric Death Metal that has some undertones of Black, Post- and Progressive Metal.

The final track on this wonderful début is Sombre Moribund. At 3 minutes in length it’s the shortest track here and serves as a gentle outro to the EP.

If you long for the olden days of classic Opeth but don’t want an Opeth rip-off band then Ur Draugr are the band for you.

This is a hugely impressive release. I can only imagine how good their eventual album will be. Here’s hoping and waiting expectantly.

Deprive – Into Oblivion (Review)

This is the début album from Spanish band Deprive. They play Old School Death Metal. Actually I should say “he plays”, as Deprive is helmed by just one man.

Into Oblivion has a morbid, ancient sound that evokes images of graveyards in decades past. For all this though the production is still warm and suited to the feel of the band.

This is 90’s-style Death Metal with a sound that’s even older than that. There are some eerie, emotive melodies amongst the riffs and the mastermind behind the band also has a nice grasp on some Doom licks, which are spread out liberally around the tracks.

Blast beats, mid-paced sections and Doom riffs all coalesce in Deprive’s songs to produce an album that sounds both authentic and satisfying.

The singer has a quality voice that’s deep and aggressive yet still as old and as venerable as the music.

Sometimes I feel I’ve reached my saturation point with Old-School Death Metal, but then a band like Deprive comes along and I can’t help but totally dig it. Their incorporation of blasting aggression and Doom-inflected passages into the standard Old-School template makes Into Oblivion a compelling listen.

The best thing, of course, is the songs themselves; all of these different elements are arranged naturally so that the band end up with tracks that are actually song-based as opposed to a collection of knitted-together riffs.

Deprive has impressed. Here’s to Into Oblivion!

Apocrophex – Suspended from the Cosmic Altaar (Review)

This is the début Technical Death Metal album from US band Apocrophex.

Building on their short but very promising EP Wheels Within Wheels, Apocrophex are now back with a full album, one that I’ve been quite looking forward to.

Opening straight up with some dense widdling and technical mayhem, Apocrophex make a grand entrance. I love the fact that their sound is equal parts heavy brutality and technical mayhem.

But what’s this? There’s an increased depth and maturity of songwriting here that was absent on their first release. It lends these songs an air of gravitas as they are an impressively realised collection of Technical Death Metal tracks.

Importanly, the technicality never takes over from the songs themselves and there are some quality emotive passages and high energy riffs here amidst the chaos.

Some Technical bands concentrate too much on what the lead guitar is doing, leaving the rhythm essentially providing just filler material. Apocrophex do things differently though; they put just as much effort into the rhythm guitars as they do the complicated and flash leads/solos. The result is songs that marry the best of both worlds and Suspended from the Cosmic Altaar is a real gem of an album because of this.

The vocals are as equally impressive as the music. The deep growls have come a long way since the EP and are hugely satisfying. High screams accentuate the aggression and there are even some semi-clean shouts that rise up out of the carnage on occasion to really add emphasis where it’s needed.

I think I’ve just found my new favourite Technical Death Metal band.

Essential listening for all Extreme Metal fans.