Reviews – Page 475 – Wonderbox Metal

Inherit Disease – Ephemeral (Review)

Inherit Disease are a US Death Metal band. This is their third album.

Combining some technicality and lots of brutality, Inherit Disease play a classic USDM style that allows them to showcase their love of the genre and all things brutal.

The music on Ephemeral combines speedy aggression with some chunky slam riffs, producing 39 minutes of utterly depraved brutality.

The singer’s vocals are sickeningly deep, stopping just short of descending into the kind of ridiculous pignoise burping that tends to ruin bands. His voice is as ugly and as gruesome as the music.

Ephemeral is unrelenting and harsh, rarely stopping for breath as it chops, hacks and carves its way through the tracks. There’s something very satisfying about this kind of music. It’s just so timelessly appealing; despite what other musical trends and moods might take you, Death Metal will always be there. Waiting. Lurking. Ready to strike.

I like that the more you listen to this, the more you enjoy it. It’s an unstoppable juggernaut of groove and blasting, easily absorbed by anyone who has a taste for bands like Deeds of Flesh, Suffocation, Cannibal Corpse, Severe Torture, Dying Fetus, Defeated Sanity, etc.

For a solid fix of heavy brutality and death-dealing, Inherit Disease have got you covered.

Check them out.

Cult of Luna and Julie Christmas – Mariner (Review)

Cult of Luna are a Post-Metal band from Sweden and Julie Christmas is a US solo artist and ex-member of such bands as Battle of Mice and Made out of Babies.

Well, this is a bit exciting. Cult of Luna are one of my favourite bands and Julie Christmas is one of my favourite vocalists. Put them together, and I can’t see how this could be anything short of amazing. Continue reading “Cult of Luna and Julie Christmas – Mariner (Review)”

Corprophemia – Abhorrogenesis (Review)

This is the second album from Canadian Death Metal band Corprophemia.

Playing savage Death Metal that has elements of the brutal and technical styles, this is a modern approach to the genre that injects a bit of Deathcore and slam into the mix to further increase the violence factor.

Canada seems to be very good when it comes to this kind of thing. Fellow Canadian Death Metallers such as Cryptopsy, Deformatory, Pronostic, Antlion and Unbreakable Hatred to name but a few have all released some top quality music in the not too distant past and we can now add Corprophemia to that list as well.

The singer has a fine set of lungs it seems, with his clipped barks reeking of aggression. His is a very satisfying voice and perfectly complements the precise and exacting nature of the music.

So what of the music? It’s well-played, well-written and well-recorded. This pretty much covers all of the bases and all that remains is for this to be played at full volume to annoy the neighbours.

The band use crushing rhythmic riffs well and mainly sound like a combination of the dynamics and technicality of Cryptopsy, the staccato brutality of Beneath the Massacre and the sheer violence and cold assault of Coprocephalic. Add some snippets of cut-short melody here and there and brief ambient synth interludes between tracks and you have a very compelling 30 minutes.

Highly recommended.

Bloodthirst – Glorious Sinners (Review)

This is the latest EP from Polish Blackened Thrashers Bloodthirst.

I enjoyed their last album Chalice of Contempt, so this new EP was gratefully received. Here we have over 20 minutes of scathing Black Metal and 80s Thrash influences.

These songs continue the band’s previous path of combining second-wave Black Metal with atavistic Thrash elements, striking the right balance so that they’re poised between two styles, waiting to strike.

Blast beats and spiky riffs blur by in a whirlwind of energy and dark melodies. The songs have personality and the band embrace the roots of both genres, forging them together down the path they want to take.

I find it easy to be turned off by Black/Thrash a lot of the time, but I do enjoy Bloodthirst as they seem to have that intangible special something that raises them up to be greater than the sum of their parts. It’s the songs, of course, and the feel of them. Glorious Sinners just hits the spot for me and does what it sets out to do very well indeed.

A professional production rounds the package off, and Glorious Sinners is an eminently enjoyable listen.

Krigsgrav – Waves of Degradation (Review)

Krigsgrav are a Black Metal band from the US and this is their fourth album.

This is long and expansive Black Metal with a melodic edge. It’s vibrant and exploratory without losing focus and across these lengthy tracks the band take the time to unfold their vision of what Black Metal should look, feel and sound like in 2016.

If you take the depressive core of a band like Forgotten Tomb and add some Post-Black Metal influences, then you’ll be in the right area of where Krigsgrav lurk. Elements of depressive and melodic Black Metal round this out, as well as some aspects of funeral Doom.

With a decent recording the band’s compositions take on a dark life of their own. All of the instruments sound clear and precise, and I always like an album that you can hear the bass on, especially when it makes a valid and noticeable contribution to the music.

Additional instrumentation appears here and there, adding extra tools to the band’s repertoire and deepening the depths of sound that they create.

The vocals are notably impressive; ragged screams that sound like the singer is ripping his throat out are enhanced by the occasional deeper growl and some powerful cleans.

The songs describe harrowing tales of misery and hopelessness, set against a backdrop of just enough light and possibility so as to make the dark atmospheres all the worse. The mixture of lighter sections and heavier, blackened distortion work well and the build/release Post-Metal mechanic is used effectively in a Post-Black Metal environment.

Waves of Degradation is an impressive listen and has more than enough content to compel you to visit it again and again.

Recommended.

Gottweist – Future Is in Our Hands (Review)

This is the début album from Canadian Metal band Gottweist.

Gottweist’s music is somewhere between the classic Iron Maiden-influenced Metal style and a more modern one, as played by bands like Killswitch Engage, Bullet for My Valentine, As I Lay Dying, Atreyu and the like. The balance is weighted towards the latter, but the former has enough of a presence to give Future Is in Our Hands more impact than is normal for a band like this.

The album features a bright sparkly sound that might not be quite as polished as those aforementioned groups, but still works in concert with the songs themselves to present a band who clearly have a passion and energy for what they do.

The singer’s voice is melodic and smooth, backed by the odd shout or harsher vocal. The Heavy Metal influence counteracts the more modern Metalcore one in various ways, one of the more notable being the fact that the harsh vocals are very much in the minority here, whereas normally it’s the other way around, with cleans usually being restricted to radio-friendly choruses. Gottweist go the other, less-usual route; the majority of the vocals on this release are sung, and when harsher ones do appear they typically back up the cleans on the choruses.

Leads and solos are used well, adding much to the hearty songs and catchy melodies. Indeed, there’s so much enthusiasm here that it’s hard to feel jaded and dislike what the band are doing, (unless you’re just not into this kind of thing, of course).

All of the above results in an enjoyable and slightly different take on the more commercial side of melodic Metal/Metalcore. I have enjoyed their slightly-atypical spin on the modern Metalcore sound; with the traditional Heavy Metal aspects of their delivery lending a bit more depth and longevity to the music than is typical for a band of this ilk.

Given the right backing and exposure, as well as a bigger production and a slightly more adventurous songwriting outlook, Future Is in Our Hands might actually be potentially quite prophetic for their next album.

Check this out.

Primitive Man/Sea Bastard – Split (Review)

This is a split release between two of Doom’s darkest stars, Primitive Man from the US and Sea Bastard from the UK.

Both excel at what they do and having both of them on one release is quite an exciting prospect.

Primitive Man start us off with two tracks of the grimmest, most evil Sludge-fuelled Doom that there is. It’s 17 minutes of agonised pain and hatred. After many releases, (here, here and here, for example), I still can’t get enough of the horribly bleak noises that they make.

Colossally heavy and nihilistically bleak, Primitive Man always deliver the goods, and on this split it seems that the goods are well past their best-before-date and covered in filth and dirt.

The singer has hands-down one of the best pitch-black growls I’ve ever heard and when his voice first makes an appearance on Cold Resolve it’s like being floored by a truck. That’s if the slow, crushing guitars haven’t flattened you before then. The song proceeds to crawl across your broken corpse, all distorted malice and squealing feedback, slowly pressing you into the ground until there’s nothing left.

The second song of theirs is the shorter of the two, yet is no less nasty for it. Servant starts off with a feedback squeal and is typically crushing from then on in, once again showing off the kind of high-quality Doom that the band have become known for. Dripping with spite and rage-fuelled negativity, as the track unfolds things just get heavier and darker until the playing time is mercifully over.

But there’s no real breather, as we now have Sea Bastard’s colossal near-20 minute behemoth of a track, The Hermit, to deal with.

Like Primitive Man, Sea Bastard keep unleashing quality releases on the world, (here, for example), and this is no exception.

Sea Bastard’s Sludge Metal is less dripping with filth than Primitive Man’s, but no less effective for it. Previously I’ve described them as similar to Bongripper only with screams and growls, and that’s not a band starting point for initial reference.

Sea Bastard specialise in settling into a slow-burning crawling-groove, with a mesmerising heaviness drawing the listener in and repeating itself over and over, but never to the point of where the listener loses interest. This is enticing and hypnotic, and just when you can’t take it any more the band shift gears or change riffs and the suffocating Doom takes on a different edge, no less crushing than the last.

The screamed vocals are the perfect accompaniment to the music’s guitars, and the combination of the two produces a very satisfying feeling deep in the stomach where the bass seems to have set up home.

Picking up the pace a bit halfway through, the band show that it’s not just slow riffs that they can peel off with ease. This doesn’t last, of course, and once spent the juggernaut returns to a malevolent crawl as the song claws its way to conclusion.

The Hermit is just as good as anything the band have released, and combined with Primitive Man’s side of the split this is a pretty damn essential Doom release for anyone who’s into this kind of thing.

DOOM!

Funeral Whore – Phantasm (Review)

This is the second album from Funeral Whore, who are a Death Metal band from The Netherlands.

We have briefly met Funeral Whore before, during their very tasty split with Obscure Infinity – Summon the Undead.

Funeral Whore play old-school Death Metal that reeks of the crypt and lands somewhere between Incantation, Bolt Thrower and Dismember in style.

As on their split with Obscure Infinity, Funeral Whore are, (deliberately), rough around the edges, lending their music a real underground feeling.

Heavy riffs and hammering drums crush and destroy while deep, gruff vocals belch out obscenities. The songs drip with old-school malevolence, sinister leads and dark melodies.

It’s easy to enjoy this kind of atavistic Death Metal, especially when it’s written with songs and mood in mind as these tracks clearly are. Funeral Whore know what they’re doing, it seems.

If you have any love for the old-school style of Death Metal then it’s worth checking out Funeral Whore as Phantasm is a very satisfying listen.

Amon Amarth – Jomsviking (Review)

Amon Amarth are a melodic Death Metal band from Sweden and this is their tenth album.

Returning with a Viking-themed concept album, Amon Amarth continue their tried-and-tested formula for melodic Death Metal that they have been slowly perfecting and refining now for decades.

At this point in their existence you pretty much know exactly what to expect from them and they never fail to deliver. The songs on this release are as catchy and memorable as any that they have released over their victory-filled career.

Time has clearly been taken over these riffs, and the vast majority of the material here is bright, upbeat, full of energy, very memorable and laced with just the right amount of darkness, loss and violence.

Bright leads accompany the songs, as we’ve come to expect, and I particularly enjoy the solo work on this release too. The rhythm guitars are where the bulk of the action is at though, of course, and these tracks are destined to be hits in the live environment.

The singer’s charismatic and gruff voice is present and correct. Using pleasing rhythms and fitting in with the pace of the songs effortlessly, he provides a suitably compelling and powerful performance that does the weighty, (and epic), subject matter justice. In addition to his normal singing voice, he occasionally gives vent to a full-throated Death Metal growl, and it’s a thing of beauty. Doro also makes an appearance on A Dream That Cannot Be, adding a different dimension to the proceedings.

I find it incredibly hard to dislike anything Amon Amarth have released, and Jomsviking is no different. The band have an uncanny knack of providing the listener with highly-enjoyable songs that somehow manage to combine both style and substance, which is not something to be taken lightly.

Essential listening for all Metal warriors.

Between the Buried and Me – Coma Ecliptic (Review)

Between the Buried and Me are a progressive Extreme Metal band from the US. This is their seventh album.

If you haven’t encountered Between the Buried and Me before then you’re in for a treat. They’re one of the best examples of a band individualising what they do, and what they do is progressive Extreme Technical Metal. It’s a bit of a mouthful but it’s hard to describe this band in simple terms. Over the course of their career they’ve pretty much done it all, and over time they’re only getting more ambitious with their releases.

As with anything like this though, it’s not for everyone. If you favour music that has traditional song structures and predictable layouts, then move quietly along. If, however, you like the idea of listening to a band that can effortlessly combine the type of stuff you’d hear from bands like Queen, Deicide, Dream Theatre and The Dillinger Escape Plan, while simultaneously remaining entirely their own entity, then make sure you check this out.

This latest album is as ambitious and grandiose as always, more so in many respects. Piano and keyboards probably feature even more heavily than previously and add to the progressive structures in innumerable ways.

The singer uses both clean vocals and growls, although there seems to be a trend developing now that shows him using his clean vocals more and more. This is reflected in the music too, as the band use blast beats more sparingly than they used too as well. It may be less extreme than some of their other work, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s any more accessible for the average listener. After all, there are more ways to be extreme than just playing fast.

The music is flawlessly delivered and the level of musicianship on Coma Ecliptic is staggeringly high; this is a band who know how to work their instruments. The compositions are long and involved, as usual, although the average track length is slightly shorter than some of their previous work.

Eschewing anything close to standard song structures, Between the Buried and Me are all about the song sections and how these holistically fit together. There’s a lot to take in over these 69 minutes and the album certainly requires multiple spins to give up its secrets.

All of the songs have their own personality, as you would imagine, and it’s easy to differentiate between them. They’ve always been a highly textured and nuanced band, and this only seems to be becoming more pronounced over time.

Anyone into challenging music that successfully mixes progressive music with extremity, heaviness and quirkiness should definitely check this out.