Wonderbox Metal

Third Sovereign – Perversion Swallowing Sanity (Review)

Third Sovereign are an Indian Death Metal band and this is their second album.

Third Sovereign play classic Death Metal that values a good riff. More than this though, they know how to stitch them together to achieve the end result they want.

Catchy, infectious guitars are the main feature of the tracks and they are done really well. It’s clear that Third Sovereign are not lacking for inspiration in this department. A nice thick guitar sound and overall good production lends strength to the songs too.

The singer has a different type of voice than I was expecting, which was that of a more cookie-monster styled delivery. What we actually get is a more distinctive, characterful series of growls and barks that sound surprisingly individual.

There’s a rhythmic muscularity to these songs, ripe with power and classic Death Metal chops. They have lots of energy and sound designed to be played live where I’m sure they can stir up the pit something fierce.

Perversion Swallowing Sanity is quality Death Metal. What more is there to say? Listen at full volume.

Razoreater – Vacuum of Nihil (Review)

This is the latest release from UK Grinders Razoreater.

Razoreater combine elements of Old-School Hardcore and, unexpectedly, Swedish Death Metal into their furious blend of Grindcore.

Ugly vocals with a fierce Old-School Hardcore snarl to them rage out from the tracks, angry enough to cause violent feelings just by their very presence.

The music has a dirty Swedish Death Metal feel to it that’s quite delicious, especially as it’s filthed-up Grind that’s being played. Due to this, some of the riffs also have that Swedish feel, especially when the band slow the pace and concentrate on mood and evil melodies; all of which is a great addition to the standard Grinding mayhem.

These songs are full of good riffs and decent songwriting. This is a band who play at full speed very well, but know when it’s a good idea to slow things down and try a different method of attack. 13 minutes later – faces are broken and skin has been bruised.

Interesting, very interesting. Cross Extreme Noise Terror, Entombed and Rotten Sound together and you’ll have an idea of where Razoreater are coming from.

Razoreater make an impressive din. Check them out.

Enthrallment – Eugenic Wombs (Review)

This is the fifth album from Bulgarian Death Metal band Enthrallment.

After enjoying their fourth album The Voice of Human Perversity very much, the band now return with a new offering and 37 minutes of Death Metal to make your ears bleed.

Taking influence from the kind of twisted Death Metal that Immolation do so well, Enthrallment spend their time on this album fusing brutality with dark melody.

The album has a very clean, serpentine sound; lean and ready to strike. All instruments are clear, (including the bass), and everything is balanced and gets a chance to shine.

The singer’s deep growls are very effective and are really well performed. Although it’s impossible to discern what he’s saying, they have an emotive quality to them nonetheless that works well with the darkly expressive music.

Enthrallment have written a collection of songs that go further than the pure brutality of a lot of their peers. Frequent usage of interesting leads, solos and snatches of warped melodies make for tracks that have a lot of depth and nuance to them. There are also some very tasty, (and sometimes quite atypical), riffs here too. Just check out Last Judgment Waltz for a great example of this.

Very enjoyable stuff – five albums in and Enthrallment have their style nailed down.

Spektr – The Art to Disappear (Review)

Spektr are a Black Metal band from France. This is their fourth album.

Spektr specialise in harrowing Industrial-tinged Black Metal that laces elements of Ambient throughout this bleak journey into the fractured darkness of the human psyche.

Blackened melodies are twisted and warped to fit the band’s grim vision of what the music should sound like. Spektr have never been a standard Black Metal band and on The Art to Disappear they continue to provide a nightmare soundscape onto which they paint broken ideas of urban claustrophobia and mechanised fear.

Listening to Spektr is like listening to the living embodiment of a rhythmic, pulsing evil. They have always been somewhat of an acquired taste for this reason, as their non-standard take on the genre is simply too much for some. This is music that pushes boundaries by the very nature of the terrible conceptual understanding of horror that lies at their very core.

The Art to Disappear plays out almost like a film soundtrack, ebbing and flowing with different darkened moods throughout the 41 minutes playing time. Although, if this actually were the case, I imagine it would be the most terrifying film of all time. It’s a very holistic album for this reason, with each song acting as a different scene, each more upsetting and disturbing than the last.

All credit to them, this level of unpleasantness is not an easy one to achieve.

Dare you listen to this?

Spinebreaker – Ice Grave (Review)

This is the début album from Spinebreaker, a Death Metal band from the US.

This is ugly Old-School Death Metal born bloody and ragged from the Hardcore scene. This means that the band combine the purity of their Death Metal heritage with the fire and energy of their Hardcore bloodline.

My, what a sound they have! Boasting a Swedish Death Metal guitar tone that their spiritual forefathers would be proud of, this is presented in a filthed-up package that fuses the feel of the era and style with a Hardcore edge and a touch of At the Gates and Carcass in the vocal department.

The end result is a savage demonstration of the fact that A) you don’t need to be Swedish to wield a chainsaw and B) there’s life in Old-School Swedish Death Metal yet; it’s not necessary for a band to simply rehash past glories.

Spinebreaker manage to successfully inject vitality and vibrancy into a rather stale, (but still very enjoyable), sub-genre. The inclusion of a Hardcore edge to some of the riffs adds a blood-pumping energy and the harsh screaming growls are a thing of gory beauty.

Whether ripping out giant grooves or pounding heaviness, Spinebreaker make everything sound dark, nightmarish and nasty, just as it should be. The spectre of At the Gates looms over the faster sections, (prompted for me by the vocals, but bleeding into the guitars too), and it’s a joy to hear this encapsulated by such a dirty Swedish delivery.

A very enjoyable 38 minutes.

Furze – Baphomet Wade (Review)

Furze is a one-man Norwegian Black Metal project. This is his sixth album.

Furze’s Black Metal is not the conventional kind. Full of unusual riffs and strange melodies, Baphomet Wade is definitely not your average release. Stylistically rooted in the Second Wave of Black Metal, it’s as if this take on the genre has been interpreted through a maze of Chinese whispers, resulting in a distorted version of Black Metal that’s still recognisable as such, but isn’t quite right nonetheless.

Riffs are unusual and inventive, taking their Black Metal heritage and filtering them through Doom, Psychedelia and who knows what else to end up with the twisted melodies that are on display here.

The interesting thing, (one of many), is that for all of this unusualness, the songs are still very good in their own right. This isn’t wild experimentalism; there are a lot of standard components, parts and sections to the tracks on Baphomet Wade, it’s just that these standard parts are inventively created and interpreted, resulting in songs that are in many ways standard Black Metal songs, but in other ways are something quite special.

A lot of it is about the guitars. Why settle for something generic when you can put a creative spin on things? This seems to sum up the mindset behind this quite nicely, and it’s one that more bands would do better to adopt.

The closest I can come to a comparison would be the warped offspring of a merger between Forgotten Woods, Tjolgtjar and Sigh – individual, expressive, unusual and inspired.

The end result? 41 minutes of engaging, enjoyable music that’s full of songs that grab hold and demand your attention.

Highly recommended.

Prolefeed/War All the Time – Split (Review)

This is a split between two UK Grind/Hardcore bands.

Prolefeed start us off with 15 tracks of pissed-off Hardcore, tearing it up straight away with fast beats and a razor-sharp guitar sound.

Even though the songs are all short, sometimes they do slow the pace down and give vent to their groovier side. Apart from this, it’s all Hardcore-fury as the band play fast enough to vent their rage but rarely enter blast beat territory.

The riffs are full of confident swagger and attitude, embracing their heritage and really going for the throat.

The vocals are high shouts, angry and harsh, just as we like it.

It’s a more Hardcore/Punk take on the style as beloved of Extreme Noise Terror and early Cripple Bastards, mixed with an Old-School influence à la Minor Threat and the like.

After this we have War All the Time, who contribute the final 11 tracks to this violent split.

War All the Time have an uglier, fuzzier, filthier production than Prolefeed’s sharpness, and benefit from a rounder sound in this regard.

Other than that there are a lot of similarities between the bands; short songs, (although on average slightly longer for War All the Time), Punk fury, swagger, attitude, fast but-not-blast-beats, etc.

The singer has a deeper shout than that of Prolefeed; a throaty snarl shouting belligerently across the tracks.

Like their partners on this split, it’s an enjoyable listen. On balance, I think I prefer Prolefeed’s contribution though as there’s a little more variety in attack, but both sides hit the spot for a bit of grinding angry Hardcore violence.

Have a listen.

Fall – The Insatiable Weakness (Review)

This is the début album from US Progressive/Melodic Death Metallers Fall.

Featuring a strong sound, this is an album full of emotive Melodic Death Metal that is enhanced by keyboards and Progressive Metal tendencies.

There’s a bit of everything on here, from highly melodic guitars, to blasting drums, to liquid guitar solos, to introspective refrains, to Modern Thrash workouts.

The vocals vary from shouted growls to soaring cleans. Both are performed extremely well and very professionally.

With a beguiling mix of heaviness and catchiness, The Insatiable Weakness combines the hooks and passion of the European Metal scene with the heavy delivery and modern sheen of the American, resulting in an album that takes equal parts from both.

Fall make the type of music that bands like In Flames, Soilwork, (whose drummer features on this album), Darkane, Dark Tranquillity, et al, are so well-known for and add a Progressive/darker Extreme Metal edge to it. For anyone that enjoys the more commercial side of Melodic Death Metal, but favours more heaviness and extremity in their music, then The Insatiable Weakness is for you.

Highly recommended.

Chronos Zero – Hollowlands – The Tears Path: Chapter One (Review)

This is the second album from Italian Progressive Metal band Chronos Zero.

Chronos Zero represent the slightly heavier side of Progressive European-styled Metal. Chunky riffs trade off with soft keyboards to create emotive landscapes for both the band and listener to explore.

This is reflected in the vocals too, which are performed by both male and female singers. The female vocals are powerful cleans that recall the best of the 90s/00s days and the male vocals are a combination of cleans and shouts.

This combination of different vocal delivery helps with the album holding attention well, despite a running time of 72 minutes. The music contributes to this too, obviously; Chronos Zero have made sure that they have included enough Progressive/Power Metal to satisfy any fan of the genre.

The music is professionally played and the modern guitars work well with the extravagant keyboards, merging influences from the more restrained American brand of Power Metal with the exploratory, ostentatious side of the European style.

This album strikes me as a more modern updating of the male/female European style that was quite popular over a decade or so ago. There are no, (well, very few), Gothic Metal influences on this album though; Chronos Zero have distinct Progressive/Power Metal view of things, and I like their vision.

So, take a band like Threshold, add a heavier European Metal influence, add shouted male vocals, add luscious female vocals, coat in a modern, professional production…this will give you a good idea of what Chronos Zero have to offer.

This is a well-written and satisfying, albeit lengthy, feast that should appeal to any fan of the genre.

Very enjoyable indeed – check it out.

Collision – Satanic Surgery (Review)

This is the fourth album from Dutch Grindcore band Collision.

I was introduced to Collision via their brief split with The Rotted. Both of those tracks feature on Satanic Surgery, and I was impressed with their merging of Grind and Thrash.

Boasting 13 violent tracks that average about the 2 minute mark, this release is surprisingly catchy for something that’s essentially trying to rip your face off.

Blasting mayhem and high-pitched maniacal screams are restrained just enough to stop them descending into total chaos. The songs feature rhythms, vocal patterns and flesh-slicing melodies that stick in the brain more than they probably should.

This is foot-tapping good. It’s music that makes you want to move, even when it’s stupidly fast and the only realistic movement you can accomplish is basically to make your entire body spasm to the beat. Yes, that’s what we want out of music.

The band have focused on actual songs as part of their furious Grinding, something that a lot of more extreme bands neglect sometimes. This helps elevate Satanic Surgery well above the average of their peers and into more rarefied company.

These high-energy tracks will have you reaching for the meat cleaver and dancing like a maniac before you can even ask, “what’s going on here?”.

Gloriously brutal and marvellously catchy.