This is the début album by Swedish Metal band Aktaion.
This is sharp Melodic Metal that combines high-energy aggressive Melodic Death Metal with more restrained and emotive choruses. Elements of Thrash and Progressive Metal also raise their heads, (only to bang them all the harder). Continue reading “Aktaion – Throne (Review)”
This is the début album from Lebanese Black Metal band Hatecrowned.
This is an album that finds its origins in Old-School Raw Black Metal. The band take this base though and expand upon it, introducing some darker Death Metal influences and atmosphere.
Bleak melodies and leads occasionally break the Blackened surface, but for the most part this is an album that’s swamped in atmospheric distortion from the rhythm guitars. It’s like a fuzzed-up wall of grim auras, ready and willing to crush, smother and consume all in its path. There are also solos, which I approve of big-style.
This methodology works well for the band, and the songs on Newborn Serpent are compelling hymns to hatred and malevolence. The dark Death Metal elements are combined skilfully into the even darker Black Metal core of the band, resulting in songs that just seethe misanthropy.
Screamed vocals are complemented by deeper growls, providing the songs with enough tools to spread their sinister manifesto.
I like that the band don’t stick to just one way of writing throughout; there’s a good amount of variety here for the style. Some songs are pure Black Metal, while others let the Death Metal seep in. Some songs are all about the bile and venom, while others have more atmosphere or pacing. Fast/slow, long/short; the band don’t limit themselves to just one method of assault and should be roundly commended for this.
Very good, very good indeed. Hatecrowned have impressed.
This is the second album from Norwegian Brutal Death Metallers The Sickening.
This is Brutal Death Metal for fans of Deeds of Flesh, Severe Torture, Vile and the like. Indeed, the last song on here is a Vile cover.
Guttural growls lead the way, deep and dark atop the gore-drenched music. The singer is an accomplished grunter and leaves no doubt in your mind that you are firmly in his sights and may very well be on the menu.
The band have a slightly odd production in that everything sounds extremely sharp; whereas the average Death Metal band will happily pummel you to death with blunt objects, The Sickening prefer to use knives and bladed weapons.
The recording allows the band to make ample use of their bassist too, which is something I always enjoy in my Death Metal.
The songs have plenty of chug and groove in them, as well as the requisite blasting barbarity. This is a band that doesn’t understand the word subtle and is quite happy going straight for the kill in every one of these tracks.
When only Brutal Death Metal in its purest of forms will do, The Sickening are here for you.
Check them out.
Anal Fissure are a Brutal Death Metal band from the Philippines. This is their début album.
Here we have 32 minutes of Brutal Death Metal with a decent amount of groove and blast. Influences from the Slam style work their way into the mix here and there, but for the most part this is all about the tried-and-tested method of Brutal Death Metal carnage.
For some reason, the band name and album cover led me to believe that this was going to be a more primitive Grind-influenced offering than it actually is. I was wrong though and Mind of a Serial Killer is a very professional and polished collection of butcher’s songs; the album features a strong recording where everything is solid, thick and precise.
Blasting drums, heavy grooves and huge breakdowns provide plenty of meat to chew on. The riffs are ever-present and the band know how to play, whether they’re going full-speed ahead or slowing it down a notch to crush the listener with churning grooves. Whatever they’re doing, the songs are well-played, with everything sounding tight and focused.
The singer has a pretty gruesome near-pignoise growl that is perfectly executed for this style of carnage. No marks lost for his performance.
Sometimes you want ostentatious and flashy music, or something more experimental and unique to listen to. At other times, however, only Brutal Death Metal will do. For times like that, you have this.
Bloodily enjoyable.
Contrarian are a Progressive Death Metal band from the US. This is their début album.
Just take a look at the album cover – there’s a lot going on and this translates to the music on Polemic too. Contrarian play distinctly atypical Progressive/Technical Death Metal. It’s not your standard fare. which we are eternally grateful for. As a soundtrack to space battles, it works.
Elements of Death, Atheist and Cynic can be heard, as well as more modern influences. All of this is held together by a first-rate vocalist whose growls can only be described as monstrous.
The music twists and turns, taking the listener down all manner of interesting avenues before seemingly changing direction on a whim, returning to where it left off only to find that it’s not the same place after all.
So the band can play, that much is clear; you would expect no less considering the pedigree of some of the members, (Nile being the most notable). Interestingly though, even through all of the technicality and forensic playing they still somehow manage to fashion this chaotic landscape into a collection of songs.
There’s a good helping of otherworldly melodies and distorted atmospherics included in the mix too. These are a welcome addition to the band’s music, helping to create an additional sense of depth and longevity to the tracks. There are frequent calmer sections peppered throughout, as if the band are allowing themselves small moments of respite and self-reflection to replenish themselves for what’s to come.
In the final analysis, it all results in a highly-textured release that is a very enjoyable listen.
Highly recommended.
This is the début album from Black Metal band Terzij de Horde, who are from the Netherlands.
This is modern Black Metal that combines sophisticated music with high-concept ideas.
Black Metal’s intrinsic rage and fury is combined with elements of Progressive/Post-Black Metal to create an engaging release that is varied, intelligent and full of Blackened mood and feeling.
The riffs are interesting and varied, screaming out of the passionate music like rabid animals. Sharp and emotive, these are combined with more introspective moments to create something that is worth exploring over the near-50 minute playing time.
The singer’s voice is full of snarling anger and ugly malice. It fits the music perfectly and has a maniacal quality to it that wouldn’t be out of place on a savage Grindcore release.
Self is not your average Black Metal release, and if you’re only looking for more of the usual then simply move along to something else. If, however, you’re after Black Metal fit for 2015, full of spite and Black emotions, then this is the release for you.
Splendid.
The second album by Caelestia, Beneath Abyss, is a much more interesting listen than you might expect from a band who ostensibly appear to be a Symphonic/Gothic Metal band, but in reality have a lot more going on than that…
For those who are unfamiliar with your band – introduce yourself!
We are a progressive / symphonic extreme metal band from Athens, Greece. The band was initially formed in April 2012, by founding members Nick Palivos (bass / vocals) and Dimitra Vintsou (lead vocals). The band released its second studio album “Beneath Abyss”, on February 16th, 2015 under Finnish Label “Inverse Records”. The album was recorded and mixed at “Basement Studios” (with sound engineer Michalis Meleteas) in Athens, and mastered at the renowned “Fascination Street Studios” in Sweden, by Tony Lindgren. We have undergone some line-up changes, since the band was initially formed, before we end up in the present 6-member line-up (Nick Palivos – vocals, Dimitra Vintsou – vocals, Vassilis Thomas – guitars, Vangelis Evangelou – guitars, Stelios Varotsakis – bass and Socratis Panagouleas – drums).
Give us a bit of background to Caelestia
The band was initially formed in April 2012, as we mentioned before. The first band line up consisted (besides Nick and Dimitra) of Panos Varvaropoulos (guitars), Haris Kyriakopoulos (guitars) and Aggelos Kousakis (drums). A first studio album titled “Last Wish” was released in the end of 2012, under independent label IKK Productions (the band was still called “Me And Myself” then). The title song “Last Wish” became our first official video, which was directed by Christos Tsoukalas (Basement Studios), and released in September 2013. In the summer of 2013, the band changed its name to ‘Caelestia”. The decision to change the band name came naturally, after the line-up was finalized, and –most important- after the musical direction and genre was changed to symphonic / progressive extreme metal (not to mention the fact that the new name was better sounding).
What are your influences?
Our band’s sound contains influences by many styles of metal, such as death, progressive, gothic, symphonic, black and thrash. One can easily distinguish such passages in our album’s songs, and this is something we cherish a lot, not to mention that it gives us a unique sound. There are many bands that we can name as influences; needless to say that each contributing band member has his/her own influences. If we were asked to name a few, we ‘d say our very own Septic Flesh, Moonspell, Death, Dimmu Borgir, Behemoth, Katatonia, Hypocrisy, Cradle Of Filth, Rotting Christ, Nightwish, Epica, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Morbid Angel…
What are you listening to at the moment that you would like to recommend?
A lot of different things, since every member of our band has his/her different influences and likes. A couple of albums (which came out in 2015) that keep playing in our iPods are: “Shadows Of The Dying Sun” (Insomnium), “Extinct” (Moonspell), “Shadow World” (Wolfheart), “Ylem” (Dark Fortress), “Labyrinth” (Fleshgod Apocalypse) just to name a few….
Give us a bit of background to Beneath Abyss – any particular concepts or ideas you want to discuss?
Our music and lyrics explore a wide variety of subjects, with the main focus being in the eternal war between good and evil, light and darkness, either taking place internally, thus within an individual’s soul and thoughts, either externally, in the outside world, not leaving aside subjects, such as disrupted states of mind, occult etc. We also tried to give a certain theatrical sense in our song lyrics, introducing dialogues (e.g. in the track “Mi Ultima Vida”) between characters, and lyrics written in Spanish and Latin, besides English. That is a key element in our lyrics and music, which we plan to continue and expand in our future work. In our new album, we have strived to achieve a well-balanced combination of the styles, that each of the band members favours, thus melodic death metal, symphonic / gothic metal, visible elements of progressive metal, but also black metal passages. The goal was head on to achieve a unique style of our own, and not try to sound like an impression of any other band, which is quite difficult nowadays.
How do you go about writing your songs?
Our music is greatly based on diversity, large amounts of guitar riffing and phrasing (it is quite indicative that each of our songs contains at least 7-8 different guitar riffs), changing time signatures and varying tempos, that range from 130 to 210 bpm. We tried hard to break the so called “conventional” form of songwriting (intro / verse / chorus / verse / chorus / solo / chorus / outro etc), and introduce various and altering parts and bridges in our songs, so that the listener is constantly left curious of what’s going to come next. That is quite a big turn compared to our previous album, which could easily be characterized as alternative / gothic metal, with more “conventionally” written songs, and not so many complicated passages, bridges and altering time signatures.
How did the recording process go?
Surely the process of making “Last Wish”, and the experience that came thereof, helped us in the recording of “Beneath Abyss”. However, there was a significant difference in the recording process of “Beneath Abyss”; what most bands usually do, is book a certain amount of bulk time at a studio, and then go record their album as a whole. What we did, is to break that “norm”, by recording each track, after we had already finalized its song-writing process. This meant that the tracks for “Beneath Abyss” were recorded with approx. 7-days intervals between each one of them. During these intervals, we finalized, re-considered and edited parts in each track, so that the final outcome was what exactly the band wanted (from a musical and structural point of view). In this way, the process of the recording may have taken a little longer than usual, but it gave us the ability to control every aspect, and do changes and corrections at the same time, ensuring that the outcome was “complete” to our ears.
What’s your favourite song on the album and why?
Oh, that’s a difficult and tricky question… All of the band members have their personal favourite among the tracks in the album, and that’s because not one of the included tracks can be characterized as mere “filler”. If we were to choose, we’d say track 1 (Malleus Maleficarum – The Secret Cult) and track 5 (Beneath Abyss). That is, because the aforementioned songs contain all the elements of the band’s new musical direction and sound: fast and altering tempos, aggressive and dark guitar riffing, progressive passages, melodic bridges and haunting orchestral background.
What does the future hold for Caelestia?
We just finished a great support show in Athens (Gagarin Club 205) on November 14th, opening (as a sole support act) for Swedish melodic death metallers Arch Enemy, which was nearly sold-out, and which constituted a very powerful and intense experience on its own. We recently engaged in cooperation with world renowned promoting agency “Clawhammer PR”, who launched a second round of global promotion for “Beneath Abyss” (we got big expectations on that one!). There are two more Athens shows and a mini-Greek tour coming up in the beginning of 2016, whereas we are scheduling appearances at various European festivals in 2016. At the same time, we continue working on the pre-production of new material (we already have 4 songs ready for our next album). Last but not least, we are scheduling to make our second official video in January 2016, for the track “The Rise Of The Hidden Nature”, with renowned German director Matthias Kollek (Kreator, Lacrimosa etc).
Official website:
http://caelestiaband.com
Facebook Page:
https://www.facebook.com/caelestiaband
This is the latest EP from Polish Blackened Death Metallers Nomad.
Here we have 4 songs, 16 minutes of music; a glimpse into the world of Nomad. This world is brutal and ugly, but surprisingly nuanced and with an interestingly Blackened Sheen. The songs seems to barge out of the darkness to commit heinous, blasphemous acts before disappearing back into the night once more.
This is solid Death Metal, corrupted by Black Metal influences to tinge the riffs a shade darker than they would normally be and infusing the songs with dark atmospheres and an occult presence. They kind of remind me of a band like Blood Red Throne if they were more of a Blackened Death Metal proposition and were mixed with a band like Zyklon.
Nomad’s songs seem to be less about the individual riffs or parts and more about holistic atmosphere and feeling. This is an approach more commonly used by Black Metal bands than Death Metal ones, and thus befits their hybrid status. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t some choice riffs on display here though; there are, and the overall impression that Tetramorph makes is extremely positive.
Dark growls that are more emotive than the norm for this style are combined with sickly screams and all kinds of other incantations to produce a focal point for these Blackened hymns.
Having never heard Nomad before, this is not what I was actually expecting. It’s always nice to be surprised and hear Blackened Death Metal done well, especially when the two styles are blurred so well like they are here.
Recommended.
This is the fourth album from Finnish Doom-laden Death Metallers Hooded Menace.
Hooded Menace are well-known for playing Death Metal that’s heavy on the Doom influence, and just heavy in general. On this latest release this is taken to its logical conclusion, and the four songs on Darkness Drips Forth really blur the line between Death and Doom Metal, so much so that this is equally for fans of Incantation as it is for Esoteric.
The shortest song here is just under 10 minutes in length, with all tracks being stretched out to their maximum capacity for crawling, sinister, evil Metal.
Dark melodies creep into the thick, crushing music so that the band really foster the ancient Death/Doom influences that sit at the core of music like this. It’s not as overpowering or centralised as some who play similar styles though, allowing the heaviness and pure dirt of a band like this to remain at the fore. Old-school Anathema/Paradise Lost/My Dying Bride fans will be proud.
The singer’s cavernous growls are slow and drawn out, keeping pace with the unhurried music and reminding everyone that ultimately this isn’t pretty music; this wants to drag you down into the murk and consume your soul.
When they’re not playing at a snail’s pace the band have a rhythmic quality to them that’s almost Rocking, albeit one that’s coated in filth and grim intent.
These songs are veritable slabs of monolithic Metal, seemingly passed down through the ages in sealed tomes of forbidden lore, only to be discovered and unleashed by Hooded Menace. Each one is an impressive foray into Doom/Death, only much more malignant and nasty than a lot of the style normally is.
Highly recommended for both Doom and Death Metal fans alike.
This is the début release from UK Black Metallers Lunar Mantra.
This is scathing, occult Black Metal with a bit of Dark Ambient thrown in for good measure.
The guitars have that Old-School fragile-yet-sharp-and-dangerous tone to them, like an icicle sharpened to a killing point. The riffs follow suit, and Lunar Mantra show their worth with dark melodies and esoteric auras in abundance.
Theirs is a raw, underground sound. Even so, you can still hear everything nicely, including the bass, (which is a treat).
The guitar melodies seem to twist, slide and writhe over each other like they’re living things, possessed by some form of malignant serpentine sentience.
Guttural vocals that sound like they have been retching up far too many daemons are used sparingly and the singer seems to merge with the music at a visceral level, urging the listener to ever greater heights of dark worship. But worship of what?
A very enjoyable release that bodes well for the future of this band, join them in their mysterious adulations and become part of their Genesis.
Wonderbox Metal 