Hailing from France, this is the second album from Black Metallers Void Paradigm.
Here’s a band who come from the Deathspell Omega school of Black Metal. They’ve learned from the masters and have now applied what they know to their own creation. This is music that’s hypnotic and warped.
Straight from the start the band show that this is abrasive, discordant Black Metal that sings to its own twisted hymn sheet set to music that shouldn’t rightly exist in our reality.
Corrupted riffs spread their strange melodies and nefarious, atypical sounds abound throughout these five songs. The creative flair of a flawed genius is clearly on display, clashing with the ingenuity of a madman.
Speaking of madmen, the singer would certainly seem to qualify. His emotive-but-jarring shouts will be an acquired taste for some I’m sure, but his performance level and passion of delivery cannot be doubted.
So, this is not your standard Black Metal affair and Void Paradigm should be applauded for this. Earth’s Disease features a treasure trove of interesting ideas and different sounds. The songwriting of the band is unusual but the result is very pleasing.
The aesthetics of the band are familiar even if the music is not. That these have been filtered through the prism of a very creative and aspiring band makes Earth’s Disease a release to be savoured and enjoyed at length.
The dark, swirling core of the music is augmented by Avant-Garde elements and there’s enough stimulating and inspired flourishes here to really impress. Progressive and Experimental elements also combine with these aforementioned aspects of their sound, firming up Void Paradigm’s mastery of their chosen dark art.
It’s an off-kilter and disturbing world that the band have carved for themselves across these 39 minutes, and one that cries out to be explored; just be wary on your travels.
For Black Metal that’s individual, charismatic, esoteric and wonderfully obtuse, look no further, for Void Paradigm are here.
Barús are a Progressive Death Metal band from France and this is their début EP.
The music that Barús play is complex and unforgiving. This is not music for the weak.
The band’s take on Death Metal is one that combines the Technical and Progressive Death Metal sub-genres into something pretty special. There are even some hints at Post-Metal and Black Metal here and there.
The songs evoke complex reinterpretations of bands such as Gorguts, Morbid Angel, Mithras, Nile, Akercocke, etc. – bands that are not content to be constrained by the norm and reach for greater and higher. Barús now join their hallowed ranks.
The dense guitar riffs seem to layer on top of themselves and Barús’ music seems to have levels upon levels of extremity to hide itself in. For all of this though they are also aware that sometimes simpler is better, but even here there’s usually a lot going on.
Sometimes twisted melodies appear to float up out of the chaos to bring an otherworldly element to their already esoteric sound. A great deal of variation exists across these 4 tracks and each song is both self-contained and part of a greater whole.
The vocals are predominantly deep grunts but a whole load of other vocalisations are used too, from semi-clean moans to spoken word to chants and everything in between, including, briefly, actual singing.
I love it when you find a band like Barús who are willing and able to take the standard Death Metal template and experiment with it until it’s mutated into their own personal view of the genre. This EP has a personality and style of its own and these songs are involving and engaging from start.
An extremely promising beginning for Barús. This EP is a strong start to their existence and if they manage to keep up the quality levels then their début album will be fantastic. Here’s hoping.
Distant Sun are a Russian Power/Speed Metal band and this is their début album.
This is Power Metal played in the European style with a nice influence from US Thrash/Speed Metal felt throughout.
The vocals are a little grittier than most European-influenced bands and this falls in line with the Thrash influence. The singer does have a good voice though and is reminiscent of the singer of Metallica in some ways, but thankfully not overly so.
The band are comfortable playing chuggy, Thrashy riffs as well as more stirring, melodic ones. Overall the album is quite riff-heavy and the guitars have a nice bite to them.
Distant Sun’s style is kind of late-90s, combining the Power, Heavy and Thrash Metal styles of the time into a kind of Blind Guardian/Testament/Iced Earth/Annihilator melting pot. Add to this a bit of an 80s Thrash influence too and you have Dark Matter.
The songs are a good combination of these styles and frequently result in tracks that are both high-octane and catchy.
The band members in Distant Sun are also active in Shadow Host and Starsoup; both are top-notch bands and Distant Sun is another great outing from them.
I firmly recommend this and suggest you check them out.
This is the third album from US Grindcore band Maruta.
This is one I’ve been looking forward to. Maruta play ferocious and ultra-modern Deathgrind with plenty of violence and brutality.
There are some top quality guest vocalists on this album, (At the Gates, Pig Destroyer), but that is merely the icing on the vocal cake, as the grunts and screams that populate these seventeen tracks are more than competent enough to hold their own.
The songs are short and nasty. There’s lots of blast beats and chaotic drumming going on while the guitars rage and tear through the playing time.
Strange and atypical riffs share space with more traditional Death Metal grooves and there’s a touch of The Dillinger Escape Plan’s unorthodox take on brutality on this release, as well as a feeling of Crowpath’s equally unorthodox style.
There’s a little here for all Extreme Metal fans. However, mashed up together like this it ends up being a formidable proposition for those not fully inducted into the league of Deathgrind. For paid-up members though, Remain Dystopian is a twisted, nasty joy to experience.
Ichor’s third album, Depths, is a thoroughly modern aggressor that drowns the listener in blast beats and hyper-aggressive brutality. I got to explore the darkened reaches of the sea with vocalist Eric…
For those who are unfamiliar with your band – introduce yourself!
Hi , we are a five piece extreme death metal bastard from Germany . We like the horror of the deep sea and live by the code of metal! Drinking beer and listening to metal all night!
Give us a bit of history to Ichor
Ichor started blasting in 2008 and shortly after in 2009 the début full length “the siege” was released via Bastardized Recordings. We started touring immediately, playing a lot of live shows all over Europe supporting bands like Aborted, The Black Dahlia Murder or Benighted. When we weren’t on the road we wrote songs for the next album Benthic Horizon which was released in 2010, again via Bastardized Recordings and re-released in the UK via Siege of Amida. Again we started touring relentlessly and worked on our latest record Depths which was released last year.
What are your influences?
I would say that our main influences are polish death metal bands like Behemoth, Hate or Decapitated and some old school american death metal like Cannibal Corpse, Suffocation and Morbid Angel. Everyone in Ichor has kind of a unique taste in music, not only metal but throughout all kinds of genres and everyone brings new ideas to rehearsals. But we don’t see music as our only source of inspiration. The deep sea for example has a huge impact on our work, the secrets that lure deep down in the unknown, its cataclysmic force which destroys everything in it’ way once it is unleashed.
What are you listening to at the moment that you would like to recommend?
Behemoth’s The Satanist, Watain’s Lawless Darkness, Whitechapel’s This is Exile, At the Gates’ At War with Reality and Vader’s Litany.
What’s your views on the current state of Death Metal in 2015?
The development is going crazy, more brutal, more faster, more tech. It is fucking amazing how many good bands are out there, I would love to buy every single CD, but my pockets are always empty har har! Sometimes I am loosing the focus out of all these bands, but there are many talented kids out there.
What did you want to achieve with your new album?
As I said, we are really big fans of the polish scene and we’ve recorded in the same studio as Behemoth and Vader. Our aim is just to play extreme death metal which we like most, just to live our metal way of life. Of course it’s not easy to be outstanding, we just wanted to play some great metal shows and blast some shit out to the crowd and drink some beer with good old friends.
As this is your third album, how do you feel you have progressed since your earlier work?
Yes, we have changed in some way. In the early days we’ve had more modern death core elements in our sound and nowadays we are blasting more than ever. No mosh just blast beats.
Are you happy with how Depths turned out?
Yeah, we’re satisfied with the outcome. We would never release anything which is unsatisfying for us. Of course in retrospect there are always things which we could have done better, but it’s no use to be pissed off about things like that. Sometimes when you hear the songs you think, ah damn, I could have done that differently, or play this harmonic or whatever. But that’s part of the process as an artist. It makes you wanna try harder on the next record, get to a new level and when you have reached that new level, technically or in terms of composing and songwriting, you produce and release a new record, be pissed off about that and so on and so on. That’s progress 😀
What’s your favourite song on the album and why?
The Heretic King it shows the whole spectrum of the band.
What can you tell us about the lyrics?
Depths is about the end of the world as we know it. Most of the surface gets destroyed by an asteroid and humanity divides itself into people who stay on the surface, being heavily mutilated and those who were forced to find a new place to live in the depths of the sea. They form a new civilisation, hybrids of humans and underwater creatures. Depths describes the inevitable war between those two societies.
Give us a bit of information on the songwriting process.
Usually we just start jamming for a while. When we find any harmony, riff, rhythm or something else that we think could work in a new song we look into that and try to build it up, play variations of it. Most of the time we feel right on the spot whether it will work or not. But sometimes one of the members writes a song at home, records it and sends it to the others so that they can work with it at home and when we meet in rehearsal we can directly start playing. Both kinds of processes work for us.
How do you see your songs/direction developing in the future?
I think we will try some new elements perhaps more heavier stuff like Desire of the Depth. Expect the unexpected is usually said hehe.
What’s next for Ichor?
We started writing songs for the next album. We will take our time to make it sound as good as possible, we’re definitely trying to reach a new stage, beyond Depths and everything we have done before. But until that, we are planning to play a lot of live shows and touring Europe. As much fun as writing and recording is, the best part of being a musician is playing live, seeing different cities and meeting all those crazy-ass metal people out there.
Analkaholic are from New Caledonia and play Grindcore. This is their début album.
Analkholic play utterly extreme Goregrind in the Regurgitate style, and they do it with copious amounts of bodily fluids and an excess of brutality.
The songs are short and single-minded in their approach to Grind. This is not a band who experiment or innovate, this is a band who want to find the limits of extremity and then go beyond them.
Blistering blast beats and hyper-aggressive guitars burst from the speakers to beat you senseless. The band realise the danger of becoming one-dimensional too, so it’s not all played at full-speed; they also include sections that are more Punk-oriented or groovy in their assault.
The guttural pig-noise grunts are a thing of depraved torture and the singer sounds like he’s a slaughtered animal somehow stuck between life and death at the moment of agony. I’m not always a massive fan of this kind of vocal style, but here it fits the music so well and it just works.
These tracks are actually quite well written. I say “actually” as it’s easy to write off music like this as mindless brutality and be done with it. Of course, there is that element of their sound for sure, but there are also some pretty decent riffs and vocal patterns on this release; rather than just covering themselves in human waste and bashing the instruments as hard as they can, (which I’m sure they do from time to time), Analkholic seem to know what they’re actually doing. There are some really good bass parts on the album too, which is always a pleasure to hear.
A disgustingly wet and warm way to spend 27 minutes. Give them a listen and get ready to Grind one out.
Merda Mundi is a one-man Black Metal band from Belgium. This is his second album.
The brains behind this outfit we already know due to some of his previous releases, (C.O.A.G., We All Die (Laughing)).
Merda Mundi play raw and misanthropic Black Metal that’s brutal and not for the easily scared.
The label blurb makes comparisons to Anaal Nathrakh and Antaeus and it’s easy to see why; this is a visceral and bloody assault that leaves no stone unturned in its quest for carnage.
The music is harsh and fast, with a good recording that brings out the grime and grit of the songs without sounding too rough around the edges. The album sounds on fire and every bit as dangerous.
The music gallops along at a frenetic pace. The guitars rage and the drums bludgeon. The vocals sound utterly unhinged and quite daemonic in places.
This kind of music has a deep love of all things brutal and is evil enough to cater to those who love both types of Black Metal. Lurking underneath the brutality and devastation is a deeper level; these songs also have dark melodies and atmospheric sections that don’t let up the intensity but do add another layer of listening experience to the tracks. It’s skilfully done.
If you want an album that knows how to create malevolent atmospheres as well as being able to rip your head off then VI – Khaos is the place to be.
Portuguese band Tales for the Unspoken play Thrash Metal and this is their second album.
The singer has a nicely deep roar that’s almost a Death Metal growl. It lends a brutal air to already aggressive music. Ethereal cleans also appear but these are certainly the exception rather than the norm.
The music is solid Thrash Metal that locks into a good groove when it needs to. Faster sections are frequent while melody is used sparingly, usually in conjunction with the clean vocals.
The songs are largely quite short and sweet, hovering around the 3-4 minute mark in the main. The band revel in their portrayal of Metal and there are decent amounts of leads and shredding licks peppered throughout the album.
The guitars have a good crunch to them and the drums pound with the best of them. Tales for the Unspoken have a clear love for this style and this comes across in the music.
This is Thrash metal that’s on the more aggressive side of the spectrum. This can be considered Death Thrash in many ways, as even with the inclusion of the odd clean vocal here and there the majority of the album is harsh and heavy. I’d probably stop short of really describing them as such though as the music is almost completely Thrash Metal and it doesn’t really add much to them by describing them in such terms. I mention it mainly for completion, as there definitely are Death Metal aspects to their sound.
I also like the fact that Tales for the Unspoken don’t go down the retro-Thrash route with this. CO2 is fully-contemporary Thrash Metal with an aggressive streak and quality riffs aplenty.
A thoroughly enjoyable release. Tales for the Unspoken sound good and CO2 is fit for consumption.
Abjvration are from France and this is their début EP. They play Death/Doom Metal.
Imagine the most hideously disgusting type of Doom that’s congealed around some sickening Death Metal to form an unholy mass of evil…this is The Unquenchable Pyre.
Huge, heavy-as-Hell riffs populate this release like disaster sites, almost relentless in their assault. Colossally slow guitars crush all before them and faster, more-Death Metal riffs punctuate the blackness like knife wounds.
The vocals are a thing of beauty, albeit a very warped and disturbing type of beauty, of course; utterly deep and pitch-black in their delivery of rolling, growling terror. They sound immense and ancient, just like the music.
The music oozes and seeps along, like some sort of infectious disease. There’s a real rank feeling of a wet, unhealthy underworld to this release and that’s an entirely complimentary comment. Abjvration have created something disturbingly special here.
The Doom riffs keep flowing and it’s only when the Blackened Death Metal parts break out that you remember they’re not just a pure Doom band.
What little melody there is on this EP is aimed at increasing the listener’s unease and the entire 27 minute playing time is a masterclass in creating rotting, noxious, heavy music.
This isn’t Black Metal but it shares a lot in common with the more foetid styles of the same. A deep, dark, miasma of Blackened pestilence hangs over this release like a funeral shroud and Abjvration milk this for every last drop of feeling that they can.
This is unapologetically Old-School Death/Doom that’s flawlessly delivered and expertly realised.
France continues to keep its reputation for producing high quality Extreme Metal intact. Abjvration are a dark revelation.
Antigama are from Poland and play Grindcore. This is their seventh album.
This is the follow up to 2013’s album Meteor, and I can’t quite believe it’s been 2 years since that album first made its presence felt.
I always enjoy Antigama’s work. Their Grindcore is definitely a mature and individual take on the genre and they always manage to throw in a few surprises.
Opening with a blood-curdling scream, the band proceed to become savagery incarnate and rip through 33 minutes of weapons-grade Grind like their lives depend on it.
This is no mindless Grindcore beast though. This may be utterly savage and vicious but there’s a keen intellect at play behind the scenes, arranging and organising the carnage.
Atypical riffs and brutal melodies abound, hidden within the chaos of the songs. It’s relentlessly harsh and utterly compelling. The album flows well from beginning to end and the entire thing is impressively delivered.
They can also be surprisingly atmospheric when they put their minds to it. Out Beyond is a good example of this and also features the most experimentation on the album. The final track The Land of Monotony is also notable in this regard; a longer song featuring rougher semi-clean vocals at the start and a more Doom-oriented approach.
Antigama’s music mixes an intelligent and unusual approach to the genre, from the Punk-passion of Napalm Death to the kind of modern Grinding assault that The Red Chord do so expertly.
Rather than mellowing with age, The Insolent, if anything, seems that bit faster and more angry than normal, and this is from a band who are already pretty fast and angry as it is. These tracks have more of a dangerous edge to them than normal, as if the band are seriously near the point of breaking and channelling their collective rage into their music is the only thing keeping them in check.
This is a focused rage, however, and a highly controlled one. Antigama know when to let loose but are more than capable of showing composure and discipline, albeit in a controlled-fury kind of way that the average person would still find intimidating.
This is complex brutality for a refined palate. You’ve gotta love music that’s made with real passion and skill. Antigama are still at the top of their game and show, once again, how Grindcore can be more than just speed and aggression.
Hailing from France, this is the second album from Black Metallers Void Paradigm.
Wonderbox Metal 