Wonderbox Metal

Isolert – Isolated Soul (Review)

Isolert Isolert are a Black Metal band from Greece and this is their first release.

A short demo of just 12 minutes length; Isolert play Black Metal in the Scandinavian vein.

This is grim, Old-School Black Metal with plenty of speed and hateful invective to power the tracks along.

I’m a big fan of the production on this release – it’s raw and underground yet everything remains balanced. They’ve got the mix right between the Black Metal aesthetic and an enjoyable, listenable sound.

The Blackened riffs are frozen and icy and the songs are instantly recognisable for what they are.

The vocals are well-performed rasps in the classic Black Metal style, although some variations appear in the form of whispers and short-lived cleans.

This is a decent demo and a strong entrance for this new band. Give them a listen. Feel the isolation close in and the frigid winds howl.

Cloud Rat – Qliphoth (Review)

This is the third album by US Grinders Cloud Rat.

Cloud Rat haven’t really been around for that long in the grand scheme of things, but they’ve still managed to clock up an impressive number of releases and gain themselves a well-deserved reputation for quality Grindcore that’s not afraid to think outside the box.

This is definitely atypical Grind. The requisite genre hallmarks of savagery and short songs are present and correct, but with Cloud Rat there’s an additional layer of intelligence, sophistication and raw emotion that few of their peers can emulate.

This album takes the listener on a journey of many disturbing sights and vicious sounds. For all of the finesse and refinement of their music, Cloud Rat still know how to GRIND!

The intensity of the music is layered with nuance, subtlety and emotive performances all around. The band can happily rage and curse, that’s for sure, but more impressive is their ability to weave slower and more progressive parts around the chewy Grindcore centre. Progressive Grindcore, maybe? I’ve heard worse ideas.

The singer screams her throat raw with an impressively feral snarl and yet still finds time amidst the carnage for introspection and distinctive mood-setting when she needs to.

The songs are full of depth and there’s more than enough to satisfy over many repeated listens for a long time to come. Their richly textured music stands leagues apart from the majority of their peers and Qliphoth is a real force to be reckoned with.

Cloud Rat share the intensity of Converge with the quirkiness of Circle Takes the Square, and the ingenuity of both. It’s no wonder that their name is whispered in reverential tones by those in the know; Cloud Rat have proven they have massive talent and the ability to deliver the goods.

After 41 minutes in Cloud Rat’s world you feel drained, but satisfied and happy.

I cannot recommend this enough. You need Cloud Rat in your life.

Coathanger Abortion – Observations of Humanity (Review)

Coathanger Abortion are from the US and this is their second album. They play Death Metal.

This is ultra-brutal, underground Death Metal that has no time for anyone or anything apart from killing and bloodshed.

The vocals are so deep and guttural that they actually make you feel sick. It’s as if the singer is committing horrible, heinous acts whilst vomiting forth his diatribes and that these acts have somehow found an outlet in his malignant deathgrunts.

Now, with all of this brutality and sickness on display here you’d be forgiven for thinking that the songs were short and nasty affairs. But this is not the case, (well, the short bit anyway); this is quite a long album at 55 minutes and the songs are much lengthier than the standard Death Metal band’s reach.

These tracks are brutal in a riff-hungry way. Their Death Metal is not all about speed for the sake of it and instead take a leaf out of the USDM playbook and spend a lot of time as mid-paced aggressors that chug and groove their way through the carnage. They also have a quality bass sound, which I like.

The songs are surprisingly engaging and many a time I found myself nodding along to the tunes without even realising it, which is never a bad thing.

This is a true slab of sickness that must surely only be appreciated by those looking to delve into the deep, dark underbelly of the Death Metal underground. If you can stomach it, look in on them today.

https://www.facebook.com/CoathangerAbortionOfficial

Tyranny is Tyranny – The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (Review)

Tyranny is Tyranny are a US band and this is their latest album. They play Post-Hardcore.

As soon as the first song, Or Does it Explode?, starts it’s immediately clear that Tyranny is Tyranny are a band that are emotive and expressive. This is apparent from both the music and the vocals.

This is a kind of Hardcore-based music that’s moved beyond its original parameters, (hence the term Post-Hardcore), without losing the vibrant nature of the style. It’s been expanded though to include more introspective and Shoegaze-esque elements and the band have embraced this direction.

The vocals have a lot of personality and have a kind of fragility to their delivery that allows them to convey greater feeling than if this was absent.

The closest band I can think of to compare them to would be Australia’s No Anchor. Both bands share a similar style of music that’s exploratory, expressive and heavy without becoming too heavy. They also share singing styles in the sense that their vocalists have a lot of personality and gravitas while remaining highly emotive and engaging.

There’s a lot of moods and feelings on this album and each song takes part in the overall theme of the release but still manages to cover a lot of different ground.

The political nature of the tracks and the highly-emotive, reflective music results in songs that resonate in the mind long after the last chord has died.

This is an impressive album that holds the interest throughout. The emotional delivery and richly evocative musical choices mean it stands out from the crowd and its longevity is assured.

Very highly recommended.

Gorgoroth – Instinctus Bestialis (Review)

This is the tenth album by these veteran Norwegian Black Metallers.

This is a band that need no real introduction, and the album is the same; Radix Malorum opens things off with a bang and blast beats aplenty.

On Instinctus Bestialis the band stay true to their roots and deliver 31 minutes of Norwegian Black Metal as it is meant to be played.

The album has a quality recording that’s dark enough to suit the genre but polished enough to sound really strong. Everything is clear and full of fiery vigour.

The riffs are suitably Blackened but Gorgoroth impress by inserting some good melodies into the mix where needed. These Blackened melodies help the songs have extra depth, but they are not overly flashy; they work with the structure of the songs to enhance them without being the focus of attention.

I also like the Thrashy edge that Gorgoroth have always been so good with. This gives their sound a heavier dimension that some Black Metal lacks. Again, it’s not an overly ostentatious part of their sound but it all adds to the whole. Burn in His Light is a prime example, featuring a very satisfying and crunchy guitar riff.

Over two decades since their formation Gorgoroth continue to have what it takes to show the world that they still have sharpened teeth. Instinctus Bestialis is a finely realised collection of Black Metal songs and is firmly a winner in my book.

All hail Gorgoroth!

https://www.facebook.com/gorgorothofficial

Interview with Profanity

Profanity’s first release in over a decade has been their storming new EP Hatred Hell Within. Containing 20 minutes of absolutely top-notch Technical Death Metal, it put Profanity firmly on my radar and, if there was any justice in the world, should definitely find a place in every Extreme Metal fan’s collection. I traded words with guitarist/vocalist Tom to find out more about this supremely talented band…

Give us a bit of history to Profanity

Hello Nigel, so I will try to keep it short, but 23 years of being in Profanity makes it not easy to keep it short!

Profanity was founded by myself in the year 1993. With this first line-up we recorded two demos. But the music on both demos has not much to do with Profanity sounds today. It was a weird mixture different styles. The reason for this is simple, it was hard for me to find people which wanted also to play Death Metal in the style of Monstrosity or of course Death at this time. So everybody threw in what they liked. That was also the reason for me to change the line-up. I knew there was a crazy bass player out there named Martin who was also very into the Death Metal style I wanted to play. So after some meetings Martin joined Profanity, and it was just perfect. We also needed a drummer who also wanted to play fast and technical. The girlfriend of Martin at this time knew one, and his name was Armin. She managed to get a meeting with him and so he came into our practice room one day, made his drums ready and that was it. It was one of those great moments…Armin was fantastic.

So from that time on we worked together as a three piece and it worked very well. We all had the same motivation, to create something “different“, I mean we had the same vision of how our music should sound. Our first “try“ were the songs which we recorded for our first full-length “Shadows To Fall“. But a very sad thing was, before we did the recordings Martin had to quit with Profanity because of a very sad family situation in his life. There was no other opportunity for him, but we had the luck that we had found Daniel. Daniel had the same intention like us and was also the same Death Metal head like we are so Daniel practiced all the stuff for “Shadows To Fall“ and in 1997 we recorded it. It was released by ourselves.

From 1997 – 2000 we played a lot of great shows and we also got in contact with Cudgel Agency from Germany. Our first colaboration with them was the split 7″ which we did with Lividity from USA. The name of the seven inch was “Drowned in Dusk“. We had also new material written for our next release and so they released also our second full-length in 2000. On this record Martin was back in Profanity, so Martin recorded the bass guitar on this album. His family situation was now good again so he came back to Profanity. Daniel wanted to try something different and all was very cool so.

We played a lot of shows again and 2002 we got the great chance to go on a European tour with Cryptopsy, Haemorrhage and Spawn. So we did and for this reason we thought, it was a good idea to release something new. We made another 7″ called “Humade Me Flesh“. We recorded three songs, “Humade Me Flesh“, “Zombie Ritual“ from Death and “Fear of Napalm“ from Terrorizer. Then in 2004 it should be our last show for a longer time. We played in New York with Exhumed, Misery Index and Uphill Battle and a few days later on the great Maryland Deathfest. This was our last concert.

We always wanted to write new stuff but it’s not easy or almost not possible when you are working 40 hours per week and at weekend you are out on the road to your shows. So we decided to make a break from playing live. We fully concentrated on writing new stuff, and so we did. We wrote eight new songs whith a playing time of 60 minutes and the stuff is absolutely great. But sometimes things go an other way. The “normal“ life just took place. I got married in 2006 and now we have three girls. Martin got also married. We all went and studied further education and each of us started at a new job. So at these years there was not much time for Profanity.

But in 2011 the time was there again and the fire was still burning of course. We started to practice and also played a live show. Then we decided to start recording by ourselves the material we had written in the years from 2003 – 2006 and so we did. But another sad thing happened. Martin and his family decided to move from Germany to Australia. That was very sad for us. So we cancelled all confirmed shows and we also stopped the recordings. But maybe it’s destiny, Daniel got back again. We never thought of this! So the thing was we wanted to release something new as fast as possible so we decided to release an EP with the three songs we had recorded so far. Daniel practiced our live-set and so we were able to play live again in 2014 and our EP came out in December of 2014. So here we are now, 2015. All is perfect, we play live shows, we are working on our next full-length and we will see what the future will bring for us.

profanity

What are your influences?

I think all kinds of music we are all listening to are our influences of course. But when it comes to Death Metal, Suffocation, Cryptopsy, Hate Eternal, Dying Fetus, Necrophagist, Death, Morbid Angel, Deeds of Flesh…I think the list would be endless. This is stuff we all like in Profanity. But from the first days of the band we always had our own vision of extreme music. With every release of us I think we are getting closer to that vision. We don’t want to copy stuff, being creative feels so good and when, for example, all recording is done and you take a step back and listen to your own stuff, that feels great. We have many new ideas and we are very excited about how it will turn out. The journey of finding our final vision of extreme music will go on.

What are you listening to at the moment that you would like to recommend?

At the moment, ha…I am listen to Leprosy from Death. A classic album of course. I like also the new Cryptopsy stuff, very cool, new Sinister is great, too. New Dying Fetus “Reign Supreme“ is stuff that I like. Oh I don’t have to forget Aborted’s “Necrotic Manifesto“, awesome stuff, such a brilliant mixture of technique, straight-forward, blast stuff…it has everything you need! I like so many bands, and I am listening to so much stuff. Isn’t that a great thing?! Death Metal for me is just more then music, it’s definitely a part of my life. Every day when I am biking to work, I have my earphones and while cycling I am listening to crazy stuff like Suffocation – Pinnacle of Bedlam……

Are you happy with how your new EP turned out?

Yes, absolutely. Everything is the way we wanted it to be. We got mazing cover artwork, done by Federico Musetti from Italy. To work with him was just amazing. The Hatred Hell Within he created for us is just amazing. The same thing what concerns the studio. We recorded the three songs with a total playing time of 20 minutes by ourselves and mixing and mastering we did at the Iguana Studios, owned by Christoph Brandes. He is also responsible for the great albums of Necrophagist. So he is absolutely familiar with technical Death Metal. He has all the equipment and of course the know how, how to get the best result out of our music. We wanted to have of course a brutal sound but for us it was also very important that you can hear what every instrument is playing. We put so much time into the bass lines and it would be sad if you are not able to hear what the bass is playing. Christoph is the man, and I think with our next release we will go to him again. We also got the opportunity to release this EP on a label, so Rising Nemesis Records from Germany gave us this opportunity and we are very happy with that.

The songs on this EP are “I am your soul“, “Hatred Hell Within“ which were both written in 2004 and “Melting“, which is the newest one. I wrote that song in 2010 when there was a bit of time.

Give us a bit of information on the songwriting process.

Our songwriting has changed over the years and for myself as a musician this is very interesting. We had times, when the first parts of a song were created by, oh that drumbeat sounds good here and do here a splash and there a ride and so on and this way we went through a whole song. For us it worked very well. When we had the feeling, ok, the song is done I wrote all the guitar and bass parts fitting to what the drums are playing. It worked but now, the guitar parts come first, or sometimes the drum parts are first. But that is what makes it so interesting. For example “Hatred Hell Within“ I had in mind to write a song which is like a stream. I mean the song structure. When a stream or a river is flowing, the water will pass never the same place again. The waters flows around stones and here and there but the water wants to move on. So I decided to write a song in which part A will be only played one time and part B also only one time and so on, hard to explain. “I am your soul“ does not have such a complex song structure I think. The song is very hard to play, for every instrument but the song structure is not so complicated I think. The best thing, just listen to it. That would be the best I think. Just let the music do the talking ;-).

What’s you favourite song on the EP and why?

I don’t have any favourite song on this EP. All three songs are different, all songs are written from another perspective that concerns songwriting. Every song on this EP stands on its own. Every song is its own picture and all together, every song is a part of our vision of extreme music.

How do you see your songs/direction developing in the future?

We have still some material of 40 minutes to record from the years of 2003 – 2006 and that stuff is amazing. It has just to be recoreded but this will for sure take us quite a while. Everything you want to be good needs time, the same of course with our music. I think the stuff we have for our next release “The Art Of Sickness“ is the sickest, the most brutal and of course the most technical stuff we have done so far. But for us the most important thing is the song itself. We don’t want to just be technical or brutal and stuff, we want to write good music. We see all things as tools and we have many of them I think and we will use them, just to create extreme music, our vision of extreme music.

What’s next for Profanity?

We already have started with the recordings because we also want to use the little break we have now from live playing efficiently. In April we played our last show and the next will be at the amazing Deathfest in September in Germany. The headliners are Nile, Suffocation and Asphyx so we are very excited about that. We have to find a good way, to get all things managed. I mean to keep in shape for our live shows, to have time for the recordings, doing all the “promo“ – stuff for Profanity and of course to stay healthy and have time for our families and our kids. That’s not always so easy.

But the thing is, once infected by a virus called Death Metal, there is no chance for healing. I hope that we all in Profanity will have a good time and we are very looking forward to create “The Art Of Sickness“. We will see when the time will be there to go into the studio and we will see how all things will turn out.

Nigel, thank you very much for doing this interview and many thanx of course for your great support of Profanity. We really appreciate this! Keep on blasting, Tom and Profanity.

https://www.facebook.com/ProfanityDeathMetal

http://profanitydeathmetal.bigcartel.com/

https://profanitydeathmetal.bandcamp.com/

https://www.youtube.com/user/nothingremain

www.profanity.de

Secrets of the Sky – Pathway (Review)

This is the second album by US Atmospheric Doom band Secrets of the Sky.

We’ve encountered this impressive band twice before – their début album and their split with Godhunter.

Due to this, Pathway has been somewhat eagerly awaited by yours truly.

The band’s brand of Doom is one that mixes Atmospheric/Progressive Doom and Post-Metal to create an interesting soundscape for the listener to drown in.

On Pathway they have continued to progress their sound. The heavy parts sound bigger and more imposing while the lighter parts sound more nuanced and well-rounded.

The album boasts a particularly vibrant and organic production where all of the instruments sound completely clear and very strong. The drum sound in particular is an impressive one, although in a way it’s unfair to single out any one instrument as they all have a very satisfying finish.

Vocally we continue to get an impressive array of voices, from cleans to screams to shouts to growls. Pretty much all bases are covered and all styles are used according to how they best convey the band’s message.

These songs are gorgeous Post-Metal/Progressive Doom essays that take in multiple textures and rich imagery in their running times. The songs, overall, are slightly shorter in length than Secrets of the Sky’s previous work, but this is not to their detriment; they’re exactly the length they need to be to achieve what they want to do.

Secrets of the Sky have enough talent to dominate at whatever they try, it seems. Whether this be the heavier, the lighter, the progressive, the aggressive, the angelic clean melodies or the Blackened screaming…it’s all an aural treat for jaded ears.

I always like music that seems to take you on a journey and in this regard the album is aptly named. These are superior compositions that should see Secrets of the Sky propelled to the upper echelons of the Progressive/Doom/Post-Whatever pantheon.

Like a canvas painted in sound, this is destined to be a masterpiece.

I can’t think of a single reason you shouldn’t have this in your music collection. Can you?

Kaosophia – The Origin of Extinction (Review)

Kaosophia are a Ukrainian Black Metal band and this is their début album.

Kaosophia play occult Black Metal with plenty of speed and bite that’s inspired by the likes of Gorgoroth, Watain and Marduk.

The riffs are Blackened and the melodies evil. On top of this though the band also use some tasty Thrash-inspired riffs on occasion. It’s not a huge part of their sound but it’s there.

The vocals are hateful croaking screams that may be the norm for the genre but are still performed well.

Kaosophia operate at all speeds and manage to create dark atmospheres regardless of whether they’re blasting out at full throttle or creeping around much slower. Either way, the Blackened melodies and writhing riffs give an impression of grandeur and horror.

This is a really enjoyable 46 minutes of music. This is the kind of Black Metal that it’s easy to like; a well-recorded and well-written slice of apocalyptic hymnals.

Check them out.

Interview with A Secret Revealed

A Secret Revealed have recently released their début album The Bleakness. Bleak it may be, but it’s also a Post-Metal tour de force. Join me, as we attempt to pierce the darkness…

For those who are unfamiliar with your band – introduce yourself!

Hi! And first of all: Thank you for the interview! We are A Secret Revealed, a five piece band from Würzburg/Germany. We play Post-Metal anchored in melody with equal measures of Black Metal and Hardcore influences and just released our first full length album “The Bleakness” via Bastardized Recordings.

Give us a bit of history to A Secret Revealed

The band was founded in 2012. After releasing our first EP “Lay My Memories To Rest“ we had several line-up changes and played shows with Bands like “Agrypnie“, “Der Weg Einer Freiheit“, “Ära-Kra” and many more. In 2014 we found our final line-up and recorded our début album in collaboration with Nikita Kamprad. We know each other for a long time from different bands in our hometown and so it was quite natural to form a band.

What are your influences?

All our band members have different musical backgrounds, so our musical influences are quite various and reach from Post-Rock to Black Metal or even Pop. Overall other Post-Metal Bands like Devil Sold His Soul, Cult of Luna or Pelican are the biggest influence for us.

What are you listening to at the moment that you would like to recommend?

At the moment I’m listening to a lot of bands. But these I’d like to highly recommend. If you don’t know them, you should give them a listen:

Fjørt – D’Accord
Der Weg Einer Freiheit – Stellar
Capsize – The Angst in My Veins
Red Apollo – Altruist
Polar – Shadowed by Vultures
Oathbreaker – Maelstrøm
Devil Sold His Soul – Blessed & Cursed

What did you want to achieve with your new album?

Of course we also wanted to reach more people with the album, but most of all it’s very important to us, that everyone who listens to “The Bleakness” can feel the atmosphere and empathize with the deep despair that we pack into our songs.

How do you write your songs?

Our guitarist Ralle and I usually compose all our songs at home and record a pre-production of them. After everyone in the band listened to it and approved it, we rehearse them and work on small changes if necessary. Once a song is instrumentally finished Lukas or our vocalist Paul add the lyrics to the song.

Your sound takes in a wide-range of different styles. How did you decide what you wanted to incorporate into the album?

To be honest it wasn’t a real decision which styles made it into the album, it all happened completely natural when we wrote the songs. Nevertheless the most important thing for us is that, whatever kind of idea someone comes up with, the idea/the riff should support the atmosphere and fit into the song.

Are you happy with the final result?

We are very pleased with the final outcome. For our recordings we collaborated with Nikita Kamprad (Der Weg Einer Freiheit) who is responsible for the powerful and differentiated sound we wanted to achieve. We are very satisfied how everything worked out in the end. Of course there are always some new ideas and stuff that came into our minds after finishing the record, but these ideas have to wait for the next songs.

What’s you favourite song on the album and why?

This is a real hard one. Eventhough i like every song in its own way, I personally like “Drowning” the most. This song changes between fast blast beats and slow atmospheric clean parts and the guest vocals of Nikita make this one very unique.

What can you tell us about the lyrics and theme of the album?

We think the whole album is very good summed up by our title “The Bleakness”. All of our songs deal with a lot of personal struggles, disappointments and experiences. Even though every song stands on its own, they all create a melancholic and oppressive ambiance and make the album work in its entirety.

How do you see your songs/direction developing in the future?

That’s hard to say, because we just released the album, but there are already some new ideas coming up. We think that our songs probably will be longer and a little bit more atmospheric.

What does the future hold for A Secret Revealed?

Near-future plans are definitely booking shows and promoting our first full length record. We don’t really know where this journey will take us and what we can expect to happen but we are highly motivated and can’t wait for the upcoming months.

facebook.com/asecretrevealed

asecretrevealed.bandcamp.com

youtube.com/BastardizedVideo

instagram.com/asecretrevealed

asecretrevealed@gmx.de

Entrails – Obliteration (Review)

This is the fourth album from Swedish Death Metallers Entrails.

Upon pressing play you’re greeted with some ominous bells. What follows is authentic Old-School Swedish Death Metal, and everything that this much-loved/maligned sub-genre offers.

Obliteration has a crushing sound and features the full compliment of chainsaws, as is normally expected from the style. Everything sounds great and the music immediately sucks you in.

I do have a soft-spot for this type of Death Metal it’s true, but this is such an honest style of brutality that it’s hard not to be captivated by it.

The band write good songs and good riffs. That alone should be enough to endear them to most metalheads in my opinion. Add to this the strong production and vocals that sound like they’ve been dredged up from the deepest pit and Obliteration is a very well-rounded album.

The best thing, though, is the songs themselves. They have an energy to them that cannot be denied and it’s clear that the band still have a healthy passion for the style even though this is their fourth full-length outing.

Coupled with the quality riffing is the Swedish Death Metal melody that we know and love. Then there’s the catchy songs with decent choruses; this is a recipe for a winner, not to mention what I can only imagine is a phenomenal live show.

A very impressive album. Entrails demonstrate once more why they’re at the top of the heap when it comes to Swedish Death Metal.

For fans of Grave, Dismember, Unleashed, Entombed, and the like.