This is the debut release from Italian death metallers Encelado.
Pillars of Creation contains four tracks, with a duration of 14 minutes. To get you in the right mood for Encelado, the promo blurb mentions bands such as Aborted, All Shall Perish, and Dying Fetus for the music, and Cannibal Corpse and Suffocation for the vocals. Continue reading “Encelado – Pillars of Creation (Review)”
Summoning the Lich are a death metal band from the US and this is their second album.
Summoning the Lich throw a few different influences into a brutally tasty death metal blender, and shake it with great force. The end result is Under the Reviled Throne, which serves up 40 minutes of music that takes the melodic and technical death metal styles and soaks them in fantasy-soaked flavourings. Continue reading “Summoning the Lich – Under the Reviled Throne (Review)”
Harbinger are a UK metal band and this is their latest EP.
Contemporary and highly aggressive, this is music that’s been sharpened to a killing point. Continue reading “Harbinger – Human Dust (Review)”
Integral are an Italian death metal/deathcore band and this is their debut album.
This is one for fans of modern aggression that mixes technical, brutal, and melodic death metal with elements of deathcore. This would be enough in its own right – but what’s this? We also get Continue reading “Integral – Resilience (Review)”
Funeral for the Masses are a Finnish deathcore band and this is their debut EP.
Full of heavy riffs and sick breakdowns, the music is actually relatively old-school as far as deathcore goes, although they still have a modern delivery mixed in. Continue reading “Funeral for the Masses – Pitch Black (Review)”
This is the second album from French death metal band Hybrid Sheep.
After the promise shown on 2014’s Free from the Clutches of Gods, Hybrid Sheep have now returned with another instalment of their modern death metal, and have showed some nice progress since their first opening release. Continue reading “Hybrid Sheep – Hail to the Beast (Review)”
This is the second album from Lord of War, a US death metal band.
On Suffer, Lord of War deliver 49 minutes of well-recorded modern death metal with enough strength and power to floor an elephant.
This is the kind of thing that should appeal to any of the death metal new guard, so fans of Whitechapel, Thy Art Is Murder, All Shall Perish, Molotov Solution, (the singer of which has a guest spot on this album), etc., Continue reading “Lord of War – Suffer (Review)”
This is the début album from this US hardcore/metal band.
Hollow Bones play modern metalcore, but with a little bit of a twist. Essentially the band take the tried-and-true NWOAHM metalcore template and put their spin on it through force of passion, a heightened emotive melodicism, and captivating female vocals.
The songs are enjoyably heavy slabs of metal with lots of tasty riffs. The guitars have Continue reading “Hollow Bones – Lionheart (Review)”
Pronostic are a Canadian Death Metal band and this is their début album.
Pronostic’s take on Death Metal features elements of both the Technical and Melodic styles, resulting in an album of precise drumming, exact guitars and clipped, brutal vocals, all wrapped up in emotive riffs and serrated melodies.
With two members taking care of the vocals, we get an interesting and busy mix of growls and screams, working together and competing for space to tear your face off.
The songs have enough technicality and widdling solos to please fans of the crazy extremity that TechDeath offers, but this is restrained by the melodic sensibilities that remember that it’s also important to have this set to the framework of an actual song. There are plenty of good riffs too, and the band know an emotive lead when they hear one.
With good ideas, enough skill to carry them off and a nice chunky sound, this is a very enjoyable release. There’s a lot of content and the delivery is high-powered and energetic. The best way I can think to describe them is to imagine All Shall Perish without any of the Deathcore.
Pronostic have impressed. Give this one a spin.
Manipulation are a Polish Death Metal band and this is their third album.
Manipulation play muscular Modern Death Metal with plenty of attack and some interesting twists to the standard formula.
Blast beats and chugging mid-paced carnage are the order of the day, but the band also throw in some unexpected atmospheric moments throughout, via the inclusion of melodic guitars, subtle keyboards, choral-like cleans, etc.
Add to this experimentalism some ultra-modern riffs and Deathcore influences and you have 44 minutes of engaging Extreme Metal, the likes of which Poland always seems to do so well.
The songs are well-written and, as mentioned previously, Manipulation aren’t afraid to experiment or try new things, which is great to hear. This edge of Progressive Metal is buried within their core sound, but really does add to their delivery. When these elements mix with blasting extremity or heavy grooves it all comes together very nicely indeed.
The vocalist has a passionate and dynamic growl that fits the music well, giving them the Death Metal anchoring they need as well as enough variety to move beyond this and into more emphatic territories.
Energetic brutality with a playful spin on the genre; this is really, really impressive.
Highly recommended.
For fans of Thy Art Is Murder, Aborted, All Shall Perish, Cryptopsy, Gorod, Molotov Solution, Whitechapel, etc.
Wonderbox Metal 