Black metal – Page 221 – Wonderbox Metal

Decline of the I – Rebellion (Review)

This is the second album by Post-Black Metal band Decline of the I.

Rebellion is an interesting and sometimes eclectic mix of the rabid and the beautiful.

A lot of time and energy must have gone into this album in order to give it so much depth and texture. Every song has a lot going on and the compositions reflect the restrained chaos that’s encapsulated here.

Brutal Blackened mayhem is artfully weaved into the overall structure of a wider musical framework that encompasses a multifaceted palette. Fragile and expansive Post-Metal guitar melodies flail against pure Blackened spite in a battle for supremacy. It’s impressive how the various feelings and emotions play off each other yet always manage to retain a cohesiveness despite the warring elements.

Vocal contributions come from three members and as such the vocals are as varied and eclectic as the music itself. Horror-fuelled screams and atypical verbalisations give the impression of a warped insanity lurking deep at the heart of the music. The music itself does nothing to dispel this of course, being a product of demented genius in its own right.

Much like Decline of the I themselves; Post-Black Metal is a very interesting and rich subgenre and Rebellion ticks all of the boxes for why this is so. It manages to pull off everything from atmosphere to barbaric savagery, sometimes simultaneously.

A very impressive album and a big achievement.

With albums like this to start the year with 2015 is looking very bright indeed.

Aethyr – Corpus (Review)

This is the second album from Russian Doom band Aethyr.

This is dark and evil music with a Blackened aura to it that accompanies the Doom core like a shroud of malignancy.

The band utilise emotive riffs that play on the negative feelings of the listener and tease them out, bare and vulnerable for all to see. They then take these exposed emotions and weave them into guitar parts that embody them.

In this respect there’s a Post-Metal quality to the guitars as they’re often transcendent and expressive whilst being dragged down into the gloom of Doom.

Mournful hatred and despondent anger seem to simmer just below the surface. If the music is the main receptacle for the miserable aspect of their sound then the vocals are the vehicle for the anger and rage.

The singer alternates between Blackened screams and dark growls. Both are performed well and neither sound entirely human.

Faster sections are included too and the band have a grasp of elegant dynamics. Corpus is a well-paced album with lots of well-written tracks that easily hold attention.

Overall this is an involving and complete listen. Aethyr remind me of a cross between Red Harvest, Zatokrev and some form of primordial Doom Metal.

Aethyr have clear direction in their sound and use the 50 minutes of music here to showcase their abilities with great effect.

Corpus is an impressive album by a talented band. Give them a listen.

Natanas – смертность (Review)

This is the fourth album from Natanas, a one-man Black Metal band from the US.

Another month, another Natanas album…

Okay so I exaggerate, but the man is Hellishly productive. And it’s good stuff too. He may have manufactured some form of Black Metal assembly line but his Quality Control department are clearly paying attention to the goods that are produced.

Having said that of course, this is clearly not for everyone, which is something I’ve mentioned before about the last two Natanas releases All Is Permitted and Treachery; the casual listener, the casual Black Metal listener, even, will probably find this a tad challenging.

If you like your Black Metal dark, challenging, atypical and in the vein of bands like Xasthur, Portal, Mitochondrion, Enbilulugugal, Ævangelist, etc. then Natanas is worth checking out.

Also, I’m sure his screeching vocals have gotten higher, raspier and wetter this time. It sounds like he’s rupturing himself every time he opens his mouth. This is not a complaint of course, rather the opposite. He takes time out from trying to turn himself inside out though, as other vocals are included from spoken word to deeper screams that almost remind of Neurosis/Crowbar in style.

смертность has a good amount of variety within its self-imposed framework, with the album retaining the tribal, hypnotic, pseudo-Industrial feel that Treachery did so well. As such this is a very holistic album; listening to a song in isolation is all well and good, but for the full effect it’s best to put on the entire album and just get lost in the murk.

Every time I listen to Natanas by the time I get to the second or third song I’m totally absorbed in the dark, unfriendly, bleak, rotten, urban sprawl that seems to be described. The low-key, lo-fi, production actually adds to the feeling of the album rather than detracting from it.

Natanas has always been a band that goes against the odds for me. If I had just flicked through one of these albums I’d probably think, “No, I don’t think so”, but against all expectations and prejudices смертность, and the previous albums…well, they just work. The various disparate elements and the raw, uncompromisingly lo-fi sound gel into something that just does it; it hits that hidden spot that you didn’t even know you had.

As such, I’m a big supporter of Natanas and heartily recommend that you give смертность a try. It may not do it for you, but who knows, maybe it really, really will…

Dysnomia – Dysnomia (Review)

Dysnomia are a Spanish Melodic Death Metal band and this is their début album.

Featuring a strong sound and an unexpected level of aggressiveness, Dysnomia quickly make their presence felt.

Their sound has plenty of melodic leads and solos as well as a hearty keyboard accompaniment that adds another layer to their infectious sound.

All too frequently Melodic Death Metal simply means a watered down version of Death Metal, essentially a weakened version of the original. This is not the case with Dysnomia. It’s like they’ve taken the melodic aspect of the genre, wrapped it in some keyboards and catchy songs and somehow managed to retain the savagery of the original style. This gives their sound a very fresh, energetic sheen and I’ve really enjoyed listening to this.

There is also a Black Metal influence to their sound, with the keyboards essentially meaning that they have somewhat of a Symphonic Black Metal slant sometimes. It’s more of an enhancement to their core sound though than a true Blackened Death Metal merging of the two and it plays its part in what I like about the band.

This is a top quality listen. If high octane Melodic Death Metal is your thing then Dysnomia will definitely hit the spot for you.

Abstracter – Wound Empire (Review)

This is the second album from US Sludge/Doom band Abstracter.

After really enjoying their 2012 debut album Tomb of Feathers, this is a release that has been eagerly awaited in these parts.

The first track, Lightless, seems to slowly writhe up out of a dark pit of urban decay, attempting to smother the land with its malignant spread. It’s an insidious start to the album and before you realise what’s going on you’re trapped in a nightmare landscape of pitch-black smoke and evil.

But oh dear Lord is it good. Rarely has cloying, suffocating Sludge felt so visceral and nastily enticing.

Abstracter are heavy and grim in the best ways that Sludge and Doom can achieve. These songs are essays in crawling malevolence and destructive passion. The band emanate a very raw darkness that you can feel like a physical presence.

I like the combination of nuanced riffing, heavy guitars and brutally gorgeous delivery. Abstracter effortlessly combine the beauty of Post-Metal with the dirty horror of Sludge. Their songwriting skills are such that moments of ugliness and transcendence are merged together. When the shades of light and dark clash there’s only ever going to be one true winner, but even though the menacing and murky atmospheres encase everything, the light isn’t totally consumed; you can feel it pulsing, straining against its captivity by this Hellish beast. This tense undercurrent is what gives Wound Empire its hidden beauty.

There’s a Black Metal influence to their sound that fits flawlessly into what they do. It’s not overbearing and doesn’t detract from the Doom, it just adds a further layer of thickly encrusted grime to songs that are already intimately familiar with all things subterranean.

With each of these titanic monuments to apocalyptic dystopian futures, I think that Abstracter have outdone themselves and actually managed to top their début album. No mean feat.

With true depth of composition and a talent for wrapping the listener up in their vision of all things gloomy and heavy, Abstracter have produced an album that has blown me away.

Fans of Neurosis, Altar of Plagues, Indian, Inter Arma, Amenra, Yob, Wolvhammer, Thou, etc. should perk up and take notice now.

Essential listening.

Dead in the Manger – Cessation (Review)

This is the début album from the mysterious collective that is Dead in the Manger.

Dead in the Manger play a curiously unusual mix of Depressive/Funeral Black Metal and Blackened Grindcore, as ably showcased on their début EP Transience.

On this latest release the band continue with their exploration down the path lass travelled, (never travelled?), that they started on Transience.

The juxtaposition of Depressive melody and harsh Blackened Grind is still not something that’s common and by all rights it shouldn’t work, but Dead in the Manger take a hitherto largely unexplored sub-genre that probably hardly anybody else is usually bothered with, let alone covets, and make it fully their own.

A harsh Black Metal ambience and general negatively-charged melodicism are created by the band only to then smash it into a mutated, bastard Grind template that results in songs combining both atmosphere and aggression.

It’s like someone has taken Shoegaze Black Metal and given it some real backbone.

So has their sound progressed from Transience at all? Yes; I’d say that the Black Metal component is more prevalent on Cessation, although that could also be due to the fact that they’ve learned to incorporate beauty and brutality at an even deeper level on this release. There’s also more mid-paced sections where the band demonstrate that not only can they create an evil atmosphere but they can maintain it.

In order to get something like this right you really need to know what you’re doing, and Dead in the Manger have proven that their first release wasn’t just some fluke. Cessation is even better.

A highly recommended listen. If you haven’t done so already you need to discover Dead in the Manger.

Oh, and the band logo and album cover? Fantastic.

Cowards – Rise to Infamy (Review)

Cowards are from France and this is their second album. They play a brand of Hardcore that’s a blend of Sludge and Black Metal.

This is the kind of discordant, ugly, abrasive, extreme Hardcore that I absolutely love. Throw in a Blackened Sludge influence as well and you’ve a love affair just waiting to happen.

Well, actually it’s been happening ever since I discovered their début album really, but this new one affirms it.

Cowards incorporate interesting ideas and riffs into their aural assault and every song brings something slightly different to the table.

The granddaddy of this style is, of course, the mighty Converge. Cowards take the template laid down by the masters and dirty it up with Sludge and Black Metal influences until it’s firmly their own. I like a band that stamps their own identity on the style of music they choose to play; Cowards do this with jackhammers.

Toweringly slow, blisteringly fast, chuggingly heavy, Blackly aggressive, sadistically spiteful…I could go on. Suffice to say that Cowards have created an album that’s heavy and extreme in all of the right ways.

And have I mentioned the riffs? There are some choice ones on here. Slow, fast, atypical, angular, you name it.

The singer is appropriately intense throughout. This kind of music needs a singer who sounds like he’s about to lose it and explode into a fit of violence and this is what we get.

Great stuff. If you like music that’s heavy and aggressive you’ll love Cowards.

Voices – London (Review)

This is the second album from UK group Voices. They play Progressive Blackened Death Metal.

Featuring former members of Akercocke, this is an album full of promise from the start as Akercocke were one of the best and most individual bands that the UK had to offer.

As soon as the dark acoustic opener Suicide Note starts I’m instantly hit with the feeling that Akercocke gave me in their more restrained moments. Then Music for the Recently Bereaved blasts out of the speakers and I feel warm and fuzzy inside and out.

If voices aren’t the heirs to Akercocke then I don’t know who is. They’re definitely their own entity but they channel the same primordial power and majesty that Akercocke did so well.

Blasting Death Metal, scathing Black Metal, Progressive Metal, Avant-Garde and everything in between make up these tracks. Progressive Blackened Death Metal is as good a term as any, but it seems so small. Voices are just bigger than that and have a whole lot more on offer than that mouthful of a genre tag implies.

The songs here are varied and full of interesting ideas and avenues for exploration. The band essentially just do what they want and I’m incredibly glad of this as it has resulted in a top quality album full of modern Extreme Metal that stands alone.

Growls, screams, cleans; the band do it all with style. It’s like Akercocke, Arcturus, Opeth and Emperor were crushed up together, digested and vomited up as a slick, professional, fully formed Extreme Metal machine. It’s classy and in a class of its own.

I love it when bands do their own thing and inject their art with personality and character. It’s even better when they do this with obvious talent and a passionate hunger. London is all of these things and more.

This is ambitious and hugely impressive. For a snapshot of everything that Extreme Metal should be these days then London is flawless.

In fact that’s all I need to say really; London is flawless.

Ignotum – Larvas Mortal God (Review)

Ignotum are a Black Metal band from Italy and this is their début album.

This is aggressive and ugly, but not without melody. As well as their Black Metal sound they also incorporate licks and riffs that have a more Classic Metal feel as well as having some pretty good leads and solos.

Due to the above additions to their sound, this is not the usual pitch-black purist Black Metal affair, yet nor is it some jaunty, upbeat Melodic Black Metal one either; the truth lies somewhere between these two extremes. The band are Metal enough to have some driving riffs and strong melodic leads but Blackened enough to be ugly and uncompromising in other areas of their delivery.

The band definitely have a harsh streak to their sound, brought to the fore with no small assistance from the snarling vocals. And really, snarl is the best word to describe them. The singer goes about his task with all of the pent up threat of a dog about to pounce.

Ignotum have crafted an interesting album that combines a slick molten Metal delivery with the ugly Blackened nature of the really grim. It’s an interesting combination that makes for an enjoyable listen.

Be sure to check them out and see what you think.

Archgoat – The Apocalyptic Triumphator (Review)

This is the third album from Finnish Blackened Death Metallers Archgoat.

This is raw, underground music filled with a horrific vibe and lashings of brutality. Blackened Death Metal, for the most part, usually means a Death Metal band with some Blackened influences. Archgoat have found that rare middle ground though that straddles both genres equally.

The Black Metal influence lends the songs a grim atmosphere and the Death Metal influence provides the aggression and ugliness.

Archgoat have created a very good listen with this album. Each song blurs the line between the two parent genres and we’re left with something that most people would just abort, but not Archgoat; they love, nurture and sculpt this malignant offspring into something worthy and deadly.

The deep growls seem to belch out malevolent black smoke and they seem to erupt out of the guitars like cancerous evil.

The riffs are captivating as they combine that Black Metal groove with Death Metal attack. It’s a winning combination.

Overall verdict? A great listen.