Blackened Death Metal – Page 21

Ichor – Depths (Review)

Ichor are from Germany and play Death Metal. This is their third album.

Who doesn’t love a bit of Modern Death Metal? I know I do. Sharp and tight, played with just the right hint of Deathcore and heavier than a barrelful of spanners? Sign me up!

Take a look at the album cover – you know what you’re getting yourself into. If you like bands such as The Kennedy Veil, Wormed, Alterbeast, Job for a Cowboy, Bloodtruth, Deep in Hate, etc. then this is another must.

This is brutal music played for the love of carnage and all things destructive. Lightning riffs and chugging menace work alongside inhuman drumming and lethal intent.

The vocals are aggressive growls that trade off with scything screams. The vocalist clearly knows his business and puts in a top-rate performance.

These songs have the requisite speed and brutality to them but I also like the energetic riffing and dynamic nature of the guitars. There’s also somewhat of a Morbid Angel/Behemoth feel to some of the guitar parts, which is a different angle that differentiates them from some of their similar peers.

There are some nice ideas and interesting enhancements on this, a good example is the added orchestration that infuses some of the songs and creates another layer of atmosphere to the proceedings. Top work.

I particularly enjoy some of the lead guitarwork and there are plenty of solos to satisfy as well, which is something I really like too. These chaotic melodics work well with the hardened brutality of Ichor’s core and the songs come alive with a darkness that sometimes even borders on the edge of Blackened Death Metal.

Yes, yes; much like Swedish Death Metal I’m a sucker for this kind of stuff, but this really is a damn fine album. The cutting riffs, growling hatred and superior songwriting mean Ichor will be with me for some time to come.

Here’s to plumbing the depths…

Sarpanitum – Blessed Be My Brothers… (Review)

Sarpanitum are a UK Death Metal band and this is their second album.

Sarpanitum take a three-pronged approach to their Death Metal that combines traditional Death Metal, melodic atmospheres and a touch of Black Metal’s heart of darkness.

The band’s melodic edge is a sharp one and it’s incorporated directly into their heaviness rather than seeming like an addition to it as is frequently the case with other bands that combine brutality and melodics.

Added keyboard sounds subtly enhance this already keen melodic sensibility they have and I really like the sense of atmospheric brutality that they create. There’s a Middle Eastern feel to a lot of the melodies that adds an exotic touch to the songs, as well as no small amount of epic grandeur.

The vocals are as dark as night; thick, deep, malevolent growls that are so low as to be akin to rumbling thunder.

Blessed Be My Brothers… has a thick, dense sound that’s uncompromising and combined with the band’s complicated riffing is impenetrable to the casual listener. This is Death Metal for real Death Metal fans who want something a bit more interesting than the standard generic fare.

Fans of Nile, Mithras, Lelahell, Gorguts, Morbid Angel, Sidious and Dying Out Flame should love this.

Highly recommended.

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.

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.

Sidious – Revealed in Profane Splendour (Review)

Sidious are from the UK and play Symphonic Blackened Death Metal. This is their début album.

Sidious have a gargantuan sound that recalls Dimmu Borgir at their aggressive best filtered through the purifying lens of Death Metal’s barbaric heart. If you blend together Dimmu Borgir and Behemoth the resulting ooze will no doubt coalesce into something that wouldn’t be a million miles away from Sidious.

Thick riffs are thrown around with abandon and spiralling drums pound out ritual beats to a backdrop of epic symphonic terror and dark magisterial horror.

This is music for a grim apocalypse that isn’t slow, isn’t pretty and that no-one will survive.

The keyboards and effects are used effectively to highlight the aura of brutal terror that the band create. In a true merging of styles Sidious have the trappings of Symphonic Black Metal wrapped around the molten core of carnage-seeking Death Metal.

Revealed in Profane Splendour is a collection of powerful songs that draw on the rich heritage of both major contributing styles to produce an album that’s a real dark delight to listen to. It’s forthright and confident whilst having a depth about it that flows from well-structured songs and well-composed threatening atmospheres.

It rumbles, it bellows, it curses, it destroys.

Listen loud.

Whore of Bethlehem – Upon Judas’ Throne (Review)

Whore of Bethlehem are from the US and play Blackened Death Metal. This is their début album.

Whore of Bethlehem play Death Metal that’s saturated with Black Metal down to its very core. There is an aura of darkness that pervades everything on this album and it seeps out from every Blackened riff or thunderous vocal.

Said vocals alternate between deep growls and higher screams. It’s a very satisfying performance and both styles do the job admirably.

It’s a pleasure to hear such twisted, Blackened guitars on this release. Straddling the two genres sometimes means choosing between a Death Metal part here or a Black Metal part there; Whore of Bethlehem however have merged the two styles down at the cellular level and their riffs combine the brutality of Death Metal with the evil reek of Black Metal perfectly.

The riffs are evocative and punishing, yet not without nuance. The band work their dynamics well and the guitars have the right balance between feeling and aggression.

Even the production manages to capture the essence of both styles as it’s both heavy and sharp. Everything is perfectly matched against each other, with no one instrument gaining ascendancy to the detriment of any other.

These are very enjoyable songs; I’m quite partial to Blackened Death Metal when it’s done well and I always compare bands like this to Arkhon Infaustus who created in their 2003 album Filth Catalyst what is, for me, an exemplar of the style. Whore of Bethlehem could easily be spiritual successors to Arkhon Infaustus and Upon Judas’ Throne is a very meaty slab of dark Metal if ever there was one.

What a great album! More like this please.

Emblazoned – Eucharistiae Sacramentum (Review)

Emblazoned are from the US and this is their début album. They play Blackened Death Metal.

This is music with an evil feel created by minions of some Dark Lord or other who worship and defile their way through 8 tracks of daemonic Death Metal.

The deep growls and high screams call out hymns to darkness whilst the crushing production allows the music to be both heavy and precise.

All of the instruments are clear and played with surgical steel. The drums have an especially crisp sound to them, the bass is audible and worthwhile and the guitars have a crunchy, crushing edge.

The riffs have a Blackened feel to a lot of the melodies which adds a touch of the underworld to the songs; they already have a malevolent feel to them as it is and as the band are mainly interested in creating a brutally evil atmosphere it’s only to be expected that a Black Metal influence should make its way onto the album.

The songs are very enjoyable and make the most of their relatively short playing time by effortlessly blending the brutality of streamlined Death Metal with the dark feeling of Black Metal.

Emblazoned combine parts of bands like Deicide, The Black Dahlia Murder, Satyricon, Behemoth, Arsis and Lvcifyre into their merciless sound and the result is a very strong album indeed.

It’s time for you to check out Emblazoned and join them in their war against the forces of light.

Noctem – Exilium (Review)

Noctem are from Spain and this is their third album.

The band play Blackened Death Metal with a bit of pomp and plenty of bite.

After a symphonic intro the first track proper Apsu Dethroned wastes no time introducing you to the band’s particular brand of blasting and heaviness. What is not quite as expected, however, is the orchestral accompaniment that forms a nice link to the intro.

It’s a great touch that precedes the actual singer who belches out occult growls with the fervour of the possessed. His is an unrelenting, uncompromising style that gives no quarter and knows no mercy.

The rest of the album continues the theme of a Death Metal band with Blackened influences that incorporates plenty of interesting ideas and sounds into their Extreme Metal repertoire.

The brutality and blast beats of their core Death Metal sound share space with more melodic riffs and a healthy dose of Black Metal influences. The orchestral sounds/choirs/keyboards add a deeper layer to Noctem’s identity and are embedded well rather than just sounding tacked on.

The musicianship is first rate, with the drumming being a precision assault and guitar solos and leads flashing by like lightning. It’s all wrapped up in a stellar production job that allows everything to shine and just sounds crushing.

None of this would have any longevity of course if it wasn’t for the songs themselves. The band show quite capably that they can write a good tune and Exilium is full of them.

If you take elements of bands like Behemoth, Nile, Atrocity and Septic Flesh, mix them in a blender and make a tasty hate-filled frothy shake then Noctem would be the cream.

A high quality, ambitious release; Noctem have proven they have what it takes to become forerunners in the Extreme Metal world.

Watch them go.

Ævangelist – Writhes in the Murk (Review)

Ævangelist are from the US and this is their third album. They play Death/Black Metal, of sorts…

Following on from their horrifically terrifying second album Omen Ex Simulacra, Ævangelist waste no time with the first track Hosanna establishing and that this new album follows on from the first in a suitably Hellish and hideous manner.

As I stated about their previous album; Ævangelist are not for the weak of stomach. This is music that tests the limits of what the human mind can endure.

Writhes in the Murk is a suitable title for this collection of horrors as the songs seem wrapped in the murk and writhe as if alive.

Everything seems lower in the mix this time with the exception of the dark noises and sinister effects that blanket everything like a deathly fog. The growling vocals are almost unrecognisable from the ambient levels of darkened atmospherics, although they’re now joined by cleaner vocals as well more akin to Black than Death Metal.

There’s more of a Black Metal influence on this release in general. The atmospheres that Ævangelist create have always had more in common with Black than Death Metal, but this time the guitars, vocal experimentation and overall vibe seems Blacker than ever.

The riffs, when they raise their heads above the sea of nightmares, are sinuous and evil, recalling the dark practices of Axis of Perdition and Blut Aus Nord at their most sinister. The entire thing feels alive and squirming, like something is struggling to be born in the darkest reaches of a pitch-black pit of suffering and desolation.

The band don’t write songs, they create experiences of tormented soundscapes; environments of pure terror, dread and disgust seep out of the speakers as if made flesh.

Holy crap. This album is almost a full hour of punishing music but if feels almost ten times that; time seems to lose all meaning as the music pulls you into its dark, sickeningly warm embrace to lose yourself in the cloying smell of a million forgotten corpses condemned to suffer for all eternity…

This is not for the casual listener. However, if you think you have the fortitude then delve right in. Ævangelist have such sights to show you…

Lago – Tyranny (Review)

Lago are a Death Metal band from the US and Tyranny is their début album.

Lago play a mixture of Old-School and New-School Death Metal and manage to reach a comfortable medium between the two. Think Morbid Angel and Immolation meeting Behemoth and Wormed.

Dark melodies and rampant brutality hold sway here, although the band allow themselves room to experiment a bit with some longer songs and nice touches here and there, (Reckoned features an almost, gasp, Folk section!).

The songs are well-written and feature a good recording that gives the band a wonderfully heavy sound. All of the instruments sound really good. The drums, guitars, bass and even the vocals; they all stand out which effectively means that everything stands out. As I listen to this the old “everything louder than everything else” phrase comes to mind. It’s a class production all round and lends the songs the power they need to make their mark.

The drums pound away nicely and there are a bucketfuls of tasty riffs to get stuck into. They play the heavy, brutal riffs well but also mix things up with darker melodic riffs, some of which have a nice Blackened edge to them.

Tyranny has some good solos on it which stick out against the pitch black rhythm guitars and spice things up a bit.

I keep coming back to the rhythm guitar riffs though as they feature the kind of darkly melodic brutality that makes Immolation so compelling and individual. The wonderful thing is that it may be reminiscent of Immolation but it doesn’t actually sound like them; in other words Lago share a similar stylistic space with the masters rather than ripping them off, which is brilliant as I love Immolation and now I love Lago also.

The vocals are so deep it almost hurts and seem to dominate everything else with their presence. Higher screams are also used for a bit of variety.

Lago have impressed me no end with this release. It’s a strong collection of Death Metal tracks that showcase a powerful new band who have arrived on the scene with the force of a meteor strike.

Highly recommended.