A Thousand Sufferings – Bleakness (Review)

A Thousand Sufferings - BleaknessThis is the second album from A Thousand Sufferings, a Belgian blackened doom band.

We last heard from A Thousand Sufferings in 2015 with their debut album Burden. This was a dark slab of doom/sludge metal, and with Bleakness A Thousand Sufferings have capitalised on the strengths of that early record and produced 41 minutes of tortured and pained heavy music. Continue reading “A Thousand Sufferings – Bleakness (Review)”

Mastiff – Plague (Review)

Mastiff - PlagueMastiff are a hardcore/sludge metal band from the UK and this is their second album.

Mastiff play the kind of pitch-black ugliness that I really like. Mixing styles and genres into an extreme metal mass of festering hatred and misery, Plague contains elements of doom, sludge, hardcore, and grindcore, all hatefully mixed together and vomited onto the listener with scorn and bile. Continue reading “Mastiff – Plague (Review)”

Nailed to Obscurity – Black Frost (Review)

Nailed to Obscurity - Black FrostThis is the fourth album from Nailed to Obscurity, a melodic doom metal band from Germany.

Nailed to Obscurity play a modernised version of old-school death/doom. Black Frost contains 47 minutes of material that can be roughly characterised as a combination of old Katatonia mixed with elements of Paradise Lost, Insomnium, Opeth, Décembre Noir, and others. The band definitely let their own collective personalities shine through in the music, however. Continue reading “Nailed to Obscurity – Black Frost (Review)”

Yatra – Death Ritual (Review)

Yatra - Death RitualYatra are a doom band from the US and this is their debut album.

Now here we have an album that’s infused with darkness; it’s almost tangible, but in a warm, smoky way. Mixing ugly doom, riff-hungry stoner, blackened sludge, and harsh drone influences into 45 minutes of material, Death Ritual showcases the dark underbelly of doom metal. Continue reading “Yatra – Death Ritual (Review)”