Blood of the Prophets are a death metal band from the US and this is their second album.
This is a modern brand of extremity, one that mixes elements of modern, melodic, technical death metal, and deathcore together into a sci-fi themed 24 minutes. Continue reading
This is the debut album from Iapetus, a progressive death metal band from the US.
Okay, here we have – deep breath – atmospheric, progressive, melodic death metal. Well, that wasn’t so bad, actually. Continue reading
So This Is Suffering are a technical death metal/deathcore band from the US. This is their fourth album.
Palace of the Pessimist has a nicely heavy sound. So much so that you might be concerned about coming away from the album a lot flatter, a lot more squashed than you once were, so weighty is the band’s serrated assault. Oh, and you’ll be bleeding too. Continue reading
Ulcerate are a death metal band from New Zealand and this is their fifth album.
Ulcerate personify atypical progressive/technical death metal. They incorporate enough other styles and influences to be termed post-death metal in some respects, although they still have the requisite amount of aggression Continue reading
Inanimate Existence are a US death metal band and this is their third album.
Starting off softly, with ambient sounds and female vocals, this album is a different beast to the band’s last album A Never Ending Cycle of Atonement. Sure, the band haven’t completely changed, but they’ve definitely progressed a significant amount.
So if you take their Continue reading
L’Incendio are an extreme metal band from Italy. This is their debut album.
L’Incendio have a death metal core that they build on with elements of other sub-genre styles, fleshing out their well-rounded assault in a wider-ranging way than many of their peers.
Combining atmosphere and accessibility into their Continue reading
This is a split release between three modern death metal/deathcore bands, featuring one original song and one cover song from each artist. Thy Art Is Murder are from Australia, and The Acacia Strain and Fit for an Autopsy are from the US.
Thy Art Is Murder contribute the song They Will Know Another and a cover of Rammstein’s Du Hast, for a total of 9 minutes of music.
They Will Know Another showcases the familiar roars of the band’s vocalist alongside mid-paced Continue reading
Fallujah are from the US and this is their third album of progressive death metal.
Fallujah are one of the more interesting and individual bands out there. Their previous album The Flesh Prevails was an exceptional release that really showcased their blend of technical/progressive death metal, with bright melodies and soundscapes created with ease, all wrapped around a modern death metal core.
They have now returned with Continue reading
The Zenith Passage are a Technical Death Metal band from the US. This is their début album.
Featuring former and current members of The Faceless, Oblivion, Fallujah and All Shall Perish, you already know that there’s a wealth of talent behind this band before you even press play.
The aforementioned bands also give you an idea of what type of material that The Zenith Passage play too; combining the modern/futuristic Death Metal of The Faceless and Fallujah, complete with keyboards/electronics and otherworldly atmospherics, gets you a pretty good idea of how Solipsist sounds.
The music is mostly frenzied extremity combined with seasoned atmospherics that’s both highly melodic and brutally sharp. Guitars shift and turn while the drums are an endless exploration of blast beats, double bass and maniacal rhythms.
As should be expected from the people involved in this, the level of musicianship is absurdly high. With so many complex guitars parts, twisting melodies and outright mind-ripping axe-shredding, Solipsist doesn’t leave the listener wanting in the technicality department. That the mayhem is occasionally punctuated by more atmospheric and relaxing moments just serves to make the extremity all the more powerful.
The singer has the kind of rapid-fire bark that suits this type of frenetic music. He seems almost in a race to keep up with the speed of the guitars, and although he’s always destined to fail at this, it doesn’t matter as the trying is the important part.
If you’re a fan of the style of music that The Faceless play, but prefer their earlier material which had less/no clean vocals, then I would heartily recommend you check this out. Hell, if you’re a fan of techdeath at all, I would recommend you check this out. Basically, check this out.
Thy Art Is Murder are from Australia and this is their third album. They play Death Metal/Deathcore.
Thy Art Is Murder have produced a mature and interesting record that brings Deathcore and Death Metal together in such a way that both styles are enriched. Deathcore, as I’ve said before, is really, really easy to do badly. With this in mind, Holy War is somewhat of a different beast to that of the Deathcore masses.
Heavy riffs and breakdowns are in attendance, make no mistake, but the more Death Metal side of things ensure there’s enough straight-ahead brutality on display to please the most virulent Metal maniac.
More interestingly, however, are the Post-Metal and Black Metal influences. “What?”, I hear you ask? Well, these are not the biggest part of their sound, admittedly, but they’re an important component of the songs here as these two influences help raise Holy War up from an enjoyably brutal listen to an enjoyably brutal listen that has more to offer than is normal for the style.
The Post-Metal influence shows in the melodies. Alongside the blast beats and the chugging beat downs are the occasional transcendently resplendent melodies, which are not normally associated with Extreme Metal of any kind, unless you’re the likes of Fallujah, of course.
The Black Metal influence is more subtle, more subversive than the Post-Metal element. This manifests itself through some of the riffs, lending a Blackened bite and atmosphere to the proceedings where another band might go for un-emotive blandness.
Both of these influences are second to the Death Metal/Deathcore side of the band, of course, and ultimately Holy War is an aggressively heavy and nastily brutal listen that takes no prisoners and expects nothing but total domination.
I have yet to mention the vocals. Suffice to say that the singer positively roars his way through these 40 minutes like a man possessed by an urge to kill everything possible. Supplemented with higher screams, his performance cannot be faulted.
In a world where Deathcore is ruled by a handful of top quality bands who oversee a multitude of mediocre ones, Thy Art Is Murder have definitely ascended to the upper echelons of Deathcore royalty. Like most Deathcore bands, they’ve achieved this through a combination of good songwriting skills and by moving away from the core of the genre itself, (pun intended), and into more individual waters.
Holy War is positively divine.
