Bloodletter are a thrash metal band from the US and this is their fourth album.
Leave the Light Behind contains 35 minutes of well-written melodic thrash metal. Bloodletter bring something to thrash that I haven’t heard in ages – pure, unadulterated quality craftsmanship. I normally pass on thrash metal these days, but this one wouldn’t let me go. Continue reading “Bloodletter – Leave the Light Behind (Review)”
This is the third album from Greek melodic thrash/death metal band Bio-Cancer.
Strap yourself in and get ready for a wild ride. This isn’t the thrash metal of the 80s, although it’s absolutely influenced by it. Imagine early Kreator, only with increased intensity, and then throw in a energetic melodic death metal influence, and you’ll have a rough idea of where Bio-Cancer operate from. Continue reading “Bio-Cancer – Revengeance (Review)”
This is the debut album from one-man Swedish death/thrash metal band.
The Fall contains 38 minutes of aggressive metal. Combining together melodic death and thrash metal into a collection of well-crafted tunes, the artist behind Reboot the System has made a good first impression. Continue reading “Reboot the System – The Fall (Review)”
Necropanther are a melodic death metal band from the US and this is their fourth album.
Necropanther play concise bursts of blackened death thrash. Tight and confident, Betrayal is easy listening for people that like spiked melodic hook-laden metal. Continue reading “Necropanther – Betrayal (Review)”
This is the debut album from US metal band Aversed.
Containing 57 minutes of material, the album’s style is one that takes melodic death metal as a base, and then builds on this with elements of progressive metal, melodic black metal, melodic thrash metal, and orchestral power metal. The end result is Continue reading “Aversed – Impermanent (Review)”
This is the second album from Azusa, an international progressive metal band.
Featuring current and ex-members of bands such as John Frum, The Dillinger Escape Plan, and Extol, you know there’s a lot of talent and experience in Azusa before you even listen to them. Continue reading “Azusa – Loop of Yesterdays (Review)”
Ice Age are a Swedish thrash metal band and this is their debut album.
This is old-school thrash metal, with some elements of power metal thrown in for good luck. Having said that, with songs as strong as the ones on Breaking the Ice, luck is not required here. Continue reading “Ice Age – Breaking the Ice (Review)”
Wingless are a Polish metal band and this is their second album.
So strongly do I associate Poland with death metal, than upon seeing the album cover of The Blaze Within I immediately jumped to that conclusion with Wingless. Well, you know what they say about books and their covers… Continue reading “Wingless – The Blaze Within (Review)”
Dorylus are a metal band from the UK. This is their debut EP.
Dorylus play groove metal influenced by all of the usual suspects of the style, (Lamb of God, Pantera, etc.).
For a first release this is a well-realised 21 minutes of aural Continue reading “Dorylus – The Rapture (Review)”
This is the second album by Xenosis, a Progressive Death Metal band from the US.
Here we have a thoroughly modern take on Extreme Metal, incorporating state-of-the-art Death Metal, (à la The Faceless), the Progressive and Technical styles, as well as a bit of Djent, Deathcore and Melodic Death/Thrash Metal thrown in for good measure. It’s not as eclectic as it sounds though and it all gels together nicely to produce an album that has a lot going for it.
The combined impact of the above sub-genres is that Sowing the Seeds of Destruction features a lot of actual songs, as opposed to merely essays in technicality/brutality/speed/etc. All of these aspects are here, of course, but they’re all tempered by an overarching aesthetic that largely puts the song first over anything else. As such, this is a surprisingly catchy and memorable release from the off.
The vocals are mainly higher than you might expect, more in-line with the style employed by Carcass than your typical cookie-monster growls. Deeper grunts do appear, but these are less common than their higher counterparts. Clean vocals also make an appearance on one track, with these being delivered somewhere between those of The Faceless and Opeth.
This is a professional package that shows a band coming into their own and injecting their collective personality into the music. The songs are involved and intricate enough to have a lot of content within these 31 minutes and the playing time just flies by far too quickly. Lots of ideas are explored too, with the band thankfully unafraid to express themselves in whatever way they see fit.
I’m very impressed by this and I’m amazed they haven’t been snapped up hungrily by one of the more well-known Extreme Metal labels.
For now though, let’s just enjoy Sowing the Seeds of Destruction and the treasures that it offers.
Wonderbox Metal 