Progressive Death Metal – Page 23

Sanzu – Heavy over the Home (Review)

This is the début album from Australian Modern Progressive Death Metallers Sanzu.

We’ve met Sanzu’s Gojira/Morbid Angel-inspired work before on their Painless EP, where they proved themselves to be an energetic and highly-promising addition to the world of Extreme Metal.

On Heavy over the Home Sanzu continue to develop their influences into something even more personable than previously. Although you can still readily identify the Gojira in their sound, for example, they’ve taken ownership of this even more than on their EP and Heavy over the Home is a force to be reckoned with.

It’s also a heavy force, as I suspect this word is used deliberately in the album title. Sanzu do heavy very well indeed. It’s hard to do your own thing when heavily influenced, (pun intended…), by such a recognisably distinctive band such as Gojira, but Sanzu have risen to the challenge by embracing their Morbid Angel-esque Death Metal side even further on this release, meaning that we end up with a kind of Gojira-gone-Death-Metal sort of album. This accomplishes two things; it allows the band to go their own way and make their sound much more their own, and also it sounds absolutely great.

Twisting, rolling rhythms and punishing grooves seem to trample and flatten from above, and the band’s melodic sensibilities, developed though they are, seem utterly incapable of blunting this crushing heaviosity. We wouldn’t have it any other way, of course.

The 45 minutes of music on this album allow the band to spread their wings and develop much further than on their first EP, and it’s very pleasing to see Sanzu metamorphosing into something more than their influences, something they can be proud to call their own.

In an utterly crushing display of super-heavy Death Metal, Sanzu destroy the opposition with ease and leave us with a top-quality album to enjoy in the smouldering ruins of what came before.

I’ll be playing this on heavy rotation from now on, that’s for sure. I advise you do too.

Xenosis – Sowing the Seeds of Destruction (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.

Voros – Diseased Deity (Review)

Voros are a Death Metal band from Australia and this is their début album.

If heavy Death Metal with good riffs and pacing is your thing then look no further. Voros feature a thorough approach to Death Metal that sees them take the Classic style and infuse it with a modern energy.

Believe it or not, but Diseased Deity covers a lot of bases; Death, Thrash, Progressive, Technical and Modern Metal are all thrown into the blender and feed into this Death Metal feast.

The vocals are savage shouts full of anger and hatred which seem to lash out of the music like diseased barbs. The singer has a touch of the Meshuggah about him, giving his voice a different edge to that of the normal Death Metal vocalist.

The songs are well-written and see the band showing off what they do, whether it’s riff-hungry, mid-paced Thrashing, faster complexity or blasting destruction.

I like the combination of older and modern influences that give this a feel of Lamb of God and Gojira conspiring together to cover Morbid Angel, Death and Immolation tracks. It’s a really good way to approach this album; modern fire with tried-and-tested Old-School steel. On Diseased Deity it all comes together perfectly and the songs are an interesting, varied and engaging vision of what the band want to achieve.

The various influences work together very well to produce an album that takes from several different styles, with the band having enough skill and talent to make it all their own. Diseased Deity is very impressive and these songs have both immediate appeal and longevity of delivery.

This is a great find. I recommend you get hold of this immediately.

Antlion – The Prescient (Review)

Antlion are a Canadian Technical Death Metal band and this is their début album.

Antlion’s brand of Death Metal incorporates some Jazzy, Progressive and Death-style elements into their Technical Death Metal broth and it tastes good. It’s a modern take on the genre and is somewhat of a mix of bands like Gorod and Between the Buried and Me’s quirky extremity, mixed with a classic essence of Death and just the barest touch of Djent.

The music is highly accomplished, featuring enough style and time-changes to satisfy anyone’s craving for challenging music. This is coupled with a wider Progressive sensibility that stops the music from going off the rails completely, but only just.

Liquid leads and fluid guitars fracture into spiky riffs and jagged melodies at a moment’s notice. The merging of the two disparate Progressive Technical Metal worlds that bands like Between the Buried and Me and Death inhabit is a stroke of genius and it’s a joy to hear the modern and the Old-School share space in this way.

The singer’s voice mainly consists of sharp, shrieking screams and aggressive growls. His performance fits the music and it’s nicely rabid the entire way through.

For all of their seeming-randomness, these are tightly controlled songs that have a surprising emotive content and even catchiness in places, both of which are unexpected for a band of this ilk.

This is an impressive release, especially for a début. I would love for this band to develop their Progressive side in the future, but at the same time keeping the inherent unpredictability of their Technical side. This would probably mean songs that average about 10 minutes in length each, but I’m happy with that. As it is though, The Prescient is a very involving slab of Technical/Progressive Death Metal with loads of content and a nasty bite.

Highly recommended.

Contrarian – Polemic (Review)

Contrarian are a Progressive Death Metal band from the US. This is their début album.

Just take a look at the album cover – there’s a lot going on and this translates to the music on Polemic too. Contrarian play distinctly atypical Progressive/Technical Death Metal. It’s not your standard fare. which we are eternally grateful for. As a soundtrack to space battles, it works.

Elements of Death, Atheist and Cynic can be heard, as well as more modern influences. All of this is held together by a first-rate vocalist whose growls can only be described as monstrous.

The music twists and turns, taking the listener down all manner of interesting avenues before seemingly changing direction on a whim, returning to where it left off only to find that it’s not the same place after all.

So the band can play, that much is clear; you would expect no less considering the pedigree of some of the members, (Nile being the most notable). Interestingly though, even through all of the technicality and forensic playing they still somehow manage to fashion this chaotic landscape into a collection of songs.

There’s a good helping of otherworldly melodies and distorted atmospherics included in the mix too. These are a welcome addition to the band’s music, helping to create an additional sense of depth and longevity to the tracks. There are frequent calmer sections peppered throughout, as if the band are allowing themselves small moments of respite and self-reflection to replenish themselves for what’s to come.

In the final analysis, it all results in a highly-textured release that is a very enjoyable listen.

Highly recommended.

Dystrophy – Wretched Host (Review)

This is the second album from US Death Metallers Dystrophy.

Dystrophy play dissonant Progressive/Technical Death Metal that sits a little out of the normal comfort zone of Tech Death, (if there is such a thing), by incorporating a Doom influence into their songs rather than going full-blown-crazy-hyper-speed, as is the case a lot of the time for the style. Mix this with a bit of Brutal Death Metal and an Old-School flair and you have the ingredients for a crushing album.

And crush it does. Repeatedly, and often.

The most obvious reference point for Dystrophy would be Gorguts, but there’s more to the band than just their obvious influences. There’s a lot going on here and it’s good to see that they don’t hide the songs behind blurs of speed or impenetrable craziness. There are fast parts on the album, of course, but it doesn’t define them as a band. Instead this is done by the brooding malevolence and sense of menace that the songs have fostered so well by the interplay between rhythm and lead guitars. The latter do a lot of work to add tension and suspense to the atmosphere of twisted peril that Dystrophy create.

But there’s more than just menace and tension to these songs; there’s an impressive amount of atmosphere and feeling on them. Leads and solos add a lot of texture and emotive qualities, backed up with coordination and style by the heavier riffs.

The vocals are uncompromisingly harsh; deep growls that sound as if they would be quite at home in a dark, dank pit somewhere. As the complexity and nuance of the music rages around them, the vocals are brutally simple and straight to the point.

This is an ambitious release from a band who have managed to insert emotive shades of colour into their music, which is no mean feat for a Death Metal band. Wretched Host is an album to be savoured and enjoyed at length.

I would definitely recommend this one; any band attempting to do something a bit different should be supported, especially when they are doing it so well.

So yes, here’s another album to put on that perpetually expanding to-get list of yours.

Atlas Entity – Enceladus (Review)

Atlas Entity is a one-man Progressive Death Metal project from the US.

This is a short EP, a taster really, at 16 minutes in length, featuring colourful Progressive/Technical/Melodic Death Metal with a textured delivery and an open, exploratory approach to the sub-genre.

There’s enough bite here to satisfy fans of aggression, but there’s also a side to the band that’s more restrained and considered, as well as one that likes to let loose with all kinds of guitar-mayhem.

Featuring a couple of different guests as well as the drummer of Decrepit Birth, the musicianship on Enceladus is first-rate and provides plenty of substance to get your teeth into as the playing time passes.

The vocals are a mix of deeper growls and high pitched screams, both performed well and with passion. When the screams are ringing out, the drumming speeds up and the melodics go into overdrive the songs take on their Melodic Death Metal aspect; this works really well as it then frequently collapses back into more technical or Progressive territory, allowing the songs a wide-reach when it comes to bases covered.

There’s a lot to enjoy on this EP and the tracks sell themselves well. These are not simple songs and it’s clear that a lot of time, love and attention has gone into them. It seems to have paid off, and I recommend you give Enceladus a few spins to see what you think.

Dementia Senex/Sedna – Deprived – Split (Review)

Dementia Senex are an Italian Death Metal band and Sedna are a Blackened Sludge band. They have teamed up to create Deprived – one track from each band, designed to complement each other, sharing a similar space but from a different perspective.

Dementia Senex are up first with their track Blue Dusk. After their interesting début EP Heartworm demonstrated their atypical take on Progressive/Doom/Sludge-infused Death Metal, I’ve been keen to see how their style has developed over the last couple of years.

The song starts gently, almost tentatively, before crushing guitars land like a ton of bricks. The band impress again with their Gorguts-inspired take on Progressive Death Metal, and seem to be slowly moving away from the core aggression of the genre and more and more into Post-Metal territories. Post-Death Metal? Pretty much. Aggression is still here though, just done in a non-standard way, with even the blast beats surrounded by off-kilter chaos.

After this it’s Sedna’s turn to shine with their track Red Shift. Prior to this split I was not familiar with Sedna, although it seems that this has been my loss as this song is the equal of the previous one.

In contrast to the Death Metal-based heaviness of Dementia Senex, Sedna are more firmly in Black Metal-influenced Post-Metal/Sludge territory. Red Shift has the trademark Post-Metal build/release mechanic down to a fine art, with the track gaining momentum slowly but surely throughout the playing time, only to periodically explode with Blackened Post-Hardcore violence. It’s a good combination of slow burning tension and vicious aggression that nicely builds atmosphere with harsh shouts and screams being unleashed over the ever building and expanding music.

This is an exemplary split between two quality bands. I highly recommend giving this one a shot.

Corpse Garden – Entheogen (Review)

This is the second album from Costa Rican Death Metallers Corpse Garden.

Dark and brutal, Corpse Garden deliver 62 minutes of blistering and intelligent Death Metal on Entheogen. This is intricate Death Metal with a good dollop of the Technical and Progressive sub-styles incorporated into their sound.

Guttural vocals are growled out from the shadows and all manner of other vocalisations accompany them, although the deep grunts are the main focus.

The music is complex and savage, with all of the instruments having a major part to play, even the oft-forgotten bass. I love it when the bass is used intelligently and as its own instrument, rather than just for the sake of having a bassist, as most band seem to do. On Entheogen, it adds a lot to the music.

The longer-than-normal length of the songs allows the band to really spread their wings and include some good ideas in the music. The tracks feature a mix of simple riffs and melodies alongside much more complex playing; this combination of both gives the songs great power as there are moments when straightforward chugging guitars are the best choice, moments when complicated Death-esque Progressive/Technical sections are the order of the day, and yet other moments when the band go all atmospheric with added synths and other sounds.

For all of this creativity though they still remember the importance of a good song. The tracks on this album all revolve around this, preventing the Technical Death Metal elements from becoming too overpowering or detrimental to their cause.

Corpse Garden are clearly an ambitious band, as Entheogen is not your standard, run-of-the-mill brutal blaster. There’s a lot more going on here than the average Death Metal band attempt and this is entirely to Corpse Garden’s credit.

This is a garden that I heartily recommend spending some time visiting.

De Profundis – Kingdom of the Blind (Review)

This is the fourth album from UK Death Metallers De Profundis.

After 2014’s EP teaser Frequencies, (two tracks of which make an appearance on Kingdom of the Blind), this album fleshes out their Progressive/Technical Death Metal sound to a fuller 52 minutes.

The band continue with their technical Death-worship and have created an album that’s a comprehensive overview of their Death Metal worldview. Like their heroes, De Profundis make sure that the song is never lost within the technical framework and have the talent necessary to play such ambitious music. Like the wonderful Execration, they are doing their best to keep the spirit of Death alive while putting infusing the style with their own personality and spin.

De Profundis like their songs technical and involving, with plenty of syncopation and off-kilter ideas amidst the blast beats. The songs are all around the 5-minute mark, or longer, giving the band ample time to show off what they can do. The performance levels are high and the entire package is very accomplished. I must also mention the bass, especially; I really like what the bassist contributes to these songs.

The deep vocals are like thunder claps and punctuate the songs like bruises. These help to provide a different identity for the band than if they had opted for higher, more Death-esque vocals, and act as a blunt counterpoint to the sharpness of the music.

Kingdom of the Blind is an impressive release from a band who are not content to be average.

Highly recommended.