Tag: Wormed

Ichor – Depths (Review)

IchorIchor 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…

Lago – Tyranny (Review)

LagoLago 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.

Wormed – Exodromos (Review)

WormedWormed are from Spain and play science/future-themed Brutal/Technical Death Metal.

Tight, muscular songs fly by in a haze of technical wizardry with so much going on it’s hardly possible to digest everything in one sitting. The album positively demands repeated listens, and rightfully deserves them too.

This level of extremity is extremely impressive. Especially so when wrapped up in a state-of-the-art, crystal-clear production that makes the most out of every instrument with a sound so sharp you could cut yourself on it.

It’s not all about the technicality though, there’s a massive injection of pure brutality to go along with it. Wormed have managed to pitch both types of Death Metal against each other and come out a winner on both sides.

The songs are generally relatively short with most of them being about the 3:00-3:30 mark, but there is a lot going on and the band don’t need longer to make their mark.

The maniacal drumming, guttural pig-noise vocals, breakneck inventive riffing and massive chugging atrocities all combine to create an experience not easily forgotten. Like a thunderclap given form and mangled into an intricate design that rushes towards you at the speed of sound; you’ll wonder what the hell just happened but be more than eager to repeat the experience. This is an album I’ll be joyfully assimilating for some time.