death metal

Polish extremist Kingdom have been slashing and grinding their way through the brutal underground for many years. Their new album does not show any sign of slowing down, on the exact contrary. With 'Putrescent Remains of the Dead Ground' Kingdom delivers an intense and punishing death metal album, here and there enhanced by blackened elements and even influences from sludge metal. Yet, above all, this is one deliciously putrid extreme metal album, one that every fan of the genre can easily appreciate. So prepare yourself for an epic death metal beatdown the size you have rarely experience before.

The album contains eight tracks, most of them rather short. Yet, the sheer speed and brutality of the whole thing is so suffocating that those eight tracks will probably be more than enough to stomp you into a bloody pulp. 'Walls of Askalon' quickly lures you in, grabs you by the throat and throws you wall-to-wall until you beg for mercy. 'Putrescent Remains' knows no mercy. In fact, none of these tracks to. Most of the track here drive on machine gun snare drums and piercing riffs so ultimate deletion is inevitable.

'Black Light to the Rotten Wombs of Disgrace' is my personal favorite. It's one of those tracks that will kick you face down in a puddle of mud, intestines, vomit and blood and shove you around in there for a few minutes. And you'll love it. You'll love the punishment Kingdom delivers. Like I mentioned in the opening paragraph, every fan of brutal and high speed death metal can easily appreciate this. In the end, the pulverising 'Karma Slayer' and the cover of Immortal's 'Blashyrkh' beautifully finish the job, but you might already be dead by then...


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black metal

All nature is renewed by fire, that's what the title of this album by Polish avant-garde black metal act Misanthropic Rage translates as. That translation reminded me of forests burning down to make place for new plants, trees and eventually animals. Nature is counting on absolute destruction to renew and reinvent itself. 

The world of music seems to share that ability. Even headstrong styles like black metal seem to be able to burn the past and evolve, renew. Out of the ashes of old school black metal new subgenres have been evolving, and Misanthropic Rage thrives in that progressive nature.

In 'Igne Natura Renovatur Integra' we meet an astounding array of influences, from vintage black metal to melodic acts like Amorphis or Primordial and from pagan ritualism to the shoegazing guitars of The Cure. Like the tentacles of an octopus, Misanthropic Rage borrows elements from death, black, doom, shoegaze, post rock, avant garde ritual music and many more. Yet, somehow the band manages to turn it all into a coherent and infectious sound.

What surprised me the most is the overall level of both quality and variation. These are not quickly arranged piece of black metal. On the very contrary. Opening with a brilliant 'Call All Your Angels', this album is loaded with extreme anthems from a very high level. It's hard to pick out highlights. 'Abstrakt' is one of my favorites, a harsh song with an industrial feel that Satyricon might have wanted to write.

'I.N.R.I.' is another blast, one that doesn't just invite you to fiercely bang your head but brutally forces you to. 'The Agony Of The Breath' is another one of my personal favorites. One where both eighties new wave and the industrial black metal metal of Samael comes to mind. The rest is up to you. If you are into progressive and avant garde black metal, there is no reason why you should not get your hands on a copy of this thing. 


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ambient / drone

industrial / metal / drum & bass

classical

metal

grindcore / crust

ambient / techno

new wave / alternative rock

black metal

bandcamp

black metal

classical / post rock / jazz

facebook

drone doom

hard rock / metal

black metal / noise

dark jazz

Serge

thrash metal

stoner metal / sludge

psychedelic rock / stoner / blues

drone / ambient

death metal / symphonic metal

alternative rock

ambient

drone / noise / ambient

dark ambient

techno

symphonic metal / death metal

electronic / experimental / breakcore

Petrol 80

Serge

punk / hard rock

Well, they couldn't have made this any clearer, could they? With a band name like this and a highly promising title, these French guys appear to be prepared for a heavy rocking battle that will eventually end up in a dental hospital. Are they? We'll see.

Rock 'n' Brawl appeared on the French rock scene in 2013. That scene appears to be overloaded with hard rocking bands already but nobody seems to mind, especially not these guys. With a high energy mix of hardcore punk and hard rock they blast the competition off stage.

Looking at their facebook profile, I see that the band is influenced by Danko Jones, The Bronx and AC/DC. However, when I listen to some of the tracks here, I can't help but think that hardcore punk bands like Agnostic Front and Hatebreed also had their influence on Rock 'n' Brawl. 'Can't Stop The Fight' and 'Unbreakable' are fierce punk tracks that will undoubtedly cause crowd surfers and moshpits, with the inevitable broken teeth as a result.

However, sometimes the tempo goes down a bit, resulting in sweet hard rock tracks like 'Coughing To Death' and 'Loud Punch'. With 'Lack & Wounds' there is even a ballad on the album, be it a raunchy, gritty one. In fact, that's my favorite track here. It might sound weird but I really love this tune. Obviously it adds variation, but it also serves as a calm spot in a raging ocean of hardcore punk rock. So who to recommend it to? Hard core punk rockers, of course. They should really check out this thing.


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ambient

Brock Van Wey returns with a brand new bvdub album and it's precisely what I needed after the pummeling death metal in my previous review. I got acquainted with this project in January of last year, when I wrote about his 'Yours Are Stories Of Sadness' album. I remember being exceptionally charmed by the effort, the stories and the sound, which now results in high expectations. I mean, the previous album still very often appears in my day-to-day playlist and, obviously, I now expect the same level of ambient-quality from 'A Different Definition Of Love'. I guess that's what happens when you're good, people expect better. It's called the 'Metallica syndrome'.

Anyway, enough about metal, let's dig into this beauty. Because yes, I can definitely say that it's a beauty. For starters, it's an ambient album, consisting of six lengthy tracks. That always sparks my interest. Then, there is this little play of words, alliterations and an acronym. Combine the first letter of each title and you get the word 'Forget'. However, I will not forget this, on the very contrary. This one is going right into that earlier mentioned playlist too. Why? Because it's another breathtaking effort, minimal and narrative, exactly the way I like it. 

The tracks here are all over ten minutes long. They're dreamy, emotional and introvert. In a way, I can compare this to a light version of post-rock. The music swells, evolves and emerges, just as good post rock tunes to but they come in a minimal approach, with soundscapes and vague melodies gently floating in an out. If you want references, I can best compare this to a cooperation between Aidan Baker and Biosphere, perhaps. But I think it's best to just simply point out that this is another remarkable ambient album, one every fan of the genre should check out.


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saxophonized death metal

Back in 1840, Adolphe Sax invented a brand new musical instrument. He wanted to create the most powerful wood instrument, while still maintaining the versatility. The instrument quickly gained fame in the world of classical music and when it reached the United States, the sax became one of the key instruments in a new style of music, jazz. Since then, saxophones have been present in pretty much every musical style you can find. From pop to dance music to military bands and...brutal death metal. I think it's only natural that a Belgian band manages to turn this massively versatile instrument into metal gear.

Wound Collector is the brainchild of Peter Verdonck, a renowned saxophonist and composer. Throughout the years he has been composing and performing with a wide array of bands, orchestras and theatre productions. But Peter Verdonck is also a death metal fan. So he gathered three other musicians, each of them already having earned their stripes in the Belgian metal scene, and together they created Wound Collector. After a heap of rehearsals and try-outs, Wound Collector is now ready to showcase their unique and punishing sound.

Even without the saxophone, Wound Collector would be an interesting death metal band. You can clearly hear influences from Nile, Suffocation, Fleshgod Apocalypse and so on. Furthermore, this album is surprisingly varied, which is not an easy task in the death metal world. The versatile vocals of Guy Van Campenhout not only add versatility but also power and grandeur. But, the whole thing comes with that epic saxophone, not only in whirling solos but also in the everyday riff-worshiping, and that makes this album stand out in today's metal scene.

The odd thing is, that sax will undoubtedly gather interest from jazz fans and perhaps even ska-punkers. Simply the presence of that instrument drags in all these influences. 'Divine Music, Unholy Flesh', for example, sounds both joyous and impending. This is a monstrous death-jazz track, and it's far from the only one here. But don't get me wrong, this is still nutsack piercing death metal, destined to devour your soul and whiplash the hell out of your neck. Rest assured, this will hurt you.

Picking favorite track is not easy but I think I will go with the combo 'Recapturing The Throne' and 'Crucifixion To The Inverted Cross'. The only track that I'm not that crazy about, is 'History Of Torture', which might be a bit too experimental and power metal inspired for my taste. Yet, eventually it makes place for the brilliant,  doom metal inspired 'Hopelessness', which easily competes with my aforementioned favorites. In all, mostly because of that awesome sax but also because it's just a bloody awesome album, 'Eternal Bloodcult' might be my favorite death metal release in recent years. 


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black metal

A formidable and amazingly great album – filled with a highly organic, spontaneous and aggressive energy that possesses each and every molecule of your solemn sensibilities – Perennial Fire is the most recent album released by Greek Black Metal act Primal Cult. A relatively concise album – forty four minutes long –, the record has seven tracks: War, Father, Sacred Gaia, The Chthonic Uprising, My Quest For Light, Vernal Ascendance, Grant Me The Void and Crossroads To Eternity. Already in the first track, War, Father, it is possible to feel the ardent, tempestuous and exceedingly pungent power of the group. With aggressive, but solidly created harmonies, that invites the darkness at the frontier of the universe to rest entirely on the aggrandizing aspirations of its melodies, Perennial Fire is an incredible, dense and profoundly intense record, where the anatomy of the music converges to an elegant and sophisticated climax, projecting at the epicenter of its sonorous descriptions the objective intonations of a consistent deliverance of impeccable artistry – both technically and creatively – that certainly makes this album an unexpected novelty to arrive on the scene.

The second track, Sacred Gaia, continues with the imponderable, but direct, reflexive, hostile and vehemently violent, but beautifully crafted sound – that rapidly captures the listener by storm –, designed to segregate beyond the uneasiness of its distinctive style the voracious torment of conflagrating harmonies that dilacerates the conspicuous devices of ordinary antagonisms.  

A sensational masterpiece, fulfilled with genuine creative capacities that exhibit the tremendous amount of originality of Primal Cult, Perennial Fire is a marvelous state of the art work, that honors the genre, but simultaneously paves the way for a whole new level of musical sensibilities, that are wonderfully foreseen and intelligently devised on this exceedingly splendid record. Although it is necessary to note they do demonstrate the most devotional respect for the established principles of the genre, maintaining intact each and every one of its elements, while entirely reshaping the more flexible intonations of its anatomy.             

With an impressionable amount of talent, furiously showcased to create a black metal masterpiece, on its most eloquent, elegant, versatile and sophisticated form, Perennial Fire is an album with enough power and vitality to renovate the genre, and give to it a new type of breed, a new outlook on life, with a higher grace, aiming to captivate old enthusiasts, as well as to attract new ones.   


Wagner

dungeon synth

Barad-Dûr is a dungeon synth album, a split record between the artists Balrog and The Inquisitor, released in March 16. Thirty nine minutes long, it has eight tracks. The first three, by Balrog – Mount Doom, The Lands of Mordor and Sauron, the Necromancer – and the other five tracks by The Inquisitor: Rule Them All, Brightest of Stars, The Eye, The Strength of Men Failed and A Dangerous Business. The symbiosis of qualities between the two artists functions overall exceedingly well, as their styles have innumerable affinities, although they have unbearable differences as well. 

A great combination of talents, the first part of the album – with Balrog’s music – is characterized by a calm, but tempestuous anxiety, where the extemporal, but sonorous conflagration of harmonies makes the listener feel he is mentally transported to a solitary world of melancholy and despair, perpetually confined to a subtle, but hostile environment of surreal emotional deviations, somewhat eager to take a valuable price on his bravery, for having the outrageous courage of being on such a mordacious and afflictive eternal palace, where sorrow and cruelty are the disputable sovereigns. 

The Inquisitor part, although at first seems to be a continuation of Balrog’s, is a little more dense and sinister; nevertheless, the listener continues to be in a very conspicuous journey throughout a universe of inquisitive agony and tension. With serene and pleasant, but exceedingly fearful harmonies, that inspires the tenacity of underlying and undefined feelings, situated between curiosity and fear, the work done by The Inquisitor on his tracks is a formidable compliment of Balrog’s, although exhibits tenuous differences in texture and rhythm, as both artists possesses arbitrary distinctions in their styles, although they are firmly reconciled in this work, all the way through. The sound of Balrog can be felt being a little more implicit on his unraveling of an ambiguous universe of grace and oblivion, as The Inquisitor, on the other hand, is more explicit on his showcasing of an imponderable galaxy of sensibility and cynicism.  

A great album for dark ambient/dungeon synth enthusiasts, Barad-Dûr is a masterful and highly worthwhile work of art, immensely valuable for each and every second of its music. An enchanted journey through a world of underlying and majestic infinity, the sensible sonorous diagram devised to make the audience dive into an overwhelming universe of obliteration and precious reflection will make you wake up as a different version of yourself, so deeply the sound make you immerse, so distant is the universe created and explored by this marvelous duo, as they reveal themselves incredibly capable and elevated high-ranking artists.   

 
Wagner

black metal

Sorg is an album by Danish black metal project Afsky. With a little more than forty eight minutes, the album has seven tracks: Jeg bærer deres lig, Skær, Sorte vand, Stjernerne slukkes, Vættekongen, Glemsomhedens elv and Oh måneløse nat. With aggressive, but also exceedingly sinister sonorous components, despite the fact that this album can be inserted in a more traditional category, Sorg has vehemence and a groundbreaking axis of its own, although in a more modest context. With the balance of very rapid harmonies, and slow conflagrations of sonorous patience as well, that gives rise to somewhat discreet disturbances beneath the surface of the sound, Sorg generally can be described as a very positive and laudatory anthem of anguish, designed to contemplate the aggressive void inherent to the destructive, sordid and cruel undermining protuberances of the human nature, always stained with an impenetrable darkness, that comprehends the reliance of the abstract demise of the general afflictions of our solemn perceptions of disgrace.    

With a great deal of harmonies giving rise to an infinitude of marvelous possibilities, the sonorous axis of Sorg – with underlying guitars sometimes aligned in a poetic confluence of invisible serenities, and pungent vocals that subsidizes a volatile, but conspicuous anger underneath a vociferating preamble of doom – is a bizarre, but effective union of subtlety and mordacity, that creates a sagacious exposition of melodic aspirations, that rise directly to the top of its inspirational elements. 

With the songs generally being direct, but overtly penetrating and incisive, the style of Afsky is a sinister and imponderable creation of diffuse melodies, that amalgamates in the universe of its splendorous cohesion the ambitious venom of the integrity of an indefinite agony in a lugubrious ambient of whimsical artistry; all perfectly aligned in a rhythmical structure that converges easily to a complementary ordeal of genuine veracities, ignited to make the audiences get lost inside a consistent sound of glorious fury and omnipotent majesty.  

In all of its compact, but at the same time renitent sonorous expansion, Afsky, on Sorg, displays a favorable level of competence, in the artistic as well as in the technical field, in a somewhat very uniform degree, unraveling a style that respects traditional black metal, but concomitantly integrates on a sensitive platform of marvelously crafted songs the very own essence of a peculiar creativity, surreptitiously delivering a singular universe of fury and sensibility that certainly deserves to be ostensibly highlighted among the enthusiasts of the genre.   


Wagner