EIGHT – ADVERSARIAL Death, Endless Nothing, and The Black Knife of Nihilism
As impressive as Adversarial have been on their past few releases, what they’ve achieved here is without a doubt their masterpiece. The 9 hymns that make up this record are sure to devastate all who lend their ears as “Dissenting the Waking Shell” kicks the album off and strikes quick with dissonant riff destruction and pummelling drums that twist and seamlessly waft through their progressions with the precision of a surgeon. Not to be left out, however, are the crushing gutturals that accompany this buffet of caustic Discordia. Like injecting steroids into an already immeasurably volatile beast, the vocals that spew forth are, at times, as if emitted from the three-headed hellhound Cerberus of Greek myth; bringing forth a cascade of demonic fury that simply puts the final product over the top.
Read the full review HERE…
SEVEN – ABYSSAL Antikatastaseis
Antikatastaseis invokes more atmosphere than albums of contemporaries like Portal. Every so often, there’s percussion music, heavy chugga-chugga and vocal chanting. The tempo changes vary so much, the album sounds like a ride into harsh realms, where land meets sea and suffocating smoke chokes the unintiated. The thousand and one riffs style does appear to be in good usage on Antikatastaseis. Each listen brings more of the little discordant melodies to the listener intent on unraveling this mystic experience. Somehow, a sensation of swirling into a void makes itself memorable to the listener in a way that few bands can replicate.
Abyssal have brewed this concoction slowly, and with Antikatastaseis, they’ve reached a pinnacle in creative activity. More than a catchy riff or so scattered about a song with standard structure, the music is chaotic, relentless, and ceaselessly satisfying. A new pillar in blackened death metal has been spawned.
Read the full review HERE…
SIX – SHROUD OF THE HERETIC Unorthodox Equilibrium
The title track kicks things off with the most perfect of intros that lulls and hypnotizes you with ritualistic repetition – that is, before a tidal wave of sound levels the absolute shit out of you. I’m talking full scale Death Metal annihilation here; huge, pummeling riffs, boulder shattering vocals, and of course, blast beats. As the song plays out and you work your way into the second track, it’s clear that the production values are way up on this release. The ambient, clean sections sound crystal clear, yet vibrant and atmospheric, dripping with foreshadows of the coming chaos. Meanwhile, when things kick into high gear, the sound is absolutely massive. Yet, you can pick everything out quite easily, which really highlights what the band is trying to achieve in a big way.
Read the full review HERE…
FIVE – KATECHON Coronation
Absolutely electric? My Satan, yes! The high-speed sections are addictive. Katechon push the pace like some kid somewhere is pushing their paraplegic grandma in a wheelchair off a cliff. Excited to bang your head to this? It’s warranted, Cvlt fanatics, as Katechon play very few slow segments by themselves. There’s some transitions to let loose the rung notes, which are interspersed with tremolo riffs all the same, so this ain’t boring in the least. Get your claws in the air, wave them like you just don’t care, and tell me if this ain’t the best shit NWN! has released all year.
The divebomb solos still make cameos. Thankfully, Katechon stick to their guns on this sophomore effort. The production is just clear enough to hear every instrument played with passion and conviction. And no, nobody has to worry about flute solos or nothin’ of that sort. We ain’t gypsies, for the love of Satan, so I won’t be listenin’ to fairy folk music when I play any Katechon records. What you’ve loved about them is still here. There’s less thrashy riffs and accompanying guitar acrobatics. Really, Coronation is black metal with death metal vocal vomits when it all comes down to it. The fact that they play the riffs well and the riffs rule – well, that’s to be expected. Katechon doesn’t disappoint. Hear this once or twice and see if you can nod off while you’re crossing the railroad tracks!
Read the full review HERE…
FOUR – VASTUM Hole Below
Delving deep into the psychosis of the individual and the multitude of cognitive dissonance-fueled anxieties that possess us, Vastum paint visions of the worst abuses, typically sexual in nature, and familial as well, if not in a largely religious way, bringing to the mind the idea that we’re all supposedly “Children of God.”
With that in mind, their new album is entitled Hole Below. That just sounds demented, right? Even if you haven’t been infected yet by their debut or their masterful follow up Patricidal Lust, the title alone of their new record is enough to give you pause – and rightfully so, for the canvas of this record is all but splattered with blood and semen. It seems fitting, then, that the dark aura of this album begins with an atmosphere that is reminiscent of Swans in nature, before Vastum decide to violate you with their patented mid-tempo attack. Rumbling along, “Sodomitic Malevolence” kicks the album off with the kind of mind fuck composition it deserves, as the haunting aura of its introduction continues to intermittently intercede on the action. Something that continues throughout the record, these obscured, echoing spoken vocals a la Michael Gira of Swans hover like the tormented subconscious of someone who has gone completely off the rails.
Read the full review HERE…
THREE – TRIUMVIR FOUL S/T
The songs don’t last too long. The first track, “Labyrinthine – The Blood Serpent Unwinds,” closes at nearly eight minutes in length and does a splendid job of transitioning from the intro to the actual sermon. It establishes the smoky, dusty atmosphere of music long-gone, exhumed at the risk of inducing the Armageddon. Death metal like this might be easier to come by these days, what with ancient death metal having seen a resurgence, but death metal this good isn’t quite as proliferate as many may think. It is of special note to audiences around the world who might have balked at An Oath of Blood and Fire that Triumvir Foul have released something far more menacing, something better than what you or I could have anticipated based on popular opinion surrounding their debut. Less hyped and back with a vengeance, Triumvir Foul knock on the doors of death metal elitism here.
Read the full review HERE…
TWO – GENOCIDE SHRINES Manipura Imperial Deathevokovil
This is perhaps ancient death metal the way Impetigo would have spawned out of the womb after having an immaculate conception while listening to death metal bands from Finland. “Immaculate Conception?” you ask, aghast at Al Necro. Try divine decomposition. Spawned from the rectum, brothers.
There’s some breakdown chugga-chugga a la ‘most morbid band ever’ Mortician, and blast sections that hurtle by like a cat-5 tornado tearing up a sewage tank. They reserve some groove for mid-tempo rockers like track four, “Ethnoheretical Padmavyuha Consecration,” but mostly, tempos change with regularity to keep the feces stinky. Filth and degradation, Manipura is the stuff of legend I love about the underground. Don’t care much for the Nile turning into blood? Genocide Shrines turns the Niagara Falls into cascading filth polluted beyond purgation. Did Moses part the Dead Sea at one point in biblical prophecy? Hear Genocide Shrines send molten excrement from a sewage tank bursting through the streets of the big city. The album begins and ends with tribal beat worship, but don’t you fuckers dare compare this demented piece of art with ‘Roots-era’ Sepultura. Cvlt ain’t having that, so GTFO nu metallers. Downpicks heavy enough to bring down a fort, cymbals crashing like a Baltimore riot, Genocide Shrines easily puts one into the Guinness Book of World Records. Darkest, heaviest band ever, meatheads!
Read the full review HERE…
ONE – PISSGRAVE Suicide Euphoria
First, the appalling cover art of this album is literally shoved down our throats in all its crude and unmistakable “honesty.” One does not simply look at this band’s album art, but is more like forced to tolerate it. The band did not even bother touching up the colors or making the artwork a bit less “bare bones” (no pun intended!), opting instead to grace their album with crude photography that looks like it came straight out off a nightmarish crime scene or from the mind of the most fucked in the head and mentally deranged freak. I’ll bet any money that the band took this imagery from Gore Junkies – it’s the only possible explanation, shit like this does not exist anywhere else. The amazing thing is that the music contained on this this disc does the art 100% justice, because we’re talking about some of the most barbaric, bestial, inhuman, cruel, sadistic and deviated death metal/grind we have set ears on in a loooooong ass time.
Read the full review HERE…
