As a pledged and proud purveyor of pessimism and particularly powerful pieces ov post-black pain, it’s probably presumed by you plebs that this puppet perceives positivity and pleasure as pointless and pathetic, practically on par with such unpalatable practices as publicly popping pimples or pooping in the pool.¹ Well, be proud, you presumptuous phucks poopyheads: you’re right. Everything sucks, and it’s all your fault. It’s hard for a Muppet to make much meaning of mankind’s minute moments of mirth when there’s just so much wrong with the world. I could go on forever about how humans are just the absolute fucking worst, but it wouldn’t sound anywhere near as glorious as King Apathy‘s latest sonic assessment of the essential suckiness of our species. So, in the interest of avoiding my transforming into a velvety Lewis Black, let’s rant talk write about Wounds instead.

One of my clearest takeaways from my introductory spin of Wounds was just how much it sounds like King Apathy (formerly known as Thränenkind). This is not to say that the band has run out of ideas, but rather that their ideas are starting to develop a vibrant musical identity of their own. Their style comes to life as the distinct sonic signature of a band that knows who they are and what they want to do. Throughout Wounds, serenely melancholic clean guitars dance with driving neo-crust, illuminated by the shimmering, aching post-metal tremolo accents that these Germans have become known for. Patience, pacing, and passion play important parts in the percussion performance, and their payout is perfect and powerful, particularly potent on pieces like “Cleansing” and “Revelation Time.” Nils Groth’s harsh, heartfelt hardcore hollering hangs by a hair on the edge of death metal growlhood with its intense conviction, honing his signature sound into something more passionately lethal than ever. Militantly eco-friendly monologue samples á la The Elk are minimized to maximize their impact, the lulls only lingering long enough for any given song to breathe before bouncing back to badassery. Wounds sees the band gathering everything that worked from The Elk and King Apathy and running with it to safety away from everything that didn’t. And on Wounds, they arrive at these promised lands where King Apathy rules at ruling how they rule with not one second of this 45-ish minute flight falling to frivolous filler.

Urgency and sincerity are the weapons which Wounds wields to win its war against a worthless world of generic humans and genre-ic clones. This is not an album of fretboard fireworks, nor does it wander particularly far outside any stylistic boxes, yet Wounds‘ fervent sincerity is undeniable in a way that propels an album straight past RotM consideration and directly to year-end list status. Christ, I didn’t even realize that a full six vocal-less minutes of “Earthmother Rising” had transpired until I happened to glance at my phone as Groth began his gravelly ode to earth’s equivalent of Madam X, such is its earnest sense of momentum.

Though the sonic sincerity of the instruments certainly sustains a state of serious strength throughout the album, the lyrics carry the brunt of Wounds‘ emotional weight, and with remarkable aplomb at that. “He Missed the Stars” never fails to transmute my velvet into goosebumps with its sustained sense of intensifying atmosphere, the message of “If love makes you uncomfortable, question yourself… I won’t tolerate your intolerance!” screamed against a melodic hardcore backdrop. “The Scars of the Land” similarly screams straight to my cynical, species-hating soul, stating that “this world… is not dying, it’s being killed” as energetic hardcore blasts and post-metal tremolo atmospheres coalesce into shimmering things of crushing beauty and painful truth. Such is Wounds, a musical gallery of the damage we’ve done thus far, baring the self-inflicted injuries of our species for all to hear in a post-hardcore package as poignant and powerful as its preaching.

While I admit to being just as stricken by Wounds as the illustrious Mark Z was by its predecessor, I can “only” give this gem a 4.5. It’s near-perfect, certainly the bands best and quite possibly the very best of its musical kind, and yet Wounds admittedly makes no attempts to push any musical envelopes. This is the only thing resembling fault that I can find here; in a way, Wounds is a perfect album for fans of this sound, but I would personally need to hear just a dash more innovation before betting it against an appointment with Happy Metal Guy.² Otherwise, Wounds is something seriously special, unquestionably proving that King Apathy truly are kings of their anything but apathetic niche.

Rating: 4.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Lifeforce Records
Websites: king-apathy.bandcamp.com | king-apathy.com | facebook.com/kingapathymetal
Releases Worldwide: February 22nd, 2019

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Hello, Friend. Are you still feeling sad because the latest Behemoth didn’t quite tickle your fancy? Are you experiencing anxiety and depression because you’re worried that your occult-themed music isn’t truly glorifying the Evil One?¹ Are you craving some sinister blackened death metal with a heaping helping of thrash, Crowleyan lyrics, and some tasteful symphonic accompaniment? Then ask your Angry Metal Preferred Network Dr. if Wachenfeldt is right for you. Its proprietary blend of the aforementioned genres is specifically formulated to blacken your soul and to ensure that you’ve never feldt better!

The Interpreter is the debut full-length² from the eponymous band named for Sweden’s Thomas von Wachenfeldt. His musical background is more than impressive, possessing a PhD in Music and working as both a researcher in Musicology and associate professor of music at Umeå University. He’s a renowned violinist and has released several classical and folk albums under his full name.³ His metal cred is established with his involvement in Wombbath as guitarist and vocalist, as well as arranging the symphonic elements and playing bass on Entombed‘s live version of Clandestine. Needless to say, the man’s resumé is killer, but does any of this translate into metallic success on Wachenfeldt‘s maiden voyage?

Fuck yeah it does. This is hands down one of the best albums I’ve heard in years. Wachenfeldt plays all of the instruments save the drums that are contributed by Jon Skäre and guitar leads which are performed by Martin Björkland. “Spirits of the Dead” kicks things off with a short key intro and a terrifying screech on Thomas’ violin before a series of chugging riffs leads into some gnarly thrash. Wachenfeldt also performs vocal duties, using a monstrous death roar to crush the verses while his keys add a subtle symphonic backdrop. Björkland adds a beautifully melodic solo before the song thrashes itself to closure, leaving me thinking that there’s no way any of the other tracks will be able to live up to the opener. I think wrong.

There are eleven tracks here with one being a perfectly placed interlude consisting of violin played over an orchestral arrangement. Any of the other ten could be the best track here. It could be the title track with its blackened death intro and pure symphonic black metal passages, “Athor and Asar” with its seriously grooving riffs, or “Colophon” with its modern Testament sound and an abyssal vocal delivery that had me raising invisible oranges and lip-syncing on each listen. It could be the slow-churning “Litany to Satan” with its creepy spoken word parts and blazing symphonic section, or it could be “The Ladder” which despite some black and death elements, I have no problem naming the most ferocious thrash song I’ve heard in years. Speaking of thrash, the band hits a cover of Slayer‘s “Necrophiliac” out of the park to close out the album. But if forced to pick a favorite, it would be “Ut” which starts with a bass solo that would make Joey DeMaio hard, launches into furious death/thrash, slows things down for spoken word verses over drums and bass, moves into a blackened crescendo chorus, proceeds to thrash its brains out, then finishes with some absolutely killer symphonic black/thrash. On paper this may sound like a mess, but it’s the best song I’ve heard all year.

All three musicians are absolute masters, but obviously Wachenfeldt takes the MVP award. His vocals, instrumental performance, and songwriting prowess is mind-blowing. He’s obviously talented beyond anything most people can imagine, but like Michael Romeo, he doesn’t allow his virtuosity to overshadow the primary purpose of music: creating great songs. The production is beautifully modern, with a guitar tone to die for and a rumbling bass presence that can be feldt at all times. I literally have no complaints about the album. Even the 63-minute runtime is not an issue, as each time The Interpreter ends, I must replay it.

I realize I’m fanboying pretty hard here, but this album is truly all killer from note one. The band makes this complex music seem so simple, makes this long album with long songs seem so much shorter, and creates an oppressive mixture of heft and melody that can only be matched in my mind by Sulphur Aeon‘s recent output. We’ve got a lot of 2019 left to go, but Wachenfeldt have just thrown down the metal gauntlet.

Rating: 4.5/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 268 kbps mp3
Label: Threeman Recordings
Websites: wachenfeldtband.com | facebook.com/wachenfeldtband
Releases Worldwide: February 22nd, 2019

The post Wachenfeldt – The Interpreter Review appeared first on Angry Metal Guy.

If life really is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing, then France’s Ataraxie have an unenviable inside line. Doom metal is always downtrodden, and its more extreme iterations never fail to manifest the maudlin. But the inherent ceremony and circumstance rarely coalesce into as voracious a sonic black hole as heard on Résignés. The band’s fourth album is an unnatural aperture into a single moment of crushing and immutable understanding. Although it doesn’t deviate from their discography’s trajectory, it just might perfect it. I often feel like death-doom has a retrospective quality. Lamentations of what could or should have been. Threnodies of times that will never be again. Résignés offers a much more horrific immediacy. This album is the instant the penny drops and reaches terminal velocity en route to the realization that the deaf ears we are screaming into are long dead. Résignês is the moment hope fails.

The album encapsulates the titular resignation that death is the only deliverance from an increasingly absent world. Over the course of four momentous songs, Résignés invites us to join Ataraxie on these final steps towards oblivion. To this end, the material is knowingly thematic. Opener, “People Swarming, Evil Ruling,” boasts the most traditional structure of the album and wields a dramatic death march as a main riff. Soon, a crooked melody appears and shepherds the leaden advance as it slips and slithers between the dense rhythm. It’s this vague beacon that guides us through the tumult, but as the album progresses, it also becomes more esoteric. The title track focuses less on typical riffing and more on churning passages that violently ebb and flow before an explosive finale. On the face of it, “Résignés” comes in answer to the previous song, but really it’s a microcosm of the entire album; a disoriented and reactive processing of an unwelcome reality.

Due to its pace, doom metal is often quantified with a lexicon that tends towards the minimalist. The key to Ataraxie‘s success is actually the material’s relative extravagance. Despite the often glacial pace, no part of the album is anything less than indulgent. Only one quarter of Résignés dips below the twenty-minute mark. But even the song lengths feel like a creative choice. Four titanic psalms whose tortuous span is a vain attempt to exorcise toxic emotion. Bassist, vocalist, and band mastermind Jonathan Théry delivers a tectonic death roar but also splices his performance with more legitimately pained screams. The combination works well to meld the two genres the band straddle. The death metal presented isn’t merely required to inform the vocals. Instead, it succinctly yet tempestuously stirs itself into the mix. “Coronation of the Leeches” opens with a lull, reeling from the title track. It soon begins to spasm with fits of schizophrenic rage before calming, only to inconsolably erupt again. The song fits the theme of denial. It’s a struggle, but an eventual concession.

The honesty of funeral doom lies in the genre’s clear warnings, like rare neon branded into monochrome flesh. For those with an aversion to ponderous form or overt song-length, Résignés is not for you. At 83 minutes, absolutely nothing about the album is casual. Résignés doesn’t lend itself to constant repetition and often exacts a heavy toll. There can be no denying it represents a challenge. But never a chore. Fortunately, we can all agree on the quality of the production. The unique feature of Ataraxie‘s current line-up is the inclusion of two new guitarists joining stalwart Frédéric Patte-Brasseur. The three combine beautifully in the mix and create a rich palette of guitar lines. Théry’s terrifying bass drives the vast riffs, so that when “Les Affres du Trépas” finally rolls around, we’re ready for the end. And that is exactly what the song is. It lumbers with a distraught trudge, which eventually turn into a heartbroken tremolo. It builds and builds before abruptly cutting off. Dead.

Ataraxie have carved grotesquely close to the bone. While, conceptually, it resigns itself to humanity’s inevitable collision course with disaster, culturally, Résignés also looks irrevocably forward. No other band can claim to progress the genre in such a way. If you have any interest in the evolution of extreme music and all that it implies, then this is mandatory listening. But beware: to indulge in Ataraxie‘s nihilism is to invite a neutron star of heaviness that crushes bone within seconds, but souls for all eternity.

Rating: 4.5/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Xenokorp/Deadlight Records/Weird Truth Productions
Websites: ataraxie.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/ataraxiedoom
Releases Worldwide: March 8th, 2019

The post Ataraxie – Résignés Review appeared first on Angry Metal Guy.

Confession time: I am not the biggest fan of technical death metal. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the classics, such as Death and Atheist, as well as choice cuts from Cynic. But the genre as a whole suffers from either too many scale acrobatics, or way too much chugging on the low string on a 7-, 8-, or even 9-string guitar to even warrant such a overly abused tag such as “technical.” In other words, technical metal bores me to tears most of the time. You know what doesn’t bore me, though? Canada’s Gomorrah. AMG Himself raved about the duo’s second album, the colossal The Haruspex, showing that, when done right, technical death metal can be just as powerful, catchy, and fucking brutal as its more visceral siblings.¹ What makes it odd is that we learned of its self-titled follow-up a mere week before release, and it almost didn’t get reviewed due to time constraints.

Which would be a shame, as this album straight-up dwarfs its predecessor. Sure, it still takes cues from Behemoth (atmospherically) and Anaal Nathrakh (brutally), but in the three years since The Haruspex, vocalist Jeff Bryan and guitarist Bowen Matheson have not only strengthened and broadened their capabilities, they somehow became stronger songwriters to boot.² Once opener “Ember” picks up from its ambient intro, all their trademarks appear: pitch-shifted guitar bends that ooze and undulate, rhythmic growling, and borderline militaristic drumming by hired drum god Hannes Grossman (Alkaloid, ex-Necrophagist/Obscura), but the hooks dig deeper than before. Once again, Matheson’s guitar work is in full, glorious display, but not once do his solos or hooks overpower the other instruments. Everything works together in lock-step, and “Embers” capably sets the album up for something special.

Because the rest of Gomorrah rips just as hard, if not harder. Lead-off single “Frailty” contains some of Grossman’s craziest fills and Matheson’s sickest modular bends, but instead of warring against each other, they fit in a pocket that grooves as tightly as it impresses. “For Those of Eld,” when it’s not blasting you a new orifice, floors you with some incredibly atmospheric passages and melodies. Closer “Of Ghosts and the Grave,” the song’s longest track at a hair under four minutes, builds to a powerful climax that leaves you wanting more. In fact, once the album wrapped up, I quickly kept replaying it. Not just for review purposes, but because I was honestly impressed by how tight, well-written, and beautifully fluid the album is.

Hell, even the production, this time by Grossman and Gomorrah themselves, saw a necessary face lift, giving the bass a little bit of wiggle room this time, and the drums sound and feel more organic.³ If there is a knock against Gomorrah it’s that once again the guitars take too much space front-and-center, but considering Matheson is a gifted songwriter and guitarist, it isn’t so much a complaint as an observation. Otherwise, I haven’t been this impressed by a technical death metal album without the words “Triumphant” or “Imperial” in the band name in a long time. None of the songs outstay their welcome, and each track is a brutal wonder to absorb and enjoy.

It’s not often that I gush over a death metal album. While my exposure to extreme music started via death metal, it’s largely left me unimpressed due to lack of creativity, with some massive exceptions. Gomorrah doesn’t bore, and Gomorrah deserves all the attention that will no doubt be shoveled their way on the strength of this album. In a just world, Gomorrah should be leveling heads while impressing the fuck out of everyone with not only their technical prowess, but their heft and songwriting. It’s truly your loss if you pass this one by.

Rating: 4.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 24-bit wav
Label: No Light Records⁴
Websites: gomorrahofficial.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/gomorrahofficial
Releases Worldwide: March 22nd, 2019

The post Gomorrah – Gomorrah Review appeared first on Angry Metal Guy.

The vaunted sophomore album. The dreaded sophomore album. It’s a metal rite of passage nowadays, fully reflective of our hyper-streamlined society, for the raw and promising to go from who-the-fucks to our favorite bands in an insanely compressed period of time. This tends to be especially true for AMG favorites—see Wilderun, Æther Realm, Khemmis, Cân Bardd, Altars of Grief, Hamferð, etc., etc. Since the opening bars of their 2016 debut Momento Mori, I prayed that someday Aephanemer would assume their rightful place in that most hallowed legion. The French quartet lacked polish, but succulent melodies and an air of elegance buoyed a debut that screamed “Next Big Thing.” But now duty demands patience and a stony gaze; no fanboying allowed. Prokopton must stand on its own, no matter how palpable my priapism.

Thankfully, Prokopton eases much of my apprehension post-haste. The opening title track immediately unfurls a clear blue sky and a rushing breeze, soaring over the once-fetid swamps of Kalmah now purified by poise and grace. “Prokopton’s” use of synth elements replicates the intent of those Finns, though in practice, the luminous orchestration—replete with essential violin tones—add a refined air. Martin Hamiche leads the geyser of riffs, their kinetics coalescing with the cascading strings of synth melody to make the title track’s rampant Kalmah-turned-Ensiferum energy direct and delicious. But while “Prokopton” works, it also feels relatively restrained, in danger of falling into the mid-tempo trap that defanged Memento Mori. Despite Hamiche’s delicious melodies, Aephanemer‘s earlier work exuded inexperience. The ingredients were there, but with less capable hands compiling them, something was missing: a draw, a pull, a cohesion to slap a bow on it.

Prokopton solves this issue in part by writing some of the best damn intros I’ve heard in this tired, beautiful genre. Seriously. Pop “The Sovereign” on and tell me you feel nothing in your cold, bored, prog-infested heart. Tell me you’d rather listen to more buried screams and blast beats than the burst of Running Wild exuberance of “Back Again,” or the oh-shit-here-comes-the-jam build on “Bloodline,” or the third-act immediacy of “Dissonance Within.” Whether or not the energy keeps up is beside the point (it often does, don’t fret); every song is set up for success. The songwriting displays a seasoned approach, aged unnaturally quick in three short years, utilizing those early earwvrms to their maximum capacity. Aephanemer flag and develop their core melodies smartly, building on Memento Mori‘s cards-on-the-table approach but adding a necessary level of complexity. The melodies are irresistible, slick without feeling cheesy, raising the bar higher and higher as the stacked tracklisting progresses. This may lead some to fatigue or the perception of wankery as the dense orchestration, the riff cannonade, the unrepentant energy can overwhelm with little respite. However, this is the trade-off necessary to excise the dull moments that plagued the over-long Memento Mori and it’s absolutely worth it. Aephanemer‘s improvement is immediate and immense.

Even extending past the songs, the record oozes quality (just look at that Nik Sundin art). Rhythm guitarist Marion Bascoul helms the mic, and does so with a unique blend of unconventional accent, controlled temper, and that distinctive timbre that female growls tend to have. Her subtle cadence shifts from verse to verse add essential variation to a less rangy delivery that might have felt rote without it. When she dips into her cleans on “Snowblind,” the sophistication and quality add depth to what is otherwise Prokopton‘s only less-than-legendary track. The Dan Swanö mix sounds gorgeous, working in Mickaël Bonnevialle’s drums in impactful ways and giving the overall production an unsynthesized beauty that melodeath often lacks. However, Lucie Woaye Hune’s bass needs more plump, squeezed out by an unforgiving master and the galaxy of layers fighting for air beneath it.

Whether because of “Bloodline” ratcheting up the energy to seemingly impossible heights, however the hell closer “If I Should Die” stays catchy for nine whole minutes, or the many, many riffs, hooks, nooks, and crannies that I can’t help but lose it to, Prokopton is firmly entrenched as my favorite melodeath record of the year. Hell, it’s probably only second to Tarot (another sophomore starlet) since I’ve started here. “The Sovereign” will likely muscle out the weak for Song o’ the Year because I’m predictable and it’s awesome. I’m having more fun loving this damn album than any released in almost two years. I hoped that like many metal darlings before them, Aephanemer‘s second record would begin their trek toward eventual stardom, but you know what? The sound is fresh. The execution is impeccable. Screw the eventual. Prokopton put Aephanemer in that conversation right this minute.

Rating: 4.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 1411 kbps PCM
Label: Primeval Records
Websites: music.aephanemer.com | aephanemer.com | facebook.com/aephanemer
Releases Worldwide: March 22nd, 2019

The post Aephanemer – Prokopton Review appeared first on Angry Metal Guy.

I’ve said it before: we love finding gems amongst the post-apocalyptic ruins of the promo bin. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does it is glorious. Perhaps the name Lör rings a bell? How about The Reticent? Heck, we can throw King Goat in there as well. All examples of unknown acts whose music blew us away. It’s a big part of why we review albums, to be honest. Sure the 0.5 and 1.0 reviews can be entertaining, but we would much rather have people talking about (and buying) the music rather than the review. Which makes me pretty happy to say I’ve found my latest gem in Birth of the Marvellous, the debut album from the shrouded-in-mystery band Sermon. Birth of the Marvellous is two things: it is a cinematic, epic, progressive metal concept album, and it is a masterpiece¹.

Essentially a one-man project, Sermon prefer to remain anonymous for the short term. The concept, songwriting, vocals, and almost all musical performances are provided by our hero. Wise to the fact that not all drums are programmed equal, he opted for a real drummer. Enter Vader’s James Stewart, who absolutely lays waste to the proceedings in every song. Like the drumming—and everything else about the album—the concept is simple yet complex. Spurred on by a terminal cancer diagnosis of Sermon’s father, he was inspired to create an album based on The Wandering Jew folktale, with a couple of twists: here, the wanderer takes to preaching the word of Christ, but eventually searches for a different answer, and finds it in the Max Ehrman poem Desiderata. Like I said, simple yet complex. But don’t be scared off by the presence of theology in this album: Sermon presents this more as a message of equilibrium than religion.

The entire album exudes a sense of mythic proportions, from the lyrics to the instruments chosen. At a concise seven songs and 41 minutes, there is no fat to trim. Each moment of each song is essential to the story. “The Descend” sets a tone that remains throughout: thick guitars and bass juxtaposed against Stewart’s complex drumming, with our hero’s vocals conveying an epic feel, augmented by gang chants on occasion. “Festival” is short and ominous, with deep, reverberating toms and a muted hook, and again with emotional, regal vocals. The most aggressive song is “Contrition,” loaded with double-time drumming and a hammering riff. Its heaviness in an album loaded with Katatonia-like atmosphere and feel is a breath of fresh air amongst other more cerebral and deliberate cuts.

Those songs come in the form of the final trio. “The Preacher” and “The Rise of Desiderata” both exude and amplify the legendary feel of Birth of the Marvellous. Sermon have studied their prog history. The former could be considered the climax of the album, with a stellar, patient arrangement, while the latter brings back earlier lyrics and motifs and reworks them into an immensely satisfying denouement. And the minute in “Chasm” between 2:00 and 3:00 should serve as the ultimate example of a clean, simple, and effective arrangement.

Birth of the Marvellous is an album that has been put together with painstaking care. In the works for six years, Sermon took this album to producer Scott Atkins, who was key to its final sound. Atkins’ work is familiar to us—he produced albums from acts such as Gama Bomb and Cradle of Filth—but this has to be looked upon as his crowning achievement. Every sound, every instrument’s position in the mix, every choice of character in the vocals verges on perfection. While the vocals of Sermon are not the most technically amazing, they possess a definite charisma, whether in the hushed whispers, the Porcupine Tree-like muffled lines, the occasional growls, or the layers of gang vocals that shine a light on the fanaticism of certain parts of the story. Atkins eschews the usual hi-fi bass sound here, instead letting it rumble and throb strongly beneath the layers of guitars and rich Mellotron. There is no fault to find in regards to production.

Really, it’s hard to find any fault here. The seconds of “Festival” between 2:50 and 3:00 ring slightly empty compared to the rest of the song–that’s the only nit I’ve been able to jot down. How do I know Birth of the Marvellous is a fantastic album? In the twelve days prior to penning this review, I’ve played the thing more than thirty times–despite the fact that I’ve got literally dozens of other albums waiting to be played. I keep coming back to it, even when I shouldn’t. What Sermon have created here is nothing short of marvellous. Step aside, Soen: we have a new front-runner for progressive metal AotY.

Rating: 4.5/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Prosthetic Records
Websites: sermonsound.bandcamp.com | sermonsound.com | facebook.com/sermonsound
Releases Worldwide: March 22nd, 2019

The post Sermon – Birth of the Marvellous Review appeared first on Angry Metal Guy.

In the beginning, there are only faint, oblique details. Scattered hints of an eerie theme repeated by bubbling analogue synthesizers and their faux operatic voices floating in a vast chamber. Syntheosis’ first cut “Void Monolith” leaves the impression of a minimalist prologue for a labyrinthine, perverted science fiction show from the sixties. A depraved homage to Hawkwind and Delia Derbyshire, perhaps. But beneath this ethereal façade, heavier and darker clouds of crumbling riffs stir. And then—the explosion! As the second minute of “The Shamanic Vision” passes by, the coalesced force of Finnish bands Oranssi Pazuzu and Dark Buddha Rising is revealed in its full, utter grandeur. The soundscape is suddenly overwhelmed by a clash of sounds. Malevolent growls of a mad zealot proselytize, recite, and contort while frenzied tremolos and filthy sludge heaviness intertwine with ritualistic rhythms, rolling drums, incisive sitar plunks, and synth-laden drones. It’s a stunning climax to a build-up that announces a record infused with psychedelia, metallic mass, and divination.

A certain thespian poise dominates throughout Syntheosis, the piece originally commissioned for Roadburn Festival 2018 and then turned into a proper studio recording. Highly conceptual, Waste of Space Orchestra narrate a quite demented story somewhere between magical realism and occult horror. The album develops intently and purposefully, tracing the lines of an imagined ritual and its performers, three mysterious creatures that aim “to open a portal that will suck them into a different reality of brain-mutilating color storms and ego-diminishing audio violence.” The three protagonists—The Shaman, The Seeker, and The Possessor—each possess a voice (and vocalist) of their own accompanied by corresponding musical themes, symbols of certain facets of humanity. Not quite demons, not quite angels, but a bit of both. Musically speaking and true to the album’s name, Oranssi Pazuzu and Dark Buddha Rising synthesize rather than just collaborate, pulling various influences in their storytelling. While Waste of Space Orchestra obviously shares traits and stylistic flourishes with both bands, it is ultimately a thing of its own.

Post-punk rhythms, a Virus-like inflection, and harmonized choruses indebted to space rock emerge on the scorching “Seeker’s Reflection.” “Wake Up the Possessor” follows up by summoning a coven of cackling witches that dance towards a slow blackened death implosion accompanied by weaving bass lines. These familiar licks are incorporated deliciously. Elsewhere, the Yin and Yang of “Infinite Gate Opening” and “Vacuum Head” contrast hypnotic invocations with minimal instrumentation and propulsive, buzzing black metal crests. But it’s the long, meandering “Journey to the Centre of Mass” that is the standout here. Centered around an Earth-like cadenza driven by resonating low frequencies and the meditative drone of blues-tinged guitar leads, it slowly builds up speed, turning from mild-mannered and melancholy into a progressive sludge monster underlined by a black metal ferocity and psychedelic tapestry. The songwriting is assertive as it eclipses the album’s concept and dictates the narrative, creating interconnected cuts that function both as stand-alone pieces and as movements of an overarching epic work. As soft ambiance and oscillating textures of “The Universal Eye” lead into the closing, majestic title track, Syntheosis teeters between pandemonium and anger on one side and a creepy sense of calm on the other. Because of this duality, hellish growls, alien electronic noises, and towering guitar riffs will make the song’s fade out sound like a loud and furious question mark.

Recorded in a studio rather than capturing the orchestra’s actual performance at Roadburn, Syntheosis is characterized by an organic, warm, and at times expansive sonority that often evokes Hexvessel’s enveloping atmospheres. The sound of individual instruments is round and hazy—drums hit curiously softly but with a sense of heft, guitars murmur with subdued aggression—yet the production and mastering seem deliberate in projecting an otherworldly, uncanny feel. Despite the band being composed of ten musicians, they manage to eschew the pitfalls of large groups whose busy sections overflow and saturate the band’s vision. Instead, they suppress their egos and engage in restrained interactions interspersed with silences and pauses.

With such a bizarre concept and combination of styles, it’s a small miracle of how coherent, focused, and easily enjoyable Syntheosis really feels. Each listen introduces a new and slightly different trip into the eternal world that Waste of Space Orchestra have built. A triumphant album that feels complete and that would perhaps be best left without further installments.

Rating: 4.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 256 kbps mp3
Label: Svart Records
Websites: wasteofspaceorchestra.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/wasteofspaceorchestra
Releases Worldwide: April 5th, 2019

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In my three years with this blog, I have never had as much difficulty penning an introduction as with Kull‘s debut record, Exile. This is not due to any conflicting feelings about the subject at hand; rather, I’m petrified of underselling just how monumentally special Kull is to me. Their existence is borne from the ashes of Bal-Sagoth, an English band that is a permanent staple of my listening rotation, and whose output fizzled out just before I stumbled upon them in 2008. Mind you, my ongoing affection for them does not stem from sentimentality or nostalgia. Bal-Sagoth excelled through sheer bombastic fun alone, combining lush orchestrations and thrashing blackened metal with unique tonality ranging from sinister to heroic. No other band sounds like them, making Kull—comprised of four of five Bal-Sagoth members, sans vocalist Byron Roberts—the first new band in over a decade to scratch an extremely specific itch. For me, Exile is a miracle of a record. On its own merits, it’s an absolute triumph.

Though aesthetically nearly identical to Bal-Sagoth, Kull recontextualizes their established tool set to offer a more compelling duality of symphonic majesty and rhythmic weight. While a handful of tracks, such as “A Summoning to War,” are reminiscent of the sugar rush bombast that defined albums like Battle Magic, much of Exile is darker and heavier than any record that precedes it. Kull smartly capitalizes on the resulting breathing room to craft a remarkably rich soundscape. Synthetic brass and strings, ethereal choirs, and oddball electronic effects play off each other in layers I’m still discovering after countless listens, yet never invalidate or overpower the metallic instrumentation. The colossal, earth cleaving riffs—hybridized of equal parts black, death, and thrash metal—pack as much character as any symphonic ornamentation, resulting in an experience that is equal parts breathtaking and skull crushing.

Exile’s dynamic ethos extends beyond its instrumentation, permeating the very structure of Kull’s compositions. Many tracks exhibit the songwriting chops of brothers Chris and Jonny Maudling at their dramatic peak. “Vow of the Exiled,” for instance, offers a steadfast ascent towards catharsis as riffs play off each other in increasing complexity, while the brisk melodeath center of “By Lucifer’s Crown” is book-ended by the record’s most crushing death metal chugs. Yet Exile’s remarkable pacing wouldn’t be possible without the inclusion of tracks which excel through sheer simplicity. The aforementioned “A Summoning to War,” as well as the exceptional, abbreviated blast of thrashing metal that is “Pax Imperialis,” inject the proceedings with welcome shots of brevity. Even so, special commendations must be given to Exile‘s longest cut, “Aeolian Supremacy,” as its ghostly grandeur is of a caliber the Maudlings never achieved prior.

My biggest concern with Exile was whether new vocalist Tarkan Alp could successfully carry on the legacy of Bal-Sagoth’s Byron Roberts, namely his trademark narrative delivery. While Alp’s narration feels rough on occasion, Kull utilizes these sections far less often than Bal-Sagoth, leaving more room for Alp to flex his amazingly diverse harsh singing skills. From vile, blackened rasps to guttural death metal roars, Alp offers an unprecedented array of tones, often stacked in caustic harmony to give one the impression of a raiding barbarian horde. Alp’s narrations are often obscured beneath the instrumentals,¹ but Exile’s mix is otherwise well balanced and surprisingly dynamic. The meaty, high-gain guitar tone, borrowed from the final Bal-Sagoth record The Chthonic Chronicles, is carefully balanced so as not to drown out the vast array of sounds. This is unquestionably a better sounding record than anything produced under the Bal-Sagoth banner, though some may find the bouncy snare drum tone off-putting.

In a modern landscape where symphonic metal is defined by relentless, empty bombast, Kull has doubled down on the quirky niche carved out by the six Bal-Sagoth records that preceded their formation. Yet Exile is no mere shadow; it effectively explores darker, more nuanced territory, bolstering dynamism without sacrificing a drop of that special Bal-Sagoth sauce. Perhaps its greatest strength, however, is that it manages to pull all of this off while being relentlessly fun, making for an album which offers an incredible value of towering ambition paired with joyous excess. If this is your first run-in with the work of the Maudling brothers, I can’t recommend Exile enough as a jumping off point. If, like me, you’ve been anticipating it as a payoff to over a decade of Bal-Sagoth drought, it’s a work that’s more than worth the agonizing wait.

Rating: 4.5/5.0
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 256 kbps mp3
Label: Black Lion Records Official | Bandcamp
Websites: kullblacklion.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/kullmetal
Releases Worldwide: May 24th, 2019

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Stagnation is a problem. In this wondrous day and age where music can be shared across the globe at a mere few clicks, you’d think that “too much of the same” in metal would be a laughable concept. Instead, it’s an actual problem. An uncountable number of fledgling bands are being influenced by the same big acts and creating essentially the same sound over and over again. There is nothing more exciting in this musical sphere than a band that breaks the cycle of stagnation, who smashes through stereotypes and clichés both to rise above the rest and revitalize their sad, tired genre. Symphonic metal, I give you Embrace of Disharmony and their sophomore effort: De Rervm Natvra.

Actually, calling Embrace of Disharmony a symphonic metal band isn’t entirely accurate. This Italian act plays avant-garde orchestral metal, and their sound is so immense as to be a bit difficult to describe. You’ve got the over-the-top grandeur of Nightwish and Epica, touches of Ayreon, Native Construct, and Ne Obliviscaris on the edges, the absolute eclecticism of the Diablo Swing Orchestra, and about a thousand other subtle influences that mesh together into cohesive glory. It’s the eclecticism I’d like to highlight, however, as each song on De Rervm Natvra completely eschews traditional symphonic metal structures. Take the singing. Gloria Zanotti and Matteo Salvarezza both sing, narrate, and growl as songs demand. Often, they sing together, but whether they’re singing the same lines in harmony, the same lines with different rhythms, or two completely different lines at once shifts multiple times per song. They work more like twin guitars than harmonized leads, and they sound incredible together. Occasionally, their different paces or lyrics will bring them together for but a single word, but the effect is utterly mesmerizing.

Oh, but there’s so much more to this glorious eclecticism that singing. Songs across the album leap from one idea to the next, with many tracks being unrecognizable in their interludes from their primary themes and introductory ideas. The amazing thing about it is that it works. It really, really works. “De Primordiis Rervm” showcases the band at its wildest, incorporating blast beats, electronica, shrieked lyrics, elegant symphonic leads, a mesmerizing and progressive guitar solo, and soaring twin vocal leads. And none of this insane variety ever feels forced or unnatural. On the contrary, the incredible passion these musicians have for their craft is what shines through more than anything else. I could try naming off a favorite song from the album, but it would be a solid seven-way tie.¹ I likely would highlight “De Mortalitate Animae,” however; whether in the quiet crooning that opens the song, the incredible guitar solo towards the end, or the manic passion born when the rising orchestral interlude meets icy, black-metal-style rasps at the song’s climax, the result is outstanding and powerful.

De Rervm Natvra is an emotional, epic, fun, and fascinating foray into symphonic metal, and everything about this album supports those qualities. The production manages to make room for every element of the band’s sound, and balances each element with grace. No single instrument—including the singing—is ever truly overpowering. Even the lyrics² are exhaustively researched and carefully crafted.³ Everything about this album comes together in exactly the right way; it’s a clear result of a dedication and passion that eclipses its stagnated competition in a big way.

So De Rervm Natvra is symphonic metal in the same way that Æther Realm is melodeath or Wilderun is folk metal. They go above and beyond their genre conventions to create something that sounds new and incredible. Honestly, I thought this genre had peaked. Embrace of Disharmony have proved me utterly and completely wrong. I have never been so happy to have been so thoroughly disproved in my life.

Rating: 4.5/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 256 kbps mp3
Label: My Kingdom Records
Websites: embraceofdisharmony.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/embraceofdisharmony
Released Worldwide: June 7th, 2019

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While a lack of standards coupled with an uncanny ability to sniff out atmoblack trvffles has certainly made my time in the ranks a little less hazardous than all the prospective n00b reading materials had lead to me to expect, something has been missing from my angry metal experience all the same. Sure, I’ve been fortunate to handle a few excellent albums by some big names that I adore, and Gaerea certainly stand out in the steadily expanding sea of my scribed selections, and yet I am unfulfilled – bitter, even. I write for Angry Fucking Metal Guy, damn it, where’s my Cloak of Ash, my Yodh, The Bleakness of MY Constant? This site has introduced me to countless gems that have captivated me and permanently improved my life in inimitable ways, yet even my most heartfelt exercises in overrating have failed to yield ‘that’ album unto me… until now. With Theia, the sophomore full-length from Austria’s Glare of the Sun, I have found completion, something that fills my Muppet void in ways that would make Ron Jeremy blush.

Theia is dense and layered, presenting enough musical variety to chew on as to give a weaker Muppet TMJ. Glare of the Sun operate in a manner not too terribly far removed from Dead to a Dying World or labelmates Oceanwake, weaving harsh and soothing textures together into a multifaceted monolith. Sludge, prog, death-doom, post metal, folk metal and ambience are all key structural components of the dark altar that these Austrians have constructed. Glare of the Sun blend this sonic palette into something inherently dark, even in its lightest shades; while “III” wears its death-doom sadboiness on its sludgy sleeve, the gentle proggery and post-metal atmospheric elements of “IV” instill a somewhat sanguine sense to the sepulchral scenery – only to be swiftly swallowed by an onslaught of somber, stoic sludge at the songs cessation. Even the wistful folk acoustics of “VI” end on a decidedly dark note; a lot happens during these XII songs, and none of it is cheerful.

The essence of Theia cannot be effectively bound to any one particular genre, but that isn’t to say that names can’t be dropped to leave a trail of references leading one to Glare of the Sun. The heaviest moments of the album, given to bouts of chunky chugging and melancholic melodies, make me envision a more polished and death-centric The Great Cold Distance -era Katatonia (“II”), or else the brutiful lovespawn of Ghost Brigade and Cult of Luna when post and sludge elements come into play (“III”). The cleaner side of things can recall anything from the airy prog of modern Anathema to the darker, stirring acoustics of October Falls, and all of this disparity is made to work together in a way that I’ve witnessed but had yet to stumble across during my own explorations of The Promo Zone.

Clocking in at just over an hour, my watch and my Angry Metal Brainwashing Elite Conditioning tell me that Theia should be a lengthy, dragging experience, but my earballs tell a different story. These songs gather and release their energy with the cohesive momentum of a concept album, with melodies occasionally recurring to further suggest a unitive component to the compositions.¹ Given the major doom element of the bands sound, it’s no surprise that some passages – such as the sinister Opethian prog stretch that starts off “VII” – are allowed to age gracefully before the next new riff can reign, yet constant subtle adjustments within these sustained segments help maintain a sense of perpetual motion. By the time “VI” ends a full half-hour has already passed, and yet this hardly feels like the case given the plethora of pessimistic sounds that has preceded this halfway mark.

The absence of justice and glistening musclebound ruffians from its album art will prevent Theia from claiming its rightful place among June’s Records o’ the Month in this the year ov our Jørn 2019; malnourished attention spans, a need for instant gratification and generally inferior tastes will likewise prevent many from reveling in its full glory, but fuck them such is life, yo. Make what you will of the rating, Theia is possibly my favorite find since starting here, and it’s certainly at the top of my 2019 shortlist; points were docked for the sake of the impatient and the preservation of fingers, but strictly subjectively speaking I could personally get behind the heretical notion that Glare of the Sun have given me a perfect album.

Rating: IV.V/V
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Lifeforce
Websites: glareofthesun.com | facebook.com/glareofthesun
Releases Worldwide: June 21st, 2019

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“Okay. As I stand out here in the wonders of the unknown at Hadley, I sort of realize there is a fundamental truth to our nature: Man must explore.” – David R. Scott, Apollo 15, July 31, 1971 upon being the seventh person to ever set foot on the Moon.

Luca Turilli—the primary composer and guitar hero of various versions of [Luca Turilli’s] Rhapsody [of Fire]—represents one of two types of successful musicians, for me. If one groups successful artists by attitude toward change, I posit that you’ll find two attitudes that can be grouped as either high or low openness to experience. In the group “low openness to experience,” you’ll find bands like Iced Earth, whose founder and primary composer once told a group of fans that he had stopped listening to new music to not be influenced by anything that would change their sound.¹ These bands are the stalwart soldiers of metal, producing album after album of solid riffs and ideas that work but that few would accuse of being adventurous. The second group, “high openness to experience,” fulfill the classic stereotype of the “flighty” artist: interested in creating something new, challenging and interesting and are always moving on to the next project. Here you find Alex Skolnick or the guys from Dodecahedron / Our Oceans,² or Kristoffer Rygg from Ulver. These are musicians who long to do something else, who want to experience what’s out there and who aren’t afraid of experimentation.

Luca Turilli fits into the high openness to experience camp. He has never settled in one place for too long. Even the initial incarnation of Rhapsody was offset by solo records and side-projects. And when Turilli returned Rhapsody of Fire to the epic power metal fold on The Frozen Tears of Angels, it was because he had rediscovered his passion for neo-classical guitar and he wanted to do it better than ever. The downside, of course, is that Turilli can seem flighty. It can be hard to keep track of his projects. For example, he dissolved his most recent incarnation of Luca Turilli’s Rhapsody and went on a farewell tour having apparently given up on the style altogether.³ But thanks to the success of the collaboration with longtime bandmate and friend Fabio Lione,⁴ yet another new vessel for Turilli’s art has been born: Turilli / Lione Rhapsody. And the band’s debut album Zero Gravity: Rebirth and Evolution is out July 5^th from Nuclear Blast.

Zero Gravity sports a recognizable core sound and musicians whose names longtime fans will recognize. With Turilli on keys and guitars and Fabio singing, the rest of the band is made up of longtime members of the [Luca Turilli’s] Rhapsody [of Fire] constellation. Re-emerging on the drums is Alex Holzwarth and he’s accompanied by Patrice Guers, the longtime bassist for various versions of Rhapsody. Similarly, Dominique Leurquin has continued as Luca’s replacement now that he is more keyboard player than guitarist. Together, these musicians are finely honed to drop the music you expect: pummeling rhythms, heavy riffing, bombastic orchestrations, cinematic choirs and, over all of it, the instantly recognizable wails of Fabio Lione. Summed up, Zero Gravity sounds like a rebirth and evolution of Rhapsody.⁵

The rebirth is clear, in particular, on the first half of the album. Tracks like opener “Phoenix Rising” and the third track “Zero Gravity” find the band kicking out chorus-heavy, guitar happy, memorable anthems that pulse with their unique drama. On the record’s first single, “D.N.A.,” Luca penned a fantastic metal duet between Elize Ryd of Amaranthe and Fabio. These tracks are heavy, catchy and fun. Still, nothing about these songs is surprising. Instead, the opening salvo of the album seems to drive a heavy metal bayonet charge up the metaphorical Pork Chop Hill of change. And even within the familiarity of these opening tracks, Zero Gravity leans away from the band’s time-worn formula and allows Rhapsody to lean in to their journey.

One clear evolution is that Turilli and Lione chose to avoid their most notorious tropes from the last two decades. Zero Gravity lacks a narrator, for example, instead, using clips from the Apollo 15 landing to set the feeling. Furthermore, the record makes use of a sound palette that is much more modern and electronic, combining classic orchestrations with electronic sounds similar to Michael Romeo‘s astounding War of the Worlds or the Mass Effect 3 soundtrack. Zero Gravity‘s b-side—following the orchestral track “Origins”—also showcases Rhapsody exploring a sound that is more progressive and experimental. Tracks like “Multidimensional” and “I Am” remind me of later–era Angra, with rotating time signatures or catchy choruses that lack the classic anthemic nature of Rhapsody‘s classic sound. But more impressive is Luca’s continued mastery of vocal and choral arrangements. Sometimes, this sports a progressive Queen vibe (“I Am”) or shows up as a quasi-pop-opera duet (on the aforementioned “D.N.A.). At its best, though, vocal and piano arrangements that swell with the romance of Chopin’s compositions and classic opera allow Fabio to open up his vocal performance. “Amata Immortale” is an operatic ballad which features a huge choral and percussion build and which shines. And “Arcanum (Da Vinci’s Enigma),” blends the orchestral and electronic to create an enormous, driving sound that is both classic Rhapsody and something more evolved.

On Zero Gravity, Turilli and Lione are speaking to the fundamental nature of true artistry: Humans must explore. As with anyone on a journey, Turilli, Lione and company have a starting point in the familiar metallic excesses of Rhapsody‘s sound, but Zero Gravity demonstrates that they are ready for much more. Zero Gravity is bombastic and it is huge. And, yes, it is without doubt a Rhapsody album. But there is a spirit of adventure here and, better than that, it has carved out the space for them to continue pursuing experimentation and new ideas. And it’s this evolution and development—most prominently displayed on the album’s second half—that really moves Zero Gravity from a very good or great work into the realm of excellence.

Rating: Excellent!
DR: 6 | Media Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Nuclear Blast
Websites: tlrhapsody.com | facebook.com/tlrhapsody
Release Dates: Out Worldwide on July 5th, 2019

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This album will take years off your life. It is exfoliant, defoliant, supreme scourer of the Earth. You’ve heard death metal before. Maybe you’ve even heard slam. Maybe you’re a total slam fiend; even then, you’re still not prepared for this record. Maybe, just maybe, you’re familiar with Christopher Scotese’s work mapping and visualizing continental drift through time. If you are, recall that about 80 million years ago the Indian subcontinent, until this point a background character in tectonics at large, suddenly jettisons Madagascar to the West and just books it North, plowing into Asia to create the geologic equivalent of the Vulgar Display of Power cover. That’s what Obscene Majesty is like.

If you already hit the embed and feel inquisitive as to the reason for your sudden sepsis, a little background might help. Devourment are the band that all the other old-school slam bands fail to properly emulate. If Suffocation’s “Liege of Inveracity” was God’s creation of slam, Devourment’s Molesting the Decapitated is Solomon’s slam temple. The band’s apparent goal with Obscene Majesty was to recreate that temple for the heathen era in which we find ourselves. They did it and more. Twenty years after Molesting the Decapitated, they’ve delivered another game-changing album. Obscene Majesty is the new benchmark of brutality, and no review could convince you of this as completely as hearing “Cognitive Sedation Butchery” can.

What’s most striking about Obscene Majesty isn’t how it captures slam but rather how it captures Devourment. With Brad Fincher behind the kit and Ruben Rosas up front, it’s no surprise that the album follows up and expands on the Decapitated sound, which grounds its extremity not in the technicality of Disgorge or the deathcore trappings of Vulvodynia, but in an intelligent and thrilling arrangement of grooves, slams, and blasts. “Arterial Spray Patterns” takes the album down to its slowest crawl before embarking on one of its fastest blasts to guide the song towards ever more organ-shriveling slams. “Profane Contagion” argues for a place at the top of the ten-song heap with spine-cracking grooves and rattling pick scrapes. The closest the album gives you to a moment of rest is the gradual fade-out of the ending slam of “Sculpted in Tyranny.” Every song on this album should be a controlled substance, but it’s not because of the writing alone – it’s in the sound.

Obscene Majesty was recorded inside of a running cement mixer. It’s a slam album that cops the aesthetics of Portal albums and proceeds to make Vexovoid sound like Oceanborn. This sound is of impenetrable grime and grit, and every note that isn’t palm muted rings out like a suspension bridge snapping in half. Sure, the production work here – courtesy of D. Braxton Henry, another veteran of ‘90s Devourment – is jaw-dropping, but it’s not the recording itself or the not-even-all-that-hot master producing most of this horror. Rather, it’s the carefully defaced bass and, most importantly, cavernous eight string guitar tones combining into wet noise concrete. Henry gives this filth center stage but still rarely loses the other instruments in the mire, as Fincher’s kick and cymbal work and Rosas’ drainpipe belches never surrender to the noise. The only downside to a sound this massive and distorted is that it can be hard to coax audio equipment into clearly articulating the album; magnets quake in its presence, both physically and spiritually.

Devourment have been refining these songs for five years and the extreme care they took could not be more obvious. Across 47 minutes the band maintain the highest standard of brutality and never lose the listener’s attention, always ready to clobber with a new riff or a brilliant, thuggish slam. Even for most metal listeners, an album this impenetrably punishing will be too much, but those masochistic and deranged enough to bear its weight will be smitten. Obscene Majesty is not just a great slam album or a great death metal album; it’s one of the greatest metal albums of the decade.

Rating: 4.5/5.0
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 1056 kbps FLAC
Label: Relapse
Websites: devourment.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/devourment
Releases Worldwide: August 16th, 2019

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When you gaze upon the gorgeous artwork adorning the new Atlantean Kodex opus, does it remind you of another classic album cover? Look closely. If your metal mind went back through time to Bathory‘s Blood Fire Death, you win the Steel ov Approval. And it seems the similarity in art is anything but accidental. After impressing the metalverse with 2013s The White Goddess, the band took their sweet time crafting a followup, and the long-awaited The Course of Empire definitely dials up the Bathory-esque epic Viking side of Atlantean Kodex‘s mammoth heavy metal sound. Along with the band’s usual While Heaven Wept meets Manowar on Manilla Road take on oversized throwback metal, there’s a powerful Hammeheart influence under-girding the already titanic, soaring compositions, making for a heavier, darker sound. With over an hour of Homeric bombast and wanton excess to battle through, it takes a strong back and an iron will to weather this storm, so lash yourself to the mast, ignore the Siren’s song and let’s set sail to high adventure.

After a mighty intro builds a giant-sized mood with Markus Becker dramatically intoning on empires rising and falling, you’re treated to the 9-minute majesty of “People of the Moon” and all its stately grandeur and opulent metallic adornments. It’s the classic Kodex tune, driven by a mixture of doom riffs, and heavier, Viking-esque battle leads, then topped off with Becker’s soaring vocals. It’s as if Manowar circa Into Glory Ride tried their hand at doom, and it’s glorious to behold. Heavy, melodic and accessible as all hell, it’s what epic metal should sound like right down to the most minute detail – the lofty, fist in the wind chorus, the emotional ebbs and flows, the ability to make the music feel ginormous, it’s all here. You’ll be strapping on the Chest Plate ov Bravery before the song is even half over, and if you haven’t become a king by your own hand by its conclusion, you’re no Cimmerian. Brilliant, timeless stuff, and there’s so, so much more to come. “Lion of Chaldea” is every bit as immense, sounding like a metalized retelling of Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven. It’s stout, catchy and gorgeously lush – a sweeping panorama of metal with a chorus that sticks like tar. “Chariots” begins life with ominous, weighty doom riffs that recall To Mega Therion era Celtic Frost before transitioning into Immortal-meets While Heaven Wept, and the early days Manowar influence is never far away.

As “The Innermost Light” takes flight, it’s almost impossible not to hear “The Misty Mountains Cold” from The Hobbit before the battle axes are handed out. The minor touches of classical orchestration and church organs add a greater sense of grandeur and awe, and the short runtime leaves you wanting more. The album’s back-half is one monstrous epic after another starting with “A Secret Byzantium,” which is a commanding tune – the kind you want blasting as you march into the final battle of Ragnarok, and it’s one of the band’s finest moments – massive, monolithic and as mighty as a song can be without reaching out of your speakers to hand you Excalibur. “He Who Walks Behind the Years” introduces a dose of John Arch era Fates Warning in its proggier structure and vocal patterns, and this one grew to become one of my favorite moments of the album. The biggest set piece comes at the end with the nearly 11-minute title track, and following so many huge, overwhelming compositions, it had to really shine to stave off battle fatigue and Dragon Derangement Disorder, and fortunately, shine it does. It’s almost like a dream collaboration by Bathory, Running Wild, Doomsword, and While Heaven Wept, and it’s just a slobberknocker of an epic metal melting pot. So noble, so regal, this is what classic metal is all about.

The only complaints I have are minor. Some songs could have been trimmed down a tad, especially the title track which seems to wind out, only to surge back for 4 more minutes, approximating the never-ending ending of LotR III: Return of the King. I could quibble and say the highs here are not quite as high as those on The White Goddess, but these are small matters, and what Atlantean Kodex has wrought is a mammoth victory. The band builds one colossal song after another, full of gripping moments and bold bravado, and the entirety of it is amazing to experience. Markus Becker outdoes himself, channeling John Arch and Hammerfall‘s Joachim Cans as he glides over the hefty riffs like an iron eagle, bringing trve metal to the filthy, oppressed masses. He’s the ringmaster in this legendary saga and takes the songs to places many frontmen couldn’t. Manuel Trummer and new axe Coralie Baier piledrive the album with thick, weighty riffs that straddle the doom and Viking genres adroitly. Their playing keeps the material heavy and full of gravitas no matter how melodic Becker’s vocals get¹, while their restrained, tasteful and beautiful solo-work transports you to majestic mountain vistas and ancient battlegrounds now at peace. The entire band is in peak form, and they truly accomplished something special here.

The White Goddess was going to be a tough album to top, but Atlantean Kodex has indeed topped it with The Course of Empire. This is the crown jewel of their discography and cements their status as the premier epic metal masters, bar none. It’s a monolithic magnum opus, taking the best of traditional and extreme metal and forging them into the mightiest of war hammers. I’m highly impressed by this record and look forward to having a deep and abiding friendship with it over the coming decades. Guards, knights, squires, prepare for battle!

Rating: 4.5/5.0
DR: 10 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Ván Records
Websites: atlanteankodex.de | atlanteankodex-vanrecords.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/atlantean-kodex
Releases Worldwide: September 13th, 2019

The post Atlantean Kodex – The Course of Empire Review appeared first on Angry Metal Guy.

If there was ever a case of a band’s name totally not fitting their style, we’ve found it here with Fvneral Fvkk. When I see that godawful moniker all I can think of is some lo-fi garage black thrash band that sounds like a demon in a metal trash can getting thrown down steel fire stairs. Luckily, this is not what you get here. Made up of members from Crimson Swan, Ophis and Fäulnis, the band operates under Ghostly aliases, and on their debut full-length they deliver a stunningly effective slab of bleak, despondent doom metal in the vein of Warning and Solitude Aeturnus, with a heavy Woods of Ypres influence making it all the more gloomy and glum. Add an overarching concept about clerical sexual abuse and a uniquely minimalist construction, and you have a piece of music that grips you from the first moment and refuses to let go until the album’s final notes fade away. Beautiful and disturbing in equal measure, this one is something else.

Opener “Chapel of Abuse” hits the ground running with a very effectively stripped down approach. Simple but elegant doom riffs and forlorn vocals dominate the proceedings, accented subtly by restrained melodic flourishes and understated solo work that never deviate from the palpably morose presentation. This is the template the entire album follows. Each song unveils a memorable lead riff and frontman Cantor Cineadicus croons plaintively over the top, with little else to distract the listener save for sparse drum and bass work. In the hands of a lesser band, such a threadbare presentation might feel underwhelming or repetitious, but on tracks like “A Shadow in the Dormitory” and “Alone With the Cross” it creates emotional wrecking balls that leave scars, with the former being a contender for Song o’ the Year.

The band makes their classic doom approach feel liturgical, and the music has a pious, somber bearing, with Cantor’s imposing baritone often taking the form of hymnal-esque chanting.¹ This is especially apparent on the excellent “The Hallowed Leech,” but it’s a recurring theme and a very effective one. “Poor Sisters of the Nazareth” reminds me of the doomiest of Paradise Lost‘s canon, and Cantor’s delivery is like Nick Holmes with more range and vocal ability. The stark riffs and monotone, eerily chanting vocals are paired at times with the sound of children crying to create something exceptionally disconcerting and difficult to hear. “To Those in the Grave” is like a unexpected return to Woods of Ypres‘ final album, which is a sad event to be sure, but a welcome one, and one of the album’s darkest, most striking moments. Every song works exceptionally well and there isn’t a letdown anywhere during Carnal‘s 48 minutes. This is the kind of album best experienced as a whole, and even when I first sampled the promo I felt compelled to just let it play out without stopping. That almost never happens.

The individual performances are very impressive. Cantor is a very expressive doom vocalist, conveying despair and pain without sounding melodramatic. His tone and delivery are perfect for the dark mood and his ability to bring his performance into the whole church concept is inspired. As the album crept along he reminded me of the aforementioned Nick Holmes, Solitude Aeturnus‘ Rob Lowe, Woods of Ypres‘ David Gold, and even Maynnard James Keenan, so he’s clearly in good company. The guitar-work by Decanus Obscaenus is the other linchpin to the band’s otherworldly atmosphere. He keeps things very basic, but his riff-work is uniformly memorable and at times heartrendingly sad, while his subtle flourishes and melodic digressions elevate the material greatly. The whole band is talented, and together they conspire to craft an album’s worth of intensely downbeat doom than moves well beyond mere melancholy into true darkness.

I’m at a loss to think of another doom album that hit me as hard and as fast as Carnal Confessions did, with the only comparable release of any kind being Woods 5. This is the rare doom platter that flies by and ends almost unexpectedly, leaving you wanting more but at the same time relieved to be free of the oppressive mood. It’s beautifully haunting and highly accessible, and it’s hard to find fault with anything the band does, except for that truly ass-tastic name. Jesus, guys! It’s hard to believe something this impressive comes from a side-project, but don’t judge this book by the cover. Ignore the juvenile naming convention and get your hands on this immediately. Serious Album o’ the Year contender right here.

Rating: 4.5/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 256 kbps mp3
Label: Lycanthropic Chants
Websites: fvneralfvkk.de | fvneralfvkk.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/fvneralfvkk
Releases Worldwide: September 27th, 2019

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I’ll begin today’s review reiterating something I’ve said many times before: I’m an Album Guy. I don’t like singles, I don’t like skipping tracks, I don’t like Pandora. This is also why I don’t enjoy listening to songs dropped (or leaked) before an album’s release date. It can be misleading and it can excite/discourage me for/from buying that album. For instance, Tool‘s “Fear Inoculum” is a great song.¹ But it’s nothing without “Pneuma” succeeding it. And “Pneuma” is nothing without “Fear Inoculum” before it and “Litanie contre la Peur” behind it. And so on. It’s like listening to King Diamond‘s “Arrival” without “A Mansion in Darkness.” Stupid. On the other end of the spectrum, 1349‘s “Dødskamp” is a decent single. But hammock it between “Striding the Chasm” and “Tunnel of Set X”/”Stand Tall in Fire” and it stands out like a sore thumb.² That’s why, for what seems like an eternity now, I’ve avoided Rimfrost‘s pre-album release of Expedition: Darkness‘ “Bloodnight” and “Dawnbreaker.” Yes, because I’m an album guy. And because I know Rimfrost better than they know themselves. “Dawnbreaker” without “Sam-Hain” feels as empty as “Bloodnight” without “Natten.” Take one, you take them all.

As you all know, I had high praise for Rimfrost‘s 2016 self-titled release. Not only was it one of the best-sounding records that year, but it also found a place as my #2 pick of 2016. Though every one of the band’s records is a pleasure to listen to, Rimfrost is the result of years of honing one’s sound to achieve near-perfection. It is, without a doubt, the high-water mark of the band’s career. It’s I, it’s Bathory, and it’s Immortal at their best. It’s big, it’s full, and it’s goddamn epic. There’re incredible riffs, blazing solos, melodic passages, and so many memorable moments. Which spells doom for Expedition: Darkness. How can one ever top their pinnacle release? The answer is: most can’t. But Rimfrost did.

And it all begins with “Rising of a Black Dawn,” a small key and acoustic guitar introductory piece that builds up the right amount of suspense before handing off to its successor. “Damned Jaws” takes its gentle tones and ignites them, metallicizing every melodic beat. Though “Damned Jaws” has been out for a while, you will never know it’s true power without “Rising of the Black Dawn.” It, like “Bloodnight,” has killer riffs made for banging the head in an Immortal kind of way. With the melodic character still lingering from the opener, “Damned Jaws” serves up a ripping, old-school gallop, an acoustic interlude, and a building climax. With a heavy dose of Abbath vocal arrangements, “Bloodnight” keeps the crushing melodics coming. Crashing and chugging like a hellish locomotive up a steep incline, “Bloodnight” reaches the top and explodes.

Like Rimfrost, Expedition: Darkness has an icy blanket of melody over all their songs. But few on this new release are to the lengthy, drawn-out limits of “Frostlaid Skies” and “As the Silver Curtain Closes.” “Dawnbreaker” has all the qualities of Rimfrost‘s epic pieces but does it in a six-minute runtime. With an attitude akin to songs like Dissection‘s “Xeper-i-Set” and “Dark Mother Divine,” “Dawnbreaker” conforms to every mountain and valley it encounters. And it encounters a lot—driving, headbangable riffs; calming, melodic interludes; and heartfelt, acoustic transitions. The title track and closer, “At the Blessing of the Damned,” also share these epic qualities. The former is a never-ending beast. The moment you feel a lull or repetitiveness in the action, another huge riff appears—building this song to a mighty finale. If you’ve heard Rimfrost, the closer is what you’d expect from the band. Although, like the rest of the album, it has some surprises. The biggest being an almost Viking-like choir that comes out of nowhere, elevating the track to heights the band has never achieved.

In and around it all, you’ve got perfectly-timed Halloween classics, “Sam-Hain” and “Voorhees,” and the powerful, yet moody, “Natten.” The first two are plain fun. “Sam-Hain” toys with old-school riffage and more Reinkaos vibes, while “Voorhees” is heavily stacked, with plenty of ascensions and decensions to match its dark melodies. “Natten,” on the other hand, feels like a B-side piece from Rimfrost. It has a lot of depth and a surprising amount of beauty. And, without its simplistic approach, the album wouldn’t be as rounded as it is.

Now for the cherry on top: like Rimfrost, this is one of the best sounding albums of the year. Every instrument is accounted for and Hravn’s vocals and solo work are as prominent here—if not more so—then they were on Rimfrost. The dynamics are so alive that you can almost climb in and walk around inside the music. And there’s no filler. It doesn’t matter which song I play, I’m content and enjoy it from beginning to end. This makes it a touch better than its predecessor and easier to put on repeat. Not only has Expedition: Darkness shot to the top of my year-end list, but it also made history in the Grier scoring bracket.

Rating: 4.5/5.0
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Ferocious Records
Websites: rimfrost1.bandcamp.com | rimfrostofficial.com  | facebook.com/rimfrostofficial
Releases Worldwide: October 18th, 2019

The post Rimfrost – Expedition: Darkness Review appeared first on Angry Metal Guy.

A new Mayhem release is the most exciting thing to happen in metal this year. Unlike most other bands who offer refinements and (ideally) improvements on their established sound with each release, Mayhem exhausts a sound on each full-length by exhausting a theme; as the sound’s purpose is to express the theme, the sound’s purpose is fulfilled once the theme is expressed. This means the lazy reviewer can’t merely compare the new Mayhem record to prior ones and base his analysis on that without completely missing the point of the record at hand — Mayhem’s career is an anthology, not an arc.

Nonetheless, the specter of De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas lurks behind Daemon. Mayhem has been performing that record live for years now, and Daemon is their most overtly second-wave record since De Mysteriis. Superficially, one can hear “Pagan Fears” in “Malum” and “De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas” in “Of Worms and Ruins.” Necrobutcher’s bass is mixed high like Varg’s was and even leads some harmonies in “The Dying False King” and “Everlasting Dying Flame” which remind of “Life Eternal” in that aspect. These similarities all are of fleeting importance. The crucial similarity between the two records is the thematic direction: for the first time since De Mysteriis, Mayhem is plumbing the depths of spiritual horror.

Naturally, this is expressed differently on both records. Where De Mysteriis was cold, worldly, curious, and terrified, Daemon is incendiary, aggressive, pained, and enraged. “Agenda Ignis” will remind you of 1349’s best material in a way, and this is because both Mayhem and 1349 are expressing “aural Hellfire,” but Mayhem is concerned chiefly with its effects. This is the key to Daemon: it’s an aural portrait of Hell from the view of a daemon. Poena sensus (pain of sense) and poena damni (pain of loss) — the pains of the damned in Hell — animate each of Daemon’s songs. Teloch’s and Ghul’s guitars play together in harmony and disharmony, flickering around each other like flames licking the night sky — the refrain of “Bad Blood” is one unforgettable example of this. Both guitars begin on low notes, and then quickly shoot tonally upwards in a burst of disharmony before dissipating and repeating the cycle, sonically putting the daemon amidst the flames — Mayhem’s aural Hellfire is thus part of their sonic portrait, not its essence as it was in early 1349.

The fiery nature of the guitar work expresses poena sensus, but what about poena damni? The pain of loss is Hell’s worst torment: the damned are endlessly miserable and enraged at God with unceasing but futile bitterness. As such, Daemon has no respite, no moment of levity, no uplifting melodicism. “Worthless Abominations Destroyed” is utterly devastating, with excellent infernal riffing and Attila’s vocals alternating between his imposing baritone, shrieks, growls, and the occasional choral singing which give a subtle Catholic flavor. “The Dying False King” hears Attila in tears yet buried by fervid riffing — Hell’s flames are terrible and merciless.

Daemon’s artistic vision is executed by musicians who are, without exception, masters of their craft. It’s produced so that every note is heard, with Hellhammer’s drums sounding more natural than normal and allowing his masterful performance to be experienced in detail. Teloch’s and Ghul’s guitars are captured clearly with no instance of interplay obscured. Attila’s vocals are exemplary, delivered with variety, passion, and creative phrasings. Their varied volume levels keep them firmly in the experience, neither overbearing nor an afterthought.

Daemon’s Hell isn’t the “party Hell” of AC/DC or 3 Inches of Blood — those use Christian concepts as a jumping-off point to tell a fun story, akin to what Marvel’s Thor does with that pagan deity. Daemon’s Hell is portrayed in earnest with no ironic detachment. A nearly flawless artistic portrayal of Hell’s pains, unceasing and unflinching — the question remains as to why the average listener would want to spend loads of time with this. Well, the average listener won’t. Mayhem full-lengths demand time, attention, and close listens, and Daemon is no exception. It tells a noble story through sound, and the imperial priestly attire of the cover’s daemon is meaningful — he may be royalty in Hell, but a servant in Heaven has none of the poena he does. Mayhem shocks by telling the truth about Hell — and the truth is more fascinating, horrifying, and enthralling than mere fiction. That this truth is told through universally excellent riffs across a thoughtfully structured album that has perfect pacing and no dips in quality beyond the threshold of triviality makes Daemon a truly excellent record.

Rating: 4.5/5.0
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Century Media
Websites: mayhemofficial.bandcamp.com | thetruemayhem.com | facebook.com/mayhemofficial
Releases Worldwide: October 25th, 2019

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Wilderun’s Sleep at the Edge of the Earth was a revelation. The record was a powerful blend of ideas that was as enchanting as it was addictive. It was epic and sprawling and my (and the staff’s) Record o’ the Year from 2015, and it came with an elevator pitch as snappy as: “Opeth meets Turisas.” And while this is a simplification that does not do the brilliance of Sleep at the Edge of the Earth justice, it is a good reference point. Because after four years, with my understanding being that Veil of Imagination was done for at least a quarter of it, this elevator pitch does not seem to have enticed anyone to pick the band up. This is absurd, as even after Sleep at the Edge of the Earth, the band was clearly among the most exciting bands in metal. But on Veil of Imagination, Wilderun has not only grown, but they have raised the bar for what progressive and melodic death metal can be. Veil of Imagination is one of the most imaginative, beautiful and interesting records that I have ever heard.

Veil of Imagination is a complete album that is worthy of its length. While other bands have referred to their songs as “movements,” the term is the only appropriate name for what Wilderun has wrought. From the fourteen and a half minutes of “The Unimaginable Zero Summer” to the out of tune outro on “When the Fire and the Rose Were One,” everything flows with the kind of practiced grace that few bands not named Pink Floyd or Symphony X have ever accomplished. The pacing, when seen from a bird’s eye view, is genius. Whether Wilderun recapitulates a riff which transitions perfectly between songs (“O Resolution!” to “Sleeping Ambassadors of the Sun”), or subtly changes key and feel over the course of three minutes before merging into the next movement (“Scentless Core (Fading)” to “The Tyranny of Imagination”), the transitions are brilliant and seem effortless. Veil of Imagination even has a three act feel. The first three tracks spend most of their time in 6/8; that unmistakably Opethian swing (clearest on “The Unimaginable Zero Summer”). The next three tracks comprise Act II with a majestic and powerful Turisasian flare (“Far from Where Dreams Unfurl”). And finally, Act III is comprised of “The Tyranny of Imagination” and “When the Fire and the Rose Were One,” which emphasize dissonance and consonance. These sounds, of course, blend throughout the album, but each act has its own emphasis.

Talk of “movements” and “acts” emphasizes that Veil of Imagination is a clear development of the band’s sound toward the truly symphonic. While the transitions are one part of this, orchestral arrangers Dan Müller and Wayne Ingram craft fantastic beds of strings and choirs that make Wilderun distinct. Rather than being a metal band playing with an orchestra, the band is part of the orchestra. This is helped by the combinations of piano and violin (“The Unimaginable Zero Summer” or “Scentless Core (Budding)”) which merge into something always more intense and grand (“Sleeping Ambassadors of the Sun”), with plenty of Finnish New English Man Choir to add an extra layer of drama.¹ The band uses a variety of sounds one rarely hears in metal—harps (“O Resolution!”) or fluttering piano and flutes (“When the Fire and the Rose Were One”)—and these give a true sense of orchestral mastery.

The album’s symphonic nature, of course, still contains a metal spine. Wilderun demonstrates this with Evan’s ferocious death metal growl and classic, if idiosyncratic, metal riffing. Aside from the album breaking out the door with blasts and death metal groove, “Far from Where Dreams Unfurl” features noodly melodic death riffs with counter-intuitive harmonies, while “Tyranny of Imagination” starts out with a sinister symphonic death feel. Joe Gettler’s guitar solos (like on “O Resolution!” and “Far from Where Dreams Unfurl”) are a reminder that these guys just have chops. The same is true of Jon Teachey’s drums pushing into blasts at times or tom heavy fills, while the bass features prominently throughout, with Müller delivering a heavy, driving performance that reminds me at times of Martín Méndez (“O Resolution!” and “Sleeping Ambassadors of the Sun”). Yet, never does the symphonic conflict with the metallic, either thematically or sonically; they work in perfect balance.

The genius of this album is the way it balances contrast both in feel and dissonance. What makes Veil of Imagination something more than just a continuation of Sleep at the Edge of the Earth is it has a unique voice which speaks to its concept. And this is where I worry it will lose some listeners. One of the most interesting and sophisticated things about the album is the way that it plays with dissonance and consonance. This can give the feeling to listeners that the melodies aren’t quite as ‘strong’ as on Sleep at the Edge of the Earth. Close listens, however, reveal evocative ideas that sonically represent the album’s concept. For example, they modulate major keys in “Scentless Core (Budding),” never really staying in one place for long—which builds a sense of uneasiness with blaring horns until the fever breaks down to a single piano. The bridge (at about 4 minutes) in “Far from Where Dreams Unfurl” follows a similar pattern, building tension for almost 90 seconds before releasing. But the peak of this is in “The Tyranny of Imagination,” where Wilderun works with half-steps and naturals in order to keep the tension building. At times this approach reminds me of Septicflesh at their best, but unlike Septicflesh, Wilderun balances these moments with ample resolution. In these moments, Evan’s baritone cleans often work with only a piano or acoustic guitar to cleanse the pallet and set the stage for the next burst of color and flavor.

Veil of Imagination is the result of Wilderun masterfully executing its vision through developments in both composition and style. The album speaks to fundamental human struggles and mirrors the tension and release of negative ideation of the future. This can be seen from the cover art, as well. The beating, surreal heart of Veil of Imagination is a twisted tree draped with blooming flowers—where the fire and the rose met, and where “all manner of thing shall be well.”² And time and time again, Wilderun delivered with their aesthetic choices. From a Dan Swanö mix that sounds timeless, to a Jens Bogren master which, while loud, delivers the kind of balance that made his work on Fleshgod Apocalypse and Turisas indispensable. And suddenly, it seems, that Wilderun isn’t just an excellent, if underappreciated band. With Veil of Imagination, Wilderun has arrived at the vanguard of the next generation of progressive and melodic death metal bands. Veil of Imagination raises the bar by delivering an intense, grandiose and sophisticated, yet ultimately human, experience.

Rating: Iconic
DR: 6 | Media Reviewed: PCM (i.e., CD quality files)
Label: Independent
Websites: wilderun.bandcamp.com | wilderun.com | facebook.com/OfficialWilderun
Releases Worldwide: November 1st, 2019

Written By: El Cuervo

It is impossible for me to overstate the excellence of Wilderun‘s 2015 record, Sleep at the Edge of the Earth. I was a relative rookie at reviewing but immediately identified it as a special release, escalating it within another year or two to one of the best albums I’ve ever experienced. 2018 rolled around and my feet began to itch; the three-year album cycle in which most modern metal bands operate did not yield a new release and relative social media inactivity led to awful thoughts that I may not hear a successor. To my simultaneous relief and trepidation, I learned of the November release of Veil of Imagination and obtained a review copy shortly thereafter. The relief arose for obvious reasons, but the trepidation perhaps less so. How could it possibly hope to match my sentiment for Sleep at the Edge of the Earth? I tried to quash my expectations but I still took time out from a holiday abroad to download and sit down with it. What were my initial thoughts? What are my thoughts now, 6 weeks later?

Veil of Imagination is not a record repeating the formula of its predecessor; it’s denser, more progressive affair. Opener “The Unimaginable Zero Summer” hits like a truck and is offensively long, terribly progressive and dizzyingly dense. It’s a baptism of fire signifying that Wilderun did not write a record just intending to ride the coattails of former glory. The incredible scope of sounds and instrumentation is even wider and these 14 minutes feature some legitimately heavy, overwhelming passages. Wilderun will cater to no one in executing their vision and do not make things easy for the listener. While Sleep at the Edge of the Earth broke the “Ash Memory” suite into four parts, there’s no bite-sized partitioning on Veil of Imagination. This is symptomatic of the record more widely, which is less catchy and more challenging at first blush. It’s a more somber album overall and a feeling of loss comes through. The band’s approach on Veil of Imagination isn’t inherently a bad thing though; it’s not a record full of hooks, but there are melodies which embed on repeated listens and they’re all the stronger in the long run for making the listener work a little.

Veil of Imagination still features the earthy tone and lyrical themes which tie the sound to folk metal, but is not substantively folk metal anymore. I consider the last record as a folk umbrella, under which resides a fusion of progressive rock, death and symphonic metal. These elements remain but the bouncing, lighter energy has dwindled, replaced with a richer and more cohesive blend which also incorporates black metal, notably on “The Unimaginable Zero Summer” and “The Tyranny of Imagination.” The record is further distanced from Opeth and Turisas as could be heard previously, though fragments surface occasionally. This iteration of Wilderun sounds more unique due, in part, to aesthetic changes. For example, the clean, harmonic, lead guitar tone favored on the band’s 2015 opus arises infrequently, while Evan Berry’s cleans don’t evoke Åkerfeldt as he develops his own, plaintive style.

The greatest change on Veil of Imagination is the development of a more symphonic sound. This is exemplified by the passage beginning at 1:55 on “Scentless Core (Budding).” The transition is literally marvelous; you will truly marvel at it. In this jaw-dropping moment, the penny falls and the listener is wrapped in a hurricane of blasting drums and piano scales, ascending and descending. Wilderun draws their symphonic arrangements, elaborate orchestrations, ridiculous grandiosity and real heaviness into masterful compositions. Not only do they utilize a diverse range of instruments, well outside the purview of the usual symphonic metal ornaments, but more importantly they are arranged with an admirable awareness for dynamics; sometimes utilizing the full orchestra and at other times isolating one or two instruments. I’ve not heard such an excellent integration of classical instruments into metal since Griseus by Aquilus.³ There are many other moments I could detail but, in particular, I want to note the way the strings flutter at the opening of “Sleeping Ambassadors of the Sun” and at the closing of “The Tyranny of Imagination.” These hark back to John Williams when he is trying to convey the sense of wonder in space used on the Star Wars soundtracks, and the effect is similar here.

Veil of Imagination, if it were not already apparent, is epic. It is epic in vision and execution. It’s not just symphonic by using classical instruments. The album is symphonic in the true sense. Each of these songs is so vast, detailed and cohesive that listening to them is more like surveying an intricate map, where the particular journey adopted by the band leads you through a beginning, middle and end. It simultaneously boasts a wider scope than almost any other music, but is also so minutely detailed that you could take a one minute passage at random from anywhere on the record as the basis of an entire descriptive paragraph. And it feels like that could be done for the entire 67 minutes. All parts stand on their own but contribute to the whole, which is the entire objective of the album format.

I’ve already written nearly 900 words and could write many more. I’ve not even mentioned song of the year candidate “Far from Where Dreams Unfurl,” or how the concept and arrangement of the record as a whole influences the sense of cohesion and completeness. But in summary, I’m left with one more question, and one I expect commenters will want to know the answer to: does my heart swell in the same way as it does for Sleep at the Edge of the Earth? Perhaps not. But that’s a verified 5.0 and a true all-timer. So Veil of Imagination is fighting a Sisyphean battle in that sense. It’s a more challenging record and one which has fewer heart-stopping moments on first listen. But what it is, is grand. Pompous. Ridiculous. Overwhelming. Heavy. Subtle. Ornate. Epic. And it’s the best record I’ve heard this year.

Rating: 4.5/5.0

The post Wilderun – Veil of Imagination Review appeared first on Angry Metal Guy.

Since we got ourselves into the whole album premiere business not too long ago, I wondered what kind of album it would take to warrant a premiere of my own. Shockingly, I didn’t have to wait very long. Thanks to a certain Muppety influence, I acquired was deemed just barely worthy of access to a monumental death-doom album that very quickly rose to the top of my year-end contenders list. Imagine my sadistic ecstasy as I rushed to resuscitate The Drowning from the promo pool, only to discover that one sparkly sponge absorbed the Assign To bubble weeks beforehand. Joy Accordia! I’ll not be forgiven for this, not for an eternity.

So rejoice, dear readers! Revel in the glory of quite possibly the best death-doom record released this year, and perhaps the decade. Bold claim, yes? No. This is science, scrub. Behold the crushing abyss that is The Radiant Dark!

Over the past year, AMG & Co. have come to know me as this exuberant and generally friendly entity with a deep passion for music—metal in particular. What you don’t often see is that I am cowardly, fearful of everything, and desperately pushing against that just in order to function. You don’t see the side of me that is bitter and angry for stupid reasons, the side of me that spars with emotional instabilities and countless insecurities. Few people realize that every day I struggle to silence the deafening voice in my head screaming that maybe the only reason I am alive today is because I refuse to accept that I don’t deserve this life that I’ve certainly wasted. But keeping these malignant thoughts hidden behind a veil of unending pep (or pretending to, at least) is often just as destructive as the disease itself. When these darker aspects of my personality demand the spotlight, I turn to music as my primary catalyst to get the healing process under way, and nothing released this year has been as effective a catalyst as Welsh death-doom outfit The Drowning‘s fifth masterpiece The Radiant Dark.

This is not your grandfather’s funeral doom-death record. It is also not Eye of Solitude‘s Canto III, but you might think so when mournful synths lift the curtains. You might also suspect that Déhà lent his hand by the time you reach the closer (“Blood Marks My Grave”), but you’d be wrong again. The Radiant Dark is another beast entirely, most closely reminiscent of Vainaja but by no means a carbon copy. With their eyes set on *cough* transcending obscurity *cough* once and for all, The Drowning here deliver a diverse and energetic death-doom record that caused me to unintentionally headbang my headphones yards away from my ears on countless occasions, resulting in immediate withdrawal as I scrambled to recover my precious.

The key to The Radiant Dark‘s success is exquisite songwriting. Granted, for some this record will constitute a bit of a slow burn, since it opens with one of the more funereal selections (“The Triumph of the Wolf in Death”). But there is no denying that guitarists Jason Hodges and Mike Hitchen expertly kick axe from beginning to end, spinning killer riffs across the entire spectrum ov doom and seasoning them with heaps of death metal spice. This explains how a funeral doom-death album gets away with gallops and chugs that make a college meathead shotgunning a keg look like Tinkerbell nursing a cup of imaginary tea (“Harrowed Path”). Drummer Steve Hart plays an equally important role by keeping things from moving too fast or too slow, his stalwart performance hitting that Goldilocks spot for 57 minutes straight. And whoever is responsible for the lyrics? Pat yourselves on the back, because these lines are poignant, dramatic, and yet still brutal enough to make the most battle-hardened warrior weep (“All That We Need of Hell”).

Every track from The Radiant Dark contains lustrous nuggets that not only come from straight outta nowhere, but also make it impossible to pick a favorite. There’s the barnstorming final minute of “The Triumph of the Wolf in Death,” which features vocalist Matt Small spitting verse in front of a smashing riff like he’s auditioning for Archspire. Or perhaps I might interest you in the devastating drop right around four-minutes-thirty on “In Cold Earth,” which will suck the air out of whatever room you happen to occupy?¹ Maybe you’d rather sample the bone-rattling chorus that introduces the final third of “I Carve the Heart from the Universe,” bleeding its blackened heart out while it exsanguinates your own? On The Radiant Dark, there is no wrong move when it comes to selecting a favorite moment. They are all excellent, and the songs that surround them equally so.

There is only one attribute of The Radiant Dark that isn’t so radiant, and that is the production. I’m no expert on the subject yet, but even I can tell this album needs a better mix. Richard Moore’s bass begs to be heard more clearly, and the vocals need to be taken down a peg. Plus, one or more of the cymbals sound like glass. Other than that, nothing affects my enjoyment of the material on display whatsoever. The Drowning‘s latest opus may not be a true alternative for actual therapy,² but I feel better knowing that I can share my darkest days with The Radiant Dark.

Rating: 4.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Transcending Obscurity
Websites: drowningwales.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/drowningwales
Releases Worldwide: November 8th, 2019

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It’s with a certain amount of anxiety that I finally sit down to write this review. I could have completed an assessment of Krater‘s Venenare at least a week and a dozen listens ago, but this record has a hold on me that I can’t seem to shake. I’ve covered albums that I absolutely adore before, so it’s been hard for me to pinpoint exactly why this particular album seems so difficult to move past — but I think I’ve figured it out. I’ve really only gotten into black metal in the past two years and while I’ve learned to love the sounds and aesthetics that the style has to offer, I’ve yet to find a record of the darkest metal variety that could stand as an archetype fully representing what I find appealing about the genre. I’d yet to find a black metal album that felt like it was mine. Until now.

Germany’s Krater began their black metal journey in 2003, and the 16 years since have seen the band in a constant state of evolution. After a debut that tended towards the pagan side of black metal, 2011’s Nocebo saw Krater moving in a more aggressive second-wave direction, and 2016’s Urere built upon that sound by adding more melodicism and wrapping it in a clear and powerful production. Venenare is the culmination of this evolutionary process, incorporating many different styles and sounds picked up along the way but at the same time transcending descriptive labels and tags by appearing as pure, unadulterated black metal. You may think you hear the lower register vocals and melodic sensibilities of Mgla, the pagan cadences of Bathory, the icy tremolos of Dissection, the vicious attack of Mayhem, the thrashiness of Deströyer 666, the atmosphere of Wolves in the Throne Room — but what you really hear is fucking Krater, a veteran band at the absolute top of their game.

Accurately touted as a “50 minute work broken into nine songs but unified as one winding, widescreen composition,” Venenare weaves a tale of humankind’s struggle with meaninglessness and nihilism as we live out our brief time as individual collections of so much space dust. Cosmic fires initiate the proceedings on intro “Eruption” before “Prayer for Demise” arrives to blast our ashes into the void with its ferocious low-string tremolos, sickening chorus, and demented, almost progressive riffing. “Zwischen den Worten” begins as a full band jam session then morphs into something akin to post-Dissection, building and building with ringing arpeggios, infectious melodicism, and a classic heavy metal solo before embedded rage-filled lament “Stellar Sparks” arrives with its unsettling and at times dissonant choral vocals and thrash rhythms. The latter features a grooving breakdown, showing that Krater has no problem coloring outside of the lines of “trve” black metal to deliver their punishing message.

Speaking of punishment, I read an interview in which vocalist Abortio states that he hopes that every syllable he spews will land as a punch to the listener. One listen to paganistic bruiser “When Thousand Hearts” should be enough to prove that he’s succeeded. “No Place for You” seems to be a blistering attack on modern black metal bands that are too trve to pay tribute to the forefathers of the genre — listen closely and you’ll hear Krater name some of the bands on whose shoulders they stand. The epic penultimate and final proper track “Darvaza Breeds” uses the imagery of the perennially burning natural gas crater in Turkmenistan to give us a glimpse of our not-so-distant future, one in which our elements dissipate into the heavens to become the next generation of stars. Using four minutes of furious black metal, moving into a beautifully mournful section, and closing with yet more rage, “Darvaza Breeds” is the standout track in an album chock full of standout tracks. The production on Venenare is absolutely stellar. The guitars have a decidedly “untrve” thickness, Abortio’s bass is an integral part of the compositions, and each of Shardik’s drum strikes lands with mighty power.

In my personal evolution, the struggle with nihilism has been all too real. Paradoxically, acknowledging and embracing the inherent meaninglessness of life has led to a desire to find and experience whatever transient meaning I can before my atoms move on to continue their cosmic journey. As closer “Wasted Carbon” simmers to a close and Abortio throat sings the song’s title, I go forth inspired to get the most out of this life for as long as I have it. With Venenare, Krater have created a black metal album that feels as if it were made just for me, and while I think you should enjoy it, I honestly couldn’t care less if you do.

Rating: 4.5/5.0
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Eisenwald Records
Websites: abstrusekrater.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/abstrusekrater | www.bastion-krater.de
Releases Worldwide: November 15th, 2019

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Valentine’s Day is normally reserved for lovers. Cards are exchanged, chocolates and red velvety things are consumed, uglies are bumped… Valentine’s Day is a time that romance, passion, and love fill the air. But you know what pairs well with VD? DOOM. Not just any doom metal, mind you, but rather oppressive, downtrodden, and lightless British DOOM, complete with bold typeface and italics. And who better to serve you that kind of doom than not one, but two former members of My Dying Bride? Yep, guitarist/vocalist Hamish Glencross and drummer Shaun Taylor-Steels spent years crafting painstaking doom together with MDB as well as separate stints in Anathema, Vallenfyre, and Solstice, and now they return to birth their new project, Godthrymm. One thing for certain is that their debut, Reflections, does not turn swans loose, nor does it reach for progressive leanings. Rather, Reflections is a love letter to the scene Glencross and Taylor-Steels originated from.

And what a love letter. Musically, Reflections sounds like if Paradise Lost stopped evolving after Gothic, but somehow, someway added enough modern touches to sound like a product of 2020. Right from the opening melody of “Monsters Lurk Herein,” you notice a faint resemblance to Pallbearer circa Foundations of Burden. Once the drums begin to kick in, and that opening riff turns distorted, the Gothic tinges reign. Glencross’ howling vocals recall Nick Holmes at his most downtrodden, further driving home the fact that this is a product of veterans with a pure love for their craft and style. Taylor-Steels’ plodding, thundering drums keep a low but heavy profile throughout the song’s entirety, only picking up the double-bass near the end. In keeping things simple and heavy, “Monsters Lurk Herein” does an incredible job in setting up the album.

From there, though, Reflections outright soars. Both “The Light of You” and “The Grand Reclamation” sees Glencross channeling his inner Robert Lowe (Solitude Aeturnus) with great effect, especially in the latter’s verses, which sees him bellowing in a powerful upper-mid range. His guitar and bass work haven’t lost a step, either, with “We Are the Dead” featuring some beautiful leads and tar-heavy bass lines. Highlights punctuate throughout Reflections, but easily the biggest comes in the form of penultimate track, “Cursed Are the Many.” Clocking in at a hefty nine-plus minutes with no wasted moments, “Cursed Are the Many” easily ranks up there with the best that Paradise Lost and My Dying Bride have offered throughout the decades, with mournful guitar melodies, methodically slow drumming, and Glencross delivering morose, howling cries of anguish. Hands down, this is one of the most miserable doom songs I’ve ever heard, and an easy candidate for Song o’ the Year if there ever was one.

Even the production is steeped in the 90’s, as Nathan Bailey expertly captured that classic Academy Studios sound while adding enough touches to bring Reflections to the modern day. The guitars and bass possess a ton of breathing room, never once overpowering each other. The lead guitar does take center stage, and it seems like Glencross dialed in Gregor Mackintosh’s old Gothic guitar pedal settings, as his lead tone is absolutely dead-on. I tried to find flaws, but all I can think of is this is the epitome of mood music in that being in a happy, sunny disposition would cause you to grab something else instead. No light escapes Reflections, but I wouldn’t want it any other way, honestly.

Barely into the second month of the 20’s, and already we have a monster of a DOOM album in Reflections. I was expecting to enjoy the album, due to the pedigree involved, but I didn’t expect the magnitude of how much Godthrymm crushes with all the sorrow and heft on display. Don’t go into Reflections thinking this will simply whet your appetite; this is a full-course meal of epic proportions. Digest with the one you love.

Rating: 4.5/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Profound Lore Records
Websites: godthrymm1.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/godthrymm
Releases Worldwide: February 14th, 2020

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