With the latest At The Gates album, metal migrates into its 1970s roots with a combination of proto-metal, avantgarde jazz, and progressive rock, eliminating the complex structures of death metal for the winding thematic forms of 1960s adventurous rock.
8 CommentsTags: At the Gates, progressive metal
During the past decade, industrial and metal have converged with synthpop to form darkwave, dungeon synth, and related genres, and from the middle of this wave comes Master Boot Record, a desktop-based project that mixes synthesized metal riffs with progressive-style lead rhythm keyboards.
1 CommentTags: darkwave, master boot record
Imagine that someone went back to that brief period of time when music like Merciless, Devastation, and Sarcofago hovered between speed metal and the underground metal to come, and then approached it with the high-intensity styles of war metal and black metal.
2 CommentsTags: nuclear revenge, Speed Metal
Good speed metal either tends toward the progressive rock and punk side, or heads more toward something like fast AC/DC with more riffs, and Amnessia Eterna bridge this divide by mixing the Slayer and Exodus styles of speed metal with a little bit of AC/DC, coming up with a foot-tapping but brainy mix.
No CommentsTags: amnessia eterna, Speed Metal
Over the past decade, thrash has rebirthed itself as general resentment toward not just the system but the mentality of modernity has expanded, and Solanum bring us a thrash album straight from middle period Corrosion of Conformity crossed with Agnostic Front and Stormtroopers of Death.
No Comments
Maybe you wish that Sodom had kept cranking those nice mature metal albums like M16 that had less emotion, but also more focus, so you could follow one ripping tune after another, and maybe recruited the guys from Vader to execute this vision. Militaria steps into this void.
4 CommentsTags: militaria, Speed Metal
Two members of Enslaved and one from Theatre of Tragedy played in this early attempt at death metal, an enjoyable listen for old school fans because it both showcases the ingenuity of the best of that era, and shows why bands launched into black metal instead.
2 CommentsTags: Black Metal, death metal, Enslaved, phobia
At its core, this release has good bones, but its rhythmic approach emphasizes the time of incessant speed of bands like Damnation or later Vader and the focus on repeated trudging vocal emphasis like Hate Eternal or Six Feet Under, which mars what would otherwise be a top-notch release.
1 CommentTags: cancerfaust, death metal
Progressive rock has a tendency to crawl up its own navel, and Bastian Per fix that with a “lite prog” approach like Camel or Rush but with the instrumental approach of Yes or Genesis, focusing on driving guitar riffs and use of harmony to allow these songs to expand themes gradually.
No CommentsTags: bastian per, progressive rock
Carrying forward the old school energy with an idiosyncratic voice of its own, Sépulcre aims for a mid-paced, shifting texture of riffs which culminate in the expansion of melody, producing both a bounding exuberant energy and a dark ambiguous mood which swallows up the rest of each track.
1 CommentTags: death metal, sepulcre
