Clearly influenced by the latter half of Swedish death metal and Norwegian black metal, Towards Obscurities Beyond keeps itself grounded in American-style relentless death metal, with its churning tremolo riffs interrupted by atmospheric melodic riffs to great effect.
No CommentsTags: death metal, Transcendence
This basic but energetic death metal comes to us from a time before the full differentiation of the style, when grindcore and basic song structure death metal could coexist in the same band, sort of like what Master, Cianide, Massacre, and Benediction did.
1 CommentTags: death metal, kriegszittern
Solfernus succeed at what many bands did after the collapse of black metal, which was to reintegrate the genres of metal from the early 1980s onward into a hybrid style. In this case, they focus on the era of speed metal with black and death metal influences from the late 1980s.
No CommentsTags: solfernus, Speed Metal
Attempting to use Carnage/Nihilist style d-beat old school death metal as a sponge in which to absorb melodic metal influences, Symbtomy achieve the first stages of the holy grail of death metal, namely songs where all the parts relate to each other and a general theme emerges.
No CommentsTags: death metal, symbtomy
Exploring a modern side of metal that keeps one foot in the past, the latest Pestilence will draw comparisons to Testimony of the Ancients, but to my mind goes back to Malleus Maleficarum even more, balanced with metalcore, progressive metal, and jazz fusion.
No CommentsTags: metalcore, pestilence, Speed Metal
Listening to the review queue, it strikes me how few bands write songs with any unifying patterns to them. Most piece together riffs around a form, like those paper cut-outs seamstresses use to make dresses, and when it all seems to work, cut tape and call it a day.
No CommentsTags: assault, Melodic Death Metal, Speed Metal
Anyone with any brains has known for centuries that Western Civilization has decayed, first to get to democracy, and later, under it. How do we make an alternative to what is popular with the lowest common denominator? Neofolk music attempts to beat pop culture by making a traditionalist version of it.
No CommentsTags: neofolk, wolcensmen
Graveland bolts back and forth between its styles reflecting the composition of black metal, namely soundtracks plus cosmic ambient and underground metal. On Hour of Ragnarok, Graveland ditches the complex arrangements for sawing guitars and punk riffs worked into classic black metal themes.
2 CommentsTags: Black Metal, graveland
As discussed here before, the real question to a reviewer is, “Would you buy this?” My answer to Eight Headed Serpent might be no, but I would certainly stream it.
7 CommentsTags: Black Metal, impaled nazarene
This band claim a laundry list of influences, but to my ear, this sounds more like a fusion of early Gorguts and later Adramelech, possibly with Voivod in the wings: a tribute to classic death metal rhythms and patterns which manages to be just playful enough to avoid the pretenses of emulating the past.
2 CommentsTags: death metal, nihilanth
