Death Metal Underground

Demoncy – Faustian Dawn (1993, reissued 2016)

by Staff on October 19, 2016

Article by Lance Viggiano.

A minor boost- so as not to be outdone by diminishing financial returns – in fidelity reveals that the tonal direction which Demoncy would use to conjure the singularity known as Joined in Darkness had begun to break through the thin trebly aether early on. Faustian Dawn sees a young mage wielding uncharacteristic competence during its initiatory rites; though not without a share of exuberant amateurism. Drawing from the tomes of Von, Beherit and Profanatica – the track “As Tears of Blood Stain the Altar of Christ” makes an appearance here re-titled – Demoncy finds itself offering a unique vision which recalls primordial humans cloaked by tawdry rags locked away from evolution by a compulsory participation in invocatory rites amidst humid rather than the more characteristically frigid backgrounds.

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12 Comments

Tags: Black Metal, demoncy, Faustian Dawn, nuclear war now! productions, nwn, reissue, remaster, review

Futile Exercises in Futility

by Staff on October 15, 2016

mgla_eif
Article by Anton Rudrick.

Mgła provides us with a perfect example to round a trio of examples that together shape the main misunderstandings as to what black metal is through their misrepresentation of it in either carelessness or ignorance. While modern Watain plays a completely undefined mixture of incoherent tropes around a stomping heavy rock that never condenses into anything original, and modern Behemoth is a shock rock outfit with sterile tekdeaf (modern technical “death metal”) techniques, Mgła is the one that closest comes to black metal by its purposely limited form closely resembling it. However, at best it could be said that they are a musically poor black metal band devoid of the traditional character that fuels the adversarial music, and at worst it could be classified as a post metal band experimenting with close variations on a very simple theme.

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26 Comments

Tags: 2015, Black Metal, boring, exercises in futility, Mgła, poland, post-hardcore, post-metal, re-review, review

Still Reigning 30 Years Later

by Staff on October 12, 2016

Article by Lance Viggiano.

After Slayer‘s foray into narrative composition on Hell Awaits, Slayer could have taken any number of directions in the then fertile metal landscape: gone in for the throat of aggression, matured their pubescent approach to long-form content, or paired down on riff quality for focused but circular songs. Reign in Blood was something of a compromise bred to appease more Floridian tastes which crave motion before coherence or purpose. The album is brief but bookended by two of the better songs in their discography which daftly elevate the questionable content residing in between. The remaining material siphons off of the paired down and quintessential “Angel of Death” by meandering in whatever assortment of good but disconnected riffs the Hanneman/King dichotomy happened upon in between Heinekens; held together in tacit alliances by a sweltering pace which exhausts itself right as the title track closes the record. The foresight required to write an album such as this is commendable but Reign in Blood is not Slayer’s watershed moment if for nothing more than the sheer amount of disposable songs – not riffs – which constitute the majority of the runtime. This uncomfortable fact goes unrecognized due to the sheer brevity of this work. Yet as I wrote this brief paragraph I must have recited the full album in my head at least a few times and I have not listened to the album is many years. May the resolve of Reign in Blood’s memetic warfare continue to withstand assailants from the ever flowing genre compost bin and grant listeners to the strength to withstand the torrents of nature herself.

46 Comments

Tags: 1986, anniversary, proto-underground, Reign in Blood, slayer, Speed Metal

Frontschwein Folly

by Staff on October 7, 2016

marduk_-_frontschwein
Article by David Rosales

Marduk has never, with the exception of the laudable Opus Nocturne, boasted of a deep mystical aura imbuing their music and has rather been known for the sonic onslaught which is their music. The present work sees a band that appears to have long settled for a style and seem content to reproduce it for the benefit of an expecting audience. That is, a very palpable pop mentality has settled in, even if the music has not completely degenerated in form. The artistic vision nonetheless has affected, as is the rule, the manifested aesthetic of the music, and will predictably continue to corrode its quality as it has been doing for the past twenty years or so.

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12 Comments

Tags: Black Metal, Frontschwein, marduk, pop metal, re-review, review, War Metal

Gorgoroth – Instinctus Bestialis (2015)

by Staff on September 30, 2016

Article by Anton Rudrick.

One clear sign that a band’s direction is compromised can be seen through unity of style. In this case, we see Gorgoroth lacking a clear voice of their own, in place of which Instinctus Bestialis offers three main ways of constructing sections and a rather pop-oriented way of building whole songs. The first is a bare bones neoclassical melodic method using two guitars, which is an interesting addition to traditionally more modal and harmonically chromatic genres such as death and black metal. Due to the foreign nature of these, the incorporation can be quite delicate and ought to be treated with the utmost care. The second is a collection of standard modern metal tropes ranging from the rhythmic intonations of deathcore with a low-string chug riff, probably inherited from the most prosaic speed metal. Last is the most important of the three in a rather unexpected choice in anthemic heavy metal, which happens to be the customary choice for commercial metal acts which have become barren of inspiration and direction.

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19 Comments

Tags: 2015, deathcore, gorgoroth, Heavy Metal, Instinctus Bestialis, mainstream metal, modern metal, pop metal, review, stadium metal

Sodom – Decision Day (2016)

by Staff on September 28, 2016

Article by Anton Rudrick.

Now that a thorough overview of Sodom’s career has been completed, and a short analysis from that overview has provided us with new insights, we can be more confident in our evaluation of their new album, Decision Day, in a way that allows us to tentatively explain the origin of its strengths and faults. This becomes especially useful with an album displaying averageness on all levels, showing no prominent ideas that distinguish it neither in the abstract nor the actualized, and furthermore, certainly not being more than the sum of its parts. The situation is one in which all that remains are the references that these streamlined and pre-fabricated pieces meant in their original contexts, and how this commercial product attempts to play on them for maximizing revenue.

Sodom has earned a solid reputation among the metal crowd through the years. Most fans of the metal underground will probably have heard about Sodom, or that of Tom Angelripper, and will express respect at the mere mention of either name. Their newest album displays traits which one would associate with their own brand of speed metal (a.k.a. thrash metal, incorrectly dubbed), but these seem filtered through mannerisms borrowed from styles acquired over the last two decades and a half while Tom Angelripper explored the mainstream side of metal. Decision Day is catchy, and every step and turn is a hook optimized for comprehensibility and mass consumption.

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18 Comments

Tags: 2016, decision day, German Speed Metal, hard rock, mainstream metal, pop metal, review, sodom, Speed Metal

Sadistic Metal Reviews 9/24/2016

by Staff on September 24, 2016

Some sorry schmuck has to shovel it into a hole and set it on fire.

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32 Comments

Tags: Altered Perceptions, Amphisbaena, Anal Blasphemy, Aum, black 'n roll, Black Tomb, Celestial Grave, Chine, crypto-indie, deathcore, Faustian Dripfeed, Gespenst, hammerheart records, Hellbringer, hells headbangers, hipster bullshit, Hoath, Ill Omen, Iron Bonehead Productions, Mare Cognitum, metalcore, Rebaelliun, Rest, Saboter, sadistic metal reviews, Seventh Xul, Shadecrown, Shataan, Shokran, sig ar tyr, Sol Sistere, Soulwound, Summit, The Black Twilight Circle, The Hell's Decrees, The Last Band, Vlad in Tears, War Metal, Warpvomit, Wyruz

Sangreal Impressions

by Staff on September 22, 2016

Article by David Rosales.

Condor surprises us in their last album, Sangreal, with several different advances of stylistic explorations. While Duin constituted a formalization of the finding that was Nadia, we could expect that the next step to be taken should be precisely this expansion of a consciousness which had only recently become aware of itself. Even though Condor’s music projects a very traditional image, the final result has turned out unique, both in its character as it is shaped by consistent melodic preferences, and in its methodology, which enabled veritable compositions to come into existence from powerful riffs and inebriating tunes.

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9 Comments

Tags: 2016, Colombia, condor, death metal, Doom Metal, Heavy Metal, Sangreal

Interview: Chupacabra

by Staff on September 22, 2016

Article by Corey M.

Chupacabra’s music comes from the heart – that is, the part of the individual that is between the mind and the gut. Working without an established template, the songwriter finds and applies sounds in a unique organization specifically to reflect a profoundly idiosyncratic perspective on existence. This is a risky move: Most musicians are content to operate within an established paradigm, adapting to the constraints and handicaps offered by the genre that produces music with which they most closely identify. To abandon paradigm altogether and strike out on one’s own, neither with nor against the current but out of the river itself, is quite bold. But for Chupacabra, it is completely natural. Take a listen to this musical example of what Jung called “individuation”; the process that unifies the unconscious and the conscious, completing a powerful circuit through which ancient genetic memory is filtered and refined by real-time intelligent planning and analysis.

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18 Comments

Tags: Chupacabra, Denmark, interview

Sodom In Context

by Staff on September 18, 2016

Article by Anton Rudrick.

To be fair, one must approach judgement of a legendary and veteran band such as Sodom, with care, so that their present actions are seen in light of the road they have tread. In this spirit, it is appropriate that we go over the band’s career, taking a brief look at each step of their evolution so as to get a picture of how the band came to be as we see it and hear them today on Decision Day. If we are to start from the very beginning, we have to look back to their very first demo released in 1984, Victims of Death, which stands in an area between Metallica – Kill ‘Em All and Bathory’s self-titled debut album. Sodom’s first step is closer to contemporary hardcore punk than speed metal, which affords them a certain street credibility.

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20 Comments

Tags: beer metal, German Speed Metal, germany, proto-underground, sodom, Speed Metal

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