Insane – Wait and Pray (2005)

by Staff on September 15, 2016

insane-wait-and-pray
Article by Lance Viggiano.

It’s ten thirty, you’ve just park your primer printed Ford Escort next to a mail box. As you approach the house party, you hear the faint but present rolling of open e rumbling which causes your fist to clench; unconsciously clamping the thirty rack of PBR you are carrying with heightened anticipation. As you approach the house, the scent of tobacco and descending drum fills leaks through the cracked garage door while brief phrases of frantic power chords begin alighting a fire deep inside… Insane fun awaits.

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Meditations on Ananku

by Staff on August 26, 2016

serpent ascending - ananku cover

Article by Lance Viggiano.

Ananku is random stereotypical sentimentality in terms of both pseudo climactic release and legacy nostalgia underscored by the crooning of its capricious composer. One may skip to any moment of this record and find a passable to competent riff which invites the listener to further explore its contents. Yet to sit through the work in succession, the order – or lack thereof- is much akin to a dreamlike state. Waking life is a comedic but rationally apprehensive continuity; whereas the experience of dreaming is much like thumbing through to one’s favorite moments in no particular order and therefore as a whole Ananku betrays its efforts at thematic unity. The forces behind Serpent Ascending make a noticed use of genre firmament however indecisive haste fashioned for itself a fallen world.

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Conqueror – War Cult Supremacy (1999)

by Staff on August 26, 2016

conqueror - war cult supremacy

Conqueror wanted to be a part of the “scene” but did not have musical ideas. The band discovered that the muddied sound of early Beherit and Blasphemy circa Fallen Angel of Doom could be used to obfuscate their dearth of ideas. Furthermore the hostility between the Norwegian scene and the rest of black metal could be amplified under false pretenses while not offering any truly satisfying alternative themselves. Basically, point to candy assed pop drivel like Dark Funeral but go to the other end of the spectrum entirely with a paper thin wall of television white noise with a drunken chipmunk howling nonsense. Conqueror’s “music” is structured which ironically stands contra to the concept of all out war. A little anarchy would at the very least allow the essence of battle to bubble up from the pot. Instead it’s a tame morass of very low effort grindcore riffs and mostly incomprehensible low E-string noodling. The best that can be said about Conqueror is that J. Reed has an identifiable sound.

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Itzamná – Maldito Predicador (2016)

by Staff on August 25, 2016

Itzamna-MalditoPredicador2016

Article by Anton Rudrick.

Originally babtized as Amerindio at its time of conception in 2014, the project today known to us as Itzamná presents us with one of the forms of Thrash that are most authentically crude. This flows from an inner knowing of violence and adversity which foundation upon personal experience can alone provide. As per Thrash tradition (not to be confused with Speed Metal, also known as “Thrash Metal” in less versed circles), Itzamná channel the spirit of hardcore punk through the phrase-like riffcraft of underground metal. This lends a more apocalyptic character and a bloody thrust to the music in the form of heaviness that it would otherwise be remiss to lack, given the unapologetic finality of the propositions to be found herein.

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Possession Ritual – Incense of Opened Gates (2011)

by Staff on August 22, 2016

possession ritual - the incense of opened gates

Article by Anton Rudrick.

German ritual black ‘n’ roll band Possession Ritual released a full-length going by the name of Incense of Opened Gates, with striking artwork by Ars Leprosa in the year 2011 through Nihilward Productions. A note is made that the music itself was written and recorded in 2006. Being one of those limited editions which are rather hard to come by and probably also partially hidden away from the unworthy prying eyes of mundane minds, the author has only been able to listen to two pieces from the album. Hence, all commentaries and reflections upon the band’s work can be traced to perceptions of these exclusively. It will be useful to meditate upon a holistic impression of the band as an entity, and to take each of those to tracks to task separately, to finally arrive at a judgement of the musical work as manifested result of a series of evocations.

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Goatcraft – Yersinia Pestis (2016)

by Staff on August 19, 2016

goatcraft - yersinia pestis

Article by Lance Viggiano.

Arpeggiated minor chord melancholy culled from or composed during belligerent improvisational tirades given body by a sluggish left hand approximating power chords to provide the work a lattice to the traditions of metal. Yersinia Pestis abstains from its predecessor’s thematic coherence – an accident of writing what were essentially cover songs of a famous painter – to make marked but mishandled improvements in its individual presentations through tuneful reprisals of established Goatcraft trademarks. The dependence upon staccato and arpeggio retain the artist’s characteristic stiffness in execution which blemishes through its brutishness.

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Initial Impressions of Serpent Ascending – Ananku

by Staff on August 19, 2016

serpent ascending - ananku cover

Article by Anton Rudrick.

Following a tradition of Finnish death metal, Serpent Ascending first proved its allegiance to the old stream of thought on The Enigma Unsettled. The project stood out as possessing that rare gift that grants vision past forms and into the value therein encased as dormant power, codified, awaiting a worthy hero who can pull the Sword from the Stone. While using techniques and musical structures that are well-known, interesting counterpoint and chant-like melodies can be seen in that first album, inserting them in between more conservative power metal riffs that were eerie enough to belong to occult death metal but also displayed a penchant for memorable phrases. Five years have elapsed since then, and several Desecresy albums have seen the definition and reaffirmation of that band into a distinctly esoteric style. Many were keenly expectant upon the future of Serpent Ascending.

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Intolitarian: Of Gas Masks & Gimp Suits

by Staff on August 11, 2016

intolitarian antichrist kramer

Article by Lance Viggiano

Intolitarian is the work of a singular person who polemically positions himself as an artistic paragon standing on the opposite end of a polarity between retro-rehash, imported heaps of plastic and bad Xeroxes. Amidst such a landscape and armed with powerful rhetorical golden guns, he is able to churn out effort after effort which communicates nothing and everyone knows it. Like war metal, which similarly has nothing to say, criticism is parried through a simple maneuver: those who call this spade a spade simply cannot handle how extreme it is for it is certain that this work stands on the precipice of a new aesthetic era that will make death and black metal look like nursery rhymes. This defensive posture is of course a variation of the oft repeated, “You don’t understand” that is used by insular communities and critics to accomplish little more than convince the user of their own superiority where every induced eye-roll reduces to signals of ones own status as a martyr for good taste.

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