Witchblood – Hail to Lyderhorn(2014)

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Article by David Rosales

Witchblood is a black metal band that falls on the darkest corner of the folky side of the fence. While not specifically minimalist, Hail to Lyderhorn is a very simple and straightforward music that leans completely on the guitars for content and texture. This album may get repetitive or even a little thin at times but its saving grace is its coherent diversity of textures and techniques. The scant but effective use of keyboards is laudable, being effective as it is magnetic.

The guitars function as one only voice most of the time, with a trusty bass for a spinal chord. The meanness of this portion of the instrumentation places great stress over the role of percussion. The drums have now to fill up spaces and act like the second rock in the bolas of an Argentinian gaucho. To Witchblood’s merit, this is accomplished more than satisfactorily, with drums that compliment or mirror the metal strings, rising to the occasion as required.

Comments will be made about the quality of the vocal performance, which is neither deep, rich nor very powerful. Despite this, the overall result of the music in Hail to Lyderhorn does not seem affected negatively noticeably because of this. In part this is because, as with the instrumentation, the vocalizations were performed well within the boundaries of their limits, allowing them to perform effectively, and therefore avoiding the possible blunders of overextension. We may also want to point out that the textures for guitar riffs and their chosen registers stay clear of the space in which the voice moves. When the guitar’s approach changes (for example, arpeggiating chords into higher notes), the vocal approach also changes, sometimes to a haunting witch chant.

Released in 2014, Witchblood Hail to Lyderhorn is a deserving release that might have escaped the radar of most fans who would otherwise have derived much value from it. While it’s no classic or game changer, this album is nonetheless a low-key example of shrewd amateur efficiency and spirit.

Editor’s note: “Hail to Lyderhorn” was briefly covered in our best of 2014.

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Imperial Age – Warrior Race (2016)

IMPERIAL-AGE_Warrior-Race_Artwork2016_final (artwork by Jan Yrlund)

Article by David Rosales

Power metal releases are, admittedly, not the the first thing this site’s audience mainly come here for, but every once in a while we grace your eyes with the occasional appraisal of very rare honorable mentions of this superficial genre. More often than not, power metal is vain and empty, and although musically competent, also musically laughable. By its very nature, it has a higher incidence of worthless products, but that could be said of almost any mainstream genre when compared to underground ones. Contrary to your expectations, Imperial Age will receive praises here today. A cursory glance at Warrior Race might leave the impression that there is nothing new, nothing different in here that could set it apart from the bulk of contemporary power metal releases. It does not even pretend to have the progressive inclinations that some of its most ambitious competitors boast of. Structure-wise, it is as predictable as the most rigid sing-along pop acts. The tone is typically flamboyant and aristocratically haughty as becomes a European power metal ensemble.
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David Rosales’ Expectations for 2016

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Article (obviously) by David Rosales

Five years have elapsed since 2010, a year that seemed to mark a slight renewal in creative forces, a kind of premonition of a metal renaissance that came after 15 years of horrid decadence following the decease of black metal as a movement. By 2013 this force was still incipient but already showed potential for future development as acts with more refined views about composition grounded themselves in tradition, promising to build monuments to a past glory for future times. Musicians from the metal underground’s classical era also formed the bulk of this rebirth, either through perfection or purification of their own take on the art.

The last two years have seen a manner of steady output that is weakened in quantity of quality releases, little manifest presence to speak of, with a few exceptions. The same can be said of the years between 2010 and 2013. This seems to be in accordance with a 3-year pendulum swing as the small cycle of metal. The long one probably signaling stronger points of birth and decay – probably decades: 1970-birth, 1980-underground, 1990-golden era, 2000-dark ages, 2010-renaissance.

It was a different time, and when Slayer, Metallica and Iron Maiden were doing their thing at the beginning of the 1980s, metal was also at a mainstream high with many poopoo acts dominating the scene. When mainstream metal drowns in its filth at the end of the decade and the 90s leave them with unmetal metal like Pantera or Soundgarden is when the underground rears its head in greater numbers.This coincides a little with what is happening now, as nu-funderground and mainstream whoring like female-fronted so-called metal flourishes in numbers just as the shock rock and glam metal (hard rock) plague in the time of Slayer.

To make matters more complicated, we have the internet, along with other means of communication and technology that allow for pockets of both good and bad music to survive with less regard to overall trends. Metal is not yet at another apocalyptic end of an era like the one that saw the explosion of death metal, we may have to wait another decade for that, but there is rise not dissimilar to the rise of underground NWOBHM and soon after speed metal. The next ebbing of the tide is at hand, but not yet its climax. What changes is not the fact that there is or there isn’t more mainstream crap, but how much excellent underground music there is. The year 1990 was a very special time marker that signaled the advent of a climax low for the mainstream and climax high for the underground.

Now, that we posit the existence of such critical years does not mean that no excellent albums occur outside of them, but that there is a sort of genre-wide, or community-wide, perhaps, pulse that pushes general tendencies. Now, according to this idea, the next “big year” in the small cycle would be 2016. Below we give an overview of these so-called big years and some band releases we are looking forward to this year.

What are your expectations in metal releases in 2016?


A quick reference to distinguished metal works in the ‘pulse’ years. Not especially comprehensive.

 

1971:

  • Black Sabbath – Master of Reality

1974: (Not really metal, Black Sabbath is WAY ahead)

  • Deep Purple – Stormbringer
  • Rush – Rush
  • King Crimson – Red (Editor’s note: Probably closer in spirit to future metal than others)

1977:

  • Judas Priest – Sin After Sin
  • Motörhead – Motörhead

1980:

  • Iron Maiden – Iron Maiden
  • Black Sabbath – Heaven and Hell
  • Angel Witch – Angel Witch
  • Cirith Ungol – Cirith Ungol

1983:

  • Metallica – Kill ‘Em All
  • Slayer – Show No Mercy
  • Iron Maiden – Piece of Mind
  • Mercyful Fate – Melissa
  • Manilla Road – Crystal Logic
  • Manowar – Into Glory Ride

1986:

  • Slayer – Reign in Blood
  • Metallica – Master of Puppets
  • Kreator – Pleasure to Kill
  • Morbid Angel – Abominations of Desolation
  • Sepultura – Morbid Visions
  • Fates Warning – Awaken the Guardian
  • Candlemass – Epicus Doomicus Metallicus

1989:

  • Sepultura – Beneath the Remains
  • Morbid Angel – Altars of Madness
  • Bolt Thrower – Realm of Chaos
  • Voivod – Nothingface
  • Helstar – Nosferatu
  • Powermad – Absolute Power
  • Rigor Mortis – Freaks
  • Pestilence – Consuming Impulse

1992:

  • Burzum – Burzum
  • At the Gates – The Red in the Sky is Ours
  • Demigod – Slumber of Sullen Eyes
  • Morpheus Descends – Ritual of Infinity
  • Therion – Beyond Sanctorum
  • Sinister – Cross the Styx
  • Amorphis – The Karelian Isthmus
  • Deicide – Legion
  • Incantation – Onward to Golgotha
  • Atrocity – Longing for Death
  • Autopsy – Mental Funeral
  • Cadaver – …In Pains
  • Asphyx – Last One on Earth
  • Cenotaph – The Gloomy Reflections of Our Hidden Sorrows
  • Darkthrone – A Blaze in the Northern Sky
  • Emperor – Wrath of the Tyrant
  • Graveland – In the Glare of Burning Churches
  • Immortal – Diabolical Full Moon Mysticism
  • Sacramentum – Finis Malorum

1995:

  • Skepticism – Stormcrowfleet
  • Suffocation – Pierced from Within
  • Vader – De Profundis
  • Gorgoroth – The Antichrist
  • Graveland – Thousand Swords
  • Summoning – Minas Morgul
  • Deicide – Once Upon the Cross
  • Sacramentum – Far Away from the Sun
  • Immortal – Battles in the North
  • Abigor – Nachthymmen (From the Twilight Kingdom)
  • Funeral – Tragedies
  • Dissection – Storm of the Light’s Bane
  • Iced Earth – Burnt Offerings

1998:

  • Gorguts – Obscura
  • Vader – Black to the Blind
  • Incantation – Diabolical Conquest
  • Dawn – Slaughtersun
  • Sorcier des Glaces – Snowland
  • Angelcorpse – Exterminate
  • Blind Guardian – Nightfall in Middle-Earth
  • Symphony X – Twilight of the Gods
  • Rhapsody – Symphony of Enchanted Lands
  • Suffocation – Despise the Sun
  • Absurd – Asgardsrei
  • Soulburn – Feeding on Angels
  • Arghoslent – Galloping Through the Battle Ruins
  • Master – Faith is in Season
  • Skepticism – Lead and Aether

2001:

  • Gorguts – From Wisdom to Hate
  • Absu – Tara
  • Martyr – Extracting the Core
  • Lost Horizon – Awakening the World
  • Deeds of Flesh – Mark of the Legion
  • Averse Sefira – Battle’s Clarion
  • Graveland – Raise Your Sword!
  • Krieg – The Black Plague

2004:

  • Avzhia – The Key of Throne
  • Quo Vadis – Defiant Imagination

2007:

  • Blotted Science – The Machinations of Dementia

2010:

  • Avzhia – In My Domains
  • Krieg – The Isolationist
  • Burzum – Belus
  • Divine Eve – Vengeful and Obstinate
  • Atlantean Kodex – The Golden Bough
  • Graveland – Cold Winter Blades
  • Profanatica – Disgusting Blasphemies Against God
  • Autopsy – The Tomb Within
  • Overkill – Iron Bound
  • Decrepitaph – Beyond the Cursed Tombs

2013:

  • Black Sabbath – 13
  • Condor – Nadia
  • Graveland – Thunderbolts of the Gods
  • Satan – Life Sentence
  • Argus – Beyond the Martyrs
  • Autopsy – Headless Ritual
  • Profanatica – Thy Kingdom Cum
  • Imprecation – Satanae Tenebris Infinita

2016:

  • Condor?
  • Sammath?
  • Zealotry?
  • Deströyer 666? (Editor’s note: I have my doubts about this one’s possible… transcendence)
  • Vektor?
  • Voivod?
  • Summoning?
  • Graveland?
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Exmortus – Ride Forth (2016)

ride_forth

Article by David Rosales

Exmortus is a speed metal band with leanings towards what is commonly called ‘power metal’, although the general public seems to lump them in the mixed bag that so-called melodic death metal is due to their use of angsty growled-barked vocals. Exmortus have built up quite a following in the young, mainstream metal community. Ride Forth is the exciting fourth album these youngsters and guitar enthusiasts have been awaiting. This album features ‘neo-classical’ metal gestures that were first introduced in very small quantities by NWOBHM bands in combination with pentatonic soloing. It took the likes of Malmsteen and Randy Rhodes to bring this aspect to the fore. Exmortus themselves highlight it to the point of making it more than just the center of the music; enlarging it to be all the relevant music to be found herein.
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Reencarnación – 888 (2015)

reincarnacion

Article by David Rosales

Obscure and wacky ’80s bands are always a treat to listen to. They bring the darkest side of Hellhammer or early Bathory while being completely unpredictable, without going to the completely unhinged music of hipsters like later Deathspell Omega. Reencarnación is another weird Colombian band that published a series of underground metal demos that would rightly be considered the true heirs to seventies progressive rock. Among the very measured use extra musical noise, such as a crowd, or a lamenting voice, there is even an interlude that makes use of a classical guitar and a violin.

888 (originally published as a self-titled) is not an album but a collection of old recordings (possibly remastered, given how clean they sound) put together as a compilation. This plays a lot like Infester’s only album, except songs are shorter and perhaps slightly more disorienting given their use of spasmic sections and percussion pauses that give it a strange feeling like that of a man gasping for air. The music basically consists of nonsense chromatic leads, Sarcofago-like thrashing, and mid-paced grindcore riffing. Quite endearing.

While what we have here is a delicious mixture of experimental and progressive thinking applied to anarcho-punk going through grindcore. Unfortunately, the recordings are section-oriented (but not precisely riff-oriented), forgetting about the importance of linking songs by some kind of theme, even if not by a melodic one. The result is a confusing, winding labyrinth that attempts to emulate the progressive rock of Emerson, Lake and Palmer in their most twisted hour, and succeeding to a large degree, as it suffers from the same sort of problems, only augmented by ignorance or inexperience.

Reencarnación’s 888 is certainly a very enjoyable album which you want to play while drinking alone in your room with your computer screen as the only light source as you read collections of BBS posts saved in a corner of the Internet by another obsessive nerd. However, this will not do as an example of great songwriting or endure objective scrutiny.

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Rambo’s Top 10 Underground Metal Songs

first blood part 2

Rambo swung by and talked metal over a couple of beers this week. A now spirit-broken idealist, Rambo expressed his concerns for the sad state of modern life in the cities. I could not miss the palpable misanthropy in his tone as he crushed cans with one hand describing the faint-heartedness of limp-bodied SJWs.

10. Sepultura – Sarcastic Existence

There are no friendly civilians!

9. Marduk – Fistfucking Gods Planet

Don’t look at me, look at the road! That’s how accidents happen.

8. Heresiarch – Intransingent

Is there a law against me getting something to eat here?

7. Fallen Christ – Satanas

I’m no tourist.

6. Black Sabbath – Nightmare

Your worst nightmare.

5. Metallica – Fade To Black

Sir, do we get to win this time?

4. Immolation – Those Left Behind

They’re all gone Sir.

3. Blood – Defaced Total Mutilation

I’ve got blood and everything and I’m tryin’ to hold him together! I’m puttin’… the guy’s fuckin’ insides keep coming out!

2. Rigor Mortis – Welcome to Your Funeral

I could have killed ’em all, I could’ve killed you. In town you’re the law, out here it’s me. Don’t push it! Don’t push it or I’ll give you a war you won’t believe. Let it go. Let it go!!

1. Amebix – Drink and be Merry

For me civilian life is nothing! In the field we had a code of honor, you watch my back, I watch yours. Back here there’s nothing!

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Defending Belus

belus

Article by David Rosales; read yet another (negative) contemporary review of Belus here

After an incursion into ambient metal that lasted for a few albums, Burzum was seemingly trying to make a comeback to metal instrumentation. But appearances can be deceiving, and what seems like a failed attempt at creating streamlined metal music may be, in fact, an attempt at riffing-up ambient music. There is also a hint that it is packaged into an integral release that has to be listened to as a whole. This does sound an awful lot like the premise of post-rock, and while there is a good deal of wallpaper repetition, there are also plenty of good ideas in what is the closest heir we have to Vikernes’ seclusion.

The old DMU reception of the album when it had just come out is spot on in its criticism, but much may be added that redeems this understated album. A very clear line of evolution can be traced from Det Som Engang Var through Hvis Lyset Tar Oss and the anti-black metal ambient expansion of Filosofem to Burzum’s 2010 release. For all intents and purposes, an album like Belus is the next logical step. That it cannot harness the energies of black metal while it attempts to spread like synth ambient is proof of the impermeability of distinct genres.

This shaky, middle-ground positioning was resolved marvelously with 2013’s Sôl austan, Mâni vestan, whose incomprehension by black metal fans shows it as a next filter in the practical evolution of transcendental metal as it maintains its ideals. The filters before them can be seen in the commencement of different underground metal genres, with Black Sabbath being the first obscure revolution, Slayer and Metallica on their debut leading the second, and the waves of speed-going-on-black as intermediary steps towards the third explosion of death metal, which in its technical fetish gave way to the more musical black metal. The next great purge takes place after 1995 as several of the best black metal musicians lean heavily towards minimalist ambient-focused projects, which in some cases turn into affairs that are more electronic than metal in instrumentation (Beherit’s Electric Doom Synthesis is one of the crown jewels of this very select group).

Weakened as it is in its most objective sense, the soft, layered and simple cadences and droning melodies unique to Vikernes’ mind are still more full and less candy-coated than the likes of Drudkh. And where, in Belus, the music seesm to drone on, the choice in length is never as much as the likes of Sunn O))) so that it falls completely into the background. Hvis Lyset Tar Oss was a trip to another dimension, each moment pushes forward, but the next album was a trance with subtle pulsations and bumps, breathing in and breathing out in a quality that cannot be measure quantitatively but qualitatively at an abstract level, admitting no materialistic distinction. The repetition scheme here is a compromise and application of what was learned in Filosofem, relying on a certain quality of endurance that Vikernes’ simple but multi-layered riffs focus on and uniquely shine for.

At worst, Belus is solid ambient music played on suboptimal instrumentation, and at best, a unique chance at perceiving these landscapes through metallic lenses which distort and bring to the fore particular contours and colors. When positioned at the right place and at the right time (having the right mentality), the listener may find himself submerged into dense forests, fuzzy with the brume of unreality. The vision that Belus presents is not that different from Burzum’s early efforts, but where the quick underground fan may detect watered-down content, others may see a matured and spiritually refined thinking.

This is not objective music, this is a secluded path for those who have digested Burzum’s music beyond its atomic particles and into the very essence, flow and nature of it. This fourth filtering-out of profane minds certainly leaves most behind, and though these words may seem spurious, those with a balanced and logic mind, a strong and idealist heart, and an avid curiosity may find themselves on the right path to this shrouded grove.

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On Metal Transcriptions and Metal Music Percussion

Article by David Rosales

This very entertaining cover of Iron Maiden’s song ‘Hallowed be Thy Name’ as performed by a bass clarinet quartet was posted on Youtube a few years ago. The instruments take on the melodic lines of the song, which was aptly selected as it is rich in them. This experiment is not only fun to listen to but interesting in how a different instrumentation highlights one aspect of the music while utterly losing a whole dimension exploited by the original composition.

The clarity of melody and harmony is quite enhanced here and so their study and appreciation by the guitar student seeking to learn and emulate this aspect of the song will greatly benefit from this adaptation. However, the loss of the power chord, and particularly the power chord played on the distorted electric guitar means the loss of an ocean of artificial artifacts that form the bulk of the richness of sound of the instrument and which lend metal and hard rock music one of its distinctive aural characteristics.

The necessary absence of the drum set is seen by the more classically-oriented music fan or musician as, perhaps, negligible, but this is only because of the widespread ignorance (either through pop culture or academic music indoctrination) about the relevance of percussion in metal. Contrary to the now-traditional view of percussion as a less important aspect of music (which, in fact, flies in the face of many traditional folk musics around the world, where it is recognized and studied by academicians yet still seen with derision as “primitive”), this reliance that metal has exhibited in increasing amounts is not a measure of scarcity of content or artistic deficiency, but rather the appearance of an unknown variable.

Metal percussion in its most advanced states, that is, in its use in the more artistically (as opposed to technically) developed subgenres of death and black metal shows a usage and expansion that just does not exist in traditional or experimental classical music. As such, academicians have no precedent by which to measure or qualify this. They should perform field research, they should listen, but they are too comfortable and busy feeling self-important. This is the sad state of the intellectually self-gratifying (and ‘morally’ bankrupt) art that results from two centuries of overarching materialism, corruption and decay.

Many would point to the obvious origin of metal percussion in traditional rock, and that is factually right, yet its use and direction has gone far beyond it and in some cases taken cues even from electronic music (especially in the case of some black metal)and jazz music (in the case of some death metal). Metal percussion incorporates aspects of these and has built a whole new art out of it that could be considered the more spiritual child of the pleasure-oriented and technically-nuanced jazz (Editor’s note: DMU has written about this very hypothesis in the deep past).

The future and refinement of metal this metal percussion should not to reside in the empty groove explorations of fusion as seen in djent nor in the facetious exercises of tekdeth which may even borrow directly from genres such as samba in their search for “entertaining and interesting” bits to play, regardless of how this may affect the character of the music. Also defunct inside are the dead-end and superficial attempts at applications of abstract concepts in nu-black metal and war metal. As in all other aspects of the already-cemented, fully-formed language of metal, the role of its percussion and its abstract concepts have been made known implicitly in the music of the classics. Go, listen, study, learn, apply.

 

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Sadistic Metal Reviews- Mendacious Stork Edition (End of 2015 Series)

loosestool

One list of albums dictated by the masses of sheeple apparently does not provide enough self-indulgence and emotional masturbation for the hordes of mental weaklings that yearn to be called metalheads in order to disguise their lack of direction or ideals. Hence, here we are, clubbing away at one of these sorry piles of shit for the amusement of hessians. However, we also hope that the attentive unawakened reader may start to see a glimpse of the truth through outright disrespect for the inherently contemptible. (We have skipped some items in the original list as to not incur in much unnecessary repetition of releases, thus the odd numbering of the items herein.)

swallow the sun

2. Swallow the Sun – Songs From The North I, II & III

The term “doom metal” is again used to justify slow-coming boredom and lack of originality. Swallow the Sun compile alternative metal slow and simple grooves with the alternation of growls and the clear vocals typical of post-cuckolded Amorphis Scandinavian gay ‘hard’ (ha!) rock. There is an obvious pseudo-progressive intent here as discreet radio moments pass us by in a series of haphazardly-stitched, disingenuous grimaces. Radio emotional pandering for the pretentious.

3. Draconian – Sovran

Apparently radio gay doom is popular at MS’ website. Only here we have a much more straightforward, perhaps more honest, attempt at the same run-of-the-mill pop rock opera. Draconian switches between male and female vocals, with duet episodes, themselves interrupted by long harmonized guitar lines reminiscent, at least superficially, of Funeral’s early work. However, Tragedies did not fall into popisms and rather took a more traditional popular music approach to vocals and applied it to a quasi classical level which may make one think of European early music. Draconian, on the other hand, stink of Barbie sex.

Shape-of-Despair_Monotony-Fields

4. Shape of Despair – Monotony Fields

Mediocre and dull ‘doom metal’ seems to be extremely popular. It may be that since the average music listener is a terrible one, and that they seek these sounds as stimulus for a purely sensual experience and so can only identify with very simple-minded works, however contorted their outward forms may be. Shape of Despair provide the pop listener with the ‘doom metal’ experience in the same way that Cannibal Corpse provides him the ‘death metal’ experience. Of course, this is the sort of listener that “listens to all kinds of music”. All is imbecility.

galneryus

5. Galneryus – Under the Force of Courage

One day little guitar Syu wanted to find a place for his neoclassical wanking and so created the power metal band Galneryus. Galneryus released a couple of comically-endearing and childish albums until the inevitable sellout moment came. After trying their hand at pandering to a more mainstream audience and wisely switching to writing lyrics in Japanese (realizing, perhaps that their main market was inside Japan after all, and that foreign fans would always be attracted to the sound of a strange and unique language), the band took a wide turn back to a firmly European style inspired on the likes of Manowar-inspired streamlined power metal with augmented structures that balance a manner of unpredictability without ever feeling unsafe and, of course, always remaining singable. Clever and winky, empty as fanservice-crammed anime.

8. Leprous – The Congregation

Groovy, syncopated, modulations disguising poorly-presented repetition, weird clean vocals, just enough electronic noodling and laid-back but ‘cool’ drums. This is the recipe par excellence for the multiculturalist wet dream presenting all forms and nothing but insecurity and hollowness at its center. Here is where the worst overproduced radio pop is peppered with jazz fusion gimmicks. Metal? Music or public obscenity?

moonspell extinct

9. Moonspell – Extinct

A horrible blend of modern industrial tropes and a sissy euro-rock basis, accompanied vocals angsty enough to seem edgy but just safe enough as to not scare away the wimps who listen to this garbage. The high school poser solos do not really redeam this first-world, spoiled-kid, macho pretension.

Enshine_Singularity

14. Enshine – Singularity

Basically, the sonic representation of the sparkly, clean-shaven assholes of fans of these music ready to be sodomized by real metal music. Lacking in all natural self-assertion or distinct personality, this is music for the bottom who craves to be dominated. In other words, music for social justice warriors.

anthropocene extinction

15. Cattle Decapitation – The Anthropocene Extinction

This is as ridiculous as pseudo-progressive core pandering can get. What is worse, this band is playing a dangerous game in which they may lose all of their audiences, or perhaps score with New York hipsters. Crammed in under two minutes you may find explicit deathcore and alternative rock passages, power metal leads, nu-black metal runs lead by duets of inhaled low growls and Chester Bennington’s evil twin brother’s whining, without excluding the use of high squeals. Basically, a puddle of diarrhea that clearly gives away the cause of ailment. Unbearably disquieting in its stupidity.

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Arghoslent – Galloping Through the Battle Ruins (1998)

galloping through the battle ruins

Article by David Rosales

Arghoslent are frequently and incorrectly tagged as a death metal band while they are actually a speed metal seasoned with a traditional heavy metal approach to the use of melody and soloing that goes can be described as lyrical or ‘singable’. The barking vocals that are featured here are the only thing that is borrowed directly from death metal and their usage is still more heavy metal in nature, given that the relationship of vocals to the underlying music is more akin to the riff-riding of Ozzy than the punching counterpoint of Suffocation or Gorguts.
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