Since the dawn of man there have been two kinds of people. Those who are capable of innovating and those who can follow with varying degrees of success. What lies here is some of the first worst Death metal in existence as it poorly tries to capture the essence of the greats and a mix of other bands that do their best to break away from such heavy chains that burden all musicians in the 21st Century.

Ossuarium – Living Tomb:
This is just catchy Incantation riffs paired up with Fleshcrawl melodies to avoid the obvious monotony of Caverncore. When the band run out of ideas, they resort to playing Thergothon melodies over repetitive segments of three power chords. The songs all function in a very robotic and ultimately boring way as each songs starts with a tremolo picked riff, introduces some groove before playing min-numbing Death/Doom and then returning to the groove. The rare solos here are the only decent parts to be found on this record. The record is that simple and offers practically no diversion from the formula. While soap may be a rare commodity in an Ossuarium, a femur bone isn’t and the band know what to do in such situations.

Vastum – Orificial Purge:
Necroticism Descanting the Insalubrious meets mid-period Bolt Thrower for a new take on revivalism. While the band generally do seem to understand how Bill Steer creates his riffs and can somewhat ape them. They don’t understand what makes them such powerful statements. To their credit the first two songs do manage to exploit the fun that was apparent in some of their influences in a very forgettable and mindless way good enough for the soundtrack to a mindless task. The band add Arch Enemy vocals for some reason that don’t add anything to the music. Solos leech from Michael Ammott too, which further shows what kind of crowd this band seeks to appeal too. The arrangements don’t really add much as it seems the band want to jump from one chorus to another with the solo being the high point. There are some attempts at creating climaxes but there is very little progression from riff to riff in the manipulation of motifs that it all ends up feeling flat. Each riff is practically identical in regards to notes and sequence of notes that despite being coherent it all remains relatively static like someone crawling at 0.1kmph. Vastum are the kind of band to go to a dump to find pieces of soap they can glue together to then drop it in a zoo full of lonely gorillas.

Frederik Maggle featuring Maleen – Tenebrae-Lux Aeterna:
Offering a modern Neo-classical take on the darkness to light compositional style. Starting off with the Tenebrae section consisting of a minimalistic and quiet unresolved minor scale melody as the vocals float on top taking the lead role. The song slowly reaches its climax with the help of some percussion providing a metronome role that isn’t particularly useful considering the melodies present. A brief breaks signals the transition towards light which retains a lot of the same melodic characteristics for the sake of coherence. The light section doesn’t develop and falls into ambiance which doesn’t conclude the song well. The climax of the Tenebrae passage could have been extended as it does convey darkness in a language totally foreign to most metal listeners while adding a sense of desperation for the light to come in. The main issue despite the good composition is the lack of contrast between both parts and the static nature of the second part.
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Socomd – Prejail Promo 7/19:
Working around melodies that are created from excessively distorted synth sounds. Songs are nauseating due to being comprised of two dissonant layers superposed. While each song takes a singular idea and develops it obsessively until the end. “Dune Defroster” features a forced transition between two ideas with the second one being fully developed. “Coastlines composed of Flyblown carcasses” develops its idea before fading into ambiant trance. Both the opener and closer are ambient pieces that help the listener settle into the cold harshness presented here. The main strength of this record lies in how extensively each is developed fully before running out of momentum in a style akin to Black metal. The main issue is how this feels rushed together and more of a collection of ideas than a thoroughly composed EP due to Socomd having to go to jail. Socomd should take his ideas and create full songs from them while focusing less on the drawn out ambiant sections, if not he should then return to jail to drop the soap.

Gatecreeper Deserted:
Very basic Swedeath worship that takes Dismember riffs and slows them down to a crawl in order to incorporate their Hardcore and Sludge influences that don’t add much but provide as backdrop for reworked versions of “In Death’s Sleep” and “Dismembered”. The arrangements are fairly random and do nothing but showcase the riffs of better bands throughout lots of repetition and not providing much of a challenge for guessing the origin of each riff. The Dismember coupled the bouncy rhythms is all this band is capable of doing. This is a third rate hipster band that would drop the soap in a rapist convention all too willingly.

Teitanblood – The Baneful Choir:
The band whose music consisted exclusively of three note ascents followed by the same three notes descending. This time the band return to the same idea but with more ambient passages and some really creative solos that show that this band are capable of actually accomplishing something worthwhile. It seems that when the band drift away from tremolo picked riffs there is a semblance of an idea somewhere but the tremolo picked riffs return and ruin everything. Teitanblood have everything going for them except for actual riffs. Teitanblood are holding the soap at this point and now have the choice to show their potential like on “Verdict of the dead” and throw the soap to Gatecreeper or to drop the soap in the middle of a Sailor moon exhibition featuring Trey Azagthoth.

The Even Order – “The World Outside”:
Starting off with a fairly interesting set of arpeggios in a NWOBHM style reminiscent of Samson’s Head On but with a much modern Power metal approach. The arpeggios slowly progress adding more notes while dividing the beats to give it the illusion of being faster. Like A lot of NWOBHM the arpeggios are then juxtaposed with some power chords. As expected the chord progression is taken and fast galloping is added to give the climax more power in a Speed metal style that then holds down the fort while blistering solo that sound like a lot what Kirk Hammett would play erupt over the riffs that slowly change to reflect what the lead guitar is doing. The song concludes on the initial set of arpeggios that add a sense of finality to this. The chord progression is progressed through some very intriguing modulations and adding a few seventh degrees which adds a sense of pensive mystery to what could have been very standard melodies. While this style of composition has been popularized by Metallica on songs like “Sanitarium” and “One”, The Even Order avoid the quiet verse, loud chorus, aggressive ending and choose to follow their narrative in a much more logical manner similar to what Heathen were doing. The major issue here is the finale feels flat and relies too much on lead guitar theatrics. What would be interesting would be to lead towards an Extreme metal version of the finale that would create a strong contrat while maintaining coherence.

Tags: deserted, frederik maggle, gatecreeper, living tomb, orificial purge, ossuarium, socomd, teitanblood, the baneful choir, the even order, vastum