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Absconditus – Kατάβασις (Katavasis)

by David Rosales on May 14, 2015

Being a casual listener, it is easy to miss black metal’s essence completely. It is easy to think that it is just some repetitive “atmospheric riffing”. What we forget is that verbal descriptions of things do not reflect reality in its entirety but are just placeholders for things we know. And for things we do not know, they just serve as attempts to describe aspects of the object in question. This is why, when it comes to detailed descriptions of feelings, we resort to poetic language, metaphor and example, a simple “sad” or “happy” is not enough to express the experience precisely. This is also where the difficulty of expressing and discussing the success or failure of a music to convey something lies. Some critics resort to evaluating purely musical aspects in a technical way which lets them make solid judgements from the vantage point of tradition and taste. Taste itself lies in the middle-ground between what is considered objective and subjective, since it is a concept developed communally, not individually.

Absconditus take black metal’s most superficial description at face value and runs with it. Kατάβασις (Katavasis) is a collection of repetitive, atmosphere-inducing-oriented pieces that serve more as a background than as proper music. The tracks here all sound like introductions to something else. Simple repetition along with a little groovy improvisation on the drums and a melody here and a melody there carry this set of intros to the end. One gets the feeling that something is about to start and then each track ends. And then the album reaches an uneventful stop. It is as if Absconditus is just making a series of proposals of ideas that could become songs. Even if Absconditus would take its time more and develop actual songs, the way ideas were presented in Katavasis was cliche-oriented and crowd-pleasing, so that the result would still be average at best. This project/album needs to be restarted from scratch.

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Tags: 2015, Absconditus, Black Metal, katabasis, Katavasis, Kατάβασις

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (2011)

by Spinoza Ray Prozak on May 13, 2015

Compared to Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy most films appear to simply be extended commercials with music videos for the emotional parts. Telling the story of Soviet infiltration of the British secret services through an interlocking series of clues, this film takes the approach that Agatha Christie might use for one of her cerebral murder cases and applies it instead to international espionage. It will never outsell The Avengers because in this film, every detail is part of the mechanism that builds up to an intense finale for its ultimate revelation. Even more damning, themes in this movie illustrate human narcissism, how the West was destroyed by the same individualistic self-interest that made it strong, and the importance of honor, loyalty and truthfulness.

Gary Oldman stars as John le Carré’s character George Smiley, modulated from the outsider nerd in the book to a methodical and highly analytical man who finds much of society around him to be short-sighted and erroneous. Like the best characters from literature, he endures civilization as it is but upholds it as it is at its best, creating a worldview that would approve of the mythological analysis of the human soul as found in Slayer lyrics or the darker days of grindcore. Exiled from his position at MI6 because of his refusal to endorse a new and magical source of Soviet secrets, and passed over by those who built careers on it, Smiley hunts for a “mole” or double-agent who is compromising British intelligence whenever it tries to operate in enemy territory. Unlike those who have taken over his former role, he searches through the type of logical analysis and study of the relationship between details that made sleuths like Sherlock Holmes, Ellery Queen, Hercule Poirot, the Continental Op, Phillip Marlowe and Miss Jane Marple legends in their field.

Sadly for most modern audiences, this film requires attention. No detail is spurious and every scene follows from the systematic and interlocking pursuit of details. In addition, the filmmakers layer that story with parallel themes of love and loss, loyalty and motivation, and strength of character versus the tendency to appeal to pleasant but erroneous notions that receive the aplomb of journalists, politicians and the faceless voting masses. While its logicality deserves praise, the emotionality of this film in bringing out the loneliness of its characters and the equal isolation of the struggle for truth, as not a motivator but a shaper and revelation of personality, enhances a solid story into an epic one. The acting is brilliant without being self-absorbed — no one in this film looks like they are acting, or resembles other characters they have played in other films — and the soundtrack is minimal and on point, the cinematography both bleak and elegant, and the directing and editing show a perfect sense of timing that both preserves atmosphere and cuts out anything but the powerful. Of the films made in the 2010s, this will either be the best or in the top three, because movies this intense rarely come along at a rate of more than a handful per generation.

10 Comments

Tags: Agatha Christie, British intelligence, Ellery Queen, Gary Oldman, Grindcore, Hercule Poirot, John le Carré, Phillip Marlowe and Miss Jane Marple, Sherlock Holmes, the Continental Op, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Tengger Cavalry – Blood Sacrifice Shaman

by David Rosales on May 13, 2015

Tengger Cavalry is a band from Mongolia whose main selling point is that they make extensive use of Mongolian traditional instruments in a metal context. Now, it may be that I am prejudiced both towards East Asian metal and the prominent use of folkloric music in metal, but there are statistical reasons for that. East Asians are not known for their originality in metal (not only…). And very often, when a band sells itself mainly because it uses traditional instruments we can smell the stink of gimmick all over it. Some kind of prejudice is based on the probability of an event given our experience. Sometimes enough experience justifies the validity of this probability. And sometimes we may find ourselves erring in our prejudice. But Tengger Cavalry are not the exception, they are the rule.

The “metal” element in this music is provided through a Rammstein-styled modern stadium heavy rock, a little ala Rob Zombie. The rest is comprised of simple, repetitive melodies played on folk instruments that are never developed . Decorations are provided by different kinds of instruments, while the Rammstein element is used as a backbone. This would work very well as a soundtrack for Arcade machine slasher games, providing a momentary sugar-high with no lasting nutritional value.

The production value here is necessarily very high quality. The music is incredibly catchy and all the same irrelevant, placing Blood Sacrifice Shaman in the same category of embarrassingly cartoonish party-rock-pretending-to-be-metal as late Chthonic and Babymetal. Recommended as T.V. commercial jingles for on-line games and such.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kaKdzDwkwc

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Tags: Babymetal, Blood Sacrifice Shaman, Chthonic, East Asian metal, embarrassing, lame metal, Mongolia, Tengger Cavalry, video game OST

Masacre to release new album Brutal Aggre666ion

by David Rosales on May 11, 2015

Colombian true living Death Metal legends MASACRE have inked a deal with Xtreem Music for the European version of their latest album “Brutal Aggre666ion”, the 5th in their long career for this band formed back in 1988 that has built a truly incorruptible cult status as one of the most mythic south american bands ever!!

First released only for the colombian territory through the band’s own label Mórbida Prod. in October 2014, “Brutal Aggre666ion” is another solid step in the band’s discography, showing a truly brutal form of Death Metal in their traditional style, empowered, once again, by the production skills of HATE ETERNAL/ ex-MORBID ANGEL’s Erik Rutan at his own Mana Studios in Tampa, Florida.

Track listing for “Brutal Aggre666ion” is as follows:

1. La Guerra
2. Mutilated
3. Bullets
4. War in Hell
5. Donde Habital el Mal
6. Satanic Peace Agreement
7. Reality Death
8. The Calm Before the Storm
9. Valle de la Muerte

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Tags: 2015, Brutal Aggre666ion, Colombia, death metal, Masacre, new album

Arch Enemy – Stigmata

by David Rosales on May 5, 2015

After parting ways with Carcass following the completion of Heartwork, the Swede Michael Amott embarked on his own project called Arch Enemy. Stigmata is the non-sell-out sibling of that last reviled/worshiped Carcass album in which Amott participated in. Starting out with Johan Liva barking in the vocal department, this was a far cry from the embarrassingly audience-pleasing act this band later became.

While most so-called melodic death metal acts, including later Arch Enemy, following in the footsteps of Carcass’ last album (Swansong should have been kept by Bill Steer for private use) produce clear, straight-up pop verse-chorus with riffs and solos in the manner of the most mainstream 1980s metal. Sticking out from the crowd, Stigmata explores different song structures, and different ratios between Swedeath Carnage-style riff sections and those which are direct references to 1980s melodic metal. Michael Amott presents us here, in this still underground release, the best of his ideas in their most sincere (though not optimal) form.

Symptomatic of the middle-age crisis that underground metal went through in the mid 1990s, Stigmata shows a sincere desire to produce solid, thought-out metal music, but its motivation and direction is misplaced in nostalgia-driven emulations of the past rather than a forward vision. This was the end of metal’s own romantic era. Metal artists’ general illiteracy in art could give no rise to a counterpart to the 20th century modernist classical music (perhaps Obscura was an exception?) and it went straight to post-modernist pandemonium shortly after the turn of the century.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fk8F2vNazk

7 Comments

Tags: 1990s, Arch Enemy, Bill Steer, carcass, Heartwork, Johan Liva, Melodic Death Metal, Michael Amott, middle-age crisis, midlife crisis, modern metal, post-metal, sell-out, Stigmata, underground

Black Witchery/Revenge – Holocaustic Death March to Humanity’s Doom

by Brett Stevens on April 22, 2015

War metal bands Black Witchery and Revenge issued their new release on tax day, April 15, with each band recording three new songs of their trademark sound, which their biography eagerly informs us is inspired by Blasphemy and Sarcofago. With excellent and intriguing cover art, and raw but clear production, this release should appeal to fans of the genre.

Black Witchery tear into their three tracks with a studied recklessness and noisy attack. These shorter songs use the standard circular structure with a final detour, but the band inserts rhythmic breaks throughout — the war metal equivalent of a breakdown in deathcore — to build intensity. Most riffs follow the rock/grindcore paradigm of a static chord, possibly with a chromatic offset, establishing a rhythm to which a fill is added. These riffs resemble faster version of punk hardcore riffs in minor key with lower tuning and faster, more precise playing. This shows a heritage with more in common with Napalm Death than Immortal and a lack of the atmosphere and uniquely shaped songs that made the Blasphemy proto-black metal grindcore hybrid work well, as well as an absence of the melodic structuring of the Black Witchery demo. The relentless aggression of these songs will make them popular but they will not be as memorable as Blasphemy or Sarcofago. If this band wishes to improve, their first step will be to worry less about being intense enough and worry more about shaping that intensity so that at the end of each track, a profound shifting of mood and idea leaves the listener in awe. This was the standard Blasphemy achieved on the best moments of Fallen Angel of Doom and the direction Sarcofago indicated their material should take with songs like “The Black Vomit.” Of these three tracks, “Curse of Malignancy” is my favorite for its directed power that forcibly enacts a concise regimen that achieves the feeling of warfare at least in concept.

Revenge takes a different approach to war metal through riffs longer in duration which use the same surging technique but depend on active drums to break pattern with accents and spur the riff on to change. This technique can rally the attention of the listener and is often used in marching bands. It however creates a reliance on the drums, which although it makes the surge tremolo riff technique less important, also relegates guitars to a secondary role and creates a type of static riffing that resembles doom metal sped up to grindcore paces. Much like Black Witchery, this music is almost exclusively chromatic, which gives it the primitive and violent feel prized by fans. Revenge also tackle Bathory “Equimanthorn,” but in imposing their own rhythmic standards they enhance the jerky and sing-song nature of this tune (comparable to Mayhem “Deathcrush”) and add nothing to the original, so it stands out barely. This band has always been one of the more technically proficient voices in war metal and while their music is enjoyable in a single listen, the songs are too similar in approach, topic and technique for prolonged listening. “Revenge” rounds out this three-song EP and may be my favorite track on this side for its compact, solidly focused assault.

4 Comments

Tags: black witchery, nuclear war now! productions, revenge, War Metal

Infernus – Grinding Christian Flesh (2015)

by Brett Stevens on April 21, 2015

Late model black metal features many of these entries: as much borrowed from the days of speed metal as black metal, keeping a constant “jazzercise” style constant tempo and intensity, and while there are some sweet riffs, they are marooned in a sea of throwaway budget riffs and patterns from 1987 Exodus clones. Infernus has great rasping vocals but essentially, doom their album with highly predictable note progressions in the riffs and a constant, incessant droning style of composition. Many heavy metal touches pervade this album, suggesting that like early Gehennah and Nifelheim, this is heavy metal dressing up as black metal and equalizing all of its riffs to the same speed to hide their hard rock, speed metal and heavy metal origins. While the fans of the band will defend it on the basis of irony or some nostalgia, the result is musical tedium because of a failure to come to point. This is like watching the 5,000 slides of the vacation your neighbor just took, except that now the slides are old riffs and old tropes.

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Tags: Black Metal, gehennah, Heavy Metal, infernus, moribund records, nifelheim

Grotesque In the Embrace of Evil plus At the Gates Gardens of Grief re-issue

by Brett Stevens on April 20, 2015

Hammerheart Records will re-issue Swedish black/heavy/death metal band Grotesque In the Embrace of Evil plus the first release of the band which shortly succeeded it, At the Gates Gardens of Grief. These will be released on vinyl on August 21, 2015.

Grotesque, like Merciless, Morbid, Slaughter Lord, Tormentor (Hungary) and Sarcofago, represented an interstitial state in black metal where bands still in the style of older speed/death like Possessed moved into a sound that approximated black metal without the musical developments of the full genre as came bursting out of Norway shortly afterwards.

When members of Grotesque moved on to form At the Gates, they took their music more in a direction of melodic black metal, starting with their first EP, Gardens of Grief, which showcases their unconventional approach to songwriting and solid melodic development.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp2bxLeUABs

1 Comment

Tags: At the Gates, grotesque, hammerheart records

#metalgate: SJW insanity spreads to circular firing squad

by Brett Stevens on April 18, 2015

#metalgate came about as a reaction to the growing intrusion of social justice dogma into heavy metal through journalists, bloggers and indie-metal bands. All of them share the same basic ideology, which is a demasculinization of society and forced conformity to political correctness. This is not merely 1990s style political correctness but a rigid ideology which goes in search of victims to defend, which gives power to those who follow this ideology.

At this point, the situation has passed into comedy. Noted mincingly PC blog Boing Boing posted a picture of a kitty that makes a gentle iteration on a well-known joke, which is that if we are choosing our identities and denying the obvious physical reality, why not choose anything? Satire includes the helisexual, the A-10 Thunderbolt and was even satirized in left-of-Pravda The New York Times.

Let’s face it: people think it is ridiculous, and therefore both funny and provocative in that “neighbor playing ‘Who Let the Dogs Out’ on repeat at 4am” way, that people “identify” as something which they are physically just… well, there’s no gentle way to say this… not.

This however provokes ire from the SJWs, who see the idea that you cannot arbitrarily choose your sex as being an attack on the idea of transsexualism. While it may be indirectly so, it seems more that what is being attacked is the idea of arbitrary identity of all forms, and the attackers are laying into the method of transsexuals asserting themselves, while not making a comment on transsexualism itself (neither attacking nor approving).

The blog in question backed down, cowered and apologized in response to this blatant Mau-Mauing. What else could they do? They have done it to others for almost a decade, so turnabout is fair play. Their statement:

We’re sorry for this offensive tweet. Its transphobia was unintentional, but the hurt it caused is our responsibility

Perhaps represents a high-water mark for SJW intrusion into Western culture. When you cannot use a kitty to make fun of a stupid method that some people are using to force you to validate their life choices, without necessarily commenting on those life choices, the days of the legalized witch-hunt are here.

29 Comments

Tags: comicgate, gamergate, kittygate, metalgate, political correctness, sjws

Devil (2010)

by Brett Stevens on March 21, 2015

This film combines supernatural horror with the time-honored formula of detective stories, which is the “locked room” mystery. In this case, the locked room is an elevator in which five people are stranded during a power outage. As time goes on, and evil acts accumulate, it becomes clear that one of the people in the elevator is in fact working in service to darkness and impurity.

M. Night Shyamalan prides himself in making atmospheric films with semi-philosophical ideas lurking under the surface, but it is safer to say that Devil takes a Miltonian approach to expressing a religious message that ends up being more gnostic than the convenient externalization of Satan which with modern religion addresses evil. While the intent of the film is made clear, it strays far from the two thwarts to quality expression of idea in film, which are the blunt propaganda of contemporary religious cinema and the concealed satisfaction with deconstruction of all values — with the breakdown supplanting re-evaluation — that is the hallmark of Hollywood. In this film, Satan plays an active role in the judgment of humanity.

Locked-room mysteries tend to be research projects into either or both of the psychology of the people in the room or their pasts, looking for a bridge between characters. The sixth character here is an investigating police officer who struggles daily with the agony of loss of his wife and child in a DUI hit and run accident. Seen through his eyes, the presence of evil becomes less supernatural and more a case of human self-absorption causing negative results in reality as illusion collides with consistency. Locked outside of the elevator and many floors away, he investigates the people in the elevator with the help of telephones, the internet and other people, searching to get to the bottom of the mystery.

The result is less atmospheric than a fast-paced mystery or a mid-paced thriller, with enough gore and suspense to drive the plot forward and make solving the mystery seem an urgent necessity. Whether these actors are as good as their craft as it seems, or it is the fusion of director and actors, they achieve the greatest of all cinematic triumphs which is true suspension of disbelief: unlike most movies, they do not seem like actors, even stage actors as the more celebrated movies display. Instead they come across as everyday people who speak their lines more clearly and make their gestures more visible. Tightly edited, the film avoids the use of tedium to offset the suspense, and thankfully the script avoids any of the “instant replay” dialogue that more confused films used to replay complex plots. Instead, it moves along normally, with the tension of an observer who increasingly sees his task as more of a battle between good and evil than an everyday mystery. The conclusion is neither a baffling surprise nor as predictable as the average film, and continues the suspense until it can streamline into a sustaining emotional ambiance.

4 Comments

Tags: devil, m. night shyamalan, movies

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