M.H.X’s Chronicles – Infinite Ocean (2015)

by David Rosales on June 11, 2015

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Playing a so-called melodic death metal in the vein of Insomnium, Chronicles try to step up onto the pop metal stage the . Infused with alternative metal inspirations and backed by keyboards playing standard progressions and happy-inspirational melodies, the only thing that tells us this is a metal release is that the drums are intense and that the vocals are growls. The squeaky-clean production is enviable and on par with pop metal divas Nightwish.  The way the music elements are carried, the contrast between sections that serve as verse-chorus rather than phrasal progressions place this squarely in the pop modality. The percussive riff carrying the voice, the single-mindedness of the contrasting riffs also point towards a metalcore inspiration. By the third track (which is actually the second song in the album) they have already introduced mellow and comforting young-man vocals.  In line with the modern tradition, when attempting to create variety, the band introduces incoherence in their music. Song’s are basically a long “inspirational melody” intro, pointless verse-chorus exchange, incoherent bridge and unrelated outro and/or verse chorus.

M.H.X.’s Chronicles have managed to unite in Infinite Ocean the diva-esque attitude of Nightwish, the boring melodic-based flatness of Insomnuim, the superficial pretentiousness of Epica and the easy-catchy, dumbed-down songwriting of metalcore inspired on Slaughter of the Soul. In other words we have here the summary of modern metal pop banality.

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Dysentery – Fragments (2015)

by David Rosales on June 11, 2015

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Self-identifying with the “Slam” tag, Dysentery play a mid-paced, groove-oriented deathcore. The music is based on two poles. The first is very simple grooving rhythms either in slow tempo or in blast-beat-ridden sections with very obvious and simple stress points. The second is the use of pinch harmonics (aka squeals) to round off some phrases.

The music shows a single-minded ambition: grooving brutality. Simple rhythmic indulgence in a pleasure-oriented music. As such, this music is little more than the reggaeton of “extreme” metal. The band might as well change their guitars and drums for a computer software simulator of a mixer and start playing with beats and singing about big-ass girls and how macho you are and what not.

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Dew-Scented releases ‘Ode to Extinction’ lyric video

by Staff on June 11, 2015

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With their tenth album “Intermination” due out later this month, German metalcore group Dew-Scented have released a third new track, “Ode to Extinction” with a lyric video.

Due to technical problems in the website, the review of Dew-Scented’s album previously published on DMU cannot be readily accessed. You can read it below:

Having been called everything from thrash to death or melodic death metal, Dew-Scented play metalcore in its original inception, as inspired by At the Gates’ style on Slaughter of the Soul.  Everything from the simple drums which half of the time fall into variations of fast d-beats, catchy and short melodic ideas on the guitars with a tendency towards breakdowns for variety, to the blatant imitation of Tomas Lindberg. Being an heir to this tradition reviled by the fans of the old school styles and hailed as an improvement and distillation of the best aspects of the older music by the mainstream audience, Intermination invites a comparison with At the Gates’ come back album released last year, At War with Reality.

While the seminal band tried to bridge a gap between fans of its older and later styles by taking its metalcore-founding album and introducing more complex elements as visited in Terminal Spirit Disease and vaguely from With Fear I Kiss the Burning Darkness, thereby creating a middle-of-the-road offering that pleased neither group, Dew-Scented plant themselves solidly on the style developed in Slaughter of the Soul and part faithfully from there to create variations without bringing down the delicate and extremely constricted walls delimiting the definition of this minimalist, extreme pop genre.

Being the catchy, duple-time riff-fest that this genre is, Dew-Scented do a phenomenal job at creating solid, punching riffs which if not necessarily connect concretely with each other too well throughout a song (given the shock-oriented nature of this modern style), go a long way to maintain the drive of songs by switching and keeping the overall feel, avoiding the over-use of a particular riff. Without any ill-will towards this talented band, we must clarify that the album presents a very flat result, which is a necessary result of the definition of the genre as driven by impacting riffs and sonic shock tactics. The tight upholding of ideals of the genre in Dew-Scented’s hands, even with their carefully and appropriately crafted variations, becomes a hindrance in the context of a crippling genre.

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Deathwish reveal track from debut album

by Staff on June 11, 2015

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Wisconsin-based speed punk crossover quartet, Deathwish, has released the title track to their debut album, Out For Blood. The band’s music comes off as a less competent copy-cat band taking heavily from Discharge in their second album Hear Nothing, See Nothing Say Nothing. Casual hardcore punk listeners might enjoy this.

https://soundcloud.com/earsplit/deathwish-out-for-blood

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Nyseius – De Divinatione Daemonum‏ (2015)

by David Rosales on June 11, 2015

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While not profoundly insulting as most bands pretending to play black metal, Nyseius just plays very boring black metal. Now, this isn’t just an emotional remark, I have concrete reasons linked to the music’s construction to back it up and say what it is relevant. Nyseius is also rooted in the modern misunderstanding of black metal by its outer traits. Thinking that black metal consists in ad nauseam repetition of samey riffs to create atmosphere. And they get stuck in this word, atmosphere, as if it were music itself and not an effect of certain music. And thus they attempt to create that thing itself, mistaking it for music. This is the abysmal trap in which all metal that willingly identifies itself with that word falls into.

Arnold Schoenberg said that variation itself did not need justification, it was a merit on its own. He also said that this variation needed to be harnessed and guided by an equally powerful and balancing restraint and coherence. But in discussing De Divinatione Daemonum the first aspect becomes the most pertinent since this music lacks variation. Bent on forcing the creation and sustaining of this atmosphere, this featureless mass, this wall of same-length notes only seldom breathes in order to continue aimlessly towards oblivion.

The last factor that drives this into a wreck is that they have infected black metal with the superficial craving to be extreme. This is what drives them to this dissonance, and an ignorant use of dissonance at that. Dissonance not as a tool of tonal music, not even a dissonant musical language, it is just the use of single dissonant chords for their own sake, for the momentary and twisted satisfaction that it can bring to the human ear. Exemplifying yet another dead end of metal caused by a superficial appreciation of the classics or of music in general, Nyseius will gradually fade into oblivion as purposelessly as the notes they put together into atmosphere, not music.

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Névoa – The Absence of Void (2015)

by David Rosales on June 11, 2015

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The phrase The Absence of Void (or in other words “not nothing”) basically means the same as “something”. If we indulge in its mystic inclination, the phrase is not about pointing out that there is or there isn’t something but emphasizing the importance of having something. It is almost a description of the emotionally needy and it describes the music in this album very well.

As is common with all the uppity and profound hipster black metallers, they care little for the right tone and color in the genre and will paint it with brushes from indie rock and any other happy-dumby expression. This would not matter if they went all the way and just made indie rock, but it is the discrepancy between black metal and their post-metal penchant for happy and light passages that furthermore are only indulgences in the moments that do not build on the song that show this music for what it is: emotional neediness that just wants something, that just wants to not have nothing.

Although some, including the band, will probably try to claim to be related to metal, this is nothing but post-metal dressed as black metal. Once you get to the middle of the album the song “Alma” will completely dispel any doubts (on a separate note, this completely NOT metal song is probably the best song in the album, also the only honest one). So we shall judge it “on its own grounds” as some superficialists would say. Post-metal fails even on its own grounds. Music that only stagnates in an “atmospheric” moment and then introduces another stasis. It’s a different kind of musical masturbation from technical wanking. This is emotional wanking with sounds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLqXwj73f5I

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Gestalt – Infinite Regress (2015)

by David Rosales on June 11, 2015

More black metal from the people who do not understand black metal. This is in the now popular style of pseudo black metal that sounds like war metal trying to be progressive. This lot probably new about black metal through the profound music of Michael’s Pink Frothy AIDS. Incoherent as it is flat, Gestalt identifies itself as modern by the insistence on arranging awkward juxtapositions and superimposed elements that do not match in the least. Keyboards that were not there before jump into the fore with no warning only to disappear and never return again in the song. Maniatic blast beats that underscore nothing except the fact that they are trying to play intense music followed by macho man riffs, only to slide into quiet endings or bridges that seem placed there because they simply could not think of anything else to put there.

Even the average metalhead will know to stay away from this circus motley outfit pretending to ironically catch a pulp fantasy sort of occult imagery backed by equally uncompromising profoundness — or so their kind say in this sort of empty words. As the late bitterman (where art thou? we could use you) would say: Vapid. Avoid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBkgL498GPA

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Temple Of Gnosis – Mysterivm Magnvm (2015)

by David Rosales on June 11, 2015

Temple Of Gnosis - Mysterivm Magnvm

Gods of metal, please liberate us from the blithe of samey industrial and doom metal from atmospheric-minded twats! Save us from the ignorance that plagues metal artists and fandom alike! Only then can these empty husks that resemble metal be driven out and seen for what they are. This album is one more kind of subversive tendency under empty pretentiousness that affects those with a penchant for the occult and a short-sighted vision for composition.

Mysterium Magnum consists of four songs of basically the same thing. At points it approaches the industrial sound of Beherit on Electric Doom Synthesis but without the distinct ideas and development. Temple of Gnosis’ music is rather a snapshot of that industrial metal with some minimalist melodies played in subtle keyboard sounds along shadowed vocals that lend to the darkness of the atmosphere. And that’s it. You take that and basically play that moment again and again in slightly different ways. The songs even have more or less the same length, and all equally fail at developing or show any variety. Perhaps the length was the measure stick to decide when to stop the songs.

Temple of Gnosis show us with Mysterium Magnum just how gullible both the industry and the average fan of metal can be. Or how blind and undiscerning the industry takes the metalhead to be. To be honest, this probably deserved since most metalheads show they cannot see past “the riff” or “the melody” in the case of the more mainstream-minded. The average metalhead is still a pop music fan, he sees music as separate moments and what each of them individually make him feel. He is also driven purely by what makes him “feel good”. That means that he will measure the quality of music by the count of how many moments tickled his funny bone. Thus you receive what you asked for, mediocre metalhead.

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Survival – Shayda (2015)

by David Rosales on June 11, 2015

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Hardcore punk band Survival offer us a humble release that although meager can give us a lesson on several album-writing guidelines that any metal band should follow. Shayda is a good example that riffs that are usually attributed to this or that subgenre of metal can be used in different contexts to different effects and reach. These Californians also show us the value of self-control, avoiding self-indulgence in favor of a juvenile honesty that is only fitting for a band in their genre.

There are a few moments in Shayda where one will recognize the predominance of an influence from 1908s hardcore punk bands , but then one will stumble over a happy punk riff, and then one or two brief moments that will flash by with the taste of deathcore breakdowns and even a little 90s hard rock. These are encased at very specific points and are only used extremely measuredly to push the song forward or twist it for a moment with a different taste only to warp back into focus. Their are also a few samples from a movie or a narration that are used as introductions or interludes in the middle of the album with incredibly effective results.

A major highlight of the album from the songwriting point of view is how aware these guys are of the “useful life” of an idea in the context of a style. According to its nature, punk is a genre of simple, direct and clear expression which does not lend itself to infinite variations of the pseudo-mathematical Bachean type. To remain fresh yet not start diverging, the length of the songs is necessarily short. Each of them gives the listener a very clear and single-minded idea. But as a whole Shayda provides a multifaceted experience that remains both consistent and coherent.

Like big brothers Blood, Survival dominate their tools of choice in their genre and work well within their limitations, creating a memorable and musically solid work that can and should be appreciated regardless of taste.

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Hannes Grossmann (Alkaloid, Ex-Obscura, Ex-Necrophagist) Shares Drum Playthrough Video

by Staff on June 11, 2015

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Hannes Grossmann, drummer for German Death Prog band Alkaloid and ex-drummer for technical wanker band Obscura, has revealed a new drum playthrough video of the song “Alter Magnitudes”. The song is taken from Alkaloid’s debut album The Malkuth Grimoire and features some of Grossmann’s abilities on the drum kit.

Hannes comments:

This is an instrumental version of our song “Alter Magnitudes”. I just took the vocals out for the video to make the drums more clear –  which makes sense in a drum video, doesn’t it? This is probably the only tune on our album which can be considered ‘tech-death’, but the technicallity makes it a perfect song for a drum play-through. It was written by our guitarist Christian Muenzner and not just demands a high level performance on the drums – the guitars and bass go crazy too. But most important: I really dig the songs riffs and melodies.

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