Death Metal Underground contributor Max Bloodworth has edited, mixed, and mastered the cassette tapes of the Peckerwood Boys’ review of Metallica’s Hardwired… to Self-Destruct for our loyal readers enjoyment.
8 CommentsTags: 2016, hard rock, mainstream metal, metallica, review, Speed Metal
Article by Lance Viggiano.
2016 has been a dismal year for metal in terms of albums one might want to carry with them for the rest of their aimless and futile material embodiment. Fortunately, other genres are not so bereft of endearing symbolic language. Kretchmer is an electro composer who draws from the “braindance” acid of middle period Aphex Twin and the romantic melodic sensibilities of Kraftwerk. Each track possess an underlying narrative whose structure reveals itself via the gradual buildup of layers to a moderate density. A primary motif is looped or varied upon through the course of a given track. To further fill space, chords occupy the background and often provide a resolve to the melody as it cycles. Par for the course for this music, the drum and synth bass tracks play with the open space in between musical themes and function as harmonic rather than strictly rhythmic components. The emergent polyphonic circuitry pays tribute to classical sensibilities but eschews the theatrical; drawing instead from the grounded drama of the moving body.
35 CommentsTags: detroit techno, electro, electronic, electronica, kretchmer, modern classical, music in the key of major, nottingham, review, techno
Article by Lance Viggiano.
Deathspell Omega return with another uninspired and uninspiring record entitled The Synarchy of Molten Bones. Their last record, Paracletus, was built on a foundation of Voivod-lite chords executed with the alt metal sensibilities of The Dillinger Escape Plan. In an effort to build ambience, additional guitar tracks would attempt to produce a microtonal effect without actual production of microtones; just more dissonance. These techniques were then deployed over pop-leaning melodies which become pronounced should one decide to hum the otherwise atonal morass.
94 CommentsTags: 2016, deathspell omega, EP, france, metalcore, modern metal, post-hardcore, review, the synarchy of molten bones, wanking
Death Metal Underground staffers Lance Viggiano and Corey M. reviewed Marko Laiho’s new ambient mix he created for Radio Helsinki.
Marko Laiho’s forays into electronic music can be described as anything but explorations of the myth of the machine. Though his aesthetic pallet draws from future invocations – anything we say of the future is always about the present – he blurs the line between the biological and mechanical unlike so much of the greater genre proper. For this mix, created for Radio Helsinki, the bohemian devil troubadour crafts an enveloping near-ambient journey using samples of original work and that of other artists as well. The success or failure of music in this mode is dependent entirely upon pacing over the course of an unbroken set which in this case does not falter. Broken into halves, the latter is more recessed while the former is more pronounced.
16 CommentsTags: Ambient, ambient music, beherit, Finland, Industrial, marko laiho, nuclear holocauto
Former Dawning/Nothing Left composer and periodic Death Metal Underground writer Steve Cefala has unleashed his latest project, an attempt to synthesize metal, industrial, punk and post-apocalyptic roadhouse improvisational rock into a soundtrack for the decline and collapse of human civilization.
1 CommentTags: dawning, no god only pain, nothing left, rotten copper, steve cefala
Ex-junkie and recidivist thief Blake Judd signed a contract with Earache Records to reissue his nu-metal / black ‘n’ roll band Nachmystium‘s boring back catalog.
10 CommentsTags: black 'n roll, blake judd, crypto-indie, earache records, hard rock, hipster bullshit, nachtmystium, reissues
Czech black metallers Root have a new album coming out next month.
4 CommentsTags: agonia records, Black Metal, Czech black metal, Heavy Metal, Root, upcoming release
Death Metal Underground receives a constant stream of inferior promotional materials like a child is given unwanted Apples, granola bars, and candy corn on Halloween. We toss them in the trash too.
36 CommentsTags: abigorum, akem manah, asguard, autokrator, bloodrain, construct of lethe, cryostasium, dead end finland, death courier, demonomancy, dimension darkness, door into emptiness, eufori, far beyond, gods tower, karg, Khors, kozeljinik, netherbird, nuclear war now! productions, nwn, peter grusel und die unheimlichen, pragnavit, regler, rich davis, sadistic metal reviews, skeleton of god, soliloquim, Urfaust, veld, Vietah, vola, witchcraft
The popular music industry peaked financially in 1996 but had creatively begun bottoming out years before that. Digital file sharing of lossily (and later losslessly) compressed formats simply burst the bubble of the industry’s festering corpse the ignorant had mistaken to still be moving as the putrefying gases bloated body cavities.
19 CommentsTags: 1990s, assimilation, compact disc, false metal, History, music industry
Article by Anton Rudrick.
Mgła provides us with a perfect example to round a trio of examples that together shape the main misunderstandings as to what black metal is through their misrepresentation of it in either carelessness or ignorance. While modern Watain plays a completely undefined mixture of incoherent tropes around a stomping heavy rock that never condenses into anything original, and modern Behemoth is a shock rock outfit with sterile tekdeaf (modern technical “death metal”) techniques, Mgła is the one that closest comes to black metal by its purposely limited form closely resembling it. However, at best it could be said that they are a musically poor black metal band devoid of the traditional character that fuels the adversarial music, and at worst it could be classified as a post metal band experimenting with close variations on a very simple theme.
26 CommentsTags: 2015, Black Metal, boring, exercises in futility, Mgła, poland, post-hardcore, post-metal, re-review, review
