End of Year Reflections on Metal


The end of the year for some people is a time where they participate in debauchery and related idiocy as they are convinced that the arbitrary beginning of a calendar year absolves them of past mistakes and gives them the possibility to renew themselves without the burden of accepting reality. Those who don’t hide behind such comforting fallacies accept that this is a day like no other and that no actual changes will occur except for remembering to write 19 instead of 18 when it comes to paperwork. Metal has continued its sad and hilarious explosion to the top of the mainstream while pushing out less and less meaningful art. Rather than go ever end of the year lists as they are just useless and contain mostly salvaged junk with the occasional pearl. Here at DMU we shall analyse new compositional tools we would like to see implemented and which ones should be discarded.

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The Best Underground Metal Of 2018

The task before a reviewer varies widely. If you want to be a big shot, you need to write about what the labels want, since they are the only source of top-down money coming into the genre. They will then reward your publication with advertising, it will then reward you with a promotion, and eighteen months later, you can ditch it and move up to the big leagues.

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Sammath Unleashes Live Video Of “Totenhügel” From Upcoming 2019 Album Across the Rhine Is Only Death

Brutal yet melodic Dutch-German black metal fire team Sammath plan to unleash their latest album, Across the Rhine Is Only Death, during early second quarter 2019. This album extends their work on Godless Arrogance which took the grandeur of Strijd to its logical conclusion given the increasing viciousness and technicality of intervening albums.

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Bal-Sagoth – A Black Moon Broods Over Lemuria


Floating between between Floridian Death metal and Black metal in the vein of Emperor with a large dose of the more percussive elements from the New York style. Bal-Sagoth do manage to fuse these elements in a combination that remains mainly in the aforementioned black metal style. An important element that would dominate later releases is the spoken word of Byron Roberts. Obsessed with reciting his long lyrics inspired by the fantasy books that he was devouring, Roberts will at times create a hostage situation where the music is on stand by and loses all the momentum built up, so that he can ramble on and the compositions can’t progress until he is done. Though his perfect diction and deep voice do keep in line with the aesthetics provided here, they add nothing to the music and kick the compositions back to the droning political punk where the music was just the backing track for the vocalist’s tirades.
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Kshatriya – Il Viaggio dell’Eroe (2017)

Kshatriya comes to us from that odd category of bands whose material would be great if they would just stop screwing around with the presentation, which ends up creating padding that while not terrible, detracts from the listening experience as a whole. Anyone who has sat through the first Impaled Nazarene album knows the pain of too much gimmick.

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Necromaniac – Subterranean Death Rising (2018)

Necromaniac hail from London UK which has become a wasteland full of terrible rock/metal hybrids catering towards young childern, and what was once the center for NWOBHM is now the home of mentally deficient hipster/indie music that seeks nothing more than to go viral before being replaced by the next thing. Necromaniac have avoided the toxicity of such a scene in the pursuit of something much more noble. The lost art of making the best music possible. The production is strong, retains the grit and the individuality of the performances while making every instrument listenable without castrating a single thing. Due to this EP only containing two tracks, each track will be analysed separately.

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