GONZO’S HEAVY ROUNDUP, FEBRUARY 2024

(February ends today — oh wait! there’s a leap day tomorrow! — but we’re close enough that Gonzo has returned with another end-of-month collection of recommended albums, six of them, with streams and his reviews below.)

Maybe it’s just me being overly cynical, but does anything good ever happen in February? Why does it occasionally have an extra day every few years? Why is it always shorter? Who comes up with this shit?

Perhaps I’m once again shouting into my void of choice, but that might be because I’m recovering from five days of being on my ass thanks to some kind of plague I contracted last week. It feels good to be functional enough to write coherently (well, somewhat) and I’m relishing every moment in which I no longer feel like a vat of nuclear waste.

Musically speaking, there was an overwhelming amount of quality releases that saw the light of day in January, and by the time you’re reading this, long-awaited new albums from both Job for a Cowboy and Darkest Hour will be out and reviewed by our own Andy Synn. What year is it?!

There’s also no shortage of heavy hitters in this column; some of which have graced us with a new album after several years of dormancy. Some names you’ll recognize, some you won’t. Who doesn’t love a good comeback, though?

 

MORTA SKULD, CREATION UNDONE

Even though they never got as much press as their Peaceville peers back in the 90s, Milwaukee’s Morta Skuld continued to blow the doors off anyone who paid attention. Creation Undone is their first work since 2020’s Suffer for Nothing, and it’s further evidence that they haven’t lost a step.

With pulverizing blast beats and relentless aggression, Morta Skuld evokes zero bullshit and goes straight for the jugular here. “The End of Reason” stood out to me first, with none-too-subtle lyrics that seem to aim at our modern-day political environment that never seems to do the right fucking thing when it matters. The song’s Cannibal Corpse-style breakdown halfway through will probably snap your neck, so be prepared.

The rest of the album is executed in a beautifully brutal smattering of riffs and anguished lyrics, with “Perfect Prey” and “Self-Destructive Emotions” being my personal favorites.

https://peaceville.bandcamp.com/album/creation-undone

 

 

BORKNAGAR, FALL

Some bands need no introduction. I won’t waste any time doing such things for Norway’s venerable Borknagar. Nobody really sounds much like them these days, especially after 2019’s mind-blowing True North. When you put out music that’s reached that level of sonic transcendence, how much higher can you aim?

Incredibly, Fall answers that call as if nothing preceded it. Combining black, folk, power, and death metal into a powerhouse of sound that has few peers – in Norway or elsewhere – Borknagar has once again crafted something special. Having ICS Vortex back on vocal duty in recent years has been part of what’s made their sound ascend to these heights – he’s added his magic to “Nordic Anthem” and “Moon” the same way he did for “Up North” in 2019, which is one of the most infectiously goddamn awesome tracks put out by a Scandinavian band in the past decade.

“Afar” tests Vortex’s range more than most of the band’s songs have done recently, and the results are predictably stunning. If you can make a blast beat sound downright beautiful and even emotional, you’re doing something right.

https://centurymedia.bandcamp.com/album/fall-24-bit-hd-audio

 

 

THE OBSESSED, GILDED SORROW

Sometimes, persistence pays off. If you’re the legendary doom outfit The Obsessed, you either know this and march onward or you simply stopped giving a fuck in 1991 and persist out of spite.

Whichever it is, this is the band’s fifth full-length in their storied 40-year history. Gilded Sorrow sounds fresh, catchy, solidly produced, and better than most bands half their age. Intricate riffs make up the DNA of “It’s Not OK,” with Scott “Wino” Weinrich channeling all the spite he possibly can into a truly gruff-ass vocal performance.

The thicker-than-molasses riffage in “Stoned Back to the Bomb Age” will probably exorcize itself from your speakers and inject itself directly into your bloodstream, and the gritty, moody intro of “Realize a Dream” wanders (albeit temporarily) into what almost sounds like… arena rock?

Look, it’s not every day that a stoner doom band emerges from the gutter and sends a damn-near-perfect-for-this-genre album into the abyss, but that’s what The Obsessed has done over the decades, and it’s pretty close to what Gilded Sorrow is.

Summation: The Obsessed have not changed a single bit in 40 years, and why would they?

https://ripplemusic.bandcamp.com/album/gilded-sorrow

 

 

FINAL COIL, THE WORLD WE INHERITED

I love discovering new post-metal that somehow avoids sounding like a blatant clone of Cult of Luna or ISIS. That’s part of what makes Leicester’s Final Coil one of the most exciting acts I’ve happened across recently.

After immersing myself in more hours of listening to post-metal than I can possibly keep track of, there’s always a common factor that connects the good ones – the art of momentum. With a few albums under their belts now, Final Coil have shown a solid understanding of how to wield that art when it comes to writing music. Chunky riffs and dense layers of atmosphere make songs like “Chemtrails” so addicting to listen to. The band is content to let the momentum build up with more challenging tracks like “By Starlight” and “The Growing Shadows,” but once the arrangements swell to their final form, your patience will undoubtedly pay off.

The Layne Staley-esque vocals may not be everyone’s cuppa tea, but they never sound forced or out of place. The massive closing duo of “Humanity” and “The End of History” shut the door on an album that’s ambitious, original, and demanding of multiple spins.

https://finalcoilrock.bandcamp.com/album/the-world-we-inherited

 

 

ANCIENT VVISDOM, MASTER OF THE STONE

Before you even read this, just click the link below to listen to the leadoff track “Sold My Soul to Satan” from this new album by the once-acoustic and now-pure-evil maestros in Ancient VVisdom. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

If that wasn’t the most fun you’ve had nodding your head along to one hell of an infectious riff and singing along to a barnstorming chorus, I dunno what else you could want. All I know is Ancient VVisdom have never sounded like this before – massive riffs, incredible songwriting, and an all-too-important layer of fun that you’d never see coming from these guys.

Once a purely acoustic outfit that reveled in the underworld with our dark lord and savior, Ancient VVisdom seemed to turn over a new demonic leaf with 2019’s Mundus. That, as it turned out, would just be a precursor to how utterly badass Master of the Stone would be. “The Adversary,” “World’s Demise,” and “Demon Est Deus Inverses” are none-too-subtle clues about the subject matter found here, and I’m nothing if not one for a good homage to deities of a darker nature. The ones on the other side of the fence are just assholes.

 

 

ABHORIA, DEPTHS

Closing this month out on the heaviest of notes is California’s Abhoria, and their savagely brutal opus Depths.

I’m always impressed with bands that flaunt pure speed and do it well. The opening blast beat of “The Inexorable Earth” here is all the verification I’d need that Abhoria mean pure fucking business, but only listening to that track doesn’t tell the full story on Depths. Tracks like “The Well,” “Within Our Dominion” and “They Hunt at Night” evoke everything from early Dissection and Sarke to newcomers like Vorga. Heavy is as heavy does.

If your neck hasn’t snapped by the time you hit “Ghost in the Smoke,” fear not – you’ll get there. The final grooves of “Winter’s Embrace” will make damn sure of it.

https://abhoria.bandcamp.com/album/depths

 

Like what you hear? Follow my best-of-2024 playlist for selections from everything you’ve just read, and a whole helluva lot more.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7zWqE685GVpuB5M3qRDvog?si=08d80939b43e4d89