THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (BUT SHOULDN’T)

(Andy Synn presents four artists/albums from February that may have flown under your radar)

While I obviously love putting together these “Things You May Have Missed” columns and using them as an opportunity to highlight a handful of bands that you (and we) might otherwise have overlooked, one thing I don’t love is having to compromise and make hard choice about who to include, and who to leave out.

Sure, keeping it to just four entries is a lot easier on my typing fingers (and a lot less demanding of my time) but I absolutely hate the fact that I have to leave so many deserving releases off the list.

So, please, as well as listening to the quartet of releases I’ve selected to highlight this month, try and make some time to check out the latest records from Fange, Pyra, Stiriah, Devine Defilement, Vanta, Terramorta, Theophonos… and, well, I could go on!

CHAINSWORD – BORN TRIUMPHANT

Ok, let’s get this out of the way shall we… Bolt Thrower.

There, now that we’ve mentioned them we don’t need to do so again, as while Chainsword obviously have a lot of love for… see, I almost said it… and owe them a fair debt, they’re also a damn good band in their own right, and Born Triumphant finds them establishing themselves as even more of a force to be reckoned with, regardless of where, and from whom, they learned to wield the blade.

Kicking off with the writhing, live-wire riffs and ferociously filthy vocals of “Nekrodermis” – which sets the bar for the rest of the album nice and early – Born Triumphant quickly reveals itself to be a darker, grimier, and harder album than its predecessor, albeit one that isn’t afraid to incorporate a bit of raw, ragged-around-the-edges melody here and there (such as during the sinuous, shape-shifting “Sinistramanus Tenebrae” or climactic closer “L-G P”) or some nasty, barbed hooks (check out the catchy-as-lockjaw strains of “Trident, Rise!” for example).

Gnarly numbers like “Wrapped In Barbed Wire and Yellow Fog” (a major early highlight), “Abominable Intelligence” (arguably/possibly the best track on the entire album, in my opinion) and “Grand Funeral Pyre” (which shows off some of the group’s Punk and/or Thrash roots) also demonstrate that Chainsword are just as happy charging forwards in blitzkrieg formation as they are settling in for a bone-grinding war of attrition – often within the confines of the same song – as long as the end result is total domination.

Sure, Chainsword may not be reinventing the wheel (or the steel) here, but that hardly matters when crushing cuts like “Ov Flesh and Steel” and “Mankind’s Last War” (both of which have more than a hint of God Dethroned at their brutish best to them) prove themselves to be the product of one of the current wave of Death Metal’s best and brightest.

DEFYING – WADERA

Well this was certainly a surprise… albeit, not an unpleasant or unwelcome one by any means.

Way back in 2016, when dinosaurs still roamed the earth and before TikTok had reduced our collective attention span to less than… hey what’s that over there… I stumbled across a proggy Post-Metal band from Poland by the name of Defying and fell in love with their most recent release, The Splinter of Light We Misread.

But, barring a stand-alone single release from the same recording sessions in 2018, the band then went radio-silent for so long that, quite honestly, I’d almost forgotten about them until – all of a sudden – their new album landed practically in my lap and reminded me of just why I fell in love with them in the first place.

Comprising ten tracks and clocking in at over an hour of music, Wadera – whose concept is based upon a Polish Horror film from 1983, itself based on a novel of the same name from 1977 – is certainly a substantial piece of work (almost as if the band were purposefully trying to make up for all the time they missed) whose intriguing blending of elements and influences (call it “Blackened Post-Doom”) should prove equally satisfying to listeners both new and old.

Whether that satisfaction comes from the thunderous, throaty growls and dynamic doom ‘n’ gloom of “Tempus Infaustum”, or the blistering blastbeats and glimmering darkness of “The Fugue” or the brooding, almost gothic, beauty of “Reluctant to the Grave”, Wadera is an album with a lot to offer to a lot of different people – especially during the titanic mid-album trilogy of “Incomprehensibly Woken”, “The Acquaintance Shade”, and “The Lurking Spectres”, which, at different moments and in different ways, recalls the very best of everyone from Amenra to Névoa to Moonspell – and my hope is that will include at least some of you reading this right now!

KARKOSA – ESOTERRORCULT

They say that you only get one chance to make a good first impression, and while Karkosa may have already released an EP back in 2018, their performance on Esoterrorcult feels like an acknowledgement that this is going to be where and how most people first encounter the group… and they’re going to make it count.

Ricocheting back and forth between “Blackened Death Metal” (on brutally bruising numbers such “Poison of God” and “The Tomb of Hiram Abiff”) and “Deathly Black Metal” (on killer cuts like “Domini Sanctum” and “The Freezing Shadows of the Eternal Winter”) so rapidly that the difference/distinction between the two (if there even is one) quickly becomes meaningless, the band’s debut album is ten tracks of blasphemous, blast-propelled, distortion-driven fury that could (and should) appeal just as much to lovers of Belphegor and Averse Sefira (RIP) as it does fans of Carnifex and Lorna Shore.

To clarify, I’m not calling Karkosa a “Deathcore” band by any measure – though it wouldn’t be a bad thing even if I did – it’s more that their hyper-intense, all gauges firmly in the red, delivery is more than capable of grabbing the attention of audiences from across the Extreme Metal spectrum, regardless of their identity or affiliation.

That being said, while the idea of ten tracks of pure, unrelenting brutality certainly has its appeal, chances are it would probably get a bit monotonous over repeated listens, which is why the group’s decision to also incorporate an array of darkly cinematic synths (most notably during scene-setting opener “Ensorcerelled Spirits”) as well as some lacerating lead guitar work and the occasional descent into doomy atmospheric ambience (as they do during “The Freezing Shadows…”) ensures that Esoterrorcult never becomes a predictably one-note affair, even as it consistently does its best to take your head off, song after savage song.

PONTE DEL DIAVOLO – FIRE BLADES FROM THE TOMB

For whatever reason, it seems that I have a real soft spot for bands who take a more esoteric and eccentric approach to the more familiar formulations of extreme music (just check out my love for last year’s debut by Narbo Dacal, for example).

Which is why the first full-length from Italy’s Ponte del Diavolo – which builds artfully on their previous three EPs in style – has been in regular rotation ever since I found out it had been released in mid-February, as the group’s mix of Black Metal and Doom, topped off with the distinctive, yet divisive, vocals of frontwoman Erba del Diavolo, makes for a truly enthralling listening experience that should definitely appeal to fans of the likes of Sinistro, Battle of Mice, and the aforementioned Narbo Dacal.

And while I’m not sure that the inclusion of two bassists in the band’s line-up is all that much of a game-changer, there’s no question that the hypnotic rhythms of “Covenant” (where the group’s gloomiest Post-Punk influences are on full display) or the creeping crawl of the deliciously doomy “Red As The Sex Of She Who Lives In Death” give the group’s prodigious low-end more than enough room to breathe and brood.

On the other end of the scale, Ponte del Diavolo also aren’t afraid to cut loose and give their more “blackened” impulses free rein when the mood strikes them, as demonstrated by the way the sinister slow burn of “La Razza” eventually explodes into blistering, blast-propelled life, or the juxtaposition of seething intensity and sombre introspection which makes “Nocturnal Veil” such a captivating, creatively challenging, listen.

Sure, Fire Blades from the Tomb probably won’t be for everyone – in fact, I’ve already seen a number of reactions from people who just don’t vibe with the group’s unique blend of sounds and styles – but those with whom it does connect are in for a devilishly good time.