(Andy Synn presents four more handpicked morsels of metallic goodness from the last month)
I don’t think anyone is going to disagree with the following assertion, but… March was absolutely packed with new releases, any number of which could (and perhaps) should have been featured here.
Sadly, between the three of us (and our various (ir)regular contributors) we only have a limited number of hours in the day which we can dedicate to writing and reviewing… especially when you consider that we’d rather, wherever possible, provide some proper insight and analysis instead of just churning out a bunch of superficial – and largely interchangeable – puff-pieces just to get our numbers up.
With that in mind, here’s a short-list (ok, not that short) of artists I wish I’d written about… Apparition, Clarion Void, Convulsing, Horresque, Kollapse, Merrimack, Sacrificial Vein (absolutely love that one), Schattenfall, the flawed but fascinatingly ambitious debut from Waidelotte, Wounds… and which I hope you’ll still find time to check out.
Still, best not to focus on our regrets, eh? Especially since the four artists/albums I’ve selected for this edition of “Things You May Have Missed” – all of whom err on the more esoteric and/or unorthodox side, to a greater or lesser extent – represent some of the best that March had to offer.
CZERNINA – NA POGRANICZU USIDLENIA
It’s been a good year for Black Metal so far, that’s for sure, but Czernina‘s second album has to be one of the most under-appreciated releases of the last three months – simultaneously a major highlight and a hidden gem.
Wielding the sort of armour-clad, adamantine-heavy guitar tone that you don’t often see in Black Metal – Der Weg Einer Freiheit and Wesenwille are two of the few comparisons that spring to mind – Na pograniczu usidlenia is an impressively visceral album, and can be absolutely vicious when it wants to be (the scalding shriek of guitarist/vocalist Asbiel in particular is a thing of sheer, throat-scraping savagery).
But it’s the contrast of the album’s most extreme moments (“Mara”, for example, is an absolute monster of scything, discordant guitars and seething blastbeats, building to a truly crushing crescendo) with the record’s eerie, ever-present undercurrent of the uncanny – from the unsettling outro of “Lustro” and the sinister, slithering bass-work of “On” to the thrilling juxtaposition of punishing power and proggy technicality that is “(Nie)jasnowidzenie” – that makes Na pograniczu usidlenia more than just the simple sum of its parts.
This is especially obvious during the album’s centrepiece, “Przeoczyć Wiosnę”, whose unorthodox (and downright unsettling) opening minutes – reminiscent in part, of the likes of Grey Aura or early Maladie in their devilishly disquieting vibe – eventually give way to a screaming, stomping, spasming eruption of pure catharsis and (barely) controlled chaos that’s as subtly creepy as it is savagely caustic.
Make no mistake, there’s a lot going on with this album – far more, indeed, than is immediately apparent on first listen. But that’s perhaps its greatest strength, as while it’s more than capable of making an instant impact (I’m pretty sure a lot of you will be hooked the second the humongous guitars and hammering drums of “Lustro” kick in) it’s also got all the necessary ingredients to leave a lasting impression.
DOODSESKADER – YEAR TWO
The music of divisive, genre-non-conforming duo Doodseskader may be hard to define – the band’s mix of sneering, punky nihilism and swaggering, spite-driven attitude combines heavy doses of Nine Inch Nails and Aphex Twin with a dash of Deftones and a garnish of gritty, Godflesh-inspired groove, as well as a hefty helping of Death Grips and Run The Jewels – but their second album, released early last month, has been in pretty much constant rotation for me ever since I heard it.
Not every track quite hits the mark, it’s true (although the largely forgettable “Secrets Make Lonely” is the only real misfire) but those that do… well, they leave a real mark too, and whether we’re talking about the predatory urban prowl of “Pastel Prison”, the digital sludge of “The Sheer Horror of the Human Condition” and the bowel-quaking, booty-shaking bass-heavy grooves of “Innocence (An Offering)”, or the industrial-strength beats and brooding bars of “Bone Pipe” and the hypnotic Trip-Hop pulse of “Peine” (yes, that’s the entire first half of the record), chances are we’ll still be talking about them by the time the year comes to an end.
True, we probably won’t have come to an agreement on how to describe the band’s sound – part Post-Metal, part Hip-Hop, part Electronica, part Hardcore… and much more besides… you might as well just call it “Nu Metal” for all that such a term fails to properly define its target – but, whatever you call it, the pair’s instantly-recognisable blend of banging dance-floor fillers and pounding mosh-pit killers (including penultimate aggro-anthem “I Ask With My Mouth, I’ll Take With My Fist”) is absolutely guaranteed to stand-out, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it appearing as a dark-horse entry on at least a few year-end lists come December.
LKVGT – MANISCHE OMARMING VAN EEN ALOMVATTEND NIETS
Dutch Death Metal deviants LKVGT may be a relatively unknown proposition – I don’t even know their real names – but, on the strength of their debut album (whose title translates to something like “Manic embrace of an all-encompassing nothingness“) they hopefully won’t remain that way for long.
Combining the gut-churning brutality of Defeated Sanity with Akercocke‘s sinister strangeness and Pestilence‘s twisted technicality (and that’s just the first song) the trio are obviously keen students of Death Metal’s history, but aren’t afraid to break – or, at least, severely bend – the rules to achieve their goal.
“De Volgelingen”, for example, is even better (and stranger) than its predecessor, combining the twisted, thuggish chuggery of Brutal Death Metal with the ambitious arrangements of Prog Death (think Suffocation meets Slugdge) and some straight-up Lounge Jazz weirdness, while the outlandish extremity of “Gelogenstraft Geduld” sounds like classic Cryptopsy cut up, remixed, and then subjected to an ongoing existential crisis.
I’ll grant you, nine-minute atmospheric interlude “De Heremiet…” overstays its welcome at least half way through (if not sooner), but it’s also a much-needed breather prior to the avant-garde, stop-start, sturm und drang of “Blut Aus Anderem Boden”, whose indulgent, eleven-minute run-time allows the band ample opportunity to turn absolutely everything – the stomping guitars and bombastic bass-lines, pounding drums, proggy cleans, and pugnacious growls – up to eleven in a way that even The Monolith Deathcult might find “a bit much”.
But then LKVGT clearly don’t subscribe to the philosophy of “less is more”, and by the time the brooding, Disentomb-esque bludgeoning of “God Is Dood” and the appropriately manic, unpredictable strains of “Noodkreet” are done with you… there’s a good chance you won’t either!
THRONE OF EXILE – THE ENDLESS SKY
Let me be frank with you – while there’s certainly been a lot of good Tech/Prog Death released over the last couple of years, I have found that a lot of it has started to blend together, with more and more bands simply competing with each other to see who can be the fastest, the shreddiest, or the most “clever”, in a way that threatens to turn the genre into more of a “sport” than an “art”.
But Throne of Exile‘s willingness to, when necessary (and sometimes when, strictly speaking, it probably isn’t), go the extra mile and throw caution to the wind on The Endless Sky has certainly helped them stand out (to my ears, at least), as the quintet’s particular brand of Technical/Progressive Death(core) sounds less like it’s just trying to score points and more like an actual attempt to play outside the rules.
And while this does occasionally make it a little difficult to follow – opener “The Atlas Dream” jumps around so much that it feels like the band might have forgotten to take their meds (although their agility is impressive, no doubt) – once the album finds its footing with the staccato rhythms, driving, down-tuned grooves, and suitably skyscraping melodic guitar work of “Celestial” you get the sense that Throne of Exile‘s songwriting style is a little more spontaneous, and a little less formulaic, than some of their more prominent peers.
That’s not to say the band don’t have peers – echoes of the likes of The Contortionist, Burial in the Sky, and The Human Abstract can definitely be heard during tracks like unpredictable early highlight “Reclaimed” or the bombastic, Between the Buried and Me inspired brutality of “Scriptures”, for example – but the group’s ability to keep you guessing, by seamlessly shifting shape whenever the mood takes them (with the combination of rapid-fire riffs and shimmering synths, ballistic blasting and crushing breakdowns underpinning songs such as “Detatched” and “Disintegrate” making for one hell of a musical rollercoaster), ensures that once you’ve heard The Endless Sky you’re unlikely – whether you love it or loathe it – to forget it any time soon!