(Andy Synn dives back into the Death Metal scene)
I’ve been accused, not entirely unreasonably, of being a little jaded and cynical when it comes to Death Metal these days.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Death Metal, in all its different forms – ok, maybe not all its different forms – but… you’ve got to admit… it can get a little tiresome being told that [X] band is “the next big thing” or “the saviour of the genre” when all its doing is rehashing the same old HM-2/Swe-Death/OSDM revivalist tropes as the last band to get the exact same sort of hype just a few months previously.
Thankfully there are lots of bands out there who – while not necessarily breaking the mould or reinventing the wheel – are still more than capable of reminding us all, me included, just why we like what we like, hype be damned, and I wanted to highlight three bands, with three distinctly different flavours, for you today.
PS – while I couldn’t find time/space for them you should also check out the extremely promising debut albums from Weeping and Recidivist (though, at just over fourteen minutes, calling the former an album seems like a little bit of a stretch) as well as the riff-tastic new one from Ripped to Shreds (which contains one of my favourite Death Metal songs of the year in the form of the irresistibly hooky “冥婚 (Corpse Betrothal)”)
BLACK CURSE – BURNING IN CELESTIAL POISON
Black Curse – one of two so-called “supergroups” that, coincidentally, ended up making the cut for today’s article – are back and, somehow, even darker and nastier than ever.
From the moment that opener “Spirit Girt With Serpent” erupts out of the speakers in a veritable torrent of face-melting distortion and a tirade of ear-gouging shrieks, it’s clear that the band have chosen to walk the path less travelled with their sophomore release, doubling (and then tripling) down on the heaviest, harshest, and most harrowing elements of their 2020 debut, Endless Wound.
Longer, more intense, and even more demanding, it’s likely that these four songs (reading between the lines I get the impression that “Ruinous Paths… to Babylon” is meant to be experienced as a single entity, despite what the track-list says) will, initially at least, prove utterly impenetrable to the average listener (though, as always, I bet there will be one or two unsuspecting souls for whom the oppressive, asphyxiating sonic density of “Trodden Flesh” will prove so strangely compelling that they won’t be able to resist coming back for another taste… which is always how it starts).
But there is, underneath it all, a sense of devilish intent – a method to the madness which gives shape and form to the chaotic cacophony (witness the way in which “Ruinous Paths…”, for example, slowly but surely coheres into a series of gruesome, grimy grooves as it goes on) – which hints at something hidden, another layer of meaning to be found, beneath all the howling horror and hellish, unforgiving noise.
And that, ultimately, is perhaps the biggest strength of Burning In Celestial Poison – for all that it often feels like an outright assault upon your senses it’s also an album which requires, and demands, repeated listens to fully appreciate all that it has going on (with ferocious final track “Flowers of Gethsemane” in particular being both instantly, and unexpectedly, infectious, in the way it juxtaposes seething aggression and simmering atmosphere across eleven minutes of blood-boiling extremity) and, as such, will have many of you coming back for more, again and again, despite – or perhaps because of – how monstrous it is.
LIFESICK – LOVED BY NONE, HATED BY ALL
Lifesick may be a Hardcore band at heart, but they get their muscles from Death Metal, and the combination of the two makes for one seriously heavy album in the shape of the group’s recently-released new record, Loved By None, Hated By All.
Equally capable of appealing to fans of Ringworm, Throwdown, and All Out War on the one hand and disciples of Entombed, Obituary, and The Crown on the other, songs like vicious, venom-spewing opener “Death Wish” and the relentless “Peace Through Superior Firepower” epitomise the band’s signature blend of raw, thrashy riffage, grinding, deathly grooves, and brutish, ugly breakdowns.
It’s an intense, unapologetically unrefined sound – one which practically revels in its own ignorance and appeals squarely to the most Cro-Magnon part of the human brain (also, thinking about it, there’s probably/definitely some Cro-Mags influence in there too) – which rarely, if ever, pulls its punches (the slightly out of place acoustic outro of “Hollow Treats” being one of the few exceptions to this rule) but which isn’t without its subtleties (such as the dark melodic touches present during the bleak, belligerent “Legacy of Misery”).
And while you might expect the band to ease off a little after a while – surely they can’t keep up this level of intensity forever? – if anything they actually go even harder in the second half of the album, with the Bloodbath-meets-Biohazard beatdown of “Liquid Courage” (with its guttural gang-shouts and absolutely monstrous mid-section) and the absolutely frantic, blastbeats ‘n’ breakdowns assault of “Loved By None” pushing things in an even heavier, darker direction which befits the album’s underlying themes of addiction, struggle, and self-loathing.
Sure, other bands – Terminal Nation, Fuming Mouth, etc – may have gotten more headlines over the last few years, but the highlights here (which include the gargantuan, doom-laden denouement of “Straight Jacket”) are more than equal to anything put out by even the biggest and most badass of Lifesick‘s peers, and it’s about damn time they started getting the attention and acclaim they deserve!
LIVING GATE – SUFFER AS ONE
On the basis of their debut EP, Deathlust, Living Gate were quickly lumped in with the latest wave of “Old School” revivalists.
But their long-awaited full-length album makes it very clear that they don’t really belong with all the other OSDM throwbacks, as while they undoubtedly take a lot of initial inspiration from the likes of mid-90s Morbid Angel, Deicide and Suffocation, the more twisted technicality and unorthodox unpredictability of Suffer As One feels like it draws just as much influence from the early 2000s outbreak of Brutal/Technical/Progressive bands who formed the next stage of the genre’s evolution.
Take opener, “To Cut Off the Head of the Snake”, for example, whose mix of razor-sharp riffs, jagged rhythms, and heaving grooves reminds me quite a bit of classic Anata (especially when they introduce an extra dash of weird melody in the song’s second half), while the ridiculously tight guitar work and lithe, limber-fingered bass lines of “Internal Decomposition” recall the frenetic focus of Deeds of Flesh, and the surly, staccato stomp of “Destroy and Consume” evidently owes a lot to early Decapitated.
Sure, you might think that this means that Living Gate‘s sound isn’t particularly “original” – and, on the face of it, that would be true (though it’s certainly drawing from a well of influences that’s arguably fresher, and less stagnant, than quite a few bands who I could name) – but as the album progresses (and becomes, dare I say it, subtly more “progressive”) you’ll find that there’s more going on here than initially meets the eye (or ear).
“A Unified Soul” is the first to hint at this, incorporating an extra layer of unsettling melody into its gnarly finale in a way which immediately stands out, but it’s the title track where the band’s proggy ambitions really come to the fore, with the Brutal/Technical barrage of the song’s first half suddenly giving way moodier, quieter, but even more menacing sequence of lilting, discordant guitar lines and brooding, noir-ish ambience.
There’s still a few straight up barn-burners, of course (“Hunting Maggots” and “Overcome, Overthrow” are pure Death Metal riff worship), but the best moments – which promise even better, and hopefully even stranger, things to come – are found in the unpredictable, constantly mutating “Ones and Zeroes” and the hypnotically dissonant/dissonantly hypnotic “Atoms and Particles”, with contorted, claustrophobically atmospheric closer “CQC” only further hammering home the point that Living Gate have absolutely no interest in following trends.
HEADING