THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (BUT SHOULDN’T)

(Andy Synn highlights four albums from a very busy February which you may have overlooked)

I don’t mind admitting that, due to a lot of different factors – being busy at work, having to spend time prepping and then playing with the band, and then finally succumbing to this really shitty flu (to the point where I’m still not back to 100%, to be honest) – I missed a lot of stuff I originally intended to write about last month.

To exacerbate this, there’s only a limited amount of space (and time) I have here to catch up on what I/we missed, which means the likes of Grima (really good, but perhaps not quite as good as its predecessor), Havukruunu (bombastic blood and fire heroics at their best), and Mantar (a punkier, more stripped-down album than their last one, albeit with a few tracks/riffs that sound a little too familiar in places), probably aren’t going to get the full write-ups that they deserve.

But, you know, those are pretty big names – or, at least, pretty notorious in our little scene – and if there’s one thing we’re known for here at NCS it’s focussing on less (in)famous bands wherever possible, so hopefully you won’t begrudge me my choices for this month’s column!

BENTHIC – SANGUINE

Let’s begin with a brand new discovery (for me, anyway, some of you may already have been aware of the band thanks to their 201 EP, The Mess) in the form of German Post-Hardcore quintet Benthic and their debut album, Sanguine.

Fans of bands like Thrice (circa The Artist in the Ambulance) and latter-day Alexisonfire (both of whom the band cite as major influences) will definitely find themselves at home here, especially while listening to the anxious, punky energy and raw, infectious melody of a song like “Moloch” or the visceral, yet vulnerable, “Murmur”, but I could also see songs such as “Pitch and Tar” and “The Living Torch” crossing over to the Alcest/Solstafir fanbase too with the way they use atmosphere and ambience to further enhance the emotionality and expressiveness of the vocals.

Speaking of the vocals, their versatility is a big part of the album’s overall appeal, equally capable of spitting emotional fire as they are spinning their melodic magic (give “The Stranger” or the electrifying “All Is Vanity” a listen for some prime examples), with the occasional choral gang-chorus or subtle slice of vocal layering serving to further expand the group’s sublime sonic palette.

Of course, individual performances can only take you so far, so it’s a good thing that the band’s songwriting is more than up to the task as well, with tracks like the aforementioned “Moloch” and “Murmur”, and the back-to-back brilliance of “The Living Torch” and “All Is Vanity” (two of my personal favourites) practically fizzling with vitality and humanity.

But it’s the very end of the album which really highlights just what Benthic are capable of, with both the endlessly engaging ebb and flow of “Faded” and the sombre slow-burn of “Sanguine, Pt. 2” showing off their innate gift for dynamics and pacing and suggesting that there’s still lots of room for creative and compositional growth next time around!

CROWN OF MADNESS – MEMORIES FRAGMENTED

Since we’ve been writing about Crown of Madness since the project first started making waves in 2022, it seemed only fitting that make time (even if only retroactively) to cover their highly anticipated first album, Memories Fragmented.

As part of the ongoing “Disso-death” movement, the duo’s first two EPs certainly possessed a darkly dissonant edge – albeit one tempered by a little more melody, and a sharper, riffier sense of technicality than some of their more atmosphere-obsessed peers – but, on the evidence presented here (just give opening intro track “Visions From a Past Life” a listen) they’ve chosen to plumb some even darker depths on their full-length debut.

With an even greater focus on dense, driving riffage and abrasive, anxiety-inducing anti-melody – the first half of “Sovereign Blood”, for example, is a largely unrelenting audio rampage, while the likes of “Deafening” and “Sea of Fangs” push both the guitars and drums (which, it must be noted, are an impressive presence throughout the album) into the red right from the start and rarely, if ever, let up – it’s certainly a nastier release than either of its two predecessors, but pure sound and fury is a rarely enough to get you noticed in this particular scene.

Rather it’s the presence of elements like the doomy ambience shimmering behind “Burdened”, the ever-present undercurrent of melancholy and loss flowing through mid-album highlight “When I Don’t Remember You”, and the rippling doom ‘n’ gloom dwelling just beneath the surface of late-album stand-out “Dreamless Nights No Longer” which makes the strongest, and longest-lasting, impression, as these moments focus more on capturing an emotion, rather than simply captivating you with their execution.

True, while said execution is absolutely impeccable throughout – the pair’s technical talents have never once been in question, as far as I’m aware – there’s not too much here that won’t already be familiar to fans of bands like Replicant, Ceremony of Silence, and, of course, Ulcerate themselves, but with a little more emphasis on the more emotionally abrasive side of their sound going forwards I could definitely see Crown of Madness carving out a nice little niche for themselves on the ever-evolving dissonant spectrum somewhere down the line.

DYING SUN – WROUGHT

If the name Dying Sun isn’t entirely familiar to you don’t blame yourselves… after all, it’s been over a decade since we last heard from these Maryland-born mood-metallers, and the last time we wrote anything about them was this edition of The Synn Report in 2016.

But their return to action, while unexpected (so unexpected that I almost missed it entirely!) is not unwelcome, as their distinctive brand of synth-heavy, drone-driven Post-Metal – which sits somewhere between Amenra and Altar of Plagues, Cult of Luna and Killing Joke, with a prominent dose of Godflesh and/or Massive Attack influence on top of that – is absolutely just as haunting and hypnotic today as it was ten years ago.

If anything, it feels as though the trio have put even more emphasis on their dystopian, cyber-punk atmospherics this time around, with the shimmering, synaesthetic soundscapes and pulsing ambient passages laced into the fabric of songs such as ominous opener “New Moon” and the bio-luminescent heartbeat of “Dirt” existing in perfect balance with the album’s tightly-woven layers of heavily distorted riffs and thick, throbbing bass lines.

And it’s this balance, between dense metallic weight and ambient, negative space, which makes Wrought such a mesmerising experience, with tracks like the heaving “Intrinsic Light” and the spectral “Vessel” – both of which highlight the crushingly concentrated heaviness of the guitars and the desperate, wounded nature of the vocals in their own way – making full use of all the space granted them to stretch the dynamic of the music (the latter in particular dwells in desolate darkness and subdued shadow for much of its run-time) as far as possible.

It’s when they really stretch their wings, however – most particularly during the slow-burning anxiety of “In Constellation” and the brooding, cinematic light and shade of “Unlight” – that Dying Sun are able to fully capitalise on all the stunning sonic potential inherent in their sound, marrying some of the moodiest and most minimalist passages of quiet and calm on the entire album to some of the most powerful, post-industrial-meets-post-metallic, guitar work of their career.

So make sure you put aside some time for this one when you can, as this is one album you’re going to want to lose yourself in entirely.

MEMBARIS – BLACK PLASMA ARMOUR

As you may have noticed in the intro, February featured a lot of good (and great) Black Metal albums, but one which I thought was overlooked (but shouldn’t be) was the sixth full-length album from Germany’s Membaris.

I’ve been a fan of this band for quite a while now (there’s just something about this specific sub-set of German Black Metal bands which connects with my aesthetic sensibilities), especially as they’ve grown more overtly “progressive” in recent years, incorporating a greater sense of introspective atmosphere and more and more intricate melodic layering underneath all the dense, weighty guitars and impressive percussive power.

The twisted skeins of scorched guitars and winding, wandering bass-lines which form the central tapestry of the opening title track, for example, eventually unfurl into an echoing atmospheric abyss which provides a welcome period of temporary respite and reflection amidst all the incandescent intensity, while the subsequent “Threshold of a Dystopia” is permeated and perforated by these weird, spiky thorns of discordant melody which dig themselves under your skin whether you want them to or not.

“Sigil II (Star Ritual)” then puts a greater emphasis on the moodier, more melancholy side of the band’s sound, opting for a slow-burning simmer which really lets all the little nuances shine through that little bit more (while also giving the desperate, despairing vocals a little more room to breathe and brood), whereas the absolutely massive-sounding “N.O.V.A.” opts for a much more explosively intense approach – replete with a mix of seething, shape-shifting guitar work and an undercurrent of bleak, burning melody – as a way of reinforcing the band’s clear grasp of the importance of contrast and dynamics.

The back-half of the album in particular (including the aforementioned “N.O.V.A.”) is where the real (black) magic happens, with “Poet of Fire” (arguably my favourite, and possibly the best, track on the entire record) pushing a more ominously epic vibe in amongst all the mournfully melodic riffage and blistering blastbeats, after which “Onwards to the Last Blink of Reason” ups the intensity just that little bit more, both in terms of the increasingly heavy, harshly hypnotic riff-work and the wild, wide-eyed vocals, in order to bring the album to a suitably coruscating crescendo.