SPIRITBOX: “TSUNAMI SEA”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  1 Response »
Mar 102025
 

(Late last week the Canadian heavy metal band Spiritbox released their second album, and today we’ve got Wil Cifer‘s review.)

Before you throw the LaPlante out with the bathwater, it might be easy to write this band off as a pop act. After all, they are an evolution of Myspace metal. However, I might go as far as to say that this album is more inspired than Knocked Loose’s You Won’t Go Before You Are Supposed To, which was one of the heaviest albums since Sunbather to catch the ear of more mainstream audiences. It certainly takes more chances and employs a wider range of sonic colors, rather than hits you with blunt force you bob your head to.

If your eyes have skimmed any of the reviews I have done for this fine site or other of the more devious ones you might have stumbled across on the Dark Web, then you know this is outside of what I normally listen to. If you caught the trail of breadcrumbs that starts with Chelsea Wolfe covering one of their songs, then you might be getting warmer. Continue reading »

DECREPISY: “DEIFIC MOURNING”

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Mar 042025
 

(Below we present Wil Cifer‘s review of the a album by Decrepisy, which will be released on March 28th by Carbonized Records.)

The Portland-based band Decrepisy allow themselves to plunge deeper into the darkness on their sophomore album Deific Mourning. They dig into the catacombs where death metal meets doom. This project features members of Negative Prayer, Vastum, and Coffin Rot. These songs are not heavy thanks to the guitar tones or down-tunings, but due to the songs coming from a place of inner ugliness that is allowed to take itself outward sonically.

Any band can capture Entombed’s sound in the studio, but you are not going to believe demons are in their veins, because they are likely well-adjusted kids with good credit who like the sounds and trappings of metal music, but are detached from the darkness it represents. Then some deal with that darkness by allowing themselves to feel it and live it and that is what comes out when they express themselves in their music. This project is tapping into those places so their instruments become the conduits, and the atmosphere manifested here is the natural progression of where the sound should go rather than neatly checking off the boxes of required genre tropes. Continue reading »

MORAST: “FENTANYL”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Feb 112025
 

(Below you will find Wil Cifer‘s review of a new album by the German black metal band Morast, which was released last week by Ván Records.)

I have an odd relationship with Black Metal. If you asked me what my favorite sub-genre of metal is I would have to say Black Metal. The caveat here is certain types. This German band Morast certainly captures what my type is.

When most people think of Black Metal they think of blast beats, tremolo-picked guitar, and the production quality of a room mic in a dank dungeon. That is the sound that bores me to death. It also feels odd that a genre dedicated to misanthropy and non-conformity to mainstream metal trends would repeatedly follow a formula because “that’s how Black Metal should sound”.

Morast do a wonderful job capturing the needed worship of darkness and misery to make me smile — anguish as depressive black metal. Yet they paint a sonic picture of a junkie’s despair in a manner we have not seen done with this kind of authenticity since mid-2000s Nachtmystium. Continue reading »

VACUOUS: “IN HIS BLOOD”

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Feb 032025
 

(Here we have Wil Cifer‘s review of the second album by the UK death metal band Vacuous, which is set for release on February 28th by Relapse Records.)

Death Metal continues to gain popularity with bands like Cannibal Corpse as festival headliners and playing arenas. Its aggressive release makes it perhaps the most fun of all metal sub-genres yet it is all too often stuck in its ’90s nostalgia. This leads to bands idolizing the Morbid Angel‘s and Obituary‘s of the past and not always pressing forward with fresh new sounds and songwriting that moves beyond the bounds of its double-driven and growled vocals.

The sophomore album of Vacuous, In His Blood, finds the band breaking out from the pack to create their niche and find their way without leaning too heavily on their influences. Sure, guttural vocals are the main narrative, but other anguished vocalizations are employed, to give the tormented-larynx approach more purpose, rather than an obligatory gurgle underlying the frantic din. Continue reading »

SACRIFICE: “VOLUME SIX”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Jan 212025
 

(This is Wil Cifer‘s review of a new album by the ’80s-era Canadian thrash metal band Sacrifice, their first one in 16 years and with their original lineup intact. It will be released on February 21st by Cursed Blessings Records.)

Thrash is a metal subgenre perhaps most shackled to a golden era that reached its peak in 1990 with albums like Seasons in the Abyss and Rust in Peace. Death metal gained prominence and bands either doubled down and got heavier to keep up or veered off to follow the ’90s alternative sound. The Canadian thrash band Sacrifice has been kicking it since the ’80s but never caught on to gain the cult status of a band like Voivod. They have however changed with the times on for their 6th album, which finds them sharing sonic ground with bands like Power Trip, who blended hardcore sounds with the thrash of the past.

If you were to listen back to the 1986 album Torment in Fire, while it captures the energy of that time, the guitar tones are a little dated, so the current production value plays to their benefit and breathes new life into what they do. This band is not jumping on a bandwagon to be relevant, but staying true to what they do while packing a suitable song punch, rather than digging up their pedal board from the ’80s to cash in on nostalgia for 1986. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2024: WIL CIFER’S TOP 20 YEAR-END LIST

 LISTMANIA 2024  5 Responses »
Dec 162024
 

(This is Wil Cifer‘s presentation of his Top 20 list for 2024.)

The world did not end in 2024, but unless inter-dimensional beings intervene, humanity might find ourselves reaping the consequences of our actions in the year to come. This is the tone of music I was drawn to this year. My taste in sonic darkness showed a dark shift in sounds that held at least a sardonic slant, more often than not a celebration of misanthropy.

I care less about how fast a band play or how low they tune, and more about what an album has to say. As a teenager, I didn’t mind lyrics composed of pseudo-occult garbage. Live and learn, after all, occult means hidden, and subtly goes a long way. If they were serious about the Left-Hand Path the music would make you feel it. I want to hear the inner darkness and ugliness you have inside come out in your music, not a pantomime of what darkness looks like in movies.

Granted with death metal, a little “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” is fine if it’s just empty calories, but I expect more from black metal in this regard. Continue reading »

DEADFORM: “ENTRENCHED IN HELL”

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Oct 082024
 

(Here’s Wil Cifer‘s enthusiastic review of the debut album by Oakland-based Deadform, which is set for release by the Tankcrimes label on October 25th.)

Entrenched in Hell is the first full-length from this Oakland-based trio. If you are a fan of crust punk, this should be considered the upper crust of the genre.

Dino Sommese from Dystopia is playing drums and sharing vocal duties with Brian Clouse from Stormcrow. Clouse is playing bass in this project, with Judd Hawk (ex-Laudanum) laying down the guitars.

Hawk cranks out a vicious guitar tone, and phrases his riffs in a manner that gives you everything one might want from the grim world-ending metal. The production is raw, but feels like you are in their practice space having your eardrums ruptured. It certainly highlights the things I love about this sub-genre as it carries a stormy fury but grooves into the dark apocalyptic mood of the songs. The disdain projected into these songs makes for the perfect soundtrack to the world around us, with lyrics shattering the false hopes we try to fool ourselves with. Continue reading »

SURRENDER TO DEATH: A HISTORY OF THE ATLANTA METAL UNDERGROUND VOL. 1

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Aug 232024
 

(In the following article our contributor Wil Cifer, who spent a lot of years in Atlanta, comments on a compilation set for release on September 6th by Boris Records and Deanwell Global Music which serves as a retrospective of the Atlanta metal underground from 1982 to 1999. It includes remastered original recordings by more than 20 bands from the area.)

In the ’80s Norway was not the bustling mecca for metal the media tries to portray it as today, so even Atlanta, Ga was impressive to me at 12 years old when I began visiting my grandparents in the States for a few weeks in the summers at their Stateside home just outside the city limits of Atlanta. My first exposure to what the music scene in America was like in the flesh is captured in Surrender To Death: A History of the Atlanta Metal Underground Vol. 1, a compilation by Boris Records and Deanwell Global Music. For me, it’s a fun indulgence of nostalgia for those summers spent venturing into the city for all-ages shows. Continue reading »

CANOPY: “EMPTY LIGHT”

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Jul 292024
 

(Wil Cifer wrote the following review of a new EP by Canopy from Georgia (U.S.), which was independently released earlier this month.)

Sludge has reached its peak, with a few bands still carrying that torch while others move toward the other sub-genres rising in popularity. Canopy is an Atlanta band that has persevered for over a decade and their new EP finds the band going above and beyond by reaching a balance of sonic intensity and eerie melancholy.

What keeps me listening to these songs is not screamed vocals or weighty accents they chug into, but how the chords ring out with emotion. Just being heavy for the sake of being heavy is an easy task, but pouring your pain and depression into your instruments and tangibly conveying them is more nuanced. The band has a penchant for post-rock phrasings balancing out their monolithic crunch. This allows for plenty of breathing room for the songs to flourish. Continue reading »

SARS: “NOTHING HURTS QUITE LIKE LIFE”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Jul 032024
 

(Here’s Wil Cifer‘s review of the debut album by the Finnish band SARS, which is due for release on July 12th by Time To Kill Records )

With their new album Nothing Hurts Quite Like Life Finland’s SARS teach a master class in what is metallic hardcore and what is “metalcore”.

Perhaps it‘s the long dark winters of their homeland, and the high depression rate of their homeland, as there is nothing hopeful or anthemic about the sonic beatings they are dishing out here. Continue reading »

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