BUTCHERBIRD: “DROUGHT/DELUGE”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Apr 112025
 


Artwork by šaška

(On May 30th Drowning Sea God Records will digitally release the debut EP from the London-based metallic hardcore band ButcherBird. Wil Cifer has had a chance to hear it, and sent in the following positive review.)

I’m always up for checking out a hardcore band that is willing to venture off the beaten path. So here we are with ButcherBird, a hardcore band from London that has a metallic groove to their feedback-squealing attack.

The angry shout of the vocals is the most straightforward thing about the overall sound this band is throwing at you. They do use breakdowns, but these cropped up in less expected places. There is a more rock n roll vibe underlying the whiplash of angular riffs, making them more of Rollins Band than Full of Hell when it comes to the sonic scope these guys have crafted. Unwieldy sections of choruses collide to create a celebratory ambience. They are not fueled by a singular mood, but express a wide range of varied emotions with little pretense. Continue reading »

DEAFHEAVEN: “LONELY PEOPLE WITH POWER”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Apr 012025
 

(The following is Wil Cifer‘s review of the new album by San Francisco’s Deafheaven, released on March 28th through Roadrunner Records.)

Six albums into their career, these guys are not out to win over any new fans. Yet this might catch the ears of casual listeners who got lured in by the hype surrounding 2013’s Sunbather, which found these guys the talk of hipsters at craft breweries everywhere.

The band seemed to not give a shit about critical acclaim, and rather than try to double down on the post-rock formula that made Sunbather successful, they have ventured into darker corners and toyed with varied blends of shoe-gaze, black metal, and even thrashing screamo. This new album finds the band striking a perfect balance among these stark contrasts, and creating an album that is in some ways more experimental than Sunbather but also darker and angrier. Continue reading »

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 »

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