Jun 142015
 

 

(In this post Wil Cifer reviews the new album by High On Fire.)

I caught these guys back in 2004ish when Planesmistakenforstars opened for them, and I grew to appreciate this band more as their musicianship and songwriting have matured over the years. The opener reminds me of “Leave No Cross Unturned” by Darkthrone. Matt Pike seems to be singing more than roaring, but this is marginal. The song hammers like a freight train.

There is more a sludge groove to the second track that is more rock ‘n’ roll, in the same sense Clutch is rock ‘n’ roll — thick, stoned distortion too up-tempo to be doom. On their last album they reminded me of a mix of Motörhead and Venom. Here it is more like old Mastodon without any of the guitar tricks. Continue reading »

Jun 112015
 

 

(Wil Cifer reviews the new album by Pennsylvania’s Clouds Collide.)

Black Gaze, the marriage of shoe-gaze to black metal, has been met with mixed results. Deafheaven and Alcest became two big names of this sub-genre, and of course began to amass many imitators. Clouds Collide is in a sonic zip code closer to where Alcest used to live back when they were more of a metal band.

Never has a project’s name so fittingly conveyed what they sound like. The album floats into the horizon with almost Death Cab For Cutie-like vocals hovering over it. It’s not until the second song that the harsher vocals come in. When they do, they are the only element with an edge to it. The blast beats provide an undercurrent for the vocals to moan over in an abstract path. While the melody becomes more defined the blast beats become a blur. Continue reading »

May 262015
 

 

(Wil Cifer reviews the new album by Vattnet Viskar.)

I am glad this album doesn’t sound like its cover. After the first note you are assured that it won’t. If this is black metal it’s a very American take on it. They bring the blasting to an end for “Yearn” as they morph into more of a sludge band. There is even a tinge of melody beneath the rasp of the vocals, which are mid-ranged and overdriven at the mixing board by Sanford Parker. ”Yearn” is woven through some interesting twists and turns, before the point is pounded home and it’s time for heads to bang. This tends to be carried out in a meaner feel than Sky Swallower. Credit goes to the wider dynamic scope allowing the heavy sections to feel heavier, despite the album’s crisp production.

Slamming a blast of well-mixed double bass right into your fucking face, Vattnet Viskar make “Impact” live up to the song’s name. Like any lasting piece of art, more reveals itself when you return to it, like the doubled gang vocals that were hidden til the third listen. Continue reading »

May 132015
 

 

(Wil Cifer turned in some thoughts  about the debut album by the German band AZAVATAR.)

On a whim while clicking through my in-box I came across AZAVATAR’s debut album and decided to give it a spin and was surprised at the quality of songwriting that followed. This German band boasts vocals that are grim and scraping, closer to a croak than not. They are eager to blast beat you into submission if given the chance. I am glad these guys are not on the Deathspell Omega bandwagon, as that seems to be the case with every other band in my in-box. The drums do get a little overzealous toward the end of the opening song (“KVLT“) as the riffs grow more restless, but it’s not a total prog-out. This album is brought to you by the letter K as “KVRSE” comes after “KVLT“. Continue reading »

May 072015
 

 

(Wil Cifer provides this interview with the members of Brooklyn-based Sannhet.)

I got the chance to sit down with the guys from Sannhet and we talked about various aspects of the varied sub-genres to which they are often attached, along with other musings. Right off the bat, I hit it off with their drummer Chris who was wearing a Youth Code shirt while I was wearing a Swans shirt, so we had one of those mutual admiration band shirt moments, and from there we were just friends catching up

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Wil – So what is it about the scene in New York that enables it to pump out so much great metal?

Chris -Diversity, the space and room to be yourself. After living there for over a decade all the touristy elements fade, but it’s a melting pot. Continue reading »

Apr 302015
 

 

(Wil Cifer provides this interview with Mirai Kawashima of Sigh, whose new album will be released on May 4 by Candlelight Records.)

I recently got to catch up with and pick the brain of Sigh’s main man Mirai Kawashima to discuss the new album Graveward and the ghosts of metal past, present, and future.

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With Scenes From Hell you took a sharper turn into a more progressive sound. Graveward retains that but steps back into a more metal direction as well. What inspired this?

MiraiThe biggest inspiration on this album is 70s / 80s Italian zombie flicks. At first I was planning to make it filled with old keyboards like Minimoog, Mellotron, Hammond, Fender Rhodes etc., as a dedication to those movies. The final result was pretty much different from the initial plan, but I think you still sense the atmosphere of zombie movies.

I’m not sure what you meant by “metal direction”, but Graveward is filled with mid-paced to up-tempo songs, I mean they’re slower than those on Hangman’s Hymn or Scenes from Hell. In that sense, Graveward is a very metal album. Other than that, the change of guitarist affected a lot on the sound. I’ll talk about it later. Continue reading »

Apr 282015
 

 

(Wil Cifer offers some thoughts about Graveward, the new album by Sigh.)

Once upon a time one of my favorite black metal bands put out an album called Scenes From Hell and they transformed from one of my favorite black metal bands into one of my favorite prog metal bands. Their new album finds them getting some of the aggression back as they study the various aspects of death.

One thing that is interesting about Sigh is even though they are based in Tokyo, the band do not employ the Oriental dodecaphonic scale, but pull from a variety of western music ranging from Deep Purple to klezmer. This album opens in a fairly straight-forward metal manner for this band, with a slight leaning toward Emperor as the clean vocals sweep in amidst the twists and turns normally narrated by the more scathing snarls. The clean vocals have a more typical progressive metal vibrato, like something Therion might throw in.

Sigh continue to use a chaotic mix of varied elements, which are sometimes stirred together more smoothly than at others. There are some good metallic moments in the title track, which settled in with me more quickly than the opening song (“Kaedit Nos Pestis”); that one took a few listens to sink in. Continue reading »

Apr 142015
 

 

(Wil Cifer reviews Aldafǫðr Ok Munka Dróttinn (“Óðinn and the God of the Monks”), the new album by the Icelandic/German pagan metal band Arstidir Lifsins.)

This trio features members of Helrunar and Carpe Noctem, so you know they are going to get at least the Viking parts right.

It starts with a twelve-minute epic, with the first three minutes building up to the metal being introduced. Largely there is a chorus of baritones bellowing out the vocals, but these give way to black metal snarls. The first and second songs run into each another, as if this were a Wagnerian opera. Like opera, the sensual magnitude of the scenes they are creating here is impressive.

At times you might be inclined to refer to the music as blackened folk metal — the third song has some old-school black metal nastiness to it — though the bass playing is raised to an audible level, where many black metal bass players stay submerged beneath the waves. Here the theatrics that take center stage, rather than trying to recreate any pagan folk elements, more often work within the song rather than making it feel overblown, though in some portions of the album they come across more like interludes rather than the style of a band like Negura Bunget, who use those elements more fully as working parts of the song. Continue reading »

Apr 082015
 

 

(Wil Cifer provides this review of a new single by Unraveling from Calgary, Canada.)

If any sub-genre in the metal family tree deserves to see the inevitable upswing in the perpetual cycle that most musical trends follow, it’s industrial. You would think Godflesh’s comeback would have spurned this. We do have Author & Punisher and Youth Code, but that is hardly a groundswell for the kind of music that dominated the 90s alongside grunge. It has yet to really see a resurgence of the magnitude it deserves. Taking their best stab westward at the genre’s more accessible side is a project from Canada called The Unraveling.

They have returned with the first new song since their lead singer fell out of commission for a year due to heath problems; it’s the band’s first new music since their 2010 release 13 Arcane Hymns. This track shows the duo evolving from just another Tool-influenced hard-rock band stuck in the 90s to something more promising. Continue reading »

Apr 022015
 

 

(Wil Cifer provides some thoughts about the new album by Sweden’s Tribulation.)

Up until this point Tribulation has been a more fascinating creature on stage. The Children of the Night carries those wandering moments of majick the band summons on stage and transfigures them into a more solid form.

Often the album trades the traditional metal crunch for a more multifaceted organic tone that just happens to be played loudly. This is very much a guitar-centric album. The riffs are more than hammers that pound your head until you begin banging it, but tools to entrench the dark melodies into your hungering ears. On first listen, certain songs have the brighter epic metal tone that might cause Enslaved comparisons to abound, but the band is setting the stage for something more sinister lurking under the surface, while Enslaved sails their prog power longboats into Norse lore. Continue reading »