In this post, I collect my instagram reviews for the week for albums released in 2022. All my non-2022 reviews are gathered in a post as soon as a decent number has accumulated. I listen to mostly metal, but I do not limit myself to any genre.
Bog Body - Cryonic Crevasse Cult
Genre: Death/Sludge Metal
Label: Profound Lore
Bands are often looking for ways to differentiate themselves. Some take a maximalist approach, adding new and exciting elements to tried and true genres to often mixed results. Others, like Bog Body, take a minimalist approach, attempting to distill genres down to their essentials and achieve greater focus. Bog Body are trying to do the sludgy caveman death style, heavily focused on mosh riffs and grime and they´re doing it completely without guitars. Ironically, they seem to get bogged down by this approach.
It is not that Bog Body don´t write solid mosh riffs. They´re probably not considerably worse than a lot of the competition, who are basically just chugging along with downtuned power chords and simple drum grooves, as well. But I just can´t seem any advantage to their minimalist approach. While a band like Mantar uses the minimalism to their advantage and plays simple material, but extra tight and energetic, Bog Body seem a bit like they can´t really be bothered. The Sound is very scarse and there is a split between the heavily reverberated vocals and the chunky bass, that makes it seem like they´re only tangentially related. Vocals reverberate in a huge empty room and the bass just clanks around drily. Bog Body write material that makes it seem like there should be a guitar, but there is not. Mosh Riffs, at the end of the day, can only be rated by how much they make me wanna mosh, and Bog Body just don´t do that.
Rating: 4/10.
Luminous Vault - Animate the Emptiness
Genre: Black/ Death Metal, Industrial
Label: Profound Lore
The inclusion of electronic music elements in metal has often been attempted, but rarely with great results. The industrial metal bands that succeed and that aren´t just jumpdafuckup mosh-nonsense are most often of the atmospheric and textural kind, with even originators like Godflesh mostly attempting textural, electronic Sludge. Luminous Vault attempt a new kind of synthesis that actually combines elments of the songwriting of either genre as well as the sonic palette of either. I can say that the way Luminous Vault attempt it, I haven´t quite heard it before.
Slow paced electronic drums support heavy, rhythmic riffs that never quite get dissonant, but that cannot be classified as tonal either. Sonically, a lot of Luminous Vault sits in the nondescript harmonic framework of what a lot of synth enthusiasts do, where the sonic quality of sounds and chords is more important than a theoretical framework. Luminous Vault manage to be heavy despite the inclusion of more spherical synth sounds now and then. Sadly, despite boosting a unique sound, 'Animate the Emptiness' is really not doing it for me. While I enjoy the early, quasi-metroid prime music of the first track, the album settles too much for a straight groove that simply lacks energy and doesn´t communicate the kinetic energy of either Metal or Electronic Music - I don´t want to headbang, but I don´t want to dance, either. Ultimately, Luminous Vault leave me rather cold and even though I wish there was more in it for me, there just isn´t.
Rating: 4/10.
Blut aus Nord - Disharmonium - Undreamable Abysses
Genre: avantgarde/industrial Black Metal
Label: Debemur Morti Productions
The career of Blut aus Nord is vast and has explored many different ideas, much more so than similarly influential Avantgarde Black Metal acts that prefer to hone in on more specific sounds. I like about Blut aus Nord that I will rarely 100% be able to predict how an album of theirs will sound like and that there seems to be an active attempt at moving metal as a genre of music forward. Whereas acts like the widely beloved Deathspell Omega, for example, take ideas that the realm of art music has already explored and merely transport it to a metal framework, Blut aus Nord always seemed to me like their ideas were sui generis and very much unique to them.
Keeping all of this in mind, the surprising element about 'Disharmonium - Undreamable Abysses' is the lack of surprise. The album seems to revisit the early industrial experimentations of Blut aus Nord, which included the vastly succesful 'The Work Which Transforms God' as well as less succesful attempts like 'MoRT' or 'Odinist'. While there are melodies to be found and there is certainly a characteristic harmonic framework to these albums as well as this new one, they are more about the texture in the end. 'Disharmonium' warps and transforms itself through oddly modulated guitar lines and spherical vocals; always processed in some way but often in ways where I can´t immediately decipher what has been done to them. It is a testament to the mixing engineer (Vindsval himself?) that all of the record sounds sonically coherent. The album is far from a soundmush, which albums like these often end up as. I can always find something for my ears to latch on to and 'Disharmonium' ends up as 46 well spent minutes.
Rating: 7/10.
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