This post collects the reviews posted to Instagram for the week. They cover mostly metal, but other genres might be considered. Blog exclusive reviews from other writers are featured, as well.
Scuttlegoat's Curmudgeonly Critiques
Body Void - Burn The Homes Of Those Who Seek To Control Our Bodies
Genre: Sludge Metal
Label: Independent
Of the extreme metal artists that deal with their own identity through means of their music, I always found Body Void to be one of the most potent. In a way, Body Void managed to communicate the trans experience by way of universal emotions. The delivery, as brutal as it is honest, combined with the lyrics made the music very powerful. The music, of course, is utterly abrasive and often veers into territory that is extreme even for the chosen genre they play. A pace that often approaches funeral doom, very little harmonic content besides simple chromaticism and layers of distortion and noise make Body Void an acquired taste, to be fair. But Body Void still usually know when to provide contrast, often through randomly shifting into a much higher gear - a method as deliberately jarring as it is effective. On Burn The Homes Of Those Who Seek To Control Our Bodies, Body Void seem to be exploring more traditional sludge sounds, albeit infused with noise and a nasty groove and hateful attitude.
Of course, I'd be doing this EP a disservice if I didn't mention the lyrics at least a little bit. While the title made my mind immediately jump to Roe v. Wade, I think the lyrics are discussing the topic of body autonomy and the legality of such in a broader way that likely also concerns trans issues. The way they connect with me personally is with their hateful, anti-conservative attitude. While "Burn" wishes to rise violently against the oppressors (if only as a piece of lyrical catharsis or an actual call to action, I cannot really say), "Drown" has a more unique perspective in that it proposes to look inwards at the thought patterns of biases that we all have. While Body Void have a very personal motivation, they have always managed to deal in themes that I could connect with, as well.
Rating: (high) 6/10.
Autonoesis - Moon of Foul Magics
Genre: Progressive Extreme Metal / Thrash
Label: Independent
I have been a staunch defender of genre classification in metal. The "It's all metal" crowd cringes at the thought that there are musical characteristics that we can group bands by and that there is a noticeable and describable difference between a band like Revenge and a band like Ice Nine Kills. But I just believe that genre classification makes musical discovery at least a little easier. Sometimes, bands are hard to slot into them however, which can lead to drawn out discussions. Autonoesis are such an act. In some ways, they seem decidedly retro: The basis of their sound is a proto black/ thrash sound, with the usual faux-throwback production. At the same time, there is a progressive edge to it that recalls the 90s, especially death metal acts like Death and progressive thrash like Coroner, and occasional clean sections that feel even more modern than that.
In the end, what matters more is how good Autonoesis are though. And I have to say, quite. The varied material makes it easy to stay invested in the album and it also manages to never become predictable throughout it. The long songs are often mostly linear, but serve up enough moment to moment enjoyment to not become grading. For this writing style, it also goes without saying that the production choices just make it feel a little fresher than it would be otherwise: We don't often hear these instrumental mannerisms with a production like this. Sadly, Autonoesis scream bedroom band in other ways, too. "Moon of Foul magics" is unfortunately way too long, at almost an hour. While the material is varied and mostly interesting, this is a lot of time to be invested in it and I cannot say that Autonoesis quite pull it off. As often, with songs as long as these, some more purposeful structural choices would have helped it immensely. AT NYP, you should probably still buy it...
Rating: 6/10
BLOODBOX - Post Human Disorder
Genre: Grindcore / Breakcore
Label: Independent
BLOODBOX's album Post Human Disorder is a mess. An unholy amalgamate of breakbeats, grindcore and bucketfulls of irony. Most people will probably turn BLOODBOX off quickly, deeming it either unlistenable or at least wholly unenjoyable. It is certainly true that BLOODBOX work hard to make themselves as acerbic as possible. As someone whose once ironic enjoyment of breakcore has since turned into a purely honest admiration, I am used to this - breakcore wants to be unconforming to musical norms and the rules of good taste at all costs. What separates BLOODBOX from the usual artist, is that there isn't much of a contrast to latch on to. BLOODBOX do not have pop culture samples, baroque music or reggae samples layered over their madness. Instead, they focus on a completely destroyed and deconstructed grind sound.
I don't know when I last heard a guitar tone this ugly that didn't either seem lazy or incompetent. BLOODBOX know what they want, and they want their guitar tone and general aesthetic to be as unpleasant and discordant as possible. I will admit that these last couple weeks, I have been rather stressed and that this is maybe the reason why BLOODBOX hit me like they do: This is the sound of pure hatred. There is no direct target and BLOODBOX sound like utter destruction of not only the listener, but of good taste, musical conventions and last but not least, their own material. Of course, this is all partly ironic - you don't just make an album with this cover and this sound without having your tongue at least partly in your cheek - but BLOODBOX must on some level be aware of what catharsis this brings. After all, irony isn't dishonest - it is just a more advanced way of communication. BLOODBOX gave me a kind of relief that I have not felt in a while.
Rating: 7/10.
SheWolf - SheWolf
Genre: Symphonic Power Metal
Label: Frontiers Records
Certain interpretations of power metal, mainly the more burly American kind or everything employing a baritone, can be highly enjoyable to me. But sadly, most of what we get nowadays seems to be the more twinkly, clean, European kind that is much more marketable and approachable and has the potential to catch some listeners that, other than that, do not listen to metal at all. It very rarely offends the ear too much, but general competence and the usually functional, unintrusive production usually also means that it rarely becomes an annoying listen. It's mostly when a band does many things decidedly wrong that power metal becomes a chore. SheWolf is one such act.
Led by The Shaman (originally going by Angel Wolf-Black, but actually legally named Angel Chatzitheodorou), seem to appropiate fantasy names referencing a pack of wolves. The Shaman originally fronted a more traditional heavy metal band, Triaxis, also featuring Becky Baldwin on bass. SheWolf seems to be centered around Chatzitheodorou more than anything else. As bands who are purely based around one strong metal personality go, they win or lose purely based on that personalities talent. Wolf-Black is not the worst singer on a technical level - even if she has some of the usual europower vocalist issues - but the issue really lies in the composition with her. The shaman seems to not have much range in how she constructs her melodies and many of the vocal melodies on the album seem like they could be on any other song. Often, it is easy to anticipate where Chatzitheodorou will go vocally and it is rarely exciting or engaging. Not to mention her lyricism is corny a best and actively cringe-inducing at worst. Not like the album delivers on other fronts: The mix is subpar, the guitar tone is muddy and makes a sloppy performance even worse and the midi instruments sound like ABBA in the 70s.
Rating: 4/10.
Metalligatorrr's Additional Albums Assesments
Nechochwen - Kanawha Black
Genre: Progressive Black Metal
Label: Bindrune Recordings
I was a huge fan of Heart of Akamon when it released. It was a tightly paced progressive black metal album that had songwriting more reminiscent of its sibling genre, progressive death metal. The smartly used acoustic interludes and harrowing samples of gunfire against people screaming left an impression but the album also showed some focused songwriting in addition to this. Akamon was released in 2015 and it has been very quiet in Necochwen camp. Barring a compilation and some splits this is the band's first release since then.
Kanawha Black strikes a different path than its predecessor. Things start out urgently and the same mix of death metal intensity through a black metal filter strikes right away. But as the album progresses it becomes clear that this release is trying to be more atmospheric than Akamon was. I say "trying" because while there's more acoustic material and slow moving parts to these songs, they are not near as potent as last time. A large part of the problem is that the songs on Kanawha Black spend too much time to build up. Often a song will go past half of its 6 minutes before it takes off from the folk music. Worse yet, the album's pacing deliberately slows things down to a crawl. "The Murky Deep" has a strong motif that returns towards the end of the song but leaves its third act unresolved. "I Can Die But Once" is a sedate folk song that just refuses to move anywhere. Lastly this is followed by "A Cure for the Winter Plagues" which is a straight up doom song.
I appreciate the experimentation found here but it seems as if little thought has gone into the flow of the album. It makes it all feel scattershot. The pacing issue I pointed out makes the whole release feel disjointed and unfortunately the hooks present on the other songs just aren't strong enough to make up for it. As disappointed as I am, I'll still be on the lookout for new stuff from these guys. Because as they have proven before, when they get it right they can knock it out of the park.
Rating: 5/10
Sigh - Shiki
Genre: Progressive Black Metal
Label: Peaceville Records
Far from being a one-trick-pony, Sigh are a pony that likes to make a new avant-garde trick each time. A short summary of the direction on Shiki would be "trip-hop infused doom metal with thrash freakouts". Though the doom sound harkens back to albums like Infidel Art (a nod in the album artwork perhaps?) and Scenario IV: Dread Dreams, what makes Shiki stand out a bit is the back and forth between this and the thrash. The theme of the album has been explained in the lead up to release as being about the fear of growing old and dying. I can certainly hear this in some of the lyrics (though my Japanese is very rusty from disuse) but the music struggles to reflect this even with the direction towards doom metal.
Shiki follows the path that Heir to Despair laid before it, of reaching for a simpler and stripped down heavy metal sound. With this the songwriting becomes important as there are fewer tricks to hide behind. Unfortunately, I find that Shiki does not fare as well as Heir to Despair in this regard. This album sounds at once simple yet also wanting to break free with some of its weirder segments at times. When it hits as on "Satsui - Geshi No Ato" and "Mayonaka No Kaii", the regular Sigh magic comes forth. But at worst this album sounds unfinished with all the lush detail and ideas of albums like Scenes From Hell and In Somniphobia feeling like a phantom limb that should be there. The album is enjoyable enough and I will probably revisit it to see if it grows on me, but for the first time in my experience, a Sigh release is dulled by the weight of expectation.
This being one of my favorite bands I'm a bit disappointed with this release but I can always look back at the wealth of great material Sigh have provided us from Gallows Gallery forward (and some even before that). As per Mirai's instagram, no man, I think this album is OK. Imaginary Soniscape is one of your worst albums. And I'll be looking forward to next time (explore that trip-hop influence!).
Rating: 6/10
Eldritch Abbot's Egregious Evaluations
Empress - Fateweaver
Genre: Symphonic / Power Metal
Label: Independent
When a fair amount of my internet associates mentioned Empress as a "symphonic metal act, but actually good", I naturally became interested in their debut. Empress describes themselves as "symphonic power metal" and "for fans of old school Nightwish, Kamelot, Epica and Symphony X". I will say straight off the bat, that I can certainly hear the inspiration from early Nightwish and Epica, the others not so much. It is a symphonic/power metal album with all that entails: keyboards, symphonic sections and atmospheric paragraphs with some sections almost whispered. Also with titles like "Chimera", "The Fall of Kingsdoms" and "Black Arcana".
To cut straight to the chase, I am a bit frustrated with Fateweaver. I noticed on my first listen that I had a hard time staying focused even though the material is well-written. Apart from a few instances of the singer straining to hit a high note everyone involved sounds like quality musicians. The issue to me is that the production sounds too flat for the material. It is good, I am just left with a feeling that this album could've been really great if it had sounded more dynamic. There is tons of atmosphere in this album and it is well paced as well. I will be sure to check out future releases or live shows from Empress, because they are clearly talented musicians capable of writing kickass songs. The mix just lets it down, which is a shame and frustrates me, as I would have liked to have given this album a better score.
Rating: 6/10
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