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
Thecodontion and Ceremented
Genre: Progressive Death Metal / Death Doom
Label: I, Voidhanger Records
Release Date: 07-04-2023
Recently, I do seem to review more splits than I have on average the years before. The question that I always ask myself when reviewing a Split is if the work got enriched by the two artists making an album together or if it is simply a matter of happenstance - be it that the bands were friends or label-mates or any such cases. Initially, Ceremented and Thecodontion seem like a good match, as both bands make the active choice of not featuring a guitarist on the album. The back half of this album illustrates this quite well, with churning Death Doom focusing on the low end. The pitfalls of the Bass only sound is something I have discussed again and again (most recently in my Seum review) and even though Ceremented manage to serve up some nasty grooves, they do not completely overcome those issues. Ultimately, Ceremented lack that certain something.
For rhetoric reasons, I am therefore discussing the A-Side of the Split second. Thecodontion enlists the help of Bedsore's Stefano Allegretti, who lends his keyboards to the band's sound. A sound that recalls 70s Synth Rock as much as it recalls Prog and Italo Disco (even going so far as to include a cover track of Italian Psych Rock maestro Franco Battatio), Death Metal is not a big part of Thecodontions sound anymore. The bass is as distorted as ever and the vocals are still a hoarse, whispery Growl, but otherwise Thecodontion can hardly be called a Death Metal band anymore. The material is so unusually lush that it feels hard to believe the same musicians are involved as the ones that made Supercontinent in 2020. The styles of the two halves are so distinct that it makes me wonder if the decision to make a Split predates the stylistic shift. If Thecodontion would have composed this material shortly after Supercontinent, we would have gotten something more alike to Ceremented. As it stands right now, I enjoy the front half much more than the back half. Unfortunately, the Split format ruined what could have otherwise be a nice little EP.
Rating: 5/10
Metalligatorrr's Chomping Commentaries
Shores of Null - The Loss of Beauty
Genre: Melodic Doom Metal
Label: Spikerot Records
Release Date: 24-3-2023
Shores of Null play a kind of Melodic Doom Metal that once was a Gatorrr favorite, an often Goth- and sadness-fueled style that finds its expression between the well written choruses of Paradise Lost and the crushing gloom of Swallow the Sun (two bands I will excessively reference, as my fellow writers often smirkingly remind me). Some of these influences shine through on The Loss of Beauty, as I find some of the leadwork reminiscent of Gregor Macintosh's (Paradise Lost) weepy choruses, but Shores of Null set themselves apart here by featuring a lot of tremolo-led leads as well and a vocal performance that bears an uncanny Alternative Rock feel. Part of my current fatigue with this genre stems from the fact that as a genre solidifies over time, there will emerge bands that play the style to a T, content to not present any real character of their own. This leads to an overcrowding of bands that sound all the same and while Shores of Null have some unique characteristics, I do not find that they completely escape this trap. This is evident in that I sometimes forgot that I was listening to this and not the new Hanging Garden album that was released on the same day.
But let us focus on Shores of Null's unique side. First - the tremolos. They are in most of the tracks, hovering lower in the mix and are, frankly, overused. Metal Archives classes this band as Melodic Black/Doom Metal but I hear very little on this album that I would call actual Black Metal. The abundant use of tremolo instead seems like a crutch that is used to make the songs sound constantly dramatic, a trick that gets old very fast. Even in songs like "A Nature in Disguise", that I do like with its odd Antahema like vocal cadence and blackened breakdown, it tends to grate when there is a single unchanging tremolo playing for almost 5 of its 6:26 minute runtime. Albums as unflatteringly cohesive as this are hard to describe as their stand-out moments disappear below the surface (like the subdued Power Metal tune in the powerful closer "A New Death Is Born", the sorrowful Macintoshian lead guitar in "The Last Flower" and the foreboding Post Black Metal of "Old Scars"). Davide Straccione's vocals are one aspect of the album that takes a hit from the often uniform material as he impresses with deep growls and similarly deep cleans that drift into a hoarse Alternative Rock timbre that stands out in this genre, for better or worse depending on the song. It all amounts to an album I wish I liked more that carries a fatal flaw of relying on a songwriting crutch to its detriment. Give it a spin if you find yourself immune to excessive tremolo abuse.
Rating: 6/10
Asystole - Siren to Blight
Genre: Dissonant Death Metal / Brutal Death Metal
Label: I, Voidhanger Records
Release Date: 07-3-2023
For being a genre built on experimentation, Dissonant Death Metal has been coloring a bit inside the lines as of late. Newer bands offer very little other than throwing a fist of broken chords at a wall to see what sticks (for a recent example, see the Mithiridatum debut) and my interest in the genre has faded with each song that mirrors Technical Death Metal's and Progressives Metal's obsession with virtuosity. Asystole seem as tired of this as I do, as their debut Siren to Blight is a tight 30 minute album that aims to mix the genre up a bit with a hefty influence of Brutal Death Metal. Straight away "Blanketed in Flies" hits with chaotic Dissonant Death Metal filled with unnerving broken chords but it soon finds a Brutal Death Metal groove that leads into some Gorguts like atmosphere in the lead guitar. The comparison to one of the Death Metal greats is impossible to avoid here but Asystole set themselves apart with brevity, rather than smothering with a dense atmosphere they opt for playful chaos and jittery stumbling riffs.
There are good ideas in most of these songs. "Song of Subservient Bliss" has some fun whammy bar abuse that recalls city-mates Imperial Triumphant, "Hollow Penance" mixes in an occasional slam before closing on a great chaotic moment and some of the latter songs feature a nice horror vibe in the riffs that slightly reminds of Entombed or The Black Dahlia Murder. Some minor gripes I have include the useless instrumental "Respite" that adds neither interest nor actually any unneeded respite and I did eventually notice that the back half of the songs drop out a lot of the mix of genres that make Asystole interesting in the first place in favor of some straight Death Metal. These last three songs hold up fairly well and it is hard to complain about this when the album is as short as it is. I find myself enjoying Siren to Blight on each spin and it has a good chance of staying in my playlist until the end of the year.
Rating: 7/10
Sermon - Of Golden Verse
Genre: Progressive Metal
Label: Prosthetic Records
Release Date: 31-3-2023
Sermon have a few things going for them. Between the occasionally bass heavy sound that recalls Tool and the great heavier-than-normal-for-the-genre drum performance, there is a coherent sound to the band that sets them apart from other Progressive Metal bands, influences notwithstanding. Arriving four years after their debut, Birth of the Marvellous, Of Golden Verse is at once a great sounding record and a flawed one. The band's stew of bass driven lower end, blasting drums with tasteful fills (courtesy of James Stewart, ex-member of Vader) and Katatonia like vocal moments remains intact and it is hard to not be impressed by the impression the music makes throughout. The production has improved a bit since the debut, remaining soft but lending a heftier punch to everything with the drums and the lead guitar benefiting the most. This is particularly noticeable in standout song "Wake the Silent" where the drums go wild towards the end, in "Departure" where there is a tasteful drum fill in the middle and in "The Distance" that has a beautiful lead in its middle. It can also distract, however, when the drums are active with intricate fills and are out of place in rare moments like in the slower "Senescence".
While sound, riffs and standout moments are all good on Of Golden Verse, what bothers me about this album is how it is constructed. Both at the album level and the song level, the music errs on long builds that often have very little payoff in songs that generally stretch out longer than those on the debut. This is very noticeable in the first half of the album where every song is a slow build of some kind, leading to a stretch in the middle where all of the momentum the album had is lost. "Light the Witch" is probably the most successful at this composition style, but when it is surrounded by similar songs its impact is lost. Of Golden Verse does not start shining until its final stretch starting with "Wake the Silent" and when it goes into full gear it is hard not to hear the potential that lies in this album. Finishing up with "Golden" and "Departure", the two best songs on the album, I am left a bit disappointed at the uniform nature of the album's trajectory and scratching my head at how Sermon went from a well constructed record like Birth of the Marvellous to this. Progressive Metal fans will do well to try this album as it has a unique character and many good moments in it, but I have a hard time overlooking how the album is constructed as it makes me unable to feel the impact of its best parts.
Rating: High 6/10
Cosmo's Chaotic Curveballs
Devangelic - Xul
Genre: Technical Death Metal / Brutal Death Metal
Label: Willowtip Records
Release Date: 07-04-23
If there is one band that could perfectly sum up what influenced Devangelic, it is Nile. Nile, of course, being the inspirational Brutal Tech Death band that injects Egyptian and Lovecraftian mythos into their works to create a pyramid-blasted, haunting atmosphere on each of their albums. Devangelic, on the other hand, decided to stick with Sumerian mythology on this and their prior album Ersetu. How do these who worship at the altar of Ishtar fare when compared to the masters?
Well, when I said Devangelic was inspired by Nile, that was a bit of an understatement. This album feels like a Nile album somewhere between Annihilation of the Wicked and Those Whom the Gods Detest. That is not necessarily a bad thing, per se, since those are two of Nile's best albums. What this means, however, is that Devangelic do not sound like their own band; rather like a Nile tribute band right down to two instrumental interludes. Xul is a fine sounding album - if you are a fan of Nile or like your Death Metal with a shot of MENA. The songs themselves are not the most memorable, but they are not in any way bad. The biggest problem with music such as this is that there is no sense of individuality whatsoever. Sounding like your favorite band while creating interesting original music is one thing, but sounding like a tribute act to your favorite band, no matter how unintentional, is another thing altogether.
Criticisms aside, I do not dislike this album. I will not be returning to it often, but at the very least Xul fulfills the under-serviced niche of Sumerian-flavored brutality. That is, until Nile decides to write a Sumerian/Egyptian crossover mythology album. Hopefully Devangelic will establish a sense of individuality on their next effort.
Rating: 5/10
Atemporal - Thorn Genesis
Genre: Avant-Garde Black Metal
Label: I, Voidhanger Records
Release Date: 07-04-23
Atemporal is a new entity spawned from the endless depths of the ever-weird I, Voidhanger Records. Comprising of sole member Sebastien Montesi (Auroch, Egregore), Atemporal plays a blend of twisted Black Metal that is nigh-impenetrable in sound. Egregore already experimented with a similar style that Atemporal utilizes, but it was a bit of a mess. Did Montesi improve the formula with this new album?
Not exactly. Atemporal's sound is incredibly raw for 5 out of the 6 songs on the album. Sonically, this album sounds like a collection of Egregore outtakes with the production quality lowered. Odd stylistic choices are peppered throughout the album. A fade-in, fade-out start/end on the first track destroys any notion of cohesiveness throughout the rest of the album. Even more strangely, the production quality varies from song to song. On "Three Initiates Meet at the Cemetery Crossroads," the drums are pushed to the back of the mix but on "Meditation on Azoth" the drums sound more clear. On other tracks, the vocals are pushed back. This wild variation in sound quality from song to song makes the tracks feel unfinished, more like jam sessions than focused songs.
The most egregious offense by far is the final track, "Backward Down the Thorny Path". The production quality sounds quite decent here, almost as if it were an outtake from the Egregore album, but the song length is what truly makes this song a chore to sit through with each consecutive spin. At 16 minutes, that's already too long for most songs, but it does not work in the slightest with this style. It ambles and stumbles along a metaphorical thorny path for all 16 of these minutes, and not once does it get interesting or demonstrate that it needs to be this long. The saving grace of this album is that it is under 40 minutes in total, which is honestly a blessing after listening to the rest of the off-kilter tracks. I think Montesi has it in him to make a compelling Black Metal album of this style, but this certainly is not it.
Rating: 3/10