Worm Gear

Nocturnal Graves – Mark of the Adversary

•January 22, 2014 • 4 Comments

As 2013 came to a close, I began to feel that the constant influx of new black and death metal albums heading my way were beginning to run together; I needed a change, something to remove the stifling air of what are typically my two favorite genres of extreme music. Nocturnal Graves latest album, …From The Bloodline of Cain was sent my way, and its smorgasbord of early ’80s thrash/death riffery fully cleansed my reviewer pallet and pummeled its way to place itself amongst last year’s underground metal-best. We exchanged electronic words with Nocturnal Graves head honcho and mastermind Jarro to gain a little insight into the album and the man himself. Read on! -Jim

Congratulations on the excellent new Nocturnal Graves album, Jarro, and thanks for giving us your thoughts and responses on this interview!
…From the Bloodline of Cain easily took a spot on my End of 2013 list, with it’s punishing black thrash riff assault and searing vokill delivery. Aside from being a prime example of the Australian Extreme Metal scene – one of the most revered in existence – Nocturnal Graves has found a comfortable home on the American Hells Headbangers label, alongside other bands from the region. How did the relationship with this Ohioan institution come about, and how has this symbiosis contributed to the growth of the band? How does working with Hells Headbangers differ from working with Nuclear War Now! as you did on your previous releases?

Thanks for your words about the album! Before the band went on hiatus in 2010 we had come to an agreement for Hells Headbangers to release what would have been our second album, and I have been in contact with Hells since their first releases. Working with them has been a lot better than working with NWN. They get things done quickly without endless delays and they handle a lot of promotion etc so it makes things a lot easier overall.

On Satan’s Cross, you laid down the guitar, drums, and vocal tracks, but on this album, guitars were handled by Decaylust of Denouncement Pyre alongside the great Shrapnel of Deströyer 666, with drums handled by L. Wilson (also of Denouncement Pyre). Will this remain the permanent Nocturnal Graves lineup, or was it your intention to summon the hordes only for this album and tour cycle? How have the crowds on Mayhem’s 30th Anniversary tour responded to your new members and material?

Actually, your information isn’t correct. On Satans Cross I laid down drums and vocals. On “…From the Bloodline of Cain” I laid down bass, vocals and rhythm guitars whilst Shrapnel and Decaylust handled the leads, and L. Wilson drums. This will remain the line-up as long as the others choose to continue. The crowds for the Mayhem gigs were generally very good and we got a killer response for the opening slot… We played to a lot of people who otherwise wouldn’t go to a Nocturnal Graves gig which was good for us on many levels.

The Satanic intensity remains an unstoppable force on both records, but the riff flow and evolved sound on …From the Bloodline of Cain gives the album it’s own character, and demands a start-to-finish listen. In what ways did the new lineup aid in the writing and recording process? Conversely, did their presence make completing the record difficult for you in any way, or did the fact that you have shared stage and studio together in the past mitigate any potential conflicts?

Basically, I wrote the material and recorded demos then we got together and worked on the arrangements until the songs were done, so it was really good to get input from the others. There were no conflicts at all and writing the album under these circumstances was easily the best musical situation I’ve been in so far. We all approached the songs with an open mind in that all ideas were welcome and would be tried but not necessarily used. No one is suffering from a weak ego so there were no arguments when ideas were thrown in the trash.

In the wrong hands, thrash metal in the present era can come across dated and bland. Fortunately, the blackened thrash of Nocturnal Graves is anything but, flowing as it does with Satanic ferocity and unorthodox composition. How have you kept the thrash element of the band sounding so powerful and relevant? What bands/albums of the style from the early to mid-’80s still inspire you today, and what current black/thrash bands have your attention?

I really didn’t think about that kind of thing when writing the album. I just wrote what was inside of me and it turned out how it turned out. The only preconceived idea behind the songs was that we all wanted the album to be as wild and vicious as possible. As for influences, all the usual stuff like Slayer, Possessed, Kreator, Sarcofago etc etc but like I said, I really wasn’t thinking about all that kind of thing when writing. As for current bands in that style there’s not many that I am listening to… Force of Darkness and Hades Archer from Chile kick ass, and I just listened to a band called Slutvomit which was pretty good. I haven’t been keeping up with much current stuff for a few years now though.

Nocturnal Graves’s relation to darkness as part of its expression of evil is vital; on ‘The Great Adversary’ off of the new album, the admonitions that begin Father Cain, we call upon you… never fail to raise hackles on the back of my neck upon each listen. How important to you is it to articulate occult concepts through music, and how did the idea to convey that message in the name of the world’s first murderer come about?

It’s very important. The whole lyrical concept of the album is a homage to the Luciferian Spirit, to the Adversary and the one who questions all. That lyric you quoted sums up why the concept of Cain was used.

Do you find there are personal, daily life applications to occult study, or would you consider such study to only be of scientific or historical interest? What texts would you recommend to someone harboring a passion to learn the deeper inspirations/motivations lurking behind dark music such as your own?

There definitely are and for me it comes down to awareness of what is going on around ones self. There would be no point in studying the Occult if I were not to apply and discover things for myself in the real world. This is not some bedroom fantasy that I am playing with but a real and workable force that is forever weaving its way through the waking world. Look within, come to know your true inner self and release your will upon the earth.

Metal’s popularity in general has grown with the proliferation of internet access worldwide. Do you feel that the availability of music and musical knowledge has positively or negatively impacted the average metal fan’s level of dedication to the underground? What can be done to ensure the passion of the die-hards for the future?

There are both positive and negative sides. Positive because it’s easy to get things out to the masses, negative because it breeds a real fast food kind of mentality. People merely scratch the surface with most things these days and do not allow themselves the time to truly absorb. People with a die-hard attitude don’t need saving though, it’s in their blood. They will fight for and keep their passions alive regardless.

Shrapnel and yourself have been in the extreme metal scene since the ’90s. What are the differences between your experiences in the current extreme metal environment versus those of your past? Have the tasks involved in accomplishing your musical goals become easier or more difficult?

The main thing I have seen change in Australia is the passion that people once had. That has diminished and new fans have a much more laid back approach towards music. There are of course die-hard maniacs who are still as wild for this stuff as they ever were, but they definitely aren’t the majority. Things are easier now with regards to accomplishing musical goals, but that may not be due to anything more than experience and knowing how to get what we want.

Between Impious Baptism (in which you handle all roles), Coffin Lust (in which only one other member takes part) and of course Nocturnal Graves, you remain extremely busy creating and sharing your art, and take effort to separate each group’s distinctive sounds. Do you put yourself into a certain head space when composing music for each individual project, or do ideas and riffs come to you unbidden, and then you separate them for use in the appropriate band later?

I do put myself into a different head space. I like to work on one project at a time, so I can get absorbed totally into the atmosphere of that particular band and just let what is there start flowing outward. I’ve found this approach to be the one that works best and allows the bands their own identities which is very important to me.

You had put Nocturnal Graves on hold briefly, but now that it is in full swing once again, does the full-on collaborative effort form of Nocturnal Graves take precedence over your other ongoing projects?

I cannot say it does.The other bands I am part of don’t play live so we don’t have conflicts in that regard, so it’s just a matter of balancing responsibilities which isn’t a major task.

What do you envision for the future of Nocturnal Graves?

We are going to start working on new material in the next few weeks, as there are a lot of ideas flowing since writing the album. The idea of touring Europe again is one that is being discussed also.

Thank you for the time and effort put in answering our questions, Jarro. As is the tradition here at Worm Gear, the final word is yours; feel free to pontificate and/or plug!

Thank you for the interview. To those interested in Nocturnal Graves you can order our new album …From the Bloodline of Cain through Hells Headbangers Records. You can also buy exclusive Nocturnal Graves merch through our webstore http://www.freewebstore.org/utsrecordsandmerch.

Posted in INTERVIEWS
Tags: ...From the Bloodline of Cain, Denouncement Pyre, Destroyer 666, Hells Headbangers, Jarro, Nocturnal Graves

Avichi – Catharsis Absolute

•January 22, 2014 • Leave a Comment

Forward thinking. That’s the phrase that came to mind a few minutes into Catharsis Absolute, third album from Avichi, the black metal creation of sole member Aamonael (also of ‘blackened sludge metal’ group Lord Mantis). From the warm-tone guitars to the murmured, monastic-style vocals that bookend the open-sore throatings, this Chicagoan has gifted those fans seeking a sophisticated take on the genre of misanthropic holocaust an album to grasp and dissect. Catharsis Absolute, while ‘absolutely’ (heh) black metal, has an energy all of its own and unabashed nods to a certain Norwegian murderer. You will hear Varg in Avichi’s under-guitar, ambient synth spellcasting (check the chorus of the enticing yet relentless ‘Voice of Intuition’, and the repeating, almost-drone opening minutes of ‘All Gods Fall’). You will hear the spoken-sung entreaties that fade out into hornet-swarm guitars. But you will also hear Aaemonael (aka Andrew Markuszewski) throw in ’80s New Wave synth in very sparse, acceptable amounts (yes it can be done), along with cleanly-sung doom/dirge vocals, and traditional (dare I say major?) chord changes hear and there that would be spurned by ‘orthodox’ black metal bands. Having worked on and off with (punching bag of the underground) Blake Judd of Nachtmystium, Markuszewski’s penchant for risk-taking doesn’t come as a surprise; what surprises is that Avichi can challenge the listener and remain restrained – meaning, Catharsis Absolute evokes interest without its songs coming across as the overbearing, ‘my music isn’t really black metal’ whines of lesser-album dreck we hear too often/is so populated with ‘other styles’ it subsides into convoluted forgetfulness.
Okay, off the soapbox now.
As this album comes to a close, we are given an eight-minute, piano-only denouement (perfectly composed and the furthest thing from a fast-forwarded, filler outro) that expands upon the foreshadowing of the album’s opener ‘Repercussion’. Avichi/Andrew is telling you here, and over the course of Catharsis Absolute, that this is an intricate construction from an artist who will continue to push himself, while never forgetting to pause and look back with appreciation. Good for him. -Jim

Profound Lore

Posted in A-reviews, ALL REVIEWS
Tags: Avichi, Black Metal, Nachtmystium, Profound Lore Records

Demilich – 20th Adversary of Emptiness

•January 22, 2014 • 1 Comment

Catalog retrospective releases are often seen as a last resort to a music seekers collection, for if you’re anything like me, it’s a lot more fun to hunt down original copies to fulfill those compulsive hoarder obsessions. But let’s face it, the older we get and the more years that come between us and that obscure demo, or 7”, the skyrocketing monetary value in the metal world is enough to kill the mightiest of boners once an item is discovered on Ebay. In this case, releases such as this fantastic Demilich – 20th Adversary of Emptiness 2CD career collection is a welcomed addition to fill all the holes in my Demilich collection, which turned out to be a lot. I own Nespithe and have some of this demo material on my I(death)pod, so there is some material I am hearing and obsessing over for the first time on 20th Adversary of Emptiness.

For the uneducated, Demilich is a Finnish tech death metal band dating back to 1991 who’s material holds up incredibly well in 2014. I remember the early 90’s hearing this band for the first time, with their complex and disjointed though catchy songs, their music was enough to blow me away on its own. But it was those cryptically low grunting pig vocals that sealed the deal due to their morbidly humerus retching. I’ve heard no other band out there replicating this bizarre delivery and it has kept Demilich’s sound superbly preserved. The Finns always possessed an incredibly dark and melodic knack for riff writing and Demilich are to be hailed as a band to fondly remember. Some of their time signatures and awkward transitions simply sound inverted and it piles on the uneasy feelings as you listen to their material. For the 20th Adversary of Emptiness release, Svart Records has harvested everything the band has ever recorded in their 1991 to 2006, on again, off again lifespan. This includes some material never heard before and even alternate artwork. With 4 demoes worth of material, a full-length, and even rehearsal material chronicling unreleased material, it is incredible to hear all of this together and to witness how the band maintained their unique formula even up till the end.

Demilich really isn’t a band that you hear many folks talking about which is too bad, as their material hit at the climax of influential death metal and truly stands as an impressive monument to Finland’s sinister underground. Hopefully with Svart’s unveiling of 20th Adversary of Emptiness, this will change, for I believe this is one of those criminally overlooked bands that could have been considered even more legendary than early Amorphis. Classick stuff. -Marty
Svart Records

Posted in ALL REVIEWS, D-reviews
Tags: ...Somewhere Inside the Bowels of Endlessness…, Amorphis, Demilich, Demilich - 20th Adversary of Emptiness, Finnish Death Metal, Nespithe, Regurgitation of Blood, Svart Records, The Echo, The Four Instructive Tales ...of Decomposition

Howls of Ebb – Vigils of the 3rd Eye

•January 22, 2014 • 3 Comments

Enveloped and empowered by the rancid earth covering death metal’s long dead ancient ones, California’s Howls of Ebb claw their way up from obscurity. Though the past may indeed give Howls of Ebb sustenance, Vigils of the 3rd Eye is an impressive debut full-length that acts as a mighty statement of originality that hints at influences, but triumphs over them to obtain and sustain this bands own truly unique voice.

Having been sitting with this release for a week now, I find myself returning to it daily, for the dark recesses of Howls of Ebb’s ghastly atmosphere is malevolent in ways that touch on the exalted bones of old Demilich and Order From Chaos, yet rarely sound like either band. The riffs are serpentine as they snake through tormented tremolo melodies as on the fast and effective “Opulent Ghouls” before upholding the dynamic pulse and push of “The Arc. The Vine. The Blight.” as that track erupts into acidic guitar layers that torture the forces of melody into a fit of chaos. The delivery and the musical/guitar ideas are pleasingly atypical in their own right, but what further takes Hows of Ebb’s sound to the next dimension is the guitar tone. I think we are all quite used to the thick as a free range bison guitar tone that has many roots in Scandinavian soil, so this has become a standard fair for modern death metal to perpetuate. It seems that Howls of Ebb have also noticed the years of sonic complacency and approached their sound from a different angle that was initially confusing, but after repeated listens, it strikes me as the perfect fit. The guitar tone walks the line between veiled distortion and a clean buzz at the same time. The results are downright demented and completely unique. Every note is audible and this surprisingly diverse sound rips at your senses for the speed and heavy segments of aggression, and feels just as vital when the layers of metal punishment are stripped back for quieter moments of music as found on tracks like “Of Heel, Cyst and Lung” to accentuate and balance this power trio’s songwriting inventiveness. The thriving hive of sound is further tied together by a complex and infinitely interesting drum performance (many atypical beats hurl this music along nicely) and the haunted vocals of guitarist zEleFtANd. His delivery is centred on dank, deep and abysmal moans/whispers for a throaty demonic diatribe. It all boils together nicely and sets this band apart from so many other bands coming up these days that cling to their satanic and convoluted tones that finds a vast share of their music blending together in a detuned wash of redundancy.

Vigils of the 3rd Eye is a challenging and endlessly entertaining strike of imaginative death metal. From the hand painted artwork adorning this body of work, Howls of Ebb are an organic and infinitely dark entity of corrupted sounds. Quite the impressive debut indeed. -Marty
I, Voidhanger Records

https://soundcloud.com/i-voidhanger-records/howls-of-ebb-of-heel-cyst-and

Posted in ALL REVIEWS, H-reviews
Tags: Death Metal, Howls of Ebb, I, Vigils of the 3rd Eye, Voidhanger Records

Orcultus – s/t 7”

•January 22, 2014 • Leave a Comment

Static-ridden, ear-flaying, raw black metal will never be a pill swallowed by all, and it shouldn’t be. Anyone with a glancing-blow knowledge of “troo”-ly underground black metal knows that obscurity will always be an ingredient in its primordial, fetid stew, but the promise of reward should encourage those to put their face into the mire and peer eyes-wide at what creeps below. Enter Orcultus, proud and loud Swedish mysterions debuting here with a four song 7” that contains the over-driven, unsettling qualities making the subgenre what it is, but uniquely captivates with plague-wagonloads of somber melody and melancholic riffage which in turn add several shades to its decidedly dark hue. The needly guitars are surrounded by loud open-chord ragefests, propelled by low-frequency and low-volume electronic etherealisms rounding off the edges of what could just have been a yep-heard-it-before, but expands into wait-there-really-is-more. In ‘Tribus’, the repeated, descending tremolos guitars ride roughshod over the counter-point, heavily distorted bass, producing a lulling effect that ends as abruptly as a good dream would if, say, someone broke your nose while you slept. In a good way.

Orcultus’ vocalist worships at the feet of fellow Swede Arioch for his vocal delivery, adding to the slice of the warping, treble-heavy guitars. With the familiar, yet just-odd-enough guitar accents, the shrieking addition keeps things ‘kvlt’ enough without devolving into the counterfeit quality so prevalent in the BM world. Let this 7” sink in after a few listens and a little red wine (one spin will only take about fifteen minutes of your time). In doing so you will unveil simple structures that work, compositions that can be remembered, and a strong debut of voices calling from the raw black metal deep. -Jim

Forever Plagued

Posted in ALL REVIEWS, O-reviews
Tags: Arioch, Forever Plagued Records, Orcultus, raw black metal, Sweden, Swedish black metal

Ran out of time. Forcing me down… deep into pain

•January 15, 2014 • 24 Comments

First off, many thanks to all readers new and old for making last week a successful one. A lot of interaction and views of the material we made available. It warms our ancient blood.

On to this week… life has been super busy, hence I am the intro bitch yet again. Thankfully, Jake, Jim and Zahler have stepped up to the plate with contributions. Speaking of Mr. Zahler… he has a new book ready for consumption which we will touch upon at the close of this desperate, last minute rant. But before I depart, I want to leave you all with a topic of discussion… CD or vinyl? Are you partial to either medium? With the inflated cost of vinyl, do you find yourself buying less, or do you fill the gaps with CDs? Feel free to expound! -Marty

Marty Rytkonen Playlist
Panopticon – Roads to the North Master (Get ready folks… this one is a brain melter!)
Cemetary – An Evil Shade of Grey
Cemetary – Godless Beauty
Overkill – Horrorscope
Waldgefluster – Meine Fesseln
A Canorous Quintet – Silence of the World Beyond
Falls of Rauros – Believe In No Coming Shore (Again…. another mind blowing musical journey. Can’t wait for all of you to hear it!)
Coroner – R.I.P.
Darkthrone – The Underground Resistance
Dawn – Slaughtersun (Crown of the Triarchy)

Jim Clifton Playlist
Thunderwar – The Birth of Thunder
TrenchRot – Necronomic Warfare
Vàli – Skoglandskap
Vex – Memorious
Summoning – Dol Guldur
(and now, the old sh*t 🙂
Megadeth – Peace Sells … But Who’s Buying
Metallica – Ride the Lightning/Master of Puppets
Ozzy Osbourne – Tribute
Kiss – Smashes, Thrashes and Hits
Alice In Chains – Facelift

S. Craig Zahler Playlist
Sacriphyx – The Western Front (Clifton is right– this was one of the few best of 2013)
Vastum – Patricidal Lust
Crypticus – They Called Me Mad
Zombified (UK) – Backroom Eugenics
Offal – Macabre Rampages and Splatter Savages
Lymphatic Phlegm – Show-Off Cadavers

Now onto some exciting Zahler news…

S. Craig Zahler’s weird science fiction book, Corpus Chrome, Inc. is now available in paperback, hardback, and ebook editions from Amazon and other retailers. Here’s what it’s about:

Decades in the future Corpus Chrome, Inc. develops a robotic body, dubbed a “mannequin,” that can revive, sustain and interface with a cryonically-preserved human brain. Like all new technology, it is copyrighted.

Hidden behind lawyers and a chrome facade, the inscrutable organization resurrects a variety of notable minds, pulling the deceased back from oblivion into a world of animated sculpture, foam rubber cars, dissolving waste and strange terrorism. Nobody knows how Corpus Chrome, Inc. determines which individuals should be given a second life, yet myriad people are affected. Among them are Lisanne Breutschen, the composer who invented sequentialism with her twin sister, and Champ Sappline, a garbage man who is entangled in a war between the third, fourth and fifth floors of a New York City apartment building.

In the Spring of 2058, Corpus Chrome, Inc. announces that they will revive Derek W.R. Dulande–a serial rapist and murderer who was executed thirty years ago for his crimes. The public is horrified by the decision, and before long, the company’s right to control the lone revolving door between life and death will be violently challenged…

Posted in ALL REVIEWS, PLAYLIST

Book of Tapes — Fort Evil Fruit

•January 15, 2014 • Leave a Comment

Mp3’s don’t melt in the back seat of the car on a scorching summer day. You can’t pull tape out of a CD and use it to hang a mobile of rodent bones over your kid’s crib. You keep dropping your $30 records on the floor. You don’t think you’ve ever actually seen an eight track. What’s the solution? Cassette tapes, my friend. You need them: the minimalist form of them, the colors, the labels with their own distinct aesthetics, the misguided nostalgia, the music that exists at the wild and rich edges where CDs and LPs fear to tread. Where to start, you ask? Well, friend, it’s true that I know a few trails and backroads, and I suppose I can take some time to be your coyote guide to a few of the wild places, the Fort Evil Fruit, the Brave Mysteries, the places with No Kings.

Something I don’t intend with these explorations: Consistency. This week I’m focusing on a label. That might not always be the case. I won’t be making regular outings. A certain week might see multiple posts and one (or three) month(s) might see none at all. This could potentially be the only trip I’ll ever take you on. Sometimes the consistency might be that of undercooked oatmeal, other times it might look more like icicles hanging from the roof of a gas station in Poland. I may decide to cover things that aren’t tapes. I will almost definitely decide to cover things that aren’t tapes. I am already planning to cover things that aren’t tapes.

What will be constant is a musical edge-walk that is as experimental, captivating, and slightly-shitty-in-a-charming-way as most of the music that gets released in the vibrant and strange world of the tape ‘underground’.

Down with the intangible! Down with the easily scratched, the over sized discs, the formats with costs in the double digits! Hail the cassette! Onward!

———

Just say the name out loud to yourself, really savor how weirdly satisfying it is—the texture of the F’s coating your teeth like the fourth can of Miller High Life you’ve had this morning. Fort Evil Fruit is a label operating out of Ireland, somewhere on the border of Tír na nÓg and Hy-Brasil. Their collection is boundary crossing, fielding filthy-bleeding-gums black and doom metal, the best of the Irish experimental folk scene (United Bible Studies and related folks, to be specific), dirty drone bands, and so on. What ties it all together is their consistent visual aesthetic (scroll down to the bottom of the page for an example), general weirdness, and the fact that everything they release never fails to be worth the purchase. For sanity’s sake (to be determined if that’s for yours or mine), I haven’t covered all their releases, but everything they’ve put out is worth a peak from your ears. What follows is only an account of my personal favorites from the champagne of tape labels.

———

In Print

Baldruin & das Ensemble der zittrigen Glieder

Sound of a hand pushing lenticular clouds into lakes of salt.

Baldruin’s seventh or so tape in the past three years is an oddity in all the most fascinating of ways, not the least of which is the sonic appearance of a guest-artist from the far reaches of weirdness on every one of the twenty three tracks this lengthy tape features.

Sound of a woodpecker pounding on a warped record that’s been hung from a branch on a dead elm.

Someone besides myself might describe it as ambient, or even krautrock-ish. I’d say it has elements of those, but it seems more like a sound collage than something belonging to an easily definable genre. I don’t think anyone else will call it a sound collage.

Sound of a snowdrift spinning in the alcove of your left lung.

The songs here are more like a series of vignettes, usually short and focused around varied, but aesthetically cohesive, atmospheres and techniques, creating an experience that could be called, as Fort Evil Fruit’s blog describes it, kaleidoscopic, but which I would relate more to the effect of looking at an old, stereoscopic View-Master reel.

Sound of eye floaters leaking out to slide down a featureless face.

That is to say, each song feels like a slide, or a photo in a gallery. No doubt the great number of hands contributing their own unique voices, instrumentation, and spirits to the album are responsible for each short song holding such a distinct identity.

Sound of sweeping glass off the sidewalk behind the collapsing facades of a shopping mall.

And that variety is a big part of what keeps this tape interesting throughout; at one moment you’ll be hearing what sounds like the gurgles and nervous chatter of a family of ghouls, then following that will be a lullaby tune of softly sung vocals and opium-drenched arpeggios floating towards the ceiling, and later still there will be the static-rich clip of a news broadcast.

Sound of words stuck in your teeth and coating your tongue.

Weaving all of these scenes together is a sense of vertigo that’s just startling enough to be oddly comforting, even warm in a strange sort of way—

Sound of small and blurry figures running circles through a topographic map of your brain.

—a hypothermic delirium to the tune of music boxes, warped and warbling human voices, aging synthesizers, scarcely recognizable field recordings of objects being rattled or shuffled around.

Sound of mussel shells whispering into the soles of your feet.

Sometimes the variations feel endless, at others a melody or fragment of sound rises out of the medley, resonating with a vague familiarity that can hardly be traced (in a sense this is a reflection of one of the best qualities of the tape as a format—no easy back-tracking).

Sound of typewriters ejecting papers for a book composed solely of empty spaces.

On second thought, perhaps it is kaleidoscopic in the way that these separated songs have a tendency to subtly interpenetrate each other—a kaleidoscopic View-Master you found buried beneath stacks of sun-bleached magazines in your grandparent’s attic.

Sound of organs blaring from a church that’s been buried in the body of a sand dune.

I’ve mentioned already that it’s quite a long tape, but I should reiterate that: often tape releases are quite short things, maybe a twenty-minute demo or something, but this feels more like a full listening experience. I’m not going to sit here with a stop watch and time it or something, but you know, it feels like a long time whenever I listen to it.

Sound of an archaeological dig floating through an aurora in the mesosphere.

I’m surprised Baldruin hasn’t seemed to have received (as) much attention (as I think he should) from this tape. It’s an endlessly fascinating series of aural experiments, and it would have ended up on my year end list for 2013 had I heard it a couple of weeks earlier.

Sound of falling further into sleep until you can’t speak for your body unfurling into gray ribbons that resemble folded wings on a snowy television screen.

Hammemit – Morthworks

Gray sky on a cold spring morning and the wind is rolling over stones and down rivers and over the old church where the bells never sound and the pedals of the organs have forgotten feet and where there is no congregation anymore but the few songbirds that perch on the trees that brush the eaves of the white building with twigs and buds still folded and those birds sometimes fly and sometimes speak a language that cannot be illuminated in any manuscript and far away under the hills is an illiterate who never speaks but with his fingers on the strings of a guitar alone and it is a strange instrument that echoes and follows no tuning known to me and at times resembles a memory of those same trees acting out a dance with the wind and at other times seems like someone who is forgetting and walking thoughtlessly with bleeding ruined feet and a dark cloud filled with black stars passing over his eyes and the illiterate who once howled and spoke and let the organ speak into his feet still speaks only through those hands with strange chords and a meandering dark still behind his eyes like the eyes of an animal illuminated in the night and it is a captivating dark and a song that brings me to strange places that many would not like to go but a few would likely follow him into the church where the dome is carved into the floor and leads to a catacomb that was built before words and where no eyeless thing watches or speaks and soon it will be night with only the owls speaking behind the trees that cannot be illuminated in any manuscript or memory.

Buchikamashi – Out of Body Experience

Abstract

Synthesized sounds: Deep, floor-is-falling-out-beneath-your-feet drones, airy drifts of melody, glassy shimmering noises, oscillating sequencers making quiet journeys from the left headphone to the right, digital stridulations and chittering computer chips—all flowing together, one element burying another before fading out for a new one to take it’s place.

Field Recordings: Less common, consisting of clinking chains, birds, wind, inchoate voices, clanging metal; I think I heard some dripping water at some point. Usual stuff.

Tibetan Prayer Bells: Yep. They sound the way they always sound. Which is a good sound.

Concrete

It’s sort of new-agey. Not that new-agey, but the vibe is there. It works well in a Steve Roach-esque embrace of dissonance and darker tones for balance. There aren’t any moments I would call saccharine here, and a few I would even call quite beautiful or ‘transcendent’ or something. You know what I mean. Buchikamashi stays busy, with more than enough layers of texture melding together at any given moment. There’s actually one part with a techno beat that’s strikingly interesting and disappears way too quickly. Actually, I may have just imagined that. Sometimes things almost feels a little too active—the way everything blurs together can drown out the structure entirely. That could be a good thing depending on your mood and the length of time it’s been since your last cup of coffee.

Like a slow fall through infinite space, Out of Body Experience has a lot of depth and beauty and wonder, but if you spend enough time listening to it you start to wish that maybe something else would happen. Maybe there should be a guitar solo, you might start to feel like you’d rather be riding bikes on a cold spring day with a pretty girl who has great taste in twentieth-century Russian futurist poetry, you might get distracted and start feeling bitter that Twin Peaks never got past its second season. I think I’m trying to say that it’s really good, but it’s a mood album—the kind of thing you’d put on while you do something that’s just uninteresting enough to let you focus on the sounds, but demanding enough that you can tune it out if you need to. Something like writing an album review, or heating canned soup, or reading a non-fiction book that’s just okay. Eventually though, you’ll finish the review, force down the soup, get too tired to continue reading the page, and it’s in those moments that this tape will crawl into your attention like a soft but scab-covered cat slips under the blankets of your bed.

———

Out of Print (But totally worth hunting down and/or buying the digitized, not-real versions on FEF’s Bandcamp page)

Whirling Hall of Knives – WHOK Lab Emissions Vol. I

Screaming table saw teeth lurk in the same space where hypnotic drones get drenched with crackling, dissonant noise, like so much acidic confetti exploding from the mouth of a jeweled skull. Slowly building, always intriguing.

Innercity – Mental Institution for Outsider Drone Music

Crumbling tones, weirdo rhythms, alienated thoughts, deranged melodies. Surprisingly great, like Tangerine Dream with gray matter dripping out of their palpitating nostrils.

Romannis Mötte – Kozmische

Tangerine Dream / Klaus Schulze styled synth-music. That sounds a little aesthetically boring in 2014, and, you know, it kind of is. It’s not likely to take you away from your Jean Michel Jarre records, but Romannis Mötte is no amateur either. The spaced-out melodies and sequencers should be more than adequate for a thoughtful night drive or an evening spent on the toilet, staring at low-resolution pictures of nebulae with your 3D sunglasses, if that’s what you’re into.

Hammemit – The Ghastliere Morrowe

I reviewed this excellent tape back when it was released, employing such descriptors as “half remembered dreamscapes,” “wreathed in strange echoes,” and “oft appalling music.” Translated into human: really, really good.

Richard Moult – Rodorlihtung

One of my favorite tapes in the collection and coming from one of my favorite artists (musically and visually), Rodorlihtung is composed of delicate, icy piano and synth meanderings, with Michael Tanner of many excellent projects contributing some bowed guitar. It’s the soundtrack to underwater streams beneath a full moon at midnight. Any money you send Fort Evil Fruit’s way for this one goes to the Scottish Wildcat Association.

Áine O’Dwyer – Music for Church Cleaners

Solo, improvised organ songs accompanied by the sounds of elderly folks cleaning a church. The organ itself has a great tone, and the songs are varied and interesting enough, but something about the background noises—the muted hum of a vacuum, coughs, shifting furniture, an old woman requesting that O’Dwyer stops playing only one note for a long time—adds a bizarre sense of being present to the recording of this meditative tape.

Courtesy of FEF’s Facebook page.

-Jake

Posted in ALL REVIEWS, Uncategorized
Tags: ambient, baldruin, book of tapes, fort evil fruit, hammemit, jake moran, Metal

Fluisteraars – Dromers

•January 15, 2014 • 2 Comments

At times the words spill upon the page with ease, especially when listening to far-above average quality music that grabs one by the flabby cheeks and forces you to listen up. Often though, fifteen to twenty tabs of my Chrome browser are open as I try in vain to find something, anything, inspiring to discuss. In this manner I came upon Dutch black metal trio Fluisteraars debut Dromers and nearly dismissed it upon the press write-up; many newer bands list Drudkh and Agalloch among their influences, and I was in no mood for a watered-down version of those two greats of transcendent black metal. But as I was nearing frustration already, I decided to give this Netherlands export a try, and was met with a subtle surprise.

Fluisteraars do indeed worship mid-period Agalloch and Autumn Aurora-era Drudkh, the former’s melodic strumming ebbing in and out over slow- to mid-paced tempos, the latter’s layered, intricate chordings filling empty spaces with cosmic darkness and sparkling tri-tones. But Fluisteraars pull you in with their particular attack; rarely fast, often slow but always deliberate, a slogging forward without pageantry of any kind. No cellos, no grandiose synths, no deer bones, no high concepts with roots in literature, just guitar, bass, drums and vocal, and yet the music still carries an emotional heft as a solid example of contemplative black metal, due in no small part to the pure 4/4 beats thrown in throughout that give the tracks presence and an understated strength.

Dromers soaks into you almost without you realizing it’s happening. Fluisteraars hypnotic, wandering self steels in your listening device quietly, without knocking, and takes a seat on your playlist for the duration. One could reasonably attribute this to the unadorned, yet still ambitious arrangements the three members sew together. Whatever the case may be, don’t pass them up solely on their emulation of their-much-better-known gods. A young band often reflects their masters. What matters is enough of their own black blood strain can be seen seeping out of this nod to the scene’s elder statesmen to justify a look. -Jim

Eisenwald

Posted in ALL REVIEWS, F-reviews
Tags: Agalloch, Black Metal, Dromers, Drudkh, Eisenwald, Fluisteraars, Folk Metal, Netherlands

Necrambulant – Infernal Infectious Necro-Ambulatory Pandemic

•January 15, 2014 • Leave a Comment

Necrambulant materializes from nowhere with an immediately enjoyable platter of slamming death metal.
This is not the type slamming death metal that is brutal death with occasional slam breaks, but the more committed kind that chugs and lurches for the major part of it running time. Fans of similarly-minded outfits such as Epicardiectomy and Cephalotripsy will recognize and appreciate Necrambulant’s devotion to altar of gurgling slowchug. Surprisingly, this debut release is one of the best releases I’ve heard in this strict style, one which is about heaviness and slow progress more than catchiness or excitement.
Also key to the success of this Phoenix, Arizona is the ugly and rich vocal performance that avoids the playfulness which undermines so many bands in this style—acts like Vulvectomy and Bodysnatch.
Infernal Infectious Necro-Ambulatory Pandemic (which sounds like fancy talk for ‘zombie situation’) is about groove and the synergy of their music–as is, it almost functions as one big chugging song. Much like Kraanium (and unlike the recent quantized to micro-perfection release by Abominable Putridity), the Necrambulant sound is that of an actual band playing together, a feeling that I feel is lost in a lot of modern brutal death metal music. I’d like to hear a couple more memorable moments on the next Necrambulant album—such as the unified conclusion of the last song—but this slamming platter supplies good (and filthy) meat and potatoes. -S. Craig Zahler
Lacerated Enemy Records

Posted in ALL REVIEWS, N-reviews
Tags: Brutal death metal, Infernal Infectious Necro-Ambulatory Pandemic, Lacerated Enemy Records, Necrambulant, slam death metal

Chromium-plated, boiling metal, brighter than a thousand suns

•January 8, 2014 • 27 Comments

Back into the fray with five reviews, the Worm Gear crew returns amidst 2014’s much-discussed wintry winds to bring you our views on the latest in harrowing musical extremity. Yes, we’ve survived heart-attack-inducing snow shoveling to bring you the best in that which you (mostly) need to hear. This week, Cliftonium discusses the PA disciples of Asphyx/Bolt Thrower worship TrenchRot, the sharp thrash/death of the aptly named Thunderwar, and the soul-wrenching Germanic blackness of Waldgeflüster. Marty brings you coverage of not one but two Drudkh releases; the first, a split 12” with Winterfylleth and the second a compilation including ‘Thousands of Moons Ago’ and other nuggets. Thank you for checking out our End of Year lists last week and posting your own; we enjoyed reading your comments and your own submissions into extreme music’s great unhallowed halls. Post those playlists, people! I’ll need something to peruse as I hit a Lake Michigan beach (we make it into the balmy 30 degree range on Saturday!)

Marty Rytkonen Playlist
Voivod – Rrroooaaarrr
Voivod – Target Earth
Gamma Ray – Heading for Tomorrow
Squash Bowels – Grindcoholism
Thou Art Lord – The Regal Pulse of Lucifer
Ashes of Ares – S/T
Waldgeflüster – Meine Fesseln
Masochist – History
Drudkh – Eastern Frontier in Flames
Wodensthrone – Loss

Jim Clifton Playlist
Tribulation – The Formulas of Death
Summoning – Stronghold/Old Morning’s Dawn
Inquisition – Obscure Verses for the Multiverse
Celtic Frost – Morbid Tales
Endlichkeit – I & II
Moon – The Nine Gates
Burzum – Hvis Lyset Tar Oss
Imperium Dekadenz – Meadows of Nostalgia
Lvcifyre – Svn Eater
Arnaut Pavle – s/t
Vex – Memorious

Posted in PLAYLIST
Tags: Marty Rytkonen

Drudkh/Winterfylleth – Split 12″ & Drudkh – Eastern Frontier in Flames

•January 8, 2014 • 1 Comment

Drudkh/Winterfylleth – Thousands of Moons Ago/The Gates
As you read these words, chances are this limited split 12” by Drudkh and Winterfylleth is close to being out of print, if it isn’t already. It is a covers album with both Drudkh and Winterfylleth paying homage to Eastern European bands. Even though I find releases such as this are often forgettable, Both creative entities on this split have unleashed a fitting tribute, while somehow making each of these songs their own.

Roman Saenko is an insanely busy musician and musical visionary if you will that has turned out countless releases in many different projects, all of which have exhibited a level of quality that is inspiring and rare. It is common for a songwriter to start off their career with their most focused and inspired material as they have been working on it the longest and have the investment of time and heart behind it. Drudkh is likely his most coveted and popular band and as this project has unfolded, the albums started out great, and became amazing as the band has progressed. To this day, there are moments on Blood in our Wells and Estrangement that can bring a tear to my eyes if in the right frame of mind, and even though I see the latter release as his creative apex, Drudkh hasn’t unveiled a bad album. But, there has been a minor stylistic shift. Handful of Stars featured more of a polished production and less of an emotive impact for me which was always the defining characteristic that Drudkh had nurtured since their inception. Eternal Turn of the Wheel focused more on speed and aggression. Yes the overall sound was clearly Drudkh and the album enjoyable, but I found myself more drawn to the bands earlier works for the heady visions and emotive trip that I had come accustomed to when spending quality time with this music.

Thousands of Moons Ago is a tribute piece featuring covers from Hefeystos, Unclean and Sacrilegium, but Drudkh have approached this material as if it were their own making it feel stylistically like a nice mix of Drudk’s stylistic eras and a comfortable zone for them to inhabit. Tracks like Recidivus (A Sacrilegium song and my favorite on here) dig in with a lumbering and dreary atmosphere right along side tension inducing speed. The mix feels balanced, though I tend to gravitate towards those open moments of music when you can experience impressive/moving bass lines held aloft by such skillful and airy synth work. The harsh soul scaring vocals of Thurios (Also known for his work in Astrofaes, Hate Forest, Blood of Kingu and others) remain unique in their earthen/moss covered delivery and it helps to define the undeniable sound and identity of Drudkh. 3 songs for their side of the split and the attention to detail and interesting drum work/musical twists allows this material to hold up extremely well and inspire me to give the original bands covered, none of which I have heard before, my undivided attention.

Winterfylleth I haven’t kept as close of an eye on over the years, but do really enjoy the bands debut release, The Ghost of Heritage. The Mercian Sphere was the last album I have heard from this seemingly popular UK quartet, but that album felt like an awkward transition for them as they strived to reach out with different songwriting and structural ideas. If this split would be your introduction to Winterfylleth, it may be a tough place to start as their 1 song contribution to this album is The Gates, which is a Hate Forest cover. A well done Hate Forest cover though! It is nice hearing this track with a real drummer at the helm and more room ambience in the production. Winterfylleth really show their teeth on this song and come off as a powerful and moving black metal force to sit comfortably along side Drudkh with confidence as they have clearly done one of Roman’s songs sweet English justice. This is a very enjoyable split! -Marty
Season of Mist

Drudkh – Eastern Frontier in Flames
Having trouble completing your Drudkh discography due to insane Ebay prices and having to endure inflated heating bills thanks to this accursed “Arctic Vortex” we have been enduring? Fear not thy cult completists, for the kind souls over at Season of Mist have done the legwork for you with Eastern Frontier in Flames!

This compilation contains tracks from the long out of print Anti-Urban 10” released by Supernal Music, The Slavonic Chronicles EP and finally the 3 tracks from Drudkh’s Thousands of Moons Ago side of the Winterfylleth split. Nothing really new or interesting to report with this release, other than it’s a worthy purchase if you have ever wandered the woodlands with Drudkh’s sounds enchanting your every footstep. 7 tracks in all, I was particularity thrilled to get this since I somehow missed out on ever hearing The Slavonic Chronicles material. So there you have it… go forth and consume! -Marty
Season of Mist

Posted in ALL REVIEWS, D-reviews
Tags: Anti-Urban, Blood in Our Wells, Drudkh, Eastern Frontier in Flames, Enstrangement, Hefeystos, Sacrilegium, Season of Mist, The Gates, The Slavonic Chronicles, Thousands of Moons Ago, Unclean, Winterfylleth

Thunderwar – The Birth of Thunder

•January 8, 2014 • 12 Comments

A breath of fetid fresh air, Thunderwar’s self-released The Birth of Thunder slaps you across your jaded metal head with death metal-by-way-of catchy, quasi-melodic thrash (without the shorts-wearing silliness). Taking cues mainly from Vader, Unleashed, and – what’s this? Yes, a little bit of Rust In Peace Megadeth – this Polish four pack bring van Drunen-barking atop femur-slicing, razor-sharp riffage that recalls speed metal with class, without coming across as retro or ironic, suffused as their music is with enough death metal blasting and hammering to leave the knobs pushed up to 11 for the whole twenty minutes or so it will take you to listen to this EP’s four songs. I hear Extreme Aggression-era energy amongst the riffmeister influences of their aforementioned influences, all combed-over with that clean American Thrash picking and soloing technique, all bloodlined with that Euro-Death moldy intensity. Even when things quiet down briefly during the acoustic title track, double-bass drumwork and eerie synths fill the eardrums with the unmistakable sound of unholy death. You haven’t lived until you’ve heard someone death-growl ‘Eagle of Glory!’ What vocalist/bassist Kamil “Madness” Mandes is talking about on this track and why said bird graces the cover I have no idea, but he’s full of piss and vinegar, and thus inspired, I would gladly pick up my metaphorical blade and join him on the field of thrash/death devastation.
As we all tend to be after the gift-giving-getting holiday, my pockets are filled with holes, but man, I have to have this. Leave it to Poland to desecrate the coffin of the once-godly-now-petrified thrash masters, intent upon raising the undead with the unbridled hate of their death-music-obsessed offspring. Well fucking done. -Jim

Self-released

http://youtu.be/pf9fQ-TgfDg

Posted in ALL REVIEWS, T-reviews
Tags: Death Metal, poland, Thrash Metal, Thunderwar, Unleashed, Vader

TrenchRot – Necronomic Warfare

•January 8, 2014 • 9 Comments

Have you ever stared at your copy of Warmaster and wondered: “What if Bolt Thrower had started out thrash instead of grind?” No? Well, me neither, but after listening to Necronomic Warfare, I’ll never need to. These Philly deathsters bring the slaughter dirty as in the earlier albums of those UK gods, with more than a healthy dose of Asphyx-style doom and vokills for good measure. The splattery thrash riffs are simply the icing on this rotting flesh cake, adding additional vomitous flavor to what should already be a boner-inspring list of sounds to you if you have any sort of extreme metal pulse at all. Did I mention they were Americans? Finally; along with Church of Disgust (and a few others whose names slip my mind ;), these guys are putting new generation Dank Yanks back on the decaying map.
Yes, TrenchRot embody ripping old-influence UK and Netherlands death metal, eating worlds and serenading in lead. Riffs and roars coalesce into a memorable maelstrom that showers your brain with the shards of their pure fucking steel. But there’s more. Brief but potent flashes of lead guitar brilliance appear and disappear amongst the sonic carnage, and hair-raising synths appear now and again to get you standing on your feet, ready to wage undead war. And then another not-often-discussed-but-very real element of Ashpyx and BT rears its head – that of uncheesy, headnodding deathgroove of the kind that will get the the gray-haired into the pit with murderous looks on their faces, ready to redden the nose of any arms-flailing karate-chopping juggalo who happens to find himself at the most-definitely wrong place at the wrong time. “Trapped Under Treads”, indeed. And yes, that is one of the coolest song titles you’ve ever heard, goddamnit.
There’s not a song on this album that doesn’t have me going ‘holy shit’ somewhere during it. You know those Metal moments you can’t put into words…the hallelujah ones that give you goosebumps…the ones you’ll usually wait through three minutes of otherness for? Well my friend, Necronomic Warfare arrives corpse-stuffed with great Metal moments like that. You know what to do. -Jim

Unspeakable Axe Records

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SnWYj6mss8

Posted in ALL REVIEWS, T-reviews
Tags: Asphyx, Bolt Thrower, Death Metal, TrenchRot, Unspeakable Axe Records, US Death Metal

Waldgeflüster – Meine Fesseln

•January 8, 2014 • 3 Comments

With so much black metal readily available these days it becomes harder and harder for any musician to make his or her own distinct mark upon the minds of the disseminating fan. Perhaps, for this reason, Winterherz – sole full-time member and songwriter of German black metal project Waldgeflüster – took three years to ensure the vision for his third full-length would culminate in a voice both singular in effect and familiar in technique. The result of this longtime effort – the epic, yet somehow subtle Meine Fesseln – unashamedly embraces melodicism as its core component, yet remains powerful and distinctly Teutonic. Delivered always in Winterherz’ native Deutsch, the vocal demands attention regardless of the form of its attack, smoothly swapping between both harsh and an almost martial cleanliness upon each track. Guitars sprawl across the sonic pallette, typically with a distortion-driven harmony line repeated throughout each song’s breadth, laying the musical foundation for open-chord atmospheres to fill in the canvas with thick, yet permeable pagan colors. Trusting others with his ‘child’ – Winterherz chose wisely when including others for various accoutrement; violins come courtesy Johann Becker of Austaras/Vukari (put to excellent use on the quiet closer ‘Trauerweide Teil II’), piano via Lukas Danninger of The Course is Black, and additional leadwork/mandolin via labelmate Austin Lunn of Panopticon/Seidr. The additions don’t bloat the proceedings, however; mid-paced (and honestly, soothing) black metal bookended with well-played acoustic guitars remains the method throughout, forming Meine Fesseln’s decidedly woodsy, heathen backbone.
Released on our Worm Gear editor-in-chief’s label here in the States (no conflict of interest here, haha) and Black Blood Records in Europe, Meine Fesseln easily surpasses 2011’s Femundsmarka – Eine Reise in drei Kapiteln, and ranks among Bindrune’s best releases to date, as evidenced by the fact I’m nearing my tenth play-through and the album has yet to show any wear. This is a deeply personal work that reminds one of extreme music’s potential to be art. Don’t let these ‘forest whispers’ pass you by. -Jim

Bindrune Recordings

Posted in ALL REVIEWS, W-reviews
Tags: Bindrune Recordings, Black Blood Records, Black Metal, Germany, Meine Fesseln, Pagan Metal, Panopticon, seidr, Waldgeflüster

We celebrate the fall of 2013 with lists!

•January 1, 2014 • 23 Comments

Hello friends! After a week of inactivity due to the Xmas holiday, we have returned with an offering of best of/year end lists for all of you to dig through. I personally have never understood why so many journalists feel the need to get these out early, but I have seen lists dating back to late October/early November. What? The year isn’t over yet and the metal keeps coming. It seems like they were selling themselves short. So we waited and here we are, 1 day into the new year, ready to share with the class.

Agree or disagree, we want to hear what you think and of course, see what you gravitated towards this past year. A ton of great music has been unleashed and us humble scribes at the Worm dungeon are honored to have been given the opportunity to chime in with our opinions.

Lastly, this has been a really encouraging year for Worm Gear. We have achieved more views than ever before and we hope that those silent faces have liked what they have read enough to stick around and become a part of our future here. It has been a lot of fun and brotherhood and we are looking forward to all 2014 has to bring. Thank you dear readers! -Marty

Marty Rytkonen Playlist
Saor – Roots
Mortal Decay – Cadaver Art (This band has been impressing me lately. I know… what the hell is wrong with me?)
Brodequin – Methods of Execution (Certainly not an easy listen, but it’s great road rage musick)
Ulver- Nattens Madrigal
Ulver – Bergtatt
King Diamond – The Spider’s Lullaby
The County Medical Examiners – Olidous Operettas (Jeff Walker…. assemble your Lawyers!)
Sanctuary – Refuge Denied
Sanctuary – Into the Mirror Black
As lame as this sounds, the Ipod on shuffle has been hitting the spot lately

Jim Clifton Playlist
Adramalech – Psychostasia
Archgoat – Heavenly Vulva
Archgoat/Incantation – Chris Moyen: ThornCross split LP
Church of Disgust – Unworldly Summoning
Mutiilation – Remains of a Ruined, Dead, Cursed Soul
Nechochwen – Azimuths to the Otherworld
Necros Christos – Triune Impurity Rites
Pentagram – Relentless
Vlad Tepes – War Funeral March
Vlad Tepes – Morte…lune

Posted in Uncategorized

Gym Clifton’s End of 2013 List

•January 1, 2014 • 4 Comments

Another year dissolves into dust, and as it does so I, like most other extreme music writers try and disassemble the great mass of 2013 Metal into an easily digestible list of that which floated my proverbial boat. No one will agree on most points I’m sure, but that’s part of the fun, I suppose. You’ll note a good many of these I reviewed at some point, mostly due to the fact I tend to cover things I enjoy since this isn’t a ‘full-time’ gig. Click through the album titles for music samples and full reviews. Enjoy and/or eviscerate!

1. Bölzer – Aura
The underground is aflame with talk of this band, and with good reason. Bölzer have proven that we have not reached the end of black/death glory with their fiery display of bizarre, writhing riff-originality few could match in 2013 (and that had me spinning this EP again and again). With these three songs’ level of promise, they themselves will not be ‘underground’ much longer.

2. Sacriphyx – The Western Front
For me, a woefully overlooked would-be classic. Take the analog demos of the Greek Black Metal scene, add in some melodicism, throw in the solos of Trouble, and you’ve got a death/doom monster on your hands. The Western Front is an album of war, personal and grand in scope all at once. ps Hey Anthony, I’m still waiting on your responses to my interview questions … \m/

3. Vex – Memorious
Yes, the label I own with Marty put out the vinyl version of this album, and for good reason. With a musically-adept, balanced melodicism that teeters between progressive, black and death metal, and a production unlike any other record this year, these Austin Texans deserve all the recognition they can get.

4. White Medal – Guthmers Hahl
From the Yorkshire content, to the power chords and power beats, and to the raw punk/industrial tools put to good use, Guthmers Hahl is the 2013 black metal album that gave me a glimpse of the genre’s future. Unique, martial, and above all, memorable.

5. Summoning – Old Mornings Dawn
It’s Summoning, and they could shit in a plastic bag and it would be more compelling than 99% of everything else ‘extreme’ out there. Epic, Tolkein-obsessed grandeur, as is to be expected.

6. Thou Art Lord – The Regal Pulse of Lucifer
Expert songwriting that can only come with time, spooky keyboards, and superb drumwork, and you’ve got a Rotting Christ/Necromantia collaboration that, for me, surpasses the most recent work of either band. And the cover artwork will add value to any vinyl collection.

7. Seidr – Ginnungagap
For my money, the most intriguing doom metal of 2013. An album that not only contemplates the cosmos lyrically, but also evokes its vast scale with world-building riffs, galactic atmospherics, and the howls of astral souls.

8. Nhor – Within The Darkness Between The Starlight
Nhor – A talented pianist/writer/artist who has chosen black metal as his primary medium shares with the world this deeply personal and powerful work, his third album to date. A haunted, yet pervasive beauty coarses throughout.

9. Fyrnask – Eldir Nótt
Fyrnask – Fyrnd concocts a nightmare compelling and utterly his own on an album that must be experienced in its entirety. Black Metal of the highest order.

10. Cadaveric Fumes – Macabre Exaltation
Cadaveric Fumes MLP debut (originally released in 2012 as a demo) would send the likes of fellow-Frenchmen Gojira running for the hills. This is dirty, disgusting death metal that crossbreeds Florida and Finland in the best of ways.

11. Necrocurse – Grip of the Dead
Hellbutcher brings the death ‘n roll; Marty says: “Such a vibrant union between blunt underground intensity and a traditional metal style of melody… this album shows that the 2 styles NEED each other and empower the songwriting spark with enough fuel to grow into something memorable and worthy of a wider appreciation.”

12. Gris – À l’Âme Enflammée, l’Äme Constellée…
Absolutely stunning musicianship, a wide variety of stringed instrumentation, and pained, melancholic delivery make this a must-have for those that seek black metal with class.

13. Lustre – Wonder
Nachtzeit’s dark ambient project Lustre took Summer as its subject in 2013 (defying the cold preoccupation of its black metal roots), and with newfound emotion and exploration, put out his best work to date.

14. Spectral Lore/Mare Cognitum – Sol
Sol, the collaborative split between Spectral Lore and Mare Cognitum (both one-man black metal projects) tracks the creation and destruction of the universe, and with headphones on and eyes closed you will bear witness to both.

15. Krypts – Unending Degradation
A younger generation of Finnish death metallers brings it back with simple yet caustic riffs, deliberate yet potent tempos, and an unyielding, subterranean production. My favorite Dark Descent release this year.

16. Nocturnal Graves – …From the Bloodline of Cain
Uncompromising, intricately-honed black/death/thrash from those revered Aussies of Deströyer 666 and Denouncement Pyre. More hyper-speed metal riffs than you can shake a stick at. Deadly and essential!

17. Satan – Life Sentence
Cult NWOBHM band returns to the scene with a vengeance in 2013, delivering an album worthy to stand beside their unfuckwithable 1983 proto-thrash debut Court In The Act.

20. Tribulation – The Formulas of Death
A grower in every sense of the world, this amalgam of styles – housed in an Altars of Madness/Phoenix Rising exoskeleton – works as a non-annoying ‘progressive’ Death Metal album.

19. Imperium Dekadenz – Meadows of Nostalgia
Bathory worship with an artery of sadness that bleeds attention. Gets under the skin and remains there.

20. VHÖL – S/T
Punk, classic heavy metal, and black metal in equal measure coagulate into an album that could only succeed with John Cobbett’s guitar-theatrics, Aesop Dekker’s drum mastery, and the kitchen-sink vocal stylings of Mike Scheidt.

Honorable Mentions:
Abyssal – Novit enim Dominus Qui Sunt Eius
Arnaut Pavle – Arnaut Pavle
Possession (Belgium) – His Best Deceit
Panopticon/Vestiges – split
Obliteration – Black Death Horizon

Posted in ALL REVIEWS, COMMENTARY, Uncategorized
Tags: Bölzer, Cadaveric Fumes, Fyrnask, Gris, Imperium Dekadenz, Krypts, Lustre, Mare Cognitum, Necrocurse, nhor, Nocturnal Graves, Sacriphyx, Satan, seidr, Spectral Lore, Summoning, Thou Art Lord, Tribulation, Vex, VHOL, white medal

Marty Rytkonen 2013 recap and best of

•January 1, 2014 • 4 Comments

This past year has been a completely frightening struggle on the personal front, but we made it through and are greatly anticipating good things to come from 2014. On the music front however, 2013 has offered many noteworthy releases that stand the test of time and shall linger in my listening rotation for years to come. To those of you who claim that metal music is tired, boring, or has nothing left to offer… I’m sorry… you are so completely wrong and should maybe stick to other pursuits!

Having been a “critic” for so many years now who always took pride in searching out as many new bands and releases as possible so that I could become absorbed in all the scene had to offer, this year, probably due to everything going on, I found more peace in taking new material as it came while reconnecting with more of the older gems in my collection to act as that welcomed and familiar friend/security blanket. So I cannot attest to having all the answers or knowledge when it comes to everything 2013 had to offer, but the following list stood out as exceptional on my quest for this year. Here we go!

1. Summoning – Old Mournings Dawn (Napalm Records)
“Oh the synths are too thin and plastic sounding.” “This band is weak and cheesy Hobbit music.” “The songs are boring”. I’ve heard a myriad of complaints in regards to Summoning’s 7th epic full-length opus, and yes… all of them would be horribly wrong. Such is the reaction of the instant gratification generation on their quest to consume product quickly and largely forget it. If it doesn’t click immediately, it’s on to the next downloaded folder of 1’s and 0’s to find that cheap thrill. Old Mournings Dawn is easily my most listened to and emotionally connected album of the year. When it came out, I listened to this gem everyday, for most of the day, for 2 weeks straight. It’s still in my head and heart. Summoning finally procured an even sound in the production area. The guitars don’t sound overly processed, rather warm and free flowing with proggy and atmospheric riffs. The synth tones feel more alive and possess a depth they never really needed, but have benefited greatly from. The songs are so full of emotion and wonder for me, it is impossible to escape their grasp. Old Mournings Dawn is nothing new for Summoning, for their grandiose and amazing formula is still intact, but damn… it is such a rich and vibrant formula, for people to say that this music flat out sucks, or is boring, there is something terribly wrong with their way of processing music.

2. Seidr – Ginnungagap (Bindrune Recordings)
The points I have made regarding people passing over Summoning due to not investing the time to connect with a piece of music so dense and spiritual, also applies to the mind expanding and crushingly brutal strike of experimental doom found on Seidr’s 2nd album, Ginnungagap. This album is an emotive and stirring masterpiece of expertly constructed death doom with an affinity to step outside your comfort zone with hypnotic drone elements and an atmosphere that journeys through the cosmos like a comet. The vocals are deeply brutal and unique. The music exists on a lofty plane of expression atop a mighty wall of distorted guitars while peering into folk and other more eclectic and depressive musical spectrums. This bold yearning for musical cross-polination truly makes Seidr a special find in the doom realm. With passion erupting from the song structures that would make diehard fans of Neurosis take note, this band is influenced by many, yet sounds like their own vibrant and essential entity screaming for answers from a star littered night sky. Ginnungagap is an all consuming and emotional ride that leads the listener to the climatic closing track “Sweltering II: A Pale Blue Dot in the Vast Dark” where this 25 minute monolith of a song toys with your sadness, only for Blood of the Black Owl’s own Chet Scott to step in with his misery tainted vocal approach to reduce the listener to a teary eyed reflection of the grief in his words. Granted, I did release this album, so I’m sure you’re thinking that I’m offering you all a biased recommendation, but I’m not. Ginnungagap is that good if you are open minded and ready to connect to something this challenging and rewarding.

3. Zemial – Nykta (Hell’s Headbanger Records)
I have always been a fan of this force of creative Greek excellence, but it hasn’t been until the epic metal influenced and completely great “In Monumentum” album that I have fully fallen into worship of Zemial. Nykta capitalizes on that triumphant style found on the previously mentioned album, but sole member Archon Vorskaath has worked in the unique thrash elements found on other releases like the Face of the Conquerer EP (rules) and even taking it all one step further with spaced out prog jam sessions that will hurl your thoughts deep into hypnotic trance. I find it very impressive that a 1 man band can enter the studio, play every instrument, yet still achieve that sense of freedom and space rock openness in the music. Meaning, the 2nd half of Nykta sheds the structured thrash/epic metal uniqueness and charisma to embrace a sound that is even more interesting and expansive. There is a definite attitude and unique stamp of Zemial’s own identity all over this album, one of which has become a living amalgamation of every era of their creative journey, to create an album that is so completely great and worth spinning for years to come.

4. Caladan Brood – Echoes of Battle (Norther Silence)
My first reaction to Caladan Brood was anger actually, for this duo has shamelessly borrowed, or ripped off (however you want to look at it) Summoning’s sound and formula. Hell even the 2LP release of this has 2 Summoning covers as bonus tracks… which the band nailed by the way. Thankfully I’m enough of a Summoning freak to look past the musical plagiarism since CB after all are caressing someone else’s creative family jewels with obvious love and skill. I’m seriously glad I invested the time, for these songs quickly dig in, demand respect and even beg for repeated listens. As one becomes more familiar with the material on Echoes of Battle, yes the Summoning influence is prevalent, but CB are working in their own powerful elements into these songs to set them slightly apart, and in some ways maybe even surpassing their idols. For one the guitar tone is more up front/full and masterful solo work adds a 3rd dimension to these tracks. And the vocals…. though the harsh screams are the main delivery, there are many instances of bombastic pitch singing… like an medieval barbershop choir, though not as cheesy sounding as that description would suggest, are thrown into the meat of these songs and it really gives Echoes of Battle a Middle Earth dwelling black metal meets epic power metal fusion that is very pleasing to the ears. Give this album a chance. Really looking forward to see what this band does next.

5. Gorguts – Colored Sands (Season of Mist)
Colored Sands is a glorious return not only for Gorguts, but for death metal as well. I know, DM hasn’t slowed or stopped since Gorguts has been gone, but Luc Lemay has struck back with a dark and endlessly scary album that teeters on the brink of technical madness that hasn’t been felt with this much sincerity in DM circles in a long time. Though I’ve liked everything released as Gorguts, Colored Sands sheds the quirky ideas found on such acclaimed albums like Obscura that never fully sat well with me. The creative precision of John Longstreth’s drum performance is inspiring, as are the individual performances of all the new members upholding Lemay’s vision. In spite of the albums stirring technicality, the songs maintain a brooding catchiness that is unshakable and allows the bulk of this material to stick in your head. A crowning achievement indeed.

6. Arckanum – Fenriz Kindir (Season of Mist)
I listened to this album a lot for sole visionary of Arckanum. Shamaatae, has return revitalized with his form of woodland black metal that rages with a metallic buzz of punk rising from its core. The experimental elements seem more authentic this time out and it enhances the spirit of the metal side of the album. This material shines due to Shamaatae’s unique riffage and equally impressive vocal attack that possesses a characteristic undeniably his. You could line up 10 black metal vocalists and you could tell instantly when Shamaatae is screaming. Arckanum are a strong entity all their own standing out with a unique voice/message in an over bloated black metal community filled with imitators.

7. Fyrnast – Eldir Nott
Dense like early Emperor and just as enveloped with innovative synth work, the one man project Fyrnask strikes out with more of a nightmarish onslaught than their peers. Eldir Nott is an all consuming experience that takes the listener to a polluted world of dark/dead landscapes and chilling sounds/structures that ring through as a completely unique treasure of tortured emotion. Envision a cross between Emperor and Blut Aus Nord for the quick description. For a deeper investigation, see the review located elsewhere on this site.

8. Infera Bruo – Desolate Unknown (Self Released)
Another band heavily influenced by older Emperor, but Boston’s Infera Bruo incorporate their own sense of songsmithing by way of a lethal delivery and innovative dark electronics buzzing below the surface. The tracks on here are very well considered and executed, allowing a very mighty flow to enter the bulk of this album, for Ihsahn inspired screams to weave their misery throughout. Perhaps you missed out on this one, but now is a good time to rectify that misstep!

9. Vex – Memorious (HPGD Productions/Eihwaz Recordings)
Another release that I’m involved in making the list!! Oh the humanity! Seriously though, REAL melodic death metal makes a come back in a big way in 2013. Vex have honed their skills over the years to arrive at such a beautiful sense of songwriting that does pay tribute to the Swedish form of melodic death, though they never lower themselves to emulate the cheesy/overdone characteristics that started to arise from and kill the Gothenburg scene in particular. A great release all the way around that is long, but never feels like it due to the spirit within and expertly written content.

10. Bolzer – Aura (Iron Bonehead Productions)
This duo is taking the underground by storm and though it is largely deserved since the Aura EP is a great slab of sinister death, but I can’t help but focus on 1 specific and truly amazing riff on this EP that simply crushes the rest of the EP and has catapulted this band to new heights. That world ending riff resides on the amazing “Entranced by the Wolfshook” track with its extra long measure and mind scrambling flow/melody line drifting out of its tremolo born delivery. That riff alone is almost too good. Seriously. I would have liked this band anyway, but they set such a high bar for themselves to reach creatively with that one song, the other 2 tracks on the EP are good, but not as good as “the riff”. Can a band recover from writing the perfect riff? Can they forge on and create a full album worth of material that will rival the power and brilliance swirling around in the Wolfshook? We shall see. Until that time comes, enjoy this great 3 tracker.

11. Craven Idol – Towards Eschaton (Dark Descent)
Musical and stylistic development is important in the world of death metal, whether you agree with that statement or not, and England’s Craven Idol have seriously stepped up their game with Towards Eschaton. This band excels at a thrash tinged death metal hybrid focusing on well written songs and a powerful delivery. Dark Descent had another great year and Craven Idol are at the forefront of that quality for sure.

12. Inquisition – Obscure Verses for the Multiverse (Season of Mist)
Faster. More evil. The swirling storms of hell explode on Obscure Verses for the Multiverse. Inquisition may sound a bit more like Immortal on this one, but it really doesn’t matter for the duo has stuck to their game and created another greatly entertaining album. I haven’t made a lot of time to sit with this one, but when I have, my devil horns ripped the heavens with spite!

13. Feast Eternal – Forward Through Blood (Self Released)
Another great example of melodic death metal by way of Bolt Thrower comes from Michigan’s Feast Eternal. The 4 tracks on this self titled MCD are seamlessly written with obvious focus on memorable riffage and moving song composition. Sure these guys aren’t reinventing the wheel, but Feast Eternal sure know who they are and how to write a moving death metal song. I have spun this one a lot.

14. The Ruins of Beverast – Blood Vaults – The Blazing Gospel of Heinrich Kramer (Van Records)
This album would easily have ranked higher on my list if it wasn’t for the fact that I just heard it for the first time 3 days ago. It hasn’t fully sunk in yet, but I found myself engaged for the whole of its 1 hour 20 minute playing time. Deathly black metal with a nightmarish strand of the bizarre spun throughout this album makes The Ruins of Beverast stand out from the throngs of BM sheep. Besides… any project containing a member of the sadly missed Nagelfar has got to be a good thing. So yes… all the hype surrounding this album is indeed warranted!

15. Carcass – Surgical Steel (Nuclear Blast Records)
I was of course skeptical going into this album, knowing it would be leaning heavily into the Heartwork frame of expression (An album I like, but is a far cry from the greatness found luring in their early years), but Carcass have taken the high road and crafted a lethal album that you actually want to hear, full of aggression and a balanced walk between tasteful harmonies/guitar work and a fierce delivery. So yes, Surgical Steel could have sit quite comfortably between Necroticism and Heartwork without missing a blast beat. Carcass have done what they needed to do here, righting the horrible wrong that was Swan Song.

Honorable Mentions…
Black Sabbath – 13 (Vertigo Records)
I often feel like the only person on this Earth that liked 13, but I’m okay with that. When this album came out, I spun it incessantly. Perhaps it doesn’t have the staying power since I now realize that I haven’t played it since it came out, but this doesn’t take away from the fact that the members of Sabbath that participated on this album wrote some solid songs. Sure, they are nowhere near as influential or important as the mighty catalog of material empowering their past, but really this is a core of musicians that no longer needs to “prove themselves”. They are our parents age for chris’s sakes…. give them a break.

Ashes of Ares – S/T (Nuclear Blast Records)
This one certainly isn’t anything new in regards to commercially viable power/traditional metal, but it is Matt Barlow’s glorious return to the mic and I have always been a big fan of his bluesy pipes. If you were expecting Iced Earth, you will be dissapointed, as AoA is definitely their own voice that relies on simplistic though endlessly memorable songs that soar with melody and excellent vocal choices. A good album that hints at greater things as we get to the middle point of the material. I expect the follow-up to this album to be much more developed and adventurious.

Worst album of 2013: Necrophobic – Womb of Lilithu. Hands down.

Most overrated album of 2013: Cult of Fire – मृत्यु का तापसी अनुध्यान (This album isn’t horrible, but I don’t get all the fuss. Sounds pretty typical to me)

Bands I could give a shit if I ever hear due to all the praise in the press: In Solitude and Watain. No thanks. Both are beyond overrated and more image driven than content concerned.

Posted in ALL REVIEWS, COMMENTARY
Tags: Arckanum, Ashes of Ares, Bölzer, Black Sabbath, Caladan Brood, Carcass, Craven Idol, Feast Eternal, Fyrnask, Gorguts, Infera Bruo, Inquisition, Marty Rytkonen, seidr, Summoning, The Ruins of Beverast, Vex, Zemial

Jake Moran’s End of 2013 List

•January 1, 2014 • 1 Comment

It was an odd year.

Going back through my collection, I realized that the albums that had the biggest effect on me this year were things I came to late from 2012. So I thought about making a End of 2012 in 2013 list. Then I realized that would be asinine. I also didn’t want a big, long, boring list of albums. Instead, a made a big, short, boring list of albums. There were a lot of other great albums this year, some of which I’ve already praised here, but in the interest of being concise, here are just a few that meant a lot to me.

Bölzer – Aura

The riffs on this EP could probably excite the sun into an early, planet devouring expansion. Bölzer sound possessed on Aura. Possessed by what? Some kind of cosmic Scythian horseman with an equally celestial thirst for conquest, wailing and growling across distant nebulae, comet-tail spear in hand, trampling dead stars beneath his feet. Reign! Reign! Reign! Solar imperator supreme

Kinit Her — The Cavern Stanzas, Storm of Radiance DLP, The Poet & The Blue Flower, Hyperion

Yes, I am including everything Kinit Her released (physically) this year. Troy Schafer and Nathaniel Ritter crafted some of the most unique, spiritual, strange, and excellent music of the past couple of years, and I won’t be responsible for choosing between the works from their collaborative effort. The sounds and structures emanating from this Wisconsin duo don’t just evade classification (anyone calling it neofolk can eat my fingernails and wash it down with porcupine quills), they’ve emigrated to whole other planes of reality—eerily similar to our own, but unmistakably outside the normal realm of experience. A Lovecraft quote comes to mind: “After that we cast off all allegiance to immediate, tangible, and time-touched things, and entered a fantastic world of hushed unreality in which the narrow, ribbon-like road rose and fell and curved with an almost sentient and purposeful caprice amidst the tenantless green peaks and half-deserted valleys.” That’s as close as you might get to the sound of Kinit Her in words, a world as feral as it is elegant, as familiar as it is alienating, as deeply ancient as it is unmistakably modern.

White Medal — Guthmers Hahl

Prior to hearing Guthmers Hahl, I always imagined George Proctor of White Medal as a somewhat quaint, obscure little Tollund Man. In my head he wandered the bogs and moors, shambling through the mists and causing the occasional scare with excellent but mostly unnoticed EPs, demos, and splits. I expected he would continue on this way, leaving an Agbrigg Beast LP here and a Yorkshire Steel cassette there, before finally retiring into the obscurity of another peat bed. I was very wrong. Guthmers Hahl sees Proctor returning with far greater ambition than I ever expected he had. It’s a monstorous, mountainous amalgamation of raw black metal, heavy metal, and industrial experimentation. Proctor has left the moor, he’s pounding on the city gates, and if he’s returning to the grave, he’s taking us with him.

Liz Harris (Grouper, Helen, Raum, Slow Walkers) – The Man Who Died In His Boat, Felt This Way / Dying All The Time, Event of Your Leaving, Slow Walkers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn6MZbPnyHs

Liz Harris—most commonly known for her solo project, Grouper—is in the top two of my favorite sound creating artists, and whatever she happens to release in any given year tends to drift, wander, and whisper into being my favorite thing. This year saw her releasing four albums and each one of them saturated my brain and body like fog fills a valley. The Man Who Died In His Boat is composed of material drawn from Harris’ classic Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill, and it lives up to it’s heritage while maintaining a distinct identity—as distinct as anything can be in a Grouper song, anyway. It’s a music of blurred edges; Harris’ voice drifts over dozing guitar lines like dry snow dances through the air on a soundless winter day, and the feel of it all flutters between warmth and isolation, lingers between emptiness and bliss. Helen’s Felt This Way / Dying All The Time explores poppier territory with driving drums and pulsing bass washed in waves of ghostly vocals and a guitar distorted into blissful noise. Event of Your Leaving, in collaboration with Jefre Cantu Ledesma, sounds like the Cocteau Twins and Harold Budd played at 1/2 speed, i.e., floating through the night sky toward the moon on a river of cold honey. If most of Harris’ work exists in the liminal space between waking and sleeping, Slow Walkers, with Lawrence English, delves into deep and, to my ears, troubled sleep with it’s drones as cold and haunting as murmuring winds over a lifeless planet.

Seidr – Ginnungagap

Bearing all the weight, sadness, and heartrending beauty of a collapsing star, Ginnungagap was better than I could have imagined, even after the excellent For Winter Fire. Listening to this entire album for the first time (laying on the floor, headphones on), it was immediately apparent that Seidr have created a masterpiece of an album; it’s massive, brilliant, intricately layered but viscerally powerful. Choose your words and they’ll all be inadequate to the experience of hearing this work. It’s affected me emotionally more than any metal album this year, possibly more than any metal album ever (I don’t think I’ve made it through “Sweltering II” without crying yet, sad ass that I am). A vital, real exploration of what it means to be alive in this time and place.

Lee Noble – Ruiner

Lee Noble’s music most often sounds buried. Monotone vocals and hypnagogic chords buried beneath layers of static, cheap keyboards, warped melodies, and other less distinguishable sounds. It’s a bit like human perception buried under layers of media, memory, ideas, nostalgia, whatever you can imagine. It’s a fascinating, collage-like exploration of sound, like a dream that weaves all the disparate elements of your life into something new and unfamiliar, yet totally sensible in a way that they never were on their own. On Ruiner, Noble strips back (or further blurs together) some of these layers to reveal an enticing sense of catchy songwriting without losing that deep sense of sonic exploration. An aural dream worth descending into over and over again.

Posted in ALL REVIEWS, COMMENTARY

S. Craig Zahler – Best of 2013 list

•January 1, 2014 • 2 Comments

Zahler’s Favorite Metal & Rock Albums of 2013 in order:

1. Museo – Rosenbach Barbarica
2. Darkthrone – The Underground Resistance
3. Ghost B.C. – Infestissumam
4. Rattenfanger – Epistolae Obscurorum
5. Craniotomy – Supply of Flesh Came Just In Time
6. Carcass – Surgical Steel
7. La Maschera – Di Cera Le Porte Del Domani
8. Suffocation – Pinnacle of Bedlam
9. Zemial – Nykta
10. Expurgate – Dementia Tremens
11. Tyrants Blood – Into the Kingdom of Graves

An Immodest Note: I do prefer my band Realmbuilder’s new album, Blue Flame Cavalry, to the aforementioned albums, but will not actually put it on the list.

Posted in ALL REVIEWS, COMMENTARY
Tags: Carcass, Craniotomy, Darkthrone, Expurgate, Ghost B.C., La Maschera, Museo, Rattenfanger, Realmbuilder, S. Craig Zahler, Suffocation, Tyrant's Blood, Zemial

In union, we make a final stand …

•December 18, 2013 • 40 Comments

Another holiday season, another Metal album to review … besides buying my first pair of glasses in my life today (just reading glasses for now, thank Santa) little has changed besides the ravages of time on this bag of flesh I carry around. So I wonder: what connection,
if any, exists between aging and Metal? I see friends fall to the wayside and hide their darkened light under a bushel, while
most others still proclaim from the highest hills a love of Manowar and Manilla Road. Where do you fall on the scale of fandom and why on these waning days of 2013? No judgment, just curiosity: post your playlists/comment and let us know if you’re just another face at the kid’s baseball game, or if you’re still trying to convince your golf buddy that he won’t burst into flames by listening to Burzum … And oh yeah, read and enjoy reviews of Altar of Betelgeuze (and no, we don’t reference the damn movie … oh shit), Church of Disgust (in which we are all death metal deacons), Cold Crypt (bedroom BM strikes again), and Omnivore (I promise we won’t say ‘thrash attack’ … double shit).

Jim Clifton Playlist
Waldgeflüster – Meine Fesseln
White Medal/Caïna split 12”
Alcest – Shelter
Arnault Pavle – s/t
Arghoslent – Galloping Through The Battle Ruins/Hornets of the Pogroms
Ligiea – In Death Overshadow Thee
Mystifier – Wicca
Nocturnal Graves – …From the Bloodline of Cain
Summoning – Let Mortal Heroes Sing Your Fame
Slugathor – Echoes From Beneath
Tony Rice Unit – Manzanita

Marty Rytkonen Playlist
Overkill – Feel the Fire (A timeless classic. Love this album. So many great memories attached to early Overkill!)
Overkill – Taking Over
Overkill – The Years of Decay
Falls of Rauros – New 2014 album
King Carnage – Ounce of Mercy… Pound of Flesh
Vex – Memorious 2LP
Mutiilation – Sorrow Galaxies
Morticious – Genetic Blur 1990 Demo
King Diamond – The Eye
Marduk – Panzer Division Marduk

Posted in Uncategorized

Worm Gear

Nocturnal Graves – Mark of the Adversary

Avichi – Catharsis Absolute

Demilich – 20th Adversary of Emptiness

Howls of Ebb – Vigils of the 3rd Eye

Orcultus – s/t 7”

Ran out of time. Forcing me down… deep into pain

Book of Tapes — Fort Evil Fruit

Fluisteraars – Dromers

Necrambulant – Infernal Infectious Necro-Ambulatory Pandemic

Chromium-plated, boiling metal, brighter than a thousand suns

Drudkh/Winterfylleth – Split 12″ & Drudkh – Eastern Frontier in Flames

Thunderwar – The Birth of Thunder

TrenchRot – Necronomic Warfare

Waldgeflüster – Meine Fesseln

We celebrate the fall of 2013 with lists!

Gym Clifton’s End of 2013 List

Marty Rytkonen 2013 recap and best of

Jake Moran’s End of 2013 List

S. Craig Zahler – Best of 2013 list

In union, we make a final stand …

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