Thantifaxath : "Void Masquerading as Matter"

This Candian trio's first album found them creating an original blend of darkness and dissonance . This album album doesn't find them in the same shade of darkness, but they have not lost their sense of adventure. The guitar tone and odd time signatures have more in common with Krallice and Liturgy than Deathspell Omega. The guitar tone is cleaner, which allows you to hear the notes without being encumbered by the feedback. Midway into the song with start getting more into their odd sense of sonics with a piano break that is surrounded by an otherworldly buzz. The way the bass falls makes me think of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. The way the drums carry more of a swing with them coming back in only further fuels this comparison.

They sink back into the dark place I admired on the first album going into "Self Devouring Womb". The odd time signature and almost jazz like feel return. They wind up into a more tightly coiled groove haunted with layers of atmosphere before devolving into blast beats. The results are very effective when they step away from some of the mathematics and punch with more of a chug. The song dissolves into violin , cleanly picked guitar and synths to form the opposite polarity from where the song was. The spiraling prog of 'Cursed Numbers" almost makes you dizzy. With synths blending into sound effects to keep the song going when the bottom drops out of it. Their drummer displays that he might have the widest range when it comes to going beyond the blast beat of any black metal drummer. 

The title track opens with an choral piece, that never goes any where , but sounds like something that should be used as background noise at a haunted house. No instruments are played nor is there metal to be had, instead this noise for over seven minutes. While this album is proof that black
 metal is still worth experimenting with it is only three real songs, so for the noise fest at the end I have to round this down to a 8.5. If you are looking for black metal that is dark and takes risks.Being released on Dark Descent Records.

Horrendous : " Anareta"

I know it's Black Friday so I should be catching up on black metal , but I just keep finding death metal or from the opener to this band's new one, death thrash. There is more melody in the guitars than brutality and I can understand why it ranked so high on a few of the best of lists I discovered it on. They pay attention to detail, and are more technical than you might suspect. The vocals are a very dry rasp almost like a throaty blackened hardcore in how it is punched out. This is also contrasted by some whispered parts. They succeed in impressing me with the feral heaviness and manic energy they attack the song with thus leaving me to ask the question...what else can you do ? or are they a one trick pony. They slow things down at the onset of the second song, with the defining factor the wave the twin guitar attack weaves around each other. There is some melody in the riffing, so they do not rely on brutality like you might expect from most death metal bands. They are said to be apart of a new wave of old school death metal and I don't hear this unless you are referring to the thrash influence staining the riffs. If old school means actually writing songs and using interesting melody then why is that old school and not just how music is made? There is a brief exclamation from distant clean voices calling out ,before rather hooky classic metal riff comes in.

It needs to be said that the bass player is really killing it on this album and if you are metal bass player this album is a wet dream despite the bass being mixed back behind the drums. A thrash like vein of melodic guitar playing dominates "Siderea" . This reminds me of another song from the new Hate Eternal album I just reviewed where they instrumental portion is more interesting than what is done when they are using vocals. This album it is not as much of a point of contention as it proved to be with Hate Eternal. "Polaris' finds the vocals returning to scrape pain from the more progressive riff they scream out over. Death could be a frame of reference here. They do not place as great of an emphasis on shred, but are no slackers on their chops. Much rougher than say even earlier Opeth, the songs still wind around a more open path than Morbid Angel. "Acolytes" crawls from a darker place before gaining momentum into a more acrobatic thrashing chug.Maybe a more dexterous version of Possessed would be a better way to wrap your head around this excursion. This become more thrashing than death metal no matter the age of the school you might pull from. It eventually finds itself in a bridge that has more in common with "Tom Sawyer".

They really hit their stride on "Sum of All Failures" going from the acoustic intro into a well harmonized groove. "Stillborn Gods" find the vocals getting more aggressive and leaning the song more towards the death metal side, though there are still plenty of moments with a classic metal sound that bring this closer to thrash or maybe Death's more accessible moments. They close the album out with a slower death metal groove. Then eventually punch into something with a more deliberate groove. This might not be the album of the year, but it's way fucking better than I imagined it would be and hits some pretty awesome moments when it comes to its command to head bang. I'll give this a 9.


7.4

Desolate Shrine : "The Heart of the Netherworld"

I found these guys hunting the Internet for new doom...which by the way I am still looking for because this album is great but it's not doom, but it is very dark death metal.Opens with a dense and chilling instrumental.The vocals come in higher than expected. There are some lower roars, but I think roars and screams are better verbs to describe the vocals than growl.The melody the guitars hold lies over some fairly brutal battery. The production on this album is how death metal should sound. It's not over produced and too slick, but it's not under produced so it doesn't sound like they are playing in your crawlspace. The drumming is tasteful. Devil, knows death metal is the genre where the overpowering drums are in the right place. Once I start listening for the drums I realize I can't hear his feet. The drums play behind the wall of sound the guitars have created. So if you need double bass all the time, then this might not be the band for you.

Quite a few bands have tried to achieve the Ulcerate sound. These guys capture it but without trying to sound like Ulcerate. They left you up for a breath on the song "Desolate Shrine" . I am not sure about bands who name songs after themselves and that goes for you to Black Sabbath, but this is pretty tasty in the most ghoulish manner possible. They do not remind me of any other band from Finland. They are not trying to cop any Swedish death metal influence, this is far dirtier and sonic than that. Most death metal bands have already blown their wad after the first song and hit me with everything they have leaving me waiting around to see what else they can do which is usually more of the same. These guys made me forget that I was waiting around for them to prove that they could write songs because it was evident they could from the onset. The grow in sonic fury on "Death in You"

At first it seems like there is not a minute wasted on the over 14 minutes of "We Dawn Anew", but around the nine minute mark before the songs starts to speed up, it drones me out and I detach from the song.Then it carries on from there and I am not aware that this has turned into "Leviathan". They close things out with another long one in the title track that starts off blast beating you back and blue before recoiling into a groove of sorts. This eventually winds up in a dark a melodic place that I would one day like to hear them expand upon. I'll give this an 8.5, but it could evolve into a 9 as it held me in more often than not and with more listens I think I would grow to dig this more .The only thing that would hold me back is some of the longer songs.