Black Metal History Month- Praise the Plague : " Suffocating In The Current Of Time"

 The Germans know how to do shoe-gazing black metal right. They make it sound evil enough. Other German black metal can come across as stiff. There are exceptions. These guys bring it pretty convincingly. Though the shoe-gazing side of the band is short-lived as the bulk of this album is in your face and mean-spirited.  "the Tide" finds them dropping down to a more deliberate pound with lower death metal vocals. This is just a passage as they are quick to throw themselves into the blur of tremolo-picked blasting. 

The more feral moments that discard restrain are not as interesting as there are plenty of bands doing this sort of thing. Take it from someone who has been reviewing black metal all month, and for over a decade, just more concentrated this month. "Astray From Light' carries an eerie dissonance to the main guitar melody that could be called the song's theme. This does translate into a doomy creepiness at times. The vocals push it further in this direction as they are a low growl. The speed is not far, behind, and the blur it creates is one of the songs' more homogenous moments. "A Serpent's Tongue" is pretty much what you expect from Black Metal that is not just a rabid blast fest. This is more of a purposeful gallop. The vocals fall where they should and are not just obligatory screams. Not that they do not have the uniform blast beats, as they come. 

"Devourer" is the definition of middle-of-the-road blackened death metal, with enough dissonance to it for me to not just become indifferent towards it. They bring back the more atmospheric sounds from the first song, though it's less black gazing in its intentions, and more centered on the scathing lashing of your ears. I can take the darkness they are peddling seriously enough, I will give this album an 8.5. 

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Sun Worship : " Pale Dawn"

They start off blasting, but it is recorded with what sounds like dual vocals layered with one the more typical screaming and another a cleaner chant to give an almost Tombs like effect. They drone on the one riff in manner recalling the golden days of Darkthrone. I haven't gotten a ton of that lately so I'm not as burned out on it as I once was. The recording it very raw and cavernous.The second song "Lichtenberg Figures" finds itself hovering over a similar riff. As I let this play and began to work on something else it began to face into the background as a humming blur of distortion. When I went back to listen again I keyed in on a thrashy chorus section that has a more feral punch to it. The drummer is not doubt a beast, and these guys go for the throat all the way. There is no questioning their dedication to what they do. What they do just happens to resemble what many other bands of this ilk do with few colors to set it apart from the rest of the black herd.


 I looked up to realize I was on the 3rd song instead of the second, though this could happen with any number of bands who get locked into the blasty mc nasties and have a hard time pulling away.  I remember hearing their previous album "Elder Giants" that was released in 2014, and hell, I could have even reviewed it , but it must have not left that much of an impression on me as I am unsure how much distinction could be made between the two. "Nalad" finds the less screamed and more dry coughed vocal playing a more dominant role. The drums become a little less interesting on this one as well. Full blast ahead is clearly the only direction this album is going by the time we get to the fourth and final song. Once again a more metallic aggression snarls forward where a chorus would be if these songs were to follow something sounding like a normal song structure. Actual sung vocals surface midway through and help break things up.These guys are solid for the brand of black metal they adhere to I'll give this one a 7.5, if you need some late 90s sounding second wave with just enough variation to remind you what year it is then this German band might be what you need.

 

Unru : "Als Tier ist der Mensch nichts"

Here's the first full length from the crusty German black  metal band Unru. It sounds like it was recorded in a cavernous basement that was being flooded. The blast beats are caught up in the torrent of water rushing over them. The distortion pedals are shorted out with a fizzle leaving the bass to hold the heavy down. This production value becomes endearing to their sound. The distortion that does come across is more sludge driven that crusty. The second song is over twelve minutes song and congeals into a sound that sonically has more in common in terms of pacing with what you expect out of black metal. Maybe not what you expect out of German black metal that normally has a militant stiffness and rolls over you like a Panzer brigade.  You eventually find yourself numbed into the sonic drone that runs together and finding the song coasting on a blur of white noise. The screaming in anguished enough to be convincing, but from a song writing point of view seems to be more obligatory here than have a defined purpose.

The album title comes down to being roughly translated to "as an animal, man is nothing". This sentiment is felt on the crushing death metal gloom of "Hedonee" .  It pounds you into the ground with more distortion than the previous songs, building into something more blackened around the six and a half mark. They speed things up for the last song. This is a very chaos blast with layers of atmosphere that seem to be happy accidents.They blast away with reckless disregard for the fact this is supposed to be a song for the bulk of this six and a half minute feral display.I'll give this a 7, as I think they are onto something with the sonic formula of their sound tonally , but as songs this needs some fine tuning.

Shrine of Insanabilis"Disciples of the Void"

German black metal has often struck me as being a little stiff until I head this band. They have depth to the darkness seething under the riffs that lie in-between their blast beats. When they wander off the blast beaten path their evil really begins to shine. Not to say they are not good at your run of the mill lightening fast lashing. They have more than enough dissonance to make me happy.  I can hear why they have been compared to Deathspell Omega, but think these guys are less angular with songs that flow more easily leaving the neck jerking changes as window dressing rather than the prime objective. Though Deathspell Omega has changed their sound so much over the years it really depends on which album you are talking about. "Acausal Paths" has it's challenging moments and interesting section, but do not think it is as good as "Ruina" .

They like to place little minute long interludes in-between the real songs. They blast right into "Invocation" . There are some glorious galloping into battle section, but for the most part they are really taking the fight to your ear drums and handing them a pretty good beating.There is a more melodic section following these blast beats, the guitar hangs on the melody that has been running throughout the song.They lay back an take a more deliberate pace on "Still of this Earth" the vocals drop into a lower rasp, before they blast back off again.

"Cycles and Circles" merges the dissonance with the icy blasts. As the album progresses the bands reliance on blast beats to move the songs becomes more apparent. "Acerbus" takes a more deliberate tone and tempo. There is almost a groove to it's pulse. This almost doom like pace shows they do not have to throw the tremolo picked guitar out with the bath water as if floats over the stomping beat. When they are not losing themselves in blast beats, they have some moving songs with a wider range of dynamics than most. I'll give them an 8.

Antlers : A Gaze Into the Abyss"

Antlers shows that they are capable musicians  right from the intro  of their album " A Gaze Into the Abyss" , but when they blast into " A Carnival of Freedom and Betrayal" they sound like every other band who races into their blast beats. To me I have been there done that and got the t-shirt so I wan to hear how this is worked into black metal in a new and interesting way. There are some mighty roars that bellow out of this. Around the two and a half minute mark there some punches that stray from blast beats then it finally gets a groove at the three minute mark.They pullout a guitar solo and then I am beginning to get impressed since they are far and few between in black metal. "Hundreds' slows it's in a more sweeping cascade of hypnotic black metal making itself much more interesting than the unabashed one direction of the blast beat. They prove themselves to be pretty capable songwriters on this one and are able to hold a steady groove that is dark with sonic power. The vocals stay in their mid range rasp for most of the album sometimes going tino more of an extended growling bellow. The song retains its mean churn, but doesn't wear out its welcome as these guys keep most of the songs in the eight minute range, the longest being ten, but the stay on task and don't wander off .

They blast off again on " To the Throats" They remain at a rabid pace for the first half of the song then slow down to let it ring out in a Burzum like drone. Watain gets a lot of crap for coping off of Dissection, but they give the Dissection worship the full blown Thulcandra treatment on "A Jail of Flesh".They sprawl out for the final song "Memories of the Extinct". For these guys to be a German band they are not as stiff and militant as most German metal. The hit this on hard and fast staying in an unrelenting blitz mode for the first three minutes. These guys are pretty solid for the whole cascadian sort of black metal sound though they infuse a lot more Swedish styled sounds into the mix , I'll give it a 8.5. 4.2

Azavatar: s/T

Not sure why I decided to give Azavatar's album a spin aside from the fact that when there is nothing else new to listen to begin digging back into my in-box.  This German band boasts vocals that are grim and scraping closer to a croak than not. They are eager to blast beat you when given the chance. I am glad these guys do not sound anything like Deathspell Omega there are too many black metal bands coming out that are influenced by those guys. The drums do get a little overzealous toward the end of the song as the riffs grow more restless, but it's not a total prog out. This album is brought to you by the letter K as "Kurse" comes after "Kvlt", suppose I will have to throw this up on Cvlt Nation for that reason.

I was surprised the lyric "as you kissed me goodbye" came out of this band. They do hit a nice sonic field that floats you away on "Kurse". Midway through the song there is a cool change in guitar tone as it is cleaner and re-verbed out. "Kaos" and yes every song begins with K, starts off at creep to catch you off guard for the blast beats to come. The lyrics to "Kaos" focus on worshipping the stars and the sun.  The fourteen minute "Krest" follows. It opens with a doomy throb, but from what we've hear up until this point I am expecting the speed to kick in at any minute, it's a test to see how long they can restrain themselves from defaulting into it. By the three minute mark the build has them about to burst if they don't go into a blast beat, the drummer fighting the temptation with an undercurrent of double bass.  They give in at the right minute like you knew they were going to.  They redeem themselves with the disjointed darkness the delve into in the song's final three minutes.

They start "Krypt" with the blasting making no attempt to do anything other than blast you with it. They only keep it up for a minute and a half. It's an eleven and a half minute song so you knew they would relent into something more melodic since that is the formula they seem to work upon. They go for something dreadfully creepy after the blasting and keep digging into deeper and darker places which is fitting for a crypt with a k, there is something about a putrid womb, as he tells his mother the crypt was her all along. So who doesn't enjoy some self deprecating black metal.  I'll round this one up to a 9 as these guys really delivered and surprised me with this one. I look forward to catching what they do in the future.Art of Propaganda will be releasing this album June 29th.

Dysangelium : "Thanatos Askesis"

I used think of German black metal as sounding to stiff, but in the past year their have been a few releases to make me rethink that assumption. The first thought I had when the album hit me was ...It is too bad these guys missed the dead line for my top 15 black metal album, right from the first song I am impressed by the German band's raw pounding they pull out upon my ears. Right when their approach seem too straight forward for me they pull out a cool melodic riff from their bag of tricks. The blur doesn't occur until the third song, where they become a wall of white blasting noise until a slowed solo section.

"Chaomega" sees the band opt for a more thrashing take on black metal. It also bears some of the albums most impressive drumming. They do employ atmosphere and let the songs breath and build dynamically. Some of their blasting sections where the momentum carries them faster than their legs can run are the only moments where it seems they are defaulting into whats expected from the genre, but have a knack of redeeming themselves creatively after doing so. They sometimes come across as a faster more pumped up version of Venom, on songs like "Aries". The slowed spoken middle section breaks things up as needed.

The chanted vocal over the enthralling speed of "Gateways to Necromancy" provides an effective catalyst for the throaty roar to come back in on the slowed throb of the chorus. At time there is a slight Behemoth element to their sound, though Nergal's more feral side and less of the melodramatics. The classic darkness and dissonance that should surface to some extent in every black metal band's sound is here. It provides the creepy counter point to their more death metal influenced moments on songs like "I am the Witness , I am Servant". The guitarists are good at working together to weave a icy cold twin attack. One guitar provides the creepy unsettling melodies while the other sticks to a more direct metal approach.

This ia a pretty solid album, it sounds good from a production stand point without sacraficing too much of it's rawness. These guys  are songwriters rather than throwing a bunch of blinding blasts at you which fade into background noise. I'll give this album an 8, unsure how much play I will get out of it, but fans of dense raw Geraman black metal will find it here.

Sado Sathanas : "Nomos Harmatia"

It's getting harder and harder to find black metal bands not intertwined with death metal. This German band is exception having got their start as a death metal band and then changing with the times into their current incarnation. These guys don't shun atmosphere, where most of their country men tend to keep things rather stiff and militant when it comes to the blasty side of things.

Despite having been together for so long this is the band's second full length. It's also the first to include their new bassist Robert Blockmann. The clean vocals on the second song are the first thing that really convinces me these guys mean business when it comes to committing to expanding their creative boundaries. Even though this type of low goth moan is not new to black metal, to me it's a gesture of good faith that they want to actually create music and plow you over with bombast.

There is a sense of melancholy to a song like "Ante Bellum" , but they tend to storm the gates too often in their powerful gallop to really fit the modis operandi of Depressive black metal.Even the fact that "Ante Bellu" is an instrumental doesn't bug me as it flows really well, in some ways reminds me of Moonsorrow, speaking of which what do we have to do to get a new album from those guys?

"Invertum" opens with a rumbling bass line and plunges feet first into this double bass explosion of epic blasting . When it does slow to swing into the more epic section of melody the song is most effective. "P.A.N Demonia" rips that a similar speed though swinging in the verses. At times  in some of the breakdowns you might even be inclined to lump these guys in with some of the Pagan Black Metal bands. There is that kind of viking metal quality.

They close out the album on a very dark note with " Codex Diaboli" it touches on that fine line I like where funeral doom meets black metal. Oppressive yet beautiful.This is another instrumental that I don't mind , though how long the instrumentals stay on my iPod when push comes to shove and I am trying to save space... well I don't know. It's not too big of a leap for me to round this one up to 9.