Deadyellow : "What Was Left of Them"

 This Philly-based black-gaze outfit seems to have taken notes from Deafheaven when it comes to which influences to sway their sound toward, to nest achieve the best sonic misery set to simmering glory while packing a punch. Much like Deafheaven, these guys owe much of their sound to Weakling. The grit and nastiness in their snarl are the most direct indicators of this. They do seem more focused on the opening track, where the second seems to be largely consumed with the fury of their blasting. They do slow down and gather themselves to focus intentions on a more effective attack as the song progresses, but that seems to be at its furious heartbeat. 

"I am a House on Fire" is a great song title, but is a timid post-rock interlude that leads up into "Katla" which howls in a more black metal fashion. There is lots of tremolo-picked guitar parts buzzing around the screamed vocals. There are more melodic parts this song wanders off into that even feature sung vocals that feel more like 90s emo. The interlude "Winds That Came" might have been time better spent as the intro to the song that follows it, though at over sixteen minutes "Fallen Trees" could not be any more sprawling than it already is. I think smarter songwriting could have easily edited down the first three minutes of the song into something that still got the point across in half the time. While things to build into a sonically heavy storm, there would have been a more prudent way to arrange this. For what it is this works off some cool sounds, but this is not a song I would ever feel compelled to give another 16 minutes of my life to. The post-rock section in the middle is cool and all, but the ambient noise it uses as a bridge could have been cut back. It feels like they crammed three songs together here. 

The title track is more of an ambient outro. While there is a great deal of hipster window dressing to this, these guys are good at what they do and are angry about something, not sure what that is. Not as depressing as Weakling or as emotionally intense as Deafheaven, but have found their own niche between the two. I am not sure this album is going to get a great deal of love from the indie rock snobs, and unless it comes out this album is like an allegory for gay rights or something as trending and topical for that side of the press to rally behind, but I will give this a 9, though doubt it will make it to my top ten Black Metal releases at the end of the year.

 

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The Vision Bleak : "Weird Tales"

 After more of an intro-piece, the German band cranks back into their tense goth rock. They are very driving, but I would not call this song metal. They crunch into a heavier mood that owes more to doom on "Gardens Red, Satanical".  The melodic and mournful guitar helps counterpoint the grandiose arrangement of the song. They are quick to break out the goth power ballads just three songs in. A weepy piano pitters around for a while, before they ease into the build-up, taking a page out of the 69 Eyes playbook.  The vocals are more resonant and graceful than the singer from 69 Eyes. The distorted guitars could stand to be mixed further up, to make the most of what they are going for. 

The songs bleed into one another, but to this band's credit have enough dynamics and mood, to keep anything from taking on a uniform sound. The first time they remember they are a metal band is on "The Premature Burial". The guitar is pretty biting, and complimented by the snarled vocals.  The harsher vocals are really well produced. "Mother of Toads" eases back into a more melodic chamber music-like cadence. The vocals start off in a dramatic whisper. Not the album's catchiest song, but I appreciate how it builds.

The interludes on this album remind me of the "Sounds of the Haunted House " album I listened to as a child. From a songwriting perspective, things click together best on "The Undying One". It has both dynamics and gripping melodies, which are the things I listen for in music no matter the genre. This song just flows better than some of the previous ones.  "Evil Dreams Run Deep" comes galloping out of it with machine-like heaviness. The baritone vocals continue to sing with solemn grace over this. Though a few harsh snarls begin to emerge. 

They continue on solid footing with 'The Witch With Eyes of Amber". They balance the morose narrative with a commanding stomp. "Canticle" goes after things with an almost blackened fury. Not sure this side of heavy is their most compelling sound, but it works well enough. "To Drink Frome Lethe" is a sprawling romantic-sounding slab of death doom, but where the bulk of the album finds them with their identity intact, this song feels like it's just another band who wants to sound like My Dying Bride. Despite this, I will still give this album a 9, as the great moments outnumber the lapses into the status quo. 

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Apex Predator : "Jesus Wept"

 

Ok, Seattle has got some hardcore going. Apex Predator has been on my list of hardcore bands to hunt down but just found this album that came out back in January.   This band has just enough tough guy attitude mixed with a metallic sharpness to the guitars, and vocals that embellish things with a few varying growls. The title track is more like a cross-over track from the late 80s, it is almost thrash. "Federal Way of Life" has a burly bass line under it that pumps it up in a manner not unlike a less grind-core version of S.O.D. They lament jailhouse blues on this song that has an almost Biohazard-like bounce to its groove. The breakdown hits just right. 

"the Weight of Repercussion" finds the convict-core message, not holding as much weight. "Nothing" is a more effective display of songwriting, as it sets them apart from the pack. Violent imagery abounds, but from what I have seen of these guys they did not look like they spent much time out in the weight yard if they did any time, Here lies the suspension of disbelief, but the crunch of the riffs, works well enough to balance this out. 'Strength of Determination" finds them conforming more closely to what the hard-core status quo is, though the riff at the chorus is impressive. All the songs clock in at a quick punk under three minutes. 

If it was more mid-paced "Warlord" would be an excellent song to have on a gym playlist. Their bass player continues to bring the beef to their sound. Still to bark out these lyrics they need to shoot a video of them lifting weights to it, so it is not just talk. Or like they say in the last song "Respect is Earned". Musically it feels like these guys are from NYC rather than Seattle.  I will give this album a 9, it's fun and heavy as fuck. 

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Louvado Abismo : "s/t"

 

This band from Portugal gets it. All too often I hear new post-punk bands and they are not packing the kind of punch I need, so I go back to listening to my old Killing Joke and Christian Death albums. This album stomps with dark aggression to make something that is sonically intense, The plead of the vocals feels real rather than someone trying to recreate what has already been done, but true to the legacy of the genre.  I can't understand any of the lyrics, at least at the volume I am currently listening to this album. The vocals are shouted on the second song, which marches in from a storm. Many layers of sounds build the dark apocalyptic clouds that comprise what they sound like. 

The third song sounds like Christian Death jamming with Alien Sex Fiend and Crash Worship. The guitars are more industrial strength as the album progresses, with the vocals doing a ghostly junkie moan. "Espuma" has more of a tribal pound to it. The vocals have a chanted hook to them as the song's pieces fall into a very natural flow. The guitar to "Bons Ventos" carries a metallic charge to it. The thrashy chug, owes more to Killing Jokes more metallic moments, as it also creates a sonic tension. "Vazio" splits the difference by taking the throb of metal riffing and sailing off into waters obscured by a dense haze of atmosphere. The guitar churns under it in an almost Tool-like manner. 

The album does touch on goth moods, but the crusty stomp of combat boots marches the album into a bleak dystopia, that is more organic than what we think of as industrial in the present day. They invoke a more grooving ambiance to the pound of "Corpo Inerte" that feels almost more like a Black Sabbath riff. The slow machine-like grind of " Mundo" builds in the energy of its throb. The lyrics are sung in their native tongue, so unless you are fluent in Portuguese , the narrative voice is more of a percussive element and their voices are more of an instrument than a narrative voice.  The last song is an instrumental outro.Overall this is a great sound track for the apocalypse, which is the best barometer for the music that eases us into the coming darkness, I will give it a 9.5 . 

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Satanic North : "s/t"

 I figured despite this album being a self-professed blast fest, I would check out this band's debut. Two members of Ensiferium are at the helm of this. The first track pretty much just blasts with a 1349-like thrashing rage at you. They care about how it sounds, so it's not a cvlt affair, though not many bands are still putting out shitty-sounding music on purpose unless they are punk bands pretending to be black metal bands these days/. Still, considering most black metal bands from Finland follow in Horna's boot prints it's easy to expect this to be rawer than most. It's not it sounds more like a Gorgoroth album in terms of quality, though the guitar sound is not as dark or biting as Gorgoroth's. 

"Hatred and Blasphemy" is the first song with a riff catchy enough to make me pay attention as the rapid-fire attack and uniform shriek of the vocals that is almost Cradle of Filth-like fades into the background as it begins to all sound the same. They gallop a little more for "Four Demons". The guitars follow the colo by the numbers black metal progressions. I am not sure that black metal is about even conforming to black metal, if it was then it would really be the outsider genre of metal like it should be. Unless it's February I am making a concerted effort to not review two black metal albums in a row, or really two from any genre, unless I am in a month that is dedicated to that genre. To their credit, they make more purposeful choices with the vocals on this song. 

"Behind the Inverted Cross" sounds like Watain if they threw themselves into a frantic hyper-fast blast. Things get more deliberate and marginally more melodic for "Vultures" which is better than the previous song by far.  In fact, it might be the album's best song, even though they do give into the need for speed there has been enough done to create the needed dynamic contrast. "Wolf" falls on the other side of the spectrum and is driven by double as thrash-hungry guitars race before it. This makes the song a one-dimensional obsession with speed and tension. This album has more song-oriented moments, though the vocals become tedious before it's over. 

They are high-caliber musicians all the way around with their lead screamer as the only weak link. Their eponymous anthem closes the album. The vocals are well produced, just a one-trick pony. I think they prove to themselves here the best songs are under three minutes when playing at this tempo. I will round this album down to an 8, it's well played and they do care about songwriting, but this style of black metal has been done better a thousand times, yet as it stands in 2024, these guys prove capable of keeping the dark flame burning.Drops April 19th on Reaper Entertainment.  

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Acid Mammoth : "Supersonic Megafauna Collision'

 

Wanted to check out some new doom, so here we are with Greece's Acid Mammoth, a band whose fuzz is getting a bit of a buzz. The first song made me wonder about things when the vocals came in. Are doom bands these days thinking "You know if the singer did not belt it out as much we might sound a little like Ghost?" 

Makes sense, Ghost sells a ton of records. If you are used to imitating Ozzy, then your brassy tenor just needs a little less balls behind it and you sound almost like Poppa Smerfitus. They have listened to a few parts of Sabbath albums for sure, and the bands who took influence from them in recent years. They dialed down the tone, now the key for me and these guys is to ask who they are? What is their personality or are they just a tribute to a sound?  "Garden of Bones" sounds like the first attempt at really trying to answer this as they lean into a darker atmosphere. 

My ears are drawn back to the vocals that are high in the mix, and it makes me realize there is also not a huge leap from sounding like Lil Poppa from Ghost to sounding like Weird Al Yankovic. It's the brightness of the tenor. With Ozzy, he has a more mournful meow to his voice, that keeps things darker. The guitar plays some darker passages here, but the vocals being so bright, make it seem less heavy. Which is the same problem I have with Ghost. And yet Ozzy is one of my favorite singers. When they pick up the pace on "Atomic Shaman" it helps but I am still not really blown away. 

They needed the acoustic guitar going into "One With the Void" as everything was beginning to sound the same. The vocals are still a little Ghostly, but it's given a better backdrop to contrast it. I guess if Ghost was covering Black Sabbath's eponymous title track it might sound like the last song of this album, though its pulse also feels a little Zeppelin when it comes to the drums. I will round this down to an 8, as it's a doom album that does not sound all that dark to me, but they are good at the sound they have captured here, even if nothing new is being brought to the table. 

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Future & Metro Boomin : "We Still Don't Trust You"

If I am going to check out a new hip-hop album, the latest by Nayvidious seems the way to go. There is a synth wave vibe to the opening track that features a really dialed-in performance by the Weeknd, which was a bit of a disappointment, but the overall mood of the song wins me over."Drink n Dance" is the typical Future take on trap-lite with a poppy cadence to his auto-tuned vocals. Things are not as catchy on "Out of My Hands". A song like "Jealous" is interesting, given the rapper's turn to sobriety in 2019. He is no longer self-medicating these problems, though there is still lyrics about drug dealing on this album. He kept his sobriety quiet as he thought his fans would think it changed his music. They might not be wrong. "This Sunday" finds his delivery more rapped. 

"Luv Bad Bitches" features 90s r&b group Brownstone lending their vocals, as Future's sobriety might be called into question as he suggests to his bad bitch that they do X. Musically it works though not the hookiest track he is dropping here. "All to Myself" feels more like old-school r&b. The Weeknd, returns to this track, he does more than he did on the first song, but he is not breaking new ground here.  The beat to this one is a little weak, but the guitar sounds and overall vibe balances things out. They continue down a street not too sonically distant from the r&b vibes on "Nights Like This", though the beat is stronger. While this works, there is the feeling that he needs to start exploring other sonic colors or everything is going to start sounding the same, 

"Came to the Party" needs to hit harder even if he just went to the party to take pictures of his new outfit. "Right 4 You" sounds like he is trying to remember who he is, but this is still done better than the bulk of rappers who came after him.  "Mile High Memories" is an improvement in songwriting, as it feels like he is back tapping into the essence of who he is. Overload" is marginally better lyrically, though musically things are beginning to all run together. Ty Dolla Sign joins him for "Gracious".  This song is one of those moments where it feels like Future is trying to make a Young Thug album. Though this is one of the album's strongest songs. "Beat it " feels more like a spoken word interlude, until the song actually kicks in. "Always Be My Fault" is the third song to feature the Weeknd. It's the best of the three. None of these come close to "Low Life".  The Weeknd, sings through almost as many effects as Future here. The synth wave backing to "One Big Family" is almost as epic. 

Now moving on to the second disc. Though I suspect a double album might have been overextending himself, "Nobody Knows My Struggle" feels like the direction he should have headed in more on the first disc. "All My Life" is another return to a more trap-oriented sound with Lil Baby joining him. "Crossed Out" is a quick burst of beats for the TikTok generation. "Crazy Clientele" is not unlike his earlier work. Lyrically absurd. ASAP Rocky joins him for "Show of Hands". Lyrically it makes you wonder why the public does not go after guys like this to cancel them for their content. I am fine with it, but it is an interesting concept to ponder. 'Streets Made Me King" is not the album's most inspired song and an example of why he might have been better off streamlining this release into one great album rather than including some of this filler. I'll give this one an 8.5, and see how it sits with me. Some great songs, but too much filler as well. 

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