On his sixth full-length, The Darkness at the Edge of Dawn (Avantgarde), The Howling Void has crafted an album that makes the most effective use of its runtime and rarely featuring a note out of place. I think we can chalk that up to Howling Void being the singular doom vision of Ryan Wilson, hence the number of LPs within just a decade of existence. Continue reading
Informing me that a band features the talents of Fall Out Boy drummer Andy Hurley probably isn’t the best way to sell me on their album, but I’m glad I swallowed my ignorance. I mean, you should’ve told me that Hurley is super talented and that he’s flanked by members of Cursed, Catharsis and Earth Crisis in SECT. Combine those mega-powers with uber-producer Kurt Ballou and the fabled GodCity Studios and you’ve got a hell of a blast of Entombed-core in No Cure for Death (Southern Lord).
I’m not one for subgenres. I mean, I understand why they exist and how they appear to explain why Exodus sounds differently from Sleep all while still operating under the Heavy Metal umbrella, but I think we’re too preoccupied with the minutiae of the subgenres; we’re too busy defending the merits of our style against the perceived weaknesses of the others. That’s why it very refreshing to attempt to make sense of the sounds on Calligram’s Askesis (Basick). Continue reading