The concept Abhorrent Expanse debut release Gateways to Resplendence (Amalgam / Lurker Bias) is indeed a fascinating one. All the tracks have been improvised, and the whole thing was performed as a continuous take. Nothing specific was discussed beforehand except for the pairings of who would play each section and how long they would last, it all being tracked by a stopwatch. The result of such a challenge is interesting if a polarized hit-and-miss affair. Continue reading
It had been coming for a while… the underground has been festering and bubbling under for the last few years. A new breed of leaders, including Blood Incantation (who have definitely already influenced many of their peers), Tomb Mold, Gatecreeper, Necrot and Undeath, among others, have taken on the mantle from the old titans; the lava has been flowing molten and in 2021 the subterranean erupted. Barely a week went by without at least one brain-melting addition to the pile of bodies…Continue reading
Taking its title from the 1965 Jean-Luc Goddard movie of the same name, and reverberating with echoes of Fritz Lang‘s 1927 silent classic, Metropolis, everything about Alphaville (Century Media), the latest album from New York trio Imperial Triumphant, is costumed heavily in film noir science fiction. Its unique atmosphere furthered by impressive cover art from Zbigniew M. Bielak, the Polish artist noted for his work with Swedish act, Ghost.Continue reading
Melbourne Industrial trio Kollaps has something of a reputation for incendiary live shows bordering on the violent, so involved are the band members with the apocalyptic noise they produce. Second album Mechanical Christ (Cold Spring Records) is the depiction of a hopeless, senseless world society, and a progression from debut album Sibling Lovers (Silken Tofu).Continue reading
By the time the final album for 2018 is released, from Watain’s Trident Wolf Eclipse (Century Media) to Sulpher Aeon’s The Scythe of Cosmic Chaos (Van) – both of which were reviewed by Gary Alcock, and neither of which made the final list, trivia fans, – over 1,000 albums will have passed through the Ghost Cult reviews inbox, we will have covered just shy of 550 releases (we do a fair bit of filtering to protect our writers ears from some of the less inspiring releases), and our entire crew will have nominated and voted for 244 of them to be considered as our #1 for the year.Continue reading
The incredible productivity of transatlantic duo Ævangelist – six albums and a host of EPs littering its eight-year existence – is matched only by the nerve-shredding nature of the music. The Blackened Death chaos mirrors the evil and pestilence rife in today’s inhumane, technical age, and this is further reflected in latest album Matricide in the Temple of Omega (I, Voidhanger Records).Continue reading
There’s an element of mystery surrounding Australian duo Grave Upheaval, enhanced by the sparing title of this sophomore album (the second time they’ve left an album untitled, but let’s go with II, (Nuclear War Now!) and its similarly named tracks. It’s reinforced by a guttural, terrifying sound evident right from opener ‘I’: a Funeral crawl through a barren, infested wasteland, with a harsh ambiance and dry, feral growls leading into a pacy, Death-infused barrage. Yet despite the furious onslaught of blast beats, the blood-curdling vocal scour and rumbling background fuzz retain the omen of apocalypse.Continue reading
Portal are one of the most important Death Metal bands in the world.
In a genre as conservative as Heavy Metal it is no surprise that lists of influential bands generally don’t go beyond a pre-approved set of “classics”, but Portal have earned their place among the Deaths and Morbid Angels. Over four albums and nearly fifteen years, they took Death Metal apart and reassembled the pieces into nightmarish, abstract shapes that for the first time managed to sound how the artwork looked. Like most innovators, it took time for their impact to sink in, but over the last few years they have – quite against their will, it seems – triggered a mini-trend of impersonators and left Death Metal in quite a different place than it was in 2013 when Vexovoid (Profound Lore), was released.Continue reading
Authentic static television on a television screen.
In which Richie HR dives into the maelstrom of abstract Metal, Noise and Ambient, and comes back up with something awful…Continue reading
