Reaction to Chicago trio Locrian has often been mixed: their melody-infused, Black-edged expression offending as many purists as it delights fans of obsidian innovation. Latest album Infinite Dissolution (Relapse) initially continues that progressive sound with opener ‘Arc of Extinction’ possessing the kind of introductory swell perfected by the likes of Yes and Pink Floyd. The blackened horror soon emerges, however: Terence Hannum’s rasps exploding against the sudden quickening of pace, André Foisy’s Post-black leads “bipping” furiously over a hissing cacophony à la fellow US dark experimentalists Liturgy.
The ensuing ‘Dark Shales’ begins with melancholic twangs, ethereal airs coating muffled tub-thumping, and some emotive soloing from Foisy. Here it becomes clear that Locrian has evolved from its nebulous indecision into a talented outfit, determined to parade all of their influences. ‘…Shales’ truly evokes grey, wash-battered stone beaches yet marries them to an odyssey through space, delicately yet with latent power. The first of the ‘KXL’ trilogy, meanwhile, incorporates industrial sampling into its mournful yet spiky melodies before squalling, ominous feedback reintroduces the band’s edge: a bitterness which infuses the spacier, grandiose parts of the second movement’s eerie, orchestral keys.
Symphonics play a subtle yet important role in Infinite Dissolution’s character. Lush Moogs, at times cosmic, at others Numan-esque, quell the van Eeckhout-style vocal agonies of ‘The Future of Death’. The swelling atmospherics of album centrepiece ‘An Index of Air’ ascend to frostbitten roars and a frenetic gallop, soulful harmonies climaxing the epitome of superior quality, inventive, melodic Black metal.
There are imperfections – it takes time for the pulsing rush of ‘The Great Dying’ to kick in but the heart is eventually piqued; the over-gentle rhythms and electronica of ‘Heavy Water’, meanwhile, are enlivened by the odd venture into harsher territory and more cold, “post” guitar. The main issue here is that the band still fall between two huge stools: still too soft and whimsical for pure Black hearts; whilst possessing too many harsh interludes for fans of melodious Rock.
Infinite Dissolution, however, is arguably the band’s strongest to date: a stirring, inventive work that will undoubtedly win Locrian much admiration.
The jury seems to be out on reunited Floridian brutalisers Maruta. First album Forward into Regression (Willowtip) split those who love the energy and crossover of Grind and Metalcore; and those holding the belief that they are a generic, wholly unoriginal band, whose infection of their sound with the latter, much-maligned sub-genre is nought shy of sinful.
In truth there’s more of a chaotic, technically infused Deathcore meets Dillinger Escape Plan about follow-up Remain Dystopian (Relapse); the ferocious staccato of opener ‘Genocide Interval’ involving feverish fretboard work and the twisting, blistering tempos of the rhythm section. The ensuing ‘Hope Smasher’ sees more frantic guitar compete for direction, with drums turning from rapid blastbeats to thunderous groove pounding, Mitchell Luna’s vocals veering between guttural growls and ‘core style screams.
Those jazzy string flurries, reminiscent of Captain Beefheart but with added ferocity, both confuse and thrill, not least in the brief, throttled lead of ‘Minimal Progress’. The sinister, teeth-rattling drops into nothingness of the Tomas Lindberg-graced ‘Stride Endlessly Through Scorched Earth’ is however, one of the rare departures from a delightfully angry but, in its early stages, unflinching set, whilst, of course, enabling those of us who enjoy imitating an epileptic fit when moshing to thoroughly express themselves.
This is also, as the album progresses, much more memorable than many other such efforts due to the creeping influence of other areas of metal: the gravity of the Doom-laden ‘Erode’ and ‘Return to Zero’ being prime examples, the ominous feel sticking like glue to your brain. Largely a pulverising half-hour of primal scream, however, the mix of varying styles is more fully exhibited in the rapid yet resonant pulse of the head-caving ‘Psalm for the Withered’, a track surely to be exploited to the full in a live setting.
Seething with a fulminating ire, yet showing unexpected versatility, there’s enough here to suggest Maruta may stick in the minds this time. If you’re pissed off with parents and / or bullies, but don’t want an ignominious revenge to stick you on the front pages, exercise your frustration with these guys instead.
Maruta is streaming their music video for “Hope Smasher,” off of their forthcoming album Remain Dystopian, out June 2nd in North America, May 29th in Germany, Benelux and Finland, and June 1st in the UK and elsewhere via Relapse. The band will be throwing a record release show on June 6th at Chruchill’s Pub in Miami, FL with Orbweaver and Sacridose.
When Royal Thunderappeared on the scene a few years ago, there was much hype and early praise for the band. It was a well deserved frenzy of high-profile tours and fests that made them a “buzz band”. You had to stand back and marvel at their music; unafraid to take tried and true elements of rock, blues, and proto-metal and not fall to into the cliches so many others do. Then an interesting thing happened on the way to album number two: coping with being band growing up under a microscope, and the implosion of a relationship within the band. Rather than crumble apart or mail it in for Crooked Doors (Relapse), you have the emotional maelstrom of a finished masterpiece.
Don’t be fooled by the beautifully picked guitars and dolefulness of ‘Time Machine’, the lead track of the album. What ‘Time Machine’ has done by starting with the direct rock approach and almost four-on-the-floor beat is a clever device to lull you in. After the verse, chorus, verse of the first few minutes you are left with transformative middle passage not unlike classic Pink Floyd that doesn’t prepare you for the anguish to come. It’s not about feeling sorry for oneself either. The remainder of the song is a triumph of pained, passionate vocals and wah-soaked guitar leads.
The supremely heavy ‘Forget You’ is more in the style you are accustomed to if you have followed the band from the beginning. Vocalist Mlny Parsonz shows off her range and advanced harmony vocals. She can deliver a bruised, bluesy line with the best of them, including the final refrain of “you better run for your life”. The bands has really learned how to build drama musically to unbearable levels. Guitarists Josh Weaver and Will Fiore weave parts in and out of each other, adding layers upon layers of motifs, adding to the tracks without ever sacrificing the heaviness. ‘Wake Up’ is another track steeped in dynamics and killer performances. Drummer Evan DiPrima is a silent assassin behind the kit. He never over-plays, but has equal moments of bombast and grace. Musically the DNA of this album is similar to the leap in maturity seen by a Mastodon, Baroness or Kylesa over the years, with the members of Royal Thunder knowing just how to transmute their songcraft into something new without ever feeling forced.
There are no throw away songs on this album, and every track rewards with repeated listens. From the dusky vocal lines and neat rhythms on ‘Forgive Me, Karma’, the rough cadences of ‘The Line’, to the classic “Desert Rock” charm of ‘Glow’; each song is an exploration to an inner-space of the bands’ resolute psyche. ‘Ear On The Fool’ is Crooked Doors‘ pièce de résistance. Almost tear rendering, anyone who has ever lost the “love of their life” and lived to tell about it, this track has your name all over it. The track also has the late era-Zeppelin vibe mixed with some of the better guitar interplay of a band like TheEagles down pat.
Closing out the album with the ‘The Bear I’ and ‘The Bear II’, they are less like the prog epic you might have imagined, and more like a funerary march, melting into a torch song. Crooked Doors is the sound of pressure cooking sand into glass and then into diamonds, all with with an alchemy fulled by magic and loss.
When Chicago, Illinois natives Minsk threw in the towel in 2011 there was widespread disappointment in underground circles that such a well-admired and hardworking band had decided to call it quits. Thankfully the split turned out to be a mere mini-hiatus, with a reformation in 2013, a few changes in personnel and now new record The Crash and the Draw (Relapse) for our delectation. Minsk sound as if the break has done them the world of good, for they have recorded one of the finest post/sludge metal albums you are likely to hear all year.
Always a band to take their time, Minsk are all about the slow build and release with plenty of emphasis on mood and atmosphere, whilst never afraid to use aggression and visceral riff-power to remind us that they are a metal band at heart. The music comes wrapped in a smoky, dreamlike haze that is of a far darker hue than your average doom band, whilst the frequent forays into tribal rhythms hint at a more primal vision. Opening track ‘To The Initiate’ is a snapshot of every aspect of the band’s sound, from the vague, meandering intro, tumultuous mid-section and pounding riffs that close proceedings.
At seventy-five minutes, The Crash and the Draw is a very long affair and the early part of the album, particularly the lumbering four-part epic ‘Onward Procession I-IV’ should have been trimmed. However, what follows is a masterclass in chin-stroking, murky post-metal which reveals more with each lesson. Shorter instrumental tracks such as the gorgeous ambient of ‘Conjunction’ and the sinister percussion of ‘To You There Is No End’ act as perfect flagpoles amid the crushing hypnotic riffs and flowing melodies of compositions such as the magnificent ‘When The Walls Fell.’
Bassist turned producer extraordinaire Sandford Parker does an exemplary job behind the desk, popping up from time to time with his trademark buzzing synths while 4/5s of the band contribute vocals, further adding to the tribal, multi-layered atmosphere.
A fantastic comeback record from a band that is yet to put a foot wrong.
In the beginning there was Black Sabbath. There was also Bedemon, but no one knew of them. And the world of Doom went about its business, for Bedemon were not the droids that were being looked for. Yet, the world of Doom was to realize its mistake and to come to know and love those that created the Bedemon, for their line up boasted none other than Pentagram’s Bobby Liebling, Geof O’Keefe and occasional member Randy Palmer. So, it all worked out alright in the end. Certainly better than it did for the Stormtroopers.
Child of Darkness is a collection of demos and recordings the band made in the early 70’s, remastered and reissued by Relapse. It will surprise none to learn that this collection of proto-metal tunes is very close in sound and style to the works of the aforementioned infamous forefathers, though with tunes bluesier and less riff based, and with Liebling’s a cleaner tone to Ozzy’s.
Whether you see this as a curio or an essential purchase will depend on how deep your love of Doom is, and how interested you are tracing the lineage, as this line up (in this guise) and this collection of songs didn’t see the light of day until 2005, other than odd tracks on mythical bootleg records and tapes.
Even though this suffers in places from poor source audio quality (some of the tracks are notably warped or distorted), that doesn’t detract from the overall experience, and in fact, enhances the feeling of authenticity; overdriven dark blues that would form the basis of an entire genre a generation later. The simple but oh-so-effective laid back groove of ‘One-Way Road’ is a three minute template for desert rock and on the more considered ‘Into The Grave’ you can hear the origins of the sounds that would inspire and drive Monster Magnet.
Child of Darkness is a collection of good, dark and heavy bluesy proto-metal tunes from talented musicians who, while not having the same global impact as Sabbath, would nonetheless go on to make an indelible mark in the history of this beautifully ugly mutant we call metal.
Obliteration bring their deranged Autopsy-isms to the UK’s capital on 6th March 2015 at The Unicorn, Camden.
In 2013 the Norwegian Death Me(n)talists spewed forth the promising Black Death Horizon (Indie/Relapse), their third album, while support comes from rising British Death Metal outfit Sheol, whoappear ahead of performances at Wolf Throne and Inferno festivals.
The event is being promoted by Chimpy Fest and entry is free. Opening proceedings is Slow Plague.
…And so we continue with our countdown of the Official Ghost Cult Top 50 Metal releases of 2014 by bringing you Albums 15 to 11. As we get closer the top, the sheer unadulterated quality of the albums covered is astounding, and every one of our Top 20 should proudly sit in your collection already. And if it doesn’t, you should get investigating immediately…
15. GODFLESH – A World Lit Only By Fire (Avalanche)
Joining the growing list of bands who have returned from a leave of recording absence in style, Justin Broadrick resumes where he left off thirteen years ago, delivering dissonant, nihilistic, industrial cold post-metal. Innovators and leaders to a previous generation of bands, Godflesh returns with metallic precision and destructive poundings.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PqXB-u4j04
“The crushing landscapes of Streetcleaner (Earache) are recalled in the merciless dehumanised beats yet the harshness of the eight string guitar has taken this unforgiving creation an even blacker more disturbing feel. The momentum never lags throughout this fearsome monolith feeling urgent and vital throughout. It may be their first full length in thirteen years but every fibre of the bands DNA has mutated into an even more virulent strain of post-Sabbath paranoia whose icy claws cannot be escaped.”
Extreme doom has never been in a healthier or more prolific state, and is a scene with a surfeit of reeking repugnancy spread over a growing horde of performers. Oozing themselves to the very peak of the sludge mountain is Chicago’s Indian, with a release that tests the very limits of just how hideous a piece of music can be and still be appreciated. Essential art, manifested as abhorrent compositions.
“Over the course of 39 harrowing minutes, Indian attempt to batter the listener into submission with a ceaseless barrage of spiky sludge riffs that aren’t afraid to repeat themselves to make their point well and truly felt, percussion that hits as hard as a drunken preacher taking his belt to a cowering sinner, horrible harsh droning noises that sound like a possessed radio broadcasting live from Chernobyl, and all topped off with Will Lindsay’s throat-shredding howls and screeches.”
On Heritage, Mikael Åkerfeldt led his Swedes away from a technical Death Metal past towards the Prog Rock light. With Pale Communion, transition completed, he perfects the marriage of Opeth and their new slant, constructing a beautiful, reflective, warm and overwhelmingly natural album that speaks in an altered, more progressively refined tongue to the previous voices of Opeth.
“Fast forward three years and Pale Communion is, in many ways a continuation of such a direction, but one that see’s Mikael’s uncompromising view drawing more clearly into focus. Harking back again to the late 60s and early 70s this eleventh studio opus features fluid dexterous drum patterns, moody distorted organ work and another all clean and highly proficient performance in the vocal department. Where Heritage felt somewhat disjointed on occasion Pale Communion is richly woven into a tapestry of ornate and complex elements rather than flitting from one genre to the next.”
Like one of their own dark, weighty epics, Yob’s career is slowly unfurling, opening out as expansive riffs draw out of the dark, and slab-heavy tones meld Post and Doom Metal. Yob’s previous two albums, in particular, have been preparation for this career defining opus, where the permutations of delicate beauty and unsubtle heavyweight guitars are woven skilfully.
“Clearing the Path to Ascend begins by showing a return to the inventive aspects of …Cessation with a gently repetitive chords, and mellifluous tones riding a colossal riffs that move with the speed of a tortoise. All four tracks far exceed the ten-minute mark yet none here exceed their welcome. Combining the best aspects of the band’s aforementioned last albums this is a perfect blend of weight, hostility, melody and ecstasy, and will need many plays to yield its full array of splendour.”
While predecessor Path of Totality (fortunately not a dub-step album, like Korn’s of the same name)) was a great album in its own right, it is in 2014 that songwriter Mike Hill, backed by a crystalline production by Erik Rutan, has finalised the blueprint of how to merge granite flecked post-Metal with rusted Black Metal, bathing us all in cold, exacting, current, intelligent and hostile extreme music, where the caustic overwhelms.
“Savage Gold, the third album from Brooklyn quartet Tombs, is certainly no easy listen. Since their debut release Winter Hours in 2009, the band have attempted to show just how black and post-metal should go together and once again stand head and shoulders above the competition, for Savage Gold is a triumph in visceral aggression and brooding atmospherics.”
Publicist UK, featuring Dave Witte (drums – Municipal Waste), Brett Bamberger (bass – Revocation), David Obuchowski (guitars – Goes Cube) and Zachary Lipez (vocals – Freshkills), have confirmed their debut release of a 7″ limited edition single, Original Demo Recordings.
The single features the songs ‘Slow Dancing To This Bitter Earth” and “Never Gone To School”, and will be released by Static Tension Recordings on 17 February 2015.
Most surprisingly, considering the day jobs of some of the members, there is nary a hint of distortion in the sound, with Publicist UK plying a Death Rock trade with strong Goth and Indie influences.
The band had never actually met prior to forming, nor had, apparently, discussed direction before writing the songs which will make up their as yet untitled debut album, released on Relapse in the Spring of 2015, with further details being announced in the new year.
The countdown to the Official Ghost Cult Magazine Album of the Year for 2014 continues. Please consume and enjoy the results of our 2014 Writers’ Poll. We hope it will introduce you to some of the incredible works of art you may have missed that we have had the immense pleasure of listening to and writing about this year.
In our third installment we bring you albums 30 through to 21
30. CASUALTIES OF COOL – Casualties Of Cool (Pledge/HevyDevy)
“Casualties of Cool is an intriguing experiment from a man who excels in making left-field music. Go in expecting massive a prog-metal exercise will only lead to disappointment, but having an open mind will result in a rewarding experience” DAN SWINHOE 8/10 Full review here
29. ANATHEMA – Distant Satellites (KScope)
“One of our world’s most understated bands, despite the plaudits they get, Anathema have once again showcased their knack for penning both forward thinking and emotionally driven music which oozes real human character and sentimentality”. CHRIS TIPPELL 9/10 Full review here
28. DOWN – IV (Part II) (Down Records)
“When we look back on this part of their career, we will likely understand that these are less like regular EPs that other bands release, and much more like a mini-opus, in pieces. Down clearly realizes their collective vision, no matter who is in the lineup, every time”. KEITH ‘KEEFY’ CHACHKES 9.5/10 Full review here
27. VALLENFYRE – Splinters (Century Media)
“Sadistic and aggressive with endless moments of bleak reflection Splinters is a leviathan unleashed upon unsuspecting listeners and a release surely destined to grace many year end lists” ROSS BAKER 9/10 Full review here
26. AGALLOCH – “The Serpent and the Sphere” (Profound Lore)
Like a massive-antlered stag glimpsed amidst a wintry landscape, breathtaking, elusive and hard to pin down, The Serpent and the Sphere looks set to continue their elegant and ever-evolving legacy JAMES CONWAY 9/10 Full review here
25. THOU – Heathen (Gilead Media)
“A storm manifest as a piece of music, as devastating as it is awe-inspiring, Heathen is varied and compelling for the entire runtime”. TOM SAUNDERS 9/10 Full review here
24. septicflesh – Titan (Season of Mist)
“Sharp, buzzing riffs and symphonic keys, strength and brutality amongst moments of pomp and beauty, bloody entertaining and another show of form” PAUL QUINN 8.5/10 Full review here
23. PYRRHON – The Mother of Virtues (Relapse)
“The Mother Of Virtues doesn’t just challenge what is “extreme”, but calls into question whether some of what is produced is actually even music. Completely and utterly impenetrable, and exceptional with it”. STEVE TOVEY 9.5/10 Full review here
“Eyehategod continue to age like a good whiskey, seeming to improve as time goes by, but by no means losing their sting”. CHRIS TIPPELL 9/10 Full review here
21. ALCEST – Shelter (Prophecy)
“Shedding the last vestiges of metal, let-alone any lingering black metal leanings, a captivating and stunning piece of music poured straight from the heart”. JAMES CONWAY 9/10 Full review here
