Dew-Scented – Intermination (2015)

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Having been called everything from thrash to death or melodic death metal, Dew-Scented play metalcore in its original inception, as inspired by At the Gates’ style on Slaughter of the Soul.  Everything from the simple drums which half of the time fall into variations of fast d-beats, catchy and short melodic ideas on the guitars with a tendency towards breakdowns for variety, to the blatant imitation of Tomas Lindberg. Being an heir to this tradition reviled by the fans of the old school styles and hailed as an improvement and distillation of the best aspects of the older music by the mainstream audience, Intermination invites a comparison with At the Gates’ come back album released last year, At War with Reality.

While the seminal band tried to bridge a gap between fans of its older and later styles by taking its metalcore-founding album and introducing more complex elements as visited in Terminal Spirit Disease and vaguely from With Fear I Kiss the Burning Darkness, thereby creating a middle-of-the-road offering that pleased neither group, Dew-Scented plant themselves solidly on the style developed in Slaughter of the Soul and part faithfully from there to create variations without bringing down the delicate and extremely constricted walls delimiting the definition of this minimalist, extreme pop genre.

Being the catchy, duple-time riff-fest that this genre is, Dew-Scented do a phenomenal job at creating solid, punching riffs which if not necessarily connect concretely with each other too well throughout a song (given the shock-oriented nature of this modern style), go a long way to maintain the drive of songs by switching and keeping the overall feel, avoiding the over-use of a particular riff. Without any ill-will towards this talented band, we must clarify that the album presents a very flat result, which is a necessary result of the definition of the genre as driven by impacting riffs and sonic shock tactics. The tight upholding of ideals of the genre in Dew-Scented’s hands, even with their carefully and appropriately crafted variations, becomes a hindrance in the context of a crippling genre.

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Blind Guardian – Beyond the Red Mirror (2015)

beyondtheredmirror

Compiling gestures from throughout legendary band Blind Guardian’s discography, Beyond the Red Mirror shows us a synthesis of their journey, bringing in their late 1980s style along with updates in the power and so-called symphonic metal up to the present state of affairs in said genres.  As such, this album’s strongest uniting element is the band’s own style, which lies in great part in the vocal approach of Hansi Kürsch. Apart from that, there is an evident diversity in the songwriting that ranges from the mediocre, to the best power metal from any period can offer. But it should be stressed that the consistency in style is still very strong and this along with the sober and talented songwriting skills of Blind Guardian lend a coherence to the music that set it on another level completely apart from the distracted music the vast majority of bands of its kind display. This is also something the band has improved on compared to its earlier albums where the anxiety to insert interludes bordered on gimmick instead of having them moderately and carefully contribute to the aura of the album.
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Withering Soul to release new album

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Withering Soul’s upcoming album, Adverse Portrait, was engineered and mixed by Chris Wisco at Belle City Sound, and mastered by Dennis Israel at Clintworks Audio. Cover art is by Pierre-Alain D of 3mmi Design. The album is due out June 9 via Mortal Music.

 

Tracklist:

 

  1. Vestige
  2. No Longer Within
  3. The Dreadful Echo
  4. Awakening
  5. Hour of Obstinacy
  6. Hex Illusion
  7. Shadow Path
  8. In Absence

 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqXkvueViQg

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Vehemence to release new full-length

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Following an entire decade without a new album, Phoenix-based melodic death metal band,Vehemence, return to full-time duty in 2015, having reactivated the band and completed their fourth full-length studio full-length, Forward Without Motion, which is now set for release this Autumn via Battleground Records.

 

Vehemence will release Forward Without Motion through Battleground Records on October 27th in various formats, including a 2xLP set on 180-gram black vinyl in gatefold packaging, a CD version, and across various digital platforms.

 

http://www.facebook.com/vehemenceofficial

http://soundcloud.com/vehemenceofficial

http://twitter.com/vehemenceaz

http://www.youtube.com/vehemenceband

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Xibalba release video for “Guerrilla”

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Protest deathcore band Xibalba have released a new video for their song “Guerrilla”. Playing an easy-to-understand style of heavy music for the masses, Xibalba find a strong audience among the disenfranchised members of the lower echelons of society looking for validation and a call to revolution by catering to their mental needs in their gang-themed revolution lyrics.

 

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Sadistic Metal Reviews 05-27-2015

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Sadistic Metal Reviews function as your goto list for albums that should be recycled as material for making more copies of actually good music, if that’s even possible. These releases deserve no better than to be piled up and flattened by a machine. They’re wasting space and resources on completely useless, half-assed art.

Ethereal – Opus Aethereum (2015)

Playing a pseudo-symphonic black metal, Ethereal play a speed metal blanketed by racing, blasting drums with no creativity at all. The blanket comes in the form of the synth special “orchestral” effects which outline melodies on top of the repetitive music which never builds up to anything. The emphasis of the music is on how fast and brutal it is alone, in the spirit of the gimmicks of Godflesh Apocalypse. There are a few beautiful moments here and there in the album and this is the sort of candy some people will latch on to, but as an integral music work, it is of extremely sparse quality.

Mellevon – Solace (2015)

Somehow trying to unite ambient, pop “metal” and deathcore, Mellevon embarrass themselves with this blatant attempt at making pseudo-progressive music, the modern misconception of what progressive music is. The songs are driven by groovy rhythms in power chords, alternated by single-string tremolos that are just the backbones for chords (as opposed to being motifs), with a synth outlining the Epica/Nightwish – like melodies with a modern cliche “prog” twist.

Opium Lord – Eye Of Earth (2015)

Your typical sludge-like experience, this band’s music goes nowhere. It all relies on one rhythm, one riff and the pushing of this sole element by upholding how “heavy” it is. Representing one of the most superficial genres, Opium Lord give us 7 tracks with 10 riffs that are “ultra-heavy”. Get ready to headbang, brainless potheads.

Saturnian Mist – Chaos Magick (2015)

Saturnian Mist play a cheap brand of alternative metal that tries very hard to be tough and to insert “extreme” elements to sound tougher. The whole attitude of this band seems to be based on that all too common sentiment of posing at being a tough kid. The songs follow a pop format, and are based on chords with screamed lyrics on top of them. Major impact is in the contrast of certain sections. Endings are just abrupt, the songs do not lead from one clear point to another, but are rather just very messy.

Svärta – Sepultus (2015)

Ah, the black metal stereotype of flat-dynamics throughout a song have lead so many astray. With the idea tha black metal consists only on flat and intense sound repeated ad nauseam without any other aim than “Creatng atmosphere”, Svärta gives the world yet another bland modern black metal album. This band at least has the sense to be relatively consistent and they try to bring riffs back, or their main ideas at least. The lacking vision shows most clearly when they insert sections with no drums and clean guitar strums out of the blue with little relation to the rest of the song in order to create the cliche anti-climax that the unimaginative minds can summon as their only proposition.

Cold Cell – Lowlife (2015)

More pseudo black metal from the modern sludge crowd with post-metal tendencies. They try to “improve” on black metal by bringing in more clean picked chords, inserting more blank spaces in the music and forcing variety on songs. Not the kind of variety that is linked strongly within a song through different musical dimensions, but the kind of variety that results from not fucking knowing what to write and so being forced to insert whatever comes into your mind. This is not creativity, this is mediocrity.

Nightwish – Forms Most Beautiful (2015)

Representing the cheapest moves by the so-called symphonic metal bands, Nightwish makes songs with long, varied intros that vary from straight-up pop flares to the modern pseudo-prog groovy intros. Do not let anything here fool you, this is is just simple and low-quality pop music with catchy leads. The entire value fans of this music give it is reduced t “nice melodies”. It’s insulting that these people even want to sell themselves as metal. This is pop music, accept it once and for all and put all these candy-rock pop in the shelf next to Miley Cyrus.

Profezia – Black Misanthropic Elite – Moon Anthem (2015)

More intense, low-fi black metal that does nothing but ride a riff and repeat it until the band feels it has filled enough minutes. Combine this with slower tracks to create variety and you have more repetitive songs that try very hard at the same trope of “creating atmosphere” by virtue of their repetition. This is as tiring on its own as it is as a result of having heard this approach by countless other mediocre bands.

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Classical String Quartets for the death metal fan, fourth edition

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Today, we’ll visit string quartets from both the Romantic and Modernist eras. The purpose is to give continuity to the line started in the first few articles. We visited Beethoven and Shostakovich, then Mozart and Bartók, and for the last time we visited the respected teachers Haydn and Schoenberg. This time we visit one of the the Romantic heirs to the Beethovenian tradition, the writer of music with a very private character, Schubert, and the genius serialist composer Webern, one of the most (if not the most) outstanding students of Schoenberg.

 

Franz Schubert: String Quartet no. 14, Der Tod und das Mädchen

This quartet is dubbed after an earlier lied of the same name, whose main theme Schubert used as the theme for the the second movement of this string quartet.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jlzv1yUFo-A

 

Anton Webern: 5 Sätze für Streichquartett op.5 (5 movements for string quartet)

It is a common misconception that serialism is a more mechanical method of composition, because it s a method. While some (including myself) believe it is an unnatural (contrary to the Common Practice Period notions) method contradicting the physics of frequencies, it is, apart from that fact, as much of a valid and constrictive method as any other. No more, no less. It just follows a different set of rules. And because it is counter-intuitive for people unaccustomed  to it, compositions with this method may well prove to be even more demanding by virtue of this lack of familiarity the general public has with it – it has harder to make something that makes any sense for the human ear. In my humble opinion, the dependency on an ethereal pulse becomes paramount in this type of music.

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Desolate Pathway announce Sorrows Path guitarist to guest on new album

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UK epic doom metal band Desolate Pathway are delighted to announce a guest guitarist for their upcoming album: none other than Kostas Salomidis of Greek stalwarts Sorrows Path.

Guitarist Vince Hempstead commented:

We would like to announce with honour that Kostas Salomidis from the amazing Greek Doom band Sorrows Path has recorded 2 guest guitar solos for our 2nd album planned for early 2016. Last week, Kostas recorded the guitar solos at Fragile Studios in Athens with producer Vangelis Yalamas, and the results are amazing. A great way to connect with our Greek mythology-based new recordings.

 

The band are also due to hit the road several times this year. Dates are as follows:

  • Jun 18th: The Cave, Addlestone, Surrey, w/ Hagstone & Famyne
  • Aug 29th: Power and Glory Festival, Hatfield w/ Stampede, Savage, Martyr, Sacrilege, Lord Volture, Toledo Steel, Salem, Dealer and more
  • Aug 30th: The Carlisle, Hastings, w/ Lord Volture & Toledo Steel
  • Sept 19th: The Carlisle, Hastings w/ Famyne
  • Oct 31st: Fest of Hades, Wakefield w/ Hamerex, Kaine, Aonia, Promethium and more.
  • Nov 13th: The Haunt, Brighton, w/ Temperance, Seventh Sin & Proscenium*
  • Nov 14th: The Anvil, Bournemouth, w/ Ded Orse, Bitter Divide & Seventh Sin*
  • Nov 28th: The Unicorn, London w/ Sir Admiral Cloudesley Shovell

* A Black Phoenix Rising Promotions special

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King Heavy to release self-titled debut

kingheavy

 

Chilean / Belgian band King Heavy is set to release its self-titled debut full length on September 4 in Europe and September 19 in the U.S. King Heavy was formed in 2009 by ex-Procession founder Daniel Perez Saa and Luce Vee, known for being the vocalist of Dutch Doom Metal act Hooded Priest. Shortly thereafter guitarist Matias Aguirre and drummer Miguel Canessa were added to the line up and in 2014 the bandself-released an EP entitled Horror Absoluto, which was later repressed on split-vinyl by French label Emanes Records.

 

Track List:

  1. La Gárgola
  2. Life A.D.
  3. As Dawn Broke On The Day
  4. Thirteen Chosen Ones
  5. Wounds
  6. The Crowning
  7. He Who Spoke In Tongues

https://www.facebook.com/kingheavydoom

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