Desecration Rites – Hallowed Depravity
As if poisonous arachnoids had woven a sticky web around a hermit of the desolate Pampas, the multitude of savage Angelcorpsean riffs blasts from Desecration Rites’ rehearsal room with hardly any control or structure for the confounded listener to immerse in. The Argentinian blackened death duo did not have the time to execute all matters properly here because of unfortunate circumstances, and it shows in the deprecated, spastic rhythm of machine, the hysterical frequency and bouts of unclean guitar work all over the place. If something is keeping these dogs of sequences under leash, it is the deep, rumbling voice of Wolf intoning Faustian misery from the bottomless depths of darkness, occasionally unwinding power lines of similar effect to Craig Pillard’s majestic demon voice in the eternally classic “Onward to Golgotha”. For the modern death metal fan expecting a digitized, synthetic robot surgery there is probably no more horrific sight than this deluge of an album, but internally it is far more hypnotic, intricate and deadly than one could hope for. Just listen to the freezing pseudo-Nordic moments of “Death Sentence to an Agonizing World” or the ethereal, solar and jarring interlude of “Carnal Dictum” and you might just get a slight moment of hope in the future generations after all.
This British debutant lets loose the heathen wolves of war with a triumphant fanfare akin to Vlad Tepes’ famous “Wladimir’s March” before leading us to a journey of mountainous black metal landscapes, Graveland-esque meditations, ancient English fire-lit caves and Zoroastrian philosophy. The same sort of extended pagan tremolo epics (18 minutes of length at worst) that made countrymen Forefather and Wodensthrone veritable trials to sit through are pretty close at hand here, but the sparkling energy of youth helps a lot; there is a wildness and intrigue that contributes variation in sense even when there is none in content. Much of the logic of the songs seems to be emotionally stringing disparate sequences into a journey or a fictional narrative, which is essentially never a bad choice but some of the material here could be cut off to be brutally honest. Sound quality is the pseudo-spatial vacuum of too much reverb common for demo-level bands, but the instruments are clearly audible and the mid-rangeness is efficaceous. Unmoving and halfhearted chants and throwaway happy riffs are the blight of heathen metal, but Lord Revenant possesses sufficient pathos to allude to traces of occult evil and memories of ancient war at the same time; while this effort is not enough to coin him as a master of British metal, it would be a disappointment to hear these same songs performed by a more professional, disinterested voice in the future, or see him disappear without a trace after such a promising start.
Into Oblivion – Creation of a Monolith
More than one and a half hours of harsh, pummelling death metal is neither a mean feat to compose nor to listen. As if Wagner, Brahms or even Stravinskij decided in the otherworld that these wimpy rock/metal kids have had it too easy and possessed various souls to spend hundreds of nights writing progressive Romantic/Faustian death metal partitures, 20+ minute pieces such as the title track or “On the Throne’s Heavenward” lumber and crush with such interminable weight that it is hard to not feel like attacked by a divine hammer from above as designed by Gustave Doré. You can forget about them mosh parts, since this is material about as brainy as anything by Atheist, with slow-moving adagios and creeping crescendos more familiar from Brian Eno’s ambient music or Esoteric’s hypno-doom than anything in satanic metal realm. Vocals are sparse and it feels like about a half of the album is purely instrumental and this creates a strange calm suspension which might even feel uncomfortable; but compared to The Chasm’s mastery of technique, it still does feel like an essential emotional counterpoint or rhythmic pulse bestowing element is missing, and when the cruel vocals suddenly rip the air, it might even be perceived as a disturbance to the solemn atmosphere. Nevertheless, it is probable that they are going for exactly this synthesis of the intellectual and the primal; the emotional and the physical. So fortress-like, rational, calm and measured that it is hard to connect its spirituality with its death metal origins (even the previous Into Oblivion release), it is certainly an important statement while the cumbersome nature and certain academicism in construction (perhaps “filler” in metal language, the problem of the previous album as well) makes it a bit of an unlikely candidate for casual listening. Anyone interested in the future of Death Metal cannot afford to miss it, though.
Heirs to the bludgeoning power of Escabios and other ancient compatriots, this recent Argentinian sect wastes no time with progressive anthems, intros nor filler in this concise EP of Autopsy influenced memoirs of early 90’s scathing death metal savagery. If the band has capacity for a challenging composition or a range of emotion, it’s all but hidden in this conflict of vulgar and intense demo taped riffs that could originate on any scummy cassette dug up from your older brother’s cardboard box vaults. Even most crustcore bands could hardly resist the temptation to fill the gaps out with something more liberal, but I am glad Bloodfiend do not resort to any loose pauses in their old school attack. The band is not yet quite there in the top ranks of death metal resurgence, but possess more than their share of contagious energy that will make for a good live experience and raise hopes for a more dynamic album.
Exylum – Blood for the Ancients
Brutal death metal cliches abound but also tasteful dashes of improvisational riff integration as California youth Exylum strike from the bottomless depths with a manifest of fragmented ideas like old Cannibal Corpse, Finnish death metal and newer black metal in a blender. Weird effected voices cackle, pinch harmonics abound, chugging is all but industrial metal, drumming provides a solid backbone and the ululation of the lead guitar harmonic reaches a hysterical plane of existence when the band lets go of identity expectations and go ballistic as in the end of “Worshiping the Flesh Eating Flies”. The worst thing on this demo is the tendency to fill space with something simple and stupid like the endless low tuned one note rhythmic hammering towards the end of the title track. When the band is in a more chaotic mode, as in the older recording “Ritual Crucifixion”, the confusion serves to imbue the composition with more blood and action.
As persistence is the key to cosmic victory, it’s gratifying to see that this recent Californian cluster is not giving up in their quest to build a maiming death metal experience which was approached with streamlined Bolt Thrower and Cannibal Corpse tendencies in their last year’s EP. First threatening edges noted by the listener here are their improved musicianship with plenty of rhythmically aware palm-muting and tremolo NY style rhythm guitar riffs interlocking like the paths of ferocious large insects on flight while in the new drummer Kendric DiStefano they have a redeemer from the abhorrent pit of drum machine grind, even though his style tends to approach the robotic at times. The moments where this EP shines is when the brutal backbone operates at the behest of melody conjured by the leads of Mike Flory and Daniel Austi, such as the gripping mid-section of “Exit Wounds” and the Nile-ish mad arab string conjuration in “Litany of Blood”. I’m still reluctant to call this a total winner because there’s a lot of random chugging around as in generic bands from Six Feet Under to Hypocrisy, but there are also subtle technical flourishes such as the lightly arpeggiated bridge in “War Machine” that still keeps me liking this band and following its movements.
Filed under: Death Metal Music Reviews — Tags: Apocalypse, Argentinian Death Metal, Black Metal, Brutal Death Metal, Canadian Death Metal, Classical, Death Metal, Death Metal Demos, Occultism, Paganism, Philosophy, Romanticism, Technical Death Metal — Devamitra @ December 16, 2010 23:32 — Comments (3)
For the true disciples of our thanatical religion, Gothenburg exists in the shadow of Stockholm as a spirtual centre for Death Metal; the latter being associated with the nobley barbaric masterpieces of Dismember, Therion, Necrophobic and their Sunlight Studio-powered comrades, while on the opposite coast, the city of Göteborg managed to establish itself as a breeding ground for faggots, feminists and pop musicians to collaborate on what has become one of the most abhorrent and effete styles of the genre. By eliminating the primal sensory and cerebral patterns by which Death Metal defines itself in order to communicate horror-tinged revelations through dead eyes, the Melodic Death Metal sound of Gothenburg relies on a few aesthetic reminders to bestow the illusion of being musically relevant, while remaining based entirely on the harmonic and rhythmic interplay of Iron Maiden, serving as the melodic ‘antitode’ to the chaos of Death Metal, or rather, a cheap excuse not to engage with it and instead delude the mind with pleasant riffs of insignificance that form the basis of roadkill which the most recent incarnations of this style along with metalcore and other forms of rock music that can trace their influences back to early 90′s Sweden all resemble.
Prior to this great epidemic of weakness that has not since ceased, the power of harmony in Death Metal music was becoming integral to the compositional framework of important bands, adding to a melodic lexicon established by the disharmonic experiments of Slayer, Morbid Angel and even Darkthrone albums, moving from traditional riffing to an almost contrapuntal sense of melodic tremelo style in ‘Soulside Journey‘. Atheist’s apex of fusion music, ‘Unquestionable Presence‘, handled Jazz harmony competently within Death Metal epics and back in Gothenburg, At The Gates were synthesising Atheist’s complexity with what began in Stockholm as Dismember and Unanimated‘s more Classically-aware debuts. This incessant emphasis on melodic development would see Finnish neighbours Sentenced refining the use of harmony with their ‘North From Here‘ album that rendered Iron Maiden technically obsolete, and following in Taneli Jarva and co.’s footsteps came Dark Tranquility, representing perhaps the last great height of this scene before Melodic Death Metal subsequently descended towards the cheap and childish music it became. That’s not to say ‘Skydancer’ didn’t verge on the edge of wimpish territory, as this album alongside At The Gates’ ‘With Fear I Kiss the Burning Darkness‘ could probably be described as the Phyrrhic victories of Melodeath (mellow Death), opening the therapist’s door to concepts like ‘hurt’, ‘loneliness’ and a general sense of agnostic and angst-ridden confusion. Nevertheless, what we’re dealing with in an album like ‘Skydancer’ extends far beyond the broken human spirit, reaching into both the depths of the cosmos and the self to find the same, ultimate source of power.
Where At The Gates’ seminal masterpiece, ‘The Red in the Sky is Ours’ was an autonomous quest for spiritual awareness from out of the ruins of Christianity, painted in all it’s pain, struggle and disharmony, Dark Tranquility’s ambitious sophomore effort exalts the harmony of nature as the goal of union for the human soul, the spiritual imperative of a ‘Skydancer’. The album is built around this ideal in relation to the darkness of modern reality that makes the beauty of the natural world seem like it only exists in a fantasy, and the experiments with harmony and counterpoint represent the voices of the real and ideal in a kick-drum punctuated dialogue. The highly courageous ‘Shadow Duet‘ takes this even further, using two vocal personifications of this theme to battle out in an aggressive, almost Grecian discourse. The riffing style, drawing equally from Scandinavian folk motifs and Baroque melodic interplay is reminiscent of the Romantic composers’ desire to create a holistic music that united the earthy folk tradition with the transcendental heights of Classical music. In the same way that Varg took Paganism away from the neo-Pagans and revealed the underlying Essence of what is usually otherwise depicted as a quaint and obsolete mythology of demigods, the mystical Paganism of Niklas Sundin is totally panentheistic in nature, where transcendence equals the ‘communion with the Oversoul of the universe’. The weak link lyrically, is Mikael Stanne who lacks this dimension, although his nationalistic references add another Romantic flavour to the album. Another In Flames member, Anders Friden, provides the vocal work, which sounds quite drunken and doesn’t meet the demanding lyrical placements within the songs. The yearning in the voice of a Tomas Lindberg is totally absent where the lighter, but still highly emotional melodic guitar work not distorted by discordant riffs would have complimented it very well. On a similar vocal note, the addition of clean vocals (the male singer is very bad) were totally unnecessary but it seems like even at this stage in their career, the band needs to make certain thematic elements and contrasts unbearably obvious, which is why a discriminating listener will stick to this album and not bother with the subsequent exhibitions. Bassist Henriksson draws no such complaints, accompanying the guitarwork to provide a deeper foundation for the melodic development, as expressive as the two other guitarists, adapting the sound to slower, heavier or tremelo riffing.
‘Skydancer’ is often the subject of complaints for it’s relentless flux of melody like an amphetamine-influenced violin concerto but this is not an unfocused, Liers in Wait experiment in seeking the limits of riffcraft. The compressed but pregnant structures bring the listener to focus on the narrative of the melodies and truly experience the restlessness of this spiritual life, rather than just passively drool at the ear-pleasing harmonies and other musical sensations as the success of Melodic Death Metal would later rely on. Hail to this once great band, so full of youthful ambition to widen the musical palette of Death Metal without resorting to cheap gimmicks but exploring the polar opposite of colour and texture in order to see the beauty of the cosmos through the symbiotic language of the Divine.
My yearning to be part
of nature’s truthful solitude
Of wisdom’s inner light
that shines in mystic multitude
The guiding source within,
so few of us will ever know
And few will ever climb
the great world-tree from which we’ve grown
But those who seek will find
the rhythm that vibrates high and far
And rearrange the cosmic threads,
the pattern of the Weave of Stars
The difficulty of maintaining a sense of brutality by balancing folkish melody with Death Metal’s deconstructionist tendencies is undoubtedly the reason behind the scarcity of such albums as this rare Danish classic that’s now enthroned within the golden halls inhabited by the likes of Unleashed and the previously hailed Asgard, as warriors of Viking Death Metal. Deriving their sound largely from the Swedish scene which housed the former band, Dominus additionally colour their music with the ancient, melodic sentiment of the memorable French beserkers, resulting in an album that sounds like ‘To a Golden Age’ as composed by Entombed from the ‘Clandestine‘ era. Steadily chugging riffs accompanied by a Bolt Thrower style of rolling percussion do battle with bouncy, highly pronounced rhythms in the manner of both Entombed and Seance, from which ominous shades of folk melodies emerge, initially encoded within the nihilistic rhythmic patterns, gradually becoming more independent as the album progresses, highlighting the journey of warriors and their struggles sanctioned by the gods, which reveal to man the true scope of his existence, within the continuum of cosmic action. Avoid all further output by and incarnations of Dominus, so that the memory of this carefully orchestrated saga stands proud over countless, unspeakable populist horrors.
Now as we ride in iron and steel
We know that this is the land of eternity