Sadistic Metal Reviews: Metal as a Service (Mucho, Mucho MaaS)

by Brett Stevens on June 30, 2022

What happens when something succeeds? It fixates on that success because now it has something to lose. Forget all those stupid alt-right tropes about “hard times make hard men weak, weak times make weak men hard” because they are like most things Right-wing merely a prelude to the type of sodomy that Jesus does not mind. Metal reached its peak in the 1990s with underground death metal and black metal, but now the little people have come in to munch the carcass while loudly demanding attention.

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Serpent Ascending – Hyperborean Folklore (2022)

by Ton Basileion on May 27, 2022

While still retaining some of the aesthetic elements of 2016’s sleeper-hit Aṇaṅku, Serpent Ascending has adopted a flowing form of riffing on this latest album comparable to some Norwegian black metal. This has both an upside and a downside, in that the longer melodies can reach a greater degree of intensity at times, but there is also less contrast within individual songs.

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Trenchant Releases “Yellow Cross Orison” From Upcoming Commandoccult

by Brett Stevens on February 9, 2022

After Emperor peaked with In The Nightside Eclipse, its side project Zyklon-B got more attention. Like Niden Div 187 and Impaled Nazarene, it offered the punk side of black metal over the heavy metal, soundtrack, ambient, medieval, industrial, and progressive influences, blasting out short songs aimed at disruption and encouraging violence.

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RIP Burke Shelley (1950-2022)

by Brett Stevens on January 11, 2022

On January 10, Burke Shelley — bassist, songwriter, and pathfinder of NWOBHM-prog hybrid outlier Budgie — passed away in his hometown of Cardiff, Wales. A hybrid that sounded like Black Sabbath, Grand Funk Railroad, and Yes in an infernal three-way, Budgie possessed its own style and vision of the world, leading to an enormous influence on much of metal and rock to follow.

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TAL – Sapiduz (2022)

by Brett Stevens on January 3, 2022

Comprised of medieval-style choral music sampled, distorted, looped, and layered, Sapiduz approaches the listener like ice forming on a lake, taking the free-form and slowly building structure out of it through interruptions as much as consistency.

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