Kever – Primordial Offerings (2018)

Primordial Offerings follows up on the first Kever which focused more on an intelligent form of percussive death metal; the second EP from this promising band attempts to invent a new style of atmospheric death metal without losing any of the intensity, sounding like a mix of Florida, Buffalo, and selectively melodic European acts like Fleshcrawl and Demigod.

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The Chuck Schuldiner Syndrome


Chuck Schuldiner who once played crushing music that popularized Death metal before attempting to follow the mid 90s phase where every Underground band had to somehow rise to face the more rock influenced bands at their own game through whinier passages and trivial lyric matter. During that period his technical abilities increased but his inability to arrange worthwhile music become obvious rather as he relied exclusively on rock structures that culminated in a solo before repeating the whole process without any thoughts on progression, narration or momentum. This created the effect where some truly incredible melodies were juxtaposed next to some very mediocre sections derived from rock and other genres. This device was then taken by a large number of bands who have then used it to promote a singular idea over everything else and has contributed largely to the decline of metal in general. Let us look at a few moments where the Chuck Schuldiner syndrome was very apparent.

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Andrzej Sapkowski – The Last Wish

Andrzej Sapkowski’s “The Witcher” series has seen itself appropriated and simplified in the form of a ridiculous TV show and movie that never garnered much respect in its native Poland and has been heavily critiqued by Sapkowski himself. The books find themselves once again simplified and denied of their essence in the form of three large budget video games that do attempt to bring to life the world of the series, but gameplay, endless superfluous content and the lack of understanding from the writers hinder this. Fortunately we are blessed by a truly transcendent series of books that despite the mainstream’s attempts at commercializing them remain unaffected in their message and expression. Enter “The Last Wish” which is the first book of a majestic saga that soars above the common man’s need for digestible media.

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Sammath – “Across The Rhine Is Only Death” (2018)

Notorious violent black metal band Sammath gained a fanbase among the black metal horde for refusing to tone down the intensity of black metal, and instead mixing it with elements of fast technical death metal to achieve an uncompromising sound. Following up on the epic Godless Arrogance, the band faces a massive challenge in exceeding what it has already achieved, but a new demo suggests that this Dutch-German black metal assault has done just that.

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Levels of NSBM Initiation

As a genre less defined aesthetically than on terms of propaganda, NSBM bears the mark of Cain that stigmatizes bands that express a certain ideology. On the basis that music is pure Will, this article focuses on contrasting a split by Der Sturmer, Malsaint and Blutkult with Spear of Longinus on the grounds of understanding and conviction to their ideas, or, to be less dramatic, on how the need to express grander statements creates grander music.

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