Paramus, NJ band Monument Of A Memory creates what some call “modern death metal” and others, with a nod to its origins in a late punk/death metal hybrid, deathcore. The band is about to release its second recording, Catharsis, and vocalist Tommy Gehringer and bassist Josh Correa took the time to give us some insight on music and the theory of being a metal band in the current age.
7 Comments
Article by Corey M.
Sewage plants are ever-flowing streams of shit. So is the deathmetal.org promo box:
10 CommentsTags: AVDL, Brutal Death Metal, Coliseum, Dyssentia, emo, metalcore, modern metal, nu-metal, sadistic metal reviews
Article by Lance Viggiano
Liers In Wait cast chains of non-random riffs in the legato style of metal pioneered by Morbid Angel to no effective artistic purpose. Spiritually Uncontrolled Art comprised of rationally woven re-contextualization of familiar death metal patterns which never manage to take on a distinct character as individual tracks. The album as a whole doesn’t begin to approach a definable emotive personality because the subject of this work is the personality of the composer: a master of phrasing with an encyclopedic knowledge of metal so adept in his craft that self-editing would diminish the efficacy of his work. These streams of coherent yet cold consciousness are hewn to Necrolord’s own sense of bravado; made concrete by a vocal delivery that proffers dominance rather than dread.
This is neither music for music’s sake nor music for the sake of expressing a transcendental idea. It is entirely about the composer’s ability to write coherent music out of the first thing that comes to mind – a mind that is very much a wellspring. In some ways this album is analogous to Eighties shred which existed as a pure demonstration of superiority over its contemporaries by parasitizing familiar content that was then latticed to the listener through overly sentimental melodic hooks. Antithetically, Necrolord eschews hooks entirely as they would constitute breaks and disruptions in the stream by deploying recognizable moments and thereby give the impression of emphasizing the better material, and consequently highlighting the lesser ideas of which there are none to be found. Conceptually this seizes the middle ground between tuneless noise and the summa cum laude of ten-mile-long cock rock.
Lasting impressions, significance and meaning is for the sensitive feminine types, not the fucking overlord. In this sense, Liers in Wait is a resounding success. Those lamenting the fact that this music does not “Do something” gravely miss its point.
24 CommentsTags: 1992, cock rock, death metal, grotesque, Liers in Wait, morbid angel, necrolord, review, Sweden, Technical Death Metal
Sarpanitum’s Blessed Be My Brothers was one of Death Metal Underground’s rejected albums for the Best of 2015. The album initially showed promise. The introductory track, “Komenos”, presents the audience with Sarpanitum’s combination of chromatic death metal riffs, melodic heavy metal leads, Unique Leader Records brutality, and Emperor-like use of a melotron to approximate medieval polyphony to anchor the concept album’s theme of the Crusades.
“By Virtuous Reclamation” surges forth with soaring, harmonized guitars calling for the conquest of the Holy Land continuing into an Immolation style rhythm riff. A break starts the counterpointed dissonant riffing in the Unique Leader style that variates logically enough for Pope Urban II to call for crusade against the heathen Saracens with a metalcore scream, providing a harbinger of the randomness to come. The band returns to the opening riff minus the accompanying lead. The lead’s eventual return signals the start of the Emperor melotron. A sudden slowdown for a cheesy emotional solo continues into the original riffs, climaxing into a polyphonic blend of every musical element and texture. The song barely avoids falling on its face on the way to to the finish line.
The second real song, “Truth” opens directly with Unique Leader riff salad. The Emperor worship is only to plant listeners in a Western European medieval mindset to distract them from the fact the tension built up by the dissonant riffing is never appropriately resolved. The emotional stadium rock solos are just as disconnected from the death metal as the Emperor aping. “Glorification Upon the Bones of the Sundered Dead” better glues the riffs together but still resorts to emotional, Slash-style solos to impart the triumph of the Siege of Jerusalem.
If Blessed Be My Brothers had ended there, it would have been a disparate but listenable concept album. Instead Sarpanitum use the second half to tell the Muslim side of the later Crusades through similarly flawed but less effective songs. This isn’t just a 180 degree change in perspective: the band added another of their heavy metal heroes to the blender. Ersatz Gorguts riffing plus even more masturbatory glam rock solos leads distract from the effective atmospheric and brutal elements. The songs turn even more so into senseless technical deaf metal with Emperor rendered down into pop hooks.
The drastic changes of viewpoint and influence betray the album’s semi-successful first half. The atmosphere of Western mysticality established using Emperor to approximate a polyphonic medieval choir is wrecked by the hippie drum circle interlude, “I Defy For I Am Free”. Blessed Be My Brothers is a postmodern, apologetic Frankenstein. Wikipedia “neutral point of view” metal for meek liberals is antithetical to Emperor’s classical triumph and heavy metal’s “Compassion is the vice of kings: stamp down the wretched and the weak,” virtus.
Listen at Willowtip Record’s Bandcamp
Better yet, just listen to In the Nightside Eclipse again instead.
3 CommentsTags: 2015, blackened death metal, christianity, cuckrock, emperor, islam, medieval metal, melodeaf, metalcore, mithras, modern metal, orientalism, random, review, sarpanitum, tech-deth, techdeaf, Technical Death Metal, tek-deth, the crusades, unique leader, wikipedia metal, willowtip
Here I go again on my own, down the only road I’ve known. Like a drifter I was born to walk alone. And I’ve made up my mind; I ain’t wasting no more time. – Whitesnake feels appropriate to quote now after listening to this trash.
Tombstalker – Black Crusades (2015)
Using an HM-2 pedal and inserting bluesy leads into your crappy kang punk doesn’t make you Dismember; you’re still shitty d-beat punk. I’d rather truly d-beat the skin off my dick with a potato peeler than listen to you graveyard dwelling junkies. Did you know Three Dog Night had his penis pop from too much sex? How would they repair that? Would they need to make a new fake one or just do a penis transplant? Would Three Dog Night need one of those robotic implants that bend up like Larry Flynt?
Gluttony / Sordid Flesh split (2016)
Entombed metalcore that borrows from every period of Entombed including the hated Wolverine Blues. Unleashed’s fat, vested ginger corpse is raped too. If you can think of a dumb, bouncy punk riff from 1987, it’s on this split. These guys really need to overdose on fentanyl cut with powdered laundry detergent like crusties usually do. The needle needs to be jabbed directly into their eye; all the other Swedeath veins are necrotic.
Phazm – Scornful of Icons (2016)
Blackened Surgical Steel with metalcore breakdowns and without Bill Steer’s guitar virtuosity. Surgical Steel sounds like the Symphonies of Sickness compared to this deathcore ‘n’ roll. There’s no Holy Wars on this. When’s my punishment due? Do I have to listen to Reinkhaos again?
Graves at Sea – The Curse That Is (2016)
Flannel and gauges sludgy stoner rock for untermenschen who quit heroin in 1998 and now sell classic rock LPs mastered from CDs to fat hipster scum. The CD booklet states that all the band members have hepatitis C and thank the other regulars of their methadone clinic for watching their cats while they shoot up.
Burning Hatred – Carnage (2016)
No. Stop naming albums after the band whose CDs you love so much you fisted them into yourself like James Woods in Videodrome. There is little riff variety here. Why are there deathcore songs in the middle of the Swedish Crustcore? Why is the deathcore the only material that stands out on your album?
Ice War – Dream Spirit (2016)
My head just hit the desk. Why did someone press this idiot’s demo? I’m too drunk to lift my head off the desk. I must do so. I need to pull my head off the desk. What’s with these standard chord progressions? I must pull my head up. Too much Asbach Uralt. I need to kill this fucker. Why is he so tone deaf? He deserves to die. Another retro metal cash-in, cuckold autist who wants to tie grandmothers up with rusty chains and guitar cables to rape them like the Boston Strangler.
Ides – Sun of the Serpents Tongue (2016)
Idiot deathdoom of the smoke weed and bash chromatic power cords together at slow tempos variety. The band is too lacking in musicianship to strum them fast enough as needed to play psychedelic rock disguised as Sabbath-worshiping doom metal.
Abyssic – A Winter’s Tale (2016)
Symphonic sludge core rejected X-Files themes. Gillian Anderson is still attractive somehow. Abyssic never was; they are Tori Spelling “metal”.
Prisoner of War – Rot (2016)
Morbid Angel covered by Kiwis with distortion pedals. Sometimes songs are jammed together as they were too blacked out and forgot which one they were playing.
Gallower – The Witch Hunt is On (2015)
Possessed with zero talent, drunk, and Polish.
Ithaqua – The Black Mass Sabbath Pulse (2016)
Varathron emasculated.
Abhomine – Larval Offal Swine (2016)
Boring war metal from Pete Helmkamp of Revenge. This is Angelcorpse if Angelcorpse had mediocre guitarists instead of only mediocre songwriters. A repetitive, riff salad for Helmkamp to spout off his social Darwinist philosophy. Put on Order from Chaos instead of reminding yourself that Helmkamp lost his marbles just like that retarded guy from Steven Spielberg’s Hook.
Tags: Abhomine, Abyssic, Burning Hatred, Gallower, Gluttony, Graves at Sea, hipster bullshit, Hook, Ice War, Ides, Ithaqua, James Woods, Phazm, Prisoner of War, sadistic metal reviews, Sordid Flesh, stinking shit, Tombstalker, videodrome, Whitesnake
Article by Corey M
Sacrificium Carmen have released some very generic black metal on this album, made up of moderate-to-fast-paced songs with lots of chunky speed metal riffs and admittedly impressive strained-sounding vocals. Overall, my impression of Ikuisen Tulen Kammiossa is negative for two main reasons: Lack of innovation (meaning that the band makes no effort to develop and express their own unique perspective using the black metal template) and a disregard for the necessities that make traditional black metal an engaging listen (hint: it’s more than just grindy distortion and screamed lyrics).
Regarding the album’s merits: Sacrificium Carmen do well by avoiding any “post-black metal” trappings (some examples being forced “prog” tendencies, ominous chanting, and corny sound effects), and they steer clear of any “ambient” influences, which means the music is fairly lean and efficient. Each song begins and ends purposefully, rather than diverging into some ambiguous territory surrounded by extramusical showboating, as many contemporary black metal bands are wont. For this, Sacrificium Carmen deserve credit; the musicians rely on themselves and their instruments only, eschewing digitally-generated sound textures, operatic vocals, “found sounds” and so forth, to achieve their vision. Each song is generally through-composed, and all melodies are readily found in the Official Dogmatic Compendium of Black Metal Minor Chord Sequences™. All of the instruments are played proficiently (and the vocals are exceptionally aggressive), but the level of musical complexity is low throughout the album, so this details neither adds to nor detracts from the album’s quality.
This “less-is-more” approach is usually a good one for bands to take when playing black metal, because the best black metal is minimalist in that it does not have any bits of ornamentation to distract from the purpose of the music, which is to evoke in the imagination visions of spiritual horror in a world dominated by chaotic violence. This is where Sacrificium Carmen’s music falls short – invoking imagination. There is just no darkness or danger to the melodies, only all-too-human frustration, which sounds emotively impotent and discouraging to listen to. Most of the riffs in Ikuisen Tulen Kammiossa would not be out of place on a contemporary punk album; just replace Sacrificium Carmen’s vocalist with some faux-gruff cigarette-smoke-choked burn out and have him sing with self-conscious irony about how stupid religious fundamentalists are, or how much he hates his landlord, and you’d have a product that would sell to clueless teenagers in the suburban Midwestern United States.
Melodies in Ikuisen Tulen Kammiossa never reach a high enough level of tension to evoke any visions; they are too direct and sound self-centered. By this, I mean that any song’s series of riffs are actually static, whirlpool-like revolutions around the song’s own rhythmic and melodic center. The riffs anticipate a return to whatever was the last-heard rhythmic hook, rather than communicate through melodic contrast with the riffs that precede and follow. Early (and successful) black metal bands achieved tension by chaining together riffs in such a way that each segment of melody would act to destruct the preceding segment and, simultaneously, enhance the following segment, not granting the listener a chance to dwell on any one particular pleasantly hooky riff, but impelling them to take the current melody at face value and embrace the ephemerality of that melody. Because of this constant dialogue taking place throughout a song, coherence could be maintained, even while the song’s tempo or scale shifts and dynamics may even fluctuate wildly. Meanwhile, every song on Ikuisen Tulen Kammiossa appears focused on a conclusion at all times, diminishing the immediate experience. Possibly as a result of this weakness, the dynamic range of any given song is quite narrow. This does not automatically make any songs bad, but given everything else that is going on (or not) in this album, it makes for a boring listen, unless you’ve always wanted to hear a punk band with a black metal vocalist.
In short, Ikuisen Tulen Kammiossa is not a record that classic black metal fans will want to spend much time with. When judged as rock music in general, the album does not commit any irredeemable sins, and may be a fun listen while pounding beers or taking a drive with your girlfriend who hates Darkthrone. But when judged as black metal and measured against those albums in the black metal canon, you may find that the album has more shortcomings than can be excused.
3 CommentsTags: 2015, Black Metal, Finnish Black Metal, Ikuisen Tulen Kammiossa, lame metal, Sacrificium Carmen
My experiences with Brutality prior to Sea of Ignorance‘s release lead me to believe that all of their works take a disproportionate acclimatization in order to properly comprehend, only surpassed in my experience by the wall of voodoo that is Incantation’s debut. This album has little to do with Incantation’s style, like most of their others, but it has only reinforced my hypothesis. Brutality’s take on “melodic” death metal consistently contains enough harmonic hooks in the riffs to draw a listener in, but odds are you’ll only find their music truly rewarding if you give it some time to sink in. That’s not exactly suited to the fast paced world of online music criticism (advertising thinly veiled as criticism), but odds are you’ll get more out of Brutality’s latest than your average death metal album even if you don’t give it a proper chance.
In general, Sea of Ignorance varies only subtly from its predecessors, and most of these changes play out on the surface. Brutality settled on their current approach early in their career, occupying the liminal space between their often sparser Florida contemporaries and the emphasis on structural and harmonic complexity of a band like At the Gates. The comparison to the latter has come up on occasion when DMU covers this band’s exploits, but Brutality synthesizes enough disparate influences that pulling any one out is difficult, although in my more comparative moments I might bring up Autopsy, since the band plays around with speed and atmosphere enough to significant enhance their formula. Sea of Ignorance follows from previous works in a fairly predictable way – more emphasis upon melody and simpler, more streamlined song structures than the past, but when they aren’t flat out covering Bathory (“Shores in Flames”), the lineage is obvious.
My opinion on this album is ultimately very similar to how I felt about Skull Grinder, although like most of the comparisons I’ve made in this review it’s a comparison of convenience as opposed to significant musical similarity. Sea of Ignorance is a stylistically appropriate if not particularly ambitious continuation of Brutality’s previous work; while it’s not particularly essential if you own any of those albums, it’s still a valuable purchase for those who want to study the strong points of this sort of death metal, and a good enough release to be worth financially supporting.
3 CommentsTags: 2016, brutality, death metal, Florida Death Metal, Melodic Death Metal, sea of ignorance
Article by David Rosales
Published as an EP last year, Omens of Perdition is a minimalist death metal act that could easily draw comparisons with Desecresy. They share the spacious (and spacey-vortexy) approach to an Incantation like style through the sound of the Finns. When we go into particulars, however, the differences make it clear that resemblances are mostly a matter of general sound preferences, not methodology.
While Desecresy as most perfectly materialized in Stoic Death gives us a Finnish death metal that depends on high-note, short melodies as hooks with laid-back riffs for support, meat and almost harmonic accompaniment, Condemner goes through no such hoops, cutting to the chase, delivering an unrefined but naturally compelling train of dark thoughts. Riffs in Omens of Perdition are essentially melodies with few notes that constitute the bare-bone themes of the music, with nothing else but a bass unison and soft-punch, minimalist blast-beating drums.
These drums are played lightly but insistently, providing for emphasis on dynamics and accent in an application somewhat reminiscent of Paul Ledney’s style on Dethrone the Son of God by Havohej without the occasional flair. Rather than complement each other, the instrumentation in this music forms a total unison, even the percussion. Intensity varies evenly, changes affect all instruments towards the same side of the spectrum. When arriving at the slowest and vastest, the music may even exhibit silences on the drums, while huge guitar power chords roar as the drums only mark accents, reminding one of certain parts of Skepticism’s Stormcrowfleet.
Songs alternate thematic riffs that run over mirroring, enhancing drums, with scantly-clad doomy statements covered by a mantle of skeletal power chords. To the detriment of this otherwise quite satisfying music, what effaces the identity of individual songs (and of the release and band itself) is the complete lack of obvious climaxes. We can also take this as both the strength and willing limitation of Condemner, which presents a clear, solid monolithic picture. This steadiness may allow the author to draw an abstract parallel with J.S. Bach’s fugal writing for the keyboard or chorales.
While there doesn’t seem to be any particular goal in Condemner Omens of Perdition, the straight-forward treatment is accompanied by an inconspicuously dexterous development of themes. This in itself is more than could be wished as a saving grace. It becomes both a protection of higher music from the pop-hook addicts and a mystical gateway which opens up through direct intuitional experience to he who is listening.
9 CommentsTags: 2015, condemner, death metal, omens of perdition, underground metal
Popularity contests are good for one thing only: determining the degree of decadence the mentality of a certain group. Given the state of sedation and apathy of the general public, it is no surprise that this list shows the contemptible character and inability for self-criticism and assessment the average man is aflicted with. Also, like anything mainstream, very little here is actually metal, even in spirit. Loute Vire especializes in democracy, bringing the average stupidity back to the average person, feeding them their own filth.
1. Iron Maiden – The Book of Souls
Free us from Glam-rhythm Maiden. Character-wise, this nu mid-paced Iron Maiden is a combination of eighties hair metal, power-doom-epic metal in the vein of Candlemass but with the emphasis of catchy Murican posturing. Structurally, it manages to be both formulaic and pointless in its overextension, basically taking the worst from both worlds. Iron Maiden have become the kings of posturing, and even if butthurt fans complain, one must say that this downfall was evident ever since Somewhere in Time and was pretty evident with Seventh Son of the Seventh Son. Stick to 1985’s Live After Death as a synthesis of the band’s golden era and you’ll be fine. Stop feeding Steve Harris’ ego machine.
2. Ghost – Meliora
Caricature music that disguises carnival thinking by providing a steady, unchanging background. Ghost know how to fool the enemy, the audience is hooked, distracted by fireworks to the right and to the left, without realizing they are paying for an empty but colorful cardboard box. Ghost, master deceivers, everything is so in your face, that the decadent masses love the fake but safe entertainment that ironic bullshit provides. Surely this would also be released in vinyl format, that’s what hipsters do. They need to keep piling up appearances and hip products. The best thing you can do with one of these is break it and use the shards to cut the throats of Ghost fans.
3. Tribulation – The Children of the Night
This hard rock-ish outfit is probably what Opeth would sound like if they focused on their weirdo rock side instead of jumping around genres without musical justifications or proper transitions, or if Ghost took itself seriously and had a little talent. Tribulation’s may be the best album on this list, as pop and hook-based as it is, it retains the basic decency of proper music in its continuity and coherence. The focus is completely on the guitar lines. Unfortunately, songs do lapse as they are overstretched for the false ‘complexity’ appearance that hipsters, high school nerds and college SJWs like. Worthy of from radio airtime, not more, no less.
(Editor’s note: You know a band is bad when it gets double-SMR‘ed.)
4. Amorphis – Under the Red Cloud
I may not have been paying enough attention but, when did this originally Finnish death metal band turn into American high school rock balladers with queer Scandinavian leads? (Editor’s note: It began in 1994.) Amorphis seems to have abandoned all sense of pride for a couple of more greens. This is selling out clearly exemplified. Bands, this is what you should not do. Fans, you will only find plastic here.
5. Enslaved – In Times
Progressive rock for those who lack the subtlety for progressive rock. Black metal for those too soft to brave the intellectual challenge of not being a sheep. This is long-winded pop and rock artificially styled to appear complex for insecure posers.
6. Between the Buried and Me – Coma Ecliptic
Dream Theater meets Avenged Sevenfold with a strong Pink Floyd influence. How do these guys manage to sound exactly the same again yet be so vague in content? All semblance of continuity here, apart from tonality, is only maintained at some cerebral level in the imagination of the band or of the fans who will like any catchy & ‘complex’ turd that distracts them from their monotonous lives. The music itself is a disparaged parade of funny moments.
7. High on Fire – Luminiferous
Speed metal on the outside, borish NWOBHM on the inside. This gets old quick and leaves no mark. Like many others, it tries to be an updated, more tough version of Motorhead, and use the old excuse of just “wanting to play good ole rock”. Forgettably redneckish.
8. Queensrÿche – Condition Hüman
It is difficult not to laugh when listening to this macho-man bullshit for young, white posers. However bombastically pop and girly these songs are, they flow well. On the downside, the band never develops or resolves songs, meaning they are only good as groove and hook inducing. Radio garbage.
9. Paradise Lost – The Plague Within
Boring as ever, or perhaps more than ever, Paradise Lost is still trying to make the album they almost achieve with their earliest music. Never rising above potential mediocrity, this band is a collection of dull moments peppered with pleasing leads. An unexpected heir to this hooky combination of candy and nutrition-less filler is Sylosis. Anyone looking for a casual hit may dig into some of the tracks here, otherwise, refer to classic underground so-called doom metal.
10. Intronaut – The Direction of Last Things
Alternating angsty with pretty boy vocals, the mark of immaturity. Groove-based music without a clear thematic line, the mark of an empty mind. So, this is basically unthinking, puerile nonsense for people who want to “feel” metal but do not actually like metal. Destroy not only any copies of this but the factories and corporate buildings in charge of producing this mindless heap of catchy garbage.
Tags: 2015, amorphis, between the buried and me, Enslaved, ghost, high on fire, intronaut, iron maiden, lame metal, paradise lost, queensrÿche, sadistic metal reviews, tribulation
Leftist political science grounded on Marxism does not go well with metal. The first is a bunch of illusions and mental fiction for emotional weaklings to feel empowered. The latter is the art of the realist, the nihilist with an eye in the transcendental. Besides, only a self-styled hipster would pair up Immortal’s picturesque character with Leo’s most iconic work. The reader is encouraged to take any strong endorsement from this fiasco as a warning of superficiality or weak hipster appeal.
1. Wilderun – Sleep at the Edge of the Earth
There is a reason why movie scores are not written by artistically illuminated composers, but by shrewd businessmen who know how to gauge the audience’s momentary craving in a modern society where every vice is promoted as a freedom and discipline is marked as obsession. Wilderun really does play like a popular soundtrack. It cannot stay on topic for more than thirty seconds and each of the sections is not only forgettable but the whole makes absolutely no sense. In an excellent work which draws influences from a wide variety of sources, the differences are mostly superficial and are used as different vocabs, but in here, these ultra-thin music without a true structural backbone merely places meaningless expressions one after another only to keep the most stupid of audience members hooked. Burn this insult to music composition.
2. Trials – This Ruined World
Ah, yes, riff worship in metal. The genre’s curse makes us subject to many a mediocre would-be songwriter who thinks he can embody Pantera 2.0. Of course, because the latter were the embodiment of groove-based glory according to the Homer Simpsons of metal. Trials write the sort of songs that are utterly devoid of distinction and clear train of thought. Any riff would go well in any part of any other song in the album. Not to mention that these riffs are little more than thickly produced fart streams. Go home, Anselmo.
3. Barren Earth – On Lonely Towers
More darko-depressive, diva rock pretending to be metal. While definitely showing some potential in its paucity, the candy it hands out reveals that the reason for this is not a carefully controlled composition of deep taste, but the superficial sensuality to be found everywhere. However, Barren Earth do succeed in achieving some manner of quality, however distracted their slick transitions are, how whiny and long-drawn operatics are and how annoyingly bluesy their leads are. Listen to this if you derive a moment’s masturbatory pleasure from half-cooked, bland music.
4. Beaten to Death – Unplugged
If you consider an album good because it makes you look good in front of the hip kids and because it appears to be offensive. Then you are little more than an overgrown teddy bear trying to wear spikes to resolve its puberty. In case Napalm Death was too much, you can have Beaten to Death for a softened but still “edgy” dose of some of the worst deathcore pretending to be grindcore made nicer by some gay rock clean guitar picked passages. Leave these to the IQ-85-or-less crowd of gluttonous dipshits who saw no mental development past the 11-year mark.
5. Crimson Swan – Unlit
Onto the false subgenre of “doom metal”. Although a very few albums do seem to venture into a style of its own that is more than just slow heavy metal, most bands like Crimson Swan, are just playing a much slower version of detuned and melodic-oriented heavy metal. Crimson Swan fails catastrophically in the same way that most music by Esoteric: it stagnates in its harmony, only deviating a little and quickly returning. Its thinly veiled worship of middle-period Skepticism (the worst of its periods, only superseded in vacuity by their latest installment) is laughable. When anyone the terms “melody and feel” to describe why an album is good and calls it a day, it goes a long way to say how little music as an art is understood.
6. Steven Wilson – Hand. Cannot. Erase
The fact that Steven Wilson is eerily akin to a Marylin Manson without make up should give the listener a clue of what is coming. The music reflects the character of a harmless and sexless being completely lacking in any kind of self-assertion. Bombast ala Ghost, combined with some Pink Floyd-gone-80s-pop sensibilities and the most cliched 90s indie gayness, Wilson manages to make mindlessly boring music into an inadvertently comical series of forgettable pictures. Fodder for the mentally lazy who have the emotional need to be acknowledged for an intellect they lack.
7. Gloryhammer – Space 1992: Rise of the Chaos Wizards
If there is something that hipsters love more than cuckold rock music by androgynous minds is metal nobody can take seriously. Why? Because it is not only inoffensive, but as it lacks any content of weight, it cannot in any way represent a challenge to the listener. Hipsters avoid challenge. But they love the illusion of challenge. They like to seem smart, but not actually stress their minds beyond the safety limits created by the society they claim to be at odds with. Cool-aid power metal for the mentally retarded.
8. The Gentle Storm – The Diary
More boob-flashing from the opera whore club for naive, high school and college virgin nerds. Not only does this lack the solidity of Mandylion but is an obvious attempt at pushing another plastic product in the vein of bombastic metal pop acts with Victorian bimbos for faces. No amount of alacrity can turn this into good music. Just ignore this release, please.
9. Nechochwen – Heart of Akamon
(Editor’s note: Haven’t we already given this one the sadistic treatment? Guess it’s really that bad.)
More Alcest than Graveland, this candy-ass folk-themed headache full of terribly clumsy transitions and tired, boorish leads calls the attention of those incapable of paying close attention to worthwhile quality. More like a trailer of commonplace ideas without development, this album plays more like a disparaged sequence of TV ads.
10. Angra – Secret Garden
No, Angra’s new album is not surprising in any context. Except if you mean, you could not imagine they could disgrace themselves in a more sellout manner, even bringing in mercenary Fabio all the way from Italy. What the common rabble calls “staying power” is merely the hip-moving hooks they get from everyday radio-listening. What pseudo connoisseurs of metal call good songwriting is merely streamlined mediocrity.
Tags: 2015, angra, barren earth, beaten to death, crimson swan, gloryhammer, lame metal, Nechochwen, sadistic metal reviews, steven wilson, the gentle storm, Trials, wilderun
