Review by Linus Douglas.
Heresiarch is the only band to have made so-called ‘war metal’ into something that was not just head bashing and blood splattering nonsense.
38 CommentsTags: 2017, dark descent, dark descent records, Grindcore, heresiarch, new zealand, review, Thrash, thrash metal, War Metal
Sadistic reviews by Linus Douglas.
Sadly apart from Sammath, some other Dutch metal, and reissues, Hammerheart Records appears to publish many moronic releases produced by poor excuses for neurons in hopes of flooding shelves like every other larger metal label.
10 CommentsTags: 2017, brutal unrest, cirith gorgor, dead head, ereb altor, exoskelett, funeral twilight, hammerheart, hammerheart records, metalcore, mourners lament, sadistic metal reviews, stinking shit, the monolith deathcult, trinitas
The Mortal Horizon is Desecresy’s first album as a solo project of Tommi Gronqvist’s after vocalist Jarno Nurmi left to focus on Serpent Ascending. Picking up right where Stoic Death left off, The Mortal Horizon is band’s most percussive and violent yet. The album takes after the death metal debut Arches of Entropy but is set into the multi-layered, ritualistic minimalist narratives of Desecresy’s later career.
28 CommentsTags: 2017, Black Metal, death metal, desecresy, Finland, Finnish Black Metal, Finnish Death Metal, Grindcore, minimalism, minimalist, review, the mortal horizon, tommi gronqvist, xtreem music
Antichrist are yet another group of millennials who want to LARP 1987 thirty years later. Sinful Birth is their second campaign in the eighties and of course Antichrist come armored with denim, leather, spandex and high tops of haste +2. Antichrist are of course of great appeal to the funderground as they ape records everyone loved as teenagers, they have riffs beer metallers have heard a thousand times before and can recognize whilst blacked out, and the vocalist isn’t aggravatingly annoying.
8 CommentsTags: 2017, Antichrist, beer metal, electric assault records, funderground, i hate, posers, poseurs, rehash, review, sinful birth, Speed Metal, Sweden, trends mosh core fun
With Verity, Nokturnal Mortum continue down the more commercial path they started embarking on The Voice of Steel and their half of last year’s The Spirit Never Dies split with Graveland: commercialized rock-constructed music with Ukrainian folk and power metal aesthetics. On the inferior half of the The Spirit Never Dies, Nokturnal Mortum abandoned the use of the progressive rock techniques with speed, power, and Gothenburg metal riffs to craft compositions similar to the extended, droning flowing black metal compositions of past greats. Verity continues the slide down into Wacken fare.
16 CommentsTags: 2017, black 'n roll, folk, folk metal, folk rock, metalcore, nokturnal mortum, review, Ukraine, verity
Havukruunu, despite their Burzum like cover, worship Bathory‘s Blood Fire Death and 1980s synth pop on Kelle Surut Soi. Havukruunu attempt the folk choruses, epic atmosphere, and melodic solos as Quorthon did in his successful attempt at mixing black and speed metal. Unfortunately for my ears, Havukruunu are not so successful on Kelle Surut Soi.
6 CommentsTags: 2017, black 'n roll, Finland, funderground, glam metal, havukruunu, kelle surut soi, naturmacht productions, review, synth pop, synthpop
Lantern take the Finnish black and death metal and move it back in time towards eighties speed metal to better appeal to a funderground hipster audience who never bothered to listen to Beherit or Demigod. The production of II: Morphosis is clean but slightly cavernous and vocals that sound like Per Boder of God Macabre help deceive inattentive millennials that Lantern are quality death metal and not Finnish Pantera.
(more…)
Tags: 2017, dark descent, dark descent records, death metal, Finland, funderground, II: morphosis, lantern, review, Speed Metal, wanking
Readers can probably infer from the title, logo, and cover of Unstoppable Power that this Condor are not the Colombian heavy metal / progressive rock act. Norwegian Condor plays rocking speed metal similar to the Canadians Exciter and Razor. Riffing is primarily in the Motorhead influenced style of those two mixed with the chromatic, tremolo-picked styles of early Slayer. Leads are Slayerian noise bursts or imitations of Kirk Hammet. Norwegian Condor’s drumming is mostly crusty, background d-beating which lends the music some extreme percussive aggression not found in many 80s speeding oldies.
6 CommentsTags: 2017, beer metal, condor, norway, review, Speed Metal, unstoppable power
Midnight are the definition of beer metal. Midnight sound like Motorhead if Motorhead accidentally took tranquilizers and forgot to write chord progressions and progressive minor-key heavy metal leads in their songs. Midnight are Motorhead if when Lemmy got arrested for drug possession in Canada in the early seventies while touring with Hawkwind, Lemmy did not merely get kicked out of Hawkwind and deported back to the United Kingdom; Midnight are Motorhead if the Canadians were really the Soviets who institutionalized and lobotomized Lemmy while forcing him at gunpoint to cart around a potent IV drip of anti-psychotics and sedatives for the rest of his life.
14 CommentsTags: 2017, beer metal, cash grab, EP, Heavy Metal, hells headbangers, midnight, review, shox of violence, Speed Metal, thrash metal
Review contributed to Death Metal Underground by Jon Browning.
This Ends Here / The Conqueror Worm is a not totally godawful, self-titled punk split from the bands of the same names. You won’t want to shoot half of them after listening to it if you’re that bored you know. This Ends Hear’s a-side consists of atmospheric d-beating crossover similar to Discharge crossed with Celtic Frost to create punk with the same tempo as 1990s post-hardcore and atmospheric sludge with none of the outright guitar wank and junkie idiocy. While listeners have probably heard the standard d-beat rhythms, the influence from the stranger, melodic side of speed metal (Sabbat and the Brazilians) and later post-hardcore gives them strength beyond the robotic machine punk guitar wank of bands like Martyrdod. This Ends Here would do well to get rid of most of their bluesier attempts at atmosphere in future material or better integrated it into flowing compositions similar to the better Celtic Frost influenced death metal like Autopsy and Obituary – Cause of Death you know.
3 CommentsTags: 2017, Crossover, crossover thrash, d-beat, Hardcore, noise, noise rock, post-hardcore, punk, punk rock, review, rock, split, the conqueror worm, this ends here, thrash metal, War Metal
