Upcoming The Ruins of Beverast EP

German one man doom/black metal band The Ruins of Beverast have a new EP coming. How fucking boring will this be? Based on Blood Vaults, probably pretty fucking boring. Hopefully The Ruins of Beverast manages to tie his few interesting riffs together into meaningful compositions that don’t wear out their welcome and make me punch the stop button. He hasn’t been successful with that so far.

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Dead Congregation – Sombre Doom (2016)

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Sombre Doom is the new EP from Dead Congregation. The riffing is in the same Immolation and Incantation style with simple but effective variations as on their past releases while the production is a less compresssed version of Dead Congregation’s prior album, Promulgation of the Fall, some of The Best Underground Metal of 2014. Thankfully gone are the cheesy Kerry King style leads and guitarists AV and TK have markedly improved the song structure.

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Martire – Martire (1991)

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As the continent was before Britannic penal colonization, Australian black and death metal scene was and is still mostly an undeveloped desert of unexceptional crossover thrash posturing as “war metal”, blackened cheeseball beer metal, AC/DC clones with unclean vocals, and experimental technical deaf metal/post-hardcore/jazz fusion hybrids. Martire rode forth from obscurity to restore fruit and flower to the wasteland, fertilizing the barren bush wielding fire and sword.

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Deathspell Omega – The Synarchy of Molten Bones (2016)

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Article by Lance Viggiano.

Deathspell Omega return with another uninspired and uninspiring record entitled The Synarchy of Molten Bones. Their last record, Paracletus, was built on a foundation of Voivod-lite chords executed with the alt metal sensibilities of The Dillinger Escape Plan. In an effort to build ambience, additional guitar tracks would attempt to produce a microtonal effect without actual production of microtones; just more dissonance. These techniques were then deployed over pop-leaning melodies which become pronounced should one decide to hum the otherwise atonal morass.

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Sadistic Metal Review: Xoth – Hostile Terraforming (2014)

xoth hostile terraforming

Article by Lance Viggiano.

Hostile Terraforming is the result of a lot of instrumental practice and absolutely no artistic or even musical ambition. Every moment is technically precise in the pursuit of puritanically banal phrases which fake variation by playing the same motif in a higher octave. Cyclical song structures allow the players to shred freely while never needing to establish an emotive core. The EP lasts only as long as it takes for the musicians to run through every show-off-in-a-public-space rite of passage stylistic flair which is recited in the most obsessively canned manner – essentially a musical diet of Doritos and Pepsi. Like all such outfits, the drums are produced to resemble a typewriter thus ensuring maximum clarity so the listener can hear every soulless tap and click as the performer slavishly follows the guitar around like a gimp-clad submissive. Yes, there are musical pauses to give the bass guitar its obligatory solo which has no purpose within a greater melodic arc of the song; not that the drunk dive bar crowd notices or cares.

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Sanctuaire – Le Sang sur l’Acier (2016)

Sanctuaire Le Sang sur l’Acier

Sanctuaire hearken back to an imagined Canadian Viking past in the hope of explaining their national hockey skills. Le Sang sur l’Acier presents three black metal songs written in a style similar to their compatriots Sorcier des Glaces but genericized for mass appeal.

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Sadistic Metal Review: Chalice – Chalice (2014)

chalice ep

Article by Corey M.

Chalice is a real shit show. From a purely musical perspective, the self-titled EP Chalice is transparent hard rock with some metal-ish riffing that never gets quite as aggressive as Deep Purple. Now indeed, aggression is not the only or even most crucial element that goes into making good rock or metal, but Chalice fall fa(aaaaaaaa)r short in every other facet of songwriting and performance.

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