Codex Obscurum – Issue Nine


Codex Obscurum
Issue Nine
45 pages

As the internet reaches its peak, the inherent deficiencies of the post-“Eternal September” online audience reveal themselves. Drowning in vast amounts of MP3s and data, they have stopped choosing best over better, and simply accept whatever is not offensively horrible on the first listen. As a result music quality has plummeted. Zines like Codex Obscurum are reversing this by shining the spotlight on the quality that stands out and ignoring the rest of the flood.

Issue Nine opens with an Immolation interview. While I love Here in After, I usually skim Immolation interviews because the Ross & Bob show are so focused on being nice sociable guys that very little is said that I could not glean from liner notes. Interviewer Kevin Ord however takes a subtle but aggressive approach in asking Immolation “where’s the meat?” The result is unsatisfying, as one might expect for the band that defecated out Kingdom of Conspiracy, a parody of their former works worthy of SNL. Ord gets to the core of where this band is now and if there is an echo, it is not his fault but an honest reflection of what happens when death metal bands realize that two-note speed metal with death metal vocals is a path to Pantera-oriented glory where Here in After makes fans happy and bands poor.

Interviews follow with Mitochondrion, Horrendous, Evil Power, Ectovoid, Beithioch, Savage Master, Cemetery Filth, Hideous Divinity, Akurion and visual artist Daniel “Sawblade” Shaw. Each of these tries to bring out the purpose of the band, acknowledging subtly that many of these bands are B-level art workers who merely hope to pay tribute to their influences before going back to day jobs. Beithioch may be most interesting with its culture-based, whisky-infused Irish tangent on the idea of death metal and black metal as resurrection of the invisible values that hold humans together and keep us all from committing suicide in gas station restrooms. Each interview is carefully posed and diligently edited, filtering out the noise of grammatical train wrecks and misspellings that blight most zines.

After a centerfold of intense zine branding art, the reviews come forth. These are more descriptive than critical, but in trying to make a narrative out of each band, reveal how successful these artists are in expressing something more than a vague genre identity. Some of these reviews tempt as purpose and aesthetic vision appear in the words, but others make me want to run far away from what sounds like disorganized aping of the near-past. The reviewers are gentlemen who let the music speak for itself in symbolic translation instead of vocalizing their critiques, which makes it both more informative and more fun for the reader.

This issue ended too soon, but not for lack of content, but mainly because I was all set to read all night! Issue Nine ends in an editorial which by focusing on criticism of the underground, issues some potent criticism of its own of the underground, which is gratifying to see in a time when most people are too busy playing “follow the leader” to notice the quality differential over the years. It rounds out a solid issue and gives some placement to the interviews and reviews which preceded it.

Codex Obscurum continues at full strength after quite a few years now of activity, forging ahead where the internet has abandoned metal and the industry has failed it. This zine emphasizes selectivity and so has avoided treading the well-worn ruts that most big magazines do, but has also avoided the underground fanboi mentality which holds that a fifteenthrate Incantation/Demoncy imitation is just as much news as the originals. These writers have kept this zine going strong and show no sign of stopping, which makes it fortunate for us readers who need a breath of fresh air in the fetid stench of the decomposition of the corpse of the underground about now!

2 Comments

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Codex Obscurum Issue Nine pre-order opens

codex_obscurum_-_issue_nine

Underground revival zine Codex Obscurum Issue Nine is ready for pre-order at the CO online store. The editors say:

The zine is still only $3 +s/h. The zine should be shipped in 2-3 weeks. Preordering helps us offset the cost of printing the zine. Thanks for the support.

Issue #9 contains:

  • The art of Daniel Shaw
  • Akurion
  • Cemetery Filth
  • Deathhammer
  • Ectovoid
  • Hideous Divinity
  • Horrendous
  • Immolation
  • Mitochondrion
  • Savage Master
  • Beithioch
No Comments

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Horrendous – Anareta (2015)

Horrendous - Anareta (2015)
Horrendous is evolving. They’re not content to merely be one of our masochistic metal victims, so they’ve been gradually and haphazardly incorporating more jazz fusion and djent influences into what was previously a Heartwork inflected sound, and what continues to partially stink of it. What entertains me so much about Anareta is how neatly compartmentalized these two styles are and therefore how little they interact, making for perhaps two EPs stitched together and all sorts of increasingly implausible hypotheses about the band’s songwriting and tracking process that distract from the main issue at hand. Neither half of Anareta is exactly a sterling example of what already are difficult styles to pull off well in a metal context.

The “progressive” side of Horrendous leads off the album and appears to occupy significantly more of its runtime. This part of the recording emphasizes its internal rhythms – it is midpaced, replete with offbeats and odd time signatures, and it showcases some complicated interplay with the local guitarwork. I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the band is at least trying to make something interesting and complicated, but there are a couple of problems with their approach. One admittedly trivial (but strangely attention-grabbing) flaw is that they have no idea how to write introductions to their tracks; therefore, many of Anareta‘s tracks begin with a minute or so of pseudo-random gassing. More importantly, the emphasis on surface rhythmic complexity isn’t matched by a willingness to expand the percussive textures that underlie it. Furthermore, the guitar tracks above this, while benefiting from the rhythmic prowess of the band, rarely allow their actual riff content to escape from the traditional metal and rock tropes that hold the band back. At the very least, Horrendous will need to severely edit their tracks and develop a better sense of narrative composition in order to master this substyle.

While it’s pointless to judge whether vaguely “progressive” metal is better or worse than generic melodeath and Stockholm syndrome, the gradual shift in emphasis towards the former over the band’s career suggests that if they keep going, they might have a genuinely good album on their hands in a few years. Anareta definitely hasn’t reached that point yet, being too haphazard and scatterbrained in its ambitions to really hit home, while still occasionally lapsing into straight up generic guitar pop.

16 Comments

Tags: , , , ,

Sadistic Metal Reviews 06-20-2015

SMR

Besides being on the look out for promising bands and nurture them as the future of metal, there is also a place to examine the living corpses of decadent and useless products release by the emotionally needy and artistically impaired. Sadistic Metal Reviews to put the pretentious wankers, the clueless “experimentalists” and the postmodernist “intellectuals” in their place: in line and ready to be disposed of.

 

acrania
Acrania – Fearless (2015)

Latin jazz deathcore featuring conga breakdowns, sax solos, bass slams, gang chants, tough guy
empowerment lyrics, and At the Gates. This is Elements with ear gauges for those who enjoy the
bongocore of later Sepultura. To improve their future releases, I recommend the band overdose on
artificial opiates cut with chemicals usually found in anti-dandruff shampoos.

Vattnet-Viskar

Vattnet Viskar – Settler (2015)
Vattnet Viskar are screamo in the same vein as Deafheaven. On Settler they could have attempted to use careful melodies and riff progressions to emotionally convey to the listener the existential nihilism of an ordinary woman attempting to transcend her earthly existence only to be brutally splattered upon the Earth’s surface. Instead they disingenuously pander to a liberal hipster audience for whom Mayhem and Burzum are verboten by pretending to be an acceptable “black metal” band. Major scale tremolo riffs, sludgy hard rock, and hardcore breakdowns are randomly arranged in songs grounded by emotional choruses and vocal hooks. This is not shoegaze; Vattnet Viskar and Deafheaven are as far from My Bloody Valentine as they are from Darkthrone. Post-hardcore with comprehensible screeching as the primary emotional vehicle is screamo. Those who eat this album up and genuinely think it is true black metal are just deluding themselves about progressing beyond their whiny teenage musical tastes.

gyre
Gyre – Moirai (2015)
Gyre exploit the misguided nu-metal commercial revival driven by millennial ex frat boys wishing todefend their shitty taste as mall-dwelling tweens. Moirai is a nu-metal album with djent chugging and afew speed metal solos just in case a member of the target audience is the air guitar type. PreventingGyre from achieving financial success with this artistic failure is their lack of name recognitioncompared to Fred Durst and Serj Tankian. Thus Gyre are best advised to run back to the brostep clubs and never return.

ysengrin
Ysengrin – Liber Hermetis (2015)
Arranging simplified, slowed down Megadeth riffs around boring acoustic interludes doesn’t make for effective thrash and doom metal. Claiming to be blackened death metal as you play those riffs through distortion pedals into crappy solid state amps to get a more fuzzy than bestial guitar tone means you fail two more genres. Go listen to Rust in Peace again instead of subjecting yourself to this unnecessary career retrospective.

nightland
Nightland – Obsession (2015)
Slaughter of the Soul riffs? Check. Hit people breakdowns? Check. Random songwriting? Check. Metalcore with orchestral fluff played by guys in leather dresses is still metalcore. This time it’s just marketed toward fat Nightwish goths and frilly-shirted Fleshgod Apocalypse fans.

Cult-of-Fire-
Cult of Fire – मृत्यु का तापसी अनुध्यान (2013)
Here Cult of Fire randomly mix stolen Bathory, Immortal, and Emperor riffs with Abba keyboards and pointless eastern music into a pathetic failure of black metal. This album is yet more proof of how easily the basic compositional requirements of the genre can escape even the most technically accomplished musicians.

klamm
Klamm – Ernte (2015)
Blackened folk singalongs played by German hipsters? This music is the result of too much cuddling and too little beatings. Dumb to the point of being exasperating, Klamm tries to fulfill ideological cliches of what both folk and black metal represent. Press stop to leave the beer hall.

horrendous
Horrendous – Ecdysis (2014)
Steal Heartwork riffs, run them through a Boss HM-2 pedal, and throw in some random Journey to pad out the tracks. Contrary to the title and cover art, this pretentious pseudo-Swedeath fails to shed its melodeaf skin. The only thing this album transcends is listeners’ patience when it assumes they are intellectually disabled by building multiple nu songs from the riffs in one very popular older song called Heartwork. Horrendous prove themselves musically no better than Archenemy and far inferior to them when it comes to musical common sense.

Örök – Übermensch
Örök – Übermensch (2015)
Coming from the spiritual-minded ambient “black” metal camp, this self-absorbed music is so ego-centric it somehow manages to be unaware of its stagnancy, vacuity, it’s lack of proposal and direction. As the title indicates, rather than an excellent specimen’s product, this is more of a diva’s self-appraisal. Untermensch.

Dismember – Massive Killing Capacity
Dismember – Massive Killing Capacity (1995)
After the commercial success of Entombed’s Wolverine Blues, money-grubbing record labels pressured the rest of the big Swedish death metal bands to pander to the Pantera crowd. Dismember turned down the distortion and gazed back to seventies rockers Kiss and Deep Purple for inspiration. Unfortunately, downtuned and distorted butt rock riffs coming out of JCM 900 heads are still butt rock riffs. A few songs that rip off Dismember’s own prior good work and Metallica’s Orion make this slightly more listenable than the aforementioned Wolverine Blues but do not come close to alleviating this death ‘n’ roll turkey’s massive shitting capacity. This is Highway Star death metal.

Nebiros
Nebiros – VII (2015)
Mellotrons and makeup do not paint your metal black. These overlong songs are structured around
deathcore breakdowns and stolen Gothenburg riffs. This is more Heartwork for subhumans than a Pure Holocaust.

Archaea-Catalyst-2015-
Archaea – Catalyst (2015)
One could say this sounds like Unleashed only if Unleashed were one of those deathcore bands from five years ago with the token female keyboardists. This is a stereotypical blend of polka beats, breakdowns, Gothenburg candy melodies, and keyboard leads. Listening to it makes me want to lay my head down upon the train tracks just so an overweight man in a jumpsuit embroidered with his own name will be forced to power wash my brains off to the sweet voice of Kenny Rogers.

14 Comments

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dark Descent Records plans US death metal compilation

dark_descent-logo

Dark Descent Records has announced plans to unleash a compilation of US death metal bands which will accompany an upcoming issue of Legacy magazine from Germany which will be themed around death metal.

Bands confirmed so far:

Morpheus Descends
Thevetat
Blood Incantation
Spectral Voice
House of Atreus
Grave Ritual
Imprecation
Blaspherian
Horrendous
Father Befouled

Dark Descent Records label head Matt Calvert adds: “We’re still working on a couple others as well. These will be rare/unreleased tracks on this CD compilation and may include 7” tracks, vinyl or cassette only tracks or some early teasers (in the case of Grave Ritual). More soon.”

In the meantime, interested listeners can look to the last Dark Descent Records compilation which unleashes free digital music in the underground metal styles.

2 Comments

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Classic reviews:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z