Many of death metal's greatest moments are martial in nature. From
Bolt Thrower's crushing cannonades to Amon Amarth's victorious marches,
metal and war are inseparable companions. Vore capitalize on this
synergy to great effect, plowing a potent path of aural avarice. Like
the best articulations of aggression, Gravehammer has the power to physically propel a listener.
Vore aren't new kids; they've been toiling in the metal trenches
since the mid '90s. The ideas they convey aren't new either, but death
metal is all in the delivery. Gravehammer unfolds as a storm of
swarming, chopping, chainsaw riffs, driven by a volatile rhythmic
butchery. Riffs often fall into a flailing, circular churn, bolstered by
the badass beats. There's plenty of hoary, hammered-on guitar work that
plays well against the base bashing. Solos are sparse and purposeful,
full of sane, semi-melodic sweeping that works well enough.
Frontman Page Townsley's vocals are gloriously guttural and demonically deep. The lyrics are delivered synchronously with Gravehammer's
marching cadence, as if by a monomaniacal drill sergeant. Pithy,
scream-along choruses beg for listener participation, or perhaps demand
it.
None of Vore's weapons would work if the riffs and rhythm didn't rip off your head; Gravehammer
does that consistently and voraciously. Remy Cameron's flawlessly
executed drums direct the maelstrom with panache and precision.
Perfectly innocuous production lets this thing speak for itself. You'll
want to listen. Every day is a fight to the death; Gravehammer is a perfect soundtrack to your quotidian combat.
"“Freedom Through Violence” is a muscular, powerful synthesis of death,
thrash, and hardcore – all sifted through a filter of mid-tempo groove,
spiked with irresistible hooks, and shorn of predictability."
Standing out from the herd is no easy
task, as struggling local metal bands (a redundancy, perhaps) the world
over will no doubt inform you. If it were, then everyone would be
special – and then no one would be. Then we’d all die of boredom.
Butt-Head, wise beyond his own understanding, put it best: “If nothing
sucked, and everything was like, cool all the time… how would you know
it was cool?”
Boasting a moniker that’s at once a clever geographical pun and a loving
homage to the music scene that spawned them, Western Massacre possess a
magic touch that catapults them light years ahead of the gaggle of
underground bands vying for fans across America. Content neither to
repeatedly rehash the same Exodus song, nor to drown you in breakdowns,
this band has built a loyal following through inspired songwriting that
pays collective tribute to various styles of metal while forging an
identity of its own. Their full-length debut “Freedom Through Violence”
is a muscular, powerful synthesis of death, thrash, and hardcore – all
sifted through a filter of mid-tempo groove, spiked with irresistible
hooks, and shorn of predictability.
Don’t assume to know what’s around the bend before your first spin is
complete. Opener “Steel Casket,” for example, hits you all at once like a
Tiananmen tank in a doomsday explosion of drums, bass, guitars, and
frontman Matt Lentner’s gutturals. But before the thirty second mark,
rhythm guitarist Chad Hoag and lead shredder Kyle Leary take flight with
an infectious interplay that is to form the core of Western Massacre’s
sound. Then we get a lasso-swinging riff divined straight from Pantera’s
ever-present ghost. This Dimebag influence remains welcome throughout,
shining through on “Roadhouse” and peaking on the brilliant “Defector.”
Other standout influences include the mournful harmonizing leads of ‘90s
Gothenburg melodic death, captured most pristinely on “Facelift” and
“Blood and Stone.” Bastardized by American metalcore – a style whose
best traits Western Massacre adopts while skirting the genre tag – the
Scandinavian strains here come across as invigorating and appropriate
for a change. The whole affair stirs the fresh sense of awe at hearing
genres mixed for the first time; the excitement of spinning ’93-era
Carcass and wondering who let that strange "Amott" fellow through the
door.
To summarize, this is memorable stuff that will seize your attention,
burrow its way into your brain, and stay there. While the frequent gear
shifting within individual songs can occasionally hinder Western
Massacre’s ability to bust out a straightforward, classic barn burner
(think Lamb Of God’s “Redneck”), the transitions are handled with a deft
and steady touch – as are the writing and performances in general, for
that matter. This band refuses to rely solely on speed, aggression, and
volume to make an impact; theirs is a calculated and controlled
Massacre, anchored by their secret weapon: the groove-based rhythm
section of drummer Jeff Greene and bassist Nate Larsen. These songs
don’t simply make you bang your head – they make you MOVE.
“Freedom Through Violence” is an extremely rare, unexpected, and
impressive achievement for an unsigned band still paying its bloody,
sweaty, and tearful dues in regional clubs.
Highs: Stellar, memorable guitar work and sexy grooves throughout.
Lows: Each song contains too
many changes of pace to qualify as a signature live "anthem," but the
capability is certainly there for the future.
Bottom line:A
catchy and impressive debut of dark, melodic "DeathGroove" from one of
the finest bands in years to emerge from the Western Massachusetts metal
scene.
It would have been to imagine a heavier album than Undergang’s Indhentet af Døden.
The thing was totally crushing: churning out one stomach-churning
groove after another with a hardcore-derived simplicity and a
tenderising mallet of a guitar tone. Whilst I loved the album, its
complete single-mindedness made me wonder what to expect from a
follow-up. What would the point be without some kind of change of tack,
when your point was made so emphatically the first time around? In fact Til Døden os Skiller
is a change of tack of sorts, though a perfectly logical one given the
band's career trajectory. Here, the pounding hardcore rhythms have all
but faded away, and in its stead the very sickest forms of death metal
have been given space to breathe. This is Undergang playing deeper and slower than ever before, and it is something to behold.
This is an album that wallows. The extravagant slowness of some passages here most clearly brings to mind the early days of Cianide. The latter’s The Dying Truth
is perhaps the best example of one of my favourite ways of playing
death metal: that which revels in the immediate, visceral pleasure of
indulgently down-tempo hooks. Undergang songs like Ormeorgie or Rådden Messe
roll out super-slow riffs that manage to be both languid and
suffocatingly heavy at the same time, helped in no small measure by the
brilliantly deep gurgles that pass for vocals here. Not that it's all
one-paced. It's just that the sheer bloody heaviness of these sections
weigh like a ball and chain around the feet of the faster parts,
dragging it down into this beautifully inviting swamp of decay and
lethargy. At times the whole sound seems to be grinding to an ugly halt.
The last minute of Når Børnene Dør, for example, is priceless: squelching and staggering forward as David Torturdod’s voice spatters maniacally below.
The album closes with an instrumental, Kadavermarch.
This is a level of ambition the band didn’t really have before- a piece
based on morbid atmosphere rather than pure riff-power. It works
horrifyingly well, with despondent guitar lines that ooze and belch
distortion, and a tempo that perfectly matches the trudging, shambling
gait implied by the title. It is an unusually descriptive piece of music
(even if the scene described is a well-worn cliché), and as such
represents an apposite end to the record. This is nasty, primitive
music, and all the better for it. Buy this! Fucking buy it!
I've avoided listening to much of Coldworker's output, as I suspect have many Nasum fans who are - not displeased
by Anders Jakobson's new project so much as unwilling to face the
disappointment when it doesn't match up to the rightly-revered Nasum. Now that a line-up of Nasum
is planning on getting back together and touring as a final farewell
(memory of Mieszko Talarczyk dominant in the band's mind as much as
fans') it seems a good opportunity to finally lay the tragic memory of Nasum to rest and to follow Jakobson in his new project. Coldworker is now three albums in, and The Doomsayer's Call seems to move away from Nasum's
furious intensity towards a more death metal style, clearly influenced
to an extent by doom with the solemn ominous atmosphere conjured by some
of the riffs and the surprisingly melodic soloing in opening track A New Era. For the most part there's more than enough blasting to keep grindheads happy, the punkish rhythms of the likes of The Reprobate quite Napalm Death-y in tone. There's plenty of the furious deathgrind violence that you'd expect, but as Vacuum Fields
shows the band also have a taste for the epic, and like to throw in
little technical bells and whistles to make your headbanging impressed
rather than mindless.
So, Swedish grind plus British death sums the band up quite well.
With a membership roster which includes some small names of the scene,
most notably Anders Bertilsson (ex-The Project Hate MCMXCIX) this
is anything but a supergroup. Indeed, one of the band's few faults has
to be vocalist Joel Fornbrant, whose deep growl works well with the
music but can make it seem rather monotonous through lack of variety.
Which would be a shame, as there is genuine variety on show in the
songwriting, the catchy crunching grooves of The Glass Envelope contrasting well with Living And Suffering's speedy blasts, and the likes of Pessimist are brutal and engaging enough to keep the listener engrossed. I can't compare The Doomsayer's Call to past Coldworker outings, but having heard this will definitely be checking said albums out. The Doomsayer's Call is certainly a solid, skilfully-constructed deathgrind album that will appeal to a variety of death metal fans.
USA's Cormorant's past releases have caught the extreme metal scene by storm, with their debut EP and full length album garnering critical acclaim through their unique fusion of various different extreme metal sub-genres. Dwellings sees the band continue in the direction where they have set off from, and their appreciation of different kinds of art-forms is evident from their album artwork, which incidentally was the first thing that caught my attention and piqued my curiosity regarding the music behind the artwork.
The opening riffs of The First Man already displays the folk influences that are present on the band's music, before the vocals of Arthur come in, with almost a sense of frenzy in his vocals, spitting out the lyrics to the songs with much rage and fury, but as the album progresses this makes him seem to only put on a false aggressive front, though this is certainly not something to complain about with the brilliance of the music that one is about to discover. Despite the pace that the band travels at, there is a weird sense of calm and peacefulness in the music as well that is displayed through the melodies of the songs. Unlike many other bands of similar genres, there is not much gain on the guitar, lacking the bite that most extreme metal bands utilise, but this helps in making the softer and more melodic passages on Dwellings more soothing and sincere. Vocalist Arthur also utilises different vocal approaches, depending on and adapting to what is going on in the background, ranging from extreme metal-styled growls and screams to clean vocals and whispers. The clean vocals that are present on songs like Funambulist remind listeners of such French bands as Amesoeurs and Alcest, with the pleasing vocal quality.
The music on Dwellings, as already mentioned, is mostly soothing and at times border on epic and atmospheric. For example, on Funambulist, the band takes a slowdown, focussing on producing a huge wall of sound with an almost fuzzy guitar tone. This is not to say that there aren't heavy moments on the album though, as songs like Junta sees the band slowing down their music even further to a doom-pace, with heavily palm-muted riffs and hard hits on the drums, displaying the heavier side of Cormorant. There are also slightly more upbeat moments on tracks like A Howling Dust as well.
Throughout the album, the various instruments are also noticed to be made use of fully, especially the rhythmic instruments such as the bass of Arthur, with the softer segments seeing the bass taking over the lead role. The guitar solos also seem to take the role of bringing out and accentuating the emotional aspects of the music, with the soaring tone of the guitars, and guitarists Matt and Nick letting their instruments wail, at times sounding as if they were mourning the passing of a close friend. Drummer Brennan displays his versatility as well, through the band's rapid switching between fast and slower moments, incorporating odd time signatures at the same time, yet never missing a single beat. The band's abilities on their instruments is perhaps most evident on the instrumental Confusion of Tongues.
The strength of the band's songwriting is such that even long tracks that range in the 10 minute region such as Funambulist and Unearthly Dreamings never fail to entertain and keep listeners enchanted, not only through the variations in the musical style in a single song, but also through the charismatic execution of the track, and the perfect amount of emotions that they have included in their music. With music as strong as such on Dwellings, it leaves one wondering why bands like Cormorant remained unsigned by major labels, but it could just as well remain so, considering the quality of the work that the band has managed to put out so far on their own, putting many other more recognised and more experienced bands to shame.
The technical deathcore band Veil of Maya has been blowing people away since their 2008 release of The Common Man’s Collapse. I’ve always liked them, but I’ve never been BLOWN AWAY by their music. I was, though, quite impressed when I saw that their bassist was playing a 7-string bass guitar at the 2010 Summer Slaughter Tour. As far as keeping up with them, I haven’t really gone any further than getting their new releases a week or two after their release. I was made an offer by someone at Sumerian Records to be one of the reviewers for their upcoming release, Eclipse. Hey, it’s a free promo copy and I get to hear it before anyone else, why the hell not? Almost a week after receiving it, I can now say that Veil of Maya has successfully blown me away. They made tons of huge changes in their overall sound with , but instead of taking the sound from that album and adding some stuff on top of it, they decided to go ahead and create something completely new yet again! The best way to sum this up is that it’s deathcore with more death and less core.
The intro track is fairly predictable and has been done by so many other deathcore groups like Chelsea Grin, Bleed from Within, As Blood Runs Black, Murder the Frail, and others have done countless time. The intro track is pretty much just a really fancy breakdown that blends into the next song. This isn’t a total downer because it sounds cool, but I would expect something a little more out of a band with as much status as Veil of Maya. Here’s the thing that caught me by surprise: the first full song doesn’t sound ANYTHING like the Veil of Maya I’ve known since middle school! Where the hell are all of the constant fancy technical breakdowns? This is probably one of the best deathcore albums I’ve heard in my life! I love deathcore albums that AREN’T constant breakdown after breakdown after FUCKING BREAKDOWN!!
Those of you that hate the deathcore genre for that very reason, THIS IS AN ALBUM YOU NEED TO HEAR! Every single musician in this band have improved a thousand times since. I guess they were really trying to expand their creative abilities with, and then used Eclipse to expand and improve their technical and instrumental skills, which means that I’m going to have EXTREMELY high expectations when they release their next album two years from now. I’m going to list off basically how each musician has improved over the past two years. The vocalist hasn’t really been the best growler or screamer out there, until now. His growls are extremely powerful and deep (something that was lacking majorly in). His screams sound much more developed and professional in Eclipse than the screams in Common Man’s Collapse and, which sounded strained and weak at times. So a huge improvement on the vocalist’s part has really enhanced the listening experience.
The drummer is probably the one that has improved the most out of the whole band. Not in the area of his technical skills, but more so in the areas of the different styles that he can play. Before, it seemed that all he knew how to do was really complex kick drum work while hitting the high-hat on the down beats and the snare in random places. Now, you see him playing flawless blast beats, driving rock-based beats, and just outright creative shit that I’ve never heard before! He also seems to have more involvement in the music than before, where the guitars were the center of attention. That’s another thing I just realized! The focus isn’t on one specific member! The WHOLE BAND is under the spotlight the WHOLE TIME.
The guitarists sound much more together, which sounds better than in, where they sounded like they were each playing something completely different; which got really confusing sometimes. Although those extremely abstract guitar sounds are just what I need at certain times, but I get so much more enjoyment with what they have done here. The bass is weird on this album. It’s one of those things where you can hear what notes the bassist is playing, but only on the really low end that can be heard with a subwoofer. So on top of each individual musician improving, the overall songwriting and song structure is literally a thousand times more organized than ever before.
If you’re asking me for any certain highlights on the album, I would say that Vicious Circle is DEFINITELY the best song on the album. It’s one of those things where that’s the first song I go to when I turn on this album. Fortunately,Veil of Maya doesn’t leave you COMPLETELY in the dust; they bring back memories of their older sound with Punisher, an extremely heavy and complex song. Other than that, the songs have A LOT of blast beat drumming and much fewer breakdowns to show that they are out of the in-crowd and that they can progress from what they’ve been doing almost their entire career. I know it may seem like I’ve been giving a lot of high ratings lately, but that’s just because I’m in a mood to show the world some of the good music that they’ve been missing.
Left wing themes are hardly unusual in grindcore, in fact they seem
entirely logical. Grind is rather the opposite of black metal, in that
it tends not to worship the purity of its own past (a conservative
mindset by definition), instead having a proud history of
experimentation through hybridisation. Typically, anti-establishment
wrath has served as a vital energy force for bands of this nature, but
what’s interesting about Liberteer is that it has tried to
integrate these ideas more explicitly at an aesthetic level, too, making
for a blood-pumping and distinctive perspective. Better to Die on Your Feet than Live on Your Knees frolics around socialist iconography- titles include Rise Like Lions After Slumber, I Am Spartacus
and so forth- like a tourist trip around radical history, guided by a
man (sole member and former US marine Matthew Widener) whose reading of
Goldman, Kropotkin, Bakunin and so on, led him to break with
serious-faced avant-grind survivalists Citizen and form his own explicitly anarchist project.
More pertinent here, though, are the musical references. On one level this is frantic, energising grind in the vein of Terrorizer or another Widener-related project, Cretin. Very unusually for a grind band, however, (albeit not so surprising if you’ve heard the abovementioned Citizen)
this features the kind of orchestral, brass and acoustic influences
that one might expect to find emanating from albums by face-painted
Norsemen. Here, though, these disparate elements blend together into a
vibrant splurge of deepest red, which is simultaneously militant and
militaristic. The martial atmosphere- see the opening trumpet salute of The Falcon Cannot hear the Falconer, or the fragments of tin whistle marching tunes in Build No System,
for just two examples- sits very uneasily with anarchism, in fact the
juxtaposition of the two could seem like a defilement of both. I’m not
sure how to interpret the paradox: I’m tempted to take it as sarcastic
satire. Certainly, the way the soldiers-on-parade overtones of Usurious Epitaph, is echoed and usurped by livid metal guitar in Revolution’s Wick Burning Quick reminds me of Master’s bitter mockery of their own national iconography in America the Pitiful
from way back. The effect, though, is highly ambiguous, because the
martial rhythms and melodies that intertwine with the grind are actually
quite stirring on a musical level, adding a great deal of emotional
kick to the tracks. Not only that, but they contribute musical depth,
too. The short tracks tracks herein leap from plaintive tunefulness to
raging grind in the blink of an eye, producing an exciting
unpredictability that few bands can muster nowadays.
And the collision that is Better to Die on your Feet…
still has more components to be untangled. There are hints of acoustic
folk to be found, here conjuring eerie bluegrass Americana rather than
the clichéd “weren’t our ancestors spiritual, darlings?” buffoonery of
the black metal acts with whom I counterposed Liberteer above. Banjos flutter, somewhat like they do in Panopticon or Petrychor,
tangling with the abovementioned military themes to wallow wistfully in
sepia-tinged Americana, before we are wrenched out of this happy place
by screaming and distortion. The effect is a powerful one. Most bizarre
of all is the thudding almost-power metal of Sweat for Blood and Barbarians at the Gate
(songs here can be taken in interlinked clusters rather than distinct
entities), but I suppose such anomalies can again be taken as all part
of the fist pumping power of the record- which is not a subtle one by a
long shot.
Still, all these elements are handled extremely well
considering this is just one guy with guitar, kit, and synths
(ironically a lineup configuration more closely associated with black
metal), and the album, taken as a whole, is addictive and explosive. The
riffing is complex and vicious, but equally capable of hitting you with
melody- a pretty novel achievement for the genre. The many elements of
the sound, where they could sound arbitrarily hurled, give Liberteer a striking depth and fluidity. In short, this is essential grind.
