Heresiarch - Wælwulf EP (2014)

Similar to their Hammer of Intransigence EP from 2011, Wælwulf presents this incredibly stark and apocalyptic cover image and then attempts to meet its crushing effect with some of the most brutish and savage black/death war metal possible. But despite the buzz the New Zealanders had surrounded that outing, I wasn't quite sold on their style. The guitars were just too drudging and simple, imagination and creativity eschewed for pure primacy, the riffs and vocals void of nuance, and at the vortex of their intentions, hostility seemed a trump card over the notion of evil; barbarism besting malevolence. So, for some listeners, I'd imagine it was working very much as Heresiarch intended, but if I'm bored within a few riffs and there's nothing unexpected on the horizon, it doesn't speak well for my reaction.

Oddly enough, Wælwulf continues this very practice, but I felt it was more successfully engaging to the ear. Unapologetic and perhaps even more nihilistic a discourse than its predecessor, but the simplistic chord structures bleeding into tremolo patterns, frenzied and listless outbreaks of distant lead guitars and layered growls and grunts seem to present this primitive, angry maze that I was more absorbed in. Granted, they're still not about to win an award for subtlety or stickiness of writing, since the rhythm guitars seem to hone in on the same small subset of chords and just fist them repeatedly, from open, muddy notes to belligerent, berserker chugs over which the vocals have a sort of call/response nature and some ambiance howls off in the backdrop ("Endethraest"); but despite any shortcomings, that's probably my favorite tune they've written yet. Another interesting piece is the closer "Abrecan", which largely consists of voluptuous, sludgy bass and feedback driven, downtrodden riffing influxes with more ritualistic, chanted growls that capitalize on the atmosphere of the second tune...I'd liken it to an 'epilogue' of war metal, when the bodies lay blasted and spent about the theater of violence, ravenous, howling vultures circling in the form of wailing feedback akin to nuclear warning sirens...

So, yeah, this is more experimental than the last EP and ultimately a lot more resonant with me; I think they might even be 'on to something' with the latter 2/3rds of the experience, though the material would still really benefit from  some more interesting guitars once they hit full burst. To describe Wælwulf on the whole would be like early British brutality like Bolt Thrower or heavier Godflesh meets Incantation/Disembowlment, and then the resultant, roiling mass irradiated with Canadian psychopaths like Conqueror, Revenge and Blasphemy. If you think about such an equation, there's a lot of potential there for just clubbing the fuck out of the listener to such an extreme that only an imprint of his skeleton remains like chalk on the barren rock beneath. And this new EP really services such an analogy, so if you were on the fence with the last record or simply never heard them before, start with this fractionally abhorrent evolution.

Verdict: Win [7/10]

https://www.facebook.com/heresiarchcult

Ulcerate - The Destroyers of All (2011)

You know, in general I like to think of myself as a fair and balanced individual, open minded in his musical tastes. I consider it a blessing that I've been listening to metal music in all of its forms, from an age at which I was unable to even distinguish what those were. An age where really the only brand was 'heavy metal' itself. Come thrash, come speed, come power, come doom, come death, come black, come drone, come folk, come whatever, it's always been a pleasure to experience each new terrain as it took form, to separate the chaff from the wheat. But every so often, I find myself at odds with an album that appears like some new cultural monolith from the void, some tribally praised epiphany of the unsung, and this year out it would appear to be Ulcerate's third full-length The Destroyers of All.

I don't think there's a single hip rag out there which isn't lauding this as one of the year's best offerings on the extreme side of the spectrum, and I've seen it mentioned on years' end lists more numerous than I could count in a lifetime. New Zealand band finds a new direction, and impresses all with its absolution and artistry! Now, let's reverse for a moment: I actually quite like Ulcerate. Or rather, I enjoyed their first two first two albums to some extent. Everything in Fire, in particular, was an incendiary and turbulent blitz of harrowing architecture. Certainly even then you could tell that there was something mildly different about the way the band were building their compositions. Tense, jerking tremolo riffs supported by one of the more technically versed skin-hammers in the field (Jamie Saint Merat), and what it might have lacked in truly memorable note progressions it made up for in its sheer, explosive facade...

Here, they've basically watered down the formula, or rather pacified it to the degree that the music has become more accessible. That's not inherently a bad choice, knowing just how chaotic they had seemed up to its release, but somehow Ulcerate have managed to leech all that terror and tension out of their music. The influence of drone, post-hardcore and sludge have crept forth into the compositions, and thus this feels like a more excitable alternative to Neurosis or Isis with a drummer who can mete out more strikes per minute than those acts have on entire albums. The guitars center in on spikes or ringing, higher pitched droning notes that one would think might actually brighten up the beats, or add some warmth, and yet they're almost entirely without any value. Each note sequence feels pitifully simplistic and unmemorable, as if the two players were simply trying to zip and zag around one another with all the shiny strings and create some sort of aural sunstroke in the listener.

Quite annoying, and eventually The Destroyers of All grows as tired and boring as watching water drip from a slowly leaking faucet. The odd thing is, the musical meter is not monotonous on this album. The band will shift between slower passages like "Beneath" to more harried, manic double bass beats in "Cold Becoming", and certainly the notes continuously shift with each streaming imprint of irritation, but considering these tracks range from six to over 10 minutes long, there's a lot of headache lying in wait, and the guitars seem to pull the same tricks over and over again in this banal dearth of creativity. I picked up the album earlier in the year, listened through and found nothing even remotely as interesting as what people were raving about, and then put it away for some months. But time has not been kind, and I find myself just as irascible towards its content as I was back then. Hell, I can't even listen through this anymore without reading along to the lyrics, because in all honesty they're better than the music...

Admittedly, this is not the WORST record I've heard in a year choked with disappointments and overrated tripe, but I must say that in ratio to its surrounding miasma of hype, I reaped the least yield of enjoyment out of The Destroyers of All than almost any other of its kind. Compared to Flourishing's amazing debut album, or others in this class of hybridized post-hardcore and death metal, in flounders on such a flat and soulless plane that it's practically two dimensional. 53 minutes with not a single good riff to be shown for it, dull semi-guttural vocals that aren't nearly as interesting as the text they speak, and a jerky atmosphere as annoying as a cloud of flies at a picnic. God, I'll just recommend this to everyone I know. The Destroyers of All is not clever. It's not well written. It's not inventive in any meaningful sense of the word. The Kiwis of Ulcerate can certainly do better, and HAVE done better than this, but until such a time as they return to that point, I must remain humbly and respectfully undestroyed.

Verdict: Fail [4/10] (and leave us dry amongst the dirt of men)

http://www.ulcerate-official.com/

Heresiarch - Hammer of Intransigence EP (2011)

Heresiarch is a New Zealand act involving a few of the Diocletian guys and a few who work exclusively within this project. Hammer of Intransigence is their second release, following a brief demo earlier in the year, and I was immediately struck by the excellent cover art and, hell, the use of the word 'intransigence'. I'm a bit of a vocabulary whore, and this is the sort of thing I like seeing, but I must admit to being dismayed when I listened through the actual music of the EP. Not that it's necessarily a bad recording: the band fuses a lot of carnal snarls and blunt gutturals into a standard lattice of grinding guitars that seem targeted at advocates for the most primitive forms of the black and death metal genres. I heard a bit of Beherit, perhaps, or old Carcass, Bolt Thrower, Napalm Death, and not unlike the faster paced, mindless grinding or bludgeon-grooves of Australians Blood Duster or disEmbowelment.

My issue is primarily with the guitars, which almost unanimously fail to evoke anything but the most basic and familiar velocity of chords that all feel as if they'd been beaten to death. The low, churning tone is relatively appealing, but it's not conducive to striking note progressions. Then there is also the fact that they generally use only one, forced blasting pace which is barely broken up except for a few doom-like segments as in "Carnivore" or the entirety of the molasses maneuver that is the closing, titular "Intransigent". Interestingly enough, whenever the New Zealanders concentrate on ambiance or atmosphere, like the intro "Abomination" or the lead sequences threaded through a few cuts, it begins to take on a more dramatic dimension of debauchery which I frankly would have liked to hear more of. Unfortunately, these elements are in the clear minority upon Hammer of Intransigence, and the remainder, while punishing, can admittedly grow dull.

If you're in the market for a churning, pounding headache akin to shoving your noggin into a meatgrinder, I fail to see how 21+ minutes of this would seem out of place. The vocals function along the axis of Carcass duality, often in conjunction but separated into their own hostile threads, and the guitars bristle and rip like a less dissonant Portal. If only the latter didn't feel like the guys had spent so little time composing them, but rather muscling out the first, most basal patterns that came to mind, they'd come off a lot more compelling. In the end, Hammer of Intransigence too rarely feels as menacing as the pile of skulls or chaos wheel on its cover. It's meaty and crushing everything in its path, but leaves little to the memory. That is very likely the aim, but it's a goal which has been accomplished hundreds if not thousands of times in the past with better writing.

Verdict: Indifference [5.5/10]

Dawn of Azazel - Relentless (2009)

Dawn of Azazel is one of New Zealand's stronger metal acts, and as they prove with this 3rd full-length effort, they are not above the incorporation of modern elements into their sound. This is a pretty groovy album, with a lot of big meaty rhythms that squeal and shake you to the core. Paired up with Rigel Walshe's scratchy, nihilistic vocals, the album often feels a little like the more aggressive side of metalcore meets death. Now, before the xeno-metalians and 'elitists' decide to panic and find a dank dungeon to hide themselves in and cry, Relentless is a fine example of this styling being applied correctly. It's very metal, and it's very good. It's a little more brutal than a band like, say Gojira, but has a similar attention to production standards and huge grooves.

As for its lyrics matter, Relentless focuses on the struggles of flesh, the strength and futility of manhood and the indulgence in vices and sin, and it does so through a very aggressive, staggering slew of percussive, almost drunken precision (I know, an oxymoron). The riffs all lash at you like the spiked ball end of a flail, and you can only imagine the slamming that goes on during this band's performances. I personally enjoyed the songs which go a little above and beyond the meaty punishment, like "Majesty" which rolls out a pensive, atmospheric guitar line above the choking, thundering rhythms. "The Art of Seduction II: Ravishment" also has some nice discordant guitar work which adds a layer of vitriol. But the majority of the album is sheer barbarism, and tracks like "Fornication Revelation" and "By My Hands" are extremely violent and riveting.

The album sounds crazy. Blast it in your car and you're likely to drive all potential dates/girlfriend away in fear. But all your friends will love it, until they snap their necks after 2-3 tracks, then they'll just lie there, looking dizzy and empty. But you can't sit still when you hear something this bombastic, it's got a mathematical edge that can make fans of Meshuggah and Gojira salivate while probably still appealing to the more open minded tech death crowd. Dawn of Azazel have delivered their tightest selection of tracks to date. Don't be confused by the covert art, it's a little sillier than their prior offerings but that was likely the intent (the band has an obvious sense of blunt humor).

Highlights: Majesty, Fornication Revelation, The Art of Seduction II: Ravishment

Verdict: Win [8/10]

http://www.dawnofazazel.com/

Black Sheep (2007)

Really, it was only a matter of time...

Part kiwi sheep comedy and part tribute to campy horror schlock of eons past like Night of the Lepus (1972) or The Killer Shrews (1959), Black Sheep is a New Zealand film directed by newcomer Jonathan King, and stars a largely unknown cast.

Henry Oldfield returns to his family's successful farm after 15 years. He left when his father fell to his death off a coastal cliff in a herding accident. As a result, Henry has a severe phobia of sheep. He has returned to claim a check for half the farm, from his brother Angus. Angus was ruthless with the sheep as a child, and ruthless even to young Henry, who he would play pranks on. Gee, I smell poetic justice on the horizon! Angus and a team of mad scientists have come up with a genetic formula that can mutate sheep with human DNA to look better and act smarter, and when a pair of hippies (including the lovely Danielle Mason as Experience) decide to spring some sheep, they wind up stealing and releasing a mutated infant sheep. All hell is about to break loose...

***BAA BAA SPOILERS***

The first thing you'll notice is just how beautiful New Zealand is, YET AGAIN, on film. If you watch this in HD you'll see sweeping, lush landscapes courtesy of some stunning cinematography which is far too good for this film. The makeup and special effects are likewise top notch, from the piles of gore left sopping about to the transformation sequences (man to goat...goat to man...goat to......goat). They remind me of Peter Jackson's early films, probably not a coincidence. It seems quite a budget went into producing what was likely some kid's college film project. There is a satisfying level of gore in the film, but several of the death scenes are annoyingly left to the imagination: we see an attack, we see the aftermath, but we are left blank on the actual kill. They almost make up for this during Angus' presentation scene, when an army of mutant sheep converges on the guests and slaughters them brutally, but so many of the 'victims' look like they're laughing while being maimed that it's not as effective as one would hope.

The story is rather stupid, and there are numerous situations which involve throwaway toilet humor that I probably wouldn't find funny if I was still 5 years old. If you're into special effects and New Zealand scenery, or stupid horror films in general, then this is well worth a viewing. I especially liked the sheep-man wereform, which was pretty damn cool. And yes, the poetic justice goes above and beyond what you're expecting.

Verdict: Indifference [6/10]