Facebreaker - Zombie God EP (2012)

Am I alone in thinking that, when you're putting out a record with your band's logo on it, even something more like a collector's item, that it deserves a little more than just the bare minimum of content and effort? Facebreaker's Zombie God was little more than a teaser for their fourth and most recent record Dedicated to the Flesh, a 7" limited to 666 copies (never seen that before!), two songs, only one of which I believe to be exclusive to this release, the titular "Zombie God". It strikes me as a missed opportunity, because had this maybe 3-4 more songs the same quality as that one, all available only on this record or an mCD version of it, you'd have a pretty killer little EP.

Don't get me wrong, both of these tunes are pretty solid, the first side being "Legions of Doom" which would also be included on Dedicated to the Flesh, but it's just not a great value unless you're actually friends with the band or something. Not even the fairly bland b&w zombie artwork. On the other hand, Zombie God does exhibit some musical evolution, or rather devolution, since the songs here take on more of a thrashing death hue than the pummeling rent-a-Swede death metal dominant on the older discs. The guitar tone is still dirty, but thinner and less about kicking you in the chest, rather it tries to seem more coherently filthy and evil, with spikes of leads and a more seasoned, laid back tempo in the title track. Karlsson's vocals here are also a little more standout than usual, a hoarse and psychotic sounding growl rather that still lays in a few of the old gutturals, he simply generates a lot more natural malevolence with this style, which fits music that is more atmospheric and nocturnal than what you might have heard on Bloodred Hell or Infected. There seems to be a sheen of coldness here, like the grain filter you'd see on a modern horror flick trying to look more edgy and retro than it really is, but if nothing else, it spoke well for the forthcoming full-length...

In the end, while "Zombie God" is far from a disposable track, I just felt this 7" came up short. That's rather the point, sure, but I've got a number of EPs, splits and demos in this format which have all original content and give a little more bang for the buck. Imposed scarcity, collector's item, put it in your 7" bin and forget all about it until the day comes when you wanna wave dicks around with other hardcore vinyl fetishists, maybe in 20 years when people will be looking back on this old-new-new wave of Swedish death metal, mourning over how there were like these 417 bands that arrived over a ten year period that all sounded like the real forefathers Entombed, Grave, Dismember, etc. Ironically, here is where Facebreaker started to branch themselves ever-so-slightly away from that crop, so if nothing else hearing this ensured I was going to check out the next album, which I'd also advise you to do if you've never spent time with their music; either that or go all the way back to Bloodred Hell when they had that more straightforward, 'innocent' sound. Not a total loss, since you do get "Zombie God", but far from necessary as a product.

Verdict: Indifference [5/10]

http://www.facebreaker.com/

Facebreaker - Dead, Rotten and Hungry (2008)

Dead, Rotten and Hungry does not seem the sort of album that would take four years to release, but by the time it showed up the Swedish retro death metal movement was in full swing, no longer the province of a few artists who were lovingly paying tribute to themselves or their countrymen, but a bona fide fad harboring the masses of the creatively lacking. Apart from the slight zombie nod, another trend that has gotten completely out of fucking control as we neared the Teens of the 21st Century, this was aesthetically a direct continuation of Bloodred Hell, albeit with a few production tweaks that brought it more in line with the pure Dismember/Entombed worship and a few nods to the mighty Bolt Thrower. It's almost an enjoyable experience if you've not already become jaded with the style, which is much more likely today than in 2008 for anyone paying attention to the myriad records coming out that sound like this. Facebreaker nearly succeeds by the seat of its maggot-jacked underwear, but has a weaker second half, and ultimately doesn't leave an impression beyond a few quickly healing bruises.

The guitars here are definitely a little uglier as they reach even further into the legendary Swedish playbook, but I also think they've got a more built-in appeal to the masses of retro worship, not to mention all the Entombed-core bands at large that have also taking this cruddier tone into extreme music at large. They're not as gruesome or dirty as Mr. Death or Tormented, but enough that this is the sort of album kids are gonna pick up for the production without even caring about the quality of songs. As for the riffs themselves, they're quite a bit like a blend of later Bolt Thrower meets early Dismember, with nothing really sticky about them, but the tremolo picking just feels so huge here that it's easy to get into, and the meatier chords come off as as a potent counterbalance. Spurious, infectious little leads break out here or there but not often enough, and I also felt like the track list got a little more redundant and uninspired as the record progressed. The first half feels more repulsive and powerful and the latter lapses into a semi-lazy arrangement of tunes you might find on any random Rogga Johansson record circa Ribspreader, Paganizer or Revolting, big grooves and 'authentic' atmosphere to those seeking the re-Swedening, but nothing compelling beyond a handful of listens...in fact, if not for 3-4 lacking tunes, this would be closer in quality to Bloodred Hell.

Otherwise, it's basically 'Double Bass: The Album', because Jesus Christ...double bass. A fortress of brick flinging, always in time, reminding me again of how Bolt Thrower used to do it only ramped up on 'roids, and only disappearing when it just wouldn't make any sense to continue the barrage. 'Robban' Karlsson's vocals have a little more sustain this time around, but once more he's rather indistinct when you compare him to death metal frontmen at large...a little Karl Willetts, a little Steve Tucker, and nothing that would stand out if you had him in a lineup. That said, his growling definitely hit me in the mid-section for the first 15 or so minutes of the record and the production is just excellent, layered upon with a few higher pitch snarls that seem like paeans to Carcass and Deicide, but never dominate that lower end. The bass guitar 'shows up' and collects its pay, but never does much to distinguish itself beyond achieve the raw sewage appeal while sniffing along the guitar progressions. Facebreaker also adopted one of those logos which looks to have that tough guy US hardcore font, only a bit more grotesque because this is undead fuckin' death metal we're talking about, and yet it largely has the same effect as pissed off, highly produced 21st century hardcore, a zombified beatdown with nothing necessarily creepy or malevolent included, just locker room death metal that you'd pump before the big game.

Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10] (this world won't last)

http://www.facebreaker.com/

Sargeist - Feeding the Crawling Shadows (2014)

If Let the Devil In threatened to teeter upon the threshold of melodic accessibility, Feeding the Crawling Shadows does a 180 into the raw and murky black metal filth from with Sargeist was first spawned. Not that the music itself is constructed much differently than on that excellent last album, but the production has been inverted to create something more tangibly raw and disgusting, not unlike a few of the outings of Shatraug's mainstay Horna in the past. Ultimately, this doesn't throw me off the scent quite so much as the fact that a lot of the songs here just don't resonate nearly so well. There's a long history of this guy's music juggling back and forth between mediocrity and stunning effectiveness, and I feel like he's almost decided to 'retreat' after the breakthrough he made in 2010. To some, this might come as a relief, but my reaction was unfortunately the opposite...

Back off, night ghasts! Your mascara is running. I clarify: I don't have any problem with the choice to dial back the production to something more primal and pissed off, on the contrary that is what I expect from a lot of the Finnish black metal I encounter. If the music here was sufficiently memorable or engaging, this aesthetic might even serve to enhance is value. The blast beats here are so uniform and splashy that they seem to fade into nothingness when you concentrate on the streams of chords. Mid-paced late 80s Bathory-like charge riffs erupt through the hyper-maelstrom at steady enough intervals that the record isn't monotonous, and yet a lot of the blasts really translate into a sense of sameness that renders them indistinct. Guitars are performed with a lot of ferocity and passion, no doubt, but I found the majority of the tremolo progressions here a little bland and lacking those surprisingly warmer textures Let the Devil In celebrated. There's a real lack of depth in service to a presumed aura of 'emptiness', but when you break them down they just sound indistinct from so much of the Scandinavian extremity we've previously encountered. Bass lines might not have been of tantamount importance on that album, and here they offer a comparable presence, hovering in the low end but rarely breaking from the guitar notes. The biggest difference, though, is arguably the vocals, which are part the black metal status quo and then part more ominous guttural...only you really need that, because when he's rasping along I also struggled to hear him against the guitars and beats.

That rotten, romantic desperation infused in the last album survives here, but it's repressed quite like the older Sargeist demos and full-lengths, and this is simply more orthodox and presumably 'evil', or it would be if the actual composition of the notes felt more sinister in structure. As it stands, a handful of the tracks like "Inside the Demon's Maze" have a few haunting moments, but overall Feeding the Crawling Shadows just blurs against Shatraug's sum body of work. It's certainly not lazy or arbitrary, nor would his aesthetic decisions lack poignancy through stronger songwriting, but the riffs just aren't as great as what he's put out before, and the guy could probably put out a half dozen records of this quality in a week. I'm not advocating that he's run out of steam, or that his proliferation hasn't produced a number of surprise gems, but there's an unwillingness to refine or grow his formula, which puts all the more pressure on having songs that rule. Of course, those who were seeking a retrogression towards the primeval epoch of Horna, Behexen and this project itself will enjoy (or not enjoy) this on principle, as would anyone seeking records in the blueprint of Darkthrone's Transilvanian Hunger or Mayhem's De Mysteriis dom Sathanas (if rendered even icier and more hostile), but as true to its roots as Feeding... is, its impact is too fleeting, and I struggled to remember it in the hours between listens. One of the blackest of the black metal albums I've heard this year, indeed, but that unfortunately doesn't warrant further compulsion in this case.

Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10]

https://www.facebook.com/thetruesargeist

Facebreaker - Bloodred Hell (2004)

Facebreaker is another of those 'slightly behind while simultaneously ahead of the curve' 21st century Swedish death metal throwbacks which formed about 15 years ago and started churning out records about half way through the prior decade. A little too late to be Bloodbath, but they arrived on my radar well before this current tsunami of Left Hand Path and Dismember soundalikes, along with some of the Rogga bands like Ribspreader. Comprised of a number of that scene's veterans, including growler Roberth Karlsson of Pan.Thy.Monium, Darkified, Edge of Sanity, the Bloodred Hell lineup took an approach to the style that had a more urban, tough guy aesthetic rather than the graveyard eeriness and atmosphere pervasive in so many of their peers, and as a result this does have a streak of straightforwardness that should appeal to fans of records like Grave's Soulless or Edge of Sanity's Cryptic. That's not to say it's at all unique, in fact this functions on a fairly generic set of chord progressions, death metal 101, somewhere between mid 90s Cannibal Corpse and the Swedish 'regulars' of that era, but it's probably one of the most likeable Facebreaker discs, and one that, apart from shifts in studio production, they never seem to deviate from even a decade later.

Obvious chugs and denser, repulsive chords definitely carry forth the borderline Entombed death & roll influence while seeming a lot like a meatier spin on 90s thrash; there are certainly some d-beat driven segments on the album ("Total Wasteland"), but as a whole they go for that real sense of groove balanced against a moderate death metal momentum. Normally such a stripped down, barebones style wouldn't contribute much to my enjoyment of an album, but the pacing of the tracks and the general quality of the riffs seem strong enough that I can listen to this 10 years later and still get as much value as I did in 2004, though it was never and should never be considered any sort of 'exemplary' entrant into the medium. But there's enough charm to Roberth's growling, even if he's not so distinct among peers, and the lead sequences here seem excitingly scripted (like the one in the bridge to "Crushed") that it reminds me often enough of why I got so into the stuff as a teen in the late 80s. A savage, honest crunch to the rhythm guitar, solid drumming, and a bouncing and repulsive bass tone that always hovers through the mix, it seems really that all the instruments are set here at an appreciable balance and that's one of its strongest points, really. They're also not averse to throwing out some cleaner guitars ("Hater") but these do seem a little more subtle and drowned by the crushing force behind them.

Ultimately, the Facebreaker debut is by-the-book, blueprint Swedish death metal which is  probably not going to convince anyone these days who has become jaded with the form. I actually include myself among that crowd, but happened to have heard this band long before most of the stuff that arrives in my promo box, and I can still throw this on with a little Jagermeister, some gore flicks and/or boob rags and have a pretty good time with it. I mean no insult when I say that this is like the equivalent of 'frat house death metal', a phrase that might be meaningless outside of my lacking American culture. The intention here might be some brutish, lowest-common-denominator death, but in knowing their limitations, these Swedes pull it off with some integrity. It's the kind of record where, if you just shut your mind off and lower your expectations, pretend your a teen again, or a kid, or whenever you first caught the bug, you'll find it amusing and moshable and the antithesis of pretentiousness. Absolutely for fans of Ribspreader, Paganizer, Mr. Death, Revel in Flesh, etc. A solid guttural expose for the next kegger, you might imagine if there were like a fraternity of student morticians they might get down to this late at night in their classroom/labs while the instructors remain blissfully ignorant. Beer bonging off body bags, party hats on cadavers, vuvuzelas waking the dead, Bloodred Hell, motherfuckers. This isn't Thug Life, it's Thug Death.

Verdict: Win [7.5/10] (nothing is my truth)

http://www.facebreaker.com/

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

Phantom - Incendiary Serum (2013)

I've seen the Danish Phantom described as a hybrid of black and doom metals, but despite a few of the moderately paced, monastic chord progressions often associated with the Gothic doom style, this really fell to the former side of that equation more often and not. I'd deem their debut Incendiary Serum an attempt at elegant, atmospheric black metal with rather passionate, grisly horror inspired lyrics, very well produced albeit with a few rather predictable contemporary riffing passages that remind me of the usual suspects, i.e. mid-to-late 90s Satyricon, Dimmu Borgir, and possibly even a little Morgul in how they construct their ambiance with the very simple chord patterns or tremolo rhythm guitar progressions in mind. It's neither the most savage or grandiloquent disc in this style of extreme metal, but ultimately its tasteful, partially absorbing and there's one particular aesthetic choice that I found compelling...

That, of course, is the use of ambient sounds which really fill out the mix. Whether that's some ghostly little nuance, or a sample of something natural, even the preacher used in "The Sickening Sermon", which might have seemed a little obvious a choice, but wasn't something I'd heard much of lately. At any rate, this addition really gives Incendiary Serum a sort of 3D panorama of sound, with subtleties that made even the more banal metal components seem fresher than they might otherwise have proven. It's a small thing, really, and Phantom might not approach it as some technological wonder of production, but you have to wonder why so much of music hasn't evolved more in this direction. I understand that there's a natural adherence to core rock instruments in the field, but I think the human mind is really capable of translating these lavish environmental sounds into the riffing and growling, traditional experience, and I for one am ready. Usually when you attribute 'ambiance' to a band, you're talking specifically of passages in the songs that are scripted to that effect, or the surplus of atmosphere created by repetitious, resonant chords, but here it is a more literal, subtle distraction that intensified my overall reaction to the music.

Otherwise, this is vaguely symphonic with lots of pianos and grandiose synths that enforce the airy, 'phantasmal' rhythm guitars which are more or less a standard slew of genre tropes with a few more interesting, memorable variants spliced in. There's a slight berth of dissonance or psychedelia in how they compose, whereas the momentum of several songs recounts modern Rotting Christ (Triarchy of the Lost Lovers and beyond), with some threads of golden melody grafted onto the starlit night-sky mood that so many of the songs evoke. Shades glimpsing off some ancient battlement at the firmament. Lyrics are sufficiently creepy, more so than the songs. Death and black rasps intertwined, with not a lot of distinction among many other acts, but clearly some grotesque emotional attachment to the subject matter. The mix of the drums also felt really fantastic, and the cleaner bass lines helped create a 'classier' depth of sound than you'd find on your average basement black metal effort, for better or worse. Ultimately, this was an album I spun through a number of times, and semi successful, but it was that sparse ambient subtext that was the prime draw, and even then they could have used it more pervasively and I wouldn't have disapproved. A decent album. Another Danish band to watch, and with a stronger song set and some more creative guitars, potentially one to follow.

Verdict: Win [7/10] (inanimate but breathing)

http://phantomdk.bandcamp.com/

Blizaro - Strange Doorways (2013)

Italian horror/giallo films have always been distinguishable from their peers through the sheer, unsettling atmosphere they cultivate. Even the BAD ones, so it makes a lot of sense that Italo-doom or Mediterranean Occult metal exhibit a lot of the same characteristics; whether we're discussing Paul Chain's solo career or Mortuary Drape, there's always that elusive, permeable shadow of dread lurking over the scenery, as in a strange film like Fulci's The Beyond where victims seem to give themselves over to these outlandish fates, creeping out audiences even when the visual aesthetics seem 'cheesy'. I bring this up because John Gallo's Blizaro is almost assuredly one of the best musical acts I've heard outside of Goblin to draw upon that same well of psychedelic malevolence, though it by no means limits itself to strictly that one influence...stir in a heap of pulp fantasy or horror stories circa Lovecraft or Howard, soak it all in an acid haze, and you'd begin to form a picture of what Strange Doorways offers the listener tired of the 'doom standard' and seeking something specialized, trippy and sinister.

This is beautifully packaged...and I mean gorgeous, folks. Not only is Costin Chioreanu's cover so impressive that I inevitably had to own the t-shirt, but each of the interior panels he designed could have easily served the same purpose! This is more or less the entire body of Blizaro's non-Razorback works, so it earns some points instantly for its completeness. Pick it up with City of the Living Nightmare (2010) and the Wooden Stake split (2011) and you've got everything to date. Having heard that album, as I check out anything the 'Back releases, I can honestly say that the selections here, culled from a number of demo mini-albums and bonus materials, are either equal to or superior in quality. There's such a wealth of variation and experimentation here that I often felt as if someone had mixed me a tape of Zombi or Jon Carpenter outtakes and then dispersed some random Sabbath or Pentagram tracks throughout, and frankly the music is often so good that I can't tell you which I prefer...the pure synth adventures or the rock tracks. Thankfully there are plenty instances of both, hours of content covering all four of Gallo's demo releases (2006-2012), so much even that after numerous attempts to start this review I felt like I had to go back and delve a little deeper into each of the individual 'eras', because there's just no end to the charm.

Not that it doesn't come with a small handful of flaws (a few dud riffs or less trance-inducing synthesizer environs), or that every track is equally poignant and/or memorable, but Strange Doorways shrugs off that caul of mere 'collectivity' that most demo anthologies champion...this is genuinely great, not because its a band sharing its earlier imperfections and vulnerabilities with you, but as a coherent view into the workings of a solitary, otherworldly imagination. Warm, mildly fuzzy guitars offer not only a miasma of gloom, groove and downward spiraling depression, but the structures the guy uses are even 'innovative' in places, belonging more to the realm of 60s-70s progressive rock than they do proper metal music...whether they exhibit a Ghost-like ability to stick to your mind like sugar, or a more monumental grandeur somewhere between Black Hole, Cirith Ungol and Candlemass. Synth/ambient selections have a natural lo-fidelity to them that seems stripped directly from some VHS dub of an obscure Italo horror flick, but they're so epic that they also scratch my 'swords & sorcery' itch and I found myself writing a lot with them on in the background. Sure, I pen little stories and game materials to anything from opera to technical death metal to Immortal, but pieces like "Lifestream" or the frightful organs of "White Frijid Mass" seemed to directly fertilize the creative process that they, in turn, sprung up from. Arguably, others like "Sobering Through Darkness", where the two persistent musical styles are joined, are even more listenable.

Sure, one can probably tell that the constituent materials were recorded across a number of years and sessions; Gallo himself provides a brief history of each track in the liner notes. Yet I found that there was a lot of coherence and consistency over the broader range of content that it might have been branded just a new two-disc concept album transferred from demo reels and I mightn't have noticed the difference. John handles most of the instrumentation, joined by a number of his friends like Orodruin bandmates Mike Puleo and Mike Waske. Smooth bass lines and organic drums, zany blues leads and a smorgasbord of wet, evil riffs that range from friendly to freakish. The one component that took some getting used to was John's voice, which is basically an Ozzy-meets-Liebling pitch with some Messiah Marcolin theatrics, but ultimately I thought it was just the superb accompaniment to music so threaded and unafraid of employing sequences or atmospheres. Strange Doorways is something to truly be proud of, not only as a historical document of this project's musical transition from an 'idea' to a vessel of nuance and refined complexity, but as one of the best New York epic heavy/doom works I've ever experienced. If any more bands with the talent of a Blizaro or Realmbuilder pop up, we're in the very best of 'trouble'. 40 tracks, 2 and a half hours of pure escapism. Mandatory to at least check this out, and whether you're hearing this or the full-length first, the style and substance translate well across each.

Verdict: Epic Win [9/10]

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Blizaro/164692483566639

Monarque/Forteresse/Csejthe/Chasse-Galerie - Légendes (2014)

I knew I was going to like this 4-way split about 30 seconds into the first tune, Forteresse's "Wendigo", which just completely takes charge and kicks ass far more than I'm accustomed to with their music. It's proud, melodic and endowed with at least two of the catchiest riffs I've heard them write, while still maintaining that nearly hypnotic style they're known for, only hitting a lot faster and harder to drive home that atmosphere. But even before that, the idea behind Légendes seemed exhilataring... Four Quebecois black metal acts, four 'legendary' themes from their homeland, Sepulchral Productions. Most of you reading this have likely opened your checkbooks and are no longer reading what I have to say, but just in case you lie on the fence, I'll endeavor to continue...

The quality doesn't end with Forteresse, for next I was introduced to Chasse-Galerie, the one band here I had no prior experience with, whose very name is derived from a folktale. I don't exactly know how a lot of their other records sound, but here the style plugs in seamlessly where the first tune left off with "La Boies de Belles", a fit accompaniment for some French-Canadian Renaissance Faire, mid-paced triumphant black metal which plays out like a hybrid of Moonspell's classic "Alma Mater" and late 80s Bathory. Dirty and oppressive in terms of production, but nevertheless magnificent, with textured tremolo picked guitars and a pumping, melodic bass-line that stands out below the grotesque, growled ravings of Blanc Feu. A good song, flush with its predecessor and will prompt me to track down their older efforts. That said, the third offering, Monarque's "La Griffe du Diable" is perhaps the best of the lot, a raw, melancholic, odious epic which falls right in line with the A-side tunes, only harsher and more sinister via the raunchy rasping. An excellent song, an excellent band, perhaps the one thing I could find lacking is that there's simply not much unique about it, but we're beyond that with really any black metal in the 21st century.

Another wonderful track closes out the release courtesy of Csejthe. "Murmurs Nocturnes" is a mildly more dense and emotional mirror to the prior material in that it offers the same wistful tremolo picked melodies and obscure beauties, only the use of the synth in there makes it 'prettier' perhaps. If you experienced their last disc Réminiscence on Eisenwalde Tonschmiede, you'll be hooked in short order, as the dreamy darkness there is present in spades. But perhaps even more impressive than any one song is just how fluid Légendes flows as a whole...there clearly seemed to be some collaboration here, interaction between the four acts, so that the split seems incredibly coherent and consistent beyond the 'We're in the same ballpark musically, or pen pals, so let's do a split' mentality' that I usually come across. There's no need for the songs to stand alone and compete with one another, because they work in unison as a 20+ excursion into the imaginations of their forefathers, a smooth thematic blend that culminates in continuity for the aesthetic rampage Sepulchral Productions has been on lately, following up the latest Gris, Sombres Forêts, and Neige Éternelle records with honour, grandiloquence, and style. Merci to that.

Verdict: Win [8.5/10]

https://www.facebook.com/monarqueqc?ref=ts
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Forteresse/312227428819928
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Csejthe/177551675679644
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Chasse-Galerie/115247631868318

Neige et Noirceur - Gouffre Onirique et Abîmes Cosmiques (2014)

Like fellow Quebec luminaries Forteresse, Gris and Sombres Forêts, Neige et Noirceur inspires a little patience from the listener, which is basically a requisite if Spiritus' music is going to resonate whatsoever. While I don't hold his past works in the same high regard as a few of those others I just mentioned, what I can say for this project is just how much more it exudes a sort of lingering darkness than many of his peers. I've never heard a record by the guy that I haven't liked, and the same can be said for Gouffre Onirique et Abîmes Cosmiques, which offers a contrast of measured, melodic 90s black metal reminiscent of a lot of Swedish or Norse second stringers, with some passages that rely more on ambiance, or some drawn-out, doom-like riffing configurations.

For the most part, though, I feel in listening to this as though I've warped back to around 1996 when the production on black metal records was still quite dark and distant but perfectly audible without overbearing levels of polish. The guitars here, largely driven by tremolo picked melodies over driving programmed kicks, wouldn't be out of place on the first Old Man's Child record or perhaps a better produced Nattens Madrigal, plus a little swagger redolent of Borknagar or older Marduk. But with this album, they're woven into this massive, nearly 60 minute tapestry of triumph and torment, given a lot of space to breathe in, and if you can slow your heart to keep pace with the stuff it's quite effective. Personally I was really happy with the ambient components, too, like the three-part "La Cavern de Glace" sequence which grows progressively more evil on the third movement, when dark chants and droning guitars arrive in a morbid conjunction. Spiritus' is great at coming up with these lower-fi dungeon synth moments where everything seems as if its cast through a black & white lens of creepiness, and I almost regretted that this wasn't just the dominant feature of the whole album...

I say that, because no matter how solidly plotted and well dressed the standard metallic songs are with their percussive backdrops and Spiritus' vile, snarled black metal rasping, many of the riffing progressions here do occasionally border on excessively repetitive and predictable in nature. There is some variation to pacing and he does throw a few more twisted, dissonant curve balls, just enough that it's impossible to write any one song off here, but there are certainly moments where the drifting nature of the songwriting grows a fraction more dull than I might have hoped. It's persistently dark, leering and soul-leeching, but ultimately a handful more unique and compelling riff selections would have made a great difference. However, on the whole I still must say I got 'into' Gouffre Onirique et Abîmes Cosmiques. It's not quite so profound as several of the other Sepulchral Productions releases I covered in recent months, but whenever I see the name Neige et Noirceur I certainly want to listen to what he's written, and am far from disappointed with this, ranking it somewhere between La seigneurie des loups (2010) and Hymnes de la montagne Noire (2012) in sum quality.

Verdict: Win [7.25/10]

http://www.zimondofin.com/neigeetnoirceur/

Beast Within - Adversity/Servitude 7" (2014)

The simplicity of expression on this 7" sadly tends to work against it, by which I'm referring to the extremely basic riffing concoctions that Beast Within bring to the fore. It's not necessarily that the technique is one I don't welcome, and these guys make the most of the few chords they muster, but that, even at around 4 minutes, these songs went on too long with too little of import happening. This is a group composed of fellas from various other acts, including Thesyre, who had a similar penchant for minimalist aggression, but it seems almost all the stress here went onto the meaty production of the guitars and there's just no sense of intricacy whatsoever, coupled with nothing interesting in the guitars beyond just their burly sincerity.

The saving grace is probably the vocalist, who has a really strong, angry presence with just enough nastiness, reminding me of Martin Walkyier (Sabbat) if he were a little less glib of tongue and sustained all his lines, or maybe a little bit of James Hetfield's style if he had a different tone. Riffing is pretty clearly inspired by the mighty Celtic Frost of olde, but this is really only a superficiality because the chords seem more direct than the weirder, morbid choices of the Swiss legends. Drawn out, repetitive grooves and a hint of chugging, with no decent leads or atmospheres anywhere in sight. Just a slowish to mid paced drudging that cocks back its fist, winds up a punch, delivers the strike and then the remainder of the songs are just follow-through on that one brutal motion. Drums are deliberately simple, semi-crashing beats and the bass-lines are just swarthy doppelgangers of the rhythm chords. It could not have taken Beast Within a long time to come up with these, and alas that straightforwardness juts doesn't offer enough nuance or detail to spur compulsion for more than a handful of cursory listens...

It's not exactly horrible or anything, I just came away with wanting more. More structure, more of a reason to care. I do like the vocalist Eric Syre's approach, and I think with a more varied musical backdrop he could change his own pitches a little and veer away from the monotony that this release embodies, but that said, I do think there are a lot of folks who might appreciate the sheer, heart-on-a-sleeve anger exuded from the music until it very quickly becomes redundant. Hopefully this short-form release is a test run, so they can get some feedback and offer something a little more detailed. This sort of doom/thrash hybrid is certainly an uncommon one, and there's a lot of room for someone to arrive and exert a little dominance. I'd prefer to hear Syre over some more monolithic, descending, dreadful doom riffs than these which just sort of crawl along with trite rockish riff patterns.

Verdict: Indifference [5/10]