Possession - Anneliese EP (2014)

There was a pretty obscure Kansas death metal band called Possession, and the logo's slightly similar, so when I first saw the promo for this 7" in my inbox I thought they might have reformed. Not the case at all: this is actually a Belgian band of a more infernal pedigree, performing a primal concoction of black and death metal which hearkens back to the age of bands like Hellhammer, Bathory, Venom and other diabolics of the early to mid 80s who were satisfied with committing the most gruesome and unholy works of simplified aggression to tape. How successful these guys are? I can't exactly form a firm opinion of just the two tunes on this, but if you're really into the basest of metal tunes, evil cover artwork and a 'true' sensibility to what they're doing, this quartet might not disappoint.

Personally, I found the stuff pretty crude and inoffensive, with a strong rock ethic to the riffing of the title track which is admittedly sort of bland when you consider all the raving, theatrical rasps of the front man and how much better they would have been served with something more interesting in structure. The drums are very slappy sounding, the bass thick and oozing with distortion, the murk of the rhythm chords unbreakable, but honestly the only thing here that was distracting me was the reverb-soaked ranting accompanied by descending back-up howls that feel like gargoyles free-jumping off burning cathedrals. Unfortunately, when a rock creature strikes the ground at terminal velocity, it's likely to break up into pieces, and there just wasn't enough to this particular song to keep me wanting to go back to it. The B-side "Apparition" was a little more to my liking, with evil wailing guitars, more morbid chords and even a breakout blast-beat section, so there was just an innate if minimal level of variation which kept my imagination better occupied, and even if the mid-paced rhythm guitars were comparable to the first tune, they are simply more menacing.

So that leads me to believe that, while the Anneliese EP itself might not be a prime showing of the band's talent, given a longer record they will likely have the chance to shine between the faster and slower-rock material. With a vocalist like this, I think putting some more nuance into the guitars, with more compelling or eerie note choices would go a very long way towards making Possession one of the most goddamned evil sounding acts on the planet. But they're not quite there yet...which is fine, they've only been around a few years and definitely have the potential to pull in that proto-extreme metal crowd who worship a time when black, death and thrash metal were often woven into a singular, sinister package. Those into bands like Bones, Usurper, Venom, Von, Darkthrone and comparable sounds might want to give these guys a listen, but I feel like they've got better in them for the future.

Verdict: Indifference [6/10]

https://www.facebook.com/hisbestdeceit

Jumalhämärä - Songless Shores EP (2014)

After taking quite an eclectic detour with their 2013 organ music effort Resitaali, which I might add was quite good, Finland's artsy, Bizarro world black metallers Jumalhämärä return to a heavier, semi-familiar terrain with but a single, extensive 17-minute opus entitled Songless Shores. Right from the start, before you've even begun to listen through this, they've got you wondering with that excellent, completely abstract cover artwork that is almost impossible not to stare at; and to little surprise, the music has the same effect. Okay, your ears can't necessarily 'stare' (at least I hope not), but if they could, they would not be able to avert their gaze from this song, which is both tremendous and completely off the wall. That is what Jumalhämärä does, what they will continue to do, and you can either lay back with a surreal set of shades and enjoy the experience, or fuck right off.

That's not to say that Songless Shores isn't so bonkers that it often devolves into a disheveled, disjointed wreck, but it's a beautiful mess and not one to take for granted when one is so often bombarded with the predictable and traditional. What sounds like a cacophony of chiming clocks builds up into a swell of roiling tremolo picked guitars, swerving bass line bombast, wretched growl/rasps and groovy drums which feel more appropriate for a prog rock record. Admittedly, the beats seam a little smothered in the mix, to the point that they become disparate from the thinner, droning guitar lines, but the way all these fragments come together feels like someone writing shoegaze music while taking a lot of prescription meds and staring at a Dali painting. The tune calms near the center, with some folksy strings and native instruments that seem like you're a few streets away from a festive urban center on a peaceful eve, until it transitions into a distorted, unnerving landscape of ambiance and semi-industrial clatter, ominous choir harmonies and then ultimately the sound of some running water and some male chants that drift into closure...

I was half expecting the thing to cycle back into some metallic augmentations, but can't say I'm dissatisfied with this sort of linear, adventurous songwriting. Point A gave me absolutely no warning whatsoever of where I'd be ending up at Point B, and it was like watching a fresh-to-my-eyes, but antiquated art film at college. Granted, not all of the forward motions through various genres wind up as the smoothest mutations, and the experimental nature of Songless Shores seems to be worn proudly on the sleeve, but ultimately you just have to be grateful there are bands like this unafraid to take a piss on convention and search themselves through a plethora of unusual aural environments. The lyrics to this were great, they definitely seemed to have a more folk/historical theme to them, which I also felt through the sheer musical output of Resitaali, but as an outsider I wasn't able to completely decipher their cultural significance (my own shortcoming). Still, this is not a hindrance for me, because if anything, the track becomes even more enigmatic and obscure. At any rate, I have never disliked anything I've heard from these Finns, and though this was a little less fulfilling than their 2010 full-length Resignaatio, they continue to stand alongside their other band Mörkö and the slightly more accessible Oranssi Pazuzu at the leading edge of psychedelic black metal from that part of the world.

Verdict: Win [8/10] (remember to flog your children properly)

Wormreich - Wormcult Revelations (2014)

Wormreich is one of those band names so fantastic that you just wish you had gotten to it first. These Southerners have a seasoned spin on traditional black metal which remains vile and claustrophobic with some slight nods to ambient orchestration due the incorporation of keys and atmospherics, not only in their own intro/interlude pieces but as an added layer of texture to the blasting violence they induce. I don't recall ever having heard their 2011 debut Edictvm DCLXVI despite the cover seeming very familiar to me, but at any rate Wormcult Revelations has a fairly sinister appearance to it which I believe the band does well enough to match in the songwriting throughput, even if this isn't ultimately 'novel' or something we haven't encountered in the past.

But it's well-paced, and reasonably well-played. Floods of faster guitars and blast beats are interspersed with slower, ominous passages where dissonant picking patterns hover above busier bombardments of double bass, groaning, murmured vocals that evolve into hacking cough rasps which invoke evil. There's enough variation in the structure of the riffs to make a difference, though it all seems coherently oblique and ritualistic in disposition. The harsher usage of the vocalist isn't exactly unique, just a nihilistic traditional snarl which is barked out pretty loudly, occasionally accompanied by a lower-pitched growl for emphasis. The drumming is an incessant thunder through which you can make out a lot of the crashes and toms but the snare is partly subdued. Bass lines are thick flumes of dark subtext which don't often distinguish themselves from the rhythm guitar notes, but in conjunction with those bricklaying kicks they definitely give the album a firm bottom end over which the guitars just simmer with malevolence, or at least try to.

There are definitely some more chaotic, swirling components to the writing that involve driving walls of uncomfortable notes, and there is also a slightly disjointed aesthetic to how they transition from one rhythm to the next, but I took this more as a calculated risk than just sloppy playing. The vaunted, dark choirs, organs, keys and other backing sounds here are used a little more sparsely than the typical symphonic black metal record, but where they appear they definitely give this a more grandiose, subversive horror sensibility. I really enjoyed how the symphonics swelled through "Codex Lvcifervm", which is the most substantial non-metal track on the disc and reminds me a lot of 90s ritual/ambient or dungeon synth, only using a more fulfilling sound set which is akin to the soundtrack for some horror/haunted video game. I felt like Wormcult Revelations actually had just the right balance of the arcane, wondrous and menacing, though if you broke down a lot of the guitars the actual riffs can seem bland in spots. Anyway, while you've got traces of old Euro black metal circa Limbonic Art, Emperor, Mayhem, Old Man's Child or Enthroned in there, they don't resemble anyone too closely, and along with labelmates Haeresiarchs of Dis from San Jose, we might be seeing a new wave of high concept symphonic black metal that's nothing to scoff at. Ugliness meets eloquence.

Verdict: Win [7/10]

https://www.facebook.com/wormreichofficial

Massacre - Back from Beyond (2014)

Stagnation is stagnation. No matter how many coats of armor it's clad in, no matter how you attempt to further 'brutalize' it, a death metal album cannot work without some balance of quality riff composition, morbid or malevolent atmosphere, or at the very least some head-spinning level of technicality or complexity which forces the listener's brain into a series of mental acrobatics. Funny enough, Back from Beyond has none of this, it's simply a pure 'ca$h in on the fact that we were a death metal band signed during the formative years of the genre' reunion which offers absolutely nothing new or credible with its formulaic, exhausted riffing progressions. That it's an obvious 'sequel' to Massacre's decidedly average 1991 debut From Beyond, arriving to strike when the iron of death metal nostalgia is hot, only serves as emphasis to its dubious nature, and about the only thing in its favor is that it's nowhere near as awful as the shitty sophomore Promise. But that's faint praise, because:

One Direction is not as shitty as Promise.
Li'l Wayne is not as shitty as Promise.
The Last Airbender was not as shitty as Promise.
Having the Earth and everyone and everything you love on it incinerated simultaneously by a solar flare might arguably not be as shitty as having to listen through Promise.

As you can see, Massacre and I have not always had the tightest of relationships, but the worst I could say for From Beyond was that it was 'just alright'. An early 'also-ran' record, sure, but there were only a few coattails to ride on at that point. Not the case with Back from Beyond, which is more or less an effortless doppelganger of decades of traditional death metal. And I mean effortless...Rick Rozz could hardly have spent more than mere moments conceiving such predictably insipid note progressions, and if you've already heard the Condemned to the Shadows EP from 2012, there's almost no point in tracking this down, since those are by far the best tunes here and the rest is monotonous filler with samey sounding rhythm guitars, and vocal patterns that are rarely distinguishable from one another. Of course, if you've listened to Autopsy, Death or Obituary's material from around 1987-1990, there's not much point listening to Massacre in the first place, but that goes without saying. This completely lacks the ambition one could hope for in a band who were around in the old days, and in fact the whole thing seems like its merely struggling to achieve the level of its 1991 predecessor, and settling for a comparable result. It goes a little too far in its quest for 'purity'.

I'm not as offended by the lack of Kam Lee as some purists will be, because the guy was never one of my favorite growlers, but he's moved on to better bands; not to mention Edwin Webb functions close to a modern analog for that sort of grotesque, sustained guttural. But this is so far below the gruesome character exhibited by a John Tardy, Chuck Schuldiner, Chris Reifert, Martin van Drunen or Paul Speckmann during their primes that it might fall out the opposite side of the planet. Likewise, the chords and tremolo picked guitars, as meaty as their tone is, are unshakably bland, patterns that have all been done to death (rimshot) countless times whether we're talking Benediction, Bolt Thrower, Death, Obituary or 72 other bands from the early waves...not to mention the myriad of newer aspirants to the throne of banality. I mean, on a purely production level, I don't have many complaints...the bass is loud and raunchy, the guitars fleshy, the drums accurate and struck powerfully, and the vocals cut right across the instruments, but Back from Beyond is just so devoid of creativity and passion that it seems like it might have just been assembled by robots as some sort of distillation of 'death metal' principles meant to teach children what the genre sounds like.

It hits harder than From Beyond did, but not in any meaningful way...drum and guitar tones just sound so much brighter and more voluminous than they did 24 years ago. The fact is, no matter how heavy it tries to come across, the vacancy of quality songwriting holds it back. Even the leads just feel like sound effects that escaped the Leprosy recording sessions, and have no interesting structure to them. A real failure to launch here. 6-7 minutes and just two songs of this on that previous EP were decent enough, if not exceptional, but hearing them plugged into a 45 minute framework with 14 songs that almost all sound similar beyond the one minute dark ambient intro. Didn't anyone in the band listen through this batch of songs and think to himself 'we could use a little more variety'? By about 10-15 minutes into the album, it was nap-inducing, but by the time I finished, it was practically torture. It's unfortunate, because I almost always want these old timers to kick some ass, and teach the newbies how it's done, but judging by what I'm hearing on this, Massacre seems to require that lesson themselves. It's not the worst thing I've ever heard by a landslide, but sadly you hear one cut from this and you've essentially heard them all; they should be capable of better.

Verdict: Fail [4.5/10]

https://www.facebook.com/MassacreFlorida?fref=ts

Spectral Lore - III (2014)

Here at the Auto-Ranch, Spectral Lore serves as a sort of 21st century analog to the reactions I used to feel for black metal during it's 'prime' of the mid-90s: In the Nightside Eclipse, The Archaic Course, Nemesis Divina, Frost, you name it, there was just such a tangible balance of exploration, trepidation and intensity on a lot of those records which felt so overwhelmingly unique and inspiring that they still number among my favorites. Ayloss, the sole musician behind this project, might not benefit from having created or innovated such techniques, but it's what he does with them all that makes this music so captivating, rare, and endemic to that headspace I rarely get to crawl into when I've got so much black metal on my radar, that jadedness towards the genre becomes a very real threat. III, which is actually the fourth full-length to my knowledge (discounting the fantastic 2013 split with Mare Cognitum), is ultimately one of those few records that I put a lot of faith in and don't feel even remotely spurned; a varied, textured, immersive experience that I can listen through a dozen times without feeling as if I've grokked every detail...

There's an underlying compulsion to the compositions: that black metal can remain loyal to its scriptures while applying a fresher coat of ink to their dictation. Apart from the fluid blasting passages redolent of incendiary Scandinavian might, there was no one point throughout this album where I could predict to you exactly what was going to happen elsewhere. All seven tracks possess an individuality which not only complements, but strengthens their neighbors, even when the styles of music being contrasted against the black metal core are so wildly different. For instance, "Cosmic Significance" begins with a sort of alluring, primal ambiance to it which evokes 60s-70s New Age space synth, while "Drifting Through Moss and Ancient Stone" involves a moody, incidental folksiness with the clean guitars that feel out new pastures with seemingly every measure. But all is bound together with the eloquent savagery of the tremolo picked melodies, harmonies against which Ayloss sets an added layer of angelic resonance, organs, choirs, multi-faceted growls and howls that seem to assault the listener from a panorama of ancient and cosmic landscapes. If Giordano Bruno had channeled his heretical astral revelations into a symphony, it might sound a lot like this (sans distortion), and it's that larger than life air of discovery and fulfillment which precludes any chance of these incredibly lengthy tracks (10 to 16 minutes) from lapsing into tedium or dissatisfaction.

It's of course impressive that this is all one individual's imagination coming to light, but on equal footing are the guy's instrumental skills. Never cheesy or excessively indulgent...the classical acoustic guitars here have the grace and complexity you'd desire from a seasoned player, and the chord choices are evocative of those tenets of adventure and escape that was characteristic of those aforementioned 90s gems. Granted, a blast beat is still a blast beat and few of the riffs sound unusual for the form, but there's a patience to the writing which doesn't aim for cheap, quick money shot melodies, rather more swarthy cycles of guitar notes that merge into a bigger picture. Bass lines are less overt than the more atmospheric instruments, but they've always got a warm groove going or something else that helps anchor the airier embellishments on the strings or synthesizer. Drums are always maneuvering between a standard blasted precision and a proggier set of beats, with loads of fills to keep them interesting and give the songs just a fraction more depth and flavor, while the growls and rasped vocals maintain the spectral sensibility exhibited on past works: themselves more of an atmospheric exhibition of suffering and bewilderment than a harder driving syllabic framework. III is a yin and yang of the elusive and tangible, ethereal and grounded, with replaybility in spades, and somehow I knew it would be, because sometimes a guy just 'gets it'. And you should, too. Get this.

Verdict: Epic Win [9/10]

http://spectrallore.bandcamp.com/

Malhkebre - Revelation (2014)

If, like myself, you had experienced this French band's 2006 EP Prostration, then you'd know to expect some rather uncanny, ugly as excrement black metal which doesn't so much live by conventions as it tends to sodomize them with some charismatic, off the wall vocals and occasional weird riffs. We're not talking Peste Noire levels of oddness in how the songs are structured and executed, but clearly these guys are only a few categories removed from that level of brilliance and they're going to stand out to you for that very reason. Like the image on the cover art, you will feel as if something, maybe a meathook, maybe an old rusty axe, was forced or hacked into your being numerous times, and while Malhkebre might seem just as goofy as they are evil thanks to the vocal style, Revelation deserves accolades for its homegrown black metal aesthetics and careful contrast of unruly dissonance and more straightforward tremolo picked sequences.

The lo-fidelity of this recording gives the impression of hearing it in a jam room, organic and natural and completely unprocessed. Sometimes that means the vocalist has to struggle a little to attain the level of grotesqueness that the instruments flourish in, but it really highlights the hysteric precision of the drumming, the lighter, almost melodic groove of the bass lines and a bevy of riffs that range from full-bore blinding speed chords which resemble their Scandinavian forebears (Mayhem, Bathory, etc) to the slower, creepier components which breathe a little more malevolence into the work as a whole. Vocalist Eklezjas'Tik Berzerk growls out in this outrageous bark, which in spots will sound more guttural and serious, at others like a spectral moaning, and other yet almost seem like the guy is completely loaded, collapsing over himself in some alleyway, rolling about in the filth and offal of humanity and just reveling in it. Nowhere does this performance feel contrived or excessively planned out in advance, there's an almost sporadic, angry and passionate nature to this that oozes fucking character and had me wondering what the hell was he going to do next? Some might argue that it doesn't feel like he's always taking things seriously, but the fact is I'm going to remember this approach a lot more than the last 20 copycat black metal raspers who sound like Satyr, Ihsahn or Fenriz...and that's really part of the reason I also like Famine's style so much.

I don't know if I'd call the riffing 'inventive', per se, but it definitely cycles through a number of interesting variations with jazzier minor keys and vile melodies that blend in a little ugly death metal influence into the more ritualistic black metal encounters. There are tunes like "IHSV" which are tour de forces of absurdity and violence that play out like a more primitive alternative to 21st century Deathspell Omega, and there are also a few experimental interludes like "Dogma" which is like distorted martial noise with growled French narrative, or "Hystérie révélatrice - Part I", where it sounds like some unfortunate woman is about to get jumped and murdered while in the midst of her passions. Really, the entirely of Revelation is like a drugged up tactile exhibition of obscure occult rituals being performed in the midst of an orgy in a catacomb through which all the depravity and sewage of humanity sifts. It's not immediately memorable when dissected down to an individual 'riff' or 'song' component, but the whole thing just seems like you were up late at night watching some schlock giallo or snuff horror, something that you know you shouldn't get involved with and yet cannot turn your eyes (or in this case, ears) away from. Drunk off its own debasement and fuckery.

Verdict: Win [7.5/10]

https://www.facebook.com/malhkebre

Woebegone Obscured - Marrow of Dreams (2013)

Though I laud these Danes for expanding greatly upon the sounds of their 2007 debut Deathstination, I still found myself having several hangups with a complaint I usually lodge against doom metal albums which overstay their welcome: if you haven't got enough material to really swell out a track between 13-20 minutes in length, then it might be better to chop them down. Not that there's anything particularly terrible in how Woebegone Obscured 'pad' out the intended epics, but as a sort of transcendental, 80 minute listening experience, this one often seems more empty than full. 'Empty' in the way that a lot of doom metal bands feel this genre needs to feel, perhaps, but hardly conducive to a mesmerizing or compelling auditory escape, so as much as I attempted to engage with the naturalist imagery of the packaging in contrast to the dreary glories of the compositional style, I just never sunk into that next level of immersion.

That said, Marrow of Dreams is an acceptable listen if you're in the mood for just something slow that might sort of fade off into the background, mood music for glade-gazing and cloud-counting which maintains a fraction of the gloomy edge of its predecessor. In fact, this is sort of like a 'life' alternative to the 'death' of the debut, and conveys its sense of sadness and expression in brighter shades than that crushing murk. There are still some pretty pure death/doom tunes like "In Suffering Darkness Dwell" which border upon the funereal, but even there the glacial melodies or cleaner strings woven throughout have an almost abstract notion of warmth that permeates the dusky, drawn-out chords. With almost no exceptions, I greatly preferred the more spacious and ambient-imbued passages of the album, where the strings really breathe, or where the cleaner melodic vocal tones reign supreme, or perhaps you'll hear a natural sample or two, but this is not exclusive, since the chugging and growling is almost inevitable, and it's almost constantly mundane in construction with no real creativity beyond the fact that there are often other atmospherics measuring off against it. Intuitive and simplistic as a rural trail, but lacking thrills or surprises around any corner.

Even though they occasionally drift into awkwardness, the variety of the vocals is actually a stronger point, with the more ethereal, tonal voices balanced against death/doom gutturals and a slightly higher rasp, it seems like there are multiple personalities in contemplation against the mourning naturescapes. The guitar melodies are also quite solemn, like a slow rain on tree leaves as it crashes to a forest floor, sort of reminded me of what I liked so much about Paradise Lost's amazing Icon record, only nowhere near as catchy or concise. This blend of slower, almost folkish doom atmosphere also had me reminiscing over the Yearning debut With Tragedies Adorned, a little known Finnish album which conjured up a comparable, rustic sense of environment with rays of sun glaring off hillsides and woodland canopies. Alas, where those works had the benefit of tighter songwriting, this one just tends to drift along the river for far too long, never quite losing sight of its purpose, but nevertheless rambling on inoffensively. It's not a bad album, but perhaps a little more indulgent in its vacuity than I was prepared for, and as a result not much about it stood to memory, very few moments inspired me to return to them repeatedly.

Verdict: Indifference [6.25/10]

https://www.facebook.com/woebegoneobscured

Erebus Enthroned - Temple Under Hell (2014)

If the incredibly distinct art style here seems familiar, it's probably that you've seen the work of Russia's Denis Forkas Kostromitin on the latest Behemoth album, The Satanist, or perhaps on the debuts of lesser known acts like Altars and Wrathprayer. I find it incredibly oblique yet alluring, and while I've no idea whether he just has it commissioned or he actually sits through the albums in advance and uses them to summon up imagery, they're almost always a lock for the sounds they herald. The Erebus Enthroned sophomore Temple Under Hell is no exception, a murky concoction of black metal extremity which is true to the purpose of 2011's Night's Black Angel: lightless nihilism, fleshy and misanthropic dissonance, no source of comfort or happiness or warmth anywhere.

In some ways I might define this disc as 'bog standard' it certain doesn't reach far beyond the bounds of its genre, and thus you'll only discern slight differences in production from other works in the field. I certainly felt a few traces of De Mysteriis dom Sathanas-era Mayhem on the first album, and those remain prevalent here, though the music has a bit of an awkward, swarthy eeriness to it that reminds me of the last 3-4 efforts from another Enthroned (the Belgian one). Riffs vary between all-out assaults of cavernous tremolo picked patterns to rolling, churning chords being crested by sprays of gleaming dissonance (as in "Trisagion"), but this whole fucking thing is infernally dark and impenetrable, masked with a caul of gloominess, brutality, and occult hunger. Anyone remember the 'black pudding' monster from D&D? Okay, if those things could wear headphones, this is what they'd probably listen to while they're slinking along the cellars, crypts and corridors of Abyssal shrines and torture chambers. The album title is just too accurate, and if you don't come out of the music feeling less hopeful for your future than you went into it, then congratulations, you are fucking immune to the affectations of the black metal genre.

It's not incredibly unique, once again having components that are drawn from an obvious source or three, but where it might lack in nuance or creativity it compensates with harrowing effectiveness. Plenty of details in the vocal performance, which ranges from growls and rasps to haunted howls and groans, basically whatever manifestations of pure evil the drummer/singer 'N' conjures forth straight form the nether. Guy sounds like a living digderidoo in the middle of the title track, which is perhaps the most explosive piece though it drags a little long at nine minutes. Also want to comment that the bass tone here is great, nice and loud and gives you a morbid substrate for the thinner, dissonant driving guitars that fly all over it; while the drums are more than up to the savage standard of the genre. Blasting effortlessly, but also creating a vast calamity upon which the instruments are forced to sit uncomfortable. Really, Temple Under Hell is just another 'total package' sort of black metal album which should draw in purists who can listen beyond the fact that they probably own this already through its ancestral bloodlines to the mid 90s. Greatness? Perhaps not yet, but I'd say these New South Welshmen have edged out the first album with this offering. Goes well with black candlelight and the consumption of a still-beating human heart.

Verdict: Win [7.75/10] 

http://www.seancerecords.com/erebusenthroned/

Septuagint - Negative Void Trinity EP (2014)

With Hail Spirit Noir's mesmerizing standard setting the standard, and a looming new full-length from Spectral Lore, the floodgates of my excitement for the Hellenic black metal scene have once again burst open in 2014. Upon finding this Septuagint EP in my promo pile, I had half hoped this might add a little kindling to that fire, though they err a little further on the side of convention than a number of their peers, pursuing a more forceful, blast-oriented style of songwriting that mirrors some of the more extreme Scandinavian black metal acts like Marduk or 1349. That's not to say this quartet (formerly dubbed Destination: Holocaust) pursue that path to a fault; they are quite conscious of incorporating some slower, moodier variation into the punishment zone, but apart from a few curious chord patterns, Negative Void Trinity isn't likely to surprise anyone who expects his/her black metal to possess a momentum rivaling the speed of light...

Seriously, this guy's blast beats are so unrelentingly freaking fast that they leap entire time zones, so it's a good thing he'll pace himself or else the listener might get dragged along in the quantum current and begin to age at a frightening speed. Hyperactive tremolo picked progressions fly everywhere, often a fraction more mystical or unpredictable than we might assume from 20+ years of the stuff, and the floods of chords utilize a lot of dissonant Norse structures that keep the material unnerving and 'on edge'. Even when the group slows down a song to something which won't rupture your arteries, they go for haunting vistas over which the ugly and harsh vocals drift, and thoughts become specters wafting through the winds between the surges of incendiary speed you know are right around the corner. It's almost at a grind level during some stages, only without the politics or hardcore spastic attitude. Sometimes they'll throw in these weird, almost siren like riffing melodies (like in the bridge of "Psalm II") which add a layer of alarming discomfort while the voices seem more manic and subdued, and Septuagint are just that sort of black metal which reminds us that we are not safe and NEVER SHOULD be safe. Having recent suffered what might be my first 'anxiety attack' (sorry anti-thralls, I'm still very much alive), I can honestly say that Negative Void Trinity wasn't far removed from that experience!

There are a few concessions, of course. This isn't material that I'd define as memorable, even when it grows the most interesting doing the mid-speed segments. Also didn't notice the bass much, or rather I heard it but it just seems drowned out by the blood spatter of the guitars and the constant madness of the vocals which often erupt into these screw-loose, raving shouts or sustained, hostile rasps. The composition is not long on complexity, but instead juxtaposes intensity for subtlety; and in fact it is so damned belligerent in spots that I think it possesses a measure of appeal for fans of insane war metal stuff like Impiety, Angelcorpse, etc just as much as those seeking sinister, agile black metal. Is this one of the more interesting Greek acts? No, far from it, but something could be said for how they weave in just enough deviation from the norm to keep the content menacing and invigorating, no chance of hearing this without your pulse quicken and succumbing to either a major migraine or cold chills to the forehead...if just a little bit. Didn't love it, truthfully, but I found it compelling enough that I'd enjoy checking out a full-length with some further variation, though the ferocity should always remain a focus.

Verdict: Win [7/10]

https://www.facebook.com/Septuagint666

Facebreaker - Dedicated to the Flesh (2013)

Dedicated to the Flesh is a cockfight between the memorable and the mundane, the magnificent and the redundant, but I don't think there's any argument against the fact that it's the best SOUNDING record that the Swedes Facebreaker have released. Curiously, the Zombie God 7" had kind of sent me into this expecting a more atmospheric, evil effort with deeper songwriting than the earlier releases, and yet this is, in a way, every bit as straightforward as Bloodred Hell, with a lot of pure thrash influence in the simplistic riffing progressions, but a whole host of nods to classic death metal records ranging from their own countrymen to Bolt Thrower, to I hate to say it: Six Feet Under. Yeah, this has about the same range as Chris Barnes' hemped up horror, and in fact some of the songs ("Zombie Flesh Cult" for example) gave me fits of unwelcome deja-vu...

...but, not all of them. There's probably enough quality here to qualify a really fun EP, like the Motörhead fueled title cut which busts out into the total old school evil tremolo picked chorus, or "Nuclear Outbreak" which is a mashup of Repulsion and Hellhammer chord structures; even "Legions of Doom" which had already appeared on the 7" the year before, which along with a few other cuts sounds like a lighter contemporary Bolt Thrower for those belligerent melodies it hurls at you. The tone here is incredibly clean and crunchy, first impression is that it's very 'Swedish' but I definitely think it doesn't choke up enough gravedirt like the classic Entombed/Carnage style. Heavy and chest-pounding, with plenty of bluesy hard rock solo flair to the leads, though I'd say those are probably a little too sparse on the record and should have been doubled up to give the songs a more compelling, infectious edge to them. For instance, the solo/bridge to the tune "Mutilator" is awesome and you just aren't getting enough moments like that. Otherwise, the rhythm section is tight as a vice, still with loads of double bass pounding married to grainy bass guitar lines, again with a rich level of polish thanks to that polish and production.

Robban Karlsson sounds as forceful and brutal as ever, but there's very little variation to his delivery here, so essentially after hearing 1-2 lines of any given track you've already heard the whole entirety, chorus parts included..."Zombie God" teased a more vicious and evil timbre which doesn't dominate over this selection, and after 12 cuts and 45 minutes, it had well worn out its welcome. And that's sort of the biggest setback Dedicated to the Flesh faces...it's just so goddamn repetitive, not just in terms of its own riffing choices, but to hundreds if not thousands of records to come before it. Lyrically and musically it doesn't take on the subjects of mangling, murder and undead mayhem with any individuality, just a collection of genre tropes that are breastfed by the same aspirations you find in most lowest common denominator death metal. I mean these lyrics look like they read a handful of Mortician/Cannibal Corpse tunes, cut & pasted a couple lines and called it a day. Not that Facebreaker has ever been original, or that they ever NEED to be, but there's just not a lot of progression of ideas between 2004 and this disc almost a decade later, no nuances or intricacies or distinctive traits that should have me picking this off the shelf at the record shop rather than just going home and listening to The Bleeding, or any of the Bloodbath albums which cover these themes and riffing techniques so, so much more explosively and memorably. Aesthetically, this looks and sounds good, but more than half the tunes should have been left on the cutting room floor, or gestated further to the point where they had some compelling riffs and ideas, rather than just settling for whatever.

Verdict: Indifference [6.5/10]

http://www.facebreaker.com/