Realmbuilder - Summon the Stone Throwers (2009)

I ask you, fair readers, to take a hiatus from your metrosexual and technologically-advantaged lifestyles for just a brief spell. Step outside and til your fingers through the soil, or your toes through a stream. Build a small cairn of rocks, whether as a marker, a tribute or a tomb. Take a handful of sticks and assemble a simple lean-to, and then cover it in a mesh of leaves. Sharpen a stone or branch as a tool, or a spear, and forage the environment for berries, for fresh water, for anything that will give you that modest edge of survival. New York heavy/doom duo Realmbuilder perform all of these functions, only in the context of heavy rock music which reaches to the roots of its medium, jerks them forth from the dirt, and then cooks them into a refreshingly tasty stew, enough to feed a family of forever.

Timeless, interesting hooks define this debut, a few overt nods to Black Sabbath being the only true comparison I can make without feeling unfair to the band. Imagine if bands like Manilla Road or DoomSword started releasing records in the 70s, after checking out a pile of damaged mass market paperback fantasy novels from the local library. Tolkien, Lloyd Alexander, Earthsea, Chronicles of Narnia, Conan tales. Now imagine they also strived for the clean production values so many pop and rock bands achieved during that age, and were fronted by a workmanlike, charismatic individual who is fully cognizant of his own limitations and so supplants any illusion of 'range' and 'screaming' with a stolid, earthen sense of authenticity. Glaze this over with somber, harmonic choirs, a constant sense of steady momentum, and a genuine sense of inspiration you certainly don't hear in a lot of copycat doom metal acts, or 80s cheese metal throwbacks. Summon the Stone Throwers is hardly flawless, and in fact I find it the weakest of their three full-lengths, but already they had sown the seeds of style AND substance here, which were very near flowered.

If you can guess already, I want this to be one of the biggest bands in the world. Most likely they'll remain deep in the underground, appealing to a few hundred souls, which is acceptable, but they are a paragon exemplar of how you can reduce a musical genre to its seminal components and then rewire those into a damn fine frame of heavy metal, where anything is possible. Horns, melodies, bitter but brew-sated vocals, this band will cautiously test the waters of a number of possibilities over their career, and Summon the Stone Throwers is an adequate indoctrination to a future that is so heavily strung up by the past. The riffs are quite simple, sluggish if not entirely static chord progressions that are laced with quaint and catchy melodies. I believe the sheer cleanliness of the guitar tone might prove a little too polished for some listeners, who want their doom pregnant with saturation and disgust, but I think this choice works staggeringly well in the context of how they deliver the vocals, absurdly vacant bass-lines and minimalistic drum beats.

Lyrically, Stone Throwers is mildly more epic and warlike than its successor, but you still get the perspective of a looker-on rather than the predictable, heroic visions of fantasy spewed forth from the pens and minds of most heavy and power metal musicians. This is riddled with themes of power or class struggles, siege warfare, reading like second hand accounts of historical events in a low fantasy setting which isn't plagued with multi-hued rainbows or excess magical weavings. As such, it's a little beyond the barbaric perspective of Howard's Cimmerian hero, more of a cultured milieu, points of light and civilization being snuffed out by greedy brigands or other challenges of a medieval or Dark Age setting. It's a fine soundtrack for either a rustic afternoon, a drive to the Renaissance Faire, a board game with cool friends (Shadows Over Camelot, Citadels, Kingsburg, etc), or just reading ancient architectural texts by candlelight. Among the better songs are "Ninety-Nine Raids" and "Forgotten Minion", but it's all pretty consistent in value. Hell, could there be a better catapult song than the title track, or did I interpret that wrong?

Verdict: Win [8/10] (ready the granite storm)

https://myspace.com/realmbuilder

Pestifer - Reaching the Void (2014)

Part of me is a major nerd for progressive ideas enveloped in a tech death metal context, but by the year 2014 I'm afraid that a lot of acts exploring that 'fringe' seem themselves to be repeating the past. Take Pestifer's sophomore Reaching the Void, for all intensive purposes a vortex of busy melodic riffs, bass lines that explore much of their fret-board, and a level of complexity which never eschews composition for pure wankery. Problem is, while the Belgians are not shy on the application of ambitious musicianship, it's still something we've all heard before. That's not to say I didn't derive some enjoyment from the album, but its labyrinthine charms do not always lend themselves to the most ambitious, memorable songwriting...

At its most clinical and convulsive, the playful and punctual thrash riffing passages brought to mind a death metal analog for Deathrow's underrated masterwork Deception Ignored, with some overt nods to Voivod's dissonant 80s material. Early Cynic (Focus), Watchtower (Control and Resistance) and Atheist (Unquestionable Presence) are other obvious references due to the flow of the bass player and the frenetic pulse of the music, with a hint of older Gorguts or 90s Death and Pestilence. But to place this in a more modern context, the songs feel like a collision between Canada's Beyond Creation, Germany's Obscura and America's Vektor, with that spacey, clean cosmic feel of the former two and then the occasional death/thrash viciousness of the third. Pristine, punchy production on the rhythm guitars allows us to hear every drum and bass note, and there are mass amounts of notes flying around, even though precious few seem to stick beyond their own hectic function. But don't be fooled into thinking this is even remotely chaotic or sporadic, because everything is heavily structured here and the band rarely escapes the envelope presented by the list of bands I name-dropped above. Thus, you've got a lot of minor variations on pre-conceived riffing formulas, arpeggio patterns and not a lot else here...

That's going to be enough for some, because let's face it, there is so much more actual 'music' here than on your garden variety death metal record, and even though many bands from Sceptic to Decrepit Birth have sought this sound, it does not seem like there's a heavy overpopulation of them, so there remains that slight illusion of nuance and 'freshness' which captivates the listener who is an admirer of the ability exhibited on the instruments. Through its tight cohesion of melodies and darker, dissonance, Reaching the Void is certainly a disc of some depth, so much fluttering about that I spent a few listens just picking out the bits and bytes of what I enjoyed, but on the flipside this is a 'plug and play' sort of album where many of the tempos and riff sequences could have been mixed up into their neighbors and you wouldn't really be able to distinguish them from one another. The bass, leads and drums keep things interesting, because they're actually dispensing some effort to stand out rather than facing subjugation by the guitars, but ultimately I came away from this feeling more like I'd experienced an 'exercise' than a set of songs I want to re-spin endlessly.

Pestifer have their chops, and I appreciated the detail and effort of this album, but it's not something I'd revisit when I wasn't in a very specific mood; but on the other hand, I obviously share a passion for many of the bands which influenced this one, and though I'd love to think the Belgians could travel further outside the box like their inspirations did at one time, Reaching the Void is more than enough to at least appreciate for the time spent in its conception and execution. If you own and enjoy at least a half dozen of the bands I referenced earlier, or others such as Gorod, Illogicist and Hellwitch, I think this is an easy enough recommendation.

Verdict: Win [7.5/10]

http://www.pestifer.be/

Puteraeon - The Crawling Chaos (2014)

Puteraeon's latest opus, The Crawling Chaos, is very unlikely to breach the Swedish sound-off barrier, being that it's nearly a direct tribute to classics like Left Hand Path. But that aside, a few listens through the thing have convinced me that one should not be so quick to write them off, if only because they seem to really engage with their subject matter, engage with their songwriting and in the end provide us a pretty genuine window into the death metal ideals of their forerunners. This is accomplished almost entirely through their strict attention to melody and harmony, far more so than the usual runts of the Swedeath litter, which provides just the correct amount of musicality and atmosphere to save this one from the chaff-bin and put it with the rest of the wheat. That's not high praise, and this disc doesn't deserve such, but you could listen to this front to end, the entire 45 minutes and not really come away too bored or banging your head into a wall at the vast level of derivation it subsists upon.

In short, it's Left Hand Path with a few cruder grooves and d-beats shuffled in to balance out its more interesting ideas with something for the pit ghouls. The set-up is great, with the grimy, doomy grave dirt melodies inaugurating the 7-minute, sepulchral "Wrath" raising the bar for my expectations, and a number of riffs across most of the individual tracks providing some follow-through...only just not enough that it seems incredibly level or consistently memorable. Rhythm guitars are ugly, Swedish, but in accounting for themselves they incorporate a fair share of melodies that travel off in some fulfilling directions. In fact, had the band changed production styles and tones to something more unique, and dropped a few of the bland d-beat drive-punk passages, we could be hearing a fresher take on the death metal nostalgia that has started to corrode its welcome. Alas, The Crawling Chaos is planted too firmly in its safety zone. There are occasional riffs which deviate, like the opener of "The Abyssal" which is a grinding, evil paean to Consuming Impulse-era Pestilence, and in truth about 3-4 of the songs here would have made for a killer EP, but like a lot of old school stuff I get, the 'good' parts are watered down by a surrounding miasma of 'meh'.

Vocals are a little blunter and more monotonous than, say, L-G Petrov, but they at least compliment the growling with some even further guttural bursts. I can feel the repulsion bass lines spewing out sewage on the bottom end, but they never present themselves as something that deserves the same attention as the other instruments (a common fault in this style). The drumming is steady and has a live show feel to it, but in terms of beats and fills there's nothing really creative happen, it just happens to work within the context of the style like you'd expect from most bands playing at this level. The Lovecraft lyrical theme seems more or less serious, as it was on the first two discs these guys released, but this is such a commonplace thing in the 21st century that you wonder what the old corpse of everyone's favorite horror author would think about this. Personally I don't feel that The Great Old One would choose Swedish death metal as his entrance music when he steps in the ring against humanity (in a brief, one-sided bout). Nah...something more chaotic, orchestrated, layered and probably impossible for our species to comprehend. But the Mythos, and cosmic horror is such a fascination that it doesn't really get old, even when you're using a title like The Crawling Chaos which has been done before many times. So, yeah, not any better than the last two Puteraeon discs, but at the same time, no worse. You like Demonical, Revel in Flesh, or the original purveyors of this sound from that important 1990-1993 era, and you're not tired of the endless recycling of those ideas, then I don't imagine this one would put you out much.

Verdict: Win [7/10]

http://www.puteraeon.com/

Puteraeon - Cult Cthulhu (2012)

Puteraeon may not have stood so tall above their Swedish death metal throwback peers that their debut The Esoteric Order could be mistaken for something 'unforgettable', but it was unquestionably a well done example of how bands like Carnage and Dismember had a magic immemorial about them which is still possible to recapture when you're not spending half your record fucking around with some of the laziest riffs possible. I'm a little late in covering its followup, Cult Cthulhu, but as the Swedes are on the verge of releasing their third full-length I thought I'd check it out, and would you fucking know it, I don't regret making that choice, even if they still leave something to be desired...

I feel like somewhat of a flip-flopper, because this is presented in a pretty common style which I will either love or condemn to the pit of mediocrity depending on nitpicking of individual riffs, and apart from the ravenous, brutal growl of the frontman, it's pretty much lock, stock and barrel worship of Left Hand Path, Life is an Everflowing Stream and Dark Recollections, with the added benefit of being recorded in the 21st century. So those Sunlight studio rhythm guitar tones sound as plump as over gorged zombies, the harmonies sad and sepulchral, the drums fresh and hellish with kicks that sound like they're stomping straight up your spine. But somehow, the chord patterns and abysmal atmosphere created by the churning of the guitars against the drums stir in me the very dark mood I so loved about its overt influences. It's swampy, oblique, and maybe even evocative of the titular Mythos divinity, no matter how corny the title itself seems.

How about just Club Cthulhu? Bathe in a spa of squamous tentacles, stinking maws and other things that spell your end. Anyway, the Elder ones are nothing to make light of, and I doubt that was the intention of Puteraeon, just to write a savage record in the mold of their heroes. And this is no more or less that very thing. Inspired, not inspiring, chock full of guts but very little resonant evil beyond its visceral finish. If you're sick to death of this sort of cutting and pasting of a style (and I usually am), without adding much new to it (Revel in Flesh, Gluttony and a million others), then this isn't apt to change your mind, but I felt like the sophomore was at least well done. Examples of better efforts in this style include the first few Demonical outings, Entrails, the Miasmal and Tormented debuts, but I managed to make it through this brain-sucking 45 minutes with what shreds of my sanity remained failing to find offense in the style. I hope with the new album they'll try a little harder to differentiate themselves, or build upon the past rather than clone it, but this is just passable.

Verdict: Win [7/10]

http://www.puteraeon.com/

Zgard - Contemplation (2014)

I've always got this soft spot for grandiose, atmospheric pagan black metal. Even when it's a bit shy on the memorable riffing, just that over the top use of keys, vocals in tongues foreign to me, all of it serves as some quasi-cultural escapism that compensates for the 'cheese' and bombast arguably inherent to the entire medium. I bring this up because Zgard, a one-man Ukrainian project, seems to encompass and embrace most of these traits without apology, and on his fourth full-length album seems to collide the aesthetics of bands like Summoning, Burzum, Graveland, Hellveto and Gontyna Kry into an emotionally powerful, if not entirely memorable experience. It took me to a place. Held me there. Not much more can I ask of it...

Laborious, workmanlike riffing which ranges from spacious and dissonance chords to lightly thrashing palm mutes, drenched in simple synthesizer patterns that resemble a steady and slow  Carpathian accumulation of snow, or a raven in flight at half speed. I don't really get tired of the sort of rasp Yaromisl metes out, tortured like a hybrid of Vikernes and Darken, always convincing even if the syllabic lines he intones are quite simplistic. But really, for as packed a record this is in overall atmosphere, it's all quite minimal and predictable. The guitars and synthesizers rarely surprise, and the flute playing is only added for emphasis, it rarely evades the basic chord progressions behind the tunes. Drums are programmed it seems, but so suppressed in the structural composition of these tracks that you won't really notice or mind, since they just don't play a major role when run against the keys, vocals and guitars.

There's one scintillating ambient piece here ("Silence") which I absolutely adored, if for no other reason than it cultivated nostalgia for old fantasy films of the 80s, or rather what I'd perceive might appear in such a cinematic sojourn. But Yaromisl also paces the album really well, with a lot of variation. The more soothing pieces are contrasted with the more uptempo, mug-swilling surge in "Incarnation Memory" which is marginally reminiscent of Bathory's viking metal if you threw on a mouth-harp and some haunted, wavering folk vocals. In the end, though, this is unlikely to appeal to a listener who has a vested disregard for synth-heavy pagan metal, and we're talking a more saturated sound than, say, Kroda. Personally, I didn't find it amazing, but immersive and at times enjoyable, enough that I plan to get around to the earlier material from 2012-2013 which I missed out on. An album for wintry dreamers into Caladan Brood, Summoning, Rivendell, and their ilk.

Verdict: Win [7.5/10]

https://www.facebook.com/Zgard

Sacrocurse - Unholier Master (2014)

Punishment is the design of this international 2-piece collaboration, and punishment is perhaps the one musical region in which it does succeed. Unholier Master attempts to reach the epitome of raw, flesh ripping black/death hybridization through a formula that unfortunately opines for the overuse of a blast beat which can very quickly grow monotonous with nothing interesting happening over it. I'm not questioning the skill of this skin-beater, he's an absolute fucking maniac and incorporates a lot of clamorous crashing and even handles the death/thrashing breakdowns well, which often lend the music a bit of an Altars of Madness-era frenetic aesthetic, but like a lot of infernal war metal, it very often doesn't resonate.

Bass-lines are full-throttle abysmal muddiness, and guitar patterns so forceful and fast that they often become lost alongside the beats and the ominous, sustained growling which represents the vocalist. It's not that the guitars aren't busy, per se, but they rely a lot on pretty standard deathgrind or hyper black metal chord progressions which are performed in such a flurry that there is little emphasis on them being inherently memorable to begin with. At times, this feels like Blasphemy, Repulsion and Bestial Warlust pooled their collective hatred into a single, frothing mass of hell-flumes and chose simply to annihilate everything in their shared path with utter speed and disgust. Frivolous lead guitar frenzies flying all over the atmosphere, lightning fuck bass guitars which are played with the same level of intensity as the rhythm guitars, and a living NASCAR rally on the drum kit. My problem here is just that once I've heard one or two songs I feel like I've heard them all...they break it all up once in awhile, just not enough for my attention to become consistent.

Don't get me wrong, on some level I admire this sort of utter 'fuck off' attitude which courses through the album like burning blood, and in the past there are a few insane albums like this which I have held dear, but other than its pure, violent and visceral atmosphere I never discovered anything here I wanted to hold on to. If someone were flipping through my records and asked me for something sick and headache-inducing, I'd break out Unholier Master in a second. It's THAT relentless, THAT brutal and uncompromising, and it hates your guts, but the only real evil lies in its indiscriminate sense of aggression. All that said, there is a place for this stuff, and a number of individuals will worship the fuck out of its outrageous aural nihilism. This is the stuff I imagine would be played when various domains of Hell lay siege upon one another, the damned crushing the damned in an endless cycle of chaos which can never be broken. Wanna hear that? Then you'll wanna hear this. But check your desire for subtlety at the door, because Sacrocurse will not brook that foolishness.

Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10]

https://www.facebook.com/Sacrocurse

Obscura - Illegitimation (2012)

Illegitimation shouldn't really be viewed as a comprehensive collection of Obscura's odds & edds...I mean, that's what it is, but I think of it more like a chance to hear/purchase the Germans' 2003 demo with a bunch of other random junk tacked on that likely no one cares about. A reasonable fan package for the few that want to experience their new favorite band in completion, but not exactly worth the money you might pay for it. However, it does offer a little insight into the band's origins and how they developed into one of Europe's premiere progressive death metal bands due to the excellence of their sophomore album Cosmogenesis in 2009.

Curiously enough, the titular 2003 demo itself seems aimed partially in a melodic black metal direction, or at least that's how some of the more majestic tremolo picked passages come across atmospherically. There are plenty of obvious death metal overtures, and the vocals and breakdowns place it firmly in that camp, but the chord choices that were later more heavily informed by bands like Death and Atheist seemed more vividly European in execution, almost like older Moonspell or Dissection had they gone death metal. Beyond that, the songs feel slightly misshapen, awkward and uninteresting. The 3-minute instrumental intro track wasn't the best choice, and would have greatly benefited from lyrics, while a lot of the shifts between thrashier, simple mid-paced rhythms and floods of blasts with melodic, texture chords seem to struggle with writing anything I'd consider memorable. You can definitely hear the raw space-matter condensing into what they would later evolve into with Retribution and Cosmogenesis, but it might also have gone elsewhere. The guitars are mixed alright, bright enough to make out what they're playing, and the drums are actually more charismatic than on the debut album...but the growls are mundane, and the songs just pass through the ears and mind like so many other melodic black/death demos that fell under the radar in the 90s and 'oughts.

The next three cuts represent a pre-production demo for Cosmogenesis, and you'll immediately recognize "Incarnate" as the best thing on this collection and possibly their career, a spurious and uplifting journey through the cosmos riding on wings supplied by Floridian progressive death metal. "Open the Gates" and the intro riff for "Headworm" are also decent, more brutally inclined stuff with spikes of that aforementioned progression and melody. But really, I'd rather just listen to the sophomore record which is more consistent and fulfilling...I'm not sure how much of the other two tunes were redistributed into later material, if not then perhaps these were good enough that the band could re-record them. Lastly, we get three more cover tunes, which are really obvious like those on the Retribution reissue. A Cynic tune ("How Could I"), an Atheist tune ("Piece of Time"), and another Death track, the unfortunate "Flesh and the Power It Holds". Okay, we get it, fellas, you LOVE Florida so much that I'm surprised there aren't any photos of you wearing Mickey Mouse ears...also that there wasn't also a Nocturnus or Hellwitch song represented. Anyway, these all sound decent, but not removed enough from the originals to be memorable depictions.

Ultimately, Illegitimation does not legitimize itself unless you just love Obscura and want to throw money in their direction. The Germans' roots are very clearly humble, the added content average, and in all honesty they just have one impressive album to their name: Cosmogenesis itself. Even its own successor doesn't necessarily live up to it, so frankly it's hard for me to define this band as anything anyone should really be compelled by beyond just that one disc. Hopefully they'll make me eat that statement in the future, but for now, this isn't worth the trouble.

Verdict: Indifference [5.25/10]

http://www.realmofobscura.com/

Obscura - Retribution (2006)

Though its successor Cosmogenesis is the sole Obscura record that I find myself repeatedly returning to, Retribution was a fairly interesting control group from which the band's more interesting ideas evolved, and it also possesses a fraction more raw intensity due to the less polished production values and wilder exhibition of those ideas...several were thrown out there to passing celestial bodies in the great expanse, and only a few stuck, but it was obvious from the beginning that these German exemplars might fill the void left behind by Necrophagist's indecision to continue producing and releasing material beyond their sophomore album Epitaph. So, hey, if Obscura, Cytotoxin and Centaurus-A have decided to shoulder the kraut tech death burden themselves, so be it...I like a lot of what I've heard from them, if not everything.

Retribution is based in blasted brutality like a lot of other, cruder death metal of the last 15 years, but the difference here is that they drew upon the jazzier, progressive chord arrangements redolent of forebears like Death, Atheist and Pestilence in the early 90s. I'd liken it to Chuck Schuldiner having written a record for Brazil's Krisiun, or Morbid Angel going all cosmic with a more scientific, adventurous theme rather than that of grotesque eldritch horror (though Retribution is lyrically more personal than its followup). Perhaps a meatier-clad Mithras is also a viable comparison. At any rate, you'll recognize a lot of the techniques, in particular the drumming, but these are imbued with some more atmospheric phrasing, chugging and squealing reminiscent of commonplace US brutal death metal, and even some cleaner vocals to balance out the rather indistinct post-Chuck growls here that would probably flee my mind entirely if not for the contrast they create when sustained against the busier music. But lots of the chug riffs feel like those spidery Morbid Angel crawls of yesteryear, and though there are some calmer and more atmospheric passages dowsed in harmonies, a lot of the tremolo picked passages feel pretty bland with the blasting...I'm just glad they break these up often enough that Retribution doesn't grow totally dull.

On both a technical and memorable level, the songwriting on the debut just doesn't match up with the second album, due to the fact that most of the more interesting riffing breaks just feel like leftovers from either Death's Human or Atheist's Unquestionable Presence, only beyond their more savage context with the more intense drumming, they really don't do anything special. Speaking of which, I found the mix of the kit a little hissy, especially the cymbals and hi-hats. Just not something I really enjoyed...he can blast or roll out the double bass with the best of 'em, but has no more character than a drum sequencer, and I wouldn't have been surprised to find out that was what they used here. I've even got the remastered version of this through Relapse with the better cover art, and it doesn't sound so hot. The cover tunes (Death, Suffocation and Morbid Angel) are probably a little too obvious to be interesting, but they at least showcase their ability to play at that level, just not to write at it with their originals. All told, this is an adequate but skippable debut which ekes out little more than the groundwork to launch its successor into the depths of the cosmos.

Verdict: Indifference [6.25/10] (dawn of the face of the crown of creation)

http://www.realmofobscura.com/

Demonic Rage - Venomous Wine from Putrid Bodies (2013)

Chile's an interesting scene, because across pretty much all the metal spectrum the bands there seem more intent on capturing the vibes of the old school rather than just aping the latest status quo. Granted, depending on who you ask, nostalgia might very well BE the status quo, but I'm still pretty happy when I hear an album come along that seems like someone threw Pestilence, Immolation and Krisiun in a blender. If that sounds like money to you, Venomous Wine from Putrid Bodies is a no-brainer, because for whatever it lacks in originality it compensates in unrelenting, primal death metal brutality that manages to eschew the overtly reverb soaked cavern core or Swedish doppelganger characteristics.

I believe this was actually released last year by a local label, but now is getting an Iron Bonehead LP reprint, and a good thing because more people craving the 90s death metal should hear it. Churning, low end guitars often take on a sort of Testimony of the Ancients style, but fastened to a more direct guttural vocal style reminiscent of Ross Dolan or Craig Pillard. The kick drums are fairly robotic in tone, giving off that South America/Krisiun post-Floridian vibe where they resemble something Steve Asheim or Malevolent Creation would have played. But then there are a number of slower, tremolo picked rhythms akin to Scream Bloody Gore or Slowly We Rot, and also a number of slightly left of center riffing progressions which aren't unlike what Robert Vigna might have written back on the first couple Immolation discs. Variation isn't legion through these eight cuts, but it is clear that the Chileans know how to put songs together...they mix up the faster, mid-paced and crawling content enough that in 32 minutes, you never really have the chance to be bored.

Venomous Wine from Putrid Bodies is not a classic in the making, if only because the vocals do grow monotonous and the riffs are generally hit or miss, but when I pay attention to the muted tremolo picking phrases here they seem imminently more evil and dangerous than what so many other of these throwback death metal bands emit. The few doomier chord segments are rather forgettable, and there is next to know worthwhile bass presence (the lines are performed by the drummer and guitarist in the studio, which might explain it). Leads are functional and conservative, they seem to get lost against the weight of the rhythm guitars, but at least give the music more body and depth. Really, the central strength of Demonic Rage's sound are those tremolo picked parts which channel most of what I loved about old Death, Gorguts, Obituary, and Pestilence, and the rest of the performance is just solid enough to drive them...it's enough that it looses itself from the middling pack of generic drones, if it could itself still be considered fairly derivative. Still, should the band expand this sound to a higher level of atmosphere, with nastier sounding drums, better leads, and more corpulent and compelling bass guitar, they could have a bright...err gloomy future.

Verdict: Win [7/10]

Funereal Presence - The Archer Takes Aim (2014)

I count myself lucky to have a year where a select few bands are translating the whole 'occult horror rock' fad in a more feverishly, darkly delightful black metal context. First there was that Hail Spirit Noir sophomore, and now the drummer of Negative Plane has put his own spin on the medium to craft one of the most riff attentive, atmospheric experiences I've had in months. I can't say I'm incredibly surprised, since a little of the 2006 record Et in Saecula Saeculorum bleeds into the sound here, with a lot of classic doom/heavy metal riffs circa anything from Mercyful Fate to Paul Chain being sewn into the compositions to contrast the more trad black metal elements, but I CAN say that I still fucking love it!

The Archer Takes Aim is but four tracks, three of which are over 12 minutes in duration, but so much happens within this space that it almost takes on the narrative aesthetic I felt when listening to the mighty Sabbat's opus The Dwelling. Rather than rambling on with a number of numbingly generic tremolo picked guitar patterns, Bestial Devotion entwines evil harmonies and resilient melodies against the support back beats and fuzzed out chords. Granted, there are some pretty unimaginative rhythm guitars here implemented over the 'charge' drums, but they're only bland until those brighter, eerie guitars splay themselves into the rafters of the album's dim shelter. Bass lines are groovy and mildly psychedelic, though the patterns don't often distinguish themselves far from the guitars. That said, the balance of Bestial's standard rasp and soaring, dreary cleaner vocals is brilliant, and the other keys and instruments used to emphasize the theatrical, black & white creepiness cast by the album are all tastefully executed and never detract from the metal instrumentation.

All riffs deliver on about a 9-to-1 ratio, with just a few monotonous or underwhelming chord sections marring the album's surface, but I was particularly enamored of the opener "The Tower Falls" with its cautiously woven melodies, and the instrumental "Dämmerlicht" which opens with atmospheric bells, clean and ringing guitars and then explodes into this amazing riff which sounds like Dark Thrones and Black Flags era Darkthrone jamming with fucking Voivod! How cool is that?! It's the shortest tune here at six-and-a-half-minutes, and yet it's possibly my favorite metal song this year despite the lack of vocals. "Gestalt des Endes." is likewise extremely strong, with a lot of thought and expression put into the note selection that easily separates it from the vast majority of bland black metal which crosses my digital doorstep every week in the slush pile. That's not to say Funereal Presence is strikingly original, all of the components have been present in black metal past, but The Archer Takes Aim is tangibly malevolent, lovingly crafted. A singular, shadowy vision of the obscure, easily recommended to fans of Negative Plane, Cultes des Ghouls, Head of the Demon, or Bethlehem's S.U.I.Z.I.D.

Verdict: Epic Win [9/10] (with poisonous arrow)