Omnium Gatherum - Grey Heavens (2016)

My biggest complaint with Grey Heavens is that it's almost entirely the product of a band resting on its laurels, having evolved very little from Omnium Gatherum's roots during the onset of Finland joining the melodic death metal boom of the earlier 21st century. It risks almost nothing, simply attempting to tidy up on elements of studio production and the balance between those slightly prog metal licks and ideas that have saturated the band's sound through their seven album journey. So many of the riffing structures here sound as if they've been inspired wholesale by bands like Insomnium, Kalmah, Children of Bodom, Soilwork and Dark Tranquillity that I had a problem trying to discern any genuine identity, but at the same time it's quite true to the initial stakes planted with Spirits and August Light, a disc that was honestly pretty good for its age...so there is the potential that some portion of its audience will find fulfillment that those roots have been exhumed and exonerated, even if the Finns rarely strayed too far from the proverbial litter.

Otherwise, this is functional, highly melodic death with the same deep guttural presence that they've more or less always used, in the lineage of the growls used by bands like Sentenced and Amorphis during their primes, and really similar to Insomnium. Occasional vocal clean passages are present, sounding relatively smooth and soothing, while not coming off terribly trite or hokey. The primary ingredient to this is the guitars, though, and how they weave off with the synthesizer to provide that same contemporary, sleek cubicle feel the band has been courting for several records now. Almost too clean for its own good, but I get the feeling this is due to a lot of exposure to progressive rock and metal bands like Dream Theater and such and attempting to genuinely intersperse them with the death growls and Sweden-like harder rhythmic guitar passages. Most of the note progressions and constantly erupting melodies and harmonies attempt to spread a 'warm feeling' through the listener. This has never been a dissonant, 'evil' sounding act in the slightest, and I feel like a handful of tunes here do accomplish their goal rather well. In particular, tracks like "Frontiers" which start off hitting quite hard and then cede to some of the most memorable, developed calm sequences where those airy, polished vocals are most welcome.

In fact, there's probably an EP's worth in here which would stand alongside Omnium Gatherum's strongest material, but that largely inhabits the middle and end of the album, and you've got to make it through a couple less inspired openers to get there. Much of the melodic component is simple, pop oriented and predictable, but that doesn't diminish its catchy nature once it arrives. The drums and guitars sound about as up front as you'd want for such a mainstream friendly mix, but there's still a little dynamic range in how some of the lighter guitar leads stand out against their supports. I do think there's an issue of relevance with this style in the current age, a bygone proposition, but then I'm also someone who enjoyed it about 12-15 years ago, so I can't fault a band for sticking to what it knows best. That doesn't exempt Grey Heavens from the notion that a little more risk taking could go a long way to helping refine and reform the style, but I don't think fans of their last few albums would find this a disappointment once they get into the meat of the track list. There's enough going on here that I enjoyed it a little more than Beyond, and fans of catch-all 'extreme' progressive/death metal bands like a Ne Obliviscaris might give it some new life, but I still can't help feel that a course has been run and the niche is in dire need of a creative defibrillation.

Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10]

http://www.omniumgatherum.org/

Rotting Christ - Rituals (2016)

Rituals is on one hand a monument of Rotting Christ's trajectory towards a near-complete saturation of the mythic and mystical in their compositions. It might feel uncanny to label this as 'folk', but a lot of the charging, galloping charioteer rhythms so pervasive in their last 10-15 years of work are out in full force, to the extent that they, along with the multiple layers of chorus vocals shouted with maximum amplitude and testosterone, have become the primary component in the Greeks' music. It's not out of the question to consider what the band has become the aural, metallic equivalent to the Trojan War, only somewhat less long-winded and intricate in its details and designs. Lyrically, this is an album dealing with the dark occult, and that has little to no bearing on the particular imagery it conjured in my skull, but about 50% of the percussive, blitzing, tribal music here feels fit for a duel between Ajax, Paris, Achilles, and Hector in any combination you can dream up. 'Come, friend, you too must die. Why moan about it so?'

On the other hand, it's just another slight case of returns diminishing, a half or full rung down the ladder of quality which its Κατά τον δαίμονα εαυτού began to descend. Glorious, but empty. If I can say one thing that is truly in Rituals' favor, it is the production level. Massive, polished, precise, the low degree of intricacy and complexity here translates into a good fit for the bombastic volume of the somber and rasped vocals, the snares, kicks, overall momentum. Rituals 'sounds' so good that I am almost driven to grant clemency to the fact that there's just not that much here by way of those infectious, 'classic' Rotting Christ guitars that I've been smitten with for over 20 years. When and where they do appear, they instantly shine, like the gleam of a Hoplite's sword after a morning of carnage in the sun. But too much of the writing here focuses on a predictable slog of chords and syncopated rhythms that are meant more as an added layer of percussion than having any melodic capacity. It's as if the band is using two or three drummers, only they had one kit so made the others bang on other instruments, and everything serves as a vehicle for the vocal arrangements; which are acceptable, and bridge the band's obsession between extremity and antiquity, but not enough to inter this album deep within the memory fields.

It wouldn't be a stretch to compare Rituals to a record like Chaos A.D., another example in which a band simplified its approach in lieu of adopting native cultural aesthetics to some of its metal core, only that one really stuck with me (and I know it did not for a great many listeners). Rituals is instead about as exciting as its cover art, another example of the band shunning its great logo for something plain and uninspired, much like its predecessor. I understand this is all to 'let the music speak for itself', but apart from the cultural feel and immersive mix of this album, it didn't end up resonating with me or making much of any statement. A few good licks exist here or there, and in truth a lot of the tunes are well enough structured, but would have been better served with a few extra riffs that deviated into more memorable and unexpected patterns alongside the warlike veneer of the drums and vocals. Like the figure on the cover, it feels like there was initially some life or inspiration here which succumbed to the petrifying gaze of a gorgon. There's a surface pulse, but it could have gone so much further if it had felt fully alive, capable of bleeding. Not an awful effort at all, especially if you're in the business of sacking cities for a member of the fairer sex, but once again I found myself pining away for the elegance of A Dead Poem, Triarchy, or at least some of their more eager experimentation in the earlier 00s.

Verdict: Indifference [6.5/10]

http://www.rotting-christ.com/

Rotting Christ - Lucifer Over Athens (2015)

Lucifer over Athens is nothing if not substantial, the live album a format which Rotting Christ has hardly inundated us with through their decades of existence. Recorded on the band's 'home court' over two days of performances, one would suspect all advantages to be pressed with a rousing level of crowd participation and banter, but they really just get down to business, with a staggering 31 tracks and two discs that draw upon nearly every full-length the Greeks have released to the public. The omissions are few and not terribly noticeable or important, even to pundits for the group who have generally obsessed over the band, but might find a few of their studio works to seam together a little too much over the last 10-15 years. There is something here that will align to most of their audiences' tastes, even fans who had dropped off the wagon after their steep ascent in the 90s, a streak of material which in my own estimation they've simply not rivaled or exceeded in many attempts now.

Having seen the band Stateside a number of times, I can actually vouch for the band's live capacity as it appears on these discs. Even when their performance might have been marred by small, dingy port city club sound systems, they were enthusiastic and personable to a fault, excited for the opportunity, and did not lack an emotional presence even when certain instruments wouldn't translate as well to the stage. With Lucifer Over Athens, everything has been smoothed over, balanced. Earlier tunes like "King of a Stellar War" and "The Sign of Evil Existence", or others even older, sound flush with the newer, more percussive, rhythmic, and tribal material they'd been releasing up to this point. Though the disparities in style and structure, the contrasts actually strengthen the performance as it's splayed out across the two hours and 15 minutes of content. Leads and melodies are really clear, the drums are clean, the vocals as blunt and tortured and characteristic as Sakis appears on record, and with the synthesizers and choirs and other elements inherent to the music it gives off a grandiose, vaulting impression in the live environment with just the right level of occasional audience ambiance. Van's bass lines don't always rumble through the mix, but in sparser moments where the melodies are set to soar in, say, a "Demonon Vrosis", it's presence is ramped up considerably.

There are few if any Rotting Christ records I dislike to begin with, so I was predisposed not to take issue with much of the set selection, but even the couple cuts from Κατά τον δαίμονα εαυτού, which did not resonate with me, come across fairly fresh in the context of this performance, and it's the sort of live experience which made me want to pull out some of the studio albums again and listen through. There is still life left to the band, ideas that can be enmeshed to the unique, simpler broth of black and other metals, and Lucifer Over Athens reminds us of this fact. It might not go down as one of the most poignant and memorable live experiences on a collectors' shelf, and there's a notion in this generation of the increasing irrelevance of such products, but they remain a badge of honor for the older artists involved, and I'd say the Tolis brothers and Season of Mist can pat each others' backs on a job well done. The rest of us can muse over whether we'll another quarter century of Christ to collect into yet another such live package. I'll also add that it was nice to see them display the logo again, prominently; their most recent studio material, marred by some of the dullest artwork choices they've made in decades, has felt tainted for excluding that on the front.

Verdict: Win [7.5/10]

http://www.rotting-christ.com/

Suspiral - Delve into the Mysteries of Transcendence (2016)

There are certainly a lot of appreciable 'parts' to Suspiral's debut full-length, but the sum does tend to suffer from overwrought compositions which occasionally feel like they just let the tape roll as they crash and crush through every idea in linear succession. The issue is that the songs here never really established themselves for me; they could have probably chopped and lifted a number of the more interesting and explosive riff progressions here into a half dozen less exhausting and more coherent tracks which didn't sound like a demonic lector rattling off tomes of blasphemies to an ever diminishing parish. No prevalent or hypnotic motif ever seems to manifest and cycle back through the errant procession of violence, and as it stands, the three tracks, ranging from around 11-15 minutes each, suffer severe bloat.

That's not to say the Spaniards are incompetent or bad by any stretch; they have quite a penchant for writing these writhing, raw rhythms which they douse in loads of unrestrained leads that seem to create the greatest atmospheric instances on the album (as you'll discover in the bowels of "The Art of Death"). The style exhibited is a fairly evenly distributed blackened/death, with the former coming through in a lot of the bursted tempos, redolent of Mayhem and Darkthrone, or a few of the simpler, slower riffing elements that come from that Celtic Frost/Darkthrone school of thought. The death metal portion of this is largely produced in the growled vocals, but also in a number of roiling rhythm guitars that straddle a primitive death/thrash fence, and the aforementioned wild leads which have that archaic, improvisational feeling of opening up a fretboard without little care or concern for the inevitable destination, as long as the journey itself sounds truly fucking sick. There are also some crunchier, dissonant death/doom sequences to even out the momentum, and a dark ambient passage bridging the first two tracks which was quite cool.

The drums are fairly loose and lethal, but capable of fulfilling any blistering speed necessary. Bass is evident, a quivering canvas of flesh beneath the rhythm guitar razors, but they seem to cut into it before it can discharge a memorable line. The vocals howl and growl appropriately with some windy sustain to them, and give Delve some of that claustrophobic caverncore presence without ever really embracing that niche. Definitely felt like a lot of ruthless, raw early 2nd wave black metal circulating through a death metal anatomy, and I think neither side of the balance wins out. On the other hand, a lot of transitions throughout these tracks feel half-formed, layering one pattern into the next without much of a thought to how they can interact and strengthen each other. As exhilarating as the record can become, not all the riffs are equally resonant and compelling, and there are a whole lot of them in succession, so too few times does something stick and even then it might just disappear. Grimy and insidious, for sure, and the cover art is excellent, but somehow I just couldn't connect with these tunes often enough.

Verdict: Indifference [6.5/10]

https://www.facebook.com/dawnofsuspiral

Ecferus - Pangaea (2016)

The way I see it, there are really two ways one could approach a conceptual album about the sprawling Pangaea. One could use the music to represent the seismic aspect, shifting and rifting of land masses in either the formation or dissolution of the supercontinent. Or perhaps one might be more privy to a fantastical interpretation, built upon mythic civilizations, prehistoric creatures and feats of derring do by primitive demigods, the glories attributed to heroes of distant legends that span millions of years. Either would entertain me, but Alp of Indiana's Ecferus sides pretty heavily on the more accurate historical and scientific details, not only of the physical place but the evolution of life and civilization. Akin to what the Canadian thrashers DBC once evoked with their sophomore album Universe, only applied on a more directly terrestrial scale, with more poignant and elegant lyrics, against a black metal background.

The most notable trait of this disc, however, is its rich and textured guitar playing across several levels, which actually conjures a balance of both aesthetics I mentioned earlier. The instability and frenzied component is delivered with the constant rhythmic transformation, between the more traditional tremolo picked passages, dissonant and neurotic chord progressions, and willingness to explore a substantial swath of moods and tempos. But there is that sense of lost majesty and glory too, that 'legendary' element, which is serviced by Alp's commitment to writing chord patterns and tremolo lines that don't constantly conform to a thousand you've heard before. There are always subtleties, ebbs and swells happening across all the tracks that keep the ears affixed, especially when you add over these his multi-tiered snarling and rasping toned which give the impression of some primordial corpse painted shamans watching the world take shape. Enough direct lineage here to the Scandinavian masters of the past, but he's just not copying their notes verbatim, so Pangaea has a sense of freshness to it which has held up through a number of repeated plays.

Melodies and leads are fragile, atmospheric and constantly elevating the riffing subtext, while the beats place an appropriate emphasis on thundering bass that might shake the walls of creation if you could loudspeaker the whole planet; but also cognizant of interesting grooves at points where the aggression cedes to a more jazzy, progressive post-black panorama. Alp is also not immune to the lure of further experimentation, with some dark and throbbing synthesizer driving "The Human Transition", a fascinating opener to what is by far my favorite tune on the album, "Reciprocity of Despair", an onslaught of excellent guitar lines and turbulent, tectonic structures which carries all the best hallmarks of melodic black metal and Morbid Angel-like Cyclopean rhythmic tumult in roughly equal measure. The metal tracks are substantial, ranging from about 8 minutes on up, but there are only four of them, so I never felt like I was becoming exhausted or having my patience beaten out of me. Pangaea is perhaps not universally consistent, and some might not appreciate the vignette pieces as much as the wealthier full-bore compositions, but for just one musicians this proved a formidable introduction, and I look and listen forward (or backwards) to more.

Verdict: Win [8/10] (the animals do grow and change)

https://www.facebook.com/ecferus/timeline

Abbath - Abbath (2016)

I'm probably in the minority of folks who hoped against all hope that the eponymous Abbath solo album would be far more geared towards the stylistic choices of I's Between Two Worlds rather than Immortal itself. Not that I've got much of a problem with this duo's mainstay; beyond the drama generated within the 'brand' over the last few years, they're an ace group and I've enjoyed nearly every single full-length they've released dating back to when I had just gotten out of high school. But that I album was really a grower, to the extent that I'm far more likely to break that out for another spin than anything else Abbath has participated in throughout his career, including monsters like Sons of Nothern Darkness, Pure Holocaust and At the Heart of Winter. To that extent, I've had to come away from this s/t mildly disappointed, because while Abbath and King don't wholly ignore that transcendent, moody epic/heavy metal sound here, this is far more of a spiritual successor to All Shall Fall, Immortal's last, somewhat divisive album.

Now, I happened to skew heavily towards a positive reaction to that, so this might have proven a win/win either way, but I came away with mixed feelings. Half the tracks here are great, the others just alright. It's about 50% inspired by Sons of Northern Darkness and that effort's simpler, more mighty songwriting structures; another 25% giving passing nods to the more extreme, older school wheelhouse the band used to dwell within, and that final quarter definitely captures the more shining, airy, windy heavy metal feel with the higher pitched chords, flashy leads and immersion. As you can imagine, this produces a pretty wide swath of dynamics, and indeed the tunes can range from blasted arctic gales to measured sojourns across the ice-fields. Abbath sticks largely to his snarled voice, which works well in conjunction with the chords and atmosphere but doesn't resonate with me nearly as much as that gritty Quorthon-like clean from Between Two Worlds. The drums are performed by Creature (aka Kevin of Benighted) with thunderous aplomb, at any pace necessary, with strong use of the toms and double bass rumblings suitable for the perceived Norse warfare inherent in all the band's ambiguous lyrics, and King's bass lines are at worst subdued beneath the rhythm guitar; at best grooving along with classic, infectious heavy metal pacing on tunes like "Root of the Mountain".

The rhythm guitars strongly resemble a hybrid of Sons of Northern Darkness and Between Two Worlds, with some higher range, less predictable choices of notation. Not a ton of tremolo picking used here, the emphasis is very often on solid chords and cleaner accompanying lines to give it that vast, folksy feel I so enjoyed on the I debut. There are a few riffs I would not expect, such as the opener of the album, which feels like a mesh of Chaos A.D. era Sepultura thrashing groove with some Voivod dissonance, but after a few minutes it all seems to fall in line and Abbath is trampling over well-trodden ground, making safer songwriting decisions that genuinely pan out into solid if rarely remarkable material. Leads are spurious and sensible, never too wanky or misplaced, and often functioning the greatest when they resolve to very simple melodic lines. Lyrics evoke the belligerent 'catch-all' wintry mythological violence and glory the band is lauded for, but not without entertaining imagery that any fan of their mid to late 90s material will wax nostalgic over.

The mix is really well balanced, permitting the ballast of the rhythm guitars to shine without obscuring any other component, drums delivering a Sleipnir canter. Gallop. Trot. Charge. Abbath's ugly but often monotonous snarl seated well above the fray with appropriate reverb sending some of his lines to bounce off the roiling storm clouds that the listener will conjure up internally. At least three tunes I thought were excellent..."Root of the Mountain", "Winterbane" (which sounds like it could have been a Northern Darkness outtake) and the intense "Fenrir Hunts", which was my fave mirror to the older Immortal on the record. But there were certainly a lot of give or take riffing sequences throughout the remainder of the material that I hesitate to call this truly great. I think it's more loyal to his alma mater's theater of sound than the Demonaz solo album March of the Norse, to be honest, but I liked the pacing and aesthetic of that more. Abbath is an effective entry into the band's overall canon, but I feel like these guys might be squandering their creative impulses on too many samey projects to the point it could get confusing for the uninitiated. There's a lot of crossover of ideas, so I wish they'd just rein it in to Immortal and I, legal issues be damned.

Verdict: Win [7.75/10] (swoop and pluck the Hero's eyes)

http://www.abbath.net/

Brutality - Sea of Ignorance (2015)

I go into a number of these death metal reunion/comeback albums with an appropriate level of trepidation, so often are they lacking or just plain content to recycle a level of musicianship and songwriting that they had already conquered. Brutality had a long history of several successive reformations and splits before they got their act back together around 2012 and soon after graced us with a solid EP in Ruins of Humans, so perhaps some of the apprehension was unwarranted. Having now heard the crowd-funded Sea of Ignorance over the course of several spins, I can say that this is in fact a competent reclamation of their status on the Tampa underground and in all likelihood one of the most genuinely 'Florida' sounding USDM records I've heard in some years, rekindling not only the aesthetics of their first two cult classic albums but also some of the fires that lit other bands like Resurrection, Deicide and old Death.

That's not to say it's exceptional in any way, but if we're seeking a record that could have come out in 1996 as a successor to When the Sky Turns Black, this scratches the itch slightly better than the album that actually DID come out, In Mourning, which wasn't bad, but definitely dulled down a little of the appeal. This new Brutality is more or less a measured balance of slower, double bass drumming death metal roil patterns, a little lumbering death/doom, and some spry melodic death integration in a few of the faster tremolo picked guitar harmonies which offers a welcome relief against this ever becoming dull. Leads are well structured and catchy, revealing both classical and bluesy orientations that work well against the brutal rhythm riffing, especially in cuts like "Fatal Cure"; and it's good they do, because without this element I feel this might become a painstakingly average affair since there is simply little creativity in revisiting the blueprints so long left behind and not tweaking or twisting them in any new combination. The broad gutturals and snarls of Reigel and Acres are not the most distinct in death metal, and almost all the important atmosphere created throughout the original tunes would be nowhere without all those harmonies and controlled shredding passages. They truly elevate the experience, the product of some good decision making.

Drums and bass are brick tight here, but the latter doesn't develop much of a presence against the churning of the other guitars. As for the cover of Bathory's "Shores in Flames", I feel as if it might have been better left off the album or put on a tribute or something, because the style here is so different than what Brutality write for themselves that it stands out like a dragon ship in a white water rafting contest. I appreciate that these guys have a broad taste in metal and enjoy Quorthon, but the real issue is that they never 'own' the cover. It never becomes flush and fluid with the other songs, and while its produced cleanly it feels too much like the original, just meatier. It simply breaks up the flow of the other songs, and I probably would have enjoyed it a little more if it was replaced or just left off the core of the album entirely. It's not 'bad' by any means, but to interrupt these 3-4 minute bruisers with an 11+ Viking heavy metal epic seems like the one choice here that doesn't live up to the rest, which are all pretty sound...this is a Brutality record by and large which lives up to the band's name and legacy, and even though it's not likely to supersede any nostalgic twinge I might have for Screams of Anguish or When the Sky Turns Black, it's proof positive that a), they are back, and b) they've still got it.

Verdict: Win [7.75/10]

https://www.facebook.com/BrutalityTheBand

Tribulation - Melancholia EP (2016)

The Melancholia EP is presumably, ideally, a means to stash a bunch of unreleased material somewhere fans can access it while they eagerly await Tribulation's next eclectic transformation on album #4, but an initial scan of its contents does not look wholly promising. You've got the titular cut already released on their last full-length Children of the Night (which I loved, don't get me wrong), two remixes of that track, three demos of other songs from the album, and...an Offspring cover. That's right, an Offspring cover ("Pay the Man"), which was itself fairly expansive and largely uncharacteristic of the band's standard punk rock anthems. If you weren't aware of the song beforehand, however, you might not even realize that this wasn't original, because of that very fact; Tribulation do a decent job with it but I can't actually say it's better than the original even if prefer Johannes' growls to Dexter Holland's irritating high pitched timbre. Still, the fact that they take such an unusual choice and blend it into their most recent aesthetic is pretty interesting, it was far from a throwaway choice.

Some might actually find the demos of "Holy Libations", "Motherhood of God" and "Winds" a little better than their final album counterparts, because they sound a fraction more visceral and raw. I might be on board with that, only beyond that fact there is not a terrible amount of difference with how they ended up. The emotionally resonant, drifting heavy/death moments of the tunes come off the same, though, and they lack the element of surprise when I first experienced them in their polished studio format. I couldn't care less for including the title track like on any cash cow maxi single, so a lot of my interest was directly focused on its remixes. The 'Steingrim' remix is more or less a remaster with different instrumental volumes, but it sounds a little clunky and in no way would I prefer it to the original. Far more of a risk is the Author & Punisher version of the tune, which does actually dissect it down into its components and bake them in a minimalistic trance of hip hop and industrial lite sound forms, keeping the growls intact but making everything else rather hypnotic, to the point that it's the best part of this EP and its only truly redeeming feature, just for the tones the musician is able to produce.

That said, industrial/electronic remixes of metal tunes are old hat, and this isn't exactly more unique or compelling than a lot of what you've heard from bands who used that as their primary style, or more severe experimenters like Ulver, etc. So while I enjoyed this deconstruction a few times as background noise, it wasn't really worth the price of admission for the physical EP. Ultimately, while I didn't hate all the content here, I think I would have much preferred 3-4 new or unreleased tracks over the choices the Swedes made. Maybe tack on the Author & Punisher mix and the Offspring cover as bonus tracks on that, but the fact is it's 2016 and releases like this have very little currency except as prehistoric means to claim a few dollars from the painstakingly loyal audience members. Considering the amount of buzz Tribulation were able to generate with their latest album, and the positive critical reaction to the prior two, it appears they've hit a level where frivolous product like this is possible. Not entirely garbage, and worth listening to once or twice if you care about the band, which I do, having thoroughly enjoyed each of their records for its own reasons. However, I'm far more excited for what their next complete creation/direction will prove, and this was barely even substantial enough as an appetizer. I'd tell the waitress it needed much more seasoning. Bland.

Verdict: Indifference [5/10]

https://www.facebook.com/Tribulationofficial

Aborted - Termination Redux EP (2016)

With the exception of a couple albums that succumbed to a bit too much of a -core inspiration, Aborted have maintained a largely consistent career as one of the most visible, productive forces in death metal, touring often and hitting hard with audiences that are impressed by their brutality, balance of technicality, and the high level modern production values they champion on their records. I myself have not felt a strong connection to their songwriting in years, the first three albums (Purity of Perversion, Engineering the Dead and Goremageddon) remaining my favorites, from times well before they had blown up the world over. There have been a few fun cuts since then, in particular on 2012's Global Flatline, and yet despite those 'high' contemporary standards of studio sound and riffing intensity they have set for themselves, I simply don't find much of their material all that absorbing.

It's not for lack of trying, because once the rather lame intro to Termination Redux subsides, they throttle you with scores of riff progressions over the four tracks and 15 minutes that channel everything from death and goregrind to the hook-drenched death-thrashing punch of the mid-era Carcass style that informed a lot of their older albums, as if it were siphoned through the high impact capacity of Napalm Death and the roiling grooves of Morbid Angel. Ceaselessly energetic drumming, brick shitting rhythm guitar tone that bursts directly into your face, and some kind of scientifically calculated ratio of blasts to double bass storms to breakdowns that were certainly plotted as blueprints to entertain both their purist brutal death following and the -core guys that are likely to see them on all manner of tours with their favorite bands. Plenty of intricacy in some of the rhythm guitars, but a topping of growls and rasps that feel 100% risk-less and towing the party line for most modern bands of this niche. The bass lines sound rich, fat and fantastic, whenever the drums and guitars aren't too busy to obscure them, and best used in the little atmospheric, spoken break in "Bound in Acrimony" which is among the more immersive moments on this short-player.

Where Termination Redux really doesn't do much for me is in its faster, blasted deathgrind sequences in which the chords selected, as forceful as they are performed, feel like any other banal band putting together the first 3-4 chords that come to mind and sound passable. The same could be said for the breakdown riffs. The notes here just don't stick to my brain, and I found that some of those more involved, mid-paced patterns were just so much more interesting that I wish they were prevalent over more of the run-time. The mix here is loud and engaging, but also super-clean, and thus nothing you haven't heard a hundred or so times already. The Belgians certainly don't lack for any testosterone, nor do they show any signs of slowing down after their 20+ years, and I think an audience that was heavily into the last two full-lengths (Global Flatline and The Necrotic Manifesto) will chew this right up, but I found only an ephemeral entertainment at best, here and gone in a flash of whirling limbs, a creature of structure and production, empty violence and exhibitional proficiency but not one of any sterner auditory dynamic or substance. You might stab someone in a shower to this today, but you won't be singing it in the shower tomorrow.

Verdict: Indifference [6.5/10]

https://www.facebook.com/Abortedofficial

Terror - Legion of Gore EP (2016)

Terror might stylistically sound like a temporal displacement to some, but I think this sort of grisly, evil thrash metal was fairly underrepresented back in the mid through late 80s and I certainly can't get enough of it now. The Cleveland band released a storm of demos in their original active years (1987-1990) which were later collected by some releases which seem equally obscure, but the impression I'm getting just from the two cuts on this 7" through Hell's Headbangers is one of a hungry act with near limitless potential, provided they keep the riffing and gruesome vocal style honest and the production as rich and in your face as they have shown here.

To be a little more specific, these guys play with a sound not entirely unlike a Rigor Mortis or a Demolition Hammer or a Blood Feast, with obvious nods to the prototypes of death metal that were also kicking around at that time...a few riffs here or there involve tremolo picked patterns redolent of Death's Scream Bloody Gore, for example, and there is an overall aesthetic vibe not unlike Nunslaughter (in fact one of the guys was in that band for a brief time). Ugly serial killer thrash with a bold, loud guitar tone that is refreshingly down to hear but loses none of its subtlety when the tunes sprout sloppy leads like blossoms of blood from a dress shirt. The vocals are frightening, gore-drenched, almost as if King Fowley of Deceased had taken a few wounds to his stomach and lungs and was bleeding from them as he growled and pronounced out each line. Bass lines didn't really factor in the experience much for me, but the drums, like the rhythm guitars, just sound brazen and authentically punishing.

To be clear: neither of these tracks are new, both hailing from late 80s demo material and then re-recorded for the band's newfound existence. I checked out the original versions online, and while "Carving Techniques" sounds pretty close, "Legion of Gore" itself is an upgrade. I have to say I'd be content even if they just released an album or compilation with more of that material produced at this level, because it's just good enough to feel like it deserves to be heard everywhere by every reprobate or cellar dwelling underground hesher who has been missing out on it all these years. Time will tell if they've got newer material in them or if this is just a midlife crisis gone right, but even if it amounts to little more than this little vinyl gem, I think some purists will genuinely enjoy hearing it.

Verdict: Win [7.5/10]