The Pete Flesh Deathrip - Mortui Vivos Docent (2013)

Faced with the prospect of becoming just another faceless Swedrone among hundreds of other old school acolytes, one-man band The Pete Flesh Deathtrip saves some face by pronouncing the very same riffs that made this form of extreme metal viable in the first place, and he injects enough of a blackening nihilism into the guitar progressions and utter savagery of the music that he doesn't immediately condemn himself to 'wannabe' obscurity. Of course, this is no spring chicken here, but the estimable Peter Karlsson, who has been writing and recording extreme metal records for over 15 years. The guy drew blood with Maze of Torment for nearly a decade, appearing on a number of records I enjoyed, and was more recently a member of Deceiver, whose third and last record Thrashing Heavy Metal was far less pedestrian than its title would have implied. In short, this guy knows how to write and deliver a righteous ritual stabbing, so even if Mortui Vivos Docent does fall well shy of perfection, I'm not at all surprised of its competence and consistency.

Instead of the typical, beefy guitar tone we've come to expect from this scene in particular (or those who attempt to honor it), Pete dials back to a more realistic level of grinding intensity that enables him to clearly mete out all the varied tremolo picking sequences, whose melodic content will be just as viable for fans of groups like Sacramentum, Lord Belial, Marduk and Dissection as the gruesome, mid-ranged growls and brutal blasts will be for those expecting traditional death metal. He doesn't resort to cliche D-beat rhythms, and yet again you feel the blackened death/thrash influence of his previous bands quite readily. Best of all, though, is how the ghastly vocals resonate out over the busy riffing like an undead preacher to a parish of ghouls. He has a couple guest growlers here, in particular Micke from Unanimated, and they fit right in. When he implements a 'groove' or breakdown, like the muscling mutes in "Burning Darkness", you can really feel it stand out since it serves as an exception to the rule, rather than a commonplace means to just fatten up a song. On top of this, he's actually got a handful of genuinely catchy, evil sounding hooks committed to the tracks, like the Slayer-ish intro to the superb "God of the Crawling Whore", or the bridge of "Raven's Reborn" which recalls a sluggish Bolt Thrower pacing.

All in all, Mortui Vivos Docent ('The Dead Teach the Living') is just a well-rounded labor of love album upon which you can rely on seasoned implementation of all instruments. The drums and bass are nothing particularly standout, but solid at all speeds in support of the tremendous vocals and riffs. It's not perfectly catchy, with its fair share of familiar or 'missed' opportunity riffs that don't inspire many repeated exposures, but from front to back this feels like an album carefully written and arranged, rather than just a selection of same-sounding death metal tunes that anyone riding Entombed's coattails might have written. In fact, the writing here is just as inspired by Scandinavian thrash or thrash/black metal as it is death metal; it's more Nifelheim than Nihilist, and definitely possessed a lot of riffing sequences that would have fit snugly on one of the better Maze of Torment discs. The production is lavish and sinister, the vocals raucous and vile, if a bit monotone in places, and you feel good and dirty when you're finished. This is a vulture circling in for the flesh and entrails you will no longer need. Carnage and punishment: plain, pure and simple.

Verdict: Win [7.75/10]

https://www.facebook.com/peteflesh

Wound - Inhale the Void (2013)

I've heard so much reverse-thinking death metal in the past half-decade that it's become like a psychological compost that I want to spread across my lawn and forget about. Having been into the 'old school' as it actually transpired, I have the same mixed feelings about this as I have had for rethrash or any other throwback sound. The distinctions really come down to 'who is not too closely ripping off band A or B, or if they ARE ripping off band A or B, are they doing it well enough to justify giving a damn?' Granted, a lot of the bands in this category are well versed in their field, competent players and capable of cultivating the archaic production necessary to really evoke the nostalgic centers of the memory, but too few are using it as a vessel towards creativity, and thus more important become the acts with the 'longer view' who break the mold (Necrovation, Tribulation, etc).

Wound of Germany are a tricky case, because while they incorporate a few more Swedish style mid-90s melodies into their picking progressions, and have a more snarled vocal presence than the ominous raucous growls one would predict, the chunky production of the guitars is definitely old hat. And, since they're not performing the most compelling riffing passages, and often fall into the typical D-beat rhythmic configuration alternated with slower rhythms accompanied by tremolo picking; without doing anything to differentiate them from the myriad others who do the same, I felt exhausted almost immediately on hearing a number of the rhythm guitars through the album. Judging by the cover art, I had half expected something more cavernous, doomed, surreal and perhaps psychedelic, but these guys definitely lose themselves quickly among the crowd. They're not exactly your run-of-the-mill knockoff of Dismember or Entombed, but clearly following that tradition, albeit with a meatier production sensibility that, like the classics, is meant to apply a crushing force to the simplistic punk-fueled chord sequences. If these were interesting or ear-drawing riffs, or great grooves, I would have no problem with their derivative nature, but after almost 40 minutes of nothing extraordinary, the cemetery-soil-churning guitar tone is just not enough.

It's fleshy, and heavy as fuck from a sheer aesthetic evaluation, but lacks the evil sounding melodies and nuance that its influences branded into the minds of this generation's graveyard custodians. The vocals are bloody, brutal, and nearly convincing, but they're just not very angry or distinguished among a huge array of similar bands. The bass guitars are loud and concussive, and the drums manage to stand their own ground even against that broadsided, enormously grimy guitar production, but too clearly the rhythm section seems doomed to its role as wingmen while the guitar scores with all the cemetery sluts. The album is bookended with a pair of instrumentals, the outro a somewhat creepy atmospheric piece with acoustic guitars and haunting flute-like tones, but the remainder of the material all sort of blends together, not only with itself but with a dozen other bands in recent memory. In the end, without Wound necessarily doing a fuck-up job of things, I just wasn't hearing anything on this debut that I haven't already come across in great quantity and greater quality elsewhere; but if you're still in the market for some of the repulsive guitars and the filth of Swedeath flag-carriers like Tormented, Revel in Flesh, Mr. Death and so forth, give it a try.

Verdict: Indifference [5.5/10]

https://www.facebook.com/wound.deathmetal

Witches Mark - Witching Metal Ritual (2013)

Unless you're GWAR, W.A.S.P., Immortal, or Running Wild (I'm speaking only of their phenomenal Port Royal record), it's quite hard to pull off an appearance on your own album cover without coming across as exceedingly goofy. Okay, yeah, even those are goofy. Granted, I'm sure that was sort of the point with Witches Mark's full-length debut Witching Metal Ritual, radiating a 'we don't take it too seriously so you don't have to either' vibe, but as much as I might find it cool to wield a minigun with a cute chick propped up against my leg, I feel like this does little but tease another ironic and unfunny party metal or pizza thrash disc which, being admittedly a tightwad (asshole), I just don't have a lot of patience for. I mean, we live in a world where a shitty parodic band like 3 Inches of Blood is actually taken seriously, so I'm obviously in the minority here, but the reason I bring up this superficial mojo is that I think these Texans are quite a bit better than the cover relates.

Not that Witching Metal Ritual is anything nearing spectacular on its musical merits, but I definitely think there's some space to work in this hybrid of filthy speed, power and thrash metal, and I appreciated that the vocals rely more on a sinister, cruel inflection than the usual shrieking indulgence, which is so often a crap shoot with USPM bands since the mighty 80s. Some of the lyrics and delivery are just too hammy for me not to roll my eyes at, like the opener "Bringers of Heavy Metal Death" where they are just too over the top, but on tunes like "Swarm" and "Salem's Fire", this guy is pretty fucking great, with a lot of acid to his melodies that recalls the vicious German speed and thrash like Risk, Running Wild, and Destruction, and a nice sustain similar to the great James Rivera. He will even employ some cheesy screams or harsher rasps for some balance. But does this level of character persist through the remainder of the record? The velocity and riffing variety being employed on the album reminds me of Demoniac (the pre-DragonForce band), or the aforementioned 3 Inches of Blood, but you definitely can dig out a lot of pretty sweet, obscure USPM like Liege Lord, Twisted Tower Dire, Cage, Deadly Blessing or Cauldron Born (they've even got a song called "Cauldron Born").

The musicianship here is very solid, with guitars that can match any pacing while delivering riffs that are busy but not manically complex to the point of confusion. Their production isn't all that great, so the melodies don't always pop out as much as you'd expect from a more polished recording, but at the same time they feel pretty authentic and directly translatable into a live setting. I wouldn't call the writing novel, since it draws from a lot of triplets and tremolo patterns that are standard fare in power and thrash metal rooted in the 80s, but there isn't a song that passes without something catchy happening, and they even bring in a lot of Euro power metal anthem picking, as in the title track. Leads are well written and executed, vocal arrangements are all consistently entertaining (after the first and worst tune, and before the finale which is also one of the weaker numbers), drums are spry and powerful with a lot of double bass driving to keep them consistent with today's power metal mavericks, and the bass lines are functional if not distinct.

I probably would have enjoyed Witching Metal Ritual more if it were just the middle six tracks, because I found them all much more catchy and less glaringly ridiculous (even the doomy "We Die"), but in the end I have to say it surpassed the expectations I had just looking at it. These guys have a savage sound which gladly eschews some of the wimpier flower metal traits often dragging down the genre, and once they fire on all cylinders they seem like a group of potential contenders in a USPM scene which has a lot of vacancies. Yeah, there's a long way to go before they reach a level like Attacker's latest album Giants of Canaan. The mix of vocals and guitars isn't great, and I feel like they should shed all goofiness and just embrace the fact that they can murder their instruments without the tongue-in-cheek pageantry; but I can definitely bang my head and beat my chest to a couple of these tunes, and their collective experience and consistently high level of energy might work wonders once the rest of the cards fall into place.

Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10]

https://www.facebook.com/witchesmarkband

De Arma - Lost, Alien & Forlorn (2013)

Providing the DNA evidence that a missing link exists between The Moody Blues, The Cult, Pink Floyd, and Katatonia, this is a Swedish/English collaboration between vocalist F. Allain of Fen, drummer J. Marklund of Sorgeldom and multi-instrumentalist A. Petterson of Lönndom, the last two having worked together numerous times before in projects like Stilla, Whirling and LIK, all of which are pretty interesting in their own right. To some extent, Lost, Alien & Forlorn suffers from a case of repetition and sameness which can grow tiresome after a few listens, but as a seed for something more creative down the line, it certainly got in a few shots of unbridled emotion and an almost numbing sense of bliss.

Basically this is driving, highly melodic doom metal (late 90s Katatonia, Daylight Dies, Rapture, etc) with a few black metal chord textures and rasped off-vocals that place it loosely into hybrid territory. The difference is that F. Allain is resurrecting that same swath of psychedelic terrain that a lot of dreamy British rockers explored in the 60s and 70s, and suffice to say yours truly does not encounter such a mixture every day. The chord progressions here are fairly commonplace, but layered so that the flow of the chords is almost always accompanied by some brighter notation, delivered either through a dissonant higher pitched chord or a sorrowful little melody. Hints of Fen, Sorgeldom and Whirling are clearly present, but I'd say this was an altogether different beast than the constituents' mainstays, though I felt that musically it did not break a lot of new ground. For one, the chord selections are hit or miss. They're always busy and emotional, but whether they tread a series of unbroken chords or a more syncopated punctuation, you're rarely being struck with an unexpected melody...

It's not all predictable though. For example, there are points like "Fires of Hope" where the metallic elements are dropped altogether to create a 90s British shoegazer/rock feel not unlike Catherine Wheel's dreamier outings, or the closer "Dislocated" where you hear some cleaner, spoken word vocals over a more directly post rock progression, but in general most of the tunes create a comparable mood. The bass lines are less than creative, Petterson obviously placing the brunt of his creativity into composing the rhythm guitars and melodies, but they bump along with blissful abandon nonetheless, and Marklund's drumming here is about as workmanlike and splashy as you would hope, considering that there's not a great deal of rhythmic diversity for him to work with. No, I feel like a lot of the real attention here is on Allain, and his harmonies are well enough rendered to distinguish De Arma from the pack, but not always the most elegant or tuneful. I will admit I actually thought the black rasped vocals throughout the record were entirely generic and in absolutely no circumstance did they ever deliver the climactic counterbalance intended...blandly structured.

But, hey, vocally they tried something different here, an evolutionary stopgap between Gilmore/Waters, Hayward and Jonas Renkse, with occasional deeper forays reminiscent of Kristian Wahlin's style in the Gothic metal band Diabolique. There would be a lot of potential if the supporting music were just a bit more interesting. I could probably count the compelling chord fixtures here on the fingers of one hand, but that's not to say it wasn't pleasant to listen through, and the 43 minutes weren't so tedious that it stretched out its welcome unbearably. Good ideas, they just need some sharpening, and ultimately De Arma might prove appealing to fans of acts as wide as the aforementioned melodic doom and depressive rock, to blackgaze acts (Alcest, An Autumn for Crippled Children), psychedelic prog, A Deeper Kind of Slumber-era Tiamat, maybe even a little pure Gothic rock like Sisters of Mercy.

Verdict: Indifference [6.5/10]

http://www.dearma.se/

Sombres Forêts - La Mort du Soleil (2013)

Continuing Sepulchral Productions' gold rush of 2013 is the third full length effort from Quebec's Sombres Forêts ('Dark Forests'), not to be mistaken for Calgary's Dark Forest, which performs more of a pagan, structured form of black metal. But don't let that statement mislead you into thinking that La Mort du Soleil is somehow loose at the seams, for this is an extremely atmospheric experience which revels in its ambient textures just as much as its harsher content. Equal parts ghastly and gentle, Annatar's writing really gives the cover artwork some context, because the listener is made to feel as if he/she is deep at sea on some battered old vessel, where periods of tranquil, sun-flecked skies are ruptured by torrential rains and choppy, terrifying waves. Not the sort of record you'd seek out if you just wanted something sinister to sear your face off, but if you've got the better part of an hour to kill by the docks with a bottle of your favorite poison and a whole lotta problems weighing in on your mind, well this is sort of like a surreal soundtrack to Old Man of the Sea if it had been penned by Varg Vikernes and not Hemingway...

Lots of pianos, wistful and dreamy acoustic guitars, ambient feeds and varied vocal arrangements strewn about its seascape; an ocean of heirlooms and objects, each connected to some sorrow or regret, cast out to drown but never fully submerged. From the simplest pieces, like "Effrondrement" which is more or less a rolling piano piece with some slightly creepy, distant vocal harmonies; to the more calamitous epics such as "Brumes" or "La Disparition", Annatar is nothing if not tonally passive/aggressive. Ebb and flow, low to high tide and back again, you haven't always got a lot of warning before the raw, abrasive guitars drench the scene with a tone quite familiar to the fans of depressive or suicidal hemisphere of black metal. We're not talking full-bodied, complex riffing patterns, or even rhythm progressions that would stand to scrutiny if separated from everything else, but more of a sizzling accompaniment that erupts almost like a post rock swell, when the emotional floodgates are torn from their hinges. In this, it's not entirely different than Annatar's Miserere Luminis collaborators Gris on their new double-album, but on the other hand, the acoustic guitars at least are a bit more on the subtle side (like in "L'Éther), not meant to shine entirely by themselves.

Drumming patterns range from the tribal and meditative (like the beautiful bridge in "La Disparition") to splashy explosions during the heavier sections, but while the snare pops straight through, the balance between the vocals and other instruments is such that I often felt like some of the cymbals were reduced to a bit of a hiss when the guitars are crashing along. Not an issue where the music becomes less dense and cacophonous, though. Bass guitar lines are pretty simple and often seem to disappear altogether, but they definitely cultivate a lowly grooving blackgaze sensation when they matter the most ("Étrangleurs de Soleils") and this is not the sort of sound where it's often an important component. As for Annatar's vocals, I cannot say that they're the most unique sort of rasp out there; he delivers a lot of sustained lines that fit the sheer expansiveness of the music, but you might not be able to always pick him out of a lineup of similar snarlers. To make up for that, though, La Mort du Soleil is heavily saturated with ethereal, dreary or even ringing clean vocals which are often so subtly infused to the other instruments that you feel like that forsaken sailor I hinted at earlier; slowly losing your grip on reality. Are those the voices of angels as you approach the afterlife? Sirens singing you into the depths and their bellies? Or rescuers over the next angry wave-crest...

...whatever the answer, they really contribute so much to the impression Sombres Forêts leaves upon your spirit, and similar to Gris, show an enhanced sense of composition which does not solely hinge on riffing alone. Annatar is a composer first, and though he chooses to express himself partly through the grim savagery of the black metal medium, he is by no means restricted to its parameters. Or, rather, he reminds us that there ARE no parameters, no boundaries, and to leave such follies drowning behind you. You cannot defy conformity through conformity, after all, and that's why it's so great to hear artists like these in the Quebecois scene who create such texture-heavy musical 'retreats' into the wilderness. La Mort du Soleil is further evidence that this particular scene is helping to lead the charge away from banality into rapture, and I, for one, enjoyed it even more than Annatar's previous outings with this project. Highly recommended to fans of Gris, Forteresse, Neige et Noirceur, Sorcier des Glaces, and Lustre, though for most of those it goes without saying.

Verdict: Win [8.25/10]

http://sombresforets.blogspot.com/

Gris - À l'Âme Enflammée, l'Äme Constellée... (2013)

2007's Il Était une Forêt... was an album recommended to me about a dozen times, by more than one person who considered it the greatest metal recording of that particular year. But when I at last got around to hearing it I wasn't too impressed beyond that gorgeous, dirty guitar tone balanced upon the precipice between scintillating beauty and the suicidal void. At 60 minutes, there were definitely some opportunities to get lost, as well as bored, but Gris is nothing if not ambitious, so you have to take it all in stride. That ambition continues through their long anticipated follow-up, À l'Âme Enflammée, l'Äme Constellée..., which is a rather stunning turn of events towards a more richly produced palette of glimmering acoustics, uplifting folk/world music and better produced metal progressions that retain their black metal bleakness but lack the fuzz of the debut. Normally, that might prove a turnoff, since I enjoy some grit in my suffering, but with two discs and 80 minutes of material, I have to admit that this is an adventurous sophomore I easily prefer to its predecessor...

I enjoy an album where the acoustic/folk guitar sequences actually feel 'cared about', as if a great amount of effort were placed in their inception and they're not just being paraded about as a window dressing for the band's eclectic self-image, and this is clearly one of those places. Each of these compositions, whether the brighter and captivating intro to the first disc "L'Aube" or the more brooding, minimalistic "Sem" interlude, or even their placement in the longer 11+ minute centerpiece tracks, has been meticulously carved out of the wood, fields and waters of the wilderness surrounding the band, and fashioned into sometime moody or downright beautiful. Further string sections inebriate the tracks with the range and atmosphere of a fully staffed orchestra, giving the listener an impression he or she is at the symphony hall watching a conductor more than listening through a metal record, and the commonly implemented, cleaner, feminine crooning is wisely relegated to pure atmosphere, like a steady breeze above the trees that often intersects with the revelatory rush of the turbulent river waters below. In terms of pure arrangement, this is wonderful...

But À l'Âme Enflammée, l'Äme Constellée... is, after all, a metal record, and its authors pull their heads out of the clouds often enough to provide is with a crushing range of bright, searing chord progressions that intertwine fairly seamlessly with all of the vocals, drums and other instrumentation. To prove this isn't just chamber music for your grandparents, the black rasps here are drawn and quartered out to unpredictable levels of suffering, which creates an immediately bewildering contrast when they segue into some classical passage. Gris is meting out raw fucking emotion here, not the usual sort of black metal frontmanship where the inflection feels like it's monotonously being read from a page. No, Icare seems to just be staring at something and howling his lungs out in Romantic desperation, and it translates into a far less predictable performance which is instantly more compelling to experience. There are admittedly some points at which this becomes almost caricature, but that's really the point. It is only vaguely scripted agony, and he is going to wrench whatever he can out of that fleshy frame.

Are the metal components as richly realized as their surrounding arrangements? No, especially in a tune like "Dil" where the chord progressions are often rather threadbare and uninteresting, but the very fact of their existence still helps to support the record's passive/aggressive nature. The real exhilaration will almost always be felt around these parts, but it helps ground off all those electric chills you feel from the orchestration. The drums, on the other hand, are quite passionate and inspired, especially the fills in spots like "Seizième prière" where they pick up alongside the heavier chords. It's almost like the conglomeration of a rustic tribal drum circle from the Great White North fused together into a single spirit. Go forth, great arbiter of cadence! Bass lines are likewise really nice here, with a thick and plugging tone that often enough swerves away from the rhythm guitar notation to groove along with the confidence of a modern progressive rocker. But sadly the distorted guitars, while not disposable by any means, are perhaps the least compelling aspect of the music. Important in placement, to suffuse the songs with a heavy sadness, yet not incredibly melodic.

Ultimately, though, any interstices between the rapturous emotional release of Gris' ideas are more than made up for when the solemn or ethereal clean vocals, the orchestration, the percussion and the riffing all comes together in tidal bombast. It's a record of 'moments', but those are evenly balanced between its most intense crossroads and unassuming, rural breaks in the action. The interaction between shorter and longer tracks doesn't impede this Quebecois flow of creativity nearly as much as I thought it might when I first looked over the playlist. It's all consistent, at times beautiful, and at times haunting. Even where I might have become mildly bored, I can't deny that this duo put an enormous amount of care and love into what they were doing. Grandiose, but genuine. Some fans might rue the lack of grimier, wrist-cutting guitars as the dominant drive in the music, but if this was the trade-off, then I'll take it. Perfect it is not, but worth owning it most definitely is. Magnificent, really, and while it's a bit different from the other great Quebec recordings I've heard lately off Sepulchral Productions (Neige Éternelle, Monarque, etc), À l'Âme Enflammée, l'Äme Constellée... has further convinced me that this scene is about to reach critical mass... Do continue!

Verdict: Win [8.75/10]

http://musique-grise.blogspot.com/

Humiliation - Turbulence from the Deep (2013)

War metal seems somehow an appropriate thing to cover this Fourth of July, even if that war metal is hailing from one of two Southeast Asian acts writing and performing under the banner of Humiliation. Not to be confused with the Indonesian band, who dabble in a more brutal style of death metal, this Malaysian quintet have cultivated a particular obsession with the classic sounds of the late 80s and early 90s, in particular groups like Bolt Thrower, Gorefest, Cancer and Asphyx, known for their plodding simplicity among the ever-sickening sea of complexity that progressed through the 90s and beyond. But we've come full circle, as younger bands pillage the past for more authentic tones, returning to the roots and attempting to expand more freshly in a horizontal direction.

The whole concept behind Turbulence from the Deep is compelling to me. Submarine death metal from Malaysia? Sign me up. Surprisingly, though I can't recall encountering them in the past, they've already put out three full-lengths, each represented with an aircraft, vessel and mobile armor, so the theme is nothing new to the guys. Not that it's new anywhere, because beyond Bolt Thrower, groups like Hail of Bullets and Invasion have been champion this style of 'History Channel' death metal for some time, but the prospect of this outfit's geographical location hints at a fresh perspective. And that might or might not be the case, since I haven't got the lyric sheet for this one, but I can say for certain that the music is a time portal opened back up to the years of War Master and The IVth Crusade, centered on a set of hooks that unfortunately are so primal and obvious that they feel ceaselessly derivative across the 44 minutes of material. Now, that might not be such a negative if you're the sort of listener who pines for nostalgia at the expense of innovation, but I could not in good conscience get past the fact.

That is NOT to say the minimalistic riffing killed of tracks like "Operation Obeo One" or "Calibrated Chaos", which slogs along at almost a death/doom crawl, is a total deal breaker, because what they lack in creativity they make up for in a very rich, pummeling, brooding production peppered with somber melodies in the vein of Bolt Thrower. You can only imagine that with such a limited palette of chugging rhythm guitars played out over only a few chords and root notes, this helps add some versatility, depth and emotion to the bleakness. The vocals are a truly nihilistic guttural bark, using the Karl Willetts style as a base, but not as beefy, so you hit a few more mid-ranged growls here or there. The drums snap along persistently beneath the meat of the rhythm guitar, with plenty of double bass rolls when called for, and they pick up appropriately whenever Humiliation surges forward into one of its faster death/thrash styled riffing sequences. Bass guitar is heard and felt, but it doesn't exactly have the consistency of a depth charge that I had hoped, and it tends to find comfort in following along the rhythm guitar patterns. Admittedly, a lot of the death metal I receive from this area of the world is usually quite brutal and choppily engineered, so Humiliation was at least a smooth change of pace.

Songwriting is all pretty steady and samey through the first ten cuts, with some deviations in tempo that prevent it from becoming a swollen bore, but then they throw a surprise left with the tranquil acoustic outro "Submerged at the Seabed" which is pleasant and captivating despite its own simplistic nature. Otherwise, the parameters are set early on and there's little to no deviation. The notion of lead guitars are generally just reduced to those melodies I mentioned earlier; an area where the band could clearly expand upon, even just with some bluesy wailing an an effects pedal. Atmospherically, I suppose the drudging pace and doomed tone of the rhythm guitars is actually enough to make one feel as if he/she were sinking among spent the artillery shells, shrapnel and corpses after a hull breach, but it wouldn't have hurt to indulge in some sonar, watery effects or even samples and help emphasize the concept. Which is in of itself an interesting one, and one that Humiliation should continue to explore, only using a more creative set of guitar riffs. As it stands, Turbulence from the Deep just anchors itself among its influences and plays it too close to the ammo-belt. Decent stuff, for sure, but ultimately not so interesting as I had hoped.

Verdict: Indifference [6.5/10]

http://www.humiliation.my/

Darkane - The Sinister Supremacy (2013)

After a lukewarm 2008 effort with Jens Broman at the helm, I was kind of on the verge of writing off Darkane for good, so their decision to reacquire Lawrence Mackrory came as somewhat of a surprise, though they've always remained pretty tight, and even had him guest on albums after he'd left the group. This reunion obviously hinted at the possibility of the Swedes returning to their Rusted Angel roots. Having now digested The Sinister Supremacy a half dozen times, I think that's only marginally the case. His vocals and the overall setting and atmosphere of the record aren't quite so caustic and abrasive as the debut, but the punchy melodic  death/thrash and complicated impact of these cuts does play out like an admixture of Rusted Angel and Insanity with the clean mix of Demonic Art, but unfortunately not reaching that lofty songwriting perfection of Layers of Lies, hands down my fave of their efforts and among my favorites in all the Swedish exports of the 21st century.

It's still loaded, however, with the compact and forceful riffing progressions one would come to expect from their backlog, a violent and passionate vocal performance, and the bewildering level of musicianship that frankly has me stunned why Darkane is not held in wider regard. What I've long enjoyed about their music is how it can loosely cling to a standard rock or metal song structure but still deliver thrills through both its inherent complexity and rampant unpredictability. Unlike the lion's share of melodic death metal bands, once they start battering away at their instruments I often have no exact picture of what's coming next, and this holds true of The Sinister Supremacy. Rapid, rushed charged palm muting sequences are interspersed with dextrous grooves, gorgeous leads gleam through the driving rhythmic wasteland, and there's no end to the testosterone. This is a pretty substantial record, with 12 tracks and almost 50 minutes of material before the two bonus tracks, and something for just about any fan of the past works, or comparable acts like Carnal Forge or the first 3-4 albums of The Haunted, with the caveat that Darkane have always been more clinical, futuristic, and classically-inspired; as the intro "Sounds of Pre-Existence" and the piano/string interlude "Hate Repentance State" remind us.

To some extent, Mackrory is reliving his earlier years with the bands, the one difference being the added level of James Hetfield sneer of strained melody that he often breaks out in chorus sections, the perfect example coming right away with "The Sinister Supremacy" itself. Granted, he was meting out such lines as early as Rusted Angel, but with the further clarity of this record, it's much more pronounced, and took me some getting used to. Otherwise, the guy is snarling and growling with the celerity and fire associated with not only that first album, but also his predecessor Andreas Sydow, who in turn had carried the torch for him. Ideberg and Malmström remain fonts of ideas, patching together an aggressive, modern architecture that should sate fans of forward-thinking thrash, technical death, and even though the grooves don't quite carry that same blunt percussion of proper 'djent' bands, I feel like fans of melodic Meshuggah offspring might also really appreciate the level of concussion and finesse being contrasted here. Wildoer's drumming is, as usual, busily implemented and near perfect in its capacity to keep the music's frame compelling; and the bass guitars are pretty good, even if they often disappear into the murk below the rhythm guitar.

Not all of the songs really stuck to me, but there are a handful here which are shockingly awesome, in particular when they break out some mid-paced, mechanical riffs that remind me of the delicious dystopian landscape they have always conjured at their best. Cuts like "The Decline" and "By Darkness Designed" are brilliant amalgamations of Layers of Lies and Expanded Senses, thanks to their interesting note progressions and rhythmic diversity, but there are other spots like "Ostracized" or "Humanity Defined" where they simply tear your face off with more traditional, winding Swedish melodeath riffs redolent of a robotic, postmodern alternate universe At the Gates. Bluesy, evolved, rock & roll based grooves often break out amidst the busier, machine-like picking, and though it's quite consistent and often samey in construction, the album's brushstrokes are painted wide enough that it never suffers from monotony, unless of course you just really hate this style of harried, spastic future-thrash, in which case this is unlikely to change your opinion. Even the bonus tracks here are worth something, and in the end, even if it can't match Rusted Angel or Layers of Lies in scope or vision, and doesn't ultimately 'progress' into new territory, I'm still thoroughly enjoying it, riff after riff after bloody riff ad infinitum.

Verdict: Win [8/10] (and all senses disappear)

http://www.darkane.com/

Squash Bowels - Grindcoholism (2013)

Poland's Squash Bowels have been grinding away since 1994, but in that nearly 20 year period I've only come across their music a few times and probably dismissed it for many of the qualities that usually turn me off from the style: average riffing patterns derived from punk, hardcore, and veteran grind (Napalm Death, Terrorizer, Carcass, etc) set to blast beats, with little distinction or character beyond 1-2 minutes of sheer muscular release. That said, if Grindcoholism is anything to measure progress by, then I feel like they've come quite close to mastering that style and even throw a few compelling riffs in out of left field that help round out the experience. It's definitely got that European slant to the production, with the heavily saturated guitar tone to herald the crushing d-beat grooves, and it lacks some of the dissonant innovation present in another, comparable Polish group, Antigama, but hearing the record come out your speakers is admittedly like holding your ears up to a meat grinder...

Soaked. Fleshy. Brutal. The references I'm hearing most are Nasum and Regurgitate, only with less direct spurts of death metal influence, but beyond that, you're getting a lot of down-tuned chord intervals that reek of the old British stuff in the later 80s...not only the obvious, but some of the note progressions even remind me of a Godflesh if you were to drop the industrial programming and hire on an actual drummer for support. Blasting is the go-to as far as tempo, but outside of those sequences they incorporate punk propulsion, loud and crunching death/thrash riffs and mid-paced double-bass demolition-grind. A lot of individual sections of the album do come across as samey, but there's plenty enough variation to round out 32 minutes, and to give Squash Bowels further credit, they keep their songs substantial enough in duration that you don't feel like the rug is being pulled out from your feet just when a groove or burst is becoming interesting. Vocally they mete out a mixture of traditional Greenway grunts and a splash of the Walker/Steer guttural/snarl mating, but once in awhile the growls get deeper and more pronounced so they give off an aroma of brutal death, and even some toilet flush enunciation like in the title cut.

The drums sound excellent, a rich and pounding palette across which you can also hear the cymbals and hi hat with due clarity; and the bass guitar is swarthy and damp like an overstuffed sewer pipe, giving a lot of that callous industrialized swill and depth to the chord patterns being splayed out above. But it's really the rhythm guitar which stands out the most here, since it's just so fatty and juicy that it soaks through like the listener's ears like the bloodiest of steaks on a paper towel. Granted, I wished for more dissonance here, and more of the atmospheric streaks of noisy feedback that are often hurtled across the gut churning chords. The riffs, while bright and brutal enough to compensate for their simplistic nature, just aren't all that compelling outside of the overall savage context in which Squash Bowels perform. Grindcoholism is not an album without some level of competency, as these guys are old hands in the field, but its a bit too purist for its own good, and doesn't leave much of a lasting taste once the dust clears and your entrails have been stomped and flattened. Which is, for some of the medium's audience, more than enough, especially those into the Swedish acts I mentioned earlier. The excellent, abrasive production and intense drumming are nothing to scoff at, but musically I was left with no enduring impressions beyond the visceral.

Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10]

https://www.facebook.com/squashgrind

Estrangement - Belong Beneath [DEMO] (2013)

I've occasionally commented in the past on how funeral doom so often traipses too closely between the paradigms of crushing sadness and effortless ennui, and will readily admit that even some of my favorite 'pure' products in this medium can be tiresome when not in a proper mindset. Australians Estrangement have addressed this shortcoming by composing a cacophony of suffering cellos, sluggish droning distortion and haunted rasps that places a huge emphasis on the 'funeral' half of the equation, while letting the death/doom components serve as this raw, primordial landscape across which the more atmospheric swells ebb and flow with so much spirit-sapping drama. Belong Beneath is a three-track cassette demo, simply but nicely packaged, and though its brevity might rob us of getting a 'bigger picture' of the band's capabilities, it gives us something to be compelled towards. I was going to say 'excited', but, then, that's not exactly the point of music like this.

Two of these three tunes fill out the predictable 8+ minute duration used throughout the niche, but they do so with a lot of class. Spaced out, minimalistic, drudging chords set a backdrop for the heavy use of organs and strings, dry but throbbing bass notes, and there are even little hints of jazzy, progressive rock picking that took me by surprise in "Disentanglement (from sound and mind)". The drums are the sort of sparse, raw bedrock you might be accustomed to from similar bands, really splaying out and deconstructing your standard doom meter that every individual strike of a snare or tom is felt to its fullest, though you get a bit more of a tribal imperative in "Infinitesimal Spark" where the fills are busier. I suppose that, for the most part, that track creates more of a consistent doom metal vibe, but it too segues into some interesting keyboard whirls and a melancholic haze of harmony which brightens the din of the opening moments despite the torn throat howling along to them. The sandwiched "Interlude" is also interesting, because it's mournful fusion of funeral parlor lounge pianos and strings crashes along like a sepulchral vaudeville with occasional growls.

I will say that the demo, while not overpoweringly produced in terms of its guitar tones, vocals and drums, did not release me from its dirge-spell for the 20-ish minutes, and that's a testament to the creativity implied here. The riffs, as bare as they are structurally, are not repeated ad nauseum unto oblivion so that you become comfortable or tired, and even though the three tracks are largely streamlined instrumentally, sticking with a handful of sounds and interpreting them in a handful of Romantic, rotting ways, there was a sense of adventure and the unexpected here which is so often lacking in the form. The melodies and the chords aren't incredibly memorable unto themselves, but Belong Beneath certainly inspires curiosity as to what they might pull off on a lengthier debut album, which this sonic niche lends itself to. I just hope that the sense of exploration I felt listening through this will be further expanded upon, and the Australians won't shy away from delving even higher into the atmospheric envelope while maintaining those heartstring-snapping fundamental growls and crashing, Cyclopean chords that define its parent genre.

Verdict: Win [7.5/10]

http://estrangement.bandcamp.com/