Deus Ignotus - Procession of an Old Religion EP (2014)

As much as I've tried, there just doesn't seem to be any way I can keep tabs on all the Greek black metal these days. Case in point: this band, Deus Ignotus had a full length a few years back that slipped past me entirely, so the Procession of an Old Religion EP through Forever Plagued records is actually my first exposure to their sound. And a fast, furious sound that is, putting a bit of a death and grind spin on the standard black metal tropes and, thankfully, actually attempting to come up with a few riffs worth a notice, where so many of their peers in recent times seem entirely inept at composing or caring about anything related to a guitar line that hasn't been heard before...

Not that I'm implying this is brilliant, exactly, and it suffers a little bit from blast-itis, but the bass lines have this coy groove to them which seems to swerve and/or hover just beneath the streaming chords and tremolo guitars, and there are at least 4-5 rhythm progressions across the four metal tunes which had me excited to play them back again. Deus Ignotus is certainly a band that wants to let us know they're in a hurry, and the guttural vocal barks serve little purpose other than showcasing a primate bludgeoning contrast to the far busier music. The mix is hellish, loud and overwhelming, the samples and intro organs fitting if not impressive, and there's also nothing decidedly Hellenic about how they sound, fitting more into a broader European context of bands like 1349, Marduk, or the earlier works of their countrymen Naer Mataron. Sure, the vocals aren't exactly typical for the sort of rapid black metal being performed, but over the last decade a lot of bands have turned towards using the growls over the rasps, so it's not uncommon either.

It's never boring, apart from the impenetrable blasting components, which don't possess a lot of variation or nuance, and over in about 16 minutes. Ultimately, I found myself on the fence, since some of the riffs show a lot of potential, but the rest of the work is not very rewarding to those who just aren't in the market for more intense, accelerated black metal.  But if you're out there trying to track down some incendiary material redolent of the Scandinavian forebears, or even the Polish boundary forcers, then Procession of an Old Religion is hardly going to offend you. In fact, it might even impress you. I didn't feel so strongly about this, but at some point I'll have to get back and check their full-length out. I imagine that format would lend itself to some more diversity in songwriting.

Verdict: Indifference [6.5/10]

https://myspace.com/deusignotus

Necrophagist - Epitaph (2004)

Those not sold on Necrophagist's game-altering debut Onset of Putrefaction probably won't think so highly of its inevitable follow-up Epitaph, but whether or not this really expands upon the ideas or musical prowess of its predecessor is immaterial: Muhammed Suiçmez made a lot of sound decisions for this which kept the formula fresh and relevant in an age when loads of bands were starting to exhibit the same impressive level of chops and performance, forcing technicality upwards and onwards. I myself do not break this one out nearly so much as the first album, but I certainly wouldn't have minded some if Muhammed were to somehow retroactively apply the efforts he went towards to grow the band to Onset's songwriting, and wouldn't find a lot of ground on which to argue with those who find this the superior of the two.

First and foremost, Epitaph is where Necrophagist became an actual band, or rather 're-emerged' as a band as it had been before the debut recording. The rhythm section was rounded out by an impressive trio of players, not the least among them guitarist Christian Muenzner and drummer Hannes Grossman, who would both also go on to impress in their other band Obscura (which I'll be covering more of after this one). They fit into Muhammed's musical vision as if it were there own, and naturally Epitaph benefits as a result. Having an actual drummer makes a major difference, even if Grossman arguably makes it all seem just as effortless as the programmed percussion. But I certainly thought the mix here made the snares and kicks stronger. In fact, despite the mechanical aptitude of each performance here, the entire production just feels warmer and more inviting, a mix of Arsis-style melodic death metal with the clinical pathos of brutal death...five years were not spent in vain. Stefan Fimmers (who would later go on to play in Pestilence) adds another level of fluency by weaving in bass-lines that aren't remotely as intimidated by the guitars as they might have felt when Muhammed played them himself out of necessity. While it's still the driving, deft melodies and rhythm guitars which compel and inform the listener through this, there is no longer that unevenness which knocked Onset down a few pegs.

Secondly, though there is a particular portion of Epitaph which feels like a mere retread of the prior album, just playing catch-up with a full roster of human band members, there are still minor nuances and picking techniques which are employed here differently than the debut. Necrophagist is generally about the details, though they're overt and easy to discern, and Suiçmez' well of ideas was clearly not depleted by this point, especially now that the bass is being contributed on a whole new level to support the flagrant surgical hammering of his note choices. Granted, we're talking maybe 15-25% of the content here, since so much does sound like a reflection of what had already been written in the 90s, but it did give hope that, should this have become a prolific entity with a more consistent recording catalog, there probably would have been some small degree of variation throughout. The leads here actually sacrifice a little fraction of their technique for more feeling, in some cases seeming like the easiest parts another musician would be able to pick up and play him/herself, and unlike what I might have expected, Epitaph's compositional level doesn't force itself so much further away from humanity...this is more stable, and at times, basic in structure.

However, as increasingly enticing as Necrophagist had grown by this album, there's enough material here which thrives off familiarity that I just never felt quite so impressed as the first time, and it's really only an album I break out alongside other bands like Cytotoxin, Beyond Creation or Arsis when I'm interested in hearing style over substance. Few tunes, if any here have the capacity to move one's spirit in any direction, beyond just satisfying his/her visceral response to the impressive, fluid instrumentation. Vocals are still quite average for the death metal medium, easily lost in a shuffle of other artists, and while these guys might be able to play a few circles around veterans like Suffocation and Incantation in terms of dexterity and technique alone, they lack the concrete brutality of the former and dissonant magnificence of the latter. In short, the Germans had become less distinct here than even the mechanical Onset, and that likely would have remained the case had they kept spewing out material through the 21st century. We've all been waiting a decade now for something new, but perhaps it really is better to have such a substantial hiatus if it means Suiçmez and company will have something more unusual and adventurous on offer once they reappear.

Verdict: Win [7.5/10] (when dawn and sunset coincide)

http://www.necrophagist.de/

Necrophagist - Onset of Putrefaction (1999)

Onset of Putrefaction is an album I am unashamed to cite as one of the most important of the technical death metal medium; only its significance is not necessarily for all the right reasons. An iconic work of frenetic and clinical, unfeeling and technique-driven energy, Muhammed Suiçmez' Necrophagist debut served as a blueprint for the fashionable formulas of mid-list US death metal, which would in turn inspire a number of the more extreme examples of melodic death, metalcore in the later 90s, and later the more instrumentally adept deathcore acts, who were at the time teenagers and pretty impressionable that the high level of technique, or really 'wank' present here was the underlying truth of extreme metal on the whole. Now, I'm not saying I dislike Onset of Putrefaction, as you'll read I still enjoy this from time to time, since it seemed to me the natural extension of surgical death metal masterworks like Mallevs Maleficarvum, Necroticism or those first few Suffocation outings; but there can be no question that much of its proficiency-bound appeal comes at the expense of the genuine malevolence and atmosphere one can associate with the classics of even the most ardently technical death metal.

There really isn't much about this one that I could dub 'original', but it's how Necrophagist assembles its prowess into workable songs that helped it to stand out among a lot of the more boorish, long winded and dissonant death metal of its day. The medical glossary lyrics, common here if not sovereign, are straight lifted from Carcass, the level of alien detachment akin to Demilich (I don't for a second think Muhammed gave a shit about the lyrics or concepts behind the music), and the playing is purely exhibitionist, a bold play to conquer the imaginations of the easily distracted or attention deficient who want their music played. Onset of Putrefaction is essentially technical shred metal festooned in growls and precise, punchy backing chords that moor it in the surgery ward, but why it works is because this particular player is so fantastic at meting out some genuine variation, and transforming what might otherwise be an impenetrably flashy experience into some actual songwriting chops that keep the Guitar World brown-nose nerds proboscis-deep in excrement, while at the same time dazzling the progressive death metal fan who grew increasingly accustomed to tighter production values and musical aesthetics similar to what a computer might come up with if you fed it a few dozen death metal records from the 90s alongside some Yngwie Malmsteen stuff.

That's right, I said it works, because the notes Suiçmez lays out here are endlessly well-executed even if he's not the author of the techniques...he implements a LOT of them, and though there's a general 'sameness' about the tunes, it's largely through the production and lyrical similarities and the hammering thrashiness which could be attributed more to the 'rhythm' guitars. Which are themselves more technically advanced than many of the leads shat out by Necrophagist's peers! Endless strings of arpeggios, sweeps, harmonies and other digitized classical picking styles are fed into a machine of modern aggression, a factory of chops that I promise should not grow boring unless you have an absolute fucking hate-on for everything even tangentially related to the notion of 'technical death metal'. If death metal does not exist for you beyond Mortal Throne of Nazarene, World Without God and Warmaster then this is most definitely not for fucking you! But, you see, I like it, I LIKE that Muhammed pressed upon, if not fully pushed the envelope, well before a lot of followers took the same sounds and diluted them ad nauseum into 'wank of the week'. It still might be partly Necrophagist's fault, but you don't pick your fans. It's not At the Gates' fault that the breakdown in "Slaughter of the Soul" birthed the aspirations of a billion shitty melodeath-metalcore hybrids, and it's not Necrophagist's fault that a bunch of fellow guitar hero nerds couldn't think for themselves.

I'm sure a lot of people had a problem with the drum programming, but really this sort of methodic, fast and emotionless material deserves no less than the most robotic percussion available. It doesn't come across as industrialized, noisy, or experimental, just pretty thin and fast and unobtrusive to what matters most: the guitars. The same could be said for the bass, it slides silkily and stealthily as a support for the hectic rhythm patterns without losing its identity entirely as a 'presence'. The vocals are percussive, coy little growls with a little guttural sustain, but the syllabic patterns being spat forth are once again just a plebeian balance against the acrobatic picking that won't cease once across the 35 minutes. But Muhammed is such a refined player (in terms of technique, not feeling) that nothing else really matters...the appropriate way to approach this is much how you'd approach a Shrapnel shred-fest, for the exhilaration that there are humans out there this damn good at instrumental proficiency, even if your preference is to turn on the radio and listen to another block of The Doors. It's not even remotely a masterpiece, running afoul of perfection due to the fact that its a one trick pony, even though that trick has a thousand variations here.

I used to like this a little more than I do today, but it still holds up; so when you're out there listening to one of the many albums it inspired (one of which is Radiophobia from fellow Germans Cytotoxin, who thoroughly cultivate these sorts of aesthetics), try to remember that one extremely capable person was responsible for overseeing a large chunk of the ensuing genre. Yes, he went there, and he went hard. I can imagine bands like Jason Suecof's Capharnaum hearing this and weeping into their hands, to be so utterly beaten to the proverbial punch. Suiçmez can make you feel pretty bad about your technical chops, if that's what you're chasing, but that doesn't make this album any less entertaining for its pugilistic, unapologetic prowess.

Verdict: Win [8/10]  (blank fears control me)

http://www.necrophagist.de/

Mitochondrion - Antinumerology EP (2013)

It is the business of Canadians to be dangerous! Never in my wildest imagination could I envision such a friendly place (at least from all my experiences there) harbor such a grotesque extreme metal scene which has churned forth not only the superb Quebecois black metal, and a number of my favorites 80s thrash and speed metal bands, and...Jon Mikl Thor, but also a whole host of black/death and war metal acts. Not all of them are amazing, but they at least make it seem like there's some life left in attempts to bastardize and cross-pollinate genres and produce something worthwhile in all the chaos. Mitochondrion is no exception: their two full-lengths were quality mutations of cavernous death metal and atmospheric black nastiness, and through the Antinumerology EP they give us a hint of our dooms to come, well those of us who weren't already ended by Parasignosis. I was actually slain by that album but have an annoying tendency to brush off the ol' gravedirt and give it another go, eh? EH? See, dangerous.

This is short, tight, visceral, and just about everything you might have dug about the earlier albums albeit the variation and atmosphere might have been curbed at times in favor of incendiary directness, or about as direct as these dissonant blasphemers are going to get. The steady moving molasses of haunted notation and apocryphal, morbid and resonant gutturals is interjected with sequences of blasting excess, vulgar war metal which is so unfriendly as to stain the very fabric of Creation. Blasphemy meets Incantation with a few hints of Deathspell Omega. I felt that not only the compositional choices, but also the mix of this material seemed a little more raw and misshapen than the past albums, and I wouldn't say I favored that change, but at the same time those who were seeking a more angry and violent Mitochondrion will feel as if the mission has been accomplished. There's a strange trend here where as you get into the deeper minutes of content on the B-side, the material becomes more memorably atmospheric, and so I tended to enjoy the creepy title track which closed it out more than the first track "Insummation", but then that is the single most varied piece on the 7" so the mileage may vary.

It's all ugly, but then even the ugly ones need some loving once in awhile, and I don't imagine those cretins and misanthropes who turn to a band like Mitochondrion for consolation from the sanity and structure of the universe will feel highly disappointed with what they've written here. Personally, it's not as effective as hearing one of the full-lengths, because this is not necessarily a band I want to visit briefly...I'm more into full immersion in their disturbed minds, spending time in that uncomfortable universe where the impenetrable blackness between stars is ichor. Fell god-stuff, philosophical ruminations translated through alien minds. The Antinumerology did not sate me as much as listening through a full Mitochondrion record, or one of their foreign analogs like Portal or Impetuous Ritual. But as an horror d'ouvre to bridge the void between the British Columbians' more substantial journeys, this is a respectable, (dis)functional nightmareland.

Verdict: Win [7/10]

https://www.facebook.com/mitochondrion137

Lantern - Below (2013)

If the Subterranean Effulgence EP (2011) made anything clear to me, it was that someone had finally concocted an effective soundtrack to the 1978 published Advanced Dungeons & Dragons adventure Tomb of Horrors. Okay, so that might not 'technically' be the theme behind these Finns' music, but between the black & white cover art, which looked a lot like the visual aids included in the module, and the oppressive and mysterious subterranean atmosphere which felt more 'dungeon' than 'cavern', and the fact he band is called Lantern, which is as everyone knows the human dungeon crawlers' most important tool (neither a sword or spellbook will be much use in the dark), you can forgive me for drawing that conclusion. That said, I was only borderline impressed with my initial exposure...but their first full-length Below, has capitalized upon my favorable reaction ever since I started listening through it last year, and gone a lot further towards ranking the duo among my favorite of the 21st century death metal claustrophobes.

It doesn't hurt that the band's sense for melodic endowment reminds me of the American one-man act The Wakedead Gathering, who I often rave about, but Lantern definitely has its own thing happening with regards to pacing and rhythm guitar composition. Warmer floods of chords are often incorporated into more dissonant, chaotic and faster paced passages which give off a playful, carnival black metal vibe despite the morbid surface level of the music. Creepy, descending little harmonies, busy songwriting which entirely eschews the basic and oft boring riff tenets that plague a lot of the Incantation/Autopsy derived death metal, and a great level of contrast between the more intense passages and atmospheric calms. The drums have this concise, popping feel to them which I found worked wondrously against the thicker, coiled and springy thickness of the chords, exotic wailing of the lush lead guitars and even the lavish, brief droning guitar segues which provide a multi-faceted soundscape undercurrent when the metal subsides. Another fantastic choice here was the T.G. Warrior-meets-earlier-Johan Edlund bark of the vocalist, dowsed in reverb and echo and constantly reminding us we're in some underground space, unearthing the mysteries of our forebears, or worse...some malevolent, ancient civilization.

The way he and those striking melodies set up "Revenant" should have just about anyone who is not yet fully jaded on this style hooked right through the...gill...no, that doesn't work. Whatever troglodytes have that you could stick a sharp metal object through! Warlike fills, incredibly lyrics, tasteful and nuanced chugging segments, and a juicy bass-line always hovering beneath the rich fermented rhythm guitars. I also enjoyed that for a somewhat concise, 40 minutes and seven tracks, there was such a degree of distinction between individual tunes, in both length, tempo and note choices. This was well planned, well executed, and frankly I'm ashamed of myself for only giving it a cursory 2-3 listens when it first was released last May. It's one of those records which I seem to appreciate more with each listen, even to the point that I like it more this late in the review than when I first started. Impressive material which transcends the monotony and disaffection with which a lot of musicians tend to use as a treatment for their old school death metal fixes. This is voyeurism into the deep dark, your only guide a glass-enshrouded, temporary flame which could blink out at any moment if you've not come prepared with additional flasks of oil. Keep thy weapon in hand, adventurer, for there are deadly magical traps around every corner, and a particular demilich somewhere below, whose dusty bones grow anxious for a victim with each passing decade...awesome record!

Verdict: Epic Win [9.25/10] (As your blood dreams)

https://www.facebook.com/lantern666

Kraanium - The Art of Female Sodomy (2009)

Note: this is a review for the original 2009 version, I am aware there is a 2013 remaster of the album to which several of the complaints might not apply.

The cover art for The Art of Female Sodomy is quite a bit more fucked up than the Kraanium debut; specifically the sort of nasty satisfaction on the faces of the male and female victims. However, of the Norwegians' three full-length records to date, I find this sophomore the most lacking. It's like a denser, more savage spin on the formula of the first one, but for some reason I came away feeling a little less impressed with the dynamic range of the instruments, which feel phoned in...not from one home to the next via telecommunications, but literally someone picked up the handset and smashed it repeatedly into your face. I don't think it honestly matters much, because the devoted brutal death metal fan is going to pursue it anyway since it's 'so fucked up', it's on a label with a decent reputation for the shit, and has song titles like "Masturbation with Fermented Entrails", "Severed Stump Fistfuck" and "Reverse Abortion", but truth be told I just won't ever reach for this over its siblings on those rare occasions when I feel the mood for some unforgiving, conscienceless, mid-level death metal.

Perhaps the first had desensitized me to their sound a little, but then I also enjoyed Post Mortal Coital Fixation from 2012. Perhaps it's that there are a couple rehashed tunes from the debut, and a fucking Waking the Cadaver cover (who cares?!?)...and that with those and the pair of 'bonus tracks' removed this would be little more than a scant, average EP. Nonetheless, the formula is much the same here: atmospheric samples (some might be original, I didn't track all these down to their sources) used to indoctrinate the listener into a barrage of bulldozer blast and slam death metal which is 100% consistently concrete and straightforward in nature. Just a regular day at the butcher shop, with no passion put into the individual cuts, and no seasoning when the meat goes out to the display. All that could amount to a tangible atmosphere here is provided through those aforementioned samples, the guitars are monstrously mundane, especially the palm mute breakdowns which seem a little more prevalent and stripped down than on the debut. Drums feel more lethargic and non-invested, the bass tone here is really boring and subjugated by the rhythm guitar, and the vocals likewise seem to have less character, not that they were particularly distinct or original in the first place, but here they just bludgeon along without much believability to their psychotic message.

That lascivious glee in the eyes of the victims is nowhere to be found in the music. No visceral satisfaction, just a meat truck making a drop-off, and then the chops lumbering around at a zombified pace which seems disturbingly similar to the mosh tactics employed by really fat guys who just plow over girls and kids at a gig, throwing their weight around with little finesse. I don't expect Kraanium to bust out some fly leads or a ballad or anything, but The Art of Female Sodomy sounds hastily or lazily constructed to my ears, and the production doesn't do it much of a service; instruments felt too even to my ears and there's virtually no range or variation in either the sound or the songwriting. A total sausage fest, Scandinavian bro-down which lacks even the depth or character of American bands like Devourment who put a lot more oomph into their mother fucking slam while thinking impure thoughts about yours and everyone else's mother. Skip this if you're new to the band, and check out either of the record's that sandwich it...Ten Sickening Acts is just more fresh and 'innocent', while Post Mortal Coital has a nice rich tone to it and a lot of fun slams. Just wait out the blubbery moshing behemoth at the bar, he'll run out of energy before this 29 minute effort runs out of content.

Verdict: Indifference [6/10]

https://www.facebook.com/kraaniumslam

Kraanium - Ten Acts of Sickening Perversity (2008)

It's pretty wild to think that misogynistic, brutal torture-porn death metal  has become such a familiar and 'safe' territory for some extreme listeners that it has evolved into its own sort of mythology, with its own lyrical and musical standards that are accepted without question. One wonders where the line blurs between what is being projected into the music for pure shock value and what might actually happen behind closed doors if one of the style's performers or fans had the motive or opportunity to fulfill these sick fantasies. I know, I know: it's just entertainment, right? Flying kites is fun, too, but there are a lot less female victims with axes in their heads if you're doing it right. Now, I'm not saying I'm some angel I've been listening to this stuff since Cannibal Corpse popularized it in the late 80s, have covered and therefor aggrandized hundreds of such albums, and even enjoy a few dozen myself, but it still baffles me that the envelope has been pushed so far that most of us treat these images and lyrics with the desensitization we treat slasher films and other extreme media. We're disgusting people, bros

Ten Acts of Sickening Perversity is not something you wanna have in your car stereo on a first date, unless you've successfully picked up George 'Corpsegrinder' at a bar. It's not something you'll want to bring to your next NOW meet-up. No, it's thanatosis in the most puerile form: spasm-inducing chug-centric barbarian slam death with the requisite horror samples uses as intervals to pace out each struggling bowel movement better known as a 'song'. Vocals are malicious pig squeals neutered alongside the groovy pacing of the guitars, which are all more or less paraphrased from various Cannibal Corpse and Suffocation tunes with a degree of low end ballast borrowed from mid-period Morbid Angel records like Domination or Blessed Are the Sick, albeit with more of a knife's edge to the distortion and a dissonant density to various chords that are hammered out in the middle or closure of riffing phrases. The bass is fantastic, scuzzy blood-soaked entrails whipping free from an eviscerate mid-section, coiled and floppy and fluent enough that it becomes apparent the musician actually gives a damn; while the percussion is thick and powerful, loads of thick cymbals and snares crashing alongside the rhythm guitar to give it a far more bouncy, gyrating, sadistic feel for your non stop wigga ninja windmill kickboxing sessions with the homies.

It's tantalizingly brief at around 27 minutes, meaning you could probably listen to this before and after your workday commute, and get revved up with ideas of what you might do to your supervisors that or the next day once they come down on you for micro-management purposes or some lazy breach of protocol on your part. Variation is not a word in the Norwegians' dictionary, but having said that I think they pretty equally distribute the material into its faster and slamming segments to garner appeal from both the moshing crowd and those who want their brutality defined with a little dextrous intensity. The horror bits aren't particularly scary or satisfying in how they introduce individual tracks, but the whole of Ten Acts is violent and visceral enough that the garden variety sociopath who takes this shit with any grain of seriousness will probably spin it with alarming frequency. Personally, I liked the punch and punishment of the album, and that it never hung around enough to wear its welcome thin...just hacking and maiming, and fleeing before the authorities arrive, to ensure that a number of sequels are filmed, each one potentially bloodier than the last. That said, this is largely void of memorable songs, interesting songwriting ideas or anything bordering on essential. You listen to it for the mood and black humor it represents, rather than the strength of individual compositions. Even within this specific niche of death metal there are scores of better albums, but the Kraanium debut is fun and relentless enough that none of those complaints really registers for long.

Verdict: Win [7.5/10]

https://www.facebook.com/kraaniumslam

Autopsy - Tourniquets, Hacksaws and Graves (2014)

It seems like the further we get into reformation Autopsy, the more the band's records are steadily regressing back to the first material they made their imprint with. So it was with The Headless Ritual, and so too it is with Tourniquets, Hacksaws and Graves, their 7th overall full-length. Not that this is lamentably generic or lacking much personality. Far from it. In fact, this must be a wet dream for those who'd rather not acknowledge the Californians' output beyond 1992 (or most of death metal, for that matter). But those faint traces of dynamic expansion one might have discovered through Macabre Eternal are all but left by the wayside. Tourniquets... is unabashedly retro, though it avails itself the benefits of current studio wizardry for emphasis on its gruesome, atmospheric mix of vocals and instruments, which is most likely my favorite component of this album and the one area in which it exceeds its two predecessors.

Let me be clear: I didn't wet my sheets over this one, and thus I risk no embarrassment the next time my mother changes them over with the laundry. Tourniquets... is a record I dug for a spin or three, but not one I find myself compelled to reach for time and time again. It's not like Autopsy required yet another reaffirmation of all that they had established over two decades past, but this fills that role nicely, full circle, an orouboros of decayed worm-guts, and much of what you like about this will be what you enjoyed about Mental Funeral and Several Survival. There are at least a half dozen riffs on this thing, like the intro to "King of Flesh Ripped", which I thought were genuinely fantastic...and then a whole lot of other ones that weren't, in particular the doomy death stuff, which seems all too bland, predictable and derivative of about a million other riffs I (and perhaps you) have heard ad nauseum through the decades, and don't really evolve beyond that with the possible exception that they're oft smothered with one of the most wretched and memorable vocalists in the genre.

And I mean that! Chris Reifert is all over this mother fucker like a gang of ghouls whetting their appetites on the local hospital children's ward. His post-T.G. Warrior grunts are on the level, raving and barking corpse-starved lunacy all over the guitars, and in addition they've cleverly layered in a number of rasps and gutturals to create this massive, cavernous sense of intimidation. I liked him so much here that it became mildly easier to forgive the fact that half the guitar progressions bored me nearly to tears. There is so much depth and torment to his growls that it quickly renders anything else in the mix almost pointless, because there's just no way to match this unless you are writing some severely evil, catchy shit, which about 70-80% of the time here they are not, just laconic, sluggish doom steps with mild, mournful harmonization, or nostalgic death metal passages where the last note is all but guaranteed once you've heard the first. Other strong points include the springy, loose guitar tone which lends itself to most of the more compelling riff patterns on the disc, and Reifert's drums which are loud, boisterous, organic, with levels you'd just kill to have in a live setting.

There's the usual sense of variation in how mid-paced death grooves are exchanged with a few faster and slovenly tracks, just like the first two albums (and last two albums). I think they pretty expertly know how to fit the pieces of an album together, even when all those pieces are not ultimately equal in quality. For instance, the opener "Savagery" felt pretty tedious and bare-bones despite its concise length, but they really only use it to generate excitement or "King of Flesh Ripped", one of the best individual songs they've written in the reformation era. Slower, atmospheric, horror-driven pieces will capitalize on the listener's desire for a break after some more intense sequence, and there's absolutely a fleshy sense of novelty to a handful of Cutler and Coralles' performance that I wish had carried through to a broader majority of the songwriting. Again, Autopsy holds the sort of underground status that they could literally record an hour of saws cutting through carcasses at a slaughterhouse and people would find some genius in it, but I felt too evenly a balance of the 'impressed' and 'underwhelmed'.

Honestly, there are probably 15 minutes here, 3-4 tunes which in an EP format would be the most effective material they've released since Mental Funeral and Retribution for the Dead in 1991, so it's not exactly a bust even for me. For many others, who consider them the pinnacle of the medium, this will likely make the end-of-year-list rounds with several triumphs assured. I'm just happy that they still have it within them to create some of the ugliest death metal they know how, and there is no sense of fear or hesitation to channel their grisly essence as far over the top as possible, which is evident through Chris' vocals if nothing else. Compare this to, say, that half-assed new Massacre album, and it seems brilliant by contrast, yet I'm still waiting for the Autopsy record that finally impacts me the way these Californians have inspired so many other death mavens. This is not that year, unfortunately, but to be fair, there are enough glints at grotesque genius here that I certainly still can't write off the possibility of it ever happening. It can. I hope it will.

Verdict: Win [7/10] (the outside world is gone)

http://www.autopsydeathmetal.com/

Whitechapel - Our Endless War (2014)

Try as they might to cultivate a distinct personality with their 5th album Our Endless War, Knoxville deathcore champions Whitechapel seem to repeatedly slug themselves into unconsciousness with a stock set of hybrid deathcore/djent grooves that immediately shit all over the fact that this is otherwise a fairly rounded, patient set of tunes with some genuine notion of songwriting and atmosphere. In fact, this might just be one of the most 'accessible' of deathcore's major league outings to date, with the caveat that they largely avoid the shitty emo pop chorus parts that have crept their way into the niche via its metalcore foster home. I can say that I feel like Whitechapel actually sat back after their last album, their most technical and progressive to its day (and coincidentally the first I liked...if barely) and then came up with the idea to redefine/simplify themselves akin to what Mastodon did with The Hunter, or Metallic did with The Black Album. What I can't say is that I enjoy it, because I do not.

The bedrock beneath this record is the djent-ish methodology of the guitar tuning and performance, which cycles through a number of tough guy grooves that wouldn't have been out of place on an Emmure record, but that occasionally strike out into a more purely deathcore variety of slamming, or even a spin on some of the neo-thrash we were starting to hear in the later 90s, which took its influence fully from Slayer's garbage phase or Pantera rather than the more inspirational material of the 80s. There are plenty of blast beats and uptempo passages, but these are often affixed with some of the most banal palm mute chugging of their career. The atmospheric melodies, cleaner guitars (as in the intro "Rise") or other techniques they mix into the formula might seem a tasty distraction for a few seconds, but inevitably they are drawn through gravity back to the most boring and contrived of riffing sequences possible, almost all of which are irritably familiar and lifted to some slight modification from various hardcore, metalcore and groove metal sources. There are still a few proggy inclinations to how some of the drums pan out (the best part of the album, in my opinion), like how they'll splash some bluesier harmonies over those Meshuggah/Special Defects jazz melodies of yesteryear to create some depth, but this is unfortunately not so compelling as it might have been.

The guitars have a reliable, stomach punching tone to them which is anchored by the fat but often difficult to notice bass guitar; however, this drummer goes so unerringly ballistic through so much of the 40 minutes here that he seems to leave the remainder of the players in his wakes. Fills flying everywhere, a good rich mix to the toms and kicks, Ben Harclerode is so consummately talented and professional that at the very least, this record could serve as his try-out reel for a far more important band one day. Not that the other players here lag so far behind that they don't deserve some notice, but the creativity of the chugging is unanimously vacant, and Phil Bozeman's vocals are just so vapidly Anselmo-Jasta-HWAAAAHHH that I barely felt the sustained growls trailing off them. Way too 'tough guy', only like so many of these expendable metalcore/deathcore front men, there is no charisma. I'm sure the guy has his demons, they/we all do, but I couldn't pick them out of a lineup of post-Earth Crisis mosh pilots over the course of the last 20 years, and of course I was just so bored by the music that Diamanda Galas singing over it couldn't have made a difference.

But by far the WORST part of this album would be the lyrics, which are more or less an endless fucking tirade of tired cliches that most angst-ridden tweens pen for their garage bands. 'Just let it go...', 'Fall to your knees', 'Our bodies full of scars', 'This is our way of life'...it's like the songs are all meant to be a part of this Hardcore Self-Affirmation 101 Playbook that aims to justify the band's existence, like it's really them against the world or something, kicking ass on tour and bein' rock stars! No guys, you're not rebels, you play trendy heavy -core music with nary a shred of individuality. Low-hanging fruits plucked from the altar of mediocrity. I'm sure it's all really heart felt (like angina), but what could be more lazy and boring? This album felt so earnestly and desperately bland to me that I almost wonder what I heard in its predecessor, which must have just been a fluke. Our Endless War even looks the part of forgettable, and I think ultimately I liked this one even less than the new Carnifex, which was another step backwards for a potentially promising band. There are exponentially worse albums in this style/these styles, but I sure feel no compulsion to visit this one further.

Verdict: Fail [4.5/10]

https://www.facebook.com/whitechapelmetal

Mekong Delta - In a Mirror Darkly (2014)

In a Mirror Darkly is a nerdy progressive metal album with some inexcusably shitty cover artwork. It's also a lot less frenetic and psychotic than Mekong Delta's seminal records like The Music of Erich Zahn or The Principle of Doubt, nor is it as forceful and exhilarating as the Germans' 2007 comeback album Lurking Fear. If one or more of those things have turned you off, then I highly advise you skip along and pay this no mind. Otherwise: There. I covered all the flaws, but what I didn't tell you is that In a Mirror Darkly is a thrifty, intricate, intelligent example of progressive demi thrash with absolutely no hesitation to sound as varied and polished as possible. It's Dream Theater with a darker past, Ark without the distractingly Christian undertones, Symphony X without the flourish. Nah, it's Mekong Delta, and sorry to the above, but they were pretty much first...

I am not now and never have been an advocate for Ralf Hubert's decision to clean up the act a little, but this is the second time I've been surprised by that very result. The first was the 2010 classical opus Wanderer on the Edge of Time, which eschewed some of its predecessor's clinical badassery to refine and redefined the band's lifelong love of symphonic music. Now we've got a record which takes on a darker, Lovecraftian exhibition of otherworldly madness in about the cleanest means possible. Nothing new, since they've always had a fascination for this darker lyrical material since at least the second full-length (if not earlier), but this time out you've got a major contrast due to the extremely rich, tidy production values that you'd expect out of far bigger prog metal bands. When it comes down to the riffing, this is more or less a direct channel back to the band's earlier years, with cyclic, psychotic passages of melodic guitars and harmonies which transform Rush-like signatures into something which screams at you from the shadows, or from a surgical slab. Remarkably, the wild cadences and ebbing dementia always present in their earlier records is maintained here, despite the fact that the mix levels lend In a Mirror Darkly a lot more accessibility...

What I mean by that is, proggy mother fuckers who worship the output of labels like Sensory or Inside Out will revel in this album even if they've no interest in its brasher, intense forebears. You've got typical Mekong Delta thrashers like "Mutant Messiah" and "The Armageddon Machine" run up more theatrical, dramatic contrasts like "The Sliver in God's Eye" in which Martin leMar gets to flaunt the emotional range of his vocals, that have more impressive depths than the shriekers of Mekong's past lineups (not to mention a little Tate, Alder or Rivera). Granted, such a piece might be construed as pompous or excessively dweeby by those with a hate on for prog. metal in general, but at the same time there is a whole world of potential fans out there to whom a track like this opens a visible doorway. Personally, I side with the 3-4 heavier tracks on this disc, which are transparently cast as paeans to the band's earlier material, but I cannot complain that the less metallic components are not eloquent, professional, flavorful and help to round out the disc from becoming too manic or aimless, accusations I've seen leveled at the Germans through their past.

I don't know that this has the same level of 'personality' that you'd find on the older works, and  LeMar still seems to me one of their least exciting singers, despite the more mature he takes to the material, but it's really damn solid, and Mekong Delta if nothing else prove that they still belong to that explosive second tier of Teutonic thrash, if they only marginally fit that description part of the time. We've little to no hope that Deathrow or Living Death are reforming to produce visionary works of art, but Hubert's group and Holy Moses are at least holding down the fort. In the Mirror Darkly has a narrative quality to it, a completeness which manages to compensate for the initial instrumental cuts, not exactly the murkiest stuff of squamous horror you'd expect considering some of the lyrical matter, but I'm actually grateful to hear the themes taken in a different direction once in a while, rather than monopolized by cavern-core death metal bands.

The cover image, which translates the band's triangular motif into some cloudy, indiscernible green mess, is astoundingly awful. There is absolutely no reason for a band with 30 years under its belt to produce such amateur pap when they might avail themselves of even the crudest technological advancements...just a clear, digital HD picture of something interesting would have been fine. Not that the last (new material) full-length was an eye-catcher, but this sort of thing rubs me the wrong way, nearly as lamentable as Jag Panzer's Dissident Alliance, which at least had the excuse of being releases a very long time ago. No, In a Mirror Darkly is on a "Hey guys, I spent 5 minutes with a computer graphics program in 1993" level of suck. It's not even bad in a fun way. The icon looks bad, the green logo worse, and the album title? Wow. One wonders if they ran out of funds, out of time, out of ideas, or they threw this together in the last 30 seconds before sending off their master? This is far from Mekong Delta's best album musically, I wouldn't even place it in my personal 'top 5', but surely it deserved a little more luster so that when passersby see it they might have some reason to stop and listen...are we still doing that, people? Wanna guess why more people don't know about this band? It's not just because they're plebeians (well, that too).

Verdict: Win [7.75/10]

http://www.mekongdelta.eu/