ALTARETH
On their debut full-length "Blood", Altareth serve their sludgy guitars low and slow, with a slab of fuzz and a side of doom in massive portions.
'Sludgefuck Blues' isn't all slow 'n' sloppy. The track 'Misery Reciprocated' sounds almost jaunty in its anger and 'Torment Addiction' has a brief guitar solo that fights to make itself heard among the ensuing carnage but by and large, 'Sludgefuck Blues' is like a slap across the head by a large, heavy, slimy thing. Start up the EP and you're entering a House of Horrors, The further in you venture, the more frightening it gets. The damndest thing is though, you can't help but smile.
Bravely, Lady Luna and the Devil has released Mother of all Sin as a concept album, an opera subverting the Book of Genesis chronicling Eve's journey to liberate herself from Paradise via the Seven Deadly Sins and it works in a rather clever way because it also gives the impression of someone wrestling with their conscience. Listen to the album wearing headphones and you have the sweet, dulcet tones of vocalist Lady Luna on one shoulder and the sound of temptation with the minimalist, earliest Candlemass like riffing of guitarist The Devil on the other, goaded by warlike percussion from drummer, Hand of Doom.
Mother of All Sin is a no frills album. Its simplicity is explained by guitarist,The Devils' influences which includes the album 'Monotheist' and the band Triptykon. It sounds surprisingly grim, shoegaze in parts but is finely balanced by the clarity and range of Lady Luna's vocals.
The bands bio states that The Devil only started to really get into playing the guitar during Covid, so it will be really interesting to hear how the band progresses and further defines its sound but, until then, Mother of All Sin is a solid foundation and an interesting take on how to further embrace the bond between heavy doom and clean, feminine vocals.
Ophis occupies the middle ground of funereal doom with leanings toward Evoken but without the chilling misty layer of keyboards, and My Dying Bride minus the black lace veiled riffs of the band from West Yorks. Instead, Ophis delivers a more straightforward (viral) strain of doom, the tracks are lengthy and varied and the guitars are in the main full and heavy, matching a punishing rhythm section and, of course, carried along by the obligatory growling vocal delivery.
Recommended ~ Each song seamlessly blends funeral paced heavy with dark disconsolate melody.
Here are the top 12 albums released in October according to Deathrattle Podcast. Doom was particularly strong but there were a couple of thrash based albums that caught my eye (and ears). My top death metal album was the ferocious 'Majestic Dissolve' by Conjureth.
OPHIS
Raw, old school nihilistic Death/Doom Metal. No light, no destination, no compromise!
The band has tagged itself as experimental on Bandcamp which is something that usually leaves me with a sense of trepidation but the term 'experimental' here means a mish mash of Southern style blues held together by a clag of sludge then held over a flame until charred and crispy. The vocal delivery works perfectly with this type of metal scarred blues, pained but not screaming as to drown out the slow moonshine saturated groove that abounds throughout this album. 'Crop' never really crawls above a snails pace, in fact the final track Na closes out the album in a wave of caustic doom. Pick away at the fuzz and delve among the various barbed riffs on this album and you will come across hints of drug addled melody with hints of anguish like a user desperate for a fix but unable to find a dealer.
Recommended ~ An original slant on a tried and tested sludge formula and the band has succeeded perfectly.
Italian extreme metal is synonymous with a love of adding keyboards into the mix and Dark Redeemer carries on that tradition with unobtrusive organ moaning like a lost soul in the background giving this album an extra layer of gothic creepiness with a dank zombified atmosphere split between a '28 days later' frenzy and the catatonic shuffle of 'Night of the Living Dead'
RECOMMENDED ~ The creepy atmosphere adds an extra dimension to a tried and trusted death metal sound.
Death Metal ruled the roost in September with seven of the twelve spaces taken up by various denominations of death metal bands including a form of the genre that is finding increasing space in the Deathrattle Podcast, technical death metal. Another form of heavy that has found it's way into the show more and more recently is post- metal and the album Absence by Suneater is represented in this 'Best Of' selection for September. Last months surprise package is Coma by the band Lurcher, four tracks of excellent doomy grunge.
So take a bow ~
DARK REDEEMER
An album with 9 old-school sick, dark and violent tracks which will satisfy the fans of Obituary, Morbid Angel, Autopsy, Dismember, early Entombed and Celtic Frost.
The album opener 'Bestial Batallion' begins with an air raid siren warning of approaching danger before the carpet bombing, aided by staccato, military style drumming begins the onslaught,shrapnel flying in all directions There's nothing technical about Wardance, Stheno's only objective is scorched earth policy with no prisoners taken, keeping things simple but remaining vicious all through the album.
The final track is called 'Bellum Internecinum' and this is what you've signed up to if you purchase this record.....a war of mutual extermination.
Recommended ~ Uncomplicated blackened devastation.
7 Degrees records for vinyl
https://www.7degrees-records.de/
Chaos & Hell Productions for CD/MC
https://www.facebook.com/chaosandhellproductions
So much is going on in this album. I've listened several times and I'm still coming to grips with how Xenosis has managed to combine technical death metal wizardry with mind expanding progressiveness and yet somehow keep those hooks leaden as bent and twisted as they sound. There are eight tracks on Paralleled Existence, each one sounding only vaguely familiar from the last, all eight a nexus of death metal styles creating an atmosphere of delirious mania from which there is no escape from the turmoil.
Paralleled Existence is Xenosis' musical version of 'Alice Through The Looking Glass,' a warped, illogical nightmare.
Deathrattle Podcast recommends Paralleled Existence ~ Highly technical, progressive death that doesn't detract from the overall brutality of the album.
Le Monde Par Le Feu consists of Cho and Ben from doom/sludge/death metal band Oldd Wvrms and Thomas from the French black metal band Pénitence Onirique and some of the sounds from both bands has influenced the music of Le Monde Par Le Feu but this new unit isn't a clone by any means. For instance, the doom element of Oldd Wvrms has been diluted slightly in favour of a more post-metal sound, but fear not, the album still sounds really heavy due to the more aggressive sludge passages that follow the intricate melodic parts so typical of this type of music. I'm particularly pleased that this new band has added a vocal delivery, pained as it is, alongside synths, giving more depth to each track and an atmosphere of toxicity beyond anything Oldd Wvrms has released.
I tend to find that many post -metal bands fall into the trap of over experimentation, not so with Le Monde par le Feu. Most of the tracks are reasonably lengthy, but superbly structured, ebbing and flowing like a windswept, stagnant pool, the most surprising one, however, being 'Scolopendre' which is the least complex track on the album but the riff really does remind me of Gojira.
RECOMMENDED - Song structures, not too much experimentation, excellent production quality, blackened harmonies enhanced by charred sludge.
Doom once again dominated the upper regions of my 'best of' list of albums for August particularly the occult/stoner variety and thrash was more prominent this time. Although I usually have more than a few death metal albums bubbling away in my list with Fearancy and Headshrinker, the brutal side of the genre is conspicuous by its absence. Indeed, Headshrinker is August's surprise package. I've tagged them as a death metal band but their album 'Callous Indifference' is far from straightforward, incorporating elements of thrash, doom and even post - metal into a rather dark sound.
So, the following bands take a bow
KAL-EL
Kal-El is the fuzzed-out step-child of hard rock and heavy metal, often with hints of pyschedelic and blues rock as well as doom metal. Songs typically feature a bass-heavy groove, detuned guitars and mind-expanding lyrics...
WITCHANGER
