Category: First Listens
Svarttjern — Ultimatum Necrophilia
Winterstorm — Cathyron
★☆☆☆ This is expertly done… I suppose. I mean, it’s got everything I’d expect from Bavarian power metal: galloping riffs, synth pads at all times, and anthemic and awkward vocals that are a bit too conspicuous in the mix. It’s all a little tired for me. But if you like this sort of thing, well, check this album out.
Winger — Better Days Comin’
Cormorant — Earth Diver
I Killed The Prom Queen — Beloved
Pyrrhon — The Mother Of Virtues
Triptykon — Melana Chasmata
★★★★ This, finally, may be the perfect doom metal album. The production is a masterwork of fine balancing acts, giving us a sound that is as convincingly menacing as it is lush and layered. The guitars and bass dutifully cut without mercy. Even the vocals, the genre’s typical Achilles’ heel, give just enough bite without tipping into amateurishness (as they so often do).
Within Temptation — Hydra
Raubtier — Pansargryning
★☆☆☆ You kinda have to give a band props that sings in Swedish and starts off an album with a song titled “Dieselrök.” That said, this particular brand of industrial melodeath is just too noisey and awkward to really get into. The whole thing feels familiar, but clumsily so. Imagine going to a black market music store, and finding a Rammstein CD… only, it actually says Ramnstine.
