✦✦✦✧ The mad men of Milan are back with this predictably unpredictable metal smorgasbord. There are too many flavors to list here (DEP, SOAD, IWABO, Racer X, Maximum The Hormone, etc and so forth), but rather than coming across as self-indulgent, these pulls are all employed for the benefit of your ears. See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ Little known fact: back when I was getting my industrial passion project Hagman off the ground, one of my biggest inspirations was the little-known-of producer Klayton, courtesy of his Circle Of Dust moniker. In fact, to this day, every time someone mentioned Cradle Of Filth, I feel an inner twinge, wishing instead that they were talking about Circle Of Dust. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ Nasty, sludgy, stoney doom! There’s a soggy industrial nihilism to this band’s sound, reminiscent of Unsane or Eyehategod. Good lawd is this music heavy. There’s a good 20 minute stretch that feels like one massive breakdown though which may test your stamina. See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ This album has a few standout moments of melodeath excellence, and the musicianship is expectedly topnotch. But there’s a pervasive and formulaic familiarity to a lot (possibly most) of the material here. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ Imagine if Cynic had decided, ten years ago, to double down on their tech death leanings. Then imagine if they’d released an EP and gone into hiding for a while, quietly working on their craft in secret, before securing a gross vocalist and dropping a masterpiece on an unsuspecting metal landscape. See the rest here
✦✧✧✧ This latest from Ulver wears its improvisational heart on its sleeve, culled as it is from live jams. It’s good background music, very much in the mold of John Carpenter crossed with V.A.S.T. and Sunn O)))… but it doesn’t scratch a particularly metal itch. It’s more like a rainier Godspeed. See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ Strictly speaking, my first impression here is that this is some gloriously dark scifi/space metal. It’s a curious blend of Gojira, Nothingface, ETID, and Misery Signals. The production, which at first seems perfect, never relents from its excessively compressed assault on the eardrums. DR5 makes sense for the band’s more devastating tracks, but just sounds silly otherwise. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ Holy fuck is this heavy. “Paradise Gallows” makes Inter Arma’s previous releases sound like “(Listen To The) Flower People.” But that sledgehammer to your balls is not without finesse; how else could this band pull off 90 minutes without it feeling overly long? The expert pacing makes possible the band’s ability to cover a vast terrain of moods and progressive elements. See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ The newest incarnation of Katatonia begs a few comparisons to Opeth (“Damnation,” anyone?). More pointedly, any vestiges of metal on this album are largely relegated to the status of ornamentation in service to a pervasively gothy form of prog. Look: props definitely due for the band burrowing deeper into their softer side. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ This is perhaps AAL’s best album since their 2009 debut. The band take a more spartan, less-distorted approach to their fourth album, which pays off handsomely. AAL’s brand of metal has always been less about walls of overdriven sound and more about precisely frenetic rhythm, and that’s all the truer here, where clean strings are even more predominant. See the rest here
This work by Metalligentsia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.