★★☆☆ A masterfully performed collection of technical death metal tunes, marred by wildly uneven pacing, and by how blatantly derivative it is throughout the whole album (lifting whole-cloth from Meshuggah, BTBAM, Intronaut, The Faceless, and a bevy of others). See the rest here
★★☆☆ This is a mixed bag of an album. On the one hand, the band’s production has never sounded so good. On the other hand, I can’t think of a time when they sounded more impotent. The net result is not unlike what you might get if XTC put out a Nirvana covers album. See the rest here
★★★☆ The Soilwork-meet-Kings-X-meet-Lamb-Of-God stylings heard on the band’s last eponymous release are all here again. This time around, they’re even more alien, even more polished and convincing, and there’s even a strong aftertaste of Meshuggah on a few tracks. This album’ll get your head nodding for sure! See the rest here
★★★☆ For my money, this is one mean improvement over the last Oceano album. To get there, apparently the band traveled halfway between The Acacia Strain and Vildhjarta… and then tunneled straight down. With the right kind of thinking, you can hear this as an intellectual level-up. With a different kind of thinking, this is a suitable soundtrack for breaking your hand on concrete. See the rest here
★★★☆ Impressive. Most impressive. This album bears more than a passing resemblance to The Faceless, Obscura, and other technodeath groups, which is the good news. The bad news is that, while it’s eminently replayable, it just misses the mark in terms of emotional resonance. Too many notes, perhaps? Still, I put this in my Don’t Miss bucket. See the rest here
★★☆☆ This is a relatively uplifting dirge-suite, and as cocksure as anything GYBE have ever done. The problem is that there’s just not that much “there” there; of the album’s four tracks, two are atonal noisescapes. As a King Crimson-style calling card of a teaser release, this would be dandy, but as a standalone affair it leaves me wanting more. See the rest here
★☆☆☆ This album reminds me very much of the transition that Malevolent Creation made from the sublime “Retribution” to the forgettable followup “Stillborn.” Similarly, many of the elements found on “Tetragrammaton” are present and account for on this new album, but this time around the combination just doesn’t work nearly as convincingly or compellingly enough. See the rest here
★★★☆ Sure, Israel+Dutch extreme metal sounds like a gimmicky proposition on paper. But “Enki” is so self-assured and full-throated that you can’t help but dig it. See the rest here
★★★☆ Trascendent sludge that is utterly engrossing (and… dare I say, listenable?) from start to finish. Sure, the band give up some of their potential ferocity in exchange for cohesion and mood, but it feels like a good trade. This is now my favorite Ufomammut album to date. See the rest here
★★☆☆ This album comes from an alternate reality wherein 70s prog rock blossomed forty years later than it did here. The resulting hodgepodge has as much in common with Camel, Bill Laswell, and Barber’s Adagio For Strings as it does with Emperor. It’s a fascinating listen, marred by a difficult production aesthetic and an over-reliance on the glacial crescendo. See the rest here
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