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151 results for “acerbicX2”
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‘Magic Farm’ Review: Acerbic Comedy About Culture Clash Follows Clueless Americans in Small-town Argentina
#Variety #Reviews #ChloëSevigny #MagicFarm #SundanceFilmFestivalhttps://variety.com/2025/film/reviews/magic-farm-review-1236294904/
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‘Magic Farm’ Review: Acerbic Comedy About Culture Clash Follows Clueless Americans in Small-town Argentina
#Variety #Reviews #ChloëSevigny #MagicFarm #SundanceFilmFestivalhttps://variety.com/2025/film/reviews/magic-farm-review-1236294904/
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‘Magic Farm’ Review: Acerbic Comedy About Culture Clash Follows Clueless Americans in Small-town Argentina
#Variety #Reviews #ChloëSevigny #MagicFarm #SundanceFilmFestivalhttps://variety.com/2025/film/reviews/magic-farm-review-1236294904/
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‘Magic Farm’ Review: Acerbic Comedy About Culture Clash Follows Clueless Americans in Small-town Argentina
#Variety #Reviews #ChloëSevigny #MagicFarm #SundanceFilmFestivalhttps://variety.com/2025/film/reviews/magic-farm-review-1236294904/
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‘Magic Farm’ Review: Acerbic Comedy About Culture Clash Follows Clueless Americans in Small-town Argentina
#Variety #Reviews #ChloëSevigny #MagicFarm #SundanceFilmFestivalhttps://variety.com/2025/film/reviews/magic-farm-review-1236294904/
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Rosemary with her usual acerbic lack of objectivity, sums up the #PMJT GST tax relief press conference and #PP’s attack against it, with the comment: “#PP gave a pretty blunt assessment of the GST tax relief. Let’s look at the policy and the politics behind it.”. And of course, the #RosemaryBarton panel then proceeds to highlight every single drawback they can identify and their “feelings” on it. At absolutely no time does anyone mention the GST was introduced in 1991 by the #Conservatives.
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This is the less acerbic version of our "grandpa" voting guidance for the #US #elections.
It has been a bit exhausting, but not surprising, to see corporate media (#NYT, #WAPO, #CNN, #FOX) fully in sync with right wing trash like #TheFederalist.
Be our guest, ignore policy and democracy and go with the grandpa approach.
The person with the most green check marks in the #Biden - #Trump table is still the better one.
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[3/3]
Aaron’s is a less acerbic and more hopeful version of my binary “No, ‘AI’ Will Not Fix Accessibility”:
https://adrianroselli.com/2023/06/no-ai-will-not-fix-accessibility.htmlLéonie’s confirms that #UserWay / #LevelAccess has trained its LLM on its own broken code and has not improved since I called it out 8 months ago:
https://adrianroselli.com/2021/09/userway-will-get-you-sued.html#MoreFakeAIThe point is, these are fallible tools that can be helpful with the right existing knowledge or in absence of anything else.
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#15yrsago Vet’s obit: “send acerbic letters to Republicans” https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/chicagotribune/obituary.aspx?page=lifestory&pid=15361018
#10yrago Canon’s printer/photocopier blocks jobs based on keywords https://www.itnews.com.au/news/canon-blocks-copy-jobs-by-keyword-235047
#10yrago Pratchett’s I Shall Wear Midnight, sentimental and fun book about a witch among enemies https://memex.craphound.com/2010/10/12/pratchetts-i-shall-wear-midnight-sentimental-and-fun-book-about-a-witch-among-enemies/
#10yrago Tom Waits and Preservation Hall Jazz Band release limited-edition 78RPM record and matching limited edition record-player https://pitchfork.com/news/40262-tom-waits-releases-78-rpm-record-and-player/
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The uncredited artists who connect Lou Reed and Kiss
(Credits: Far Out / Alamy) Thu 11 September 2025 0:00, UK Strangely enough, acerbic songsmith Lou Reed and…
#NewsBeep #News #Music #BobEzrin #Entertainment #GeneSimmons #kiss #LouReed #UK #UnitedKingdom
https://www.newsbeep.com/uk/129761/ -
Nequient – Avarice Review By Samguineous MaximusWith a name like that and an album cover featuring a vivisected human head, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Nequient play a form of knuckle-dragging brutal death. Instead, the Chicago four-piece specializes in a brand of chaotic, grinding metallic hardcore that recalls the frenetic math explosion of the early 2000s. Avarice is the band’s third full-length and promises a “unique synthesis of extreme metal and hardcore” to “blast listeners out of complacency with withering screeds against the malignant forces ravaging our world.” Despite some solid releases from last year, it’s been a while since new mathcore shook me to the bone and reminded me of modern existence’s inherent fragility. Nequient have the requisite political bile coursing through their veins—the same volatile fuel that powers the genre’s most unhinged eruptions—but is Avarice actually worth your time, or just another flailing heap of panic chords destined to suffocate beneath a pile of white-belt-era clichés?
On Avarice, Nequient paints an anarchic arras with a dizzying amount of stylistic touchstones. The band combines the unhinged frivolity of The Sawtooth Grin with the fast-paced stop/start violence of The HIRS Collective, and loads their tracks with riffs that actually stick, echoing early Converge at their most surgical. The twist? These songs feel coherent. Longer runtimes turn what could be scattershot spasms into fully realized compositions, bolstered by a wide palette of metallic textures. Blackened tremolos (“Christofascist Zombie Brigade”), demented odd-meter thrash gallops (“Brain Worms”), and sludged-out funeral dirges (“Splenetic And Moribund”) are all threaded together with mathy convulsions Nequient execute with unnerving precision. Throughout the record, the band moves between ideas at a dizzying pace, consistently impressing with bewildering moments of aural chaos.
More than just a collection of moments, the songs on Avarice are propelled by relentless pacing and tangible chemistry among the band members. Nequient’s secret sauce lies in the interplay between Patrick Conahan’s disorienting guitar cascades and drummer Chris Avgerin’s dextrous, fill-heavy style. Conahan glides between mosh-ready grind parts (“Mad King / Fool”), undulating, deathy descents (“Rintrah Roars”), and unsettling noise-rock lurches (“Siege Mentality”). Avergin follows along expertly, always mirroring the spastic guitarwork with tasty, intuitive drum parts that guide the ear and ground the anarchy. Aaron Roeming provides the low-end thunder and adds a purposeful heft that thickens the chunkier riffcraft while vocalist Jason Kolkey leads the charge, alternating between a sassy, vitriolic spew and full-bodied death growls while delivering caustic epithets about the horrors of modern life. Kolkey’s acerbic lyrics pull the whole disgusting package together, melding poetic death metal abstraction with punk’s immediacy and sharpening the record’s nihilistic aura into a potent weapon aimed at a broken system.
In fact, Nequient is almost too adept at channeling the noxious undercurrent of societal id, leaving precious little room to breathe across Avarice’s full-frontal assault. Longer tracks usually ease up on the throttle and inject variety with less frantic, slower sections, like with a menacing sludge-into-breakdown (“Rintrah Roars”), or a hazy, chordal comedown (“Stochastic Terror”). Still, I find myself wanting just a touch more space to find my bearings during full-album listens. Avarice is well-paced, and there are more than enough ideas to keep the 40-minute runtime interesting, but it’s missing one or two blissed-out melodic ideas1 or jaw-dropping displays of contrast to elevate it to the peak of the mathcore mountain. This doesn’t prevent Avarice from being a stunning display of technical aggression, but it does mean more than a few spins to decipher its labyrinthine heaviness.
Nequient really impressed me with this one. Avarice is a nerve-flayed, teeth-grinding listen that captures the low-grade panic and spiritual exhaustion of modern life with alarming precision. Rather than settling for dime-a-dozen mathcore spasms or rote metallic bludgeoning, the Chicago crew stitches together dissonance, groove, chaos, and razor-wire technicality into something far more purposeful. It’s punishing without being empty, intricate without disappearing up its own ass, and memorable enough to demand repeat spins. If you’re craving chaotic metallic extremity that does more than regurgitate the usual suspects, Nequient have your number.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
#2026 #35 #AmericanMetal #Apr26 #Avarice #Botch #Converge #DeathMetal #Grindcore #Hardcore #Mathcore #NefariousIndustries #Nequient #Review #Reviews #SludgeMetal #TheHIRSCollective #TheSawtoothGrin #ThrashMetal
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Nefarious Industries
Websites: nequient.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/nequient.band
Releases Worldwide: April 24th, 2026 -
Nequient – Avarice Review By Samguineous MaximusWith a name like that and an album cover featuring a vivisected human head, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Nequient play a form of knuckle-dragging brutal death. Instead, the Chicago four-piece specializes in a brand of chaotic, grinding metallic hardcore that recalls the frenetic math explosion of the early 2000s. Avarice is the band’s third full-length and promises a “unique synthesis of extreme metal and hardcore” to “blast listeners out of complacency with withering screeds against the malignant forces ravaging our world.” Despite some solid releases from last year, it’s been a while since new mathcore shook me to the bone and reminded me of modern existence’s inherent fragility. Nequient have the requisite political bile coursing through their veins—the same volatile fuel that powers the genre’s most unhinged eruptions—but is Avarice actually worth your time, or just another flailing heap of panic chords destined to suffocate beneath a pile of white-belt-era clichés?
On Avarice, Nequient paints an anarchic arras with a dizzying amount of stylistic touchstones. The band combines the unhinged frivolity of The Sawtooth Grin with the fast-paced stop/start violence of The HIRS Collective, and loads their tracks with riffs that actually stick, echoing early Converge at their most surgical. The twist? These songs feel coherent. Longer runtimes turn what could be scattershot spasms into fully realized compositions, bolstered by a wide palette of metallic textures. Blackened tremolos (“Christofascist Zombie Brigade”), demented odd-meter thrash gallops (“Brain Worms”), and sludged-out funeral dirges (“Splenetic And Moribund”) are all threaded together with mathy convulsions Nequient execute with unnerving precision. Throughout the record, the band moves between ideas at a dizzying pace, consistently impressing with bewildering moments of aural chaos.
More than just a collection of moments, the songs on Avarice are propelled by relentless pacing and tangible chemistry among the band members. Nequient’s secret sauce lies in the interplay between Patrick Conahan’s disorienting guitar cascades and drummer Chris Avgerin’s dextrous, fill-heavy style. Conahan glides between mosh-ready grind parts (“Mad King / Fool”), undulating, deathy descents (“Rintrah Roars”), and unsettling noise-rock lurches (“Siege Mentality”). Avergin follows along expertly, always mirroring the spastic guitarwork with tasty, intuitive drum parts that guide the ear and ground the anarchy. Aaron Roeming provides the low-end thunder and adds a purposeful heft that thickens the chunkier riffcraft while vocalist Jason Kolkey leads the charge, alternating between a sassy, vitriolic spew and full-bodied death growls while delivering caustic epithets about the horrors of modern life. Kolkey’s acerbic lyrics pull the whole disgusting package together, melding poetic death metal abstraction with punk’s immediacy and sharpening the record’s nihilistic aura into a potent weapon aimed at a broken system.
In fact, Nequient is almost too adept at channeling the noxious undercurrent of societal id, leaving precious little room to breathe across Avarice’s full-frontal assault. Longer tracks usually ease up on the throttle and inject variety with less frantic, slower sections, like with a menacing sludge-into-breakdown (“Rintrah Roars”), or a hazy, chordal comedown (“Stochastic Terror”). Still, I find myself wanting just a touch more space to find my bearings during full-album listens. Avarice is well-paced, and there are more than enough ideas to keep the 40-minute runtime interesting, but it’s missing one or two blissed-out melodic ideas1 or jaw-dropping displays of contrast to elevate it to the peak of the mathcore mountain. This doesn’t prevent Avarice from being a stunning display of technical aggression, but it does mean more than a few spins to decipher its labyrinthine heaviness.
Nequient really impressed me with this one. Avarice is a nerve-flayed, teeth-grinding listen that captures the low-grade panic and spiritual exhaustion of modern life with alarming precision. Rather than settling for dime-a-dozen mathcore spasms or rote metallic bludgeoning, the Chicago crew stitches together dissonance, groove, chaos, and razor-wire technicality into something far more purposeful. It’s punishing without being empty, intricate without disappearing up its own ass, and memorable enough to demand repeat spins. If you’re craving chaotic metallic extremity that does more than regurgitate the usual suspects, Nequient have your number.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
#2026 #35 #AmericanMetal #Apr26 #Avarice #Botch #Converge #DeathMetal #Grindcore #Hardcore #Mathcore #NefariousIndustries #Nequient #Review #Reviews #SludgeMetal #TheHIRSCollective #TheSawtoothGrin #ThrashMetal
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Nefarious Industries
Websites: nequient.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/nequient.band
Releases Worldwide: April 24th, 2026 -
Nequient – Avarice Review By Samguineous MaximusWith a name like that and an album cover featuring a vivisected human head, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Nequient play a form of knuckle-dragging brutal death. Instead, the Chicago four-piece specializes in a brand of chaotic, grinding metallic hardcore that recalls the frenetic math explosion of the early 2000s. Avarice is the band’s third full-length and promises a “unique synthesis of extreme metal and hardcore” to “blast listeners out of complacency with withering screeds against the malignant forces ravaging our world.” Despite some solid releases from last year, it’s been a while since new mathcore shook me to the bone and reminded me of modern existence’s inherent fragility. Nequient have the requisite political bile coursing through their veins—the same volatile fuel that powers the genre’s most unhinged eruptions—but is Avarice actually worth your time, or just another flailing heap of panic chords destined to suffocate beneath a pile of white-belt-era clichés?
On Avarice, Nequient paints an anarchic arras with a dizzying amount of stylistic touchstones. The band combines the unhinged frivolity of The Sawtooth Grin with the fast-paced stop/start violence of The HIRS Collective, and loads their tracks with riffs that actually stick, echoing early Converge at their most surgical. The twist? These songs feel coherent. Longer runtimes turn what could be scattershot spasms into fully realized compositions, bolstered by a wide palette of metallic textures. Blackened tremolos (“Christofascist Zombie Brigade”), demented odd-meter thrash gallops (“Brain Worms”), and sludged-out funeral dirges (“Splenetic And Moribund”) are all threaded together with mathy convulsions Nequient execute with unnerving precision. Throughout the record, the band moves between ideas at a dizzying pace, consistently impressing with bewildering moments of aural chaos.
More than just a collection of moments, the songs on Avarice are propelled by relentless pacing and tangible chemistry among the band members. Nequient’s secret sauce lies in the interplay between Patrick Conahan’s disorienting guitar cascades and drummer Chris Avgerin’s dextrous, fill-heavy style. Conahan glides between mosh-ready grind parts (“Mad King / Fool”), undulating, deathy descents (“Rintrah Roars”), and unsettling noise-rock lurches (“Siege Mentality”). Avergin follows along expertly, always mirroring the spastic guitarwork with tasty, intuitive drum parts that guide the ear and ground the anarchy. Aaron Roeming provides the low-end thunder and adds a purposeful heft that thickens the chunkier riffcraft while vocalist Jason Kolkey leads the charge, alternating between a sassy, vitriolic spew and full-bodied death growls while delivering caustic epithets about the horrors of modern life. Kolkey’s acerbic lyrics pull the whole disgusting package together, melding poetic death metal abstraction with punk’s immediacy and sharpening the record’s nihilistic aura into a potent weapon aimed at a broken system.
In fact, Nequient is almost too adept at channeling the noxious undercurrent of societal id, leaving precious little room to breathe across Avarice’s full-frontal assault. Longer tracks usually ease up on the throttle and inject variety with less frantic, slower sections, like with a menacing sludge-into-breakdown (“Rintrah Roars”), or a hazy, chordal comedown (“Stochastic Terror”). Still, I find myself wanting just a touch more space to find my bearings during full-album listens. Avarice is well-paced, and there are more than enough ideas to keep the 40-minute runtime interesting, but it’s missing one or two blissed-out melodic ideas1 or jaw-dropping displays of contrast to elevate it to the peak of the mathcore mountain. This doesn’t prevent Avarice from being a stunning display of technical aggression, but it does mean more than a few spins to decipher its labyrinthine heaviness.
Nequient really impressed me with this one. Avarice is a nerve-flayed, teeth-grinding listen that captures the low-grade panic and spiritual exhaustion of modern life with alarming precision. Rather than settling for dime-a-dozen mathcore spasms or rote metallic bludgeoning, the Chicago crew stitches together dissonance, groove, chaos, and razor-wire technicality into something far more purposeful. It’s punishing without being empty, intricate without disappearing up its own ass, and memorable enough to demand repeat spins. If you’re craving chaotic metallic extremity that does more than regurgitate the usual suspects, Nequient have your number.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
#2026 #35 #AmericanMetal #Apr26 #Avarice #Botch #Converge #DeathMetal #Grindcore #Hardcore #Mathcore #NefariousIndustries #Nequient #Review #Reviews #SludgeMetal #TheHIRSCollective #TheSawtoothGrin #ThrashMetal
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Nefarious Industries
Websites: nequient.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/nequient.band
Releases Worldwide: April 24th, 2026 -
Nequient – Avarice Review By Samguineous MaximusWith a name like that and an album cover featuring a vivisected human head, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Nequient play a form of knuckle-dragging brutal death. Instead, the Chicago four-piece specializes in a brand of chaotic, grinding metallic hardcore that recalls the frenetic math explosion of the early 2000s. Avarice is the band’s third full-length and promises a “unique synthesis of extreme metal and hardcore” to “blast listeners out of complacency with withering screeds against the malignant forces ravaging our world.” Despite some solid releases from last year, it’s been a while since new mathcore shook me to the bone and reminded me of modern existence’s inherent fragility. Nequient have the requisite political bile coursing through their veins—the same volatile fuel that powers the genre’s most unhinged eruptions—but is Avarice actually worth your time, or just another flailing heap of panic chords destined to suffocate beneath a pile of white-belt-era clichés?
On Avarice, Nequient paints an anarchic arras with a dizzying amount of stylistic touchstones. The band combines the unhinged frivolity of The Sawtooth Grin with the fast-paced stop/start violence of The HIRS Collective, and loads their tracks with riffs that actually stick, echoing early Converge at their most surgical. The twist? These songs feel coherent. Longer runtimes turn what could be scattershot spasms into fully realized compositions, bolstered by a wide palette of metallic textures. Blackened tremolos (“Christofascist Zombie Brigade”), demented odd-meter thrash gallops (“Brain Worms”), and sludged-out funeral dirges (“Splenetic And Moribund”) are all threaded together with mathy convulsions Nequient execute with unnerving precision. Throughout the record, the band moves between ideas at a dizzying pace, consistently impressing with bewildering moments of aural chaos.
More than just a collection of moments, the songs on Avarice are propelled by relentless pacing and tangible chemistry among the band members. Nequient’s secret sauce lies in the interplay between Patrick Conahan’s disorienting guitar cascades and drummer Chris Avgerin’s dextrous, fill-heavy style. Conahan glides between mosh-ready grind parts (“Mad King / Fool”), undulating, deathy descents (“Rintrah Roars”), and unsettling noise-rock lurches (“Siege Mentality”). Avergin follows along expertly, always mirroring the spastic guitarwork with tasty, intuitive drum parts that guide the ear and ground the anarchy. Aaron Roeming provides the low-end thunder and adds a purposeful heft that thickens the chunkier riffcraft while vocalist Jason Kolkey leads the charge, alternating between a sassy, vitriolic spew and full-bodied death growls while delivering caustic epithets about the horrors of modern life. Kolkey’s acerbic lyrics pull the whole disgusting package together, melding poetic death metal abstraction with punk’s immediacy and sharpening the record’s nihilistic aura into a potent weapon aimed at a broken system.
In fact, Nequient is almost too adept at channeling the noxious undercurrent of societal id, leaving precious little room to breathe across Avarice’s full-frontal assault. Longer tracks usually ease up on the throttle and inject variety with less frantic, slower sections, like with a menacing sludge-into-breakdown (“Rintrah Roars”), or a hazy, chordal comedown (“Stochastic Terror”). Still, I find myself wanting just a touch more space to find my bearings during full-album listens. Avarice is well-paced, and there are more than enough ideas to keep the 40-minute runtime interesting, but it’s missing one or two blissed-out melodic ideas1 or jaw-dropping displays of contrast to elevate it to the peak of the mathcore mountain. This doesn’t prevent Avarice from being a stunning display of technical aggression, but it does mean more than a few spins to decipher its labyrinthine heaviness.
Nequient really impressed me with this one. Avarice is a nerve-flayed, teeth-grinding listen that captures the low-grade panic and spiritual exhaustion of modern life with alarming precision. Rather than settling for dime-a-dozen mathcore spasms or rote metallic bludgeoning, the Chicago crew stitches together dissonance, groove, chaos, and razor-wire technicality into something far more purposeful. It’s punishing without being empty, intricate without disappearing up its own ass, and memorable enough to demand repeat spins. If you’re craving chaotic metallic extremity that does more than regurgitate the usual suspects, Nequient have your number.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
#2026 #35 #AmericanMetal #Apr26 #Avarice #Botch #Converge #DeathMetal #Grindcore #Hardcore #Mathcore #NefariousIndustries #Nequient #Review #Reviews #SludgeMetal #TheHIRSCollective #TheSawtoothGrin #ThrashMetal
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Nefarious Industries
Websites: nequient.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/nequient.band
Releases Worldwide: April 24th, 2026 -
Nequient – Avarice Review By Samguineous MaximusWith a name like that and an album cover featuring a vivisected human head, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Nequient play a form of knuckle-dragging brutal death. Instead, the Chicago four-piece specializes in a brand of chaotic, grinding metallic hardcore that recalls the frenetic math explosion of the early 2000s. Avarice is the band’s third full-length and promises a “unique synthesis of extreme metal and hardcore” to “blast listeners out of complacency with withering screeds against the malignant forces ravaging our world.” Despite some solid releases from last year, it’s been a while since new mathcore shook me to the bone and reminded me of modern existence’s inherent fragility. Nequient have the requisite political bile coursing through their veins—the same volatile fuel that powers the genre’s most unhinged eruptions—but is Avarice actually worth your time, or just another flailing heap of panic chords destined to suffocate beneath a pile of white-belt-era clichés?
On Avarice, Nequient paints an anarchic arras with a dizzying amount of stylistic touchstones. The band combines the unhinged frivolity of The Sawtooth Grin with the fast-paced stop/start violence of The HIRS Collective, and loads their tracks with riffs that actually stick, echoing early Converge at their most surgical. The twist? These songs feel coherent. Longer runtimes turn what could be scattershot spasms into fully realized compositions, bolstered by a wide palette of metallic textures. Blackened tremolos (“Christofascist Zombie Brigade”), demented odd-meter thrash gallops (“Brain Worms”), and sludged-out funeral dirges (“Splenetic And Moribund”) are all threaded together with mathy convulsions Nequient execute with unnerving precision. Throughout the record, the band moves between ideas at a dizzying pace, consistently impressing with bewildering moments of aural chaos.
More than just a collection of moments, the songs on Avarice are propelled by relentless pacing and tangible chemistry among the band members. Nequient’s secret sauce lies in the interplay between Patrick Conahan’s disorienting guitar cascades and drummer Chris Avgerin’s dextrous, fill-heavy style. Conahan glides between mosh-ready grind parts (“Mad King / Fool”), undulating, deathy descents (“Rintrah Roars”), and unsettling noise-rock lurches (“Siege Mentality”). Avergin follows along expertly, always mirroring the spastic guitarwork with tasty, intuitive drum parts that guide the ear and ground the anarchy. Aaron Roeming provides the low-end thunder and adds a purposeful heft that thickens the chunkier riffcraft while vocalist Jason Kolkey leads the charge, alternating between a sassy, vitriolic spew and full-bodied death growls while delivering caustic epithets about the horrors of modern life. Kolkey’s acerbic lyrics pull the whole disgusting package together, melding poetic death metal abstraction with punk’s immediacy and sharpening the record’s nihilistic aura into a potent weapon aimed at a broken system.
In fact, Nequient is almost too adept at channeling the noxious undercurrent of societal id, leaving precious little room to breathe across Avarice’s full-frontal assault. Longer tracks usually ease up on the throttle and inject variety with less frantic, slower sections, like with a menacing sludge-into-breakdown (“Rintrah Roars”), or a hazy, chordal comedown (“Stochastic Terror”). Still, I find myself wanting just a touch more space to find my bearings during full-album listens. Avarice is well-paced, and there are more than enough ideas to keep the 40-minute runtime interesting, but it’s missing one or two blissed-out melodic ideas1 or jaw-dropping displays of contrast to elevate it to the peak of the mathcore mountain. This doesn’t prevent Avarice from being a stunning display of technical aggression, but it does mean more than a few spins to decipher its labyrinthine heaviness.
Nequient really impressed me with this one. Avarice is a nerve-flayed, teeth-grinding listen that captures the low-grade panic and spiritual exhaustion of modern life with alarming precision. Rather than settling for dime-a-dozen mathcore spasms or rote metallic bludgeoning, the Chicago crew stitches together dissonance, groove, chaos, and razor-wire technicality into something far more purposeful. It’s punishing without being empty, intricate without disappearing up its own ass, and memorable enough to demand repeat spins. If you’re craving chaotic metallic extremity that does more than regurgitate the usual suspects, Nequient have your number.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
#2026 #35 #AmericanMetal #Apr26 #Avarice #Botch #Converge #DeathMetal #Grindcore #Hardcore #Mathcore #NefariousIndustries #Nequient #Review #Reviews #SludgeMetal #TheHIRSCollective #TheSawtoothGrin #ThrashMetal
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Nefarious Industries
Websites: nequient.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/nequient.band
Releases Worldwide: April 24th, 2026 -
Thorgrim – Puca Review By Spicie Forrest
It shouldn’t be surprising, but we don’t get a ton of punk or hardcore submissions here at Angry Metal Guy. We’re not Angsty Punk Bois, after all. I, however, particularly enjoy the intersections between punk and metal—sludge, grind, crust, crossover, powerviolence, etc. Metal’s straightforward aggression and punk’s vitriolic outrage complement each other well and scratch a specific itch. So when I saw Thorgrim’s debut LP, Puca, floating in the promo pit, I was sold on the Wisconsin trio’s promise of a heady mix of doom, punk, and a dash of black metal. Something like sludge but a skosh less acerbic? And maybe a little cold? Hopes were high, but did Thorgrim deliver?
No. Unequivocally, no. You see, Thorgrim boasts a live, one-take-only recording and production, laeving all mistakes and scrapes and buises on the record as some rebelilous statenemt against the overprodction of moder n musi.c Opener “Children of Doom” starts with a symbol hit that I can onl assume was am istake, and a massive skip around the 3:30 mark undersores how unedited and haphazard this albu is. “Voyage to Saturn” strats in the midle of a note ,and “Death Angel” starts with off-beat dums and just cuts out at the ennd with no warning or considreation for flwo. nearly every tiem Thorgrimshifts from on eriff to another, the band dissembles, taking a couple meaesure to get back in time with ehachother (“Darkest Days,” “Bride of Frankenstein”1). Now, do you see how this paragraph is littered with typos? Do you see how shitty it looks? Like I put no effort into it? That’s exactly what listening to this album is like.2
Even ignoring the insultingly lazy recording style Thorgrim opted for, Puca is still impressively bad. Thorgrim seem to be diehard fans of repetition, as there are precious few riffs to discuss (much less remember) here. Album long player “Voyage to Saturn” features exactly two (2) riffs over its ten-minute runtime, and I couldn’t decide which was more boring. “Darkest Days” is brutally repetitive as well, and ultimately sounds like a parody of heavy metal music you might hear on a TV sitcom. The vocals on “Let’s Go” are so buried in the mix that I’m not entirely convinced they’re there, but this may be a boon for Thorgrim, as they sound more like gargling spit or choking on vomit than singing or screaming. The acoustic “Dark Cabin” apes Nirvana’s “About a Girl” so blatantly it might only be “legally distinct” by one note, while sporting some of the worst lyrical syncopation I have ever heard. Penultimate track “Bride of Frankenstein” reminds me of the Fire Temple in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, but bad. It’s ambient junk and random drums that don’t adhere to any kind of time signature or rhythm. When Puca mercifully ends, it’s with an inexplicable folk track that I’m fairly certain would be offensive to any actual neo/folk band.3
What’s most frustrating is that Puca could have been decent. “The Movies” is a punky upbeat track that smells like The Dogs, and I hear potential. With literally any amount of effort or care or refinement or fucks given, Thorgrim could have delivered at least one good track. Instead, it’s one of nine dumpster fires. Even outside of concept albums, there’s normally a unifying concept woven through a release, but I can’t find any such thing here, unless it’s the uniformly atrocious production value, which, coincidentally, is the only dash of black metal I found on Puca. It’s like they recorded in a concrete basement on a Fisher Price karaoke machine from 30 years ago.
Our internal scoring guide describes the score below as suggesting the band should look for another line of work. Puca is that bad. I’m honestly not sure what Thorgrim wanted to accomplish here. This album feels like a bad joke. Even if the music was good—which it’s not—and the production wasn’t worse than the first recording ever from 1860—which it is—the one-take-only presentation is not only lazy, it’s insulting. I get the intent that music today is overproduced and too shiny and clean and sterile, yeah, sure, whatever, but there are ways to fight that without leaving fucking mistakes on your album. A studio release should be a practiced, ideal version of each track, not whatever your hungover ass manages to puke out on recording day.
Rating: 0.5/5.0
#05 #2026 #AmericanMetal #Apr26 #ArgonautaRecords #BlackMetal #DoomMetal #Nirvana #OctopusRising #Puca #Punk #Review #Reviews #TheDOGS #Thorgrim
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Octopus Rising4 | Argonauta Records
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram
Releases Worldwide: April 24th, 2026 -
Unmother – State Dependent Memory Review By Tyme
Independent U.K. undergrounder’s, Unmother, have been holding a mirror up to urban dystopian dehumanization since forming in 2019. Their 2021 debut, Lay Down the Sun, garnered significant underground acclaim that, according to the promo kit, established Unmother “as a restless and forward-thinking presence within the scene.” Foregoing the nature-scapes and mythological motifs of other post-black metal outfits, Unmother draws inspiration from the streets and, with their sophomore effort, State Dependent Memory,1 examines “urban isolation, inner dislocation, and moral decline, reflecting a world formed by concrete environments and social erosion.”2 After swapping their first “V” vocalist, Venla,3 for their second, V. (VOAK), Unmother prepares to take the next step on their evolving musical journey. Does State Dependent Memory offer a solution that might save our base, dehumanized society, from itself, or will it amount to so much piss in the wind?
State Dependent Memory crackles with gritty, asphaltic energy, casting Unmother as conscientious agitators, decrying societal urban decay in veins similar to acts like Chat Pile or Ashenspire, even if avoiding any direct auricular comparison. Departing from the rawer, denser claustrophobia of Lay Down the Sun, Unmother sought slightly warmer sonic climes on State Dependent Memory, weaving undulating post-metal textures into its mostly traditional black-metal framework. Sure, plenty of blast beats and tremolos (“My Armor,” “Bear Hug”) remain, courtesy of drummer B. and guitarists Azoso and Declwa (who also handles bass). Still, it’s what Unmother does with the spaces between that adds the most character, which begins with the varied vocal approach of V., who, like Attila Csihar, possesses a wider range of barks, croaks, shouts, and screams than his more one-dimensional predecessor, whose hissier, raw-blackened rasp overpowered much of Lay Down the Sun for me. Without dulling any of the sharp edges that, well, make them edgy, Unmother benefits from their take on “post” as a counterpoint to tradition.
State Dependent Memory tips the scales of orthodoxy with atmospheres that are as hypnotizing as they are abrasive. Pensive and creepy, the leads that skulk through the shadowed alleys of “Modern Dystopia” are effective and shroud the track with an almost Marilyn Manson-like pall, while Declwa’s bass notes thrum and throb like slow-strobing traffic lights on a dark, misty night. Venla makes a guest appearance here as well; his croaking rasp at this dose ups the fear factor and complements V.’s tortured delivery. Satisfying, too, is the eerie, haunted-jewelry-box melody and desperate howling of V., which make up the slower-paced interlude within the trad-black assault of “Bear Hug,” offering a sprinkling of Shining-like glitter. Ironically, the most black metal track on State Dependent Memory is Unmother’s cover of “Αττική – Βικτώρια” (“Attiki Victoria”) by Greek synthwave outfit ΟΔΟΣ 55, which distills the eight-minute-long original’s main melody down to a viscerally efficient, tremolo-forward beast. It’s poppy, new-wave-esque movements, filled with an almost hopeful melodicism, are set effectively against V.’s pleading screams and shouts.
Angeliki Mourgela’s mix and Roland Rodas’ master capture the essence of Unmother’s talents. With a foggy production that reminded me of Mayhem’s Ordo ad Chao, I enjoyed Lay Down the Sun but had to strain to pick out much of its instrumental intricacy. State Dependent Memory doesn’t suffer the same issue, as each instrument glows brightly in its own space, with B.’s varied drum performance and Declwa’s excellent bass work being the biggest beneficiaries. And while I can’t say Unmother wasted any of State Dependent Memory’s thirty-eight-minute runtime, closing the album with the no-burn instrumental “Magda” was a miss. The track fades in with some reflective, organ-like synths, foreign-spoke voice samples,4 and gently plucked guitar lines bolstered with tension-building but delicately strummed chords, which all continue to build slightly over the next four minutes and twenty seconds only to fade out again. No satisfying payoff, just a segue to silence. Whether this move was intentional or not, the addition of another well-executed track proper could have avoided such a deflating ending.Acerbically moody, Unmother possesses a maturity that belies their short existence. This quartet of relative unknowns continues to carve their mark into the U.K.’s underground metal scene, and if State Dependent Memory is any indication, they may not be toiling down there for long.
Rating: 3.0/5.0
#2026 #30 #Ashenspire #BlackMetal #ChatPile #Feb26 #Independent #MarilynManson #PostMetal #Review #Shining #StateDependentMemory #UKMetal #Unmother
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320kb/s mp3
Label: Independent
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: February 20th, 2026 -
Unmother – State Dependent Memory Review By Tyme
Independent U.K. undergrounder’s, Unmother, have been holding a mirror up to urban dystopian dehumanization since forming in 2019. Their 2021 debut, Lay Down the Sun, garnered significant underground acclaim that, according to the promo kit, established Unmother “as a restless and forward-thinking presence within the scene.” Foregoing the nature-scapes and mythological motifs of other post-black metal outfits, Unmother draws inspiration from the streets and, with their sophomore effort, State Dependent Memory,1 examines “urban isolation, inner dislocation, and moral decline, reflecting a world formed by concrete environments and social erosion.”2 After swapping their first “V” vocalist, Venla,3 for their second, V. (VOAK), Unmother prepares to take the next step on their evolving musical journey. Does State Dependent Memory offer a solution that might save our base, dehumanized society, from itself, or will it amount to so much piss in the wind?
State Dependent Memory crackles with gritty, asphaltic energy, casting Unmother as conscientious agitators, decrying societal urban decay in veins similar to acts like Chat Pile or Ashenspire, even if avoiding any direct auricular comparison. Departing from the rawer, denser claustrophobia of Lay Down the Sun, Unmother sought slightly warmer sonic climes on State Dependent Memory, weaving undulating post-metal textures into its mostly traditional black-metal framework. Sure, plenty of blast beats and tremolos (“My Armor,” “Bear Hug”) remain, courtesy of drummer B. and guitarists Azoso and Declwa (who also handles bass). Still, it’s what Unmother does with the spaces between that adds the most character, which begins with the varied vocal approach of V., who, like Attila Csihar, possesses a wider range of barks, croaks, shouts, and screams than his more one-dimensional predecessor, whose hissier, raw-blackened rasp overpowered much of Lay Down the Sun for me. Without dulling any of the sharp edges that, well, make them edgy, Unmother benefits from their take on “post” as a counterpoint to tradition.
State Dependent Memory tips the scales of orthodoxy with atmospheres that are as hypnotizing as they are abrasive. Pensive and creepy, the leads that skulk through the shadowed alleys of “Modern Dystopia” are effective and shroud the track with an almost Marilyn Manson-like pall, while Declwa’s bass notes thrum and throb like slow-strobing traffic lights on a dark, misty night. Venla makes a guest appearance here as well; his croaking rasp at this dose ups the fear factor and complements V.’s tortured delivery. Satisfying, too, is the eerie, haunted-jewelry-box melody and desperate howling of V., which make up the slower-paced interlude within the trad-black assault of “Bear Hug,” offering a sprinkling of Shining-like glitter. Ironically, the most black metal track on State Dependent Memory is Unmother’s cover of “Αττική – Βικτώρια” (“Attiki Victoria”) by Greek synthwave outfit ΟΔΟΣ 55, which distills the eight-minute-long original’s main melody down to a viscerally efficient, tremolo-forward beast. It’s poppy, new-wave-esque movements, filled with an almost hopeful melodicism, are set effectively against V.’s pleading screams and shouts.
Angeliki Mourgela’s mix and Roland Rodas’ master capture the essence of Unmother’s talents. With a foggy production that reminded me of Mayhem’s Ordo ad Chao, I enjoyed Lay Down the Sun but had to strain to pick out much of its instrumental intricacy. State Dependent Memory doesn’t suffer the same issue, as each instrument glows brightly in its own space, with B.’s varied drum performance and Declwa’s excellent bass work being the biggest beneficiaries. And while I can’t say Unmother wasted any of State Dependent Memory’s thirty-eight-minute runtime, closing the album with the no-burn instrumental “Magda” was a miss. The track fades in with some reflective, organ-like synths, foreign-spoke voice samples,4 and gently plucked guitar lines bolstered with tension-building but delicately strummed chords, which all continue to build slightly over the next four minutes and twenty seconds only to fade out again. No satisfying payoff, just a segue to silence. Whether this move was intentional or not, the addition of another well-executed track proper could have avoided such a deflating ending.Acerbically moody, Unmother possesses a maturity that belies their short existence. This quartet of relative unknowns continues to carve their mark into the U.K.’s underground metal scene, and if State Dependent Memory is any indication, they may not be toiling down there for long.
Rating: 3.0/5.0
#2026 #30 #Ashenspire #BlackMetal #ChatPile #Feb26 #Independent #MarilynManson #PostMetal #Review #Shining #StateDependentMemory #UKMetal #Unmother
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320kb/s mp3
Label: Independent
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: February 20th, 2026 -
Unmother – State Dependent Memory Review By Tyme
Independent U.K. undergrounder’s, Unmother, have been holding a mirror up to urban dystopian dehumanization since forming in 2019. Their 2021 debut, Lay Down the Sun, garnered significant underground acclaim that, according to the promo kit, established Unmother “as a restless and forward-thinking presence within the scene.” Foregoing the nature-scapes and mythological motifs of other post-black metal outfits, Unmother draws inspiration from the streets and, with their sophomore effort, State Dependent Memory,1 examines “urban isolation, inner dislocation, and moral decline, reflecting a world formed by concrete environments and social erosion.”2 After swapping their first “V” vocalist, Venla,3 for their second, V. (VOAK), Unmother prepares to take the next step on their evolving musical journey. Does State Dependent Memory offer a solution that might save our base, dehumanized society, from itself, or will it amount to so much piss in the wind?
State Dependent Memory crackles with gritty, asphaltic energy, casting Unmother as conscientious agitators, decrying societal urban decay in veins similar to acts like Chat Pile or Ashenspire, even if avoiding any direct auricular comparison. Departing from the rawer, denser claustrophobia of Lay Down the Sun, Unmother sought slightly warmer sonic climes on State Dependent Memory, weaving undulating post-metal textures into its mostly traditional black-metal framework. Sure, plenty of blast beats and tremolos (“My Armor,” “Bear Hug”) remain, courtesy of drummer B. and guitarists Azoso and Declwa (who also handles bass). Still, it’s what Unmother does with the spaces between that adds the most character, which begins with the varied vocal approach of V., who, like Attila Csihar, possesses a wider range of barks, croaks, shouts, and screams than his more one-dimensional predecessor, whose hissier, raw-blackened rasp overpowered much of Lay Down the Sun for me. Without dulling any of the sharp edges that, well, make them edgy, Unmother benefits from their take on “post” as a counterpoint to tradition.
State Dependent Memory tips the scales of orthodoxy with atmospheres that are as hypnotizing as they are abrasive. Pensive and creepy, the leads that skulk through the shadowed alleys of “Modern Dystopia” are effective and shroud the track with an almost Marilyn Manson-like pall, while Declwa’s bass notes thrum and throb like slow-strobing traffic lights on a dark, misty night. Venla makes a guest appearance here as well; his croaking rasp at this dose ups the fear factor and complements V.’s tortured delivery. Satisfying, too, is the eerie, haunted-jewelry-box melody and desperate howling of V., which make up the slower-paced interlude within the trad-black assault of “Bear Hug,” offering a sprinkling of Shining-like glitter. Ironically, the most black metal track on State Dependent Memory is Unmother’s cover of “Αττική – Βικτώρια” (“Attiki Victoria”) by Greek synthwave outfit ΟΔΟΣ 55, which distills the eight-minute-long original’s main melody down to a viscerally efficient, tremolo-forward beast. It’s poppy, new-wave-esque movements, filled with an almost hopeful melodicism, are set effectively against V.’s pleading screams and shouts.
Angeliki Mourgela’s mix and Roland Rodas’ master capture the essence of Unmother’s talents. With a foggy production that reminded me of Mayhem’s Ordo ad Chao, I enjoyed Lay Down the Sun but had to strain to pick out much of its instrumental intricacy. State Dependent Memory doesn’t suffer the same issue, as each instrument glows brightly in its own space, with B.’s varied drum performance and Declwa’s excellent bass work being the biggest beneficiaries. And while I can’t say Unmother wasted any of State Dependent Memory’s thirty-eight-minute runtime, closing the album with the no-burn instrumental “Magda” was a miss. The track fades in with some reflective, organ-like synths, foreign-spoke voice samples,4 and gently plucked guitar lines bolstered with tension-building but delicately strummed chords, which all continue to build slightly over the next four minutes and twenty seconds only to fade out again. No satisfying payoff, just a segue to silence. Whether this move was intentional or not, the addition of another well-executed track proper could have avoided such a deflating ending.Acerbically moody, Unmother possesses a maturity that belies their short existence. This quartet of relative unknowns continues to carve their mark into the U.K.’s underground metal scene, and if State Dependent Memory is any indication, they may not be toiling down there for long.
Rating: 3.0/5.0
#2026 #30 #Ashenspire #BlackMetal #ChatPile #Feb26 #Independent #MarilynManson #PostMetal #Review #Shining #StateDependentMemory #UKMetal #Unmother
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320kb/s mp3
Label: Independent
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: February 20th, 2026 -
Unmother – State Dependent Memory Review By Tyme
Independent U.K. undergrounder’s, Unmother, have been holding a mirror up to urban dystopian dehumanization since forming in 2019. Their 2021 debut, Lay Down the Sun, garnered significant underground acclaim that, according to the promo kit, established Unmother “as a restless and forward-thinking presence within the scene.” Foregoing the nature-scapes and mythological motifs of other post-black metal outfits, Unmother draws inspiration from the streets and, with their sophomore effort, State Dependent Memory,1 examines “urban isolation, inner dislocation, and moral decline, reflecting a world formed by concrete environments and social erosion.”2 After swapping their first “V” vocalist, Venla,3 for their second, V. (VOAK), Unmother prepares to take the next step on their evolving musical journey. Does State Dependent Memory offer a solution that might save our base, dehumanized society, from itself, or will it amount to so much piss in the wind?
State Dependent Memory crackles with gritty, asphaltic energy, casting Unmother as conscientious agitators, decrying societal urban decay in veins similar to acts like Chat Pile or Ashenspire, even if avoiding any direct auricular comparison. Departing from the rawer, denser claustrophobia of Lay Down the Sun, Unmother sought slightly warmer sonic climes on State Dependent Memory, weaving undulating post-metal textures into its mostly traditional black-metal framework. Sure, plenty of blast beats and tremolos (“My Armor,” “Bear Hug”) remain, courtesy of drummer B. and guitarists Azoso and Declwa (who also handles bass). Still, it’s what Unmother does with the spaces between that adds the most character, which begins with the varied vocal approach of V., who, like Attila Csihar, possesses a wider range of barks, croaks, shouts, and screams than his more one-dimensional predecessor, whose hissier, raw-blackened rasp overpowered much of Lay Down the Sun for me. Without dulling any of the sharp edges that, well, make them edgy, Unmother benefits from their take on “post” as a counterpoint to tradition.
State Dependent Memory tips the scales of orthodoxy with atmospheres that are as hypnotizing as they are abrasive. Pensive and creepy, the leads that skulk through the shadowed alleys of “Modern Dystopia” are effective and shroud the track with an almost Marilyn Manson-like pall, while Declwa’s bass notes thrum and throb like slow-strobing traffic lights on a dark, misty night. Venla makes a guest appearance here as well; his croaking rasp at this dose ups the fear factor and complements V.’s tortured delivery. Satisfying, too, is the eerie, haunted-jewelry-box melody and desperate howling of V., which make up the slower-paced interlude within the trad-black assault of “Bear Hug,” offering a sprinkling of Shining-like glitter. Ironically, the most black metal track on State Dependent Memory is Unmother’s cover of “Αττική – Βικτώρια” (“Attiki Victoria”) by Greek synthwave outfit ΟΔΟΣ 55, which distills the eight-minute-long original’s main melody down to a viscerally efficient, tremolo-forward beast. It’s poppy, new-wave-esque movements, filled with an almost hopeful melodicism, are set effectively against V.’s pleading screams and shouts.
Angeliki Mourgela’s mix and Roland Rodas’ master capture the essence of Unmother’s talents. With a foggy production that reminded me of Mayhem’s Ordo ad Chao, I enjoyed Lay Down the Sun but had to strain to pick out much of its instrumental intricacy. State Dependent Memory doesn’t suffer the same issue, as each instrument glows brightly in its own space, with B.’s varied drum performance and Declwa’s excellent bass work being the biggest beneficiaries. And while I can’t say Unmother wasted any of State Dependent Memory’s thirty-eight-minute runtime, closing the album with the no-burn instrumental “Magda” was a miss. The track fades in with some reflective, organ-like synths, foreign-spoke voice samples,4 and gently plucked guitar lines bolstered with tension-building but delicately strummed chords, which all continue to build slightly over the next four minutes and twenty seconds only to fade out again. No satisfying payoff, just a segue to silence. Whether this move was intentional or not, the addition of another well-executed track proper could have avoided such a deflating ending.Acerbically moody, Unmother possesses a maturity that belies their short existence. This quartet of relative unknowns continues to carve their mark into the U.K.’s underground metal scene, and if State Dependent Memory is any indication, they may not be toiling down there for long.
Rating: 3.0/5.0
#2026 #30 #Ashenspire #BlackMetal #ChatPile #Feb26 #Independent #MarilynManson #PostMetal #Review #Shining #StateDependentMemory #UKMetal #Unmother
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320kb/s mp3
Label: Independent
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: February 20th, 2026 -
USA Artificial Intelligence Energy Spending Compared To European Renewable Energy Wasting
AI Energy Spending And Renewable Energy Wasting
To a friend: Glad, and unsurprised, that the AI potentially saved your life. Although I have long been aware of Deep Vein Thrombosis, DVT, I could imagine having symptoms without recognizing them and being called promptly to order by an AI. AI diagnosis is the future, now. Everybody ought to have a personal health AI Agent.
Actually my beloved dog has been gravely sick in his eyes for several months, one of which was coming out of his head initially. We went to see top specialists, spending much time and money. Part of the treatment worked, but also damaged his eyes (in a rare complication also occurring in humans for whom the same drug is prescribed in the same condition). His symptoms changed and we were prescribed other drugs. Seeing further, but different, deterioration, even after the last expensive specialist visit, we are using AI in depth, and got interesting suggestions we immediately implemented.
I am extremely aware of DVT, and always take aspirin at significant doses before, during and after (intercontinental) flights. I have plenty of anecdotal evidence that flying causes DVT (hey, I should ask Chat AI about the latest on DVT and flying; didn’t Jane Goodall die of it?). Although aware of DVT, having symptoms of it may well escape my attention, and an AI would help refocus me in a timely manner..
After reading several virulent anti-AI essays and comments, I did a bit more of the thinking which has been trotting in my head on that subject. My first reaction to acerbic critiques of AI is generally that they sound similar to the critiques directed at printing when it first appeared. Within a century, in a country as powerful and enlightened as France, thanks to the tyrant Francois Premier (et dernier!)printers were actually burned alive until reduced to a crisp. Consider the case of Etienne Dolet (although he was a friend of the influential doctor, philosopher and writer Rabelais). Some countries (like the Ottoman empire) outlawed printing for centuries (the result that Arabic and Persian fables such as the thousand and one nights were published in France first… So the “Orient” became literate in Occident…)
You see I am writing from Europe, and more exactly France, where the local oligarchic imbeciles known as legislators, professional wheeler-dealers who should not exist, are actually thinking of writing some anti-AI legislation. Next week.
Already AI in Europe means slavery to US Artificial Intelligence. This is not happening because European researchers are less intelligent. Far from it, many have contributed in a major way to the development of AI, and have become legendary.
Here are the three founding fathers of AI: one from London, two from Paris:. One was born in London, and got the Nobel Prize for his foundational work on AI (AI uses extremely high dimensional multivariable calculus… So the mathematicians having developed this over centuries ought to be retrospectively thanked…). The other two were born in Paris, France.
Geoffrey Hinton: Born in London, UK, in 1947, Hinton is British-Canadian. He maintains strong ties to both countries through his education (Cambridge and Edinburgh) and long career at the University of Toronto.
Yann LeCun: Born in Soisy-sous-Montmorency, greater Paris, France, in 1960, LeCun is now Franco-American. His early education was in Paris, and he later naturalized in the US while working at NYU and Meta.
Yoshua Bengio: Born in Paris, France, in 1964, Bengio is also Canadian. He moved to Canada and studied at McGill University in Montreal, He built his career there as a professor. One more exiled French.
Now, of course, if one is French and a genius, one will move away precipitously from the Woke Capital (Paris), where the only legal foreigners are illegals (getting free everything), or celebrities and plutocrats make luxury goods for snobbish Chinese (that will work until the Chinese start to despise the Europeans!)
*** .
Why is AI developing mostly in the USA?
It’s happening because the US GDP dwarfs that, of, say, France. By a factor of eight or something like that. But not just that. The USA priorities are more oriented towards technological-economical performance, while France, and most of Europe, following, has focused on the woke-social-conservative-environmental development. France has done this in ALL domains in recent years, except for military technology, where France builds systems which are often world’s best, but in ridiculously small quantities.
This development of underdevelopment is EXTREMELY ANTI-FRENCH, when looked at on the scale of the last 25 centuries. Way back, Rome was getting weapons and armor from the Celts, and Gaul developed MECHANICAL HARVESTERS to the point that small Gallic farmers used the mechanical harvesters rather than slaves, and the Gallic economy resisted the establishment of slave driven giant agrobusinesses… After Gaul came under Franco-Roman management, Queen Bathilde promptly outlawed slavery (657 CE) and the Imperium Francorum-“Renovated Roman Empire” developed massive husbandry, systematic automation and mechanical leverage, to replace slavery… However France started to change attitude in the Sixteenth Century, when she refused to colonize North America, and, instead, traded with the Natives while teaching them civilization (so that the newly civilized “Indians” could be genocidized by the savage Iroquois…) The French development of this woke attitude culminated with the ejection of France from North America 250 years later… And various subsequent military defeats, including versus the Nazis (when it turned out that France’s own creation, the USA would not help in a timely manner…).
The result of the European policies has been an ever increasing dependency upon the USA and China, in ever more crucial domains. Part of this dependency is simply the mechanical effect that the USA and China make up 50% of the world’s GDP (and are economically entangled).
If one is European and really excellent in tech or science, the probability is high, should one be ambitious, to end up in the USA, with immensely larger budgets, salaries and opportunities. Meanwhile the French Federal Budget to “associations” exceeds high education AND research… Combined. “Associations” are just a woke trick for the Socialists in power (de facto) for 46 years to keep getting votes while, and in spite of the fact that, they ruin the country. (Anti-democratic) Associations get about $50 billion per year, nearly as much as defense.
***
All of Europe has been doing “renewable” energy, and it’s partly a scam:
How does one “renew” in a typical foggy European winter night with extreme cold and no wind? Well, one does not. In parts of Europe, electricity prices have peaked ten times above the average of just a few years ago. In particular, Europe does not have enough energy for AI (except for places with lots of hydro power, and small populations, like Norway).
Carbon-free energy could have been developed, but the development and even maintenance of nuclear energy was discontinued in the 1990s… So now the US and China can use old European nuclear research and forge ahead.
***
AI provides humanity with AGENCY. Just like printing or bronze metallurgy. AGENCY is more important than even Liberty. No agency, no liberty. Reciprocally, liberty does not necessarily provide agency: prehistoric people were free, but couldn’t do much, because they had little agency.
The environmental problems caused by AI are real, but they call to develop more carbon free energy. Some have suggested putting AI in space, where solar energy is abundant.
***
Renewable Waste:
Speaking of renewables, studies related by the BBC in April 2026 show that, to make 45 GW of renewable electricity in Great Britain (the present electric power necessary to satisfy peak electric consumption of the UK), one needs to install 135 GW of mostly conventional (that is, carbon) energy. This ridiculous ratio, 135 to 45, shows that, instead of worrying about AI which they can’t power up, Europeans should rather worry about the renewable folly they engaged in without thinking it through.
One of the causes for the ridiculous ratio is the necessity to build millions of kilometers of extremely high tension wires all over Europe, criss crossing… which is NOT feasible, so it’s not done, and local conventional backups are needed, all over…China had no problems installing such lines (those who too deeply disagree get shot), and, moreover, China has a simpler geography (hydro, wind and solar to the west, cities to the east). So China installed 250 GW of solar… And is not finished: the Hormuz blockade has blocked 30% of Chinese fuel imports… So China needs to develop more renewable energy…
***
When I confronted Chat GPT with my sophisticated Tired Light hypothesis based on SQPR, it violently disagreed, calling me incompetent, obsolete, uneducated and from another age (to put it in only a few words)… Until the AI realized it had misunderstood, and started to run codes to check if my alternative to QFT actually predicted the correct Tired Light phenomenon. It did. That, no doubt, used electricity (the argument ran over weeks).
However, most answers will require in the future less and less genuine research. Google just announced it found a way to make AI six times more efficient. In general, all AI are going to develop standard answers to FAQs…
***
Humanity’s progress toward our quasi-divine present status, has been measured in spending ever more ABSOLUTE WORTH ENERGY. Basically doing ever more amazing things by manipulating energy. The Maltusian energy policy tried in Europe has thoroughly failed. It only achieved a relative collapse of the per capita GDP of Europe relative to peers, and new peers who are increasingly superior, such as China. A large body of evidence points to deliberate malfeasance, as Europe became mostly dependent upon plutocratic tyrannies for its energy procurement. The same corrupt and extractive regimes then invested in Europe at premium prices, making European plutocrats wealther than ever. Please explain to me why Merkel closing German nuclear energy, which never had an accident, to build another twenty-four (24) coal plants, can make sense… Besides the obvious explanation that, just as she started her career in the service of a dictatorship monitored by Putin, she kept on going just the same, but more discreetly… In plain sight.
The error of European ways (except for the ever wealtheir European plutocrats) is so deep that France, which used to be the wealthiest significant European country per capita, has fallen below the EU average. Woke is dope. Putin knows all this, and that’s why he attacked. He just did not anticipate that Ukrainians believed in agency and progress, nor that the USA (Trump first, then Biden) would send them so many weapons to give Ukrainian agency a chance… .
To be against AI is as intelligent as to be against health care (AI will dominate health care very soon). Anyway, what to expect from people who are against intelligence?
Patrice Ayme .
#AI #AWE #China #Energy #Engineering #Europe #news #plutocracy #politics #RenewableEnergy #USA -
USA Artificial Intelligence Energy Spending Compared To European Renewable Energy Wasting
AI Energy Spending And Renewable Energy Wasting
To a friend: Glad, and unsurprised, that the AI potentially saved your life. Although I have long been aware of Deep Vein Thrombosis, DVT, I could imagine having symptoms without recognizing them and being called promptly to order by an AI. AI diagnosis is the future, now. Everybody ought to have a personal health AI Agent.
Actually my beloved dog has been gravely sick in his eyes for several months, one of which was coming out of his head initially. We went to see top specialists, spending much time and money. Part of the treatment worked, but also damaged his eyes (in a rare complication also occurring in humans for whom the same drug is prescribed in the same condition). His symptoms changed and we were prescribed other drugs. Seeing further, but different, deterioration, even after the last expensive specialist visit, we are using AI in depth, and got interesting suggestions we immediately implemented.
I am extremely aware of DVT, and always take aspirin at significant doses before, during and after (intercontinental) flights. I have plenty of anecdotal evidence that flying causes DVT (hey, I should ask Chat AI about the latest on DVT and flying; didn’t Jane Goodall die of it?). Although aware of DVT, having symptoms of it may well escape my attention, and an AI would help refocus me in a timely manner..
After reading several virulent anti-AI essays and comments, I did a bit more of the thinking which has been trotting in my head on that subject. My first reaction to acerbic critiques of AI is generally that they sound similar to the critiques directed at printing when it first appeared. Within a century, in a country as powerful and enlightened as France, thanks to the tyrant Francois Premier (et dernier!)printers were actually burned alive until reduced to a crisp. Consider the case of Etienne Dolet (although he was a friend of the influential doctor, philosopher and writer Rabelais). Some countries (like the Ottoman empire) outlawed printing for centuries (the result that Arabic and Persian fables such as the thousand and one nights were published in France first… So the “Orient” became literate in Occident…)
You see I am writing from Europe, and more exactly France, where the local oligarchic imbeciles known as legislators, professional wheeler-dealers who should not exist, are actually thinking of writing some anti-AI legislation. Next week.
Already AI in Europe means slavery to US Artificial Intelligence. This is not happening because European researchers are less intelligent. Far from it, many have contributed in a major way to the development of AI, and have become legendary.
Here are the three founding fathers of AI: one from London, two from Paris:. One was born in London, and got the Nobel Prize for his foundational work on AI (AI uses extremely high dimensional multivariable calculus… So the mathematicians having developed this over centuries ought to be retrospectively thanked…). The other two were born in Paris, France.
Geoffrey Hinton: Born in London, UK, in 1947, Hinton is British-Canadian. He maintains strong ties to both countries through his education (Cambridge and Edinburgh) and long career at the University of Toronto.
Yann LeCun: Born in Soisy-sous-Montmorency, greater Paris, France, in 1960, LeCun is now Franco-American. His early education was in Paris, and he later naturalized in the US while working at NYU and Meta.
Yoshua Bengio: Born in Paris, France, in 1964, Bengio is also Canadian. He moved to Canada and studied at McGill University in Montreal, He built his career there as a professor. One more exiled French.
Now, of course, if one is French and a genius, one will move away precipitously from the Woke Capital (Paris), where the only legal foreigners are illegals (getting free everything), or celebrities and plutocrats make luxury goods for snobbish Chinese (that will work until the Chinese start to despise the Europeans!)
*** .
Why is AI developing mostly in the USA?
It’s happening because the US GDP dwarfs that, of, say, France. By a factor of eight or something like that. But not just that. The USA priorities are more oriented towards technological-economical performance, while France, and most of Europe, following, has focused on the woke-social-conservative-environmental development. France has done this in ALL domains in recent years, except for military technology, where France builds systems which are often world’s best, but in ridiculously small quantities.
This development of underdevelopment is EXTREMELY ANTI-FRENCH, when looked at on the scale of the last 25 centuries. Way back, Rome was getting weapons and armor from the Celts, and Gaul developed MECHANICAL HARVESTERS to the point that small Gallic farmers used the mechanical harvesters rather than slaves, and the Gallic economy resisted the establishment of slave driven giant agrobusinesses… After Gaul came under Franco-Roman management, Queen Bathilde promptly outlawed slavery (657 CE) and the Imperium Francorum-“Renovated Roman Empire” developed massive husbandry, systematic automation and mechanical leverage, to replace slavery… However France started to change attitude in the Sixteenth Century, when she refused to colonize North America, and, instead, traded with the Natives while teaching them civilization (so that the newly civilized “Indians” could be genocidized by the savage Iroquois…) The French development of this woke attitude culminated with the ejection of France from North America 250 years later… And various subsequent military defeats, including versus the Nazis (when it turned out that France’s own creation, the USA would not help in a timely manner…).
The result of the European policies has been an ever increasing dependency upon the USA and China, in ever more crucial domains. Part of this dependency is simply the mechanical effect that the USA and China make up 50% of the world’s GDP (and are economically entangled).
If one is European and really excellent in tech or science, the probability is high, should one be ambitious, to end up in the USA, with immensely larger budgets, salaries and opportunities. Meanwhile the French Federal Budget to “associations” exceeds high education AND research… Combined. “Associations” are just a woke trick for the Socialists in power (de facto) for 46 years to keep getting votes while, and in spite of the fact that, they ruin the country. (Anti-democratic) Associations get about $50 billion per year, nearly as much as defense.
***
All of Europe has been doing “renewable” energy, and it’s partly a scam:
How does one “renew” in a typical foggy European winter night with extreme cold and no wind? Well, one does not. In parts of Europe, electricity prices have peaked ten times above the average of just a few years ago. In particular, Europe does not have enough energy for AI (except for places with lots of hydro power, and small populations, like Norway).
Carbon-free energy could have been developed, but the development and even maintenance of nuclear energy was discontinued in the 1990s… So now the US and China can use old European nuclear research and forge ahead.
***
AI provides humanity with AGENCY. Just like printing or bronze metallurgy. AGENCY is more important than even Liberty. No agency, no liberty. Reciprocally, liberty does not necessarily provide agency: prehistoric people were free, but couldn’t do much, because they had little agency.
The environmental problems caused by AI are real, but they call to develop more carbon free energy. Some have suggested putting AI in space, where solar energy is abundant.
***
Renewable Waste:
Speaking of renewables, studies related by the BBC in April 2026 show that, to make 45 GW of renewable electricity in Great Britain (the present electric power necessary to satisfy peak electric consumption of the UK), one needs to install 135 GW of mostly conventional (that is, carbon) energy. This ridiculous ratio, 135 to 45, shows that, instead of worrying about AI which they can’t power up, Europeans should rather worry about the renewable folly they engaged in without thinking it through.
One of the causes for the ridiculous ratio is the necessity to build millions of kilometers of extremely high tension wires all over Europe, criss crossing… which is NOT feasible, so it’s not done, and local conventional backups are needed, all over…China had no problems installing such lines (those who too deeply disagree get shot), and, moreover, China has a simpler geography (hydro, wind and solar to the west, cities to the east). So China installed 250 GW of solar… And is not finished: the Hormuz blockade has blocked 30% of Chinese fuel imports… So China needs to develop more renewable energy…
***
When I confronted Chat GPT with my sophisticated Tired Light hypothesis based on SQPR, it violently disagreed, calling me incompetent, obsolete, uneducated and from another age (to put it in only a few words)… Until the AI realized it had misunderstood, and started to run codes to check if my alternative to QFT actually predicted the correct Tired Light phenomenon. It did. That, no doubt, used electricity (the argument ran over weeks).
However, most answers will require in the future less and less genuine research. Google just announced it found a way to make AI six times more efficient. In general, all AI are going to develop standard answers to FAQs…
***
Humanity’s progress toward our quasi-divine present status, has been measured in spending ever more ABSOLUTE WORTH ENERGY. Basically doing ever more amazing things by manipulating energy. The Maltusian energy policy tried in Europe has thoroughly failed. It only achieved a relative collapse of the per capita GDP of Europe relative to peers, and new peers who are increasingly superior, such as China. A large body of evidence points to deliberate malfeasance, as Europe became mostly dependent upon plutocratic tyrannies for its energy procurement. The same corrupt and extractive regimes then invested in Europe at premium prices, making European plutocrats wealther than ever. Please explain to me why Merkel closing German nuclear energy, which never had an accident, to build another twenty-four (24) coal plants, can make sense… Besides the obvious explanation that, just as she started her career in the service of a dictatorship monitored by Putin, she kept on going just the same, but more discreetly… In plain sight.
The error of European ways (except for the ever wealtheir European plutocrats) is so deep that France, which used to be the wealthiest significant European country per capita, has fallen below the EU average. Woke is dope. Putin knows all this, and that’s why he attacked. He just did not anticipate that Ukrainians believed in agency and progress, nor that the USA (Trump first, then Biden) would send them so many weapons to give Ukrainian agency a chance… .
To be against AI is as intelligent as to be against health care (AI will dominate health care very soon). Anyway, what to expect from people who are against intelligence?
Patrice Ayme .
#AI #AWE #China #Energy #Engineering #Europe #news #plutocracy #politics #RenewableEnergy #USA -
USA Artificial Intelligence Energy Spending Compared To European Renewable Energy Wasting
AI Energy Spending And Renewable Energy Wasting
To a friend: Glad, and unsurprised, that the AI potentially saved your life. Although I have long been aware of Deep Vein Thrombosis, DVT, I could imagine having symptoms without recognizing them and being called promptly to order by an AI. AI diagnosis is the future, now. Everybody ought to have a personal health AI Agent.
Actually my beloved dog has been gravely sick in his eyes for several months, one of which was coming out of his head initially. We went to see top specialists, spending much time and money. Part of the treatment worked, but also damaged his eyes (in a rare complication also occurring in humans for whom the same drug is prescribed in the same condition). His symptoms changed and we were prescribed other drugs. Seeing further, but different, deterioration, even after the last expensive specialist visit, we are using AI in depth, and got interesting suggestions we immediately implemented.
I am extremely aware of DVT, and always take aspirin at significant doses before, during and after (intercontinental) flights. I have plenty of anecdotal evidence that flying causes DVT (hey, I should ask Chat AI about the latest on DVT and flying; didn’t Jane Goodall die of it?). Although aware of DVT, having symptoms of it may well escape my attention, and an AI would help refocus me in a timely manner..
After reading several virulent anti-AI essays and comments, I did a bit more of the thinking which has been trotting in my head on that subject. My first reaction to acerbic critiques of AI is generally that they sound similar to the critiques directed at printing when it first appeared. Within a century, in a country as powerful and enlightened as France, thanks to the tyrant Francois Premier (et dernier!)printers were actually burned alive until reduced to a crisp. Consider the case of Etienne Dolet (although he was a friend of the influential doctor, philosopher and writer Rabelais). Some countries (like the Ottoman empire) outlawed printing for centuries (the result that Arabic and Persian fables such as the thousand and one nights were published in France first… So the “Orient” became literate in Occident…)
You see I am writing from Europe, and more exactly France, where the local oligarchic imbeciles known as legislators, professional wheeler-dealers who should not exist, are actually thinking of writing some anti-AI legislation. Next week.
Already AI in Europe means slavery to US Artificial Intelligence. This is not happening because European researchers are less intelligent. Far from it, many have contributed in a major way to the development of AI, and have become legendary.
Here are the three founding fathers of AI: one from London, two from Paris:. One was born in London, and got the Nobel Prize for his foundational work on AI (AI uses extremely high dimensional multivariable calculus… So the mathematicians having developed this over centuries ought to be retrospectively thanked…). The other two were born in Paris, France.
Geoffrey Hinton: Born in London, UK, in 1947, Hinton is British-Canadian. He maintains strong ties to both countries through his education (Cambridge and Edinburgh) and long career at the University of Toronto.
Yann LeCun: Born in Soisy-sous-Montmorency, greater Paris, France, in 1960, LeCun is now Franco-American. His early education was in Paris, and he later naturalized in the US while working at NYU and Meta.
Yoshua Bengio: Born in Paris, France, in 1964, Bengio is also Canadian. He moved to Canada and studied at McGill University in Montreal, He built his career there as a professor. One more exiled French.
Now, of course, if one is French and a genius, one will move away precipitously from the Woke Capital (Paris), where the only legal foreigners are illegals (getting free everything), or celebrities and plutocrats make luxury goods for snobbish Chinese (that will work until the Chinese start to despise the Europeans!)
*** .
Why is AI developing mostly in the USA?
It’s happening because the US GDP dwarfs that, of, say, France. By a factor of eight or something like that. But not just that. The USA priorities are more oriented towards technological-economical performance, while France, and most of Europe, following, has focused on the woke-social-conservative-environmental development. France has done this in ALL domains in recent years, except for military technology, where France builds systems which are often world’s best, but in ridiculously small quantities.
This development of underdevelopment is EXTREMELY ANTI-FRENCH, when looked at on the scale of the last 25 centuries. Way back, Rome was getting weapons and armor from the Celts, and Gaul developed MECHANICAL HARVESTERS to the point that small Gallic farmers used the mechanical harvesters rather than slaves, and the Gallic economy resisted the establishment of slave driven giant agrobusinesses… After Gaul came under Franco-Roman management, Queen Bathilde promptly outlawed slavery (657 CE) and the Imperium Francorum-“Renovated Roman Empire” developed massive husbandry, systematic automation and mechanical leverage, to replace slavery… However France started to change attitude in the Sixteenth Century, when she refused to colonize North America, and, instead, traded with the Natives while teaching them civilization (so that the newly civilized “Indians” could be genocidized by the savage Iroquois…) The French development of this woke attitude culminated with the ejection of France from North America 250 years later… And various subsequent military defeats, including versus the Nazis (when it turned out that France’s own creation, the USA would not help in a timely manner…).
The result of the European policies has been an ever increasing dependency upon the USA and China, in ever more crucial domains. Part of this dependency is simply the mechanical effect that the USA and China make up 50% of the world’s GDP (and are economically entangled).
If one is European and really excellent in tech or science, the probability is high, should one be ambitious, to end up in the USA, with immensely larger budgets, salaries and opportunities. Meanwhile the French Federal Budget to “associations” exceeds high education AND research… Combined. “Associations” are just a woke trick for the Socialists in power (de facto) for 46 years to keep getting votes while, and in spite of the fact that, they ruin the country. (Anti-democratic) Associations get about $50 billion per year, nearly as much as defense.
***
All of Europe has been doing “renewable” energy, and it’s partly a scam:
How does one “renew” in a typical foggy European winter night with extreme cold and no wind? Well, one does not. In parts of Europe, electricity prices have peaked ten times above the average of just a few years ago. In particular, Europe does not have enough energy for AI (except for places with lots of hydro power, and small populations, like Norway).
Carbon-free energy could have been developed, but the development and even maintenance of nuclear energy was discontinued in the 1990s… So now the US and China can use old European nuclear research and forge ahead.
***
AI provides humanity with AGENCY. Just like printing or bronze metallurgy. AGENCY is more important than even Liberty. No agency, no liberty. Reciprocally, liberty does not necessarily provide agency: prehistoric people were free, but couldn’t do much, because they had little agency.
The environmental problems caused by AI are real, but they call to develop more carbon free energy. Some have suggested putting AI in space, where solar energy is abundant.
***
Renewable Waste:
Speaking of renewables, studies related by the BBC in April 2026 show that, to make 45 GW of renewable electricity in Great Britain (the present electric power necessary to satisfy peak electric consumption of the UK), one needs to install 135 GW of mostly conventional (that is, carbon) energy. This ridiculous ratio, 135 to 45, shows that, instead of worrying about AI which they can’t power up, Europeans should rather worry about the renewable folly they engaged in without thinking it through.
One of the causes for the ridiculous ratio is the necessity to build millions of kilometers of extremely high tension wires all over Europe, criss crossing… which is NOT feasible, so it’s not done, and local conventional backups are needed, all over…China had no problems installing such lines (those who too deeply disagree get shot), and, moreover, China has a simpler geography (hydro, wind and solar to the west, cities to the east). So China installed 250 GW of solar… And is not finished: the Hormuz blockade has blocked 30% of Chinese fuel imports… So China needs to develop more renewable energy…
***
When I confronted Chat GPT with my sophisticated Tired Light hypothesis based on SQPR, it violently disagreed, calling me incompetent, obsolete, uneducated and from another age (to put it in only a few words)… Until the AI realized it had misunderstood, and started to run codes to check if my alternative to QFT actually predicted the correct Tired Light phenomenon. It did. That, no doubt, used electricity (the argument ran over weeks).
However, most answers will require in the future less and less genuine research. Google just announced it found a way to make AI six times more efficient. In general, all AI are going to develop standard answers to FAQs…
***
Humanity’s progress toward our quasi-divine present status, has been measured in spending ever more ABSOLUTE WORTH ENERGY. Basically doing ever more amazing things by manipulating energy. The Maltusian energy policy tried in Europe has thoroughly failed. It only achieved a relative collapse of the per capita GDP of Europe relative to peers, and new peers who are increasingly superior, such as China. A large body of evidence points to deliberate malfeasance, as Europe became mostly dependent upon plutocratic tyrannies for its energy procurement. The same corrupt and extractive regimes then invested in Europe at premium prices, making European plutocrats wealther than ever. Please explain to me why Merkel closing German nuclear energy, which never had an accident, to build another twenty-four (24) coal plants, can make sense… Besides the obvious explanation that, just as she started her career in the service of a dictatorship monitored by Putin, she kept on going just the same, but more discreetly… In plain sight.
The error of European ways (except for the ever wealtheir European plutocrats) is so deep that France, which used to be the wealthiest significant European country per capita, has fallen below the EU average. Woke is dope. Putin knows all this, and that’s why he attacked. He just did not anticipate that Ukrainians believed in agency and progress, nor that the USA (Trump first, then Biden) would send them so many weapons to give Ukrainian agency a chance… .
To be against AI is as intelligent as to be against health care (AI will dominate health care very soon). Anyway, what to expect from people who are against intelligence?
Patrice Ayme .
#AI #AWE #China #Energy #Engineering #Europe #news #plutocracy #politics #RenewableEnergy #USA -
USA Artificial Intelligence Energy Spending Compared To European Renewable Energy Wasting
AI Energy Spending And Renewable Energy Wasting
To a friend: Glad, and unsurprised, that the AI potentially saved your life. Although I have long been aware of Deep Vein Thrombosis, DVT, I could imagine having symptoms without recognizing them and being called promptly to order by an AI. AI diagnosis is the future, now. Everybody ought to have a personal health AI Agent.
Actually my beloved dog has been gravely sick in his eyes for several months, one of which was coming out of his head initially. We went to see top specialists, spending much time and money. Part of the treatment worked, but also damaged his eyes (in a rare complication also occurring in humans for whom the same drug is prescribed in the same condition). His symptoms changed and we were prescribed other drugs. Seeing further, but different, deterioration, even after the last expensive specialist visit, we are using AI in depth, and got interesting suggestions we immediately implemented.
I am extremely aware of DVT, and always take aspirin at significant doses before, during and after (intercontinental) flights. I have plenty of anecdotal evidence that flying causes DVT (hey, I should ask Chat AI about the latest on DVT and flying; didn’t Jane Goodall die of it?). Although aware of DVT, having symptoms of it may well escape my attention, and an AI would help refocus me in a timely manner..
After reading several virulent anti-AI essays and comments, I did a bit more of the thinking which has been trotting in my head on that subject. My first reaction to acerbic critiques of AI is generally that they sound similar to the critiques directed at printing when it first appeared. Within a century, in a country as powerful and enlightened as France, thanks to the tyrant Francois Premier (et dernier!)printers were actually burned alive until reduced to a crisp. Consider the case of Etienne Dolet (although he was a friend of the influential doctor, philosopher and writer Rabelais). Some countries (like the Ottoman empire) outlawed printing for centuries (the result that Arabic and Persian fables such as the thousand and one nights were published in France first… So the “Orient” became literate in Occident…)
You see I am writing from Europe, and more exactly France, where the local oligarchic imbeciles known as legislators, professional wheeler-dealers who should not exist, are actually thinking of writing some anti-AI legislation. Next week.
Already AI in Europe means slavery to US Artificial Intelligence. This is not happening because European researchers are less intelligent. Far from it, many have contributed in a major way to the development of AI, and have become legendary.
Here are the three founding fathers of AI: one from London, two from Paris:. One was born in London, and got the Nobel Prize for his foundational work on AI (AI uses extremely high dimensional multivariable calculus… So the mathematicians having developed this over centuries ought to be retrospectively thanked…). The other two were born in Paris, France.
Geoffrey Hinton: Born in London, UK, in 1947, Hinton is British-Canadian. He maintains strong ties to both countries through his education (Cambridge and Edinburgh) and long career at the University of Toronto.
Yann LeCun: Born in Soisy-sous-Montmorency, greater Paris, France, in 1960, LeCun is now Franco-American. His early education was in Paris, and he later naturalized in the US while working at NYU and Meta.
Yoshua Bengio: Born in Paris, France, in 1964, Bengio is also Canadian. He moved to Canada and studied at McGill University in Montreal, He built his career there as a professor. One more exiled French.
Now, of course, if one is French and a genius, one will move away precipitously from the Woke Capital (Paris), where the only legal foreigners are illegals (getting free everything), or celebrities and plutocrats make luxury goods for snobbish Chinese (that will work until the Chinese start to despise the Europeans!)
*** .
Why is AI developing mostly in the USA?
It’s happening because the US GDP dwarfs that, of, say, France. By a factor of eight or something like that. But not just that. The USA priorities are more oriented towards technological-economical performance, while France, and most of Europe, following, has focused on the woke-social-conservative-environmental development. France has done this in ALL domains in recent years, except for military technology, where France builds systems which are often world’s best, but in ridiculously small quantities.
This development of underdevelopment is EXTREMELY ANTI-FRENCH, when looked at on the scale of the last 25 centuries. Way back, Rome was getting weapons and armor from the Celts, and Gaul developed MECHANICAL HARVESTERS to the point that small Gallic farmers used the mechanical harvesters rather than slaves, and the Gallic economy resisted the establishment of slave driven giant agrobusinesses… After Gaul came under Franco-Roman management, Queen Bathilde promptly outlawed slavery (657 CE) and the Imperium Francorum-“Renovated Roman Empire” developed massive husbandry, systematic automation and mechanical leverage, to replace slavery… However France started to change attitude in the Sixteenth Century, when she refused to colonize North America, and, instead, traded with the Natives while teaching them civilization (so that the newly civilized “Indians” could be genocidized by the savage Iroquois…) The French development of this woke attitude culminated with the ejection of France from North America 250 years later… And various subsequent military defeats, including versus the Nazis (when it turned out that France’s own creation, the USA would not help in a timely manner…).
The result of the European policies has been an ever increasing dependency upon the USA and China, in ever more crucial domains. Part of this dependency is simply the mechanical effect that the USA and China make up 50% of the world’s GDP (and are economically entangled).
If one is European and really excellent in tech or science, the probability is high, should one be ambitious, to end up in the USA, with immensely larger budgets, salaries and opportunities. Meanwhile the French Federal Budget to “associations” exceeds high education AND research… Combined. “Associations” are just a woke trick for the Socialists in power (de facto) for 46 years to keep getting votes while, and in spite of the fact that, they ruin the country. (Anti-democratic) Associations get about $50 billion per year, nearly as much as defense.
***
All of Europe has been doing “renewable” energy, and it’s partly a scam:
How does one “renew” in a typical foggy European winter night with extreme cold and no wind? Well, one does not. In parts of Europe, electricity prices have peaked ten times above the average of just a few years ago. In particular, Europe does not have enough energy for AI (except for places with lots of hydro power, and small populations, like Norway).
Carbon-free energy could have been developed, but the development and even maintenance of nuclear energy was discontinued in the 1990s… So now the US and China can use old European nuclear research and forge ahead.
***
AI provides humanity with AGENCY. Just like printing or bronze metallurgy. AGENCY is more important than even Liberty. No agency, no liberty. Reciprocally, liberty does not necessarily provide agency: prehistoric people were free, but couldn’t do much, because they had little agency.
The environmental problems caused by AI are real, but they call to develop more carbon free energy. Some have suggested putting AI in space, where solar energy is abundant.
***
Renewable Waste:
Speaking of renewables, studies related by the BBC in April 2026 show that, to make 45 GW of renewable electricity in Great Britain (the present electric power necessary to satisfy peak electric consumption of the UK), one needs to install 135 GW of mostly conventional (that is, carbon) energy. This ridiculous ratio, 135 to 45, shows that, instead of worrying about AI which they can’t power up, Europeans should rather worry about the renewable folly they engaged in without thinking it through.
One of the causes for the ridiculous ratio is the necessity to build millions of kilometers of extremely high tension wires all over Europe, criss crossing… which is NOT feasible, so it’s not done, and local conventional backups are needed, all over…China had no problems installing such lines (those who too deeply disagree get shot), and, moreover, China has a simpler geography (hydro, wind and solar to the west, cities to the east). So China installed 250 GW of solar… And is not finished: the Hormuz blockade has blocked 30% of Chinese fuel imports… So China needs to develop more renewable energy…
***
When I confronted Chat GPT with my sophisticated Tired Light hypothesis based on SQPR, it violently disagreed, calling me incompetent, obsolete, uneducated and from another age (to put it in only a few words)… Until the AI realized it had misunderstood, and started to run codes to check if my alternative to QFT actually predicted the correct Tired Light phenomenon. It did. That, no doubt, used electricity (the argument ran over weeks).
However, most answers will require in the future less and less genuine research. Google just announced it found a way to make AI six times more efficient. In general, all AI are going to develop standard answers to FAQs…
***
Humanity’s progress toward our quasi-divine present status, has been measured in spending ever more ABSOLUTE WORTH ENERGY. Basically doing ever more amazing things by manipulating energy. The Maltusian energy policy tried in Europe has thoroughly failed. It only achieved a relative collapse of the per capita GDP of Europe relative to peers, and new peers who are increasingly superior, such as China. A large body of evidence points to deliberate malfeasance, as Europe became mostly dependent upon plutocratic tyrannies for its energy procurement. The same corrupt and extractive regimes then invested in Europe at premium prices, making European plutocrats wealther than ever. Please explain to me why Merkel closing German nuclear energy, which never had an accident, to build another twenty-four (24) coal plants, can make sense… Besides the obvious explanation that, just as she started her career in the service of a dictatorship monitored by Putin, she kept on going just the same, but more discreetly… In plain sight.
The error of European ways (except for the ever wealtheir European plutocrats) is so deep that France, which used to be the wealthiest significant European country per capita, has fallen below the EU average. Woke is dope. Putin knows all this, and that’s why he attacked. He just did not anticipate that Ukrainians believed in agency and progress, nor that the USA (Trump first, then Biden) would send them so many weapons to give Ukrainian agency a chance… .
To be against AI is as intelligent as to be against health care (AI will dominate health care very soon). Anyway, what to expect from people who are against intelligence?
Patrice Ayme .
#AI #AWE #China #Energy #Engineering #Europe #news #plutocracy #politics #RenewableEnergy #USA -
No/Más – No Peace Review By Grin Reaper
DC deathgrind ensemble No/Más formed almost a decade ago, pumping out a split, two EPs, and a full-length between 2017 and 2022. Four years later, No/Más assails 2026 from the jump, touring with Exhumed and Oxygen Destroyer as well as crackin’ skulls with their sophomore effort, No Peace. Stylistically similar to their debut Consume/Deny/Repent, No Peace offers listeners twenty-two minutes of throat-punching, toe-stomping aural hooliganism that’s as charming as it is confrontational. Does No/Más’ boisterous, acerbic approach leave listeners with a tolerance for their hijinks, or will they leave No Peace thinking, ‘no thanks?’
While No Peace manifests many upgrades from their (admittedly good) debut, the biggest win might be that No/Más firmly institutes their identity. The change isn’t drastic, and No Peace is a natural progression from Consume/Deny/Repent, but the sophisticated onslaught supplied on this sophomore sweep oozes with sneering confidence. Following in the footsteps of Nails, No/Más balances grindcore, death metal, and hardcore/crust tendencies with playful intelligence, weaving together Full of Hell’s caustic bite, Napalm Death’s thuggish simplicity, and Jungle Rot’s warped melodicism into a densely packed third of an hour. And if those touchstones aren’t enough, No/Más unleashes Sepultura-informed grooves and a slow leak of Pro-Pain into their secret sauce. Not to fret, though, because despite all the influences, No Peace presents as a unified vision, and one that will rouse languid listeners into a frothing fancy.
No/Más’ instrumentation on No Peace sets a high bar with energetic performances, snapping necks with whiplash-inducing riffs and a license to thrill. Joe Vasta’s bass bounces and chugs with in-your-face rumbles throughout No Peace (“Abolition,” “Cycle of Sacrifice”), wielding a thick, surly tone that’ll rabbit punch you into head-banging if you’re standing still. Drummer Henry Everitt wallops the skins hard enough to rattle your ear bones, battering with furious fills (“Abolition”) and dropping to half-time backbeats (“No Peace”) as songs demand. It’s not all about the beatdowns, though, as No/Más injects a welcome helping of melody into No Peace. John Letzkus’ guitar slices through the faff to drench the album in a satisfyingly saturated buzz (“Act of Killing,” “Spineless”), though he also takes the reins and dazzles with efficient, arpeggiated leads (“Leech”) that I wish appeared more. Vocalist Roger Rivadeneira rounds out the quartet, shouting, growling, and screeching in a varied attack that demonstrates a willingness to experiment that was largely absent from Consume/Deny/Repent. In total, No/Más fires on all cylinders throughout No Peace, and never gives you a moment to come up for air.
With only twenty-two minutes on tap, No/Más leaves no room for inessential slop. And besides the half-minute intro flush with wall-of-sound static and indistinct yelling, they wildly succeed. As you’d expect from any decent grindy endeavor, no song pushes past its distilled essence, staying just long enough to rip and bludgeon before getting the fuck out of the way for the next track to exact its toll. No song eclipses the three-minute mark, and each exudes a rabid savagery that seethes with conviction. Additionally, No Peace sounds great—sure, the dynamic range scores low, but it’s exactly how this brand of overstimulating ass-kicking should sound. It’s well-mixed, abrasive, and highlights the rhythm section without sacrificing the sparse six-string fortitude. I wish there were a few more songs like “Leech,” partly because No/Más excels with the tunefulness, but also because I think it would address the biggest opportunity with No Peace—the compact composition allows little room for songs to establish unique flavors, leaving them to sometimes blur together. In the end, though, this is only a minor quibble, and there are many great moments to appreciate.
No/Más hasn’t redefined the DNA of deathgrind with No Peace, but they have contributed a worthy addition to its annals. Corrosive, pummeling bangers streamlined with minimal frills sum up to a blistering platter I’ve quite enjoyed. While I haven’t had the pleasure of seeing No/Más live, this crew boasts the hallmarks of a band that whips a crowd into a frenzy and ends with a broken bone or missing tooth. With twelve tracks running so lean, No Peace is helplessly easy to spin again and again. If they keep pumping out tunes this good, I can’t wait for what comes next. No más? No. Más.
Rating: Very Good!
#2026 #35 #AmericanMetal #DeathMetal #Deathgrind #Exhumed #FullOfHell #Grindcore #JungleRot #Mar26 #Nails #NapalmDeath #NoPeace #NoMas #NoMas #OxygenDestroyer #ProPain #RedefiningDarknessRecords #Review #Reviews #Sepultura
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Redefining Darkness Records
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: March 13th, 2026 -
Last night we watched The Roses [Prime Video], starring Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch. It's a dark comedy about a happily married couple who become unhappily married when the husband falls on hard times and resentments surface. Didn't really enjoy it - the acrimony between them, while often witty, is rather too acerbic and horrible for me. But anything with Olivia Colman is always worth watching. She is superb - I could happily watch her watch paint drying. 3 out 5 stars for me.
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Vanderlust – The Human Farm Review By Andy-War-Hall
Aliens offer to take you away and give you a perfect—albeit short—life: do you say yes? According to Italian cosmic prog metal band Vanderlust, many of you would. “So, a bunch of people everywhere on Earth gave themselves” to the Coelacanths for that same offer, so opens The Human Farm. Several generations later, a human uprising leads to an escape from slavery and the discovery that the Coelacanths were all along harvesting Humans for their emotions. This isn’t meant to be funny. Vanderlust were deadset on telling a compelling sci-fi adventure in The Human Farm, enlisting guest keyboardist Francesco Londino (S91) and vocalist Martina Barreca (Mass Excess) to play the role of the Coelacanths. But did Vanderlust give us a sci-fi adventure for the ages with The Human Farm?
The gooey earnestness with which Vanderlust spill their adventure on The Human Farm is often matched by skill and musical vision. Vanderlust tear through speed-demonic numbers like “Viral Escape” or “Golden Shackles” with acerbically hooky, Vektor-gone-power-metal riffage while creating respite between the narrative beats with moody clean guitars and skittering drums on “The Turning Point” and “Connection Failed.” Guitarist Francesco Romeggini solos like mad on The Human Farm, shredding Megadethly over Blind Guardian riffs on the almost-instrumental “From the Cave – Fuga” and imbuing “Drive” with a gravitas and refinement. Bassist David Cantina and drummer Giacomo Mezzetti hold down Vanderlust’s rhythms, both driving (“Reborn…Again”) and groovy (“Humanity 3.0 – The New Canaan”) and shine on the “Battlefield”‘s bass solo and underlying fills. Ricca Morello’s vocals can get a bit mush-mouthed in the softer moments, but his power metal-inclined range and delivery crush the big moments, and Barreca’s death growls hit consistently, recalling Ophelion’s vocal duo on 2025’s The Jaunt. The Human Farm isn’t groundbreaking conceptually, but Vanderlust have the chops to tell their tale.
The Human Farm thrives in its biggest moments. Morello sounds his best when he goes all in, like on the Blind Guardian-coded power bonanza “Battlefield”1 and emotionally charged bookends “Humanity 2.0 – The Human Farm” and “Humanity 3.0 – The New Canaan.” Barreca’s growls add tons of punch to Vanderlust’s sound. When she trades lines with the choir on “Connection Failed” or clean sings on “Reborn…Again” and brings Meat Loaf melodrama to Dream Theater balladry, it feels so right. However, The Human Farm lulls when Vanderlust take the pedal off the metal. Momentum from “Golden Shackles” dissipates in the slow-burning of “The Turning Point” and doesn’t return until halfway through “Connection Failed,” and the barn-burning energy of “Viral Escape” is utterly deflated by the narrative interlude “…Find Them!”. However, Vanderlust are at any given time never too far off from another soaring crescendo, making The Human Farm an exciting listen, if not consistently so.
Vanderlust’s conceptual ambitions ultimately hinder The Human Farm, I feel. Vanderlust frequently dumb down musical ideas to allow narration more sonic space. This issue is exacerbated by the uniformly bad acting performances across The Human Farm, which resembles those 90s PC games where they just threw some interns into the booth. But even if the line reads were good, interjected into songs like “From the Cave – Fuga” and “Connection Failed,” they come off as a tacked-on concession to the story rather than an integral part of the music, coming off as distracting or even detrimental to the music. Vanderlust can do interesting things musically to tell their story, like having Barreca clean sing in “Reborn…Again” after the Coelacanths are defeated, reflecting them at their most vulnerable, or reworking the “Humanity 2.0…” motif into the end of “Humanity 3.0…,” where humankind has escaped captivity but find new challenges in freedom and lead some to question their revolution altogether.2 But for the most part, the way Vanderlust tell the story of The Human Farm detracts from what they do well: thrashy prog-power anthems.
If Vanderlust could hone their storytelling as well as their songwriting on The Human Farm, we’d have a great record on our hands. As is, there are too many conflicting elements in The Human Farm for more than a lukewarm recommendation, though there are fantastic songs throughout. Fans of prog-power will find things to like here, and Vanderlust is a band to keep an eye on, and I certainly will try to catch their third album should they make one. I’m not sure if Vanderlust have a Terminal Redux or Access All Worlds in them, but I wouldn’t put it past them either.
Rating: Mixed
#25 #2026 #Apr26 #BlindGuardian #DreamTheater #ItalianMetal #MassExcess #MeatLoaf #Megadeth #Ophelion #PowerMetal #ProgressiveMetal #Review #Reviews #RockshotsRecords #S91 #TheHumanFarm #Vanderlust #Vektor
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: V0 VBR mp3
Label: Rockshots Records
Websites: facebook.com/vanderlustofficial | soundcloud.com/vanderlust-music
Releases Worldwide: April 17th, 2026 -
AMG Goes Ranking – Immolation By Grin Reaper
The life of the unpaid, overworked metal reviewer is not an easy one. The reviewing collective at AMG lurches from one new release to the next, errors and n00bs strewn in our wake. But what if, once in a while, the collective paused to take stock and consider the discography of those bands that shaped many a taste? What if multiple aspects of the AMG collective personality shared with the slavering masses their personal rankings of that discography, and what if the rest of the personality used a Google sheet some kind of dark magic to produce an official guide to, and an all-around definitive aggregated ranking of, that band’s entire discography? Well, if that happened, we imagine it would look something like this…
Formed in 1988, Immolation emerged shortly after death metal’s dawn of aggression. Alongside Incantation, Suffocation, and Mortician, Immolation cemented themselves as a cornerstone of New York’s death metal scene in the early 90s. Since then, the band has erected a kingdom of consistency, releasing cut after unholy cut of complex arrangements, unwavering hostility, and anti-religious ruminations about the failures of gods. Key to Immolation’s dependable, high-quality output are mainstays bassist/vocalist Ross Dolan and guitarist Robert Vigna, who have both been with the band since inception. Even Immolation’s other members prove steadfast, with drummer Steve Shalaty searing skins since 2003 and Alex Bouks lending his axe since 2016. Through eleven full-length releases, Immolation has proven that their ability to harness ruin and forge death metal majesty is nigh unparalleled.
With twelfth album Descent arriving soon, staffers old and new clamored to share their opinions on how Immolation’s back catalog stacks up. Unlike rankings mostly prescribed by overwhelming consensus on their highs and lows, Immolation presents a discography with nothing to atone for, providing fertile ground for healthy, well-considered discourse. Without further ado, then, let’s put our ears to the door of a world below and divine these diabolical rankings!
– Grin Reaper
The Rankings
Grin Reaper
In my book, nobody does pure death metal better than Immolation. More consistent than Suffocation and Incantation and more uncompromising than Morbid Angel and Cryptopsy,1 Immolation scoffs at AMG’s Law of Diminishing Recordings™ as they reign atop an unimpeachable discography that lacks a single turd. Seriously. The ‘worst’ album Immolation ever put out still rivals or surpasses the best from most other death metal outfits, and their indomitable march to dismantle the weak and unworthy entrenches them as one of my all-time favorite acts. Jesus wept—Immolation never fucking flinched.
#11. Harnessing Ruin (2005) — Something has to be last, and Harnessing Ruin gets my tap. Songwriting-wise, Immolation drops a strong effort with acerbically grim leads and a rousing introduction to new drummer Steve Shalaty. Guitars supply the album highlights—from the gnarled riffing in “Our Savior Sleeps” and the sludgy sway on “Son of Iniquity” to the scalding solo on “Dead to Me,” Bob Vigna and Bill Taylor sizzle with hell’s fire across Harnessing Ruin. Unfortunately, the album’s production holds it back, and the muffled mix lacks the bite of Unholy Cult. Also, the longest songs cluster at the end, dragging the back half a touch.
#10. Kingdom of Conspiracy (2013) — Kingdom of Conspiracy just ekes ahead of Harnessing Ruin, clocking three minutes briefer despite having one more track. To my ears, Kingdom of Conspiracy features Immolation’s brightest, most modern production. This offers a boon to Dolan’s grating growls and the tormented guitar tandem of Vigna and Taylor, but it also buries the bass and pushes the drums further away from the dead corpse smacks that characterize my favorite Immolation bass drum tones. As one might expect from the bottom end of such an excellent discography, Kingdom of Conspiracy does little wrong, but lacks the heretical heft that defines Immolation’s best material.
#9. Shadows in the Light (2007) — Concluding what I consider Immolation’s middle period, Shadows in the Light chronologically bridges their weakest link, Harnessing Ruin, and powerhouse Nuclear Blast debut, Majesty and Decay. Shadows in the Light drastically improves on Harnessing Ruin’s production, wading out of the former’s forlorn pall and laying down brimstone-tinged bangers like one-two punch “Passion Kill” and “World Agony.” A sense of immediacy pervades Shadows that, while not lacking in the lowest-ranked albums, burns even hotter here, filling its forty minutes with writhing leads and furious drumming that typifies what Immolation does so damned well.
#8. Failures for Gods (1999) — Failures for Gods falling to #8 proves just how potent Immolation’s discography is, as the album would be a crown jewel in countless other discographies. On the surface, Failures for Gods has everything Immolation fans could ask for: punishing grooves, tortured guitars, and vocals that could command the armies of hell. Despite that, Failures for Gods feels like it holds back from the devastating offensive that would launch a year later, instead rehashing rather than progressing what Immolation accomplished on their first two albums. Still, Failures introduced drummer Alex Hernandez, and though his masterstrokes would be heard on Close, songs like “God Made Filth” and “The Devil I Know” heralded the storm to come.
#7. Dawn of Possession (1991) — Pure fucking evil rarely sounds this intoxicating. Steeped in an unpolished production that’s coarse yet clear, Dawn of Possession hooks ears and souls alike, flaying them with its hellish implements. Though it’s Immolation’s most straightforward album, tracks like “Into Everlasting Fire, “Those Left Behind,” and “Immolation” exemplify why suburban mothers clutch their pearls when they happen upon their precious babes listening to death metal. Dawn of Possession was my entry point for Immolation, and it encompasses everything the band offers without guile. I still recommend it for the uninitiated, particularly those who enjoy straight-up OSDM with a side of heresy.
#6. Unholy Cult (2002) — Where Failures for Gods luxuriates in gloomy menace and Close to a World Below reeks of sulfurous damnation, Unholy Cult blurs the line between the two. Starting with a slow build on opener “Of Martyrs and Men,” Unholy Cult careens between ominous drawls and infernal fervor with a substantially improved production over Immolation’s 90s output. “Unholy Cult” remains the second-longest song these death peddlers have penned, and it looms large, rooted in the front half of the album. From there, the tracks rumble and blitz up to closer “Bring Them Down,” a funky barnburner that highlights Dolan’s basswork amidst Immolation’s blazing backdrop.
#5. Majesty and Decay (2010) — Immolation unleashed a juggernaut for their first platter with Nuclear Blast. Blistering, contemplative, and brimming with moldering melody, Majesty and Decay swats with the divine laze of a celestial being, uncoiling at its leisure but devastating in its wrath once roused. Tracks like “A Glorious Epoch” and “The Rapture of Ghosts” toe this line, where beefy chugs pound beneath soaring, anthemic guitars. Meanwhile, the likes of “The Purge” and “A Token of Malice” hit with the force of a thunderclap, unrelenting in their fury. I originally had Majesty and Decay in the same tier as Atonement and Acts of God, but the busy mix and unimaginatively titled “Intro” and “Interlude” hold it back.2
#4. Atonement (2017) — With no song running past the five-minute mark, Atonement exhibits Immolation’s dedication to excising the fat and gristle. Vigna’s crooked leads and crushing riffs mesh perfectly with new guitarist Alex Bouks’ calculated anarchy, and together they synchronize in exquisite harmony. Along with Majesty and Decay, Atonement might be the closest Immolation comes to achieving accessibility. Typically, my favorite straight-up death metal furnishes little room for nuance, and though Immolation doesn’t have a reputation for subtlety, Atonement expertly doles out moments of relief (the end of “When the Jackals Come,” the intro to “Lower”) that almost lull you into safety before the bottom drops out and sends you to hell.
#3. Acts of God (2022) — When I first saw Immolation flaunting fifteen tracks totaling over fifty minutes, I thought their best days were behind them. Bloat is never a good sign, particularly from a band with such a pristine track record. I happily resign to being wrong, though, as Acts of God not only subverted but demolished my expectations. Immolation’s allure lies in the intricacies of their music. Dolan’s patristic admonishment of humanity, Vigna and Bouks’ serpentine noodling, and Shalaty’s tempestuous brutalization of the kit define the band’s sound, yet here the music is more direct and urgent than ever. Rather than missing any beats, Immolation sounds ruinously revitalized.
#2. Here in After (1996) — Though not a significant shift away from Dawn of Possession, Immolation struck nails to gold with Here in After. Compared to later releases, Here in After radiates a few extra degrees of chaos, with deranged soloing that reminds of Slayer’s vision of hell and a slightly more impassioned vocal performance from Dolan. To be clear, his vocals are one of my favorite aspects of Immolation’s sound, and his matter-of-fact, comprehensible gutturals against such malicious metal engenders wonderful drama. The edge to his voice on “Nails to Gold” and “Christ’s Cage” adds a dimension of metaphysical dread that is the chef’s kiss throughout Here in After’s inflamed impiety.
#1. Close to a World Below (2000) — I can’t fathom any other Immolation album topping this blasphemous bonanza than Close to a World Below. Opening with my favorite Immolation track “Higher Coward,” the album bursts forth with an unapologetic eruption of sinuous guitars, vicious growls, and an unyielding onslaught by drummer Alex Hernandez. The drum tones alone deserve a spotlight, but the cataclysmic bombardment of stick on skin violence stops me dead in my tracks anytime one of Close to a World Below’s songs pops up. Immolation distills the essence of what worked so well on previous albums and folds those layers into a perfect performance across eight insidiously immaculate tracks. “Father, You’re Not a Father,” “Unpardonable Sin,” and the closing title track resonate with especially inspired performances, but the entirety of Close to a World Below boils over with the most unhinged and malignant performance of Immolation’s career. Being damned never sounded so Iconic.
Lavender Larcenist
#11. Harnessing Ruin (2005) — Immolation does not have a bad album, but Harnessing Ruin feels like a band chugging along in a bit of an in-between space. The production is muddled here, especially after Unholy Cult and Close to a World Below, but “Our Savior Sleeps” still retains that Immolation heft while “At Mourning’s Twilight” is an inspired closer with an incredible solo at the midpoint. Harnessing Ruin would be the best album of many other bands’ careers, but it is only a lower-tier album for a band as storied as Immolation.
#10. Shadows in the Light (2007) — Shadows in the Light follows Harnessing Ruin in terms of feeling like a band spinning its wheels (as much as a band as talented as Immolation can). Even then, “Passion Kill” is a classic Immolation track with an incredible breakdown that will make a fan out of any listener. “World Agony” follows with a dissonant wailing riff backing as it drops headfirst into a rolling bulldozer of a track. Unfortunately, there isn’t much else to Shadows in the Light that helps it stand out amongst the rest of Immolation’s discography, but it still makes for a solid death metal record with some memorable tracks that have stood the test of time.
#9. Failures for Gods (1999) — Failures for Gods is a solid album that is no slouch in the songwriting department, but it is marred by some truly busted production. Everything feels muddy, oddly loud, and compressed at the same time. “No Jesus, No Beast” is a monster, and the title track features that classic evil tone that becomes so apparent in late-stage Immolation, but the production handicaps this album at every turn. Great songwriting goes a long way, but in a race this tight, poor production brings Failures for Gods low.
#8. Kingdom of Conspiracy (2013) — Kingdom of Conspiracy shaves off a bit of Majesty and Decay’s technicality to its detriment. It is the closest Immolation has come to creating an album that is more groove than tech. As a result, it is probably one of their more approachable records, but it is the weakest of their current era. “Keep the Silence” is a monster of a track, and Kingdom has more than enough material to make it worth a listen. I think this is an album more fans should revisit, and newbies should start with, because it is hooky, heavy, and groovy in ways that will tickle your evil organ.
#7. Dawn of Possession (1991) — Dawn of Possession is an incredible debut from a band that is clearly young and ready to fuck the world up. Robert Vigna’s trademark style is immediately apparent, and Immolation’s blend of groove, dizzying technicality, and evil vibes is on display out of the gate. Craig Smilowski’s drumming is absurd in its rhythm and technical flourishes, but the album lacks the atmosphere that Immolation became famous for later in their career. Dawn of Possession is a fantastic debut that is only brought down by the extent to which its tracks bleed together. Something Immolation struggles with throughout their career.
#6. Here in After (1996) — Here in After sees the band refine their skills and write tighter songs that hit harder while adding just a little dash of that trademark Immolation vibe. The groove is starting to creep in, and tracks like “Christ’s Cage” showcase the band playing with the truly evil tone that pervades their most recent work. Album opener “Nailed to Gold” is a classic for the band, and Here in After is a quintessential Immolation album. Ross Dolan’s vocals have switched from Dawn’s nastier tone to his trademark bellow, and Vigna’s pirouetting shredwork is here to stay. Here in After is Immolation in classic form.
#5. Close to a World Below (2000) — Opening with “Higher Coward”, Close to a World Below starts on a high note and never stops delivering. The production foibles of Failures are ironed out, and Immolation sounds like a band ready to bulldoze society. “Unpardonable Sin” is as heavy as it is frantic with its switches back and forth between dissonant groove and face-melting speed. “Lost Passion” crescendos into trademark Immolation wankery in the best way, but Close to a World Below still suffers from some odd production. Dolan’s vocals feel slightly different track to track, but this is an album with some of Immolation’s best songs to date.
#4. Unholy Cult (2002) — Something about Unholy Cult just clicks for me. “Of Martyrs and Men” is that pure, wonderful, evil shit. After an explosive intro, the track moves into one of Immolation’s most crushing riffs. The title track is a slice of hell in a way the band hasn’t played with since “Christ’s Cage”, an eight-minute epic that is as catchy as it is devastating. Vigna flips from this vibrato-tremolo guitar riff right into an all-out assault and back to massive Immolation grooves without a hitch. Unholy Cult is stuffed with great tracks and feels like a first step towards the second half of Immolation’s career, where atmosphere and groove hold more sway over pure technicality.
#3. Majesty and Decay (2010) — Majesty and Decay is where modern Immolation comes into full form. Part truly diabolical atmosphere, part neutron star heavy, all technical and groovy as hell. “Intro” gives listeners a glimpse into the band’s future. “A Glorious Epoch” has one of the best riffs, basically ever, making for a track that gets my blood boiling without fail. “A Token of Malice” is astounding in its technicality while being a freight train of destruction with Vigna riding shotgun. Majesty and Decay is also the best Immolation has sounded up to this point, where the production finally feels consistent, clear, and absolutely brutal.
#2. Atonement (2017) — Likely an album that will grace the top tier on every list, Atonement feels like the quintessential Immolation album. If I were to introduce the band to anyone, I would probably start here. “When the Jackals Come” is one of the band’s best tracks, and “Lower” is just astounding in how brutal Immolation still is decades later. It also keeps things at a slim and trim forty-four minutes, and album closer “Epiphany” puts a perfect bow on this devil baby. There isn’t a track worth skipping on Atonement, a feat made all the more impressive when it is a band ten albums into their career.
#1. Acts of God (2022) — Where do I start with Acts of God? To me, it is the perfect combination of creativity, groove, technicality, and that evil Immolation sound we have come to know and cherish. As one of Immolation’s longest albums, you would think the well has run dry, but the intro “Abandoned” and interlude “And The Flames Wept” add so much cohesion to the album and drape the entire affair in a veil of depravity. Acts of God features some of Immolation’s biggest and baddest riffs, while also pushing their atmosphere to new heights. Their most evil album, their most creative, and maybe even their heaviest. “Noose of Thorns” is led by a diabolical descending riff that drops into high-pitched tapping that sets the tone so well you can’t help but feel pulled by hell’s destructive currents. “Immoral Stain” is dripping with malice; you can hear it seep into every riff and lyric. “Let the Darkness In” features a bouncing, infectious groove that immediately flips into Vigna’s trademark dissonant wails. Acts of God is Immolation’s magnum opus in every sense, and somehow my favorite album by a band that feels like they can do no wrong.
Mark Z.
Immolation feel like old friends. I discovered them early in my extreme metal journey and was immediately captivated by Bob Vigna’s unconventional riffing style and Ross Dolan’s commanding (and surprisingly comprehensible) growl. No matter what’s happened in the metal scene, it’s always been comforting to know that Immolation have been there, touring relentlessly while consistently delivering their trademark brand of dissonant death metal and never releasing a true dud. In the world of old school death metal, they’re the one band I could always count on. Because of that, they’ll always have a special place in my ever-blackening heart.
#11. Shadows in the Light (2007) — Not a bad album, just a relatively bland one. While there are some inspired ideas, most of the tracks have little of the dark atmosphere or interesting songwriting found on their earlier material. Nonetheless, it’s a testament to Immolation’s quality that even their worst album still has stuff as good as the lumbering grooves of “Passion Kill” or the growl-along catchiness of “World Agony,” which is one of the group’s best songs.
#10. Harnessing Ruin (2005) — Arguably Immolation’s most accessible album, Harnessing Ruin shows them trying to find their place in the mid-2000s death metal scene by writing some more direct songs than usual. Just like with Shadows in the Light, however, this album sags in its back half and lacks the darkness or quality of the first few records. There’s good stuff here, but this record also feels bleak and oddly dated, possibly due to the generic mid-2000s artwork, plain production job, or the misguided use of whispered vocals in “Dead to Me” and “Son of Iniquity.”
#9. Kingdom of Conspiracy (2013) — The fucking drums, man. The drum sound here is borderline overbearing, and given that this record is already pretty fast, the overall experience is a relentless and punishing one that largely crushes nuance beneath the heel of its boot. Fortunately, the riffing is still strong, and the album’s generally fast nature makes the slower, commanding marches of “Keep the Silence” and “All That Awaits Us” hit all the harder.
#8. Majesty and Decay (2010) — After a relatively lackluster era in the mid-2000s, Immolation signed to Nuclear Blast and seemed hell-bent on redemption with Majesty and Decay. Compared to its immediate predecessors, this record has an improved production job, more dynamic songwriting, and a better sense of structure (with the band employing an intro track and interlude for the first time). While the title track’s Gateways to Annihilation vibes make it one of the band’s best slower songs, the album as a whole would be better if some of the weaker tracks were shaved off and a few others were tightened up a bit.
#7. Acts of God (2022) — This is a very good album with two main issues: It’s too long, and it has the misfortune of having to follow up Atonement. Not even an Immolation album needs to be 52 minutes long, and compared to its predecessor, the production is stuffier and the songs aren’t as strong. As a whole, however, this is still a blasphemous good time that maintains a consistently high level of quality throughout, with “The Age of No Light” and “Overtures of the Wicked” being especially powerful cuts.
#6. Unholy Cult (2002) — Immolation’s fifth album represents a bridge between the apocalyptic malevolence of their early material and the polished hostility of their later work. It’s also potentially their most vicious and chaotic release, with the opening track “Of Martyrs and Men” even featuring some borderline-mathcore riffs. While at times tough to untangle, Unholy Cult ultimately succeeds as a 41-minute shrapnel blast of ideas that somehow combines the epic and the violent into an utterly compelling whole.
#5. Failures for Gods (1999) — The start of Immolation’s long partnership with producer Paul Orofino, Failures for Gods is held back a bit by his lack of prior experience with death metal, with the bass drums sounding like bouncing basketballs. Stylistically and structurally, however, this is essentially Here in After Part II, with twisted and brooding compositions that vary between being grandiose and cutthroat. While a bit front-loaded, Failures is still a brilliant record. In a just world, “No Jesus, No Beast” would be the closer at every Immolation show.
#4. Dawn of Possession (1991) — Immolation’s debut essentially gave their death-thrash demo tracks a murkier production job and placed them alongside newer songs that would hint at the band’s dissonance to come. As such, Dawn of Possession is the most traditional death metal album in the band’s catalog while also being one of the most distinct and stylistically diverse. While Bob Vigna would only improve as a songwriter from here, Dawn’s numerous classic tracks and otherworldly sense of blasphemy make it easy to love, warts and all.
#3. Atonement (2017) — How the fuck is this album so good? Late-career albums aren’t supposed to be this good, but this is the rare lightning-strike release where everything hits just right: the production, the songwriting, the performances, and even the cover art (which marks the return of the band’s classic logo). It’s like they found a way to increase the quality of everything while sacrificing nothing, resulting in a record that’s powerful yet understated, hooky yet stuffed with riffs, and listenable yet extreme. It may be slightly front-loaded, but it’s still one of my favorite death metal albums of the 2010s.
#2. Here in After (1996) — Arriving five years after their debut, Here in After shows Immolation truly coming into their own, with Bob Vigna’s dark, dissonant arrangements and Ross Dolan’s menacing, intelligible growl both emerging in full force. The improved songwriting is apparent right from the flawless opener, “Nailed to Gold,” which could be one of the Top 10 death metal songs ever. While the twisted structures that follow are less immediately accessible, it all eventually coalesces into a masterfully crafted whole, demonstrating a keen sense of flow and diversity while exuding a timeless, unheavenly darkness that only Immolation could conjure.
#1. Close to a World Below (2000) — There are certain albums so good that they transcend not only their own band’s discography, but also the rest of their genre. Close to a World Below is one of those albums. Never before or since has an album sounded so much like being in hell, with a suffocating and merciless production job that somehow still allows every note to be heard in all its unholy glory. Drummer Alex Hernandez delivers a once-in-a-career performance that sounds like he’s bashing every part of his kit at once, and Bob Vigna somehow manages to write his catchiest material while still delivering riffs more warped than ever. The record also has one of the best openings of all time, with a sullen voice asking, “Didn’t you say. . . Jesus was coming?” before a blasting onslaught tramples any hope of ever making it to heaven. Fukk it, send me below!
Spicie Forrest
Having begun my metal journey in nü territory, there are holes in my metallic knowledge you could drive a commercial truck through.3 While Immolation has long been a name vaguely known to me, it wasn’t until Atonement that I actually heard any of their music. So, when the call for a ranking came in, I saw an excellent opportunity to dive deeply into a storied discography and see what I’ve been missing.
#11. Harnessing Ruin (2005) — While comparably unremarkable, even the bottom end of this list is still good. The truth is, Immolation has never put out a bad album. With such a consistent base quality, placing albums in a numbered order became a game of sudden death. The nail in the coffin for Harnessing Ruin? The whispering vocals on “Dead to Me” and “Son of Iniquity.”
#10 Unholy Cult (2002) — How the hell do you follow up Close to a World Below? By comparison—and even in isolation—Unholy Cult feels lackluster and unremarkable. I’d likely still recognize most of this as Immolation in a playlist, and it’s still very solid death metal by any measure, but there’s precious little here that demands my attention or elevates it above background music. Additionally, pacing shifts, as on “Reluctant Messiah” and “Bring Them Down,” make it difficult to find a groove or flow through the album.
#9 Failures for Gods (1999) — The first three albums Immolation released are all, more or less, of a piece. Failures for Gods maintains much of the quality from earlier releases, from the searing, whiplash solo work and deep riffage of “No Jesus, No Beast” and “Failures for Gods” to the brooding, intimidating tone of “The Devil I Know.” There’s a bit of staleness that creeps into Failures for Gods, though. Aside from some odd, Spanish-inflected acoustic riffing on the title track, not much here stands out from their earlier work or in retrospect.
#8 Shadows in the Light (2007) — Immolation’s output through the mid-00s is, for me, their least engaging, but Shadows in the Light sees them begin to turn things around toward the high quality they’d been known for in the early years. The percussion on Shadows in the Light caught me by surprise, reminding me mightily of Slipknot’s self-titled. Steve Shalaty’s kit work feels alive and visceral, just itching to incite a riot. This holds especially true on “Passion Kill” and “Breathing the Dark.”
#7 Kingdom of Conspiracy (2013) — Kingdom of Conspiracy is an odd duck in Immolation’s discography. This 2013 release has proven divisive not only for its shift in theme,4 but for its notably clean production, as well. While I do appreciate the clarity and snappiness, it is a tad sterile. Ross Dolan’s vocals are hurt the most by this, making him sound toothless and tired. Highlights like “All That Awaits Us” and “God Complex” still hit hard, but as a whole, Kingdom of Conspiracy just doesn’t have the searing identity of records higher on this list.
#6 Here in After (1996) — Being the sophomore album is a tough break. The pressure’s on, expectations are high. Here in After largely holds the line and even improves on the debut in some ways—the title track and “Christ’s Cage” are absolute powerhouses, wielding the weight of worlds like feathers. That said, Here in After does not feel as compositionally tight or structurally sound as Dawn of Possession. Additionally, much of the solo work feels jarring and a skosh too chaotic for my sensibilities, especially on “Nailed to Gold” and “Burn with Jesus.”
#5 Majesty and Decay (2010) — A continuation of the upward shift in quality from Shadows in the Light, Majesty and Decay sees Immolation beginning to explore the more tempered, measured sound so prevalent in their contemporary output. Some tracks, like “A Thunderous Consequence” and “Power and Shame,” fall flat in their attempts to create atmosphere, but “Divine Code” and “A Glorious Epoch” show exactly how menacing and powerful Immolation can be and truly embody the title of the album.
#4 Dawn of Possession (1991) — This served as the standard by which all else was measured. Apocalyptic and vicious, Immolation’s debut was a revelation. There’s a ferocity on Dawn of Possession that only a young band eager to share their vision can produce. And in so doing, Immolation marred the tapestry forever. Injecting their relentless assault with streaks of virtuosity, Dawn of Possession became the bar not only for the band, but for thousands of inspired musicians in the decades since. Immolation has tweaked and tempered their blueprint in the 35 years since, but the core has always remained.
#3 Acts of God (2022) — I’m normally not a fan of intros, but “Abandoned” sets the stage perfectly for the brutal and utterly savage cudgeling to come. Fully returning to the unchecked hatred for Christians and their gods, Acts of God is contemptuous and caustic in way that hasn’t been heard since Close to a World Below. Most impressive here is Immolation’s success in merging the pomp and circumstance of their modern output with the rage of their early work. While not strictly their best release, Acts of God is a quintessential work, defining the true identity of Immolation.
#2 Close to a World Below (2000) — Already known for their malicious, uncompromising sound, Immolation cranks all the dials to eleven on Close to a World Below. It’s seething, it’s virulent, it’s fucking hostile. If this masterpiece ever lets up, it’s only to parade and mock the mangled corpse of Christ before grabbing a bigger hammer. Every second of this album drips with scorn, from the indictment of “Father, You’re Not a Father,” to the blasphemy of “Unpardonable Sin.” I get chills at the start of “Higher Coward” every fucking time, and they don’t go away until long after “Close to a World Below” fades out.
#1 Atonement (2017) — The first Immolation album I ever heard, Atonement still remains untouched. The imperial confidence and contempt—the sheer power—left me speechless, and I still return to it, nearly ten years later. Atonement is more atmospheric than much of their other work, but the result is a heretofore unknown level of weight and heft, no doubt aided by its more vibrant and textured production. Like the change in the air before a coming storm, Atonement feels like a harbinger of ruin, and at times like the disaster itself. Barns burn on tracks like “Destructive Currents” and “Rise the Heretics,” but Immolation truly shines in patient malevolence. Highlights like “When the Jackals Come,” “Thrown to the Fire,” and “Lower” are in no rush to grind your bones to paste. Atonement is the full realization of what was hinted on Majesty and Decay, and it is breathtaking to behold.
Angry Metal Guy Staff Ranking
Thanks to the dark magic of profane arithmetic, we present the aggregate staff ranking below:
- Harnessing Ruin (2005)
- Shadows in the Light (2007)
- Kingdom of Conspiracy (2013)
- Failures for Gods (1999)
- Unholy Cult (2002)
- Dawn of Possession (1991)
- Majesty and Decay (2010)
- Here in After (1996)
- Acts of God (2022)
- Atonement (2017)
- Close to a World Below (2000)
For any ignorant, curious, or non-practicing heathens out there that need to bathe in the everlasting fire, look no further than AMG’s Immolation primer:
#2026 #ActsOfGod #AmericanMetal #AMGGoesRanking #AMGRankings #Apr26 #Atonement #CloseToAWorldBelow #Cryptopsy #DawnOfPossession #DeathMetal #FailuresForGods #HarnessingRuin #HereInAfter #Immolation #Incantation #KingdomOfConspiracy #MajestyAndDecay #ManillaRoad #MorbidAngel #Mortician #NuclearBlast #ShadowsInTheLight #Slayer #Suffocation #UnholyCult -
Vanta – Perpetual Selection Review By ClarkKent
The harsh environs of Australia are the perfect breeding grounds for brutal music. Xenobiotic based their latest on the hellish setting of Dante’s Inferno, an ideal topic for the desert landscape that dominates their home continent. The melodeath of Freedom of Fear has an acerbic tone perfect for combatting the numerous venomous animals that lurk there. Newcomers Vanta are similarly raising their debut, Perpetual Selection, amidst the brutal, but also lovely, backdrop of the Land Down Under. In truth, Australia is a complex place, featuring the harsh Outback, lush jungles, beautiful beaches, and modern cityscapes. Vanta reflect this complexity, playing a brutal melodeath style that borrows from a myriad of influences outside the genre. Time will tell whether these guys have what it takes to thrive in this environment or fall to the perpetual forces conspiring against their survival.
Perpetual Selection borrows heavily from the crushing melodeath of The Black Dahlia Murder, yet where TBDM inaccurately draw comparisons to metalcore, Vanta happily blend metalcore into their sound. However, they play energetic melodeath first and foremost, featuring some impressive guitar leads with only the occasional sprinkle of a breakdown (“Stillwater,” “Sandstalker”) or down-tuned guitar tones (“Empty Shell”). Beneath the crushing riffs is an effective melodic layer produced by the guitar duo of Thien Huynh and Jesse Venus. There’s a sense of constant kinetic motion between the duo as they lay out hooky leads (“Empty Shell,” “Kuyang”) and speedy solos (“Stillwater”). The blistering kitwork from Ferdi Handojo also adds to the sense of non-stop energy. Like TBDM, Vanta have a knack for creative intros that heighten the excitement when the song proper roars into action. These intros range from gentle arpeggios (“Sacred Light,” “Stillwater”) to Fulci-style horror screams (“Kuyang”), and all culminate in a testosterone-fueled explosion of riffs, blast beats, and growls.
As I mentioned in the intro, Vanta infuse a wide variety of influences from various genres, yet somehow allow them to flow naturally together. Following an energetic set of songs, “Drown” slows things down with a melodic piece that has a whiff of sadboi melodeath stalwarts Insomnium, and yet it somehow works, perhaps due to how it eases into the gloom following an energetic intro. “Alchemy” similarly heads in a new direction, patiently building into a memorable chorus rather than immediately going for the jugular. Somehow it transports me to Stortregn’s Impermanence as Venus sings “Ash to ash / dust to dust.” Finally, “Purity” is a complete surprise, ripping a speedy tune that sounds uncannily like something off an Archspire record. Yet this all works, creating an exciting and varied album, in part thanks to the chameleon-like vocal attack from Venus. He seamlessly switches from his usual rasps to deep growls to speedy Oliver Rae Aleron delivery as if it all naturally fits together.
This variety in tunes does expose some weaknesses on Perpetual Selection, however. Not all influences that Vanta draw from work in their favor. The straight-up metalcore track, “Sandstalker,” sticks out like a sore thumb with its lack of melody or hooks. Sandwiched between two fantastic tunes early on, it threatens to derail the record right from the start. A breakdown halfway through the bloated “Stillwater” is another odd choice; it’s not a metalcore song, so the segment just feels out of place. Yet it’s the penultimate track, “Transmorcide,” that feels the most adrift. It lacks any hooks or leads and seems unsure what it’s trying to do. These issues don’t detract enough to keep Perpetual Selection from being enjoyable and worth checking out, though; they just show opportunities for growth.
Perpetual Selection proves to be a fun record from a new, young band with lots of promise. Vanta shows creative songwriting chops as well as a willingness to stretch out of their comfort zone. Most importantly, they fit nicely in that TBDM sound without being a mere clone. If they hone their talents and skills, they can find a niche in the melodeath realm that TBDM and Inferi have carved, hopefully for many years to come.
Rating: 3.0/5.0
#2026 #30 #Archspire #AustralianMetal #FreedomOfFear #Fulci #Inferi #Insomnium #Mar26 #MelodicDeathMetal #Metalcore #PerpetualSelection #Review #Reviews #SelfReleased #Stortregn #TheBlackDahliaMurder #Vanta #Xenobiotic
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: WAV
Label: Self-Released
Website: Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Site
Releases Worldwide: March 13th, 2026 -
Shine – Wrathcult Review By Grin Reaper
Something must be in the water over in Poland, because the country churns out quality death metal like few others. The phrase ‘Polish death metal’ always grabs my attention, whether it’s technical like early Decapitated, thrashy à la Vader, or as blackened as Behemoth. Such was the case when I espied Shine’s Wrathcult lying unclaimed in the promo bin. The invention of guitarist Tomasz Dobrzeniecki (ex-Hazael), Shine unleashes a Polished debut of blackened death, eliciting prompt comparisons to compatriots Hate and Behemoth. While both provide apt reference points, there’s an acerbic tunefulness that evokes At the Gates and Old Man’s Child, as well. Given the glamor of these benchmarks, does Wrathcult let a light Shine down on Poland’s latest blackened death metal opus?
If you give me a word to sum up Polish metal, I’ll say ‘conviction,’ which Wrathcult oozes with calculated rabidity. Whether brandishing steady chugs, rapid-fire trems, or slinky, groove-infested crawls, Shine feels focused and frothing with finely-tuned fire. Dobrzeniecki’s description of the music and lyrics pins the overarching inspiration of Wrathcult on pre-Christian beliefs and the arcane powers of primeval mysticism, specifically calling out the intersection of ‘Germanic, Norse, and Slavic mythology.’1 While it’s not a theme I would’ve divined on my own, this context adds helpful color once Shine shows me where to look. In particular, the clean singing (“The Lamb Against the Wolf”) and chanting (“The Horror of the Night”) sprinkled throughout Wrathcult often give proceedings a ritualistic zest, culminating in one of my favorite tracks, “The Necklace with Runes.” The clean drawl at the beginning is underscored by finely crafted, deeper vocal layers, and while I’m generally unmoved by rhythmic spoken word, singer Marek Krajcer’s performance reads as a ceremonial incantation, reinforcing Wrathcult’s primordial basis.2
Musically, Shine exhibits a cunning understanding of the crossroads between death metal, black metal, and melody. Besides the cleans, Krajcer projects a deathly growl that’s at once confident, scathing, and commandingly effective throughout Wrathcult. Guitarists Tomasz Dobrzeniecki and Mateusz Waśkiewicz supply equal doses of second-wave fervor and dulcet leads that are as barbed as they are captivating. Mid-album song “Oddajcie co moje” sports not only the hookiest melody of the bunch, but also contains one of the best bass grooves. Though subtle, Wojciech Gąsiorowski’s ambling bass-lines burble and thump with delightful heft, solidifying a resonant dimension on tracks “The Lamb Against the Wolf” and “Wrath of the Hammer.” With the high caliber of musicianship featuring on strings, an anemic drum performance could dull the entire showing. Thankfully, Paweł Duda seizes the opportunity with gusto, lashing his kit with precision strikes. Overall, Shine lays me on the ground with meaty, well-executed performances that belie Wrathcult’s debut status.
While many moments on Wrathcult fly me in the sky, a few aspects creep in and dim the power of Shine’s light. The production bolsters strong performances across the album, allowing proper room for each instrument to gleam—especially the bass. The forty-six-minute runtime keeps Wrathcult digestible, although riff repetition presents an opportunity to trim thirty-to-sixty seconds from several tracks for a tighter experience. And while Shine serves up several great jams on Wrathcult, a few weaker cuts create dips between the peaks of its strongest material. To be clear, there are no bad or inessential songs that I skip,3 but I do find myself waiting out some moments to get to better ones. Still, there’s variety in the songwriting that keeps affairs engaging and blood pumping through Shine’s blackened heart.
Shine’s Wrathcult should garner its fair share of devotees, living up to the high expectations of Polish blackened death. It’s taken many spins to unlock Wrathcult’s otherworldly secrets, and I’m of a mind that there are even more treasures to unearth. Anyone looking for melodious fury and a band with possibilities on the horizon should be paying attention. When I snatched Shine’s debut, I asked myself, ‘What will I find? Will love be there?’ While I can’t guarantee the same results for you, my answer is a resounding, ‘Yeah.’
Rating: Very Good!
#2026 #35 #AtTheGates #Behemoth #BlackMetal #BlackenedDeathMetal #DarkDescentRecords #DeathMetal #Decapitated #Hate #Hazael #Jan26 #OldManSChild #PolishMetal #Review #Reviews #Shine #Vader #Wrathcult
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Dark Descent Records
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: January 30th, 2026