#apr26 — Public Fediverse posts

Manilla Road, Motörhead, and Megaton Sword walk into a bar—Lemmy’s pick, if that helps you picture the place. Someone yells, “cops outside!” The word “cops” clears the room faster than napalm ever could. Stampede. The bands are swept up in the deluge of bodies, bewildered and sweaty. Amidst the chaos, several shuffle into a nearby van. Driving off, they realize that 1) these aren’t their bandmates, 2) this is Di’Anno-era Iron Maiden’s van with their keys and all their equipment left inside, and 3) they picked up Dropkick Murphys somewhere along the way. If this hypothetical group decided to run with it, they would sound like Chariots Overdrive. Hailing from Beijing, China, and currently residing in Atlanta, Georgia, these adherents of the NWoBHM sound old as dirt on their debut, The End of Antiquity, injecting fantastical lyricism inspired by Chinese history and folklore into their mix. But can this van/chariot go the distance, or has this ride seen its last mile?

The End of Antiquity is driven by allegiance to metal in the purest form, and Chariots Overdrive wield it with punk-like tenacity. Speed and belligerence rule The End of Antiquity, embodied in the full-band gang vocals of “Marching Maniacs” and the Dead Kennedys-like discordance of “Parasite.” The belts and snarls singer G.H.Z uses on “A Taikonautic Alchemist” and “Chariots Overdrive”1 would fit as well with Rancid as they do here, and their guitars and bass evoke the aforementioned early Maiden years in the punkish bite (“The End of Antiquity”). Bassist Z.Z.Y lays down aggressively clicky, highly melodic lines across The End of Antiquity, giving Chariots Overdrive a burly-yet-catchy streak akin to Steve Harris’ playing and bolstering G.H.Z and Y.Z’s gnarly dual guitars and W.R.C’s punchy drums into a full-bodied declaration of victory. Chariots Overdrive feel rooted in the simple joy of throwing ragers with the boys, and The End of Antiquity is, if nothing else, a rager.

Chariots Overdrive don’t overcomplicate anything, which is a boon and bane to The End of Antiquity. Most songs play around simple melodies over two to four chords. Guitar solos aren’t flashy on The End of Antiquity, but they’re incisive. When the outcome is exhilarating like “Chariots Overdrive” or Judas Priest-levels of catchy like “Marching Maniacs,” it’s hard to argue. But it also puts the onus of The End of Antiquity’s success on Chariot Overdrive’s performances, which can falter. G.H.Z isn’t a powerhouse vocalist and sounds downright rough at times, especially where Chariot Overdrive attempt harmonization, such as the chorus of “A Taikonautic Alchemist.” It also means that, despite the album’s lean runtime, The End of Antiquity sounds somewhat exhausted by the time “Nomadic Warfare” and the title track appear, as their hooks are comparatively weaker to the rest of the record. I’m all for simplifying something for the sake of effectiveness, but what’s left has to be as tight as you can make it. In this regard, Chariots Overdrive can improve.

What Chariots Overdrive need is a more refined identity. Like early Iron Maiden, Chariots Overdrive seem to strive towards a dirty-yet-sophisticated sound and theming, evidenced by the fingerstyle guitar and serene bass-and-piano interludes of “Where Dust Reigns” and “Sunken Throb,”2 but these instrumentals’ moods aren’t matched or mirrored by the rest of the album and feel tacked-on as a result. The standout, 12-minute song “A Bizarre Pilgrimage to the Cubik Mansion” hints at what Chariots Overdrive can do, as the band navigates artfully between Motörhead’s hyped-up rock n’ roll and Black Sabbathian gloomy doom.3 But the track buckles a bit under its weight by the end and feels done a few minutes before it’s over. Chariots Overdrive are engaging by grit and energy, but without a solid grasp on what exactly they are doing, The End of Antiquity can only be a fun-but-flawed work when taken as a whole.

The End of Antiquity has some flaws, but I still like where the Chariots Overdrive van is going. If you like any of the bands mentioned above it’s a safe bet you’ll get something out of this. There’s obvious chemistry between the band, and their debut has plenty of good moments throughout that are both fun in the present and hint towards a stronger future. I don’t want Chariots Overdrive to give up on what they’re doing, but if they can merge their punk hooliganism with the finesse they aspire towards in the next album, it’ll be a hit. There’s a lot of highway ahead, but this chariot’s got tread to spare yet.

Rating: Mixed
DR: 84 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps MP3
Label: Gates of Hell Records
Websites: chariotsoverdrive.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/chariotsoverdrive
Releases Worldwide: April 3rd, 20265

The thing I am most afraid of is losing my mind. The progressive destruction dementia wreaks upon a brain is upsetting enough to endure from the outside, but the horror of that brain potentially being mine is a thought that keeps me up at night. While not explicitly about dementia, To Become the Endless Static follows the disintegration of a person’s mind as “[a]ll pathways, dreams and connections to what once formed their identity spiral down, merging into the great nothing, the endless static.” It’s a frightening, abstract concept that naturally suits Aversio Humanitatis’ brand of freeform dissonant black metal, which here takes a turn for the still more intense and unsettling. The group have garnered a reputation for long rumination between releases, and though not everyone might agree, 2020’s Behold the Silent Dwellers demonstrated the fruitfulness of this approach with its nine-year-awaited greatness. Six years on, with the sophomore but a shadow in the nebulous past, the apparition of Endless Static portended greatness once more, in addition to a genuinely scary theme. I was only too happy to indulge my masochism.

Much like the march of time and an incurable disease, Endless Static does not wait until you’re ready before attacking. “Long Stretch the Shadows” threatens whiplash as it erupts off the start line with relentless percussion and tremolos bending at uncomfortable angles. It epitomises the shift in Aversio Humanitatis’ already extreme and dissonant style towards a still more complex, confrontational, and often faster version of itself, which dominates across the album. Rhythms shift more frequently, and the distortion wrought by the layering of agonised roars and churning riffs is more clamorous; even the slower aspects are more haunting. Endless Static sees a leaning into a chaotic splendour akin to a sped-up Patristic, a more acerbic Schammasch, rendered in a deceptively melodic, deeply atmospheric way that at turns also recalls Aeviterne and Selbst. But Aversio Humanitatis prefer to create their mournfulness and urgency by disguising it as dissonance in a way distinct from any of the above. Endless Static is a masterful distillation of this practice: a soundscape whose violently aversive face admits more honesty and beauty the more you allow it.

Endless Static doesn’t just embody its concept generally; it lives it viscerally. The lurching of discordant scales (title track, “Blackened Mold Marrow”), and repeated strip-back and surge in of percussion (“Long Stretch…,” “Collapsing into the Resonance”) is upsetting yet mesmerising. And its transformation into a stumbling sway (“Strange Angles,” “The White Noise is Calling”) elevates unease with doubt. Shuddering, multitracked screams, cymbals panting like laboured breaths, and disorienting rhythm and riff patterns (“Strange Angles,” “Blackened Mold Marrow”) express the nightmare of incurable confusion. The soft creep of a melancholic tremolo behind the recurrent tumbles of percussion, and the bleeding of their melody into the pervasive atmosphere (title track, “Collapsing…”) communicate the grief of loss and the fear of the future. These patterns develop with the runtime too: the tightness with which harmony is sealed into overtly cold guitar lines slowly loosens and vocals slip more frequently into a desperate, anguished wail, culminating in the stirring lead melodies and devastating resistance of closing duo “The White Noise…” and “Collapsing…” All the while, the terror-amplifying resonance of the vocals and sinister edge to the riffs never ceases to feel frightening. But Aversio Humanitatis’ ability to shape these dissonant waves of assault into something beautiful without compromising on this affecting frightfulness makes Endless Static greatly more compelling than it otherwise might have been.

That Aversio Humanitatis can communicate all this so compellingly in a mere 35 minutes makes it that much more impactful. The speed at which “Long Stretch…”‘s confrontational unease becomes the ardour-filled protest “Collapsing…” is upsetting—another metaphor perhaps. This brings me to my only real complaint about Endless Static, which is how short it is; though I suppose it’s better to have brilliance and be left hungry than have a flawed abundance. I must, more importantly, draw attention to the drumming—courtesy of J.H—that rivals last year’s Patristic in its tenacity, dynamism, and unhinged precision whilst being so ridiculously fast and expressive (“Blackened Mold Marrow” has my jaw on the floor). Its speed and violence play no small part in Endless Static’s horror. I am also sometimes drawn to wonder if vocalist A.M is actually undergoing some phantasmagorical transformation, so wild and terrifying are his howls.

Dissonant black metal bands and degenerative diseases operate in the shadows, but Aversio Humanitatis now, if never before, deserves all the light we can cast on them. But more likely that this hypnotically horrifying work will yank you violently into its darkness. Harrowingly inexorable even in its brevity, one can’t escape the draw To Become the Endless Static.

Rating: Excellent
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Debemur Morti Productions
Websites: Official | Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: April 24th, 2026

Sicarius hit the ground raging in 2017 when the Californian black metal upstarts released their scathingly vicious debut album, Serenade of Slitting Throats, which captured the metal heart of AMG’s Diabolus in Muzaka, earning a coveted 4.0. Sicarius’s sophomore effort, 2020’s God of Dead Roots, didn’t fare as well; the band, adjusting to the departure of founding guitarist Argyris, ultimately turned in a less visceral, more workmanlike product. Then, when original drummer Brandon Zackay left to focus on his career in Whitechapel, and the other members exited, both voluntarily and not, Sicarius ostensibly died, leaving God of Dead Roots an unanticipated swan song. Fast forward to 2024, when Argyris reunited with original bassist Carnage and joined forces with new vocalist Akéfalos and session drummer Levi Xvl to begin recording a third album, Nex, which, after six long years, has arrived to reintroduce this risen phoenix iteration of Sicarius to the masses.

Sicarius the resurrected doesn’t sound much different than Sicarius the dead. Nex adheres to the same modern black metal formula as its predecessors, maintaining channels of influence drawn from Dissection, Dark Funeral, Urgehal, and, despite Mick Kenney’s departure from the booth, Anaal Nathrakh. In keeping with their monikers’ Latin translation, Sicarius brings an assassin’s cache of weaponry to bear. Argyris sounds rejuvenated and lethal, his armory of blistering riffage (“Cold Death,” “No Witnesses”), chaotically tremolodic leads (“Nex”), and nifty solo work (“Crashing Into the Abyss”) on full display.1 Newcomer Akéfalos adds a layer of frigidity to Nex’s surgical, cold-steel across a warm-throat sound, his icy, high-pitched screeches a mix of Abbath and Hat from early Gorgoroth, while his low-bellied growls are reminiscent of Rotting Christ. Nex has the sound of a band pissed, Sicarius attempting to bury the remnants of what was for something altogether more destructive.

Nex by Sicarius

There’s no doubt Sicarius is exceptionally capable of speed, but for my money, I connected most with Nex’s melodies and mixed paces. Beginning with a brooding, tremoloed guitar melody, “Opened Obsidian Gateways” uses Sargeistian levels of repetition to drive its earwormy chord progressions home, a variation employed during the verses and identically replicated during the bridge before sliding into a nice, mid-song chug section and then back again. Simple yet effective, the song’s a highlight as I found myself humming the melody randomly throughout the day. Also noteworthy are the slow-moving melodic chords of “Banshee,” which gave off Dissection vibes, and the mid-paced marcher “The Hunger We Cannot Sate,” as it gallops along in true Watain fashion, instigating black-n-roll levels of head bobbery over its 5:24 runtime. There’s a lot of musical nuance woven into the details of Nex; my many play-throughs tell me as much, which makes it all the more disappointing that it’s so hard to hear them.

“With a (t)reble yell she cried, NO more, more, more.” I’ve taken some slight liberties with Mr. Idol’s classic lyric to illustrate Nex’s most glaring flaw: a thin, imbalanced mix. Nex sounds much louder than its DR score might suggest. Serenade of Slitting Throats, for instance, with a DR lower than Nex’s, sounds light years warmer because Kenney was able to give Serenade’s lower tones some weight. Nex is nearly devoid of low end, completely negating anything Carnage is doing on bass and robbing much of Levi Xvl’s bass drum work of power, making for an extremely exhausting experience. I had to break my focused listening sessions up, in fact, because trying to listen through all 44:10 of Nex’s runtime left me so audially spent that I was reaching for aspirin. Whether this was a deliberate choice, I don’t know. It sure lends Sicarius an icier-than-thou edge, as much black metal of this ilk is known for, but it really robbed a large portion of my enjoyment, which sucks because, in bite-sized pieces, Nex is actually a pretty decent album.

Sicarius has returned with a vengeance and a we’re-not-fucking-around attitude, as evidenced in no small part by that brutally distinctive cover art. Alongside other bands like Impious Throne, Unholy Altar and Wuldorgast, Sicarius is bringing a sense of menace back to the US black metal scene. Nex is an album worth spinning, despite being hampered by a production that makes it too tiring to listen to in a single sitting, which left me to score it thusly. Still, I’ll be keeping my eyes and ears peeled for the next outing.

Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320kbps mp3
Label: Adirondack Black Mass | Bandcamp (album)
Websites: Bandcamp | Instagram
Releases Worldwide: April 10th, 2026