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Aucausal Intrusion – Vomit Meditations Review

In an act of unconscious serendipity, shortly before beginning this review, I re-read Jean-Paul Sartre’s Nausea. The seren…
#NewsBeep #News #Music #2026 #3.5 #AcausalIntrusion #AdNauseum #AmericanMetal #BlackMetal #CosmicPutrefaction #DeathMetal #DissonantDeathMetal #Entertainment #experimentaldeathmetal #I #Portal #review #Reviews #Sep26 #technicaldeathmetal #UK #UnitedKingdom #VoidhangerRecords #VomitMeditations
https://www.newsbeep.com/uk/760414/

https://www.europesays.com/uk/1187169/ Aucausal Intrusion – Vomit Meditations Review #2026 #35 #AcausalIntrusion #AdNauseum #AmericanMetal #BlackMetal #CosmicPutrefaction #DeathMetal #DissonantDeathMetal #Entertainment #ExperimentalDeathMetal #I #music #Portal #Review #Reviews #Sep26 #TechnicalDeathMetal #UK #UnitedKingdom #VoidhangerRecords #VomitMeditations

In an act of unconscious serendipity, shortly before beginning this review, I re-read Jean-Paul Sartre’s Nausea. The serendipity is not in the proximity between Nausea and Vomit—though that’s also interesting—but in a particular manner of revelation. There’s a part in the book where our protagonist, suddenly seized by a violent attack of his titular malaise, rushes near-blindly through the streets, and his thoughts become fragmented into repetitive near-word-association as he begins to confront the horror of things existing.1 The lyrics of Acausal Intrusion’s fourth album, Vomit Meditations, are disjointed and uncanny in precisely this sense; reading them instantly linked these two works in my mind. The music itself is no less viscerally chaotic and confrontational, as the duo step into what’s possibly the heaviest and strangest iteration of their already intense and avant-garde sound so far—one which pairs perfectly with a life-altering existential crisis.

Vomit Meditations lives up to its moniker as it sees Acausal Intrusion’s signature hyper-dissonance and unsettling contemplativeness contorted into a bizarre series of violent spewings, punctuated by uneasy moments of reflective resonance, even beauty, to which Panpsychism’s doomier shades are confined, channeled through the acoustic and ambient. The free-jazz influence is stark, and not only in the prominence of piano in the album’s stiller passages (“Vomit Meditation,” “Psychic Abolishment”). Twisted guitar lines—more Cosmic Putrefaction or Ad Nauseum than Gorguts—writhe up and down and in and out of focus above the churning miasma of impossible tempos and abyssal belches—unheard this side of Portal—their seeming stochasticism belied as they coalesce into a shape more than their sum. Spasmodic scales and sudden lead switches from which one reflexively recoils start to make sense, and the real melodicisms that arise over the runtime grow more apparent. Recurring seizures of percussion grow hypnotic as the curve of their circularity becomes clear (“Convex Hidden Echoes”), and a ringing mass of wails and riffs rises until the overlapping tones produce the illusion of symphonics (“Psychic Abolishment”). The barrier to entry remains high, but the rewards are significant.

It’s in this paradox of chaotic reasoning where Vomit Meditations develops its vice grip. With alluring psychedelic rock (“Vomit Meditation”) it beckons its subject in, and with a chilling nocturne it leads them to the final, most awful revelation of all (“Psychic Abolishment”). With barely a beat between the unironic beauty and the hellish cacophony, the latter in particular gains near-transcendence. Although the album is marked by repeated 180-degree turns in rhythm (most aggressive on “Usurping Vaporous Primal Vibrations” and “Convex Hidden Echoes”), it has an unexplainable almost groove, which actually becomes explicit at times (“Vital Transformation”), and the endless about-turns and restless rolling and crashing morph into a hideously compelling dance (“Vomit Meditation,” “Requiem Murmur”). Once again, I struggle to believe drummer and vocalist Cave Ritual’s humanity, hearing such things. Although guitars jump in and out of focus (“Usurping…,” “Psychic Abolishment”) with riffs mostly possessing a stabbing, dragging, flailing discordance as though Nythroth’s fingers were strangling the very instrument used to produce them, their purpose never fails to manifest in the organic yet unpredictable shapes they create (“Convex…,” “Requiem Murmur”). Plus, there’s a lot more melody infused into the music than an uncritical ear would like to acknowledge (“Vomit Meditation,” “Vital Transformation”).

Vomit Meditations also largely improves on areas where previous records fell short. It flows with remarkable ease considering its freeform style and considerable 50-minute runtime and grows more compelling as it progresses. The second half’s superiority is arguably down to paying off what is better than the first in pacing, intrigue, and memorability, though arguably this is dependent on the first half having set up the themes it pays off. The production, continuing to be rich and dynamic for death metal but with the vocals and drums relatively forward, works better than it has previously. I’d recommend listening on a pair of good headphones that will enable you to catch the myriad horrors occurring within the soundscape. Nonetheless, the mix, as well as the relentless complexity and improvisational feel, will persist in alienating many listeners. Though Acausal Intrusion distinguish themselves from the ultra-extreme-for-extremity’s sake crowd by demonstrating that they can turn apparent randomness into a form of reason, they could perhaps tone it down just a tad.

Vomit Meditations is Acausal Intrusion’s best album. Some will interpret this as damning with faint praise an album in a discography otherwise too ugly and over the top to be good. I mean it quite differently. Vomit Meditations is violently, masochistically enjoyable and multifaceted and arresting, and it gets better on each spin. It requires a certain receptiveness—what experimental extreme metal doesn’t—and Acausal Intrusion will maintain a modest following, but its mania feels so deliciously meaningful I don’t even want to try escaping it.

Rating: Very Good2
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 256 kbps mp3
Label: I, Voidhanger Records
Website: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: September 4th, 2026

In an act of unconscious serendipity, shortly before beginning this review, I re-read Jean-Paul Sartre’s Nausea. The serendipity is not in the proximity between Nausea and Vomit—though that’s also interesting—but in a particular manner of revelation. There’s a part in the book where our protagonist, suddenly seized by a violent attack of his titular malaise, rushes near-blindly through the streets, and his thoughts become fragmented into repetitive near-word-association as he begins to confront the horror of things existing.1 The lyrics of Acausal Intrusion’s fourth album, Vomit Meditations, are disjointed and uncanny in precisely this sense; reading them instantly linked these two works in my mind. The music itself is no less viscerally chaotic and confrontational, as the duo step into what’s possibly the heaviest and strangest iteration of their already intense and avant-garde sound so far—one which pairs perfectly with a life-altering existential crisis.

Vomit Meditations lives up to its moniker as it sees Acausal Intrusion’s signature hyper-dissonance and unsettling contemplativeness contorted into a bizarre series of violent spewings, punctuated by uneasy moments of reflective resonance, even beauty, to which Panpsychism’s doomier shades are confined, channeled through the acoustic and ambient. The free-jazz influence is stark, and not only in the prominence of piano in the album’s stiller passages (“Vomit Meditation,” “Psychic Abolishment”). Twisted guitar lines—more Cosmic Putrefaction or Ad Nauseum than Gorguts—writhe up and down and in and out of focus above the churning miasma of impossible tempos and abyssal belches—unheard this side of Portal—their seeming stochasticism belied as they coalesce into a shape more than their sum. Spasmodic scales and sudden lead switches from which one reflexively recoils start to make sense, and the real melodicisms that arise over the runtime grow more apparent. Recurring seizures of percussion grow hypnotic as the curve of their circularity becomes clear (“Convex Hidden Echoes”), and a ringing mass of wails and riffs rises until the overlapping tones produce the illusion of symphonics (“Psychic Abolishment”). The barrier to entry remains high, but the rewards are significant.

It’s in this paradox of chaotic reasoning where Vomit Meditations develops its vice grip. With alluring psychedelic rock (“Vomit Meditation”) it beckons its subject in, and with a chilling nocturne it leads them to the final, most awful revelation of all (“Psychic Abolishment”). With barely a beat between the unironic beauty and the hellish cacophony, the latter in particular gains near-transcendence. Although the album is marked by repeated 180-degree turns in rhythm (most aggressive on “Usurping Vaporous Primal Vibrations” and “Convex Hidden Echoes”), it has an unexplainable almost groove, which actually becomes explicit at times (“Vital Transformation”), and the endless about-turns and restless rolling and crashing morph into a hideously compelling dance (“Vomit Meditation,” “Requiem Murmur”). Once again, I struggle to believe drummer and vocalist Cave Ritual’s humanity, hearing such things. Although guitars jump in and out of focus (“Usurping…,” “Psychic Abolishment”) with riffs mostly possessing a stabbing, dragging, flailing discordance as though Nythroth’s fingers were strangling the very instrument used to produce them, their purpose never fails to manifest in the organic yet unpredictable shapes they create (“Convex…,” “Requiem Murmur”). Plus, there’s a lot more melody infused into the music than an uncritical ear would like to acknowledge (“Vomit Meditation,” “Vital Transformation”).

Vomit Meditations also largely improves on areas where previous records fell short. It flows with remarkable ease considering its freeform style and considerable 50-minute runtime and grows more compelling as it progresses. The second half’s superiority is arguably down to paying off what is better than the first in pacing, intrigue, and memorability, though arguably this is dependent on the first half having set up the themes it pays off. The production, continuing to be rich and dynamic for death metal but with the vocals and drums relatively forward, works better than it has previously. I’d recommend listening on a pair of good headphones that will enable you to catch the myriad horrors occurring within the soundscape. Nonetheless, the mix, as well as the relentless complexity and improvisational feel, will persist in alienating many listeners. Though Acausal Intrusion distinguish themselves from the ultra-extreme-for-extremity’s sake crowd by demonstrating that they can turn apparent randomness into a form of reason, they could perhaps tone it down just a tad.

Vomit Meditations is Acausal Intrusion’s best album. Some will interpret this as damning with faint praise an album in a discography otherwise too ugly and over the top to be good. I mean it quite differently. Vomit Meditations is violently, masochistically enjoyable and multifaceted and arresting, and it gets better on each spin. It requires a certain receptiveness—what experimental extreme metal doesn’t—and Acausal Intrusion will maintain a modest following, but its mania feels so deliciously meaningful I don’t even want to try escaping it.

Rating: Very Good2
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 256 kbps mp3
Label: I, Voidhanger Records
Website: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: September 4th, 2026

In an act of unconscious serendipity, shortly before beginning this review, I re-read Jean-Paul Sartre’s Nausea. The serendipity is not in the proximity between Nausea and Vomit—though that’s also interesting—but in a particular manner of revelation. There’s a part in the book where our protagonist, suddenly seized by a violent attack of his titular malaise, rushes near-blindly through the streets, and his thoughts become fragmented into repetitive near-word-association as he begins to confront the horror of things existing.1 The lyrics of Acausal Intrusion’s fourth album, Vomit Meditations, are disjointed and uncanny in precisely this sense; reading them instantly linked these two works in my mind. The music itself is no less viscerally chaotic and confrontational, as the duo step into what’s possibly the heaviest and strangest iteration of their already intense and avant-garde sound so far—one which pairs perfectly with a life-altering existential crisis.

Vomit Meditations lives up to its moniker as it sees Acausal Intrusion’s signature hyper-dissonance and unsettling contemplativeness contorted into a bizarre series of violent spewings, punctuated by uneasy moments of reflective resonance, even beauty, to which Panpsychism’s doomier shades are confined, channeled through the acoustic and ambient. The free-jazz influence is stark, and not only in the prominence of piano in the album’s stiller passages (“Vomit Meditation,” “Psychic Abolishment”). Twisted guitar lines—more Cosmic Putrefaction or Ad Nauseum than Gorguts—writhe up and down and in and out of focus above the churning miasma of impossible tempos and abyssal belches—unheard this side of Portal—their seeming stochasticism belied as they coalesce into a shape more than their sum. Spasmodic scales and sudden lead switches from which one reflexively recoils start to make sense, and the real melodicisms that arise over the runtime grow more apparent. Recurring seizures of percussion grow hypnotic as the curve of their circularity becomes clear (“Convex Hidden Echoes”), and a ringing mass of wails and riffs rises until the overlapping tones produce the illusion of symphonics (“Psychic Abolishment”). The barrier to entry remains high, but the rewards are significant.

It’s in this paradox of chaotic reasoning where Vomit Meditations develops its vice grip. With alluring psychedelic rock (“Vomit Meditation”) it beckons its subject in, and with a chilling nocturne it leads them to the final, most awful revelation of all (“Psychic Abolishment”). With barely a beat between the unironic beauty and the hellish cacophony, the latter in particular gains near-transcendence. Although the album is marked by repeated 180-degree turns in rhythm (most aggressive on “Usurping Vaporous Primal Vibrations” and “Convex Hidden Echoes”), it has an unexplainable almost groove, which actually becomes explicit at times (“Vital Transformation”), and the endless about-turns and restless rolling and crashing morph into a hideously compelling dance (“Vomit Meditation,” “Requiem Murmur”). Once again, I struggle to believe drummer and vocalist Cave Ritual’s humanity, hearing such things. Although guitars jump in and out of focus (“Usurping…,” “Psychic Abolishment”) with riffs mostly possessing a stabbing, dragging, flailing discordance as though Nythroth’s fingers were strangling the very instrument used to produce them, their purpose never fails to manifest in the organic yet unpredictable shapes they create (“Convex…,” “Requiem Murmur”). Plus, there’s a lot more melody infused into the music than an uncritical ear would like to acknowledge (“Vomit Meditation,” “Vital Transformation”).

Vomit Meditations also largely improves on areas where previous records fell short. It flows with remarkable ease considering its freeform style and considerable 50-minute runtime and grows more compelling as it progresses. The second half’s superiority is arguably down to paying off what is better than the first in pacing, intrigue, and memorability, though arguably this is dependent on the first half having set up the themes it pays off. The production, continuing to be rich and dynamic for death metal but with the vocals and drums relatively forward, works better than it has previously. I’d recommend listening on a pair of good headphones that will enable you to catch the myriad horrors occurring within the soundscape. Nonetheless, the mix, as well as the relentless complexity and improvisational feel, will persist in alienating many listeners. Though Acausal Intrusion distinguish themselves from the ultra-extreme-for-extremity’s sake crowd by demonstrating that they can turn apparent randomness into a form of reason, they could perhaps tone it down just a tad.

Vomit Meditations is Acausal Intrusion’s best album. Some will interpret this as damning with faint praise an album in a discography otherwise too ugly and over the top to be good. I mean it quite differently. Vomit Meditations is violently, masochistically enjoyable and multifaceted and arresting, and it gets better on each spin. It requires a certain receptiveness—what experimental extreme metal doesn’t—and Acausal Intrusion will maintain a modest following, but its mania feels so deliciously meaningful I don’t even want to try escaping it.

Rating: Very Good2
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 256 kbps mp3
Label: I, Voidhanger Records
Website: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: September 4th, 2026

In an act of unconscious serendipity, shortly before beginning this review, I re-read Jean-Paul Sartre’s Nausea. The serendipity is not in the proximity between Nausea and Vomit—though that’s also interesting—but in a particular manner of revelation. There’s a part in the book where our protagonist, suddenly seized by a violent attack of his titular malaise, rushes near-blindly through the streets, and his thoughts become fragmented into repetitive near-word-association as he begins to confront the horror of things existing.1 The lyrics of Acausal Intrusion’s fourth album, Vomit Meditations, are disjointed and uncanny in precisely this sense; reading them instantly linked these two works in my mind. The music itself is no less viscerally chaotic and confrontational, as the duo step into what’s possibly the heaviest and strangest iteration of their already intense and avant-garde sound so far—one which pairs perfectly with a life-altering existential crisis.

Vomit Meditations lives up to its moniker as it sees Acausal Intrusion’s signature hyper-dissonance and unsettling contemplativeness contorted into a bizarre series of violent spewings, punctuated by uneasy moments of reflective resonance, even beauty, to which Panpsychism’s doomier shades are confined, channeled through the acoustic and ambient. The free-jazz influence is stark, and not only in the prominence of piano in the album’s stiller passages (“Vomit Meditation,” “Psychic Abolishment”). Twisted guitar lines—more Cosmic Putrefaction or Ad Nauseum than Gorguts—writhe up and down and in and out of focus above the churning miasma of impossible tempos and abyssal belches—unheard this side of Portal—their seeming stochasticism belied as they coalesce into a shape more than their sum. Spasmodic scales and sudden lead switches from which one reflexively recoils start to make sense, and the real melodicisms that arise over the runtime grow more apparent. Recurring seizures of percussion grow hypnotic as the curve of their circularity becomes clear (“Convex Hidden Echoes”), and a ringing mass of wails and riffs rises until the overlapping tones produce the illusion of symphonics (“Psychic Abolishment”). The barrier to entry remains high, but the rewards are significant.

It’s in this paradox of chaotic reasoning where Vomit Meditations develops its vice grip. With alluring psychedelic rock (“Vomit Meditation”) it beckons its subject in, and with a chilling nocturne it leads them to the final, most awful revelation of all (“Psychic Abolishment”). With barely a beat between the unironic beauty and the hellish cacophony, the latter in particular gains near-transcendence. Although the album is marked by repeated 180-degree turns in rhythm (most aggressive on “Usurping Vaporous Primal Vibrations” and “Convex Hidden Echoes”), it has an unexplainable almost groove, which actually becomes explicit at times (“Vital Transformation”), and the endless about-turns and restless rolling and crashing morph into a hideously compelling dance (“Vomit Meditation,” “Requiem Murmur”). Once again, I struggle to believe drummer and vocalist Cave Ritual’s humanity, hearing such things. Although guitars jump in and out of focus (“Usurping…,” “Psychic Abolishment”) with riffs mostly possessing a stabbing, dragging, flailing discordance as though Nythroth’s fingers were strangling the very instrument used to produce them, their purpose never fails to manifest in the organic yet unpredictable shapes they create (“Convex…,” “Requiem Murmur”). Plus, there’s a lot more melody infused into the music than an uncritical ear would like to acknowledge (“Vomit Meditation,” “Vital Transformation”).

Vomit Meditations also largely improves on areas where previous records fell short. It flows with remarkable ease considering its freeform style and considerable 50-minute runtime and grows more compelling as it progresses. The second half’s superiority is arguably down to paying off what is better than the first in pacing, intrigue, and memorability, though arguably this is dependent on the first half having set up the themes it pays off. The production, continuing to be rich and dynamic for death metal but with the vocals and drums relatively forward, works better than it has previously. I’d recommend listening on a pair of good headphones that will enable you to catch the myriad horrors occurring within the soundscape. Nonetheless, the mix, as well as the relentless complexity and improvisational feel, will persist in alienating many listeners. Though Acausal Intrusion distinguish themselves from the ultra-extreme-for-extremity’s sake crowd by demonstrating that they can turn apparent randomness into a form of reason, they could perhaps tone it down just a tad.

Vomit Meditations is Acausal Intrusion’s best album. Some will interpret this as damning with faint praise an album in a discography otherwise too ugly and over the top to be good. I mean it quite differently. Vomit Meditations is violently, masochistically enjoyable and multifaceted and arresting, and it gets better on each spin. It requires a certain receptiveness—what experimental extreme metal doesn’t—and Acausal Intrusion will maintain a modest following, but its mania feels so deliciously meaningful I don’t even want to try escaping it.

Rating: Very Good2
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 256 kbps mp3
Label: I, Voidhanger Records
Website: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: September 4th, 2026

https://www.europesays.com/ie/607091/ Nothingness – Godslaughter Review | Angry Metal Guy #2026 #40 #A24OSDM #Autopsy #BlackSabbath #DissonantDeathMetal #Éire #Entertainment #EverlastingSpewRecords #Godslaughter #Gorguts #IE #Ireland #Jul26 #Music #Nightmarer #Nothingness #OSDM #Sextet

Nothingness – Godslaughter Review | Angry Metal Guy

If there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s that Supraliminal, the 2023 album from death metal…
#NewsBeep #News #Technology #2026 #4.0 #A24OSDM #Autopsy #BlackSabbath #DissonantDeathMetal #EverlastingSpewRecords #GB #Godslaughter #Gorguts #Jul26 #Nightmarer #Nothingness #OSDM #Sextet #UK #UnitedKingdom
https://www.newsbeep.com/uk/714178/

If there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s that Supraliminal, the 2023 album from death metal act Nothingness, is worthy of a 2.5 and no other rating. I know of no faction that holds it in higher esteem, am aware of no lack of consensus surrounding Felagund’s review–Oh wait just a second. I reviewed the tomes and scrolls, and it seems there was a shitstorm surrounding these guys. The comment section went to war on behalf of this Minnesota sextet’s brand of A24 OSDM.1 Steel Druhm juuuuust managed to put down a revolution, but the bonfire roared anew when Kenstrosity named Supraliminal his Record o’the Year. In the years since, a fragile peace has held… until now. Nothingness is back with their hard-charging third album Godslaughter, threatening the status quo and giving us the chance to pick old scabs and answer lingering questions. The most urgent of these: who was right?

Godslaughter is a vile piece of work, even meaner and more antisocial than its predecessor. Nothingness hasn’t abandoned the ambition that led Kenstrosity to describe their style as “caveman death with a university degree.” The band still brings some of the inventive brio of Gorguts or Nightmarer to a ferocious overall vibe that recalls a less theatrical Autopsy. This latest offering manages to double down on aggression while expanding Nothingness’s sonic palette and the range of their songwriting. If you can survive the onslaught of an opening run that includes the platter’s first two singles (“Skull Evulsion,” “Trenchant Glunch”), these grander designs reveal themselves. The album as a whole is an exhilarating run through nine well-sequenced tracks, seasoned with a flair for composition that makes the verdict clear: Godslaughter is a roaring return and a death metal ripper.

Godslaughter unfolds in three acts. The first commences with the sucker punch that is “Incinerated Immediately,” then proceeds through three additional tracks that lay you flat and kick you around for a while. “Vanquishing Providence” slows things to a crawl to “welcome” you to a middle section that’s built around longer and more varied songs. It’s here that you’ll find the slab’s most ambitious compositions, a pair of seven minute epics that go from first to fifth gear with no thought spared for the health of your spine. Nothingness throws in everything they’ve got and a few new tricks to boot, up to and including the bonging Black Sabbath bell that punctuates “Divine Irresponsibility.” A spoken word sample kicks off “Incredible Violence” and ushers you into the third act of the album. Sonic experimentation worms its way into these three selections, which essentially split the difference between parts one and two of the slab.

The album organizes itself into distinct segments, but Godslaughter’s forty-minute entirety remains a cohesive listen. The songs are united by a harsh but thoughtful production. Alex Walstad’s guitars flirt with peaking on tracks like “Incinerated Immediately” and “Umbral Spear,” but it all feels intentional. While there’s no credited producer, returning engineer Adam Tucker knows when to give space and clarity to a riff and when to noisemaxx. Barclay Olson, who is the vocalist for a death metal outfit and not the CFO of a private equity fund, lacks some variety in his attack. His roars do threaten to get repetitive, but the intensity of the music and the concise run time keep things at a rolling boil.

It’s a delicate alchemy, trying to combine familiar influences and elements into something that feels novel. Nothingness has pulled it off for two albums running. With Supraliminal and now Godslaughter, these merchants of digressive death submit a pair of long players to get your neurons firing even as they power wash your central nervous system. Like its predecessor, Godslaughter leaves a rancid mouthfeel behind as it rants its way toward Listurnalia. I’ll probably return to Supraliminal more than I do Godslaughter, so I won’t quibble if you want to ding the new slab by half a point. But all in all, Godslaughter is about as good as their last one.2

Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Everlasting Spew Records
Websites: nothingness.bandcamp.com|nothingnessisdeath.com
Releases Worldwide: July 31, 2026

If there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s that Supraliminal, the 2023 album from death metal act Nothingness, is worthy of a 2.5 and no other rating. I know of no faction that holds it in higher esteem, am aware of no lack of consensus surrounding Felagund’s review–Oh wait just a second. I reviewed the tomes and scrolls, and it seems there was a shitstorm surrounding these guys. The comment section went to war on behalf of this Minnesota sextet’s brand of A24 OSDM.1 Steel Druhm juuuuust managed to put down a revolution, but the bonfire roared anew when Kenstrosity named Supraliminal his Record o’the Year. In the years since, a fragile peace has held… until now. Nothingness is back with their hard-charging third album Godslaughter, threatening the status quo and giving us the chance to pick old scabs and answer lingering questions. The most urgent of these: who was right?

Godslaughter is a vile piece of work, even meaner and more antisocial than its predecessor. Nothingness hasn’t abandoned the ambition that led Kenstrosity to describe their style as “caveman death with a university degree.” The band still brings some of the inventive brio of Gorguts or Nightmarer to a ferocious overall vibe that recalls a less theatrical Autopsy. This latest offering manages to double down on aggression while expanding Nothingness’s sonic palette and the range of their songwriting. If you can survive the onslaught of an opening run that includes the platter’s first two singles (“Skull Evulsion,” “Trenchant Glunch”), these grander designs reveal themselves. The album as a whole is an exhilarating run through nine well-sequenced tracks, seasoned with a flair for composition that makes the verdict clear: Godslaughter is a roaring return and a death metal ripper.

Godslaughter unfolds in three acts. The first commences with the sucker punch that is “Incinerated Immediately,” then proceeds through three additional tracks that lay you flat and kick you around for a while. “Vanquishing Providence” slows things to a crawl to “welcome” you to a middle section that’s built around longer and more varied songs. It’s here that you’ll find the slab’s most ambitious compositions, a pair of seven minute epics that go from first to fifth gear with no thought spared for the health of your spine. Nothingness throws in everything they’ve got and a few new tricks to boot, up to and including the bonging Black Sabbath bell that punctuates “Divine Irresponsibility.” A spoken word sample kicks off “Incredible Violence” and ushers you into the third act of the album. Sonic experimentation worms its way into these three selections, which essentially split the difference between parts one and two of the slab.

The album organizes itself into distinct segments, but Godslaughter’s forty-minute entirety remains a cohesive listen. The songs are united by a harsh but thoughtful production. Alex Walstad’s guitars flirt with peaking on tracks like “Incinerated Immediately” and “Umbral Spear,” but it all feels intentional. While there’s no credited producer, returning engineer Adam Tucker knows when to give space and clarity to a riff and when to noisemaxx. Barclay Olson, who is the vocalist for a death metal outfit and not the CFO of a private equity fund, lacks some variety in his attack. His roars do threaten to get repetitive, but the intensity of the music and the concise run time keep things at a rolling boil.

It’s a delicate alchemy, trying to combine familiar influences and elements into something that feels novel. Nothingness has pulled it off for two albums running. With Supraliminal and now Godslaughter, these merchants of digressive death submit a pair of long players to get your neurons firing even as they power wash your central nervous system. Like its predecessor, Godslaughter leaves a rancid mouthfeel behind as it rants its way toward Listurnalia. I’ll probably return to Supraliminal more than I do Godslaughter, so I won’t quibble if you want to ding the new slab by half a point. But all in all, Godslaughter is about as good as their last one.2

Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Everlasting Spew Records
Websites: nothingness.bandcamp.com|nothingnessisdeath.com
Releases Worldwide: July 31, 2026

If there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s that Supraliminal, the 2023 album from death metal act Nothingness, is worthy of a 2.5 and no other rating. I know of no faction that holds it in higher esteem, am aware of no lack of consensus surrounding Felagund’s review–Oh wait just a second. I reviewed the tomes and scrolls, and it seems there was a shitstorm surrounding these guys. The comment section went to war on behalf of this Minnesota sextet’s brand of A24 OSDM.1 Steel Druhm juuuuust managed to put down a revolution, but the bonfire roared anew when Kenstrosity named Supraliminal his Record o’the Year. In the years since, a fragile peace has held… until now. Nothingness is back with their hard-charging third album Godslaughter, threatening the status quo and giving us the chance to pick old scabs and answer lingering questions. The most urgent of these: who was right?

Godslaughter is a vile piece of work, even meaner and more antisocial than its predecessor. Nothingness hasn’t abandoned the ambition that led Kenstrosity to describe their style as “caveman death with a university degree.” The band still brings some of the inventive brio of Gorguts or Nightmarer to a ferocious overall vibe that recalls a less theatrical Autopsy. This latest offering manages to double down on aggression while expanding Nothingness’s sonic palette and the range of their songwriting. If you can survive the onslaught of an opening run that includes the platter’s first two singles (“Skull Evulsion,” “Trenchant Glunch”), these grander designs reveal themselves. The album as a whole is an exhilarating run through nine well-sequenced tracks, seasoned with a flair for composition that makes the verdict clear: Godslaughter is a roaring return and a death metal ripper.

Godslaughter unfolds in three acts. The first commences with the sucker punch that is “Incinerated Immediately,” then proceeds through three additional tracks that lay you flat and kick you around for a while. “Vanquishing Providence” slows things to a crawl to “welcome” you to a middle section that’s built around longer and more varied songs. It’s here that you’ll find the slab’s most ambitious compositions, a pair of seven minute epics that go from first to fifth gear with no thought spared for the health of your spine. Nothingness throws in everything they’ve got and a few new tricks to boot, up to and including the bonging Black Sabbath bell that punctuates “Divine Irresponsibility.” A spoken word sample kicks off “Incredible Violence” and ushers you into the third act of the album. Sonic experimentation worms its way into these three selections, which essentially split the difference between parts one and two of the slab.

The album organizes itself into distinct segments, but Godslaughter’s forty-minute entirety remains a cohesive listen. The songs are united by a harsh but thoughtful production. Alex Walstad’s guitars flirt with peaking on tracks like “Incinerated Immediately” and “Umbral Spear,” but it all feels intentional. While there’s no credited producer, returning engineer Adam Tucker knows when to give space and clarity to a riff and when to noisemaxx. Barclay Olson, who is the vocalist for a death metal outfit and not the CFO of a private equity fund, lacks some variety in his attack. His roars do threaten to get repetitive, but the intensity of the music and the concise run time keep things at a rolling boil.

It’s a delicate alchemy, trying to combine familiar influences and elements into something that feels novel. Nothingness has pulled it off for two albums running. With Supraliminal and now Godslaughter, these merchants of digressive death submit a pair of long players to get your neurons firing even as they power wash your central nervous system. Like its predecessor, Godslaughter leaves a rancid mouthfeel behind as it rants its way toward Listurnalia. I’ll probably return to Supraliminal more than I do Godslaughter, so I won’t quibble if you want to ding the new slab by half a point. But all in all, Godslaughter is about as good as their last one.2

Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Everlasting Spew Records
Websites: nothingness.bandcamp.com|nothingnessisdeath.com
Releases Worldwide: July 31, 2026

If there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s that Supraliminal, the 2023 album from death metal act Nothingness, is worthy of a 2.5 and no other rating. I know of no faction that holds it in higher esteem, am aware of no lack of consensus surrounding Felagund’s review–Oh wait just a second. I reviewed the tomes and scrolls, and it seems there was a shitstorm surrounding these guys. The comment section went to war on behalf of this Minnesota sextet’s brand of A24 OSDM.1 Steel Druhm juuuuust managed to put down a revolution, but the bonfire roared anew when Kenstrosity named Supraliminal his Record o’the Year. In the years since, a fragile peace has held… until now. Nothingness is back with their hard-charging third album Godslaughter, threatening the status quo and giving us the chance to pick old scabs and answer lingering questions. The most urgent of these: who was right?

Godslaughter is a vile piece of work, even meaner and more antisocial than its predecessor. Nothingness hasn’t abandoned the ambition that led Kenstrosity to describe their style as “caveman death with a university degree.” The band still brings some of the inventive brio of Gorguts or Nightmarer to a ferocious overall vibe that recalls a less theatrical Autopsy. This latest offering manages to double down on aggression while expanding Nothingness’s sonic palette and the range of their songwriting. If you can survive the onslaught of an opening run that includes the platter’s first two singles (“Skull Evulsion,” “Trenchant Glunch”), these grander designs reveal themselves. The album as a whole is an exhilarating run through nine well-sequenced tracks, seasoned with a flair for composition that makes the verdict clear: Godslaughter is a roaring return and a death metal ripper.

Godslaughter unfolds in three acts. The first commences with the sucker punch that is “Incinerated Immediately,” then proceeds through three additional tracks that lay you flat and kick you around for a while. “Vanquishing Providence” slows things to a crawl to “welcome” you to a middle section that’s built around longer and more varied songs. It’s here that you’ll find the slab’s most ambitious compositions, a pair of seven minute epics that go from first to fifth gear with no thought spared for the health of your spine. Nothingness throws in everything they’ve got and a few new tricks to boot, up to and including the bonging Black Sabbath bell that punctuates “Divine Irresponsibility.” A spoken word sample kicks off “Incredible Violence” and ushers you into the third act of the album. Sonic experimentation worms its way into these three selections, which essentially split the difference between parts one and two of the slab.

The album organizes itself into distinct segments, but Godslaughter’s forty-minute entirety remains a cohesive listen. The songs are united by a harsh but thoughtful production. Alex Walstad’s guitars flirt with peaking on tracks like “Incinerated Immediately” and “Umbral Spear,” but it all feels intentional. While there’s no credited producer, returning engineer Adam Tucker knows when to give space and clarity to a riff and when to noisemaxx. Barclay Olson, who is the vocalist for a death metal outfit and not the CFO of a private equity fund, lacks some variety in his attack. His roars do threaten to get repetitive, but the intensity of the music and the concise run time keep things at a rolling boil.

It’s a delicate alchemy, trying to combine familiar influences and elements into something that feels novel. Nothingness has pulled it off for two albums running. With Supraliminal and now Godslaughter, these merchants of digressive death submit a pair of long players to get your neurons firing even as they power wash your central nervous system. Like its predecessor, Godslaughter leaves a rancid mouthfeel behind as it rants its way toward Listurnalia. I’ll probably return to Supraliminal more than I do Godslaughter, so I won’t quibble if you want to ding the new slab by half a point. But all in all, Godslaughter is about as good as their last one.2

Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Everlasting Spew Records
Websites: nothingness.bandcamp.com|nothingnessisdeath.com
Releases Worldwide: July 31, 2026

Free download codes:

Laconist - Where Being Ends, I begin

"Brazilian Brutal Death Metal releases first EP after a 10 year hiatus"

https://getmusic.fm/l/ySsPB6

#blackmetal #deathmetal #grindcore #brutaldeathmetal #extrememetal #dissonantdeathmetal #braziliandeathmetal #music

Free download codes:

Laconist - Where Being Ends, I begin

"Brazilian Brutal Death Metal releases first EP after a 10 year hiatus"

https://getmusic.fm/l/ySsPB6

#blackmetal #deathmetal #grindcore #brutaldeathmetal #extrememetal #dissonantdeathmetal #braziliandeathmetal #music

Free download codes:

Laconist - Where Being Ends, I begin

"Brazilian Brutal Death Metal releases first EP after a 10 year hiatus"

https://getmusic.fm/l/ySsPB6

#blackmetal #deathmetal #grindcore #brutaldeathmetal #extrememetal #dissonantdeathmetal #braziliandeathmetal #music

While any band, metal or not, would kill to have a classic in their discography, I often feel that having one can do their other albums a disservice. Some classics continue their perpetual status by virtue of self-fulfilling “this is good because we have been told it must be” prophecy (Tomb of the Mutilated), while some keep their status because fans refuse to accept anything else as even capable of touching this particular sound (None So Vile, Dopethrone, Destroy the Opposition) irrespective of the quality of follow-up releases. Over the last decade or so, Gorguts has usurped Meshuggah for the band everyone mines for inspiration, with fantastic results. Hailing from Denmark, Carbon Tomb are here to scourge the earth with their debut album Passage to a Neutron Star, and they too have thrown their hat in the Gorguts ring. Show of hands, who’s expecting an Obscura clone?1 Well, you’re wrong, and I couldn’t be more thrilled.

The backbone of Carbon Tomb plays heavily on Gorguts more straightforward yet just as foul From Wisdom to Hate. The discordant and oppressive approaches you expect are all present, but in a far more digestible form despite the raw ugliness of the notes. Alternating between grindcore-tier assault and full speed ahead spirit with sudden half-time slowdowns and twanging leads, Passage to a Neutron Star manages to draw from more than one spirit of disharmonic masters. The alien soundscapes of Artificial Brain collide with wailing and gnashing of Teeth (“A Hidden Creature”), oppressing the listener with haunting clashes of notes while always being ready to collapse into a foul riff or grim lead. “Reversed Head Renewal” channels the riff-centric Gorguts in all its glory, high trems riding out over a bass that clangs like The Iron Giant taking a jog. Title track “Passage to a Neutron Star” alternates between blast beats galore and sudden, brief measures of brvtal Ulcerate-isms before the vocals turn more throaty in style and the chord progressions become more slammy to follow suit. All of this should be a disjointed, inapproachable mess, but it is not, and at its peak, there are signs of some truly incredible things brewing in the Carbon Tomb camp.

Those signs find themselves in the album centerpiece, “The Dog Hunter” and “Of God’s Neglect.” These two songs are a perfectly complimentary pair of violence, fusing skull-liquifying riffcraft and supremely emotive introspection in equal turn. “The Dog Hunter” centers around a riff channeling Human Cull violence which slowly unravels with drummer Mikael rocking the bat-on-an-oak-tree sounding snare in various permutations, impossibly catchy without losing a drop of its oppressive atmosphere. “Of God’s Neglect” features a positively tear-jerking synth(!!) lead over more midpaced and mournful grooves, a flourish which appears completely out of nowhere and somehow fuses with the main spirit of the album masterfully, without ever seeming like an afterthought or unnecessary gimmick. This is the closest moment of raw melody on the entire album, and despite being a complete inversion of everything Carbon Tomb seem to stand for—ugly, dissonant notes and speed, suddenly slathered with slow, singable beauty—it doesn’t just work; it’s absolutely delightful and an instant contender for Song of the Year. A complete album with this dual approach would have me ready to give the highest marks, and it’s exciting to see that in an already very good album, ideas of proper greatness are gestating.

It helps that Carbon Tomb have a good ear for good production and album flow, with a decently dynamic master, especially for the genre. Drums are well articulated and clear despite the (usually) blast-heavy presentation, and vocalist/bassist Jappe Tander keeps his instrument center stage without ever overwhelming the depressed-alien riff construction of guitarist Richardt. Jappe’s vocal style also features some decent Gorguts nods, emulating Luc Lemay’s hoarse roar when not engaging in subterranean gutturals. The only big knock against Passage to a Neutron Star is that the mid-stretch is so S-tier that the back third seems to suffer a superficial dip in quality despite none of the songs themselves suffering from any serious bloat or superficiality.

Carbon Tomb have come out of nowhere and offered a devastating blow to listeners around the world with a debut of excellent quality and composition. I won’t yet go so far as to declare it an instant classic, but the giants it stands on are of some very broad shoulders indeed, allowing the band to reach where few young outfits could hope to tread. Passage to a Neutron Star has announced Carbon Tomb as big-time players in the world of grindy dissodeath, and I cannot wait to see what stars await us in the future.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Transcending Obscurity Records
Website: Album Bandcamp
Releases Worldwide: July 17th, 2025

While any band, metal or not, would kill to have a classic in their discography, I often feel that having one can do their other albums a disservice. Some classics continue their perpetual status by virtue of self-fulfilling “this is good because we have been told it must be” prophecy (Tomb of the Mutilated), while some keep their status because fans refuse to accept anything else as even capable of touching this particular sound (None So Vile, Dopethrone, Destroy the Opposition) irrespective of the quality of follow-up releases. Over the last decade or so, Gorguts has usurped Meshuggah for the band everyone mines for inspiration, with fantastic results. Hailing from Denmark, Carbon Tomb are here to scourge the earth with their debut album Passage to a Neutron Star, and they too have thrown their hat in the Gorguts ring. Show of hands, who’s expecting an Obscura clone?1 Well, you’re wrong, and I couldn’t be more thrilled.

The backbone of Carbon Tomb plays heavily on Gorguts more straightforward yet just as foul From Wisdom to Hate. The discordant and oppressive approaches you expect are all present, but in a far more digestible form despite the raw ugliness of the notes. Alternating between grindcore-tier assault and full speed ahead spirit with sudden half-time slowdowns and twanging leads, Passage to a Neutron Star manages to draw from more than one spirit of disharmonic masters. The alien soundscapes of Artificial Brain collide with wailing and gnashing of Teeth (“A Hidden Creature”), oppressing the listener with haunting clashes of notes while always being ready to collapse into a foul riff or grim lead. “Reversed Head Renewal” channels the riff-centric Gorguts in all its glory, high trems riding out over a bass that clangs like The Iron Giant taking a jog. Title track “Passage to a Neutron Star” alternates between blast beats galore and sudden, brief measures of brvtal Ulcerate-isms before the vocals turn more throaty in style and the chord progressions become more slammy to follow suit. All of this should be a disjointed, inapproachable mess, but it is not, and at its peak, there are signs of some truly incredible things brewing in the Carbon Tomb camp.

Those signs find themselves in the album centerpiece, “The Dog Hunter” and “Of God’s Neglect.” These two songs are a perfectly complimentary pair of violence, fusing skull-liquifying riffcraft and supremely emotive introspection in equal turn. “The Dog Hunter” centers around a riff channeling Human Cull violence which slowly unravels with drummer Mikael rocking the bat-on-an-oak-tree sounding snare in various permutations, impossibly catchy without losing a drop of its oppressive atmosphere. “Of God’s Neglect” features a positively tear-jerking synth(!!) lead over more midpaced and mournful grooves, a flourish which appears completely out of nowhere and somehow fuses with the main spirit of the album masterfully, without ever seeming like an afterthought or unnecessary gimmick. This is the closest moment of raw melody on the entire album, and despite being a complete inversion of everything Carbon Tomb seem to stand for—ugly, dissonant notes and speed, suddenly slathered with slow, singable beauty—it doesn’t just work; it’s absolutely delightful and an instant contender for Song of the Year. A complete album with this dual approach would have me ready to give the highest marks, and it’s exciting to see that in an already very good album, ideas of proper greatness are gestating.

It helps that Carbon Tomb have a good ear for good production and album flow, with a decently dynamic master, especially for the genre. Drums are well articulated and clear despite the (usually) blast-heavy presentation, and vocalist/bassist Jappe Tander keeps his instrument center stage without ever overwhelming the depressed-alien riff construction of guitarist Richardt. Jappe’s vocal style also features some decent Gorguts nods, emulating Luc Lemay’s hoarse roar when not engaging in subterranean gutturals. The only big knock against Passage to a Neutron Star is that the mid-stretch is so S-tier that the back third seems to suffer a superficial dip in quality despite none of the songs themselves suffering from any serious bloat or superficiality.

Carbon Tomb have come out of nowhere and offered a devastating blow to listeners around the world with a debut of excellent quality and composition. I won’t yet go so far as to declare it an instant classic, but the giants it stands on are of some very broad shoulders indeed, allowing the band to reach where few young outfits could hope to tread. Passage to a Neutron Star has announced Carbon Tomb as big-time players in the world of grindy dissodeath, and I cannot wait to see what stars await us in the future.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Transcending Obscurity Records
Website: Album Bandcamp
Releases Worldwide: July 17th, 2025

While any band, metal or not, would kill to have a classic in their discography, I often feel that having one can do their other albums a disservice. Some classics continue their perpetual status by virtue of self-fulfilling “this is good because we have been told it must be” prophecy (Tomb of the Mutilated), while some keep their status because fans refuse to accept anything else as even capable of touching this particular sound (None So Vile, Dopethrone, Destroy the Opposition) irrespective of the quality of follow-up releases. Over the last decade or so, Gorguts has usurped Meshuggah for the band everyone mines for inspiration, with fantastic results. Hailing from Denmark, Carbon Tomb are here to scourge the earth with their debut album Passage to a Neutron Star, and they too have thrown their hat in the Gorguts ring. Show of hands, who’s expecting an Obscura clone?1 Well, you’re wrong, and I couldn’t be more thrilled.

The backbone of Carbon Tomb plays heavily on Gorguts more straightforward yet just as foul From Wisdom to Hate. The discordant and oppressive approaches you expect are all present, but in a far more digestible form despite the raw ugliness of the notes. Alternating between grindcore-tier assault and full speed ahead spirit with sudden half-time slowdowns and twanging leads, Passage to a Neutron Star manages to draw from more than one spirit of disharmonic masters. The alien soundscapes of Artificial Brain collide with wailing and gnashing of Teeth (“A Hidden Creature”), oppressing the listener with haunting clashes of notes while always being ready to collapse into a foul riff or grim lead. “Reversed Head Renewal” channels the riff-centric Gorguts in all its glory, high trems riding out over a bass that clangs like The Iron Giant taking a jog. Title track “Passage to a Neutron Star” alternates between blast beats galore and sudden, brief measures of brvtal Ulcerate-isms before the vocals turn more throaty in style and the chord progressions become more slammy to follow suit. All of this should be a disjointed, inapproachable mess, but it is not, and at its peak, there are signs of some truly incredible things brewing in the Carbon Tomb camp.

Those signs find themselves in the album centerpiece, “The Dog Hunter” and “Of God’s Neglect.” These two songs are a perfectly complimentary pair of violence, fusing skull-liquifying riffcraft and supremely emotive introspection in equal turn. “The Dog Hunter” centers around a riff channeling Human Cull violence which slowly unravels with drummer Mikael rocking the bat-on-an-oak-tree sounding snare in various permutations, impossibly catchy without losing a drop of its oppressive atmosphere. “Of God’s Neglect” features a positively tear-jerking synth(!!) lead over more midpaced and mournful grooves, a flourish which appears completely out of nowhere and somehow fuses with the main spirit of the album masterfully, without ever seeming like an afterthought or unnecessary gimmick. This is the closest moment of raw melody on the entire album, and despite being a complete inversion of everything Carbon Tomb seem to stand for—ugly, dissonant notes and speed, suddenly slathered with slow, singable beauty—it doesn’t just work; it’s absolutely delightful and an instant contender for Song of the Year. A complete album with this dual approach would have me ready to give the highest marks, and it’s exciting to see that in an already very good album, ideas of proper greatness are gestating.

It helps that Carbon Tomb have a good ear for good production and album flow, with a decently dynamic master, especially for the genre. Drums are well articulated and clear despite the (usually) blast-heavy presentation, and vocalist/bassist Jappe Tander keeps his instrument center stage without ever overwhelming the depressed-alien riff construction of guitarist Richardt. Jappe’s vocal style also features some decent Gorguts nods, emulating Luc Lemay’s hoarse roar when not engaging in subterranean gutturals. The only big knock against Passage to a Neutron Star is that the mid-stretch is so S-tier that the back third seems to suffer a superficial dip in quality despite none of the songs themselves suffering from any serious bloat or superficiality.

Carbon Tomb have come out of nowhere and offered a devastating blow to listeners around the world with a debut of excellent quality and composition. I won’t yet go so far as to declare it an instant classic, but the giants it stands on are of some very broad shoulders indeed, allowing the band to reach where few young outfits could hope to tread. Passage to a Neutron Star has announced Carbon Tomb as big-time players in the world of grindy dissodeath, and I cannot wait to see what stars await us in the future.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Transcending Obscurity Records
Website: Album Bandcamp
Releases Worldwide: July 17th, 2025

While any band, metal or not, would kill to have a classic in their discography, I often feel that having one can do their other albums a disservice. Some classics continue their perpetual status by virtue of self-fulfilling “this is good because we have been told it must be” prophecy (Tomb of the Mutilated), while some keep their status because fans refuse to accept anything else as even capable of touching this particular sound (None So Vile, Dopethrone, Destroy the Opposition) irrespective of the quality of follow-up releases. Over the last decade or so, Gorguts has usurped Meshuggah for the band everyone mines for inspiration, with fantastic results. Hailing from Denmark, Carbon Tomb are here to scourge the earth with their debut album Passage to a Neutron Star, and they too have thrown their hat in the Gorguts ring. Show of hands, who’s expecting an Obscura clone?1 Well, you’re wrong, and I couldn’t be more thrilled.

The backbone of Carbon Tomb plays heavily on Gorguts more straightforward yet just as foul From Wisdom to Hate. The discordant and oppressive approaches you expect are all present, but in a far more digestible form despite the raw ugliness of the notes. Alternating between grindcore-tier assault and full speed ahead spirit with sudden half-time slowdowns and twanging leads, Passage to a Neutron Star manages to draw from more than one spirit of disharmonic masters. The alien soundscapes of Artificial Brain collide with wailing and gnashing of Teeth (“A Hidden Creature”), oppressing the listener with haunting clashes of notes while always being ready to collapse into a foul riff or grim lead. “Reversed Head Renewal” channels the riff-centric Gorguts in all its glory, high trems riding out over a bass that clangs like The Iron Giant taking a jog. Title track “Passage to a Neutron Star” alternates between blast beats galore and sudden, brief measures of brvtal Ulcerate-isms before the vocals turn more throaty in style and the chord progressions become more slammy to follow suit. All of this should be a disjointed, inapproachable mess, but it is not, and at its peak, there are signs of some truly incredible things brewing in the Carbon Tomb camp.

Those signs find themselves in the album centerpiece, “The Dog Hunter” and “Of God’s Neglect.” These two songs are a perfectly complimentary pair of violence, fusing skull-liquifying riffcraft and supremely emotive introspection in equal turn. “The Dog Hunter” centers around a riff channeling Human Cull violence which slowly unravels with drummer Mikael rocking the bat-on-an-oak-tree sounding snare in various permutations, impossibly catchy without losing a drop of its oppressive atmosphere. “Of God’s Neglect” features a positively tear-jerking synth(!!) lead over more midpaced and mournful grooves, a flourish which appears completely out of nowhere and somehow fuses with the main spirit of the album masterfully, without ever seeming like an afterthought or unnecessary gimmick. This is the closest moment of raw melody on the entire album, and despite being a complete inversion of everything Carbon Tomb seem to stand for—ugly, dissonant notes and speed, suddenly slathered with slow, singable beauty—it doesn’t just work; it’s absolutely delightful and an instant contender for Song of the Year. A complete album with this dual approach would have me ready to give the highest marks, and it’s exciting to see that in an already very good album, ideas of proper greatness are gestating.

It helps that Carbon Tomb have a good ear for good production and album flow, with a decently dynamic master, especially for the genre. Drums are well articulated and clear despite the (usually) blast-heavy presentation, and vocalist/bassist Jappe Tander keeps his instrument center stage without ever overwhelming the depressed-alien riff construction of guitarist Richardt. Jappe’s vocal style also features some decent Gorguts nods, emulating Luc Lemay’s hoarse roar when not engaging in subterranean gutturals. The only big knock against Passage to a Neutron Star is that the mid-stretch is so S-tier that the back third seems to suffer a superficial dip in quality despite none of the songs themselves suffering from any serious bloat or superficiality.

Carbon Tomb have come out of nowhere and offered a devastating blow to listeners around the world with a debut of excellent quality and composition. I won’t yet go so far as to declare it an instant classic, but the giants it stands on are of some very broad shoulders indeed, allowing the band to reach where few young outfits could hope to tread. Passage to a Neutron Star has announced Carbon Tomb as big-time players in the world of grindy dissodeath, and I cannot wait to see what stars await us in the future.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Transcending Obscurity Records
Website: Album Bandcamp
Releases Worldwide: July 17th, 2025

Review: Dysgnostic – End Whispers

Published by Clay on 2026/07/162026/07/16 Artwork by Belial NecroArts Style: Dissonant death metal, progressive death metal (harsh vocals)Recommended…
#NewsBeep #News #Music #2026 #6 #denmark #DissonantDeathMetal #Englishlyrics #Entertainment #harshvocals #july #progressivedeathmetal #TranscendingObscurityRecords #UK #UnitedKingdom
https://www.newsbeep.com/uk/695039/

https://www.europesays.com/nl/260727/ Dysgnostic – End Whispers | Zware Metalen #2026 #AdNauseam #aeviterne #Amusement #apparatus #CarbonTomb #crocell #CrownOfMadness #DeathMetal #Denemarken #DenialOfGod #DevenialVerdict #dissonant #DissonantDeathMetal #Dutch #dysgnostic #elitist #EndWhispers #Entertainment #evilyn #gorguts #heaven #Music #Muziek #Nederland #Nederlanden #Nederlands #Netherlands #NL

https://www.europesays.com/be-nl/101322/ Dysgnostic – End Whispers | Zware Metalen #2026 #AdNauseam #aeviterne #Amusement #apparatus #BE #België #Belgium #CarbonTomb #crocell #CrownOfMadness #DeathMetal #Denemarken #DenialOfGod #DevenialVerdict #dissonant #DissonantDeathMetal #dysgnostic #elitist #EndWhispers #Entertainment #evilyn #gorguts #heaven #Music #Muziek

Free download codes:

Laconist - Vermiforming

"Brazilian Brutal Death Metal releases first single after a 10 year hiatus"

https://getmusic.fm/l/280nAw

#blackmetal #deathmetal #grindcore #brutaldeathmetal #extrememetal #dissonantdeathmetal #braziliandeathmetal #music

Free download codes:

Laconist - Vermiforming

"Brazilian Brutal Death Metal releases first single after a 10 year hiatus"

https://getmusic.fm/l/280nAw

#blackmetal #deathmetal #grindcore #brutaldeathmetal #extrememetal #dissonantdeathmetal #braziliandeathmetal #music

Free download codes:

Laconist - Vermiforming

"Brazilian Brutal Death Metal releases first single after a 10 year hiatus"

https://getmusic.fm/l/280nAw

#blackmetal #deathmetal #grindcore #brutaldeathmetal #extrememetal #dissonantdeathmetal #braziliandeathmetal #music

There’s a lot of weird shit floating around the metalsphere, and that includes Voidthrone’s newest addition, Dreaming Rat. The Seattle quartet has been kicking around for a decade, and in that time have released three prior platters of escalating lunacy. Without question, Dreaming Rat is Voidthrone’s most unhinged concoction to date, and a quick look at their Bandcamp credits gives prospective listeners a window into the alchemical ingredients they cook with, including Otamatone, conch shell, jaw harp, vibraslap, digeridoo, spoons, and a fretless bass. Throw in vocalist Zhenya Frolov’s deranged vocal stylings, and you’ve got yourself a bona fide manic expression of dissonant blackened death metal. With so many disparate components in Dreaming Rat’s stew, does Voidthrone soothe the savage beast or unleash a waking nightmare?

Listening to Dreaming Rat is a bit like experiencing an auditory fever dream, where disconnected fragments congeal into lurid, atonal anarchy. Voidthrone didn’t arrive at this sound overnight, though. Debut Spiritual War Tactics whipped and frothed with the restrained vitality of Krallice, and follow-up Kur added jazz-informed touches in the vein of Imperial Triumphant. Physical Degradation evolved Voidthrone’s sound, integrating more unconventional instrumentation and pushing the band’s songwriting past its comfort zone. On Dreaming Rat, Voidthrone takes the blueprint laid out on Physical Degradation and indiscriminately expands the range for strange. The result sees Frolov stretching his vocal performance into frenzied tirades, covering the gamut from Replicant’s vomitous barks to Sigh’s oddball deliveries. The instrumentation also gets exponentially wackier, as it conjures the rabid wrath of Pyrrhon along with the chaotic instincts of Afterbirth, resulting in an unpredictable romp to the end of the world.

At Dreaming Rat’s core, Voidthrone details the life and death of a solar system through bleak eras, segmenting the album into present, past, and future. The arcs are presented in that order, with each one comprised of three songs. The present describes the apex of a civilization, harnessing the promises forged upon the hopes and chaos of the past. Meanwhile, Voidthrone paints a grim outlook for the future, specifically calling out ‘an extinguished, lonely death of the physical, spiritual, and cognitive.’1 The lyrics throughout Dreaming Rat read like the demented ravings of a madman’s manifesto,2 and while I don’t think I could have divined the album’s overarching concept from them alone, reading them amplifies the bedlam Voidthrone has crafted on Dreaming Rat.

Writing music this lawless may seem haphazard, but over repeated listens, I’ve begun to glimpse the method to Dreaming Rat’s madness. Without question, everyone in Voidthrone earns their stripes. Ronald Foodsack’s guitars drench Dreaming Rat with warbling dissonance, perpetually in flux so that there’s never a riff or refrain to inhibit the music’s incessant lurch. Whether moving at frantic paces (“III-I. Surfing the Abyss”) or decelerating to a plodding crawl (“II-II. Morbid Seagull”), Ron’s six-stringed blitz never stalls. Additionally, Gavin Brooks contributes acoustic guitar and solos while manning the glorious fretless bass.3 Technical death metal has hogged the fretless bass for too long, and I’m glad Voidthrone has the stones to add it to disso metal’s tool chest. Tracks like “I-I. Bergen” and “II-I. Homeless Animal” showcase the character the instrument offers, bolstering the ever-shifting nature of Dreaming Rat. Drummer Josh Keifer grounds the band ably, locked into a supporting role that allows the other instruments to take center stage while he keeps things on the rails. Frolov’s feral vocals and the host of unconventional instruments further enrich Voidthrone’s distinctive identity, establishing what sounds like it could be the death throes of the universe.

What Voidthrone accomplishes with Dreaming Rat is fascinating and unique, and merits everyone’s attention. Sure, some songs could be trimmed to make such a scathing album a bit shorter and more palatable, and the three arcs could use some musical cues to distinguish songs thematically from one another, but Dreaming Rat is a crowning achievement for the band. Voidthrone’s psychedelic psychosis makes bold promises on paper and completely delivers in fact, and when I’m in the mood to get really weird with it, this will be the album I reach for.

Rating: Very Good!
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Self-Release
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: May 8th, 2026

There’s a lot of weird shit floating around the metalsphere, and that includes Voidthrone’s newest addition, Dreaming Rat. The Seattle quartet has been kicking around for a decade, and in that time have released three prior platters of escalating lunacy. Without question, Dreaming Rat is Voidthrone’s most unhinged concoction to date, and a quick look at their Bandcamp credits gives prospective listeners a window into the alchemical ingredients they cook with, including Otamatone, conch shell, jaw harp, vibraslap, digeridoo, spoons, and a fretless bass. Throw in vocalist Zhenya Frolov’s deranged vocal stylings, and you’ve got yourself a bona fide manic expression of dissonant blackened death metal. With so many disparate components in Dreaming Rat’s stew, does Voidthrone soothe the savage beast or unleash a waking nightmare?

Listening to Dreaming Rat is a bit like experiencing an auditory fever dream, where disconnected fragments congeal into lurid, atonal anarchy. Voidthrone didn’t arrive at this sound overnight, though. Debut Spiritual War Tactics whipped and frothed with the restrained vitality of Krallice, and follow-up Kur added jazz-informed touches in the vein of Imperial Triumphant. Physical Degradation evolved Voidthrone’s sound, integrating more unconventional instrumentation and pushing the band’s songwriting past its comfort zone. On Dreaming Rat, Voidthrone takes the blueprint laid out on Physical Degradation and indiscriminately expands the range for strange. The result sees Frolov stretching his vocal performance into frenzied tirades, covering the gamut from Replicant’s vomitous barks to Sigh’s oddball deliveries. The instrumentation also gets exponentially wackier, as it conjures the rabid wrath of Pyrrhon along with the chaotic instincts of Afterbirth, resulting in an unpredictable romp to the end of the world.

At Dreaming Rat’s core, Voidthrone details the life and death of a solar system through bleak eras, segmenting the album into present, past, and future. The arcs are presented in that order, with each one comprised of three songs. The present describes the apex of a civilization, harnessing the promises forged upon the hopes and chaos of the past. Meanwhile, Voidthrone paints a grim outlook for the future, specifically calling out ‘an extinguished, lonely death of the physical, spiritual, and cognitive.’1 The lyrics throughout Dreaming Rat read like the demented ravings of a madman’s manifesto,2 and while I don’t think I could have divined the album’s overarching concept from them alone, reading them amplifies the bedlam Voidthrone has crafted on Dreaming Rat.

Writing music this lawless may seem haphazard, but over repeated listens, I’ve begun to glimpse the method to Dreaming Rat’s madness. Without question, everyone in Voidthrone earns their stripes. Ronald Foodsack’s guitars drench Dreaming Rat with warbling dissonance, perpetually in flux so that there’s never a riff or refrain to inhibit the music’s incessant lurch. Whether moving at frantic paces (“III-I. Surfing the Abyss”) or decelerating to a plodding crawl (“II-II. Morbid Seagull”), Ron’s six-stringed blitz never stalls. Additionally, Gavin Brooks contributes acoustic guitar and solos while manning the glorious fretless bass.3 Technical death metal has hogged the fretless bass for too long, and I’m glad Voidthrone has the stones to add it to disso metal’s tool chest. Tracks like “I-I. Bergen” and “II-I. Homeless Animal” showcase the character the instrument offers, bolstering the ever-shifting nature of Dreaming Rat. Drummer Josh Keifer grounds the band ably, locked into a supporting role that allows the other instruments to take center stage while he keeps things on the rails. Frolov’s feral vocals and the host of unconventional instruments further enrich Voidthrone’s distinctive identity, establishing what sounds like it could be the death throes of the universe.

What Voidthrone accomplishes with Dreaming Rat is fascinating and unique, and merits everyone’s attention. Sure, some songs could be trimmed to make such a scathing album a bit shorter and more palatable, and the three arcs could use some musical cues to distinguish songs thematically from one another, but Dreaming Rat is a crowning achievement for the band. Voidthrone’s psychedelic psychosis makes bold promises on paper and completely delivers in fact, and when I’m in the mood to get really weird with it, this will be the album I reach for.

Rating: Very Good!
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Self-Release
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: May 8th, 2026

There’s a lot of weird shit floating around the metalsphere, and that includes Voidthrone’s newest addition, Dreaming Rat. The Seattle quartet has been kicking around for a decade, and in that time have released three prior platters of escalating lunacy. Without question, Dreaming Rat is Voidthrone’s most unhinged concoction to date, and a quick look at their Bandcamp credits gives prospective listeners a window into the alchemical ingredients they cook with, including Otamatone, conch shell, jaw harp, vibraslap, digeridoo, spoons, and a fretless bass. Throw in vocalist Zhenya Frolov’s deranged vocal stylings, and you’ve got yourself a bona fide manic expression of dissonant blackened death metal. With so many disparate components in Dreaming Rat’s stew, does Voidthrone soothe the savage beast or unleash a waking nightmare?

Listening to Dreaming Rat is a bit like experiencing an auditory fever dream, where disconnected fragments congeal into lurid, atonal anarchy. Voidthrone didn’t arrive at this sound overnight, though. Debut Spiritual War Tactics whipped and frothed with the restrained vitality of Krallice, and follow-up Kur added jazz-informed touches in the vein of Imperial Triumphant. Physical Degradation evolved Voidthrone’s sound, integrating more unconventional instrumentation and pushing the band’s songwriting past its comfort zone. On Dreaming Rat, Voidthrone takes the blueprint laid out on Physical Degradation and indiscriminately expands the range for strange. The result sees Frolov stretching his vocal performance into frenzied tirades, covering the gamut from Replicant’s vomitous barks to Sigh’s oddball deliveries. The instrumentation also gets exponentially wackier, as it conjures the rabid wrath of Pyrrhon along with the chaotic instincts of Afterbirth, resulting in an unpredictable romp to the end of the world.

At Dreaming Rat’s core, Voidthrone details the life and death of a solar system through bleak eras, segmenting the album into present, past, and future. The arcs are presented in that order, with each one comprised of three songs. The present describes the apex of a civilization, harnessing the promises forged upon the hopes and chaos of the past. Meanwhile, Voidthrone paints a grim outlook for the future, specifically calling out ‘an extinguished, lonely death of the physical, spiritual, and cognitive.’1 The lyrics throughout Dreaming Rat read like the demented ravings of a madman’s manifesto,2 and while I don’t think I could have divined the album’s overarching concept from them alone, reading them amplifies the bedlam Voidthrone has crafted on Dreaming Rat.

Writing music this lawless may seem haphazard, but over repeated listens, I’ve begun to glimpse the method to Dreaming Rat’s madness. Without question, everyone in Voidthrone earns their stripes. Ronald Foodsack’s guitars drench Dreaming Rat with warbling dissonance, perpetually in flux so that there’s never a riff or refrain to inhibit the music’s incessant lurch. Whether moving at frantic paces (“III-I. Surfing the Abyss”) or decelerating to a plodding crawl (“II-II. Morbid Seagull”), Ron’s six-stringed blitz never stalls. Additionally, Gavin Brooks contributes acoustic guitar and solos while manning the glorious fretless bass.3 Technical death metal has hogged the fretless bass for too long, and I’m glad Voidthrone has the stones to add it to disso metal’s tool chest. Tracks like “I-I. Bergen” and “II-I. Homeless Animal” showcase the character the instrument offers, bolstering the ever-shifting nature of Dreaming Rat. Drummer Josh Keifer grounds the band ably, locked into a supporting role that allows the other instruments to take center stage while he keeps things on the rails. Frolov’s feral vocals and the host of unconventional instruments further enrich Voidthrone’s distinctive identity, establishing what sounds like it could be the death throes of the universe.

What Voidthrone accomplishes with Dreaming Rat is fascinating and unique, and merits everyone’s attention. Sure, some songs could be trimmed to make such a scathing album a bit shorter and more palatable, and the three arcs could use some musical cues to distinguish songs thematically from one another, but Dreaming Rat is a crowning achievement for the band. Voidthrone’s psychedelic psychosis makes bold promises on paper and completely delivers in fact, and when I’m in the mood to get really weird with it, this will be the album I reach for.

Rating: Very Good!
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Self-Release
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: May 8th, 2026

There’s a lot of weird shit floating around the metalsphere, and that includes Voidthrone’s newest addition, Dreaming Rat. The Seattle quartet has been kicking around for a decade, and in that time have released three prior platters of escalating lunacy. Without question, Dreaming Rat is Voidthrone’s most unhinged concoction to date, and a quick look at their Bandcamp credits gives prospective listeners a window into the alchemical ingredients they cook with, including Otamatone, conch shell, jaw harp, vibraslap, digeridoo, spoons, and a fretless bass. Throw in vocalist Zhenya Frolov’s deranged vocal stylings, and you’ve got yourself a bona fide manic expression of dissonant blackened death metal. With so many disparate components in Dreaming Rat’s stew, does Voidthrone soothe the savage beast or unleash a waking nightmare?

Listening to Dreaming Rat is a bit like experiencing an auditory fever dream, where disconnected fragments congeal into lurid, atonal anarchy. Voidthrone didn’t arrive at this sound overnight, though. Debut Spiritual War Tactics whipped and frothed with the restrained vitality of Krallice, and follow-up Kur added jazz-informed touches in the vein of Imperial Triumphant. Physical Degradation evolved Voidthrone’s sound, integrating more unconventional instrumentation and pushing the band’s songwriting past its comfort zone. On Dreaming Rat, Voidthrone takes the blueprint laid out on Physical Degradation and indiscriminately expands the range for strange. The result sees Frolov stretching his vocal performance into frenzied tirades, covering the gamut from Replicant’s vomitous barks to Sigh’s oddball deliveries. The instrumentation also gets exponentially wackier, as it conjures the rabid wrath of Pyrrhon along with the chaotic instincts of Afterbirth, resulting in an unpredictable romp to the end of the world.

At Dreaming Rat’s core, Voidthrone details the life and death of a solar system through bleak eras, segmenting the album into present, past, and future. The arcs are presented in that order, with each one comprised of three songs. The present describes the apex of a civilization, harnessing the promises forged upon the hopes and chaos of the past. Meanwhile, Voidthrone paints a grim outlook for the future, specifically calling out ‘an extinguished, lonely death of the physical, spiritual, and cognitive.’1 The lyrics throughout Dreaming Rat read like the demented ravings of a madman’s manifesto,2 and while I don’t think I could have divined the album’s overarching concept from them alone, reading them amplifies the bedlam Voidthrone has crafted on Dreaming Rat.

Writing music this lawless may seem haphazard, but over repeated listens, I’ve begun to glimpse the method to Dreaming Rat’s madness. Without question, everyone in Voidthrone earns their stripes. Ronald Foodsack’s guitars drench Dreaming Rat with warbling dissonance, perpetually in flux so that there’s never a riff or refrain to inhibit the music’s incessant lurch. Whether moving at frantic paces (“III-I. Surfing the Abyss”) or decelerating to a plodding crawl (“II-II. Morbid Seagull”), Ron’s six-stringed blitz never stalls. Additionally, Gavin Brooks contributes acoustic guitar and solos while manning the glorious fretless bass.3 Technical death metal has hogged the fretless bass for too long, and I’m glad Voidthrone has the stones to add it to disso metal’s tool chest. Tracks like “I-I. Bergen” and “II-I. Homeless Animal” showcase the character the instrument offers, bolstering the ever-shifting nature of Dreaming Rat. Drummer Josh Keifer grounds the band ably, locked into a supporting role that allows the other instruments to take center stage while he keeps things on the rails. Frolov’s feral vocals and the host of unconventional instruments further enrich Voidthrone’s distinctive identity, establishing what sounds like it could be the death throes of the universe.

What Voidthrone accomplishes with Dreaming Rat is fascinating and unique, and merits everyone’s attention. Sure, some songs could be trimmed to make such a scathing album a bit shorter and more palatable, and the three arcs could use some musical cues to distinguish songs thematically from one another, but Dreaming Rat is a crowning achievement for the band. Voidthrone’s psychedelic psychosis makes bold promises on paper and completely delivers in fact, and when I’m in the mood to get really weird with it, this will be the album I reach for.

Rating: Very Good!
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Self-Release
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: May 8th, 2026

https://www.europesays.com/uk/729246/ Missed Album Review: Hermit Dreams – Desperate Anomies #2025 #5.5 #AvantGardeMetal #ChaosRecords #december #DissonantDeathMetal #ENGLISH #Entertainment #ExperimentalDeathMetal #HarshVocals #music #Norway #UK #UnitedKingdom

Qrixkuor – The Womb of the World Review

By Kenstrosity

Four and a half years ago, Qrixkuor’s debut LP Poison Palinopsia took me by complete surprise, shoving its way inexorably towards a #3 spot on my Top Ten(ish) of 2021. Merging elements of psychedelia, black-and-white horror/thriller OSTs, and cavernous death metal into one gnarled abomination, the UK duo evokes an ever-contorting grotesquery put to music. After 2022’s follow-up EP Zoetrope, which left me cold by comparison, I waited with bated, anxious breath for the next long-form opus. At long last it looms just over the horizon, The Womb of the World.

Two key differences distinguish The Womb of the World from Poison Palinopsia. Firstly, it consists of four epics instead of two, clocking in at a comparable net runtime of 50 minutes. Secondly, Qrixkuor’s trademark orchestrations are performed by The Orchestra of the Silent Stars, which means every instrument and voice you hear is the genuine article. From there, much of the sound and style you’ve heard from Qrixkuor before carries over to today. Cavernous, horrific, bizarre and beautiful, The Womb of the World splits open a cosmic gash from which endless unknowable terrors spill forth in uncontrolled hemorrhage. Head-spinning arpeggios, cascading chromatics, unrelenting riff barrages, and dramatic orchestral hysteria coalesce into a barely ordered chaos that tests my sanity with every phrase. A deformed maze of unhinged twangs, discordant choirs, and reckless blasts guides me but refuses to hold my hand, leaving me to get lost in a miasma of ghastly visions the likes of which only nightmares conjure. With this deeply disturbing methodology, Qrixkuor once again invokes a singular beauty from viscous tar most foul.

Just as was the case for Poison Palinopsia, The Womb of the World isn’t a record of immediacy, but rather one of tricky depth and exceptional layering. With every revisit, compelled as I am to return to something as disturbingly alluring as this, new petals unfurl, additional barbs prick the skin, and my mind falls further down Qrixkuor’s abyss. One example out of countless multitudes, epic 17-minute closer “The Womb of the World” disguises vampiric organs underneath glistening strings and serrated death metal riffs and rhythms. Eventually, those more dominant elements spread out, allowing dramatic pipes to fill the void left between; only to be once more superseded not only by a prolonged and intensely satisfying guitar solo that I’d sooner expect from a much sleazier act, but also the record’s most ascendant orchestral climax. In another case, a torturous chaos howling throughout “And You Shall Know Perdition as Your Shrine” obfuscates all forms that would dare stand behind it, but as the perilous brambles shift and writhe, I start to see an underlying order emanating from within. Suddenly, guest vocalist Jaded Lungs’ (Adorior) hellish utterances and S’s complex guitar work and lush orchestrations ring with a definition and clarity I couldn’t acquire before. That gentle order which Qrixkuor wields so well ensures that The Womb of the World twists and slides through such tumultuous environs as these with uncannily fluidity—act to act, song to song, verse to verse, measure to measure—leaving behind nary a single wasted second.

The Womb of the World is undeniably memorable in a way Poison Palinopsia never quite achieved. I am loath to call anything Qrixkuor pens accessible, but opener “So Spoke the Silent Stars” launches the record with such incredible power and propulsion—exhibiting, largely through D’s fantastic drum performance, a deathly muscularity fortified by the grace and flexibility of a far more lithe and lean figure—that it embeds deep within my psyche. “Slithering Serendipity” pulls off the same feat, albeit through a more emotional appeal. Emotive and exuberant soloing, inspired choir bursts, and deceptively simple lead-guitar/piano core melodies peel back the calloused flesh that shields The Womb of the World’s bleeding heart. Thus, it invites me to fall hopelessly in love with that which should revolt and repulse. Whatever flaws that seemed to exist up to that point fall away into nothingness, made meaningless by the passion and commitment Qrixkuor poured into every curled note.

But I must remember, flaws are the essence of true beauty. For The Womb of the World, those flaws are more often than not ones of production as opposed to performance. Most notably, the drums. D’s performance is nothing short of staggering, but his snare is muffled, his cymbals a touch glassy for my taste, and his bass drum just muddy enough to congeal in moments of extreme rapidity. Yet, it’s hard to imagine that The Womb of the World would sound the way it should if Qrixkuor erased those blemishes. In any case, it’s safe to say that Qrixkuor outdid themselves. Their sound and style won’t find fans in every corner. In fact, I’d go so far as to say The Womb of the World is liable to weed out prudish listeners more harshly than Poison Palinopsia already had. But it is an unqualified success all the same, a mastapeece for those to whom sanity is immaterial. Should you be of that sort, The Womb of the World is essential.

Rating: Excellent!
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Invictus Productions
Websites: qrixkuordeath.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/qrixkuor
Releases Worldwide: November 7th, 2025

#2025 #45 #Adorior #DeathMetal #DissonantDeathMetal #InvictusProductions #Nov25 #PsycheledicMetal #Qrixkuor #Review #Reviews #SymphonicDeathMetal #SymphonicMetal #TheOrchestraOfTheSilentStars #TheWombOfTheWorld #UKMetal

Qrixkuor – The Womb of the World Review

By Kenstrosity

Four and a half years ago, Qrixkuor’s debut LP Poison Palinopsia took me by complete surprise, shoving its way inexorably towards a #3 spot on my Top Ten(ish) of 2021. Merging elements of psychedelia, black-and-white horror/thriller OSTs, and cavernous death metal into one gnarled abomination, the UK duo evokes an ever-contorting grotesquery put to music. After 2022’s follow-up EP Zoetrope, which left me cold by comparison, I waited with bated, anxious breath for the next long-form opus. At long last it looms just over the horizon, The Womb of the World.

Two key differences distinguish The Womb of the World from Poison Palinopsia. Firstly, it consists of four epics instead of two, clocking in at a comparable net runtime of 50 minutes. Secondly, Qrixkuor’s trademark orchestrations are performed by The Orchestra of the Silent Stars, which means every instrument and voice you hear is the genuine article. From there, much of the sound and style you’ve heard from Qrixkuor before carries over to today. Cavernous, horrific, bizarre and beautiful, The Womb of the World splits open a cosmic gash from which endless unknowable terrors spill forth in uncontrolled hemorrhage. Head-spinning arpeggios, cascading chromatics, unrelenting riff barrages, and dramatic orchestral hysteria coalesce into a barely ordered chaos that tests my sanity with every phrase. A deformed maze of unhinged twangs, discordant choirs, and reckless blasts guides me but refuses to hold my hand, leaving me to get lost in a miasma of ghastly visions the likes of which only nightmares conjure. With this deeply disturbing methodology, Qrixkuor once again invokes a singular beauty from viscous tar most foul.

Just as was the case for Poison Palinopsia, The Womb of the World isn’t a record of immediacy, but rather one of tricky depth and exceptional layering. With every revisit, compelled as I am to return to something as disturbingly alluring as this, new petals unfurl, additional barbs prick the skin, and my mind falls further down Qrixkuor’s abyss. One example out of countless multitudes, epic 17-minute closer “The Womb of the World” disguises vampiric organs underneath glistening strings and serrated death metal riffs and rhythms. Eventually, those more dominant elements spread out, allowing dramatic pipes to fill the void left between; only to be once more superseded not only by a prolonged and intensely satisfying guitar solo that I’d sooner expect from a much sleazier act, but also the record’s most ascendant orchestral climax. In another case, a torturous chaos howling throughout “And You Shall Know Perdition as Your Shrine” obfuscates all forms that would dare stand behind it, but as the perilous brambles shift and writhe, I start to see an underlying order emanating from within. Suddenly, guest vocalist Jaded Lungs’ (Adorior) hellish utterances and S’s complex guitar work and lush orchestrations ring with a definition and clarity I couldn’t acquire before. That gentle order which Qrixkuor wields so well ensures that The Womb of the World twists and slides through such tumultuous environs as these with uncannily fluidity—act to act, song to song, verse to verse, measure to measure—leaving behind nary a single wasted second.

The Womb of the World is undeniably memorable in a way Poison Palinopsia never quite achieved. I am loath to call anything Qrixkuor pens accessible, but opener “So Spoke the Silent Stars” launches the record with such incredible power and propulsion—exhibiting, largely through D’s fantastic drum performance, a deathly muscularity fortified by the grace and flexibility of a far more lithe and lean figure—that it embeds deep within my psyche. “Slithering Serendipity” pulls off the same feat, albeit through a more emotional appeal. Emotive and exuberant soloing, inspired choir bursts, and deceptively simple lead-guitar/piano core melodies peel back the calloused flesh that shields The Womb of the World’s bleeding heart. Thus, it invites me to fall hopelessly in love with that which should revolt and repulse. Whatever flaws that seemed to exist up to that point fall away into nothingness, made meaningless by the passion and commitment Qrixkuor poured into every curled note.

But I must remember, flaws are the essence of true beauty. For The Womb of the World, those flaws are more often than not ones of production as opposed to performance. Most notably, the drums. D’s performance is nothing short of staggering, but his snare is muffled, his cymbals a touch glassy for my taste, and his bass drum just muddy enough to congeal in moments of extreme rapidity. Yet, it’s hard to imagine that The Womb of the World would sound the way it should if Qrixkuor erased those blemishes. In any case, it’s safe to say that Qrixkuor outdid themselves. Their sound and style won’t find fans in every corner. In fact, I’d go so far as to say The Womb of the World is liable to weed out prudish listeners more harshly than Poison Palinopsia already had. But it is an unqualified success all the same, a mastapeece for those to whom sanity is immaterial. Should you be of that sort, The Womb of the World is essential.

Rating: Excellent!
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Invictus Productions
Websites: qrixkuordeath.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/qrixkuor
Releases Worldwide: November 7th, 2025

#2025 #45 #Adorior #DeathMetal #DissonantDeathMetal #InvictusProductions #Nov25 #PsycheledicMetal #Qrixkuor #Review #Reviews #SymphonicDeathMetal #SymphonicMetal #TheOrchestraOfTheSilentStars #TheWombOfTheWorld #UKMetal

Qrixkuor – The Womb of the World Review

By Kenstrosity

Four and a half years ago, Qrixkuor’s debut LP Poison Palinopsia took me by complete surprise, shoving its way inexorably towards a #3 spot on my Top Ten(ish) of 2021. Merging elements of psychedelia, black-and-white horror/thriller OSTs, and cavernous death metal into one gnarled abomination, the UK duo evokes an ever-contorting grotesquery put to music. After 2022’s follow-up EP Zoetrope, which left me cold by comparison, I waited with bated, anxious breath for the next long-form opus. At long last it looms just over the horizon, The Womb of the World.

Two key differences distinguish The Womb of the World from Poison Palinopsia. Firstly, it consists of four epics instead of two, clocking in at a comparable net runtime of 50 minutes. Secondly, Qrixkuor’s trademark orchestrations are performed by The Orchestra of the Silent Stars, which means every instrument and voice you hear is the genuine article. From there, much of the sound and style you’ve heard from Qrixkuor before carries over to today. Cavernous, horrific, bizarre and beautiful, The Womb of the World splits open a cosmic gash from which endless unknowable terrors spill forth in uncontrolled hemorrhage. Head-spinning arpeggios, cascading chromatics, unrelenting riff barrages, and dramatic orchestral hysteria coalesce into a barely ordered chaos that tests my sanity with every phrase. A deformed maze of unhinged twangs, discordant choirs, and reckless blasts guides me but refuses to hold my hand, leaving me to get lost in a miasma of ghastly visions the likes of which only nightmares conjure. With this deeply disturbing methodology, Qrixkuor once again invokes a singular beauty from viscous tar most foul.

Just as was the case for Poison Palinopsia, The Womb of the World isn’t a record of immediacy, but rather one of tricky depth and exceptional layering. With every revisit, compelled as I am to return to something as disturbingly alluring as this, new petals unfurl, additional barbs prick the skin, and my mind falls further down Qrixkuor’s abyss. One example out of countless multitudes, epic 17-minute closer “The Womb of the World” disguises vampiric organs underneath glistening strings and serrated death metal riffs and rhythms. Eventually, those more dominant elements spread out, allowing dramatic pipes to fill the void left between; only to be once more superseded not only by a prolonged and intensely satisfying guitar solo that I’d sooner expect from a much sleazier act, but also the record’s most ascendant orchestral climax. In another case, a torturous chaos howling throughout “And You Shall Know Perdition as Your Shrine” obfuscates all forms that would dare stand behind it, but as the perilous brambles shift and writhe, I start to see an underlying order emanating from within. Suddenly, guest vocalist Jaded Lungs’ (Adorior) hellish utterances and S’s complex guitar work and lush orchestrations ring with a definition and clarity I couldn’t acquire before. That gentle order which Qrixkuor wields so well ensures that The Womb of the World twists and slides through such tumultuous environs as these with uncannily fluidity—act to act, song to song, verse to verse, measure to measure—leaving behind nary a single wasted second.

The Womb of the World is undeniably memorable in a way Poison Palinopsia never quite achieved. I am loath to call anything Qrixkuor pens accessible, but opener “So Spoke the Silent Stars” launches the record with such incredible power and propulsion—exhibiting, largely through D’s fantastic drum performance, a deathly muscularity fortified by the grace and flexibility of a far more lithe and lean figure—that it embeds deep within my psyche. “Slithering Serendipity” pulls off the same feat, albeit through a more emotional appeal. Emotive and exuberant soloing, inspired choir bursts, and deceptively simple lead-guitar/piano core melodies peel back the calloused flesh that shields The Womb of the World’s bleeding heart. Thus, it invites me to fall hopelessly in love with that which should revolt and repulse. Whatever flaws that seemed to exist up to that point fall away into nothingness, made meaningless by the passion and commitment Qrixkuor poured into every curled note.

But I must remember, flaws are the essence of true beauty. For The Womb of the World, those flaws are more often than not ones of production as opposed to performance. Most notably, the drums. D’s performance is nothing short of staggering, but his snare is muffled, his cymbals a touch glassy for my taste, and his bass drum just muddy enough to congeal in moments of extreme rapidity. Yet, it’s hard to imagine that The Womb of the World would sound the way it should if Qrixkuor erased those blemishes. In any case, it’s safe to say that Qrixkuor outdid themselves. Their sound and style won’t find fans in every corner. In fact, I’d go so far as to say The Womb of the World is liable to weed out prudish listeners more harshly than Poison Palinopsia already had. But it is an unqualified success all the same, a mastapeece for those to whom sanity is immaterial. Should you be of that sort, The Womb of the World is essential.

Rating: Excellent!
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Invictus Productions
Websites: qrixkuordeath.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/qrixkuor
Releases Worldwide: November 7th, 2025

#2025 #45 #Adorior #DeathMetal #DissonantDeathMetal #InvictusProductions #Nov25 #PsycheledicMetal #Qrixkuor #Review #Reviews #SymphonicDeathMetal #SymphonicMetal #TheOrchestraOfTheSilentStars #TheWombOfTheWorld #UKMetal

Qrixkuor – The Womb of the World Review

By Kenstrosity

Four and a half years ago, Qrixkuor’s debut LP Poison Palinopsia took me by complete surprise, shoving its way inexorably towards a #3 spot on my Top Ten(ish) of 2021. Merging elements of psychedelia, black-and-white horror/thriller OSTs, and cavernous death metal into one gnarled abomination, the UK duo evokes an ever-contorting grotesquery put to music. After 2022’s follow-up EP Zoetrope, which left me cold by comparison, I waited with bated, anxious breath for the next long-form opus. At long last it looms just over the horizon, The Womb of the World.

Two key differences distinguish The Womb of the World from Poison Palinopsia. Firstly, it consists of four epics instead of two, clocking in at a comparable net runtime of 50 minutes. Secondly, Qrixkuor’s trademark orchestrations are performed by The Orchestra of the Silent Stars, which means every instrument and voice you hear is the genuine article. From there, much of the sound and style you’ve heard from Qrixkuor before carries over to today. Cavernous, horrific, bizarre and beautiful, The Womb of the World splits open a cosmic gash from which endless unknowable terrors spill forth in uncontrolled hemorrhage. Head-spinning arpeggios, cascading chromatics, unrelenting riff barrages, and dramatic orchestral hysteria coalesce into a barely ordered chaos that tests my sanity with every phrase. A deformed maze of unhinged twangs, discordant choirs, and reckless blasts guides me but refuses to hold my hand, leaving me to get lost in a miasma of ghastly visions the likes of which only nightmares conjure. With this deeply disturbing methodology, Qrixkuor once again invokes a singular beauty from viscous tar most foul.

Just as was the case for Poison Palinopsia, The Womb of the World isn’t a record of immediacy, but rather one of tricky depth and exceptional layering. With every revisit, compelled as I am to return to something as disturbingly alluring as this, new petals unfurl, additional barbs prick the skin, and my mind falls further down Qrixkuor’s abyss. One example out of countless multitudes, epic 17-minute closer “The Womb of the World” disguises vampiric organs underneath glistening strings and serrated death metal riffs and rhythms. Eventually, those more dominant elements spread out, allowing dramatic pipes to fill the void left between; only to be once more superseded not only by a prolonged and intensely satisfying guitar solo that I’d sooner expect from a much sleazier act, but also the record’s most ascendant orchestral climax. In another case, a torturous chaos howling throughout “And You Shall Know Perdition as Your Shrine” obfuscates all forms that would dare stand behind it, but as the perilous brambles shift and writhe, I start to see an underlying order emanating from within. Suddenly, guest vocalist Jaded Lungs’ (Adorior) hellish utterances and S’s complex guitar work and lush orchestrations ring with a definition and clarity I couldn’t acquire before. That gentle order which Qrixkuor wields so well ensures that The Womb of the World twists and slides through such tumultuous environs as these with uncannily fluidity—act to act, song to song, verse to verse, measure to measure—leaving behind nary a single wasted second.

The Womb of the World is undeniably memorable in a way Poison Palinopsia never quite achieved. I am loath to call anything Qrixkuor pens accessible, but opener “So Spoke the Silent Stars” launches the record with such incredible power and propulsion—exhibiting, largely through D’s fantastic drum performance, a deathly muscularity fortified by the grace and flexibility of a far more lithe and lean figure—that it embeds deep within my psyche. “Slithering Serendipity” pulls off the same feat, albeit through a more emotional appeal. Emotive and exuberant soloing, inspired choir bursts, and deceptively simple lead-guitar/piano core melodies peel back the calloused flesh that shields The Womb of the World’s bleeding heart. Thus, it invites me to fall hopelessly in love with that which should revolt and repulse. Whatever flaws that seemed to exist up to that point fall away into nothingness, made meaningless by the passion and commitment Qrixkuor poured into every curled note.

But I must remember, flaws are the essence of true beauty. For The Womb of the World, those flaws are more often than not ones of production as opposed to performance. Most notably, the drums. D’s performance is nothing short of staggering, but his snare is muffled, his cymbals a touch glassy for my taste, and his bass drum just muddy enough to congeal in moments of extreme rapidity. Yet, it’s hard to imagine that The Womb of the World would sound the way it should if Qrixkuor erased those blemishes. In any case, it’s safe to say that Qrixkuor outdid themselves. Their sound and style won’t find fans in every corner. In fact, I’d go so far as to say The Womb of the World is liable to weed out prudish listeners more harshly than Poison Palinopsia already had. But it is an unqualified success all the same, a mastapeece for those to whom sanity is immaterial. Should you be of that sort, The Womb of the World is essential.

Rating: Excellent!
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Invictus Productions
Websites: qrixkuordeath.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/qrixkuor
Releases Worldwide: November 7th, 2025

#2025 #45 #Adorior #DeathMetal #DissonantDeathMetal #InvictusProductions #Nov25 #PsycheledicMetal #Qrixkuor #Review #Reviews #SymphonicDeathMetal #SymphonicMetal #TheOrchestraOfTheSilentStars #TheWombOfTheWorld #UKMetal

Conjurer – Unself Review

By Dear Hollow

I’m beginning to think Mire was a fluke. I’m not saying that as a bad thing, but I remember listening to Conjurer’s debut and thinking that it was a top post-metal album steeped in atmosphere and enigma, tied together with vicious vocals and vindictive weight.1 So then, I was immensely let down by follow-up Páthos because it seemed to shed substance for novelty: if I’m being honest, its stark dichotomy of heartwrenching melodies and kickass riffs felt inauthentic and shoehorned. Thus, I approached Unself carefully, hoping for something like Mire but tentatively expecting Páthos. What I got, however, was neither. You see, Mire was a fluke not in quality but in approach, because Unself proves that Conjurer prioritizes riff, weaponizing it for the very human tale of the deconstruction of self.

The title track enters with what I would expect from an early 2010s metalcore band intro,2 the Americana cover of 1919 gospel song “I Can’t Feel At Home in this World Anymore” morphing into a full-on dissodeath takedown via a barb of squealing dissonance. While this and the final song, “The World is Not My Home” seem to tie up the album into a thematic deconstruction of religion, Unself is a bit more complex than that. It reflects the journey of vocalist/guitarist Dani Nightingale through an autism diagnosis and discovery of them being non-binary. Similarly reflecting this complexity and remaining incredibly difficult to neatly categorize its sonic assault, Conjurer lays a foundation of post-metal’s meandering rhythmic hulk with death metal intensity, sludge tonal abuse, and a sleek modern production built atop, with – in Unself – hints of black metal. It’s not the second coming of Mire – it’s Unself and undeniably on-brand and completely authentic – and that’s perfectly okay for Conjurer.

Unself’s structure shows Conjurer’s devotion to natural growth, a welcome change from the shoehorned Páthos – largely because Nightingale’s sonic struggles with self-discovery undergird the movements. The two halves of the album are divided into three tracks, bookended by the Huntsmen-influenced thematic motif of the aforesaid “I Can’t Feel at Home in This World” morphed into ugly beatdowns and yearning sadness. The meat of the two suites fall into one of three categories: the relatively traditional post-metal waltzing of Amenra’s heavier moments in sprawling weight (“All Apart,” “Foreclosure”), the yearning chord progressions and melodies recalling Páthos’ emotive emphasis to a more effective degree (“There Is No Warmth,” “Let Us Live”), or the outright assaults of blackened sludge and -core breakdowns (“The Searing Glow,” “Hang Them in Your Head”). As the album progresses, so does the intensity. The latter, the most vicious of the bunch, feel like they nearly boil over, nearly forsaking the post-metal attack for an obscure death metal attack a la Convulsing or Adversarial – making interlude “A Plea” truly the eye of the storm in its minimalist approach, distant vocal samples, and acoustic strumming.

The balance between novelty and songwriting remains an issue for Conjurer. Because of the trichotomy of its sounds, Unself offers different levels of quality. At first, the more traditional post-metal cuts (“All Apart,” “Foreclosure”) feel like absolute bangers, touched with darkness and harmony – but then you hear the other two approaches and they suddenly feel overly long and uneventful in comparison. Likewise, there are several tracks that could stand a good trimming, simply because many feature a singular abrupt tonal shift from melodic to dissonant in its last respective third (“There is No Warmth,” “Let Us Live”). A more divisive take is that Conjurer’s production is very modern and sleek, the down-tuned leads more akin to 2010s metalcore acts like The Plot in You or The Sorrow, an accessibility largely contradicting post-metal’s historic opaqueness (Neurosis) and death metal’s hostility (Bolt Thrower), so while I liked its more “loud and ouchy” tones, others may not be so persuaded.

The novelty and the emotion are resolved in Unself, as Conjurer finally feels authentic and realized. No, Unself is not better than Mire, but it feels more genuine and human than Páthos, offering some of the act’s most intense material to date while chronicling the dismantling of the self into something more authentic. Not only does Dani Nightingale embark on a journey of self-discovery, but Conjurer does too. I’m just happy to be along for the ride.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 4 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Nuclear Blast Records
Websites: conjureruk.bandcamp.com | conjureruk.com | facebook.com/conjureruk
Releases Worldwide: October 24th, 2025

#2025 #30 #Adversarial #Amenra #BlackMetal #BoltThrower #BritishMetal #Conjurer #Convulsing #DeathMetal #DissonantDeathMetal #Huntsmen #Neurosis #NuclearBlastRecords #Oct25 #PostMetal #Review #Reviews #SludgeMetal #TheOngoingConcept #ThePlotInYou #TheSorrow #Unself #VeilOfMaya

Conjurer – Unself Review

By Dear Hollow

I’m beginning to think Mire was a fluke. I’m not saying that as a bad thing, but I remember listening to Conjurer’s debut and thinking that it was a top post-metal album steeped in atmosphere and enigma, tied together with vicious vocals and vindictive weight.1 So then, I was immensely let down by follow-up Páthos because it seemed to shed substance for novelty: if I’m being honest, its stark dichotomy of heartwrenching melodies and kickass riffs felt inauthentic and shoehorned. Thus, I approached Unself carefully, hoping for something like Mire but tentatively expecting Páthos. What I got, however, was neither. You see, Mire was a fluke not in quality but in approach, because Unself proves that Conjurer prioritizes riff, weaponizing it for the very human tale of the deconstruction of self.

The title track enters with what I would expect from an early 2010s metalcore band intro,2 the Americana cover of 1919 gospel song “I Can’t Feel At Home in this World Anymore” morphing into a full-on dissodeath takedown via a barb of squealing dissonance. While this and the final song, “The World is Not My Home” seem to tie up the album into a thematic deconstruction of religion, Unself is a bit more complex than that. It reflects the journey of vocalist/guitarist Dani Nightingale through an autism diagnosis and discovery of them being non-binary. Similarly reflecting this complexity and remaining incredibly difficult to neatly categorize its sonic assault, Conjurer lays a foundation of post-metal’s meandering rhythmic hulk with death metal intensity, sludge tonal abuse, and a sleek modern production built atop, with – in Unself – hints of black metal. It’s not the second coming of Mire – it’s Unself and undeniably on-brand and completely authentic – and that’s perfectly okay for Conjurer.

Unself’s structure shows Conjurer’s devotion to natural growth, a welcome change from the shoehorned Páthos – largely because Nightingale’s sonic struggles with self-discovery undergird the movements. The two halves of the album are divided into three tracks, bookended by the Huntsmen-influenced thematic motif of the aforesaid “I Can’t Feel at Home in This World” morphed into ugly beatdowns and yearning sadness. The meat of the two suites fall into one of three categories: the relatively traditional post-metal waltzing of Amenra’s heavier moments in sprawling weight (“All Apart,” “Foreclosure”), the yearning chord progressions and melodies recalling Páthos’ emotive emphasis to a more effective degree (“There Is No Warmth,” “Let Us Live”), or the outright assaults of blackened sludge and -core breakdowns (“The Searing Glow,” “Hang Them in Your Head”). As the album progresses, so does the intensity. The latter, the most vicious of the bunch, feel like they nearly boil over, nearly forsaking the post-metal attack for an obscure death metal attack a la Convulsing or Adversarial – making interlude “A Plea” truly the eye of the storm in its minimalist approach, distant vocal samples, and acoustic strumming.

The balance between novelty and songwriting remains an issue for Conjurer. Because of the trichotomy of its sounds, Unself offers different levels of quality. At first, the more traditional post-metal cuts (“All Apart,” “Foreclosure”) feel like absolute bangers, touched with darkness and harmony – but then you hear the other two approaches and they suddenly feel overly long and uneventful in comparison. Likewise, there are several tracks that could stand a good trimming, simply because many feature a singular abrupt tonal shift from melodic to dissonant in its last respective third (“There is No Warmth,” “Let Us Live”). A more divisive take is that Conjurer’s production is very modern and sleek, the down-tuned leads more akin to 2010s metalcore acts like The Plot in You or The Sorrow, an accessibility largely contradicting post-metal’s historic opaqueness (Neurosis) and death metal’s hostility (Bolt Thrower), so while I liked its more “loud and ouchy” tones, others may not be so persuaded.

The novelty and the emotion are resolved in Unself, as Conjurer finally feels authentic and realized. No, Unself is not better than Mire, but it feels more genuine and human than Páthos, offering some of the act’s most intense material to date while chronicling the dismantling of the self into something more authentic. Not only does Dani Nightingale embark on a journey of self-discovery, but Conjurer does too. I’m just happy to be along for the ride.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 4 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Nuclear Blast Records
Websites: conjureruk.bandcamp.com | conjureruk.com | facebook.com/conjureruk
Releases Worldwide: October 24th, 2025

#2025 #30 #Adversarial #Amenra #BlackMetal #BoltThrower #BritishMetal #Conjurer #Convulsing #DeathMetal #DissonantDeathMetal #Huntsmen #Neurosis #NuclearBlastRecords #Oct25 #PostMetal #Review #Reviews #SludgeMetal #TheOngoingConcept #ThePlotInYou #TheSorrow #Unself #VeilOfMaya

Conjurer – Unself Review

By Dear Hollow

I’m beginning to think Mire was a fluke. I’m not saying that as a bad thing, but I remember listening to Conjurer’s debut and thinking that it was a top post-metal album steeped in atmosphere and enigma, tied together with vicious vocals and vindictive weight.1 So then, I was immensely let down by follow-up Páthos because it seemed to shed substance for novelty: if I’m being honest, its stark dichotomy of heartwrenching melodies and kickass riffs felt inauthentic and shoehorned. Thus, I approached Unself carefully, hoping for something like Mire but tentatively expecting Páthos. What I got, however, was neither. You see, Mire was a fluke not in quality but in approach, because Unself proves that Conjurer prioritizes riff, weaponizing it for the very human tale of the deconstruction of self.

The title track enters with what I would expect from an early 2010s metalcore band intro,2 the Americana cover of 1919 gospel song “I Can’t Feel At Home in this World Anymore” morphing into a full-on dissodeath takedown via a barb of squealing dissonance. While this and the final song, “The World is Not My Home” seem to tie up the album into a thematic deconstruction of religion, Unself is a bit more complex than that. It reflects the journey of vocalist/guitarist Dani Nightingale through an autism diagnosis and discovery of them being non-binary. Similarly reflecting this complexity and remaining incredibly difficult to neatly categorize its sonic assault, Conjurer lays a foundation of post-metal’s meandering rhythmic hulk with death metal intensity, sludge tonal abuse, and a sleek modern production built atop, with – in Unself – hints of black metal. It’s not the second coming of Mire – it’s Unself and undeniably on-brand and completely authentic – and that’s perfectly okay for Conjurer.

Unself’s structure shows Conjurer’s devotion to natural growth, a welcome change from the shoehorned Páthos – largely because Nightingale’s sonic struggles with self-discovery undergird the movements. The two halves of the album are divided into three tracks, bookended by the Huntsmen-influenced thematic motif of the aforesaid “I Can’t Feel at Home in This World” morphed into ugly beatdowns and yearning sadness. The meat of the two suites fall into one of three categories: the relatively traditional post-metal waltzing of Amenra’s heavier moments in sprawling weight (“All Apart,” “Foreclosure”), the yearning chord progressions and melodies recalling Páthos’ emotive emphasis to a more effective degree (“There Is No Warmth,” “Let Us Live”), or the outright assaults of blackened sludge and -core breakdowns (“The Searing Glow,” “Hang Them in Your Head”). As the album progresses, so does the intensity. The latter, the most vicious of the bunch, feel like they nearly boil over, nearly forsaking the post-metal attack for an obscure death metal attack a la Convulsing or Adversarial – making interlude “A Plea” truly the eye of the storm in its minimalist approach, distant vocal samples, and acoustic strumming.

The balance between novelty and songwriting remains an issue for Conjurer. Because of the trichotomy of its sounds, Unself offers different levels of quality. At first, the more traditional post-metal cuts (“All Apart,” “Foreclosure”) feel like absolute bangers, touched with darkness and harmony – but then you hear the other two approaches and they suddenly feel overly long and uneventful in comparison. Likewise, there are several tracks that could stand a good trimming, simply because many feature a singular abrupt tonal shift from melodic to dissonant in its last respective third (“There is No Warmth,” “Let Us Live”). A more divisive take is that Conjurer’s production is very modern and sleek, the down-tuned leads more akin to 2010s metalcore acts like The Plot in You or The Sorrow, an accessibility largely contradicting post-metal’s historic opaqueness (Neurosis) and death metal’s hostility (Bolt Thrower), so while I liked its more “loud and ouchy” tones, others may not be so persuaded.

The novelty and the emotion are resolved in Unself, as Conjurer finally feels authentic and realized. No, Unself is not better than Mire, but it feels more genuine and human than Páthos, offering some of the act’s most intense material to date while chronicling the dismantling of the self into something more authentic. Not only does Dani Nightingale embark on a journey of self-discovery, but Conjurer does too. I’m just happy to be along for the ride.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 4 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Nuclear Blast Records
Websites: conjureruk.bandcamp.com | conjureruk.com | facebook.com/conjureruk
Releases Worldwide: October 24th, 2025

#2025 #30 #Adversarial #Amenra #BlackMetal #BoltThrower #BritishMetal #Conjurer #Convulsing #DeathMetal #DissonantDeathMetal #Huntsmen #Neurosis #NuclearBlastRecords #Oct25 #PostMetal #Review #Reviews #SludgeMetal #TheOngoingConcept #ThePlotInYou #TheSorrow #Unself #VeilOfMaya

Conjurer – Unself Review

By Dear Hollow

I’m beginning to think Mire was a fluke. I’m not saying that as a bad thing, but I remember listening to Conjurer’s debut and thinking that it was a top post-metal album steeped in atmosphere and enigma, tied together with vicious vocals and vindictive weight.1 So then, I was immensely let down by follow-up Páthos because it seemed to shed substance for novelty: if I’m being honest, its stark dichotomy of heartwrenching melodies and kickass riffs felt inauthentic and shoehorned. Thus, I approached Unself carefully, hoping for something like Mire but tentatively expecting Páthos. What I got, however, was neither. You see, Mire was a fluke not in quality but in approach, because Unself proves that Conjurer prioritizes riff, weaponizing it for the very human tale of the deconstruction of self.

The title track enters with what I would expect from an early 2010s metalcore band intro,2 the Americana cover of 1919 gospel song “I Can’t Feel At Home in this World Anymore” morphing into a full-on dissodeath takedown via a barb of squealing dissonance. While this and the final song, “The World is Not My Home” seem to tie up the album into a thematic deconstruction of religion, Unself is a bit more complex than that. It reflects the journey of vocalist/guitarist Dani Nightingale through an autism diagnosis and discovery of them being non-binary. Similarly reflecting this complexity and remaining incredibly difficult to neatly categorize its sonic assault, Conjurer lays a foundation of post-metal’s meandering rhythmic hulk with death metal intensity, sludge tonal abuse, and a sleek modern production built atop, with – in Unself – hints of black metal. It’s not the second coming of Mire – it’s Unself and undeniably on-brand and completely authentic – and that’s perfectly okay for Conjurer.

Unself’s structure shows Conjurer’s devotion to natural growth, a welcome change from the shoehorned Páthos – largely because Nightingale’s sonic struggles with self-discovery undergird the movements. The two halves of the album are divided into three tracks, bookended by the Huntsmen-influenced thematic motif of the aforesaid “I Can’t Feel at Home in This World” morphed into ugly beatdowns and yearning sadness. The meat of the two suites fall into one of three categories: the relatively traditional post-metal waltzing of Amenra’s heavier moments in sprawling weight (“All Apart,” “Foreclosure”), the yearning chord progressions and melodies recalling Páthos’ emotive emphasis to a more effective degree (“There Is No Warmth,” “Let Us Live”), or the outright assaults of blackened sludge and -core breakdowns (“The Searing Glow,” “Hang Them in Your Head”). As the album progresses, so does the intensity. The latter, the most vicious of the bunch, feel like they nearly boil over, nearly forsaking the post-metal attack for an obscure death metal attack a la Convulsing or Adversarial – making interlude “A Plea” truly the eye of the storm in its minimalist approach, distant vocal samples, and acoustic strumming.

The balance between novelty and songwriting remains an issue for Conjurer. Because of the trichotomy of its sounds, Unself offers different levels of quality. At first, the more traditional post-metal cuts (“All Apart,” “Foreclosure”) feel like absolute bangers, touched with darkness and harmony – but then you hear the other two approaches and they suddenly feel overly long and uneventful in comparison. Likewise, there are several tracks that could stand a good trimming, simply because many feature a singular abrupt tonal shift from melodic to dissonant in its last respective third (“There is No Warmth,” “Let Us Live”). A more divisive take is that Conjurer’s production is very modern and sleek, the down-tuned leads more akin to 2010s metalcore acts like The Plot in You or The Sorrow, an accessibility largely contradicting post-metal’s historic opaqueness (Neurosis) and death metal’s hostility (Bolt Thrower), so while I liked its more “loud and ouchy” tones, others may not be so persuaded.

The novelty and the emotion are resolved in Unself, as Conjurer finally feels authentic and realized. No, Unself is not better than Mire, but it feels more genuine and human than Páthos, offering some of the act’s most intense material to date while chronicling the dismantling of the self into something more authentic. Not only does Dani Nightingale embark on a journey of self-discovery, but Conjurer does too. I’m just happy to be along for the ride.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 4 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Nuclear Blast Records
Websites: conjureruk.bandcamp.com | conjureruk.com | facebook.com/conjureruk
Releases Worldwide: October 24th, 2025

#2025 #30 #Adversarial #Amenra #BlackMetal #BoltThrower #BritishMetal #Conjurer #Convulsing #DeathMetal #DissonantDeathMetal #Huntsmen #Neurosis #NuclearBlastRecords #Oct25 #PostMetal #Review #Reviews #SludgeMetal #TheOngoingConcept #ThePlotInYou #TheSorrow #Unself #VeilOfMaya

Abhorrent Expanse – Enter the Misanthropocene Review

How experimental is too experimental? Tha…
#NewsBeep #News #Music #1.0 #2025 #AbhorrentExpanse #AmalgamMusic #AmbientMetal #AmericanMetal #Aug25 #Bunsenburner #Celestiial #DeathMetal #DissonantDeathMetal #EntertheMisanthropocene #Entertainment #FreeJazz #Grindcore #ImperialTriumphant #JohnCage #JohnZorn #NeptunianMaximalism #noise #Obsequiae #Portal #review #Reviews #TheBlight #UK #UnitedKingdom #ZebulonPike
https://www.newsbeep.com/uk/75769/

Abhorrent Expanse – Enter the Misanthropocene Review

By Dear Hollow

How experimental is too experimental? That’s the question Chicago’s Abhorrent Expanse posits. It’s clear from the title: Enter the Misanthropocene enters to play jazz and fuck shit up, and “Bitches Brew” is on its final notes. When the Lord of the Promo Pit designated the quartet as “death-drone,” I was intrigued and gobbled up rights. It was clear from the jump that Abhorrent Expanse was not the death metal act with a mammoth guitar tone I had hoped, but an improvisational free jazz quartet that decides to do extreme metal sometimes, with death metal, grindcore, and, yes, drone metal making short-lived appearances. Pushing the boundary between extreme lofty experimentation and outright nonsense, Enter the Misanthropocene is a sophomore effort that will take you to an abstract and uncompromising world – or straight to the medicine cabinet for an aspirin.

Abhorrent Expanse has a solid lineup, including caliber from Zebulon Pike, Celestiial, Obsequiae, and The Blight – even if its sound feels entirely convoluted. Following the controversial debut Gateways to Resplendence, Enter the Misanthropocene is largely the same, but its scope is larger, significantly reducing its drone content in favor of jazzy noodling, grind intensity, sprawling ambiance, and deconstructed death metal jaggedness. The drone that exists within is a short-lived sprawl that pops up periodically, giving a more abstract feel than its predecessor’s “dissodeath meeting drone metal in a dark alley behind the Kmart” vibe. Forty-eight minutes of whiplash-inducing tonal and tempo shifts, off-key twanging, random stoner sprawls, and an undeserved love for improv awaits – and I need a nap.

Say it with me: improv is bad. I get the whole avant-garde approach that John Zorn would drool over, that an improvised performance is a “never see it the same way twice” kind of deal, but that doesn’t mean it’s good. As we’ve seen with typically good bands like Neptunian Maximalism or Bunsenburner, relying on group chemistry instead of thoughtful songwriting to create a singular experience hardly pans out – and Enter the Misanthropocene is no exception. Moments of avant-garde clarity in which the instruments align shine in the twitching obscure grind (title track, “Assail the Density Matrix,” “Dissonant Aggressors”), short-lived minimalist drone (“Praise for Chaos,” “Dissonant Aggressors,” “Ascension Symptom Acceleration”), haunting ritualism (“Waves of Graves”), and ambient calm (“Kairos”). Death growls are sparse. Enter the Misanthropocene is so free jazz and avant-garde it forcibly drags nonconsenting listeners into what seems like obscenely high art…

…Or incompetent musicianship. Much of Abhorrent Expanse’s sound is rooted in utter nonsense, and one that often gets played really fast. While there’s certainly artistic discomfort aplenty to be found on this record, in which I can see some merit (“Waves of Graves,” “Drenched Onyx”), these are scattered moments among what sound like the plonks and twunks of a novice fiddling with a new guitar at Guitar Center. Atonal noodling and off-beat drumming accounts for the majority of its forty-eight minute runtime, sounding entirely random. The drone-doom moments feel off-beat and misaligned (“Praise for Chaos”), some ambient moments are so subtle and minimalist that they just cover John Cage’s 4’33” for a bit before eventually becoming audible (“Nephilim Disinterred”), and by the end of the ten-minute closer “Prostrate Before Chthonic Devourment” you might feel like you’ve been through a prostrate exam.

The promotion around Abhorrent Expanse relies on similarities to dissonant acts like Portal and Imperial Triumphant – but in order to do that, they’d actually have to write some songs first. Gateways to Resplendence was challenging and avant-garde but anchored to a respectable degree; Enter the Misanthropocene is a leaf on the wind, being blown by one avant-garde gust to another with no semblance of gravity to save it. Its high-art status is a divisive issue, as the directionless noodling can be seen as either a challenging piece of art or four dudes who don’t know how to play their instruments. But isn’t that the nature of art itself? Abhorrent Expanse holds a mirror to art itself, making us question what is drivel and what is erudite – through the improvised off-key noodling of someone who has arguably never picked up a guitar before.

Rating: 1.0/5.0
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Amalgam Music
Websites: abhorrentexpanse.bandcamp.com
Releases Worldwide: August 15th, 2025

#10 #2025 #AbhorrentExpanse #AmalgamMusic #AmbientMetal #AmericanMetal #Aug25 #Bunsenburner #Celestiial #DeathMetal #DissonantDeathMetal #EnterTheMisanthropocene #FreeJazz #Grindcore #ImperialTriumphant #JohnCage #JohnZorn #NeptunianMaximalism #Noise #Obsequiae #Portal #Review #Reviews #TheBlight #ZebulonPike

Abhorrent Expanse – Enter the Misanthropocene Review

By Dear Hollow

How experimental is too experimental? That’s the question Chicago’s Abhorrent Expanse posits. It’s clear from the title: Enter the Misanthropocene enters to play jazz and fuck shit up, and “Bitches Brew” is on its final notes. When the Lord of the Promo Pit designated the quartet as “death-drone,” I was intrigued and gobbled up rights. It was clear from the jump that Abhorrent Expanse was not the death metal act with a mammoth guitar tone I had hoped, but an improvisational free jazz quartet that decides to do extreme metal sometimes, with death metal, grindcore, and, yes, drone metal making short-lived appearances. Pushing the boundary between extreme lofty experimentation and outright nonsense, Enter the Misanthropocene is a sophomore effort that will take you to an abstract and uncompromising world – or straight to the medicine cabinet for an aspirin.

Abhorrent Expanse has a solid lineup, including caliber from Zebulon Pike, Celestiial, Obsequiae, and The Blight – even if its sound feels entirely convoluted. Following the controversial debut Gateways to Resplendence, Enter the Misanthropocene is largely the same, but its scope is larger, significantly reducing its drone content in favor of jazzy noodling, grind intensity, sprawling ambiance, and deconstructed death metal jaggedness. The drone that exists within is a short-lived sprawl that pops up periodically, giving a more abstract feel than its predecessor’s “dissodeath meeting drone metal in a dark alley behind the Kmart” vibe. Forty-eight minutes of whiplash-inducing tonal and tempo shifts, off-key twanging, random stoner sprawls, and an undeserved love for improv awaits – and I need a nap.

Say it with me: improv is bad. I get the whole avant-garde approach that John Zorn would drool over, that an improvised performance is a “never see it the same way twice” kind of deal, but that doesn’t mean it’s good. As we’ve seen with typically good bands like Neptunian Maximalism or Bunsenburner, relying on group chemistry instead of thoughtful songwriting to create a singular experience hardly pans out – and Enter the Misanthropocene is no exception. Moments of avant-garde clarity in which the instruments align shine in the twitching obscure grind (title track, “Assail the Density Matrix,” “Dissonant Aggressors”), short-lived minimalist drone (“Praise for Chaos,” “Dissonant Aggressors,” “Ascension Symptom Acceleration”), haunting ritualism (“Waves of Graves”), and ambient calm (“Kairos”). Death growls are sparse. Enter the Misanthropocene is so free jazz and avant-garde it forcibly drags nonconsenting listeners into what seems like obscenely high art…

…Or incompetent musicianship. Much of Abhorrent Expanse’s sound is rooted in utter nonsense, and one that often gets played really fast. While there’s certainly artistic discomfort aplenty to be found on this record, in which I can see some merit (“Waves of Graves,” “Drenched Onyx”), these are scattered moments among what sound like the plonks and twunks of a novice fiddling with a new guitar at Guitar Center. Atonal noodling and off-beat drumming accounts for the majority of its forty-eight minute runtime, sounding entirely random. The drone-doom moments feel off-beat and misaligned (“Praise for Chaos”), some ambient moments are so subtle and minimalist that they just cover John Cage’s 4’33” for a bit before eventually becoming audible (“Nephilim Disinterred”), and by the end of the ten-minute closer “Prostrate Before Chthonic Devourment” you might feel like you’ve been through a prostrate exam.

The promotion around Abhorrent Expanse relies on similarities to dissonant acts like Portal and Imperial Triumphant – but in order to do that, they’d actually have to write some songs first. Gateways to Resplendence was challenging and avant-garde but anchored to a respectable degree; Enter the Misanthropocene is a leaf on the wind, being blown by one avant-garde gust to another with no semblance of gravity to save it. Its high-art status is a divisive issue, as the directionless noodling can be seen as either a challenging piece of art or four dudes who don’t know how to play their instruments. But isn’t that the nature of art itself? Abhorrent Expanse holds a mirror to art itself, making us question what is drivel and what is erudite – through the improvised off-key noodling of someone who has arguably never picked up a guitar before.

Rating: 1.0/5.0
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Amalgam Music
Websites: abhorrentexpanse.bandcamp.com
Releases Worldwide: August 15th, 2025

#10 #2025 #AbhorrentExpanse #AmalgamMusic #AmbientMetal #AmericanMetal #Aug25 #Bunsenburner #Celestiial #DeathMetal #DissonantDeathMetal #EnterTheMisanthropocene #FreeJazz #Grindcore #ImperialTriumphant #JohnCage #JohnZorn #NeptunianMaximalism #Noise #Obsequiae #Portal #Review #Reviews #TheBlight #ZebulonPike

Abhorrent Expanse – Enter the Misanthropocene Review

By Dear Hollow

How experimental is too experimental? That’s the question Chicago’s Abhorrent Expanse posits. It’s clear from the title: Enter the Misanthropocene enters to play jazz and fuck shit up, and “Bitches Brew” is on its final notes. When the Lord of the Promo Pit designated the quartet as “death-drone,” I was intrigued and gobbled up rights. It was clear from the jump that Abhorrent Expanse was not the death metal act with a mammoth guitar tone I had hoped, but an improvisational free jazz quartet that decides to do extreme metal sometimes, with death metal, grindcore, and, yes, drone metal making short-lived appearances. Pushing the boundary between extreme lofty experimentation and outright nonsense, Enter the Misanthropocene is a sophomore effort that will take you to an abstract and uncompromising world – or straight to the medicine cabinet for an aspirin.

Abhorrent Expanse has a solid lineup, including caliber from Zebulon Pike, Celestiial, Obsequiae, and The Blight – even if its sound feels entirely convoluted. Following the controversial debut Gateways to Resplendence, Enter the Misanthropocene is largely the same, but its scope is larger, significantly reducing its drone content in favor of jazzy noodling, grind intensity, sprawling ambiance, and deconstructed death metal jaggedness. The drone that exists within is a short-lived sprawl that pops up periodically, giving a more abstract feel than its predecessor’s “dissodeath meeting drone metal in a dark alley behind the Kmart” vibe. Forty-eight minutes of whiplash-inducing tonal and tempo shifts, off-key twanging, random stoner sprawls, and an undeserved love for improv awaits – and I need a nap.

Say it with me: improv is bad. I get the whole avant-garde approach that John Zorn would drool over, that an improvised performance is a “never see it the same way twice” kind of deal, but that doesn’t mean it’s good. As we’ve seen with typically good bands like Neptunian Maximalism or Bunsenburner, relying on group chemistry instead of thoughtful songwriting to create a singular experience hardly pans out – and Enter the Misanthropocene is no exception. Moments of avant-garde clarity in which the instruments align shine in the twitching obscure grind (title track, “Assail the Density Matrix,” “Dissonant Aggressors”), short-lived minimalist drone (“Praise for Chaos,” “Dissonant Aggressors,” “Ascension Symptom Acceleration”), haunting ritualism (“Waves of Graves”), and ambient calm (“Kairos”). Death growls are sparse. Enter the Misanthropocene is so free jazz and avant-garde it forcibly drags nonconsenting listeners into what seems like obscenely high art…

…Or incompetent musicianship. Much of Abhorrent Expanse’s sound is rooted in utter nonsense, and one that often gets played really fast. While there’s certainly artistic discomfort aplenty to be found on this record, in which I can see some merit (“Waves of Graves,” “Drenched Onyx”), these are scattered moments among what sound like the plonks and twunks of a novice fiddling with a new guitar at Guitar Center. Atonal noodling and off-beat drumming accounts for the majority of its forty-eight minute runtime, sounding entirely random. The drone-doom moments feel off-beat and misaligned (“Praise for Chaos”), some ambient moments are so subtle and minimalist that they just cover John Cage’s 4’33” for a bit before eventually becoming audible (“Nephilim Disinterred”), and by the end of the ten-minute closer “Prostrate Before Chthonic Devourment” you might feel like you’ve been through a prostrate exam.

The promotion around Abhorrent Expanse relies on similarities to dissonant acts like Portal and Imperial Triumphant – but in order to do that, they’d actually have to write some songs first. Gateways to Resplendence was challenging and avant-garde but anchored to a respectable degree; Enter the Misanthropocene is a leaf on the wind, being blown by one avant-garde gust to another with no semblance of gravity to save it. Its high-art status is a divisive issue, as the directionless noodling can be seen as either a challenging piece of art or four dudes who don’t know how to play their instruments. But isn’t that the nature of art itself? Abhorrent Expanse holds a mirror to art itself, making us question what is drivel and what is erudite – through the improvised off-key noodling of someone who has arguably never picked up a guitar before.

Rating: 1.0/5.0
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Amalgam Music
Websites: abhorrentexpanse.bandcamp.com
Releases Worldwide: August 15th, 2025

#10 #2025 #AbhorrentExpanse #AmalgamMusic #AmbientMetal #AmericanMetal #Aug25 #Bunsenburner #Celestiial #DeathMetal #DissonantDeathMetal #EnterTheMisanthropocene #FreeJazz #Grindcore #ImperialTriumphant #JohnCage #JohnZorn #NeptunianMaximalism #Noise #Obsequiae #Portal #Review #Reviews #TheBlight #ZebulonPike

Abhorrent Expanse – Enter the Misanthropocene Review

By Dear Hollow

How experimental is too experimental? That’s the question Chicago’s Abhorrent Expanse posits. It’s clear from the title: Enter the Misanthropocene enters to play jazz and fuck shit up, and “Bitches Brew” is on its final notes. When the Lord of the Promo Pit designated the quartet as “death-drone,” I was intrigued and gobbled up rights. It was clear from the jump that Abhorrent Expanse was not the death metal act with a mammoth guitar tone I had hoped, but an improvisational free jazz quartet that decides to do extreme metal sometimes, with death metal, grindcore, and, yes, drone metal making short-lived appearances. Pushing the boundary between extreme lofty experimentation and outright nonsense, Enter the Misanthropocene is a sophomore effort that will take you to an abstract and uncompromising world – or straight to the medicine cabinet for an aspirin.

Abhorrent Expanse has a solid lineup, including caliber from Zebulon Pike, Celestiial, Obsequiae, and The Blight – even if its sound feels entirely convoluted. Following the controversial debut Gateways to Resplendence, Enter the Misanthropocene is largely the same, but its scope is larger, significantly reducing its drone content in favor of jazzy noodling, grind intensity, sprawling ambiance, and deconstructed death metal jaggedness. The drone that exists within is a short-lived sprawl that pops up periodically, giving a more abstract feel than its predecessor’s “dissodeath meeting drone metal in a dark alley behind the Kmart” vibe. Forty-eight minutes of whiplash-inducing tonal and tempo shifts, off-key twanging, random stoner sprawls, and an undeserved love for improv awaits – and I need a nap.

Say it with me: improv is bad. I get the whole avant-garde approach that John Zorn would drool over, that an improvised performance is a “never see it the same way twice” kind of deal, but that doesn’t mean it’s good. As we’ve seen with typically good bands like Neptunian Maximalism or Bunsenburner, relying on group chemistry instead of thoughtful songwriting to create a singular experience hardly pans out – and Enter the Misanthropocene is no exception. Moments of avant-garde clarity in which the instruments align shine in the twitching obscure grind (title track, “Assail the Density Matrix,” “Dissonant Aggressors”), short-lived minimalist drone (“Praise for Chaos,” “Dissonant Aggressors,” “Ascension Symptom Acceleration”), haunting ritualism (“Waves of Graves”), and ambient calm (“Kairos”). Death growls are sparse. Enter the Misanthropocene is so free jazz and avant-garde it forcibly drags nonconsenting listeners into what seems like obscenely high art…

…Or incompetent musicianship. Much of Abhorrent Expanse’s sound is rooted in utter nonsense, and one that often gets played really fast. While there’s certainly artistic discomfort aplenty to be found on this record, in which I can see some merit (“Waves of Graves,” “Drenched Onyx”), these are scattered moments among what sound like the plonks and twunks of a novice fiddling with a new guitar at Guitar Center. Atonal noodling and off-beat drumming accounts for the majority of its forty-eight minute runtime, sounding entirely random. The drone-doom moments feel off-beat and misaligned (“Praise for Chaos”), some ambient moments are so subtle and minimalist that they just cover John Cage’s 4’33” for a bit before eventually becoming audible (“Nephilim Disinterred”), and by the end of the ten-minute closer “Prostrate Before Chthonic Devourment” you might feel like you’ve been through a prostrate exam.

The promotion around Abhorrent Expanse relies on similarities to dissonant acts like Portal and Imperial Triumphant – but in order to do that, they’d actually have to write some songs first. Gateways to Resplendence was challenging and avant-garde but anchored to a respectable degree; Enter the Misanthropocene is a leaf on the wind, being blown by one avant-garde gust to another with no semblance of gravity to save it. Its high-art status is a divisive issue, as the directionless noodling can be seen as either a challenging piece of art or four dudes who don’t know how to play their instruments. But isn’t that the nature of art itself? Abhorrent Expanse holds a mirror to art itself, making us question what is drivel and what is erudite – through the improvised off-key noodling of someone who has arguably never picked up a guitar before.

Rating: 1.0/5.0
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Amalgam Music
Websites: abhorrentexpanse.bandcamp.com
Releases Worldwide: August 15th, 2025

#10 #2025 #AbhorrentExpanse #AmalgamMusic #AmbientMetal #AmericanMetal #Aug25 #Bunsenburner #Celestiial #DeathMetal #DissonantDeathMetal #EnterTheMisanthropocene #FreeJazz #Grindcore #ImperialTriumphant #JohnCage #JohnZorn #NeptunianMaximalism #Noise #Obsequiae #Portal #Review #Reviews #TheBlight #ZebulonPike

https://www.europesays.com/uk/303184/ Floating – Hesitating Lights Review #2025 #3.5 #CocteauTwins #DeathMetal #Demilich #DissonantDeathMetal #Entertainment #floating #GillaBand #HesitatingLights #Jul25 #LightningBolt #music #NewWave #PostPunk #Review #Reviews #SiouxsieAndTheBanshees #SwedishMetal #TranscendingObscurityRecords #UK #Ulcerate #UnitedKingdom

Floating – Hesitating Lights Review

Back in ’22, your favorite AMG staffers butted heads and said “yeehaw” in a Rodeö whose scores were…
#NewsBeep #News #Music #2025 #3.5 #CocteauTwins #DeathMetal #Demilich #DissonantDeathMetal #Entertainment #Floating #GillaBand #HesitatingLights #Jul25 #LightningBolt #NewWave #post-punk #review #Reviews #SiouxsieandtheBanshees #SwedishMetal #TranscendingObscurityRecords #UK #Ulcerate #UnitedKingdom
https://www.newsbeep.com/uk/32016/

Floating – Hesitating Lights Review

By Dear Hollow

Back in ’22, your favorite AMG staffers butted heads and said “yeehaw” in a Rodeö whose scores were disappointing, very good, and everything in between. The band was a little Swedish oddity called Floating, whose collision of sounds compiled a library of post-punk’s sneering rhythms, post-metal’s ponderous hugeness, and doom’s lurching intensity, at heart beating with dissonant death metal blood inspired by Demilich and Ulcerate. I found myself on the more favorable side, a little put off by its inconsistencies and experimental quirks, but ultimately excited to see more, and my wish has been granted in follow-up Hesitating Lights.

While entirely more streamlined, a major difference between its predecessor, The Waves Have Teeth, is the heart that beats within it and the crescendo that it embodies. While it uses much of the same tricks, it feels more like a post-punk band doing death metal, punky blastbeats meeting an unfuckwithable bassline, providing the backbone of each track – a flaying guitar and scattered synth forming the amorphous flesh. A tale of two halves, whose stylistic differences are tasteful in a gradual shift from punky energy to death metal disintegration, Hesitating Lights soars in its carefully orchestrated experimental attack, leaving a bit more to be desired, but remains a step towards the greatness that Floating is clearly capable of.

The first half of Hesitating Lights deals in a post-punk style that is both impressively simple and mind-warping. Bass is the starting point in its rich and warm intensity that undergirds a deathened attack that is allowed to waver into various textures of dissonance and darkness, ethereality and irony. Taking cue from the ambivalent bumbling of acts like Cocteau Twins and Siouxsie and the Banshees, warm bass pairs with cold guitar in a collision that feels simultaneously ominous and energetic, taking cues from Ulcerate in contemplative sprawls and blastbeats (“I Reached the Mew,” “Cough Choir”), while motifs of dissonant stings and chiming tones inject a dose of morbidity apt to the descriptor “deathpunk” (“Grave Dog,” “Exit Bag Song”). The first half feels like a carefully curated experiment in punk percussion and bass and death metal melodics and vocals. The result is unique and atmospheric – a bit that feels too safe periodically, but its careful composition shows Floating’s songwriting prowess.

It’s only after the first act that Floating begins to fly off the rails in tasteful death metal dominance. Centerpiece of “Hesitating Lights / Harmless Fires” is a tour-de-force of the more synth-driven experimental tendencies, a patient sprawl that refuses easy categorization into either territory. A nearly post-metal crescendo anchored exclusively by the rumbling bass guitar descends into a noise rock climax not unlike Gilla Band or Lightning Bolt. Beyond that, tracks begin to utilize a cascading riff technique in which guitar rhythms fall apart incrementally across repeated iterations, leading to tasteful slivers of melody and ominous buildups (“Still Dark Enough,” “The Waking”), while doom makes a dirging appearance in the most pitch-black moment of the album (“The Wrong Body”). But even aside from more experimental flair, each track in the second half features a kickass riff that gets the head bobbing and anchors the track in some semblance of reality.

I felt like The Waves Have Teeth was a carpet bomb of ideas with glimpses of its deathpunk actualization shining through. Hesitating Lights feels like a much more fleshed-out beast, with the real teeth to speak of. The shifts between the more post-punk- and death metal-oriented halves can feel jarring, and perhaps that gradual descent into the abyss can be accomplished with a bit more finesse, but it shows the duo’s amorphous quality in a fantastic display for a young band. Ominous death metal atmosphere and rebellious punk energy are harnessed with a kickass bass performance and a shapeshifting percussion in a tidy thirty-six minutes, and it’s infectious. While certainly not the opus magnum Floating is capable of, you should have no hesitation in picking up Hesitating Lights.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Transcending Obscurity Records
Websites: floating-label.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/floatingdeathmetal
Releases Worldwide: July 11th, 2025

#2025 #35 #CocteauTwins #DeathMetal #Demilich #DissonantDeathMetal #Floating #GillaBand #HesitatingLights #Jul25 #LightningBolt #NewWave #postPunk #Review #Reviews #SiouxsieAndTheBanshees #SwedishMetal #TranscendingObscurityRecords #Ulcerate

Floating – Hesitating Lights Review

By Dear Hollow

Back in ’22, your favorite AMG staffers butted heads and said “yeehaw” in a Rodeö whose scores were disappointing, very good, and everything in between. The band was a little Swedish oddity called Floating, whose collision of sounds compiled a library of post-punk’s sneering rhythms, post-metal’s ponderous hugeness, and doom’s lurching intensity, at heart beating with dissonant death metal blood inspired by Demilich and Ulcerate. I found myself on the more favorable side, a little put off by its inconsistencies and experimental quirks, but ultimately excited to see more, and my wish has been granted in follow-up Hesitating Lights.

While entirely more streamlined, a major difference between its predecessor, The Waves Have Teeth, is the heart that beats within it and the crescendo that it embodies. While it uses much of the same tricks, it feels more like a post-punk band doing death metal, punky blastbeats meeting an unfuckwithable bassline, providing the backbone of each track – a flaying guitar and scattered synth forming the amorphous flesh. A tale of two halves, whose stylistic differences are tasteful in a gradual shift from punky energy to death metal disintegration, Hesitating Lights soars in its carefully orchestrated experimental attack, leaving a bit more to be desired, but remains a step towards the greatness that Floating is clearly capable of.

The first half of Hesitating Lights deals in a post-punk style that is both impressively simple and mind-warping. Bass is the starting point in its rich and warm intensity that undergirds a deathened attack that is allowed to waver into various textures of dissonance and darkness, ethereality and irony. Taking cue from the ambivalent bumbling of acts like Cocteau Twins and Siouxsie and the Banshees, warm bass pairs with cold guitar in a collision that feels simultaneously ominous and energetic, taking cues from Ulcerate in contemplative sprawls and blastbeats (“I Reached the Mew,” “Cough Choir”), while motifs of dissonant stings and chiming tones inject a dose of morbidity apt to the descriptor “deathpunk” (“Grave Dog,” “Exit Bag Song”). The first half feels like a carefully curated experiment in punk percussion and bass and death metal melodics and vocals. The result is unique and atmospheric – a bit that feels too safe periodically, but its careful composition shows Floating’s songwriting prowess.

It’s only after the first act that Floating begins to fly off the rails in tasteful death metal dominance. Centerpiece of “Hesitating Lights / Harmless Fires” is a tour-de-force of the more synth-driven experimental tendencies, a patient sprawl that refuses easy categorization into either territory. A nearly post-metal crescendo anchored exclusively by the rumbling bass guitar descends into a noise rock climax not unlike Gilla Band or Lightning Bolt. Beyond that, tracks begin to utilize a cascading riff technique in which guitar rhythms fall apart incrementally across repeated iterations, leading to tasteful slivers of melody and ominous buildups (“Still Dark Enough,” “The Waking”), while doom makes a dirging appearance in the most pitch-black moment of the album (“The Wrong Body”). But even aside from more experimental flair, each track in the second half features a kickass riff that gets the head bobbing and anchors the track in some semblance of reality.

I felt like The Waves Have Teeth was a carpet bomb of ideas with glimpses of its deathpunk actualization shining through. Hesitating Lights feels like a much more fleshed-out beast, with the real teeth to speak of. The shifts between the more post-punk- and death metal-oriented halves can feel jarring, and perhaps that gradual descent into the abyss can be accomplished with a bit more finesse, but it shows the duo’s amorphous quality in a fantastic display for a young band. Ominous death metal atmosphere and rebellious punk energy are harnessed with a kickass bass performance and a shapeshifting percussion in a tidy thirty-six minutes, and it’s infectious. While certainly not the opus magnum Floating is capable of, you should have no hesitation in picking up Hesitating Lights.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Transcending Obscurity Records
Websites: floating-label.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/floatingdeathmetal
Releases Worldwide: July 11th, 2025

#2025 #35 #CocteauTwins #DeathMetal #Demilich #DissonantDeathMetal #Floating #GillaBand #HesitatingLights #Jul25 #LightningBolt #NewWave #postPunk #Review #Reviews #SiouxsieAndTheBanshees #SwedishMetal #TranscendingObscurityRecords #Ulcerate

Floating – Hesitating Lights Review

By Dear Hollow

Back in ’22, your favorite AMG staffers butted heads and said “yeehaw” in a Rodeö whose scores were disappointing, very good, and everything in between. The band was a little Swedish oddity called Floating, whose collision of sounds compiled a library of post-punk’s sneering rhythms, post-metal’s ponderous hugeness, and doom’s lurching intensity, at heart beating with dissonant death metal blood inspired by Demilich and Ulcerate. I found myself on the more favorable side, a little put off by its inconsistencies and experimental quirks, but ultimately excited to see more, and my wish has been granted in follow-up Hesitating Lights.

While entirely more streamlined, a major difference between its predecessor, The Waves Have Teeth, is the heart that beats within it and the crescendo that it embodies. While it uses much of the same tricks, it feels more like a post-punk band doing death metal, punky blastbeats meeting an unfuckwithable bassline, providing the backbone of each track – a flaying guitar and scattered synth forming the amorphous flesh. A tale of two halves, whose stylistic differences are tasteful in a gradual shift from punky energy to death metal disintegration, Hesitating Lights soars in its carefully orchestrated experimental attack, leaving a bit more to be desired, but remains a step towards the greatness that Floating is clearly capable of.

The first half of Hesitating Lights deals in a post-punk style that is both impressively simple and mind-warping. Bass is the starting point in its rich and warm intensity that undergirds a deathened attack that is allowed to waver into various textures of dissonance and darkness, ethereality and irony. Taking cue from the ambivalent bumbling of acts like Cocteau Twins and Siouxsie and the Banshees, warm bass pairs with cold guitar in a collision that feels simultaneously ominous and energetic, taking cues from Ulcerate in contemplative sprawls and blastbeats (“I Reached the Mew,” “Cough Choir”), while motifs of dissonant stings and chiming tones inject a dose of morbidity apt to the descriptor “deathpunk” (“Grave Dog,” “Exit Bag Song”). The first half feels like a carefully curated experiment in punk percussion and bass and death metal melodics and vocals. The result is unique and atmospheric – a bit that feels too safe periodically, but its careful composition shows Floating’s songwriting prowess.

It’s only after the first act that Floating begins to fly off the rails in tasteful death metal dominance. Centerpiece of “Hesitating Lights / Harmless Fires” is a tour-de-force of the more synth-driven experimental tendencies, a patient sprawl that refuses easy categorization into either territory. A nearly post-metal crescendo anchored exclusively by the rumbling bass guitar descends into a noise rock climax not unlike Gilla Band or Lightning Bolt. Beyond that, tracks begin to utilize a cascading riff technique in which guitar rhythms fall apart incrementally across repeated iterations, leading to tasteful slivers of melody and ominous buildups (“Still Dark Enough,” “The Waking”), while doom makes a dirging appearance in the most pitch-black moment of the album (“The Wrong Body”). But even aside from more experimental flair, each track in the second half features a kickass riff that gets the head bobbing and anchors the track in some semblance of reality.

I felt like The Waves Have Teeth was a carpet bomb of ideas with glimpses of its deathpunk actualization shining through. Hesitating Lights feels like a much more fleshed-out beast, with the real teeth to speak of. The shifts between the more post-punk- and death metal-oriented halves can feel jarring, and perhaps that gradual descent into the abyss can be accomplished with a bit more finesse, but it shows the duo’s amorphous quality in a fantastic display for a young band. Ominous death metal atmosphere and rebellious punk energy are harnessed with a kickass bass performance and a shapeshifting percussion in a tidy thirty-six minutes, and it’s infectious. While certainly not the opus magnum Floating is capable of, you should have no hesitation in picking up Hesitating Lights.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Transcending Obscurity Records
Websites: floating-label.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/floatingdeathmetal
Releases Worldwide: July 11th, 2025

#2025 #35 #CocteauTwins #DeathMetal #Demilich #DissonantDeathMetal #Floating #GillaBand #HesitatingLights #Jul25 #LightningBolt #NewWave #postPunk #Review #Reviews #SiouxsieAndTheBanshees #SwedishMetal #TranscendingObscurityRecords #Ulcerate

Floating – Hesitating Lights Review

By Dear Hollow

Back in ’22, your favorite AMG staffers butted heads and said “yeehaw” in a Rodeö whose scores were disappointing, very good, and everything in between. The band was a little Swedish oddity called Floating, whose collision of sounds compiled a library of post-punk’s sneering rhythms, post-metal’s ponderous hugeness, and doom’s lurching intensity, at heart beating with dissonant death metal blood inspired by Demilich and Ulcerate. I found myself on the more favorable side, a little put off by its inconsistencies and experimental quirks, but ultimately excited to see more, and my wish has been granted in follow-up Hesitating Lights.

While entirely more streamlined, a major difference between its predecessor, The Waves Have Teeth, is the heart that beats within it and the crescendo that it embodies. While it uses much of the same tricks, it feels more like a post-punk band doing death metal, punky blastbeats meeting an unfuckwithable bassline, providing the backbone of each track – a flaying guitar and scattered synth forming the amorphous flesh. A tale of two halves, whose stylistic differences are tasteful in a gradual shift from punky energy to death metal disintegration, Hesitating Lights soars in its carefully orchestrated experimental attack, leaving a bit more to be desired, but remains a step towards the greatness that Floating is clearly capable of.

The first half of Hesitating Lights deals in a post-punk style that is both impressively simple and mind-warping. Bass is the starting point in its rich and warm intensity that undergirds a deathened attack that is allowed to waver into various textures of dissonance and darkness, ethereality and irony. Taking cue from the ambivalent bumbling of acts like Cocteau Twins and Siouxsie and the Banshees, warm bass pairs with cold guitar in a collision that feels simultaneously ominous and energetic, taking cues from Ulcerate in contemplative sprawls and blastbeats (“I Reached the Mew,” “Cough Choir”), while motifs of dissonant stings and chiming tones inject a dose of morbidity apt to the descriptor “deathpunk” (“Grave Dog,” “Exit Bag Song”). The first half feels like a carefully curated experiment in punk percussion and bass and death metal melodics and vocals. The result is unique and atmospheric – a bit that feels too safe periodically, but its careful composition shows Floating’s songwriting prowess.

It’s only after the first act that Floating begins to fly off the rails in tasteful death metal dominance. Centerpiece of “Hesitating Lights / Harmless Fires” is a tour-de-force of the more synth-driven experimental tendencies, a patient sprawl that refuses easy categorization into either territory. A nearly post-metal crescendo anchored exclusively by the rumbling bass guitar descends into a noise rock climax not unlike Gilla Band or Lightning Bolt. Beyond that, tracks begin to utilize a cascading riff technique in which guitar rhythms fall apart incrementally across repeated iterations, leading to tasteful slivers of melody and ominous buildups (“Still Dark Enough,” “The Waking”), while doom makes a dirging appearance in the most pitch-black moment of the album (“The Wrong Body”). But even aside from more experimental flair, each track in the second half features a kickass riff that gets the head bobbing and anchors the track in some semblance of reality.

I felt like The Waves Have Teeth was a carpet bomb of ideas with glimpses of its deathpunk actualization shining through. Hesitating Lights feels like a much more fleshed-out beast, with the real teeth to speak of. The shifts between the more post-punk- and death metal-oriented halves can feel jarring, and perhaps that gradual descent into the abyss can be accomplished with a bit more finesse, but it shows the duo’s amorphous quality in a fantastic display for a young band. Ominous death metal atmosphere and rebellious punk energy are harnessed with a kickass bass performance and a shapeshifting percussion in a tidy thirty-six minutes, and it’s infectious. While certainly not the opus magnum Floating is capable of, you should have no hesitation in picking up Hesitating Lights.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Transcending Obscurity Records
Websites: floating-label.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/floatingdeathmetal
Releases Worldwide: July 11th, 2025

#2025 #35 #CocteauTwins #DeathMetal #Demilich #DissonantDeathMetal #Floating #GillaBand #HesitatingLights #Jul25 #LightningBolt #NewWave #postPunk #Review #Reviews #SiouxsieAndTheBanshees #SwedishMetal #TranscendingObscurityRecords #Ulcerate

Patristic – Catechesis Review

By Thus Spoke

The first eight centuries of the common era were a tumultuous one for Christian theology, played out in the writings of scholars now considered Early Church fathers. The study of this back-and-forth, which eventually resulted in an agreed ‘canon,’ gives Patristic their name. On debut Catechesis, the trio turn to the turbulent and culturally pivotal period that saw the fall of the Roman Empire, and the rise of the once-marginalized religion. The album’s title refers to the practice of Christian instruction imparted upon potential converts—teachings which stemmed from a still-divided root, even as the religion spread and any pretenses to truth conceded to power. This chaos informs Patristic’s music in a way unique to freeform dissonant metal and culminates in a record whose resonance goes beyond the literal echo of its notes.

The seamlessly flowing sermons that comprise Catechesis are both discomfiting and alluring. Churning riffs and undulating waves of percussion, though sinister and often dissonant, mesmerize through hypnotic recurrence, as Patristic sway and lurch between moments of eerie calm, and punishing violence. And the whole evolves gradually through repeated returns to restless drum patterns, and passages of tense atmosphere, cataclysmic blackened-death assaults, and imposing, frightening melody. As with all the best dissonant extreme metal, Catechesis is intense without being totally overwhelming, and beyond this, is haunting in its particular approach to the interplay between spaciousness and crushing density. In this—particularly a disposition towards dark layers of guitar, and a reverberating quality to the vocals (“A Vinculis Soluta II,” “Catechesis I”)—the closest comparison is Verberis,1 though Patristic craft a drama that is very much their own.

Catechesis can and should be seen as one piece; you could say, one instruction, one imparting of sacred knowledge or dogma. Without lyrics, much is hidden, but as the album progresses, one gets the sense of approaching order by means of violence. The grand refrain that first emerges towards the end of “Catechesis II” comes to fruition with yet ominous finality in closer “Catechesis IV,” and this ultimate reprise echoes the subversive creep of themes through Catechesis. The music’s stream allows the ebb and flow of elements to layer, rise, and fade away with grace that borders on predatory, melodies teased in fragmentary glimpses (“A Vinculis Soluta I,” “Catechesis IV”), or their aura turned back from menacing to mournful (“A Vinculis Soluta II” “Catechesis III”). Riffs overlap in uneasy syncopation, hum malevolently, or chime emphatically in a reverberant chorus with rasping and cavernous bellows, and cello2—played in shuddering vibrato3—weaves through the darkness to amplify tension, and eerie beauty (“Vinculis Soluta II,” “Catechesis I,” “Catechesis II”). Driving the whole through union and separation is a current of mesmerizingly fluid and dynamic drumming, which heightens the already portentous atmospheres and pulls you deep into the writhing mass of it all.

The convergence of the many thematic and percussive threads across the album is impressive in its scope and deceptive ease; it is seamless, beautiful, and often frightening. Patristic also achieve the practically unachievable by using spoken word to add powerful gravitas, which increases rather than lessens the song’s impact (“A Vinculis Soluta I,” “A Vinculis Soluta II”). And speaking of impact, the drum performance, courtesy of Sathrath, deserves particular praise for being one of the most insane of its kind I have ever heard.4 It’s impossibly delicate in shivering cymbal taps, lethally fast in split-second rollovers and fills, and ruthless in its sharp, brutal cascades of double-bass. Everything, drums included, is produced perfectly to allow the convulsing lows to reflect and resonate in a cavernous, immersive portal of grinding guitar and bellowing howls, and the stalking highs dip chillingly below and above its surface.

With such immensity, it’s easy to see how Patristic got a signing with Willowtip so soon; I struggle to believe that these musicians have been playing together for less than five years. So arresting is Catechesis, so layered and immersive, that it threatens to overshadow all other extreme metal this year—if not all metal, period. This is a teaching that all acolytes of the dark and dissonant, and hell, maybe even the crucified Lord, need to hear.

Rating: Excellent
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Willowtip
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: June 20th, 2025

#2025 #45 #BlackMetal #BlackenedDeathMetal #Catechesis #DeathMetal #DissonantDeathMetal #ItalianMetal #Jun25 #Patristic #Review #Reviews #Ulcerate #Verberis #WillowtipRecords

Patristic – Catechesis Review

By Thus Spoke

The first eight centuries of the common era were a tumultuous one for Christian theology, played out in the writings of scholars now considered Early Church fathers. The study of this back-and-forth, which eventually resulted in an agreed ‘canon,’ gives Patristic their name. On debut Catechesis, the trio turn to the turbulent and culturally pivotal period that saw the fall of the Roman Empire, and the rise of the once-marginalized religion. The album’s title refers to the practice of Christian instruction imparted upon potential converts—teachings which stemmed from a still-divided root, even as the religion spread and any pretenses to truth conceded to power. This chaos informs Patristic’s music in a way unique to freeform dissonant metal and culminates in a record whose resonance goes beyond the literal echo of its notes.

The seamlessly flowing sermons that comprise Catechesis are both discomfiting and alluring. Churning riffs and undulating waves of percussion, though sinister and often dissonant, mesmerize through hypnotic recurrence, as Patristic sway and lurch between moments of eerie calm, and punishing violence. And the whole evolves gradually through repeated returns to restless drum patterns, and passages of tense atmosphere, cataclysmic blackened-death assaults, and imposing, frightening melody. As with all the best dissonant extreme metal, Catechesis is intense without being totally overwhelming, and beyond this, is haunting in its particular approach to the interplay between spaciousness and crushing density. In this—particularly a disposition towards dark layers of guitar, and a reverberating quality to the vocals (“A Vinculis Soluta II,” “Catechesis I”)—the closest comparison is Verberis,1 though Patristic craft a drama that is very much their own.

Catechesis can and should be seen as one piece; you could say, one instruction, one imparting of sacred knowledge or dogma. Without lyrics, much is hidden, but as the album progresses, one gets the sense of approaching order by means of violence. The grand refrain that first emerges towards the end of “Catechesis II” comes to fruition with yet ominous finality in closer “Catechesis IV,” and this ultimate reprise echoes the subversive creep of themes through Catechesis. The music’s stream allows the ebb and flow of elements to layer, rise, and fade away with grace that borders on predatory, melodies teased in fragmentary glimpses (“A Vinculis Soluta I,” “Catechesis IV”), or their aura turned back from menacing to mournful (“A Vinculis Soluta II” “Catechesis III”). Riffs overlap in uneasy syncopation, hum malevolently, or chime emphatically in a reverberant chorus with rasping and cavernous bellows, and cello2—played in shuddering vibrato3—weaves through the darkness to amplify tension, and eerie beauty (“Vinculis Soluta II,” “Catechesis I,” “Catechesis II”). Driving the whole through union and separation is a current of mesmerizingly fluid and dynamic drumming, which heightens the already portentous atmospheres and pulls you deep into the writhing mass of it all.

The convergence of the many thematic and percussive threads across the album is impressive in its scope and deceptive ease; it is seamless, beautiful, and often frightening. Patristic also achieve the practically unachievable by using spoken word to add powerful gravitas, which increases rather than lessens the song’s impact (“A Vinculis Soluta I,” “A Vinculis Soluta II”). And speaking of impact, the drum performance, courtesy of Sathrath, deserves particular praise for being one of the most insane of its kind I have ever heard.4 It’s impossibly delicate in shivering cymbal taps, lethally fast in split-second rollovers and fills, and ruthless in its sharp, brutal cascades of double-bass. Everything, drums included, is produced perfectly to allow the convulsing lows to reflect and resonate in a cavernous, immersive portal of grinding guitar and bellowing howls, and the stalking highs dip chillingly below and above its surface.

With such immensity, it’s easy to see how Patristic got a signing with Willowtip so soon; I struggle to believe that these musicians have been playing together for less than five years. So arresting is Catechesis, so layered and immersive, that it threatens to overshadow all other extreme metal this year—if not all metal, period. This is a teaching that all acolytes of the dark and dissonant, and hell, maybe even the crucified Lord, need to hear.

Rating: Excellent
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Willowtip
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: June 20th, 2025

#2025 #45 #BlackMetal #BlackenedDeathMetal #Catechesis #DeathMetal #DissonantDeathMetal #ItalianMetal #Jun25 #Patristic #Review #Reviews #Ulcerate #Verberis #WillowtipRecords

Patristic – Catechesis Review

By Thus Spoke

The first eight centuries of the common era were a tumultuous one for Christian theology, played out in the writings of scholars now considered Early Church fathers. The study of this back-and-forth, which eventually resulted in an agreed ‘canon,’ gives Patristic their name. On debut Catechesis, the trio turn to the turbulent and culturally pivotal period that saw the fall of the Roman Empire, and the rise of the once-marginalized religion. The album’s title refers to the practice of Christian instruction imparted upon potential converts—teachings which stemmed from a still-divided root, even as the religion spread and any pretenses to truth conceded to power. This chaos informs Patristic’s music in a way unique to freeform dissonant metal and culminates in a record whose resonance goes beyond the literal echo of its notes.

The seamlessly flowing sermons that comprise Catechesis are both discomfiting and alluring. Churning riffs and undulating waves of percussion, though sinister and often dissonant, mesmerize through hypnotic recurrence, as Patristic sway and lurch between moments of eerie calm, and punishing violence. And the whole evolves gradually through repeated returns to restless drum patterns, and passages of tense atmosphere, cataclysmic blackened-death assaults, and imposing, frightening melody. As with all the best dissonant extreme metal, Catechesis is intense without being totally overwhelming, and beyond this, is haunting in its particular approach to the interplay between spaciousness and crushing density. In this—particularly a disposition towards dark layers of guitar, and a reverberating quality to the vocals (“A Vinculis Soluta II,” “Catechesis I”)—the closest comparison is Verberis,1 though Patristic craft a drama that is very much their own.

Catechesis can and should be seen as one piece; you could say, one instruction, one imparting of sacred knowledge or dogma. Without lyrics, much is hidden, but as the album progresses, one gets the sense of approaching order by means of violence. The grand refrain that first emerges towards the end of “Catechesis II” comes to fruition with yet ominous finality in closer “Catechesis IV,” and this ultimate reprise echoes the subversive creep of themes through Catechesis. The music’s stream allows the ebb and flow of elements to layer, rise, and fade away with grace that borders on predatory, melodies teased in fragmentary glimpses (“A Vinculis Soluta I,” “Catechesis IV”), or their aura turned back from menacing to mournful (“A Vinculis Soluta II” “Catechesis III”). Riffs overlap in uneasy syncopation, hum malevolently, or chime emphatically in a reverberant chorus with rasping and cavernous bellows, and cello2—played in shuddering vibrato3—weaves through the darkness to amplify tension, and eerie beauty (“Vinculis Soluta II,” “Catechesis I,” “Catechesis II”). Driving the whole through union and separation is a current of mesmerizingly fluid and dynamic drumming, which heightens the already portentous atmospheres and pulls you deep into the writhing mass of it all.

The convergence of the many thematic and percussive threads across the album is impressive in its scope and deceptive ease; it is seamless, beautiful, and often frightening. Patristic also achieve the practically unachievable by using spoken word to add powerful gravitas, which increases rather than lessens the song’s impact (“A Vinculis Soluta I,” “A Vinculis Soluta II”). And speaking of impact, the drum performance, courtesy of Sathrath, deserves particular praise for being one of the most insane of its kind I have ever heard.4 It’s impossibly delicate in shivering cymbal taps, lethally fast in split-second rollovers and fills, and ruthless in its sharp, brutal cascades of double-bass. Everything, drums included, is produced perfectly to allow the convulsing lows to reflect and resonate in a cavernous, immersive portal of grinding guitar and bellowing howls, and the stalking highs dip chillingly below and above its surface.

With such immensity, it’s easy to see how Patristic got a signing with Willowtip so soon; I struggle to believe that these musicians have been playing together for less than five years. So arresting is Catechesis, so layered and immersive, that it threatens to overshadow all other extreme metal this year—if not all metal, period. This is a teaching that all acolytes of the dark and dissonant, and hell, maybe even the crucified Lord, need to hear.

Rating: Excellent
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Willowtip
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: June 20th, 2025

#2025 #45 #BlackMetal #BlackenedDeathMetal #Catechesis #DeathMetal #DissonantDeathMetal #ItalianMetal #Jun25 #Patristic #Review #Reviews #Ulcerate #Verberis #WillowtipRecords

Supreme Void – Towards Oblivion Review

By Owlswald

Relative newcomers Supreme Void began their journey as Depravity in 2016, releasing a couple of EPs over a five-year period, culminating with 2021’s End of Games. The EP delivered a familiar slab of Polish death metal, packed with the aggression, technicality, and power that flagbearers like Behemoth and Hate have long championed. Presumably realizing the existence of numerous other bands named Depravity, the trio changed their name to Supreme Void in 2023, coinciding with their signing to French label Dolorem Records, who then re-released End of Games under the new moniker. Now, Supreme Void’s debut full-length, Towards Oblivion, aims to fuse the brutal, fast and specialized Polish sound with the dissonant and stylish tendencies of the likes of Ulcerate and Gorguts—a conceptually intriguing and ambitious endeavor that tests Supreme Void’s ability to carve out their own niche within a formidable death metal landscape.

Like a murkier Hate colliding with the ominous atmosphere of Ulcerate and groovier ambitions of Replicant, Towards Oblivion oscillates between crushing weight and morose, undulating passages. Strategically placed starts, stops, and tempo changes enhance Supreme Void’s varying moods and textures as eight-string guitar provides conquering low-end and drums pummel everything into dust with devastating precision. Exile’s monstrous roars blanket Supreme Void’s underlying chaos with a thick layer of demonic miasma while the grim rumble of bass rounds out the trio’s vast and immersive sound. Opener “Remnants of Hope” is a fitting representation of what to expect on Towards Oblivion with Ravager’s cacophonous arpeggiations, blazing tremolos, and mammoth chugs shifting and writhing with Cyklon’s syncopated eruptions and Exile’s massive roars. Benefiting once again from excellent production, Supreme Void crafts a dissonant and heavy soundscape marked by writhing tension.

Supreme Void’s powerful guitar-drum attack drives Towards Oblivion’s sinister manifestation with colossal might, binding twists, turns, and jolts into an intense and turbulent auditory assault. Tracks like “Sustained by Malice” and “Eclipse of the Exalted” contrast storms of discordant chords, thrashy riffs, and machine-like rhythms with trudging grooves, enigmatic hooks, and dark atmospheric transitions that are off-kilter but also captivating. Tasteful solos (“Embrace Extinction,” “Dissolution of Power,” “Repulse Manifesto”) showcase both technical skill and emotional vision while Meshuggah-esque drawls and plodding hits drag you further into the abyss. Cyklon’s drumming is outstanding—his menacing blasts and kicks melding with darting tempos, grooving transitions, and flickering cymbal flares augment Exile and Ravager’s swirling arpeggiated dissensions and percussive shredding. Unleashing terror, Exile’s growls saturate everything with an ardent layer of filth, effortlessly tearing through the instrumental mass. The production enhances everything, granting the material the necessary space to exude its qualities while allowing each piece of Supreme Void’s sonic onslaught to shine through with refreshing clarity.

For all of Supreme Void’s merits, Towards Oblivion is sometimes challenged by a sense of imbalance across its thirty-eight-minute runtime. “Repulse Manifesto” follows a less compelling arc as “Dissolution of Power” or “Remnants of Hope,” for example, which fully realize Supreme Void’s immersive qualities. Beginning with a subdued militaristic-like primer that feels like it should be a separate interlude, the track takes too long to develop before surging into its more convincing second half. While this hints at Supreme Void’s ability to command a “slow burn” style of songwriting, the execution is awkward and affects the song’s course. Additionally, closer “Embrace Extinction” lacks the same memorable hooks as Towards Oblivion’s stronger compositions, and “Eclipse of the Exalted” feels a bit overlong, largely due to the song’s cyclical back end.

Despite these stumbles, however, Towards Oblivion finds Supreme Void delivering a strong debut that effectively merges the ferocious sounds of Polish death metal with the dark, ominous tones of today’s disso-death scene. The young trio’s dynamic interplay of crushing heaviness, shifting tempos, maddening dissonance, and technical skill—particularly the one-two punch of the guitars and drums—is enveloping and will appeal to fans across the ever-widening death metal spectrum. Although Towards Oblivion occasionally trips at asserting its vigor, Supreme Void’s clear command of aural intensity, coupled with their ambition, serves as a gateway for them to rip open the abyss with reckless abandon in the future. I, for one, will be eagerly waiting to venture into the void again.

Rating: Good!
DR: N/A | Format Reviewed: Stream
Label: Dolorem Records | Bandcamp
Websites: supremevoid.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/supremevoid
Releases Worldwide: April 25th, 2025

#2025 #30 #Apr25 #Behemoth #DeathMetal #Depravity #DissonantDeathMetal #DoloremRecords #Gorguts #Hate #Meshuggah #PolishMetal #ProgressiveDeath #Replicant #Review #Reviews #SupremeVoid #TowardsOblivion #Ulcerate

Supreme Void – Towards Oblivion Review

By Owlswald

Relative newcomers Supreme Void began their journey as Depravity in 2016, releasing a couple of EPs over a five-year period, culminating with 2021’s End of Games. The EP delivered a familiar slab of Polish death metal, packed with the aggression, technicality, and power that flagbearers like Behemoth and Hate have long championed. Presumably realizing the existence of numerous other bands named Depravity, the trio changed their name to Supreme Void in 2023, coinciding with their signing to French label Dolorem Records, who then re-released End of Games under the new moniker. Now, Supreme Void’s debut full-length, Towards Oblivion, aims to fuse the brutal, fast and specialized Polish sound with the dissonant and stylish tendencies of the likes of Ulcerate and Gorguts—a conceptually intriguing and ambitious endeavor that tests Supreme Void’s ability to carve out their own niche within a formidable death metal landscape.

Like a murkier Hate colliding with the ominous atmosphere of Ulcerate and groovier ambitions of Replicant, Towards Oblivion oscillates between crushing weight and morose, undulating passages. Strategically placed starts, stops, and tempo changes enhance Supreme Void’s varying moods and textures as eight-string guitar provides conquering low-end and drums pummel everything into dust with devastating precision. Exile’s monstrous roars blanket Supreme Void’s underlying chaos with a thick layer of demonic miasma while the grim rumble of bass rounds out the trio’s vast and immersive sound. Opener “Remnants of Hope” is a fitting representation of what to expect on Towards Oblivion with Ravager’s cacophonous arpeggiations, blazing tremolos, and mammoth chugs shifting and writhing with Cyklon’s syncopated eruptions and Exile’s massive roars. Benefiting once again from excellent production, Supreme Void crafts a dissonant and heavy soundscape marked by writhing tension.

Supreme Void’s powerful guitar-drum attack drives Towards Oblivion’s sinister manifestation with colossal might, binding twists, turns, and jolts into an intense and turbulent auditory assault. Tracks like “Sustained by Malice” and “Eclipse of the Exalted” contrast storms of discordant chords, thrashy riffs, and machine-like rhythms with trudging grooves, enigmatic hooks, and dark atmospheric transitions that are off-kilter but also captivating. Tasteful solos (“Embrace Extinction,” “Dissolution of Power,” “Repulse Manifesto”) showcase both technical skill and emotional vision while Meshuggah-esque drawls and plodding hits drag you further into the abyss. Cyklon’s drumming is outstanding—his menacing blasts and kicks melding with darting tempos, grooving transitions, and flickering cymbal flares augment Exile and Ravager’s swirling arpeggiated dissensions and percussive shredding. Unleashing terror, Exile’s growls saturate everything with an ardent layer of filth, effortlessly tearing through the instrumental mass. The production enhances everything, granting the material the necessary space to exude its qualities while allowing each piece of Supreme Void’s sonic onslaught to shine through with refreshing clarity.

For all of Supreme Void’s merits, Towards Oblivion is sometimes challenged by a sense of imbalance across its thirty-eight-minute runtime. “Repulse Manifesto” follows a less compelling arc as “Dissolution of Power” or “Remnants of Hope,” for example, which fully realize Supreme Void’s immersive qualities. Beginning with a subdued militaristic-like primer that feels like it should be a separate interlude, the track takes too long to develop before surging into its more convincing second half. While this hints at Supreme Void’s ability to command a “slow burn” style of songwriting, the execution is awkward and affects the song’s course. Additionally, closer “Embrace Extinction” lacks the same memorable hooks as Towards Oblivion’s stronger compositions, and “Eclipse of the Exalted” feels a bit overlong, largely due to the song’s cyclical back end.

Despite these stumbles, however, Towards Oblivion finds Supreme Void delivering a strong debut that effectively merges the ferocious sounds of Polish death metal with the dark, ominous tones of today’s disso-death scene. The young trio’s dynamic interplay of crushing heaviness, shifting tempos, maddening dissonance, and technical skill—particularly the one-two punch of the guitars and drums—is enveloping and will appeal to fans across the ever-widening death metal spectrum. Although Towards Oblivion occasionally trips at asserting its vigor, Supreme Void’s clear command of aural intensity, coupled with their ambition, serves as a gateway for them to rip open the abyss with reckless abandon in the future. I, for one, will be eagerly waiting to venture into the void again.

Rating: Good!
DR: N/A | Format Reviewed: Stream
Label: Dolorem Records | Bandcamp
Websites: supremevoid.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/supremevoid
Releases Worldwide: April 25th, 2025

#2025 #30 #Apr25 #Behemoth #DeathMetal #Depravity #DissonantDeathMetal #DoloremRecords #Gorguts #Hate #Meshuggah #PolishMetal #ProgressiveDeath #Replicant #Review #Reviews #SupremeVoid #TowardsOblivion #Ulcerate

Stuck in the Filter: February 2025’s Angry Misses

By Kenstrosity

February comes down the pipe about two or three months after February. A perfectly normal thing to experience here at AMG HQ, this Filter’s tardiness is brought to you in part by my body getting stuck in one of the tighter conduits that lines the concrete interior of this confounded bunker. My minions are elsewhere, trudging through similar environs, and report their findings to me via eldritch beast telepathy. Since I obviously don’t speak eldritch tongue, I have to use my Codex of Enspongification to decipher these antediluvian transmissions. I’m sure you can imagine, that takes no small measure of time, especially when you’re stuck in this galvanized prison of rusting sheetmetal.

Until my ungrateful minions can find me and rescue me—something I don’t expect to happen anytime soon considering I give them no workers benefits or pay of any kind—you’ll have to make do with the selections of rough-hewn and sharp, but valuable, ore provided below. OBSERVE AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Kenstrosity’s Crusty Grab

Metaphobic // Deranged Excruciations [February 28th, 2025 – Everlasting Spew Records]

When Atlantan death metal quintet Metaphobic caught my attention with the megalithic riffs opening their debut LP Deranged Excruciations, I thought the stank face it brought out of me might be permanent. Nothing new and nothing sophisticated awaits here. Just brutalizing riffs delivered in a relentless sequence of destruction. Lead guitars squeal and scrape against the swampy ground underfoot, leaving a noxious slime trail behind “Mental Deconstruction” and “Execration” that tastes of Tomb Mold, Incantation, and Demilich to varying degrees. Guttural utterances and cacophonic—but accessibly structured—riffs offer the same infernal ferocity of the olden ways. However, in a similar manner to Noxis, their application here feels modern and fresh-ish (“Execration,” “Veiled Horizons,” “Hypnosis Engram”). Not nearly as nuanced as that comparison might suggest, Metaphobic are more than satisfied to use their brutish death metal as a cudgel for blunt force trauma. Nods to death doom in long-form wanderings like “Disciples of Vengeance” and “Insatiable Abyss” provide an appreciable variation in pace, though it doesn’t always work in Metaphobic’s favor. While those songs tend to meander too long on ideas unfit to support such mass for so long, livid outbursts like “Veiled Horizons” and “Reconstituted Grey Matter” more than make up for it. In short Deranged Excruciations commands my attention enough to earn my recommendation here, and my attention going forward.

Tyme’s Missing Minutes

Caustic Phlegm // Purulent Apocalypse [February 28, 2025 – Hells Headbangers]

Caustic Phlegm is the filth project helmed solely by Chestcrush main man Evan Vasilakos, who joyously employed his HM-2 and RAT pedals to create the utter disgustingness that is Purulent Apocalypse. A far cry from the angsty, I’d-rather-see-humanity-dead blackened death metal of his main outfit, Caustic Phlegm is a throwback to the days when Carnage walked the streets of Sweden and Impetigo was melting faces and killing brain cells. Purulent Apocalypse is a platter of pestiferous riffs (“Fouled, Infected & Infested,” “Soft Bones,” “Blister Bliss”), so many it’s like sitting on a death metal toilet puking and shitting riffs ad nauseam. Evan’s drum work, replete with the occasional but very satisfying St. Anger snare tone, drives the mindless fun forward, and the 80’s zombie giallo synth work would have Lucio Fulci himself clawing out of his grave to eat your face. Vasilakos’ vocals are a fine litany of belches, squelches, and gurgles that sound like a colony of maggots cleaning the putrid flesh from a corpulent corpse. Caustic Phlegm is the foul stench of death and will have you reaching for the soap and steel wool as you try to rid yourself of the Purulent Apocalypse infection.

Vermilia // Karsikko [February 14, 2025 – Self Release]

Had the incomparable Darkher not released The Buried Storm in 2022, Vermilia‘s Ruska would have garnered my top spot that year, which put her on my radar for the first time. When I saw Vermilia‘s follow-up, Karsikko had dropped in February—sadly we didn’t receive a promo—I jumped at the chance to filter it. While Karsikko is a bit more straightforward than Ruska, it’s full of liltingly beautiful pianos (“Karsikko”) that give way to icy black metal riffs (“Kansojen Kaipuu”) and gorgeously rendered folk metal melodies (“Koti,” “Veresi”). Comparisons with Myrkur and Suldusk would be appropriate, but Vermilia continues to carve out her own space in the folk black metal scene, marrying beatific melody with beastly aggression. Performing all of the music on Karsikko, as is her one-woman calling card, renders her finished products even more impressive. The highlight has always been the voice, though, as Vermilia deftly transitions between angelic cleans (“Suruhymni”) and frosty rasps (“Vakat”), completing a circle that makes each of her releases a joy to listen to. It’s confounding that another of Vermilia‘s albums is an independent release, which might be artistically intentional or the result of bone-headed label execs. Either way, don’t miss out on Karsikko, as Vermilia shouldn’t stay unsigned for long.

Killjoy’s Drowsy Discovery

Noctambulist // Noctambulist II: De Droom [February 7th, 2025 – These Hands Melt]

Although I love blackgaze, I must admit that it can be challenging to find artists who stand out in the genre, whether through quality songwriting or unexpected twists. It turns out that the Dutch band Noctambulist1 offers both. Noctambulist II: De Droom is a fun and fresh blend of Deafheaven-adjacent blackgaze with a Molotov cocktail of post-punk energy. The power chord-driven guitar lines prove to be an unexpectedly compatible fuel source to propel the shimmering, gazey tremolos and blackened rasps to new heights. Many songs (particularly “Aderlater” and “Lichteter”) start with neat intro melodies that catch the listener’s attention, then build and ride that momentum throughout the remainder. A faint sense of loss—stemming from the achingly relatable theme of homeownership drifting further out of many people’s reach—pervades the record, but there is also an infectious cheerfulness. Despite their name, Noctambulist are hardly sleepwalking as they tread along a well-worn genre.

Thus Spoke’s Disregarded Diamonds

Sacred Noose // Vanishing Spires [February 2nd, 2025 – Breath Sun Bone Blood]

My experience with Irish extreme metal has been that it is all incredibly dark, twisted, and supremely, gorgeously dissonant.2 Belfast3 duo Sacred Noose make absolutely no exception to this rule. Vanishing Spires’ ruthlessly brief 31 minutes are defined by stomach-tightening twisted blackened death designed to cut to the heart of misery and fear. The lurching sensation brought about by rapid tremolo descents and sudden accelerations of ever more dissonant chords, impenetrable drums, and pitch-shifting feedback is nauseating (“Entranced by Concrete Lathe,” “True Emancipation”). The pure horror of the inhuman, high-pitched shrieks answering the already fearsome bellows is anxiety-inducing (“”Black Tempests of Promise,” “Moribund”). The near-constant buzzing of noise is oppressive (“Terminal Prologue,” “True Emancipation”); the creeping, malevolent scales unnerving. And Sacred Noose play with their victim, luring them into a trap of deceptively familiar cavern-core (“Sacred Noose”) before throwing a hood over their head and yanking them backwards into more horrifying mania; or perhaps they’ll start with the assault (“True Emancipation”). This more ‘straightforward’ edge to Sacred Noose is most akin to a faster Sparagmos, while their dominant, demonic personality I can compare most faithfully to Thantifaxath, if Thantifaxath were more death-metal-inclined. Vanishing Spires is the first time since the latter’s 2023 Hive Mind Narcosis that a record has genuinely made me feel afraid.

Crown of Madness // Memories Fragmented [February 28th, 2025 – Transcending Obscurity Records]

Life unfortunately got in the way of me giving this a proper review, but Crown of Madness deserve better than to slip by unmentioned. Memories Fragmented is the duo’s debut, but Crown of Madness is one of several projects both are already in.4. The ominous yet colourful sci-fi/fantasy cover art and spiky logo scream ‘tech-death’ and that is indeed what Crown of Madness deliver. At base, there is some damn fine technical death metal here that’s impressive and acrobatic (), but snappy, not outstaying its welcome—the entire record barely stretches beyond 35 minutes. But there is more to Memories Fragmented, and as a result, it is memorable.5 A drawl to certain refrains (), the tendency to gently sway to a slow, near-pensiveness (), the atmospheric hanging of some tremolos over a warm, dense bass (). There is depth. And it reminded me quite starkly of early Ulcerate. In this vein, the record leans towards the more meandering side of the subgenre, gripping not with hooky riffs and heart-pumping tempos, but an intricate kind of intensity. Memories Fragmented arguably goes too far in the indistinct direction, and as a result, loses immediacy. But the churning, introspective compositions presage the potential for true brilliance on future releases.

Vacuous // In His Blood [February 28th, 2025 – Relapse Records]

Full of youthful vigour, London’s Vacuous demonstrate their willing ability to evolve with their sophomore, In His Blood. While debut Dreams of Dysphoria, which I covered back in 2022, played more or less by the disso-death book, here they are already experimenting. Strange, almost post-metal atmosphere now haunts the boundaries (“Hunger,” “Public Humiliation,” “No Longer Human”), combining brilliantly with the band’s already cavernous death metal sound, and amplifying its fearsomeness. Crowning example of this is the gem Vacuous save for the record’s final act in closer “No Longer Human.” In His Blood also sees them flirt with a punkier energy that borrows more than a little bit of malice from the blackened handbook (“In His Blood,” “Flesh Parade”), backed up by d-beats, and contrasting well with their now less frequent crawls. At its most explosive, In His Blood feels downright unhinged, in the best way (“Stress Positions,” “Immersion”), but it never feels messy, and there’s potential in here for Vacuous to evolve into yet another, incredibly potent form of unique, modern hybrid extreme metal. I wish there were more than 30 minutes of this.

Dolphin Whisperer’s Bottom o’ the Barrel Boons

Pissgrave // Malignant Worthlessness [February 21st, 2025 – Profound Lore Records]

Though it may appear, at a glance, that I have gold-colored glasses for bands of rank and urological reference, I’d call it more of a chance happening that such miscreant acts have created intriguing works. And, truthfully, PISSGRAVE has leaned closer to filth first, function second with the war-leaning crackle (and brazenly offensive cover art) that relegates their lineage to corners of listening ears who need therapy with a high tolerance for guts and grime. Malignant Worthlessness, of course, is not accessible by any means, though, despite these Philly boys packing these nine ode to a failed society in a package that doesn’t cause immediate squirm. But with grooves trapped in an endless skronk and blast, and vocals shifted and layered to reflect the sound of a swarm of Daffy Ducks with a serious disdain for life, PISSGRAVE still embodies an endless swirl of unleashed aggression rendered in riffed and regurgitated form. Malignant Worthlessness lives on the dry and crispy side with most of its tones, which allows copious hits of quick delay and reverb on OUGHs and EEEEEEEUGHs to land with an extra psychedelic knocking when you least expect it. Little slows down the pain train here, with tracks like “Heaping Pile of Electrified Gore” and “Internment Orgy” taking brief detours into chunky guitar builds that feel within grasp of normalcy just before dropping back into an intensified flaying. Elsewhere, a martial urgency that reminds of Paracletus-era Deathspell Omega or the industrial-tinged pummel of Concrete Winds, stirs a twitching movement response, all while retaining a grinding death snarl and chromatic fury, leading its fused-by-hatred structures toward an explosive and fuming conclusion. Humanity has no place in the PISSGRAVE environs, and Malignant Worthlessness, in its celebration of a hostile world, does everything it can to reinforce that.

終末回路 // 終端から引き剥がす [February 20th, 2025 – Self Release]

For things that wander around the math rock world, nailing a vibe remains essential to enjoyment. It’s all too easy in this day and edge to fall into the comfortable trap of ambient tapping and comfortable posty swirls to pleasant crescendos that renders many modern acts to high brow background music (even including bands I like, to a degree, like Covet or Jizue). New Japanese act 終末回路,6 however, chooses to imbue their nimble and tricky instrumental center with the searing emotion and urgency of a noisy post-hardcore, with searing vocal inclusions adding a gravitas to passages that would otherwise threaten to flutter away in glee (“誤殖,” “知らねぇよ”). On one end, 終末回路 delivers a bright playfulness that swings with the pedal power and psychedelia of a young Tera Melos. Yet, weighted with a punk urgency and rawer Japanese assembly of tones, which give a physical clang to tight kit heads and blazing squeal to shrill loops and feedback, 終末回路 finds a constant momentum in their shorter form excursion that makes my lack of understanding of its introspective lyrics a non-issue. Packing plaintive piano melodies (“ご自由に “), speaker blowing synth cranking (“dgdf++be”), and prog-tinged guitar flutters (“知らねぇよ”) into one listening session isn’t easy, but with this debut outing of 終端から引き剥がす,7 終末回路 makes it seem as if they’ve been honing the craft for years.

Saunders’ Salacious Skeeves

Möuth // Gobal Warning [February 14th, 2025 – Self Release)

Veteran rockers The Hellacopters returned with a typically rollicking, fun album in February. Elsewhere, dropping with little fanfare, fellow Swedes and unsung power trio Möuth emerged with an intriguing debut rock platter, entitled Global Warning. Featuring more than meets the eye and flashing a dynamic rock sound, Möuth embrace both retro and modern influences, whipped into an infectious concoction of styles, ranging from Sabbathian lurches, doomy grooves, stoner vibes, and elements of psych, punk and hard rock. For the most part it works a treat, creating a welcome change of pace. Fuzzy, upbeat rockers (“Dirt,” “Appetite”) snugly reside amongst moody, psych-bending numbers (“Alike,” “Mantra”), and heavier doom-laden rock, such as powerful opener “Holy Ground,” and brooding, emotive album centerpiece, “Sheep.” Vocally, the passionate, Ozzy-esque croons hit the spot, matching up well to the band’s multi-pronged rock flavors. Compact and infectious, varied in delivery and featuring enough tasty rhythms, fuzzy melodies and rock punch to satisfy, Global Warning marks an intriguing starting point for these Swedish rockers.

Chaos Inception // Vengeance Evangel [February 21st, 2025 – Lavadome Productions]

Emerging from a deep slumber in the depths of the underground, Alabama’s long dormant death metal crew Chaos Inception returned with their first album since 2012’s The Abrogation. Third album Vengeance Evangel went under the radar, festering unclaimed in the promo sump. After the fact, the album’s crushing, controlled chaos smacked me upside the skull with a violent modern interpretation of the classic Floridian death metal sound, with the musty hues of Tucker-era Morbid Angel most prevalent. This is blast-riddled, relentless stuff, played expertly by the trio of Matt Barnes (guitars), Gray White (vocals) and session drummer Kevin Paradis (ex-Benighted). Incredibly dense, atmospheric, and blazingly fast, Vengeance Evangel is a brutal, knotty, technical hammering, punctuated by sick, wildly inventive soloing. While not traditionally catchy, Vengeance Evangel is the kind of intense, layered death metal album that gets under the skin, grafting a deeper impression across repeated listens. The insane tempo shifts, jigsaw arrangements, and wickedly deranged axework delivers big time. From the violent, intricate throes of opener “Artillery of Humwawa,” and disturbed soundscapes of “La Niebla en el Cementerio Etrusco,” through to the brutish grooves of ‘Thymos Beast,” and exotic, tech death shards of “Empire of Prevarication,” Vengeance Evangel does not neatly fit into any one subgenre category but ticks many boxes to cast a wide appeal to death fans of varied equations.

Steel Druhm’s Viscous Biscuits

Ereb Altor // Hälsingemörker [ February 7th, 2025 – Hammerheart Records]

Steel loves his epic metal. I was raised on the stirring odes to swordsmanship and ungovernable back hair from Manowar and Cirth Ungol, and in time, I took a place at the great table in Wotan’s Golden Halls to appreciate the Viking metal exploits of Bathory and later adherents like Falkenbach and Moonsorrow. Sweden’s Ereb Altor got in the game late with their epic By Honour debut in 2008, boasting a very Bathory-esque sound and emotional tapestry that felt larger-than-life and stirred the loins to begird themselves. 10th album Hälsingemörker is a glorious return to those halls of heroes and bravery. This is the large-scale songcraft first heard on Bathory albums like Hammerheart and Twilight of the Gods, and it’s most welcome to these ape ears. Cuts like “Valkyrian Fate” are exactly the kind of sweeping, epic numbers the band’s excelled at over the years. It takes the core sound of Viking era Bathory and builds outward to craft bombastic and heroic compositions that feel HUUUGE. It’s the kind of metal song that embiggens the soul and makes you want to take on a marauding horde by your lonesome and usurp all their battle booty. On “Hälsingemörker,” you get a fat dose of Moonsorrow worship, and elsewhere, Primordial is strongly referenced to very good effect. Hälsingemörker is easily the best Ereb Altor album in a while and the most in line with their beloved early sound. Strap on the sword and get after it!

#AmericanMetal #Arboreal #Benighted #BlackMetal #BlackSabbath #Blackgaze #BreathSunBoneBlood #Carnage #CausticPhlegm #ChaosInception #Chestcrush #ConcreteWinds #Coscradh #Covet #CrownOfMadness #Darkher #Deafheaven #DeathDoom #DeathMetal #DeathspellOmega #Demilich #DerangedExcruciations #DissonantDeathMetal #DustAge #EmbodimentOfDeath #ErebAltor #EverlastingSpewRecords #FolkMetal #GlobalWarning #Hälsingemörker #HellsHeadbangers #Impetigo #InHisBlood #Incantation #IrishMetal #JapaneseMetal #jizue #Karsikko #LavadomeProductions #MalignantWorthlessness #MathRock #MelodicBlackMetal #MemoriesFragmented #Metaphobic #MorbidAngel #Möuth #Myserion #Noctambulist #NoctambulistIIDeDroom #Noxis #OzzyOsbourne #Pissgrave #PostMetal #postPunk #ProfoundLoreRecords #PurulentApocalypse #RelapseRecords #Rock #SacredNoose #SelfRelease #SelfReleased #SermonOfFlames #Sparagmos #SwedishMetal #TechnicalDeathMetal #TerZiele #TeraMelos #Thantifaxath #TheHelicopters #TheseHandsMelt #TombMold #TranscendingObscurityRecords #UKMetal #Ulcerate #Vacuous #VanishingSpires #VengeanceEvangel #Vermilia #VultureSVengeance #終末回路 #終端から引き剥がす

Stuck in the Filter: February 2025’s Angry Misses

By Kenstrosity

February comes down the pipe about two or three months after February. A perfectly normal thing to experience here at AMG HQ, this Filter’s tardiness is brought to you in part by my body getting stuck in one of the tighter conduits that lines the concrete interior of this confounded bunker. My minions are elsewhere, trudging through similar environs, and report their findings to me via eldritch beast telepathy. Since I obviously don’t speak eldritch tongue, I have to use my Codex of Enspongification to decipher these antediluvian transmissions. I’m sure you can imagine, that takes no small measure of time, especially when you’re stuck in this galvanized prison of rusting sheetmetal.

Until my ungrateful minions can find me and rescue me—something I don’t expect to happen anytime soon considering I give them no workers benefits or pay of any kind—you’ll have to make do with the selections of rough-hewn and sharp, but valuable, ore provided below. OBSERVE AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Kenstrosity’s Crusty Grab

Metaphobic // Deranged Excruciations [February 28th, 2025 – Everlasting Spew Records]

When Atlantan death metal quintet Metaphobic caught my attention with the megalithic riffs opening their debut LP Deranged Excruciations, I thought the stank face it brought out of me might be permanent. Nothing new and nothing sophisticated awaits here. Just brutalizing riffs delivered in a relentless sequence of destruction. Lead guitars squeal and scrape against the swampy ground underfoot, leaving a noxious slime trail behind “Mental Deconstruction” and “Execration” that tastes of Tomb Mold, Incantation, and Demilich to varying degrees. Guttural utterances and cacophonic—but accessibly structured—riffs offer the same infernal ferocity of the olden ways. However, in a similar manner to Noxis, their application here feels modern and fresh-ish (“Execration,” “Veiled Horizons,” “Hypnosis Engram”). Not nearly as nuanced as that comparison might suggest, Metaphobic are more than satisfied to use their brutish death metal as a cudgel for blunt force trauma. Nods to death doom in long-form wanderings like “Disciples of Vengeance” and “Insatiable Abyss” provide an appreciable variation in pace, though it doesn’t always work in Metaphobic’s favor. While those songs tend to meander too long on ideas unfit to support such mass for so long, livid outbursts like “Veiled Horizons” and “Reconstituted Grey Matter” more than make up for it. In short Deranged Excruciations commands my attention enough to earn my recommendation here, and my attention going forward.

Tyme’s Missing Minutes

Caustic Phlegm // Purulent Apocalypse [February 28, 2025 – Hells Headbangers]

Caustic Phlegm is the filth project helmed solely by Chestcrush main man Evan Vasilakos, who joyously employed his HM-2 and RAT pedals to create the utter disgustingness that is Purulent Apocalypse. A far cry from the angsty, I’d-rather-see-humanity-dead blackened death metal of his main outfit, Caustic Phlegm is a throwback to the days when Carnage walked the streets of Sweden and Impetigo was melting faces and killing brain cells. Purulent Apocalypse is a platter of pestiferous riffs (“Fouled, Infected & Infested,” “Soft Bones,” “Blister Bliss”), so many it’s like sitting on a death metal toilet puking and shitting riffs ad nauseam. Evan’s drum work, replete with the occasional but very satisfying St. Anger snare tone, drives the mindless fun forward, and the 80’s zombie giallo synth work would have Lucio Fulci himself clawing out of his grave to eat your face. Vasilakos’ vocals are a fine litany of belches, squelches, and gurgles that sound like a colony of maggots cleaning the putrid flesh from a corpulent corpse. Caustic Phlegm is the foul stench of death and will have you reaching for the soap and steel wool as you try to rid yourself of the Purulent Apocalypse infection.

Vermilia // Karsikko [February 14, 2025 – Self Release]

Had the incomparable Darkher not released The Buried Storm in 2022, Vermilia‘s Ruska would have garnered my top spot that year, which put her on my radar for the first time. When I saw Vermilia‘s follow-up, Karsikko had dropped in February—sadly we didn’t receive a promo—I jumped at the chance to filter it. While Karsikko is a bit more straightforward than Ruska, it’s full of liltingly beautiful pianos (“Karsikko”) that give way to icy black metal riffs (“Kansojen Kaipuu”) and gorgeously rendered folk metal melodies (“Koti,” “Veresi”). Comparisons with Myrkur and Suldusk would be appropriate, but Vermilia continues to carve out her own space in the folk black metal scene, marrying beatific melody with beastly aggression. Performing all of the music on Karsikko, as is her one-woman calling card, renders her finished products even more impressive. The highlight has always been the voice, though, as Vermilia deftly transitions between angelic cleans (“Suruhymni”) and frosty rasps (“Vakat”), completing a circle that makes each of her releases a joy to listen to. It’s confounding that another of Vermilia‘s albums is an independent release, which might be artistically intentional or the result of bone-headed label execs. Either way, don’t miss out on Karsikko, as Vermilia shouldn’t stay unsigned for long.

Killjoy’s Drowsy Discovery

Noctambulist // Noctambulist II: De Droom [February 7th, 2025 – These Hands Melt]

Although I love blackgaze, I must admit that it can be challenging to find artists who stand out in the genre, whether through quality songwriting or unexpected twists. It turns out that the Dutch band Noctambulist1 offers both. Noctambulist II: De Droom is a fun and fresh blend of Deafheaven-adjacent blackgaze with a Molotov cocktail of post-punk energy. The power chord-driven guitar lines prove to be an unexpectedly compatible fuel source to propel the shimmering, gazey tremolos and blackened rasps to new heights. Many songs (particularly “Aderlater” and “Lichteter”) start with neat intro melodies that catch the listener’s attention, then build and ride that momentum throughout the remainder. A faint sense of loss—stemming from the achingly relatable theme of homeownership drifting further out of many people’s reach—pervades the record, but there is also an infectious cheerfulness. Despite their name, Noctambulist are hardly sleepwalking as they tread along a well-worn genre.

Thus Spoke’s Disregarded Diamonds

Sacred Noose // Vanishing Spires [February 2nd, 2025 – Breath Sun Bone Blood]

My experience with Irish extreme metal has been that it is all incredibly dark, twisted, and supremely, gorgeously dissonant.2 Belfast3 duo Sacred Noose make absolutely no exception to this rule. Vanishing Spires’ ruthlessly brief 31 minutes are defined by stomach-tightening twisted blackened death designed to cut to the heart of misery and fear. The lurching sensation brought about by rapid tremolo descents and sudden accelerations of ever more dissonant chords, impenetrable drums, and pitch-shifting feedback is nauseating (“Entranced by Concrete Lathe,” “True Emancipation”). The pure horror of the inhuman, high-pitched shrieks answering the already fearsome bellows is anxiety-inducing (“”Black Tempests of Promise,” “Moribund”). The near-constant buzzing of noise is oppressive (“Terminal Prologue,” “True Emancipation”); the creeping, malevolent scales unnerving. And Sacred Noose play with their victim, luring them into a trap of deceptively familiar cavern-core (“Sacred Noose”) before throwing a hood over their head and yanking them backwards into more horrifying mania; or perhaps they’ll start with the assault (“True Emancipation”). This more ‘straightforward’ edge to Sacred Noose is most akin to a faster Sparagmos, while their dominant, demonic personality I can compare most faithfully to Thantifaxath, if Thantifaxath were more death-metal-inclined. Vanishing Spires is the first time since the latter’s 2023 Hive Mind Narcosis that a record has genuinely made me feel afraid.

Crown of Madness // Memories Fragmented [February 28th, 2025 – Transcending Obscurity Records]

Life unfortunately got in the way of me giving this a proper review, but Crown of Madness deserve better than to slip by unmentioned. Memories Fragmented is the duo’s debut, but Crown of Madness is one of several projects both are already in.4. The ominous yet colourful sci-fi/fantasy cover art and spiky logo scream ‘tech-death’ and that is indeed what Crown of Madness deliver. At base, there is some damn fine technical death metal here that’s impressive and acrobatic (), but snappy, not outstaying its welcome—the entire record barely stretches beyond 35 minutes. But there is more to Memories Fragmented, and as a result, it is memorable.5 A drawl to certain refrains (), the tendency to gently sway to a slow, near-pensiveness (), the atmospheric hanging of some tremolos over a warm, dense bass (). There is depth. And it reminded me quite starkly of early Ulcerate. In this vein, the record leans towards the more meandering side of the subgenre, gripping not with hooky riffs and heart-pumping tempos, but an intricate kind of intensity. Memories Fragmented arguably goes too far in the indistinct direction, and as a result, loses immediacy. But the churning, introspective compositions presage the potential for true brilliance on future releases.

Vacuous // In His Blood [February 28th, 2025 – Relapse Records]

Full of youthful vigour, London’s Vacuous demonstrate their willing ability to evolve with their sophomore, In His Blood. While debut Dreams of Dysphoria, which I covered back in 2022, played more or less by the disso-death book, here they are already experimenting. Strange, almost post-metal atmosphere now haunts the boundaries (“Hunger,” “Public Humiliation,” “No Longer Human”), combining brilliantly with the band’s already cavernous death metal sound, and amplifying its fearsomeness. Crowning example of this is the gem Vacuous save for the record’s final act in closer “No Longer Human.” In His Blood also sees them flirt with a punkier energy that borrows more than a little bit of malice from the blackened handbook (“In His Blood,” “Flesh Parade”), backed up by d-beats, and contrasting well with their now less frequent crawls. At its most explosive, In His Blood feels downright unhinged, in the best way (“Stress Positions,” “Immersion”), but it never feels messy, and there’s potential in here for Vacuous to evolve into yet another, incredibly potent form of unique, modern hybrid extreme metal. I wish there were more than 30 minutes of this.

Dolphin Whisperer’s Bottom o’ the Barrel Boons

Pissgrave // Malignant Worthlessness [February 21st, 2025 – Profound Lore Records]

Though it may appear, at a glance, that I have gold-colored glasses for bands of rank and urological reference, I’d call it more of a chance happening that such miscreant acts have created intriguing works. And, truthfully, PISSGRAVE has leaned closer to filth first, function second with the war-leaning crackle (and brazenly offensive cover art) that relegates their lineage to corners of listening ears who need therapy with a high tolerance for guts and grime. Malignant Worthlessness, of course, is not accessible by any means, though, despite these Philly boys packing these nine ode to a failed society in a package that doesn’t cause immediate squirm. But with grooves trapped in an endless skronk and blast, and vocals shifted and layered to reflect the sound of a swarm of Daffy Ducks with a serious disdain for life, PISSGRAVE still embodies an endless swirl of unleashed aggression rendered in riffed and regurgitated form. Malignant Worthlessness lives on the dry and crispy side with most of its tones, which allows copious hits of quick delay and reverb on OUGHs and EEEEEEEUGHs to land with an extra psychedelic knocking when you least expect it. Little slows down the pain train here, with tracks like “Heaping Pile of Electrified Gore” and “Internment Orgy” taking brief detours into chunky guitar builds that feel within grasp of normalcy just before dropping back into an intensified flaying. Elsewhere, a martial urgency that reminds of Paracletus-era Deathspell Omega or the industrial-tinged pummel of Concrete Winds, stirs a twitching movement response, all while retaining a grinding death snarl and chromatic fury, leading its fused-by-hatred structures toward an explosive and fuming conclusion. Humanity has no place in the PISSGRAVE environs, and Malignant Worthlessness, in its celebration of a hostile world, does everything it can to reinforce that.

終末回路 // 終端から引き剥がす [February 20th, 2025 – Self Release]

For things that wander around the math rock world, nailing a vibe remains essential to enjoyment. It’s all too easy in this day and edge to fall into the comfortable trap of ambient tapping and comfortable posty swirls to pleasant crescendos that renders many modern acts to high brow background music (even including bands I like, to a degree, like Covet or Jizue). New Japanese act 終末回路,6 however, chooses to imbue their nimble and tricky instrumental center with the searing emotion and urgency of a noisy post-hardcore, with searing vocal inclusions adding a gravitas to passages that would otherwise threaten to flutter away in glee (“誤殖,” “知らねぇよ”). On one end, 終末回路 delivers a bright playfulness that swings with the pedal power and psychedelia of a young Tera Melos. Yet, weighted with a punk urgency and rawer Japanese assembly of tones, which give a physical clang to tight kit heads and blazing squeal to shrill loops and feedback, 終末回路 finds a constant momentum in their shorter form excursion that makes my lack of understanding of its introspective lyrics a non-issue. Packing plaintive piano melodies (“ご自由に “), speaker blowing synth cranking (“dgdf++be”), and prog-tinged guitar flutters (“知らねぇよ”) into one listening session isn’t easy, but with this debut outing of 終端から引き剥がす,7 終末回路 makes it seem as if they’ve been honing the craft for years.

Saunders’ Salacious Skeeves

Möuth // Gobal Warning [February 14th, 2025 – Self Release)

Veteran rockers The Hellacopters returned with a typically rollicking, fun album in February. Elsewhere, dropping with little fanfare, fellow Swedes and unsung power trio Möuth emerged with an intriguing debut rock platter, entitled Global Warning. Featuring more than meets the eye and flashing a dynamic rock sound, Möuth embrace both retro and modern influences, whipped into an infectious concoction of styles, ranging from Sabbathian lurches, doomy grooves, stoner vibes, and elements of psych, punk and hard rock. For the most part it works a treat, creating a welcome change of pace. Fuzzy, upbeat rockers (“Dirt,” “Appetite”) snugly reside amongst moody, psych-bending numbers (“Alike,” “Mantra”), and heavier doom-laden rock, such as powerful opener “Holy Ground,” and brooding, emotive album centerpiece, “Sheep.” Vocally, the passionate, Ozzy-esque croons hit the spot, matching up well to the band’s multi-pronged rock flavors. Compact and infectious, varied in delivery and featuring enough tasty rhythms, fuzzy melodies and rock punch to satisfy, Global Warning marks an intriguing starting point for these Swedish rockers.

Chaos Inception // Vengeance Evangel [February 21st, 2025 – Lavadome Productions]

Emerging from a deep slumber in the depths of the underground, Alabama’s long dormant death metal crew Chaos Inception returned with their first album since 2012’s The Abrogation. Third album Vengeance Evangel went under the radar, festering unclaimed in the promo sump. After the fact, the album’s crushing, controlled chaos smacked me upside the skull with a violent modern interpretation of the classic Floridian death metal sound, with the musty hues of Tucker-era Morbid Angel most prevalent. This is blast-riddled, relentless stuff, played expertly by the trio of Matt Barnes (guitars), Gray White (vocals) and session drummer Kevin Paradis (ex-Benighted). Incredibly dense, atmospheric, and blazingly fast, Vengeance Evangel is a brutal, knotty, technical hammering, punctuated by sick, wildly inventive soloing. While not traditionally catchy, Vengeance Evangel is the kind of intense, layered death metal album that gets under the skin, grafting a deeper impression across repeated listens. The insane tempo shifts, jigsaw arrangements, and wickedly deranged axework delivers big time. From the violent, intricate throes of opener “Artillery of Humwawa,” and disturbed soundscapes of “La Niebla en el Cementerio Etrusco,” through to the brutish grooves of ‘Thymos Beast,” and exotic, tech death shards of “Empire of Prevarication,” Vengeance Evangel does not neatly fit into any one subgenre category but ticks many boxes to cast a wide appeal to death fans of varied equations.

Steel Druhm’s Viscous Biscuits

Ereb Altor // Hälsingemörker [ February 7th, 2025 – Hammerheart Records]

Steel loves his epic metal. I was raised on the stirring odes to swordsmanship and ungovernable back hair from Manowar and Cirth Ungol, and in time, I took a place at the great table in Wotan’s Golden Halls to appreciate the Viking metal exploits of Bathory and later adherents like Falkenbach and Moonsorrow. Sweden’s Ereb Altor got in the game late with their epic By Honour debut in 2008, boasting a very Bathory-esque sound and emotional tapestry that felt larger-than-life and stirred the loins to begird themselves. 10th album Hälsingemörker is a glorious return to those halls of heroes and bravery. This is the large-scale songcraft first heard on Bathory albums like Hammerheart and Twilight of the Gods, and it’s most welcome to these ape ears. Cuts like “Valkyrian Fate” are exactly the kind of sweeping, epic numbers the band’s excelled at over the years. It takes the core sound of Viking era Bathory and builds outward to craft bombastic and heroic compositions that feel HUUUGE. It’s the kind of metal song that embiggens the soul and makes you want to take on a marauding horde by your lonesome and usurp all their battle booty. On “Hälsingemörker,” you get a fat dose of Moonsorrow worship, and elsewhere, Primordial is strongly referenced to very good effect. Hälsingemörker is easily the best Ereb Altor album in a while and the most in line with their beloved early sound. Strap on the sword and get after it!

#AmericanMetal #Arboreal #Benighted #BlackMetal #BlackSabbath #Blackgaze #BreathSunBoneBlood #Carnage #CausticPhlegm #ChaosInception #Chestcrush #ConcreteWinds #Coscradh #Covet #CrownOfMadness #Darkher #Deafheaven #DeathDoom #DeathMetal #DeathspellOmega #Demilich #DerangedExcruciations #DissonantDeathMetal #DustAge #EmbodimentOfDeath #ErebAltor #EverlastingSpewRecords #FolkMetal #GlobalWarning #Hälsingemörker #HellsHeadbangers #Impetigo #InHisBlood #Incantation #IrishMetal #JapaneseMetal #jizue #Karsikko #LavadomeProductions #MalignantWorthlessness #MathRock #MelodicBlackMetal #MemoriesFragmented #Metaphobic #MorbidAngel #Möuth #Myserion #Noctambulist #NoctambulistIIDeDroom #Noxis #OzzyOsbourne #Pissgrave #PostMetal #postPunk #ProfoundLoreRecords #PurulentApocalypse #RelapseRecords #Rock #SacredNoose #SelfRelease #SelfReleased #SermonOfFlames #Sparagmos #SwedishMetal #TechnicalDeathMetal #TerZiele #TeraMelos #Thantifaxath #TheHelicopters #TheseHandsMelt #TombMold #TranscendingObscurityRecords #UKMetal #Ulcerate #Vacuous #VanishingSpires #VengeanceEvangel #Vermilia #VultureSVengeance #終末回路 #終端から引き剥がす

Felgrave – Otherlike Darknesses Review

By Thus Spoke

When a promo doesn’t adequately prepare you for what an album will sound like, one of two things is usually the case. Either the promo is poorly written, or the music is particularly description-defying. The promo for Felgrave’s sophomore, Otherlike Darknesses, while well-written, was insufficient to convey the music’s especially idiosyncratic nature. Despite the forewarnings that it “[melds] doom, black, and death metal in a way rarely done before,”1 and contains “intense and complex parts that wouldn’t be out of place on a technical death metal album,” Otherlike Darknesses is far stranger and deeper than expected.

In a fashion mimicking the genre of Felgrave’s early work—doom—Otherlike Darknesses consists of just three songs, each titanic in scope. But rather than steadily constructing towers of hefty riffs and crescendoing melodies, these songs erratically climb up and down the steep walls of already ruined castles, throwing the listener off the edge of a parapet to crash to earth or float down with chilling grace. Without abandoning compositional coherence, themes are not so much reprises as tethers that bind chaos into monstrous complex wholes. The twisted dissonance of guitars—accelerating and contorting discomfortingly, chirruping like alarms (“Winds Batter My Keep”), and walking in jerky rhythms—over a backdrop of variously whooshing and moaning synths (“Pale Flowers Under an Empty Sky”) is both confrontational and horribly transfixing. It’s a sound so vibrantly reminiscent of Thantifaxath, that I felt the need to confirm multiple times that no affiliation exists between them and Felgrave. But this similarity is only one side of Otherlike Darknesses. In a way that seems to amplify distress, Felgrave incorporate ample use of cleans and disquieting calm. While the latter heightens tension insidiously, the former do so overtly, as belted-out, half-sung wails, often multi-tracked until they are noisier than the instrumentation, or eerily intoned as a softly repeated refrain (“Pale Flowers…”). And yet, amidst the horror, there is also strange elegance and heart.

Otherlike Darknesses is an intense listening experience. The moaning, discordant cries and throaty screams that narrate it respectively ring with haunting strangeness, and drip with malevolence. The endlessly shifting, slowing down, speeding up, lurching cacophony of tremolos and plucks and impossibly fast and flexible drums contains barely a few minutes of (relative) calm in all its near-50, and even these are menacing thanks to the cruel shifts between harmony and dissonance (“Pale Flowers…,” “Otherlike Darknesses”), and the spiderlike wanderings of fretless bass prominent against stripped-back ambience (“Winds Batter…”). It is nauseating and jaw-droppingly brilliant. Felgrave aren’t throwing things haphazardly at the wall to show off or shock; the pieces that appear scattered fit together into grand, compelling compositions, no matter how unconventional. It’s impressive and terrifying, given the wild places they go, just how easily and how organically Felgrave maintain such coherence. How a diabolical chaos can hide the subtle theme that hums in a later synth and manifests again as gut-clenching a series of chords (“Winds Batter…” “Otherlike Darknesses”); how a stillness can turn so quickly into a storm and singing fall into place so naturally beside them both (“Pale Flowers…). When at last, a mournful melody blossoms (“Otherlike Darknesses”) its brevity and natural fulfilment of its origins make it precious and magnificent. The acrobatic, terrifying things M.L Jupe is doing with guitars, and the profound distinction and interplay between the synths, creeping bass, and manic treble is frightening and wonderful, and never feel self-indulgent. The drumming—courtesy of Robin Stone (Evilyn, Norse)— is as insanely good as it is insane; often inhumanly fast, presciently dynamic, and in constant evolution.

In spite of my awe, it would be remiss not to admit that Otherlike Darknesses is still a bit much.2 Due to its structure, one must endure its itinerant movements without even the brief respite that comes from such music being split into more, shorter songs, and this can prove a little exhausting, considering their calibre. Felgrave’s clever weaving of disparate elements create just enough order to maintain integrity, and slips into snatches of quiet and melody just in time, and so manages to keep the derangement from becoming overwhelming. The congruence that this album possesses is, admittedly, of the sort grasped better through patience and repeated listens, but unlike many such unusual extreme metal works, its assets are so immediately transparent they make for powerful motivators to take up this mantle.

Otherlike Darknesses proved to be the best kind of surprise. Though following its trajectory can be daunting, Felgrave has created an experience that is consuming and thrilling enough to make that journey far easier than one might expect. Twisted and scary, but human and graceful, and nonchalantly epic, it’s not something I’ll soon forget.

Rating: Very Good
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Transcending Obscurity Records
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: April 25th, 2025

#2025 #35 #BlackMetal #DeathMetal #DissonantBlackMetal #DissonantDeathMetal #Evilyn #ExperimentalMetal #Felgrave #Mar25 #Norse #NorwegianMetal #OtherlikeDarknesses #Review #Reviews #Thantifaxath #TranscendingObscurityRecords

Felgrave – Otherlike Darknesses Review

By Thus Spoke

When a promo doesn’t adequately prepare you for what an album will sound like, one of two things is usually the case. Either the promo is poorly written, or the music is particularly description-defying. The promo for Felgrave’s sophomore, Otherlike Darknesses, while well-written, was insufficient to convey the music’s especially idiosyncratic nature. Despite the forewarnings that it “[melds] doom, black, and death metal in a way rarely done before,”1 and contains “intense and complex parts that wouldn’t be out of place on a technical death metal album,” Otherlike Darknesses is far stranger and deeper than expected.

In a fashion mimicking the genre of Felgrave’s early work—doom—Otherlike Darknesses consists of just three songs, each titanic in scope. But rather than steadily constructing towers of hefty riffs and crescendoing melodies, these songs erratically climb up and down the steep walls of already ruined castles, throwing the listener off the edge of a parapet to crash to earth or float down with chilling grace. Without abandoning compositional coherence, themes are not so much reprises as tethers that bind chaos into monstrous complex wholes. The twisted dissonance of guitars—accelerating and contorting discomfortingly, chirruping like alarms (“Winds Batter My Keep”), and walking in jerky rhythms—over a backdrop of variously whooshing and moaning synths (“Pale Flowers Under an Empty Sky”) is both confrontational and horribly transfixing. It’s a sound so vibrantly reminiscent of Thantifaxath, that I felt the need to confirm multiple times that no affiliation exists between them and Felgrave. But this similarity is only one side of Otherlike Darknesses. In a way that seems to amplify distress, Felgrave incorporate ample use of cleans and disquieting calm. While the latter heightens tension insidiously, the former do so overtly, as belted-out, half-sung wails, often multi-tracked until they are noisier than the instrumentation, or eerily intoned as a softly repeated refrain (“Pale Flowers…”). And yet, amidst the horror, there is also strange elegance and heart.

Otherlike Darknesses is an intense listening experience. The moaning, discordant cries and throaty screams that narrate it respectively ring with haunting strangeness, and drip with malevolence. The endlessly shifting, slowing down, speeding up, lurching cacophony of tremolos and plucks and impossibly fast and flexible drums contains barely a few minutes of (relative) calm in all its near-50, and even these are menacing thanks to the cruel shifts between harmony and dissonance (“Pale Flowers…,” “Otherlike Darknesses”), and the spiderlike wanderings of fretless bass prominent against stripped-back ambience (“Winds Batter…”). It is nauseating and jaw-droppingly brilliant. Felgrave aren’t throwing things haphazardly at the wall to show off or shock; the pieces that appear scattered fit together into grand, compelling compositions, no matter how unconventional. It’s impressive and terrifying, given the wild places they go, just how easily and how organically Felgrave maintain such coherence. How a diabolical chaos can hide the subtle theme that hums in a later synth and manifests again as gut-clenching a series of chords (“Winds Batter…” “Otherlike Darknesses”); how a stillness can turn so quickly into a storm and singing fall into place so naturally beside them both (“Pale Flowers…). When at last, a mournful melody blossoms (“Otherlike Darknesses”) its brevity and natural fulfilment of its origins make it precious and magnificent. The acrobatic, terrifying things M.L Jupe is doing with guitars, and the profound distinction and interplay between the synths, creeping bass, and manic treble is frightening and wonderful, and never feel self-indulgent. The drumming—courtesy of Robin Stone (Evilyn, Norse)— is as insanely good as it is insane; often inhumanly fast, presciently dynamic, and in constant evolution.

In spite of my awe, it would be remiss not to admit that Otherlike Darknesses is still a bit much.2 Due to its structure, one must endure its itinerant movements without even the brief respite that comes from such music being split into more, shorter songs, and this can prove a little exhausting, considering their calibre. Felgrave’s clever weaving of disparate elements create just enough order to maintain integrity, and slips into snatches of quiet and melody just in time, and so manages to keep the derangement from becoming overwhelming. The congruence that this album possesses is, admittedly, of the sort grasped better through patience and repeated listens, but unlike many such unusual extreme metal works, its assets are so immediately transparent they make for powerful motivators to take up this mantle.

Otherlike Darknesses proved to be the best kind of surprise. Though following its trajectory can be daunting, Felgrave has created an experience that is consuming and thrilling enough to make that journey far easier than one might expect. Twisted and scary, but human and graceful, and nonchalantly epic, it’s not something I’ll soon forget.

Rating: Very Good
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Transcending Obscurity Records
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: April 25th, 2025

#2025 #35 #BlackMetal #DeathMetal #DissonantBlackMetal #DissonantDeathMetal #Evilyn #ExperimentalMetal #Felgrave #Mar25 #Norse #NorwegianMetal #OtherlikeDarknesses #Review #Reviews #Thantifaxath #TranscendingObscurityRecords

Free download codes:

AOECIST - With a Whimper

"Microtonal dissonant death metal"

https://getmusic.fm/l/OqyeE9

#deathmetal #microtonal #dissonantdeathmetal #music

Free download codes:

AOECIST - With a Whimper

"Microtonal dissonant death metal"

https://getmusic.fm/l/OqyeE9

#deathmetal #microtonal #dissonantdeathmetal #music