#ulcerate — Public Fediverse posts

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

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on #KEXP's #SeekAndDestroy

Ulcerate:
🎵 There Is No Horizon

#Ulcerate

https://ulcerate.bandcamp.com/track/there-is-no-horizon

https://open.spotify.com/track/4PCz6kM0n0px9Tt8tnXyv4

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on #KEXP's #SeekAndDestroy

Ulcerate:
🎵 There Is No Horizon

#Ulcerate

https://ulcerate.bandcamp.com/track/there-is-no-horizon

https://open.spotify.com/track/4PCz6kM0n0px9Tt8tnXyv4

I was initially surprised that Galvanist hailed from Bozeman, Montana, but I really have no right to feel that way. Based on its proximity to major outdoor destinations, I thought Bozeman would be like Jackson, Wyoming, where I briefly lived, but Google quickly disabused me of that notion. Suffice it to say, I have no idea what Bozeman’s music scene is like. But I’ll tell you what I do know. I know that Galvanist released debut Connection in 2022 and split Hollowtop with Ulm in 2024. I know they’re returning now with sophomore effort The Silence Between Stars. And after spinning this album every day for weeks, I know that all my expectations, like so much dust beneath the heel of an eldritch god, have been casually and utterly annihilated.

The promo material describes Galvanist as “blackened doom metal, progressive death metal, and experimental textures.” That may outline the canvas upon which Galvanist paints, but it does them little justice. Throughout The Silence Between Stars, I hear Animals as Leaders drowning in sludge (“Atrophy”) and Huntsmen channeling Thou (“Dreich,”1 “Spiorad”2). Woven into the fiber of their sound, I hear the swirling chaos of Ulcerate (“Hauntology”), creating a shifting maelstrom that denies me any safe or solid ground. Synths and keys, courtesy of lead guitarist Micah Tippit, lend Galvanist a threatening, extraterrestrial edge. Over it all, vocalist Tanner Erhart bellows with the raw intensity of acts like Ragana. Galvanist takes these ingredients and filters them through a clear and singular identity to create something entirely their own. Orders of magnitude greater than its descriptors, The Silence Between Stars is a journey by turns and at once deeply rooted in the homestead and violently flung to the darkest reaches of space.3

With every track but the 63-second intro4 clocking in at roughly 8–11 minutes, I worried The Silence Between Stars would suffer from bloat or overly aggressive proggery. My fears were unfounded. The Silence Between Stars demands my attention front to back, and at an easily digestible 40 minutes, I frequently find myself looping back for another spin. This isn’t so singular a work as Winter’s Gate or Mirror Reaper—there’s little need for gapless playback here—but each track flows so naturally into the next that I struggle to start anywhere but the beginning or stop anywhere but the end. I don’t know if this is a concept album, but it’s heady, interconnected subject matter5 demands more than just lyrical exposition. Galvanist is plenty capable, wielding mystifying time signature shifts (“Atrophy,” “Hauntology”), abrupt—but never jarring—compositional transitions, and mid-melody key changes (“Spiorad”) with aplomb. Galvanist adeptly handles such progressive elements to bake their storytelling directly into the music itself.

Even beyond its total disregard for my expectations, The Silence Between Stars continues to awe. Galvanist uses the soundstage to further cultivate that sense of being both grounded and in freefall. Bassist Kevin George’s mix leaves room for each instrument to breathe, but in a good way, only just. With a little added reverb, the result fosters that contradictory atmosphere even more, like suffocating in open air. Erhart’s rhythm guitars hang out on the wings, where microtonal variances between left and right ears create an incredible dissonance, a feeling of infinite liminality. Elements float in and out of the spotlight—like George’s bass at the midpoint of “Atrophy,” Chris Navarro’s drums at the end of “Hauntology,” or Tippit’s astounding leads on the back half of “Spiorad”—constantly redirecting my attention and driving me further into Galvanist’s labyrinth.

It is not often I have no complaints about an album, and rarer still, I have more praise than I can fit on the page. Had I time and space enough, I would still be raving about The Silence Between Stars long after the final keys of “Spiorad” fade to silence. From the cosmic violence of “Atrophy” to the striking bookends of “Dreich,” and from the spine-tingling keys of “Hauntology” to the magnificent, delirious climax of “Spiorad,” Galvanist has created something truly special. Like a will-o’-wisp or a foxfire trail coaxing you into the dark, The Silence Between Stars is disquieting yet tempting, unnerving yet comforting. I didn’t know what I was in for when I picked up Galvanist, but to shamelessly adapt my favorite line from the album,6 I crossed the threshold, and I found myself amidst worlds strange and wonderful.

Rating: 4.5/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Aeternitas Tenebrarum Musicae Fundamentum
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram
Releases Worldwide: May 27th, 2026

I was initially surprised that Galvanist hailed from Bozeman, Montana, but I really have no right to feel that way. Based on its proximity to major outdoor destinations, I thought Bozeman would be like Jackson, Wyoming, where I briefly lived, but Google quickly disabused me of that notion. Suffice it to say, I have no idea what Bozeman’s music scene is like. But I’ll tell you what I do know. I know that Galvanist released debut Connection in 2022 and split Hollowtop with Ulm in 2024. I know they’re returning now with sophomore effort The Silence Between Stars. And after spinning this album every day for weeks, I know that all my expectations, like so much dust beneath the heel of an eldritch god, have been casually and utterly annihilated.

The promo material describes Galvanist as “blackened doom metal, progressive death metal, and experimental textures.” That may outline the canvas upon which Galvanist paints, but it does them little justice. Throughout The Silence Between Stars, I hear Animals as Leaders drowning in sludge (“Atrophy”) and Huntsmen channeling Thou (“Dreich,”1 “Spiorad”2). Woven into the fiber of their sound, I hear the swirling chaos of Ulcerate (“Hauntology”), creating a shifting maelstrom that denies me any safe or solid ground. Synths and keys, courtesy of lead guitarist Micah Tippit, lend Galvanist a threatening, extraterrestrial edge. Over it all, vocalist Tanner Erhart bellows with the raw intensity of acts like Ragana. Galvanist takes these ingredients and filters them through a clear and singular identity to create something entirely their own. Orders of magnitude greater than its descriptors, The Silence Between Stars is a journey by turns and at once deeply rooted in the homestead and violently flung to the darkest reaches of space.3

With every track but the 63-second intro4 clocking in at roughly 8–11 minutes, I worried The Silence Between Stars would suffer from bloat or overly aggressive proggery. My fears were unfounded. The Silence Between Stars demands my attention front to back, and at an easily digestible 40 minutes, I frequently find myself looping back for another spin. This isn’t so singular a work as Winter’s Gate or Mirror Reaper—there’s little need for gapless playback here—but each track flows so naturally into the next that I struggle to start anywhere but the beginning or stop anywhere but the end. I don’t know if this is a concept album, but it’s heady, interconnected subject matter5 demands more than just lyrical exposition. Galvanist is plenty capable, wielding mystifying time signature shifts (“Atrophy,” “Hauntology”), abrupt—but never jarring—compositional transitions, and mid-melody key changes (“Spiorad”) with aplomb. Galvanist adeptly handles such progressive elements to bake their storytelling directly into the music itself.

Even beyond its total disregard for my expectations, The Silence Between Stars continues to awe. Galvanist uses the soundstage to further cultivate that sense of being both grounded and in freefall. Bassist Kevin George’s mix leaves room for each instrument to breathe, but in a good way, only just. With a little added reverb, the result fosters that contradictory atmosphere even more, like suffocating in open air. Erhart’s rhythm guitars hang out on the wings, where microtonal variances between left and right ears create an incredible dissonance, a feeling of infinite liminality. Elements float in and out of the spotlight—like George’s bass at the midpoint of “Atrophy,” Chris Navarro’s drums at the end of “Hauntology,” or Tippit’s astounding leads on the back half of “Spiorad”—constantly redirecting my attention and driving me further into Galvanist’s labyrinth.

It is not often I have no complaints about an album, and rarer still, I have more praise than I can fit on the page. Had I time and space enough, I would still be raving about The Silence Between Stars long after the final keys of “Spiorad” fade to silence. From the cosmic violence of “Atrophy” to the striking bookends of “Dreich,” and from the spine-tingling keys of “Hauntology” to the magnificent, delirious climax of “Spiorad,” Galvanist has created something truly special. Like a will-o’-wisp or a foxfire trail coaxing you into the dark, The Silence Between Stars is disquieting yet tempting, unnerving yet comforting. I didn’t know what I was in for when I picked up Galvanist, but to shamelessly adapt my favorite line from the album,6 I crossed the threshold, and I found myself amidst worlds strange and wonderful.

Rating: 4.5/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Aeternitas Tenebrarum Musicae Fundamentum
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram
Releases Worldwide: May 27th, 2026

Some excellent Kiwi bred Death Metal for this sunny Sunday afternoon.

#ulcerate #nowplaying

The absolute kings of the NZ Metal scene.

For #ThursDeath:

#Growth: Under the Under

https://growthmusic.bandcamp.com/album/under-the-under

https://tidal.com/album/481650669

#ProgessiveDeathMetal

FFO #Cemetery #Replicant #Ulcerate

For #ThursDeath:

#Growth: Under the Under

https://growthmusic.bandcamp.com/album/under-the-under

https://tidal.com/album/481650669

#ProgessiveDeathMetal

FFO #Cemetery #Replicant #Ulcerate

It's late now for #TuneTuesday's #RentFreeTracks, and I've shared this song earlier already, but I play this several times a day:

#Vitriol: Shame and Its Afterbirth

https://song.link/6x2bgkdbjf9bs

#TechnicalDeathMetal

FFO #AtræBilis #HideousDivinity #Ulcerate

I can't not love the jewellery and the facial expressions 🤘

It's late now for #TuneTuesday's #RentFreeTracks, and I've shared this song earlier already, but I play this several times a day:

#Vitriol: Shame and Its Afterbirth

https://song.link/6x2bgkdbjf9bs

#TechnicalDeathMetal

FFO #AtræBilis #HideousDivinity #Ulcerate

I can't not love the jewellery and the facial expressions 🤘

For #MittwochMetalMix:

#Unverkalt: Héréditaire

https://album.link/i/1851048305

#PostMetal

FFO #JulieChristmas #PupilSlicer #Ulcerate

For #MittwochMetalMix:

#Unverkalt: Héréditaire

https://album.link/i/1851048305

#PostMetal

FFO #JulieChristmas #PupilSlicer #Ulcerate

In more devastating tour news, Ulcerate is touring here in May. And it's the end of the tour for their last album, which I've listened to *a lot*. 💸 🎫

https://ulcerate.bandcamp.com/album/cutting-the-throat-of-god

#DeathMetal #Ulcerate #LiveMusic

In more devastating tour news, Ulcerate is touring here in May. And it's the end of the tour for their last album, which I've listened to *a lot*. 💸 🎫

https://ulcerate.bandcamp.com/album/cutting-the-throat-of-god

#DeathMetal #Ulcerate #LiveMusic

We often wax eloquent on the distinctive factors between good and great. In a writing sphere where we are strictly commanded to avoid “artistic bullshit” in our analysis in favor of more clinical, scientific examination, pinning down elements that distinguish the enjoyable from the memorable and the well-made from the impactful can make for a fun thought experiment or a maddening exercise in futility and thesaurus perusing. A few months ago, this very topic was brought up in the halls, and while staffers hemmed and hawed over nebulous ideas of quality, the ever-wise Dolphin Whisperer chimed in with a straight-to-the-point insight which stuck with me: “For me, the difference between good and great is whether I’d buy this for ten dollars.” Hailing from Croatia, one-man black metal project Petrale have arrived with some creepily straightforward artwork and an equally straightforward album title; will this be relegated to your ever-flowing streams, or have you reaching for your wallets?

Though classified as “raw black metal”, Goat at Sunset sidesteps stereotypes in presentation. Produced entirely on analogue open reel tape, this album contains the warmest, richest sound I’ve heard in some time. Rather than raw by way of underproduction like Fell Omen or draped in overly reverbed fog ala Black Cilice, each instrument has a charmingly clear enunciation while being mixed roughly around the edges with an organic, welcoming tone. Full, thick major(!) chord progressions (“Dorsal Horn”) give way to looping doses of Ulcerate-isms, which manage to be much more straightforward in execution while carving their own atmosphere of distant menace. The drums carry a dollop of modern Darkthrone in their presence, with the double bass successfully muddying the riffs just a touch, emphasizing the rawness in the nature of the production without relying on deliberate self-sabotage of aesthetic.

Goat At Sunset by Petrale

In that sound lies a standout assembly of riff which does a masterful job of evoking the artwork accompanying it. Far from being a nonstop collection of hazy blast beats and trem pickings, Goat at Sunset uses a healthy sense of dynamic composition and tempo changes to carry the listener through the entire body of work. Frequently throughout the album, breaks are used which evoke something spiritually akin to smokehouse lounge vibes (“The Postulating Conduit (Sunset)”, “Hunter”) while sometimes sandwiching more energetic riffs into doomy plods (“The Wedge That Was Supposed to Prevent Sin”). As the art shows the ominous goat head, far away but clearly defined and present, the reliance on dissonant foundations with sudden flourishes of clarity channels a soundtrack that doesn’t seek to quite open the gates of hell as much as let the listener observe such a thing from a long way off.

The net result renders Goat at Sunset as a genre offering that manages to hit a sweet spot of fusion between accessibility and roughness, and with atmosphere and musicianship. Special attention must be paid to the bass, carrying an absolutely delicious tone which permeates throughout the release, and is given multiple opportunities to shine and echo leads rather than down strumming through chord progressions. Even the concluding cover song (a cover of an artist called Sven Väth) channels a heavy dollop of upbeat major progressions into something that seems like an organic conclusion to the release rather than a merely tacked-on bonus track. It’s true that near the end, the album loses some of its steam and places more emphasis on slower theatrics rather than raw riffage, particularly if you disregard the cover and let the album end on its proper, more “official” note. Nevertheless, Petrale have crafted an album replete with memorable moments, unusual time signatures (the 7/4 break in “Dorsal Horn” being a real standout) and a fully realized atmosphere and mood.

Raw black metal stands alongside genres like stoner doom as being difficult to execute in a way worthy of a coveted 4.0. Petrale have come as close as I’ve heard in years by inverting, rather than rejecting, genre stereotypes. A production which is warm instead of abrasive on the ears, chords which carry harmony as much as dissonance, emphasis on dynamics as much as blast beats are all cobbled together to create an album which carves a clear personality for itself within the genre trappings. Rich enough in sound to welcome genre casuals while bleak enough to entice genre aficionados, Goat at Sunset has been a dark delight. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go find my wallet and buy one of the 100 CD-R copies available. Hopefully, for ten dollars.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: n/a | Format Reviewed: Stream
Label: Self-Released
Website: Album Bandcamp
Releases Worldwide: February 1st, 2026

We often wax eloquent on the distinctive factors between good and great. In a writing sphere where we are strictly commanded to avoid “artistic bullshit” in our analysis in favor of more clinical, scientific examination, pinning down elements that distinguish the enjoyable from the memorable and the well-made from the impactful can make for a fun thought experiment or a maddening exercise in futility and thesaurus perusing. A few months ago, this very topic was brought up in the halls, and while staffers hemmed and hawed over nebulous ideas of quality, the ever-wise Dolphin Whisperer chimed in with a straight-to-the-point insight which stuck with me: “For me, the difference between good and great is whether I’d buy this for ten dollars.” Hailing from Croatia, one-man black metal project Petrale have arrived with some creepily straightforward artwork and an equally straightforward album title; will this be relegated to your ever-flowing streams, or have you reaching for your wallets?

Though classified as “raw black metal”, Goat at Sunset sidesteps stereotypes in presentation. Produced entirely on analogue open reel tape, this album contains the warmest, richest sound I’ve heard in some time. Rather than raw by way of underproduction like Fell Omen or draped in overly reverbed fog ala Black Cilice, each instrument has a charmingly clear enunciation while being mixed roughly around the edges with an organic, welcoming tone. Full, thick major(!) chord progressions (“Dorsal Horn”) give way to looping doses of Ulcerate-isms, which manage to be much more straightforward in execution while carving their own atmosphere of distant menace. The drums carry a dollop of modern Darkthrone in their presence, with the double bass successfully muddying the riffs just a touch, emphasizing the rawness in the nature of the production without relying on deliberate self-sabotage of aesthetic.

Goat At Sunset by Petrale

In that sound lies a standout assembly of riff which does a masterful job of evoking the artwork accompanying it. Far from being a nonstop collection of hazy blast beats and trem pickings, Goat at Sunset uses a healthy sense of dynamic composition and tempo changes to carry the listener through the entire body of work. Frequently throughout the album, breaks are used which evoke something spiritually akin to smokehouse lounge vibes (“The Postulating Conduit (Sunset)”, “Hunter”) while sometimes sandwiching more energetic riffs into doomy plods (“The Wedge That Was Supposed to Prevent Sin”). As the art shows the ominous goat head, far away but clearly defined and present, the reliance on dissonant foundations with sudden flourishes of clarity channels a soundtrack that doesn’t seek to quite open the gates of hell as much as let the listener observe such a thing from a long way off.

The net result renders Goat at Sunset as a genre offering that manages to hit a sweet spot of fusion between accessibility and roughness, and with atmosphere and musicianship. Special attention must be paid to the bass, carrying an absolutely delicious tone which permeates throughout the release, and is given multiple opportunities to shine and echo leads rather than down strumming through chord progressions. Even the concluding cover song (a cover of an artist called Sven Väth) channels a heavy dollop of upbeat major progressions into something that seems like an organic conclusion to the release rather than a merely tacked-on bonus track. It’s true that near the end, the album loses some of its steam and places more emphasis on slower theatrics rather than raw riffage, particularly if you disregard the cover and let the album end on its proper, more “official” note. Nevertheless, Petrale have crafted an album replete with memorable moments, unusual time signatures (the 7/4 break in “Dorsal Horn” being a real standout) and a fully realized atmosphere and mood.

Raw black metal stands alongside genres like stoner doom as being difficult to execute in a way worthy of a coveted 4.0. Petrale have come as close as I’ve heard in years by inverting, rather than rejecting, genre stereotypes. A production which is warm instead of abrasive on the ears, chords which carry harmony as much as dissonance, emphasis on dynamics as much as blast beats are all cobbled together to create an album which carves a clear personality for itself within the genre trappings. Rich enough in sound to welcome genre casuals while bleak enough to entice genre aficionados, Goat at Sunset has been a dark delight. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go find my wallet and buy one of the 100 CD-R copies available. Hopefully, for ten dollars.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: n/a | Format Reviewed: Stream
Label: Self-Released
Website: Album Bandcamp
Releases Worldwide: February 1st, 2026

#NowPlaying:

#RuinsOfTheBeverast: Tempelschlaf

https://album.link/t/489366265

#AtmosphericBlackMetal

FFO #BlutAusNord #Ulcerate #Urfaust

Ich brauche gerade eine Pause vom Korrigieren und habe es mir mit einem frischen Kaffee auf der Couch gemütlich gemacht.

Dazu höre ich zum ersten Mal die "Cutting the throat of god" von Ulcerate. Die Platte wurde ja viel gelobt und tauchte in meinen Bandcampempfehlungen immer wieder auf. Bin mal gespannt.

https://ulcerate.bandcamp.com/album/cutting-the-throat-of-god

#Ulcerate #nowplaying

Pillars of Cacophony – Paralipomena [Things You Might Have Missed 2025]

By Owlswald

Amidst the routine of our daily lives, it’s easy to overlook the hidden, complex universe that exists just outside our normal gaze. It only takes a bit of magnification to reveal it: a place where cells shift and collide, forming the invisible architecture of existence. Capturing the awe of this biological machinery is a tall order. Yet, Dominik, multi-instrumentalist and mastermind of Pillars of Cacophony, has created a soundscape with second LP, Paralipomena, that does exactly that, exploring the building blocks of life through sound. Though tackling the topic of bioscience through the lens of disso and technical death metal may be a volatile experiment, this Austrian knows exactly how to harness the power of biology to bridge the divide. You see, Dominik is a bioscientist by trade, literally mining his own PhD thesis to drive the chaos that is Pillars of Cacophony. This academic authenticity is what sets Paralipomena apart, resulting in a rare fusion of intellect and brutality that you simply can’t afford to miss.

The genome of Paralipomena is an unstable body of technical and dissonant death metal, forged in the chaotic intersection of Ulcerate and The Faceless. The album’s kinetic energy flows freely across synapses, connecting a skin of hooky riffs, tremolo surges, and punishing down-picking. Intelligent songwriting and flash-fire percussion surgically underpin this to create an unsettling cacophony of sonic friction. While tracks like “The Cradle,” “The Discord,” and “Retina” demonstrate Pillars of Cacophony’s hyper-speed technicality, cuts like “Cachexia,” “Mitosis,” and the Meshuggahian “Landscapes of Permanence” twist the formula, venturing into unpredictability with jazzy permutations and calm, contemplative sections (“Maps of Disintegration”). This is the soundtrack to inter-cellular warfare—a torrent of fast-twitch riffing and searing discordance, punctuated by pressurized blast beats, static-laced roars, and the acidic twang of bass, transporting one into a world seen only through a high-powered scope.

Paralipomena is rife with entropy, yet its multi-layered cytoskeleton maintains homeostasis. Pillars of Cacophony’s layered guitars clash and coordinate simultaneously—one flooding the airwaves with raw, unsettling dissonance, while the other focuses on calculated technicality and micro-precision picking. “Of Plagues and Fibrils” immediately delivers Paralipomena’s chemistry of chaos and precise equilibrium in its moving, shifting main palm-muted riff, infecting the listener’s brain like a disease with its immediate, powerful hooks. The drums’ complex cymbal flares and tom rolls only enhance the track’s memorability, providing badass atmosphere and tasteful technicality in equal measure. Pillars of Cacophony showcases this same momentum again in “Retina,” which pushes a Necrophagist-like tempo—particularly during its groovy double-bass sections and unidirectional picking—and “The Cradle,” where the rhythm section anchors the frenetic guitar work and furious tremolodic leads.

Ever since it dropped earlier this year, Paralipomena continues to grip me. It succeeds by concentrating sonic violence to create the ultimate soundtrack to a hidden world—one that feels as technically layered as it is immediately catchy. Pillars of Cacophony has forged an album that pairs an extreme and dystopian soundscape with the surgical authority of empirical sciences, carving a bespoke path outside the predictable confines of death metal. If you’re a fan of disso or tech-death and somehow missed Paralipomena, consider this your diagnosis and remedy that malady immediately.

Tracks to Check Out: “Of Plagues and Fibrils,” “The Cradle,” “Retina,” “The Discord.”

#2025 #AustrianMetal #DeathMetal #Meshuggah #Necrophagist #Paralipomena #PillarsOfCacophony #TechnicalDeathMetal #TeratogenRecords #TheFaceless #ThingsYouMightHaveMissed2025 #TYMHM #Ulcerate

Pillars of Cacophony – Paralipomena [Things You Might Have Missed 2025]

By Owlswald

Amidst the routine of our daily lives, it’s easy to overlook the hidden, complex universe that exists just outside our normal gaze. It only takes a bit of magnification to reveal it: a place where cells shift and collide, forming the invisible architecture of existence. Capturing the awe of this biological machinery is a tall order. Yet, Dominik, multi-instrumentalist and mastermind of Pillars of Cacophony, has created a soundscape with second LP, Paralipomena, that does exactly that, exploring the building blocks of life through sound. Though tackling the topic of bioscience through the lens of disso and technical death metal may be a volatile experiment, this Austrian knows exactly how to harness the power of biology to bridge the divide. You see, Dominik is a bioscientist by trade, literally mining his own PhD thesis to drive the chaos that is Pillars of Cacophony. This academic authenticity is what sets Paralipomena apart, resulting in a rare fusion of intellect and brutality that you simply can’t afford to miss.

The genome of Paralipomena is an unstable body of technical and dissonant death metal, forged in the chaotic intersection of Ulcerate and The Faceless. The album’s kinetic energy flows freely across synapses, connecting a skin of hooky riffs, tremolo surges, and punishing down-picking. Intelligent songwriting and flash-fire percussion surgically underpin this to create an unsettling cacophony of sonic friction. While tracks like “The Cradle,” “The Discord,” and “Retina” demonstrate Pillars of Cacophony’s hyper-speed technicality, cuts like “Cachexia,” “Mitosis,” and the Meshuggahian “Landscapes of Permanence” twist the formula, venturing into unpredictability with jazzy permutations and calm, contemplative sections (“Maps of Disintegration”). This is the soundtrack to inter-cellular warfare—a torrent of fast-twitch riffing and searing discordance, punctuated by pressurized blast beats, static-laced roars, and the acidic twang of bass, transporting one into a world seen only through a high-powered scope.

Paralipomena is rife with entropy, yet its multi-layered cytoskeleton maintains homeostasis. Pillars of Cacophony’s layered guitars clash and coordinate simultaneously—one flooding the airwaves with raw, unsettling dissonance, while the other focuses on calculated technicality and micro-precision picking. “Of Plagues and Fibrils” immediately delivers Paralipomena’s chemistry of chaos and precise equilibrium in its moving, shifting main palm-muted riff, infecting the listener’s brain like a disease with its immediate, powerful hooks. The drums’ complex cymbal flares and tom rolls only enhance the track’s memorability, providing badass atmosphere and tasteful technicality in equal measure. Pillars of Cacophony showcases this same momentum again in “Retina,” which pushes a Necrophagist-like tempo—particularly during its groovy double-bass sections and unidirectional picking—and “The Cradle,” where the rhythm section anchors the frenetic guitar work and furious tremolodic leads.

Ever since it dropped earlier this year, Paralipomena continues to grip me. It succeeds by concentrating sonic violence to create the ultimate soundtrack to a hidden world—one that feels as technically layered as it is immediately catchy. Pillars of Cacophony has forged an album that pairs an extreme and dystopian soundscape with the surgical authority of empirical sciences, carving a bespoke path outside the predictable confines of death metal. If you’re a fan of disso or tech-death and somehow missed Paralipomena, consider this your diagnosis and remedy that malady immediately.

Tracks to Check Out: “Of Plagues and Fibrils,” “The Cradle,” “Retina,” “The Discord.”

#2025 #AustrianMetal #DeathMetal #Meshuggah #Necrophagist #Paralipomena #PillarsOfCacophony #TechnicalDeathMetal #TeratogenRecords #TheFaceless #ThingsYouMightHaveMissed2025 #TYMHM #Ulcerate

Phobocosm – Gateway Review

By Steel Druhm

Well, lookee who just oozed in! Phobocosm, Canada’s infamous cavern creepers and dealers of oppressive death metal, return to shove a lump of revolting slime-scuzz in everyone’s stocking with fourth album, Gateway. When last we heard from them on 2023s Foreordained, they were continuing to tweak and refine their revolting mash-up of Incantation, Immolation, Ulcerate, doom and vaguely pos-metal-y bits with an emphasis on the ominous, unsettling and atonal. When all the gears lock in for Phobocosm, they’re capable of inspiring a real sense of existential dread and unease. They’ve always crafted their music to achieve this effect and conjure dark, unpleasant atmospheres through crushing heaviness. Foreordained nailed the formula, making for a dense, harrowing listen. Gateway mines the same toxic waste pits, searching for the next eldritch nightmare, but takes a somewhat different path there this time. Can they regurgitate as many repellent sounds as before and continue their stellar track record? We’ll need to do some DEEP spelunking to get answers.

It’s immediately apparent that Phobocosm made some changes at the writing table this time. Instead of burying the listener with 6-7 long-form assaults on your calm, Gateway features only 4 proper songs with 3 interludes stitching them together. Opener “Deathless” sounds just as a Phobocosm fan would expect, with buzzing, nerve-jangling riffs emerging like locust hordes as a growing sense of unease and danger is conveyed. It’s unhurried as dark moods are slowly crafted with anticipation and dread rising. When the chaos kicks off, it’s mid-tempo death-doom, grinding and heavy as fuck. Riffs slither everywhere, and death vocals bubble up from some bottomless chasm. There’s a lot of Immolation here, but it never feels like a clone by-product. It’s nasty, satisfying, and creepy. “Unbound” dials up the aggression and urgency with vicious blastbeats and insanity-inducing riffs scorching your brain and sense of safety. It’s 6-plus minutes, but the vibe is so impactful and extreme that you want it to be longer to prolong the glorious punishment. Some of the leads and flourishes are very memorable and appear at just the right moment to really pop. There’s a mood here that’s hard to describe, but it’s highly immersive and ugly down to the fucking bone marrow.

“Sempiternal Penance” keeps the winning streak going with another massive abomination loaded with guttural vocals and tremendously chaotic, deranged riffs. At times, it sounds like an unholy ritual is underway, but something dark and malevolent is starting to take control, and it’s high time to get the fuck out. “Beyond the Threshold of Flesh” is the longest cut at 8:27, and Phobocosm excel at making these kinds of tracks work to their benefit as they escalate and deescalate the sense of fear and danger, but never let you off the meat hook. Rather than feeling like an effort to endure, the track sucks you into a cloud of grasping horrors, chews you up, and vomits out your maimed remains before you even know you’re on the menu. That’s a success in my book. What are the downsides? The presence of the three interludes. While they track the style of the main cuts and effectively maintain tension, it’s really the 4 main set pieces that are the most interesting. That means you get about 9 minutes of good but less essential musical grout between those high points, and it feels like they’re padding out an EP. At 35-plus minutes, Gateway doesn’t feel overly long. The production is perfect for what Phobocosm do, with layers of murk and reverb creating the death cavern. The mix grants the guitars exactly the frightening, intimidating presence this style of death needs.

Gateway sees former guitarist Rob Milly back for the first time since 2016s Bringer of Drought, and his work alongside Samuel Dufour’s excellently unnatural playing leaves no one safe. The riffs and “harmonies” these two conceive are nasty, putrid, and grotesque with bloody roots in death, doom and black metal. This is the reason Phobocosm’s sound packs so much raw venom, and the tandem’s dissonant maelstroms leave behind plenty of little details to unearth with subsequent spins. Once again, Etienne Bayard blows the doors off the crypt with massive death vocals. He’s a superb croaker and makes everything considerably more menacing and horrible. Basically, he’s the very Mouth of Madness.

Phobocosm are one of the most reliable death metal monstrosities out there, and Gateway is another ruthless sucker punch to the epiglottis. While I fear this is dropping too late in the year to get the attention and end-of-year list space it deserves, Gateway definitely has my full attention as 2025 winds down. This is another high-quality dose of excessive extremity that deserves to be heard and marinated deeply within. Take my advice and follow Gateway into lunacy before it becomes another thing you foolishly missed.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Dark Descent
Websites: darkdescentrecords.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/phobocosm | instagram.com/phobocosm
Releases Worldwide: November 28th, 2025

#2025 #35 #canadianMetal #darkDescentRecords #deathMetal #gateway #immolation #incantation #nov25 #phobocosm #review #reviews #ulcerate

Phobocosm – Gateway Review

By Steel Druhm

Well, lookee who just oozed in! Phobocosm, Canada’s infamous cavern creepers and dealers of oppressive death metal, return to shove a lump of revolting slime-scuzz in everyone’s stocking with fourth album, Gateway. When last we heard from them on 2023s Foreordained, they were continuing to tweak and refine their revolting mash-up of Incantation, Immolation, Ulcerate, doom and vaguely pos-metal-y bits with an emphasis on the ominous, unsettling and atonal. When all the gears lock in for Phobocosm, they’re capable of inspiring a real sense of existential dread and unease. They’ve always crafted their music to achieve this effect and conjure dark, unpleasant atmospheres through crushing heaviness. Foreordained nailed the formula, making for a dense, harrowing listen. Gateway mines the same toxic waste pits, searching for the next eldritch nightmare, but takes a somewhat different path there this time. Can they regurgitate as many repellent sounds as before and continue their stellar track record? We’ll need to do some DEEP spelunking to get answers.

It’s immediately apparent that Phobocosm made some changes at the writing table this time. Instead of burying the listener with 6-7 long-form assaults on your calm, Gateway features only 4 proper songs with 3 interludes stitching them together. Opener “Deathless” sounds just as a Phobocosm fan would expect, with buzzing, nerve-jangling riffs emerging like locust hordes as a growing sense of unease and danger is conveyed. It’s unhurried as dark moods are slowly crafted with anticipation and dread rising. When the chaos kicks off, it’s mid-tempo death-doom, grinding and heavy as fuck. Riffs slither everywhere, and death vocals bubble up from some bottomless chasm. There’s a lot of Immolation here, but it never feels like a clone by-product. It’s nasty, satisfying, and creepy. “Unbound” dials up the aggression and urgency with vicious blastbeats and insanity-inducing riffs scorching your brain and sense of safety. It’s 6-plus minutes, but the vibe is so impactful and extreme that you want it to be longer to prolong the glorious punishment. Some of the leads and flourishes are very memorable and appear at just the right moment to really pop. There’s a mood here that’s hard to describe, but it’s highly immersive and ugly down to the fucking bone marrow.

“Sempiternal Penance” keeps the winning streak going with another massive abomination loaded with guttural vocals and tremendously chaotic, deranged riffs. At times, it sounds like an unholy ritual is underway, but something dark and malevolent is starting to take control, and it’s high time to get the fuck out. “Beyond the Threshold of Flesh” is the longest cut at 8:27, and Phobocosm excel at making these kinds of tracks work to their benefit as they escalate and deescalate the sense of fear and danger, but never let you off the meat hook. Rather than feeling like an effort to endure, the track sucks you into a cloud of grasping horrors, chews you up, and vomits out your maimed remains before you even know you’re on the menu. That’s a success in my book. What are the downsides? The presence of the three interludes. While they track the style of the main cuts and effectively maintain tension, it’s really the 4 main set pieces that are the most interesting. That means you get about 9 minutes of good but less essential musical grout between those high points, and it feels like they’re padding out an EP. At 35-plus minutes, Gateway doesn’t feel overly long. The production is perfect for what Phobocosm do, with layers of murk and reverb creating the death cavern. The mix grants the guitars exactly the frightening, intimidating presence this style of death needs.

Gateway sees former guitarist Rob Milly back for the first time since 2016s Bringer of Drought, and his work alongside Samuel Dufour’s excellently unnatural playing leaves no one safe. The riffs and “harmonies” these two conceive are nasty, putrid, and grotesque with bloody roots in death, doom and black metal. This is the reason Phobocosm’s sound packs so much raw venom, and the tandem’s dissonant maelstroms leave behind plenty of little details to unearth with subsequent spins. Once again, Etienne Bayard blows the doors off the crypt with massive death vocals. He’s a superb croaker and makes everything considerably more menacing and horrible. Basically, he’s the very Mouth of Madness.

Phobocosm are one of the most reliable death metal monstrosities out there, and Gateway is another ruthless sucker punch to the epiglottis. While I fear this is dropping too late in the year to get the attention and end-of-year list space it deserves, Gateway definitely has my full attention as 2025 winds down. This is another high-quality dose of excessive extremity that deserves to be heard and marinated deeply within. Take my advice and follow Gateway into lunacy before it becomes another thing you foolishly missed.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Dark Descent
Websites: darkdescentrecords.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/phobocosm | instagram.com/phobocosm
Releases Worldwide: November 28th, 2025

#2025 #35 #canadianMetal #darkDescentRecords #deathMetal #gateway #immolation #incantation #nov25 #phobocosm #review #reviews #ulcerate

For #JukeboxFridayNight, we are making some noise with #LetThereBeDrums - songs or music with or about drums or drummers.

This is a song with a drummer, in fact an amazing drummer - Ulcerate's Jamie Saint Merat.

I've shared this before, but I can't miss another chance to appreciate JSM at work, with a live drum cam video of his playing on the song Dissolved Orders.

See the range, complexity and precision of his work with the other band members.

https://youtu.be/Tg5w5j78iDQ

#Ulcerate #DeathMetal

For #JukeboxFridayNight, we are making some noise with #LetThereBeDrums - songs or music with or about drums or drummers.

This is a song with a drummer, in fact an amazing drummer - Ulcerate's Jamie Saint Merat.

I've shared this before, but I can't miss another chance to appreciate JSM at work, with a live drum cam video of his playing on the song Dissolved Orders.

See the range, complexity and precision of his work with the other band members.

https://youtu.be/Tg5w5j78iDQ

#Ulcerate #DeathMetal

Hexrot – Formless Ruin of Oblivion Review

By Angry Metal Guy

By: Nameless_n00b_604

“What’s past and what’s to come is strew’d with husks / And formless ruin of oblivion;”1

Hieronymus Bosch’s triptych masterpiece The Garden of Earthly Delights is iconic, but like Dante’s Divine Comedy, it’s mostly for the Hell part. It’s not hard to see why: it’s a singularly surreal, oppressively grim piece. Scholars aren’t certain about Bosch’s religious beliefs, but the consensus is that he painted this panel to warn viewers to steer clear of temptation or endure everlasting torment in Hell. Avant-garde duo Hexrot has chosen to adorn their debut LP Formless Ruin of Oblivion with a portion of this panel, but they don’t buy Bosch’s dilemma. Promising in its promo a “stylistic mélange of death, black, and thrash metal with inventive electronic experimentation,” Hexrot has woven an abstractly grim tale of a world rejecting Heaven and Hell by plunging reality into empty Oblivion. Classical in theming, modern in sound, it sounds like quite the undertaking.

Formless Ruin does a lot, and all of it contributes to Hexrot’s impeccable sense of exploration and adventure. The sales pitch doesn’t lie about Hexrot’s sound, but it omits the unpredictable, jazzy feel. Along with Deathspell Omega-esque discordant black and Ulcerate-like dissonant death metal, the duo of drummer/vocalist/electronics producer Melmoth and guitarist/bassist/vocalist Arkain possesses a bombastic, improvised-feeling chemistry akin to Imperial Triumphant. From the skittering drums and bass of “Consecrating Luminous Conflagration” to the trash-canned climax of the fifteen-minute monster title track to “What Lies Veiled” riffing on and modifying Death’s opening “Symbolic” riff like a jazz standard, Formless Ruin of Oblivion rages and writhes in jazz fashion as often as it does in metal. Hexrot’s rhythmic talents are top-notch, serving obscenely busy drumming on “Heavenward” and immense, thrumming bass on “Clandestine Haunt” at odd and changing time signatures. Meanwhile, winding leads on “Consecrating Luminous Conflagration” and jarring electronics on the title track keep Formless Ruin’s melodic identity difficult to pin down. It’s a wild ride down to Oblivion.

Hexrot plays heavy stuff, conceptually and sonically, but Formless Ruin is surprisingly easy listening. Across its thirty-five-minute runtime, Hexrot seamlessly ties its songs together to form a continuous stream of consciousness, like a live suite. Every song besides the interludes is replete with movements and ideas without committing riff salad, while containing just enough repetition to cement hooks into memory. Vocals sound raw and upfront, consisting of a twin attack of bellowing roars and banshee screams that—while they probably would become monotonous alone—duel and complement each other, adding variety to Hexrot’s palette. And everything just sounds great: Formless Ruin sports rich production and dynamic mixing that allows every wild and disparate idea to breathe. Despite its avant-garde nature, Formless Ruin feels immediate through its grounded, live feel.2

Sometimes this album doesn’t even sound real at all. Because Hexrot established such an organic sound, every instance of electronic music creeping into the mix is surprising and even unnerving. “Consecrating Luminous Conflagration” ends and gets absorbed and rewound by the following “Ghostly Retrograde I,” synths join arpeggiated guitar on “Heavenward” to build its eerie elegance, and the title track collapses into crushed static. If there’s one aspect in which Formless Ruin isn’t totally enthralling, however, it’s sometimes when the synths and electronics stand alone. “Ghostly Retrograde II” drags by the end, as does the droning conclusion to “Formless Ruin of Oblivion”; these are the only times my mind wanders. But when they work, they elevate Hexrot, lending haunting qualities that at times remind me of the atmospherics of Cryptic Shift’s excellent Visitations from Enceladus. Hexrot’s push and pull between the organic and artificial is captivating: aptly put on the title track’s lyrics describing a curtain of stars “entering stage right,” Formless Ruin of Oblivion draws attention to its own artifice, revealing the artifice of its story’s reality, justifying Oblivion.

Formless Ruin of Oblivion demands your attention. I’ve begun so many casual spins of this album, and almost all of them turned into deep listens by track three. Hexrot has that touch to take the most seemingly unapproachable stuff and somehow make it addictive. Grandiose, volatile, unconventional, and surreal, Hexrot drummed up some Hell on this one, and I for one will be diving straight into whatever Oblivion they open up next.

Rating: Great!
DR: 10 | Review Format: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Transcending Obscurity
Website: hexrot-label.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/hexrot
Release Date: August 29th, 2025

#2025 #40 #Aug25 #AvantGarde #AvantGardeDeathMetal #BlackMetal #Death #DeathMetal #DeathspellOmega #FormlessRuinOfOblivion #Hexrot #Review #TranscendingObscurity #TranscendingObscurityRecords #Ulcerate

Hexrot – Formless Ruin of Oblivion Review

By Angry Metal Guy

By: Nameless_n00b_604

“What’s past and what’s to come is strew’d with husks / And formless ruin of oblivion;”1

Hieronymus Bosch’s triptych masterpiece The Garden of Earthly Delights is iconic, but like Dante’s Divine Comedy, it’s mostly for the Hell part. It’s not hard to see why: it’s a singularly surreal, oppressively grim piece. Scholars aren’t certain about Bosch’s religious beliefs, but the consensus is that he painted this panel to warn viewers to steer clear of temptation or endure everlasting torment in Hell. Avant-garde duo Hexrot has chosen to adorn their debut LP Formless Ruin of Oblivion with a portion of this panel, but they don’t buy Bosch’s dilemma. Promising in its promo a “stylistic mélange of death, black, and thrash metal with inventive electronic experimentation,” Hexrot has woven an abstractly grim tale of a world rejecting Heaven and Hell by plunging reality into empty Oblivion. Classical in theming, modern in sound, it sounds like quite the undertaking.

Formless Ruin does a lot, and all of it contributes to Hexrot’s impeccable sense of exploration and adventure. The sales pitch doesn’t lie about Hexrot’s sound, but it omits the unpredictable, jazzy feel. Along with Deathspell Omega-esque discordant black and Ulcerate-like dissonant death metal, the duo of drummer/vocalist/electronics producer Melmoth and guitarist/bassist/vocalist Arkain possesses a bombastic, improvised-feeling chemistry akin to Imperial Triumphant. From the skittering drums and bass of “Consecrating Luminous Conflagration” to the trash-canned climax of the fifteen-minute monster title track to “What Lies Veiled” riffing on and modifying Death’s opening “Symbolic” riff like a jazz standard, Formless Ruin of Oblivion rages and writhes in jazz fashion as often as it does in metal. Hexrot’s rhythmic talents are top-notch, serving obscenely busy drumming on “Heavenward” and immense, thrumming bass on “Clandestine Haunt” at odd and changing time signatures. Meanwhile, winding leads on “Consecrating Luminous Conflagration” and jarring electronics on the title track keep Formless Ruin’s melodic identity difficult to pin down. It’s a wild ride down to Oblivion.

Hexrot plays heavy stuff, conceptually and sonically, but Formless Ruin is surprisingly easy listening. Across its thirty-five-minute runtime, Hexrot seamlessly ties its songs together to form a continuous stream of consciousness, like a live suite. Every song besides the interludes is replete with movements and ideas without committing riff salad, while containing just enough repetition to cement hooks into memory. Vocals sound raw and upfront, consisting of a twin attack of bellowing roars and banshee screams that—while they probably would become monotonous alone—duel and complement each other, adding variety to Hexrot’s palette. And everything just sounds great: Formless Ruin sports rich production and dynamic mixing that allows every wild and disparate idea to breathe. Despite its avant-garde nature, Formless Ruin feels immediate through its grounded, live feel.2

Sometimes this album doesn’t even sound real at all. Because Hexrot established such an organic sound, every instance of electronic music creeping into the mix is surprising and even unnerving. “Consecrating Luminous Conflagration” ends and gets absorbed and rewound by the following “Ghostly Retrograde I,” synths join arpeggiated guitar on “Heavenward” to build its eerie elegance, and the title track collapses into crushed static. If there’s one aspect in which Formless Ruin isn’t totally enthralling, however, it’s sometimes when the synths and electronics stand alone. “Ghostly Retrograde II” drags by the end, as does the droning conclusion to “Formless Ruin of Oblivion”; these are the only times my mind wanders. But when they work, they elevate Hexrot, lending haunting qualities that at times remind me of the atmospherics of Cryptic Shift’s excellent Visitations from Enceladus. Hexrot’s push and pull between the organic and artificial is captivating: aptly put on the title track’s lyrics describing a curtain of stars “entering stage right,” Formless Ruin of Oblivion draws attention to its own artifice, revealing the artifice of its story’s reality, justifying Oblivion.

Formless Ruin of Oblivion demands your attention. I’ve begun so many casual spins of this album, and almost all of them turned into deep listens by track three. Hexrot has that touch to take the most seemingly unapproachable stuff and somehow make it addictive. Grandiose, volatile, unconventional, and surreal, Hexrot drummed up some Hell on this one, and I for one will be diving straight into whatever Oblivion they open up next.

Rating: Great!
DR: 10 | Review Format: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Transcending Obscurity
Website: hexrot-label.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/hexrot
Release Date: August 29th, 2025

Show 2 footnotes

1. Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, 4.5.189-190 ↩
2. DEM DRUMS! – AMG ↩

#2025 #40 #Aug25 #AvantGarde #AvantGardeDeathMetal #BlackMetal #Death #DeathMetal #DeathspellOmega #FormlessRuinOfOblivion #Hexrot #Review #TranscendingObscurity #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

Bonus track: drum cam of Jamie Saint Merat on Stare Into Death And Be Still.

Overriding thought from this video: while the songs seem to wander at their own pace, with leisurely twists and turns, the band is actually so tight. Every point they land on together. 🔨

https://youtu.be/svL-EDlSsN8

#Ulcerate #drums #drummer #DeathMetal #metal

Bonus track: drum cam of Jamie Saint Merat on Stare Into Death And Be Still.

Overriding thought from this video: while the songs seem to wander at their own pace, with leisurely twists and turns, the band is actually so tight. Every point they land on together. 🔨

https://youtu.be/svL-EDlSsN8

#Ulcerate #drums #drummer #DeathMetal #metal

For those of you who appreciate the artistry of a drummer at the top of their game, here's a live 'drum cam' video of Ulcerate's drummer. The range and dynamics of his playing are amazing, and this video shows how integral his playing is to Ulcerate's music.

Drummer Jamie Saint Merat on the song Dissolved Orders, live in Sweden. 🥁

https://youtu.be/Tg5w5j78iDQ

#Ulcerate #drums #drummer #DeathMetal #metal

For those of you who appreciate the artistry of a drummer at the top of their game, here's a live 'drum cam' video of Ulcerate's drummer. The range and dynamics of his playing are amazing, and this video shows how integral his playing is to Ulcerate's music.

Drummer Jamie Saint Merat on the song Dissolved Orders, live in Sweden. 🥁

https://youtu.be/Tg5w5j78iDQ

#Ulcerate #drums #drummer #DeathMetal #metal

If you missed the post from @yourfutureex in April, this one is definitely worth watching.

Ulcerate - Live at Servants of Chaos Festival
https://youtu.be/KDuAB9b3gjU

The visuals are understated, but the sound mix is incredible.

CW: flashing lights
Tracker removed from link. About 28 minutes.

#Ulcerate #DeathMetal #metal

If you missed the post from @yourfutureex in April, this one is definitely worth watching.

Ulcerate - Live at Servants of Chaos Festival
https://youtu.be/KDuAB9b3gjU

The visuals are understated, but the sound mix is incredible.

CW: flashing lights
Tracker removed from link. About 28 minutes.

#Ulcerate #DeathMetal #metal

Stuck in the Filter: April 2025’s Angry Misses

By Kenstrosity

The cicadas have passed, the brood has bred. And now, it’s all being washed away by a constant deluge of heavy rain and hail amidst thunderous storm of increasing intensity. I imagine those skyborne rumblings shudder every wall of the ducts where my minions toil. I am sure they are frightened, claustrophobic, and soaked. And yet, they persist under my demanding and ruthless management—all so you can have more of what you already get every day in these halls.

Show your appreciation for what we bring to you, and enjoy ov deep Filter!

Kenstrosity’s Biblically-Accurate Beast

Ancient Death // Ego Dissolution [April 18th, 2025 – Profound Lore Records]

A lot of people pine for Death. We know this due to the sheer number of Death worship acts out there, most of which operate eternally under that legend’s shadow. Less common, however, are acts of worship in the service of underground-er heroes The Chasm. Thankfully, Massachusetts death metal quartet Ancient Death take on this mantle, blending much Death and The Chasm inspo with their own curated, abyssal sound. Everything here hearkens back to the ways of olde, but updated to feel relevant in the modern era. Such as this is the case, opening salvos “Ego Dissolution” and “Breaking the Barriers of Hope” strike while the iron is hot, piercing through all expectation with sharp riffs, evolving passages, and dynamic shifts in structure. So effective is this attack strategy that even instrumental aberrations like “Journey to the Inner Soul” feel story driven and purposeful. Standout tracks like “Breathe – Transcend (Into the Glowing Streams of Forever),” “Echoing Chambers Within the Dismal Mind,” and “Unspoken Earth” steal the show, however, boasting Ancient Death’s best riffs, a downright surprising display of vocal versatility, and disgusting solos and dive bombs. It needs time and dedicated spins to bloom and come alive, though, which may discourage listeners hoping for a cheap fix. But trust me, it’s worth the investment!

Killjoy’s Flavorful Feasts

Malphas // Extinct [April 11th, 2025 – Soulseller Records]

If I’m to enjoy no-frills black metal, it needs to have lots of hooks. In this sense, Switzerland’s Malphas had their priorities straight while writing Extinct. Their melodic guitar leads may not be as exuberant or exaggerated as, say, Moonlight Sorcery’s, but they have a thrashy flair which is just as much fun. Once the riffs captured my attention, they reeled me in for a battering vocal assault of coarse barks and spiteful snarls. Drummer Jöschu Käser (also of Aara and many others) can play seemingly any rhythm or tempo, best exemplified across the entirety of “Butcher’s Broom.” This is key for Malphas to prove they have the nuance to pull off mid-paced tempos (“Majestic Moon,” “Consumed,” “Armada Christi”), a quality that I find important in black metal. There are a few neat little surprises as well, like the piano section midway through “Majestic Moon” and the icy synths popping up momentarily in the instrumental closer “Astral Dissonance.” Fans of engaging and catchy meloblack won’t want to miss out on Extinct.

Svnth // Pink Noise Youth [April 18th, 2025 – These Hands Melt]

You’ve likely heard of white noise, but what about its counterpart, pink noise? Whereas white noise contains equal amounts of all frequencies audible to humans, pink noise favors lower frequencies and is generally considered to be easier on the ears. Likewise, Pink Noise Youth, Svnth’s fourth album, is a remarkably pleasant listen. This unassuming post-black group from Rome, Italy has evolved considerably since Cherd’s review of 2020’s Spring in Blue. The familiar glossy guitar tremolos and chords now have an unexpected companion: the electric sitar. This newcomer is mainly supportive, with stray notes and lines drizzled atop the already dreamy guitars for extra sweetness. There are spicier moments, too, like the punky riffs and d-beats peppered with rasping barks that kick off “Winter Blues.” There’s also a much greater prevalence of clean singing this time around, Rodolfo Ciuffo’s hypnotic intonation complements the chunky post-metal of “Perfume” as easily as the carefree guitar strumming in “Nairoby Lullaby.” Gone are the overlong, meandering tracks of before; Pink Noise Youth gets straight to the point with sharper songs hovering in the 5-minute range across a tight 37 minutes in total. Svnth seem determined to make the post-black genre their own and, by all indications, it’s working.

Owlswald’s Wide-Eyed Wonders

Game Over // Face the End [April 25th, 2025 – Scarlet Records]

In the absolutely loaded month that was April, two records surprised these owl ears enough to earn regular spots in my playlist. First up is Game Over’s sixth full-length, Face the End. These Italian thrashers have been peddling their version of the Bay Area sound since 2009, yet this is somehow my first encounter with them. Following the departure of co-founder/bassist/vocalist Renato Chiccoli, Game Over revamped its lineup, bringing in Danny Schiavina on vocals and Leonard Molinari on bass. This refreshed five-piece delivers a newly polished sound, making Face the End the most fun I’ve had with a thrash album in recent memory. “Grip of Time,” “Weaving Fate” and “Veil of Insanity” showcase Game Over’s mastery of Testament and Exodus-level aggression while “Neck Breaking Dance” offers a light-hearted pit call reminiscent of early Anthrax. Alessandro Sansone’s and Luca Zironi’s fast and forceful down-picking, melodic leads and flashy solos run over Anthony Dantone’s rock-solid drumming, all within a crisp and powerful production with ample punch. Schiavina’s charismatic, high-flying vocals immediately grab your attention on “Lust for Blood,” never relinquishing their grasp as they transmit their 70s and 80s horror-inspired themes above abundant gang vocals. In a genre plagued by inconsistency, Face the End is everything I want my thrash to be—aggressive, dynamic and fun.

Kiritsis // Kiritsis [April 4th, 2025 – Wise Blood Records/Pout Records]

Next up is the ruthless sludge and hardcore of Kiritsis. I hope you checked your fun at the door because this Indianapolis-based quartet isn’t here to make friends. Formed by members of Trenches, Hatesong, and Sundown, Kiritsis’ self-titled debut is here to punch you square in the face and take your lunch money. Over the course of thirty-one minutes, this foursome bludgeons listeners with uncompromisingly heavy doses of abrasive distortion, hard-hitting beats and pure unadulterated anger, all slathered in a blackened layer of Carcass-like filth. Blake Henry’s roars and rasps tear through your speakers with pure vitriol and torment, perfectly complementing Eric Mason’s grim riffing, Bill Scott’s demonic bass growls and Nik Jensen’s weighty drum strikes. “Like the Taste,” “Pissant” and “Deny.Defend.Dispose” embody a Will Haven spirit with a barrage of penetrating, assaulting riffs and pounding half-time slams underpinning Henry’s blood-curdling screams. Meanwhile, the sorrowful and doom-tinged “It Ain’t Easy” and “Thieves and Fools” drag you into anguish-ridden depths, draped in their dark, hopeless atmospheres and plodding facades. You won’t find any overly technical or flashy music here—this is pure hatred and loathing in a tight, cathartic package, meant to blast at high volume while you fuck shit up.

Tyme’s Grungy Gift

Melvins 1983 // Thunderball [April 18th, 2025 – Ipecac Recordings]

Hot on the heels and building off of 2024’s Tarantula Heart, stalwart grunge/sludge rock icon Buzz Osborne has teamed back up with original drummer Mike Dillard for Melvins 1983‘s third release and first in four years, Thunderball. This time around, Osborne and Dillard have partnered with experimental electronic artists Void Manes and Ni Maîtres to deliver yet another in a long line of inimitable, don’t-give-a-fuck-what-you-think releases that have become synonymous with the Melvins brand. As influential a band as any going right now on sludgy noise rock emanating from garages across the world, I take note anytime a new Melvins project hits shelves. With Thunderball, Buzz ‘n company have delivered another tasty morsel packed with some o’ that Houdini-sweet heaviness (“King of Rome”) that sweats grunge like “Negative Creep.” A merging of shimmery post-rock with punky garage rock and bass-laden disso-doom that meanders to a close in a wash of plodding riffs and bleep-bloop electronics, “Victory of the Pyramids” is a decent summation of what you’ll find lurking around most of Thunderball‘s thirty-four minute, five track corners, as Void Manes and Ni Maîtres don’t so much enhance as they incorporate their particular brand of electronica into Thunderball‘s sonic aesthetic. As a newcomer still assimilating into the Melvin hive mind here at AMG, I still have the independent lock-step wherewithal to recommend Melvins 1983‘s Thunderball to those who might have missed it.

Dolphin Whisperer’s Ample Acquisitions

Emma Goldman // All You Are Is We [April 28th, 2025 – Zegema Beach Records]

Sassy is as sassy does or somethin’ like that. If you were wondering whether anarchist icon Emma Goldman came back to life to front a mathcore band, I’m sorry to report that that is not the case. However, if you’re in the ballpark for Canadian punks speedballin’ through skronked-out, strung-out chorus barks with a hundred words trapped in ten seconds, then Emma Goldman will be your ticket to a hot psych ward summer.1 From working class psychosis (“i don’t think much at all,” “this is your brain on minimum wage”) to patchwork insomniac ramblings as loaded as the cut-and-scan cover collage (“at rock bottom i was a piss girl,” “that is the land of lost content”), vocalist Victoria delivers a shredded flurry of barks, nags, and cries that pierce straight through the boomy mix. And though the rhythm guitars and bass pulse and industrial cracklings (particularly the two interlude scratches) register on the lower end of the sound spectrum, a fluid twang and tight, clanging snare find an abrasive balance throughout—two broken tones make a right. In under half an hour, All You Are Is We both breezes by in its effortless flow and brandishes passersby with heart-stained tirades and boiled-over emotion. Along with modern acts like Massa Nera and Blind Girls, Emma Goldman in bold, romantic, and unsettled rage makes a strong case for how true skramz can continue to evolve through rich musicianship, progressive leanings, all while maintaining an adherence to post-indebted builds (“it rubs the boycott ketchup on its brand new slacks,” “that is the land…”). And with a dollop more of that cathartic and capturing energy, Emma Goldman may yet charge with the notoriety of its namesake at the front of this genre pack.

Sonum // The Obscure Light Awaits [April 11th, 2025 – Dusktone]

As a product of a previous filter fetching, I had hoped to provide a lengthier statement on my enjoyment of Sonum’s sophomore outing The Obscure Light Awaits. You see, this Italian act has a knack for supplying death metal that holds true to the origins of dark and twisted riffage while still pushing at edges of richer composition in hypnotic rhythms. As a second attempt at deathly glory, The Obscure Light Awaits shows studio knowledge growth in a drum sound that highlights expansive cymbal textures and quick-turn tom rolls that power the mood-driven world in which Sonum inhabits. And in post-growing melodic builds—the kind of atmosphere that leans dissonant like the Ulcerate-channeling broodings of Devenial Verdict—Sonum shows that mood can swell and explode on the backs of horror-tinged orchestral accompaniment and creaking refrains (“Trapped in the Labyrinth of Aberration,” “Nobody Is Innocent”). Trimmed to a three-piece set for The Obscure Light Awaits, the focus that borders on self-similarity on this extended-length journey feels both intimate and indulgent—the closing psychedelic jam session certainly leans on the latter feeling. But with churning tremolo runs that lead to gruff-toned cries, the majority of what Sonum brings to the table lands in consistent and crushing effort (“In This Void We Dwell,” “Messenger of Cosmic Dread”). As a band still finding their footing in the grander scheme of the death metal universe, Sonum has a sense of identity that gives them a fighting edge. And though The Obscure Light Awaits wears its unique vision a little loose at the waist, its journey is well worth exploring.

Zmarłym // Wielkie Zanikanie [April 18th, 2025 – Godz of War Productions]

Once upon a time, Zmarłym fancied themselves a Polish sadboi act whose turmoil was wrapped in the urban decay of early COVID lockdown measures. And now that we’ve all stepped some distance—a safe distance you might say—away from that reality, Zmarłym has learned that the sad doesn’t dissipate quite that easily. Wielkie Zanikanie finds a familiar malaise in isolation, frustration, and a general defeated nature wrapped up in a longing black metal wane with post-punk and progressive undertones, much like you’d find on a record like Voice’s Frightened or Cursebinder’s Drifting. Blaring synth throbs give way to entrancing drum patterns and phase-shifting vocal howls (“Miejsca,” “Bunt maszyn”). Classic tremolo flurries raze playful energy to set the stage for sinister, blood-soaked cries (“Sny o lataniu,” “Plamy II”). And though a goofy mid-album Killing Joke-indebted romp—even a switch to heavy accent English from the brooding native tongue—threatens to break the sinister ambiance that Zmarłym explores throughout the rest of Wielkie Zanikanie, its soft and bouncy inclusions still find layering amongst smoldering black metal riffage. And as all elements come to join hands in the space-bound, synth squealing crescendo of the closing title track, Zmarłym has delivered an experience full of variety and surprise, curated to bore a hole into a mind searching for melancholy with a sense of adventure and play.

#2025 #Aara #AllYouAreIsWe #AmericanMetal #AncientDeath #Anthrax #Apr25 #BlackMetal #BlindGirls #Carcass #Cursebinder #Death #DeathMetal #DevenialVerdict #Dusktone #EgoDissolution #EmmaGoldman #Exodus #Extinct #FaceTheEnd #GameOver #GodzOfWarProductions #Grunge #Hardcore #Hatesong #IpecacRecordings #ItalianMetal #KillingJoke #Kirtisis #Malphas #MassaNera #Mathcore #MelodicBlackMetal #Melvins #Melvins1983 #Metal #MoonlightSorcery #NiMaîtres #PinkNoiseYouth #PolishMetal #PostBlackMetal #postPunk #PoutRecords #ProfoundLoreRecords #ProgressiveDeathMetal #Review #Reviews #ScarletRecords #Screamo #Sludge #SludgeMetal #SludgeRock #Sonum #SoulsellerRecords #StuckInTheFilter #StuckInTheFilter2025 #Sundown #Svnth #Swiss #Testament #TheChasm #TheObscureLightAwaits #TheseHandsMelt #ThrashMetal #Thunderball #Trenches #Ulcerate #Voices #VoidManes #WielkieZanikanie #WillHaven #WiseBloodRecords #ZegemaBeachRecords #Zmarłym

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

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

Ominous Ruin – Requiem Review

By El Cuervo

I’ll be the first to admit that technical death metal is not my forte nor favorite. As much as I love death metal in its many stripes, I disapprove of how tech death often relies on blistering speed and technical showmanship rather than focusing on songwriting. But a nod from the immortal Willowtip Records and nine tracks across just 40 minutes makes for what should be a tidy slice of metal on Requiem by San Francisco’s Ominous Ruin. With just one full-length and a smattering of demos prior, Ominous Ruin are a band in ascendancy. Do they continue with Requiem?

It makes for a distinctly intense experience as it blends stomping rhythms, nerdy technicality, and trilling flourishes into an album that proudly sits in the death metal camp but that also has a foot over the melodic line. Ominous Ruin execute this sound with the ridiculous level of instrumental skill typical of tech death, including a top-drawer lead guitarist who forces me to re-assess how good I am at anything in comparison to him. Likewise, the powerful vocalist scrapes the sewer’s bottom with her guttural vox. It all contributes to a significant volume of content that moves so quickly that I was scarcely able to keep up with my notes. It’s difficult to appreciate many of the component passages; like an F1 car, when you attend a race, it’s impossible to admire the skill and craftsmanship in their design when they pass at 220 miles per hour.

Ominous Ruin commit the cardinal sin committed by most tech death bands: brick-walling the master.1 While extremely energetic, tech death is a style that suffers from a lack of musical dynamism, given its constant speed and maximalist approach. If one makes the decision to also limit the master’s dynamism it traps all that energy into a tiny space that drains what little dynamism already exists in the music. The result is that large chunks of Requiem struggle to distinguish themselves from each other. This is compounded by riffs that, while solid, generally fail to make me bang my head. The acrobatic, speedy leads are basically fine but repetitive and unremarkable (“Staring into the Abysm”). By contrast, the mid-paced closing lead on “Architect of Undoing” stands out as more groovy and powerful. Its slower riff works well to counterpoint the preceding faster riffs.

I generally dislike signposted intro/outro/interlude tracks that stand apart from the main songs. I especially dislike those with unimaginative descriptions instead of titles (“Opening” or “Interlude I” for example); it usually connotes a rote album of uninspired material. Sadly, Requiem is saddled with a separate introduction titled “Intro.” Happily, Ominous Ruin are a little more inspired than many tech death bands. Their greatest strength is how they stack layers of melodies to construct surprisingly ornate compositions. They almost sound like Ulcerate in places where they knock the music off-kilter (“Eternal” and “Architect of Undoing”). The compositions belie a group that doesn’t just want to write songs that sound like a queue of riffs. But, besides the well-demarcated interludes, the music is so undynamic that it takes real diligence to pierce the heaviness and appreciate the smart ways they deploy harmonies, melodies, and counter-melodies.

It takes truly exceptional tech death to excite me, and Requiem is not truly exceptional. Mileage may vary for tech death nuts, as I acknowledge the real artistry in how Ominous Ruin piece together knotty compositions through layers of melodies and counter-melodies. But the real killer is the boxy production that constrains the dynamism that’s already limited by the everything-everywhere-all-at-once style favored. The heavy passages, and even most of the light passages scattered throughout, sound repetitive. It’s therefore difficult to score Requiem any higher than average.

Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps MP3
Label: Willowtip Records
Websites: ominousruin.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/ominousruin
Releases Worldwide: May 9th, 2025

#25 #2025 #AmericanMetal #May25 #OminousRuin #Requiem #Review #Reviews #TechnicalDeathMetal #Ulcerate

Continuing #ThursDeath:

#DormantOrdeal: Tooth and Nail

https://album.link/i/1790702778

#TechnicalDeathMetal

FFO #Carnosus #Exocrine #Ulcerate

For this week's #ProgTuesday by @DXMacGuffin:

#ImperialTriumphant: Goldstar

https://album.link/i/1783607072

#AvantGardeMetal #Weird

FFO #BloodIncantation #TombMold #Ulcerate

Dormant Ordeal – Tooth and Nail Review

By Tyme

Though often yoked to the tech death scene, I’ve never found Dormant Ordeal particularly technical. Or at least not in the way bands like Defeated Sanity, Archspire, or Gorod are considered technical. Why is this important? Because on Tooth and Nail, their fourth outing and first for new label Willowtip, we see Dormant Ordeal step further away from any vestiges of technicality. Factor in too that, since the release of We Had It Coming, Dormant Ordeal continues to shrink—the most recent departure being that of drummer and founding member Radek Kowal—and you have an ordeal ripe for drama. Dormant Ordeal has, however, always managed high levels of quality output. AMG’s own Dr. Wvrm praised 2016’s WHIT with a TYMHM treatment and crowned 2021’s The Grand Scheme of Things with a 4.0 of thorns. Still, I wondered how Kowal’s absence would affect the Dormant Ordeal sound and whether Tooth and Nail would have the amount of fight I’d hoped for.

A showcase for every weapon at Dormant Ordeal‘s disposal, Tooth and Nail writhes with ruthless savagery, staying true to the classic Polish death metal sound. And while the likes of Decapitated, Ulcerate, and Gaerea still hold some comparative weight, Dormant Ordeal has done more than enough to step from the shadows of comparison into the light of its own sound. Like a grizzled wizard atop rocky crags, Maciej Nieścioruk casts rifferous spells filled with whirling tremolos, walls of layered dissonance, grinding chugs, and cascading shimmers of post-metal strums as well as bass lines brimming with gravitas. Chason Westmoreland (Cambion, ex-Equipoise, ex-Hate Eternal) fills in behind the kit and turns in a monstrous performance. His snare blasts, machine-like double kicks, and miles of tom fills lend warmth and deep richness to the vibrant drum sound, departing from Dormant Ordeal‘s former snare-heavy drone. Add in the fact that Maciej Proficz sounds more beastly and vicious than I’ve ever heard him, and we realize this iteration of Dormant Ordeal walks a different path—a path of blackened death, sure, but also one of well-crafted atmospheres, post-metallic melodicism, and a low-end presence absent from previous efforts.

For every passage on Tooth and Nail that tips a hat toward Dormant Ordeal‘s past, there are as many that point to a brighter future. Longtime fans will feel wrapped in a warm, WHIC comforter when the stutter-stepping, skronky riffs of “Dust Crown” take off or the theatrically dramatic “Orphans” flies by in blurs of blistering blasts and speed-hungry riffs. These moments juxtaposed against the brilliance of the plodding, weighty drama of “Solvent,” an atmospheric long-player full of melancholic guitar lines and shimmering tremolos or the very excellent “Against the Dying of the Light,” a nod to Dylan Thomas that is one of the most vicious songs on the album, Proficz’s roar of ‘Against the dying of the light. RAGE!” gives me goosebumps every time. Every song a marvel, Tooth and Nail finds Dormant Ordeal plumbing new depths of excellence by tapping into a dormant, lush production that suits the material to a tee.

Aside from Westmoreland recording his drum parts, all aspects of the production on Tooth and Nail appear, at least on paper, the same as on TGSoT, even down to the DR score. Yet, this time, Pawel Grabowski exited the lab at JNS Studio with a mix that brought to life the dark textures of Nieścioruk’s bass lines (“Halo of Bones”) and the theatrical intricacies of his guitar work (“Everything That Isn’t Silence Is Trivial”) in a way no previous Dormant Ordeal album has managed. Every minute of Tooth and Nail‘s forty-seven-minute runtime is put to good use, leaving not even the traditional complaint of artistic bloat on the table. I suppose I would have liked to see a bit more instrumentality added to “Wije I Mary, Pt. 1” to better tie it to the beautifully executed work on the bookend “Wije I Mary, Pt. 2,” but even this minuscule nit barely registers.

From its cover to its content, Tooth and Nail represents the absolute best of what Dormant Ordeal can be. It isn’t easy to part ways with a band’s sole founding member. Many don’t survive. Perhaps the fight and struggle it took Nieścioruk and Proficz to overcome and usher Tooth and Nail into the light of day is reflected in the album’s title and theme, which is one of grit, determination, and doing the difficult thing, to fight tooth and nail if you will. I commend Dormant Ordeal for carrying on and in so doing releasing its best album yet.

Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Willowtip Records
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: April 18th, 2025

#2025 #40 #Apr25 #BlackMetal #DeathMetal #Decapitated #DormantOrdeal #Gaerea #PolishMetal #Review #Reviews #ToothAndNail #Ulcerate #WillowtipRecords

Some live #Ulcerate goodness for #ThursDeath:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDuAB9b3gjU

https://redirect.invidious.io/watch?v=KDuAB9b3gjU

Ritual Ascension – Profanation of the Adamic Covenant Review

By Dear Hollow

Profanation of the Adamic Covenant represents catacombs dripping with putridity and filth, the blasphemy called against the heavens from far below ground. It’s an upheaval from beneath our feet, the crawling and coagulant rot that spreads from abyss to abyss. The filth and blood clots our eyes, hearts, and minds, driving us deeper and deeper into the madness until our lungs are filled with mud. Ritual Ascension is transcendence and enlightenment achieved through the reveling and swallowing of the grime-soaked entrails through a vicious and ancient ritual, the lumbering deity whose mammoth footfalls and cloud of plague require payment in full. It’s a ritual to the god of the mud and disease, and a fist slammed into the underside of heaven.

Death/doom has many heads, but the one Ritual Ascension rears may be the ugliest. The Denver collective, alongside sharing all three members with Aberration, is comprised of members of Suffering Hour, Void Rot, Feral Light, and Annihilation Cult, promising a psychedelic affair inspired just as much by the classic death/doom acts of yore as the more experimental devastators. You’ll certainly find homages to Incantation, diSEMBOWELMENT, and Winter in its ten-ton doom hammers, but atop it is an opaque and occult breed of dissonant insanity reminiscent of Portal and a palpable filth only touched by the likes of Stenched or Rotpit, only kept in the realm of humanity by a palpable groove that reminds me of Ataraxie. Ritual Ascension offers the depths in ways few can, a collective far greater than the sum of its parts.

Crawling, slimy chaos is one hell of a first impression. Overload of down-tuned and filthy tremolo guide mammoth processions, whose dissonant constructions and atonal dirges provide a hypnotic otherworldliness. As displayed lumbering out of the gates, its attack is slimy, slow, and devastating, ultimately a feeling or a place rather than a collection of highlights – as any good doom album ought to be. From the subtle and simple chord progressions that dominate more minimalist pieces (“Womb Exegesis”) to the groovy and monolithic chugs that grace the climaxes of lengthy runtimes (“Pillars of Antecedence,” “Cursed Adamic Tongues”), interspersed by passages of blastbeats ranging from blazing to contemplative. DH’s vocals are a crucial element to the album’s subterranean and blasphemous atmosphere, ranging from the commanding chthonic bellows you expect from this breed of devastation to the tortured howls and groans more indicative of black metal.

If the first half of Profanation is subtle and crawling, then the second exists as utterly filthy slow-motion violence. I was initially disappointed that the Portal-isms were not as handily felt among the tracks of the first half, only gleaming in sporadic moments and within traditionally ominous diminished chord progressions. However, crossing into the second half with the scalding “Consummation Rites” and “Kolob (At the Throne of Elohim),” caustic slow-motion Ulcerate leads collide with the filthiest riffs Impetuous Ritual could muster, with DH’s most charismatic performances of the album. Unhinged and cutthroat are not words typically associated with doom, but the layers of overwhelm and dissonance meet the criteria with a bloodthirstiness and underlying craving for brutality. Looking back, it would have been relatively easy to incorporate the dissonant intensity in the first couple of tracks, but their later full fruition after a crawling crescendo makes them feel even more painful and overwhelming.

Even though the dissonance was not as immediate as I anticipated and the necessity for the patience required for this kind of beast goes without saying for its atmosphere – rather than a collection of songs – Profanation of the Adamic Covenant is transcendent. Encapsulating that crawling dread and ritualistic weight, monolithic groove, and dissonant layers in a tidy forty-eight minutes and held together by the dedication to unholy filth, it offers bounties aplenty for those willing to wade through the offal and mire. Bolstered by impressive performances in unpredictable percussion, riffs both mammoth and caustic, and vocals tortured and menacing, Ritual Ascension offers one hell of a debut. Get swallowed by the filth.

Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Sentient Ruin Laboratories
Website: instagram.com/ritualascension
Releases Worldwide: February 28th, 2025

#2025 #40 #Aberration #AmericanMetal #AnnihilationCult #Ataraxie #AvantGardeMetal #DeathDoomMetal #diSEMBOWELMENT #DissonantDeathMetal #Feb25 #FeralLight #ImpetuousRitual #Incantation #OldSchoolDeathMetal #Portal #ProfanationOfTheAdamicCovenant #Review #Reviews #RitualAscension #Rotpit #SentientRuinLaboratories #Stenched #SufferingHour #Ulcerate #VoidRot #Winter

I'm nothing if not predictable. New video from Ulcerate, live in Poland.

Ulcerate - Live in Kraków MMXXIV

Five tracks from the penultimate date of the 'Eclipse Death' European tour. Captured live, warts and all, at Hype Park, Kraków, Poland 14.11.24. No backing tracks or overdubs.

Full video via Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bl5TvIBK-pk

Shot and edited by Woda i Pustka
Audio mixed & mastered by JSM
Live audio by Raphaël Bovey
Live lighting design by Sebastian Fraser

I. The Dawn is Hollow
II. Further Opening the Wounds
III. To See Death Just Once
IV. Cutting the Throat of God
V. Stare Into Death and Be Still

#DeathMetal #Ulcerate

I'm nothing if not predictable. New video from Ulcerate, live in Poland.

Ulcerate - Live in Kraków MMXXIV

Five tracks from the penultimate date of the 'Eclipse Death' European tour. Captured live, warts and all, at Hype Park, Kraków, Poland 14.11.24. No backing tracks or overdubs.

Full video via Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bl5TvIBK-pk

Shot and edited by Woda i Pustka
Audio mixed & mastered by JSM
Live audio by Raphaël Bovey
Live lighting design by Sebastian Fraser

I. The Dawn is Hollow
II. Further Opening the Wounds
III. To See Death Just Once
IV. Cutting the Throat of God
V. Stare Into Death and Be Still

#DeathMetal #Ulcerate

Angry Metal Guy’s Top Ten(ish) of 2024

By Angry Metal Guy

Starting 2025 with a bang was always important, and I elected the “being 26 days late with your Record o’ the Year post” as the best possible way to give everyone that patented Angry Metal Guy feeling of waiting and waiting only to be smacked in the face with 5000 words that you disagree with entirely. Welcome to the Wonderful World of Executive Dysfunction! Let’s make a list!1

Fifteen years of Angry Metal Guy and year 15 will be remembered as a genuinely good year for metal. There were several excellent releases I was genuinely excited about and as the year went on, things got even better. For the first time in a while, I felt like I had a glut of options and felt guilty about what was and wasn’t making the list. In terms of total performance, year 15 at AMG stayed roughly on par with 2023. We wrote 691 posts (mostly reviews), which, in terms of raw numbers, dropped to lower than 2023 and was once again the lowest since 2015. We made up for it in girth, however, with the average post sporting a whopping 955 words! This might be a case of the self-fulfilling prophecy biting me in the ass for consistently yelling at everyone for being overwriters at which point they see themselves as overwriters and begin to overwrite. Or, maybe it’s because we had fewer reviews to balance out the longer posts. Regardless, we finished with a “big-boned” 660,024 total words in 2024. We averaged 38,617 views a day, leading us to our second-highest annual readership numbers ever at 14,129,320 total page views; a tick down from last year, but that’s not surprising when we’re writing fewer posts.

The readership of AMG is as global as ever, but the USA, UK, and Canada retained their spots as 1, 2, and 3 on our Top 10(ish) Biggest Readerships. Germans continued to flock here in droves, maintaining their position at number 4 on our list with Australia coming in at healthy 5. I’m a bit surprised at Australia for not taking umbrage at getting beat by the Germans last year, but when you live in constant fear of your absolutely frightening environs, I guess that’s the least of your worries.2 Spots 6-9 are the same as last year with Netherlands, Sweden, France, and Spain. But coming in at number 10 was Finland! Our strategy of lauding Finnish bands is finally paying off. “How” you ask? Well, if I can get to celebrity status in Finland, I intend to go there so I can be awkwardly ignored in social situations by an entirely new population of Scandinavians. I was happy to see Poland sneak up to the coveted “ish” spot on the list, but that means Brazil dropped out of the Top 10(ish) and that sucks.3 We were once again visited a single time by a mysterious robed reader from the Vatican City and I want to extend a warm Angry Metal Guy welcome to the lone citizen of Micronesia who found their way to our sacred halls.

The biggest, coolest thing that happened in 2024 (following one of the shittiest things to happen in 2024) was, of course, helping Kenstrosity deal with the catastrophe that was his life following Hurricane Helene. It was so cool and gratifying to see just how generous and amazing the fans of AMG were and we’ll never forget your generosity. We also added n00bs—welcoming Alekhines Gun, Tyme, and Killjoy as new blood for the Bloodgod (with more coming, we promise)—and saw the return of the illustrious Mark Z. We lost—at least for the time being—Ferox at the end of the year and that sucks for all of us. But losing him to a burgeoning career as a showrunner and movie director seems like the kind of thing that isn’t such a bitter pill to swallow. Personally, alas, 2024 was pretty much the worst year of my life. The reason I equivocate is because every time I think something like that I can only think of Homer Simpson saying: “So far! The worst year of your life so far!” But 2024 was marred by a breakup I did not want and struggles with both my physical health and the obvious consequences thereof. I re-read my Top 10(ish) of 2023 and was amused in that “oh, sweet summer child” kind of way when I read:

On a personal note, this year [2023] was supposed to be one of the best of my life. It has been an unmitigated pile of shit, with only a few bright spots. As usual, I’ll try to make 2024 a better year, where I am Angry Metal Guy in practice, not just in spirit. A new year always brings unreasonable and unrealistic goals that get broken in shame by April, doesn’t it? Well, that’s mine.

Alas, that ended up being quite a bit more prescient than I could’ve anticipated given that it was the 31st of March when the Behind the Music voiceover guy had to step in: “Then tragedy struck…”

So, 2024 turned out to be significantly worse for me than 2023. That said, I did, in fact, work a lot more on AMG than I have in previous years and it’s helped me to create a map of how that’s possible for the future. Furthermore, I’m finally starting to understand the things at the root of my BS—beyond unfortunate and frustrating life circumstances or the fact that I’m a big worthless loser4—and I hope that results in some real progress. Because, when all is said and done, Angry Metal Guy has stood the test of time for a reason and I’m proud of it and want to be involved in it. I like the music, I like most of the people, I like hazing n00bs, and I like arguing incessantly about opinions. Even if I feel a little out of lockstep with metal trends in recent years, I still think that my voice is important here and I want to have it here. And it’s thanks to everyone here, particularly Steel Druhm, Dr. Grier, and the other helpers, as well as the writers and of course, the readers, who have kept this all afloat while I am trying to solve the mystery that is my brain.

To moderate expectations for 2025! Here’s the Top 10(ish) of 2024.

#ish 2: Dawn Treader // Bloom & Decay [August 24th | Liminal Dread Productions | Bandcamp] — I’m relatively certain that if you had polled the writers and readers of AngryMetalGuy.com and asked them to predict this list, Dawn Treader’s Bloom & Decay would not have come even remotely close to placing on my Top 10(ish). And it makes sense. Dawn Treader traffics in a genre of black metal that I rail on at every chance. At this point, my personality is basically constructed of jokes about how calling something atmospheric just means they use a lot of reverb. And yeah, Bloom & Decay uses inordinate amounts of reverb, I can’t deny it. But better, Ross Connell subverts the ‘one-man black metal project’ tropes by being good, actually. The record is emotionally poignant, musically rich, and laden with pathos—causing that aching bloom in my chest while listening to what feels at times like sad songs playing in major keys. If there’s one reason I haven’t been back to this album as much as other things, it’s because it’s hard to listen to at times. The messages contained here and the way they are delivered can be challenging at times; long discursive samples that are hard to have repeated back at you time and again in a time of a lot of despair. Still, that’s hardly a knock against Dawn Treader’s work, there are a lot of people who would suggest that it’s exactly that which makes Bloom & Decay art. And there’s no question in my mind that Bloom & Decay is a work of art.

#ish 1: Verikalpa // Tuomio [April 19th, 2024 | Scarlet Records | Bandcamp] — But then again, who needs serious emotionally poignant works of art when you can listen to Finnish guys writing amazing blackened melodeath that heavily features faux accordion and lyrics, presumably, about drinking? I feel a bit guilty that these guys have yet to make a number on the list—having previously been relegated to an -ish—but they are getting better and better and Tuomio has been a joy to listen to in a year where almost nothing else brought me joy. In a way, Verikalpa’s sound is a form of nostalgiacore for me—with its 2004 production, its 2004 riffs, and my 2004 urge to drink beer and headbang. But, as Steel Druhm would argue out of pure self-interest, some things are timeless and change is bad, so this isn’t a critique. And while the metal-listening public lost its taste for folk metal after the glut that was released in the late 2000s, I find Verikalpa avoids the pitfalls of the sound, delivering only the highest quality riffs and blasts. Loaded with groove and chunky riffs, Verikalpa knows how to write solid, speedy, fun, and brutal metal that will make you want to drink a beer and lift some weights. And again, what more can we truly ask of any metal band? If you aren’t listening to and loving Verikalpa by now, you’re missing out. Of all the Finnish releases with dated sounds this year, Tuomio is the best.

#10: Grendel’s Sÿster // Katabasis into the Abaton [August 30th, 2024 | Sur Del Cruz Music | Bandcamp] — If there was a major “I did not see that coming” moment in 2024, it was that Grendel’s Sÿster never left my playlist once I heard it for the first time. An addictive record, I summed it up best when I wrote that “this German four-piece drops metal that reeks of patchouli and ‘Atomkraft? Nein, Danke!‘ to surprising effect. The core of Grendel’s Sÿster’s sound is the combination of fuzzy guitars, bubbly p-bass, and boxy drums into something that will undoubtedly call to mind the ’70s hard rock of your choice: Wishbone Ash, Jethro Tull, Thin Lizzy or nostalgia merchants like Gygax.” And that sound—not a sound that I spend my free time chasing down—could be directly shot into my veins and I couldn’t be happier. There’s something pure and honest and beautiful about this music. It is both poppy and niche, both pretentious and utterly not; it breaks down binaries and exists in the interstices. And goddammit, it’s what one roadie for Porcupine Tree once said of Blaze’s first three records, “it’s good, honest heavy metal.” And that’s it. The cream rises to the top; good songwriting always wins. And Katabasis into the Abaton is loaded with great songs, fun ideas, and idiosyncratic vocals. It’s surprising in all the right ways.

#9: Oceans of Slumber // Where Gods Fear to Speak [September 13th, 2024 | Season of Mist | Bandcamp] — Some experiences are unforgettable, and getting to see Oceans of Slumber in the summer of 2024 and really hear Cammie Beverly live was one such experience. There are few people in the world who truly have a Voice with a capital V and Cammie is one of them. The band’s performance was entrancing and her presence was commanding. It was literal goosebumps. I had been enjoying Where Gods Fear to Speak for a few weeks at that point, but seeing Oceans of Slumber live transformed my entire understanding of the unique strengths contained herein. Between her voice, genuinely progressive—and at times challenging—songwriting, and the fantastic performances, Where Gods Fear to Speak sounds like the culmination of the band’s career. Having learned from the past and meshed it all, listeners are left with something transcendent, beautiful, and the perfect balance of heavy and delicate. If there’s one knock on this record, it’s that people may struggle with a flowing relationship to song structure and hooks. But for the sophisticated listener, each song on Where Gods Fear to Speak is a beautiful step on an unforgettable journey.

#8: Iotunn // Kinship [October 25th, 2024 | Metal Blade Records | Bandcamp] — Hard truth time: I was never super enamored in Access All Worlds. While the blog and the commentariat were busy heaping praise upon the best band to come out of Denmark since Mercyful Fate, I held my tongue and gave them the spotlight they deserved because I was in a definite minority. But the record never inspired me. So, I approached Kinship with skepticism. I love Jón’s voice—this is no secret—but at 68 minutes long with 10-minute songs and one record in the bag I hadn’t felt… you know how it goes. I was happily surprised when Kinship hooked me hard. Jón’s voice brings everything together, but the blackened undercurrent spicing up the melodeath riffing (pretty sure Amon Amarth called their lawyers about a couple of the riffs in “The Anguished Ethereal”) matched with an epic scope that could be carried only by someone with the brass timbre and Grondesque vocal power of Aldará. I have been back to this again and again since I broke down and dropped it on the proverbial turntable. It is deep enough to keep me coming back, it’s hooky enough to kick that dopamine into high gear, and it’s beautiful and well-crafted with that aching Scandy melancholy that I crave. Bravo, Iotunn, this is a real first step towards me forgiving your spelling of ‘jotun’ and the Stockholm Bloodbath.

#7: Fellowship // The Skies above Eternity [November 22nd, 2024 | Scarlet Records | Bandcamp] — I am hardly the first person to note that it’s difficult to follow a beloved record. I think it’s even harder to follow a beloved debut. And I doubt there’s an album that’s been released in recent years that is as beloved as Fellowship’s debut, The Saberlight Chronicles. Putting the hopes and fate of the Europower scene in the hands of these tiny pastoral persons and sending them off to Mordor was never a good idea. But surprise, surprise, they survived!5 And they’re back with an album that has inspired the kind of dedication that only the rare band ever gets close to, landing super high on people’s lists despite being a late November release. And you can hear why. The Skies above Eternity is yet another 45ish minutes of fantastic, guitar-driven melodic power metal that simultaneously rules and takes itself seriously enough to have good, interesting, relatable, and at times inspiring lyrics while also embracing the fun and natural, inherent silliness of power metal. That’s a hard balance to strike and Fellowship nails it with aplomb. They say you don’t want to be the guy who follows The Guy, you want to be the guy who follows the guy who follows The Guy. I suspect The Skies above Eternity will always be slightly underrated because it isn’t The Saberlight Chronicles. But fuck me if it isn’t excellent.

#6: Devenial Verdict // Blessing of Despair [October 4th | Transcending Obscurity Records | Bandcamp] — I knew that these kids from Finland were alright when I jokingly called them “Morbid Angelcore” on Instagram and they took it with grace.6 Honestly, of all the stuff that the “No Fun, Only Reverb and Feels!” flank of AMG has dredged up and dumped hyperbolic praise on, Devenial Verdict is one of the bands to which I feel the most grateful to have been exposed. Often sold as either “dissodeath” or “atmospheric death metal,” because they’re both wildly popular subgenres of death metal, both feel like misnomers. Rather, Blessing of Despair is an album loaded with memorable moments and melodies, and while it does, indeed, employ a lot of “atmosphere,”7 I was not prepared for the elite-level Azagthoth-on-LSD riffs that litter Blessing of Despair. I wouldn’t say that Blessing of Despair is OSDM, but the riffing evokes the masters in ways both direct and subtle and it gives the record an impeccable vibe. Devenial Verdict has wrought a brilliant death metal album where riffs abound, the atmosphere is set on the “Cathedral” setting, and every song is better than the last. Maybe the best word to use to describe their x factor is gravitas. But whatever it is, Devenial Verdict’s got it in spades.

#5: Octoploid // Beyond the Aeons [July 5th, 2024 | Reigning Phoenix Music | Bandcamp] — The amount of love that Beyond the Aeons isn’t receiving is one of the scandals of 2024, in my opinion. This started with our own positive—but tepid, if I’m honest—review of Beyond the Aeons and has continued through Listurnalia. As a passive, but legitimate, autocrat of Angry Metal Guy, I have half a mind to shut this place down over this deep disrespect for Amorphiscore. Honestly, it pains me not to make Beyond the Aeons the #1 album,8 because I have listened to these 33 minutes of extreme metal—occasionally tremmy and black, but mostly just solid melodeath—more than almost anything else this year. Tracks like “Coast of the Drowned Sailors” feed my need for new Amorphis and my secret wish that they were heavier. And that’s one thing I’ll give Octoploid, unlike Barren Earth, Beyond the Aeons doesn’t dwell too long on anything. It kicks off and speeds along, hitting you with catchy leads in the key of Moomin and doubled with synth—as one does. Don’t sleep on Octoploid. Beyond the Aeons is energetic, fun, catchy, and worth at least a couple of spins a week six months after it was released.

#4: Opeth // The Last Will and Testament [November 22nd, 2024 | Moderbolaget] — What Opeth has accomplished on The Last Will and Testament is remarkable. Unlike so many bands, Opeth’s reimaginations of its sound still speak to me. The Last Will and Testament is a smart, coherent, and melodramatic record that does Mikael Åkerfeldt and crew credit. The reason that this record elevates itself above the ceiling that most Newpeth lived under, however, is that they are finally able to turn the music up to 11 again compositionally. After more than a decade without the emotional and compositional peak (and release) of a guttural growl released from the diaphragm over a particularly chunky riff or heavy drums, The Last Will and Testament continues the band’s development but gives them a release valve—”§4″ being the highlight for me, where they transition from Opethro Tull—a jazz flute solo—to Deathro Tull with some operatic, but dour, death metal. And it simply feels good to hear them doing both of these things simultaneously. Having gone through and relistened to the discography at length, it is striking how Opeth circa 2024 sounds very little like the band I fell in love with in the late-’90s/early aughts. To be able to both be markedly different and feel like the same band is a deeply underrated trait. This could have been higher if I’d had longer with it.

#3: Fleshgod Apocalypse // Opera [August 23rd, 2024 | Nuclear Blast Records | Bandcamp] — I knew almost immediately that Opera was going to be a controversial record. I was not prepared for the hyperbolic pushback that Opera garnered from fans of Italy’s death metal answer to [Luca (Turilli / Lione)’s] Rhapsody [of Fire] for being, as I wrote myself, “undeniably poppy.” Sometimes I think that we fans of the extreme metal scene have lost sight of what pop music really is. The fact that people have been heaping scorn on Fleshgod Apocalypse for writing operatic death metal because Veronica Bordacchini doesn’t only sing using proper operatic technique and the band simplified some of its compositional tendencies is, to put it lightly, patently absurd. Opera is fun! It’s energetic and well-crafted, and it has a better excuse for writing more palatable and less grandiose music that uses more traditional pop and rock compositional structures than Nightwish ever had,9 and it literally has dramatic choirs arpeggiating in Latin behind grinding blast beats and death metal growls as I’m writing this blurb! Fucking get over yourselves. Go enjoy the shit out of Opera. No one sounds like Fleshgod Apocalypse and when they hit, they fucking hit. And Opera hits! It is thematically interesting, deeply personal, and cohesive in the way that the best albums are while featuring a diverse and excellent performance from Bordacchini. Easily one of the best records of 2024.

#2: Kanonenfieber // Die Urkatastrophe [September 20th, 2024 | Century Media | Bandcamp] — One of the things that makes the work at Angry Metal Guy interesting after 15 years is editing other writers’ work. It’s a pleasure to get to talk to, work with, and help guide the brilliant writers that we have working here. And because I want to hear what I’m reading about at the same time, I listen to a lot of music I would not necessarily have chosen to listen to myself. Noise’s work—such as 2023’s #5 record Leiþa—has come to my attention because of the work that Carcharodon has done in covering his projects. So, when I went to edit Die Urkatastrophe, well aware of the impending 5.0, I was edified to read a well-argued analysis that highlighted for me exactly what it was that appealed to me so much about Kanonenfieber’s critically acclaimed10 platter. Die Urkatastrophe is a powerful album that walks the line between black and death metal, with surprisingly polished and smooth production and artfully crafted songs. Like so many of the best albums, it is both thematically coherent and full of standout moments. Arresting moments like the gunshot at the end of “Der Maulwurf,” the best-placed samples since Velvet Darkness They Fear, and a superb flow make Die Urkatastrophe a triumph that we’ll return to for years.

#1: Hamferð // Men Guðs hond er sterk [March 22nd, 2024 | Metal Blade Records | Bandcamp] — The best album of 2024 was an undeniably easy choice this year. Released the day after my life started falling to pieces, Hamferð’s third masterpiece is a tale of tragedy (with a smidgen of hope), driven by strong songwriting and stronger performances. There are plenty of things that one can point to that help to differentiate Men Guðs hond er sterk from the field this year: the band’s sound is expertly crafted, and with pristine production, and the band—who apparently records without a click track?!—carries the emotional weight of their music perfectly despite the largely opaque language in which it’s presented.11 Furthermore, enough cannot be said about the powerhouse of a vocalist that Hamferð is fortunate enough to have. Jón Aldará’s vocals carry the day with a brassy baritone that evokes the mourning that all doom peddlers are chasing but so few nail. Men Guðs hond er sterk is tight, it’s heavy—though not as heavy as its predecessor, which I missed—but more importantly it’s complete and brilliant and my Record o’ the Year for 2024.

Honorable Mentions:

In Vain // Solemn [April 19th, 2024 | Indie Recordings | Bandcamp] — Having been released when I was in the moment of absolute denial and despair as my life fell apart, you’ll forgive me for not having heard this album until the last couple months of 2024. And I suspect that if I had been able to spend more time with it, it would have worked its way onto the list proper (though, man, it’s hard to know what would go). Once again, In Vain does such an outstanding job of balancing all the different sounds and influences, and I will never get sick of any clean vocals from the brothers Nedland (RIP Solefald). These guys are great and Solemn keeps them batting 1.000.

Ulcerate // Cutting the Throat of God [June 14th | Debemur Morti Productions | Bandcamp] — Another album that should’ve been higher on my list (but where would I have put Verikalpa then, guys!?). Ulcerate has been awesome and it’s almost unremarkable that they continue to be awesome in new and different ways. The thing that I keep coming back to Cutting the Throat of God for is the fact that these are probably the band’s most addictive and hypnotic riffs. Their sound has always had a fluidity that made them unique, but there are times when I feel like a snake being charmed as I’m listening to Ulcerate pump out fascinating, liquid riffs that seem to morph in scope and feel without ever breaking stride. Another record that is getting the shaft on this list.

Sonata Arctica // Clear Cold Beyond [March 8th, 2024 | Atomic Fire Records] — I started out skeptical about Clear Cold Beyond, and then I ended up loving it. The problem is that this was another record caught up in the Great Dumping o’ 2024 and got lost in the mix. This album has the benefit of having some really fun “we’re sorry we wrote Talviyö and then released two fucking acoustic cover records in a row” moments, but it’s not just an apology tour.12 The strength of Clear Cold Beyond is watching Kakko do the things he’s best at: write about creepy dudes with seriously bad boundaries (“Dark Empath”); write awkward lyrics about social topics that are kind of funny but also maybe not (“California”); and most importantly is his transformation into Dad Rocker (“The Best Things”). This record didn’t ever threaten to be Top 10, but it also deserves a nod for bringing me a ton of joy, even if I can’t listen to “The Best Things” without getting choked up.

Anciients // Beyond the Reach of the Sun [August 30th, 2024 | Season of Mist | Bandcamp] — I have been a little back and forth with Anciients, but Beyond the Reach of the Sun was an absolute banger that got snubbed for a Record o’ the Month spot, despite receiving an excellently written, laudatory review from Saunders. And perpetual self-editing complaints aside, Anciients is one of those bands whose ability to craft Riffs is unmatched. Every single song on this album has one of those Riffs—not just riffs, gotta capitalize that R so everyone knows that we’re talking about iconic stuff here—and I am, frankly, jealous of the feel and groove that these guys seem to have as second nature. This album clicked for me when I put it in the cans on a flight and just sat and listened to it and man, we are spoiled with an absolute embarrassment of riches in metal. These guys are an honorable mention? It’s unfair.

Caligula’s Horse // Charcoal Grace [January 26th, 2024 | InsideOut Records | Bandcamp] — After it was summarily 3.0’d by the guy who brought you the Angra list everyone thought was absolute crap, I feel like everyone just forgot about Charcoal Grace. But I’m going to be honest with you, this record deserved a lot better than it got at the hands of the traitorous reviewer who poo-poohed it and then, allegedly, went on to kick his dog and demand his wife make him a sandwich. This is a more subtle Caligula’s Horse, I admit. How they seem to be swapping places with Haken becomes more manifest with every release. But this record is a true headphones album that deserves a hi-def version of the release, serious cans, and a dark room. It’s loaded with great riffs and fantastic songs and has a particularly poignant and powerful closing. Also, the level of detail here is unreal. Appreciate what you have while they are still putting out amazing albums.

Noxis // Violence Inherent in the System [June 28th, 2024 | Rotted Life Records | Bandcamp] — One of the surprises of the year is an album named after one of the funniest jabs at the anarchosyndicalists in our lives. Noxis’ brand of frantic, technical death metal—complete with my favorite snare of the year—has swept through the Angry Metal Guy staff for a reason. The reason? It’s fucking great. At 45 minutes, Violence Inherent in the System is a record with the energy and addictiveness of Gorod, even if the songwriting chops aren’t quite on that level yet. But you don’t have to be Gorod-good to be good and Noxis is good. I’m looking forward to their sophomore release Scimitars Thrown in Farcical Aquatic Ceremonies, due Q4 2025/Q1 2026.

Madder Mortem // Old Eyes, New Heart [January 26th, 2024 | Dark Essence Records | Bandcamp] — In my Record o’ the Month blurb for Old Eyes, New Heart, I wrote “What Old Eyes, New Heart does is show Madder Mortem as alive and creative as ever, showcasing a more vulnerable, introspective side of themselves. Tracks like ‘Here and Now’ and ‘Cold Hard Rain’ weep with power and raw emotion, giving fans all the feelz they yearn for, and there’s simmering anger girding the material as well. As GardensTale noted, regarding the very personal, intense feeling of the new music: ‘Old Eyes, New Heart will stand as one of the most intimate and therapeutic albums we’re bound to get this year.’ And who isn’t going to need a little bit of therapy in 2024?” Yeah, I found myself listening to this album a lot this year because it expresses what I couldn’t. Again, prescient.

Blood Incantation // Absolute Elsewhere [October 4th, 2024 | Century Media Records | Bandcamp] — Yeah, it’s fine I guess. A little overhyped in the comment section, though. Remember that time when it got released and everyone who hadn’t heard it yet was like “RECORD OF THE YEAR!!!!!!1!” five minutes later? Pepperidge Farms remembers.

Top 10(ish) Songs o’ the Year:

#ish: Karol G // “Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido” — Fuck you.

#10: Sonata Arctica // “The Best Things” — Fans of the band and this album are going to laugh, but this song kills me. Dad rock. I love it.

#9: Wintersun // “Storm” — When I saw everyone sporting “Silver Leaves” as the highlight of Time II, I had to do a double-take. As I covered at length in my review, the one song that I felt lived up to Jaari’s potential as a player and composer was “Storm,” and this track is a fucking doozy. This track perfectly executes both the blend of blackened death metal and power metal that makes Wintersun’s inability to produce something truly epic frustrating. If I had only heard “Ominous Clouds” and “Storm,” Time II would’ve gotten a 4.5. This is the only memorable thing he wrote on the entire album.

#8: Oceans of Slumber // “Wish” — It’s weird the tracks that call to you on an album. I love this whole record for a bunch of different reasons, but on “Wish” there are little melodic things that Cammie does here that make my heart ache. The lyrics, too. I feel ’em. Deeply underrated record.

#7: Fellowship // “Victim” — “I swear, I won’t always feel like a victim! I won’t always fight on my own! So, forgive me these transgressions as I live a life of lessons and I grow to overshadow darker thrones! This king is king alone!”

#6: Opeth // “§4” — No more perfect encapsulation of why Opeth is impressive than how hard they nailed this song. Love the porn beat with the Ian Anderson flute solo (Deathro Tull, lol) that gives way to stadium rock that gives way to grindy death metal. Just inject that fucking shit straight into my fucking veins. Unff.

#5: Grendel’s Sÿster // “Cosmogony” — This song is metal as fuck. I love the fun little extra beat they drop in to make it feel like a slightly lopsided wheel rolling along. But there’s nothing about this that doesn’t live up to what I wrote above: good, honest heavy metal. Catchy, riffy, and fun to listen to. Top it off with a bass-heavy section and a gallop carried on the guitar and you’ve got yourself a recipe for an epic, addictive track. More of this, plz.

#4: Fleshgod Apocalypse // “Morphine Waltz” — This song fucking rules. From the opening strains with the horn section in the orchestra to the 3/4 time signature (y’know, ’cause it’s actually a waltz), to the raw, punky performance from Bordacchini. Extra points for the fucking balls to the wall bridge with the huge choirs before the guitar solo. Like, how do you fucking people not think this is one of the best albums of the year? JFC.

#3: Caligula’s Horse // “Mute” — One of Caligula’s Horse’s strongest traits is their ability to write epic conclusions to their albums. “Mute” is up there with “Graves” in terms of the sheer weightiness of the whole thing—though this time it’s more delicate. Beautiful.

#2: Anciients // “Despoiled” — Riff of the year at 3:57. Gives me involuntary metal face. Love the vocal melodies, too. Great stuff.

#1: Madder Mortem // “Things I’ll Never Do” — This song fucking kills me. Has anyone checked on their lyricist recently?

Show 12 footnotes

1. This joke is fucking hilarious but only a few of you are going to get it. ↩
2. I kid because I’m scared shitless of your country and will never visit it. – AMG ↩
3. Wondering where you are? 11. Poland; 12. Brazil; 13. Norway; 14. Belgium; 15. Italy; 16. Greece; 17. Denmark; 18. Czechia; 19. Austria; 20. Russia; 21: Mexico; 22. Portugal; 23. Switzerland; 24. Romania; 25. Hungary. ↩
4. Not that I’m *not* a big worthless loser, just that there’s more to it. ↩
5. They suffered unduly and cast a lot of longing stares at each other, but they survived! ↩
6. Because fucking Morbid Angel is the best, obviously. ↩
7. Read: reverb. ↩
8. Tell you what, guys, how ’bout Jón Aldará joins Octoploid and y’all start writing 15-minute songs? Then you can both be #1! ↩
9. And don’t get me started Steven Wilson. “Ooh, I should be famous, why haven’t I had a number one record when Nick Beggs has had one?!” 🙄 ↩
10. This is true because I am busy acclaiming it. ↩
11. Obviously, largely opaque for most of us. People from the Faroe Islands do, indeed, speak the language in which this album is sung. My AI translator does not. ↩
12. And if it is, it is obviously their best-executed one to date. ↩

#2024 #Anciients #AngryMetalGuy #AngryMetalGuySRecordSOTheYear #AngryMetalGuySTop10Ish_ #BeyondTheAeons #BlessingOfDespair #BloodIncantation #BloomDecay #CaligulaSHorse #DawnTreader #DevenialVerdict #DieUrkatastrophe #Fellowship #FleshgodApocalypse #GrendelSSÿster #Hamferð #InVain #Iotunn #Kanonenfieber #KarolG #KatabasisIntoTheAbaton #Kinship #Listurnalia2024 #MadderMortem #MenGuðsHondErSterk #Noxis #OceansOfSlumber #Octoploid #Opera #Opeth #SonataArctica #TheLastWillAndTestament #TheSkiesAboveEternity #TimeII #Tuomio #Ulcerate #Verikalpa #WhereGodsFearToSpeak #Wintersun

Angry Metal Guy’s Top Ten(ish) of 2024

By Angry Metal Guy

Starting 2025 with a bang was always important, and I elected the “being 26 days late with your Record o’ the Year post” as the best possible way to give everyone that patented Angry Metal Guy feeling of waiting and waiting only to be smacked in the face with 5000 words that you disagree with entirely. Welcome to the Wonderful World of Executive Dysfunction! Let’s make a list!1

Fifteen years of Angry Metal Guy and year 15 will be remembered as a genuinely good year for metal. There were several excellent releases I was genuinely excited about and as the year went on, things got even better. For the first time in a while, I felt like I had a glut of options and felt guilty about what was and wasn’t making the list. In terms of total performance, year 15 at AMG stayed roughly on par with 2023. We wrote 691 posts (mostly reviews), which, in terms of raw numbers, dropped to lower than 2023 and was once again the lowest since 2015. We made up for it in girth, however, with the average post sporting a whopping 955 words! This might be a case of the self-fulfilling prophecy biting me in the ass for consistently yelling at everyone for being overwriters at which point they see themselves as overwriters and begin to overwrite. Or, maybe it’s because we had fewer reviews to balance out the longer posts. Regardless, we finished with a “big-boned” 660,024 total words in 2024. We averaged 38,617 views a day, leading us to our second-highest annual readership numbers ever at 14,129,320 total page views; a tick down from last year, but that’s not surprising when we’re writing fewer posts.

The readership of AMG is as global as ever, but the USA, UK, and Canada retained their spots as 1, 2, and 3 on our Top 10(ish) Biggest Readerships. Germans continued to flock here in droves, maintaining their position at number 4 on our list with Australia coming in at healthy 5. I’m a bit surprised at Australia for not taking umbrage at getting beat by the Germans last year, but when you live in constant fear of your absolutely frightening environs, I guess that’s the least of your worries.2 Spots 6-9 are the same as last year with Netherlands, Sweden, France, and Spain. But coming in at number 10 was Finland! Our strategy of lauding Finnish bands is finally paying off. “How” you ask? Well, if I can get to celebrity status in Finland, I intend to go there so I can be awkwardly ignored in social situations by an entirely new population of Scandinavians. I was happy to see Poland sneak up to the coveted “ish” spot on the list, but that means Brazil dropped out of the Top 10(ish) and that sucks.3 We were once again visited a single time by a mysterious robed reader from the Vatican City and I want to extend a warm Angry Metal Guy welcome to the lone citizen of Micronesia who found their way to our sacred halls.

The biggest, coolest thing that happened in 2024 (following one of the shittiest things to happen in 2024) was, of course, helping Kenstrosity deal with the catastrophe that was his life following Hurricane Helene. It was so cool and gratifying to see just how generous and amazing the fans of AMG were and we’ll never forget your generosity. We also added n00bs—welcoming Alekhines Gun, Tyme, and Killjoy as new blood for the Bloodgod (with more coming, we promise)—and saw the return of the illustrious Mark Z. We lost—at least for the time being—Ferox at the end of the year and that sucks for all of us. But losing him to a burgeoning career as a showrunner and movie director seems like the kind of thing that isn’t such a bitter pill to swallow. Personally, alas, 2024 was pretty much the worst year of my life. The reason I equivocate is because every time I think something like that I can only think of Homer Simpson saying: “So far! The worst year of your life so far!” But 2024 was marred by a breakup I did not want and struggles with both my physical health and the obvious consequences thereof. I re-read my Top 10(ish) of 2023 and was amused in that “oh, sweet summer child” kind of way when I read:

On a personal note, this year [2023] was supposed to be one of the best of my life. It has been an unmitigated pile of shit, with only a few bright spots. As usual, I’ll try to make 2024 a better year, where I am Angry Metal Guy in practice, not just in spirit. A new year always brings unreasonable and unrealistic goals that get broken in shame by April, doesn’t it? Well, that’s mine.

Alas, that ended up being quite a bit more prescient than I could’ve anticipated given that it was the 31st of March when the Behind the Music voiceover guy had to step in: “Then tragedy struck…”

So, 2024 turned out to be significantly worse for me than 2023. That said, I did, in fact, work a lot more on AMG than I have in previous years and it’s helped me to create a map of how that’s possible for the future. Furthermore, I’m finally starting to understand the things at the root of my BS—beyond unfortunate and frustrating life circumstances or the fact that I’m a big worthless loser4—and I hope that results in some real progress. Because, when all is said and done, Angry Metal Guy has stood the test of time for a reason and I’m proud of it and want to be involved in it. I like the music, I like most of the people, I like hazing n00bs, and I like arguing incessantly about opinions. Even if I feel a little out of lockstep with metal trends in recent years, I still think that my voice is important here and I want to have it here. And it’s thanks to everyone here, particularly Steel Druhm, Dr. Grier, and the other helpers, as well as the writers and of course, the readers, who have kept this all afloat while I am trying to solve the mystery that is my brain.

To moderate expectations for 2025! Here’s the Top 10(ish) of 2024.

#ish 2: Dawn Treader // Bloom & Decay [August 24th | Liminal Dread Productions | Bandcamp] — I’m relatively certain that if you had polled the writers and readers of AngryMetalGuy.com and asked them to predict this list, Dawn Treader’s Bloom & Decay would not have come even remotely close to placing on my Top 10(ish). And it makes sense. Dawn Treader traffics in a genre of black metal that I rail on at every chance. At this point, my personality is basically constructed of jokes about how calling something atmospheric just means they use a lot of reverb. And yeah, Bloom & Decay uses inordinate amounts of reverb, I can’t deny it. But better, Ross Connell subverts the ‘one-man black metal project’ tropes by being good, actually. The record is emotionally poignant, musically rich, and laden with pathos—causing that aching bloom in my chest while listening to what feels at times like sad songs playing in major keys. If there’s one reason I haven’t been back to this album as much as other things, it’s because it’s hard to listen to at times. The messages contained here and the way they are delivered can be challenging at times; long discursive samples that are hard to have repeated back at you time and again in a time of a lot of despair. Still, that’s hardly a knock against Dawn Treader’s work, there are a lot of people who would suggest that it’s exactly that which makes Bloom & Decay art. And there’s no question in my mind that Bloom & Decay is a work of art.

#ish 1: Verikalpa // Tuomio [April 19th, 2024 | Scarlet Records | Bandcamp] — But then again, who needs serious emotionally poignant works of art when you can listen to Finnish guys writing amazing blackened melodeath that heavily features faux accordion and lyrics, presumably, about drinking? I feel a bit guilty that these guys have yet to make a number on the list—having previously been relegated to an -ish—but they are getting better and better and Tuomio has been a joy to listen to in a year where almost nothing else brought me joy. In a way, Verikalpa’s sound is a form of nostalgiacore for me—with its 2004 production, its 2004 riffs, and my 2004 urge to drink beer and headbang. But, as Steel Druhm would argue out of pure self-interest, some things are timeless and change is bad, so this isn’t a critique. And while the metal-listening public lost its taste for folk metal after the glut that was released in the late 2000s, I find Verikalpa avoids the pitfalls of the sound, delivering only the highest quality riffs and blasts. Loaded with groove and chunky riffs, Verikalpa knows how to write solid, speedy, fun, and brutal metal that will make you want to drink a beer and lift some weights. And again, what more can we truly ask of any metal band? If you aren’t listening to and loving Verikalpa by now, you’re missing out. Of all the Finnish releases with dated sounds this year, Tuomio is the best.

#10: Grendel’s Sÿster // Katabasis into the Abaton [August 30th, 2024 | Sur Del Cruz Music | Bandcamp] — If there was a major “I did not see that coming” moment in 2024, it was that Grendel’s Sÿster never left my playlist once I heard it for the first time. An addictive record, I summed it up best when I wrote that “this German four-piece drops metal that reeks of patchouli and ‘Atomkraft? Nein, Danke!‘ to surprising effect. The core of Grendel’s Sÿster’s sound is the combination of fuzzy guitars, bubbly p-bass, and boxy drums into something that will undoubtedly call to mind the ’70s hard rock of your choice: Wishbone Ash, Jethro Tull, Thin Lizzy or nostalgia merchants like Gygax.” And that sound—not a sound that I spend my free time chasing down—could be directly shot into my veins and I couldn’t be happier. There’s something pure and honest and beautiful about this music. It is both poppy and niche, both pretentious and utterly not; it breaks down binaries and exists in the interstices. And goddammit, it’s what one roadie for Porcupine Tree once said of Blaze’s first three records, “it’s good, honest heavy metal.” And that’s it. The cream rises to the top; good songwriting always wins. And Katabasis into the Abaton is loaded with great songs, fun ideas, and idiosyncratic vocals. It’s surprising in all the right ways.

#9: Oceans of Slumber // Where Gods Fear to Speak [September 13th, 2024 | Season of Mist | Bandcamp] — Some experiences are unforgettable, and getting to see Oceans of Slumber in the summer of 2024 and really hear Cammie Beverly live was one such experience. There are few people in the world who truly have a Voice with a capital V and Cammie is one of them. The band’s performance was entrancing and her presence was commanding. It was literal goosebumps. I had been enjoying Where Gods Fear to Speak for a few weeks at that point, but seeing Oceans of Slumber live transformed my entire understanding of the unique strengths contained herein. Between her voice, genuinely progressive—and at times challenging—songwriting, and the fantastic performances, Where Gods Fear to Speak sounds like the culmination of the band’s career. Having learned from the past and meshed it all, listeners are left with something transcendent, beautiful, and the perfect balance of heavy and delicate. If there’s one knock on this record, it’s that people may struggle with a flowing relationship to song structure and hooks. But for the sophisticated listener, each song on Where Gods Fear to Speak is a beautiful step on an unforgettable journey.

#8: Iotunn // Kinship [October 25th, 2024 | Metal Blade Records | Bandcamp] — Hard truth time: I was never super enamored in Access All Worlds. While the blog and the commentariat were busy heaping praise upon the best band to come out of Denmark since Mercyful Fate, I held my tongue and gave them the spotlight they deserved because I was in a definite minority. But the record never inspired me. So, I approached Kinship with skepticism. I love Jón’s voice—this is no secret—but at 68 minutes long with 10-minute songs and one record in the bag I hadn’t felt… you know how it goes. I was happily surprised when Kinship hooked me hard. Jón’s voice brings everything together, but the blackened undercurrent spicing up the melodeath riffing (pretty sure Amon Amarth called their lawyers about a couple of the riffs in “The Anguished Ethereal”) matched with an epic scope that could be carried only by someone with the brass timbre and Grondesque vocal power of Aldará. I have been back to this again and again since I broke down and dropped it on the proverbial turntable. It is deep enough to keep me coming back, it’s hooky enough to kick that dopamine into high gear, and it’s beautiful and well-crafted with that aching Scandy melancholy that I crave. Bravo, Iotunn, this is a real first step towards me forgiving your spelling of ‘jotun’ and the Stockholm Bloodbath.

#7: Fellowship // The Skies above Eternity [November 22nd, 2024 | Scarlet Records | Bandcamp] — I am hardly the first person to note that it’s difficult to follow a beloved record. I think it’s even harder to follow a beloved debut. And I doubt there’s an album that’s been released in recent years that is as beloved as Fellowship’s debut, The Saberlight Chronicles. Putting the hopes and fate of the Europower scene in the hands of these tiny pastoral persons and sending them off to Mordor was never a good idea. But surprise, surprise, they survived!5 And they’re back with an album that has inspired the kind of dedication that only the rare band ever gets close to, landing super high on people’s lists despite being a late November release. And you can hear why. The Skies above Eternity is yet another 45ish minutes of fantastic, guitar-driven melodic power metal that simultaneously rules and takes itself seriously enough to have good, interesting, relatable, and at times inspiring lyrics while also embracing the fun and natural, inherent silliness of power metal. That’s a hard balance to strike and Fellowship nails it with aplomb. They say you don’t want to be the guy who follows The Guy, you want to be the guy who follows the guy who follows The Guy. I suspect The Skies above Eternity will always be slightly underrated because it isn’t The Saberlight Chronicles. But fuck me if it isn’t excellent.

#6: Devenial Verdict // Blessing of Despair [October 4th | Transcending Obscurity Records | Bandcamp] — I knew that these kids from Finland were alright when I jokingly called them “Morbid Angelcore” on Instagram and they took it with grace.6 Honestly, of all the stuff that the “No Fun, Only Reverb and Feels!” flank of AMG has dredged up and dumped hyperbolic praise on, Devenial Verdict is one of the bands to which I feel the most grateful to have been exposed. Often sold as either “dissodeath” or “atmospheric death metal,” because they’re both wildly popular subgenres of death metal, both feel like misnomers. Rather, Blessing of Despair is an album loaded with memorable moments and melodies, and while it does, indeed, employ a lot of “atmosphere,”7 I was not prepared for the elite-level Azagthoth-on-LSD riffs that litter Blessing of Despair. I wouldn’t say that Blessing of Despair is OSDM, but the riffing evokes the masters in ways both direct and subtle and it gives the record an impeccable vibe. Devenial Verdict has wrought a brilliant death metal album where riffs abound, the atmosphere is set on the “Cathedral” setting, and every song is better than the last. Maybe the best word to use to describe their x factor is gravitas. But whatever it is, Devenial Verdict’s got it in spades.

#5: Octoploid // Beyond the Aeons [July 5th, 2024 | Reigning Phoenix Music | Bandcamp] — The amount of love that Beyond the Aeons isn’t receiving is one of the scandals of 2024, in my opinion. This started with our own positive—but tepid, if I’m honest—review of Beyond the Aeons and has continued through Listurnalia. As a passive, but legitimate, autocrat of Angry Metal Guy, I have half a mind to shut this place down over this deep disrespect for Amorphiscore. Honestly, it pains me not to make Beyond the Aeons the #1 album,8 because I have listened to these 33 minutes of extreme metal—occasionally tremmy and black, but mostly just solid melodeath—more than almost anything else this year. Tracks like “Coast of the Drowned Sailors” feed my need for new Amorphis and my secret wish that they were heavier. And that’s one thing I’ll give Octoploid, unlike Barren Earth, Beyond the Aeons doesn’t dwell too long on anything. It kicks off and speeds along, hitting you with catchy leads in the key of Moomin and doubled with synth—as one does. Don’t sleep on Octoploid. Beyond the Aeons is energetic, fun, catchy, and worth at least a couple of spins a week six months after it was released.

#4: Opeth // The Last Will and Testament [November 22nd, 2024 | Moderbolaget] — What Opeth has accomplished on The Last Will and Testament is remarkable. Unlike so many bands, Opeth’s reimaginations of its sound still speak to me. The Last Will and Testament is a smart, coherent, and melodramatic record that does Mikael Åkerfeldt and crew credit. The reason that this record elevates itself above the ceiling that most Newpeth lived under, however, is that they are finally able to turn the music up to 11 again compositionally. After more than a decade without the emotional and compositional peak (and release) of a guttural growl released from the diaphragm over a particularly chunky riff or heavy drums, The Last Will and Testament continues the band’s development but gives them a release valve—”§4″ being the highlight for me, where they transition from Opethro Tull—a jazz flute solo—to Deathro Tull with some operatic, but dour, death metal. And it simply feels good to hear them doing both of these things simultaneously. Having gone through and relistened to the discography at length, it is striking how Opeth circa 2024 sounds very little like the band I fell in love with in the late-’90s/early aughts. To be able to both be markedly different and feel like the same band is a deeply underrated trait. This could have been higher if I’d had longer with it.

#3: Fleshgod Apocalypse // Opera [August 23rd, 2024 | Nuclear Blast Records | Bandcamp] — I knew almost immediately that Opera was going to be a controversial record. I was not prepared for the hyperbolic pushback that Opera garnered from fans of Italy’s death metal answer to [Luca (Turilli / Lione)’s] Rhapsody [of Fire] for being, as I wrote myself, “undeniably poppy.” Sometimes I think that we fans of the extreme metal scene have lost sight of what pop music really is. The fact that people have been heaping scorn on Fleshgod Apocalypse for writing operatic death metal because Veronica Bordacchini doesn’t only sing using proper operatic technique and the band simplified some of its compositional tendencies is, to put it lightly, patently absurd. Opera is fun! It’s energetic and well-crafted, and it has a better excuse for writing more palatable and less grandiose music that uses more traditional pop and rock compositional structures than Nightwish ever had,9 and it literally has dramatic choirs arpeggiating in Latin behind grinding blast beats and death metal growls as I’m writing this blurb! Fucking get over yourselves. Go enjoy the shit out of Opera. No one sounds like Fleshgod Apocalypse and when they hit, they fucking hit. And Opera hits! It is thematically interesting, deeply personal, and cohesive in the way that the best albums are while featuring a diverse and excellent performance from Bordacchini. Easily one of the best records of 2024.

#2: Kanonenfieber // Die Urkatastrophe [September 20th, 2024 | Century Media | Bandcamp] — One of the things that makes the work at Angry Metal Guy interesting after 15 years is editing other writers’ work. It’s a pleasure to get to talk to, work with, and help guide the brilliant writers that we have working here. And because I want to hear what I’m reading about at the same time, I listen to a lot of music I would not necessarily have chosen to listen to myself. Noise’s work—such as 2023’s #5 record Leiþa—has come to my attention because of the work that Carcharodon has done in covering his projects. So, when I went to edit Die Urkatastrophe, well aware of the impending 5.0, I was edified to read a well-argued analysis that highlighted for me exactly what it was that appealed to me so much about Kanonenfieber’s critically acclaimed10 platter. Die Urkatastrophe is a powerful album that walks the line between black and death metal, with surprisingly polished and smooth production and artfully crafted songs. Like so many of the best albums, it is both thematically coherent and full of standout moments. Arresting moments like the gunshot at the end of “Der Maulwurf,” the best-placed samples since Velvet Darkness They Fear, and a superb flow make Die Urkatastrophe a triumph that we’ll return to for years.

#1: Hamferð // Men Guðs hond er sterk [March 22nd, 2024 | Metal Blade Records | Bandcamp] — The best album of 2024 was an undeniably easy choice this year. Released the day after my life started falling to pieces, Hamferð’s third masterpiece is a tale of tragedy (with a smidgen of hope), driven by strong songwriting and stronger performances. There are plenty of things that one can point to that help to differentiate Men Guðs hond er sterk from the field this year: the band’s sound is expertly crafted, and with pristine production, and the band—who apparently records without a click track?!—carries the emotional weight of their music perfectly despite the largely opaque language in which it’s presented.11 Furthermore, enough cannot be said about the powerhouse of a vocalist that Hamferð is fortunate enough to have. Jón Aldará’s vocals carry the day with a brassy baritone that evokes the mourning that all doom peddlers are chasing but so few nail. Men Guðs hond er sterk is tight, it’s heavy—though not as heavy as its predecessor, which I missed—but more importantly it’s complete and brilliant and my Record o’ the Year for 2024.

Honorable Mentions:

In Vain // Solemn [April 19th, 2024 | Indie Recordings | Bandcamp] — Having been released when I was in the moment of absolute denial and despair as my life fell apart, you’ll forgive me for not having heard this album until the last couple months of 2024. And I suspect that if I had been able to spend more time with it, it would have worked its way onto the list proper (though, man, it’s hard to know what would go). Once again, In Vain does such an outstanding job of balancing all the different sounds and influences, and I will never get sick of any clean vocals from the brothers Nedland (RIP Solefald). These guys are great and Solemn keeps them batting 1.000.

Ulcerate // Cutting the Throat of God [June 14th | Debemur Morti Productions | Bandcamp] — Another album that should’ve been higher on my list (but where would I have put Verikalpa then, guys!?). Ulcerate has been awesome and it’s almost unremarkable that they continue to be awesome in new and different ways. The thing that I keep coming back to Cutting the Throat of God for is the fact that these are probably the band’s most addictive and hypnotic riffs. Their sound has always had a fluidity that made them unique, but there are times when I feel like a snake being charmed as I’m listening to Ulcerate pump out fascinating, liquid riffs that seem to morph in scope and feel without ever breaking stride. Another record that is getting the shaft on this list.

Sonata Arctica // Clear Cold Beyond [March 8th, 2024 | Atomic Fire Records] — I started out skeptical about Clear Cold Beyond, and then I ended up loving it. The problem is that this was another record caught up in the Great Dumping o’ 2024 and got lost in the mix. This album has the benefit of having some really fun “we’re sorry we wrote Talviyö and then released two fucking acoustic cover records in a row” moments, but it’s not just an apology tour.12 The strength of Clear Cold Beyond is watching Kakko do the things he’s best at: write about creepy dudes with seriously bad boundaries (“Dark Empath”); write awkward lyrics about social topics that are kind of funny but also maybe not (“California”); and most importantly is his transformation into Dad Rocker (“The Best Things”). This record didn’t ever threaten to be Top 10, but it also deserves a nod for bringing me a ton of joy, even if I can’t listen to “The Best Things” without getting choked up.

Anciients // Beyond the Reach of the Sun [August 30th, 2024 | Season of Mist | Bandcamp] — I have been a little back and forth with Anciients, but Beyond the Reach of the Sun was an absolute banger that got snubbed for a Record o’ the Month spot, despite receiving an excellently written, laudatory review from Saunders. And perpetual self-editing complaints aside, Anciients is one of those bands whose ability to craft Riffs is unmatched. Every single song on this album has one of those Riffs—not just riffs, gotta capitalize that R so everyone knows that we’re talking about iconic stuff here—and I am, frankly, jealous of the feel and groove that these guys seem to have as second nature. This album clicked for me when I put it in the cans on a flight and just sat and listened to it and man, we are spoiled with an absolute embarrassment of riches in metal. These guys are an honorable mention? It’s unfair.

Caligula’s Horse // Charcoal Grace [January 26th, 2024 | InsideOut Records | Bandcamp] — After it was summarily 3.0’d by the guy who brought you the Angra list everyone thought was absolute crap, I feel like everyone just forgot about Charcoal Grace. But I’m going to be honest with you, this record deserved a lot better than it got at the hands of the traitorous reviewer who poo-poohed it and then, allegedly, went on to kick his dog and demand his wife make him a sandwich. This is a more subtle Caligula’s Horse, I admit. How they seem to be swapping places with Haken becomes more manifest with every release. But this record is a true headphones album that deserves a hi-def version of the release, serious cans, and a dark room. It’s loaded with great riffs and fantastic songs and has a particularly poignant and powerful closing. Also, the level of detail here is unreal. Appreciate what you have while they are still putting out amazing albums.

Noxis // Violence Inherent in the System [June 28th, 2024 | Rotted Life Records | Bandcamp] — One of the surprises of the year is an album named after one of the funniest jabs at the anarchosyndicalists in our lives. Noxis’ brand of frantic, technical death metal—complete with my favorite snare of the year—has swept through the Angry Metal Guy staff for a reason. The reason? It’s fucking great. At 45 minutes, Violence Inherent in the System is a record with the energy and addictiveness of Gorod, even if the songwriting chops aren’t quite on that level yet. But you don’t have to be Gorod-good to be good and Noxis is good. I’m looking forward to their sophomore release Scimitars Lobbed in Farcical Aquatic Ceremonies, due Q4 2025/Q1 2026.

Madder Mortem // Old Eyes, New Heart [January 26th, 2024 | Dark Essence Records | Bandcamp] — In my Record o’ the Month blurb for Old Eyes, New Heart, I wrote “What Old Eyes, New Heart does is show Madder Mortem as alive and creative as ever, showcasing a more vulnerable, introspective side of themselves. Tracks like ‘Here and Now’ and ‘Cold Hard Rain’ weep with power and raw emotion, giving fans all the feelz they yearn for, and there’s simmering anger girding the material as well. As GardensTale noted, regarding the very personal, intense feeling of the new music: ‘Old Eyes, New Heart will stand as one of the most intimate and therapeutic albums we’re bound to get this year.’ And who isn’t going to need a little bit of therapy in 2024?” Yeah, I found myself listening to this album a lot this year because it expresses what I couldn’t. Again, prescient.

Blood Incantation // Absolute Elsewhere [October 4th, 2024 | Century Media Records | Bandcamp] — Yeah, it’s fine I guess. A little overhyped in the comment section, though. Remember that time when it got released and everyone who hadn’t heard it yet was like “RECORD OF THE YEAR!!!!!!1!” five minutes later? Pepperidge Farms remembers. In all seriousness, this record is great and I enjoyed it which is why it’s here. But while it threatened to hit the list as an #ish, it never really felt like RotY material to me. Still, give these guys their due. They are unique and cool and you love to see the enthusiasm about weirdo progdeath.

Top 10(ish) Songs o’ the Year:

#ish: Karol G // “Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido” — Fuck you.

#10: Sonata Arctica // “The Best Things” — Fans of the band and this album are going to laugh, but this song kills me. Dad rock. I love it.

#9: Wintersun // “Storm” — When I saw everyone sporting “Silver Leaves” as the highlight of Time II, I had to do a double-take. As I covered at length in my review, the one song that I felt lived up to Jaari’s potential as a player and composer was “Storm,” and this track is a fucking doozy. This track perfectly executes both the blend of blackened death metal and power metal that makes Wintersun’s inability to produce something truly epic frustrating. If I had only heard “Ominous Clouds” and “Storm,” Time II would’ve gotten a 4.5. This is the only memorable thing he wrote on the entire album.

#8: Oceans of Slumber // “Wish” — It’s weird the tracks that call to you on an album. I love this whole record for a bunch of different reasons, but on “Wish” there are little melodic things that Cammie does here that make my heart ache. The lyrics, too. I feel ’em. Deeply underrated record.

#7: Fellowship // “Victim” — “I swear, I won’t always feel like a victim! I won’t always fight on my own! So, forgive me these transgressions as I live a life of lessons and I grow to overshadow darker thrones! This king is king alone!”

#6: Opeth // “§4” — No more perfect encapsulation of why Opeth is impressive than how hard they nailed this song. Love the porn beat with the Ian Anderson flute solo (Deathro Tull, lol) that gives way to stadium rock that gives way to grindy death metal. Just inject that fucking shit straight into my fucking veins. Unff.

#5: Grendel’s Sÿster // “Cosmogony” — This song is metal as fuck. I love the fun little extra beat they drop in to make it feel like a slightly lopsided wheel rolling along. But there’s nothing about this that doesn’t live up to what I wrote above: good, honest heavy metal. Catchy, riffy, and fun to listen to. Top it off with a bass-heavy section and a gallop carried on the guitar and you’ve got yourself a recipe for an epic, addictive track. More of this, plz.

#4: Fleshgod Apocalypse // “Morphine Waltz” — This song fucking rules. From the opening strains with the horn section in the orchestra to the 3/4 time signature (y’know, ’cause it’s actually a waltz), to the raw, punky performance from Bordacchini. Extra points for the fucking balls to the wall bridge with the huge choirs before the guitar solo. Like, how do you fucking people not think this is one of the best albums of the year? JFC.

#3: Caligula’s Horse // “Mute” — One of Caligula’s Horse’s strongest traits is their ability to write epic conclusions to their albums. “Mute” is up there with “Graves” in terms of the sheer weightiness of the whole thing—though this time it’s more delicate. Beautiful.

#2: Anciients // “Despoiled” — Riff of the year at 3:57. Gives me involuntary metal face. Love the vocal melodies, too. Great stuff.

#1: Madder Mortem // “Things I’ll Never Do” — This song fucking kills me. Has anyone checked on their lyricist recently?

Show 12 footnotes

1. This joke is fucking hilarious but only a few of you are going to get it. ↩
2. I kid because I’m scared shitless of your country and will never visit it. – AMG ↩
3. Wondering where you are? 11. Poland; 12. Brazil; 13. Norway; 14. Belgium; 15. Italy; 16. Greece; 17. Denmark; 18. Czechia; 19. Austria; 20. Russia; 21: Mexico; 22. Portugal; 23. Switzerland; 24. Romania; 25. Hungary. ↩
4. Not that I’m *not* a big worthless loser, just that there’s more to it. ↩
5. They suffered unduly and cast a lot of longing stares at each other, but they survived! ↩
6. Because fucking Morbid Angel is the best, obviously. ↩
7. Read: reverb. ↩
8. Tell you what, guys, how ’bout Jón Aldará joins Octoploid and y’all start writing 15-minute songs? Then you can both be #1! ↩
9. And don’t get me started Steven Wilson. “Ooh, I should be famous, why haven’t I had a number one record when Nick Beggs has had one?!” 🙄 ↩
10. This is true because I am busy acclaiming it. ↩
11. Obviously, largely opaque for most of us. People from the Faroe Islands do, indeed, speak the language in which this album is sung. My AI translator does not. ↩
12. And if it is, it is obviously their best-executed one to date. ↩

#2024 #Anciients #AngryMetalGuy #AngryMetalGuySRecordSOTheYear #AngryMetalGuySTop10Ish_ #BeyondTheAeons #BlessingOfDespair #BloodIncantation #BloomDecay #CaligulaSHorse #DawnTreader #DevenialVerdict #DieUrkatastrophe #Fellowship #FleshgodApocalypse #GrendelSSÿster #Hamferð #InVain #Iotunn #Kanonenfieber #KarolG #KatabasisIntoTheAbaton #Kinship #Listurnalia2024 #MadderMortem #MenGuðsHondErSterk #Noxis #OceansOfSlumber #Octoploid #Opera #Opeth #SonataArctica #TheLastWillAndTestament #TheSkiesAboveEternity #TimeII #Tuomio #Ulcerate #Verikalpa #WhereGodsFearToSpeak #Wintersun

For #MittwochMetalMix here is Fange, from Brittany, France. First listen is promising metal / industrial noise.

They are supporting Ulcerate in some of their European tour dates. Ulcerate's tour announcement (where I first heard of them) described them as "inimitably overwhelming", which is something.

Perdition from FANGE

https://fange.bandcamp.com/album/perdition

#Fange #metal #FrenchMetal #MetalFrancais #Industrial #Ulcerate #NowPlaying

For #MittwochMetalMix here is Fange, from Brittany, France. First listen is promising metal / industrial noise.

They are supporting Ulcerate in some of their European tour dates. Ulcerate's tour announcement (where I first heard of them) described them as "inimitably overwhelming", which is something.

Perdition from FANGE

https://fange.bandcamp.com/album/perdition

#Fange #metal #FrenchMetal #MetalFrancais #Industrial #Ulcerate #NowPlaying

Seemed like a good time to start exploring the Ulcerate back catalogue, with Stare Into Death And Be Still from 2020.

For a three-piece, they create an impressive onslaught of sound, with surprising melodic and textural elements over the top. Some riffs on this album felt like they were drilling holes in my bones.

🎙 🎸 🥁

https://ulcerate.bandcamp.com/album/stare-into-death-and-be-still

#metal #DeathMetal #Ulcerate