As metal subgenre hybrids go, mixing up black and death metal is one of the most natural and challenging pairings out there. It’s natural in that musicians gravitate towards taking the more extreme genres and blurring the boundaries between them to try and push things further, but therein lies the challenge too. If you do too little, you don’t stand out in a crowded field; do too much and it just becomes over-dense and loses its edge. Anti-Peat might just be telling you to edge into the kraken’s butthole with Skaphos though. Dive in!
Read more
Putred – Megalit Al Putrefacției Review
You see, Putred’s very name suggests all the adjectives I’ll be wanting for their brand of death metal. Words like filthy, nasty, foul, and gruesome. Let’s decompose.
Read more
Moss Upon the Skull – Quest for the Secret Fire Review
Psychedelic death metal, to put it bluntly, lacks a strong definition. Often the genre is aesthetically dependent or rooted in how many Gilmourisms the guitarist deploys per solo. No matter how wet the reverb, nor how boomer the bends, these two approaches miss the fundamental underpinning of psychedelic music. But what if the riffs were really, really dank?
Read more
Nocturnus AD – Unicursal Review
Time marches ever forward and can not be escaped even if you are a time travelling satanic robot or a gigabrained astral space being. Nocturnus are an act that have shaped early extreme metal and progressive metal alike, being forerunners in larger scale writing in extreme metal. Read on as our Goat explores whether Nocturnus have managed to keep the beat.
Read more
Venomous Echoes – Split Formations and Infinite Mania Review
Morbid Angel, Howls of Ebb, Esoctrilihum, Portal and Ulthar all are imitated during individual sections of Split Formations And Infinite Mania and Venomous Echoes usually do so in a tasteful manner, straddling the line between inspiration and pastiche overall rather successfully. I have heard all of this better elsewhere, but the combination and variety is pleasant, even at the risk of turning into needle drop death metal.
Read more
Suffer – Grand Canvas of the Aesthete Review
Grand Canvas of the Aestethe sees no love lost on Carcassian Heartwork-isms thickened with the slime of grooves straight out of Morbid Angel’s Domination. When these two styles mix together successfully like the rasping vocal cadence over the grand death metal groove, Suffer may free you from this mortal coil. But do they earn a death (metal) certificate of success?
Read more
Saevus Finis – Facilis Descensus Averno Review
So, who are Saevus Finis? With members sporting names like Sangvis Aestvs, it’s hard to say. What do they play? The promo sheet mentions, effectively, “if you like death metal, you’ll like these guys”—noting Immolation, Incantation, Morbid Angel, Viande, and Maere as touch-stones. New year, new you: resolve to like death metal, damnit.
Read more
Walking Corpse – Our Hands, Your Throat Review
When people say Deathgrind, they can mean many different things. It is a hybrid genre, after all, and it can run the gamut from what is basically punk with growls to relentless, chaotic blasting. Walking Corpse however fit into a third category. Relentlessly supplying riff after riff after riff, they take no prisoners. Their Arms, Our Hearse.
Read more
Terra Builder – Solar Temple Review
At its best, Solar Temple has some novel ideas: the title track combines a Morbid Angel sounding riff with Grindcore intensity and “Dead Celestial” features a tremolo riff throughout that works well with the forward charging groove. So at least you could say that they’re a good Trem Builder.
Read moreUnlock the Crypts
Crypts of the Unknown: Incubator – McGillroy the Housefly
