Author: mcgillantheturncoat

Kawir – Adrasteia

Out now on Iron Bonehead Productions

Being of the old elite of foundational Greek Black Metal acts, Kawir are surprisingly adept at navigating the unknowable surf of time. Releasing their first demo 27 years ago, Kawir has been a stronghold of pagan Black Metal for a quarter of a century with no obvious weaknesses in their masonry. Adrasteia, their eighth full-length album concerns itself with a theme that is bafflingly novel within the realm of Black Metal. Named after the goddess of “just retribution”, the album summons female characters from across the pantheon of Greek myth to shine a light on their important role in the mythos. With this move, Kawir find themselves in curious company with artists that have likewise released paeans to female figures in album format lately: Chicagoan songwriter, musician and poet Jamila Woods and the lyricist rapper Rapsody.

            The band jumps into these narratives with fiery relish, letting their brazen and ancient sound conjure the perilous straits of Mediterranean waters. The album begins invitingly with a folky introduction, the libations poured before the commencement of the feast. Soon the band is ablaze; riffs hewed from rough marble, vocal shrieks twisted with the knowledge of dark history. Despite its seven-minute runtime, “Tydeus” is more of an introduction than a proper song, leaning a bit more traditional and mid-paced than the furious cuts that make up the rest of the album. Shades of Trad Metal colour the track in familiar Grecian hues, while reminding at times both of Atlantean Kodex and Ensiferum (by way of the introducing chants).

            Next is the triple threat of “Atalanti”, “Danaides” and “Limniades”. This stretch of the album is firmly situated within the fiery furnace of Black Metal, though the Pagan and Greek melodicism rears its head more times than not. “Atalanti” features big melodies, a bridge with subtle weirdo energy and an idiosyncratic, scorching guitar solo. “Danaides” is absolutely relentless, pushing into the red without sacrificing an ounce of catchiness. “Limniades” initially feels like a slight re-tread of the previous songs, but a gloriously wistful tremolo lament towards the end manages to push it from solid to great, setting up for a powerful outro. These three songs stand head and shoulders above the rest of the album, being some of the best Metal I’ve yet to hear this year.

            What is remarkable about Kawir is just how complete their identity is. Just as the album cover judiciously mixes a few choice elements to create a concise and brilliant whole, the band refuse to clutter their sound with unnecessary additions. The mixture of Black Metal, ancient instrumentation and Trad is so characterful that you forgive the occasional lapse in the memorability of the material. The closer “Medea” suffers from this lack of memorability in parts, but as the screams of “Medea!” are cast across a burning battlefield of immaculately produced instrumentation, you let your shoulders down and invite the narrative to enfold you.

            Ending with an orchestral tapestry of bustling guitar lines, my thoughts start to ponder the ability of individual voices to be heard over the deafening din of history. Considering the vast number of stories that failed to break through this din, the burgeoning attempts to correct this imbalance in historical retelling are overdue and awfully welcome. That a Black Metal band would contribute to this groundswell makes for a heartening contrast to the genre’s many peddlers of archaic, xenophobic fallacies. This noble purpose strengthens an album that is already incredibly admirable on a strictly musical level, making for a project I can highly recommend for fans of the extremely heavy metals. A wonderful invocation of some of the richest stories known to man, Kawir lovingly rumples the annals with Adrasteia.

8.0/ 10

Fractal Universe – Rhizomes of Insanity & Rhizomes Live

Out now on Metal Blade Records

Live albums in 2020 is a curious prospect. With youtube being host to thousands of hours of live footage from the farthest reaches of the international music scene, spending label money to mix and release an official recording of a live performance seems meaningless. This is nevertheless what Fractal Universe has done with their 2020 release on Metal Blade Records, Rhizomes Live. Corresponding with their stint opening for Obscura throughout Europe this month, Rhizomes Live is a live performance of their 2019 album Rhizomes of Insanity in full. As a preliminary to seeing them perform in Oslo on March 4th, I am taking a look at both versions of Rhizomes.

            Fractal Universe is a technical, progressive Death Metal band from France with an album and an EP to their name, apart from the releases discussed in this review. Having a clean and modern sound, the band is situated on a separating line between classic technical Death Metal (Obscura, Gorod) on one side, and more groove-based 10’s bands on the other. The tapestry of their sound is highly detailed and includes lots of little digressions into satellite-genres without cluttering the bigger picture. Minimal djent-chugs, Tool-like landscapes of clean guitar and rolling toms, and Melodic Death Metal riffing all find little corners to snuggle into on Rhizomes, all held together by the uniform and spit shined production. 

            The level of detail on this album is baffling, pertaining to both the construction of ideas and riffs, and the bigger soundscapes they find themselves in. Being immensely proficient on their instruments, the band sculpts immaculate riffs and combines them with compositional fervour. This rich mosaic is facilitated by the production, which leaves ample space for the pieces to interconnect, while still having a somewhat sterile, Axe-Fx-ish sheen. Despite the daunting breadth of elements fighting for attention on Rhizomes, Fractal Universe never loses track of the song. The structures are neatly shaped, reining in the creative chaos to fit into well-known frameworks.

            The songs vary from relatively pure-blooded Technical Death Metal tunes like “Flashes of Potentialities” and “Masterpiece’s Parallelism”, and more MOR modern metal like the opening track and “Fundamental Dividing Principle”. Despite this perceived divide, there are no single tune that adheres completely to either category. “Flashes…” features verse vocals reminiscent of Katatonia’s Jonas Renkse, and “Oneiric Realisations” has a bridge section all awash in prog and vocoders. “Rising Oblivion” scampers onto the scene like a mountainous cyborg polyrhythmically scanning a ravaged city for signs of life, and “Architectural Aberrations” drops a shamelessly st00pid breakdown on us like said cyborg discovering only a few scattered flocks of Veil of Maya fans.

            The album has a mild pacing issue, in addition to accumulating some redundancies over the span of its runtime. Each song is jam-packed with different ideas competing for space, but their variety is hemmed in by song structures that generally follow similar progressions. After six songs of technical metal interspersed with crystalline soundscapes ala Cynic, the constant shifting between the two starts to feel a bit played out by the time “Madness’ Arabesques” noodles out of the speakers. This problem translates onto the macro plane, as the album’s arc suffers from the interchangeability between the songs. 

            At least the closing “Chiasmus of the Damned” manages to conjure an air of finality, providing the album with a convincing conclusion. Rhizomes of Insanity as a whole shows tremendous promise, highlighting an upgrade in both the sound and material from earlier entries in the band’s output. With a few more stand-out ideas and a more engaging album structure, they might be able to compete with their more seasoned tour mates in Obscura. Rhizomes of Insanity is still highly recommended for tech-nuts, containing enough twists and riffy conundrums to keep your Guitar Pro 7 window aglow for weeks.  

            Rhizomes Live is a release that constitutes a complete enigma to me. One might suppose that live albums should either provide some alternative perspective on studio material or show off the organic interplay and happy accidents of a live performance, but …Live doesn’t really do any of them. Fractal Universe’s style of music is too tightly coiled to lend itself to live tinkering, and the musicianship of the guys is so advanced that the playing is close to identical to the source material. Even the vocals –usually subject to change from studio to live stage in underground metal- are performed meticulously, resulting in the only difference from …Live to the studio album being one of fidelity. If anything, the release seems to only exist to tell the world that “oui bois, we can perform this shit live”. Even though I enjoy the listen, I would much rather listen to Rhizomes of Insanity with its spacious and punchy production. That being said, I do look forward greatly to seeing them in March!

Rhizomes of Insanity: 7.0/10             

Rhizomes Live: 4.0/10  

Blood Spore – Fungal Warfare Upon All Life

Out now on Blood Harvest Records

Citizens of Arkham, beware, for the undiscriminating portals to the cosmic nether has summoned another pesky anti-creation to raze your insignificant little town. With a band logo as inscrutable and impossible as the most obtuse of eldritch horrors, Blood Spore has crashed onto the American Death Metal scene like a meteor from the outer rims of unfathomable space with their debut project, Fungal Warfare Upon All Life. Focusing on the shroomy specimens of Lovecraft’s universe as opposed to his more popular underwater creatures, the quartet peddles in a particularly damp and moist form of Doom/Death suitable to their subject matter.

            Lurching threateningly out of a shadowy vale close to your childhood home, “Hostile Fruiting Bodies” slobs, gushes and rushes like the most repulsive of Lovecraftian slime. Moving from grimy Doom to brisk elephantine stomps to tremolo riffs buzzing like fat flies around withering crops, the track presents a survey of everything the subgenre Doom/Death has going for it in 2020. Swaddled in a warm and musty production, the opener succeeds in introducing the listener to the fetid world, but fails to plant its mycelia firmly in his/her cerebral cortex.

            “Cede to the Saprophyte” goes further in its scene-setting, chiming and clanging like murky invocations in the midst of a hilltop stone circle. The band manages to introduce a certain gothic melodiousness to the ceremony without wandering too far from their Death Metal habitat, deepening the atmosphere. As the bass snakes around the guitar like a purple tentacle from an unseen and unwanted void, the vocals are layered in an overwhelming manner, heightening the sense of foreboding. The track one-ups the preceding one significantly, pulling the listener further into the sickening mythos of Lovecraft. 

            The lyrics do not try to hide their allegiance to the mysterious H.P, painting a world in familiar, nauseating greens, even including references to specific stories in his canon. “Apex Colony” is both the final track on the EP and the most substantial one. Depicting a humanity as doomed as can be, the track has an urgency to its first minutes that proves riveting. Spewing out choppy riffs and infectious beats, the band comes together nicely, stretching their fingers towards greatness in unison. After a mid-song dirge as slow and revolting as Yog-Sothoth waltzing with a limp, the track unfortunately segues into vague riff-soup in its latter half, concluding the EP on a weak and less than horrifying note. 

            Blood Spore’s dedication to the creepy craft of our favourite gloomy curmudgeon is undoubtedly passionate, and Fungal Warfare Upon All Life is an oftentimes enjoyable toe-dipping into a thick and pungent pond of iridescent puke. With a more varied vocal attack and some slightly more distinctive ideas, the full-length (that hopefully is on its way) should very well be worthy of your attention. If you need some sonic slime to further soggify your next read-through of The Dunwich Horror, then paste this piece of rotten tofu to your vinyl player and savour the sickly odour emanating from the speaker.

6.5/10

Svarttjern – Shame is Just a Word

Out now on Soulseller Records

Having been born and raised in Norway, the sound of Black/thrash is as comforting to me as the sound of a crackling fire, the lively spritz of an opened beer can or the voice of a loving mother. Being fed records by Nekromantheon, Aura Noir and Condor through my umbilical cord has –apart from severely damaging precious internal organs- helped me relate to my fellow countrymen where more obvious cultural rally points have failed. In other words, it’s pretty much impossible to write a black/ thrash record and ship it to my tarn-side dwelling without me enjoying it at least a smidge.

             Seemingly pleased with the odds, Svarttjern has done exactly that with their latest record; Shame is Just a Word. The consistently enjoyable outfit has been ping-ponging between black and thrash over ten years and four albums, the defining factor of each usually being whether it accentuates the ping (Black) or the pong (Thrash). They continue this display of athletic prowess on their 2020 project, refusing to let either sound take full hold of the reins.

            Barrelling out of the gates like a flock of burning geese comes “Prince of Disgust”, the punchy and concise first single from the album. Featuring to-the-point riffing interspersed with some dissonant flirtations with headier sounds, it reeks of love for both the past and present of the subgenre. Hansfyrste (vocals) rasps and hollers like an absolute madman throughout the song, recalling a Nocturno Culto feverish with night terrors. The songwriting is strong, hampered only by a loose and wandering bridge and a questionable fade-out. 

            After this relatively ping affair, we are met with a strong pong-ping-pong combo. “Ment til å Tjene” thrashes away in brilliant manner, turning up with some big riffs and sneaky grooves. “Melodies of Lust” is by far the most impressive track on the album, managing to cram in so many different sides of the band it makes most of the other songs on the record superfluous. After teasing the listener with a requisite clean-guitar and bubbly-porridge-on-the-stove introduction, they open the doors to greatness through some towering riffs, structural sleight-of-hand and a melodious expanse towards the end that awes like a more temperate Borknagar.

            After this breath-taking vista, we’re thrown back into the snus- and piss-filled pits of “Ta dets Drakt”. While enjoyable enough taken by itself, as a follow-up to the pine-scented “Melodies…” it fails to leave a distinct odour of its own. “Frost Embalmed Abyss” tries to correct the course by way of its wonderfully upsized intro- and verse-sections, proving that ambition seems to wake something primal in this band. Unfortunately, the bridge of the song stumbles into the same non-descript thrash of the previous track, and ‘unfortunatelier’, so does the rest of the record. “Ravish Me” is easily the least effective track of the bunch, and the inclusion of a growled cover of Exodus’ “Bonded by Blood” does little more than spotlight the familial connections between Thrash and Black Metal.

            After the batshit power-organ/vocoder(?) solo at the end of the title track, we’re left sitting in our half-emptied crate of beer, wondering why this crisp slice of black/thrash didn’t knock us over as hard as the packaging promised. While the first couple of spins showed promise, the lustre started to dim little by little throughout subsequent listens. As “Melodies of Lust” and the first half of “Frost Embalmed Abyss” shows, there lives a beast within Svarttjern that longs to stumble out of the musty dive bar and into the majesty of the Norwegian wilderness, unbeholden to the tenets of the mosh-church. If they could unshackle this adventurous impulse and let it flail around unrestrained, I would not rule it out of their capacities to produce an end-of-the-year contender. But as it stands, Shame is Just a Word fails to stand toe to toe with the rest of the their peers in the norwegian league of black/thrash.

6.0/10

Hellgoat – Death Conquers All

Out on Boris Recordings

Hellgoat is an American black metal band from Atlanta delivering raw, trebly black metal to the ravaged masses. They have stayed more or less true to the ethos of the second wave through a smattering of demos, EPs and LPs, only stopping once or twice along the way to up the fidelity by marginal amounts. Death Conquers All is their second full length, originally released in 2011 by Graveless Slumber Records, but recently released by Boris Records. 

            “Slay the Lamb” starts off the proceedings by strategically scaring away any person not fully devoted to the blast. The track is a pure second wave assault; Scorching white noise guitars riding on a drum track that stays blasting for 90% of the song. The bass faithfully sticks to whatever the guitar is doing, while a Grutle Kjellson-like rasp guides the troupe through the blood red fog. This track is as straight-forward as it gets when it comes to black metal, but fear not, Hellgoat has a lot of unexpected tricks up the sleeves of their sacrificial robes.

            Already by the second track, the Trve is starting to give way for more adventurous impulses. The track is more low-end heavy, and breaks up the regularity with some irregular bars and a discordantly doomy bridge. The song structure also treks beyond the three-part simplicity of its preceding brother. By the beginning of “Summon Him”, I’m already starting to envision clichés of black metal iconography slightly warped. The ceremonious intro creates a strange atmosphere, conjuring the picture of an altar on wheels being rolled out in front of a rapaciously worshipping congregation. The wheels are a tiny detail separating the scene from any ordinary satanic worship, and so it is with Hellgoat’s music. The details separating this album from any other bare-bones black metal album are tiny, but they’re present.

            The band continues to mine a sound combining the unrelenting but hooky power of Gorgoroth with occult doom bridges in the vein of old Candlemass. Completing the elixir is the rare speck of punk-ish snarl, like the straight-outta CBGB riff that is well hidden behind the blast-beat-as-side-chain section of “Summon Him”. The band varies up their attack every so often, toying with the familiar style in subtle ways so as to not tire the listener. At the record’s B-side, the band opens up its sound to include slightly more noticeable detours, injecting the latter parts with vigor. “Feast of the Goat” has a bridge where the bass actually gets to lead the flock for a couple of bars, while “Behold the Tempter Spoke” inserts phaser effects and bass arpeggios, progging up the proceedings substantially. This evolution crests naturally with the longest song of the record, “March of the Corpse Rats”, where Enslaved-stomp and gently twisting 777 Sect(s)-lite riffs entwine in musty lovemaking.

            Death Conquers All presents enough subtle twists to entertain the knowledgeable and corpse-painted cretin looking for crinkles in the black metal carpet. The production, while beefier and more listenable than the mix on their debut, is still pretty rough if you’re not into the demo-quality of most second wave projects. But if you’ve spent a fortnight under the freezing moon, and still find the boreal valley as appealing as ever before, then the searing noise of Hellgoat can prove a worthwhile companion through the night.

7.0/ 10

Imprecation – Damnatio ad Bestias

Out on Dark Descent Records

In the many years since the genre of metal was dragged kicking and screaming onto the international stage in the late 70s, there’s been quite a lot of turning stones going on. The trusty metal wayfarers have dug their shovels into every seemingly fruitful mound of earth across the lands, making entire subgenres, waves and local scenes out of the resulting produce. But while there’s almost no such thing as an unturned stone in metal anymore, some stones have been turned more times than others. 

            Gleefully old-school, satanic as a church-burning Norwegian second-waver, and filthy as the boys in Cianide dragged through the amorphous mass of flesh on the cover of Mental Funeral; Imprecation has found their hallowed stone and are content with turning it over until Sisyphus has finished pushing his. This putrid form of death metal will continue to spread its malignant wings throughout the continents as long as there are humans walking and breathing and willing to perform the necessary rituals. There are no expectations of originality whenever you put on one of these discs, the only thing that matters is whether the band in question manages to rumple your work suit and offend your neighbors.   

            Imprecation is definitely up for the task, untidying suits and upsetting the countenance of neighbors with fierce determination. The band of black-clad brothers have delivered two previous full-length helpings of blasphemous barf* before venturing on the task of bringing us the latest one, Damnatio ad Bestias. The formula hasn’t changed to any considerable degree; the band is still pumping out grimy death metal colored in at the edges with some atmospheric keyboard and samples. The most substantial upgrade from the previous records to this one might be the production, which is noticeably beefier and fuller on the new record. With the production on their side and two previous albums behind them, Imprecation set off into the world to wreak havoc on the uninitiated.

            “Temple of the Foul Spirit” Kicks off the proceedings with some dour and crawling OSDM, commencing the ritual in a suitable manner. The snaking, mildly off-kilter riffs turns the mind to the more calculated evil of Necrot, while the slower trudges reminds me of the dungeon-crawling cretins in Vastum. The tempo veers all over the spectrum throughout the record, making for a constantly exhilarating ride. The latter half of “Morbid Crucifixion” Bolt Throwers its way out of the speakers like an armored tank trawling around the seven planes of hell, before “Baptized in Satan’s Blood” sprinkles some black metal fairy dust over the infernal concoction. The keyboard is used sparingly but effectively, always bringing something extra to the track when it decides to rear its head.

            The record continues in this vein for its 37-minute span, letting the diversified riff-attack make up for the lack of true variation. Along with the winding structure and the dynamic treatment of tempo, the band comes a long way without really needing to change up their core components. What does end up missing is the stand-out moments needed to push the band from good to great. The only song that really sticks out from the bunch is “The Shepherd and the Flock”, with its grinding slow parts and a guitar solo that sounds like Satan relieving himself of a particularly stubborn tapeworm. Delivering more tracks like this might make Imprecation a bigger competitor when it becomes time to take stock of which 10’s death metal bands managed to turn the stone most skillfully. 

            If you have an unending hunger for the rancid meals offered by the grotesque chefs of the underground death metal scene, then Damnatio ad Bestiasis as good enough a recommendation as any. The band obviously has a burning passion for fiery racket, so throwing some coin in their direction is a great way to assure them that there are still cave dwellers out there willing to receive unholy sermon. Imprecation probably won’t instigate any paradigm shifts any time soon, but within the walls of the ever-turning mills of death metal, they are definitely pulling their weight.

*This is nothing but a compliment of course.

7.0/ 10

Scáth Na Déithe – Pledge Nothing but Flesh

Out on Vendetta Records

Scáth Na Déithe (Shadow of the Gods) is a death-ish black metal duo from Ireland. Consisting of drummer Stephen Todd and multi-instrumentalist Cathal Hughes, Pledge Nothing but Flesh is their second release after dropping a four track EP in 2015. Pledge was originally released independently in 2017, but the German label Vendetta Records saw the potential in the band’s bleak vision and released it anew this year. The first release of the LP in 2017 went largely unnoticed, despite Pledge’s obvious appeal to fans of dark and expansive black metal. Let’s hope the label involvement manages to correct this situation, as this band is a valuable addition to the Irish black metal scene.

            Scáth Na Déithe plays an unendingly bleak and punishing variant of death/black metal. The soundscape feels saturated with dark shades of gray and brown, the black and the death elements almost perfectly balanced. The production is earthy and organic providing the lengthy compositions with indelible grit and character. The lyrics are filled with the hopeless reflections of a tortured mind; self-loathing and desperate in the search for a way out of a hopeless existence. Taken with the four expansive tracks and the short interludes, the whole package feels epic in scope, like combining the dark mythos of Agalloch’s Faustian Echoes with Dante’s Inferno.

            The record is clearly separated into an A- and a B-side, each front-ended with a short interlude. “Sí Gaoithe” wafts through the speakers like wandering apparitions traversing a dead forest, seguing into “Bloodless”’ trudging intro. The abundance of low and mid frequencies in the mix reminds me of the destructive blackened death of Aosoth’s An Arrow in Heart, one of the most successful meldings of black and death metal in later years. The track soon picks up speed, the harsh and unintelligible vocals sounding the feral cries of a trailing woodland beast. The track flows nicely, with a couple of stand-out moments peppering its 10-minute run time. “Bloodless” is quickly followed by “This Unrecognized Disease” which explodes with a cloud of dissonant shrapnel, before sprawling out like a far-flung field of wet, disintegrating leaves.

            After 20 minutes of relentless bluster, Pledge offers its only moment of respite. “Fáilte Na Marbh” is like a stark clearing in a dismal forest, a place still somewhat graced with the memory of light. This glimmer is immediately whisked away with the arrival of “The Shackled Mind”, which is both the harshest and the best track on the album. The track sounds like a cataclysmic event driving entire communities into exile; a rumbling, flailing vortex of death and misfortune. After chasing destruction for 9 minutes, it closes off with an ominous clean section resembling the damp dungeon climes of The Ruins of Beverast.

            The album is unfortunately closed off with a ten-minute track that, despite a moment of spacious beauty towards the middle, largely retreads the ground of earlier tracks. This is but a slight tarnish on a record that is otherwise an impressive display of gravelly vision. The band has worked their way into a sound that is both comfortably familiar, yet filled with enough character and variation to sustain the interest across a full-length effort. This sound has the potential to be whittled down into an even more refined product, a process that could well create a modern masterpiece. Pledge Nothing but Flesh deserves to be admired by a bigger audience, so if you have some shelf space left for a quality death/black release, I recommend giving the online store of Vendetta Records a visit.

7.5/ 10

Soilwork – Verkligheten

Out on Nuclear Blast Records

What is it about the surströmning-eating cretins in the country of Sweden that makes them so great at writing melodies? From the world-conquering ABBA to the modern pop goddess Robyn, the umlaut-spouting northeners seemingly can’t stop themselves from writing their way into the hearts and the charts of people around the world. This natural inclination even influences the most extreme variants of musical exports the country has to offer. Be it black metal or cybernetic gore-grind, you know it’ll only be a matter of time before the swedes has packaged it into a technicolor extravaganza fit for the biggest outdoor festivals in Europe.

            This is exactly what they did to the then-young genre of death metal in the 90s. In Flames, Dark Tranquility and At the Gates took the brutal bashings of death metal and combined it with more listener-friendly elements pillaged from NWOBHM, before gracing it with their native country’s supernatural ear for melody. Soilwork was also an integral part of that early scene, and along with the aforementioned bands they’ve forged on through the years, releasing albums at a clip while steadily becoming more accessible (notable exception is At the Gates, who even after an extended break sounds more or less like they did in ’95). For bands like In Flames and Dark Tranquility this commercialization dovetailed with a decline in the quality of their artistic statements. For Soilwork, the trajectory has looked a little different.

            As a matter of fact, my favorite album of theirs was released in 2013, 15 years after their debut full-length. The Living Infinite was a flawed but incredibly engaging and ambitious venture, being as it were a double album with a run time closing up on 90 minutes. The album combined the usual blasting ferocity and sky-cleaving leads with a healthy dose of bluesy rock riffs, a sound that has been continued into the present day.

            Verkligheten is cut from the same cloth as The Living Infinite, although with a more reasonable running time of 50 minutes. The tracks are still adhering to verse-chorus structures, Björn Strid is still alternating between his classic scream and soaring cleans, and the band is still chucking out hook after hook like their Swedish citizenship will be revoked if they don’t manage to rack up those streaming numbers. The production is incredibly crisp and streamlined, leaving just enough space in the mix to accommodate some baroque flights of fancy.

            The intro produces a sense of occasion; pounding drums, piano and slide guitar building up an anticipation for the band to come storming in “Spectrum of Eternity”-style on the real opener, “Arrival”. This opening proves appropriate for the album in question, since most of the tracks on Verkligheten starts off with a similar configuration of atmospheric lead guitar, piano and tom hits, before blasting off into the song proper. 

            “Arrival” is a fine Soilwork track, the aggressive thrashing spiked with an ample helping of melodic uplift. The following couple of tracks enters more arena-oriented territory, while introducing some riffing that comes dangerously close to summon the duck-walking spirit of Angus Young. This progression reaches an unexpectedly extreme conclusion, when the verse of “The Nurturung Glance” rides in on a star-spangled riff that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Ted Nugent record. The perplexity is quickly offset by the arrival of track number six, “When the Universe Spoke”.  This track is better than any modern melodeath bop has the right to be, and is a perfect distillate of all modern Soilwork can be. From the fiery verses, to the evil Judas Priest pre-chorus, to the mother of leads rearing her head during the intro and chorus; there is no reason to not lose your shit when this jam blares out of the speakers.

            The second half of the record does not scale the same heights as the first six tracks. Their commercial notions threatens to overwhelm the material on tracks such as “Stålfågel”, “Witan” and “The Wolves are Back in Town”, the latter being the biggest offender of them all. It doesn’t help that the surplus of clean vocals on Verkligheten shines a light on Strids lyrics, which seem hell-bent on communicating something to the listener, but struggle to actually puzzle out what that something might be. Add some unflattering studio touches like strings ostensibly ported from a Game of Thrones flash game on “Needles and Kin”, and the under-utilised features by Tomi Joutsen and Dave Sheldon near the end of the record, and the last 20 minutes starts to pale.

            This is still an impressive effort from the swedes, and well up there as one of the better examples of big-stage melodeath done right. Even though the formula is familiar, Soilwork still shake the template up enough to make Verkligheten a mostly entertaining, sometimes engrossing listen. I don’t think this album will knock The Living Infinite down from the position as Soilwork’s best effort, mostly because of the sheer audacity of the latter. It is nonetheless very satisfying to see a band in a comfortable spot still willing to try on new costumes, pushing and tweaking familiar formulas in search of the perfect song. Out of all the formative melodeath-bands that are still operative today, Soilwork seems to find the most joy in creating.

7.0/ 10 

Lvcifyre – Sacrament EP

Out on Dark Descent Records

Lvcifyre is a band I already have a fair amount of experience with; from the cavernous rumble of 2011’s The Calling Depths to 2014’s hellacious Svn Eater. Unfortunately, I was just 15 summers into my stay on earth when the first one dropped, and my ears and brain hadn’t yet developed a taste for Lvcifyre’s brand of uncompromising death metal. Three years went by, and thanks to then recent exposure to bands like Aosoth and Grave Miasma, Svn Eater went down like an Aperol Spritz after 5 hours of skiing down an Austrian hillside.

            Five(!) years later and we have another set of charcoal- and gut-smeared tracks from the somber ensemble. Sacrament is an EP of four new originals in addition to a cover of a track by the speedy thrash-precursors in KAT. The whole ruckus is over and done within about 22 minutes, which is just enough time to start craving the saturation and closure of a full-length project. Hopefully we won’t have to starve for another five years for that to come about.

            “The Great Curse” lurks into view with 90 seconds of animal noises and an atmosphere as thick as tar. It feels like being haunted by the charred remains of Sleipnir in a tucked-away part of hell, until suddenly the infernal racket of three English lads comes creeping across the audio field. The band promptly swings into gear; drums blasting away, guitars engaging in dissonant conversation like a fog-choked Immolation. The production is pretty much caked in atmosphere and malevolent character, filled to the brim with vocal outbursts and reverbed guitars screaming in the distance. The whole concoction is about as evil as a locomotive run by feeding the furnace endangered birds-of-paradise. A supporter on bandcamp summed it up neatly when he proclaimed Sacrament sounds like “listening to the color black”. I see no reason to dissent.

            Thankfully it’s not an “all bark, no bite”-scenario. Lvcifyre’s songwriting chops have developed substantially across every release to date, and that evolution doesn’t slow down with Sacrament.The title track features a wellspring of engaging material wrapped up neatly in a six-minute packet of fire and brimstone. “Shadowy Wing” is a short but sweet attack on the senses and sanity of the listener, frenetic drum work and a darkly theatrical vocal performance erupting like fireworks in the deepest pits of hell. The beginning of “Deaths Head in Crown” calls forth images of bassist Cvltvs reluctantly summoning some unknown entity, before getting absolutely obliterated by the uncontrollable power he has willed into existence. Sporting plenty of violent blasting and an immense landfall of a riff, it sounds like being swallowed by a house fire

            The four original tracks make for a pretty strong statement, never doing disservice to the unique brand of atmospheric carnage peddled by the band. A cover of a (although killer) pretty straightforward speed/ thrash number might not be exactly what you are hoping for after five years of impatiently waiting, but it’s a pretty engaging finish thanks to the band’s unhinged, fiery energy. Lvcifyre has silently become one of the most distinct forces of evil in the underground metal scene, continually proving to be willing to expand on an already successful formula. I sincerely hope we have some more Lvcifyre coming our way in the near future, but if not, Lvcifyre has already left a burning, fuming hole in the annals of modern metal. Do not sleep on this bedlam.

8.5/10

Kever – Primordial Offerings EP

Out on Dark Descent Records

Kever is an atmospheric OSDM-outfit from the underground metal scene in Israel. Despite Primordial Offerings being only the second of two EPs currently available by the group, it’s clear to see that their tenure as ambassadors of the Israeli scene has provided them with ample tools to carve out a promising lane in the Death metal underground. Their style can best be described as an updated take on the classic sounds of Morbid Angel and Death, featuring some studio embellishments by way of keys and choir vocals.

            “Intro: Primordial Offerings” makes for a fitting introduction to the EP of the same name. We’re first met with a clanging, alarming 30-second soundscape providing a panoramic view of the newly-razed hellscape of some recent civilization. Steel rods poke out of piles of concrete while trills and peals of bells fill the air between the crumbling high-rises. The background radiation of this scene stays with us through the record as Kever fleshes out the different elements of their sound throughout the following four tracks.

            “Lords of Karma” is the first proper track, introducing all the stylistic traits of the underground act. The usual blasting, rolling and reinforced tremolo-riffing of the Florida-sound meets with the sky-trailing leads of mid-period Death. The delayed, reverbed and boosted guitar solo is evidence of the modern studio setting, and so are the various atmospheric touches of pads, keys and choral vocals scattered around the EP. The production is meaty and punishing; clear and crisp without draining the band of necessary grit. The drums are balanced and punchy, and the often multitracked vocals are imposing in their mid-range ferocity. The only casualty of the mixing is the bass, which although audible for parts of the EP largely slaps about in the distance like the ghost of an enraged salmon.

            Next comes “Back from the Netherworld” blasting out of the gate like an armored SWAT officer shield-surfing over the bodies of his massacred unit. The track stays true to the sound of the band while injecting some bounce and swagger into its DNA. “Act of Oblation” furthers this development with some groove-adjacent riffs that sound like a Pantera raised on Bolt Thrower’s War Master. The multifaceted song slows down for an apocalyptic and doomy-bridge, before beating the listener over the head with a calcified twinkie for its final minutes.

            The EP ends with “The Ceremony”, the longest song of the bunch. The song is by far the most varied of the five, featuring billowing synths; Seasons in the abyss’ ominous, chiming guitars; even a D-beat section in the midst of it all. Structuring all of these disparate elements turns out to be a bit of the challenge for the group, as the track comes across as a bit disjointed. This is the only particularly noticeable misstep on the record though, and it’s a minor one at that.

            Kever has crafted a promising extended player, that stands as a solid experience on its own while pointing towards the possibilities yet unexplored for the band. The skillful handling of the varied material on the EP makes it apparent that the Israelites have the chops needed to assemble a compelling full-length project. Whatever Kever decides to do next, I will make sure to grab any future records upon release. If you have a 23-minute opening in your listening schedule, I would advise you to give Primordial Offerings a listen.

7.0/10