Archive for August 2024

ENT stuff is a roaring tide of aggression, which is exactly what you would expect, and the material is around the same kind of quality you get on the original Holocaust… record. Great shit. Filthkick are a variation on a theme. Leaning more towards the crust punk end of the spectrum, they kick you in the face (filthily, no doubt) with their rabid, grind-tinged punk attack. A venomous little split, and a classic of the…

I feel like the term “raw” is overused when describing black metal – if not by the metal world at large then absolutely just by me (haha), but “raw” is the perfect word to attach to Totenberg’s uncompromising assault. There is the smallest glimmer of melody present, but harshness – rawness! – drowns it out mostly. The playing is a little loose; that’s not to say sloppy, just that the carnage has a little swing…

Sinister, evil black metal with razor sharp, uncompromising riffage. Raw, but fully audible and dynamic production. Doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but doesn’t need to.

A clear yet balanced and organic production sets the stage for an excellent cache of songs, betraying of course (always!) the Finnish scene’s sensibility of melody underneath the racket. Drums, guitars etc. sound fantastic, and are very well played. Vocals are probably an acquired taste, if I’m honest, but it all works together nicely. Some more cleans like on the last track would go a long way to striking more of a balance. Good stuff,…

Any album with Akhenaten on the cover is immediately going to grab my attention, even if such a deep dive into ancient Egyptian history is fully expected from a band named Nile. On top of that, whilst Those Whom The Gods Detest is an improvement on the weak Ithyphallic, the production does a stellar job of homogenising what is can only decipher as an otherwise extremely excellent set of composed sounds. At first, it hits…

Excellent songwriting, slightly marred by middling production. You totally adjust to it all however, like going back and watching a 90s TV show that’s in standard def / aspect ratio. In fact, generally, Ashes Of Purification gets better and better as it goes on, with my least favourite songs being at the very start of the album. That being said, I don’t think I want to know whatever the fuck “Paedophilic Orgasmatron” is about, and…

A strange and perplexing effort, even for the weirdness associated with Mutiilation. Black Millennium has the odd distinction of getting less and less interesting as it goes on, being heavily front-loaded with such unholy invocations as “The Hanged Priest” and “The Eggs Of Melancholy”. Generally, the album has some very, how shall I say, unusual production choices, with a dense and bassy sound.

Very raw recording, it’s bizarre hearing just the first three albums and knowing that the rest of the stuff doesn’t exist yet (Seventh Star wasn’t even a twinkle in Iommi’s dilated pupil yet hahaha). Ozzy seems in a very good mood on this one, but it’s far from essential.

An EP of covers material, but excellent efforts from both bands, especially Drudkh who just have the perfect mix here. Not to shit on Winterfylleth, their Hate Forest cover here is pretty majestic, considering the pummelling / repetitive nature of the source material.

A beautiful pairing of songs. Old folk songwriting meets modern production and sound. Great stuff.

An interesting release from the excellent Old Tower. Lots of ambient noises, soundscapes and the like. Not to reduce it down to cheap descriptive tactics but it’s like a dungeon synth version of one of those spooky CDs you can get for Halloween, that is until the actual synthesizer work kicks in. Honestly, this invokes the spirit of the original “ds sound before it was a genre” in such a fantastic way. Truly brilliant playing.

I am dying of cringe.

Interesting and progressive sound compared to Mediator… which had a bit more focus on the heavier aspects, as well as the more tribal drumming etc – Machine Messiah instead flexes its muscles a bit and goes a bit more “out there”, for Sepultura, at least. There are some moments that do not really inspire me but there are always equally as many that are quite clever and definitely engaging. It’s never going to top the…

This later solo effort from J (in the ICP timeline) seems to be held in fairly high regard amongst the juggalos but honestly I’m struggling to see what all the fuss is about. It’s well produced, and fun, but nothing really stands out, much like the later “second deck” jokers cards. A good effort and some great guest spots but it’s never gonna be spun again over the classic ICP stuff.

Peste Noire continues to entertain at the least, with the ongoing twists and turns of his – or their – uh, music. This one contains a lot of dancey industrial beats, which was not what I was expecting, I’ll be honest with you. Again, as I’ve said a few times now regarding Peste Noire, when it sticks to the black metal, that shit is fierce and incredible. And I’m not one to piss and moan…