I've finally gotten around to doing another Metal Monday. It's been at least six months since the last one, and that's been too long. I enjoy writing short review lists like these and I should make the effort to do more in the near future. As for now, check out the handful of underground metal releases I've been jamming to lately. If you like one, consider picking it up via Bandcamp or something.
Monarkh - Azote (Kammer Records)
Sweet acrid Yog-sothoth, this sounds like a nightmare. Azote is the second full-length from German depressive black metal maestro Fyrnd. As you no doubt crave from depressive black metal worthy of the name, it's devastatingly bleak. Unexpectedly though, it's also very clean sounding, and at times even orchestral. There are a good number of stringed instruments on this album other than guitars, all of which serve to emancipate the dire sadness of Fyrnd's soul so that it may descend on your psyche like a flock of ravenous crows. This rending and tearing of the listener is further pursued by the jackal-like howl this one-man horde emits- a resonance he issues from his body in an exultation of triumph and despair. Also, I'm pretty sure that Azote is the French word for Nitrogen, a common atomic element, necessary to life on Earth, but incredibly dangerous as it can be used to make explosives and poisons, as well as singe and burn when in its concentrated liquid form, and has become a problematic environmental contaminate due to its over-use in agricultural production. Sort of poetic isn't it? The thing you most need to live, can be the things that will be your undoing. Azote giveth and Azote taketh.
The
Poison EP is a collection of properly recorded and produced b-sides from guitarist Takafumi Matsubara, formerly of the Japanese grindcore band Mortalized. He quit the band after suffering a stroke and dedicated his spare time in recovery to his solo album, 2019's
Strange, Beautiful and Fast. However, there were still a number of worthy tracks from his time with Mortalized that he couldn't bear to leave in the dustbin. So, he called in some favors and polished them up with their help. Takafumi plays guitar on every number here (duh!) and nearly every track has a different vocalist, with notable entries from Discordance Axis & Gridlink's Jon Chang on the ruefully melodic "Scarlet" and his old friend Sanshiro of Mortalized lending the ruthless personality of his bark to the blenderized chaos voids of "Kusabi" and "Rasyoumon." I'm very glad Takafumi salvaged these tracks to give his former band one, final send-off. The
Poison EP is the definition of madness, at its grindiest and most technically stupifying.
Bloody Keep - Bloody Horror (Grime Stone Records)
I'm obsessed with the way Bloody Keep puts together their songs, and the
Bloody Horror EP is pretty much the definition as to why. The guitar tones are thin sounding and melodic, but still, manage to be menacing. The grooves are jaunty and lively, but with an impish quality that denotes the sincerity of their sinisterness. The drums sound like they're being performed on actual stretched animal skins and the synths are like something that was pried from a ghost while it was strapped to a Catherine wheel. And the vocals are so weird. They sound like a bat with a head cold- a raspy, croaking squeak that is unnervingly inhuman. The production also manages to make the songs on
Bloody Horror sound incredibly old, which is perfect for a raw black metal album. Especially here, where the recordings sound like they were unearthed from the keep of a sunken castle and recovered by anthropologists looking for artifacts to fill a national museum's archive. As far as dark trips into the unknown, it doesn't really get any more uncanny or uncompromising.
Fere - Visceral (Ragingplanet Records)
Portugal's Fere conjures a softly devouring storm on Visceral. The ambient doom record, through circuitous chord progressions, brooding and solum post-rock structures, and plodding, percussive grooves, brings to life a record that literally feels like it is stalking you. It is patient. It is strategic. It is prepared to strike. It acts without regret. But most of all, it wants something from you and it is prepared to take it. The mood of this record is like that of a shark following a trail of blood through the water for miles knowing that there is a meal at the end of the crimson wake that has leashed its nostrils. Visceral is the right name for this record as it will sink its teeth into you and fill your form with a flood of dread and body contorting apprehension.
