Metal Monday: Deludium Skies, IER, Mothflesh & Royal Thunder

I don't listen to as much metal as I'd like to. It's a curse of having broad interests and only so many hours in the day. It's one of the reasons why I keep these Metal Monday threads alive. It forces me back into the forge, back into the genre that first helped me come to terms with my critical style and learn to enjoy analyzing and writing about music in the first place. They're a good reminder as to why I try to do this every night, examining the strange and underappreciated and trying to make sense of it the best I can. It continues to be a worthy exercise for me and one I don't see myself giving up any time soon. But you're not here to see me write about myself, right? You're here for the mayhem, the macabre, the mutagenic... you're here to read about some ugly, ass music, and friend, have I got you covered... Welcome to another Metal Monday.  

Deludium Skies - Ichor (Trepanation Recordings)

I've encountered more than a few malevolent combinations of jazz and metal since starting this blog, but Karl Pelzmann's Deludium Skies is the most malefic. The projects (6th?) LP titled Ichor is the spiritual inculcation of the shadow side of folk and jazz, a ritualized janus turning, beseeched from the earth by bewitching, plangent guitar chords that sound like they are echoing up from the chimney-like hallow of a scorched and blackened tree. In some ways, the rhythmic textures of the album have an unassumingness about them, like they are wondering off into the depths of a thorny grove out of curiosity and naivety rather than a lust for mischief, but the combination of wailing flutes and saxes carry too much of a sour air about them, and in peering through the fog of disorder they muster one will be inevitably be met with the red-ringed stare of a maere clinging to the back of these tracks, inciting them forward into the wicked woodland to do its malign bidding. There are no happy endings to be found here, only a twisted fable of folly. Ichor springs to the ear like a fairy tale read to you by the monster slithering beneath your bed.  

IER - 物​の​怪 (Self-Released)

Argentinian black metal artist IER is known for his complex, ambitious, and impenetrable albums. He made one about Masaki Kobayashi's Kwaidan a few years back that was nearly half the run time of the film that inspired it (an hour and twenty minutes vs three hours, in case you were wondering). His latest, 物​の​怪 ("Monster"), does not appear to have nearly as precise of a thematic origin as some of its predecessors, but it is certainly as, if not more, daunting in its enterprise. Beginning with the twelve-minute "日本の都市伝説 Vol.1" we are feted with a full course of arresting and confrontational forms, starting with a viciously primal tear of DSMB, which loosens its twisting, noose-like grooves enough to liberate a messenger's arrow of hope from its binding contortions, a shot that hurdles through a dashing thrash solo only to stumble facefirst into the submerged tomb of some swamp lurching death metal, a murk-steeped trudge which is then rinsed clean by a shower of firey feedback and sonorous power chords, a necessary cleanse that frees the track from its decaying manicules so that it can once again break into a sprint, this time accompanied by a skittering peel of progressive-funk riffs. It sounds wild, and it is. And what's more, none of it is out of place. Not when IER starts scatting like Jonathan Davis on later tracks, or when he combines Converge style post-hardcore with Spanish folk guitars, or even when he does his best interpretation of what Incubus might sound like in corpse paint. It all works as a single, wholly realized, thoroughly integrated, and bewildering lusus naturae. Monster is the right title for this album, in more ways than one might think possible. 

Mothflesh - Machine Eater (Self-Released)

If there was a combination of styles that could represent humankind's enduring resistance to being reduced to the level of mere, mechanical instruments and extensions of the machines of their masters, it would be melodic death, old-school metalcore, and groove metal. As it stands, this untrammeled trifecta of muscularly, defiant antagonism to domination all cohere in the sound of Mothflesh and their future shock dispeller Machine Eater. It's pretty much At the Gates driving down the throat of Poison the Well in order to detonate a massive djent-triggered Car Bomb. That last sentence may have been tortured, but this music isn't. The barrage of massive, propellent grooves and the formidable combination of clean singing and guttural death howls are as awe-inspiring as a volcanic eruption and just as likely to shake your world to its foundations. Every riff sounds like another ground-to-air missile shot up the exhaust port of a Skynet satellite. With Mothflesh on our side, the future of humanity is looking brighter than ever. 

Royal Thunder - Wick (Spinefarm Records)

Nothing like a little hard rock out bubbling up from the South. The certifiably fiery and appropriately titled Wick is Royal Thunder’s third full-length LP, and their first since leaving metal mogul Relapse for Finnish label Spinefarm. It's hard to understate the power and charisma of front-woman and bassist Miny Parsonz's vocal performance, or how well her imploring and vengeful cries are complimented by the group's boozy psychedelic and doom metal-infused roots rock. Think Alabama Shakes with some mid-career Mastodon riffs swapped in. Both Miny and lead guitarist Josh Weaver escaped from cults in their youths, which is a fact that you can read into if you want, but I'm inclined to believe Miny when she insists that their songs are actually about building new relationships and forging your own path in life. Their current mantra is, “The Past is Over,” a saying they adopted after finding it scrawled above the entrance to a hotel on a European tour, and I think it's a good coda for us all to meditate on whenever we've felt like we may have lost our way in life. You can't go back, but you can soldier on. If nothing else, its a bit of intellectual cud to chew on while you sway to the swaggering rhythms of the ponderously claustrophobic "We Slipped" whose pounding beat and slapping grooves will help you break out of whatever mental prison you find yourself holding up in these days. Then there is the magnificent Joplin-esc crooning on dark gospel confessional "Plans," the somber piano balladry and elegantly blighted dalliance of "Push", and lastly, the morbid tension building brood of the shadowboxer with razor laced inlines that is "Turnaround." Sadly, this is the last full LP that Royal Thunder has released, but they still tour quite regularly and even released a single earlier this year, which gives me a great deal of hope that their return to the recording studio for another LP will be forthcoming, if not inevitable.

Metal Monday: Dryad, Hellion, Bones & Witch Vomit

It's another Monday. A simple, terrible, miracle. A Monday. Time to get motivated for another week of grueling, meaningless effort as a shambling human shell. Such drudgery isn't without its benefits, although I'm failing to recall any at the moment. Hmmmm.... Here is an idea. While I work on the quandy of our existence, why don't you check out some brutal metal albums to calm your nerves? No sense in us doubling our efforts. Especially, if all we're going to do is come up empty-handed. 

Dryad - The Abyssal Plain (Prosthetic Records)

The depths of the sea called out to humankind. Pulling us back to its sunless cradle. A familial siren cascades up from the churning chasm of the devouring mother's subaquatic womb. Her culling cry is even heard inland, and some howl back in a zealous, rapturous hiss. Iowa's Dryad makes themselves willing vessels for this ancient madness on their visceral and Poseidonion debut LP, The Abyssal Plain. Beckoning forth a baying tempest of black metal, and armored by a scabbard exoskeleton of crust punk, they delve into a sinking sense of airless dread, caressed by a current of acrid incursions and sinister presages curried by a shrowd finely woven dungeon synths. Dryad wastes no time bailing out their harvest, heaving stygian phantasms onto the wharf of your mind, where these eldritch things sprawl and writhe and wind their tendrils into the quivering clefts of your senses. The catch is good, and now the shore is littered with horrors beyond comprehension. 

Hellion - The Magic Within (Awakening Records)

Columbia's Hellion are endowed with a dark, primitive aura, a vicious primal hunger that rumbles from the very soil of the jungle, blind from anger and driven by an insatiable appetite. Their third full-length, The Magic Within, lunges forth, teeth bared, like the skeleton of a decayed jaguar, whose trapped soul suddenly reacquires its former urge to kill, and swiftly makes a go at your neck. The dark forest rebel band makes their deadly presence known by peppering your carcass with toothy waves of repeating thrash grooves, summoned by the sacrificial throaty trill of a black metal spell pilfered from Impurity, an impromptu and roughshod weapon that shoots up from a cold pool of mud, blood, and liquified carrion; biting and rending your flesh like an ax shaving through the bark of a tree. Theirs is a magic that comes from a dark place indeed. 

Bones - Vomit (Disorder-Recordings)

Brusingly kinetic death metal from the acres-wide meat locker known as Chicago. This gruff and uncompromisingly muscular group disgorges all their angst over the course of nine, stomach emptying tracks on their fourth LP, Vomit. The grooves on this god-forsaking brawler will catch you in the paunch with a boot and then sink its knee into your nose as soon as you're doubled over. And you'll probably ask these bad dudes for another as soon as you swish the blood out of your gums and reset your septum. Bones delivers the kind of punishment that is as addictive as a cold flash of vengeance; and just as satisfying too. 

Witch Vomit - A Scream From The Tomb Below (Memento Mori)

We end with another dark ritual. Another cthonic murmuration, this time rising like a death rattle from the side of a mountain, a stone barrier between our world and sphere of exile used to contain a crooked serpentess and scion of sin. Its mighty, scaled coils shaking the very fabric of reality with its inpatient thrash, causing the air to fill with a sickening rumble that shudders the humors until they dispel into disarray. Witch Vomit's A Scream From The Tomb Below will assemble all the beldams and hex-weavers of the banished and forgotten places to a single rancid pyre, a stewing pit where they may prepare the offerings of their final orgastic, wicked sabbath; presided over by a baneful guttural gurgle that tears open the sky in a torrent of acid rain and underwritten by a ripple of explosive grooves that could strip a cliff face of its graduate and leave nothing but a disfigured monument to bedlam in its place. Witch Vomit's searing death metal smirch harbors a painful echo that will spread through time until the cycle of rejuvenation and apocalyptic resolution can begin again under the cataract gaze of heartless stars. 

 

Metal Monday: Ninth Circle, Animalize, Soul Remnants, and Oxygen Destroyer

It's another Metal Monday folks. That special moment every couple of weeks when I plug some metal releases that I've been listening to. One of the greatest aspects of heavy metal is that it tends to get right to the point. To that end... 

Ninth Circle - Dis, Emerge (Self-Released)

If you're going to go to hell, why stop at the fourth, fifth, or even eighth ring? Just go all the way. Dive head first into the center of the abyss and give it some gusto! Who knows? The swirl of chaos and disembodied horror might even rise to meet you. That seems to be the hope on Dis, Emerge, the debut from Texas blackened crust and thrash band Ninth Circle. Its a grizzly and well-bile-oiled monstrosity that forges a path to its own damnable ends without restraint or remorse, sounding like some twisted spiritual bonding of Kvelertak and Watain and breath of fresh, cold hell to set the mood at a backyard beer fest near you. It will inspire a mosh of revenants so amusingly frenetic and foul that it could cause the devil to heave up partially masticated bits of Judas all over his hoves from a combination of motion-sickness and excitement. Need I go on? Dis, Emerge is disambiguously good at being bad.  

Animalize - Tapes from the Crypt (Dying Victims Productions)

Resuscitated by popular demand, France's Animalize reissued their 2020 debut Tapes from the Crypt on vinyl earlier this year. It's not hard to understand the demand once you've seen this beast in the wild- its a leopard-printed burst of deadly rock and roll fury, swift as a jungle cat, determined as a dive-bombing eagle, and proud as a lion extracting a rib from a vanquished gazelle (or luckless tourist). Tracks like "Jungle Dance" are crowd-pleasing frolics played at speeds that would give Enforcer whiplash, while hungry numbers like "Meatnight Race" combine the tasty licks and camp of classic-era hair metal with the deadly resolve and executioner's grin of Iron Madden, with a prayer going up to mighty Judas Priest in the album's final moments in the form of the lockjaw iron bite and road warrior credo of "L'Aigle de la Route." You can't cage that which can't be tamed. 

Soul Remnants - Raising The Sacrificial Dagger (Self-Released)

I learned about Soul Remnants when talking with Cody of Cryostasium a couple of months back, and I'm not sure how they remained hidden from me before that point. These guys are unbelievable! Raising The Sacrificial Dagger is their fourth LP and kind of picks up where their 2017 Ouroboros left off, constituting a reentry point into an incredibly vicious but refined variety of overdriven American melo-death, a skewering of the perceptions of pain and pleasure that would even have Pinhead taking notes. At this point, Soul Remnants riffs are as catchy as anything Hypocrisy is laying down at this late stage in their career, maybe even catchier, as the intensity of the playing never really lets up, not during the chorus, not during the bridge, or even the outros- they are maxing out the effort with every distortion summoning strum and driving percussive wallop. The vocal performances are particular exciting, with singer Mitchell Fletcher sounding like he's half hyena about three-fourths of the time, and during the remaining quarter, he sounds like he's challenging you to a fight from the opposite side of the bar while your drowning in the drippy stooper of a bad, psilocybin trip. With Raising The Sacrificial Dagger, Soul Remnants have carved for themselves an idol of rogue ambition worthy of your adoration. 

Oxygen Destroyer - Sinister Monstrosities Spawned By the Unfathomable Ignorance of Humankind (Redefining Darkness Records)

God, what a mess. Oh, you thought I was talking about Oxygen Destroyer's music? Nope. They're tight as hell. What I mean is the brazen path of destruction they leave in their wake. It's like a scaly typhoon just split the town in half like a fortune cookie... and it didn't even buy us dinner first. Oxygen Destroyer's second LP Sinister Monstrosities... is a tribute to classic kaiju cinema, from American entries like The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, to admirable UK efforts like Gorgo, to definitive Japanese titles like War of the Gargantuas. True to its inspirations, the album is relentless, unstoppable, and able to melt steel building frames with its radioactive halitosis. It's on the technical side of the death-thrash equation, but with a strong emphasis on groove, and singer Lord Kaiju's notably gesticular performances, the band deploys its skills effectively to embark on a captivating and raucous rampage. Like the end of most monster movies though, and despite the carnage that the titular beast has unleashed, you'll find yourself missing the gargantuan presence of Oxygen Destroyer once their swath of terror through your town has led them back to the open sea. However, their bittersweet departure will only make their return in a much-anticipated sequel all the more triumphant... hopefully you've upped your home insurance coverage by then. 

Metal Monday: Belushi Speed Ball, Foot, Limousine Beach & Mortal Relic

For the first Metal Monday of 2023 we're keeping it on the lighter side. Metal can be a dark and depressing place, with themes of depravity, mayhem and wanton bloodshed filling its tomes... and we haven't even touched on the anti-social stuff yet! So instead of finding the evilest, meanest-sounding bands I could, I'm offering you a short list of artists who have a sense of humor and humility. More than that, these bands are fun (imho)! This is the fun metal list. Welcome to 2023! The fun year! 

Belushi Speed Ball - What, Us Worry (SonaBlast! Records)

I had heard rumors of Louisville's Belushi Speed Ball and their misdeeds and misadventures for many a year. It's honestly kind of shameful that I didn't take the time to listen to them until about three weeks ago. From what I can tell, they've been around since at least 2014, doing a kind of sonic parody thrash-punk hybrid in the vein of Lich King, who are themselves more of a "fun-guy-at-a-bar-fight" blending of VIO-LENCE and S.O.D. I anticipated a party band with some riffs. I did not anticipate that Belushi could convert some semblance of a shenanigan-fueled jamboree with any sort of life-like fidelity to a record like What, Us Worry. I'm struggling to find parallels with other "funny" thrash bands like Gwar and Ghoul, because as much as those other bands commit to the bit, they lack Belushi's raw (and even, at times, distressing) sense of spontaneity. I am encountering a kind of delightful consternation with this album. I want to shout, "WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!?" about every three minutes. But I am counseled by the sage advice which the album's title evokes. Honestly, you kind of have to be along for the ride with this one. All the knuckle-scalping, side-winding riffs that you'd expect from a modern thrash album are here, but the wild energy and genre-twisting antics of What, Us Worry is without a genuine pear, plunging like a trust-fall mixed with a head-first stage-dive into the jaws of death, they bungee between biceps-flexing hardcore and pickled-brained ska, while somehow still managing to cram in an entire grindcore album worth of material into the last four minutes of runtime. I'd be remiss if I failed to mention that there is song length riff on a Spongbob bit, too... and it kind of slaps. This album also contains some of the weirdest fucking skits I've ever heard. Like, they kind of have the structure of psychotic episodes or mass delusions. It all seems to work because the band makes you feel like you're in on the joke, which beyond the musicianship, is a true feat of showmanship (or possibly a sign that I'm susceptible to professional-grade malarkey [Or both!]). My poor brain and my liver feel bruised and abused after imbibing to this record multiple times, and yet I still feel obliged to recommend it to you. Is it possible that I've become such a glutton for punishment that I'm compelled to divert the overflow of my anguish downstream to you? Or maybe, just maybe, Belushi really is just that fucking good at what they do. Either way- THINK FAST! 'cause here comes a Speed Ball, center plate and up your nose! 

Foot - You are Weightless (Copper Feast Records)

Australia's Foot earnestly have one of the better takes on the whole stoner/ dessert rock thing that I've heard in a while. This area of rock and roll really only has two speeds, either gunning for a land speed record or hitting the emergency break and letting things grind out at a lurching crawl- either way you're going to be in danger of heatstroke from all the microwaving feedback the guitars give off. Foot's innovation on their latest album You Are Weightless is to strike a balance between the two oft-elected gears and keep things buoyant and discernably temperate. While a lot of stoner rock intends to be set in space, very few actually illicit the sensation of floating in the void, something the band accomplishes consistently with overlapping and oscillating grooves, skyward punching organ riffs, and satellite signaling electronics a la latter-day Cave In. They also freshen things up with cool, mucky distortion and mirky, smooth, determined and oddly ominous melodies that trace a kabbalistic thread between Alice in Chains and Ghost. There is also a cover of Yeah Yeah Yeah's "Gold Lion" situated in the middle of this baby, which is alright by me! 

Limousine Beach - Limousine Beach (Tee Pee Records)

Limousine Beach are cruising at their own delightful pace on their self-titled for Tee Pee Records. The album harkens back to a simpler time in rock and metal's storied past, to an era when everyone lived for the weekend, tights were a wardrobe option for all sexes/genders, and a big enough riff could take you anywhere you wanted to go. I love that the band is reviving Phil Lynott's playing and guitar tones with the record and bending them to a simple kind of hook structure that you'd expect from one of Kiss's jaw-dropping smackers. It's kind of the best of both those worlds. They then mix it up a bit more with some Deep Purple propulsion on the likes of "Black Market Bus Pass," then stir up some proto-hair metal entanglements with "Hear You Callin'" and even let in a light breeze of Styx-esque whimsy on the opener "Stealin' Wine." In the dead of winter, everyone needs a get-away, and Limousine Beach is offering as good of a destination as any to escape from the ice-box doldrums of January. 

Mortal Relic - Lair of the Dungeon Lord (WereGnome Records)

This isn't strictly a metal album, but it kind of gets the vibe right. Especially, if you're into the more cosmic-sounding stuff, or like me, are a huge nerd. Mortal Relic's Lair of the Dungeon Lord is a dungeon-crawler-themed synthwave record that sounds like it is attempting to soundtrack a documentary on supernova formations. Just as often, though, it is an acoustic, medieval folk album... that is also attempting to soundtrack a documentary on meteorites that periodically tour our corner of the galaxy. Did I mention this thing sounds like it's from outer space? Well, it does. It's also pretty wholesome and cozy feeling at times, which is not what I would expect for an album that takes as its premise the plundering of tombs and the mass slaying of Kobolds. If you're going to be up late for any reason, particularly doing something creative, this is hard to beat. Also, there is one black metal track. It's near the end and it's called "Battle Magic." So it counts for the list, after all. I bet feel silly now for having doubted me.  

Metal Monday: Wake, Cryptae, Destillat, & Gridlink

It's another Metal Monday! Huzzah! I've once again picked four metal albums from my recent rotation of heavy and Hail Satan-ing albums to say a little something about. I picked these albums based only on the fact that they inspired me to write something about them. Like most things I do with the blog, there is/was/may never be a plan. I'm just feelin' out a vibe here folks. Funnily enough, a theme did emerge. All of the albums I wanted to write about turned out to be one flavor or another of death metal. So that's what we're going with tonight. Welcome to Metal Monday: Four Ways to Die Edition!

Wake - Thought Form Descent (Metal Blade)

Your first death tonight is by drowning. I have been witness to Calgary's Wake in the grips of an escalating, fast-progressing evolution since they caught my eye with 2018's Misery Rites. Since then, they have emerged from a state of hideous, Vermin Womb gestated punk and grind, and through the masticating gauntlet of 2020's Devouring Ruin, where the tenor of their increasing technical proficiency took on the arduous acrimony of black metal, and now through their latest album, Thought Form Descent, they have managed to ascend to a new plateau of transcendence. Their latest LP sees the band embodying a form akin to a liquid golem, one that can evaporate, freeze and flood at will- splashing between the cataract maelstrom of Inter Arma and the plague-bearing death rattle of Hissing, all while burying you in a concrete pour of sound so dense that it will squeeze the oxygen out of you like steam screaming from a tea kettle. This crush of gratuitous hostility is not just impenetrable, but veering on inexplicable as well, as throughlines of psychedelic guitars whip and parry throughout its intestines like electric eels gliding around the interior of a glacier, writhing and taunting as if they were thrashing in shallow water rather than the impassable interior of a wall of stone-solid ice. You will sink so fast into Thought Form Descent that you'll barely have the chance to scream before you disappear below the tension of its troubled, fluid mantel. 

Cryptae - Capsule (Sentient Ruin Laboratories)

Your second death is by way of madness. Cryptae is a Dutch death metal band, comprised of Kees Peerdeman of Heavy Natural and René Aquarius of... so many bands, not the least of which is Dead Neanderthals (my personal favorite of all of his projects). Their second LP, Capsule has the mechanistic and fatalistic character of Portal attempting to write a Cynic tribute album, only to be murdered and replaced by AI-enabled automatons who repurposed the album into a weapon of psychological warfare. The production is raw, and yet you can hear every tendon-sheering guitar chord and the spray of spital from every teeth-baring snarl. The structure of the tracks is a maze of circuitous passages, winding and intersecting beneath its own folds and muscular undulations like a heap of pythons engaging in incestuous coitus. Motherboards melt over fretboards, flesh fuses with fiber optics mesh, and heartbeats come to echo electronic polyrhythms. A merging of machine and human malice in an asylum of absolute dread. Capsule is the prism through which we may view our ultimate destiny and defeat. 

Destillat - Under Black Horizons (Self-Released)

Your third death is by poisoning. This ignominious end comes courtesy of German's Destillat, whose debut LP Under Black Horizons is the product of a venomous ferment of melo-death and black metal. Lyrical guitar solos rise into the air like volleys of arrows before a marauding groove sweeps your legs and the gnashing, war-dog snap and minor-dragon breath of fire that is the vocals start ripping at your exposed cadaver, spreading your entrails around like lunchmeat from an upturned lunchpail. It's unsavory and difficult to discount, like the taste of blood slowly spreading throughout your mouth and mixing with your saliva. Tales of war, lust, and greed, distilled into rumbling charges of moral soothsaying of near-operatic proportions- dragging you to a peak of emotions in order to show you how far man's folly can cause him to fall. Under Black Horizons tells a tale older than time, and teaches a lesson older than grave dirt- the deadliest poison in human history has always been his own hubris. 

Gridlink - Longhena (Selfmadegod Records)

Your fourth death this evening shall be by vivisection and your surgeon/executioner is Japan's Gridlink. They aren't traditional death metal or grindcore band (by any stretch of the imagination) but they get the job done. Longhena was the band's last album before splitting up. Released in 2014, it was the pinnacle of artfully pristine and precise intentionality, manifest through frenetic guitar playing and impeccably timed, tension-bursting grooves. Grindcore is generally considered the sloppy and willfully homely cousin of both metal and punk, but Gridlink was able to show that it could be something beautiful and refined when taken seriously. Longhena is as much a science as an art, and its cutting precision and conscious musicality still make many modern metal albums look like the petrified skeletons of malformed prehistroic beasts. For these reasons, and so many more, Gridlink will always be king. What an honor it must be to meet them in both of your final, and finest hours. 

Metal Monday: Sweet Cobra, City & i.o, Dødskvad & Chainbreaker

Dipping back into the dungeon vaults for another Metal Monday tonight. As usual, these are some of the metal albums that I've been listening to lately and that I felt like I had something to say about. I'm starting off with two more progressive and experimental albums and rounding off with two mayhem-wielding records for those who prefer a more old-school style. Regardless of what you're into, I hope you find something you like here. 

Sweet Cobra - Threes (Pax Aeternum Digital)

Threes is not Sweet Cobra's third album. The Chicago band has been around for close to twenty years, and have kept a dependable release schedule over these many, many years. The most conclusive answer I can offer as to the record's name is that it's a reference to the stable trifecta that forms the group's line up; vocalist and bassist Timothy Remis, guitarist Robert Arthur Lanham Jr., and drummer Jason Gagovski. Birthed into the underground as a hardcore band in 2004, they've consistently been challenging their own habits and evolving their punk sensibilities ever since. While it appeared as if they had all but embraced a well-earned metal pedigree by the mid-'10s, they've once again sidestepped the shadow of their own legacy with Threes. The album has as its base, the sludgy post-hardcore of their 2015 album Earth, but tracts towards more eclectic territory with the supple psychedelic folk-grunge of "Least Worst," earnest and dust-laden confessions and covenants such as "Alive On Arrival" and dreamy, twisted noise-hymnals in the vein of "Fable." And while it may not be very metal, it is impressive to see Sweet Cobra try their hand at some Mid-Western garage thunder and power-pop when it comes to the live-wire hook-peel of "Escaped Goat." Luck may come in threes, but an album like this is one of a kind. 

City & i.o - Chaos is God Neighbour (Éditions Appærent)

I don't know that the primarily ambient and brutal electronica experiment City & i.o would consider themselves a metal project, but their music tends to fill a similar nitch for me in terms of what I look for in a metal album; intensity, transgression, and brazenly dark forays into the imagination. Also, their album Chaos is God Neighbour features blast beats and shrieking black metal vocals, so I would say that the facts are in favor of including them on this list. Chaos is God Neighbour was written in blitz during 2020, giving it a frenzied and claustrophobic feel, and accomplishes the task of taking the listener on a truly harrowing journey. As a bold move, they begin the album with the longest track (6 minutes 38 seconds) and proceed with tracks of ever-shortening length on through to the finale which clocks in at a trim minute thirty. You can think of it like climbing a mountain that has been inverted. The base is wider, the incline is gradual, and its features are more accommodating. But as you continue your downward ascent, the area you have to grasp becomes more narrow, the surfaces steep and treacherous, and its elements harsher and more unforgiving. As you progress, the mists and clouds around become a sheet of hail, and you are battered with increasing intensity until you reach the summit and find sanctuary. By the end, you feel like you've been through some kind of ritual. A purification of the darkest order which you may be the only living soul to have seen through to the end. 

Dødskvad - Kr​ø​nike II (Caligari Records)

Krønike II continues the Norwegian death metal band Dødskvad's exploration of their country's bloody and heathen past. A sequel to, what else, Krønike I, the album punctures the assumed procession of time, causing it to shrivel and recoil with filthy blood and glory grooves, slicing steely riffs, percussion that sounds like the footsteps of a battalion of lost souls, and phantasmal synth interventions that thicken the mix with an imposing sense of foreboding awe. The heavy atmosphere of the album makes it all the more dramatic when a solo cuts through the formidable aura, producing a supernatural hue and showering sparks, like a bolt of lightning striking a sword that had been plowed into the dirt to mark the grave of a fallen soldier. Kr​ø​nike II is a place where the skeletal hand of vanquished warriors still has a grip on the present, for the dead become restless and eager when Dødskvad takes up the reigns. 

Chainbreaker - Lethal Desire (Hells Headbangers)

Roadwarrior speed metal from the land of Razor and Slaughter. Chainbreaker formed in 2013 but didn't unleash their battle-hardened debut Lethal Desire until 2019. Why rush perfection? That's a rhetorical question. Because you can't! This very fast, very mean, and unapologetically virile heavy metal that was made to soundtrack the ransacking and raising to the ground of your hometown. Swift and precisely deadly, it continues the tradition of legendary Canadian speed without feeling derivative or out of touch. But, you know, with riffs this badass and chopper-grooves this fierce, I'd be afraid to imply anything else. The way these guys handle their instruments, it feels like any one of them could benchpress me one-handed. I mean, they'd have to be a bunch of sons of bitches to make an album like this! Lethal Desire is a rarefied masterwork of sheer power! 

Metal Monday: Rolo Tomassi, Vanda, Warcoe & Lord Dying

Alas, another Monday is upon us and I have therefore taken up the burden of trudging my way down to the belly of my metal vaults to retrieve some malformed treasures to bestow upon you. We're starting out with the highly conceptual new album from UK's Rolo Tomassi and ending with a lash of brutality from Portland's Lord Dying. There is no theme this week. These are just some of the metal albums I listened to today and that I felt inspired to write about. 

Rolo Tomassi - Where Myth Becomes Memory (MNRK Heavy)

It's hard to keep a bead on where the UK's Rolo Tomassi is headed next with their sound. The only thing that is certain is that they will always be on the move. First taking shape in the metalcore scene of the mid-00s, they have fashioned for themselves many different permutations over the years, from shoegaze rockers, to acid jazz jockies, to ambient architects, to sonic cosmonauts, only to finally come back to roost in their metalcore roots, darker and more dangerous sounding than before. Their latest album Where Myth Becomes Memory is the latest incarnation of their perfidious, shadowy cosmic-core phase. The last in a three-part series (following 2015's Grievances and 2018's Time Will Die And Love Will Bury It), the band takes the time on this album to contrast their dichotomous aural belligerence with increasingly golden guitar tones and a bath of cleansing feedback, which showers the progressive unfurling of their designs in an air of forgiveness and redemption. Part feral space horror; 2/3rds divine epiphany; all the stuff of legends. 

Vanda - Covenant of Death (Majestic Mountain Records)

Vånda is a truly wicked-sounding band. They emerge from Stockholm as if they've just rushed out of the deep woods- blood streaked across their faces, wild mayhem in their eyes, hair thick, wet and gnarled as if they've been sweating petroleum, and with fire leaping up from the footprints left by every galloping step. Their steps spark and ignite their surroundings as they move with maligned intention- a farce of humanity cast by the devil himself. A human-shaped avalanche of death that is now bearing down upon you. Apocalyptic imagery aside, Vånda's debut Covenant of Death most assuredly hits a sour, satisfying balance of death-thrash and black metal in a way that few bands can. They're like Watain if they focused less on shock value and more on the structure of their songs, or Necrophobic but with more earthy grit and a firm undertow of incurable gothica. Covenant of Death will leave you headbanging the whole time that you're fleeing for your life.

Warcoe - The Giant's Dream (Morbid And Miserable Records / Forbidden Place Records)

Italy's Warcoe nails the occult ambiance and aura that a lot of '60s heavy metal was able to tap into on their debut LP The Giant's Dream. Relying on melodic guitar grooves to do the bulk of the lifting on these tracks, they paint a picture of arcane practices and bring the essence of ancient knowledge thundering into the breach of the modern world. When I hear these high-cast, burning guitar riffs lumbering through the cool muddy pound of percussion, I am visited by visions of wizards pouring over ancient texts to discover the secrets of turning dragon scales into gold, or various tales of misfortune, such as a poor shepherd who stumbles into a tomb of forgotten treasures where he encounters a scroll that turns him into a great hungry wolf. It's hard to imagine containing the untamed, willful and timeless motion of these songs within the confines of a single eight-track album. You might as well be trying to push a glacier across the tundra with your bare hands, yet Warcoe proves themselves more than man enough for the task. The Giant's Dream is truly a beast and Warcoe are both its progenitor and its master. 

Lord Dying - Poisoned Altars (Relapse Records)

To me, Lord Dying belongs to that era of the mid-'10s when sludge metal appeared to be finding new inroads into the realms of death metal and hard rock with results that, improbably, had some hooky commercial potential to them. Red Fang appears to be the most successful of the band to come out of that milieu, but Lord Dying had a lot going for them as well, as a darker and more outwardly punishing version Inter Arma and a more direct and less cosmically inclined version of early Mastodon, Lord Dying on their second LP Poisoned Altars have wrought forth an absolutely crushing affair that still manages to pack in some captivating hooks among all the deluge of bruising riffs. And when I say captivating, I mean it! Tracks like "A Wound Outside of Time" and "Offering Pain (and An Open Minded Center)" literally feel like they are trying to warp themselves around you with snaky grooves and put you in a headlock. Every half-choked, half-sung line forcefully ejected from singer Erik Olson mouth feels like a narrowly missed haymaker, rushing past you and creating a frightening vacuum in its wake. Ultimately, I think the key to their aggression can be unlocked by clues found on the track "Suckling at the Teat of a She-Beast" which feels like a combination of crust punk and West-Coast chopper rock, that will educate you in the ways of their brutality in the most hostile ways possible. Lord Dying went in a more space-rock and psychedelic route with their 2019 album Mysterium Tremendum, but 2015's Poison Altars is still the pinnacle of their discography, in my opinion. Long live Lord Dying! 

Metal Monday: Looprider, Ruthless, Drawn and Quartered, & Indian

It's a Monday. I'm listening to metal. It's a Metal Monday. I've put together another smorgasbord of short reviews covering some metal I've been listening to lately. There is no unifying theme, these are just albums I've been listening to and felt like writing about... Alright, I lied. There is a theme. All the cover art prominently features skulls and/or skeletons. A very rare motif when it comes to heavy metal visuals. You're very unlikely to see this many skulls/skeletons anywhere again, so count yourself lucky. 

Looprider - Ouroboros (Call And Response Records)

Nothing helps take the edge off a long day like some spacy stoner metal, and Looprider's Ouroboros is spacier than most. Think Kyuss on an international space mission with Boris on the ground in Houston, guiding their atmospheric trajectory. You almost need to take the "stone" out of the word "stoner" to properly describe how much altitude the band is getting on this album. I mean, they are getting high as fuck and these songs seem almost weightless as a result! As lofty as the Japanese group's melodies and post-structural writing style get though, Ouroboros is still a rock album at heart. QED: super hot cruisers like "Reactor" and "NWOBHM" that get a boost from borrowed Queens of the Stone Age riffs in order to tear up the desert and turn it into a field of glass shards. Of course, if you want to feel the burn at a lower RPM there is always the ashy blues of "Heavenless" and the title track. Whatever your speed and preferred burn-rate, Ouroboros will meet you there. 

Ruthless - Evil Within (Pure Steel Records)

If Ruthless is best known for anything it's their 1984 EP Metal Without Mercy. This is totally legitimate. That album is a classic slab of American heavy metal. They aren't resting on their laurels through and are constantly demonstrating their willingness to grow and expand on their past successes. The Ruthless released their comeback album They Rise back in 2015 and then followed it up in 2019 with Evil Within- the latter of which is by far my favorite of their catalog. Like Satan with 2018's Cruel Magic, Ruthless have managed to give an old-school heavy metal formula a facelift, making it sharper and deadlier than ever. I really love the locked groove thrash, duel guitar harmonies, and ground-quaking thump of "Atrocities" and really get a jolt from "In Blood," which exudes a shaggy kind of speed metal stoicism with their reliance on steely melodies and marching progressions. Most impressive of all is how physical and restive Ruthless sounds, almost like they were storing their energy in a battery pack during their hiatus and are now releasing it in controlled bursts of ultra-focused artistic aggression. If I didn't know any better, I'd think Evil Within was made by a bunch of dudes in their '20s. One thing is clear though, Ruthless still knows no mercy. 

Drawn and Quartered - Congregation Pestilence (Krucyator Productions)

Ok, here is another blast from the past for you. Drawn and Quartered have hailed from Seattle since 1994 (and even earlier under the name Plague Bearer). Their latest album Congregation Pestilence is their eighth overall and represents the mindset of a band that is used to ruining people's days with ugly, dissident sounds and couldn't think of anything they'd rather do, even if the opportunity presented itself. This album is all about grim, deliberate death metal, played with painful clarity in a soup of misery. They can build cavernous spaces of deathly atmosphere like Hypocrisy while painting articulate pictures with elaborate, gory riffs like Autopsy. The core of the songs are simple but are layered with complexity to provide a sense of retrograde in action- like your mind is slipping backward into a primordial, cro-magnon state. If you are looking to rally around a death metal record today to introduce some steady mayhem into your life, make it Congregation Pestilence. 

Indian - From All Purity (Relapse Records)

Some writers/reviewers like to include a pick at the end of their list as a pallet cleanser. Something a little different but benign to even things out before sending you on your way. Chicago's Indian is more of a pallet spoiler. Their last album From All Purity is from 2014 and is uncomfortable, to say the least. Like having bear spray funneled into your ear canal, or like having a tarantula crawled down your throat and begin making a nest in your stomach. It makes you feel just awful and like you need to escape your own skin somehow- which I'm pretty sure is the point. There is a certain amount of perverse joy in seeing of low of a mood you can obtain, and Indian's acidic cacophony, coal-tar-caked riffs, organ liquifying rhythmic mutilation rituals, and the absolutely bloodless shriek of the vocal work will undoubtedly get you there as you are overwhelmed by cresting waves of unrelenting antipathy on "The Impetus Bleeds," the dislocating eclipse in trepidation of "Directional," and the oppositionally defined and calculatingly thuggish "Rhetoric of No." The only rectitude From All Purity has is in its ability to embody the profane. 

Metal Monday: Tzompantli, Dungeon Serpent, Fading Trail, and Brain Tentacles

Wrote a quick and dirty list of some metal I've been enjoying lately. Some new, some old. All brutal and badass in their own right. I know I say this every time, but I'm going to try and do these more often (but I mean it this time!). I have a couple hundred metal releases that I've been meaning to get and I do enjoy making these lists- it's just a matter of finding the time to do them. I'm committed, though. Watch out!  In the meantime, check out what I've got for you below and get ready to roundhouse the hell out of the Monday blues (and the rest of your week!). 

Tzompantli - Tlazcaltiliztli (20 Buck Spin)

I'm starting things off here at a good mid-paced chug by introducing you to Tzompantli's debut LP Tlazcaltiliztli. The band is one of many death metal side projects from Brian "Bigg o)))" Ortiz, who is one of the malevolent forces behind the hardcore band Xibalba. Here he teams up with bassist G-Bone and drummer Erol Ulug to construct a gruesome, towering tribute to Aztec and Mesoamerican cultures. The name of the album, Tlazcaltiliztli, is the Nahuatl word for "nourishing the sun with blood"- I bet you can't guess how that might work.  A fitting title for an album of this style and intensity. Tlazcaltiliztli consists of generally severe and brooding death metal, played as if the Paradice Lost were keeping time, with overt nods to the band's tribal and folkier affiliations, used to illuminate themes and break up the brutality on tracks like "Eltequi" and opener "Yaohuehuetl." It's a very kick-ass way to start things off here tonight and will hopefully teach you a bit about the pre-colonial history of the Americas that they might have glossed over in school. 

Dungeon Serpent - World of Sorrows (Nameless Grave Records)

Leaving the ancient Americas, we now forge ahead to the frigid north of British Columbia, where we will encounter a different but recognizable very menace. Dungeon Serpent owes its origins to one man, Arawn, a guy who pretty much does everything himself, except play live (he has friends to help him with that). Dungeon Serpent released their debut LP World of Sorrows last year with a singular goal- cut against the grain of metal trends. It's a self-consciously traditional, melodic death metal album in the vein of classic Rotting Christ and early Kataklysm, where the incendiary drum patterns scold and pock-mark the skin, low-terrifying-vocals conjure an aura of madness and menace, and the guitars do most of the talking- and they have nary a nice thing to say to the likes of a brigand such as you. World of Sorrows is a stone-cold slay fest that takes zero prisoners. Most surprisingly, it feels more innovative than stuff from other death metal bands who proclaim themselves to be "breakers of the mold," which is nothing if not an endorsement of the passion and anger Arawn brings to the project.

Fading Trail - Count The Days (Every Day Hate)

Alright, now we're really picking up the pace. Fading Trail is a grindcore band, who, in grindcore fashion, starts their debut album, Count The Days, with an irreverent audio clip. This selected slice of inanity appears to be from a psychological examination of Jeffery Dahmer, where a doctor is repeating what his patient has just told him: "You're patient, with a good ear, who tries to help people...," to which a man's voice replies, "Yes," promoting the doctor to retort with exacerbation, "... when you're not trying to murder them," followed by the same man's voice replying again, "Yes." A quote like that is like a good couple of pumps of the primer bulb lending extra gusto to the opening riff which takes off like it had started up off the first tug on its pull cord. Fading Trail is a well-oiled death-grinding machine and Count The Days is a beautifully deranged album- a dirty, senseless, bloody chaos without rhyme or reason other than to personify a torrential, surging essence of disorder. Grinding, galloping grooves and toothy vocal performances in line with present-day Napalm Death and Nasum, minus the electronic interference. Count The Days is short, savage and clinically unhinged- it might be over before you can say "25 to life," but the scars it will leave on your psyche will last a lifetime. 

Brain Tentacles - Brain Tentacles (Relapse)

Alright, time to get weird with it as we bring it back home. Brain Tentacles are a three-man crew out of Chicago featuring vocalist Bruce Lamont of Yakuza on saxophone and synths, Dave Witte of Municipal Waste on drums, and Aaron Dillson of Keelhaul on bass and synth (also). Together they perform a warped and often humorous hybrid of death metal, sludge metal, and improvisational jazz. There are no electric guitars on this album- which is an experiment in its own right- but when you layer in those wild synths and sax textures, it's like you're coasting into another reality entirely. The jittering, eastern-influenced sax melodies of "Fruitcake" dance atop deep, tarry bass riffs trying to keep their heads above a black, boiling demise, next, the saxy, death-sludge lurch and discordant hammering of "Cosmic Warriors Girth Curse" ushers forth giggling tides of dissonant, fathomless incongruousness. "The Spoiler" sounds like you're trying to escape from a doomed ship that is halfway down the gullet of a giant wail while you're being prematurely eulogized by some mocking combination of Jesus Lizard and Primus. And, lastly, the smoky, pensive and turbulent, bass-anchored neo-noir soundscape of "Fata Morgana" will leave you feeling forlorn and homesick in a city whose name your forgot after nearly drowning yourself in a river of whisky and regret. Their self-titled squirmed its way out and onto the scene back in 2016 and it still got a grip on me like it was one of the Kraken's own mighty, sucking appendages. This beast has staying power!