SÓLSTAFIR – Ótta – Season of Mist

The post-rock from Reykjavik.

From old Black Metal of the first album Í Blóði og Anda to this new Ótta, Sólstafir has changed a great deal, nowadays practicing what is so called post-rock.

While still maintaining the natural atmosphere and ambience that is intrinsic to the Black Metal music, the vocals of Aðalbjörn Tryggvason has morphed into something more poppy and easy to digest (although kind of unbearable for die-hards of the real black metal cult).

Ótta is an album made of nuances, subtle changes but great expectations, as any “big band” in the threshold of Black and Rock must be.

Th epic Icelandic first track summarizes the album: called Lágnætti is a long song, with ambient parts that bears a great resemblance to the band’s past, but always keeping things a little lower profile by vocal delivering, nonetheless with great passages and larger-than-life phrases making the whole thing a great opus.

The title track is not that different, with more atmospheric parts that makes up for the bulk of the whole 9 minutes of music, intersected by heavy passages, but with long bridges that link the whole.

Other tracks are not so satisfying, exactly by the lack of this grandiose factor, which make them little rock anthems, well-suited for the non-radical headbanger. These songs are Rismál, Dagmál and Middegi. Up to this point the album swings between great poetry and pop rock onsets.

The bleakness and downcastness of heavy-hearted 11-minute Náttmál puts the album over again on the track of hermetic balladry of great value. Rich textures and imaginative composition transform this song into a true Nordic Saga.

Ótta is recommended, most of all, for those who like their metal cold with bits of amiable tunes, far from their wicked black metal days, but somewhat retaining the coldness of before.

Ótta is out now on Season of Mist

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(Daniel Death)

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EXPAIN – Just The Tip – Self-Release

Technical what?

Expain is a band from Vancouver that they say practice a kind of technical death and thrash metal, you name it. But for me they are just another concealed “-core” band.

Okay, okay, the instrumental is very good! They really dominate the whole thing and the production is on spot, very well done indeed although I don’t see any extraterrestrial technical skills in them to justify the name…

Songs like Don’t Worry, The Worst Is Yet to Come has its moments with great solos and all the brouhaha or the craziness of old Meshuggah-like Allegiance To Pain with a good middle session…

But the real problem here is the goddamned vocals!!! The guy – Daniel Brand – happens to scream over and over again, indefinitely and (as it seems) infinitely! There isn’t any technical skill in his voice and he’s happy to keep things in monotone mode. Imagine Danny Filth but worst! Yes dude it’s that bad…

More so, it’s clear that he draws his influences from the metalcore scene and he pollutes the whole band, they decided to repackage it and sell as if it was the ultimate technical band around: think about GREAT technical acts of the past like (OLD) Cynic, Atheist, Death or Pestilence or more recent bands like the greatest Neuraxis… they resemble none of that! They, at their best, copy and paste bands like Carnifex… bleaaargh.

It’s not the first time it happens but here goes my advice again for those who are ABLE to hear it: slightly change the style of vocals to something more “real”, and the band will follow suit, then you’ll have a technical band because competence it’s a thing that’s in Expain DNA. Come back here and show me a goddamn tech album for fuck sake!

Just The Tip is out now and it is Self-Released

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(Daniel Death)

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Servants of the Mist – Gross Knowledge of Genital Mutilation – Self Released

Doom galore.

This is a band that is funeral to the limits: Servants of the Mist is sludge droneful entity that hails from Florida, and they mean business!

Their sound is so despondent that it makes me want to kill myself.

First track called Sadism & Suffering is a drone/dark ambient piece serving as introduction while the second song Undeserving is ultra slow and sludgy with guitar effects that resounds white noise proper, the basslines are lowest pitched and the whole song has the slowest BPM at infra-frequencies: low and slow…

Next track is noneless than a GG Allin track Commit Suicide which fits perfectly to the whole work… It’s always great to hear a cover of the great GG…

Gross Knowledge of Genital Mutilation is the last one and over again they dabble with infrasound in forlorn fashion. Industrial parts in loop may occur and out of the blue the drone guitar appears to cause irritation in militant riffs just to give place to the rhythm session over again with a bass that seems it was plugged in a guitar amp… everything is so slow motion that it seems the listener is on drugs…

Gross Knowledge of Genital Mutilation is a great work in a great state of art and if you are a drone/doom/funeral buff, make your way to get this little gem of underground lore.

Gross Knowledge of Genital Mutilation  is out now and it’s Self Released 

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(Daniel Death)

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THE MEGS – Awakening – PURE STEEL PUBLISHING

Misguided Italian guys…

This is the third work of The Megs, being an EP and an album preceding this album Awakening.

This album is problematic from the very beginning, a kind of kinky hard rock with the most amateurish production encounters talentless boys with a visual for rock stars and songs of boyish boredom.

Every song is a chore for the poor listener and it seems that it could never get worse, but they have a forte for loser songs…

For example, songs like What I would Like (which the band proclaims it’s the ultimate rocker anthem) or Follow the White Rabbit are crappy but nothing ever surpass the dispirited Rain Of Sand with the terrible vocal work that makes me want to put my head under the rug, feeling a kind of “third person shame”. But everything else is bad and equivocated. I seriously will never understand these guys who really think they are the next big thing in rock and next thing you know they’re washing cars… maybe they are rich but who cares about their art?

Blackout is just as bad as the name infers (seriously, haven’t they ever heard about some ol’ guys called Scorpions???? C’mon….)

My Time is pathetic beyond control!

Well I guess is useless to pan the band for every single mistake: I would end up writing a book and that’s not my intention… Some guys have to understand they weren’t born for rock n roll, and if one day a band as The Megs takes the parades by the storm, I vow to throw out the towel and go work on something else because it’s the day the rock is fucking dead!

Awakening is out now on PURE STEEL PUBLISHING

 

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(Daniel Death)

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Axegressor – Last – Listenable Records

Pure energy from Finland.

Pure thrash metal attack is hard to hear these days. Okay, it’s not THAT hard as there is a band in each corner of the big and small cities, but Axegressor don’t get their kicks by simply imitating the cheap production of the past although their influences of Destruction, Exodus and Dark Angel (not to invoke other thrash metal titans) are quite apparent, and despite the fact they have a modern production they DO NOT DO modern thrash metal, core or any other shit like that. They are honest thrash metal to honest metal heads across the globe.

Freedom Illusion has a somewhat annoying arrested first part whereas they put the pedal to the metal and thrash metal starts to explode from the speakers like a torrent of manic pummeling which will make heads bang and twang and posers hang with pang.

If Lead Justice and Mind Castration are not the best samples of the ultimate thrash metal band, songs like Merciless Reality Check and 15 give the giants a run for their money with packed thrash metal attack and the absolute domination comes with the flawless track Social Pressure executed with Thrash Metal devotion of old boosters.

If nothing else, Last by Axegressor is a great album to put some savagery while the drinking binge is going on with your crazy friends… This is the perfect soundtrack.

Last is out now Listenable Records.

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(Daniel Death)

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Ciberpajé – Invocação da Serpente – Lunare Music

Another Chef D’ouvre from Brazilian Multimedia Artist.

Edgar Franco (the master behind the most important Dark Ambient band from Brazil – Posthuman Tantra) is a multimedia artist whose career includes music, poetry, design, experimentation…

But this time around he’s back with his aphorisms which he posts in his Facebook page called Aforismos do Ciberpajé: https://www.facebook.com/aforismosdociberpaje .

The differential part now is that he turned his written philosophy into music and what a great experiment!!

Ciberpajé (the proper project) includes some 6 minutes of music and three intricate songs.

The first track is the one which gives its name to the EP, a tribal dark ambient dabbling with industrial music, which is intense and menacing, perfect for nightly rituals.

Aforismo I is even more obscure with a snail’s pace tempo and over again the tribal parts appear along with his spoken poetry in the distant background… The soundscape is incredible and the textures keep the listener attention all through the execution.

Aforismo II is a total Dark Ambient, with his spoken word even more threatening!

Well I’m a great fan of his other works, including Posthuman Tantra which is one of my main influences, but I do hope he releases other EP’s, singles and albums of this Ciberpajé project in the near future. It’s sublime music for chosen minds.

Invocação da Serpente is out now for FREE on Lunare Music . Link http://lunarelabel.bandcamp.com/album/ciberpaj-invoca-o-da-serpente

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(Daniel Death)

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Devangelic – Resurrection Denied – Comatose Music

Debut album from this Italian Behemoths of Brutal Music!

I can say for sure that this is one of the best debut albums that I’ve heard at least since 2000… I mean there a lot of excellent and good bands out there but this one caught my ears for some reason…

Brutal and technical death metal played with disgust and gore intentions this is the perfect balance between brutal, technical and old school.

If I have to name some bands to compare, I’d say Aborted, Suffocation or Cattle Decapitation but this is to wane the importance of these guys whose sound has some hint of originality and a sound that takes over the whole room with noise and gusto.

Songs like Eucharistic Savagery shows right out the bat what these guys intentions are about and they are not good: they just want to slaughter as many people as possible with their machine gun of unrelenting persuasion: the riffs are packed the drumming is on spot and the song is dead on.

Crown of Entrails, Disfigured Embodiment and Unfathomed Evisceration follow suit with great guitar works and no prisoners left behind amidst the organized chaos that they intend to impose to humanity in shards of brutal endless energy.

But my absolute faves are the last ones Apostolic Dismembering and Devouring the Consecrated: this is not music, this is poetry!!! Brutal engagement to the real headbangers and fans this band is sure to take their throne in the death metal pantheon.

Resurrection Denied is not only a good album, but of excellent taste only for gourmets of real and visceral death metal. They are not here to kid. They are here to destroy you!!!!

Resurrection Denied is out now on Comatose Music

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(Daniel Death)

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