Sammath: Across the Rhine is Only Death (2019)

It was the album title and the cover photograph that grabbed my attention with this one.  There is little more hellish than war and the Rhine River was an important battlefield during World War II.  The album cover captures this, with the bleak color and feelings of isolation on the way to possible death.  It is an incredibly powerful image.  

A number of bands have used warfare as a dominant lyrical theme and have captured various aspects of warfare through their music.  Sammath's goal seems to be to replicate the claustrophobic bludgeoning of being in the middle of a firefight.  Featuring guitar riffs that sound like machine gun fire, drums that sound like heavy artillery and mortars, and the occasional leads that sound like war planes, this is a caustic, pummeling album.  There is not a moment of peace during the entire runtime.  

The first few times I heard this, I was honestly a little disappointed in it.  It certainly makes a lot of noise, but I guess I had something a little more subtle in mind, something with more melody.  Albums by God Dethroned and 1917 have also dealt specifically with warfare and have had enough melody to them to really grab attention.  That is not really present here.  The sound on this is incredibly abrasive, with punishing music and shrieking vocals.  It is not for the faint of heart.  Gradually it has grown on me.  

Ereb Altor: Järtecken (2019)

Ereb Altor is a Swedish band whose music generally combines viking metal with other forms of metal, whether it be doom metal or black metal.  I had never heard the band before, despite the fact that they have now released eight full-length albums.  I decided to take a shot on the album when it was available at the same time as another release I wanted to check out.  That review will be coming shortly.

The band here melds epic and grandiose viking metal with the raw intensity of black metal.  The riffs are often massive, even on the slower moments.  Each song is something of a unique entity to itself, with disparate moving parts and new elements added in each time.  The foundation of Ereb Altor's sound is rooted in viking metal-era Bathory and Enslaved, but there is so much more to it than that.

The best performance on the album is undoubtedly the vocals.  There are a variety of vocal styles used and they range from black metal shrieking to a clean chanting sound.  No matter which style is used at any time, they are always engaging and grab the listener's attention.  The clean singing is perhaps the most noteworthy as it is used often and to great effect.

This album has grown on me a lot with repeated listens.  The first time I heard it, it did not do much for me, but with time it has really sunk in.  The album came close to the Top 10 of 2019.  With a few more listens, I may be re-thinking its placement.

Isole: Dystopia (2019)

Isole is yet another one of those bands that I checked out when I was living alone after starting my first job and found myself bored and flush with extra money, then never followed up afterwards.  I enjoyed album Bliss of Solitude, though it was very slow-paced.  They are a doom metal band after all.  But whether it was due to not having the magazine Metal Maniacs around after they closed up (which was where I found a LOT of new music) or just narrowing my focus, I never realized the band was still active and releasing albums.  I came across this one randomly on a label website and grabbed it since I remembered that I did like the band once upon a time.

This is at least the third album in my collection named Dystopia.  Of course that is a fairly stereotypical name for a metal album.  The other bands have been Megadeth and Iced Earth.  The Megadeth album is probably their best album in years.  The Iced Earth album was the band's first with Stu Block on vocals.  But enough about those, I just thought that fact was kind of interesting.

Isole is a Swedish epic doom metal band, incorporating stunning musicianship and majestic melodies into their sound.  The songs are grandiose and powerful, and they are quite long, none of them being less than six minutes in length.  This album is also heavier and darker than the other album I had heard by them.  That is at least partially due to the subject matter being so dark, dealing with several more negative emotions, depression and disillusionment.  The melodies are thus very somber and solemn, conveying the hopelessness of the lyrics well.

The highlight of the album, just as it has been with Isole is the incredible vocal performance of Daniel Bryntse.  Particularly powerful on "Written in the Sand", he can alternate easily between a deep yearning sound to a higher-pitched pained howl.  He remains the primary focal point throughout the album and with good reason.

I will try to remember this band from now on.  The vocals really are incredible and the album, though being slow, is quite powerful.  It is somber, yet beautiful.     

Cryptopsy: The Book of Suffering - Tome I and II (2018)

Similar to Morbid Angel, Cryptopsy is a death metal band whose material without their original lead singer, I have been reluctant to investigate thoroughly.  Lord Worm's vocals were such a major part of what made the albums Blasphemy Made Flesh and None So Vile so appealing.  It was not the only thing, just an important part of it.  So coming into this year, I had never heard anything by Cryptopsy with either Mike DiSalvo or Matt McGachy.

McGachy, in particular, was a singer whose work with the band I was reluctant to listen to much at all due to the rather poor reception the band received for his first album with them, The Unpsoken King.  That album veered a little to closely to deathcore and I did hear a couple of the songs and was certainly not impressed by them.  But, I decided to give this compilation a chance to see if the band had redeemed themselves.  It appears they have.

This is a compilation of the two The Book of Suffering EPs, one from 2015 and the other from 2018.  Cryptopsy has not released a full-length album since 2012, which I was unaware of.  I had not heard anything from the band since the 2008 debacle The Unspoken King.  I cannot speak for their last full-length, but these EPs appear to be a return to the form that made Cryptopsy one of the most influential bands on the technical brutal death metal sound. 

The riffs themselves are fairly technical, but where the band really shines, as usual, is in the rhythm section between band stalwart drummer Flo Mounier and bassist Olivier Pinard, who has only been with the group since 2012.  Mounier is one of the best drummers in the genre and for very good reason.  Pinard has built up a reputation quickly and is also currently in Cattle Decapitation.  The vocals too are much more impressive.  McGachy is not as incomprehensible as Lord Worm was, but has come around to a nice deep guttural roar.  He does tend to get a little closer to a more deathcore-sounding style on occasion, but those moments are few and far between.  He has improved significantly. 

Checking this release out has convinced me to check out more of Cryptopsy's work with DiSalvo.  This is a nice return to form for the band and hopefully we will have a new full-length soon in line with this improvement.

Cirith Gorgor: Sovereign (2019)

Cirith Gorgor is a Dutch black metal band who takes their name from a Tolkien reference, which is not terribly uncommon.  The name means "Haunted Pass" and refers to a point where two mountain ranges meet north of Mordor.  So, kind of nerdy.  I had to look it up, because I have not actually read any of the Tolkien material and my knowledge is based mostly around the movies.  And even that, I don't know that well.  I know much more about the bands who use Tolkien references.

Despite the name that references Tolkien, Cirith Gorgor's lyrical content has very little (or nothing) to do with the author's work.  It is much more of a typical black metal band in this respect, preferring to tackle evil and Satanic subject matter.

After a majestic-sounding introduction and a call to arms, the album kicks off into a much more familiar-sounding blast-beat-driven traditional black metal track.  Most of the album seems to alternate between frenzied black metal a la Dark Funeral and Marduk and more brooding, intense, plodding black metal in the vein of Mayhem.  It is the slower tracks that tend to be the more impressive because the band is not as concerned with making as much noise as possible.  The riffs are generally more interesting and the band is able to show off their instrumental abilities.  The faster tracks get kind of lost in the bludgeoning drums and whirlwind of riffs. 

The standout track is "Legio Luporum" which is where all of the bands strengths come together to form a monster of a song.  It features the best riffs, dynamic tempo and atmospheric changes and the best vocal performance on the album.  It also kicks off the second half of the album which is much more impressive than the first half of the album. 

This is not a ground-breaking album, and I am not sure where it ranks among Cirith Gorgor releases, but it is decent enough.  If you are looking for traditional black metal done well, this album is just fine.  Just do not go into thinking it will be brand new and original.  It is fairly run of the mill black metal.