Altarage: The Approaching Roar (2019)

One of the more fascinating death metal albums of 2017 was Altarage's Endinghent, which showed some intriguing evolution for the genre.  It was dissonant and dark, sounding like the soundtrack to the void.  It was incredible.  And so, when I saw that Altarage was releasing a new album this year, I wanted to see where the band would go from there.

There is absolutely nothing pretty or melodic about the music of Altarage.  This album is ugly, abrasive, chaotic and absolutely crushingly brutal.  This is death metal taken to an absurd extreme cutting out all semblance of humanity and becoming a massive wall of sound.  There are riffs present, this is metal after all, but there is so much dissonance and distortion that the riffs sound murky.  Occasionally, there are softer moments, but those just highlight how brutally intense the rest of the album is.

There are vocals on this, but they too are often buried in the rest of the sound.  The vocals are delivered in a deep growl.  The lyrics deal with heavy topics like existential dread, horror and chaotic evil.  The atmosphere of the album fits in quite well with the lyrical topics.

This album does not fit in neatly with any well-known subgenres of death metal.  Rather, it sounds more like a cross between the genre-defying bands Ulcerate and Gojira, yet heavier and more intense than both.  It is a complete mindfuck of an album that should probably not be listened to in the dark for fear that it may just open a portal to The Void.  We wouldn't want that, would we?

Vanagloria: La Dinamica del Miedo (2014)

Power metalcore?  Powercore?  What would you call this?  Whatever it is, it is definitely a unique take on a couple of metal genres.  Vanagloria is a Spanish metal band that actually got their start playing plain old power metal, well there is not really anything plain about power metal.  Over time though, the band began incorporating more modern, mainstream metal influences to the point that we get to this.  The promotional materials describe it as black/death/thrash, but I am not sure that really accurately reflects this, maybe power/thrash, but there are some definite breakdowns at times.

Well enough about the genre, what do we have here?  The riffing style is at times edgy and aggressive, and at others incredibly melodic.  The band makes liberal use of keyboards and techno/industrial elements at times, particularly in the intro track.

The vocals are definitely on the extreme end for this style of metal, but not all power metal features particularly melodic vocal styles.  Just look at Helstar and the weird Finnish groups like Children of Bodom and their ilk.  On occasion, the vocals are delivered with a more extreme backing track, or the vocalist actually uses more extreme vocal styles at times.  There was also a female guest vocalist on one track which brought quite a bit of dynamics to the track.  The vocals are all in Spanish, which is not surprising.  My Spanish is a tad rusty so I have a little bit of trouble figuring out what they are singing about.

Despite the disparate styles of metal combined by this band, the songs were surprisingly cohesive.  There are definitely some unusual things going on at times, but the band is talented enough to keep things from turning into a mess.  In fact, the album is quite interesting.  It is likely one I will need to hear a few times to really get a good idea of what is going on.  But it was definitely good enough to bear repeated listens.

Eternal Storm: From the Ashes (2013)

It is possible that Spain is becoming a new hotbed for melodic death metal.  Possible, but I am not totally sure about this because so far I only know about this one and Dawn of Tears.  My knowledge of Spanish heavy metal scenes is not remarkably high so I am likely just writing stuff for the sheer purpose of writing stuff at this moment.  I will stop now.

"Unfading Memories" kicks things off with a very pretty acoustic guitar melody.  Metalheads know what is coming next.  The title track kicks in and features a lot of Slaughter of the Soul-esque riffing.  That is pretty much how this album unfolds.  Eternal Storm is clearly influenced by a lot of the bands from both the Stockholm and Gothenburg death metal scenes of the early 1990's.  The band lists In Flames, Edge of Sanity, Dissection, At the Gates, Dark Tranquillity, Hypocrisy, and others as their influences and that pretty much tells you everything you need to know right there.

The songs are all fast and reasonably melodic, and most are fairly short, reinforcing the comparison to the At the Gates masterpiece mentioned earlier.  Some come across as surprisingly brutal, such as "Boundaries of Serenity", which has a much heavier main riff and deeper, more guttural vocals.  The songs are catchy and the album is short and fast enough to be an enjoyable listen.

Eternal Storm do a pretty decent job at combining the sounds of the two major Swedish death metal scenes.  What results is an often-powerful, yet melodic take on the style.  This is not the most original sound in the world, but it is an impressive enough debut.

Dawn of Tears: Act III - The Dying Eve (2013)

Dawn of Tears is a band that I am very familiar with.  Their 2007 debut was one of the strongest melodeath albums in years.  Seriously, it is that good.  The Spaniards captured just the right balance between extremity and melody.  Since that release though, Dawn of Tears only released a less-than-impressive EP in 2009.  Until now.

Six years later, Dawn of Tears has finally released their second full-length album and it definitely recaptures the sound that made their debut so impressive.  This is melodeath, but it is still heavy and it still kicks ass.  Which is much more than I can say for a lot of melodeath bands out there these days.  Obviously the songs are very melodic and infectious as the plague but the band writes some killer riffs as well, keeping things interesting.

Dawn of Tears follows the Insomnium theory of melodeath, which is to write somber, dramatic melodic death metal.  It is all very emotional and powerful.  There are some definite moments where the band comes perilously close to gothic metal, with the female vocals and the keyboards and the overall dark and moody atmosphere.  Luckily a well-timed blazing guitar solo or crushing riff typically comes in to rescue it from going too far down that rabbit hole.

This is an incredible album, very close in quality to their debut release, which is still one of my favorite underrated melodeath albums.  This one will likely join it.

FMA Reviews: Amnion/Balmog: Grim Repulse of the Southern Lodge (2013)

Originally reviewed here.

I really enjoy splits. They are an excellent way to discover new music from a couple of different bands in one place. I usually prefer them when there are more than one song from each band on the split, as is the case with this one. No matter though. Amnion and Balmog are two black metal bands from Spain. Spain has quietly developed a fairly impressive black metal scene.

Amnion is a bit of a mysterious band. I can not find much current information on the band. This song is very dark. It is particularly hateful styled black metal. Nothing pretty about it. The drums are a bit too high in the mix and there is nothing remarkable about the instrumentation or vocals. The riffing gets a little repetitive at times and the song kind of drags toward the end. This really is not anything terribly new.

Balmog is even darker and more sadistic-sounding. The production values are not quite as good though and the song sounds a little murky. The vocals are probably the most interesting part of the song. Oftentimes the vocals are just odd moaning and groaning while others they come close to forming words. There is a pretty decent guitar solo at the end though.

Overall these are interesting tracks but it is very hard to form any sort of real opinion on either band from them. It is just one track from each group after all.

FMA Reviews: Necroven: Worship of Humiliation

Originally reviewed here.

Occult death metal is a style that has remained underground out of necessity. To say that the style is extreme is a massive understatement. Though it formed from the music of Morbid Angel, Incantation, and Immolation, it has progressed beyond even those dark and sinister boundaries that those bands pushed. This is evil music.

Necroven is an occult death metal band in the vein of Drawn and Quartered, Angelcorpse, Nox, Lecherous Nocturne, and other much more underground bands. The riffs are jagged and distorted. The drumming is typically blastbeat-driven though not entirely. The production is fairly murky but not to the extent that the music can not be heard. A lot of other occult death metal bands make the mistake of having too muddy of production and it all sounds like a sloppy mess. This is not pristine, but at least everything can be heard. It is the kind of production that sounds best with this music. The vocals are incredibly deep.

There are some issues with this though, which are somewhat common issues with occult death metal. There is not a lot of melody, which is to be expected, but going along with that is that there are not too many truly memorable moments. The songs tend to run together as well. Most of them do not feel like complete ideas, rather some riffs thrown together with some vocals over them that just sort of end at some point.

The music is certainly filthy and once in a while I am in the mood for some good occult death metal. The positives outweigh the negatives, but this is by no means a great album.

FMA Reviews: Ataraxy: Revelations of the Ethereal

Originally reviewed here.

I had previously pointed out that some death metal just has such an intense, filthy, otherworldly quality that makes it a ton of fun to listen to. I then pointed out a number of groups who had this unknown quality to just put out some amazing death metal. Well add Ataraxy to that list. This is the debut album for the Spanish death metal band and they truly do an amazing job on this release. Ataraxy will definitely be a band to continue watching.

I suppose the best point of reference for a sound is The Chasm along with Asphyx. The guitar tone here is incredible. It is crunchy and gives off a sinister and evil atmosphere. This is definitely an old-school death metal sounding album but at the same time, it sounds fresh. It is not stale, cookie-cutter death metal at all. Ataraxy do their best to craft their own sound, one not done thousands of times before.

As I mentioned, the best points of reference are probably The Chasm and Asphyx. This is due to the unusual song structure and general sound. The songs do not follow a standard death metal progression, opting to evolve naturally and without any real constraints. They flow well too. They utilize a lot of slower, doomy riffs as well to keep the atmosphere claustrophobic and eerie. The vocals sound very much like Martin Van Drunen's possessed wailing and that is definitely a plus in my book.

There has been a lot of talk about old-school death metal bands popping up and becoming a major trend. I will say that if bands sound as impressive as Ataraxy, I have no problem with it.

My Favorite Metal Band from Spain

I said yesterday that brutal death has been a bit underrepresented in my discussion of Slovakia's Sanatorium. Well, now we have two countries in a row, because Wormed is awesome. Wormed is something of a cross between technical death metal and slam, but does not fall into any of the pitfalls of either genre. The vocals are delivered in a croaking style that sounds like a mixture of Lord Worm and the vocalist from Demilich. The sound is unrelentingly heavy and intense. I am still eagerly anticipating a follow-up from these guys.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Dark Moor
Dawn of Tears
Teitanblood