Intestinal - The Rottening (2012)

Band: Intestinal
Country: Östergötlands län, Sweden
Style: Death Metal
Label: Hellthrasher Productions

I've said multiple times in the past that I'm rather picky when it comes to the whole brutal death metal subgenre(or maybe I just don't have taste for it) and it remains true. Having never heard of Intestinal before and seeing their song titles, that's the style I imagined them playing. I still gave it a chance though because the band was nice enough to send it to me though.
Now, when I actually looked up the band, they weren't really tagged as a "brutal" band, and since it just said death metal, I kind of just took it for what it meant. Having listened to this, yes, it's not brutal in the sense of overly simplistic slam or other stuff like that, which is a good thing. While influences from tons of classic death metal groups can still be heard on here, the one band that this album really reminded me of was early Blood Red Throne (and I love BRT) and at times a bit of more recent Severe Torture. Modern death metal is sort of a hit-and-miss with me, I used to totally hate it, but when I listen to death metal, I like there to be grit and filth on it. Production wise, clean is fine, but there are albums which are far too clean (and I may like them in spite of it if the songwriting is good) but a death metal band has to sound like a band for me to really get into it. While I can't say the sound on here is my personal favorite (on headphones it just sounded weird for some reason) I like that the guitars actually sound distorted and the drums sound real. I could have used more bass, but for what this is, it's fine.
I can't say a lot of what's on here is surprising (it is death metal after all), but it is well done. It's pretty standard death metal stuff, and I don't mean that to be a negative thing, but for some reason I had a hard time penetrating this record. There are some really solid riffs, I love the vocalist's growling style (except for the pig squeal on Eating Your Inner Organs), and I think that the songs are compact enough to grab a listener right away, but I just couldn't seem to get into it. The faster parts just sort of flew by, but the more groovy, I don't know if you could really call them slow, but the more mid-paced parts where the band settled into a groove really worked well with the production style they have on here. Tracks like Vessel For The Dead or Undead Unleashed which seem to have more emphasis on either more drawn out riffs or groove, hit harder and wound up being more ear catching. I'm not saying the faster tracks are bad though, honestly, I still rather listen to this than a lot of other very stereotypical death metal, but I think it's just a case where one aspect of the band's sound happens to be more appealing to me, than another. I can't really fault a band for that now can I.
Overall, probably the best thing I can say about this album is that it's fun. It's not something that you have to think about too much, it's just aggressive and high-energy stuff that managed to put at least me in a good mood after listening to it. Definitely check it out if you're a death metal fan, it's good stuff.
Overall Score: 7.5
Highlights: Vessel For The Dead, Undead Unleashed, Slaughter

Sutekh Hexen - Behind The Throne (2012)

Band: Sutekh Hexen
Country: San Francisco, California
Style: Raw Black Metal/Dark Ambient
Label: Magic Bullet/Wohrt

By now, Sutekh Hexen has made quite a name for themselves so saying you've never heard of them before is getting to be less of an excuse for not having heard them. By now, their discography is getting more and more lengthy and the same could be said of their sound. With Larvae being breaking open their sound earlier this year, I was quite curious what they would do on here.
Returning to the two track only strategy of their previous work, this album shows the trio of Sutekh Hexen expanding their sound in a different form than Larvae did. When I first saw this album, I was sort of expecting something more intense, more or less in the vein of the band's earlier material, and while I. does bring in some similar ideas from earlier material, this is a very different beast. There are certainly intensely distorted screams and layers of distortion and noise on here, traits that have become intensely important in the band's sound, but instead of blazingly fast black metal riffs, we see the band embracing more of a ritualistic kind of doom and drone style for this release. I. is certainly more "metallic" with long, drawn-out guitar chords ringing out into the abyss, but it's by no means as intensely brutal or exhausting as their other work, and while we do see the band speed thing up near the middle of the track, it just is not the same. There's a melancholic ambiance hanging over the whole thing. It actually reminded me a bit of the Shadows single they released a little while back which had the single track that was a lot more quiet and ambient for the most part. The second track, obviously titled II., is even more in the ambient vein, abandoning most of the traits we've come to expect from the band. In exchange for the aggression, the brutality, the metal, and a good portion of even the noise, we get a very chilling, minimalistic sort of neo-folk-esque dark ambient track. Yes, we still have noise, that's still there for all of you who were freaking out. There are freak-out moments where we get shots of distortion, if only to draw those back in who might have wavered while listening to this, they act as a sort of grounding point, at least to me, which keeps the band's sound tethered to a single point. While the overall sound on this track is very different in comparison to most of what they've done, that distortion and noise keeps their sound controlled, so it doesn't become so overwhelmingly different, you still know who you're listening to. Personally, while I respect the band for exploring this kind of territory, I can't in all good conscience say that it's my favorite. It's well done, no doubt, but maybe it just needs to sit with me longer to have a greater impact on me.
As with previous Sutekh Hexen material, it's obviously very high quality stuff and well worth whatever you pay for it (especially since it comes in so many formats). As with Larvae, this might throw some people off, but if were one of the many who actually really enjoyed that album, you might enjoy this one just as well. Definitely pick up your copy while you still can.
Overall Score: 8.5
Highlights: II.

Wild Hunt - Before The Plane of Angles (2012)

Band: Wild Hunt
Country: Oakland, California
Style: Progressive Doom Metal
Label: Kemado

From the moment I saw this album cover I knew it was something I had to hear. Cover art aside, I was also really interested in the fact that this was a new band. Having never heard the band before (it would have been odd cause this is the debut full-length) I was going only off of what the genre tags told me, progressive doom metal.
The mere fact that this band chose to both open and close their album with sixteen minute long track speaks volumes about how highly they regard their songwriting abilities. I don't mean to make that sound negative, but it really takes confidence to put a track like that right up front, and it's the type of thing where the song has to be strong to make the listener want to listen further. This is even more questionable when the album in question comes from a new group, luckily for Wild Hunt though, they knew exactly what they were doing when they put this album together (structurally). Eidetic Parallax moves from strength to strength, playing up some great doom-based riffing while channeling traces of black metal and I'd say some stoner rock/metal as well. Sure, I'm pretty sure one could just as easily call this a post-black metal album, Wild Hunt do share some similarities with a group like Altar of Plagues, because I've read some comments that do that, but this isn't the sort of album that falls as easily into that stereotype and you'd really have to stretch it to really say this is a black metal album. It's more rooted in doom.
While it might not be a huge deal, the ambiance on here did grab me on more than one occasion. For me, that's probably the biggest link to the whole post-rock genre the band has on here, sure there are obvious builds and some closing sections with clean guitars, but the atmosphere is what conjures images of clouded beauty in my head. I'm sure there's just as much an appreciation towards ambient music in the band, interlude Unravel The Veil of Separation, Bask In The Serenity of Discord definitely shows some strength in that department as well, but to say there isn't a post-rock influence would be lying. In fact, I think that that may be one of the group's greatest strengths.
It seriously shocked me when I found out that the vocalist of this band was their drummer, Harland Burkhart, though I guess that explains the sparing use of vocals throughout. I have to give credit to where it's due though because when Burkhard does roar or sing, he does it well enough to grab my attention; and though the vocals aren't exactly the loudest in the mix, they still manage to pop out from time to time. It's all the more impressive when you hear how great a drummer he actually is though, his fills are interesting while always acting as the backbone to the band and keeps the song moving forward throughout its various sections. But perhaps I'm selling the other members short here for not bringing up the various forms that the guitars manage to help carve this record into. Like I said above, it's doom metal, but the black, stoner, psyche rock, and even post-rock shades cannot be ignored on here. Though it's not the longest track on here, the album centerpiece, Window to The Nether, manages to convey the most varied guitar styles, from tremolo picked sections to traditional guitar harmonies, good ol' stoner grooves, and much more. I kind of wish the bass was a little bit louder in the mix because when I can hear it, it really strengthens the grooves, if not providing its own, but that's a very minimal complaint due to the fact that I can actually hear the bass throughout (I just wish it was a little bit louder). Everyone does a great job, what else can I say.
I'm not sure how many other bands these guys have been in but there's definitely talent in here and it's amazing how well they were able to put these songs together for a debut. It's easily one of the most interesting doom-based albums I've heard all year. Definitely check this out, I'm not going to bother with demographics here because this has something that could appeal to everyone.
Overall Score: 9
Highlights: Eidetic Parallax, Window to The Nether

Be'lakor - Of Breath and Bone (2012)

Band: Be'lakor
Country: Melbourne, Australia
Style: Melodic Death Metal
Label: Rockstar/Kolony

Unlike a lot of melodic death metal bands, new ones I mean, Be'lakor has actually impressed me. I can't say that I ever was up-to-date with the band's recording or when this was being released, but when it was released, I was obviously aware of it. Being one of the few melo-death bands, moderns ones, that I can actually take seriously I was obviously going to cover it.
Be'lakor is a band that has a lot going for it. Ever since the my Junior year of high-school, I can't say that I listen to too much melo-death any more, I have a handful of bands that I like and there are always some newer ones that pop up now and then that either make the genre interesting again or at least do a good interpretation of it. Be'lakor is closer to the former in that regard, because their last two albums have definitely carved out a sound that isn't as narrow as many "purists" might have you believe. I've seen the prog tag attached to the band and listened to their enough to say that they definitely have a good mindset when it comes to writing their songs. They're skilled at writing interesting structures, melancholic atmospheres, and catchy melodies which is enough to get my attention at least. In my opinion, they're one of the few "melodic death metal" bands who can get away with longer songs because they don't really feel forced or overlong.
Having said all of that, I can't say that this album blew me away as much as its predecessor, 2009's Stone's Reach, did. That's not to say that the album is bad or anything, but it just didn't reach out and grab me and hold my attention the way that album did. I also feel like the melodies used on here are too similar to each other and that made me question if what I was listening to was a concept album (if it is, please let me know) because it felt like I was hearing repeated melodies or melodies that were very similar to each other throughout multiple songs. But even then, I still think that the melodies are very tastefully done and executed, they're not overly technical or flashy, and in a similar way to what a band like Insomnium has been doing, they manage to convey melancholy, sorrow, sadness through melody and atmosphere rather than through layers of keyboards or vocals. Though there's plenty of piano on the bottom half of the album, I never really viewed that as too much of a dealbreaker because of how sparsely it's used, it never overwhelms the song and is never the source of melody.
I will say that the problem of similar melodies does fade away on the second half of the album though, which contains some of the most progressive songs the band has recorded to date. The last three tracks are all great and definitely close the record in a great way. In Parting is the most straightforward of the three, not really breaking the style too much from the first half of the record, but definitely improving upon it. The Dream and The Waking is very good, bringing in quite a bit more mood through an acoustic break while delivering great harmonized riffs (boy do I love it when a band does that well). Closer By Moon and Star stands as the most "progressive" riff oriented track on the album despite being one of the most aggressive on the album. Though I did question how much I enjoyed this record nearly every time I was listening to the first half, the second half always perked my ears right up and made me remember why I like this band.
I think it's a pretty damn good melodic death metal record, it has a lot of what I like about the genre while not really sounding like a simple rehashing of its glory days. I know some people won't be able to get past the growling only vocals or longer songs, but if those things don't happen to bother you, you'll more than likely enjoy this. It's well worth your time if you happen to enjoy good melodic metal that is more interesting than poppy.
Overall Score: 8
Highlights: Remnants, The Dream and The Waking, By Moon and Star

Inverticrux - Virgin Reaper (2012)

Band: Inverticrux
Country: Nashua, New Hampshire
Style: Doom Metal/Shock Rock
Label: Independent

It's an odd thing getting emailed by a band who you know absolutely nothing about and who have very little recorded material for you to go off of, which was the case with Inverticrux. I did listen to some of the material that was out there, but it was like demos, so I was a little skeptical. So, upon seeing the cover of this album, I was pretty nervous.
Call me spoiled but when I see album covers like this, they just don't appeal to me as much as when I see something that is more stark and simplistic (when it comes to album artwork anyway). By the time I finally got around to listening to this record I had long forgotten what my initial impression based on their tracks was so I guess you could say that I was going in fresh. Really the only thing I remembered was that vocalist Raypissed could do a nice King Diamond impression, which ultimately was the reason I decided to cover this. Upon hearing the opening title-track, I started to regret that decision. The raw and rather unpolished instrumental performances were solid enough, jumping between blues-rock and death metal with little regard for any middle-ground was fine, I could look past that and see some great ideas at work, but Raypissed's vocals were plain bad. He certainly has a theatrical side to make him impressionable and interesting, but there were so many King Diamond howls on there that it just began to irritate me. That, and the fact that I thought the lyrics to the chorus were just atrocious (and you know that I'm not much of a lyrical man, but I just couldn't get past them).
After that, the album can only go up, and luckally it does. The band bring in influences from traditional metal, black metal, a bit of goregrind in the vocals, and a couple others as well as up their songwriting chops. While the vocal effects on here are a bit tiring and do become somewhat redundant, hear tracks like Azrael Beckons My Name, I have to commend the band for at least mixing things up. I actually have to be blunt with this and say that even though Raypissed was what made me decide to cover this album he is the weakest link on this album. He is most certainly talented and has a great range, what with both his falsetto howls and his occasional ventures into gurgling and guttural growls, I just felt that all the effects he placed on his vocals killed his performance on here. He's over the top and you can hear it, but all the echo and warped effects do him no favors. A song like Lured By The Scent of Infant Blood really shows what he's capable of and the band is certainly at their best on the track as well, delivering some very melancholic doom metal. The tracks that happen to follow that one are more punk-ish in their delivery, but ultimately less than satisfying after the more lengthy doom track. They're by no means bad, but the band seem to be at their best when their channeling more traditional and doom based metal forms. For myself, most of the best tracks happen to lie in the middle of the album.
As a whole, the album is pretty inconsistent, with some tracks really showing a lot of potential and others just sort of falling flat or coming off as somewhat uninspired. I think there's a lot of potential for the band, but there's still a lot of work to be done. If you want to hear an album that's does a pretty interesting fusion of genres while being rather theatrical vocally, I'd recommend checking this out.
Overall Score: 7
Highlights: A Cautionary Tale, To Serve The Dark Design, Lured By The Scent of Infant Blood

Pyramids & Wraiths - Magpie & Raven (2012)

Band: Pyramids & Wraiths
Country: Denton, Texas/Edinburgh, UK
Style: Shoegaze/Drone
Label: Aurora Borealis

As most will know, I love everything that R. Loren does, from his record label Handmade Birds, to various musical projects (Pyramids, Sailors With Wax Wings, White Moth), and I wind up trying to cover anything he puts out. This is the second release in a coming trilogy Pyramids has collaborated with other artists on, the first being their collaboration with Horseback last year. Like that collaboration, we have only one track on this release expressing everything inside.
As several may already know, I wasn't too keen on last year's A Throne Without A King collaboration between Horseback and Pyramids. While it certainly had some interesting ideas, it felt directionless and more than a little pretentious to me. That's not to say I wasn't looking forward to this release, because I certainly was, but that last collaboration kind of worried me for what might have resulted from Pyramids working with Wraiths. Having only become a fan of them within the last few months I can't really say what I was expecting from this release, but knowing Pyramid's knack for writing superb dream-like shoegaze and Wraiths' ability for crafting drones that have both substance and mood, I hoped for something amazing.
As if to silence all questions and doubts about this collaboration, the track bursts open with one of the most epic sounding doom metal sections I've heard in a good while. I'm going to be really nitpicky here and say that I didn't care for the drum pattern accompanying that section, which is used later in the song, I certainly have no qualms with it. As for the rest of the track, both projects manage to convey a great sense of self and individuality while making the track sound jaw-dropping in its cohesion. The movement of each section is near flawless, moving from doom into dreamy shoegaze and then into pure ambient, and that's all within the first six minutes of the track. I can't tell you how excited I was while listening to this. Each section just worked as a whole and did more than I had hoped. I was actually surprised by how late in the track that the use of actual noise and feedback was used, the track is pretty quiet and makes use of it far more sparingly early on and doesn't give you a full blast until you're somewhere around two-thirds of the way done with the track but unlike the collaboration with Horseback, the drones used here don't feel quite as haphazardly done and work in conjunction with the other ideas present throughout the rest of the track. Having said all of that, with it only being one track (twenty-five minutes long) and I can't help but wish there was more, either that the track was longer or that there were more tracks. But once again, that's a very small gripe.
Overall it's a really enjoyable piece that just gave me everything I wanted and more. I can only hope that the final part in this trilogy of releases is somewhere near this album, in terms of quality, because this is great. As if I need to say so by now but, check this out, it's a must for this year for sure.
Overall Score: 9
Highlights: There's Only One Track

Wreathes - Wreathes (2012)

Band: Wreathes
Country: Madison, Wisconsin
Style: Neo-folk
Label: Pesanta Urfolk

Neofolk is a genre of music that, in my opinion, has become rather stagnant in recent years. Most of the best, most unique, and memorable bands came around during the genre's inception and very few bands manage to do much with it as of recently. Pesanta Urfolk has really been praising this album as one of the few to do that.
In my case, when I think of neo-folk, I think of groups like Current 93, Sol Invictus, Death In June, The Moon Lay Hidden Beneath A Cloud, just to name a few. They're all fairly well known and respected among underground music fans. But what does that really have to do with this debut full-length from Wreathes? Well seeing as both Troy Schafer and Nathaniel Ritter have quite a bit of experience in their own right when it comes to making folk music, if anyone's bound to make an album to push the boundaries of neo-folk, these guys have more of a shot than most others. With projects like Burial Hex, Kinit Her, and Rain Drinkers, among others, under their belt, I think that coming into a record made by these men, and knowing that it has some sort of folk based sound, is a sure sign that you're going to get some quality material.
So, why all the hype? What's so special about this project to make people claim that it's the most exciting thing to be produced within the neo-folk genre in years? Well, that's exactly what I asked myself, luckily it didn't take long to get an answer. If you've listened to any of the bands I mentioned above, or other well known groups and projects, you should have a pretty good idea of what these guys are going for, but what makes them stand out among the other new groups doing neo-folk is their songwriting chops. Like I just said above, both Schafer and Ritter have experience in folk music, making use of everything from traditional songwriting to free-form and improvisational styles, so they definitely have a grasp on what it takes to make a good folk based album. But perhaps I'm selling this album a bit too short, because it is obviously more than just another neo-folk album. There are traces of post-rock, ambient music, and perhaps more obviously martial industrial in various forms all over this record. They're all kind of blended together into the boiling melting pot that is this record but to call it any one of those specifically (obviously I'm using neo-folk as a sort of overarching term to describe this album) is selling this record short because it is so much more.
I'm not going to lie, some of the more free-form and improvisational folk releases these guys have been a part of and released, that I've heard, I haven't been that into. When it comes to folk music, I do happen to enjoy a good majority of it, but I happen to enjoy good songwriting and good songwriters. Setting a mood and atmosphere is good, but in my mind, it's important to balance the two and not really let one completely overpower the other, which has been the case on a few prior releases. On here however, the balance is maintained throughout each of the six tracks, giving the more traditional song structures more breathing room and allowing them to open up in ways far more impressive than I ever expected. Songs like Odes or Speech of The Tides begin as more straight-up neo-folk songs but wind up becoming far more expansive and immersive before they close out. I don't mean to discount the other songs on here, but personally, those were two songs that really broke the mold of what I was expecting from this record. I don't think I can call this record ritualistic, it doesn't quite have that haze or mysterious quality about it that makes a record seem ritualistic to me (to me mind you) but if I had to call it anything, I'd definitely have to say that it's authentic. None of these tracks feel like these two guys just went through the motions to record a bunch of songs, you can just feel the passion and heart that went into this album.
Despite how much I enjoy listening to this record, I do have a bit of trouble saying that this is the most exciting thing to emerge from the whole neo-folk scene (in a while). It's more than certainly above average in pretty much every category I can think of off the top of my head, but there's just one thing that I just can't place that's missing from it. Nevertheless, it's more than certainly worth checking out and worth whatever you pay for it.
Overall Score: 9
Highlights: The Reigns, Speech of The Tides