All Pigs Must Die - Nothing Violates This Nature (2013)

Band: All Pigs Must Die
Country: Boston, Massachusetts
Style: Hardcore Punk/Metalcore
Label: Southern Lord

A couple of years back, All Pigs Must Die really impressed me with their first two releases. In terms of modern hardcore/metalcore(?) they are by far one of the most engaging and intense bands to emerge in years. Not only with their sonic, but their whole presentation of albums and their sound also impressed me which lead to immense anticipation for this album when I first heard about it.
Not as though it was a problem on either of the band's last two outings but, they did play with songs that were in the "typical" song length (4-ish minutes I guess is what I consider to be such a thing) and a few that were a little bit longer as well. Thing new album surprised me when I saw just how short it was. The band has opted for as little fat as possible on this new release, going for songs that are even more immediate and direct than I expected. While several of the songs are still around the four minute mark, they retain the more visceral intent that is heard on shorter pieces, like the opening pair Chaos Arise and Silencer. I hate to make this comparison because a lot of people will do it and I know the bands are quite different from each other, but the more visceral and chaotic tone that the majority of these songs take does remind one of Converge (in a good way). Obviously APMD takes a bit more of a metallic flair than I would say Converge does, utilizing several black metal sections throughout the album for some nice variety between the more hardcore punk d-beats and crusty riffs; and I hate to belittle the band by saying that they're like that because there's so much more here than I just described, but if it intrigues at least one person I won't feel like such a douche.
As I have always said on here, I prefer hardcore/metalcore/etc. genres to feel energetic than almost anything else. While originality is appreciated, I prefer genres like this to feel like the band is just pummeling me into the ground. I want to feel the passion from the musicians and I want to feel the aggression/anger/etc. when they play and feel that rush when I listen to it. Even when the band take their sound into a sludgier and/or slower direction, the same energy should come through. An added bonus would be if the entire album feels like a cohesive piece, and I'm not opposed to if it doesn't feature a song leading into another, but on here each song just comes in, one after another in a furry that is just intoxicating to hear. Once again, it's a rush to hear. A track like Bloodlines which features something a little different through the utilization of an acoustic guitar would sound, on paper or typed out, as though it would ruin the flow from track to track a bit, but it doesn't because the energy is maintained. I really admire the ability to make an acoustic guitar retain a sort of tension in between agressive passages, if only because it isn't done all that often, and is rarely done well. But there's also the more grinding tension during the slower sections, which is something I bring up a lot in relation to these sort of bands as well, but to reiterate once again, it works.
So yeah, nothing much more to say except that this is a fist pumping, rage inducing good time. This is exactly what I like from a "hardcore" record and while it's far from being innovative, it's exactly the sort of energetic boost I need when I put it on. Definitely do yourself a favor and look into this album if you dig crusty hardcore/metallic hardcore or you need an album to keep you awake.
Overall Score: 8
Highlights: Silencer, Of Suffering, Faith Eater

Woe - Withdrawal (2013)

Band: Woe
Country: New Jersey
Style: Black Metal
Label: Candlelight

I've been following Woe for quite some time now and it was only recently that I realized how long I've been following them. Though it was on Quietly, Undramatically from 2010 that I found I got something special I had been with the group since the first full-length A Spell For The Death of Man first came out. It doesn't feel as though it's been three years since that second full-length but it has.
When I first saw the cover of this album, I pretty much guessed that this would not be a continuation of the more atmospheric and somewhat progressive ideas that the band experimented with on their last album. After reading a couple of things about it, I managed to find that my intuition was pretty close to the money. What I learned before listening was that the band was returning to the more straightforward and direct black metal sound of their first record. Now it has to be said, although I do find that the band dropping the progress they made on their last album to be disappointing, I do think that they did, at least, improve upon the sound that was on the first album. I have to admit that straightforward and traditional forms of black metal (or at least modern takes on the traditional formula) isn't really something I'm a huge fan of. I can get behind all the old-school stuff and some of the newer albums, but this album is cleaner than I would have liked that sound to be heard, though it is much more preferable to the sound on the debut.
Where this album's strength is found, or at least where I found the band were at their best, was when they were channeling some nice thrashy and crust punk and hardcore influences into these otherwise standard black metal tracks. I can appreciate the blasting and the tremolo picking, but it's those hard hitting thrash riffs and punk attitude that grab me and make me want to listen. I've watched plenty of live videos of black metal bands looking tough and attempting to look evil and demonic while performing these sort of songs like and it just looks stupid (to me anyway) but when I think of this band, I could see them just trying to have fun and rock out while playing live. I have no idea how thrilling it may or may not be playing black metal live, but I can imagine that playing songs with fast and aggressive riffs that actually make the audience headbang would provide a lot of fun. So, having said that, tracks like Carried By Waves to Remorseless Shores of The Truth and Song of My Undoing sound to me like they were specifically written to be played in a live environment. In fact, I'd say the last three tracks on here are among the best the band have written. That means that tracks like This Is The End of The Story and Ceaseless Jaws are songs that don't really do much for me and I only point that out because they lack that real powerhouse riff that brings me into either track.
It's a solid enough album, there are some killer songs and some tracks that I could do without. Obviously there are plenty of people out there who will dig the more traditional black metal songs more, which is fine, but those tracks just don't do anything for me and aren't unique enough for me to at least say they're interesting. So, if you're into black metal but aren't really a huge fan of experimentation, you could still get into this record.
Overall Score: 7.5
Highlights: Carried By Waves to Remorseless Shores of The Truth, Song of My Undoing

The Meads of Asphodel - Sonderkommando (2013)

Band: The Meads of Asphodel
Country: Herts, UK
Style: Progressive Black Metal
Label: Candlelight

What can one say to start of a review for the UK's most well-known chainmail wearing extreme metalists? Despite my general good will towards the band, I've often found that I have a hard time enjoying their full-lengths as a whole album. I came into this with an open mind, as always, hoping that this one would prove to be the album that would work entirely for me.
In the past, I have found the EPs and splits that The Meads of Asphodel have released and been a part of to be more consistent in material than their full-lengths. That's more of less going to be because there is less material, but for me it has also had to do with the band not spreading themselves too thin. On past full-lengths that I've listened to, it hasn't been so much that the material has been bad, it's been more that some songs are really good, while a majority of others are either only just ok or just uninteresting. I don't understand the band's fascination with narrative tracks, whether they're doing a concept album or not, they seem to be an ever-present part of the band's sound. Frankly, I've said it before for other groups that do it, I'd rather let the music speak for itself rather than have someone tell me exactly what is going on. If you're going to do that, sing/scream/growl/etc. to me instead. Though I do have to say that the first half of Lamenting Weaver of Horror is down right hilarious.
When discussing the actual songs on here though, I have to admit that even I was surprised by how consistent this album was. The opening title-track, despite it's rather cheesy chorus, it extremely catchy and progressive. It does a little bit of everything the band have become known for, traditional black metal aggression, a driving punk groove, the occasional power metal vocal part, and some nice acoustic playing. For me, it was everything that I expect the band to sound like. The following handful of tracks continue in spectacular fashion, with the punky Wishing Well of Bones, the black metal-meets-psyche rock Silent Ghosts of Babi Yar, and the epic progressive-ness of both parts of Children of The Sunwheel Banner. These are tracks that show the band at what is arguably their best. I often wonder why the band just can't continue writing songs that keep in the same vein as tracks like these which are diverse, fun, and exciting to listen to and while there aren't too many songs on here that are just forgettable, they are there. I can get behind what the band is doing but the tracks that are just forgettable just drag the album down from being otherwise quite good.
But as the album progresses, the band begins to trip over itself again. Sins of The Pharaohs is a perfectly solid song, but it's overextended and feels longer than it needs to be, Last Train to Eden falls into psychedelia that sounds more like a mess than an actual well-constructed part. It's a shame because the first half of the album is so well constructed and fun to listen to that because the second half just sounds like a mess in more than a couple of spots it makes listening to this portion of the album a drag.
I wish I liked this album more, but I can't ignore the problems with the second half of this album. I'd definitely say that if you like your black metal weird, listen to the first half of this album because those first handful of tracks are really, really good. But aside from that, listen at your own discretion.
Overall Score: 7.5
Highlights: Sonderkommando, Children of The Sunwheel Banner II, Hourglass of Ash

EEE Recordings - Part III (2013)

It's been a little while since I caught up on EEE Recordings. Five of the releases below I've had for what seems like quite a while, and am finally writing up about because three new releases came out recently. Hopefully, if you haven't listened to or heard of some of these releases yet you'll still give 'em a shot. As always, all of these are reviewed from 1-8.

Apocynthion - Sidereus Nuncius (2013)

Band: Apocynthion
Country: Madrid, Spain
Style: Atmospheric/Post-Black Metal
Label: Pest Productions

About a year or so ago I was skimming through bandcamp and looking at different groups and projects that just happened to look interesting (in terms of cover art work) and stumbled across a song by the group Apocynthion. I was very interested in the progress of a upcoming album that the band would/was working on at the time because that song was impressive, to say the least. Now, some time later I just happened upon this album and was definitely going to get down and cover it as soon as I could.
To be fair, stylistically, this band is not totally dissimilar to many other post-black metal bands out there, you have post-rock sections and the black metal ones as well. If you've heard groups like Lantlôs or Fen, you know the general sound on here. So really the only difference I could offer those who feel like this isn't anything special is that the songwriting is slightly more interesting than the typical group ripping off ideas from groups like the aforementioned two above. Granted, songwriting is somewhat relative to this situation because the majority of "songs" (excluding interludes and intros/outros) tend to drift more around the ten minute mark on this album, the band keep a pretty consistent and even pace to the album throughout while giving each song at least one thing that will allow the listener to latch onto a piece that long. It has to be said that despite the actual lengths of the songs, the band don't lean too far into the "progressive" genres and stick more towards a doom-esque melodic side (though not actually doom).
While the band tend to stick to the dynamic established by many other groups (mellow/harsh - going back and forth between the two) one of the things that particularly stuck out to me was how well the clean vocals fit in with the band. More often than not in bands of this style, vocals almost seem irrelevant, not in the sense that the music doesn't need them but more that if a band uses vocals they use almost no thought of how they should actually be used. There are dozens are carbon copies of the aforementioned groups above who just do the instrumental thing, which is fine, but is very hard to establish a sound that is your own. Then there are bands who do use vocals and that is where most people's ear will naturally gravitate towards. Some bands manage to work out a way for the vocals to remain consistent in either style while others just tack in on like it just needs to be there. In the case of this band, the vocals fit the tone of the music, in both clean and aggressive styles, which is something that definitely worked out in their favor at least in my opinion while listening to this. The clean vocals are sort of monotone while the screams feel grossly exaggerated, but it works well within the context of the sound the band created. The cleans don't need to be really varied to fit in with the melancholic and moody tone of the instrumentals while the screams do what they need to when used and don't feel quite as forced as so many other bands tend to make them feel.
In the end I was rather impressed with how the band constructed their sound on here. While I do hope that future releases will see them expand and experiment with their sound more, for a debut this is solid and well crafted. Definitely check this out if you're a fan of more of the atmospheric and post-rock influenced side of black metal.
Overall Score: 7.5
Highlights: Nothing Important Happened Today I, MDSCC

Sonic Reign - Monument In Black (2013)

Band: Sonic Reign
Country: Mellrichstadt, Germany
Style: Black Metal/Black'n'Roll
Label: Apostasy

I was not familiar with Sonic Reign before being sent the promo for it. I happened to be out of town for a couple of days so I decided to put it on my Ipod and give it a few spins while I was away. There were some breaks in there but I think I am now ready to talk about this album.
This is totally going to give away the punchline for this review but I'm someone who is not a huge fan of Satyricon, which was something that ultimately impacted my enjoyment of this record. I have not heard Sonic Reign's first full-length, Raw Dark Pure, so I can't say how much of an evolution this album is from that one, but this album takes a lot of cues from Satyricon's "breakthrough(?)" to the mainstream album Now, Diabolical. What you get on this record is black metal being done in a very rock'n'roll-esque fashion, meaning you get straightforward song structures which attempt to be as catchy and accessible (the latter comment I'm willing to be called out for) as possible within the confines of black metal, and clear production. You still have the aggressive guitar playing and drumming along with the wretched vocals, but if you came into this expecting more Darkthrone (early Darkthrone) than Satyricon, you may be disappointed. Now, to be clear, I have no problem with this black'n'roll style or Satyricon or Sonic Reign. I think the style itself can produce some quite good songs and I think both bands can deliver on that front at times, but I have the same problem with this record that I did with the aforementioned Satyricon album above, and that is that the songs are just too extended. When you're writing a song which is pretty much just verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus, it doesn't need to be five-plus minutes long.
But as I said, this band can write solid songs, and riffs that are quite well done as well. Damn near every track on here has at least one solid riff in it and while not every song is a winner, it's better than many other bands do. Tracks like Clouds Above The Desert and A Doctrine Unreachable are prime examples of this, with the former reaching a state of headbanging glory during it's second half and the latter track being some killer instrumental sections that were bogged down by more simplistic chugging parts during the verses (though the background effects on the latter track certainly keep things interesting for its running time). Daily Nightmare Injected is a song I actually have no problem with, along with my track picks below, simply because it's a out and out anthem of a track that I'm sure will be great performed live. Then you have a song like the title-track which, in my honest opinion, does absolutely nothing for the album. It's eight minutes long and really goes nowhere. Now, it's certainly entertaining while it's on, but it really does nothing worthy of that eight minute length. But really, you'll be able to figure out what tracks you like and want to return to and or keep after your first listen. That's not a knock to the album, but this isn't much of a grower. You get most things up front, with the exceptions being some background effects and guitar work, but chances are that you won't find yourself returning to a track because you missed that one guitar line in the background, it'll be because of a catchy lead guitar part or a vocal rhythm.
So in the end this isn't a bad album, but it certainly has its flaws, at least in my opinion. After my first listen I kind of figured out what I was going to say about this album. If you're a fan of more straightforward and song based black metal, give this one a shot, you'll at least get a couple of solid songs out of it.
Overall Score: 7
Highlights: The Whisper In The Dark, Soul Flagellation

Amorphis - Circle (2013)

Band: Amorphis
Country: Helsinki, Finland
Style: Progressive Rock/Melodic Death Metal
Label: Nuclear Blast

I am a fan of Amorphis, despite my waning interest in the melodic death metal genre (in addition to death metal in general) and do think that they are one of the better groups from their region of the world. They have also been a band more willing to experiment with their sound than other bands that came from their genre which is something I respect. I was hopeful that this new album would correct the misstep I felt the band took with their last full-length.
Back in 2011, I was in the minority when I said that I felt that Amorphis' last album The Beginning of Times was one of their weakest albums to date. Personally, I felt as if the band was running low on ideas on that album, and were more or less repeating the same things that they had done on the three albums prior to that one. It was a melodic death metal album with folk influence, and while most places I looked claimed it was one of the group's strongest release at that point, I couldn't help but feel as though I missed something. I have gone back to that album several times since initially reviewing it and I have yet to find anything praise worthy to say about it. So I was interested in what the band would decide to do for this album when I first heard about it. I didn't listen to the single that was released beforehand, deciding to avoid all songs until I could hear the entire album in order to avoid all preconceptions about what this album may or may not be. I was hopeful that the band would return to the strong songwriting that they had shown on albums before that misstep, but sonically I didn't really hold my breath for a huge genre shift.
Pretty much after getting Tomi Joutsen on vocals back in 2005 the band has ridden their folky melo-death sound for four releases til now, and I wasn't expecting a massive shift like the ones they did back when Pasi Koskinen was the vocalist for the group, but I was actually quite surprised when I listened through this album. Yes, it's not a massive shift, but it's certainly not as straight as their previous four albums have been. The riffing is a bit more, and I hesitate to use this word, progressive on here than on their last handful, while the overall sound is still very much akin to that of their last four full-lengths. It's not enough to scare off those who were introduced to the band in this current era and find it to be their best. It's not that alienating as tracks like The Wanderer and Narrowpath definitely play up to that very melodic sound the band has used on previous singles. Personally, I thought that the band peaked using this sort of sound on 2007's Silent Waters and have since then just been using the same ideas over and over, but this new album is a nice shift on that sound.
As a whole, and as many other people have rightly said, it's much more cinematic than any of the group's previous work. While it isn't quite as powerful on the first half of the album, which is the most similar to their recent albums, when it comes out in full, it really grabs you. The songs, even though they aren't all that long, feel more epic and grandiose than anything else in the band's discography. In addition to that, this is the band's most consistent album in terms of the quality of material. As I said above, I felt as if the band peaked with their folky melo-death sound on Silent Waters, and that included memorability and songwriting as well, not just my patience. While the first half of this album is certainly strong in terms of songwriting and memorability, that's what it seems to be there for, to grab those fans of more recent material but as soon as Hopeless Days opens it's like a punch in the face with how massive those keys sound, making the guitar riff in question sound even more powerful. For me, this is where the album really got me excited. The following four tracks bring a similar sense of joy and anticipation from me, each showing a side of the band that I either have never heard before or that they had left behind long ago. The likes of Nightbird's Song show the band at their most interesting and hardened vocally while still delivering strong melodic guitar work as a foundation. In addition to that the likes of Into The Abyss and Enchanted By The Moon feature some of the biggest hooks in the entire band's career.
I do believe this is the band's best release for several years and is hopefully a sign for future sonic explorations like this. They are really at the top of their game here, and this is strong enough for me to say it's up in my top 3 albums from the band (with Elegy and Am Universum). Very strong and definitely one of the best records I've heard to come out of the melo-death genre for quite a while.
Overall Score: 9
Highlights: Hopeless Days, Into The Abyss, Enchanted By The Moon