The most interesting releases of the week(s)!
Advent of Chaos was released on Theogonia Records. The Greek melodeath band draw inspiration from Insomnium and some of Dark Tranquility‘s newer records. The music never sounds too mellow, though, as AmongRuins constantly infuses some new riff or soaring half-time melody to keep the blood pumping.
The production on Advent of Chaos won’t win any awards, but the album sounds suitably immense, with strong bases and distinct drum hits. The band plays cohesively, even if there’s not a lot of room for individual shing performances in music like this outside of the solos. But those guitar solos have some stunning moments. The solo near the end of opening track “Frozen to the Core,” for example, throws away all metal solo dogma and instead plays around with sustained notes to heighten emotion.
The New Flesh was released on Nuclear Blast. As the band’s seventh full length, The New Flesh offers few surprises. Sylosis bring a blend of thrash and metalcore similar to Machine Head‘s best, with plenty of tight staccato riffs and emotive hardcore growls shifting into solid cleans. Their style is played mostly straight, but there are a few fun twists.
Breakdowns can be quite a dirty word, but Sylosis writes them damn well. Their songs tend to lean on the drums to fill the space between short, rapidfire guitar lines, and this lends itself well both to the head and the breakdown. And while there are a few spots that drag, Sylosis mostly manage to provide high-energy music in their own style. Other than that, The New Flesh will give you exactly what you’d expect in terms of professional performances and memorable moments.
Unveiled Nightsky is a melodic black metal album released on Hells Headbangers. Winter Eternal play around in one of the more regressive forms of black metal, with the only distance between Unveiled Nightsky and a thousand albums you’ve heard before being production value and more of a bend towards melody in the riffs. You’d be forgiven for passing over this record based on that description, but you’d be missing out.
The melodic lines on Unveiled Nightsky are just excellent. Winter Eternal do a masterful job at blending the harsh sound of black metal with their softer songwriting approach to give some emotionally resonant moments. Black metal albums taking an approach similar to Unveiled Nightsky are all over the place, but few pull off the sound as well as Winter Eternal.
Purgatory, released on Transcending Obscurity records, begins with a descending guitar line that haphazardly turns from a chromatic descent into distortion and nothing else. Phasma then builds this mess into the opening riff of the album and launches into some excellent dissonant death metal from there.
Phasma oscillate between excellent death metal riffs and stretched out moments of distortion and distress. They demonstrate mastery of their genre and then blow it to pieces using more of a noise approach for just a few seconds, then return to their extreme metal sound as if nothing happened. Purgatory is a fascinating experience, and one that all death metal listeners should check out.
From the Waters of Death is a 1.5 hour long four way split about the epic of Gilgimesh released on I, Voidhanger Records. It is messy, extravagant, heartfelt, awe-inspiring, boring, indulgent, earnest, and impressive. In other words, an average Midnight Odyssey release.
The four bands involved don’t really do a whole lot to blend their sounds, but this works just fine on a split like this. The variety is welcome given the scope. From the Waters of Death is a maximalist experience in every possibly way, and there really haven’t been many releases like it this year. Some people will bounce off of it hard, but anyone interested in the excessive should check out this split.
Advent of Wounds is Fossilization‘s second full-length and was released on Everlasting Spew Records. The band draws their inspiration from Dead Congregation and Tomb Mold, playing creepy riffs over frantic blast beats, a strong bass, and vocals that sound beyond the human range.
The riffs carry Advent of Wounds. With a band like this, that’s a necessity, but Fossilization go a step beyond the norm with their precise songwriting and performances. When I think of cavernous death metal, “crisp” isn’t the first adjective that comes to mind, but Fossilization pull it off. Their songs are a bit boilerplate for the genre, but the lack of blemishes and strong songwriting make Advent of Wounds a successful release.
Hedera Helix is a black metal EP from California. ØVI have made a busy release, packing everything they can into a short runtime, but they do so without making it sound like too much. The riffs are scattered and occasionally long, but catchy. The songs are all in the 4-minute range, but they don’t exactly fly by. All of this leads to a satisfying listening experience that leaves a strong emotional impression.
The opening of the second track “Penanggalan” shows what the band is capable of. The staccato hits that interrupt the more typical black metal verses lead to an interesting choral section, resulting in a sound that is both rooted in symphonic black metal while also feeling fresh and a bit askew.
Confined to Time was released on Carbonized Records. Cemetery Reign plays death metal without too much flair. And while the band’s songwriting tactic of solving every problem with more reverb does result in a bit of a mess at times, this mess fits the album’s aesthetic and results in an eerie, entertaining album of comforting riffs and familiar sounds.
Internal Decay are one of those bands with a head-scratching release history. Fires of the Forgetten was released on Hammerheart Records 33 years after Internal Decay‘s last release and only full-length album. Fires of the Forgotten is a melodic death/doom mix with some unexpected depth. The earworm qualities of the album snuck up on me, as I found myself listening to some of the riffs echoing around in my skull long after I turned the EP off.
There is some complexity to Fires of the Forgotten, but it never gets in the way of a good tune. Internal Decay leverage their ability to write captivating melodies and blend it with interesting bridges that don’t sound like they fit the songs at all but somehow do. All of this is over a death/doom base that I would find boring in lesser hands.
