Best Metal Albums of 2013

(Updated 2024)

20. Cult of Luna – Vertikal

19. Neige Éternelle – Neige Éternelle

18. Oranssi Pazuzu – Valonielu 

17. Witherscape – The Inheritance

16. Gris – À l'Âme Enflammée, l'Äme Constellée...

15. Autolatry – Native

14. Mouth of the Architect – Dawning

13. Gorguts – Colored Sands

12. Sulphur Aeon – Swallowed by the Ocean's Tide

11. The Dillinger Escape Plan – One of Us is the Killer

10. Attacker – Giants of Canaan

09. Iron Dogs – Free and Wild

08. Helloween – Straight Out of Hell

07. The Safety Fire – Mouth of Swords

06. The Ocean – Pelagial 

05. Warlord – The Holy Empire

04. Protest the Hero – Volition

03. Summoning – Old Mornings Dawn

02. Satan – Life Sentence

01. In Solitude – Sister

Iron Dogs - Free and Wild [2013]

It's always comic to see a band wielding such a cheesy, over-the-top cover art somehow cultivate a far more unique and engrossing sound than a good many of its peers who invest such money and effort into their album covers. Good covers do no necessitate good music; I think we all know that by now. Here's the second moral of the day: never judge a book by its cover. Indeed, a sword-wielding angry wench surrounded by a bunch of heads piled up on wooden stakes does precipitate the most worldly and intriguing of musical machinations, but however much this may be frowned upon, there's no denying that neglecting Iron Dogs' sophomore ''Free and Wild'' is a big mistake. With a wise selection of precursory influences that extend further than simply Maiden and Priest, but with a celerity and liveliness that would make the two gods proud, a pop/rock-variety brevity in the songs, and more melodies stuffed in a mere 28 minutes that so-called ''melodic'' metal bands would dare imbue into their song patterns, ''Free and Wild'' screams out with nostalgic, unabashed bliss.

''Free and Wild'' is such a load of tremendous fun and 80's awesomeness that I can't really state its selling point. Everything shines through. In case you still couldn't get a picture of what the Canadians have in store for you, I'll be as lucid as possible. The album draws strength from a number of concurrent influences freely flaunting with each other; the occasional Maiden, Priest, but there's still more Jag Panzer (think ''Ample Destruction'') than, I daresay, any other retro heavy metal to ever strap on a guitar and mount a drum stool, and I haven't even begun to mention the minuter spectrum of sounds converging in the mix, notably Angel Witch, Exciter, Agent Steel, ''Kill 'em All'' era 'tallica - even tits and bits of Razor flirting with the more rapacious outbursts of tempered energy. Yet in all the colorful palette of influences, creating a true melting pot of traditional heavy metal, (if not an apotheosis of the genre's manifestation) the Canadians somehow dazzle the listener with style of their own. The same way the English Deceptor challenged me to my wits' end with the sheer insurmountable quality of their EP ''Chains of Delusion'', Iron Dogs manage sound as cool as bands did in the past, without being tied down by the past.

Swirling, spiraling flirts of harmonious melodies are reminiscent of Satan's outstanding ''Life Sentence'', but different still. Irreprissible and meretricious, ''Free and Wild'' in the kind of album that refuses to be bound to the ground with chains, and attracts attention with its sheer punch and crudity. The manic, melodious guitar riffs aside, though, vocalist Jo Capitalicide can just as well be the BEST thing this record has to offer. As much as I am a great big guitar nerd myself, a staunch boaster of technicality and blazing guitar solos, Jo's vocals enamored me so much that I could listen to the first 3 seconds of the ending track ''Island of the Dead'' over an over again just to immerse myself in his outstanding voice. No need to elaborate - the man in the resurrection of Harry Conklin of Jag Panzer. Doused in reverb and heedless of ''professional'' vocal values, his inflection kicks nigh-over as many asses as the plodding guitars. Who said heavy/power metal had to be done with a banshee, screaming at the top of his lungs? Jo fits the bill for ''Free and Wild'' more perfectly than I might have conceived, and literally catapults Iron Dogs to the next level of musical excellence.

Any gripes? Only that the record was too fucking short! Given that the whole record clocks at 28 minutes, it's a bit difficult to excavate a huge deal of pleasure with just one spin. ''Free and Wild'' requires more frequent spinning than a dozen or so efforts by the generic retrogressors of the field. For fucks sake, if you can't derive any fun from the maniacal chords and melodies fluttering around the record, nor Jo's vocal delivery, you need to see a doctor, asap. But Iron Dogs are still willing to forgive that. Just open the lyrics to the title track and sing them out; the anthem is so utterly uplifting that it motions involuntary nods even as I'm writing this. Indoor! No more! And for the love of God, if you're still not properly enthralled, you need a serious fix. Sure,''Free and Wild'' may not be the masterpiece of the decade, but its sheer distinction serves as a viable consolidation for the fact, for which I couldn't care less. Enter, but beware of the nude guardian lying in wait. Posers need not apply.

Highlights:
Firebird
Free and Wild
Adversity
Island of the Dead

Rating: 92%

Avatarium - Avatarium [2013]

It comes as a surprise that seasoned musicians who showed their real flair with astonishing 80's masterpieces (in this case being Candlemass) can show similar if not equal proficiency with their resurrection as artists in the 21st century. Hence Avatarium. A five-piece from Sweden for which the legendary Lief Edling of Candlemass serves as the bassy powerhouse. All things considered, Avatarium's existence as band risen from the ashes of an old master, its hasty linkage with mainstream label Nuclear Blast, and the general outlook of its style make it terrible prone to suffer from becoming just another face in the crowd, another meager contemplation of modern doom metal which one could not help but adhere to sheer tripe. Yet the band almost masterfully steers away from such a detainment of skill. It refuses to be clouded with a lack of motivation, to be trod down by the rueful overtones that typical doom bands implement oh so recurrently, and their self-titled debut doesn't quite reinvent the wheel, it does manage to buy itself a parole from mediocrity.

Despite its relatively modern texture, I found this album to be one of the most fluent and enjoyable doom metal records I've heard in some time. The Candlemass influence is evident, even with some appreciation of early doom a la Witchfynder General and Black Sabbath, but the main story here is the percussive, and, most importantly, gothic sound put into the record that pervades into every square inch of the steady, concussive riffs that work their way to the listener's cranium like firm, gradual hammers slamming into a slab of half-molten steel, eventually creating a successful forgery. And what I mean by this is basically a more contemporaneous, forgiving approach to what Tiamat and its followers scraped up in the 90's as more personal, emotive alternative to the booming melodic death metal tradition of the time - not that this has to do a deal with the Swedes, but it's impossible not to make note of the soaring orchestral voluminousness of ''Moonhorse'', or the occasional acoustic interludes obtruding the crushing finesse of the grand, polished guitars. Indeed, in a firm elucidation of its desires and confrontations, ''Avatarium'' seems to encompass both traditional doom metal values with the inherent Candlemass sound, and a more accessible tone that belongs to its age.

Yet the band owes much of its awesome, crushing balance and clarity to the powerful, soaring female vocals of  Jennie-Ann Smith; but she in now way proves a hindrance for the record. In fact, the wonderful eloquence of her pitch is a terrific thing to behold not just because it helps excavate the band from strict simplicity to epic panache, but it also refuses to be a pretentiously maudlin in its delivery. yet the band simultaneously achieves the sort of poignant fragility that so many others flounder at. This album is not just a pointless bridge of riff upon megalithic riff, either; you can feel each pounding veracity of each chord, a sublime metallic resonance, but keep in mind that a progressive touch that's heavily redolent of early Dream Theater spikes the atmosphere with sufficient technicality and mournful psychedelia to push the pastoral dream even deeper into the listener's emotional sanitarium. The magnitude of the riffs, the patterns and the melody, intertwined with blatant but effective chorus tropes is amazing. And the lush, yet strangely moving aesthetic is only coupled with the fantastic imagery of the poetic lyrics, like the unforgettable title track, making each track really, really fucking count despite the sheer length.

And what about the flawless modern-goth doom/rock tune ''Boneflower''? Its simplistic mid-paced verse riff, married with the impeccable adroitness of the vocalist make it one of the most memorable tracks of the year, and I'm not even biased. It's, as it melodiously proclaims, ''a one way trip to the promised land''. True, not all the songs hold up with the same rambunctious delicacy, and being essentially a melding of slow, lurching power chords, the album does get a tad redundant at times, but who the hell can blame you? For fans of Tiamat, (both early and late) Lake of Tears or Katatonia, this a reckoning that ought not be missed, a minute wonder of elegiac strength that has the strange ability to elevate the youthful spirit of a ''Clouds'' fan as magically as a sorceress resurrecting the souls of the doleful. It's jam-packed with 80's Candlemass and 70's nostalgia (thanks to the stupendous keyboard work) and while still no maverick in a market loaded to the tits with anything that's utterly uncanny and audacious, its still holds up splendidly. Give yourself in, spin it, savor the elegance and spin it again.

Highlights:
Moonhorse
Avatarium
Bird of Prey
Boneflower

Rating: 85%

Gris - À l'âme Enflammée, l'äme Constellée... [2013]

Though the notion of lengthy musical journeys has often had a magical kind of appeal to me, so few bands actually possess the ability and flair to mete out the level of color, intrigue and hooks required to keep the listener at the edge of his/her seat throughout the in time the prospect has dissolved into a weary, fruitless idea. The problem is that despite so many bands plunging into the same otherwordly sounds and emotional undercurrents, very, very few can produce a layer of musicality that not just worthwhile but also memorable enough to firmly seat itself in the listener's subconscious. Granted that, there's extensive scope of sounds one can choose from; whether it be a soundscape of daemonic sufferance, swelling bucolic beauty dawning upon a rustic, natural expanse, or, as the Canadian label Sepulchral Productions has grown so fond of, ebbing and flooding tides of anger, repentance and gnawing sorrow conveyed in various ways... The Quebecois have now a wide belt of offerings in which they can present this particular form of music, with some of my favorites over the years being Neige Eternelle and Sombres Forets, but their countrymen Gris, with the follow-up to the highly acclaimed ''Il Etait Un Foret...'' has won me over almost effortlessly compared to its counterparts.

To be sure, Sombres Forets' last two albums were erudite and brilliant showings of what Quebecois black metal can take the form of when confined to an icy, uninhabited landscape, with orchestral and acoustic motives almost as overwhelmingly terrific as the guitars, but Gris beats them all... It's rather ironic how among all the label's releases I spun the Gris record last - and I'm aware of the grave mistake. The album is a megalith in its own right, split into two individual 40-minute CDs with 5 tracks each, but there's so much to feed from and harness into one's own emotions that I find it difficult to put it in the same context as the other bands with their purportedly ''megalithic'' albums. With the axiom of atmospheric black metal and acoustic sentimentality firmly established and accepted, Gris wastes no time in applying its non-metal influences into a peripheral metal record. The dust-caked paean in its ceremonial stance may serve as some indicator on what the record has in store, but even the beauty of the statue is merely a fragment of the bliss that awaits in the arms of the record's woe-torn arms...

The music, bound to evoke a feeling of reveries and haunting illusions in the listener, naturally retains a suitable length, but acoustic and ambient interludes protrude from every square corner of the album; and we're not just talking simple acoustic interludes and cheesy outros/intros. The guitars start creeping up with elegiac beauty, subtly accompanied by orchestral sounds and even female vocal samples occasionally popping up; but the really plangent sound is derived from a series of screaming, folksy violins snapping loose at arbitrary points. Imagine the crepuscular charm and coaxing effect of those marvelous violins! Embittered little children wailing over their lost mother. A group mournful angels with their teardrops slowly falling on mankind. And Gris, unlike so many other bands which try to incorporate similar styles, does not tussle and overdo the musicality of the violins and acoustic guitars. Everything is nearly immaculately balanced, coordinated, yet plangent and natural. With the opener ''L'aube'' already delving into cavern of stars and sorrow in a brief of 4 minutes without the real bulk of the album even giving a hint of its existence, ''À l'âme Enflammée...'' already makes the statement that it's here to linger.

And once the phenomenal ''Les Forges'' ends, the listener is sufficiently enthralled and addicted to eagerly make the remainder of the album. It's true that the tracks that make up the bulk of the record, being lengthy, invest more or less the same patterns of chord progressions and swells, but this hardly seems to matter with the orchestral work looming over the guitar riffs. And, in addition, the riffs are still diverse enough to bloom into any one of traditional post-rock riffing, progressive black metal, or just crude, dauntless raw black metal, taking any form of the genre as long as it hovers in the realms of sheer, unrelenting pain and emotion. What I love about the guitars it that they seem to avoid both the primordial posture that retrogression has so unabashedly promulgated, and the metallic sound that many modern black metal acts give in to. You can hear the distortion well enough, but it doesn't meander or buzz around as if melting away as the carnal, guttural barks of the vocalist sear through. Speaking of which, the vocalist is just as terrific as any other component of the album. His raw howls are not just wretched, but charged with the same emotional exactitude as the guitars and the unnervingly surreal violins... and they even rarely seep into the acoustic interludes. The idyllic, yet grief-stricken approach of the album is not a hard pill to swallow if you're used to acts like Forteresse, Monarque or Austere, but I'm nonetheless enamored by the poetic grace of the lyrics which befit the music, even if my French is a bit shaky:

Nous venons d'avant
Les mondes effondrées
À jamais vivants
Des rythmes d'avenir.
Le fruit de toutes les ténèbres,
Dans nos yeux, a inventé
Un jardin de diamants.

" Ô Petite Humanité,
Qui crève dans l'aube des jours,
Tombées, comme une flamme silencieuse,
As-tu dévoré tes rêves ? "

So, to return to my chastisement of bands who use music as a journey with their bombastic, hour-long single-track albums I stated in the opening paragraph, Gris is indeed one of the few who can achieve structural cohesion and captivation at the same time. The first part isn't hard to do. I'm sure anyone out there can stack four 15-minute monoliths into a CD with ambient effects of acoustic compositions jutting out in between, but, again, few can make the journey worth taking. The endless praise over Agalloch, the inexplicable adoration for funeral doom with its bantering pointlessness - it all seems so dull that Gris' achievement with this album would be some consolation for what the aforementioned failed to achieve... It's not perfect, sure, but I'd rather let my body be swept away by the doomed beauty of this record than any funeral doom band any day. Not just that, but the record's conceptual approach is a viable alternative to the rural appreciation of its countrymen. A Quebecois masterpiece for the decade to approve and bath in. Go ahead, cleanse your sins.


Highlights:
Les Forges
Igneus
Seizieme Priere
Une Epitaphe de Suie

Rating: 90%

Solstice - Death's Crown Is Victory [2013]

Needless to say I'm not the biggest doom fan out there. As a genre with the potential to exfoliate any sort of eloquence or panache with the simplest of banalities, I often found doom too ''slow'' to be such a wildly invigorating trip as any other genre, and that's, I think, one of the more commonplace scoldings it gets from listeners. Again, while that doesn't mean I neglect everything doom, I find myself at a loss of interest in most cases. That is the continual Grand Magus albums, the slower bits and pieces of Agalloch, almost any kind of sludge/stoner doom throwback, and even some of the classics. Of course the genre has witnessed quite a few climaxes lately, (or so it's been said) following an unimaginable upsurge in its popularity, most of which I haven't been able to visit. When we come to Solstice, I realize that my previous criticisms should equal an acidic assault on the band's redundancy, but strangely enough, that is not the case. These UK veterans are tough, seasoned, well-established, and even though I have no history with them, I was rather taken by their newest EP, ''Death's Crown Is Victory''.

What does Solstice hold for a seeker of eccentricities such as I? For one, it's consistent. In basic terms, the EP is just two booming 9 minute songs, with two lesser instrumentals clustered around them. What's essentially a concoction of Sabbath, Witchfinder General, Pentagram and newer Swedish trends is played with great, tight musicianship, and doesn't falter for one second. Solstice is defined as epic doom metal, which, though more fitting for other practitioners of the style, seems like a worthy tag. The half-dolorous, half-vainglorious vocals stretch and burden the album with clarity and the overall atmosphere is generally warm except for rare saunters into darker territory. And that's not just it. Who could not drool over the simplistic chug-complex of the huge, sun-wreathed guitar chords and progressions that etch across the album? Sometimes the Brits puncture a few technicalities into the mix, with melodies and even occasional arpeggio sequences, like on the title track, but the guitars generally retain a set of riffs more fitting for the baritone of the vocals; and the drums are always there, cymbal and snare, battering against the currents of mourn and triumph. While Solstice doesn't dabble with any of the 60's/70's psychedelic rock phenomena that new bands keep interpreting into their sound these days, they keep the more eclectic strata of listeners awake with melodious twists and turns here and there, so you know the album isn't all doom n' gloom.

And doesn't ''Death's Crown Is Victory'' feel redundant at times? You bet. There are more than just a few sequences where the riffs were rather dulling, where the vocals weren't saturated with enough epic tenor to shake me and cause goosebumps to pop up on my arm, and the overall sound is nothing if not original - but so what? It could have used a few tweaks in the production as well, because the guitars were to brassy at times that they were choking the vocals, but, again, there's no huge loss here. It just feels like a cogent, ass-kicking album. The big story was that they weren't travelling at a snail's face, like their funeral doom peers, and they certainly weren't fucking around with pointless poignant interludes here and there; I simply thought the pacing was damn close to optimum in terms of doom. And while the block-like patterns didn't stir anything close to maternal grief or irreparable woe, it is a moving experience. A nice potent formula to brew every now and then when you're taking a long walk across the English pastoral.

Highlights:
I Am The Hunter
Death's Crown is Victory

Rating: 78%

Obliteration - Black Death Horizon [2013]

Such an excessive portion of today's insurgent death metal spectrum seems to be frugal in the manner of originality, and hotheadedly persistent in sticking to much to the rules passed out by their monstrous descendants during the late 80's and early 90's that it's almost a chore to weed through the metric ton of releases and find something actually worthwhile. All told, as member of this beleaguered metal scene. And yet, does this mean that there have been absolutely no death metal masterpieces during the last decade or so? One would think so, after so much disregard of the aesthetic preferences of current acts have been held in consideration, but the subsequent appendages of bands like Necrovation, Repugnant, Horrendous, Morbus Chron and similar harbingers of death have been such malign and entertaining pastiches of old school fervor and tenacity that the banalities of the majority can easily be neglected. After all, while the genre is still being gradually carried forward by a group visionary bands, there is another, far more putrescent grouping in the underground that thrives on the love for the old school, and just the old school, being simultaneously awesome whilst doing so.

Hence, even with their squamous sophomore ''Nekropsalms'', Norway's Obliteration was not the most proficient contender to this particular end of death metal, though I have to say I did quite enjoy the buttery, gruesome death/doom palette that it so willfully flirted with. Some four years later, the Norse return with their most convincing anomaly yet; a putrid mass of slithering, unbridled murk straight from the pits of the nether: ''Black Death Horizon''. As a record whose name actually exemplifies the characteristic blend of early Autopsy, raw punk, Morbid Angel and early Death in it, ''Black Death Horizon'' is an excellent fucking trip down the quivering, cadaverous gateways of death metal, like some nostalgia trip with a little bit of everything. Let's just get something straight: this album is hands down one of the most morbidly attractive records in death metal I've heard in a good fucking while, and not solely in its pernicious mix of influences, but as an addictive piece of sensational ghastliness... 

Everything in this record from its writhing, whammy-impregnated leads flying about to the searing range of unabashed tremolos to its Autopsy-esque death/doom gruesomeness is stark and evil, even majestic at certain points. My initial fondness for the record grew with a passion for the necromantic vocals. Imagine a random punk frontman singing over the wretched, pestilent inflection of Chuck Schuldiner or Martin Van Drunnen; and I even caught a tad of Robert Andersson of Morbus Chron in there. Of course, the ominous presence of the guitars make themselves abundantly clear to the awestruck listener's trembling ear. The guitars may be meaty and murky, the bass belching like the baritone of an incarcerated demon; but despite the seamless d-beat drumming and vile vocal ranging, the Norse sustain a gorgeously demoniac clarity in the production, so the listener is never really thrown into a pointless, meandering wall of sound. Indeed, the attributions of some of the riffs aren't as sharp hooks as some others like the serpentine tremolos leading ''Goat Skull Crown'', especially when the band vies for more straightforward black/death foray in the vein of Darkthrone (as on ''Transient Passage'') but with so much bloody material compressed into a delicious pulp, the listener is only seldom reminded of such deficiencies. The melodies as on ''The Distant Sun'' or ''Ascendance'' are superb, twisted whirlpools of bile and vitriol, with an obstinate sense of adherence to much of the projections that were present on the band's sophomore, and yet the band still keeps things interesting by constantly shifting between tempos and riffs. There is always a steady, building level of tension that feels as though it'll blow the pulp up to crimson pieces of volcanic shrapnel that simply doesn't dissipate until the last moment, even on the gloomy, liquescent ''Churning Magma''...

Thus, with all its aspects, ''Black Death Horizon'' lives up to its name with utmost potential and torturous adroitness, like the product of some blissful witchery by the misty peak of the sulfuric promontory of the excellent, excellent cover. By the time this record had run its course, I found myself bathed in blood and all the other gnarly ingredients these primordial sorcerers bestirred. Sure, ''Black Death Horizon'' does have its dull moments from time to time, as I felt some of the longer tracks like ''Transient Passage'' - though still crammed to the tits of with feculent goodness - and the title track dragged about a little too long than I might have preferred, and there too were certain sequences where I thought they were recycling some of the previous guitar work with scarcely a change in drum patterns, but the overall output of the record, as displayed with such tunes as ''Sepulchral Rites'' and ''Goat Skull Crown'' makes for some of the most disgustingly appealing death metal products of 2013. So rarely do retro death metal bands actually feel motivated about their cause of purveying evil and asphyxiating entire throngs with pyroclastic mounds of dirt that this album felt like one of the most thoroughly enjoyable discs of the year. You're not feeling it until you're caked with muck. 

Highlights:

Goat Skull Crown

Sepulchral Rites

Transient Passage

Rating: 88%

Ulcerate - Vermis [2013]

Ever since the advent of their colossal third full-length ''Destroyers of All'', New Zealand's Ulcerate has been hailed as one of the leading augurs of the new technical death metal/post-hardcore or whatever you wanna call it movement, and I'm not sure if it was the overpraising, the excess commotion or just simply an adamant unwillingness, but I haven't listened to the lauded album to this day. ''Destroyers of All'' popped up in nearly every review blog or end-of-the-year list in 2011, channeling its imperious notoriety to the following year, and even though it was similar to the brilliant Flourish debut, or Deathspell Omega's engaging, estranged ''Paracletus'', I still didn't feel like giving it a listen. God knows why. Now, the group, hot on the heels of their cult classic, has come with yet another obelisk of ungodly, seismic tech-death, which is, to be sure, going to leave the ravenous masses drooling and ulcerated (you'll have to excuse the pun).

Maybe not so. Even though I'm fairly certain ''Vermis'' succeeded in encapsulating a certain circle of die-hard followers with wonder, I don't think it achieved half the fame of its beloved predecessor. Who knows, maybe two years changed our ever-mercurial metal society so much that the prodding, desirous sense to obtain and praise the cataclysmic, prehensile formations of that the group so seamlessly conveys didn't attract them any longer. That aside, I'll confide that I do have some serious catching up to do when it comes to post-hardcore or even the more metallic facet of this album by which so many other bands are delightfully toying with, but for all the sheer size, the megalithic density and the dark, inescapable atmosphere ''Vermis'' creates, I didn't find it quite riveting. There is a basic philosophy to this record that one could grasp from the very beginning, when ''Odium'' unfurls with tedious abandon and discomforting, disjointed riffs that I believe these technical/avantgarde metal purveyors are so well known for, stuff that I was inevitably drawn to in ''Paracletus'', but the riffs here come out in such banal, unimpressive orgies that I found myself drifting away from the album's core more and more as it tread forward, even though I was supposed to be elicited...

The busy, chaotic, brickwalled structure is something I can certainly appreciate, but apply it too often and too egregiously and it just becomes a chore to listen to. The guitars are wailing, wreathing serpents that coil like shapely buildings collapsing in a bombastic manner, the drums fairly clear and punchy, but to be honest in all the metallic tenacity of the album I only found a few moments that I enjoyed. As the notes continue to swell with the same frustrated patterns of repetition and sinewy monstrosity it feels as though the New Zealanders were deliberately poking my wounds, turning them sorer and bloodier every passing minute. I'll give it to them that the compositions are both stiff and strangely challenging, intricate as it must have taken them a great deal of time to pen them, yet, unfortunately, the intricacy of a composition, as myriad other examples have shown, does not necessarily bode well for its quality.  The fact that there were some really majestic, sweltering moments sporadically allocated across the album made me intermittently get my hopes high for the record, and the ultimate product wasn't really bad, but it wasn't all that good either. Hell, riffs like the pre-chorus passage on ''Await Rescission'' or the verse patterns on the title track were seriously titillating, even stellar builds, uproarious explosions of deluded chaos which the band unquestionably excels at. If only they had some more of those...

To add, the vocals were alright; I wasn't particularly impressed but I wasn't irritated either, in contrast to the wild fluctuations of the guitars. Like I said, ''Vermis'' is definitely not a bad album, but it feels like it's a bit stale in a world already crammed to the tits with similar material being ejaculated from countless different sources. It is, in the broadest sense, a death metal version of ''Paracletus'', - a monumental design of this particular sub-genre -  but it doesn't retain the masterwork's ability to encompass emotion and dread in so many different layers as acutely. It is, however, a highly florid if rigid output that, as said, fans will eagerly gulp up - at least if ''Vermis'' doesn't devour them first.

Highlights:
The Imperious Weak
Await Rescission 
Vermis

Rating: 65%

Sulphur Aeon - Swallowed By the Ocean's Tide [2013]

Haunted by illusions of cadaverous, bloodied hymns, it's easy to go astray these days and find yourself playing in an old school death metal band. No, too easy. An unforeseen blanket squashing the vastest expanses of the metal universe, the retro-death metal plague proves to be deadlier than its thrash counterpart, as if somehow the indescribable Masque of the Red Death had slyly sneaked its way to our modern epoch to spread its precariously inflicted infection... But not all are affected. Some appear to be immune, even. Don't think I'm merely going to demean the resurgence of the genre as a whole here; we've definitely had our fair share of fresh death metal booty that doesn't strictly belong in the same realm as something like Decapitation or Anal Nakrath: stuff that prefers to dwell under the caves and monolithic recesses of the ages, unaffected by the novelties that the 21st century brings, and carelessly swaggering lo-fi rhythms at packs of avaricious listeners with ears agape.

Alright, I'll just be honest that Germany's Sulphur Aeon is not of the same school as Antediluvian, Impetuous Ritual, or even Tribulation for that matter, but rather in a conflicting territory torn between two rather neglected sides of death metal. These guys are a new, fresh-faced trio whose names go as T., M. and D., and they bring an almost unprecedented churn to death metal. Covering the ambitious steps of Dissection and Sacramentum from the mid 90's along with a more spacious pastiche to explore, their alignments are both of melodic and visceral descent; a hoovering whirl of underwater melodies intertwining with rich, luxuriantly massed guitar tones, prompted by a boiling spur of black metal. The real selling point for me was the ability of the trio to capture both a doubly brutal tone in the guitar as well as epic, harmonious tremolo barrages with great care to enlarge their potential as they tread along. Essentially ''old school'', ''Swallowed By The Ocean's Tide'' is huge, wreathing bulge of terrific guitar work and Lovecraftian horror at its finest.

As mentioned the guitar tone is too good not mention, but I have to say that I the frenetic drumming patterns almost equally. The drums sustain a crisp but still slightly subtle tone, as to not bash the subterranean toil of the record into rubble. The vocals are brilliant accompaniment to the muscular, effervescent floods of the dual guitars, with a great, wretched inflection that retains some balance between a rigorous black metal bark and a much deeper growl that perfectly perceives an image of the fantastic cerulean underwater corpse-city as depicted in the cover. There are moments, though only confined to the first 3 or 4 tracks, that I found to be immaculate and overwhelming in utter terror and tenor. Though such engulfing renditions are the band's obvious point of mastery, I still found myself to be able to digest the more mediocre offings that started to appear more and more frequently as the album progressed.

Just taking the unabashed, glorious hymnal charge of ''Incantation'', or the harmonic layering of ''Inexorable Spirit'' for a few spins would certainly leave any listener in utter cerebral torpor. Unfortunately, tracks like ''Beneath.Beyond.Below:Above'' are somewhat subpar in comparison to the ineluctable finesse of the previous tracks; and that's to say that the album falls a deal short from perfection. Still, while I was rumbling under the cavernous roar of the blast beats, the meticulous double-bass drums, and megalithic guitar proportions, I was struggling as though being dragged into the depths of the album's deep blue core by some scaly, amphibious entity, slowly drowning as the floods overwhelmed me more and more. It's definitely not everyday that you come across an album like this, which, even considering its flaws, manages to uproot many of its fellow cavern-dwellers. Actually, it would be underwhelming and discrediting to call these Germans cavern-dwellers; they can think much more openly than their contemporaries, and with a deeper impact, too. There have been only a few dozen times I really heard Cthulhu's great roar through metal, and this is one of them. Horror-geeks and death metal revivalists alike -  rejoice. 

Highlights:

Incantation

Inexorable Spirits

The Devil's Gorge

Rating: 85%

Witch In Her Tomb - Maleficus Malecifarum [2013]

I'm sure that Witch In Her Tomb's eponymous demo back in 2012 blew off a good deal of ears off, even if it was neglected in mainstream metal communities; and continuing to retain the ''cult'', or ''bedroom black metal'' style that they readily enveloped in their demo, the Illinois act released their debut EP, ''Malecifus Maleficarum''. The demo was just bliss: walls of pure grinding, searing buzz, aching with incoherent barks and even punk-like inclinations, occasionally giving way to atmospheric ambient effects to focus on the sheer depravity of the music. It was a concoction of early Scandinavian black metal aesthetics, namely early Burzum, Ragnarok or Darkthrone, and rawer parchments that were somewhat inclined towards their national precursors, unremitting walls of sound that could configure an image of both decadent modernity and primordial motives; something quite frankly not unheard of in our wretched 21st century. What precedes is a sound and limited set of styles delivered through a very similar wall of underproduced buzz, punching through a briefer 7 minute EP.

Granted, anyone who gave early Darkthrone a fair amount of listens won't find anything excruciating about the music here; and in fact I thought the band lost some of the edgy, unremitting currents of sheer force on their demo. Much of the influences have, to be sure, been kept in store with the same amount of diligence and the same level of worship, but there's a certain lassitude to the three songs which, I think, emanates from a reduced reliance on punk. The guitar is thick and pungent, incapable of being counter-smothered by the drums, charging through the dilapidated production with sheer atrocity and visceral accuracy; but the drums are a bit out of focus, giving very little room physical malignity of the EP. And who wouldn't be, in that density! Like most raw black metal drums beats, they lack essence and touch, just a simple tool for keeping the incursion fueled. And although I liked the vocals, they too were somewhat stale; just meager practices in guttural wretchedness. There are a few moments where the riffs draw to more fascinating, and emotionally more inviting moments, such as in ''IX'', where the guitars spring forth a twang of scattering tremolos, and, for once, keeping their pace below the usual standard.

As you may well expect, there's nothing overly florid here, just a handful of slim-picked riffs that shower the listener in cascades of mourn, agony and relentless contempt. There are besides the one aforementioned, one or two moments which felt particularly memorable like the concluding serenades that accompanied the last seconds of the final track, as if drawing the curtains of some ceremonious festivity in some elaborately agonizing way. To be sure, Witch In Her Tomb, is in full command of the base black metal aesthetics, maybe even more so from many of its peers. There are acts which possess a fondness for the same vituperative, vilifying languor of black metal at its rawest, and while Witch In her Tomb can still outshine, in grimness, several of these acts, the use of black metal as an implication for desolation, depravity, depression and calamity, nightmares and unimaginable despairs is one practice which has been held in such frequency over the last decade that this Illinois obscure cannot hope to beat them in one simply-purveyed attack. Imagine, if you can bear it, the tactile mourn and sense of obfuscated despair that bands like Leviathan, Xasthur or Inquisition can implement, and in such acuity! This is not to say that I'm comparing a falconet to a modern aerial bombardment; but Witch certainly needs to step up its game if it wants to compete with any of these harbringers of depression. For a frivolity, ''Maleficus Meleficarum'' is a fine listen, one that ought to dust off your ears upon immediate impact, but as I was kind of hoping the band could expand its retinue with the following release, I was disappointed by the simplicity of the EP. Nonetheless, any raw or depressive black metal connoisseur should give this a listen. It is, after all, free.

Highlights
IX
X

Rating: 70%

Free download at bandcamp: Maleficus Maleficarum

Old Witch - Come Mourning Come [2013]

In general, though staunch cultists possess an almost inexplicable reverence for them, I don't tend to take great pleasure in indulging myself in self-released, lo-fi recordings - at least no modern ones. The reason being, especially in the medium of black or death metal, that bands prefer to sacrifice both their production values and the separate quality of their riffing for the sake of longer, swelling compositions that are only relevant to enjoyment in the long-run. Such recordings often fail to evoke, despite clearly straining to, a sense of darkness, despair and atmospheric repercussions, and simply bore the listener to the point of giving up hope. I was definitely glad when the two-piece US obscures Old Witch bantered about in no such manner. Their sole album and sole release ''Come Mourning Come'' just jutted out of nowhere, in a nearly unbelievable turn of fortune, and acquainted itself with me entirely by chance. It's not that the duo can entirely elude the pitfalls of stagnation and meandering, nor are they employing an utterly novel kind of black metal here; but through a vituperative slew of melancholy and force-fed doom, arcane atmospherics and an eloquent infatuation with their USBM roots, they can easily sell any avid fan of nostalgic, moody black metal.

Old Witch's formula is nothing new: rigid guitars lumbering in a droning soniscape of rustic bliss, wonderfully dark and evocative synthesizers that should immediately remind one of Ihsahn's work on Emperor's masterful debut, or Samael's equally brilliant ''Passage''; but beyond these there is both a techo-induced propensity and a slightly more pungent raving for a Gothic, almost romantic atmosphere. Take ''The Leaves Fall In Autumn'' for instance; four and a half minutes of eloquent drudgery, conjuring images of rustic glazes at night and falling leaves, gradually fading into grey hues - continually tempered by an ever-present drudge of electronic fuzz. Old Witch are doubtless interested in suffering, mourn, nightsky revelations and brooding epochs, and it shows. It's clear that these thematic preferences have led to changes in their music. They seem more inclined to deliver such sorrowful waves of nostalgia and pain through sludgy black/doom passages rather than the much more uncircumcised assails of their US counterparts; and hell, I love the subtle balances between their rhythm and their omnipresent ambient effects. These effects vary in size and shape; from pouncing synthesizers in the fashion of Emperor to doleful choirs, to fading serenades orchestral work. They enrich the banality of the thrashing doom riffs and leave much more the imagination of the listener through the passages created. Even as a frequent scoffer of the modern black metal lyric, I found myself in some profound involvement with the almost poetic song-writing capacity of these newcomers:

forests fall black
and cower at the wolves howl
breaking cold
across the frost and snow
all the stars in the night sky
shiver in their vast dome
lofty beyond all human consciousness

curse the hunter's cry
curse merciless eyes
never virgin pure
spirit born in ice

follow the path of the stars
under forest eves
o'er mountains and dark streams
through sleeping villages
where folk lie in dreams

Of course, it's not just the drudge that makes ''Come Mourning Come'' a crowning triumph. The blistering aspersions of ''God Ov Wolves'', ''This Land Has Been Cursed'' and the opener ''Funeral Rain'' are apt practitioners of speed and raw black metal, so now you know the guitars still effective in sizable expanse of the record. Old Witch are never rapid - they consistently sustain themselves - but they sure as hell could play the speed game if they wanted to.

Perhaps not an immediate contender to the year's finest releases, ''Come Mourning Come'' is, considering the frailty of its origin, still a damn good record, blissful in its adherence to atmosphere and doom. The bizarrely entertaining contrast they create through the use of synthesizers against bashing guitar chugs makes for an interesting, if not entirely original listen. I still did feel that certain parts were too elongated to apply the full effect of brevity, and the guitar passages could certainly have used some spice (the atmospherics were perfect, though), but among so many groups rigidly seated in their cavern-core fantasies, Old Witch brings, and successfully too, an extent of realism and a clear understanding of the monotone; that it should be used correctly rather than excessively. It's not directly relevant to the interests of any single band, because its myriad influences are presented in a way that had undergone sufficient assimilation to scatter most of the obvious, but any lurker in the dark eager to take on a good mix of Emperor or other Norwegian or Swedish purveyors and well-drugged drone should get their hands on this. That is, if the physical copy is out yet.

Highlights:
God ov Wolves
Funeral Rain
The Frost and the Tyrant

Rating: 82,5%

Autolatry - Native [2013]

Even after so many stupendous releases, new artists continue to expand their retinues upon US and progressive black metal, and it pleases me greatly to discover acts that can masterfully convert the eerie, swooning delicacy of USBM into a progressive account. Autolatry is something of a novelty to me, having them exhumed them from a superfluity of releases last year, when their self-released EP ''Of The Land'' came out, and I was fairly intrigued and certainly taken by the young Connecticut five-piece, a brazen presentation of chilling, agonized black metal played and composed with surprisingly convenient professionalism. With their sophomore, Autolatry do not back down a single step from their formidable professionalism that was so prevalent on the EP, and now cast a wider net with a brilliant intake of numerous influence ranging from European progressive, to USBM, to even jazz, and after a couple of spins which failed to quench my desire to take in more, I was more than impressed, but dazzled by the quality of the music I heard, and without a shadow of a doubt, ''Native'' is bound to go down as one of 2013's best records, maybe even the very best.

I don't know what urged the quintet to so voraciously continue to explore the breadths and intricacies of their sound; perhaps they were not quite as content with ''Of The Land'' that they saw an excellent output as their only consolation and salvation from the miseries of having released a ''bad'' album, but I was frankly very pleased with the EP, so if that was a tasty bacon ''Native'' has to be a fucking triple griller with mustard and barbecue sauce leaking out of its crusty granular exterior, so damn delicious that you simply can't have enough of it. The ambiguous praise aside, ''Native'' truly deserves countless accolades. You can't the influence of 21st century Enslaved on Autolatry, because it's probably the most prominent, visible attribution of the record, with stipples of Borknagar and Klabautamann, but that's obviously not say the only thing these guys have achieved is to process the aforementioned bands' music through little differentiation. Autolatry, from the moment the album initiates with the perilous ''Colony'', sprays the listener with agony, mourn and grief. It's just incredible. Graceful, swerving and discordant guitars delivering a galvanizing burden of torture and lament - and what's more is that this isn't merely as inaudible as some acts out there who cream their production with obnoxious fuzz and batter the listener with relentless excursions of primal second wave black metal. ''Native'' definitely has roots deep in Norway, but the overall sound is indubitably modern and more obsessed with newer acts, and that distinction compels me even more, really.

The riffs are perhaps not too extraordinary, but you can't deny them their doleful complexity, nor the technical prowess of the guitarists Dave Kaminsky and Joe Makuch, who sometimes even project psychedelic tremolos intertwined with steady, stoic drumming. I do admit that there a few rare moments where the dissonant arrangements banter the listener for a little too long, especially when the vocals are no where to be seen, but the rest is blissful, proficient streams of melancholy, and certain chorus sequences I found so memorable that I had to hum them all day in my head to keep myself from going insane. Autolatry's technical capabilities are admirably efficient, but their real strength lies in the way they collect all the solemn, miserable waves of emotion of the steady verse sections, coagulate all the liquid mood, and all of a sudden tauten the rope by gushing with a bombard of mourn, which I found to be best executed on ''Pale Dishonor'', when the cleaner vocals kick in, shortly followed by an almost apocalyptic breakdown, all hell breaking fucking loose, as if the walls around you collapsed  after failing to withstand the sheer, stark ray of shearing pain. The vocals, are your rather basic USBM vocals, but they don't detract the quality at all, they simply keep the record afloat, piercing snares which echo through the Necrophagist-esque guitar structures, fluctuating the listener into a hypnotic plateau of originality.

''Setting of the Sun'' is a great piece, a gorgeous acoustic medley, with soothing saxophone leads, swirling around the acoustic guitar passages, and a totally alien track in the album had it not been for the same production level and the same sense of emotional stillness that the rest of the harsher music conveyed and contained. The band usually assists the broader tremolo and chord sequences with beautiful, jazzy solos that mutter delight with every note, simply more material for them to prove their durability and proficiency. Autolatry may not be the most inventive black metal to come by in the last few years, but they certainly exceed a good many in that department, playing with feeling as well as skill, and their lyrical focus in interesting too, although they're not obsessed with trees and lakes, they just use it as a compass to guide their musical inclinations, and the cover is one of the most colorful ones I've seen all year (trust me, I've seen some really good covers this year). There were, undoubtedly, some flaws on ''Native'', like the recurring usage of certain chords and the distilled quality of the verses which, as said, lasted more than they should have, but if they can spike them up with some musical quips and embellishments, they can come of without a dent with their third album. In the end, though, ''Native'' is spot fucking on, making me ripple with excitement and agony every time I listen to it. Don't miss this.

Highlights:
Colony
Pale Dishonor
Waning Moon
Setting of the Sun

Rating: 92%

Wound - Inhale The Void [2013]

Retro death metal is so fashionable these days that it's literally impossible to find a band that does not pay a proper homage to Dismember, Entombed and other Swedish pundits of gore and grime circa 1988-1993, and the case has shifted from not being able to successfully embody the traditional sound to not being able to give it a whiff of originality and pondering a little more for the sake of the album's level encapsulation. Such is the case with Germany's newest worshipers Wound, striking with a seemingly fresh debut straight from the sepulchral depths of the death metal cavern. Don't let the Gnostic, dreary artwork fool you, Wound isn't here to wreathe past subterranean, concave monuments; their sound almost entirely pinpoints to the same spectrum of influences I mentioned earlier, morbid, wrecking death metal processed through a jaded foundation of rusty chainsaws and olfactory miseries, another hardened but exhausted extraction of Swedeath broiled in modern sonic emphasis.

I was frankly quite disappointed to hear unmitigated chainsaws in the stead of a murkier morass of mourn, something that I have been eagerly digging since a succession of terrific releases by new bands from the 2010-2012 time period, (Anhedonist, Sonne Adam, Antediluvian, etc.) and hell, I could have even sufficed with some classy death metal akin to Wound's label-mates Chapel of Disease who fabricated a less tense brand of early Pestilence and Asphyx and inserted that into a carnal trajectory, but the sulking, squamous cephalopod in the cover wouldn't even let me have that. You may think that ''Inhale the Void'' is egregious, based on my complaints, but the thing is, it isn't. It's just that I've heard this cliche performed sans any kind of adornment or a more open-minded perspective upon the niche so many damn times, that it's just getting overly boring. Wound is thankfully no less than your garden-variety death metal bands out there, with a bulking, meaty tone that's so fucking huge that you'll end up as a bloody pulp by the time the flesh factory has processed you with a complete set of unrelenting instruments, twinging melodies that remind me of Dismember's masterful debut more than anything, and on the surface, it seems that there isn't a palpable paucity of any kind - but later on you discover the Germans are so fucking tight that they have no mobility and no space to grant them even the slightest bit of brazenness.

As far as the vocals go, however, I'm a fan. Wretched, black metal-esque snarls and barks seem utterly orthodox and out of place with the much familiar stream of cadaverous guitars roaming underneath, but that's the only distinction they have, and they should cling on to that as if it was their last strand of rope while cliffhanging from a mountain. This is not to say they should improve upon solely this department - they need to work a heap to hone their riffing patterns, too! The acoustic medleys of the title track or the sauntering, melodious guitar passages of ''Odium'' get you into thinking you're gonna get something different, but when the same molten barrage of lethargic d-beat riffs rush through, most of your apprehension, along with the excitement fleets away. That's ''Inhale The Void'' in a nutshell. It's packaged with just as many riffs - possibly even more - than all the other Swedeath drones out there, but they hardly seem meticulously penned - they may be consistent throughout, but they lose their spiky edge pretty quickly, except for ''Codex Arckanum'' which was a surprisingly intense run of 5 minutes, ripe with the bloodiest, most ferocious material on the album. Wound could have done worse, trust me with that, but scraping my ears with this is like contemplating a now-futile farmland through the eyes of a weary farmer, who now can't get as much as a bag of wheat, even through excessive cultivation. It certainly wasn't bad, but I was never quite captivated.

Highlights:
Codex Arckanum
Confess To Filth 
Echoes

Rating: 67,5%

Trial - Malicious Arts [2013]

Of all the new traditional heavy metal bands emerging from Sweden, Trial is my absolute favorite. ''The Primordial Temple''dropped last year and was an instant winner, installing itself as one of 2012's top releases, hands down. The initial splash of sound may leave little to deduce from, especially for the harsh critique, and many questions arise when year-ends lists are surveyed: ''is this band really suited for the top 10 of the year?''. The answer unquestionably varies, and usually, people are accustomed to underrate such minor and emergent acts just because their mainstream impact does not even equal that of larger, commercially successful bands. Here's my answer to that - fuck big bands and big labels. One of the last things a promising, virile act needs is sweltering pressure from mainstream labels, and I think we've witnessed a goodly amount of bands who underwent the same change, morphing into a commercial outfit before they even get the chance to release a third album, and I thank the heavens that Trial is mettlesome enough to keep true to its underground complex,  while still managing to move forward. Nuclear Winter Records, one of my favorite underground imprints, is prudent to sign a deal with the young Swedes, because this shows not only that the band is progressing in quality but also that they've proved not to be some transient group, and I'm eager on getting my hands on whatever releases they spurt in the future.

For now, we're confined to this mini album, ''Malicious Arts'', with the logo back in full archaic splendor, and the same raging, traditionally-oriented heavy metal motifs of ''The Primordial Temple''. Their sonic foundation is completely redolent of King Diamond and Mercyful Fate, sprinkled with Maiden and Priest, but anyone with experience of the debut knows that they're into more than simple, generic rehashing. ''Malicious Arts'' is a queer name for the EP, because despite harboring interest for some of the darker, occult-themed accumulations of heavy metal, there is nothing particularly ''malicious'' here, but the increased doggedness of the riffs, spewed forth via a primal powerhouse of traditional values ignites a certain abysmal aesthetic that seems to be enlarged since the debut. I honestly wasn't expecting any changes at all here, but I was surprised to hear sheer volubility and articulateness rushing through the veins of the melodic riffing, with not a moment of feckless uncertainty or banality during the absorbing 12 minutes of ritualistic heavy metal bliss. Seriously, I think I may as well say that Trial are even better here than in the full-length, but the paucity of proper run time drains some of the elements of complete engulfment, ultimately failing to hit the bull's eye.

The beautiful, harmonious melodies whirl and whistle around like bullets flying through a godforsaken battlefield with reckless abandon, matched only by the memorable slew of gushing rhythm patterns that form a path of primordial carnality. Linus Johansson's vocals are even more spiritual than before, though in no way does he exploit falsettos, but chooses to plod on along with the speed/heavy riffs in a simpler manner of timbre, but his performance on ''Of Sinister Seed (The Madness Within)'' is just spectacular, fronting the roaming guitars with an incinerating range of inflections. The more technical guitar riffs collide with his brilliant high-pitched screams and form something of a dream-like ritual, as though you were being the center of a blood-painted pentagram with a choir of hooded acolytes singing psalms for the devil. The fluent leads promptly form an incandescent arch of serenity, and the drums are strikingly effective, spiking as they are somehow shadowed by the abyss of the guitars and the mesmerizing vocals. The overall sound is titular, from start to finish, and the echo-dowsed consistency of the instrumentation never proves to be a hindrance. Even  the lyrics constantly sold me:

Through the mist I trembled forth in solitude
To seek the dark depths once again!
And unveiled were hidden plains leading out of time
That will erase all restrictive thoughts of mine!

Receive the power to build the world anew
Your own reflection will no longer stare back at you
Like flesh and bone suddenly ripped apart
Heed to the fire that burns within your heart

One thing that's definitely more prominent on ''Malicious Arts'' is the fact that Trial are becoming more and more ambitious and adventurous. Sure, only on very few occasions does the EP work against the pinpointed influences that it aspires to be like, but shovel a patch of earth with ''Malicious Arts'' written all over over it, and you're bound to find a few different artifacts from that of a King Diamond coven. It's obvious that the Swedes are working with pure dedication and the music here, as noted before, is not a cheesy reevaluation of traditional Danish or NWOBHM aspects, it's rich music packed with intriguing densities and subtleties, yet so rarely do the Swedes show their lassitude while working with such swelling compositions that the listener, finds himself entangled with diligent, thoughtful riffing and frivolity at once. Perhaps I may have exaggerated a slight bit when I said that there wasn't a single moment of banality, because there are some rare sequences in these 12 minutes that I felt the band ventured a little too deep into the abyss, leaving the listener in a somewhat bleak, aimless attic, but the overall quality is good enough to make me listen to this over and over again. Thus, I like to think of Trail as a better model or revitalized heavy metal than many others in the same spectrum, such as In Solitude and Portrait, and I have no doubt that the upcoming full-length will continue to kick asses in the same manner.

Highlights:
To Dust
Of Sinister Seed (The Madness Within)

Rating: 82,5%

Pantheon of Blood - Tetrasomia [2013]

Finland may not be the most prolific metal country out there - it never was - but that's not to say that the northerners are alien to metal's exhumations and characteristics - this is the country where quality, original music comes in good numbers, in as many genres as you can think, in presentations both primal and modern, despite not sprouting bountifully. Purveyors of mourn and morbid carnality lie in abundance, and that includes the young Pantheon of Blood who have been pervading innocent souls with abysmal black metal since their successful 2011 EP. ''Tetrasomia'' is a definite step forward from the utterly primordial aesthetics of its retracting predecessor, but it does not deviate from its accursed roots too much as to seethe through the listener's mind with the same sense of overwhelming fear and emotional catharsis, installing itself as arguably the biggest highlight of their concise discography.

For one, ''Tetrasomia'' has a fucking fantastic cover. Unlike ''Consociatio Solis et Lunae'', which exhibited, rather poorly, the ethereal reflection of its musical tendencies through a puerile, sexual, and, admittedly, rather amateurish cover art, ''Tetrasomia'' has a brilliant artwork that more or less packs the EP's compartmentalized tenets in a single, gorgeously dark depiction; and while the maxim ''don't judge a book by its cover'' is one that I embrace quite frequently, I can say without hesitation that in this case, the augmented quality of the cover equals quality in content. There is a steady, circuit-like formula that the band revolves around, but aside from a foundation that gathers power from early Rotting Christ, or some of Pantheon of Blood's countrymen like Charnel Winds among others, each track is composed of its own distinct and veritable desires that are narrated by a doleful, eerie choir of guitars and crisp drum patterns. I absolutely love the band's melodic sensibility here: they feel so reminiscent of Rotting Christ's first two discs that they lovingly embrace a psychedelic fountain from which they spew forth a cathartic range of emotions, fluctuating like a multi-faceted current of emotional bliss. The iridescent quality of the drilling tremolos are so colorful that they imbue the listener with a wealth of moody rainbows and veneers, sadness incarnate.

The vocals are sneering and corpulent, but the real wonder that they provide is to draw a distinction between the rich, otherwordly guitar pieces and the frosty twang of its own inflection, simply polarizing the record and enlarging the contrast level to a greater length. ''Thunder Alchemy'', for instance, explodes with utterly woeful diatribes both in the guitar and vocal department, and at about halfway into the song the vocals generate a sort of doomed growl, as if the vocalist found himself to be a victim of premature burial, pleading for help inside his coffin while a crowd of spirits sing a hymn for the dead. You may as well say that the Finnish are at the top of their in the utilization of every single instrument. Besides the harrowing vortex of melodic riffs, the guitars implement clean pieces into the mix, which only deepens the prevalent misery. The drums are consistent though not warlike, as the guitars themselves stay attached to slower, doom-oriented riffing, with occasional outbursts of further emotion. Interestingly enough, the production is hardly dilapidated, while the vocals certainly belong to a wilder, rawer cavern of sorrow.

It's true that even with the creative atrocities the guitars fabricate, they have the potential to burgeon and evolve into so much more. I was not malcontent with any of the stuff I heard here, I actually fell in love with a few rare passages, and Pantheon of Blood did channel older, archaic black metal at times in the Norwegian tradition, evoking the purist in me, but a slight amount of distinction would still have been nice. Emotional conflagration, though, is an art that they've long savvied, and with ''Tetrasomia'', they are nearly perfect. The howls of the vocals are excellent, but the guitars don't seem to always be on par with them. ''I.N.R.I'' is definitely an exception, with the primal pangs of the guitar riffs perfectly swaying in accordance to the vocals, especially in the masterful chorus section. A lessened production value would also suit their style better, but it is up to them to hone their style with whatever adornments they choose to use on the full-length. But in anyway, ''Tetrasomia'' is more than worth your time.

Highlights:
I.N.R.I
Thunder Alchemy

Rating: 83%

Burialkult - A Call From Beyond the Grave [2013]

One of the major factors in inspiring Burialkult's musical inclination might be the sudden emergence of their salient fellow countrymen Antediluvian or Adversarial who channel the squamous and impious depths of black and death metal in the utmost nostalgic manner, though that's not the infer that Burialkult are strictly a byproduct of the aforementioned bands' success; on the contrary, their sound is quite different, despite originating from the same family tree, because if you could take Antediluvian as soupy bowl of grime and subterranean tastes than Burialkult would be the equivalent of an incendiary chili being served with raw beetroot and flesh. Burialkult is a fresh signing of the prolific label Blood Harvest which generally harbors interest for old school death metal bands, and thus surprised me with this out-of-league release. Needless to say, it doesn't matter one bit. The only thing that truly matters here is how fucking bloodied and raw these angry Canadians are, completely drooling over the cadaverous finesse of first wave black metal a la Bathory, Celtic Frost and Venom, with a healthy dose of material that would likely be extracted from some of the genre's late-coming pundits who wished to expand not upon the majesty of the music but rather upon its raw and destructive components.

Don't get confused, though; Burialkult are not even remotely enlarging black metal's characteristics, but are forming a belligerent, devilish set of artillery pieces from which to bombard the unaccustomed listener. Even for people who'd consider themselves ''veterans'' of the sound, Burialkult is absurdly primal and carnal, but thanks to modern production values, its seemingly degraded quality is bantered with punch and juice, which is the case with most bands in this field these days, but thankfully Burialkult doesn't smother us continually with broad, perforating riffing and keep things slightly interested by randomly shifting the sound quality. I was quite flummoxed to to hear the level of variation and hostility that drum patterns offered, because the fills are especially great when they're sewn onto lengthier chord progressions, and aside from occasional, frivolous fills, you'll have a verbose platter of pummeling blast beats. The palette of riffing offered is nothing spectacular as you may have guessed, but Burialkult does have two rather distinct weapons of choice: A more crowded set of second wave black metal tremolos that erupt with raw precision, and more accessible, groove-laden speed/heavy motifs that sound like Lemmy and his gang bursting through filthy streets with hellish motorbikes. I did also sense a subtle craving for thrash even though it was much scarcer than some other influences, but it helped spike up a few less motivated sequences.

There is variation to a certain degree, but don't expect this to be a record laced and embellished with veneers and intriguing crevices that keep popping up. Thankfully, Burialkult make up for some of their deficiencies in the riff department in the ambiance department. To be sure, the Canadians are adamant on keeping the eerie mingle of menace and craze at a discomfiting and dissonant level, and there isn't a single track that's not pervaded by this atmospheric formula, and moreover, they have some pretty decent ambient pieces like the lurching, ominous organ soundtrack ''Hossana In The Depths'' or the less effective ''Provocations'', and while I wasn't completely sold on the wicked atmosphere they conjured, I still had a kick out of it. The vocals are rabid and utterly caustic, inclined towards both the guttural and raspy facets of traditional black metal vocals. I'm sure that Burialkult are conscious of unoriginal qualities of their music, but the emergent focus here is the sheer bruising power this record has, because listening to this is like caulking your headphones with thorns and then proceeding to insert it into your hear. There are some ''bedroom'' black metal bands who can surpass this in terms of raw emotion and decrepit production values, but if anyone wishes to crack open a hear and go motorbiking around the city dump, ''A Call From Beyond the Grave'' is the rule to go by.

Highlights:
Desecrate The Temple
By Satan Possessed
Throne of Disease

Rating: 75%

Dehuman Reign - Destructive Intent [2013]

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only who has had a kick out of recent cavern-dwelling death metal bands who teleport back to the years of old and seek to plummet us with nostalgia, no matter how many times we've criticized their bothersome existence. And yet, they come in such copious quantities these days that I have little notion of doing anything besides scoffing at these beleaguering trends, except get smacked with a different mallet every now and then. For those who need that extra breath of fresh air to escape the redundancy, but still want to somehow feel nostalgia splashing against their face, Dehuman Reign presents one of the better options for escapism. I admit that I didn't initially give the credit these guys really deserve, because these Germans seem come crashing out of nowhere, and they've instantly signed with the German imprint F.D.A Rekotz who presented us old school death metal aficionados a fairly impressive selection of releases. Death metal attribution that gathers it influences from Krisiun, Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel or Vader is not generally my cup of tea, giving the fact that I've always preferred ghastly smudges of grime and grotesqueness over straight-up, punchy USDM motifs, but I've found myself bowled over by Dehuman Reign's debut EP rather easily.

This undoubtedly nothing novel for even the rookie death metal collector; big, abrasive guitars denting holes in your cranial complex wider than whole cannonballs, induced with propulsive thrash chug affairs that are just as ruinous, but ''Destructive Intent'' doesn't merely hold appeal solely for fans of Morbid Angel, Malevolent Creation or Vader; the technically imbued narrative of its swirling melodies will retract fans of more modern death metal, and all the riffs collide with such dexterous unison that the melodic framework of the EP doesn't thwart the heavier ones, or vice-versa. The drums are pernicious, and just as destructive as the guitars as if the two aspects combined were musical reflections of a group of pissed off mountain trolls stampeding downwards from the mountain and into an obscured target. The double-kicks are great, spicing up the band's already veritable range of annihilation apparatus, and the fills are just perfectly timed and brilliant, serving as brief preludes for the upcoming storm. Besides the more staccato styled chugging orgies, the spiraling tremolos are also turbulent enough to wipe you off the face of the Earth, and they always seem to accompanied with less audible technical death metal fillers produced by the second guitar, picked at a rapid pace, and inevitably implying that the Germans were just as influenced by Decapitated as they were by the aforementioned titans of brutality. Speaking of brutality, there are similarities between this and the rather unsung US death metal group Brutality, which aren't half as remote as I would have imagined.

Perhaps the main reason I was tepid in approaching ''Destructive Intent'' is because they reminded me a lot of their label-mates Deserted Fear, who produced an unimpressive full-length last year that was very much in the same vein as this, but Dehuman Reign's attitude and semi-modern ballast of riffs was a serious selling point for me, and the Germans are spot fucking on this EP, no matter how unoriginal their core sound is. The production is hardly sodden; it's wreathed in earthen texture and is broad, much like the clear, yet obviously guttural vocal delivery which was simply another layer of shattering concussion along with the guitars and drums. The brief opener ''Prelude To Perdition'' is bound to confuse a few because it's so damn different than the rest of the EP, featuring trudging guitars and far more aural aptitude than the rest of the disc, with shrieking black metal rasps that rather contradict the vocalist's standard Chris Barnes inflection. Strange choice for an opener I admit, but I doubt a horror flick extract from 80's would suit them better. There's not really anything else to say about this record, except that it tops a good many other young death metal acts, so if you ever feel that your beheading procedure is taking too much time or feels like too much of a drudge, feel free to try ''Destructive Intent''. It's quick, and finalizing. Happy beheading.

Highlights:
Masks of Sorrow
Extinction Machine
Staring Beyond the Edge of Time

Rating: 77,5%

Impious Baptism - Wrath of the Apex Predator [2013]

Australia's black and death metal underground is one of the most unforgiving in the world. Seldom do they manage to fail muster acts that persistently and unabashedly seem to praise demons, hell, and whatever sorts of diabolical content they conjure in their wicked minds, and with their adamant approach to the genres they've proved to be the absolute paragons of extreme practices. That said, Jarro Raphael's solo project Impious Baptism is no exception, recently releasing their scorching debut offering ''Wrath of the Apex Predator'', whose title I've granted numerous accolades, after sordid handful of EPs. Jarro, or J, as choses to name himself, has played in more bands that you can count.  Just the names of Trench Hell, Cerekloth, Destruktor, Nocturnal Graves and Destroyer 666 are enough to soak the pants of a myriad of avid listeners of the ferociously oriented black/death anomaly, and ''Wrath...'' is guaranteed to soak quite a few more. Having listened to Impious Baptism's previous outing, ''Path of the Inverted Trinity'', I can safely say that J has improved upon his sound, making things even more fun while not entirely altering the rules.

''Path of the Inverted Trinity'' was a good fucking EP, despite its brevity; a caustic tour de force in the tradition of Revenge, Axis of Advance, Conqueror and Blasphemy, inculcating the notion of barbarous impiety with considerable strength and rawness, even when regarded alongside some of the bigger groups of today's black/death fleet. The new full-length hardly follows a different trajectory, but still, novel ideas and presentations are aplenty: the production, for one, is far more audible and accessible, while still keeping some of the grime and sodden grimness of the guitar tone; the riffs are somewhat more fleshy, with less emphasis of traditional war metal motifs and more of heavier, bulbous death metal structures that should remind listeners of Morbid Angel, Angelcorpse and Vader; and seething, hypnotic trace that ''Path...'' had so copiously stored is down to a lesser whiff of impurity. This alteration hardly reduces the quality of the album though, in contrast, the heaving, hammering force of the old school death metal tremolos are catchy and will undeniably cast a wider net as to rivet the attention of a larger audience, although they still lack innovation, so you get the sense that J was struggling more to find a combo densely applied demolition than to actually create a string of inventive riffs.

J's low pitched howls somehow resemble many other Australian vocalists in the field. They're low, sinister, but edgy, just enough to keep you relatively frightened and immersed at the same time. In spite of all this praise, though, ''Wrath...'' does admittedly have some flaws. It manages to surpass ''Path...'' in many separate departments and thus outshines it in overall quality, but the main aspect that I found to absent on ''Wrath...'' was that pungent, dissolute sense of evil that was conveyed effortlessly through the EP's narrow yet crude choice of chord barrages and poorly conducted production quality that made it a real war metal record. This may see like delving a little too deep into the margins of death and black metal but I feel obliged to state this: the accessibility of the full-length has connived the true devilish grin that the EP had possessed, undeniably replacing the patterns of gruesomeness with patterns of groove and bludgeon. Nonetheless, I did find a fairly adequate amount of formidable impiety in the album, be it in J's rancid vocal lines or the sheer atrociousness of the broiling guitars. The title track is one of the more explosive tracks on the album, bursting with fiery rage, while ''Release The Titans Part I'' focuses on some slower progressions, and nearly each track comes with a dark ambient that further explores J's conquest of occultism and hellishness.

''Wrath of the Apex Predator'' is not quite the brilliant war metal album of the year, or of recent years for that matters, because the catalog of bands in this vein is extensive and rich, but in terms of sound and structure J is competent enough to tick most of the boxes, though a record with more essence and freshness would have been far better venerated, but the overall strength of the record is convincing enough to go well with a helping of blood and goat's semen, continuing to corrupt unpolluted minds in the good ol' tradition.

Highlights:
Wrath of the Apex Predator
Rites of Illuminated Death
Axis of Lucifer

Rating: 80%

Pest - The Crowning Horror [2013]

You could well say I was tedious when I approached Pest's ''The Crowning Horror'' for the first time as I was uncertain of what to expect; the cover suggested some sort of inbred of Witchery circa 1999, war metal pundits Blasphemy and Archgoat, Venom and some early Bathory records, though my apprehension was not too great since these gentlemen were Swedish, and believe me, Sweden seldom fails to deliver. Pest are indeed one of the most evil bands to come from Sweden, since the majority of the scene now seems to plagued with Swede-a-likes, bearing some resemblance to the phenomenal black/speed/thrash act Antichrist, but potent in being able to conjure something distinctly more sordid, cunning and evil. Given the band's sound and primacy, its devoutness towards the archaic roots of black metal, and their jumpy, percussive attitude, I didn't feel all too interested in Pest initially, but after channeling a handful of other, relatively derivative black/thrash acts, I concluded that the Swedes were actually better than I thought they were, as I they elicited some kind of growth policy upon me.

My estimations were roughly accurate; Pest tussle back and forth to bring back the black metal sound of the late 80's, although their sound is only remotely associated with war metal acts of Blasphemy's sort, and you could say that instead of directly snatching the aesthetic inclinations of Bathory, Venom and Celtic Frost, they throw in primordially dominated riffs into thrash and NWOBHM-like patterns, making the riffs all the more intriguing. Don't let this fool you though. The moment ''The Crowning Horror'' inaugurates, the listener is instantaneously drawn into a hybridized trajectory with countless bumps and crevices lurking along the path where the listener is hammered with some of the most flexible black metal riffs I've heard this year, but Pest somehow manage to draw an immense measure of vitriol into their mixture. The guitars are undoubtedly the unsurpassed superiors of this record, as with all of Pest's albums, I imagine; they're a multitude of strings confronting the unready listener with melody, and regular sessions of bludgeon, all meshed into a wonderfully filthy production level that, while negating any kind of obfuscation, permeates with guitars with a beautifully sodden ichor, and the drums are also crisp, a guaranteed trip to stimulating horror for old schoolers and more ''intellectual'' metalheads.

Perhaps the main trick that the Swedes have somehow managed to accomplish is filtering different genre progressions and patterns with the default formula, and nearly every track has something different in store for you, be it speed, NWOBHM, thrash, death or just a more caustic focus on traditional first wave black metal, and on any level, Pest are able to bring a viable product to the table. The entrenched barks of Necro imbue the rest of the music with further obscurity and menace, a dark, sinister timbre that mingles randomly around the concave path that the guitars keep flirting at. Indeed, one characteristic that draws a clear line between Pest any other band willing to exercise the predilections of first wave black metal is that no matter how haunting they are, the Swedes always leave a whiff of ridicule behind that's supposedly a byproduct of the music as a whole. Maybe it's just me, but whatever songs they play, the clash of the focal guitars with the wretched vocals creates an almost cheesy texture. ''Demon'', for example, is excellent with clear melodies underpinned with solid rhythm sections, but when the vocalist intervenes, the hymn of mockery begins, and the quality thankfully goes higher instead of dropping. ''Volcanic Eyes'' is even better, perhaps my favorite piece here, with stark speed/heavy riffs eventually morphing into heavier black/thrash motifs, the puerile barks of Necro once again joining the choir. ''Thirteen Chimes'' builds up with near-immaculate precision, like a reflection of the band's doom-inspired tenacity; a feast of chugs and gnawing horror.

The Swedish duo is spot-on on ''The Crowning Horror'', though I wouldn't go as far as to say they're spotless, as certain minute problems of redundancy did stain the shirt a little. Nevertheless, I was, in the end, pleased to find a band that craved for a sound that may not be original, but was desperately needed in today's metal universe, inserted in the right amount to the band's unique texture. ''The Crowning Horror'' would really have been a good finding if it were uncovered in the late 80's, a perfect band that would arguably influence second wave Swedish black metal mavens Arckanum, Mork Gryning, and so forth. This is an album that vitalizes horror and morbidity through its use technical and less dark, melodic motifs, but it's still haunting as fuck, embracing the meaning of its title as fully as possible.

Highlights:
Volcanic Eyes
Demon
Holocaust 

Rating: 88%