Pyrrhon - Running Out of Skin (EP) [2016]

In an alternative universe, I could have actually enjoyed records like The Mother of Virtues or Vermiis, records by two bands which pop up on occasion in my reviews since I entertain the prospect of teasing their most avid followers and acolytes by readdressing how artificially elevated they seem to be, especially when compared the bee knee's of the technical/avantgarde death metal spectrum, Canada's masterful Gorguts. That said, Pyrrhon's Growth Without End EP which came out last year was a refreshing coat of paint that fractured their immensely busybody stream of waxed, alienating notes and chord fusions into something more in tune with my ears, even though it still retained its caustic freakishness. Come 2016, I was excited to get my hands on their latest opus, Running Out of Skin, which turned out to be something less of an opus and rather a flimsy filler that obeyed the law of its titular maxim more than anything. Crafty and deracinating as these gentleman are in their approach, there is a level of versatility on this EP that I simply found unnerving, spin after spin.

And unnerving not in the most positive sense. Firstly, Pyrrhon are beyond doubt inaccessible, a feat they've already proven wit 2014's Mother of Virtues, but while complexity is certainly a characteristic, the real asset of their craft the cauterizing, unfazed attack of the guitars, the insomniac lying wait behind the thickset of instruments. Nevertheless, one reason for me abjuring this 16-minute EP is not it's dense focus on intricacy and avowed inaccessibility; it's the band's inability to employ little else that cultivates captivating musical experience. Let's take a look. ''Statistic Singular'', the opener and longest track here, broils with tense, discordant chords that weave into each other in a seeming mess, a characteristic choppy, bass-driven rhythm guitar driving a grotesque sort of groove beat while the lead guitars mingles with the fringes of utter ear-razing frippery: the intended effect IS alienation, but I'm too busy either scratching my head over what the hell is happening or waiting for a hook to give a damn about their skill. I profess: I do enjoy the simpler, plainer things in life, but the track absolutely lacks any momentum to engross anyone to a satisfying degree. As the same rule sadly applies to the rest of the disc, the quartet has apparently invested more time in attempting to emulate the philosophy of their half-sober practice sessions that actually filing any sensible flourish into the music.

But hell, if you're still pleading 'that's the whole point of the music, to sound dissonant'', be my guest. The guitar tone is unruly and boring, not a major deviation from the industrial grind of their previous records but nonetheless a degree more downtrodden, sharp high-end notes cutting at your eardrums like tiny bacteria with rusted, nail-sized cleavers hacking away in unkempt bliss.I actually enjoyed the vocals on here, though, perhaps the only single attribute that preserved some of that vile, cantankerous timbre I so loved on their previous outings - thankfully some things never change. There's something to be understood here if the best song on the whole disc is a cover of Death's ''Crystal Mountain'', surprisingly well applied into the individual, splenetic science which Pyrrhon has constructed on its own, - complete with both thicker and raspier variations on Schuldiner's voice plus tingling, cyborgian lead sections - and that's Running Out of Skin feels more like a piece of audio commitment fit for donation to poverty-stricken heshers in need, and even then I imagine a good many people wouldn't waste much tine before dumping it into the CD heap. Certainly not a 'terrible' effort by any means, but I felt that in between the dense interplay of meaningless notes and riffs some more substance would have been added, something which I hope the band will seek out to improve on their next full-length. That ''Crystal Mountain'' though.

Highlights:
Statistic Singular

Rating: 52%

Phobocosm - Bringer of Drought [2016]

Although the relentless 'cavern-core' trend of the past few years has quelled in the absence of convincing riffs and atmospheric dynamics that we associate with this murky, spelunking sub-genre, there is still plenty of chaos to be had around, Canada's Phobocosm being one of them, with influences of anything from Blasphemy to Ulcerate running amok through their thick, mired veins. Their debut, 2014's Deprived, was one of the reasons (alongside the creme de la creme output of pioneering mavericks like Antediluvian, Mitochondrion  and Portal) that, despite its blooding excess of unruly brutality and sluggish Incantation-worship, I still keep my faith in this niche of music, and it was inevitable that through the conduit of one Dark Descent Records the group would continue to expand its retinue as a budding entity of this formula. Granted, whatever genre it is we're talking about, it's a perpetual labor to patronize and renew your sound; not only that, but to execute the newfound divisiveness in a coherent manner... none of which Phobocosm have quite attempted on their sophomore, Bringer of Drought, leaving, perhaps, something more to be desired.

Yet when I say the Canadians have not upped or refined their cavernous repository at all, I am not instinctively correct, but rather reflecting on the paucity of fresh elements that would render the music as immersive and punishing as the debut. The Canadians, unsurprisingly, have brought their huge, lumbering, even slightly granular guitars to the fore, such that songs like bombastic, crushing ''Ordeal'' reveal they haven't at all kept their cutlery dusty, delivering astonishingly heavy and smoldering waves of low-end chugs and sludge-like ruptures. Still, the song is probably my favorite among the bunch, (we're talking 4 tracks stretching between 8-12 minutes) so the rest of the songs hardly exhibit the same level of tactile destructiveness and pulverizing force, or, if anything, allure. Throughout the other three songs, we're exposed to a lot of contemplative post-metal, limping, desolate arpeggios that burst into cloudy swathes of distortion and titular chords in an almost Neurosis-esque fashion, sans the experimental tribalism of the California giants, sinewy impulses of fairly 'straightforward' old school death metal tremolos joined up by loose aural sections that make up for plenty of emotional resonance, occasional drum fills daunting and intimidating on the way.

The picture you get isn't a whole lot different from what Deprived had to offer, although a sludge/post-metal leaning is apparent, almost as though the Canadians are morphing into something in the mode of Mouth of the Architect or Holland's Sistere. However, there is a aridity to the riffs that just makes them too dry, lacking in intricacy, to be paired with Ulcerate, Deathspell Omega, or their fellow countrymen Gorguts, who possess an immovable vocation for balancing the cataracts of brutality and unearthly technical deceptiveness in a storm of highly refined wizardry. Not that any band has to be enormously technical to evoke satisfying, even stunning music: that much is abundantly clear. Indeed, Bringer of Drought nevertheless destroys within the furrows of its neanderthal regime: penalizing walls of sound and magnitude. The vocals are trenchant and great, highly claustrophobic and monstrous, just as you'd want them to be, looming over the instrumentation like an overfed cyclops out of hell, sending the listener's tranquility into a grating spiral of falling dominoes. My gripe is that by and large this isn't the most innovative thing I've heard, and even though its kills in its own standards, there's a point where it ceases to offer the listener anything more. I, too, am content that new bands are still channeling this atavistic and visceral sound that the new generation of old school death metal fanboys seem so enamored by, but without refurbishing their style, bands like Phobocosm don't have plenty of space to grow into. Solid stuff, gets a passing verdict, though I'd still vie for their debut.

Highlights:
Ordeal
Fallen

Rating: 70%

Megascavenger - As Dystopia Beckons [2016]

Imagine if Rogga Johansson were a heavy metal DJ. He could slip in at least half a dozen of his own tracks, culled from a pool of releases spanning, over a decade, a veritable compendium in the finesse and artistry of Swedish death metal, and not a soul would notice. Regardless of what he owes his creative and productive force to, the man is to praised for the sheer size and scope of his output, so much so that even I've reviewed more than a couple of them, though it is very difficult to keep up with all his works. Of course this comes with the principal issue of having to beat around the bush excessively, since his brand of 90's, Entombed/Dismember-influenced death metal, however well and tactfully executed, falls short of enticing most of the time with so many of his riffs being xeroxed from a grisly, brutalized melting pot of the aforementioned bands, plus a few regular nasties like Autopsy, Morbid Angel, Incantation and whatnot. Nor is his umpteenth project, Magescavenger, an alien to that formulaic chasm of gruesomeness and gore, but the interesting fact about the third album under the Megascavenger guise, As Dystopia Beckons, is not only a thematic digression from the Lovecraftian concepts of the previous records, but also minute breakthrough - an animosity in this case - with its odd integument of industrial and electronic influences blending into the seamless old school death metal formula Rogga is so keen on reaping.

This comes as a shocker to me as well, considering the organic and fleshy quality of the majority of his releases, and although this daring repose offers a few breaths of comfort for the seeker of experimentation, Rogga, unfortunately, doesn't implement the stylistic shift with as much meticulousness as you would have liked. The introductory tracks, ''Rotting Domain'' and the gimmicky ''The Machine That Turns Humans into Slop'' explode with fierce, bulbous guitars accompanied by whizzing electronic feedback and tingles, moving into casual industrial breakdowns redolent of Godflesh or Samael at their more experimental, but the riffs retain their trademark simplicity throughout. There is even considerable clarity on this disc, as if somehow Rogga had rectified the gravel and grime of his traditional crusty Swedeath guitar tone with a few buckets of water to wash the mud and cake off, almost as an homage to the development of slightly cleaner melodic death sound. But be sure that the songs rage with uncompromising carnality and hefty slog of chainsaw-heavy guitar work we are so fond of. ''Dead Rotting and Exposed'' is another one of those industrially-tinged bulls that stampede with generic chugs and patronizing spells of industrialized distortion, almost at an attempt to redeem the lack of fresh, sticking riff work on the record. 

Kudos to Rogga for channeling a distinctly 'dystopian' feel, or at least trying to, through the use or reverb, robotic vocal syntheses, and mechanized d-beat rhythms that fluctuate around creepy tremolos and and chord-driven bevies. Force your imagination, and songs like ''Steel Through Flesh Extravaganza'' might just cloud your mind with the image of a gigantic, malicious, electrical saw-wielding cyborg chasing you down the streets of Detroit circa 2025, but at best these songs leave something more to be had, certainly in that they feel inchoate, and most likely because other, excellent death metal bands with industrial influences like The Monolith Deathcult have already played this weird, perfunctory sound to near-perfection. The oddballs across the record, like the Timat-esque ''The Harrowing of Hell'' (with Kam Lee on vocals) and the moody, stringently melodic ''As the Last Day Has Passed'' with its clean vocals and lumbering monotonous chords hardly contribute to the overall quality of the record; if anything, they should be hung up as addendum on a 'bonus material' disc. Fact is, Rogga has proven many times that he is a great songwriter. Peek into an album by Revolting, Humanity Delete, Paganizer, or the fantastic Putrevore and you'll see that my claims are justified. As Dystopia Beckons may be our gateway to a newer, more refined, maturer Rogga, one keeping tabs on occasional experimentation and versatility, but employing naked industrial synths into the traditional formula with guest vocal appearances on every track is almost like proselytizing the listener. It shouldn't come as a surprise that he's running out of material. At any rate, I would love to see him at the helm of another great, pummeling bastion of a brutal, sordid pummeling death metal machine, doted by the sounds of the late 80's and early 90's that we so love, not something as lackluster as this. Decidedly, Rogga needs his gusto back. Prescription: hard-boiled baby Cthulhu tentacles, blood syrup, and 5 hours of mandatory death metal listening every day.

Highlights:

Rotting Domain

Steel Through Flesh Extravaganza

Dead Rotting and Exposed

Rating: 63%

Qrixkuor - Three Devils Dance (EP) [2016]

One of the most strenuous challenges of the reviewer is, perhaps, beyond arbitrating his/her attention toward so many releases, (black and death metal albums are a dime a dozen these days) to selectively deploy his/her while rummaging from one near-indistinct album to the other. Such has been my travail when it comes to London's Qrixkuor, a quartet going by the rather practically brief pseudonyms R., M., A. and S. Now, while I always give considerable space to bands refurbishing the stylistic chaos and miasma of Blasphemy and Incantation, among a few less-known cults, I find it difficult to keep track of things when whole allure of mind-fuckery and heavy, discordant music turns its own head over itself by providing stale crumbs when the listener is looking forward to a nice, healthy helping of engaging chaos. Barring the caprice of this disappointed reviewer, the band's first EP, cleverly titled Three Devils Dance (there are three songs on it), is canned dissonance at best, but at least it doesn't try to veil the influences from which its malicious barbarity stems.

There isn't so much of a busy flow of ideas and novel sounds on Three Devils Dance as there is this tendency to emulate the sounds emanating from a slaughterhouse full of obnoxious ghouls and fat corpses: compared to renowned arbitrators of the black/death/war metal sounds (think Archgoat, Weregoat, Proclamation, Blasphemy, etc.), Qrixkuor is, to a strong degree, more pure death metal than anything else, a nostalgic manifestation of Incantation, Immolation and Morbid Angel as if there wasn't anything half so delectable to the retro death metal fan. Oozing, disgusting rhythm guitars cavort sluggishly with a tempest of tremolos and barged picking techniques as the drams waddle on in chaotic, yet formulated, disarray. What's interesting to note, perhaps, is that the Brits will employ twitchy, caterwauling leads sequences more often than many other bands in this niche, typically enclosing one riff with a wild flurry of notes and high pitched tremolo wails before cutting into the next riff, in a fashion that would have formed a malicious little grin on Trey Azathoth's face.

However, this EP is just so choked down to a mere three songs, each hovering above and below the bounds of the 10-minute mark, that it feels something is alack, but as the record trudges forward there seems to be no fresh catalyst of tension and furore that could make it more exciting. The guitar is fleshy and grimy enough, and the picking sequences are certainly intricate enough to offer some depth, but the overall trajectory of the album seems frozen in one formulaic engraving that can't seem to break the confines of its limitation. Tangibly, the artistry also freezes over; you just know you're not going to get much more out of this after two spins. Qrixkuor try to dress it up a notch with a lengthy intro full of dramatic buildup and taught violins clawing at your ears before riffs pop up, it's only a shame they can't deliver the same aural tension that's promised at the beginning. The vocals are 'good', to say the least, muffled cookie monster growls fed into a few bouts of treble and feedback that works well with the grisly tonality of the guitars for the first 4 minutes or so, but their venom quickly wanes. Three Devils Dance is not a bad piece, but as long the Brits resume their spelunking without much daring, - and there doesn't seem to be any sign of genuinely unique or ravishing craftsmanship - they have a long way to go, and their material won't entice me beyond the first 1-2 spins.

Highlights:
Serpent's Mirror


Rating: 55%

Zhrine - Unortheta [2016]

To be sure, it is a bit unfair to be labelled 'French black metal' every time you try to put on a little bit of dissonance, but there's still some credibility to that statement when you think of the collective impact of Deathspell Omega and Blut Aus Nord on the black metal scene. But then by nature I've come to expect nothing less from Iceland, home not only to some of the most astounding black/post-black metal acts of the last decade (Sólstafir, Kontinuum, Misþyrming) but also to a veritable breeding ground of pyroclastic destruction and ash, a fitting environment for the country's latest upstart Zhrine to pop out, a force to be reckoned with solely on the grounds of Unortheta's cover: a cavernous concave built within an archaic isle floating with the majesty of a tributary running straight through it, whose origin remains alluringly mysterious. Or so I would have it. And so, even though these gentleman come from the Deathspell Omega school of fucked-upedness, (a poster of Si Monvmentvm Requires, Circvmspice behind the bandstand in one of their early rehearsals evinces my deduction) there must have been a deal of unease when entirely emulating the sound of the famed Frenchmen, and for that reason Zhrine come off as genuine engineers of chaos and tumult in a form that feels both fresh and somewhat familiar, a healthy combination.

The forecast of this record is depravity and lifelessness. The opener ''Utopian Warfare'' aches with terrible beauty and emptiness, but the Icelanders have a wonderful tendency to keep the tracks within a certain range, scarcely mounting the 6-minute mark, which reinforces the tension with considerable brevity. The core of Unortheta, - largely a caustic brew of Gorguts, Ulcerate, Deathspell Omega, some Demilich and some Portal - should certainly appeal to audience toward which the sound is tailored, but this is a record busy with riffs and conscious about chord clarity which sets them apart in one way or another from their notorious benefactors. Songs like the virulent, fantastic ''Spewing Gloom'' are as good as their titles suggest, fleshing out discordant but enticing chord progression and distorted arpeggios, ballasted by frenetic, almost poly-rhythmic drumming that oscillate into slower Meshuggah-like grooves (as on ''Syringe Dance'', my favorite piece on the record) tempered by a slew of cymbal crashes and splashes. The idea is a veined array of cables, taut, snapped, then jangling and jumbling all over the place like a bunch of mechanic eels. The gloomy lows of vocals, to add, are not just great and evenly placed within the tracks, but also stretch into these far raspier, anguished chants that provide the perfect contrast of duality and grimness to the record.

Zhrine are great at building up moods and tensions before imploding with catharsis - hence the cable imagery. They don't take their sweet time with it though, which is good, because who wants to hear hours upon hours of dysfunctional clean guitars drowsed in reverb just to hear a bunch of cool riffs at the end? The mechanism of Unortheta is rewarding in that the build-ups are just long enough for you too feel truly ravished and incited about the upcoming spasm of dissonance, a perfect example being ''World'' with boils into a crushing wave of riffs before plateauing into slower pace once more, after which the listener is greeted with a broiling haunt of pure black metal chords. Rhythmic variations also bring atmospheric sludge mavericks like Mouth of the Architect, Neurosis and Isis to mind, so it's undeniable that Unortheta is keenly probing the boundaries of its norms; what's better is that there seems to be no shortage of good riffs or hooks throughout the record, with humdingers like ''Empire'' and ''The Earth Inhaled'' counterbalancing the rear end of the album. With the exception of a few dull moments here and there Unortheta retains its abysmal aura and dire pallor, mapping out a new gap to be explored by bands performing in accordance to the so called 'French' school of black metal, or just contagious, neanderthal caverncore, which remains surprisingly popular in 2016. All told, unless you were looking for something burlesque or cheerful on this album - and you quite literally have to be a neanderthal to be searching for that - the probability that it will disappoint is low; the probability that will erase all your hopes and yearnings off the face of the earth and turn your ears into honeycombs of tar and ash - much higher.

Highlights:
Spewing Gloom
The Syringe Dance
Empire

Rating: 83%

The Cream of the Crop: Arthalos Picks His Best of 2015

Overall I felt this was quite a strong terms of both quality and quantity across all genres of metal, but that has always been the case so I doubt 2015 surpassed annual mean scores by a great deal. In another sort of Murphy's Rule for yearly releases, the bulk of the quality was concentrated in the first and last couple of months, at least for me, and the pool of better releases in between was spread out a little more thinly. Still, that may also have to do with the fact that much of my own lack of research during these months was due to a combination of slight disinterest in and reluctance to pick up newer recordings at the time, which I managed to rectify somewhat by the end of the year. In terms of reviews I did start strong but my writing dwindled as lots of real life issues started filtering in, and unfortunately I had to conclude the year on a low-ish note in terms of reviews. Towards the end of the year I pushed to listen to as many new albums as possible, thus molding the current shape of my lists, but of course a good deal of albums went below my radars. I hope to make up as much as I can for those in the initial months of 2016.

Nonetheless, there was an excellent scree of releases all around, with France and Norway sticking out more than usual, beyond the usual suspects like USA and Sweden. France may not have made the top 20 cut, but it produced metric tons of great, caustic black and death metal in its national brew, fitting selections at a time when Deathspell Omega have remained idle for a good long while (seriously, new album better be in the work, guys). And Norway just trumped with an unprecedented triplet of gold from its three avantgarde mavericks Solefald, Arcturus and Dodheimsgard (though the latter did not make the cut) who assuredly produced enduring masterpieces to enrich the legacy of their discographies. But of course the Enslaved album, being more 'black metal' than its gonzo counterparts, perhaps one of the safer records they've done in the last decade, is also fantastic. 2015 is perhaps most surprising considering the wealth of releases that either belong to long-time masters (Sigh, Raven, Motorhead, Saxon, Solefald, Angra, Satan, Killing Joke, Enslaved, Arcturus, even Iron Maiden, etc.) or newer entrants and banner-carriers who had already won my heart from a few years hence (Horrendous, Sulphur Aeon, Tribulation, etc.).

As always, I avoided or just downright disliked many of these uber-hyped mainstream metal records, not to mention the mass of stoner/sludge material promulgated by media-friendly review sites and communities. But downsizing that pool in its entirety is also risky, as several of the year's best turned out to be some of the most 'overrated', like the Ghost or Enslaved records.

I have also compiled an extensive list of my 100 favorite releases, in non-hierarchical order, so as to provide a little more mileage on the density of worthwhile recordings for the year. You can take a look here

YouTube links have been embedded in the lists below.

Edit: After numerous listens the new Leprous record has earned my heart's fondness with exponentially high returns, hence acquiring a spot in the top 10. Pushed back the Katavasia album and replaced the Enforcer album with the new Nechochwen record.


Top 20 Metal Albums of 2015 ****

21) Lychgate - An Antidote for the Glass Pill (Blood Music)
20) Nechochwen - Heart of Akamon (Bindrune Recordings)
19) Crypt Sermon - Out of the Garden (Dark Descent Records)
18) Kontinuum - Kyrr (Candlelight Records)
17) Black Trip - Shadowline (Steamhammer)
16) Tribulation - Children of the Night (Century Media Records)
15) Ghost - Meliora (Loma Vista Recordings)
14) Sulphur Aeon - Gateway to the Antisphere (Imperium Productions)
13) Trial - Vessel (High Roller Records)
12) A Forest of Stars - Beware the Sword You Cannot See (Lupus Lounge)
11) Sadist - Hyaena (Scarlet Records)
10) Horrendous - Anareta (Dark Descent Records)
09) Soilwork - The Ride Majestic (Nuclear Blast Records)
08) Leprous - The Congregation (InsideOut Music)
07) Killing Joke - Pylon (Spinefarm Records)
06) Satan - Atom by Atom (Listenable Records)
05) Year of the Goat - The Unspeakable (Napalm Records)
04) Enslaved - In Times (Nuclear Blast Records)
03) Zierler - ESC (Vanity Music)
02) Arcturus - Arcturian (Prophecy Productions)
01) Solefald - World Metal. Kosmopolis Sud (Indie Recordings) ****


Top 10 Non-Metal Albums of 2015 **

10) Sammal - Myrskyvaroitus (Progressive Rock/Folk)
09) Julia Holter - Have You in My Wilderness (Dream Pop)
08) Grimes - Art Angels (Pop)
07) Grave Pleasures - Dreamcrash (Post-Punk/Goth)
06) Mew - +- (Progressive Pop/Rock)
05) Squarepusher - Damogen Furies (Electronic/IDM)
04) Purity Ring - Another Eternity (Pop)

03) John Carpenter - Lost Themes (Electronic)

02) Susanne Sundfør - Ten Love Songs (Synthpop)
01) Everything Everything - Get to Heaven (Progressive Pop/Rock) **

Honorable mentions:

Hot Chip - Why Make Sense? (Electronic/Synthpop)
Zombi - Shape Shift (Electronic)
Steven Wilson - Hand Cannot Erase (Progressive Rock)
Django Django - Born Under Saturn (Progressive/Indie Rock)
Carpenter Brut - Trilogy (Compilation) (Synthwave/Electronic)
Braids - Deep in the Iris (Indie Rock)
Knife City - Star Versus (EP) (8-Bit/Chiptune)

A little addendum on my non-metal choices. Of course my auditory leisure time generally circulates around the realms of metal, but these albums reflect part of my interests outside of those realms, and as you may have noticed this year supported a wealth of wonderful pop albums with scarcer electronic music, rounded by a selection of rock albums of varying style and contour. Every album on this list is compulsive and I enjoyed them immensely, but I have to say the Everything Everything album earned its plaudits by far, a record I listened to more than any other album, in any genre. That may be partially because the songs are fairly short, but I also found myself in entranced with the Brits' ability energize with song after song, amazing falsetto vocals, synthesizers and other electronic influences popping in - just fantastic. I cannot recommend it enough, even though it has some minor flaws. But the Susanne Sundfor record comes close, despite the simplicity of the compositions. The John Carpenter album of 'lost' film scores is also extremely noteworthy, and should come as no surprise for someone who adores the man's backlog of 80's horror flicks. The oddest ball of the bunch is arguably the Sammal record, which not only restored my faith in modern prog rock outfits but strengthens Finland's hand as one of leading conduits of 60's-70's worship. Points for Svart Records (which also released the new Seremonia album this year).


And Now... Listmania: A List of Lists * 

Of course during the course of over 4 years of blogging here, I've kept tabs on MANY blogs, and I've always had an inexplicable sympathy for fellow bloggers and reviewers alike. This year has been no exception. Therefore I've decided to make a compilation of all the notable year-end lists I could muster, since the idea is to make the music as widely known and accessible to people as possible. Granted, I may have my own little grudges about these lists, but rest assured it's nothing personal, in fact differentiation between choices is always welcome, so long as the list isn't a big, fat, cock-swallowing ape of Pitchfork's Top 10 albums of 2015. What follows is a comprehensive list of all the year-end lists I could find, although obviously with that excuse the curious reader is also encouraged to read through the other articles and reviews in the respective blogs. Some of the blogs I've linked can also be found on my blog roll column.

Autothrall's Execution Through Listification: The 2015 Edition -- The best of the best. His lists amaze me for their depth, range and also for the sheer fact that I tend to enjoy almost every record in the top 20-25 unanimously. There's also a very extensive bonus section comprised of top-lists for books, non-metal and various games. Simply mandatory for metal music nerds.

The AMG Staff Picks the Top Ten Records o’ 2015: There’s No Accounting for Anything Anymore -- I love AMG's brash, in-your-face attitude when it comes to reviewing, and I certainly feel most of the time that their high scores are justified, plus they seem to be seated in some kind of independent twilight zone between the 'poorer' bloggers such as myself and the more mainstream milieu of music reviewers, in their own social commune which is just awesome. The end of the year lists are always great and exuberant, with so many different staff members with different tastes. Be sure to check out the individual lists as well.

Skull Fracturing Metal's Top 30 of 2015 -- Perhaps a bit too high on modern power and traditional heavy metal but SFM has nonetheless been one of the very first blogs I've been acquainted with since my initiation and consequently I can't help but promote this list.

Listmania 2015 (No Clean Singing) -- These guys have a freaking open sale of awesome lists every year, from so many different users and with different labels that I can hardly keep track of all them. This is just a link to one of those individual lists, be sure them to give them all a decent look.

Arson Cafe: 2015 Dispirit -- Just a very well composed list that endures no truncation, leading up to 100 entries, all listed hierarchically. All sorts of meritorious extreme metal can be found here, as well some more modern metal records that should accord well with you if you have experimental tastes.

The 2015 End-of-Year List (Heavy Metal Spotlight) -- Just seeing the Slugdge album at #20 makes me happy. I dunno, man, it just does. Plus range and diversity run fairly wide with this list, An opportunistic mash of death, black, doom and traditional heavy with a good focus on the more 'old school' side of things.

Best Albums of 2015 (Metantoine's Magickal Realm) -- Basically your go-to blogspot (along with Slugdelord) when it comes to DOOM. All sorts of great, obscure, retro-related rock and metal here, and the list is pretty sweet to top it off. So much of a 70's stoner reprise in this blog that it practically begs a joint while you're browsing for music.

piotrekmax: Best metal albums of 2015 (Sputnik Music)

2015 End of the Year List (Ghoul's Crypt)

Finally, you can seek here an even larger compilation of RYM lists, if that's your thing, a great, long shelf of worthwhile lists with actual descriptive commentary and out of the ordinary pickings. That rounds the end-of-the-year craze for 2015. You have no excuse not to check out at least a few of these works. Now is a time for rest, which I believe I've earned, shortly before I get on the 2016 bandwagon. Praise Cthulhu and stay metal, my friends.

Vorage - Vorage [2015] (Demo)

I still find it surprising how claustrophobia isn't a commonplace occurrence among heavy metal throngs with the growing evocation of these monstrous, murky cavern-core acts in the underground. What started with Portal, Mitchondrion and Ulcerate is now a hit trend among youngsters who practice this irretrievably clamorous brand of death metal that fans seem to so fond of, even though the initial gloss of the sound has arguably worn off within last 3-4 years. In fact, propagators of these cavernous antics have become so formidably numerous that I'm starting to think if I spend just a little more time in their nullified vacuums, I'm going to end up starting to acknowledge the low-tuned vocal mantras of these bands as a veritable means of communicating with the Old Ones, who, without a shadow of a doubt, are just eagerly awaiting for one of their metallic emissaries to conduct the action necessary for us to enter into their threshold where there's no coming back....

And this is where Vorage comes in. One of the newest entrants into this field of disheartening evil and murky abrasion, the UK duo lets loose on the same brand of malefic music practiced by some of their larger forebears, bashing neanderthal death metal that resonates with the reticent insanity of some Lovecraftian elder thing sipping up the Earth's oceans and then regurgitating them back along with all the culinary excess of its interior. Bombastic, thick fucking guitars rule the mix almost entirely, and the riffs revolve around a more syncopated, semi-technical refurbishing Incantation, Rottrevore and late Gorguts, and these drilling tremolos that spiral like cranial whirlwinds. Granted, if you've been exposed to this style, you won't be immeasurably shocked by the discord of it all, and I should note that Vorage keep things fairly 'death metal', without going far into these more atmospheric, chord-driven exercises in dissonant chaos redolent of Portal or the New Zealanders Vassafor, sticking to the groove rather than outright chaotic madness, but in any case the material offered here is freakish enough to impress upon the mind of any cavern-core or black/death aficionado. Ballistic grooves are abundant, especially with the title track, adorned here and there with nervous snippets of technicality, and the overall impact leaves just as much life in the listener after one spin as after a 4-hour roller coaster ride.

I could compare this to the Malthusian EP, which I also heard this year, although Vorage certainly retain a more dynamic approach to their inherent claustrophobic overtures, dredging bountiful tremolos and eerie fringes of complexity rather than sticking to the death/doom motif. That said, the title track, also the longest in this 3-track demo, flirts with the sludge of bands like Malthusian around half way through. Just bear in mind that none of the material presented here can really hold a candle to the acknowledged masters of the genre, and that ''Vorage'', despite its initially dark appeal, is merely an addendum to the earlier, less intricate work of these bands. Whilst bombastic, the Brits aren't really doing anything to challenge the book here: the brief ambient outro is frightening enough, and there one or two decent moments I'd cite from this demo, but nowhere is this as fibrous or unhinged as, say, their peers Abyssal, nor does it completely wallow the listener in as Portal or Antediluvian with the soup-bowl trope of ungodly hymnals. The vocals are there, these ultra low grunts and growls that are excellent set-pieces for the lexicon of the Necronomicon, but once more, there are dozens of vocal practitioners out there who can produce the same, tremulous inflection. Vorage somehow ends up in this oblique spot where it has the choice to either expand upon riffs or atmosphere; or, if they're aplomb enough, both. The demo itself showcases that they have the rudiments in both, but not only is the sound too primal, but there are already hundreds of similar cave-dwellers working on it. Even so, this is archaic paranoia of the murkiest, fuzziest kind, just another solid gateway into cosmic fright and abyss.

Highlights:
Vorage

Rating: 70%

Autokrator - Autokrator [2015]

Drone and death. Two things which would have seemed irreversibly oblique had you told me about it 20 years ago, when death metal had just gleaned its initial flourish, but here we are, at the edge of the world, listening to a French band with an album capable of satisfying followers of both genres, at least in theory. Autokrator. Oh, the autonomy. We've all had our fair share bands only too incapable of governing their own creativity and resulting in veritable travesties of musical produce, and a smaller percentage of bands which can skillfully exploit their unabashed titles and work out miracle albums, across the heavy metal spectrum. Autokrator doesn't quite belong to either camp. Simply put: there's a place, deep within the reaches of an industrial complex shrouded with clouds and gloom, perpetually fixated in production and yielding the same output with pretty much every return, coagulated in its moody ambient obsession. That's where you'll likely encounter ''Autokrator''.

Now, as much as the term 'drone/death' feels slightly alien to me, there's no denying that the Frenchmen are following a similar path to the Americans Aevangelist with their brand of irrevocable, tumultuous black/death shaking the very foundations of your cortex, or the calculated, Deathspell Omega-esque dissimilitude of Imperial Triumphant; but even so my resemblances wouldn't be entirely exact since there's a very industrial foundation to found here, not so slick or street-like as Ministry or Godflesh, but a more carefully plotted, systematic rendering of bulky, impenetrable chords redolent of Portal or Impetuous Ritual. Certainly the 'drone' is there, because Autokrator flesh out their riffs in some of the most mundane fashions I've recently heard, with dronish chord upon chord flung with unobtrusive reverb and patterned segments; yet I could also complain that between these gigantic hulks they propagate and the darkly atmosphere present, the Frenchmen aren't particularly interested in spicing their material up with detailed melodies or intricate high-end fret melodies the way their countrymen Deathspell Omega would have evoked excesses of nightmare and agony. Fuzzed out and implicitly linear, ''Autokrator'' is only slightly shy of becoming a dark marital industrial project - think In Slaughter Natives or Kreuzweg Ost - especially on the final track ''Optimus Princeps'', and as inclined the Frenchmen may be to spooning off your brain with these buzzed exhortations of sound and rhythm, I've found that none of the songs here cling to head, which isn't too surprising, but moreover, they lose their hypnotic and cranial power a little too quickly - in fact I found myself scrambling for ways to keep myself occupied by the third track.

Every track is nearly a duplicate of the other, with little or no nuance offered in between, therefore I find it silly to point out specific highlights on this record.While records of this kind are definitely difficult pills to swallow, after a acclimatization of the ears they should be taken in entire packages for the maximum, potent effect, yet ''Autokrator'' feels like a drug which loses its initial gloss of hypnosis shortly after the first injection, like a cheap, painful high. The drums here can be annoying for some. Personally I didn't have a problem with them since the sharp, industrialized snares provide with a few splotches of white in a a gossamer otherwise completely embroidered in darkness, but beyond that the cymbals were weak and the dynamics department therefore surprisingly meager. Some props go to the few ambient effects which somehow made it into an album almost completely filled with simplistic, gloomy synthesizers and hard-boiled riffcraft, giving the listener a few rare moments of breath and exploring more atmosphere than the instruments could ever hope to. As much as I sometimes enjoyed the aural and industrial punch of the rhythms from time to time, there's never enough variation to make the album worth reveling in. The majestic darkness of Deathspell Omega or Aevangelist is simply not there. The vocals, the musical equivalent of coughing out wet coals out of your asshole, are there, but even that hellish diarrhea feels unsatisfactory.

This is a record which strangely enough ticks all the boxes except for intricacy as far as this industrial black/death metal niche goes, but most of those ticks are, well... half-ticks. Unnerving, cyclical displeasure runs throughout. While one half of me wonders if this was the album those engineers and worker stormtroopers were jamming out to be while Death Star was being constructed in the midst of a spatial vacuum, the other half thinks it's probably a good idea to lay off this record, especially when there are so many other monstrous alternatives lying aground, although ''Autokrator'' still isn't terrible by any means.

Highlights:
The Tenth Persecution
Imperial Whore

Rating: 52%

Destruktor - Opprobrium [2015]

By now everyone's acknowledge that once you begin your foray into the Australian metal scene, purposefully or otherwise, you will unanimously be assailed by some of the most malicious and angry troops in the global black, death and thrash perspective. That doesn't mean that every partisan of the black/death or 'war metal' phenomenon is bound to be a direct offshoot of the country's notoriously quizzical mavericks of chaos (i.e. Portal) who created more buzz along the internet and the spread of the underground than the quivering, sludgy guitar tone which they harness with their album ''Swarth'', because really, relatively more straightforward acts like Assaulter, Destroyer 666, Vomitor and Destruktor are probably more into booze and offensively fun devilry than esoteric imagery and obscure lyrics. Among its band of cult followers, Destruktor's debut ''Nailed'' left quite a lot to be desired, especially since the group leans more toward traditional death metal more than the kind of convoluted profanity conjured by the likes of Bestial Warlust and Blasphemy, so I imagine the same group of drunkards were salivating buckets just to get their hands on this....

And to be frank, I'd say ''Opprobrium'', the groups sophomore, is an improvement over their debut, both in terms of production and overall song writing. This isn't as big a leap as it is from a firecracker to a dynamite, mind you, and it did take the Aussies 6 years to get there, but we have it nonetheless. The LP retains a surprising level of clarity in terms of production, making it far more audible and 'safe' than at least 80% of its peers, but the guitars, while still broiling and grainy, are nowhere as muffled and distorted as Portal of Impetuous Ritual, and like most beer-infused black/death acts there's a greater focus on the dynamics sections with fierce, linear tremolos and eruptive patterns of simmering chords, with occasional black/speed/heavy riffs redolent of Midnight or early Bathory: so it's safe to say there's a fairly wide spectrum of sounds being offered on the plate here. The debut always felt like a hellish garble on most points, but Destruktor have stepped up the influence of filthy black/thrash and Morbid Angel/Angelcorpse here (without amounting to anything technical) and add to that sparse pool of swelling Scandinavian black metal tremolos and you have yourself a genuinely pissed off and visceral plateau of nearly any extreme metal ingredient belonging to 1984-1993 stuffed in one gnarly package.

Interestingly, The Aussies don't always run on the same track as their rudiments here, as exhibited from the final piece, ''Forever the Blood Shall Flow''. With the morosely pessimistic and lyrical title, huge, looming tremolos and a very 'black metal' melancholia, the track is almost instantly removed from the rest of the record. Of course this kind of monotonous flirt with Scandinavian black metal a la Darkthrone, Ulver or early immortal doesn't keep anyone agog for a very long time, and this applies to the entirety to the album. The drums, for one, pale out with textbook simplicity and a rather annoying tone on the snares, and the vocals are never front, hamstrung by the guitars and scarcely delivering any of the diabolical vocal enjoyment I might glean from a band like Deathhammer or Witchery. There are some good moments, like on songs like ''Besieged'' where the band marries their ravenous speed to a hooking riff, but aside from that, despite the slightly greater sense of fulfillment over the debut, ''Opprobrium'' feels a tad stale, especially when in such a devastating and busy market of zircons dedicated to the devil. For what it is, ribald, inebriated evil, this certainly grinds a good number of poseurs, and if you were taken by their debut ''Nailed'' or any other Australian rabbit hole of filth and unceremonious fun, this is still a good pick. Stay vengeful.

Highlights:
Besieged
Priestiality
Eradication

Rating: 68%

Prion - Uncertain Process [2015]

Floridian death metal has long ceased to be a Floridian export. Bands like Brutality, Hate Eternal, Morbid Angel and Cannibal Corpse are all responsible for producing milestones in the genre, masterworks of heedless brutality, but I think we can all agree the spread of their influence has become one disease too sickly to bear nowadays. In all honesty, if a half of all the new death metal in world subscribed to the riffwork of Morbid Angel and Hate Eternal in some way or another, I wouldn't be shocked. I wouldn't be shocked either if hopping on the Hate Eternal bandwagon came at price of sacrificing one's gravitas and nearly their entire capacity for originality. Argentina is not one of the world's leading metal exports, in any genre, as far my knowledge goes, yet as it turns out, the country is home to Prion, a three piece who is continuing to promulgate the Floridian tradition.

Of course, the field supporting their influence is quite formidable. The triad doesn't just know how to play things by the book: they've revised the formulas of brutality and technicality penned by the masters over and over until their build of muscular, clinical guitar frenzy and busied progressive Ulcerate-esque chord fests boil down with natural ease. You'll find that the rhythm section on ''Uncertain Process'' borrows its tenets from several sources across the spectrum, with plenty of bombastic tremolos and huge, swaying grooves supported by delectable death/thrashing insanity that almost takes things back to 1989. Prion isn't exactly an aspirant of the old school - the production values are so gigantic and boisterous that they crush the studio imprint of the early 90's - but they're not so immersed in the more modern column of brutal/technical death metal (acts like Severed Savior, The Faceless or Beyond Creation come to mind) as to pin their formulaic, mechanized intensity down solely on rampant guitar wankery which many practice so fervently nowadays. In any case, Prion assure cerebral pulverization.

As much as the +200 riffs on this disc feel appropriately murderous and punishing for the pre-match listen of an angry pugilist, Prion aren't quite pushing the envelope here. Prion know that they're not fooling anyone into thinking that ''Uncertain Process'' is a dish far removed from its core of ''Pierced from Within'' or ''Conquering the Throne'', and to be sure, the mechanical abandon of the record feels somewhat stale after 1-2 spins. There is sufficient variety conveyed here: whether by the huge, scabrous grooves of the opener ''Power Obsessed'' which plods with a Gojira-esque drive, or the chaotic splash of chords on ''Control Societies'', yet the problem remains that the album fails to deliver any major compromise of genuine engrossment through its frothing delivery of sledgehammer blows and unhinged engagement; and with tracks averaging 4.5 minutes, Prion take sweet time to pummel you, but ultimately their hammering chalks up to their redundancy.

That said, ''Uncertain Process'' is fairly interesting when you start to focus on the vocal lines over the splurge of grooves and chugs. Gregoria Kochian has a lower bark than usual, and frequently dishes out prolonged shrieks of incendiary anguish, and fits the bill well. There's no one track where he truly shines out, but ''Losing Itself in the Infinite'' is a good example of his prolonged barking and even high-end screaming reaching a high point in the album; it's certainly reassuring to hear that the vocal duties are never a far cry from the textbook brutal/technical inflection, since the likelihood of Kochian stealing into deathcore territory becomes a fearful prospect during some of his more singular moments. The drums are also great here, even if staple, ballasting the rhythm of guitars in a fulfilling manner, with plenty of audibility, (courtesy of the production) and while independently the double-bass drumming and blast beating galore may not amount to much, they are fully intact and compliment the guitars well.

Both the cover art and the band's origin suggest a kind of tropical extremity, some unprecedented serpent bursting out of the belly of the abomination shackled with huge prickly vines, but unfortunately, that flavor doesn't come with the dish. I can't possibly complain about the performances of each musician on this album, since ''Uncertain Process'' holds up with surprising professionalism and sturdy musicianship. Obviously I wasn't mesmerized the whole way through, even though they were a few moments which were noteworthy. Still, unless it comes with some magical protection from Argentine demons or a gold-plated vinyl edition, I hardly think this is essential for anyone's listening pleasure.

Highlights: 

Lose Itself in the Infinite

Control Societies

Anhedonist

Rating: 53%

Pyrrhon - Growth Without End (EP) [2015]

I could never feign to hide my affliction with most bands nowadays practicing the more modern, and more some reason more enticing ordeals of death metal, like those of Ulcerate, most post-2000 Immolation, Wormed, Fleshgod Apocalypse, or even the New York quartet Pyrrhon until this point in their career (although I have enjoyed perhaps a handful of releases in the medium) simply because much of this technically-infused, dissonant death metal feels as gratifying and appealing to me as a basket full of camel dung, and not even the pasty kind of dung, at that. That Pyrrhon underwent some inexplicable epiphany after their lukewarm ''The Mother of Virtues'', which was likewise greeted with praise and hype, seems unreasonable to me, since their latest EP ''Growth Without End'' does not seem like a huge deviation from the cancerous and bowels-out jingle of its predecessor, yet it simultaneously surprises me that the four piece could jump so far in between two chronologically very close recordings, ripping open the entrails of quality and fastidiously backing down from the oversize proportions of the full-length into a sort of formulaic greatness that translates into memorability and good song-writing, not unlike the recent EP by Ketha which I enjoyed so much.

Granted, Pyrrhon still panders to the same audience as before, but if anything with this EP they've gained new listeners, myself included. For sure, I never thought ''The Mother of Virtues'' quite felt like a godawful abortion the same way some other albums in the field did, but it's also safe to assume it will never pique my attention the way this EP did. Imagine those placid, germ-ridden excesses of afterbirth trimmed and truncated carefully, refined and polished until the work at hand still resembles the fetid grotesqueness of the initial product, but far clearer around edges, sans the overloaded carton covering that was weighing both itself and the listener's attention span down: that's ''Growth Without End''. The EP unfolds with ''Cancer Mantra'' and the band wastes no time getting to the fucking point, exploding with bombastic, wacky chords and disjointed rhythmic sways that sound unlike anything I've quite heard before, laden with dark, chaotic deliciousness. This isn't exactly the industrial and eccentric parade I discovered on Ketha's latest EP, because each musician is keeping his instrument closely intact, with little room for experimentation. That said, so much is going on here that I find it difficult not to dub this experimental. The guitars are absolutely preposterous and monstrous, and giving them props would be insulting because they've loaded the EP with so many unhinged, jagged riffs within just 15 minutes that it's nothing short of outstanding, but their discordance and the odd harmonies produced are also excellent in shaping the atmosphere, so much, in fact, that I'd easily equate pretty much any of the 5 brief songs here to a Deathspell Omega under the influence of Gorguts or Ulcerate.

The drums are absolutely ballistic, unpredictable, but at the same time sporadic so you're getting more of a great jazzy vibe rather than a pointless clangor of cymbals, toms and snares. The vocals, of course, deserve a mention here, since they can seamlessly shift between deep Immolation-esque growls and more rampant punk/hardcore inflections, like on ''Cancer Mantra'', to a timbre that lies in between the two, some underlying inherent evil seeping through the clot of a complex, mercurial cellular expanse, which, like the unpredictable instrumentation keeps changing, resurfacing and morphing as though in a rehearsal. Seriously, ''Growth Without End'' is not for the weak. The strength of the songs lie in their brevity, with the longest track (''Turing's Revenge'') being about 4 and a half minutes, and the shortest two, at 2 minutes and 1 and a half  minute respectively, being so concise that I couldn't help filter them through my unsuspecting auditory system over and over until my ears were in tatters. Everything here is so damn acrobatic and yet muscular that it leaves nothing behind. Sure, I could have supplanted some of the completely disorganized chord swells like those toward the end of ''Turing's Revenge'' for something equally captivating and energized as the other songs on the EP, but I'm more than willing to forgive a few stains on a 15-minute listen that already struck home far and wide, destroying my expectations. So much, in fact, that now I'm willing to give their full-length a second chance. Even the lyrics are pure gold, concerning various subjects, from history to mental deterioration, and they help tie up ''Growth Without End'' into the perfect cradle of malice to which belongs, fostered by oozing depravity and cancerous carbuncles, until, I hope, they all implode and give birth to something of even greater stature. Well done.

Highlights:
Cancer Mantra
Forget Yourself
The Mass

Rating: 85%

Embrional - The Devil Inside [2015]

Polish death metal trope Embrional put out a fairly impressive debut with 2012's ''Absolutely Anti-Human Behaviors'' which was arguably among the 'better' offerings of brutal or technical death metal that came out that year, even though stylistically the Poles possess a whim that doesn't quite fit either camp. Of course we can all thank fuck for the Polish scene smothering and festooning us with quality upon quality of neck-braking excursions of death metal, be it Vader, Behemoth's latest, Lost Soul, Decapitated or the less know Deivos, and also for the fact that Embrional hasn't gone astray after the success of their debut. A reasonably unctuous nod at both the old and the new school, ''The Devil Inside'' keeps the pace of its predecessor, with all its mechanized devilry and didactic, old school-oriented precision, though it may have also left me in some degree of dismay along the way while failing to excavate anything novel on the way...

In other words, the gratifying suspense and novelty of the debut has somewhat faded with the sophomore, naturally of course, but you'd think that the Poles would have carved a fresher niche in 3 years for the whole serving. This is grotesque, intense proto-brutal death metal which I imagine garners much of its aesthetics from the Floridian scene of the 90's, as it's very reminiscent of Morbid Angel, Cannibal Corpse, Hate Eternal, but with also the beckoning, thrashy technicality of Pestilence or Cynic if I had to take it to such a degree, yet the Poles masterfully retain the primal, urban grime that had made their debut such a cankered cake feast for me in the first place, with enough smudge, distortion and bizarrely spidery riff patterns to creep out even more resilient ears. At the same time, the Poles are certainly never 'brutal' to the extent that I'd equate them with the heavier material of Corpse, even though I highly doubt they weren't influenced by the creeping monstrosity of some of the riffs on ''Bloodthirst''. Surgical but never unnecessarily bombastic or overloaded with worn down chugs or insipid, soulless guitar sweeps and wankery, I love that there is still a sense of trauma and suspense to this record almost as much as there was to the debut, like an industrial anthem empowering cannibalistic corpses from their maggot-infested cemetery.

The vocals are always there, a sinister growl that certainly feels more capaciously evil and absorbing than most forced cookie monster growls, and it helps that every aspect of the music gets a fair share in the mix so that the guitars aren't up front and the drums actually have an earthen texture to them despite being quite impressive, so that they don't sound like mechanized cinder blocks pounding your ear drums vociferously; the graven mantra of a mid 90's death metal record can be traced here if carefully listened through, even if the production have values have a naturally high ramp to them. Yet the debut was far from perfect to begin with. There are hindrances here that unfortunately don't go unheard, such as the lack of depth in the riff-craft. All told, I do love the kind of clinical yet caustic riffing the Poles propagate, yet at the same time I couldn't help but feel that they were somewhat worn out in that department since there wasn't a whole lot of variety between the tremolos, the death/thrashing breakdowns and the more mechanical pickings. ''The Devil Inside'' is an uncouth human grater, efficient and consistently enjoyable, but it's a grater gone a tad rusty, especially after 2-3 spins. Nevertheless, besides that, as well as the utterly disposable and clumsily named ''Whores, Drugs and Brain Dead'', with such great tracks as ''Evil's Mucus'', or the vorpal ''Callousness'', this is a veritable slaughterhouse of culinary hypnosis and mathematical nightmares which fans of carnal death metal, old and new alike, ought not miss.

Highlights:
Evil's Muckus
The Abyss
Callousness

Rating: 75% 

Impalers - God From the Machine [2015]

Danish thrash? In retrospect, I'm glad with the Danes Impalers putting out another record, not solely because it fills in the shortage of thrash metal premises, which, to my knowledge, have not been fulfilled by any band since the 80's except Artillery, but also because the band 2013 full-length ''Power Behind the Throne'' was already a forgotten disc in that endless mound of promos and albums which I acquire annually, without concessions. Nevertheless I'd say among the heap of neo-thrash acolytes who preach the wisdom and savagery of Kreator, Sodom or Destruction, Impalers stands out as by far one of the more potent, capable of serving instances of undiluted 80's chainsaw thrash action without adhering to some of the more stylistic conventions of the genre such as those whose trail was blazed by Watchtower, Toxik, Coroner and Artillery in the 80's and early 90's. Not that it's a problem... I'd feign to see some proper Coroner worship any time, especially since retro-thrash is in such a dire state nowadays, but granted Impalers isn't crossing that strait, we still have ourselves an enjoyable piece of 80's worship.

The sound of ''God From the Machine'' has an immediate Teutonic appeal, as if the ferocity of those early Kreator records  were somehow infused with brisker production values and slightly more growled vocals instead of Millie's signature verbal barks. That is to say, the album still bears a strong resemblance to Destruction's later work, following the explosive ''The Antichrist'', but Impalers is still more melodic than that, incorporating harmonies and modern metal melodies which fluidly bridge the ravaging chugs and rhythmic chops which demonstrate the group's finesse with their cutlery. Nearly every song here is a butcher's feast, with loads of delicious chops, palm muted tremolos and immense projections of chords like the verse riff on ''Prepare for War''. Impalers isn't exactly an Angelus Apatrida or a Suicidal Angels, which both possess too much inherent melodic death/thrash tendencies to be called 'pure' thrash outfits, because the sense of melody on this album is scarce, existing mostly in the spurious, bluesy leads. Mechanically clad, ''God From the Machine'' evokes then image of some unwarranted robot intruding into some city with huge, ballistic laser guns and rockets protruding from its soldiers... a feeling more apocalyptic than your regular thrash outing, perhaps as a result of the vocalist's haughty growls and dynamic drum work: either way ''God From the Machine'' somehow aspires to become something marginally different from its ancestors like Kreator and Sodom, who with records like ''Pleasure to Kill'' or ''Obsessed With Cruelty'' salvaged an antiquated sense of evil rather than the robotic mosh-fest present here.

That said, Impalers still owes a lot to the Bay Area scene. I can relate them instantly with the Germanic scene due the evident hostility of the guitars (the vocals help too) but I'm sure that the Danes owe something to Metallica, Vio-lence, Forbidden, Slayer and Overkill something as well. But I can also see that the band is somewhat on the edge of experimentation here: ''Beyond Trinity'' is a ballad that opens up with clean vocals and deliquescent guitar arpeggios, building gradually to a brisker array of riffs, something akin to a ''Welcome Home''. Any any rate, the Danes are more modern and polished than a thrash band out the 80's, and the riffs here aren't exactly recycled, with enough fury, memorability and in-your-face gang vocals to establish a firm kick in your balls. I would have definitely enjoyed if they hadn't paraphrased so many of their riffs, especially with songs like ''The Vulturine'' or ''The Walls of Eryx'' which not only surpass the boundaries of regular thrash-time, but exercise excessive quantities of futuristic mosh that doesn't feel on par with the crunchy ear candy I received on some of the better tracks. Still, refined, tight, professional, and definitely ahead of a good number of their peers, Impalers delivers the thrash animus nicely with ''God From the Machine'', and you can bet kids in tight jeans and Slayer shirts will be recounting this as one of the best thrash to have come out in 2015.

Highlights:
God From the Machine
Prepare for War
Destroy the Meek

Rating: 72,5%

Ossuaire - Le Troubadour Necrophageophile DEMO [2005]

It's not everyday that you unearth French death metal - in fact my knowledge of the genre's existence in France doesn't go too far beyond Massacra - since France's 21st century output has been marked by a colossal weaving of uncanny black metal acts more than anything else, but find you may, and trust in Ossuaire we do. This triad had independently released a debut back in 2010 (back when bare bones old school death metal revivalism was still fairly popular) but naturally it passed almost unnoticed. But before even that, they actually had a demo, buried under the nether of lost OSDM recordings, and I had the chance to uproot it. The funny thing about it is that while wildly falling to the thrill of their salacious fantasies in a rather funny way, the trio manages to cultivate a death metal sound that doesn't serve as an immediate carbon-copy of any other niche I can name; a strangely proficient brew of Bolt Thrower, Death and Finnish obscurity a la Demigod, Convulse and Depravity.

So let's be straight: this isn't something that will change the fundamentals for death metal, far from it. Through unwavering research and quests into the obscene, I've been thankfully able to discover some real 'game-changers' in the field, even at a time where the glorious pungency of Autopsy and the force-fed awesomeness of the Swedish chainsaw have expired; Ossuaire's queer little demo basically draws upon the Bolt Thrower of 1988-1992 and Finnish putrescence, not as a contender for reinventing the wheel, but as a tasty reminder of some of the ugliest records of the 90's. The tone and production on this demo is fairly outstanding because they've managed to captivate the fuzzed-out soniscape of the early 90's, but beyond that the riffs are anything if not old school, huge, cantankerous bulks of disgusting rhythms and chug fests driven with the prosaic blasting of the drums. It doesn't knock you right across the park, but it's filthy and titular enough to enjoy the sight of dislocated bones while reveling in bowels and grime. Ossuaire take paunchy sound from the American scene as well. ''Le Fleau'' is overflowing with thrashy sways and hypnotizing tremolos redolent of Immolation, Cannibal Corpse and even Morbid Angel, and unlike Bolt Thrower, they don't always stick to being 'slow', since the demo is speed-wise (and aesthetic-wise) not very far from ''Eaten Back To Life'' or something of that vein.

The Finnish influence is buried between the less noticeable tremolo patterns, like in ''Necrofistum Prima Nocte'' where they extricate a gruesome, sinister aura, though I wouldn't have minded if they had some more substance to them. The vocals aren't really too distinguished here, but if you're into the kind of timber championed by Craig Pillard or Karl Willets, they should fit your bill. The lyrics are all in French, so it's an odd delight to be hearing the same tales of gore and bloody requital sang in the language renowned for its posh extravagance. This is 'posh' death metal, and haters can fuck off. But that aside, this is hardly an introspective brand of music (in case the cover art didn't do the work) with implications that don't go far beyond your 'stock' old school death metal offering, and while it would be interesting to hear what the Frenchmen would sound like if they got on a level with, say, Trbiulation or Putrevore, the demo is solid a piece of work, but nothing I'll be listening to consistently.

Highlights:
Le Fleau


Rating: 63%

Gruesome - Savage Land [2015]

What's the best way to respond to morbid gimmicks? More gimmicks! Despite the fact that so many old school death metal acts keep falling under the same dome of generic, tactless ordure, member of Exhumed and Dekapitator Matt Harvey insistently pushes forward in the imitation game, with the most affably like-sounding album I've heard in years. Indeed, it doesn't pain me when I see a huge old school resurgence budding to counterfeit the more modern, busy-bodied splurge of technical death metal bands, especially when masters of like Death, Pestilence, Autopsy, Exhumed, Carcass and Morbid Angel are put into exhibition through fresher production qualities, but the downpour of this musical carnality has long lost its initial gloss of delectable, grotesque beauty embodied via some of the foremost contenders of the new wave of old school death metal, and coming across one band which actually heralds something more than the dry worship of the early 90's has become an eerie process. Unfortunately, Gruesome does not quantify as the insurgent savior in this case of cannibalistic banality, and in fact their debut ''Savage Land'' goes beyond even the rudiments of worship: a literal copycat of what Chuck Schuldiner formulated in 1988.

Everything, from the campy, gore-induced cover art to the precise tones of Harvey's inflection, scream ''Leprosy''. While I would have found the opaque, spidery lattices of guitar riffs redolent of a typical OSDM revival offering, ''Savage Land'' has an instant and unwavering appeal to the exact motifs and carnal leftovers that was granted to us with Death's 1988 magnum opus, sprawling tremolos still tinged with the primal expressionism of late 80's/early 90's thrash metal, and the album is so devoted to its source material that it exhorts the kind of semi-technical for which Chuck was renowned for with inseparable mastery, fleshing out the layers of contusion and antiquated morbidity in the way which Schuldiner would have done. It's almost as if Chuck has been brought back from the dead, with his infected 1988 timbre (before he began to focus on raspier growls) and decided to give his fans one last tour de force. Gruesome certainly know to relish the exact period on which they based the album on: ''Savage Land'' denies both the even more primitive evil of ''Scream Bloody Gore'' and the more technical, polished aestheticism of Schuldiner's later efforts and sometimes undesirable flirtations with melody. If anything this is a potent, convincing tribute to everything the great man dedicated his life for. Yet despite the putrescence of it all, ''Savage Land'' brims with a robust production and crisp tenet uncommon for ''Leprosy'', owing to the obvious gulf of 27 years in between records, and the formulaic intensity reaches new heights with the pummeling vividness of the kit. It does grant the album a greater impetus for the grooves which marginally separates it from ''Leprosy'', including some fairly cool fills here and there, but I certainly wouldn't substitute it for  Hoglan's sinister beats and organic texture which made the album such an instrumental part of my cognitive death metal compendium.

That being said, there are few other moments here worth mentioning. Notably the leads, which are, like everything else, derivatives of Chuck's uncanny leads and crepuscular harmonies, are somewhat improved if we had to take this album as a replica of ''Leprosy'', with songs like the title track and ''Trapped in Hell'' featuring some catchy, if spurious solo work that I found to be a major distinction point between this album and the other (if it can be called a 'major' distinction.). But otherwise there are whammy bars and imprecisely concocted leads aplenty here, like on the fast, molesting ''Psychic Twin'' with not much depth to them. On a funnier note, the band parodies the song ''Open Casket'' with its corresponding tune ''Closed Casket'', and there's even a a cover of ''Land of no Return''... in case, well, you needed more Death for your listening pleasures. It's certainly a more brutal offering than ''Leprosy'' courtesy of modern production values, but the skin tingling, blood-curdling pleasure of the latter, it's indisputable ability to resurrect the dead and pile rotting bodies on top of one another until you're body withers away cold and numb, is amiss. Gruesome are either unaware of the fundamental fact that ''Leprosy'' happened once, and will never happen again, or they're just parodying the record, which at this rate of devotion and accuracy, seems unlikely. And while no death metal would be devoid of its influence, copy pasting is just downright weird as a musical practice. A cool, fierce record that certainly fits the bill if you're into the early Floridian scene, but unlikely to elicit more than a few listen from me.

Highlights:
Hideous 
Gangrene
Trapped in Hell

Rating: 67%

Malthusian - Below the Hengiform [2015] (EP)

During the steady flow of the last 5-6 years we've accumulated more amorphous or 'cavern-core' death metal then we'd care to listen to: Antediluvian, Ulcerate, Mitochondrion, Impetuous Ritual, Teitanblood and Vassafor are just a handful of the many that come to mind, and Ireland's Malthusian has showed no reluctance in joining ranks with these bands and the ungodly, otherwordly death metal which they've effectively articulated. The band's debut EP and first offering after a rather highly regarded demo speaks in the exact language as the aforementioned giants, with an appeal to the extra-dimensional chaos of Lovecraftian horror and cavernous din espoused by the country of the maple leaf in particular. Make no mistake: Malthusian come (or rather trudge) with a murky expose that promises something far below the straits of 'catchy', 'melodic' or 'assonant', and ensures a permanent place near the bedrock of your iPod, spewing forth lava and bile.

''Below the Hengiform'' is at once cataclysmic and bloated with a disgusting synthesis of impenetrable death/doom motifs and wallowing vortexes of black metal airiness. The Irishmen deserve some credit for begetting the same kind of oozing, cantankerous death metal as some of the peers, but with a few flourishes and twists here and there to render things more unique. To be sure, 'cavernous' seems like a wonderful way to describe the coitus of tempestuous guitars, dowsed in reverb and the overall atmosphere they so successfully forge, but Malthusian gape through a certain level of almost oriental accessibility, with their looming chords balancing more towards an ''Onward to Golgotha'' rather than an ''Obscura'', though fascinatingly enough they employ enough technical skill a and variety in certain riffs to give the squamous slipperiness of the riffs some level of containment. Rather than piercing straight into the helpless soma of listener, the riffs spew a continual discharge of ichor and pustular extravagance, coating, slowly but gradually, as though with incandescent bones and limbs dipped in grime and pus; yet even then there's a level of tension to be suffered through the parade of some more dissonant riffing which Ulcerate or Gorguts fans would appreciate, even though the larger portion of the record is decidedly more loyal to the recipes of the masters of the early 90's than anything.

So this is 'old school', if that's your game, though for either party Malthusian pose unanimous annihilation. The quality of the production certainly works in their favor. Unlike in many records, the drums are clearly audible here, and not only that but they incorporate an abusive percussion through a wealth of cymbals and demented blast beats that suit the matchless chaos of the riffs well. The vocals are arguably the most distinct part of the Ep. As a contrast to the low-end riffing and spelean dive bombs, vocalists PG, AC, and MB (yes, they've got three guys going vox!) implement a mix of denser growls and utterly nightmarish shrieks redolent of Deicide, through at least twice as unnerving. Unfortunately, ''Below the Hengiform'' isn't as viscid to the ear as it is within itself. There are 2-3 riffs which I was utterly engrossed by, like the verse riff on ''Slouching Equinox'', but since the music engenders more artsy atmospheric than anything else, it's probably a safe assumption to say that none of the material here really stands out as mesmerizing, even at its sheer, apocalyptic best. With compositions as long as 9 minutes and just 3 tracks, you're bound to be in some shortage of dynamics, though thankfully the final (and shortest) track ''Forms Without Vapor'' is shattering and memorable enough to stave off the banalities of the other two tunes with its lurching, grooving riff patterns and linear, raspy black metal vocal lines. So like all the bands hailing under the black/death banner, but without providing as colorful a flavor as some others, Malthusian requires immensely concentrated consumption, followed by regurgitation. And then repeat.

Highlights:
Form Becomes Vapor


Rating: 73%

Perdition Temple - The Tempter's Victorious [2015]

Armed with the cutlery of ungodly riffs and production values that hearken back to the mid-early 90's, Perdition Temple is another band who channels the vainglory of Angelcorpse, Morbid Angel, Impiety and the like. More than adhering to the now antiquated cavern-core aesthetics of Antediluvian, Motichondrion, Impetuous Ritual or Vasaeleth, there's a more dynamic sound to be sought here and one that can definitely garner some attention. I'd been hesitant enough to dismiss the recent EP, ''Sovereign of the Desolate'', of this Florida five-piece, but the sophomore ensures that any mistakes made in the past (i.e. laziness/trepidation) have a chance of being redeemed through the musical purgatory which they have to offer, and while I do think my actions can be partially justified with the blandness of the band's initial image of pentagrams and blazing temples, there's some truth saying that no matter what, you can't judge a book by its cover, especially if it's Angelcorpse on hold.

That being said, ''The Tempter's Victorious'' is not necessarily the superb splash of profane originality you were probably betting on, but it's still superlatively more distinguished and dynamic than at least a handful of other albums you'll hear of its quotient. Acrobatic and unholy, the riffs are flung endlessly, like charred limbs and body bits being catapulted from the crenelations of some darkly fortress, with beautifully gnarly, serpentine tremolos crawling apace, and while this record does not sound as devastating as anything derived from Angelcorpse's body work, there's a certain, infinitesimal creep to it which I've frankly grown very fond, such that it might easily appeal to fans of a more broad circulation of contemporary death metal a la Putrevore, or if you like your death metal really old school, Funebre, Morpheus Descends or even Demilich. The overgrowth of the death metal portion of this record makes you crave some of the black metal that was promised by the esteemed Metal Archives tag, but in truth the only thing 'black' about this is Impurath's sepelean rasp which adds a rather enjoyable contrast to the seeming transparency of the riffs... and that's fact, because the guitars are hardly doused in any sort of reverb or overripe thickness, which even makes the album strangely technical.

You can even hear plodding, almost psychedelic bass lines grooving behind the systematic tremolo patterns which usually sound like they were ripped out of the cortex of some technical death metal piece and then run through the bowels of Baphomet. Chaos galore. The drumming is spot on, though it largely doesn't stay out of the norm's of this style. Tracks like title track and ''Extinction Synagogue'' are paragons of the album's unmitigated force, sprawling panoplies of black/thrashing and intensity in case you needed any more, and ''Chambers of Predation'' has a great set of chug-oriented riffs which I quite enjoy; ''The Tempter's Victorious'' is clearly not a far shout any Morbid Angel or Angelcorpse record, but its capacity to disturb and penalize are realized well, with suitably heretical apparel to make a name for themselves in the underground. 8 tracks prepared to drill your mind with manic fervor. In the end, the tempter is victorious, and its victory lap revolves around the pillars of a crumbling church, where hopefully, an inquisitive reader would be interested enough to exhume this disc from the debris afterwards, and indulging in all morbid and malicious details it keeps within. Not a terrific record, but as solid as they'll fucking come.

Highlights:
The Tempter's Victorious
Extinction Synagogue
Chambers of Predation

Rating: 75%

Incinerate - Eradicating Terrestrial Species [2015]

The breeding ground for uncouth 90's death metal has grown more popular than it was during its heyday as a myriad outfits continue their mechanized, bloody advance to claiming their testators' legacy (i.e. Suffocation, Cryptopsy, Morbid Angel, etc.) but fruitfulness in such endeavors has rarely been the case. In other words, enter the dialectic of Incinerate third record ''Eradicating Terrestrial Species'', and the testy death metal listener will instantly realize that he/she has already run the gamut of the band's cadaverous gestalt of brutal/technical death metal, with almost zero new tricks to satisfy the culinary appetite which one may have hoped ravish. Playing like a manic, defunct tutorial for disfiguring ugly extra-terrestrials, this international cooperation leaves much to be desired, (Dave Rotten and Rogga Johansson created some of the most ill-bred sonic abuses of recent history with ''Macabre Kingdom'' in 2012, and we all know what a blast that was) but less to be acquired...

Comatose Music has had the honor of governing such depraved and bombastic retro-90's death metal acts like Incinerate, though the department's been generally running low on originality. Incinerate plucks at the strings of Hate Eternal, Cryptopsy, Suffocation, Florida obscures Brutality and Disincarnate and Immolation more than the cavern-core worship bands these days usually vie for, and even the production values have been altered somewhat to patch in with that gruesome production of the 90's. Before I gone on to scold how much this record lacks proper clinical galvanization, let me point out that the 90's mechanics are perfectly in place, and the riffs are densely punishing enough to come close to the aforementioned groups, with dredged up technical punishment and furious tremolos delivering most of the album's fundamental butchery, and treacly chugs gulping away at the listener's ear with systematic tension and ugliness.The drums contain enough fills and frenetic double-bass convolution to sound tantalizing, at least to an extent; add to that a metallic, grinding base line and everything seems in place to become the bonafide tech-death offering of the year, but the tracks are so interchangeable that it feels like musical equivalent of dull paint job.

I frankly enjoyed the overt presentation of gore, religion and science-fiction tropes, but aside from the few cheesy film sequences sandwiched in between or before some of the tunes, the concepts did nothing for the theatricality of the album. Incinerate is constantly technical, but they obdurately lack the quality to modify themselves throughout the record. Jesse Watson's vocals are the typical growls you were expecting, providing little anguish or trauma. They go excessively deep sometimes, and the cavernous lows mixed with the unsavory technicality generate something of a Demilich current, but once again, pleasure is stifled. Perhaps my favorite track here was ''The Berzerker'', which sounds characteristically similar to all the other tracks but has a intro featuring Shelley's poem ''Ozymandias'' as the only moment which was elevated to auditory limelight in the entire song. This is 30 minutes of unscathed brutality that feels long enough after the first spin. Evocative? I doubt it. Pure calculated ordure, and a fine piece to listen while you're raging over your maths project, I imagine. Yet this scarcely pushes the imaginative expanse of anyone's mind, and I certainly enjoyed some of the surgical guitar work and intensity, I won't hesitate to say Incinerate's got a better compendium of cult horror/sci-fi films than masterful riffs.

Highlights:
Fucking the Rotten Nun
The Bezerker
From Distant Worlds

Rating: 50%