Lmst

"An autobiographical album that delves into the heart of mental health battles from hiding one's illness all the way to the brink of oblivion" - with a little help from friends.

For @loewe's #MittwochMetalMix, a healthy dose of #djent:

#Unprocessed: Angel

https://album.link/t/449276750

#ProgressiveMetalcore

FFO #TheContortionist #Johari #TesseracT

Extortionist – Stare into the Seething Wounds Review

By Dear Hollow

Although my love for metal has its origins in the -core movement, it’s largely passed me by in the years since. New artists come and go, and the next thing I know, my favorite metalcore songs were all released in 2015 or earlier. Extortionist is also one of those bands I neglected, but when I first heard them, I immediately clocked it was not The Contortionist. With no prog in sight, Extortionist is known for their blend of deathcore, metalcore, and nu-metal, which has me running for the Tums right away. Oh, and they’re also known for supplementing their open snare tone by assaulting a metal beer keg with a baseball bat – beer to wash the antacid down, I guess. Anyway, here’s Extortionist’s fourth full-length.

If you clued in that Stare into the Seething Wounds looks like a Korn album cover, complete with warped symbols of childhood fed through the Tim Burton-on-weed machine, you’re dead-on. More than other “nu” acts like ten56. or Motionless in White, Idaho’s Extortionist sounds like these “on the kob” legends or Alice in Chains in its more subdued moments – complete with wonky guitar effects and vocalist Ben Hoagland’s best impression of Jonathan Davis. However, its less restrained identity enacts a brand of brutality seen in Bodysnatcher or The Last Ten Seconds of Life, weaponizing belligerent roars that recall Upon a Burning Body’s Danny Leal atop crushing breakdowns and thick riffs. Layering nu-metal’s wonky effects and lazy vocals with deathcore’s fat-bottomed tone abuse one song after another with the band’s signature drum production, the two faces of Extortionist are initially appealing, but by the end of Stare into the Seething Wounds, you’ll want to slap them both.

The subtler side of Extortionist is a more atmospheric and deadlier version of Korn’s melodies and Nirvana’s watery effects, focusing on drawling baritone vocals and short-lived random explosions into metalcore chugs. Achieving a sort of sonic haze through these means, the potential resemblance to Deftones in its layers of opaque instrumentals and minor chord progressions is a tempting one that ultimately falls flat. The dynamics are simply not there, as Extortionist will shift from the Davis drawl to a chuggy deathcore breakdown with Hoagland’s vocals providing the only crescendo. If heavier combinations of “Freak on a Leash” and “Come As You Are” sound like a good time to you, these tracks might satisfy (“The Break I Couldn’t Mend,” “Submit to Skin,” “Dopamine,” “Low Roads,” “Do You See It?”) – even if the band at large sorely lacks the charisma or songwriting chops to pull it off. These tracks end up being dull interludes between the slightly more interesting core exposés.

If being bored to tears is not your game, Extortionist’s numbskull brutality might appeal to you. Channeling a nu-metal-influenced, deathcore-forward breed of intensity that recalls early Crystal Lake or Alpha Wolf, the straightforwardness is at least unpretentious. Even then, some timing issues, usually tempo disparities between breakdown callouts and the breakdowns themselves, keep some tracks from achieving the soundtrack to the pit they so desperately strive for (“Cycle of Sin,” “Starve”). Even the more bulletproof metalcore/deathcore tracks (“Aftermath of Broken Glass,” “Detriment,” “Invisible Scars (Part III)”) offer no reason to listen to Extortionist compared to the plethora of -core rip-offs – these tracks are fast and solidly composed, featuring bone-crushing breakdowns but that’s about it: better incarnations exist in early The Plot in You and Loathe. A blessing and a curse, drummer and keg abuser Vince Alvarez’s performance is the clear highlight amid the sea of boredom and monotony, but that signature production and reverb manage to inflate the mix to something that clashes with the breakdowns and riffs, feeling lazy in the busy, overfilled attack.

For a very bloated forty-eight minutes, Extortionist blurs the lines between nu-metal, metalcore, and deathcore – their stark dichotomy of grungy drawling and brutalizing breakdowns ultimately boils down to boring and monotonous. However, if you ever forget that this is deathcore or metalcore, there will be a ten-ton breakdown to remind you. If you ever forget this is nu-metal, Hoagland will growl some off-beat “oh-oh,” “fuck,” or “yeah” faster than you can say “da-boom-da-da-mmm-dum-na-ee-ma.” All this to say, maybe I should have left Extortionist back in 2015 – peel away the cringe and novelty of Stare into the Seething Wounds and what looks so strong, so delicate.

Rating: 1.5/5.0
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Unique Leader Records
Websites: extortionist.bandcamp.com | extortionist.co | facebook.com/ExtortionistNW
Releases Worldwide: October 10th, 2025

#15 #2025 #AliceInChains #AlphaWolf #AmericanMetal #Bodysnatcher #CrystalLake #Deathcore #Deftones #Extortionist #Grunge #Korn #Loathe #Metalcore #MotionlessInWhite #Nirvana #NuMetal #Oct25 #Review #Reviews #StareIntoTheSeethingWounds #ten56_ #TheContortionist #TheLastTenSecondsOfLife #ThePlotInYou #UniqueLeaderRecords #UponABurningBody

Vildhjarta – Där skogen sjunger under evighetens granar Review

By Dear Hollow

You could make the case that Vildhjarta’s third full-length is too late to be relevant. There are few that djent as hard as the Swedes, and their own influence exists in pockets of tone-abusing youngsters and diehard veterans who just keep releasing shit: Tesseract, Periphery, and Animals As Leaders, for example. I’ve always thought that Vildhjarta is the more curious Humanity’s Last Breath, utilizing a similarly crushingly heavy bone-to-dust djent tone, dark atmosphere, and vocal attack,1 but with a shimmering ethereality more akin to Uneven Structure or older The Contortionist, heaven and hell alike. Regardless, you can bet your bottom dollar that Vildhjarta djents. Hard.

Vildhjarta has a fervent fanbase in spite of having relatively little music to speak of. Having coined the mysterious “thall!” battle cry and influencing a ton of “djentlemen,” Där skogen sjunger under evighetens granar is only their third full-length. The influential concept album Måsstaden was a landmark of djenty deathcore, but was immediately left almost entirely unanswered (apart from the Thousands of Evils EP in 2013) until 2021 with the release of Måsstaden under vatten (“seagull city underwater”). That album rekindled what made the act so formidable to begin with: downtuned choppy djent riffs, reverb-laden leads that sway between dissonant and hyper-melodic, and staccato overlapping rhythms. Där skogen sjunger under evighetens granar is undeniably Vildhjarta in this way, although it benefits from its more playful approach, streamlined songwriting, heightened atmosphere, and deepened weight, but it won’t change your mind about Vildhjarta in its one-note and overlong glory.

Vildhjarta has always been unique for its ability to take the novelty and highlights of djent and make an experience out of it. Där skogen sjunger under evighetens granar is the most pristine and positive of the band’s discography, reflecting its sanguine title,2 compared to the ominous ambiance pervading the dark fairytales of the Måsstaden suite. While its predecessors dove headfirst into the darkness, Där skogen... seems to embrace a more dreamy attitude reminiscent of post-rock bands like Sigur Rós or Hammock. Yes, the Swedes have amped the density and weight of their djent, but have also raised its hell-gazing heads to the cosmos. There are certainly moments of ominous dissonance (“Där mossan möter havet”), but most tracks feel downright cheery by comparison. Toss in some well-placed vocals that range from dreamy to powerful (“Sargasso,” “Där mossan möter havet,” “Kristallfågel,” “? regnet, the ?,” “Viktlös & evig”), and stargazing to djent never seemed so apt.

That being said, if drop-tuned djenty beatdowns interspersed with reverb-y leads, wild runs, and synth overlays are not your thing, that’s basically what Vildhjarta does for fifty-six minutes straight, which is downright brief compared to its predecessor’s eighty-one minutes. One riff to rule them all: variety and differentiation are not names of the game for Vildhjarta. Even tempo remains at a comfortable 90 bpm for the majority of the album; sudden blastbeats give the illusion of speed. Vilhelm Bladin’s harsh vocals remain predictable death growls with a climax of a shriek here and there aside from sparse, almost-spoken word (“Hösten som togs ifrån mig,” “Den spanska känslan”), although the cleans have much more range. Guitar work remains entirely predictable, aside from the pairing of melancholy plucking and its punchy polyrhythm call-back (“Viktlös & evig”) or some almost classical noodling (“Den spanska känslan”).

Yes, Vildhjarta is an experience of surreal proportions, particularly compared to the legions of their super-serious genremates. Där skogen sjunger under evighetens granar’s pristine atmosphere stands out among even its own shadowy discography, although it retains all the act’s trademarks. The act works better as a trio, as it forces them to cut the fluff into what works and what doesn’t. That being said, it does not justify why you should spend nearly an hour getting a djent concussion only to gaze up at the stars through newly encephalopathic eyes. Old habits die hard, and while mysterious and enigmatic, the Swedes’ formula is predictable, if not hella fun for the initiated. Ultimately, if you’re a fan, Vildhjarta is above-average djent; if you’re not a fan, Vildhjarta is average djent.

Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 4 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Century Media Records
Websites: vildhjarta.bandcamp.com | vildhjartastore.com | facebook.com/vildhjartaofficial
Releases Worldwide: May 30th, 2025

#25 #2025 #AnimalsAsLeaders #AtmosphericMetal #CenturyMediaRecords #DärSkogenSjungerUnderEvighetensGranar #Deathcore #Djent #Hammock #HumanitySLastBreath #May25 #Periphery #Review #Reviews #SigurRÃS #SwedishMetal #TesseracT #TheContortionist #UnevenStructure #Vildhjarta

Benthos – From Nothing Review

By Dear Hollow

It’s sexy when things you love collide with things you hate. My lust for mathcore is well-established – I go hard for that mind-numbing dyscalculic tinnitus any day – but if you put a slab of prog metal in front of me, I’m gonna go as flaccid as a gummy worm in a hot car faster than you can say “Wilderun.” That’s Benthos. The Italian collective slides a platter of progressive rock’s lush, ambivalent, and emotive movements alongside mathcore’s jagged edges and feral energy, and you’re guaranteed to find something you’ll love and hate – and get hot and bothered by. It’s core’s sellout and prog’s elitism personified in the dichotomy of the heavenly and hellish – yet in your divinely appointed and coarsely deadly free will, you decide which is which. In the words of the wisest, “yeet and yoink” with this particular Haken-themed hatefuck.

Benthos has been around since 2018, and gained recognition in their hometown of Milan by opening for The Contortionist and appearing in the Dissonance Festival in 2023. From Nothing is their debut full-length, although they released the ironically titled EP/mini-album II in 2021. Settled upon a foundation of lush melodies and evasive chord progressions before exploding into frantic Dillinger-inspired rhythm abuse, the act wavers between super serious and frantically silly, soulful cleans colliding haphazardly with demonic shrieks. From Nothing is ambitious in fusing two styles strangely congruous but also not at all, but in the end Benthos is exactly split down the middle, its arrhythmic beatdowns stealing the spotlight from masturbatory prog sections, blurring into some ambivalently erotic background.

First glances of Benthos are synth-heavy progressions and killer vocals. Gabriele Landillo has a formidable set of pipes, their post-hardcore-meets-Chino Moreno vibe lending a creeping sexiness (“Let Me Plunge,” “The Giant Child”) and a desperate belt that adds serious dynamic and show-stealing propensity (“From Nothing,” “Pure”), keeping the more uninteresting passages from descending into drearier monotony. Without careful listening, however, the proggier tracks blur together in a blurry pastel mesh in sprawling layered atmospheric rock tricks – serious synth on guitar action – with interspersed chuggy portions, feeling like a less nuanced songwriting a la (recent) The Contortionist or The Fall of Troy. Speaking of your favorite dark romance crooner Chino, From Nothing feels quite a bit like Deftones’ Gore in its decision to put include metal as a mere monument marker on the jaded journey to the pits of prog – ultimately, a bit of a cockblock. Benthos mixing is likewise stellar, Alberto Fiorani’s dummy thicc bass as audible as the cheek-clapping guitars and slamming drums.

Of its two audio halves, Benthos’ more chaotic mathcore attacks offer the best listening experience. After the vastly longwinded four-song introductory blur, the intro to “As a Cordyceps” introduces what makes From Nothing worth a bit more. Practically brimming with energy, the mathcore technicality and hardcore intensity finally kick in. This continues into the easy highlights that dispense the prog fluff into something that feels cutthroat and quirky, wonky leads weaponized with nimble and mind-bending rhythms (“Fossil,” “Athletic Worms,” “Perpetual Drone Monkeys”). These give Benthos more breathing room when the proggy sensibilities raise their ill-smelling feet, offering nuance to otherwise unwelcoming rooms. These also incorporate more of these chunkier vibes into more mundane moments, letting the rhythms inject a tasteful – albeit short-lived – dose of intensity (“The Giant Child,” “Pure”).

The best and worst part about From Nothing is that Benthos manages to sound both bored to tears and absolutely apeshit depending on which part you tune into. Its moments of unhinged insanity are too few and far between to warrant consistency or balance… or a solid recommendation. But if you’re like Dolphin Whisperer and like your music hot and heavy, while disrobing From Nothing’s many sexy layers and textured sprawls, take a cold shower before venturing out to pick up a copy.1 Benthos offers promise with the softness for the foreplay and the vigor for the penetration, but From Nothing has difficulty keeping it up across its forty-five minute runtime with too-long portions of pretty monotony2 and excessive indulgence,3 but armed with a vocalist both sexy and devastating and an instrumental presence as bonkers as it is patient… goddammit, I need a cold shower now.4

Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Inside Out Music
Websites: benthosmusic.bandcamp.com | benthos-band.com | facebook.com/benthosbandofficial
Releases Worldwide: April 11th, 2025

#25 #2025 #Apr25 #Benthos #Deftones #FromNothing #Haken #InsideOutMusic #ItalianMetal #Mathcore #ProgressiveMetal #ProgressiveRock #Review #Reviews #TheContortionist #TheDillingerEscapePlan #TheFallOfTroy #Wilderun

#NowPlaying Language by The Contortionist 🎶

bandcamp link:
https://thecontortionistband.bandcamp.com/album/language

#Music #Metal #ProgressiveMetal #TheContortionist

Stuck in the Filter: August and September 2024

By Kenstrosity

I am a stubborn bitch. I work my underlings hard, and I won’t let up until they dig up shiny goodies for me to share with the general public. Share might be a generous term. Foist upon is probably more accurate…

In any case, despite some pretty intense setbacks on my end, I still managed to collect enough material for a two-month spread. HUZZAH! REJOICE! Now get the hell away from me and listen to some of our very cool and good tunes.

Kenstrosity’s Turgid Truncheons

Tenue // Arcos, bóvedas, pórticos [August 1st, 2024 – Self-Release]

Spanish post-black/crust/screamo quartet Tenue earned my favor with their debut record, Anábasis, back in 2018. Equal parts vicious, introspective, and strangely uplifting, that record changed what I thought I could expect from anything bearing the screamo tag. By integrating ascendant black metal tremolos within post-punk structures and crusty attitude, Tenue established a sound that not only opened horizons for me taste-wise but also brought me a great deal of emotional catharsis on its own merit. Follow-up Arcos, bóvedas, pórticos deepens that relationship. Utilizing a wider atmospheric palette (“Distracción”), a shift towards epic song lengths (“Inquietude, and a greater variety of instrumentation (observe the beautiful horns on long-form opener “Inquietude”), and a bluesier swagger than previous material exhibited (“Letargo”), Tenue’s second salvo showcases a musical versatility I wasn’t expecting to complement the bleeding-heart emotional depth I knew would return. This expansion of scale and skillset sets the record apart from almost anything else I’ve heard this year. Even though one or two moments struggle to stick long-term (“Enfoque”), Arcos, bóvedas, pórticos represents an affecting, creative, and ridiculously engaging addition to my listening schedule. And for the low low price of NYP, it ought to be a part of yours as well.

Open Flesh Wound // Vile Putrefaction [August 28th, 2024 – Inherited Suffering Records]

Thicc, muggy slam with a million pick scrapes. Who could ask for anything more? Not I, and so it is with great pleasure that I introduce to my AMG fam Pennsylvania’s very own Open Flesh Wound and their debut LP Vile Putrefaction. Essentially the result of Analepsy’s and Devourment‘s carnal lovemaking, Vile Putrefaction is a nasty, slammy, brutal expulsion of chunky upchuck. Only those with the most caved-in craniums will appreciate the scraping swamp-ass riffs showcased on such slammers as “Smashed in Liquids” and “Cinder Block to the Forehead,” or the groove-laden thuggery of death-focused tracks like the title track, “Fermented Intestinal Blockage” and “Body Baggie.” Vile Putrefaction’s molasses-like production is an absolute boon to this sound as well, with just enough gloss to provide a deliciously moist texture which imparts an unlikely clarity to especially gruesome details in “Stoma Necrosis” and “Skin Like Jelly.” It’s dumb as hell, and isn’t doing anything new, but is an overdose of good, dirty fun. Simple as.

The Flaying // Ni dieu, ni maître [September 5th, 2024 – Self Release]

I’ve been singing Canadian melodic death metal quartet The Flaying’s praises for almost six years now. And still to this day not enough people choose to sing with me. Why? Because they wouldn’t know sickeningly fun death metal if it hacked their faces right off. That’s okay, because The Flaying do hack faces right off regardless, and it feels so good to watch the faces of those who don’t heed my call get hacked right off. Third onslaught Ni dieu, ni maître proves that once again, The Flaying are an unstoppable force of bass wizardry, riff mastery, and hook-laden songwriting. Opener “Le nécrologiste” perfectly encapsulates The Flaying’s particularly addicting brew of Cannibal Corpse, The Black Dahlia Murder, and De Profundis influences, shaken and stirred until the resulting cocktail blooms with a flavor all its own. Technical and brutally fast, follow-up track “L’enclave” continues the deadly rampage, featuring noodly bass lines guaranteed to elicit stank face in the even most prim and proper elite. A trim twenty nine minutes, spread over ten tightly trained tracks, Ni dieu, ni maître boasts unbeatable replay value. Highlights “Ni dieu, ni maître,” “Les Frondes” “La forge,” and “Noyau sombre” seal the deal by providing sharp hard points and memorable landmarks to which any listener would look forward. Simply put, this record rocks my socks and further proves that I am right about The Flaying, and those who ignore my recommendation are wrong.

Dolphin Whisperer’s All-Seeing Affirmations

Eye Eater // Alienate [August 1st, 2024 – Self Release]

In a post-Ulcerate world, the modern output of atmosphere-minded death metal has grown exponentially. With ringing dissonant chords and slow post-informed builds taking center stage, bands like New Zealand’s unheralded Eye Eater borrow plenty from the Destroyers of All sound. However, while many acts would be content to dial in the space or ramp up the dissonance to try and put their own twist on this growing post-death movement, Eye Eater looks to the laser-precise melodic tones of progressive, core-borrowing names like Fallujah and Vildhjarta to carve an identity into each of Alienate’s album eight sprawling tracks. Swinging sustained brightness in one hand about the grizzly chug-crush of the other, burly bangers like “Other Planets” and “Failure Artifacts” find churning, djentrified grooves that amplify the swell of the blaring melodies that swirl above the low-end clamor. And though the main refrains of “Alienate” and “Everything You Fear and Hope For” sound like loving odes to their Kiwi Forebears, the growth into sonorous and lush-chorded peaks lands much closer to the attraction of turn of the 10s progressive death/metalcore luminaries The Contortionist had they stayed closer to their heavy-toned, hefty-voiced roots. As an anonymous act with little social presence, it’s hard to say whether Eye Eater has more cooking for the future. With their ears tuned to the recent past for inspiration, it’s easy to see how a band with this kind of melodic immediacy—still wrapped in the weight of a brooding, death metal identity—could easily play for the tops of underground charts. To those who have been following the twists and turns of both underground and accessible over the past decade or so, Eye Eater may not sound entirely novel. But Alienate’s familiarity in presence against its quality of execution and fullness of sound makes it easy to ensnare all the same.

Dissolve // Polymorphic Ways of Unconsciousness [September 20th, 2024 – Self Release]

From the sand-blasted, monochrome human escaping the floor of Polymorphic Ways’ cover to the tags of technical, progressive, death that adorn the Bandcamp tags, it’s easy to put a band like Dissolve in a box, mentally. But with the first bent guitar run that sets off “Efficiency Defiled” in a run like Judas Priest more than Spawn of Possession, it’s clear that Dissolve plays by a different set of rules than your average chug and run tech death band. Yet true to their French nature, the riffs that litter Polymorphic Ways of Unconsciousness possess a tangible groove following the footsteps of lesser-known tricksters Trepalium and Olympic titans of metal Gojira (“The Great Pessimistic,”1 “Polymorphic Ways of Unconsciousness,” “Vultures”). And while too Dissolve finds a base in the low-end trem assault of Morbid Angel (“Ignorance Will Prevail”), there’s a thrash and bark energy at play that nets a rambunctious and experimental sound recalling the warped Hetfield-ian (Metallica) scrawl of Destroy Erase Improve Meshuggah, right down to the monstrous bass tone that defines Sonny Bellonie’s (Sanctuary, ODC) growling, extended range performance. As a trio it’d be easy for guitarist Briac Turquety (Smerter, ex-Sideburn) to rely on overdubs for saturation of sound and complexity of layers—and for solo cut-ins he definitely does—but equally as often his choice to let certain chords and notes escape a thrashy muting to ring in distorted harmony against snaking bass lines. And speaking of solos, Turquety’s prowess ranges from bluesy shred (“The Great Pessimistic,” “Ropes of Madness”) to noisy, jazzy explorations (“Polymorphic…,” “Shattered Minds of Evolution”) to Satriani on Slayer whammy abuse (“Bonfire of the Vanities”)—a true treat to lovers of tasteful shred. Turquety, Bellonie, and Quentin Feron (on drums, also of Smerter) sound as if they’ve been playing together for much longer than the year that Dissolve has existed. With a debut this polished, it’s anyone’s guess as to what kind of monster will emerge from the talent that appears so effortless in assembly.

Obsidian Mantra // As We All Will [September 27th, 2024 – Self Release]

Sometimes, a tangled and foreboding cover sits as the biggest draw amongst a crowd of death metal albums alight with splattered zombie remains, illegible logos, and alarm-colored palettes. And in the case of Obsidian Mantra, it doesn’t hurt that lead single “Cult of Depression” possesses a devastating, hypnotic groove that recalls the once captivating technical whiplash of an early Decapitated. However, rather than wrestle with tones that incite a pure and raw violence like that cornerstone act (or similar Poldeath that has followed in its legacy like Dormant Ordeal), Obsidian Mantra uses aggressive and bass-loaded rhythmic forms to erupt in spacious and glass-toned guitar chimes to create an engrossing neck-snapping (“Slave Without a Master,” “Condemned to Oppression”). Whether we call these downcast refrains a dissonant melody or slowly resolving phrase, they grow throughout each track in a manner that calls continual reinforcement from a rhythm section that can drop into hammering blasts at a dime and a vocal presence that oscillates between vicious snarl and reverberating howl. In its most accessible numbers (“Chaos Will Consume Us All,” “Weavers of Misery”), Obsidian Mantra finds an oppressive warmth that grows to border anthemic, much in the way like beloved blackened/progressive acts like Hath do with their biggest moments. As We All Will still never quite reaches that full mountainous peak, though, opting to pursue the continual call of the groove to keep the listener coming back. Having come a long way from the Meshuggah-centered roots where Obsidian Mantra first sowed their deathly seeds, As We All Will provides 30 minutes of modern, pulsating, and venomous kick-driven pieces that will flare easy motivation for either a brutalizing pit or a mightily-thrusted iron on leg day.

Thus Spoke’s Cursed Collection

Esoctrilihum // Döth-Derniàlh [September 20th, 2024 – I, Voidhanger Records]

We complete another orbit around the Sun, and Esoctrilihum completes another album; such are the inalterable laws governing each 365.25 Earth day period in our Solar System. Possessed by some mad, restless spirit, it seems they cannot be stopped. Ever the experimenter, sole member Asthâghul now picks up an acoustic guitar, a nickelharpa, and warms up his throat for more clean vocals to further bizarre-ify his avant-garde black metal. As we travel into the cosmos for Döth-Derniàlh, Esoctrilihumisms abound in the see-sawing strings and echoes of chanted singing and throaty snarls. The addition of more acoustic elements does bring some weird delicacy to moments here and there (“Zilthuryth (Void of Zeraphaël),” “Murzaithas (Celestial Voices)”), and it adds layers of beauty in addition to those already harmonious passages. it’s striking how well these new instruments blend with the overall sound: so well, in fact, that it almost feels like Esoctrilihum hasn’t evolved at all. This isn’t even a bad thing, because Döth-Derniàlh still feels like an improvement. Past albums have always had at least sections of perfection, where the scattered clouds of self-interfering chaos or repetition blow away and the brilliant light of the moon shines strongly. Döth-Derniàlh has more of these than ever, some extending to whole, 16-minute songs (“Dy’th Eternalhys (The Mortuary Renewal),”).2 If you have it in you to listen to one (more) album over an hour long, and you don’t already know you hate Esoctrilihum, sit down with a drink, and maybe a joint, and go where Döth-Derniàlh takes you.

#2024 #Alienate #AmericanMetal #ArcosBóvedasPórticos #AsWeAllWill #AtmosphericDeathMetal #Aug24 #AvantGarde #BlackMetal #BrutalDeathMetal #CanadianMetal #CannibalCorpse #DeProfundis #DeathMetal #Decapitated #Dissolve #DormantOrdeal #DöthDerniàlh #Esoctrilihum #EyeEater #Fallujah #FrenchMetal #Gojira #GrandMagus #GrendelSSÿster #Gygax #HarcorePunk #IVoidhangerRecords #InheritedSufferingRecords #JethroTull #JudasPriest #MelodicDeathMetal #Meshuggah #Metallica #MorbidAngel #NewZealandMetal #NiDieuNiMaîTre #ObsidianMantra #ODC #OpenFleshWound #PolishMetal #PolymorphicWaysOfUnconsciousness #PostDeathMetal #PostMetal #postPunk #ProgressiveDeathMetal #ProgressiveMetal #Punk #Sanctuary #Screamo #SelfRelease #Sep24 #Sideburn #Slam #Slayer #Smerter #SpanishMetal #SpawnOfPossession #StuckInTheFilter #StuckInTheFilter2024 #TechnicalDeathMetal #Tenue #TheBlackDahliaMurder #TheContortionist #TheFlaying #ThinLizzy #Trepalium #Vildhjarta #VilePutrefaction #WishboneAsh

Let's see, what else do we have here for @Kitty's #MittwochMetalMix...ah, this one is excellent:

#Allt: Memory of Light

https://song.link/zwq2pm4ksq5zx

#Djent #ProgressiveMetalcore #Thall

FFO #TheContortionist #HumanitysLastBreath #Polaris

And finally, something a bit more aggressive for @DXMacGuffin's #ProgTuesday:

#Allt: Echoes

https://song.link/jqzvfvb6ftzmb

#Djent #ProgressiveMetalcore #Thall

FFO #TheContortionist #Polaris #TransitMethod

Orgone – Pleroma Review

By Dear Hollow

Pleroma is a kaleidoscope of colors and emotions, composed like an odyssey. It showers listeners with haunting arpeggios, winding riffs, and chamber instruments, adorned with a crown of myriad vocal styles both harsh and soothing, male and female – a far-reaching and royally ambitious sum and completion of its divine components. For an act that saturates its assault with all the decadence and bombast of a metal opera, Orgone is deeply entrenched in subtlety and restraint. Songwriting takes front and center, and nary a moment is wasted. It’s an exclamatory manifesto and toppling breeze of complete freedom and organicity – truly a religious pilgrimage of music shouted and whispered alike.

The act’s eighteen-year existence has been distinctly underground, its entire discography released independently and physical copies provided in limited runs. Adding to its obscure nature, it’s difficult to determine what style Pittsburgh’s Orgone professes exactly. Beginning as a technical deathgrind outfit with 2006’s debut EP Accumulator and 2007’s The Goliath, before drifting into more progressive death Opeth territory with the inclusion of acoustic and chamber instruments in 2014’s The Joyless Parson,1 Pleroma is even more elusive. With its sound recalling the hallmarks of post-metal, hardcore, technical death metal, jazz, and avant-garde, influences like Precambrian-era The Ocean, Diskord, Amia Venera Landscape, and Unexpect emerge – with the organic fluidity of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and Language-era The Contortionist. In spite of all comparisons, Orgone exists in a league all its own.

What stands out particularly about Orgone is the act’s patience and restraint. While often an album momentum killer, Pleroma’s multiple instrumentals add uniquely graceful movements. The builds of the orchestral “Silentium” to post-metal “Approaching Babel” to the first metal attack of “Valley of the Locust” shows an impressive sense of crescendo and dynamics, likewise appealed in four-track run from the jazzy French lounge and female spoken word of “Hymne à la Beauté,” the ambient pulsing “Flâneurs,” the playful yet mournful elegy of “Lily by Lily,” and the more classical and cinematic “Ubiquitous Divinity.” While influences are scattered and seem contrived on paper, the songwriting and transitions are so fucking smooth, you would miss that they are separate tracks. Introductions of the metal attack are tantalizing in “Approaching Babel,” “Ubiquitous Divinity,” and “Mourning Dove,” hinting at the assault to come in successive tracks. Each track maintains its own identity in its respective genre pickings, but always in reference to the good of the whole – Pleroma truly. And all this is just the instrumentals.

Like the instrumentals, the metal tracks also exist on a slow and steady crescendo, not unlike the steady build of a master storyteller, as each successive track grows in intensity and fury. Letting multi-instrumentalist and Orgone mastermind Stephen Jarrett carry Pleroma’s movements through a brain-frying guitar and bass technicality that borders between intensely calculated and maddeningly unhinged, emphasized by his frantic hardcore barks, while percussionist Justin Wharton, in particular, shines in the ebb-and-flow dynamic of “Valley of the Locust,” both members highlighting passages of haunting strings and stirring vocals and blasting punishment through groovy complex riffs and dragged-out melodies that morph seamlessly between lush harmony and brutal dissonance. Eighteen-minute behemoth “Trawling the Depths” focuses on labyrinthine composition with herculean might, the heights of blastbeats and soaring riffs contrasting with passages of chamber acoustics and dark atmospherics, patiently guided across a scorched landscape. “Schemes of Fulfillment” offers the truest metal track here as well as album climax, as vocals are spit with a sudden ferocity that recalls Sleepytime Gorilla Museum’s “Helpless Corpse Enactment” alongside the heaviest riffs of the album. Finally, closing track “Pleroma” serves as the falling action – clean singing, meandering guitar, and scattered bass noodles giving a survey of the abstract destruction alongside brass explosions.

Pleroma is challenging, over an hour of content that requires multiple listens to unearth all its secrets. After a decade of silence, Orgone returns with a mighty hammer that is in equal parts evocative, progressive, diverse, and cohesive. Seamless transitions between the chamber elements and the more punishing passages with a unique melodic template that defies easy categorization all collide in a thoughtful and maddening, blindingly maximalist and bitingly minimalist interchangeably. Its more airy riffs can feel suffocating compared to a potential death metal crunch they could offer, but Orgone’s more exploratory post-metal edge makes Pleroma distinctly transcendent. “Pleroma” refers to the sum of divinity in the biblical New Testament, and Orgone’s Pleroma is divinely good.

Rating: 4.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Self-Released
Websites: facebook.com/orgone | orgoneus.bandcamp.com
Releases Worldwide: June 24th, 2024

#2024 #45 #AmericanMetal #AmiaVeneraLandscape #AvantGardeDeathMetal #ChamberMusic #DeathMetal #Diskord #Hardcore #Jazz #Jun24 #Lounge #Opeth #Orgone #Pleroma #PostMetal #ProgressiveDeathMetal #Review #Reviews #SelfRelease #SleepytimeGorillaMuseum #TechnicalDeathMetal #TheContortionist #TheOcean #Unexpect

And the last one (at least for me, for today) for @DXMacGuffin's #ProgTuesday:

Omega Zero: Cursed by Light

https://song.link/34fkvh4whdcfz

FFO #TheContortionist #Cosmitorium #TalesOfALiquidDawn

Exist – Hijacking the Zeitgeist Review

By Dolphin Whisperer

Following the uniquely progressive death(ish) trend of increasing Hippietude1, Exist has slowly morphed over the years from a spacey, Meshuggah-ish prog act in the vein of Intrinsic-era The Contortionist2 to a Pink Floyd-ian tricky-rhythm rock, primarily, outfit. 2020’s Egoiista, as such, saw coverage in these halls as prizing long-form style over impactful substance—still good though (if a tad underrated). In its dreamy, waltzing soundscape, it also functioned for me as an alluring escape in a year that was, well, quite the weird one. And, as things go in life and major happenings, longtime guitarist Matt Rossa (ex-Svengahli) stepped down and paved the way for WAIT band-leader Charlie Eron to hop on in slick-stringed support. As far as changes go, seeing as WAIT hosts an almost identical lineup to Exist, the personnel couldn’t have been more familiar. But could anyone have seen this Hippietude reversal coming?

Exist’s members’ breadth of live performance prowess often made it seem like Exist acted as an outlet for their softer ideas. Guitarist and vocalist Max Phelps tours frequently with the fully hippified Cynic, but also functions as the revived voice of Chuck Schuldiner on many Death to All bills. Bassist Alex Weber swings his fretless stick about with the likes of elevated slammers Defeated Sanity and melotech legends Obscura. Drummer Brody Smith has hit live with techy flippers Equipoise and groove-monsters Alluvial. Long story short, these guys know heavy, but up until this newest Hijacking the Zeitgeist, that heavy often fell to the side of an alt-rock inflected, jazz-kissed rock. But under the guidance and endjineering of Anup Sastry (ex-Skyharbor and much session work), this refreshed version of Exist reaches forth with both the shortest and punchiest album of their career.

Hijacking the Zeitgeist wastes zero time letting you know that it intends to churn pits with a smart and successful grooves. Between the true Meshuggah syncopation of lead jam “Blue Light Infinite,” and ode-to-microaggressions “One Degree Removed from Human,” and the frenetic fret-tumbling of “A Path to Nowhere,” Exist’s metallic pedigree has never felt more immediate and alive. But neither the wide, resonant chord stabs, Cynic-like riff crawls, nor nasal croon vanishes for long—even against the near-true breakdown of “Thief of Joy”— still weaving a modern and uniquely Exist path throughout this more aggressive landscape. Phelps can’t stray away from belting a forlorn chorus call or high vibration bridge, but his vocal qualities there, and too in his diverse harsh palette, continue to grow more pleasant and ferocious with each outing.

The cost of the burgeoning intensity throughout Hijacking the Zeitgeist, unfortunately, rests in a djentrification of tone. A scooped and compressed guitar attack isn’t necessarily offensive on its own, of course. Many bands in the 00s likes Textures or SikTh found a happy medium in their chunky but bright-chord and bass-infested expressions. The path that Sastry takes mirrors that more of the rhythm-focused bounce boost that he pushed with the WAIT record, which consequently is very modern djent. Despite the low dynamics, no moments of the album ever come across as painfully loud, with Weber’s bass in particular retaining it’s nasally clang. And to work around some of the dynamic issues, songs with longer stretches of clean strumming (“Hijacking the Zeitgest,” “Window to the All”) never allow those passages to bleed over distorted tones using focus as a substitute for layering.

This new fit takes some getting used to, and on my initial spins, I had to fight my resistance to change. But once I let the massive grooves that Hijacking the Zeitgeist has to offer take control of my head, it’s hill-climbing energy revealed itself in spades. The truth is that Exist knows exactly what they’re doing and that they can make this new, groove-focused sound work just as well as their previous work is testament to their abilities. Free of any fat, Hacking the Zeitgeist’s presents few issues beyond its lower dynamic master to having a good time. It’s rare to see a progressive band re-galvanize a waning march—Fates Warning’s Darkness in a Different Light comes to mind—but Exist wears it as naturally as a band who’s slammed from the start. And if they can find a way to marry their more spacious past with their low-frills present, who knows what the future holds.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 256 kbps mp3
Label: Prosthetic Records | Bandcamp
Websites: exist.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/exist
Releases Worldwide: April 12th, 2024

#2024 #35 #Alluvial #AmericanMetal #Apr24 #Cynic #DeathMetal #Exist #FatesWarning #HijackingTheZeitgeist #LawOfIncreasingHippietude #Meshuggah #Obscura #ProgressiveDeathMetal #ProgressiveGrooveMetal #ProgressiveMetal #ProstheticRecords #Review #Reviews #SikTh #Svengahli #Textures #TheContortionist #WAIT

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