Barren Path – Grieving Review

By Saunders

Forged from the ashes of the mighty Gridlink, Barren Path emerge from the blistered earth, hellbent on blazing a pathway of grinding destruction amid charred bursts of white-hot extremity. Legendary grind axeman Takafumi Matsubara overcame a career-threatening injury to shred once more, leading the way with fellow Gridlinker Bryan Fajardo (drums), along with bassist Mauro Cordoba and guitarist Rory Kobzina, who both featured on Gridlink’s swansong, Coronet Juniper (2023). Adding to Barren Path’s gold-plated grind pedigree is the addition of vocalist Mitchell Luna (Maruta, Shock Withdrawal). In classic grind fashion, Barren Path’s anticipated debut Grieving doesn’t simply blur the lines between what constitutes an EP or LP, but fucking obliterates them across a scant but deadly thirteen minutes of calculated brutality. Like any quality grind, you can bank on the brief runtime carrying over triple the intensity of your average metal album, making repeat listens an adrenaline-charged breeze.

Gridlink always carried an air of grace about them. Yes, grace and grind may seem disparate entities; however, through their gnarly, yet pristinely performed, razor-sharp precision, melodicism and technical edge, Gridlink stood out from the pack. The heavy Gridlink representation thankfully doesn’t come off as a simple continuation of their legacy in a different guise. Sure, the melodic sensibilities, technicality, whiplashing speed, and machine-gun blasts may share similarities with the Gridlink name, including the distinctive guitar work of Matsubara. Yet make no mistake, Grieving is its own unhinged beast and vital new dimension for its architects to expand from.

Barren Path tenderizes the predominant grind attack with a deathly thump, complemented by an altogether beefier production and sonic profile. The guttural vocal eruptions add a brutal, bulldozing death metal edge, offsetting the predominant piercing screams and higher-pitched variations. From the pummeling abuse, deadly drumwork, and full throttle urgency of opener “Whimpering Echo,” through to the climaxing barrage of assaulting, belligerent deathgrind on “In the End… The Gift is Death,” Barren Path leaves nothing in the tank, upholding an incredible level of precision savagery across the album’s brief yet gripping runtime. Operating with ruthless efficiency into its sub-minute framework, “Primordial Black” brims with uncontrollable energy, as rabid dual vox, breakneck thrashy tidbits, and frayed blackened edges shade the song’s brutal deathgrind delivery. Comparably longer cuts (“The Insufferable Weight,” “Relinquish,” “Horizonless”) allow extra time for Barren Path to unleash their action-packed battery of creative songwriting and infectious songcraft.

Occasional melodic motif or techy passage aside (such as the playful mid-section and spoken word incantations of “Isolation Wound”), little room is reserved for palette cleansing moments, or an Nasum-esque circuit breaker groove. This is not suggestive that Grieving is one-dimensional or lacking in structural variety. Barren Path’s clever knack for drop on a dime tempo and riff changes, and deceptively catchy writing keeps the listener firmly dialed in. Matsubara and Kobzina’s deadly axework and visceral array of sharp, dissonant, and often infectious deathgrind riffage powers Barren Path’s blistering attack. Meanwhile, Fajardo delivers a beastly, expert display of primo deathgrind drumming, a controlled collision of lightspeed rhythms, crafty finesse, and full-throttle aggression. Grieving is also blessed with a killer production job and dynamic master, avoiding the pitfalls that can hamper modern grind affairs when saddled with compressed, overly loud profiles. Abrasive and relentless in execution, the sound is a burly, organic delight, keeping ear fatigue at bay and maintaining an air of clarity and sharpness without diluting Barren Path’s brutish traits.

Drawbacks are few and far between. As touched on, the short runtime leaves you hankering for more, and I’m curious to see how Barren Path develop their sound and perhaps expand upon the prominent death influence and hyperspeed thrash elements on future endeavors. Barren Path emerges from Gridlink’s formidable shadow to unleash a teeth-gnashing, refreshing debut, using their death-plated grind as a catalyst for carving through exciting fresh pastures. Though guilty of leaving the listener wanting more, the addictive replay value and quality songcraft largely fill the void of feeling marginally shortchanged. Barren Path’s violent attack, colorful chemistry, and precision, technical musicianship leave displaced jaws on the floor with the sheer intensity and locked-in tightness. Grieving is top-tier grind to batter the senses and soothe the mind.

Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps MP3
Label: Willowtip Records
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: October 21st, 2025

#40 #BarrenPath #Deathgrind #Gridlink #Grieving #Grindcore #JapaneseMetal #Maruta #Nasum #Review #Reviews #ShockWithdrawal #WillowtipRecords

An Abstract Illusion – The Sleeping City Review

By Killjoy

When a group strikes gold, I imagine that there might be a temptation to continue mining the same vein. In 2022, Sweden’s An Abstract Illusion seized the metalverse by the collective throat and shook it with forceful pathos. Woe was a start-to-finish progressive death metal masterpiece which edged out some stiff competition to take the number one spot on my personal Top Ten(ish) list that year. The same was true for Carcharodon, whose mighty shoes—flippers?—I humbly struggle to fill. Now, with the release of The Sleeping City, An Abstract Illusion boldly declares that they are not content to repeat themselves.

As a comparison of their cover artworks suggests, The Sleeping City is something of a tonal opposite of Woe. Whereas Woe was despairing with occasional hopeful spots, The Sleeping City is mainly bright with pockets of ferocity. At its core, An Abstract Illusion still plays a deeply emotive strain of progressive death, like a more intimate and less pompous In Vain or In Mourning. Vivid neon synths in the classic fashion of Tangerine Dream or John Carpenter now abound. This invites comparisons to last year’s Blood Incantation record, but I daresay that the synths are integrated more naturally and tastefully in The Sleeping City. An Abstract Illusion never goes full synthwave, though they do flirt with the style on “Silverfields” and “Frost Flower.”

An Abstract Illusion’s unbridled emotional outpouring is still present in ways both familiar and new. To this end, the vocals are even more expressive. Christian Berglönn’s screams display his signature unsettling anguish (“No Dreams Beyond Empty Horizons,” “Emmett”) and guest Lukas Backeström’s singing in “Frost Flower” is crisp and angelic. The Sleeping City also features a couple of guest violinists (Dawn Ye and Flavia Fontana) and a cellist (Jonathan Miranda-Figueroa), who pair extremely well with the crystalline synths to hone their poignant edges. Crucially, the strings are not overused, which might have cheapened their impact. The real magic happens when these elements come together, namely during the lush instrumental section in “Blackmurmur,” which builds to a sexy synth solo (Robert Stenvall) and then erupts into despairing howls. Drummer Isak Nilsson is a great addition, whose frenetic tempos and deliberate tom rhythms heighten listener engagement.

On The Sleeping City, Karl Westerlund again proves himself a master of long-form songwriting. Unlike Woe, which felt like a singular body of work with distinct movements, The Sleeping City is composed of tracks that fit together more like jigsaw puzzle pieces. The individual tracks flow effortlessly while also subtly crossing over with one another, such as the similarly mysterious synth tunes which manifest back to back in “Frost Flower” and “Emmett.” The overall pacing feels less meticulous and patient than Woe, though this is not necessarily a bad thing, just different. An Abstract Illusion makes good use of the hour runtime; the aimless noodling at the end of “No Dreams Beyond Empty Horizons” being the only part that could have been trimmed away.1 The production doesn’t quite do this magnificent music justice—see the DR score below—but it’s hardly a dealbreaker.

The Sleeping City is evidence that Woe was not a one-hit wonder. Even more impressive, An Abstract Illusion managed to recreate prior success while significantly overhauling their style. The Sleeping City is different enough to further expand An Abstract Illusion’s fanbase while retaining the heartfelt compositions that garnered such a large following before. The gorgeous cascading arpeggios that bathe The Sleeping City are an easy highlight. Recurring notes and melodies give each track a sense of identity, yet each is of equal quality that I can’t (nor do I want to) pick any favorites. An Abstract Illusion is still firing on all cylinders, and it’s exhilarating to behold.

Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 4 | Format Reviewed: FLAC
Label: Willowtip Records
Websites: anabstractillusion.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/anabstractillusion
Releases Worldwide: October 17th, 2025

#2025 #40 #AnAbstractIllusion #BloodIncantation #DeathMetal #InMourning #InVain #JohnCarpenter #Oct25 #ProgressiveDeath #ProgressiveMetal #Review #Reviews #SwedishMetal #TangerineDream #TheSleepingCity #WillowtipRecords

Putridity – Morbid Ataraxia Review

By Alekhines Gun

Formed in the early 2000s, Putridity are an Italian brutal death band. With roots as a solo project by a former member of Obscene Perversion, the outfit grew from a one-man-basement dream into a fully fledged lineup of slowly increasing reputation from infrequent release to release. A decade has passed since the previous full-length Ignominious Atonement, though the recently released Greedy Gory Gluttony EP finds the band with a refreshed but stable lineup and an enhanced taste for lethality. With last year being a stunning time for brutal death of all shapes and sizes, and this year already facing challenges from young bands and veterans alike, do these brutal statesmen have an argument for a place at the top of the beatings heap?

Morbid Ataraxia puts a lot of stock in its hefty production. A spacious tonal palate allows the nonstop battering-ram drumming of Cédric Malebolgia to erupt from underneath the riffs, with heavy emphasis put on snare violation and rapid-fire cymbal interplay. Vocalist Andrea Piro features a fierce guttural that channels the spirit of vintage Analepsy, human and caustic without deteriorating into pure trash compactor indecipherability. The tones of founder Putrid Ciccio and Manuel Lucchini unfortunately drown out bassist Giancarlo Mendo but make up for it in raw punch, straddling a perfect line between just enough treble for progressions to be heard and enough bottom end to sound like driving cement mixers. For an album that hinges on breakneck speed and more blasts than a military training ground, this breadth of clarity allows each savage moment to be present and accounted for with extreme prejudice to the listener.

At its best, Morbid Ataraxia is a precise and clinical display of the “never-ending cyclone of riffs” class of brutal death. Title track “Morbid Ataraxia” features a devastatingly foul plod of a chug while drums erupt with boiling rage underneath. “Overflowing Mortal Smell” manages to make a shuddering groove out of rarely placed halftime (for the tempo) riffage. Add more pinch harmonic-based phrasing than I can count, and time signature changes from measure to measure, and you have a recipe for a dose of relentless assault from cover to cover. The entire album is connected via samples, which range from ambient vocal gurgling and a (possibly unintentional) throwback to a vintage Skinless cut to the far more unsettling. The unexpectedly ambient ebb and flow of the album, with the samples bisecting various tracks and the constant gargling throughout the empty spaces lends Morbid Ataraxia a proper LP vibe, meant to be consumed in one sitting from beginning to end.

However, the worst thing about Morbid Ataraxia is that it’s a precise and clinical display of the “never-ending cyclone of riffs” class of brutal death. An excessive overreliance on pinch harmonics and monochrome snare abuse give the first half of the album a monotonous feeling, where each track feels like it could be substituted into another slot without impacting much of the album’s flow. Putridity traffic heavily in a vintage Deeds of Flesh approach to riff-craft, with moment to moment flowing into itself with little thought of hooks or repetition or accessibility. That’s fine, to a point; certainly big anthemic choruses aren’t what we are here for. But depending entirely on an “everything and the kitchen sink” approach to song craft means you need your individual riffs to actually pack a punch beyond their tone, and here is where the album falls flat. Two songs in, you will have heard every bag of tricks Putridity has to offer; not just the harmonics but limited drum styling, minimal lead flourishes, and speedy grinding chord progressions, all of which are quite lethal in their immediacy but ineffective in retaining attention ’til the back half of the album.

Putridity is a good band, and Morbid Ataraxia is a fine album, but the few highs it has presented have left me wanting more. The production is a delight, and individual performances are certainly top-notch. However, the band fails in overcoming brutal death’s greatest hurdle, which is to be perpetually interesting and not just obscenely heavy. The approach of stitching all the tracks together implies a concept of some sort, and I’d like to see them continue this approach in the future, but with widened wings in the composition department. For now, if you’re still chasing the brutality dragon, Putridity have you covered; just consider the artwork and don’t ask what you’re covered in.

Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Willowtip Records
Websites: Album Bandcamp | Official Instagram
Releases Worldwide: June 27th, 2025

#25 #Analepsy #BrutalDeathMetal #DeedsOfFlesh #ItalianMetal #Jun25 #MorbidAtaraxia #ObscenePerversion #Putridity #Review #Reviews #Skinless #WillowtipRecords

Patristic – Catechesis Review

By Thus Spoke

The first eight centuries of the common era were a tumultuous one for Christian theology, played out in the writings of scholars now considered Early Church fathers. The study of this back-and-forth, which eventually resulted in an agreed ‘canon,’ gives Patristic their name. On debut Catechesis, the trio turn to the turbulent and culturally pivotal period that saw the fall of the Roman Empire, and the rise of the once-marginalized religion. The album’s title refers to the practice of Christian instruction imparted upon potential converts—teachings which stemmed from a still-divided root, even as the religion spread and any pretenses to truth conceded to power. This chaos informs Patristic’s music in a way unique to freeform dissonant metal and culminates in a record whose resonance goes beyond the literal echo of its notes.

The seamlessly flowing sermons that comprise Catechesis are both discomfiting and alluring. Churning riffs and undulating waves of percussion, though sinister and often dissonant, mesmerize through hypnotic recurrence, as Patristic sway and lurch between moments of eerie calm, and punishing violence. And the whole evolves gradually through repeated returns to restless drum patterns, and passages of tense atmosphere, cataclysmic blackened-death assaults, and imposing, frightening melody. As with all the best dissonant extreme metal, Catechesis is intense without being totally overwhelming, and beyond this, is haunting in its particular approach to the interplay between spaciousness and crushing density. In this—particularly a disposition towards dark layers of guitar, and a reverberating quality to the vocals (“A Vinculis Soluta II,” “Catechesis I”)—the closest comparison is Verberis,1 though Patristic craft a drama that is very much their own.

Catechesis can and should be seen as one piece; you could say, one instruction, one imparting of sacred knowledge or dogma. Without lyrics, much is hidden, but as the album progresses, one gets the sense of approaching order by means of violence. The grand refrain that first emerges towards the end of “Catechesis II” comes to fruition with yet ominous finality in closer “Catechesis IV,” and this ultimate reprise echoes the subversive creep of themes through Catechesis. The music’s stream allows the ebb and flow of elements to layer, rise, and fade away with grace that borders on predatory, melodies teased in fragmentary glimpses (“A Vinculis Soluta I,” “Catechesis IV”), or their aura turned back from menacing to mournful (“A Vinculis Soluta II” “Catechesis III”). Riffs overlap in uneasy syncopation, hum malevolently, or chime emphatically in a reverberant chorus with rasping and cavernous bellows, and cello2—played in shuddering vibrato3—weaves through the darkness to amplify tension, and eerie beauty (“Vinculis Soluta II,” “Catechesis I,” “Catechesis II”). Driving the whole through union and separation is a current of mesmerizingly fluid and dynamic drumming, which heightens the already portentous atmospheres and pulls you deep into the writhing mass of it all.

The convergence of the many thematic and percussive threads across the album is impressive in its scope and deceptive ease; it is seamless, beautiful, and often frightening. Patristic also achieve the practically unachievable by using spoken word to add powerful gravitas, which increases rather than lessens the song’s impact (“A Vinculis Soluta I,” “A Vinculis Soluta II”). And speaking of impact, the drum performance, courtesy of Sathrath, deserves particular praise for being one of the most insane of its kind I have ever heard.4 It’s impossibly delicate in shivering cymbal taps, lethally fast in split-second rollovers and fills, and ruthless in its sharp, brutal cascades of double-bass. Everything, drums included, is produced perfectly to allow the convulsing lows to reflect and resonate in a cavernous, immersive portal of grinding guitar and bellowing howls, and the stalking highs dip chillingly below and above its surface.

With such immensity, it’s easy to see how Patristic got a signing with Willowtip so soon; I struggle to believe that these musicians have been playing together for less than five years. So arresting is Catechesis, so layered and immersive, that it threatens to overshadow all other extreme metal this year—if not all metal, period. This is a teaching that all acolytes of the dark and dissonant, and hell, maybe even the crucified Lord, need to hear.

Rating: Excellent
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Willowtip
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: June 20th, 2025

#2025 #45 #BlackMetal #BlackenedDeathMetal #Catechesis #DeathMetal #DissonantDeathMetal #ItalianMetal #Jun25 #Patristic #Review #Reviews #Ulcerate #Verberis #WillowtipRecords

Unmerciful – Devouring Darkness Review

By Steel Druhm

I’ve said it before. I’m not the biggest fan of tech-death. Sure, some of it can be fun, inspired lunacy, but I prefer my death dumb, ugly, and violent. I don’t need someone twanging away on a fretless bass or shredding a 30-string axe while I get my graveyard gorilla on. Thusly, Kansas-based tech-death luminaries, Origin, always left me somewhat nonplussed. Enter Unmerciful, the brutal death metal project featuring former Origin members, Clinton Appelhanz and Jeremy Turner. Though very talented musicians, these fiends prefer smashing skulls over parading a cosmic fuckton of notes past you while toying with quirky and off-kilter tempos. What you get on their fourth album, Devouring Darkness is a large steel-toed boot up your arse courtesy of a truckload of vicious death giving nods to Suffocation, Hate Eternal, Cannibal Corpse and other beastly friends best kept in crawlspaces. I don’t know what’s in the water in Kansas, but it’s not FDA-approved. Are you ready to get pulpified?

Talk about a proper album opener! Lead track “Miracle in Fire” is a steel pipe with a grenade duct-taped to it, and the beatings commence with lusty gusto. This is blasting, pummeling insanity with a vile OSDM charm served up with the frenzy that only comes from the Monkey Rage Virus. It’s like Cannibal Corpse violently copulating with premo Suffocation and Deicide, with James Murphy ripping off arresting solos between rubs and tugs. The riffs are insane and chaotic, the drumming is oppressive and relentless, and the vocals are disgusting as fook. It’s hell in a handbasket, and I love it to pieces. “Unnatural Feocity” is brainless cavemen ooga booga death played at time-warping velocities, and the Suffocation influence is impossible to miss. The title track introduces a harsh black edge to the death maelstrom. Scathing, twisting riffs swarm in abundance as a strong Morbid Angel stench burns through the oppressive atmosphere, and vocals wander into reverb-drenched Rotpit territory. It runs a bit too long, but delivers a lot of grotesque goods along the way.

“Infernal Conquering” is another highlight, with blasting speed alternating with 6-ton grooves and beef-brained mega-chugs. At their best, Unmerciful offer high-octane insanity fuel for the dangerously deranged. Their unhealthy commitment to speed leads them into a Krisiun-type conundrum where everything bleeds together into a turbo-charged mush. This can make it challenging to discern one song from another at a certain point, though it sure keeps the blood pumping. Another issue is the cover of Origin’s “Vomit You Out.” It arrives mid-album and feels unnecessary, with its grindier approach enough of a departure from the rest of Devouring Darkness to make it stick out and disrupt. Lastly, closer “Vengeance Transcending” is a step down after an album’s worth of quality death metal shenanigans, feeling more generic than its album-mates. At 41 minutes, Devouring Darkness is about as much of this kind of death as you can process before your grey matter begins to break down into pond paste. As it stands, I’m barely hanging on by my ape nails by the time the album wraps. The production is good for the style, with drums forward enough to pulverize kidney stones without drowning out the riffs and vocals. It’s abusive, sure, but why else did you come here?

Talent abounds across the board here, as every member of Unmerciful is accomplished and impressive at what they do. Clinton Appelhanz loads the material down with approximately 500 million riffs, and they twist and corkscrew all over the songs in bizarre and unholy ways. He’s a one-man apocalypse of fretboard abuse and the main reason the songs work as well as they do. He’s got little bits of Trey Azagthoth, James Murphy, and Terrance Hobbs in his style, and he goes for the throat 100% of the time. Trynt Kelly’s kit-work is stupifyingly fast, savage, and convoluted, and it’s hard to miss all the chaos he causes in the backline. Through all the commotion, Josh Riley roars and croaks with reliably inhuman vocal cords, sounding like an unstoppable monstrosity from the primordial ooze. That’s a good thing.

Devouring Darkness is an unceasing beatdown of a death metal album where technicality takes a backseat to brutality. The chops are put in service of the songs and not the other way around, and that results in some entertaining ear fuckery. Unmerciful aren’t reinventing the steel here, but they are melting it down with their unrestrained savagery. There’s always a place for that kind of animalistic behavior in the Zoo House ov Steel. If you like your death fast, ugly, and brutish, you should make room for it, too. It will keep the missionaries and bill collectors away (along with everyone else). No mercy!

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Willowtip
Websites: unmerciful.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/officialunmerciful | instagram.com/official_unmerciful
Releases Worldwide: May 23rd, 2025

#30 #AmericanMetal #CannibalCorpse #DeathMetal #Deicide #DevouringDarkness #HateEternal #Krisiun #May25 #MorbidAngel #Origin #Review #Reviews #Suffocation #Unmerciful #WillowtipRecords

Throwback to yesterday:
📍 #musicon
🗓️ 17/5/2025
📽️ Sethpicturesmusic - Seth Abrikoos
🔥 #carnosus
💿 #willowtiprecords
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#concertphotography #concertphoto #musicphotography #musicphotographer #metalhead #metalmusic #metalband

Throwback to yesterday:
📍 #musicon
🗓️ 17/5/2025
📽️ Sethpicturesmusic - Seth Abrikoos
🔥 #carnosus
💿 #willowtiprecords
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#concertphotography #concertphoto #musicphotography #musicphotographer #metalhead #metalmusic #metalband

The Willowtip Files: Kalibas – Product of Hard Living

By Saunders

Pennsylvania-based independent label Willowtip Records was established by Jason Tipton in the late ’90s. From humble beginnings, the label has stood the test of time, becoming one of the most respected and highly regarded record labels in the extreme metal scene. It takes something special to create a label with a consistently unfuckwithable roster of quality, innovative artists while retaining long-term integrity and durability. Willowtip is the self-proclaimed forward-thinking label, releasing a slew of modern classics and top-shelf albums that may have a lower profile but are more than worth your while.

This feature focuses on a pivotal early period in the label’s history that had a huge impact on my own extreme metal tastes. As such, I am highlighting some outstanding albums released by Willowtip between 2001-2006. Some are lesser-known; however, I will argue are must-listen releases from the label’s early golden era. I will skip over a couple of particularly pivotal albums from the period more suited for Yer Metal Is Olde honors; otherwise, it’s open slather. Welcome to the Willowtip Files.

Off the back of an especially gnarly, high-quality year for death metal of experimental, dissonant, and abrasive varieties, what better time to venture back into the vault of The Willowtip Files? The subject of this latest edition is none other than now-defunct New York tech-deathgrind powerhouse Kalibas and their intelligent and violently unhinged debut LP, Product of Hard Living, released way back in 2002. Reflected in the inspirational timeline of this feature’s focus, these were productive early years in the label’s storied history. However, through the passage of time, certain underground gems can be overlooked and fall into obscurity, despite being inspired albums of the time. Particularly suited to listeners who got on board with the latest albums from the likes of Pyrrhon and Replicant, those who enjoy the grindier, techier, and dissonant styles of death metal may find something to dig here. Kalibas stood out as a unique force to be reckoned with.

Featuring a talented cast of metal musicians and ex-members of bands including Lethargy, As the World Burns, and Agiel, Kalibas had a short but potent career as underground anarchists armed with a belligerent, serrated collection of weaponry, where tech, grind, disso-death and hardcore collide in ugly, challenging yet deceptively infectious ways. The choppy, technical, and challenging music within the Kalibas experience retains cohesion through the controlled chaos. Although far from accessible, the raw, yet well-defined and punchy production, coupled with the band’s penchant for unleashing jagged, deceptively catchy riffs and curb-stomping grooves, graft a surprisingly catchy edge to the album’s sneakily addictive streak. Of course, the album is devoid of more conventional songwriting structures and traditional songcraft. However, regular exhibits of deranged, infectiously riffy madness on grind-driven delights like the wickedly unhinged “All of Japa,” or swaggering grooves and drop-on-a-dime time changes and dynamic shifts of closer “Reroute the Foul” to drag you back for more.

Elsewhere, opener “Smells Like Menopause” hits like a sledgehammer upside the skull, leveraging blasty pummels, grindy screams and propulsive rhythms, with knuckle-dragging grooves and sharp technicality. Product of Hard Living is a clever, intricate beast that adroitly interlocks its brainy, dynamic songwriting and harsher escapades with the right amount of down-and-dirty deathgrind nastiness. Careening through filth-riden and tactful shifts, from thrashy deathgrind salvos and brain-scrambling attacks (“Floating in Concrete,” “Take the Plunge”), to noisy, sludge-riden hardcore rumbles (‘Rundown”) and ample terrain covered between, it’s an album chock-full of unpredictable twists. Product of Hard Living just breaks the thirty-minute barrier, and like similar extreme albums of its ilk, forms a near-perfect runtime to digest the abrasive shards of extremity and unconventional songwriting approach. without completely overwhelming the senses.

Product of Hard Living twists, contorts, and hurtles forth in a myriad of strange and artistic directions within the harsh paradigms of the extreme metal lens. Undeniably brutal, Kalibas’ debut album remains an underrated jewel in the early Willowtip canon, skillfully integrating harsh dissonance, abrasive textures, aggro intensity, and bone rattling grooves into intelligently constructed arrangements, featuring a fiercely inventive, oddly infectious songwriting streak. A challenging, though deeply rewarding listen.

#Agiel #AmericanMetal #AsTheWorldBurns #DeathMetal #Deathgrind #Kalibas #Lethargy #ProductOfHardLiving #Pyrrhon #Replicant #Review #Reviews #TechMetal #TheWillowtipFiles #WillowtipRecords

San Francisco technical death metal band Ominous Ruin continue the story on their second album, Requiem. Review at FFR, https://flyingfiddlesticks.com/2025/05/06/ominous-ruin-requiem-willowtip-2025/ #metal #heavymetal #rock #hardrock #deathmetal #California #SanFrancisco #WillowtipRecords #OminousRuin #technicaldeathmetal #brutaldeathmetal #progmetal

Dormant Ordeal – Tooth and Nail Review

By Tyme

Though often yoked to the tech death scene, I’ve never found Dormant Ordeal particularly technical. Or at least not in the way bands like Defeated Sanity, Archspire, or Gorod are considered technical. Why is this important? Because on Tooth and Nail, their fourth outing and first for new label Willowtip, we see Dormant Ordeal step further away from any vestiges of technicality. Factor in too that, since the release of We Had It Coming, Dormant Ordeal continues to shrink—the most recent departure being that of drummer and founding member Radek Kowal—and you have an ordeal ripe for drama. Dormant Ordeal has, however, always managed high levels of quality output. AMG’s own Dr. Wvrm praised 2016’s WHIT with a TYMHM treatment and crowned 2021’s The Grand Scheme of Things with a 4.0 of thorns. Still, I wondered how Kowal’s absence would affect the Dormant Ordeal sound and whether Tooth and Nail would have the amount of fight I’d hoped for.

A showcase for every weapon at Dormant Ordeal‘s disposal, Tooth and Nail writhes with ruthless savagery, staying true to the classic Polish death metal sound. And while the likes of Decapitated, Ulcerate, and Gaerea still hold some comparative weight, Dormant Ordeal has done more than enough to step from the shadows of comparison into the light of its own sound. Like a grizzled wizard atop rocky crags, Maciej Nieścioruk casts rifferous spells filled with whirling tremolos, walls of layered dissonance, grinding chugs, and cascading shimmers of post-metal strums as well as bass lines brimming with gravitas. Chason Westmoreland (Cambion, ex-Equipoise, ex-Hate Eternal) fills in behind the kit and turns in a monstrous performance. His snare blasts, machine-like double kicks, and miles of tom fills lend warmth and deep richness to the vibrant drum sound, departing from Dormant Ordeal‘s former snare-heavy drone. Add in the fact that Maciej Proficz sounds more beastly and vicious than I’ve ever heard him, and we realize this iteration of Dormant Ordeal walks a different path—a path of blackened death, sure, but also one of well-crafted atmospheres, post-metallic melodicism, and a low-end presence absent from previous efforts.

For every passage on Tooth and Nail that tips a hat toward Dormant Ordeal‘s past, there are as many that point to a brighter future. Longtime fans will feel wrapped in a warm, WHIC comforter when the stutter-stepping, skronky riffs of “Dust Crown” take off or the theatrically dramatic “Orphans” flies by in blurs of blistering blasts and speed-hungry riffs. These moments juxtaposed against the brilliance of the plodding, weighty drama of “Solvent,” an atmospheric long-player full of melancholic guitar lines and shimmering tremolos or the very excellent “Against the Dying of the Light,” a nod to Dylan Thomas that is one of the most vicious songs on the album, Proficz’s roar of ‘Against the dying of the light. RAGE!” gives me goosebumps every time. Every song a marvel, Tooth and Nail finds Dormant Ordeal plumbing new depths of excellence by tapping into a dormant, lush production that suits the material to a tee.

Aside from Westmoreland recording his drum parts, all aspects of the production on Tooth and Nail appear, at least on paper, the same as on TGSoT, even down to the DR score. Yet, this time, Pawel Grabowski exited the lab at JNS Studio with a mix that brought to life the dark textures of Nieścioruk’s bass lines (“Halo of Bones”) and the theatrical intricacies of his guitar work (“Everything That Isn’t Silence Is Trivial”) in a way no previous Dormant Ordeal album has managed. Every minute of Tooth and Nail‘s forty-seven-minute runtime is put to good use, leaving not even the traditional complaint of artistic bloat on the table. I suppose I would have liked to see a bit more instrumentality added to “Wije I Mary, Pt. 1” to better tie it to the beautifully executed work on the bookend “Wije I Mary, Pt. 2,” but even this minuscule nit barely registers.

From its cover to its content, Tooth and Nail represents the absolute best of what Dormant Ordeal can be. It isn’t easy to part ways with a band’s sole founding member. Many don’t survive. Perhaps the fight and struggle it took Nieścioruk and Proficz to overcome and usher Tooth and Nail into the light of day is reflected in the album’s title and theme, which is one of grit, determination, and doing the difficult thing, to fight tooth and nail if you will. I commend Dormant Ordeal for carrying on and in so doing releasing its best album yet.

Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Willowtip Records
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: April 18th, 2025

#2025 #40 #Apr25 #BlackMetal #DeathMetal #Decapitated #DormantOrdeal #Gaerea #PolishMetal #Review #Reviews #ToothAndNail #Ulcerate #WillowtipRecords

Dissocia – To Lift the Veil Review

By Carcharodon

Dissocia is the brainchild of multi-instrumentalist Daniel R Flys (of Persefone and Eternal Storm) and drummer Gabriel Valcázar (Wormed and Cancer). On their debut, To Lift the Veil, the duo set themselves a challenge: blend extreme metal with synthwave and dreamwave elements to create a catchy, yet unpredictable, blend of genres that come together into a progressive package. Were these two complete unknowns presenting that vision, one would rightly expect a horrifically unlistenable car crash. However, given Flys and Valcázar’s pedigree with their other outfits, I had somewhat higher hopes (albeit with expectations carefully managed) for Dissocia. I’m not entirely sure what dreamwave is, and synthwave is not my go-to, although it has its place1 but, mixed with extreme metal, I envisaged some sort of off-the-wall Devin Townsend craziness happening.

Straight out of the gate, the dancing arpeggio-like guitar line and swelling synths that open “Existentialist” make clear that To Lift the Veil is going to be a wild ride. And so it proves. Across a chaotic 41 minutes and change, Dissocia lurch between progressive melodeath, something that approaches deathcore in a few places (“He Who Dwells”), symphonic synth movements, dreamy Unreqvited-esque sequences and more, the whole often set to weirdly discordant, pulsing rhythms that border on industrial groove. All in all, the album’s structures have the same levels of predictability as the movements of a severely inebriated person crossing an ice rink. This need not necessarily be viewed as a bad thing though. Flys is both a talented guitarist and a versatile vocalist, his harsh vox often recalling Gojira’s Joe Duplantier (“Existentialist”), while his surprisingly delicate cleans, which occasionally wander into Caligula’s Horse territory (“Evasion”), offer a much-needed extra dimension. Similarly, Valcázar’s work on drums is stellar and the sheer unpredictability of this record is part of its charm.

The challenge for Dissocia is to somehow tie the numerous threads of To Lift the Veil into a cohesive tapestry, rather than a ball of yarn. At its strongest, they manage this well. There’s a rabid groove to “Samsara” that it’s almost impossible not to enjoy, while the slow build synth opening to “Zenosyne” gradually unfolds itself, the tension building, before the Flys’ guitar lets loose progressive death riffs and Valcázar unleashes overlapping broadsides behind the kit. This flows well into “The Lucifer Effect,” which similarly shifts between soaring moments of chaos and more reflective passages. While the turn-on-a-dime nature of the craziness does in some ways recall Devin Townsend, it’s not until the heavily distorted screams at the midway point of closer “Out of Slumber” that Hevy Devy really shows through in the vocals.

Not everything on To Lift the Veil works though and, at times, it feels like Dissocia are losing their grasp on the myriad elements of the record. “He Who Dwells” is the most obvious example of this, as the progressive extreme elements, which often mirror opener “Existentialist,” stray into deathcore territory, particularly in Valcázar’s drumming. This simply doesn’t gel with the rest of To Lift the Veil. Equally, the drifting moods of “Evasion” seem rather aimless at times, while Flys’ vocals rather get away from him on closer “Out of Slumber,” which by its end feels like someone desperately trying to claw themselves out of slumber and into wakefulness. The production, also handled by Flys, doesn’t always help, with the drums sometimes seeming to disappear down a hole (middle of “He Who Dwells”) before roaring back to the front of the stage, and the whole thing feeling loud and slightly flat, despite the DR6.

You have to admire the vision and ambition on show on To Lift the Veil, which in other hands would likely have been a hot mess. Far from easing themselves into things on their debut, Dissocia have thrown everything at this record and some of it’s really good (“Samsara” and “Zenosyne”). The stunning artwork by Rein Van Oyen (Haken) gives a sense of the surreal, expansive journey you can expect, but perhaps not the chaotic nature of the ride. I hope Dissocia have a second album in them because, with just a little more refinement and focus to iron out some of the inconsistencies, as well as improve the production a little, there is a helluva lot of very interesting potential here.

Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Willowtip Records
Websites: dissociaofficial.bandcamp.com/album/to-lift-the-veil | facebook.com/dissociaofficial
Releases Worldwide: March 21st, 2025

#25 #2025 #AmericanMetal #CaligulaSHorse #Cancer #Deathcore #DevinTownsend #Dissocia #ElectronicaMetal #EternalStorm #Gojira #Mar25 #Persefone #ProgressiveMetal #Review #Reviews #Spanish #Synthwave #ToLiftTheVeil #Unreqvited #WillowtipRecords #Wormed

Prog metal duo Dissocia push the boundaries of the boundless with their latest album, To Lift The Veil. Review at FFR, https://flyingfiddlesticks.com/2025/03/17/dissocia-to-lift-the-veil-willowtip-2025/ #metal #heavymetal #rock #hardrock #Spain #prog #progressivemetal #Dissocia #WillowtipRecords

Relics of Humanity – Absolute Dismal Domain Review

By Saunders

Time to hit the reset button, shake off the writing funk, and forge on into a bold and hopefully killer year of metal. As easy as it may be to get caught up on the missed albums of a solid 2024 campaign or fall into the comfort of favorites and old classics, 2025 has already kicked off with a truckload of new releases to explore. Taking a random dip into the promo sump, I picked up the third LP from unheralded brutal death metal act Relics of Humanity. Hailing from Belarus and forming in 2007, these folks are hardly newcomers to the scene, although guitarist/chief composer Sergey Liakh appears to be the sole remaining member from their earliest demo days. Nevertheless, some experienced bandmates are in tow to fulfill his uncompromising vision. Despite various singles, a compilation, and EP release, the last full-length from the Willowtip-affiliated band dropped in 2014, so Absolute Dismal Domain marks a comeback of sorts, at least in LP terms. Coming off a particularly brutal, uncompromising year of deathly platters, can Relics of Humanity leave a bruising impression to warrant your attention?

Bruising is certainly one word that springs to mind when blasting this rugged, no-frills chunk of brutal death. Absolute Dismal Domain punches hard and takes no prisoners, favoring thick, viscous grooves and dirty, down-tuned pummels to bury the listener into the submission with brute force, rather than an abundance of speed or technical finesse. The gritty production and drum tones lend the album an old school underground vibe, as Relics of Humanity channel the nasty sewer-dwelling carnage of Devourment, coupled with the extra chunky riffs and grooves of underrated stalwarts Dawn of Demise. Pared down to a lean and appropriately efficient thirty-two-minute runtime ensures Relics of Humanity maximize impact, with majority of cuts falling in the palatable three-to-four-minute timeframe.

Despite boasting the right ingredients for a brutal slice of knuckle-dragging fun, the first few spins were underwhelming. The songwriting failed to stick beyond a surface level, and songs seemed to bleed unimaginatively into one another. However, under further inspection, there is a deceptively addictive mix of dank, unsettling atmospheres, subtle dynamics, and pure headbangable enjoyment to be pulled from the album’s filthy pores. Chunky, pile-driving heaviness and inventive drum work propels songs that rely heavily on doom-spattered chugs and mid-paced pummels, occasionally roughed up with thumping, in-your-face blasts and slammy, murderous grooves (“Taking the Shape of Infinity,” “Absolute Dismal Domain”). These serve to liven the pace, though the focus is more on crushing intensity rather than lightning-fast blasting. “Smoldering of Seraphim” is a fine showcase of Relics of Humanity’s strength of balancing slower tempos and uber-heavy riffs and grooves, with skull-cracking blast segments.

Favoring an all-out destructive approach, Relics of Humanity also add some sinister atmospheric elements, creating unsettling, otherworldly vibes. This is particularly evident on the bleak, apocalyptic touches illuminating “Paralyzing the Light II,” and sparse, ritualistic-esque experimental sounds emanating from closer “Dominion.” Rock-solid performances abound from the experienced line-up, upholding a tight, beastly framework. Drummer Vladislav Vorozhtsov’s work behind the kit is especially noteworthy. His punchy, thick double bass grooves are a constant focal point driving the album’s pummeling, groove-oriented approach. However, it’s his snappy snare work and inventive fills that add subtle complexities and flare to proceedings. Flo Butcher is the next man in line to take over vocal duties, in what appears an area of instability for the band. Butcher’s incomprehensible growls and nasty bellows cut an imposing figure, though the somewhat one-dimensional display and vocal forward mix are drawbacks. Speaking of the production and mix, while there is much to like about the unvarnished, extra-heavy sound and sick drum tones, the mix is uneven, drums and vocals tending to overshadow guitars that could use a sharper, meatier presence in the mix.

Overall, Relics of Humanity slam down a solid slab of brutal death to kick off the early days of 2025. The album features endearing moments of underground brutal death and blunt force menace to compensate for the less memorable aspects of their songwriting formula and production qualms. While unlikely to remain in heavy rotation, I have enjoyed my time with Absolute Dismal Domain. Though long-term satisfaction may be questionable, listeners craving a heaving dose of unclean, no-frills brutality might find the fix they require.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Willowtip Records
Websites: RelicsofHumanity.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/relicsofhumanity
Releases Worldwide: January 31st, 2025

#2025 #30 #AbsoluteDismalDomain #BelarusianMetal #BrutalDeath #DawnOfDemise #DeathMetal #Devourment #RelicsOfHumanity #Review #Reviews #WillowtipRecords

Chicago death metal monsters Gigan are back to chop it up once again on their latest LP, Anomalous Abstractigate Infinitessimus. Review at FFR, https://flyingfiddlesticks.com/2024/10/23/gigan-anomalous-abstractigate-infinitessimus-willowtip-2024/ #metal #heavymetal #rock #hardrock #Gigan #Chicago #WillowtipRecords #deathmetal #dissonantmetal #extrememetal

Carnosus – Wormtales Review

By Ferox

2023’s Visions of Infinihility landed in my lap via a Slack message from AMG Himself, and what a gift it was. Carnosus’s rollicking slab of tech death appealed to a broad swath of staff and readers. The Swedish quintet’s sophomore full-length took a star turn come Listurnalia, capturing the fourth slot on the staff’s aggregated top ten, the second spot on my own, and a full-throated endorsement from Angry Metal Guy as his Record o’the Year. Carnosus pulled this off while releasing their own material. The whole love affair was an example of what I’ve always seen as the site’s best function: the ability to connect talented bands on the margins of the machine with an audience.1 When the party ended, Carnosus woke up in bed beside Willowtip Records. Here they are, all grown up now and pregnant with their third album Wormtales. Can these exuberant Swedes steal our hearts again, or is it all best left back in the sticky mists of 2023?

Carnosus bills Wormtales as a “prequel” to Visions of Infinihility. The affectation makes sense, since Wormtales plays like a step on the way to the triumph that was its predecessor. The ingredients are the same: a bedrock layer of thrash-derived riffing in the vein of Revocation, atop which melodies skitter and twist. The new album forgoes some of the technical brio of VoI and leans hard into band’s affinity for melodeath and thrash. It’s darker, meaner, and less immediately appealing. Still, the act’s strengths remain intact. Here you’ll find dazzling and ever-evolving guitar solos that cast shimmering reflections on the songs they adorn. Jonatan Karasiak remains the most distinctive vocalist in extreme metal. This is a record that draws you in over time instead of kicking your doors down–but with repeated listens, Wormtales writhes out of the shadows and demands to be appreciated on its own terms.

The Carnosus of Wormtales plays with a nasty edge that’s missing from their previous work. There’s a new level of intensity to tracks like”Harbinger of Woundism,” and “Cosmoclaustrum.” The poison guitar tone on “Paradoxical Impulse” and “Within Throat, Within Heart” descends from so-called cavern-core acts like Chthe’ilist or Grave Miasma, even as the band keeps the tempo cranking. The solos of Rickard Persson and Markus Jokela Nyström intersect with the compositions in inventive and satisfying ways. You might prefer the scampering madlads of the act’s earlier work–it’s definitely what fans of Carnosus are used to, and it doesn’t help Wormtales that its ten songs are the least memorable set the band has dropped. Nothing jumps out as a future playlist staple here. This one’s all about breaking teeth and gouging eyeballs, and then relieving your pain with flashes of melody and skill.

Wormtales reveals Carnosus to be a band determined to interrogate their own shtick instead of just repeating what worked before. They are still operating the same contraption here, they just pull the levers in a new order and solder different wires together to make new connections. You can see this urge to tinker when they flirt with death-doom on closer “Solace in Soil,” or when vocalist Karasiak reaches into his Bag of Infinite Tricks to drop a slam-influenced squeal into “Within Throat, Within Heart.” You can see it in the improved production that drenches the long player in a distorted low end. Carnosus’s restless spirit should bode well for their longevity, even if the version of their sound that emerges on Wormtales can’t quite scale the same heights they did before.

It’s hard to be the younger sibling of the valedictorian, just as I’m sure it’s hard to follow a tour de force like Visions of Infinihility. Carnosus got on with it, releasing Wormtales eighteen months after its esteemed older brother. The new album might be an operating system that lacks a killer app in the form of an undeniable song–but it’s still a forceful and coherent statement that I suspect will stand the test of time. If you were aboard the delirious party express that was VoI, give this one a chance to take you on a journey of its own.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Willowtip Records
Websites: carnosus.bandcamp.com | carnosus.com
Releases Worldwide: October 18, 2024

#2024 #35 #Carnosus #ChtheIlist #GraveMiasma #MelodicDeathMetal #Oct24 #Revocation #SwedishMetal #TechnicalDeathMetal #ThrashMetal #WillowtipRecords #Wormtales

Technical death metal band Carnosus let their third album loose, Wormtales. Review at FFR, https://flyingfiddlesticks.com/2024/10/16/carnosus-wormtales-willowtip-2024/ #metal #heavymetal #rock #hardrock #Carnosus #Sweden #WillowtipRecords #deathmetal #Wormtales

Ingurgitating Oblivion – Ontology of Nought Review

By Dear Hollow

I’ve spent over twenty hours with Ontology of Nought, trying to learn the German Ingurgitating Oblivion’s method in the madness. I’m still lost. I’m still stumbling blindly through the dead ends, the hairpin turns, the ominous spires, and the high walls that enclose its labyrinth, attempting to discover its light but knowing that it will only be by chance if I do. I cannot find a pattern, a clue, or an architectural basis anywhere. It’s blind memorization and utter void of context, and I have never been so baffled and intrigued by something calling itself death metal.

The lack of reference makes Ontology of Nought such a difficult album to score. Laced dissonance, choppy rhythms, blackened death intensity, and technical arpeggios, tied together with spoken word, a haunting atmosphere, and vicious noise, avant-garde veterans Ingurgitating Oblivion1 somehow avoids sounding like the trademarks of any of the bands who use them. Their first album in seven years consists of five tracks spanning nearly an hour and fifteen minutes, the eighteen-minute closer divided into three movements. It shifts patiently, organically, but with the intention and direction of the blind leading the blind. Ingurgitating Oblivion constructs Ontology of Nought not as a collection of highlights and riffs, but as a sonic labyrinth composed of mile-high walls, experimental twists, jagged spires, and brutal nihilism.

Disjointedly, Ingurgitating Oblivion recalls acts like Serocs, Coma Cluster Void, and Flourishing, a fusion of dissonant, blackened, and avant-garde death metal, sprawled together with ambiance and murky songwriting – however, Ontology of Nought is a free jazz expedition a la Sun Ra or Peter Brötzmann at heart. Opener “Uncreation’s Whirring Loom You Ply with Crippled Fingers” sets the tone with a haunting ambiance, interspersed by nearly mathcore-inspired marbled rhythms and manic drumming and featuring wild jazzy solos. The suffocating sprawl of noise and dissonance gives “To Weave the Tapestry of Nought” a dangerous grin atop its cantankerous rhythms, and the crescendos of lush ambiance, cumbersome keys, and clean vocals are downright haunting and strangely infectious. The women’s choir of “Lest I Should Perish with Travel, Effete and Weary, as My Knees Refuse to Bear Me Thither” shines through this tapestry of noise, interspersed by blackened death bomb explosions. Closer “The Barren Earth Oozes Blood, and Shakes and Moans, To Drink Her Children’s Gore” is a tour-de-force of spidery keys, unhinged drumming and sick riffs, epic solos, crawling leads, scathing noise, and crystalline ambiance, an eighteen-minute behemoth with which Ingurgitating Oblivion will test your patience and your sanity in some of the best ways, the patience of prior tracks stricken to the bone.

It’s easy to draw comparisons to Midnight Odyssey or Swallow the Sun in Ontology of Nought’s challenging runtime, but at least those atmoblack and melodeath/doom legends have shreds of consistency. Ingurgitating Oblivion shifts dramatically across each song’s ten-to-nineteen-minute track-lengths in ways that rob distinctiveness in favor of an ever-changing amorphousness, leaving memorability by the wayside. Most damning is centerpiece “The Blossoms of Your Tomorrow Shall Unfold in My Heart,” which lacks the oomph or highlight to stand out amid the crushing sea of experimentalisms and jarring shifts, compared to the haunting “To Weave…” and the actualized clarity of “Lest I Should Perish…” It’s ultimately small potatoes, however, because despite the myriad spins, I still cannot seem to wrap my head around Ontology’s shifting sands of jarring tonal and musical changes. This makes Ingurgitating Oblivion almost entirely inaccessible, requiring an obscene amount of concentration – in an inherently difficult style – for an asinine amount of time. In the spirit of free jazz, Ontology of Nought feels nearly entirely improvised, so it’s difficult to tell if its insanity is a puzzle worth solving or an empty pretentious pursuit.

When I started listening to Ingurgitating Oblivion, I was reading “The Library of Babel” by Jorge Luis Borges – and the comparisons fit. While the short story about infinite numbers of identically structured hexagons and books clashes with the insane apparent randomness coursing through Ontology of Nought, the lesson remains the same: the choice of purpose in the minute or despair in the infinite. How each listener approaches this album will differ, as the experimentalism is maddening and the runtime is extravagant. The sounds contained herein are unlike any others, with intensity, experimentalism, and organicity playing an infinite sonic game of chess worthy of both shudder and intrigue. Listen to it once – replay mileage will vary.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Willowtip Records
Websites: ingurgitatingoblivion1.bandcamp.com | ingurgitating-oblivion.de | facebook.com/IngurgitatingOblivionOfficial
Releases Worldwide: September 27th, 2024

#2024 #35 #AtmosphericDeathMetal #AvantGardeDeathMetal #AvantGardeMetal #BlackenedDeathMetal #ComaClusterVoid #DeathMetal #DefeatedSanity #DissonantDeathMetal #Flourishing #Fountainhead #FreeJazz #GermanMetal #IngurgitatingOblivion #Jazz #MentallyDefiled #MidnightOdyssey #OntologyOfNought #PeterBrötzmann #Review #Reviews #Sep24 #Serocs #SunRa #SwallowTheSun #TechnicalDeathMetal #WillowtipRecords

Pyrrhon – Exhaust Review

By Dolphin Whisperer

Stretched, stuck, snapped—Pyrrhon has spent much of the past few years living, trudging the way many do in their 30s. It’s not that life becomes untenable in the twists and turns about which time inevitably navigates, but that reality grows a face, a scent, a terror that swells as its layers develop and crust and encapsulate. Uncertainty and anxiety weigh heavy in the heart, and, no doubt, after releasing 2020’s Abscess Time, which they couldn’t support on the road, the ever-reaching cast of Pyrrhon hit a wall. Time passed, and pressure grew. So to escape the grind with grind, to combat the noise with noise, to face life with death metal, Pyrrhon holed up in the woods to create (lightly ‘shroomed) again—not to Exhaust, but to explore and explode.

A dry skronk persists through Exhaust in a manner that both befits Pyrrhon’s past and eschews elements of the established Pyrrhon sound. Modern classic What Passes for Survival and noise rock breakaway Abscess Time both found a bounce in guitarist Dylan DiLella’s manic string flips and vocalist Doug Moore’s echoing, encompassing howls. Exhaust, stripped by the intensity of its frustration, instead sees simpler, chunkier riffs dissolve and digest more easily into incessant snare guidance, with Pyrrhon finding a grooving, hardcore shuffle that owes its tangible hooks to the world of ancient Prong or Deadguy (“The Greatest City on Earth,” “Strange Pains,” “Luck of the Draw”). Pyrrhon hasn’t become accessible though—consonance incompatible whammy excursions (“The Greatest…”), psychedelic narratives (“Out of Gas”), and escalating, shrill recursions (“Strange Pains,” “Stress Fractures”) ensure otherwise. But they all build a feel relatable against the sense of mid-life dread that Exhaust embodies.

The lyrics that have always been Pyrrhon’s gravity come to focus in a manner that rings in the ear without the constant need for subtitles. Though Moore still possesses a demonic bleating, its power remains reserved for impactful moments like the grinding acceleration of “First as Tragedy, Then as Farce” and the closing quasi-slam of “Hell Medicine.” Spitting and sneering, Moore delivers higher clarity barked beats of plain-faced, pain-laced poetry detailing with little opacity existential musings of the current state of the world (“First as…,” “The Greatest…,” “Stress Fractures”), addiction trappings (“Luck…,” “Hell Medicine”), and exhaustion (“Out of Gas”).1 Pyrrhon teeters on the brink of collapse throughout each racing number, with Moore’s interjections finding psychedelic delay and rapid-fire tremolo modulation as layers beyond dense prose (“The Greatest…,” “Strange Pains,” “Out of Gas”). And as Exhaust’s back half unfolds, these same glottal expulsions find a distance and excruciated fizzle against Pyrrhon’s chaotic crescendos (“Stress Fractures,” “Last Gasp”). No matter the manner of narrative distribution, Moore’s words resonate with barbed intention.

Exhaust’s scathed landscape does come at a cost, though. Pyrrhon has steadily traded away complex song structure for riff-based impact and whiplash rhythms as a catalyst. Yet each lashing on this svelte journey maintains and thrives in a driving guitar chunk-and-twang that grip kitmaster Schwegler’s hopping ostinatos in an Obscura-by-way-of-Big-Apple-noise freakout,2 true to Pyrrhon’s trademark amplified scrawl. Phrase by phrase it becomes ever clearer that this more exacting songwriting approach means to snag your neck and groove as much as any long-form switch blast or paint-stripping sermon would. And with riffs that deliver the experimental grind of Brutal Truth as much as they do DiLella’s signature punk-frenzied whinny, even the simplest of pit-starters land with the bombast that Pyrrhon crafts (“First as…,” “Luck…,” “Concrete Charlie”). Marston3 has again taken the board for Exhaust, letting its rehearsal-room-on-fire-attitude muscle into DiLella’s tight, thrashing tone—a touch compressed on the ear at first, but a choice that lets darting chord squeals and tuning-challenging bends pierce through at will.

For an album dedicated to burnout, a theme all too appreciable to those on the wrong side of twenty-five, Pyrrhon charges forth with an experimental vigor and practiced ambition untarnished by time. Informed by age—by critique, applause, setback, adventure, waiting, watching, breathing, bleeding—Exhaust emerges as the product of a band that knows that lightning can’t strike twice: it must find a lead. Hunger steers Pyrrhon. Struggle defines Exhaust. Though far from the most avant, unpredictable set in the Pyrrhon registry, Exhaust billows with the fury of defeat and determination—damn fine music for a downfall.

Rating: 4.5/5.0
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Willowtip Records | Bandcamp
Websites: pyrrhon.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/pyrrhon
Releases Worldwide: September 6th, 2024

#2024 #45 #AmericanMetal #BrutalTruth #Deadguy #DeathMetal #Deathgrind #Exhaust #Gorguts #Hardcore #NoiseRock #Prong #Pyrrhon #Review #Reviews #Sep24 #TechnicalDeathMetal #WillowtipRecords

Liminal Shroud – Visions of Collapse Review

By Carcharodon

It’s nice when an old friend comes to visit. You know, that friend who you don’t sit down with very often but, when you do, it’s easy and fun, and you remember why you were friends in the first place. Sure, they’ll have some news, they’ll be a little bit older (so will you, buddy boy!) and, who knows, they might have even matured a bit. But fundamentally it’s going to be a low-effort, really good time. That’s how I felt when I saw that British Columbia’s Liminal Shroud were dropping third record, Visions of Collapse. The trio’s debut, Through the False Narrows, caught my attention with its crushing, organic, almost Agallochian brand of atmoblack, and squeezed a(n obviously very correct) 4.0 out of me, late in 2020. Upping the atmospheric quotient, their sophomore record, 2022’s All Virtues Ablaze, was another great album, scored as such. Still recognizably Liminal Shroud, it refined their sound, adding complexity and melodicism to the pitch-black misery. Quietly confident I’m going to love it and score it highly, I press play on Visions of Collapse.

“Yeeesssss,” croons my inner me, wriggling a little deeper into my armchair, as the sonorous chords of opener “Nocturnal Phosphorescence” wash over me. I can physically feel the build, as Aidan Crossley’s guitar collects deft cymbal touches and light percussion, like a snowball gathering pace downhill. It duly rips into me, as Drew Davidson’s kit blasts into life, and Rich Taylor’s bass line adds that organic fluidity that defines Liminal Shroud. On Visions of Collapse, adorned in that gorgeous cover art, the band absolutely nails the opening to each of the record’s five songs, which sound like they were lab-grown to appeal to me. From the opener, through the lithe, shimmering guitar line that dances its way into life on “Nucleonic Blight” and the doom-laden menace of “Resolve”‘s opening salvo, to closer “The Carving Scythe”‘s drum solo start (during which I flashback to Death’s “Scavenger of Human Sorrow”), each track gets a little frisson of excitement going as it starts.

For those who have followed the band to date, Visions of Collapse is closer in tone to All Virtues Ablaze, than it is to the debut. The songwriting, described by the band as “serpentine,” prioritizes flow and progression, over all-out assault, a feeling emphasized by the scattered non-harsh vocal passages. That’s not to say that Liminal Shroud has abandoned black metal, but the blazing front end of “Nucleonic Blight” gives way to a closing third that is decidedly ponderous and introspective, recalling the two-part closer from All Virtues Ablaze. Similarly, the soaring guitar melody that rears up around the 3-minute mark in album highlight “Malaspina,” and carries that track beautifully to its close, feels like it could have been ripped, screaming out of Mare Cognitum’s Solar Paroxysm.

However—and I’m afraid there is a “however”—Visions of Collapse doesn’t quite land for me. Don’t get me wrong, this is a good album, with some top-tier material (“Malaspina” and the front half or so of “Nucleonic Blight” are as good as anything the band has written to date), but the album as a whole lacks bite. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why but I think the fault is shared between songwriting and production. While only 44 minutes long, which to my mind is just about perfect for this style, the record feels longer. Liminal Shroud’s description of the material as serpentine is spot on: fluid, and elegant but lacking any real peaks or spiky edges. It’s not that the harshness is missing—the rasping vocals are wrapped in crushed glass, Davidson’s beats blast, Crossley’s tremolos are subzero—but, other than the track openings, those epic, fist-clenching moments or riffs that demand your attention are largely missing. This is compounded by the production, which, despite the DR rating, sounds a bit flat and one-dimensional, stripping the guitars in particular of their bite.

Alright, it may also be that Visions of Collapse doesn’t quite meet my very high expectations but, while I try not to review albums simply by reference to a band’s previous efforts, it’s impossible not to draw comparisons. And, when one does that, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that, although this is undoubtedly good, Liminal Shroud haven’t matched either the raw, organic edge of Through the False Narrows, or the epicness of cuts like “Transmigration II – The Cleansing Ash” from All Virtues Ablaze. Three albums into their career, this is the first thing approaching a misstep from Liminal Shroud and it only qualifies as such by reference to their excellence to date.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Willowtip Records
Websites: liminalshroud.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/liminalshroudofficial
Releases Worldwide: July 5th, 2024

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https://www.metalsucks.net/2024/06/11/review-malignancy-toe-the-line-between-madness-and-genius-on-discontinued/

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