Imperial Triumphant - Inceste (EP)

Mmm butts.

One would be forgiven for thinking avant-garde black metallers Imperial Triumphant were European, what with all the French and them being, y'know, avant-garde black metallers, but nope turns out they're from NYC. At the cutting edge of the extreme music scene, these guys bring a 3-and-a-half song EP that manages to be quite a breath of fresh air in an often stale genre, something that's not so easy to do these days. Their unhinged and probably-not-in-tune style of riffing and frenetic drumming takes Deathspell Omega's discordant cacophony out to even further extremes. Upon hearing the cartoonishly drunken opening riff of 'Kaleidoscopic Orgies' I have to admit I was afraid that the band had taken it to the wrong kind of extreme, coming out with something like the much-maligned 'circuscore', but they promptly dial it back a bit to something a little more tame, yet no less ferocious. 'Oblivion in Morsels' has the kind of arpeggiated riffing that Mgla favors, and seems popular with the kids these days. Finally, 'Breath of Innocence' rounds out this short EP with a little breakdown featuring some commendable percussion work.

If you're a person who's in to experimental and extreme music, and you're not some plebeian who's turned off by the hedonism themes, I'd say this is a band to watch. I look forward to their next full-length.

4/5

Rotting Christ - Rituals

Veteran Greek black metallers Rotting Christ have been around for pushing three decades now, and while they've never (in my humble opinion) quite re-grasped the quality of their first full-length, Thy Mighty Contract, they've put out a steady stream of respectable releases. Rituals is a bit of a change of pace - its uninspiring title belies a remarkably coherent thematic concept. Each song here does indeed take the form of some kind of Satanic prayer or ritual chant, and while it's not the most exciting release, it makes for some unexpected study music.

The tempos here alternate between pretty slow and plodding, pretty slow and plodding on top of double bass, and blastbeats. Production is pretty uniformly crisp; in fact it's so crisp it gives me a Thorns-esque industrial vibe. The nature of the music means the tracks have an unfortunate tendency to run in to each other, but there are some standouts: 'Apage Satana' probably takes the 'ritual' idea to its most obvious extreme, 'For a Voice Like Thunder' most resembles a normal black metal song after its spoken-word intro ends, and 'Devadevam' is like some kind of kvlt yoga chant, which is pretty cool I guess. 'The Four Horsemen' is a worthy album closer, most resembling a kind of hymn my American self would be familiar with. Mainman Sakis Tolis's vocal range is impressive, but, naturally, he mostly sticks to a kind of chant. Themes are predictably and suitably Satan-centric; the quadrilingual lyrics feel a little hacky, but I guess they've earned it.

While this album can indeed lull you in to a kind of trance, making it some surprisingly good study music as I mentioned before, I find it pretty hard to feel strongly about it. If you're a Rotting Christ fan I won't have to tell you to listen; if you're a fan of black metal in general, I would say give it a spin if you're looking for something to listen to. HAIL SATAN and all that.

3/5

Ihsahn - Arktis.

Everyone likes Ihsahn, right? The guy is indisputably a hell of a musician, and is responsible for some black metal classics. That said, his solo material isn't always everyone's speed, and Arktis. (don't forget the .) is not going to change any minds.

Let's get this out of the way - this is some cheesy shit. The cheesiest of Ihsahn's catalog, I do believe. He embraces all the gooiest elements of prog on this record, and while his musicianship continues to be phenomenal, the pieces don't always click for me. I think the worst offender in this respect might be the EDM-influenced track 'South Winds'. While electronic elements are used pretty tastefully throughout the album, the pulsing beat on this track feels like I should be at a 90s goth rave. Which isn't a bad thing I suppose... but it's jarring in a bad way, and makes me think of other artists (Peste Noire) who have incorporated EDM elements in to metal music in a much more convincing way. There's a couple other cringe-worthy ones - I think 'Frail' is supposed to be unsettling in parts but just comes across as goofy, and the fucking sax on 'Crooked Red Line' is just a bit much.

Of course, there are tracks where the prog elements are effective. I love the sweet organ solo on 'My Heart is of the North', for example. 'If I Too Dissolve' probably makes the best use of goofy prog influences; it helps that it lubes you up with that intro riff which, yes, is indeed a Van Halen riff. And all musicianship here is solid. Ihsahn's vocal range, in particular, is really impressive. 'Celestial Violence' really shows it off, and while I've heard people criticizing that track for being 'pussy' or 'whiny' or something in the vocal delivery I don't really think that's fair (then again, full disclosure: I love Coheed and Cambria.). If there's something cringey about this album, it's just the earnestness with which some of the progressive and experimental elements are introduced. While there's probably not enough heavy here to satisfy the trve (although he does through in a blastbeat on 'Pressure'), if you're a prog fan I'll think you'll love this. Just don't fall asleep listening to the kvlt Norwegian spoken word on the last track, as it's punctuated with a sudden screech that actually gave me a start.

Giving this a score is hard, and runs in to a lot of the problems I have with giving albums scores, and why I don't like doing it. After all, your mileage will almost certainly vary, depending on your cheese threshold and whether or not you're a prog guy(ette).

3/5 personally, probably a 4/5 if you're a prog fan.

Voivod - Post Society (EP)

The mighty Voivod are one of my favorite bands, and I've always admired how consistently creative and weird they've managed to be, despite some tumultuous lineup changes (including of course the tragic death of Piggy D'Amour). While I was initially skeptical of the addition of former Cryptopsy and Gorguts axeman Daniel Mongrain as Piggy's replacement, he managed to win me over on their last album, 2013's Target Earth. It's neat to see a band stick around so long and still have so much energy and creativity; I saw them last year on the Deathcrusher tour and they still put on a great show. Love these guys.

With all that out of the way, I must say, I think this 30-minute EP is their strongest release in a while. While I enjoyed Target Earth, I had some problems with the muddy production, and it felt like the band was still trying to work the kinks out with the new lineup. The guitar tone on this EP is a revelation for the band I think; it sounds like he's mostly playing on a single-coil pickup, and the clarity it brings does wonders. Piggy's playing style, which Mongrain mostly faithfully emulates, has always been something like 'funk goes thrash', and I think it really benefits from this new clean sound. The bass is crunchy as fuck, a Voivod specialty, and serves to nicely drive the songs forward.

As usual, the band manages to write some bizarrely catchy songs. Much of the lyrical content here seems to deal with more personal themes, a change from Voivod's usual wacko sci-fi fare. There's a few curveballs; the beginning of 'Fall' is nice and soft, and almost (but not quite) beautiful; there's a nice doomy section in the middle of 'We Are Connected'. The biggest curveball of all, thought, has to be the last track, 'Silver Machine', which is... Voivod does 70s cock rock?? Or something? Whatever it is, it's a hella upbeat song that'll stay in yer head for the rest of the day, guaranteed.

Don't let that cover art fool you; you'll walk away from this EP feeling happy as a clam (I did).

4/5

Deströyer 666 - Wildfire

I was gonna review the new Oranssi Pazuzu since everyone's freaking out about it but that shit's like an hour and ten minutes long and I wanna be able to sink my teeth in to it, so that'll come later. This, on the other hand, is short and sweet.

Deströyer 666, led by the beautifully-named KK Warslut, releases material at a pretty slow and steady pace (their last release was in 2009). I guess they need all that time to hone their ferocity; 'seven years of rage distilled down to under 40 minutes' is as good a blurb for this album as you could think of. The music hearkens back to the 80's in a lot of ways - a time when obscure metal bands were obscure metal bands, and sang about Satan, getting wasted, violence, and Satan. The 80's vibes are strong here, both in terms of production and songwriting. The title track, in particular, has a chorus straight out of a Venom song. The riffs snap and snarl, with lots of little trills going on and lots of mess. Glorious mess.

Production-wise, the album is raw but not quite nasty. I do have to take issue with some of the mixing here; I feel like the guitar leads get lost in the shuffle on some tracks, particularly the opener 'Traitor'. I get that a lot of the aggression comes from the hacking ax riffs, but it wouldn't kill ya to turn the rhythm guitar down just a lil bit. Also, 'Hymn to Dionysus' feels like a bit of a detour in to paint-by-numbers black metal, with drummer Perracide succumbing to the blast beat temptation, which he valiantly and admirably wards off for the rest of the album.

But these are minor complaints! This is good stuff. The songwriting is more creative than you might expect from a band called Deströyer 666. 'Hounds at ya Back' comes at you with a drinking-song-like chorus near the end that'll get yer foot stompin' (must be the Australian in 'em). The final track, 'Tamam Shud' (name referencing a particularly interesting unsolved mystery, look it up), I think manages to evoke some emotions other than rage. Is that a hint of melancholy I hear? The band even manages to throw in a cool instrumental with 'Artiglio del Diavolo'.

Solid, solid stuff. I wish these guys managed to put out more material; but maybe then it wouldn't be as tight.

4/5

Track Review: Vektor - Charging the Void

My thrash gods Vektor are back - it's been a while, but hearing the first track off their upcoming 3rd album, Terminal Redux, I can see why. I have a feeling a great deal of care and craft has been put in to this album. The production is certainly a notch above their previous output; not sure how I feel about that really, as I like my thrash metal (well my everything really) pretty stripped down, but I feel it suits what they're going for, which is cosmic. The guitars are many-layered, to the point where I'm not really sure what's going on on most of this track even after a few listens.

This is all beside the point though. Thing is, I'm predicting this album is gonna be YUGE - as in, I think everyone, across the spectrum of musical tastes, is gonna eat this shit up. Progressive and melodic tendencies have always been present in Vektor's music, but they've never been so front and center. With the second half of this track breaking in to the thrash version of Graceland, I think we're in for a fuckin treat. Shit, it's already got tons of traction on NPR, of all places. Congrats boys, I think you done good.

5/5, expect to be seeing a lot about Vektor.

Hail Spirit Noir - Oi Magoi

Hail Spirit Noir are a Greek band riding the wave of 'psychedelic black metal' that's been gaining in popularity over the last few years (somewhat initiated, I believe, by Oranssi Pazuzu). 2014's Oi Magoi (no I don't know what that means) is the band's sophomore effort, following 2012's Pneuma, which I have yet to listen to. This album apparently features far better production; the production is, in fact, fairly even, with no real complaints.

The first track, 'Blood Guru', is quite a doozy, featuring a peeled-back interweave of twin guitar, bass, tentatively frenetic drumming, and keyboards, topped off with some blood-curdling vocals. It all recalls Oranssi Pazuzu, but with something of an earnest groove to it. Good stuff. Unfortunately, the rest of the album is somewhat marred by some questionable clean vocals, which are first introduced in the startling cheesechorus of 'Demon for a Day' and continue to haunt every subsequent track on the album (and not in a kvlt way). 'Satan is Time' is a particular offender, and I'm left wondering just what the band though they were doing here. The singing is trying to be bombastic and epic, I think, but it comes off less Bruce Dickinson or King Diamond and more... think Pain of Salvation without the emotion, I guess?

The band is best off when they either go for the evil jam session thing, as on 'Blood Guru' and the title track, or a more straightforward and aggressive sound, as on 'Satyriko Orgio', which lives up to the track name. The album is anchored by the epic-in-length 'The Mermaid', which climaxes with a heavy metal riff-em-up that is indeed pretty awesome. The title track, it should be mentioned, is the one track where the clean vocals are acceptable, with more of a chanting thing going on.

I definitely liked more about this than I disliked, but after being very excited about the first track, I can't help but feel juuuust a little let down.

3/5