Mgla - Exercises in Futility

Finally getting around to some albums I've been hearing about but been too busy to bury myself in properly. This is the biggest - Polish depressive black metallers Mgla (how the fuck do you pronounce that btw?) getting pretty unanimous praise from across the black metal 'community', something that almost never happens. Having not heard a single bad word uttered about this album, I naturally went in with pretty high expectations, and while I wasn't disappointed, I wasn't quite as blown away as I hoped I would be.

The music is about what one would expect, fairly straightforward harsh black metal with some nice melodies. The production hits a pretty sweet spot for me; harsh and noisy without burying anything so deep that it's inaudible, with the unfortunate exception of the bass, which is nowhere to be found. There's a lot to admire in the drumming, which manages to be somewhat technical while remaining stately. Think little cymbal flourishes rather than big obnoxious tom fills. In fact, the drumming is what drives this album along to a large extent, as many of the (all untitled!) songs are built around dissonant, arpeggiated guitar chords rather than proper riffs. Normally, this could potentially be a recipe for boring, but intelligent drumming manages to propel the songs forward by alternating sparse sections with blastbeats and double bass, changing things up just enough to keep it interesting.

I don't normally care much about lyrics, but I do have to give the band kudos for writing depressive lyrics that aren't eye-roll worthy. Actually, they come out with some pretty profound shit, revolving around the interestingly specific theme of futility. Overall, I can't think of any criticisms to really make of this album, other than maybe that the songs sound a bit samey (which may just be a psychological side-effect of them not having titles!). It's just solid black metal, and I really can't praise it enough; so why am I left feeling just the tiniest bit let down? I guess it's just the natural result of getting even somewhat excited about something; I should know better, I'm still recovering from my Myrkur experience. Talk about an exercise in futility...

 The pretty unanimous praise for this album has gotten me thinking about why, and I suppose it's because it's a pretty generally likeable black metal album; it's got enough melody for the people who want that, while having enough riffage and raw production values for the trve. I guess you could even call it 'atmospheric' to a certain extent? All in all, there is plenty to like here for any type of black metal fan, and while it isn't anything groundbreaking, I would certainly highly recommend it to anyone who even says they like black metal.

4 BLESSED BE's out of 5.

Black Fast - Terms of Surrender

Now THIS is an album. St. Louis blackened thrash metallers Black Fast bring the riffs thick and heavy. And these riffs are good. Face-destroyingly, ass-rapingly good. Everything is right where it needs to be: the drums are straightforward and effective, the bass high up in the mix and following the guitars with gusto. Funnily enough, I don't think I heard a single ride cymbal played on this album? The pace is almost uniformly blistering, but it never gets boring; just when you think the band has exhausted their repertoire of riffs, they break out another one. Standouts include 'The Coming Swarm' for dialing back the pace just a bit toward the end and letting the band breathe a little, and 'Haunted Vigil' for catching me off guard by fucking with the time signature, but every single track on this album is more than solid.

This album has so much of what I love about metal music: it's satisfyingly cathartic, never boring, doesn't seem to take itself too terribly seriously, and is just good not-so-clean fun the whole way through. A definite contender for my album of the year, and I have no idea why more people are not talking about this. Seriously, if anybody is reading this, listen to this shit.

And buy it!

5 CONSUMING THEIR EYESSSSSS out of 5

The Sword - High Country

People have long accused The Sword of just ripping off Black Sabbath, and now I've heard people accusing them of ripping off Led Zeppelin with this album. I don't think either allegation is entirely fair - hearing them try to rip off Led Zeppelin would be more interesting than this. High Country is a more 'radio-friendly rock' album from The Sword, a band who I know for a fact are really nice guys, and I've always wished them well in their quest for more mainstream success. Alas, they haven't struck gold with this album.

Right away, you'll notice the gain has been dialed way back on those guitars, making the tone indeed more Jimmy Page than Tony Iommi. This is a well-produced album, certainly; everything sounds very nice. However, minus the stoner metal fuzz and more aggressive pacing of their early work, the album just feels lacking. The problem, I think, is that while the production style has changed quite a bit, the core of the music remains the same (full disclosure: I wrote 'bore' instead of 'core' the first time I wrote that sentence, so we know what we're dealing with here.) The band is still playing the same pentatonic riffs they've been playing since their first album, but on their fifth effort, they just feel a bit... tired. Regrettably, the band veers in to some synth-driven territory on this album, with the main offender, 'Seriously Mysterious', being just cringeworthy, from that title on down to the inappropriate use of drum samples (which also plagues a couple other tracks).

Vocals have never been The Sword's strong suit, and main man JD Cronise delivers the same bored Ozzy impression he has for five albums now. That's fine if you're doing stoner metal, but in the absence of anything more musically interesting (or at least in-your-face), one might expect him to step up his game a little. In fact, the most enjoyable tracks on this album happen to be the instrumentals: 'Unicorn Farm' and 'Suffer No Fools' are both rockin' little tunes that end way too quickly. Fortunately considering the album's 15-track length, all of the songs are mercifully short, with quite a few not even cracking three minutes. Kudos to a couple of tracks towards the end ('Ghost Eye' and 'Turned to Dust') for shaking things up melodically a little bit, steering things away from the pentatonic tedium. 'Turned to Dust' in particular feels like the intro to a much longer (and better) song, but it's marred by more unfortunate drum samples and ends before it really gets started.

This album feels like some good but undeveloped ideas mixed in with some standard Sword tunes, albeit modified to try and accommodate wusses who can't deal with a little (ok, a lot of) guitar distortion. The short length of all the tracks is particularly jarring, since the band has written some lengthy, multi-part songs in the past. Perhaps what the band is lacking is a bit more ambition; they seem to want to move in a different direction, but are afraid (or maybe don't know how) to write songs that aren't melodically similar to what they've done before. While to comparison to Zep is undeserved, maybe they should embrace it; the blues-rock moments that shine through at the very beginning and very end of the album did manage to grab my attention. I don't know what the deal is though, these are just my thoughts. I like this band, but I can't give this album a good score.

2 Unicorn farms out of 5

Myrkur - M

Well I fucked up. I did something I never do - I got excited for an album. Well, it was only for about an hour before I listened to the thing, but it still hurt. I should have known better, after all: an unknown artist with zero underground traction immediately gets signed to Relapse? It has marketing scam written all over it. Plus it showed up in my fucking Facebook newsfeed, advertised as being 'for those who like Darkthrone'. Ugh, I feel filthy. In my defense, I only really got hyped because I saw My Lord and Saviour Krystoffer Rygg (aka Garm of Ulver) was producing. Unfortunately, Nattens Madrigal this most certainly is NOT.

OMG IT'S A GUUUUURL. Look, I don't really give a shit either way, but the idea of a one-woman black metal project is pretty interesting, one must admit. I'm just gutted to give this album a bad review, especially since one of my favorite people ever is involved in the project, but the truth is it's just so. fucking. boring. Describing it as 'a girl sings prettily over some second-rate Darkthrone riffs' doesn't really do it justice; that sounds like it would half-way interesting. This is not. For one, there's pretty much one real riff on this album, at the beginning of 'Mordet', and while it did manage to grab my attention for a second, the song peters out after about a minute into a plodding mess, and then ruins itself with a god-awful fadeout. What the album lacks, I think, is dynamics; all the songs are mid-volume, mid-paced, with no really discernible structure or flow, and the whole thing just ends up being painfully dull. There are some screamed vocals present here as well, and they don't sound bad, though I'm inclined to thing that's because of the production rather than the performance (to be fair, that might be me being sexist). In the end, I was left feeling empty and disappointed. The whole thing just reeks of marketing gimmick.

Also, it's pretty embarrassing when the new Cradle of Filth album incorporates female vocals into black metal better than you do.

2 Relapse marketing scams out of 5.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go wash my ears out with some Darkthrone.

Nile - What Should Not Be Unearthed

Nile albums are like Star Trek movies: they tend to alternate strong entries with weak ones. The South Carolina Egyptian death metal stalwarts' last effort, 2012's At the Gate of Sethu, was, for me at least, one of their weaker efforts, so I superstitiously raised my hopes for this one. Fortunately, it doesn't disappoint; while the album doesn't break any new ground, it does showcase the band at their most ferocious and energetic.

Nile have honed their brand of Egyptian-themed death metal to something like perfection over the years, combining Middle Eastern melodies with grinding, drop-tuned death metal riffage, with some folk instrumentation occasionally thrown in for flavor. It's not subtle, but it works, and the band is sure as hell good at it. However, specific as their sound is, the band always runs the risk of repeating themselves, as they do on some of their weaker releases. Here at least they manage to change it up just enough to keep things interesting; sure, there are certainly some paint by numbers tracks, such as 'Rape of the Black Earth', but I was never quite bored with it. The title track is also a bit on-the-nose for my liking, although it did manage to peak my interest with some eerie un-explainable little background noises (what ARE those?). Other than that, the band manages to change the pace a little bit with some doomy tracks ('Negating the Abominable Coils of Apep' and 'Age of Famine') as well as something like honest-to-god hooks (the chorus near the end of 'Call to Destruction' and that epic chant coalescing out of the chaos on 'In the Name of Amun'). I also have to give shout outs to 'Evil to Cast out Evil' for some insane thrashy riffing at the beginning. Overall, the band just sounds more energetic on this record than they have in a while, and the album ends on a high note with some screaming dual leads. The lyrics are the standard Nile fare of Egyptological name-dropping but it still leaves me somehow impressed; not many metal bands seem to put this much honest effort in to their lyrics, after all. I mean, I have to give high marks to any band that includes the line 'DEVOURED BY CROCODILES' in a song.

If Nile isn't your thing, it's not like this is gonna change your mind, but it's a solid release from one of the honest workhorses of the death metal scene.

Four abominable servants of the black god Set preparing to ascend in to the accursed after life out of five.

Ghost - Meliora

Ghost is a band I've always wanted to like, but could never really connect with, and from what I hear I'm not alone in that feeling. I mean I GET it - it's ABBA does doom metal. That's a fun concept, and I enjoyed their first album well enough, but their last, Infestissumam, left me wanting more from the band in terms of musical development. With Meliora, I'm once again left feeling a bit disappointed. Make no mistake, it's a solid album, but the music just doesn't fulfill the promise of the band's well-crafted image and artwork and interesting concept.

I share many people's reservations about the band's vocalist. He (whoever he is) continues to lack oomph, although greater use of multitrack vocal recording does mitigate it somewhat in some tracks. But he's not the only thing lacking oomph - that fucking snare drum bothered me the whole album. It's so wet-napkin that you can't even hear it at some points. That's not to say that the production is all-around bad, but it is oddly lopsided. There's some great tom and bass drum sounds on this album, as well as great distorted bass guitar on tracks such as 'From the Pinnacle to the Pit', but these just serve, if anything, to further highlight the utter wimpyness of other parts of the music. I just don't understand the decision to make the album so bass-heavy. Could it have something to do with hiding the somewhat-disliked vocals lower in the mix? I dunno, but personally I found myself constantly turning the music louder to get more out of it, something I almost never do.

Production aside, I had heard talk of this being Ghost's 'heaviest' album, and that is certainly true. Tracks such as 'From the Pinnacle to the Pit' and 'Mummy Dust' are quite heavy indeed, enough so to legitimately be classified as metal. The music is also supplemented by more use of keyboards, a nice all-round addition. The standout tracks for me are probably the aforementioned heavy pair, as well as 'Cirice', which makes some great use of dynamics. 'He Is' is some kind of uplifting power ballad ode to Satan (yay!) which is good fun. There are some stinkers too, however; 'Majesty' starts with a riff straight out of an AC/DC song, and ends up being about as boring as one.

In the end, I'm just left wondering what this band would be like if they had the real King Diamond as a vocalist. Oh well.

3 out of 5 Nameless Ghouls.

UPDATE: Almost a month later, and 'From the Pinnacle to the Pit' is still my fucking jam, so I guess there is something to this thing after all...

Obsequiae - Aria of Vernal Tombs

Obsequiae are a little-known black metal band from Minnesota that have apparently been around for a while (previously as Autumnal Winds), although they only showed up on my radar with this album. Their Minnesota origins surprised me a bit, as a cursory glance at the tracklist for this album reveals one song title each in (I believe) Spanish, French, and Portuguese, in addition to English. With the band being tagged simply as 'black metal' in most places, I wasn't quite ready for what I heard: definite folk influences right off the bat, with a three-minute session on some kind of old-fashioned stringed instrument (not quite sure what) starting off the album before the black metal kicks in. And when it does kick in, it, too, is infused with plenty of folky guitar melodies. This is an album that actually deserves the tag 'folk metal', unlike most of the Scandinavian rubbish labeled as such, although I've also seen it tagged as 'medieval black metal', which also seems apt. Definitely refreshing.

That said, I was feeling a little let down towards the middle. The different folky instruments tend to stay in their own little interlude tracks, with multilayered guitars taking over all the melodic duties during the meat of the black metal stuff. I do wish the band had managed to bring the two together, as weird little acoustic instruments during heavy black metal tracks is, uh, one of my musical fetishes... In addition, the album is somewhat lacking in interesting dynamics, with the tracklist pretty much sticking to a formula of black metal, black metal, interlude for the entire album.

Fortunately, the album does redeem itself towards the end. 'In the Absence of Light' picks up the pace quite a bit in terms of black metal intensity, but the track is unfortunately marred by an awkward fadeout. It is, however, followed by a little track called 'Wilweorthunga' (whatever that means), which features some of the absolute SICKEST tremolo-picked distorted black metuhl bass I've ever heard. I was still wavering on how I felt about the album until the last track, 'Orphic Rites of the Mystic', which won me over with pure HEAVY METAL riffage. The album then redeems the previous awkward fadeout with a much better-handled one featuring a FUCKING ORGAN. Unfff.

I would recommend any black metal fan to check out this album, as it's definitely one of the more interesting releases this year, and I will be certainly keeping tabs on this band in the future.

4 funny little acoustic instruments out of 5.

Cradle of Filth - Hammer of the Witches

Cradle of Filth is not a band I normally have much interest in, and I would have never listened to this album had I not heard a fair amount of hype surrounding it. I've never really had a problem with their music, but I do find their absurd image pretty offensive. That said, while this album doesn't depart radically from their more recent work, there is quite a bit to enjoy here.

The band has apparently been going through lineup changes out the wazoo, with this new album featuring the first appearances of two (!) new guitarists as well as female vocalist/keyboardist Lindsey Schoolcraft. Without knowing anything about the internal politics of the band (although I imagine it's the Dani Filth show 24/7), I'm willing to credit these new additions with something of a revitalization of the band's sound, which has certainly stagnated ever since they definitively shifted from black metal to some vaguely marketable black-metalish hybrid. Their last album in particular was boring as all hell. This, however, manages to be generally not boring, although it does fizzle out a bit towards the end. Schoolcraft, in particular, shakes things up in a welcome way; her vocals are mercifully underused, making her appearance consistently surprising and attention-grabbing. She's also credited with playing the harp, which I guess makes her some kind of goth Joanna Newsom???

But the cheese. Oh god the cheese. The album starts up with cheesy bombast from the opening track and doesn't really let up. I had forgotten that this band was this cheesy. Not that I mind cheese, in principle, but this band really does overdo it. The lyrics are pure goth word-salad, the use of the word 'bodice' in particular being a real giggle-grabber. Some people don't like Dani Filth's vocals, which come out in a tortured, if maybe a bit weak-sounding, shriek, but I found them generally quite engaging in this case. The combination of Dani's shriek and Schoolcraft's clean vocals reminds me somehow of (gasp!) Peste Noire, albeit without the artistic integrity or creepy fascist undertones. No one tell Dani Filth, he'll start going for 'Nazi sheik', and god knows we don't need that.

Musically, the album is serviceable. No really standout riffs, but the band's new guitar duo do seem to bring them on thicker and heavier than on their last couple albums, which is always good. One standout track is 'Deflowering the Maidenhead, Displeasuring the Goddess', which seems to be about global warming (!?!), although it's hard to tell underneath the goth word-salad. Schoolcraft's vocals come in for a nice chorus type thing, and the whole band sounds like it actually cares! Imagine that. Serious bonus points for incorporating the word 'bodice' in to a song about global warming, as well.

If you've ever been a Cradle of Filth fan, then I think you'll find a lot to like on Hammer of the Witches. Then again, I've never been a Cradle of Filth fan, so I may be talking out of my ass. In fact, if you can stand listening to an album made by a bunch of people that look in all earnestness like the goth from The IT Crowd, then I think the average black metal fan could even find something to enjoy on this album. The art is pretty cool too. Just don't look at the band photos. Oh god the horror.

3 impeccably applied corpse-paints out of 5

Oranssi Pazuzu - Muukulainen Puhuu

'Psychedelic black metal' as a genre label had me suspicious from the start - maybe just a result of my recent turn in taste away from 'atmospheric' to more 'riffy' music. Listening to the music, it's hard to find any other way to describe it. Oranssi Pazuzu are a Finnish band, so the themes in their music remain mostly a mystery to me. Perhaps that's a part of the appeal. The album cover has a man in a spacesuit and one of the track names includes the year 1968, so I'm going to assume the moon landing comes up at some point. I've had this album recommended to me several times, and having finally gotten around to it, found it a pleasant surprise.

Oranssi Pazuzu are certainly a unique band. The production is rotten, but a much-appreciated carefully rotten - a style I particularly like. The focus is definitely on sound-scapes, with blastbeats and so-on used sparingly, but well. Funny little synth warbles abound (or is that fucked-up guitar noise?) Drumming is generally sparse. Most of these songs don't generally strike me as rock songs per se; repetitive drumming with minimal use of cymbals means the drumming doesn't drive the music forward so much as hold in a kind of (psychedelic!) trance. Vocals are a standard black-metal shriek, appropriately distorted and/or recorded through a shitty mic. Some of the guitar sounds are a very pleasant surprise to me: clean lead guitar! Repetitive (and quite audible) bass lines contribute to the cosmic trance thing.

This isn't album for those who want to rock-out; with a couple exceptions (the track in the middle with the stupid long Finnish name) the songs stick to a mid-paced groove. As if to beat us over the head with the idea, the title track is a bunch of ambient noise. Solid melodies are also few and far between, though when they do come in, usually in the form of one of those aforementioned clean lead lines, they are creative and interesting, with little bends and warbles going on. All this is not to say the album is just a wash of 'atmospheric' white noise, however. I find this album much more engaging than your typical 'atmospheric black metal' nonsense, probably owing to the band's refusal to partake in navel-gazing tremolopickingandblastbeat black metuhl riffage. While some sections are repetitive, they're never boring; the band manages to add and subtract elements at a sufficient pace to keep the listener's interest. If I had to make a criticism it would be that the songs and the album as a whole don't really seem to go anywhere. It's hard to tell where one track ends and another begins, and the pace of all the songs seems quite similar. The instrumentation was engaging enough to keep my interest, but I kept waiting for some sort of catharsis or climax that never came. A strong melody, a section of sudden intensity, something of this sort would have been welcome.

I would recommend this album to any fan of creepy, atmospheric music, and not necessarily just black metal; I think fans of dark ambient or more experimental psychedlic/progressive rock would find a lot to enjoy here. On the flip side, I would also recommend it to black metal fans who generally look down upon 'atmospheric' black metal, as I think it's a good example of how other things can be done with the genre without making it boring. Also, if you're Finnish, everything will probably make a lot more sense to you.

4 spoopy spacemen / 5

Hello World

will start writing to keep my sanity. expect death/black metal album reviews, maybe some politics if i feel like it, maybe some book reviews, maybe whatever. not like anyone is ever going to read this anyway. first review will come later today, maybe?!?!