Wolves In The Throne Room - Primordial Arcana (Century Media Records) [Matt Bladen]
Wolves In The Throne Room are a band that are rightly surrounded by mystery. Casting spells for a long time now, their entire ethos is built around being an almost cult-like group using their intensely cinematic style of black metal to bewitch and beguile the listener, bringing them down WITTR's own personal rabbit hole. After 20 years of toil, Primordial Arcana is the band's first self produced/recorded/mastered release, no outside factors just the three members collaborating on every aspect. It means that Primordial Arcana is almost the distillation of what WITTR are about as a band.
Diskord - Degenerations (Transcending Obscurity Records) [Charlie Rogers]
Straight outta Oslo, with their 3rd full length album under their belt, Diskord are admittedly a new name to me. But with the description given to me as “Charlie you’ll like these, they’re inspired by Demilich” I couldn’t really turn it down, could I? I’m a big fan of angular riffs, and chaotic music, and Diskord hit the spot nicely. No time for atmosphere, samples, or whatever the modern bands are doing to open their records these days, we’re catapulted straight into the riffs from 0:00 in Loitering In The Portal. Nasally fretless bass chews through your ears, guitar tone buzzes away like the pulling apart of velcro, otherworldly shrieks and roars communicating lyrics unknown, all underpinned by some of the most manic drumming I’ve heard this year. It certainly leaves an impression, and if you’re also a Nespithe enjoyer it’ll be a good one.
Wolves In The Throne Room are a band that are rightly surrounded by mystery. Casting spells for a long time now, their entire ethos is built around being an almost cult-like group using their intensely cinematic style of black metal to bewitch and beguile the listener, bringing them down WITTR's own personal rabbit hole. After 20 years of toil, Primordial Arcana is the band's first self produced/recorded/mastered release, no outside factors just the three members collaborating on every aspect. It means that Primordial Arcana is almost the distillation of what WITTR are about as a band.
Comprised of brothers Aaron and Nathan Weaver alongside guitarist Kody Keyworth rounding things out but this is no power trio, stripped back sound. The band have always been incredibly creative and innovative in their take on extreme metal, so once again they look to add to their base sound with numerous different styles, for example the Oriental string instrument that is used all the way through the brooding Underworld Aurora a song that also beautifully mixes slow grinding doom with blasts of blistering speed, as vocally the growls feel as if they are coming from the underworld itself. While singles Spirit Of Lightning and Primal Chasm (Gift Of Fire) both bring a sense of grandeur and occasion to the album as the riffs blaze, drums blast and vocals howl.
Thematically the album deals with the natural world of Cascadia the 'bioregion' that encompasses their home state of Washington and has proven to be massively influential on the bands primeval, naturalistic and mystic soundscapes. Rivers flow and storms rage in the crossfades between tracks evoking a sense of calmness before yet more lashings of blastbeats and orchestral compositions that are the bread and butter of this band, however they do indulge in folky acoustics in the middle of Masters Of Rain And Storm is just one of numerous shifts as the synth textures of Eostre bring about those natural themes again as we move towards the (bonus track) finale of the Skyclad Passage which is an atmospheric instrumental to close proceedings on a wistful note. Primordial Arcana is a wonderfully deep record, one that requires multiple listens to fully unveil its splendour. 9/10
Straight outta Oslo, with their 3rd full length album under their belt, Diskord are admittedly a new name to me. But with the description given to me as “Charlie you’ll like these, they’re inspired by Demilich” I couldn’t really turn it down, could I? I’m a big fan of angular riffs, and chaotic music, and Diskord hit the spot nicely. No time for atmosphere, samples, or whatever the modern bands are doing to open their records these days, we’re catapulted straight into the riffs from 0:00 in Loitering In The Portal. Nasally fretless bass chews through your ears, guitar tone buzzes away like the pulling apart of velcro, otherworldly shrieks and roars communicating lyrics unknown, all underpinned by some of the most manic drumming I’ve heard this year. It certainly leaves an impression, and if you’re also a Nespithe enjoyer it’ll be a good one.
The album proceeds from here along a mad path, the interplay between the bass and guitar switching from coordinated heavy riffage to countermelody effortlessly. Percussion using all the tricks in the bag - from straight grooves, to blastbeats, to frantic fills, and even some punctuating cowbell hits. It’s about as far removed from your bog standard meat and potatoes death metal as you can be. Each track has its place, and there’s little to no fat to trim - which is very impressive considering it’s a 12 track album. I’m finding more and more to enjoy each listen through, and it’s very difficult to express what’s stopping this album from achieving a perfect score. Given the trend of how much I’m enjoying it, I’ll just recommend you check it out, and give it the 10. 10/10
Whilst describing themselves as a plain and simple Heavy Metal band from Helsinki, Oceanhoarse have a lot more going on the mix than plain old NWOBHM or Traditional Metal vibes. It’s absolutely a part of the mix, but it’s a thoroughly modern Millie with it. That Modern twist takes in subtle motes of much of what has happened in the intervening decades since that first true Metal explosion of my youth without feeling that it has to be pin-holed into any one particular sub-genre, so I am just going to stick with Heavy Fucking Metal, because like everything going on in this fiery debt, it just fits and works.
The singles released so far are as good an entry point as any if you are simply curious. One With The Gun has a belting rhythmically brutal opening riff that grabs you into the world of Oceanhoarse and showcases singer Joonas Kosonen’s quite spectacular range from full on Metalcore to the more clean and scaling heights of delivery. Equally Reaching Skywards opts for speed over mood and shows that technically these chaps are rather tight and cohesive. Variety is the spice of life with this record which doesn’t stay still stylistically, whilst keeping a cohesive band sound and energy, energy, energy throughout. The thirteen tracks on here positively fly by and I can’t pinpoint a low point on here at all.
Sun Of The Suns - TIIT (Scarlet Records) [Matt Bladen]
To sum up Sun Of The Suns in one word, it would be Urgh! Called the future innovators of extreme metal, TIIT is the debut album from Italian extreme metal act Sun Of The Suns. Made up of Luca Dave Scarlatti (vocals), Marco Righetti (guitar) and Ludovico Cioffi (guitar), there are some special guests in the rhythm section with Fleshgod Apocalypse sticksman Francesco Paoli on drums along with DGM's Simone Mularoni on bass. The trio that make up the band will have to work hard to keep up with these two and work hard they do, the short intro bringing you into the aggressive, explosive, crushing riffage, slapping you in the face with the groove-heavy, technical virtuosity of bands such as Whitechapel, Thy Art Is Murder, Job For A Cowboy.
The more melodic sounds on tracks such as The Golden Cage washed away almost immediately by wave after wave of breakdowns which will get the pits moving when they unleash them live. It's a sci-fi record based around a dystopian and contaminated Planet Earth, and while most of the record is nearer to deathcore and tech death, there are some groove metal punches of Gojira on Obsolescence Corrupt. TIIT is a bulldozer of a record laying waste to all in it's path only small interludes such as To Decay To Revive calming the soul ready for the next beating. A brutal debut offering not for the faint of heart, if modern technical metal is what gets your camo shorts moving then I suggest checking out TIIT. 7/10
Oceanhoarse - Dead Reckoning (Noble Demon) [Simon Black]
The band have been around for a while but surprisingly never seen to have broken out of their native Finland, despite a quite lengthy series of singles, EP’s and one live LP to date before more recently finding a home on the Noble Demon label. This, their debut studio album, positively bristles with the pent up energy that those years of building to this point have culminated to and wisely chooses not to repackage any of those earlier singles and focus on newer, fresher material.
Whilst describing themselves as a plain and simple Heavy Metal band from Helsinki, Oceanhoarse have a lot more going on the mix than plain old NWOBHM or Traditional Metal vibes. It’s absolutely a part of the mix, but it’s a thoroughly modern Millie with it. That Modern twist takes in subtle motes of much of what has happened in the intervening decades since that first true Metal explosion of my youth without feeling that it has to be pin-holed into any one particular sub-genre, so I am just going to stick with Heavy Fucking Metal, because like everything going on in this fiery debt, it just fits and works.
The singles released so far are as good an entry point as any if you are simply curious. One With The Gun has a belting rhythmically brutal opening riff that grabs you into the world of Oceanhoarse and showcases singer Joonas Kosonen’s quite spectacular range from full on Metalcore to the more clean and scaling heights of delivery. Equally Reaching Skywards opts for speed over mood and shows that technically these chaps are rather tight and cohesive. Variety is the spice of life with this record which doesn’t stay still stylistically, whilst keeping a cohesive band sound and energy, energy, energy throughout. The thirteen tracks on here positively fly by and I can’t pinpoint a low point on here at all.
As debut’s which have been building to a point of intensity go, this one is a positive belter and the thirteen tracks on here positively fly by. What this act need now is the opportunity to share their energy with the wider world, so go on, you know what you need to do… 8/10