Reviews: Voidmilker, A Life Divided, Gutslit, Wizard Master (Reviews By Paul Scoble, James Jackson, GC & Rich Piva)

The music contained in Labyrinthical is a style of black metal that is dense, difficult and dissonant. Most of the material has a definite blast beat and tremolo picked riff style tempered by slower, and in some places heavy and quite doomy sections. A lot of the dissonance comes from the use of layering tremolo picked riffs together, so that the interplay between them creates the jarring inharmoniousness. A lot of other acts that use dissonance have a chaotic feel to a lot of the material, however in the case of Voidmilker the songs feel too purposeful and driving for this chaotic feel.

I’m not trying to suggest the material is simple, maybe direct is a better way of putting it, Labyrinthical gets to the point in an unswerving way. Despite all the dark, dense and difficult elements that make up this album, there are still lots of very melodic sections, often in the tremolo picked riffs, in a way that manages to be savage and oppressive, but still full of melody, it’s a clever trick, and Voidmilker manage to make work all through this album. The album is split into seven short (for Black Metal) songs of about 4 to 5 minutes each.

Opening track Decades kicks the album off with heavy doomy riffs, before dropping into layered dissonant black metal blasting, the song has a couple of slower sections with mid-paced tremolo picked riffs and blast beats but is mainly about the fast, blasting black metal. The song comes to and end with more heavy riffs. A Pregnant Cult has a less aggressive feel to the song that preceded it. It has a style that is dissonant, but also has a depressive black metal feel to it, it reminds me a little of an album I reviewed last year by Notturno that has a similar sound to this song, although I should point out that I’m referring to the music only as the Vocals are quite different. The song has a nice line in Mid-paced blast beats and tremolo picked riffs, and gets faster and tauter as the end nears.

 
Abomination Of Desolation starts slow and heavy, but then goes into some very fast and very dissonant black metal. These two styles swap places for a while before a slow and dissonant ending. Collapsing still has some dissonance to it, but is also full of melody and has a style that is quite close to atmospheric black metal.

 
Cosmic Summon opens with dark and depressive riffs that are slow and powerful, the song then moves towards mid-paced blast beats that are nastily dissonant. The song has couple of slower, quieter sections, but this is mainly about mid-paced dissonance. Bronze Child is full of blast beats and tremolo picked riffs, but has a more melodic feel to it than a lot of the material on Labyrinthical, savage, but full of great tunes.

 
The album comes to and end with Birth Of Trepidation, which is a mix of fast, blasting black metal and slow and heavy material that has more of a doom feel to it, the song has an abrupt ending which fits the song and the album.

 
Labyrinthical is a great album. It’s dark, dense and savage in places, but it’s also full of melody and tunefulness. I found that I tended to disappear into the album when I listened to it, Dark, Dissonant riffs wash over you in a very affecting way, and you reemerge after the abrupt ending of Birth Of Trepidation, wanting more. For a first album this is very impressive, I know Gabriel has made six albums with Lascar, but this is a very different beast, so as a debut this is doubly impressive, and I am very keen to hear where he takes it next. 8/10

A Life Divided - Down The Spiral Of A Soul (AFM Records) [James Jackson]

A head banging great groove of a riff opens Last Man Standing, the first track on the latest album from German metallers A Life Divided. A more subdued but still catchy riff leads the march for the verse, the song is a composite of synths and throbbing riffs, vocally it’s well delivered with a blend of clean and growled styles, used with great effect, that growl kicking in for emphasis, great start so far. Best Time has a similar feel to it, you can’t help but tapping along to it, it’s got a groove and swagger about it that’s quite infectious and at times reminds me of Lords Of The Lost. 

Third track Life Goes On continues this trend, with a more traditional rock styled verse with a more Pop like approach to the songwriting. True Religion follows the same tone set by its predecessors but it’s fifth track Disorder that really picks up the pace as it returns back to that clean/growled vocal approach accompanied by a more in your face instrumental sound, this one got me putting Trivium on the stereo for the trip to work as at times it reminded me of them. The rest of the album follows the pattern set out before it, with Thanks For Nothing being a ballad of sorts, as a whole it’s a good album, plenty of songs that’ll get your toes tapping and your head bobbing, 

A Life Divided have a number of previous albums that I now intend, on the strength of this, to listen to. 8/10.

Gutslit - Carnal (Self Released) [GC]

Not much info on today’s first review the new delightfully titled Gutslit album and they say they have been, and I quote ‘’pulverizing the masses since 2007’’ from Mumbai, India they already have a couple of releases behind them, and I now have their newest release Carnal.

It all starts with Son Of Sam which is a nice urgent and cutting blast of brutal death metal that stays just far away enough from the pace of slam to not make you instantly think oh, here we go because slam gets very tiresome very quickly midway through they pick up the pace and drive the song home on the back of some big groove infused riffs but a bit of slam does creep in here and there and should probably not because they are better just sounding straight up death metal, Matriarch is then a perfect example of how to sound like Cannibal Corpse but not actually be Cannibal Corpse, I mean this in a good way because the song is brilliant and full of savage guitars and excellent drum work and again the groove that they get onto the song is infectious and well worked. 

Bind, Torture, Kill has a more OSDM vibe and proceeds to blast its way through you for the entirety of the song, unfortunately we do get some brie brie brie pig squeal vocals that are not needed as they sound stupid but take them out and we have another solid death metal track with a disgustingly raw and brutal sound, The Killing Joke is easily the most grind influenced track on the album and because of this it’s the best by a mile its is unrelenting and attacks from the first second right until the last with some absolutely manic drum work and the guitars are crisp and sharp throughout and never lose their edge, 

Then we get Insidious which is an actual grind track that consist of 41 seconds of grinding beauty, start, blast, brutalize, finish! Great work. After that one, two grind attack Body Snatcher now slows the pace down slightly to begin with and has a more measured and thoughtful attack which really helps to show that Gutslit have got the means to do a lot of good work and not just stick to one style, they manage to mix it all together expertly and none of it seems out of place it all gels so well and this has some well worked guitar solos that could have been picked directly from any quality Swedeath albums another excellently crafted piece of work. 

Altar Of Putridity keeps with the slow, creeping pace for the opening before it all explodes into life about a minute in and they just do not up after this it’s a brutal and mesmerizing assault of a song BUT, I really wish they would leave the pig squeals out as they add nothing and sound out of place with the music, sigh! Anyway, closing track Primeval is the longest track on offer clocking in at 6 minutes and it seems like and odd way to end, I think it should have been midway into the album and the fast grindy type songs should have ended it because on this track they are trying to throw every style they have utilized into one song and while they manage it for the most part it tends to make the song feel slightly disjointed in places and takes away a bit of the power from the previous tracks, good song, just in the wrong place and because of that it leaves me with a slightly disappointing ending.

There is no doubting that Gutslit can write a quality death metal album and on Carnal that is exactly what they have done, they don’t take their foot off the pedal or rely on spooky atmospherics, they aim for the throat and successfully hit it, rip it out and stamp it all over the floor for good measure, there are a couple of times I could do without the stupid vocals but it’s a small criticism overall, a solid effort and well worth a listen. 7/10

Wizard Master - Ablanathanalba (Electric Valley Records) [Rich Piva]

Time for some slow burning stoner doom from Wizard Master. The Italian band bring the heavy and the riffs on their new album, Ablanathanalba. The promo from their label, the very cool Electric Valley Records says this one is going to be more bluesy and psychedelic, which sounds good to me. Let’s see how this one stands up and if the hype materials can be trusted.

Off the bat I am hearing some serious Italian doom, which is not a bad thing at all, with the opening track Hell Riders. Iommi worship and slow burn doomy goodness is upon us. I love the audio clips added and the last minute of the track kicks all sorts of ass. Funeral Boogie starts with a creepy spoken word into a violin ditty until the violinist is swallowed up by a gigantic monster in the form of a riff. I love the retro feel of this track when it picks up (relatively speaking) harkening back to some 80s Venom type feel production wise and an almost snotty punk style vocal which works here. There is a bit of a boogie (for these guys) to this track, which I was not expecting, so it lived up to its name. 

Acid is the definition of a doomy slow burn, a plodding pace and serious Sabbath vibes, if not a bit too long. So far, I am not getting the bluesy or psych side as promised, but I am OK given this is some excellent doom. A church bell ringing? I assume an Iommi riff will shortly follow, but with Master Of Wizardry you get an almost six minute mostly instrumental track of which three minutes could have been shaved. The second half is pretty killer, but you could have kicked right into it after like the third chime of the bell. We Are Fud brings more riff goodness but again is about 3 minute too long. We are rounded out by Tested By Death, which is eight minutes more of the Italian doom stylings these guys are starting to perfect, but the trend here is that the songs do drag a bit.

I enjoyed Ablanathanalba, but the six songs in 47 minutes seemed more like 67 minutes, so some editing could have done Wizard Master some favors here. I really didn’t catch any of the bluesy and psychedelic vibes, but Ablanathanalba is a really nice Italian doom record that will stand with some of the other cool bands from that region doing this today. 7/10