Saint Agnes - Bloodsuckers (Spinefarm) [Mark Young]
Latest release from London four-piece Saint Agnes, fronted by vocal A-bomb Kitty A. Austen and is a focused, aggressive album that swims within a number of different genres in order to give you 11 tracks that vary in approach, and also in effectiveness.
So here we go: the opening three tracks are just royal. They come in and just stomp over you and are so well put together you know that live they are going to decimate.
Bloodsuckers has that swagger to it, with Kitty A. Austen spitting over the top channelling a NIN tinge (thinking the Broken EP era) this is designed to whip that crowd into a frenzy and just tears through it’s track time. Animal has a filthy feel arrangement that morphs into a solid slab of metal, rising up into a spot on break down, this is a fantastic opening one-two that makes good on their promise of taking from a lot of different genres and being able to use the best without sounding forced or redundant. I Mean Nothing To You...starts off with "I GOT NO MORE FUCKS TO GIVE" and bang we are in a tightly wrapped ball of fury that doesn’t forget you need a chorus that we can sing along too, and this one nails it.
Once we get past these, the album drops off ever so slightly with a lag in the energy which starts with Outsider which just comes across as a little flat after the 1,2,3 combination they just landed. It doesn’t ignite in the same way. This Is Not The End takes us on a softer journey, with an almost solo opening with Kittie's super strong vocals set against a muted piano, and this is bringing in some more of that NIN influence which has to be said is quite pronounced here and elsewhere on this album.
Follow You get’s us back to the heavy, as does I Am which has that same, quick-fire attack but is almost too similar to the one before and come across as filler. They arrest this slide with At War With Myself provides an aural tapestry for a declining mental health that is incredibly well done and hits hard before making way for Middle Finger that manages to squeeze so much out of a simple riff pattern and this one bounces, really bounces and is another example of taking the best from your influences and making them unique.
Body Bag (feat. Mimi Barks) is short blast of screamy goodness and then Forever And Ever, final track has that soft vs loud dynamic, both in Kittie’s delivery and the arrangement and is a stirring climax to a good album.
And with that, there is some top stuff on here. The use of NIN collaborator Sean Beavan places a certain stamp on proceedings, and it sounds great but sometimes that does come across as too much rather than allowing their own vision and identity to cut through. As I’ve mentioned, when it rips it absolutely rips but that drop off in energy in the middle does hurt the flow. It’s possible that just tweaking that running order slightly would arrest it, but that is purely personal on my part. 7/10
Cadaver - The Age Of The Offended (Nuclear Blast) [Matt Bladen]
Norwegian death metal doesn't come much better than Cadaver. Still led by founding member Anders Odden (vocals/guitars), the percussion is human drum machine Dirk Verbeuren. The Age Of The Offended also has original bassist Eilert Solstad coming back with the bottom end as TNT guitarist Ronni Le Tekrø brings his shred metal history to the guitar playing. Though originally was only brought in as a guest for Cadaver's version of TNT's Deadly Metal features on this album.
Cadaver are a band that are technically gifted and Christ do they show it with this new record, 30 years into their career and still totally uncompromising, their death metal is totally unique compared to their contemporaries, with the psychadelic meandering of Scum Of The Earth is counteracted by schizophrenic riffs and solos.
Since their 2020 album Odden has battled cancer and won so approaches this album with anger and the renewed focus. He and Dirk laid down the album in a fast time, exploring new dimensions to their already established sound. Even by their own standards The Age Of The Offended is very experimental from the intro of Sycophants Swing, we dive into Postapocalyptic Grinding as if Slayer played with Mr Bungle, then there's prog black metal on the title track Anders' where he laments today's attitudes. (He's quite old school in the way he thinks).
The Sicker, The Better busts out with groteque death metal, Death Revealed feeling almost Scandinavian with the stabs of clean guitars, while The Shrink is knuckle dragging industrial cloaked in death metal trappings and The Drowning Man is gutter dwelling doom. If you're not familar with Cadaver then this experimentation could be a little jarring but with 30 years in a league of their own, it's either love it or leave it. 7/10
Thunder Horse - After The Fall (Ripple Music) [Quinn Mattfeld @AV4Apod]
I have to admit, I was a little hesitant to review the new Thunder Horse record. I also have to admit that it's because I didn't love their previous album Chosen One. And finally, I have to admit that I don't remember why.So, I decided to go into Thunder Horses' third LP without revisiting their previous record and hopefully, an unbiased set of ears. On the first and title track, After The Fall it really paid off. You might say 'I backed the right pony'... Thunder Horse? Horse? Pony?
After The Fall kicks off it's eponymous mother-record with such superb doominess upon frontman Stephen Bishop's muted, opening wail, "Down and out again…" and an absolutely killer riff on an album filled with killer riffs that I was struggling to imagine what possibly could have caused me to balk at this band in 2021.
I had to shake off the second half of that lyric, "No one to call…" which just feels a bit junior high to me but the rest of the song is a more-than-worthy opening / title track.
New Normal is a defiant, "We're Not Gonna Take It" through the prism of Doom that phrases the title in such a way that puts the stress on the second syllable, making "normal" rhyme with "Al." Like, someone for whom you might act as a bodyguard, or have as a long-lost pal. They repeat the phrasing on the word "shaDOW" which only makes a bad choice into an intentionally bad choice.
But nothing strikes me as terribly unforgivable until we get to Inner Demon in which each chorus ends with the phrase, "It's time to get fucked up" but not in a way I think Thunder Horse is intending. There are great examples of songs that dealt with addiction like 20/20 Tunnel Vision by Graveyard or Demon Alcohol by Ozzy Osbourne but this one lands like an unironic party song written by Dwight Yokam's band in Sling Blade.
And then it hits me. The reason I didn't listen to the previous Thunder Horse record: the lyrics. There are plenty of examples of odd moments here and there on After The Fall but Inner Demon is an entire track-full of them. "One is too many but one hundred's not enough." One hundred? Again, it sounds like the way a child might conceive of an alcoholic. It's a bizarre and not exactly poetic exaggeration that ends up as a silly take on a serious topic.
The album finishes strong, especially on the closer Requiem where Thunder Horse prove that they can write good lyrics and just too often decide not to. So take it with one hundred grains of salt but After The Fall reminds me of why Thunder Horse feels more like a band cosplaying Doom than delivering it in earnest. 6/10
Somnuri - Desiderium (MNRK Heavy) [Joe Guatieri]
The new Somnuri album Desiderium Notes presents a journey through the eyes of Sludge Metal, working their way into new distortion-soaked destinations.
The first song, Death Is The New Beginning, feels like a warning within its intensity. The snare roll in this track really defines this as it feels overpowering almost to a headache-inducing degree. Destroying everything in its path and literally draining out the mix. The guitars therefore feel like the real opposing force as they try to cut through the track with their gigantic sound in an attempt to overcome the rhythmic rapids. Taking all sorts of twists and turns within its playing in an attempt to avoid certain death. This song is a real headfuck.
Track Two, Paramnesia takes the title for the best song on the album. I am in love with the weird, mid-paced grooves going here, it feels like they are playing catch up with themselves. Definitely lovingly inspired by the likes of the Melvins. It portrays the classic punk attitude of playing for your own entertainment and not giving a fuck about what other people think. Somnuri uses strange song dynamics and pushes them in a way that provides intrigue and memorability which leaves you only wanting more.
Track Seven, Desiderium, is the longest song here at over 5 minutes yet it doesn’t feel like it at all. The instrumental continues to push boundaries and is executed in a really fascinating way that feels forever changing. One of the few drawbacks is that the lead guitars feel a bit muffled at times. It happens in a way that I find to be very restrained, keeping them from their full potential.
Altogether, this record has its fair share of hypnotic highs and gut-wrenching lows. The clean vocals can either act as a nice addition or an unnecessary feature. The bass, whilst it performs its primary function well, lacks the oomph and doesn’t stick out in the way that I would want it too. Despite this, Desiderium Notes is an example of consistency and forward-thinking ideas within Sludge Metal. 8/10