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DEATH METAL, CONT.
Cynic- Focus (1993)
General Impressions: This shit is nuts. First of all, the bassist is going crazy all over this record, and that’s fine, they deserve it, they can play their ass off, but it’s so prominent both in the mix and in the songwriting that at first it was hard to pay attention to anything else (although pretty quickly the guitar and drum work both became more than interesting enough to hold my attention). This reminds me a little bit of the Atheist record, but the jazz doesn’t come through in tone as much as in the arrangements, though you can definitely tell it’s still in their playing techniques and songwriting style. There are also a lot of moments on this record where it gets really soft and pretty, in a way that almost reminds me of 90s Midwest emo a la Christie Front Drive or Boys Life (not sure how that would make the band members feel though). There are some keyboards on here that serve to add some splashes of melody and texture; the only other early death metal record I’ve heard utilize keys was The Key by Nocturnus (which we’ll probably have to discuss at some other time), and the use of keys on this album more than lives up to that proggy wildebeest. There’s also some weird melodic vocoder vocals that I’m honestly not really sure how I feel about, but the growling vocals are absolutely serviceable enough (the lyrics they’re delivering are pretty abstract and poetic, which I definitely appreciate after listening to a preponderance of more gore-oriented bands) and none of it really detracts from the tapestry of technical and melodic complexity that Cynic unfurls throughout this record.
Standout Track: “Textures” is a fucking phenomenal song. Lots of great alternating tension between the clean jazz breaks and the heavier textures— the pretty twinkly breakdowns are the best on the entire record, and are wonderfully extended to their fullest capacity here, but this song also accomplishes the neat trick of embedding heavier moments within those softer moments, particular angular distorted guitar melodies that build upon established motifs. It’s just really great, sophisticated work.
Morbid Angel- Domination (1995)
General Impressions: Having come into this little experiment with some familiarity with Morbid Angel’s back catalog (Altars of Madness and Blessed Are the Sick), I was pretty excited to get into their first two major label albums, which are two of the best-selling death metal albums of all time and are often regarded as two of Morbid Angel’s finer works. While don’t get me wrong, I definitely dug Covenant— I thought the production was fantastic, the songs were dynamic and varied, and the climactic slow-burn “God of Emptiness” gave me hard Beavis & Butthead flashbacks while also presaging the work of a band like, say, Xibalba— ultimately I ended up gravitating more towards Domination. Partially, this is because I thought the production on Domination was even better than that of Covenant, but it was also in no small part due to the fact that Domination is awash in slightly slower, groovier, catchier tracks. I’m not sure how well that played to their fanbase at the time (especially since aside from the weird, out-of-place sung vocals in “God of Emptiness,” there weren’t really any mainstream concessions on their major label debut), but I definitely don’t think anyone would mistake this for a non-death-metal album. The lyrics are the exact kind of occult, witchy stuff I’ve come to expect from Morbid Angel (given, yknow, Trey Azagthoth’s name, etc.) and I had a real fun time with this record. The performances were extraordinarily tight all-around, but I have to give special mention to David Vincent’s vocals, which are captured at perhaps their peak performance and utmost clarity here, as well as Pete Sandoval’s drum work, which more than once literally made me feel like a volcano was erupting. Great stuff. And of course the guitar work is every bit as dynamic, expressive, and excellent as I’ve come to expect.
Standout Track: I really loved almost every song on here (bar the closing track, which suffered from the same weird, half-ass appeals to commercialism as the weaker parts of “God of Emptiness”), but I have to give special attention to the sludgy, disgusting morass that is “Where the Slime Lives.” It’s very rare that a band is capable of writing a song that sounds exactly the way the album cover looks, so you really have to give Morbid Angel props on that alone.
Suffocation- Pierced from Within (1995)
General Impressions: Oh man this shit is heavy. Having already heard and really enjoyed Effigy of the Forgotten for its mixture of intensity and technicality, I really have to emphasize that Pierced from Within surpasses any and all expectations I had walking into it. This record abandons any conventional pretense of melody, song structure, or really anything tying it to any sort of readily accessible form of music, and just focuses on sheer brutality. Don’t get it twisted— all players involved here are operating at peak capacity and the trading guitar solos, expressive bass work, and rhythmic interplay are all as sonically pleasing as they are thoughtful and intricate, but when you put it all together and add in Frank Mullen’s gutturals, you get something that just feels like the final pillow over your face in the hospital bed. This might honestly be in the top 5 heaviest records I’ve ever heard in my life. And I do want to clarify— there’s absolutely still “melody” and “song structure” operating here. Otherwise this would have just been a boring collection of riffs with no unifying themes or anything memorable to come back to. These are still tightly focused songs, but they just happen to be shaped like sledgehammers. I think the polish of the production here takes away from a bit of the rawness and authentic fury they displayed on Effigy of the Forgotten, but that’s more than made up for with the intensity of the performances that are captured here. Every person who has ever written “br00t4l” should be paying Suffocation royalties on the back of this record.
Standout Track: “Torn Into Enthrallment” begins with that classic eerie clean guitar intro riff, so I’m already into it, but when the song kicks into high gear, the speed and almost atonal heaviness is just fucking unparalleled. When it collapses into sheer disgusting groove, as the vocals descend into sewer territory— fuuuuuck. I literally felt myself regressing into a caveman-like state listening to this song.
Cryptopsy- None So Vile (1996)
General Impressions: This fucking rules. Whoever is doing vocals sounds like an actual wounded animal; just completely and utterly fucking disgusting. As for the music itself, I must admit to feeling like any description is going to fall short— the most important thing you should know about this record is that it combines head-spinning levels of intricate technicality with bracingly emotional and melodic guitar solos and guitar tones, riffs, and song structures that literally sound violent. Like, this record makes me want to rip shit into multiple pieces; the closest comparison I can make is to a band like Ed Gein or Ion Dissonance, but this feels heftier than the former and more concise and focused than the latter. The songwriting on this record is extremely tight and efficient, rarely wasting time on anything as silly as atmosphere or recurring motifs. It’s just furious riff after furious riff with frequent short solos. Despite this, it never really feels like “riff salad” as such; all the sections in any given song definitely make a lot of sense together, and the rhythm section tightly connects a lot of the material with aplomb. I still have to emphasize how disgusting and brutal the vocals here are— there are moments where they sound just as percussive and aggressive as the drums, and when the drums are as fast and heavy as the ones on this record, that’s a mammoth achievement. Again, not really sure what else to say— this is a fucking ripper of a record. It does not waste any time, and you should not waste any time listening to it.
Standout Track: Every track on this album deserves to be heard (and there are relatively few moments that deviate from the album’s overall formula, with the notable exceptions of the stellar bass solo in “Slit Your Guts” and the gentle piano intro and creepy-crawly bass line that kicks off “Phobophile”), but the ridiculous bounce-mosh-skronk riff that shows up early on in “Benedictine Convulsions” (along with a similar insane riff that closes the song out) demands to be listened to. I cannot explain it in writing whatsoever; it must be heard to be believed. It’s so good. There is a similar slap-bass-induced breakdown in closer “Orgiastic Disembowelment,” which is also great, but it’s more fun and not as discordant and punishing.
Generally speaking, I tried to exclude anything released after the year 2000 in order to preserve the definition of “classic” in this project, but I must admit that I made two very specific exceptions with the following two entries. The first is regarded as a masterpiece of technical death metal, and the next is one of those albums that everybody seemed to be telling me to listen to, and which I even remember being extremely popular even when it came out. In any case, I thought it would be fun to cover them.
Necrophagist- Epitaph (2004)
General Impressions: I surprised myself with how much I enjoyed Epitaph. I normally don’t find myself gravitating towards music that explicitly advertises itself based off the technical proficiency of the participants— I prefer it to be more of a pleasant surprise while listening. But it’s pretty impossible to deny how well-composed and performed these songs are, and that the wankery comes second to the songwriting (or rather, the wank is earnestly and mostly seamlessly blended into the songwriting). There are lots of memorable, melodic moments on here, especially with the sweeping, hyper-melodic guitar solos. There’s also plenty of bass highlights and solos, which was a really pleasant surprise! Apparently, this band’s previous album was recorded and programmed entirely by one person, which makes it all the more impressive to see actual humans performing all the music live on this record. The drumming in particular seems to be entirely composed of 64ths— I have to imagine performing this daily leads to some extreme physical costs. But it gives us some great, cool-sounding music! Aside from a minor point about the vocals— which are about as garden-variety as you can get with death metal— my only fairly major critique with this one is how sterile and clinical the recording sounds. I understand wanting it to sound as clean and precise as it needs to in order to capture the performances here, but when I hear musicians as talented as this, I want to hear how much they love their instruments— the production on this record sometimes felt like it was sucking all the air out of the room instead. Still, this was unquestionably an engaging listen.
Standout Track: One of the main drawbacks of this type of hyper-technical death metal, at least to my ears, is that because the songs themselves are more collections of riffs (and in the case of this album, it’s definitely that, but not necessarily in a bad way!), it’s a bit difficult to point to specific songs that feel unique and have their own identity, and it’s instead easier to recommend listening to the album in its entirety and look for memorable moments (again, of which there are a great many). That said, I would say that if I had to pick a definitive track here, it would be “Only Ash Remains”— from the hyperactive, arch and spindly bass intro, to the breathless guitar solos throughout, to the deliriously off-kilter climax (perhaps my overall favorite part of the album), it’s the most consistent collection of memorable moments.
Blood Incantation- Hidden History of the Human Race (2019)
General Impressions: This album, with Tomb Mold’s Planetary Clairvoyance coming in at a hot second place, was the modern death metal album that people seemed to be really excited about. There were two things that really endeared the album to me right off the bat: first of all, I really dug the conspiracy theory/sci-fi angle, which is cool in its own right, but any lyrical preoccupations aside from over-the-top gore is refreshing at this point (but don’t get me wrong, I still love the ridiculous gory shit); second, this album is four songs long but goes on for thirty-six minutes, and you can bet your ass I was intrigued to see how they’d pull it off. Here’s how they did it: the first three tracks hover around five to seven minutes apiece, and the fourth track makes up half of the entire album. That being said, this is an absolute stunner of a record and I can very easily see why it’s so critically acclaimed. All of these players are by no means slouches (the drumming is so deliciously organic and powerful, the bass work is subtle but shines beautifully when it needs to, and the guitarists’ brains seem to be actual riff factories), but far from the ascetic atmosphere of the Necrophagist record, this one sounds like it was recorded in a cavern or underground tunnel (maybe within the hollow Earth??). It makes the whole thing feel that much more warm, genuine, and passionate, which, when married to the bonkers song structures at play here, turns a listen-through of this record into something truly mesmerizing. The low-end is wonderfully gritty, which extends to the gross guttural vocals here; the vocals are far from a focal point, but they’re slathered in reverb and buried in the mix to the point where they become just another wonderful part of this band’s aesthetic identity. This record is a shockingly succinct and easy listen, but it’s one that feels both extremely rewarding and extremely addictive. I definitely highly recommend this one (although if you’re reading this, there’s absolutely no way you need me to tell you).
Standout Track: For only having four songs, they’re really all standouts, and every one is awash in varied tones and moods. You’ve got the powerful punch of opener “Slave Species to the Gods,” the most aggressive song on the record. The second track, “The Giza Power Plant,” introduces some Egyptian-music-inspired guitar work, which slowly morphs into one of the heaviest riffs on the record, accompanied by some incredibly manic and expressive rhythm section work (culminating in some unparalleled sonic intensity during the climax). It’s pretty inspired stuff, and feels especially stunning coming right before the third track, “Inner Paths (to Outer Space),” which is, for the most part, more ambient, placid, and contemplative (with a brief moment of roiling into overbearing heaviness before it relaxes once more). All that being said, top honors should probably go to the final track, “Awakening from the Dream of Existence to the Multidimensional Nature of Our Reality (Mirror of the Soul)”— I know, the song title is about the length of the damn song— simply for making an eighteen-minute-long death metal song seem not just feasible but completely listenable and compelling. The sheer intelligence, passion, and creativity that goes into songwriting for something like that blows my goddamn mind.
BLACK METAL
I gotta admit, I’m not entirely sure what my ethical responsibility is as a music journalist here, and it’s especially thorny because it bums me out that I have to preface talking about an entire goddamn subgenre by denouncing racism, and it bums me out even more to be a Jewish person who is interested in music that is, let’s say, slightly more likely than average to have been made by Nazis. Unfortunately, I also think it would be intellectually dishonest to not engage with these artists, principally because their music is so influential and important, but also partially because I think people can be both talented and enormous pieces of shit, which leaves me in a semi-unenviable position with regards to discussing artists with unsavory views, or who have done fucked-up things. Of course, however, that’s part of the central appeal of such misanthropic music, isn’t it? That it’s made by fucked-up, misanthropic people? I have to own that morbid fascination, and I’m fine with that; for me, the financial support angle is the much trickier one.
With sketchy artists, my general tactic is to sort them into three buckets.
1. They have had sketchy associations in the past, but they have openly acknowledged and refuted them, and moved on. To my knowledge, any of the records here that could be construed as “sketchy” fall into that category. With these bands, I feel completely comfortable purchasing their music or listening to it on streaming services.
2. They feature members that have racist inclinations. To my knowledge, there’s only one example of that here— the Mayhem record, which Varg played bass on. (You could make a vague argument for the Darkthrone record, which Varg wrote some lyrics for, but Darkthrone have renounced them. I will admit that I am not sure if he gets money from it, though.) With these, partially because of their historical importance, I choose to acquire them through unconventional means (so as not to accidentally fund far-right organizations) and be on my merry way, making sure to listen with a critical, discerning ear and to be enough of an adult not to let Nazi losers infect my worldview.
3. The music is racist propaganda. This is the case with stuff like Grand Belial’s Key/Arghoslent/Graveland/Absurd/etc. I choose to not listen to this stuff, but I’m sure they wouldn’t like my Jew nose in their business anyway.
And with that out of the way, let’s get into it.
Darkthrone- Transilvanian Hunger (1994)
General Impressions: So I guess overall, it would probably be easier to think of the discrete movements on this record as “compositions” rather than “songs.” The focus is overwhelmingly on mood, tone, and atmosphere rather than pure songwriting, and that’s fine. This definitely does what it does well. The riffs remind me of Gothic architecture and old Hammer horror movie scores. The drums are the same in every song. The vocals are an oppressive, unintelligible screech. The production is nowhere near as bad as I had been led to believe, but it is unquestionably thin, which results in something rather more “chilly” and “detached” than “heavy.” I have been told that this is a record which seeks to remove the passionate human warmth element of the music, and this record definitely seems inhuman, but it’s ultimately much more hypnotic than disturbing. It took me a few minutes to settle into the grooves of this record (well, it’s not groovy or even all that conventionally rhythmic, but you know what I mean), but it was moderately enjoyable once I had. I don’t think I ended up liking this as much as some of the death metal on this list, but I’m not opposed to exploring the other two albums in Darkthone’s black metal trilogy (this is the final installment).
Standout Track: None of the tracks feel like they’re really supposed to stand on their own anyway, but the deliberately anti-melodic, mildly unnerving riff in “As Flittermice as Satans Spys” did more to put me in the “correct” frame of mind for this record than anything else.
Mayhem- De Mysteriis Dom Sathanis (1994)
General Impressions: The first thing I noticed about this record was that the production was an enormous improvement on the Darkthrone record. The second thing I noticed was that, hey, these are actual songs again! Yes, all the sonic conventions of the Darkthrone record are apparent here, but there are dynamics— mid-tempo riffs, occasional solos (I didn’t realize how starved I was feeling for them), honest-to-god drum fills! Loathe I am to admit it, but Varg is definitely more-than-competent on bass here; there’s lots of bleak, slow melodies that he transposes beneath the savage guitar work. Speaking of, Euronymous on guitar and Hellhammer on drums here are both fantastic. All this is why I am extremely sad to report that the vocalist on this album is absolute ass. Apparently the Live In Leipzig album shows Mayhem with the legendary Dead on vocals, so I should probably listen to that, but whoever is doing vocals here is absolutely atrocious. It’s this self-consciously hammy, gurgly, dumb shit with absolutely no power or emotion behind it, which stands in stark contrast to the shrieks on the Darkthrone record. There are moments on this record where I feel like the dude is talking, which I don’t want on a heavy record, suffice to say. Still, once you get past the vocals, the songs are pretty great and memorable.
Standout Track: I’m gonna give it to “Life Eternal,” both because its seven-minute runtime feels like it absolutely vanishes and because at the three-and-a-half-minute mark there is a really great, spindly little riff from Euronymous that feels like an arch or a spire or something. If you can’t tell, black metal is taking a bit longer to settle in for me than death metal did.
Emperor- In the Nightside Eclipse (1994)
General Impressions: So we are sailing clear into the “symphonic” territory here, which is one of the things I thought I would spend my entire life avoiding before I started this project. That being said, this is, so far, the most compelling black metal album on this list. Everything is very well-played and well-composed, the vocalist is not unbearably cheesy, and the keyboards and sound clips are very tightly focused on building a believable, deliberate atmosphere, which I really appreciate. A lot of people have said that this album sounds “epic,” but to me what it really sounds like is layered and meticulous, and that shines through even with the delightfully frantic and genuinely passionate nature of the performances. I wish the production placed a little less emphasis on the drums, which sound a bit annoyingly echo-y, but it’s a very nice-sounding album in general. The melodies are crisp, creative, and sweeping, and this album is also significantly heavier and more aggressive-sounding than either of the last two. The songs are unquestionably long, but again, it helps to think of them as more “compositions” than “songs”— each of them goes through these significant movements that evolve throughout the song until you’re at a completely different place than you started from, but they all still feel pretty cohesive. I’m not gonna lie, coming after two albums that I was pretty excited about and ended up feeling slightly underwhelmed by (though I definitely still liked them), this was really impressive and also felt very gratifying.
Standout Track: I absolutely love that spooky riff at the beginning of “The Burning Shadows of Silence,” so part of me feels compelled to give it to that, but there’s tons of great moments like that throughout the whole record (peep the slow, groovy, creepy section in “Beyond the Great Vast Forest”— that’s what I’m fuckin’ talkin’ about). Unlike the previous two albums, which prioritized mood over giving individual songs unique identities (occasionally to their own detriment), this record synthesizes both nicely and therefore demands to be listened to in full. According to Spotify “I Am the Black Wizards” seems to be the “hit” from this album though, and it is a pretty good representative of the album as a whole, and it features a great melancholy melodic section followed by an assbeater riff so that’s cool. The 1999 remastered edition comes with a stunning cover of Bathory’s “A Fine Day to Die”— when the drop hit (and you’ll know it when you hear it) my jaw hit the floor.
Immortal- Battles In the North (1995)
General Impressions: This drumming is fucking insane. That was my first thought when I pressed play on this one. The drums sound fantastic, and the guitar tone feels like sharkskin. Not sure how I feel about the vocals, but they are by no means unlistenable. Anyway, this album sounds exactly like what “raw, primitive black metal” sounds like in my head. It’s so abrasive and atavistic, and the fact that they keep this up for 35 minutes at a time is insane— the experience of listening to this album feels like sticking your head inside of a beehive and shaking it around. It avoids the cold, detached, hypnotic elements of Transilvanian Hunger, which arguably has an extremely similar approach, by focusing on atavistic intensity all the way through. This isn’t mood or vibe music in the way that album was— this is confrontational as all fuck. It isn’t produced badly, but there is a scratchy, very slightly hissy quality to the proceedings that makes it feel a little bit mysterious as well, even though the lyrics and vocal approach are so over-the-top as to be absurd (I am pretty sure there are some references to the Underdark, which is literal Dungeons & Dragons shit). I don’t have as much to say about this album in comparison to the Emperor record, mostly because this record has one tack that it attacks violently over and over again, but it does so in an extremely refreshing and satisfying way. Definitely recommended.
Standout Track: “Cursed Realms of the Winter Demons” has a really cool spooky intro, and ably blends fury and melody throughout the song in a really compelling and interesting way. Honestly, the riffs in this song feel like some of the most involved on the entire record, even if their intricacy is a bit more subtle (since they clearly don’t want to distract much from the overt blasting). The climax of “Blashyrk - Mighty Ravendark” is also pretty cool-sounding.
Ulver- Bergtatt- Et Eeventyr i 5 Capitler (1995)
General Impressions: So this is pretty interesting— I can definitely hear some melancholic folk melodies spliced into the metal approach here, and the drums are much more chilled-out in comparison to something like the Immortal or Emperor albums. Apparently their Nattens madrigal album is much more intense and focused on “black metal” as an abrasive concept than this one, but I really like the atmosphere here. The clean vocals are definitely leaving me a little cold, but the bass work is so good and the guitar tone feels very organic and woodsy. Like, this album unquestionably feels like a forest to my ears. There are some truly pretty and mournful guitar solos on here as well— the first one on track one took me by surprise a little bit, actually. The overall effect is something very tranquil and meditative; I could quite honestly see myself falling asleep to this record. By no means should you take that to mean I think this is boring, either; I just am getting a very comforting and placid vibe from the proceedings. And yet, still, weirdly, it never sounds like it isn’t a metal record, which is very impressive, all things considered— especially once you take into account the acoustic instruments, which are seamlessly interwoven and layered in the mix and the songwriting. This is definitely a lush album that had a lot of care put into the song construction, and it shows, even when it does speed up into something more aggressive (and the harsh vocals are infinitely more palatable to me than the cleans).
Standout Track: Third track “Braablick Blev Hun Vaer” accomplished the trick of actually taking me by surprise when the depressive acoustic melody that opens the track is dispensed with in favor of blast beats and screaming. The bass work on this song is also some of the most pronounced and inspired on the entire record which, as you should all know by now, is always a plus in my book. A good portion of the track is dedicated to ambient sounds of walking through the woods with some gentle piano accompaniment, and the resulting effect is something that reminds me of reading books outside back when I was a kid— oddly nostalgic and comforting. Then it’s back to the blasting, with some gorgeous choral accompaniment. Truly unique stuff.
Weakling- Dead as Dreams (2000)
General Impressions: Fast-forwarding a little bit to what David Anthony tells me is “generally referred to as the USBM album,” we have Dead As Dreams, the sole album by the California band Weakling. Supposedly, this is supposed to be a concept album about war, and it definitely sounds like war. It’s hard to believe the band members were as young as they were (late teenagers is what I’ve been told) when this was recorded. The musicianship is utterly stellar— the guitars and bass are all working in tandem with each other in really unique ways, layering melodies on top of each other in ways that feel like they are constantly in conversation with each other, while the drums are totally manic and provide a general mood of panic, hopelessness, and despair, accentuated by the thin, distant production. As for vocals, I think the kid doing vocals sounds pretty similar to what we in the screamo community refer to as “bird call” vocals— for examples, look to the early material by Jeromes Dream, which was being released at around the same time this album was recorded (1998), and to be quite honest that makes perfect sense, seeing as how the vocals are meant to be conveying this sense of true torment and anguish. This album is five songs in 76 minutes, which is truly insane, but the compositions aren’t bewildering or redundant at all; they’re honestly inspired, compelling, and transfixing to the bitter end. This album absolutely makes you feel like you are in a battlefield (or at least, my perception of the horrors of war filtered through the lens of pop culture, since I am lucky/sheltered enough to have never been drafted)— the slower, doomier moments translate the anxiety and dread between the faster moments, which I suppose symbolically represent the hectic running and the hails of gunfire. It’s pretty chilling stuff, and I think it more than accomplishes the atmospheric horror that the early Norwegian stuff was trying to do specifically because it doesn’t feel self-consciously edgy; it feels authentically terrifying. This is one of the most thoughtfully written and arranged albums I’ve ever heard in my life.
Standout Track: I guess the songs that broke my heart the most would be the title track, which is twenty minutes long (and which contains a riff that sounds the way being racked with sobs feels), and the comparatively brisk “This Entire Fucking Battlefield” (which is fourteen minutes), but I really cannot emphasize enough how much this album is meant to be an experience. It’s a little over an hour of your life, but man is it well worth it. At some points it actually felt emotionally difficult for me to take in, but I suppose that’s really the point.
DEATH/DOOM
I thought it would be fun to end this edition of the newsletter with two slowwwwww records, since I don’t often listen to stuff that is slow for its own sake.
Winter- Into Darkness (1990)
General Impressions: This is apparently a New York band that played with NYHC bands quite a bit or otherwise had some associations with the hardcore scene (much like Life of Agony or Type O Negative), but you wouldn’t really know that at all from listening to the music, which is extremely, punishingly slow. Like, so slow it almost irritates you due to the lack of release. The drums will occasionally sound like they are building up to something intense and heavy, only for the motif or groove they are in to continue and the drum pattern to reset itself. That might sound like a negative, but as someone who enjoys Shellac, that quality of delayed gratification (or, indeed, building frustration for an entire song) does hold a certain appeal for me— and it helps that the drumming is very good, and arguably the star of this entire show. The bass is gnarly and distorted, working within these exhaustingly slow, brutal, and drawn-out riffs, while the guitar work feels much more textural, helping to flesh out the record’s significant low end. The vocals are nothing really to write home about, delivering pessimistic, vaguely mystical lyrics, but they work with the atmosphere pretty well. Overall, this album doesn’t really grab me like I wish it did, but it’s still a pretty interesting and vibey experience (and absolutely worth listening to for the drum performance). I might revisit it later when the mood for something truly dismal and dank strikes.
Standout Track: “Servants of the Warsmen” does a pretty good job laying the foundations for what is to come throughout the album, and establishes the guitar’s raison d’être with a whiny, high-pitched anti-solo that sounds more like an air raid siren than anything else (to be clear, that is a cool thing).
Disembowelment- Transcendence Into the Peripheral (1993)
General Impressions: Good lord, this production is cacophonous, cavernous, and whatever other c-word you can come up with to convey how much this album sounds both spacious and claustrophobic at the same time. Honestly, this album is as much a study in contrasts and cognitive dissonance as anything else— how else do you explain the way the rapid-fire, machine-grind drum work resolves so easily with the album’s overall doomy atmosphere just a minute or two into the first track? This is truly a combination of death and doom metal where the transitions between the two feel not just natural, but exquisite, and even meant to be. A big part of that has to do with the clanging, industrial, yet still organic drum sound captured here, although the entire album is badly/wonderfully produced in the perfect way. This record sounds big, and cold, and horribly lonely. In contrast to the Winter album, the slow riffs here feel absolutely monstrously huge, and with the desperate lows of the vocalist echoing from somewhere deep below the earth, it almost feels like something is grabbing you tightly around the waist and dragging you into its maw. I am not sure if it is a guitar or a keyboard, but there is some otherworldly, ethereal noise/melody(?) that occasionally interjects itself into the proceedings and it makes you feel utterly devastated and helpless. Fuck, this is a straight-up depressing record, but in a good way. I feel like I should also emphasize that this is another long album— seven songs in juuust under an hour, and the album practically demands your full attention, even during the more contemplative or ambient moments (such as “Nightside of Eden,” which is a two-minute spoken word piece with spare guitar accompaniment). It’s a mosaic of sounds— death, doom, ambient, grind— that synthesizes all its elements perfectly, and completely blew me away.
Standout Track: You guessed it— this is another one that absolutely begs you to sit down and listen to it in full, and you won’t be disappointed, since there is nary a moment on here that bores or even feels like anything I’ve ever really heard before. That said, “A Burial at Ornans” is a great cut— a brutally slow song that slowly, in almost Sisyphean fashion, progresses to one of the most punishing death/grind sections of the album, before it caves in on itself and must start all over again. Really great, sophisticated songwriting.
-xoxo, Ellie
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