Happy Metal Boy

Carnation is a five-piece from Belgium (definitely Belgium the European country and not the town in Ohio this time) with your traditional death metal line-up (drums, vocals, two guitars, one bass), who formed in 2013 and released their first batch of material on an EP ( Cemetery of the Insane ) in 2015, a quick but impressively advanced opening statement of ruthless traditional death metal that both emulates and rivals Corpsegrinder-era Cannibal Corpse. Vocalist Simon Duson clearly studied the best as well, as his rumbling low growls bear striking resemblance to those of the longtime Cannibal Corpse frontman, and the instrumentalists around him do well to provide a relentless barrage of thick, blood-soaked riffage and furious rhythms. As impressive as  Cemetery of the Insane  was, it felt a bit unoriginal after the first two tracks (I love the opening riff on “Explosive Cadavers”) and it didn’t create a premise for a whole lot of potential after proving they can play the br...

I haven’t listened to a full Nonpoint album since being slightly intrigued about them after a friend showed me their song “Bullet with a Name”. It was a long-ass time ago and I remember listening to more of their stuff and not being impressed. And if young, low-standards, baby metalhead me wasn’t impressed in 2008, that probably says a lot. Nevertheless, I figured I’d give their new album here a shot to see what they could do with a full length ten years later. At first, I didn’t know why the hell they decided to title it what Ed Sheeran also titled his last, unavoidable album, but then I found out and I knew it wasn’t going to be good. I voiced once before on here, a while ago, that I find it so overdone, boring, lazy, and not special anymore when bands just title their albums based on how many albums they have now. It so often comes off like a lazy bit of chest-puffing, like “look how much we’ve done now”. Hollywood Undead’s album last year,  Five , was the worst thing I heard...

Releasing their new album fresh off their tour in support of Deafheaven, Uniform seemed intent on bolstering their sound and making the boldest possible statement they could make. They had released a collaboration with The Body only a few months ago, which I found to be as half-baked as most of The Body’s collaborative albums. But on  The Long Walk  (ironically only 38 minutes), Uniform bring at least a more condensed and potent elixir of harsh, experimental, modern industrial metal, overlaid by Michael Berdan’s nasty, sardonic shouts.The album is certainly relentless and aggressive, and it captures a sense of being berated alone in a desolate cavern with incredible violence somehow too far away for any savior to hear. The album has moments of notable edge, like the increased heaviness the double-bass drumming provides the distorted industrial assault of the song “Found”, or the crunchy guitar-driven doom of “Alone in the Dark”. Nevertheless, most of the album blends tog...

I feel like I’ve been talking about a lot of German bands lately, but that may less significant than it seems in my mind; either way, Rammstein needs to hurry up and jump in on this. Anyway, the uniquely dark, reliable power metal stalwarts from Germany, Powerwolf, are pretty much back at it again. I’m on “hiatus” right now, but I figured I’d just put my thoughts out there about this new Powerwolf album,  The Sacrament of Sin . And I’m doing this one pretty quickly because I think it is at least worth covering briefly, but there’s really not much to say that hasn’t already been said about Powerwolf. It’s a solid, elevating power metal album that quite fulfills it’s destined purpose, with more of a refreshing lyrical focus on darker fantasy than the overdone cheesiness that overpopulates power metal. It’s a good, consistent album, certainly one that will scratch that power metal itch when it arises. Personally, I don’t find a lot of power metal albums that I listen to all the ...

Released through the same label to which Wreck & Reference is signed (The Flenser),  Buried Language  by Echo Beds experiments with a similar electronic heaviness and similarly intentionally genre-defying and rule-breaking feel that hooked me to Wreck & Reference. At just over 39 minutes, the album makes a for pretty interesting listen, and one that feels well-trimmed so as not to exhaust its welcome. Heavily distorted, but not always hyper-aggressive industrial electronics and drums cover most of the album while expressive black metal vocals and ominous hazy guitars provide probably the most concrete grounding in metal. For the most part, I like what the album has to offer in terms of sound, and its focus really is on its swirling together a variety of sounds into a cohesive atmosphere, and as a fan of Wreck & Reference, I like the way this album consistently captures the sinister aspect of the sound they cultivate. “Small Print” is one of the more scorching ex...

I know I’m supposed to be on “hiatus”/break from this blog, but I have been bumping this Hatchet album for a while and I just wanted to give a few quick thoughts on it. Being one of the few straight-up thrash releases I’ve heard this year, I’d say this one is probably the closest in style and execution to the masterpiece Havok released last year (my #2 that I often wonder about being #1 instead of Code Orange’s  Forever ). The dizzying Megadeth-esque compositions definitely harken back to that band’s hey-day as well as Havok’s album, and the high-pitched screaming vocal style and the bass-heavy mixing place the album somewhere between Havok and Vektor in those departments. What the album nails with tight performance, flattering production, and definitive style, however doesn’t quite make up for the lack of imaginative songwriting. While the band are certainly capable of making this type of thrash, they seem to fall too deeply into simply emulating the classic style and not putti...

This album came out in April but I think it’s worth a quick mention after talking about Frontierer’s latest album considering they’re in pretty much the exact same vein.  Annihilated  is the debut album by Sectioned and one with which they give themselves a strong footing in the realm of mathcore. While full of spiraling, cacophonous guitar leads, aggressive shouted vocals, and all the short-term unpredictability that comes with a mathcore record,  Annihilated  is not afraid to vary its auditory assault by dipping into slower, more direct, and punchier grooves to bring a little bit of metalcore dynamic to its mix, the introductory title track being an excellent example of which, as well as the tremolo riff and breakdown of “Starved Lives” and the early slowdown on “Bête Noire”. Like Frontierer’s  Unloved  (and any good mathcore album)  Annihilated  requires a few attentive listens to fully appreciate what’s going on, and can sound quite homogeneo...

Unloved  is Frontierer’s sophomore release after their full length debut in 2015, Orange Mathematics , and the demo that preceded it in 2013, both helped to shaped their relentless, crazed, Car Bomb-esque mathcore sound.  Unloved finds the band more confident in what they’re doing with each song chaotic, yet more directional that what characterized  Orange Mathematics . and bringing more to the table in terms of musical ideas, flair, and surprises, like the emotive alternative strumming and spoken word intro on “Heartless 101”. But for the most part, the band stick to the violent, glitchy metalcore that they’ve been working on, and with pretty good results. While they don’t manage quire yet to nail the same sense of groove within the madness they execute as the aforementioned Car Bomb or The Dillinger Escape Plan, they do hit the right spots frequently on the album, like the dizzying introductory track (which is a full song), the semi-djenty and fully punchy “Bombgnasher...

I found Neckbeard Deathcamp’s debut album shuffling through the rabbit hole of links on Bandcamp.com, and soon as I saw the cover art and the track titles, I knew I was probably going to have to talk about it. In case it’s not immediately obvious from the cover and the title, which features a mockery of the eagle crest of Nazi Germany made out of dicks and with a sad Pepe replacing the swastika, this album takes a jab at national socialist black metal and the part of internet community that constitutes the more incognito side of the alt right movement. And it happens in a manner in which the band take neither themselves or the subjects of this album seriously, which is a much better way to treat the ardent and aggressive believers of such stupid ideologies as white nationalism than the counterproductive hysteria that has come from the new political albums from Otep, Prophets of Rage, and Ministry. With track titles like “Incel Warfare”, “XXXL Obersturmfuhrer Leather Duste...

Gruff horror thrash movers Integrity (from Belgium, Ohio, not Belgium the European country that actually sent a team to the Wolrd Cup this year, as their Bandcamp page had lead me to believe) and Pennsylvanian black metal forerunners Krieg aren’t from the closest of musical territories, but they’re not the most unlikely pair to get together for a split release. In fact, I quite enjoy splits between bands with at least slightly different focuses, and both bands on this one are pretty solid, reliable acts. Integrity take the first half of the release with two original songs and two covers: “Sons of Satan” by Vermapyre and “Document One” by G.I.S.M.; both done in Integrity’s standard horror/crossover thrash fashion. The quick, thrashy intro track “Scorched Earth” is a meager opener, but it really doesn’t do much to expand Integrity’s sound, or even present the best of what they usually offer on full-lengths. “Flames of the Immortal” follows in pretty similar suit, saved perhap...

I was pretty pleased with the thoroughness with which I covered the output of metal in this blog’s first year last year, all other obstacles that popped up considered. This year has already been better; I’ve covered more music and in more depth, and I’ve had less in my way this year it seems. I was trying to do this piece in a more extensive series, or just one monster post, around June. But metal had a substantially prolific mid-year and my own academic obligations of course reared their head again, so after pushing it out again and again, I decided to just trim it down to one regular post. These are just a few albums from last year that I either didn’t hear or just didn’t didn’t get around to writing about. Steel Panther -  Lower the Bar I was kinda-sorta planning on giving the album a listen. I had always respected Steel Panther for their commitment to their very comedic act of satirizing one of metal’s most widely acknowledged embarrassments (80′s hair metal), but I ne...