Happy Metal Boy

One of the most interesting contributors to modern black metal, and metal in general, Mamaleek is a project headed by two brothers from San Francisco who remain anonymous, but curiously include a childhood picture of themselves on their Bandcamp page.  Out of Time  is their sixth album, and their longest. It’s one that furthers Mamaleek’s truly unique blend of completely non-metal outside musical elements and melancholic black metal. The album is very meditative and one that bases more of its appeal on its strange combination of flavors than nuanced construction. But just because it’s not written as easily digestible or particularly conventionally directional doesn’t mean it’s not a rewarding album to unpack. The 77-second intro “If I Had This Time” opens the album with a beautiful guitar passage that would make Deafheaven’s Kerry McCoy jealous. “Sicarii” follows with an oddly swaying blend of smooth mid-tempo bass groove and a variety of beautiful ambient guitar leads made...

As often as metal gets compared to classical music, it’s never shied away from incorporating its rebellious counterpart: jazz. And while jazz has sneaked its way into metal in subtle forms like the use of dissonant jazz chords or even become a prominent feature of acts like Animals as Leaders or (fanboy time) Meshuggah (who I would love to just talk about forever on here), I have never heard the traditional form of the genre so frankly woven into metal quite like like how Imperial Triumphant has done so on  Vile Luxury . Even though it took awhile to grow on me and me a while to appreciate what’s here, Vile Luxury made immediately apparent how unique of an album it is, and my appreciation for the way it combines traditional jazz and blackened death metal into something so nihilistically unique to both genres and more than just the the sum of the two. The two wildly different forms of music play off one another in such a one-of-a-kind way, its understandably hard to get a good gras...

I can’t hate Doro, in fact I quite respect the hussle and dedication she’s had to this genre and how she’s given so much of herself to her music, and for the incredible amount of time she has done so. But I can’t way I was excited at the prospect of a double album from her spanning nearly a hundred minutes in length. I just don’t really think Doro’s formulaic brand of old-school heavy metal has the stamina to make it across two discs of material for a single album, and at such a late stage in her career.  My anticipations were largely correct for this album. And while it’s not an offensively lazy or incompetent release, it’s nothing I would ever find myself listening to again, definitely not in full. There was not enough to justify such a massive slog of songs for this project, and I think at least 75% of the album should have been trimmed and honed, if not cut completely. I will give the album credit where it is due first. Doro’s voice is still on point after all these years ...

One of Profound Lore’s many great releases this year,  Punishment in Flesh  is Innumerable Forms’ debut record and one that I had been eagerly anticipating since hearing the first dose of it earlier this year (I don’t remember exactly when, everything is a blur to me). Blending cavernous death metal and doom metal in a sludgy stew quite reminiscent of Primitive Man’s  Caustic  from last year, Innumerable Forms keep the pace a little faster and the compositions generally tighter, clocking in at 38 minutes (about half the time  Caustic  took up). And while  Caustic  did thrive on its indulgence in lingering in a swamp of nihilistic and sardonic, slow-paced death metal, the dynamic of  Punishment in Flesh  certainly makes for an interesting and thrilling take on this slow-burning form of death metal. Punishment in Flesh  is packed full of grizzly, down-tuned guitar grooves and slow apocalyptic riffs, but the band know when to up the...

Standing for “Taking Care of Black Tusk”,  T.C.B.T.  is Black Tusk’s second record following the death of original bassist Jonathon Athon in 2014, which suggests possible pertinence to the music’s therapeutic nature that the title suggests. After taking care of each other, the band come back again to take care of their musical project and buckle down for another session of the sludgy crossover thrash blend for which they are known. The band don’t exactly pull out much of a wow factor from the tunes on this album, but it’s certainly not disappointing. The album opens with the ominous and melancholic spoken word “A Perfect View of Absolutely Nothing” and leads into the old-school-y thrash of “Closed Eye” mixed with a bit of the sludge that Black Tusk have become known for and some pretty cool, dark-ish grooves in its second half. The following song, “Agali”, works in a heftier proportion of sludge into a more structured exhibiiton of the band’s signature sound, but ...

This came out back in May, but it somehow slipped through a hole in my fishing net until now.  Savagery  is the sixth studio album by Skinless, and one that kind of had some ground to make up before even being released. The band experienced a short break-up earlier this decade and returned in 2015 with their first record since 2006′s  Trample the Weak, Hurdle the Dead . While  Only the Ruthless Remain  was certainly a serviceable death metal album, it didn’t really do enough to break Skinless’ mold aside from updating the production a bit. It felt more like a labored grinding away of the creative rust on the band’s gears than an explosive return to their craft.  Savagery , on the other hand, is notably more thrilling and shows the band applying and displaying their extensive experience in the genre on a tight, vicious set of classically brutal death metal songs. While I’d say the middle of the album is probably where the album stacks its weakest moments, i...

Sludgy Canadian hardcore oddballs KEN mode continue to ride the wave of underground acclaim generated by their past three albums onto their seventh full-length here,  Loved . And for the most part on  Loved , the band sprinkle just a little bit of their own modern, slightly sludgier flair onto the classic metalcore blueprint laid out by Converge, not really including much of the experimental noise that helped set them apart from the crowd on albums like  Venerable .  Loved , on the other hand, for the majority of its runtime sounds like a slightly more heavily produced Converge, but not as intricately woven or as furiously performed. The first two thirds of the album aren’t really that eventful or surprising for the most part. The opening track, “Doesn’t Feel Pain Like He Should”, features a pretty comprehensive overview of what most of the album is comprised of: sludgy down-tuned and dissonant guitar riffage, clang-y bass, and ferocious shouts, and unyielding dru...

This album came out a while ago, but it’s taken me a while to get to it because it honestly hadn’t been compelling to me in my first listens. At first glance it’s a pretty basic grindcore album and one that at first blended in to the dozens of albums I’ve listened to this year. But repeated listens have been the key in unlocking the appeal of this album. While the quick, minute-long songs pass in the blink of an eye after offering seemingly little, there are more treasures sprinkled throughout than most of the grindcore I’ve heard lately. The performances are as intense as expected and the band never take their foot off the gas. It’s definitely not the most dynamic album around, but for the death-spiced grindcore the band bring to the table, there’s more to appreciate in terms of notable highlight moments than most grindcore albums, and it actually manages to maintain interest in its relentless barrage of rapid riffs and blast beats. “Lockdown” has a particularly cool riff that el...

One of the most hyped up debut metallic hardcore albums of the year, alongside Vein’s  Errorzone , Jesus Piece’s  Only Self  seems just as keen to build on the massive attention Code Orange drew to metallic hardcore last year by making hardcore music a force too devastating to ignore. And the hype around  Only Self has certainly not been hollow or artificially industrially planted either; Jesus Piece made an introductory statement in 2015 with their self-titled EP impressive enough to attract underground curators Southern Lord. While I enjoyed the unrestrained ferocity of the performances and the solid production of their debut EP, I hoped only that the band would focus what seemed to be their natural ability for sheer hardcore brutality into tighter, more intentional compositions on their next effort. And while  Only Self  for the most is quite the improvement upon the band’s 2015 EP in terms of production, performance, and even the compositional dynamic ...

After their tremendously sludgy and brutally hopeless full-length last year,  Caustic , Primitive Man have gathered together with Unearthly Trance for a split release to produce somewhat of an aftershock to last year’s city-destroying earthquake of an album (my #3 of last year), and their growth through that album shows on their pair of songs on the first side of the album. Unearthly Trance do not disappoint on this split either, presenting the more intentionally aggressive set of songs on the latter half of the split. The album opens with fifty-nine seconds of ominous, distorted, industrial introductory noise to which apparently both bands contribute, which then leads into Primitive Man’s side of the split, two songs around the ten-minute mark that lean more toward the band’s earlier, abrasive drone/noise sound on albums like  P//M , but with plenty of the abysmally deathly heaviness that characterized Caustic intensifying the already nasty sound that shaped their nihilist...

Okay, so I know I’m supposed to be on a bit of a self-imposed break right now for about two more weeks, but the pile-up of albums I’ve been wanting to talk about has just been growing more and more daunting by the week. Even with all the deep listening I’ve had with the most stimulating (and challenging) albums on my itinerary, it’s still going to be a massive challenge getting as caught up as I’d like to be on all the discussions about those albums. To at least put a dent in that workload, I’ve just done a few posts about the ones I feel are the easiest/quickest to talk about, and this new album from The Amity Affliction is another one of those that I feel will go very quickly. And it’s not necessarily just because it’s simplistic or generic or dumb or so atrocious it’s not worth more than a fiery berating. It’s not really any of those things in an overwhelming sense. It reminds me a lot of Escape the Fate’s new album earlier this year. It’s just not really for me. Nevertheless, I fe...