Happy Metal Boy

Iceland’s Misþyrming have been making waves within the online black metal underground since their debut album’s rather lauded release in 2015, an album that didn’t exactly need to break any new ground or hoist itself onto the quickly tiring shoulders of cheap gimmickry to carve out a nice space within the modern black metal landscape for the band to work in. Though not the most aesthetically original album, the band’s debut showcased an at least respectable proficiency with both the grand, cinematic black metal composition of forefathers like Emperor as well as the naturalistic atmospheric approach of more modern bands like Wolves in the Throne Room. And the group’s sophomore effort is largely a continuation of what their debut offered, with a few minor, but beneficial adjustments being made. Like its predecessor,  Algleymi  is carried on the backs of mostly its full-bodied tremolo-picked guitar atmosphere, but also its consistently quick drumming and relatively modest bass...

Never before have premonitions been as wary and nerves been as tense going into a new record from the mighty Baroness as they have been for  Gold & Grey , the follow-up to the band’s fourth, and my favorite, album  Purple , and the proclaimed finish to the band’s saga of color-themed records. And all this tension sprouted up after the release of the album’s first single, “Borderlines”, back in March, stemming from one irritating source: the song’s production. While  Purple  was a step toward a more compressed and hard-rock-oriented production style after  Yellow & Green , the songs were so consistently ridiculously well-composed and powerful enough to outshine the slightly grainier production that the band were kind of able to get away with it. But Baroness really went all in on the over-compressed, fuzzy mixing on “Borderlines”, far more than anything on  Purple , to the point of it being a seemingly intentional attempt to give their sound a ...

I have made repeatedly clear on here that I love me some good, sweet, sugary, delicious, indulgent, so-not-high-brow alt metal that many wou classify as pop metal. I’m an open minded boy and I don’t think liking bitterly harsh industrial DSBM noise doom means I can’t like the sweeter side of metal too. And that’s where Motionless in White enter the stage of 2019. I definitely remember Motionless in White’s 2017 effort,  Graveyard Shift , more fondly for its cherry-picked, punchy, and well-produced alternative/nu-metalcore bangers like “Untouchable”, “Queen for Queen”, “Voices”, and “Eternally Yours” than it definitely was as a whole. But even if  Graveyard Shift  wasn’t any kind of alternative metal or metalcore masterpiece in its entirely, I was actually looking forward to just getting a few more of those types of standout tracks from  Disguise , just to add few more blood-pumping bangers to add to my workout personal playlist, or perhaps even the faint hope of a...

It’s about time we got some big name thrash up in here again; 2019 has felt rather thrash deficient, and Death Angel are here to try to fix it. Daly City’s Death Angel have been enjoying a vibrant, revitalized second take on their thrash metal career after following in thrash metal’s and whooshing away in the 90’s, coming back after its usurper began to fade out in the mid 2000’s. The band have been pumping out classic, gritty thrash metal with all the right production updates to accentuate its strengths, but the band made a significantly big statement back in 2016 with their previous album,   The Evil Divide , an album the found them diversifying their track listing and reaching more ears than they were used to. I had talked about bands I thought I liked more than I actually realize I do when I discussed the refreshingly crunchy Pelican album earlier this week, and I think that syndrome is more applicable to my thoughts of adoration for Death Angel. I’ve always rooted...

Unapologetically brimming with attitude all throughout their career, Texan four-piece Upon a Burning Body became one of deathcore’s most prominent names with 2012′s landmark  Red. White. Green. , an album that certainly captures the genre’s essence at the peak of its popularity, but one that I also can’t really understand how it surpassed so many other, stronger albums. Sure, “Sin City” is a filthy, indulgent, nihilistic banger, but the album doesn’t really have much else to it to set it apart from the rest of the deathcore crop at the time. While bands in the deathcore herd seeking to enhance their sound usually went to either hyperspeed technicality like Rings of Saturn and Born of Osiris or nu-metal-inspired groove like Attila and Emmure, Upon a Burning Body sought their sense of groove from the same nearby southern inspirations that eventually became a huge part of Whitechapel’s sound later in their career. That fondness for dirty, southern groove metal is on display more...

Though for awhile I thought I kinda was, I’ve never really been the biggest Pelican fan. They were one of those bands that helped me get into the exclusively instrumental field progressive rock/metal that I thought I liked more than I actually did, which I later realized as I got far more into bands like the more booming Russian Circles, the more technically dazzling Animals as Leaders, and even Scale the Summit. But I’ve still always held that respect for them in my heart for getting me into this side of prog metal, and I of course had my hopes for this album going into it. That being said, I feel kind of like an idiot for setting the bar as low as I feel I did for them after hearing  Nighttime Stories , because Pelican sure did not go easy on this album. This is quite possibly the most energetic and inspired I have ever heard them sound. The flow of the tracks between the mellower post-rock/post-metal breathers and the more fully dialed-in and driving groovers, which is mirror...

After the widely appreciated return to their traditional black metal roots on their 2016 album,  Arctic Thunder , Fenriz and Nocturno Culto are back with another, different kind of throwback this year with  Old Star . Famed second wave black metal pioneers Darkthrone have managed to keep their output prolific in the new millennium by introducing elements of crust punk into their sound on several of their late-stage albums, much to the dismay of purist fans obsessed with  Transylvanian Hunger , but for those appreciating of the band’s willingness to try new things while not taking themselves too seriously, albums like  The Cult is Alive  and  Circle the Wagons  are a bit of good fun that the genre definitely needs to increase its dosing of. While  Arctic Thunder  found the duo proving they could still harness their more traditional sound,  Old Star  finds them going back a little further into heavy metal’s history rather than just t...

I don’t know if it was announced awhile ago or not, but I did not hear about this new album from Deathspell Omega until just a day or so before it was released. I had actually been eagerly awaiting the highly acclaimed anonymous French act’s follow-up to their short, but stellar 2016 effort  The Synarchy of Molten Bone,  and though I may have somehow completely missed the promotion cycle preceding it, I’m definitely glad it’s here. The Furnaces of Palingenesia  continues Deathspell Omega’s tradition of being anything but traditional in black metal. While the deepest intricacies of the band’s metaphysical texts regarding Satanism are mostly lost on me, I definitely still admire the ambition of both their conceptual scope and their compositions, and in a catalog of high-thinking and esoteric concepts this may be one of the band’s most grandiose concepts to date. Incorporating off-kilter jazz harmonies, compelling blackened growls of apocalyptic incantations, and grandi...

I did not know until a week or so ago that lead singer of TesseracT, Daniel Tompkins, was releasing a solo album. I’ve always respected his work with TesseracT, and even though I believe the band made their best album ( Altered State  with Ashe O’hara) with a superior singer during Tompkin’s absence, I think he has returned to his role in TesseracT as gracefully as possible and has done  Altered State  songs justice in his live performances. I think he’s adapted well to the band’s newly vocal-centric sound and held his own on the two TesseracT studio albums following his respectable return to the band. Consequently, I think Tompkins has earned himself these 35 minutes to branch out and showcase his abilities outside the context of TesseracT or Skyharbor (not that it’s something he has to earn). The album consists of only 7 tracks that constitute a pretty brief and leisurely affair steeped in ethereal synthetic pop and prog rock/metal. Tompkins’ voice is consistently ...