“Cooked up like the T-Virus in some underground UK lab and now stalking the streets of London, is Mutagenic Host, a newcomer to the British death metal scene. After the release of The Genotoxic Demo in 2023, Mutagenic Host signed on with Dry Cough Records, as well as Gurgling Gore and Memento Mori, to release their debut album, The Diseased Machine.” Host with the grosst.
“Being true to yourself as a listener is an essential part of the reviewing process. So, at a very base level, I can say things like “I’m tired of hearing djent riffs” and “pop-infused metal doesn’t do anything for me.” And, at my core, I can know those things are true. Except, every now and again, well-crafted music comes along and bashes upon our truths like a coup de foudre to an unsuspecting heart. Such was the case when I encountered Elyose’s hook-laden, djentrified y2k platter of Déviante. And so too am I again smitten with the chug-ridden, cybergoth stylings of Évidence. The proof, as they say, is in the purple pudding.” Purple is the new sphere.
“It seems like only yesterday I was writing about a supergroup helmed by Mikael Stanne of Dark Tranquillity fame. That’s because I just covered Cemetery Skyline, his Goth rock project that dropped the very successful Nordic Gothic release late last year. Now in the blink of a Mind’s I, he’s back with the sophomore outing from The Halo Effect. This star-studded collective features various past members of In Flames. It’s essentially a salute to the early days of the Gothenburg sound, with an approach that conjures nostalgia of the glory days of both Dark Tranquillity and In Flames equally.” Perish in the flaming tranquillity!
“Some people just can’t be rushed. Neu Asen Land is the first sign of life from the German atmospheric/progressive black metal band Bergthron since 2010. That’s a 15-year hiatus lasting almost the entire time that our beloved blog has been in operation! The exact identities of the band members have historically been difficult to ascertain, but the promotional material describes them as explorers who used this time for expeditions to remote forests and the Arctic Circle. Talk about a sabbatical!” Back to work!
“Tagging systems and organizational hierarchies tend to steer our ideas of genre classifications toward ins and outs, yeses and nos, boxes next to boxes, tags next to tags. In reality, though—and much in the way people go about describing things as being between x band and y band—genres do have their own spectrums. And in that spirit of living in an accumulation of converging aisles rather than following the merchandising plan, sole mind Steve Wiener (Negative Bliss, Ashenheart) debuts his Am I in Trouble? project as an homage to idiosyncratic acts of this splatter art nature.” Trouble’s brewin.
