“In the three years since their sophomore release Samsara, Venom Prison has experienced a meteoric rise to fame. Samsara captured the hearts of both underground metal aficionados and non-sociopaths, by infusing high-energy brutal death metal with a healthy dose of slamming hardcore. Venom Prison’s unrelenting sound earned them a deal with Century Media, and Erebos brings the band to a crossroads as their major label debut.” Prisoner of expectations.
“If Australia is trying to kill you, then Descent is the club with which it bludgeons its victims. The Brisbane five-piece burst onto the scene in 2018 with Towers of Grandiosity, which worshipped at the altar of the most primitive old-school death metal. But Towers rested too heavily on its Neanderthal influences, failing to make a mark amidst stiff competition from down-under brethren like Faceless Burial, The Plague, and Earth Rot. Descent’s latest attack, Order of Chaos aims to outshine the OSDM riffraff by incorporating weapons from neighboring genres into the band’s arsenal, in defiant response to our review (I assume).” Murder Land.
“CMPT (“Death”) is an anonymous black metal project from an unspecified Balkan nation. (The band smartly chose their name based on visual similarity to the Cyrillic “смрт,” instead of transliterating the giggle-inducing pronunciation “smrt.”) Krv i Pepeo (“Blood and Ash”) is their debut full-length, impressively being released on Osmose Productions.” Death and bread lines.
Below is the debut full-length from one-person ambient black metal project Lhaäd. This description is likely to conjure up worrisome images of self-indulgent hours-long snoozefests that use tepid atmospheres to mask lazy writing. But Belgian multi-instrumentalist Lykormas, Lhaäd’s prolific mastermind, is not so easy to pigeonhole.” Pigeons without homes.
“Finnish two-piece Concrete Winds emerged from the ashes of Vorum in 2019, with debut Primitive Force marrying an unrelenting death metal onslaught with a passionate love of gobbledygook song titles. The band’s approach bears a close resemblance to the ferocious stylings of war metal, albeit with less of a blackened edge. Accordingly, while Concrete Winds’ moniker is a head-scratcher, the title of their sophomore effort Nerve Butcherer leaves little ambiguity about how the listener is intended to feel.” Mad nerve butcher!
“Critical Defiance have learned well from their predecessors, but they are a modern thrash band with a few new thoughts, two Felipes, and a zillion riffs.” A Nameless N00b is here to regale you with a story about Chilean “retro” thrash that isn’t retro, but is definitely thrash.
