Blood Abscission – II Review

By Thus Spoke

We tend to underestimate how great a role knowledge of the artist plays when experiencing their art. Even if unfamiliar with their work, the awareness of them as a person (or group of people) whose intentions are either plain or discoverable through interviews, notes, or academic consensus informs our opinions insidiously but inevitably. In an age when self-promotion is easier than ever thanks to the internet, a musician choosing to remain anonymous speaks to a desire to center their music in as absolute a way as possible. Who comprises Blood Abscission, and how many of them are there? That may never be known.1 All that exists is their art. This too eschews identity beyond numbers: sophomore II following in inevitability debut I, and all tracks bearing only the numerals of their album position. We must listen to II exactly as it is, with only Blood Abscission’s solemn proclamation as potential guide: “United in pain, we step into the abyss – not as mere individuals, but as a collective force seeking meaning within the chaos, finding a voice in the silence between the stars.”

Though I discovered it in retrospect—the debut having been dropped via self-release with zero fanfare—II continues exactly as I began. Blistering, raw-adjacent atmospheric black metal, relentless beyond the occasional lapses into dreamy gaziness where the keyboards shine and feedback hums (“III,” “IV”), not unlike a synth-obsessed Alcest. Its intensity, the desperate, unintelligible screams of the vocalist, and the grand melodic themes see-sawing between melancholy beauty and eerie dissonance bring to mind Aara on one face (“I,” “V”), Decoherence the other (“II”). II feels like an exercise in pure catharsis, the repeated climaxes of ever-fiercer roars and ascending tremolos communicating only unfiltered emotion, and the contrastive stillness a cleansing indifference. With no identifiable words, and even the muffled samples dampened beyond comprehension, II’s features are solely confined to this ebb and flow, amplifying once more the facelessness and pure aesthetic centrality that Blood Abscission impose by not naming it, or themself. It is a musical black hole, both in atmosphere and sparseness of properties, and is appropriately powerful.

Unlike an actual black hole, II is something we can escape from, though Blood Abscission do a good job of holding you in place. At its most ardent peaks, when beauty pitches fearsomely into urgency, it is hard to ignore, let alone switch off (“II,” “V”). The moves from one state of being to another are smooth, regardless of their speed—whether neo-second-wave and assured to a vulnerable undulation between sorrowfulness and heartenedness (“I”), or gentle contentment to grieving resolution (“III”). “IV”‘s emanation out of the chiming whine of “III,” and procession into the torrent that opens “V,” is not just an obvious example of this compositional fluidity, but itself proves to be a thoroughly absorbing interlude that belies its length. II repeatedly invites introspection, and does so through its rawness that reaches beyond the way the vocals and instruments are mastered, a corollary of the necessary focus on the sweep of its melodies, interplay between airy keys and darker riffing, and the tides dictated by pleasingly crisp percussion. The echoing croon of an escaped tremolo, the escalation of a minor refrain into devastation, and the torture of a conclusive shriek—with the closing act of “V” standing as the album’s crowning glory in this regard—are notably affecting.

Yet II’s consistency in perdurance is a double-edged sword. While full immersion grants the listener an undoubtedly intense and emotional experience, less conscious enjoyment threatens to leave them a little cold, outside of standout apexes at least. Perhaps this is always a danger with atmo-black, particularly of this more unrestrained and unstructured variety. I can testify that after spending some time with it, its magnitude seems greater than it did initially, thanks to deeper appreciation of its nuances, but even the influence of II’s potency doesn’t eliminate flaws entirely. II could stand to be a shade shorter, to give every moment more impact; something not needed so much by its peaks, but from which some of its lingering passages would gain better standing as transitions of beneficial steadiness between outbursts.

With so much atmospheric and raw black metal out there that might as well be anonymous for all its uniformity and ironic placidity, Blood Abscission stand out not only with real anonymity, but music that speaks for itself. In form resisting memorability, in actuality quite impactful and resilient, II shows what the genre is capable of. Even if it lacks the concrete immediacy to solidify it into long-standing greatness, its noise is not meaningless, and its meaning is not lost, however imprecise it might seem.

Rating: Good
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Debemur Morti
Website: Bandcamp
Releases Worldwide: April 11th, 2025

#2025 #30 #Aara #Alcest #AmbientBlackMetal #Apr25 #AtmosphericBlackMetal #BlackMetal #BloodAbscission #DebemurMortiProductions #Decoherence #II #RawBlackMetal #Review #Reviews

Labyrinthine Heirs – Labyrinthine Heirs Review

By Tyme

Eclectic Texan quartet Labyrinthine Heirs is ready to float their self-titled debut album, partnered with I, Voidhanger Records, which has one of the most diverse rosters in the metalverse. All four musicians come from different musical walks of life, and given the label partner, I expected that the music on Labyrinthine Heirs would be off-kilter at a minimum. With Léon François Comerre’s excellent cover painting in view but very little to go on by way of Labyrinthine Heirs‘ history, I was intrigued by the promo blurb, which quoted vocalist Evan Sadler as saying, ‘The plan was to marry the sound of Touch and Go Records artists like The Jesus Lizard and Shellac with that of Celtic Frost and Virus.’ I was a big fan of Goat in the 90s and love Celtic Frost to this day, so I was excited to hear how Labyrinthine Heirs would attempt to pull this feat off.

Apropos and in keeping with I, Voidhanger tradition, the Labyrinthine Heirs‘ sound, an alternative mix of blackish death metal, presents a descriptive sticky wicket. Comparisons with The Jesus Lizard are valid here, and a fair amount of Written in Waters era Ved Buens Ende is at play.1 Samuel Kang’s (Cathexis) guitar work is distinctly crisp, full of plucky riffs (“Brick Refusers Quartered”), cascading shimmers of dissonance, and circusy leads (“The Loop of Human Flesh Told in Perpetuity”). In lock-step accompaniment is the slap-happy bass work of Bryan Camphire (ex Bloody Panda) and the understated drumming of Anthony Brownlow, all three creating a hypnotizing flow over which vocalist Evan Sadler can drape his raspy, spoken-word delivery. Labyrinthine Heirs certainly sounds impressive, but one of the problems with hypnosis is that the subject eventually falls asleep.

Colin Marston’s master of Labyrinthine Heirs is warm and inviting, highlighting the interplay between the guitars and rhythm section while providing enough wide, organic spaces to hear every separate instrument on its own and simultaneously. Like how a dog can smell each ingredient in that stew on your stovetop individually while still smelling the whole thing. The opening track, “Brick Refusers Quartered,” with the guitar and bass playfully splashing in puddles of dissonance, pulls you immediately into Labyrinthine Heirs‘ web and ushers you through the next thirty-seven minutes. Sadler strays from his go-to mono-rasp to bring some ear-catching dynamism in the form of screeching screams, vomits, chokes, and coughs (“The Loop of Human Flesh Told in Perpetuity,” “The Conceited Determination of Nimrod”) and this reminds me of the vocals from some of Nattefrost‘s nastier solo work at times. I was also thankful for these moments since they were some of the few to rouse me from my slumberous hypnosis.

Labyrinthine Heirs packs a fair number of ideas into Labyrinthine Heirs‘ five tracks.2 The biggest problem is that nearly every idea sounds the same. In its entirety, Labyrinthine Heirs never strays from the sonic palette introduced on the opening track. Nearly every time I arrived at the fifth and final song, “Yaldabaoth Gored to Blindness,” I was surprised to discover that almost 30 minutes of music had passed with nary a blip on my radar of interest to show for it, which brings us to the crux of my problem with Labyrinthine Heirs debut, and that is its overwhelming sense of similitude. All five songs suffer from reciprocating guitar techniques that, combined with the steady slap n’ tap bass, reserved drums, and raspily spoken lyrics, shroud the whole in a drone-like pall.

My relationship with I, Voidhanger, Records, is like a series of coin flips. There always seems to be a fifty-fifty chance I’ll enjoy what I hear or be equally content to let it pass. I’ve found many gems (Creature, Neptunian Maximalism, Yhdarl), to name a few, but I’ve discovered stinkers that balance the equation for each one. Labyrinthine Heirs may be deserving of their I, Voidhanger, roster spot. However, I don’t find this debut engaging enough to keep my attention, so I can’t fully recommend it. There are flashes on Labyrinthine Heirs that will have me on the lookout for its follow-up, but I prefer to pass on this.

Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 10 | Format Reviewed: 320kbps mp3
Label: I, Voidhanger Records | Facebook
Website: Bandcamp
Releases Worldwide: March 28th, 2025

#25 #2025 #AlternativeMetal #AmericanMetal #BlackMetal #DeathMetal #IVoidhangerRecords #LabyrinthineHeirs #Mar2025 #Review #TheJesusLizard #VedBuensEnde

Deafheaven – Lonely People with Power Review

By Doom_et_Al

You never forget your first love. The sense of wonder and excitement, a world you had only heard and read about, opening up to you like a flower on a Summer’s day. Deafheaven was my first (in a metal sense). The combination of furious black meal, searing post metal, and fuzzy shoegaze, mixed with a dollop of genuine longing, totally rewired my brain. Which means that if you’re looking for a coldly analytical review of a band’s sixth album, you should probably go elsewhere. Deafheaven is part of my DNA, and a new album will always be a big deal, even if we’ve drifted apart over the years. You see, while I’ve enjoyed the band’s output since the wondrous Sunbather, it’s been clear that Deafheaven and I have been moving in different directions. And this was confirmed with Infinite Granite. I respected the band’s bravery in trying something new; I just didn’t like the result much. Shiny, pretty post-rock is nothing to be ashamed of. But the Deafheaven I loved were all about embracing the fury of black metal to highlight their emotional beats. Without that tension, Infinite Granite felt weightless. And my relationship with Deafheaven almost went from “It’s complicated” to “Splitsville”…

… Except, there was “Mombasa,” the final song on Infinite Granite. Specifically, the final 3 minutes of “Mombasa.” Deafheaven broke the shackles, George Clarke’s shrieks roared forth, and within was a reminder of what the band was capable of. Was that denouement a farewell to a style they were abandoning, or a promise that they had not forgotten their roots? Lonely People with Power answers, and boy does it answer.

After a brief intro, the band kicks off with “Magnolia,” which is one of the meaner cuts of Deafheaven’s oeuvre, and completely devoid of the shininess of anything on Infinite Granite, including the clean vocals. On first listen, I wondered if this was a repudiation of that album; an abandonment of that sound and an acknowledgement that “mistakes were made.” But as “Heathen” hits its chorus, you realize Lonely People with Power is a lot more interesting than that. You see, the post-rock sounds of Infinite Granite have not been abandoned; they’ve just been folded into Deafheaven’s existing aesthetic. Which means that not only is Lonely People with Power their most complete and harmonious record to date, but it also retroactively improves Infinite Granite.

Although Deafheaven have always been comfortable with what they are not – i.e., a “trve kvlt” black metal band, it has sometimes felt that they were less comfortable with what they are. After the stunning Sunbather, the band oscillated between “mean” (New Bermuda), “pretty” (Ordinary Corrupt Human Love), and “post rock” (Infinite Granite). Lonely People with Power somehow finds a way to incorporate all these elements in a cohesive, stunning whole. Its gnarly tracks (“Magnolia,” “Revelator”) are gnarly, it’s pretty tracks (“Heathen,” “Winona”) are downright gorgeous, and the hybrids (“The Garden Route”, “The Marvelous Orange Tree”) feel natural and complementary. What ties all of these together is the emotional core that Deafheaven bring. Among contemporaries, perhaps only Gaerea are anywhere near them in terms of the ability to achieve that ecstatic, cathartic release this music thrives on. Lonely People with Power is brimming with pain and longing and wonder and fury. For the first time, the band has the musical language to convey all of these and then some.

Performances across the board are top-notch. Dan Tracy’s exceptional drumming brings power and force to the harder tracks, and wisely cuts back during the gentler moments. George Clarke’s howls and shrieks have never been the strongest attribute of the band, but he brings a unique intensity and connection that anyone who has attended one of their live shows will attest to. But the real star of the show is lead guitarist Kerry McCoy. McCoy has battled his own demons and writer’s block to create these furious, gorgeous, compelling gems. His guitar soars and dives, and he is able to find beauty in even the ugliest, more twisted compositions.

Sunbather, for all the ridiculous accusations of being “hipster metal,” had that thing. That thing that is impossible to define but is sprinkled liberally on all the best albums. There’s a reason Sunbather remains iconic. It is too early to say whether Lonely People with Power is a match for that masterpiece, but it has that thing, too. It is Deafheaven’s most mature and complete work to date; a synthesis of everything that has come before without being derivative or overly reliant. It plays to the band’s strengths, and wears its unironic heart on its sleeve. If Deafheaven aren’t your vibe, this won’t change your mind – it is, above all, a defiantly Deafheaven album through and through. For everyone else, this is an essential and timeless collection of tracks. It reminds us of the power of metal music to connect and move. But it also fucking reminds us that Deafheaven are not just back; they never left.

Rating: 4.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Roadrunner Records
Website: deafheaven.com
Releases Worldwide: March 28th, 2025

#2025 #45 #AmericanMetal #BlackMetal #Blackgaze #Deafheaven #Mar25 #Review #Reviews #RoadrunnerRecords

Warfield – With the Old Breed Review

By Steel Druhm

German thrashers Warfield created a bit of buzz for themselves with their 2018 debut Wrecking Command, borrowing extensively from famous forefathers like Sodom and Kreator and infusing the speed with traces of black metal fury. It was a spirited and venomous slab of reckless haste with enough modern-day appeal to escape the sucking vortex of niche re-thrash. After 4-plus years, we get With the Old Breed and Warfield are older, wiser, and a bit less rough and raw. They still sound like a motley mash-up of Sodom and Kreator with a toe in the blackened bog, but they’ve refined and slightly polished their sound. Will this take away some of their angry vitality and uncouth charm?

Before you think With the Old Breed is lacking in rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth intensity, meet opener “Melting Mass.” It’s an ugly, greasy, Sodom-esque thrasher with corpse scum under its fingernails, and Johannes Clemens’ delivery sits at the crossroads of Tom Angelripper and Kreator’s Mille. He sounds plenty pissed off and savage and the riffs by Matthias Clemens are appropriately nasty and jagged. At points, it sounds like Johannes is yelling about cake and amputation, and Lord knows we’ve all been there. It’s a no-nonsense thrash bomb, and it elevates the blood temperature as it should. “Soul Conqueror” reminds me a lot of Grip Inc. with Mille taking over vocals, and “Tie the Rope” leans into the blackened thrash influence extra hard for a rancid piece of speed excess with bits of Witchery in its DNA. It will make you want to bite your neighbors and savor the community flavor. The band’s overall commitment to excess and overdrive keeps the songs in that speed sweet spot, and the guitar work is high-level and gripping.

Later on, “Fragmentation” has a central riff that sounds a whole lot like the one from the classic Sisters of Mercy tune “Vision Thing,” and I can’t unhear it, but the crazed vocals and gang shouts keep things moving regardless. Warfield go for the big, epic tune on “GASP,” blending traditional thrash tropes with black metal, doom, and mild symphonic elements, and for the most part, it alchemy works, but there are segments that drag noticeably, and at 7 minutes, it ends feeling too long for its own good. A few songs hit as fairly generic too, like “Inhibition Atrophy” and “Dogs for Defense.” They aren’t bad, just sort of run-of-the-mill thrash fare. The 42-plus minute length is reasonable, but the placement of “GASP” in the penultimate spot makes it hard to properly appreciate it as thrash fatigue is already beginning to set in. What you end up with is a respectable thrash album with some raging highs, while the lows are manageable.

For a 3-piece, Warfield throw a lot of loud shrapnel around. Matthias Clemens’ fretboard gymnastics pervade every inch of the runtime, assaulting you from all sides with riffs, solos, and MOAR riffs. He’s like a fusion reactor of string abuse. He keeps the runaway train on the tracks, and a lot of his riffs stick to the brainpan like tar. Johannes Clemens is a fine thrash vocalist and can vary his delivery enough to avoid sounding one-note or tedious. He moves from a classic thrash bark to a blackened rasp on a dime, and at times he sounds like he’s having a complete psychotic break. Dominik Marx is an inhuman freak machine on the kit, filling all the dead space with thunder and war. He’s all over his toms and snares at all times, and you can’t miss what he’s doing in the back line because he’s morbidly a beast!

Warfield are the spiritual successor to what the Big Three of Germanic thrash created in the 80s, and they have a sound that’s different enough to stand out from the thrash pack. If the writing were more consistent, this would be a thrash lover’s fever dream. It’s got all the right parts and just needs a slight tune-up. The good stuff is very turbulent and volatile, and that’s half the battle. The other half is brutal wiolence. Well worth an abrasive loudblast.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: NA | Format Reviewed: Fucking Stream
Label: Napalm
Websites: warfieldthrash.com | warfieldthrash.bandcamp.com | instagram.com/warfield.thrash
Releases Worldwide: April 4th, 2025

#2025 #30 #Apr25 #BlackMetal #GermanMetal #Kreator #NapalmRecords #Review #Reviews #Sodom #ThrashMetal #Warfield #WithTheOldBreed

In the Woods… – Otra Review

By Dr. A.N. Grier

Oh, yay, I get to review In the Woods…!! How I haven’t reviewed them before is beyond me. I must have been in the bathroom or something. I’ve been jamming to these guys forever, which led me to another favorite band: Green Carnation. As stated before by Z and Ferox, these Norwegians are an odd bunch that can’t quite figure out what they want to be, like gender confusion but genre confusion. After almost four decades in business, they’ve tinkered with everything from black to doom to progressive metal. As of 2022’s Diversum, In the Woods… has pretty much combined all their genre influences into one. In some cases, it works; in other cases, it’s a touch messy. That said, I think I liked Diversum more than Ferox because I thought the individual songs came together nicely to create the album, though there were obvious issues with some of the tracks. Some of it might be the new singer on staff. Or, it could be the songwriting as a whole. But Fjellestad is a solid addition to the crew, returning once again for this year’s Otra. The question is, will we see another side of In the Woods…, or will they finally reel in their influences to release something stunning?

One thing I can say that should please those who weren’t quite thrilled with the new vocalist on Diversum is that Fjellestad and the band have come quite a way since 2022. I’m not saying the vocals are better (because he’s a good vocalist), but the performance and songwriting are stronger on Otra. It might be because this time around, the album has a theme that connects the songs. Personifying the Otra river in Norway, the album flows through tumultuous rapids and sputtering streams, bringing the water molecules together for a forty-five-minute rafting trip. Now that we are in a boat instead of the forest, will Otra supply a soothing mist to my face or give me… wood? Wait.

“The Things You Shouldn’t Know” begins right away with gentle guitars and soothing vocals before it erupts into harsh vox and a grooving black metal lick. As this eight-plus-minute beauty builds, it alternates between Green Carnation-like passages and Borknagar/Vintersorg-esque black metal blasts. You’ll also find passionate guitar leads here (and elsewhere on the album) that push the vocals to soaring heights. The bigness only gets bigger when a second voice partners with Fjellestad in the final chorus. “The Crimson Crown” is another biggun that opens with pleasing keys that morph into a blanket of atmoblack riffage before cruising into a bass-led verse. Then, the song explodes into a Borknagar-ish chorus with alternating clean and harsh vox that works so damn well. One of the song’s coolest sections involves a calmness over the water, where Fjellestad adds subtle movement to his voice that adds layers to the music.

Other stellar tracks are “Let Me Sing” and the closing number, “The Wandering Deity.” The closer expands on that vocal wizardry of “The Crimson Crown” by hypnotizing the airwaves with vibrato. This slick addition makes the song’s final chorus that much more impactful. Being less than six minutes in length, this song sure as hell does a lot. Using a Green Carnation foundation, it slithers its way through dark, black metal riffage, gorgeous melodies, and even some black ‘n’ roll a la Carpathian Forest. “Let Me Sing” begins as an innocent piece, introducing it with muffled keys. That’s until the sinister mid-paced chug comes in, accompanied by a surprising vocal arrangement that brings to mind Type O Negative and The Vision Bleak. This song is one of the better tracks at alternating between clean and harsh. I also can’t move on without mentioning the bass work. Not only is it more prominent than other tracks, but nothing quite gets me erect like a bass slide.

The track that does not do well at alternating between the soft and hard sections is “The Kiss and the Lie.” While not a terrible track, its transitions feel forced and awkward, making it difficult to enjoy compared to the other pieces. “Come Ye Sinners” almost suffers the same fate, but the performances make up for it in the back half to save it. While Otra would do better with a more dynamic master, I can’t deny that the songwriting and vocal performances are some of the best in this new era of In the Woods… Taking what they learned from Diversum and polishing it up, this outing is a tight, seven-track affair and one of my favorites of theirs. Though, it’s damn near impossible to achieve what they did in the past, Otra is a pleasing listen and well worth a spin for In the Woods… enthusiasts.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Prophecy Productions
Websites: in-the-woods.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/inthewoods
Releases Worldwide: April 11th, 2025

#2025 #35 #Apr25 #AvantGarde #BlackMetal #Borknagar #CarpathianForest #GothicMetal #GreenCarnation #InTheWoods #NorwegianMetal #Otra #ProgressiveMetal #ProphecyProductions #Review #Reviews #TheVisionBleak #TypeONegative #Vintersorg

Mizmor & Hell – Alluvion Review

By Carcharodon

A.L.N. (a.k.a. Mizmor) and M.S.W. (Hell) inhabit similar territories: geographically, the Pacific Northwest; sonically, abrasive, droning, blackened doom; and, perhaps critically, emotionally, all claustrophobic, tortured heft. Although they’ve collaborated live before, Alluvion, which refers to the sedimentary deposits left by a body of flowing water, is their first studio outing together. Billed as a map to aid the listener in navigating through bouts of psychic distress, the prone form on the cover could easily be me by the time I’m finished with this review, crushed beneath the weight of Mizmor & Hell’s compositions, corpse abandoned on that mountainside rising from the promo sump. I’ve been interested in anything Mizmor has put out since Yodh, and enjoyed his last full-length, Prosaic, quite a bit. However, the last Mizmor collaboration that I dived into (with Andrew Black) left me cold. I went into Alluvion expecting a more familiar experience, given the similarities with Hell, which suggested that I might be in for a more predictable, if more emotionally exhausting, ride. So what will Alluvion leave behind in its wake?

If you are familiar with Mizmor and Hell’s past works, and can sort of picture what a collaboration focused on psychic distress might sound like, BOOM, you’re right! Alluvion is exactly that. Dense, doom-laden oppression, nuzzling up against moments of surprising delicacy and tenderness, with the latter kicking things off on opener, “Begging to be Lost.” The first two minutes of strings-only tranquillity hint at the rumbling blackened sludge that follows. With both men contributing vocals and guitars (while Hell handles bass, and Mizmor drums), when the hammer does fall, it falls hard. Noting the descriptor that Mizmor & Hell intended Alluvion to act as a means of navigating mental health struggles, I see the shifting moods of the record as mapping onto the ebb and flow of these challenges, from anvil-like oppression, through devastating chaos into exhausted moments of clarity, that border on hopeful. All this and more is packed into the 16 minutes and change of “Begging to be Lost” alone. Something resembling respite is offered by the percussion- and vocal-free “Vision I,” its distorted, reverberating drone cathartic in its simplicity.

As Mizmor & Hell move into standout piece “Pandemonium’s Throat,” the pattern of “Begging to be Lost” is repeated but in amplified form. The gentle opening notes bear hints of distortion, the droning guitar lines offer a rawer, blackened edge, while the vocals (Hell’s, I think) take on a more desperate, rasping edge. When all hell breaks loose—no pun intended—around the seven-minute mark, we find ourselves nudging into stripped back, heavily distorted black metal, with a frantic energy that is almost second wave in its intensity. Going into Alluvion, I’d braced myself for an epic on the scale of Yodh or Cairn, both of which hover around the hour mark. In fact, this comes in a surprisingly compact package, clocking in at just 39 minutes. But nevertheless, and perhaps because of the harrowing journey the listener is taken on, by the time we reach closer, “Vision II,” there’s an exhausted and drawn feel to Mizmor & Hell’s work. It’s that feeling of full-body tiredness we’ve all known at one point or another, where every part of you feels heavy and drained.

All that said, Alluvion isn’t quite as traumatic, nor as soul-destroying, as I’d braced myself for from this Mizmor & Hell combination. There are two reasons for this. First, “Vision I” and “Vision II,” which act as a mid-album interlude and outro,1 respectively. These serve to both offer up some respite for the listener—leaving to one side the rather unsettling, wordless voices that swirl and clack around you at the end of “Vision II”—but also to significantly lessen the complexity of the album. Comprising over a quarter of Alluvion, they are, on the one hand, welcome for making it an easier listen, and, on the other, a hindrance for somewhat lessening its impact. The other reason for the lower trauma rating is the production. Only managing a DR4, this simply isn’t as rich and textured as I’d hoped it would be, and as I think it needs to be, to fully achieve its creators’ mission.

Alluvion promised a lot and delivered quite a bit, but not the whole package. Its highs, which are basically all of “Pandemonium’s Throat,” are great, building the oppressive tension before unleashing raw catharsis. However, the rest of the compositions from Mizmor & Hell are good but no more. I’m not quite sure how much of this to pin on the expectations that I carried into Alluvion, and which I suspect many who know the solo work by each of these men will also carry. It’s honest, raw, and good, but the fact is I walked away from it relatively unscathed, where I expected to be ruined, face down beside a deserted path.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 4 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Gilead Media
Websites: mizmor.bandcamp.com | loweryourhead.bandcamp.com
Releases Worldwide: April 4th, 2025

#2025 #30 #Alluvion #AmericanMetal #Apr25 #BlackMetal #BlackenedDoom #BlackenedNoise #Doom #DoomMetal #Drone #GileadMedia #MizmorHell #Noise #Review #Reviews #Sludge

Nydvind – Telluria Review

By El Cuervo

There are many heavy metal bands in the world. Intense genre stratification led to lots of musical hopefuls attempting to carve their own path. Despite their best efforts, it’s incredibly rare for a band to do something that hasn’t been done before. Citing a journey through the “raw energy of black metal,” “profound melancholy of doom,” and “organic vitality of folk,” France’s Nydvind are making another such attempt with their fourth album entitled Telluria. This unusual medley and a 20-year history ensured that I didn’t instinctively reject the one sheet’s notion that the group may be pioneering; there aren’t many bands operating in this genre that split 3 sounds. Is Telluria as distinctive as its genre promises?

The Nydvind style isn’t a part of the same scene as the likes of Agalloch, but they capture the earthen feel that such bands exalt. “Dance of the Ages” uses flitting, clean guitar lines and occasional chants to conjure a folksy effect, tied into acoustic guitar passages designed to evoke delicacy. This contrasts with the record’s opening heavy passages that blend trilling blackened guitars with deathly, guttural growls. Likewise, “Heart of the Woods II” opens robustly, with a doomy lick delivered via a shredding tone. The remainder of Telluria sometimes winds and sometimes stomps its way through passages that principally progress through a fusion of black, doom, and death metal. Despite its variety, the core of the music has a feel that won’t be totally unfamiliar to fans of Paradise Lost, but observed through a decidedly blacker lens.

When you first start with Telluria, the multitude of influences in the pot and frequent musical shifts make things interesting. But it’s definitely more ‘interesting’ than ‘exciting.’ Although there’s a lot to listen to when paying close attention, my overall emotional response is an unfazed one. The majority of the album is merely okay. This is undoubtedly compounded by the music switching between varied sounds in an uneventful way. “Heart of the Woods II” proceeds through its doomy opening and a blackened second passage then back again, but each transition simply ceases the prior music and commences the next. There are very few moments of sophistication or drama to signal change to the listener. The over-arching fusion of doom / black / death/folk influences sounds harmonious on first listen, but it’s not nearly as stimulating as it should be.

I find my initial interest thoroughly waned by Telluria’s back half. Ultimately, the inability to generate a visceral emotional response (even a negative one) consigns it to the sizeable heap of forgettable music I’ll not bother returning to. The shuffling, directionless song-writing contributes to my dispirited response. I find the doomy mid-pace passages the dullest of Nydvind’s sounds, and these passages sometimes stretch out over minutes at a time. The songs average 8 minutes, and only one runs for fewer than 7, with another exceeding 10. Only “Into the Pantheon of Absynthia” reaches a climax that’s reasonably satisfying, as it escalates with a crescendo that gets heavier over time. The remainder of the songs don’t justify their duration.

The only complete exception to the commentary I’ve provided above is the title track. Pretty much all the best passages on Telluria are locked within these 9 minutes. From the crunchy, blackened verse with piercing shrieked vocals to the layered leads that harmonize then counter-point, it did what no other track could by demanding my attention. It then proceeded to hold it by featuring the album’s best solo and one of its heaviest passages after its mid-point. And just before that heaviness becomes tiring, the ensuing quietness offers a welcome contrast. “Telluria” still fails to stitch together its varied passages in a subtle or engaging way, but separately they’re best throughout.

Despite the more exceptional moments that form the strongest Nydvind material, the vast majority of Telluria leaves me cold. Beyond those moments, it’s difficult for me to highlight any particular riff or melody as standouts; much bleed together into a grey sludge, even with the diverse influences. There’s the potential for a thought-provoking synthesis of styles here. But while the quintessential 2.0 commits the sin of disappointing its listener, Telluria commits the sin of leaving very little mark at all.

Rating: 2.0/5.0
DR: 11 | Format Reviewed: v2 MP3
Label: Malpermesita Records
Website: facebook.com/nydvind
Releases Worldwide: March 21st, 2025

#20 #2025 #Agalloch #BlackMetal #DoomMetal #FolkMetal #FrenchMetal #MalpermesitaRecords #Mar25 #Nydvind #ParadiseLost #Review #Reviews #Telluria

Tómarúm – Beyond Obsidian Euphoria

By Kenstrosity

Over the past three years, I’ve come to appreciate Tómarúm’s surprising, mature debut Ash in Realms of Stone Icons at a deeper level than I had hoped to reach in the mere two weeks provided at the time. While I stand by my overall score—and by my critiques—my relationship with that record grew more meaningful and rewarding with time. Tómarúm’s spiritually charged, introspective point of view speaks volumes of suffering and strife, while the complexity of their musical compositions reflects in uncompromising clarity the fluid order that governs a turbulent chaos of the soul and of the heart. With this fresh in mind, I approach follow-up Beyond Obsidian Euphoria with great curiosity and equal anticipation.

Occupying a niche of progressive metal most commonly associated with acts like Ne Obliviscaris, but also connected to newer groups such as Amiensus, An Abstract Illusion, and Dawn of Ouroboros, Atlanta quintet Tómarúm boast an especially fluid and emotive sound. Progressive structures and ever-shifting phrases abound, yet never intrude, obstruct, or interrupt. Technical prowess reminiscent of Fallujah and Lunar Chamber creates additional dynamics most noticeably felt in the bass guitar, lead guitar, and drum performances. And, to my great delight, a new twist of machine-gun burst riffing pulled from Warforged‘s I: Voice playbook grants a palpable, terrifying presence. Beyond Obsidian Euphoria takes all of these elements, intrinsic to Tómarúm’s identity, and implements them with the same finesse and refinement of the last record, but with an altogether more hopeful tone. While still dealing with subjects of profound anguish and emotional turmoil, Beyond explores further the catharsis borne of dedicated, dogged persistence against those internal demons which would otherwise have your singular light extinguished from this mortal coil.

Nothing better exemplifies this shift in tone than the one-two punch of standout duo “Shallow Ecstasy” and “Shed This Erroneous Skin.” Epic sweeps of ominous shadow collide with shimmers of brilliance as menacing pummels advance their campaign against soaring leads and righteous solos. Those blackened rasps that voiced past work join the fray again as crooning cleans provide motivating counterpoint to fuel the flame of continuing life. A vivid chiaroscuro of composition personifies every moment across this 16-minute span, but the surrounding environs offer just as many dynamic moments of beauty and beastliness. The remarkably short and savage “Blood Mirage” deals massive damage to the cranium as it executes a brutal assault of riffs and tech-y oscillations, while “Halcyon Memory: Dreamscapes Across the Blue” evokes an Hail Spirit Noir-esque airiness that belies its double-bass propulsion and quasi-bluesy harmonized solos. The gamut of sounds, styles and textures malleate as soft putty in Tómarúm’s talented fingers, which allows their unfaltering focus on story and character to shine ever brighter on Beyond’s second immense suite of epics, “Silver, Ashen Tears” and “The Final Pursuit of Light.” Any impression of bloat falls to the wayside in the face of such nuanced and well-realized musical design, as melody, pace, substance, and technicality find a kaleidoscopic harmony striking in its multifaceted vibrancy.

At just under 70 minutes, Beyond Obsidian Euphoria daunts any audience with a monumental investment. The dividends, however, more than make up for the sacrifice. That is, if the listener is willing and ready to dig deep and find those moments most intimate and vulnerable. That delicate pluck of the string in a phrase flanked by vicious scrapes; the contrabass frequency that stimulates the spine as starry tremolos dot the sky; the desperate howl of pain and of shattered spirit that preludes an epiphany of truth and of healing; the miraculous congregation of hook and sophistication moving in tandem towards a shared apex of sound and story; all find a place in this wonderful piece, and each piece has its place. Unlike my experience with Ash in Realms, my experience with Beyond is one of complete and utter immersion. There is hardly a moment I would change, barely a segment I would cut—save for the fluffy interlude “Introspection III,” appearing too early on to leave a lasting mark by the close.

Occasionally, I find myself unable to dedicate the time necessary to engage with Tómarúm’s latest opus. I expect that others will experience the same unfortunate circumstance. While that certainly poses a question to the value statement of an album this long, specifically because its individual chapters can’t be separated without compromising the integrity of the whole, Beyond Obsidian Euphoria feels like a rare record that needs every second it consumes. The passion and personality Tómarúm exude in this work demands the price of time to bloom. If you give it the space to do so, what awaits can only be described as euphoric.

Rating: Excellent!
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Prosthetic Records
Websites: tomarum.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/TomarumBM/
Releases Worldwide: April 4th, 2025

#2025 #45 #AmericanMetal #Amiensus #AnAbstractIllusion #Apr25 #BeyondObsidianEuphoria #BlackMetal #Cormorant #DawnOfOuroboros #DeathMetal #Fallujah #HailSpiritNoir #LunarChamber #MelodicBlackMetal #MelodicDeathMetal #NeObliviscaris #ProgressiveBlackMetal #ProgressiveDeathMetal #ProgressiveMetal #ProstheticRecords #Review #Reviews #TechnicalDeathMetal #Tómarúm #Warforged

Paths to Deliverance – Ten Review

By Thus Spoke

Metal has long taken inspiration from the realms of horror, mysticism, and the occult. Paths to Deliverance adopt ideas from all three. Debut Ten, structured roughly around the bardo—the liminal experience leading from the point of death through to reincarnation—also borrows imagery and storytelling from “Edgar Allan Poe, Lovecraft, Clive Barker, Graham Masterton, and Stephen King, as well as […] Dante.” You would be justified in assuming this is a solo project, given its eclectic and lengthy blurb, but this is only partially true as progenitor A.S.A has recruited artists to fill every position other than his own vocal and bass duties.1 It is, of course, black metal—if the concept, the fact that it’s a solo project, and artwork weren’t a clue. Yet here again, Paths to Deliverance claim difference and particular fearfulness. Not trve or raw, but truly frightening, and deeply personal, if the promo material is to be believed.

Ten is a lengthy tale and like any story, has its ups and downs. However, these fluctuations cannot be attributed only to the concept that supposedly drives the music. Surrounding the peaks of ardour and vivacious, vitriolic riffdom is an odd nebulousness that drains the force from otherwise solid songs. This sense, which only builds over the runtime, contributes to the album’s lack of cohesive flow, and how it may yet contain greatness. Running through Ten is a powerful current of feeling, expressed primarily through a mournful, melodic black metal that sounds a lot like Gaerea in everything from the extended mini-catharses of rushing drums and urgent tremolos, to the very guitar tones and the way the howls and riffs echo brightly in the background (“Resonances,” “Alone in the Dark,” “Delirium,” “The Storm”). Right alongside this is a more belligerent blackened death, less concerned with atmosphere than with evoking the spirit of spiteful independence that eschews the vulnerability of that other, more melancholic style (“Solitude,” “The Calm Before the Storm”). And then there’s the vague integration of a raucous group-vocal attitude (“Delirium,” “Here Lies…”) and classical guitar (“Reveries,” “The Storm”). These approaches are not inherently contradictory, and allow Paths to Deliverance to demonstrate worthy aptitude for stirring and exhilarating black(end) metal. As components of Ten, however their integration can lead to a tonally mixed bag.

Paths to Deliverance tease with moments of greatness, but squander their potential through messy execution and incoherent compositional choices. The trend begins instantly, as the mournful drama built so perfectly in opener “Ab Initio,” is hastily discarded in the jump to upbeat “Resonances,” vindicating anyone who’s ever argued the pointlessness of intros; but it’s worse, because “Ab Initio” is over three minutes long. Across Ten, we must witness Paths to Deliverance dampen the power of combined chilling atmospheres and thrilling riffs by burying them in what feels like filler that meanders (“Solitude,” “Alone in the Dark”) or pushing them to the final passage of a song, or indeed the album (“The Storm,” “Redemption”). There is an overabundance of directionless, restless addition—a new riff, a tempo change, a key change (“The Calm Before the Storm”)2, layered clean and growled vocals (“Solitude”), a vaguely pop-punk chorus (“Here Lies…”), horns (“Delirium”), chorals (“Redemption”). And as soon as that beautiful refrain develops, and those awesome drum fills propel the song into a blaze, and it seems like Ten might really be brilliant, the magic disappears as Paths to Deliverance show they’re more interested in shoving a different idea in your face (“Resonances,” “”Delirium”), or pulling the tremolos away in favour of about two minutes of completely disconnected acoustic plucking (“Reveries”).

It thus becomes difficult for Ten to be anything other than an awkwardly scattershot and unfocused listening experience. Each element is well-crafted, and there are passages of powerful and powerfully sinister meloblack strewn across Ten. The issue is that they are strewn, and not carefully placed. Why, for instance is “The Storm,” very possibly the best song, relegated almost to the very end, when the listener has long since lost patience for Paths to Deliverance’s self-indulgent tonal indecision. The drumming is consistently tight and excellently performed, but it can’t make up for what lacks in the songs it provides a skeleton for. Whilst things are manageable in the album’s early stages, the interminability of less interesting sections, and the restlessness with which Paths to Deliverance add and subtract ingredients only gets worse over its span.

Ten falls short of the promises that Paths to Deliverance made of it. Not because it is incompetent, but because it lacks focus. It’s only with hindsight that the red flag of the long and varied list of inspirations becomes obvious. The runtime and these inconsistency issues point to an inability to edit, which the blurb reflects. This doesn’t negate those numerous snippets that could, in isolation, appear on a great black metal album. It only makes them harder to appreciate without separation from the rest.

Rating: Mixed
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 256 kb/s mp3
Label: Malpermesita Records
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: March 28th, 2025

#25 #2025 #BlackMetal #FrenchMetal #Gaerea #MalpermesitaRecords #Mar25 #MelodicBlackMetal #PathsToDeliverance #Review #Reviews #Ten

Euphrosyne – Morus Review

By Iceberg

Death is an omnipresent theme in metal, and art in general, but the subject matter is especially poignant when approached by survivors of its trauma. Post-black quartet Euphrosyne tackle the loss of a loved one, in this case songwriter Alex Despotidis’ mother, on their debut LP, Morus. Post-black seems an appropriate style for the Greeks, with a focus on atmosphere, melody, and stillness to balance black metal fury. While the lyrics are credited to frontwoman Efi Eva, all the music was composed by Despotidis, an unenviable but hopefully cathartic duty for someone who just lost a parent. Observing the grieving process always feels a bit intrusive, and Morus reveals itself to be an intensely personal collection of songs. Nevertheless, the motionless death shroud on Morus’ cover invites the listener into a journey of pain, death, and that which remains.

Euphrosyne isn’t content to paint themselves into a post-black corner. Efi Eva is a convincing, multi-faceted vocalist, and her chameleon-like vocal performance drives the different moods of Morus. Her clean soprano, not unlike Evanescence’s Amy Lee, guides the acoustic sections, featuring reverb-drenched piano melodies and simple, plucked guitar lines (“Morus,” “Valley of White”), while also unleashing impressive hardcore shouts (“Asphodel”) and black metal roars (“Lilac Ward”). Despotidis’ lead guitar acts as a counterpoint, his soaring melodies anchoring instrumental sections (“Funeral Rites,” “Mitera”). Euphrosyne’s rhythm section is dependable, deploying predictable blasting alongside less predictable odd time signatures and filtered grooves akin to Mer de Noms-era A Perfect Circle (“Valley of White,” “Eulogy”). At its heart, Morus is a narrative album, and Euphrosyne wisely employ different sounds and styles to shape the story as its told.

Euphrosyne excel at painting the tale of death with their music. From the pivotal moment of “July 21st” where Eva takes her ethereal clean tone and warps it into a furious snarl, the listener sits sidecar to Despotidis’ grieving process. The frustrated proselytizing of “Eulogy,” the spiraling guitar riff closing “Funeral Rites” (perhaps signifying the lowering of a casket), and the wailing guitar melody of “Mitera” that segues into “Asphodel” feels more at home in the theater than the recording studio. Spoken word, all in the band’s native Greek, humanizes the performance and reinforces the narrative concept (“Morus,” “Mitera”). While the production shows its limits in the black metal riffage, Euphrosyne know how to use silence and space when it counts, particularly at the edges of their songs (“Morus,” “Funeral Rites”). Morus is also edited well, running at a well-rounded 43 minutes with not much fat to trim. The slimmer run time allows the listener to fully appreciate the story on their first pass, and then discover layering and thematic through-lines on repeats.

Euphrosyne drip creativity with their more adventurous sections, but they seem to move to the tried and true side of melodic metal elsewhere. Eva’s performance is solid throughout, but the constant reliance on a clean vocal chorus becomes rote by the end of the album. The black metal passages of the album, while serving their role as a pressure valve for the music’s pent-up emotion, feel by-the-numbers and more like a bridge between the more exciting, less heavy moments. Production is handled by Psychon of Septicflesh fame, and while the mixing/mastering job lends the quieter parts of Morus breathing room, the crushed DR5 rips any sense of dynamic from the black metal blasting and trilling, an industry-standard approach that takes away from Euphrosyne’s unique take on the genre. Its difficult to pinpoint specific songs that work better than others since they all contain aspects of the “post and the black,” but it’s easy to see after a couple weeks of focused listens that Euphrosyne shine in the empty spaces when they’re less restricted to a post-black label.

Despite these gripes, Morus is a deeply affecting album, one that moved me more the longer I left it to marinate. I don’t know that singular pain of losing a parent, but I know the pain of losing someone very close to me, and Despotidis’ memoir has brushed that scar tissue. Though this score may seem to describe a somewhat middling listening experience, I highly recommend this album for fans of dark, weighty music that tells a story. I think with some fine-tuning, Euphrosyne have quite the mark to make in the post-black world. Until their next effort, I’ll keep Morus in my back pocket for the grey days when I need to commiserate with another wounded soul.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Black Lion Records
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: March 21st, 2025

#2025 #30 #APerfectCircle #BlackLionRecords #BlackMetal #Euphrosyne #Evanescence #GothicMetal #GreekMetal #Mar25 #MelodicMetal #Morus #PostMetal #Review #Reviews #SepticFlesh

Fleshspoil – The Beginning of the End Review

By Tyme

Troy, New York’s Fleshspoil, may be new to the NYC metal scene,1 but its constituent members certainly are not. Vocalist and guitarist Jeff Andrews (The Final Sleep, Armor Column) and drummer Mike Van Dyne (The Final Sleep, ex-Arsis) have joined forces with Bay Area bassist Dan Saltzman (Illucinus) to wade into the crowded waters of the blackened death metal pool with their self-released debut album, The Beginning of the End. I wondered what Fleshspoil had in store, mainly what Andrews and Van Dyne, given their pedigree, would do to set themselves apart in a genre rife with stiff competition. Would this trio assemble and make The Empire City proud with The Beginning of the End, or, as their moniker might suggest, would they just plain stink?

Fleshspoil tosses progressive atmospherics, dashes of doom, darts of dissonance, and even some metalcore peppercorns into its death metal pot. With as much elusive consistency as The Final Sleep‘s Vessels of Grief, Andrews and Van Dyne have crafted another, albeit deathlier, sonic buffet. Representing a winding path of genres, The Beginning of the End sees crushing, Immolation-esque death metal mix with atmospheric lap-steel guitar and drum interludes (“Bleed Through This Life”) and softer, near post-metal riffs merge into Bleeding Through-like metalcore replete with shimmery clean choruses before ceding direction to a dissonantly black end (“Skies Turn to Graves”). Andrews’ ten tons of riffage serve the material well, and trading his mostly clean vocal delivery ala The Final Sleep for deathlier growls, shouts, and shrieks is a point in Fleshspoil‘s favor. Saltzman’s reserved bass work, a departure from the brutal death slams of his day job, combined with Van Dyne’s expert drumming, has no problem corralling all of The Beginning of the End‘s competing directions. Fleshspoil certainly isn’t afraid to stretch the boundaries of what’s possible, and when it works, it’s good, but it doesn’t always work.

Fleshspoil is at its best when weaving the apocalypse of their death metal with dissonance, melodicism, and progressive atmospheres. These elements are alive and well in the aforementioned “Bleed Through This Life,” which also contains some chaotic solo work courtesy of Kyle Chapman (Aethereus).2 Further success lies in the disso-chords and quirky time signatures of eponymous track “Fleshspoil,” which wanders into some atmospheric guitar and bass noodling, then trundles into a Paul Westerberg alt-rock passage that could have landed on the soundtrack to Singles. All this before ending with some mid-paced death metal riffs, screamed vocals, and marching order snares. Add the growls, shrieks, and Halford-esque cleans over the majestic doom-blackened deathliness of charred and chugging riffs on “A Frail Demise,” and The Beginning of the End finds Fleshspoil fine-tuned to decimate. If it were all within these veins, things would fare better.

I’m a fan of Fleshspoil‘s willingness to experiment, but not all results hit the mark. Time is not a factor as The Beginning of the End clocks in at a trim and tidy thirty-seven minutes. Overwrought transitions and wasted time hurt Fleshspoil the most. I found the pendulum-swinging transitions of “Skies Turn to Graves” too jarring, rendering the song more a distraction than a complementary piece of the whole. Throw in the under-developed, three-plus minute “Walking Dead” and the momentum-crushing boringness of album closer “Born Into Despair,” an alt-rock snoozer that fades in on some guitar-lite strumming and bass work and sustains shimmering guitars under shouts and clean vocals before mercifully fading out again with twenty seconds of vinyl scratches and pops. With this song, Fleshspoil completely took me out of the mood set by “A Frail Demise” and had me yawning rather than reaching for the play button again.

Fleshspoil‘s debut, The Beginning of the End, represents a promising entry into the NYC metal pantheon. Andrews’, Van Dyne’s, and Saltzman’s metal credentials are unquestioned. Fleshspoil has a lot of great ideas and the ability to execute its vision, as half of The Beginning of the End suggests. Leaving its softer sides for other projects and flexing its stronger, more progressive melodic death metal muscle should see Fleshspoil do good, even great things in the future. I will be waiting and watching to see what comes next.

Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320kbps mp3
Label: Self-Released
Websites: fleshspoilofficial.bandcamp.com | instagram.com/fleshspoil
Releases Worldwide: March 28th, 2025

#25 #2025 #AmericanMetal #Arsis #BlackMetal #BleedingThrough #DeathMetal #Fleshspoil #Immolation #Mar25 #MelodicDeathMetal #Review #SelfReleases #TheBeginningOfTheEnd #TheFinalSleep