Soliloquium – Famine Review

By Steel Druhm

In my never-ending quest to accumulate as many bands as possible that remind me of tragically defunct Finnish doom-death legends, Rapture, I crossed paths with Sweden’s two-man project, Soliloquium, back in 2018 through their Contemplations album. It was an entirely pleasant slab of moody, emotive melancholic death borrowing from early Katatonia, Insomnium, and of course, Rapture. It scratched an itch and made me a fan. 2020s Things We Leave Behind hit just as COVID was starting its assault on the world, and the album’s downcast and depressive beauty became a staple in the House of Steel as we watched the world lock down and drift. Somehow, I missed that Soliloquium dropped a new album in 2022, and I almost missed their latest too. Famine is the band’s fifth release, and Stefan Nordström and Jonas Bergkvist are still steering the ship, though this time they invited lots of friends to help out. Can this depressive duo keep the weepy doom-death flowing like fine wine on a cold Swedish day?

Things start out promising on the wide-ranging title track. It’s in the usual Soliloquium modality, with morose clean croons and sparse melancholic guitar plucking giving way to darker tones with guttural death roars and blackened shrieks cropping up. Doomy harominies percolate and fall off, and the mood is kept dark and brooding. The equipoise between melodic trills and the crushing quasi-death-doom is well executed and convincing. Strong hints of October Tide and Swallow the Sun flow freely, and the feel of a brutal winter of discontent is achieved. At the 3:45 point, things seem to end, only to lurch back into what sounds like an entirely new composition, and by the end of the 6:37 runtime, the enterprise ends up feeling long but worthwhile. Far superior is “2 A.M.,” which perfectly encapsulates all that’s right with the Soliloquium sound. It has a lot of Rapture’s best elements blended in, and there’s some beautifully emotional guitar work here in the vein of Tuomas Saukkonen’s Before the Dawn / Black Sun Aeon style. Jari Lindholm (Enshine, ex-Slumber) provides amazing lead guitar work here, elevating the song several degrees, and the nods to Katatonia’s Brave Murder Day era are icing on the depression cake.

Other solid moments include the later era Anathema-esque fragile Goth of “The Healing Process,” where beautiful vocals from Bianca Höllmüller enhance the weepy charms; and the very Ghost Brigade-esque doom rock of “Poison Well,” where Chelsea Rocha-Murphy of Dawn of Ouroboros drops by to keep things despondent with her haunting vocals. I especially enjoy the death n’ roll bit that erupts around the 3-minute mark. “Själamörker” is also quite tasty. Sung in the duo’s native Swedish, Stefan Nordström effectively blends his sadboi cleans and mammoth cookie monster roars on a bulldozer of a tune that hits every doom-death trope. It’s heavy but sorrowful, crushing but melodic. Unfortunately, things go pear-shaped for the album’s final third, where the heavy reliance on clean singing turns out to be ill-conceived. The last 3 tracks all suffer greatly from vocal issues (Stefan’s or his guests) as clean but underpowered, droning, and overly twee vocal tones become prevalent. The songs themselves have good things going for them, but they can’t overcome the vocal shortcomings. At 51 minutes, Famine also suffers from bloat, especially on the final few “troubled” tracks.

While I’ve always appreciated Stefan’s death and blackened vocals, he wasn’t known for his clean singing, usually employing guest singers to do the job. Here, he tries to carry more of the load himself with mixed results. While he’s effective on “The Healing Process,” he too often adopts a static, droning Goth-rock style that feels weak, flat, and entirely lacking in oomph. This derails tracks like “Weight of the Unspoken” and the closing epic “Vigil.” On the plus side, his death roars and blackened rasps are spot on and as effective as ever. His guitar work is always high quality and a reason the material resonates, as he does a good job conveying a bleak, cold atmosphere across Famine, borrowing from all the big names in the genre for some inspired moments.

I’m a fan of what Soliloquium do and there are great moments of melancholic doom here, but the writing isn’t as consistent as before and the vocal shortcomings are sometimes glaring. If Famine stopped at “Själamörker, ” this would be a very good album. It doesn’t, though, and by the final act, the weaknesses begin to show through. Warts and all, Famine is still a worthwhile listen with some big moments. Fans of the sadboi ways should give it a chance and see how it hits them in the feelz. I still miss Rapture.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Meuse Music
Websites: soliloquium.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/soliloquiumband
Releases Worldwide: April 11th, 2025

#2025 #30 #Apr25 #BeforeTheDawn #Contemplations #DeathMetal #DoomMetal #Famine #GhostBrigade #Katatonia #MeuseMusicRecords #OctoberTide #Rapture #Review #Reviews #Soliloquium #SwallowTheSun #SwedishMetal #TheThingsWeLeaveBehind

Cytotoxin – Biographyte Review

By Kenstrosity

It’s been five long years since Nuklearth graced my ears for the first time, followed in quick succession by at least another 800 spins. I snubbed it too, in my year-end list for 2020, where I relegated it to my (ish) spot. Banger after banger after banger led me straight to the bludgeoning wing of my local urgent care. Simultaneously, it led me to 2017’s Gammageddon, German outfit Cytotoxin’s breakout third record of irradiated tech-death craziness. Two completely different records, but both instantly recognizable as Cytotoxin. It’s not easy to achieve this kind of hit-after-hit diversity within the span of two records, let alone in the technical death metal realm. Can they pull off the mad hat trick with Biographyte?

If Gammageddon represents Cytotoxin at their most technical and unhinged, and Nuklearth at their hookiest and most brutal, then Biographyte represents Cytotoxin at a conflicting crossroads. Still immediately recognizable, thanks to the dual guitarists’ trademark oscillating, arpeggiated leads and groovy riffs, Biographyte never ventures into uncharted territory as freely as Gammageddon and doesn’t make memories as vividly as Nuklearth. On the other hand, Biographyte strikes a more genuine, serious tone—even bleak at times—and its musical content reflects that no-nonsense intent. Lyrically, it functions as a collection of historical monuments to the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster in various locations in Pripiyat, the people who lived there, and those who rushed in providing aid. In total, these small shifts manifested in a greater quotient of technical showmanship and thematic gravity, but they also negatively impacted memorability and engagement.

I’m hard pressed to call anything on Biographyte unworthy of the Cytotoxin pedigree, as no shortage of guitar wizardry, vocal brutality, and rhythmic pummeling unleashes a punishing aural assault (“Hope Terminator,” “Condemnesia”). This is a great thing, as it makes highlights like “Biographyte,” “The Everslave,” and “Bulloverdozed” stand out as shining examples of Cytotoxin’s capabilities—and powerful reminders of how much fun their music is. I’ll never get enough of those shimmering leads sparkling against chugging pummels and speedy double-bass runs, pushing the limits of what I could call “melodic” in this space while, in a quantum twist, also toying with that “hypermelodic” boundary (“Eventless Horizon”). It’s a fascinating paradox, always creating attractive points of interest and ear-catching series in a lightning-fast, yet accessible, manner that proves the substantial breadth and deceptive versatility of Cytotoxin’s sound and structure.

Where Biographyte falls short is in memorability and in comparison with their portfolio thus far. To the first point, a majority portion of this material, even the standout moments, blended together the longer I spent time with it. With the exception of a couple of flat beatdowns (“Behind Armored Doors”), a number of Biographyte’s isolated phrases are readily interchangeable with others. Consequently, I found it difficult to pick individual songs out of the lineup and to remember those aforementioned phrases outside of active listening sessions. To my second point, while Cytotoxin’s technical prowess and polished performances can’t be questioned, a number of its otherwise effervescent leads are dull in relation to those peppering the previous two records. Exacerbating this problem, Biographyte is bloated at 52 minutes. It would’ve felt overburdened even if the quality of its songs reached the same echelons as Cytotoxin’s best material. Considering that’s not the case, Biographyte drags even further past its half-life.

This begs the question: is Cytotoxin running out of great ideas after fifteen years of consistently great tech death? It’s too early to say for sure, but I prefer to think this is but a mild hiccup. In the end, Cytotoxin’s ridiculous level of talent and skill alone prevent Biographyte from falling into Disappointing, or even Mixed, territory. If this review seems harsh—and it probably is—that’s a consequence of having experienced two incredible records by these Germans back to back immediately preceding this one. It’s everything I expect and want to hear from Cytotoxin, but it’s also missing that special runoff that made Gammageddon and Nuklearth essential. Thankfully, Cytotoxin aren’t ones to do the same thing twice, so I look forward to hearing what comes next. For now, I know I won’t reach for Biographyte as often as other installments, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t Good. It just isn’t Great, and that’s okay.

Rating: Good!
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Self Released
Websites: cytotoxin.de | facebook.com/Cytotoxinmetal
Releases Worldwide: April 11th, 2025

#2025 #30 #Apr25 #Biographyte #Cytotoxin #DeathMetal #GermanMetal #Review #Reviews #SelfReleased #TechnicalDeathMetal

Diabolizer – Murderous Revelations Review

By Tyme

‘O mighty sub-genre, how you vex me. As our human need to bring order to chaos and make sense of complexity increases, so does the proliferation of the sub-genre and its many sub-sub offshoots. Where once only death metal stood, today, a plethora of choices exist. And because that most un-descriptively generalized tag wasn’t enough, we now banter over the finer nuances of tech death vs. old school vs. melodic, brutal, ultra brutal, and more. I’m not deriding the importance of sub-categories and their use in the metalverse as much as I’m highlighting the fact that sometimes, it’s refreshing to run across an album that strikes at the heart of a genre. Enter Turkey’s Diabolizer. After receiving a coveted 4.0 from Holdeneye in 2021 for Khalkedonian Death, Diabolizer returns to rape your ears with its second unholy metal of death platter, Murderous Revelations. Will this sophomore effort find Diabolizer taking a step back from their well-received debut, or will the onslaught continue, another clawing leap toward the upper echelon of death metal practitioners?

Murderous Revelations‘ deliciously demonic cover art reveals much about Diabolizer‘s brand of death metal. Straight out of the get-go of hell’s gate, “Into the Depths of Diseased Minds” sears the senses with swirling speeds and tricky time signatures, a maelstrom of riffs that set the stage for what the entirety of Murderous Revelations has in store. With its founding lineup intact and still repping pedigree—members hail from Hyperdontia, Burial Invocation, and Engulfed—Diabolizer merges its Deicidedly Cannibal Corpseish chunk-n-chugs perfectly with rifferous technical velocity that’s full of Nileistic Krisiunisms. Reminiscing on a younger me hearing the likes of Malevolent Creation and Krisiun for the first time, Murderous Revelations hit like a time capsule, instantly returning me to a simpler age. It is a solid step forward that shows, once again, how Diabolizer shines with plenty of pristine performances and the ability to merge many styles into something so purely death metal it defies sub-categorization.

Diabolizer‘s guitar hero duo of Can and Mustafa drop savage riff after savage riff (“Purulent Divinity in Black Flames”) and bring tons of technically tornadic, swirling solos to bear with vile virtuosity (“Seeds of the Dethroned”). Malik’s excellent finger-happy bass work provides many a Ramen noodle moment (“Bloodstream Bonegrinder”), complementing Abberant, who barbarously bashes through every track on Murderous Revelations, laying down a vicious sledge to the head style drummeling. Completing Diabolizer’s cadre of calamity is vocalist Abomination. His brutal, ground-shaking roars still harken to scene veterans like Glen Benton and Christian Älvestam, to be sure. Still, I hear a fair amount of Barney Greenway’s Napalm Death snarl in Abomination’s lower register, and this serves as a foil to his newly developed vomitous rasp (“Hogtied in Razorwire”), which took me aback at first but has grown on me with repeat listens.

Making a strong case that Diabolizer should be this Turkish quintet’s main gig, the songwriting on Murderous Revelations is top-notch and wastes nary a moment of its value-packed run time. A relentless onslaught that maintains a breakneck pace, Murderous Revelations provides listeners with nearly no air to breathe. The only moments of respite come at the outset of “Set the World Ablaze (“Infernal Dawn”) with its majestic, mid-paced riff and tremolo opening and the brief fade-in to “Deathmarch of the Murderous Tyrant,” which revs up and shoves its boot right back down on your windpipe. There’s so much I like about Murderous Revelations that I’ve been racking my brain, searching for some balancing critique to levy. So, while I’m still not 100% on board with Abominations’ new, raspy tone at times, that quibble is a minor one.

Diabolizer provides bree-bree-free brutality with layman’s terms technicality and enough chug-chugs to satiate my inner caveman. Murderous Revelations is death metal performed as Satan intended. It left my face in a state of perma-stank, and fans of Khalkedonian Death should be well-pleased. I’m incredibly blessed to be able to do what I do here, and the shine of my most recent status change still blinds me sometimes. I want to thank Holdeneye for introducing me to Diabolizer four years ago and for entrusting me to share my thoughts on Murderous Revelations.1 It’s a fantastic death metal album I’m sure to be talking about come year’s end.

Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320kbps mp3
Labels: Dark Descent Records | Me Saco Un Ojo Records
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: April 11th, 2025

#2025 #40 #Apr25 #CannibalCorpse #DeathMetal #Deicide #Diabolizer #EverlastingSpewRecords #KrisiunUnOjoRecords #MeSacoUnOjoRecords #MurderousRevelations #Nile #Review #TurkishMetal

Unbounded Terror – Something Is Rotten in Humanity Review

By Mark Z.

Unlike other major European countries, Spain has never been much of a hotbed for death metal, presumably because they’ve been too busy perfecting their paella (holy shit is that stuff good). That hasn’t stopped Spanish death metal bands from trying to make their mark, however, and possibly the first to make such an attempt was Unbounded Terror. Led by guitarist Vicente Payá, the group initially only managed to release one album, 1992’s Nest of Affliction, before going kaput. Vincente went on to be more prolific with his doom/death band Golgotha before eventually resurrecting Unbounded Terror for 2020’s Faith in Chaos. That album turned out to be a nice little pre-COVID surprise, deviating from Nest of Affliction’s Obituary-gone-atmospheric style in favor of something simpler, catchier, and better produced. The follow-up, 2022’s Echoes of Despair, was another enjoyable release that showed Golgotha’s more melodic tendencies bleeding into the Unbounded Terror formula, an influence that wasn’t entirely surprising given that the two groups also share bassist/vocalist Andrew Spinosa. Now, Vicente has somehow found time between all the fucking projects he’s involved with (including Holycide, Sons of Cult, and a bunch of other stuff I’ve never heard of) to unleash a fourth Unbounded Terror album, Something Is Rotten in Humanity. That title seems more true with each passing day. But what of the music within?

A lot of death metal released today can be readily defined by which old school band it mainly sounds like (usually Incantation, Autopsy, or Entombed/Dismember). In the case of Something Is Rotten, that band is Monstrosity. Like those Floridians, this album offers death metal that almost no fan of the genre would take issue with. The tempos are fast, but not too fast. The vocals are gurgly, but not stupidly so. The production is balanced and polished, but not to the point that it makes things feel sterile. And the riffs? They’re fine, too.

Initially, the approach works. “Fear of Dying” opens the record like a big greasy fist to the face, with meaty chugging riffs that give way to groaning tremolos before a nice melodic lick bursts in partway through. The Monstrosity comparison is especially apt with this track, but even those looking for a more measured version of Cannibal Corpse are likely to find enjoyment here (and elsewhere, for that matter). “Destiny of Evil” quickly mixes things up with blast beats, gyrating tremolos, a winding solo, and even some raspier vocals, while “Demons in Your Mind” works well enough by using a peppy, mid-paced beat to propel a tightly wound, pig-fart verse riff.

Sadly, it soon becomes apparent that “Demons” seems to have served as the template for most of the six tracks that follow. Other than its cleanly picked opening, “Reviving” sounds far too similar to “Demons,” and it took me a couple of listens to realize that the pause between “Reviving” and “Inside Death” was a transition between songs and not a false ending to the former track. Later songs like “Divine Virtue” and “Believing Again” also have a similar feel to “Demons” but are somehow even less compelling, causing the album’s 32-minute runtime to drag more than it should. Ironically, “The Disappointment” is actually one of the strongest cuts in the album’s second half, with a cruising, groovy swagger that its neighboring tracks lack. The instrumental closer “The Evil Cause” is another standout, as its crunchy and confident main riff at least offers something different. As another plus, the solos of lead guitarist Ancor Ramírez (Holycide) are fantastic throughout, with a rich sense of melody and a glorious feel that’s often lacking in death metal leads.

Overall, Something Is Rotten is a perfectly competent death metal record. It falls short, however, by not being anything else. Other than a few good songs and some great guitar solos, everything here is serviceable but not particularly notable, which is especially disappointing given how many standout ideas could be found on the two prior albums. Ultimately, it’s not bad, it’s not great, but at least it offers a nice break from masturbating to the thought of the next COVID variant wiping out me and the eight billion other naked apes that have infested this planet like a black mold. Sometimes, that’s all we can ask for.

Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: v0 mp3
Label: Xtreem Music | Bandcamp
Websites: unboundedterror.com | facebook.com/unboundedterror
Releases Worldwide: April 1st, 2025

#25 #2025 #Apr25 #CannibalCorpse #DeathMetal #Golgotha #Holycide #Monstrosity #Obituary #Review #Reviews #SomethingIsRottenInHumanity #SpanishMetal #UnboundedTerror #XtreemMusic

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

Allegaeon – The Ossuary Lens Review

By Maddog

Allegaeon’s six albums have received tumultuous marks in these halls. After their fantastic 2010 debut Fragments of Form and Function broke the score counter, Allegaeon sank as low as a 2.0 for 2016’s Proponent for Sentience in the eyes of then-tadpole GardensTale. While their latest outing recovered to a more respectable score, Allegaeon’s techy brand of melodeath has polarized socialites and critics alike. The band excelled with their riffier onslaughts and soaring melodies, but fell for the forbidden fruit of proggy excess. The Ossuary Lens showcases a leaner, meaner Allegaeon. I won’t be listening to it in a decade, but it’s a worthy soundtrack for today.

Allegaeon have trimmed their bloat but not their ambitions. For the uninitiated, Allegaeon’s brand of death metal resembles a noodlier Arsis, with its melodicism matched only by its technicality. That said, Allegaeonites will recall that these Coloradans would rather cover Yes or Rush than classic death metal. Allegaeon’s career has sometimes descended into a vulgar display of prog, combining protracted tracks with a penchant for flamenco breaks. These proggy elements live on, as Allegaeon gallops from punchy riffs to melodic leads to clean jams and back again. However, The Ossuary Lens displays newfound restraint. At 45 minutes, this is the band’s shortest album by a full eight minutes. Allegaeon’s escapades no longer leave a salty aftertaste, and the band’s forays into other genres no longer feel like pleas for a yardstick. The Ossuary Lens preserves its identity without getting lost in its own reflection.

Accordingly, The Ossuary Lens hits across both its bigly riffs and its creative tangents. The album’s fierier cuts are a refreshing return to form, with “The Swarm” reviving Elements of the Infinite’s infectious riffcraft. As hoped, these sections still ooze technicality, as guitarists Greg Burgess and Michael Stancel dominate their fretboards even in their most explosive moments. Meanwhile, Allegaeon’s genre-bending experiments feel creative but not overwrought. Most notably, “Dark Matter Dynamics” pulls a First Fragment stunt of seamlessly transitioning between jubilant strumming (courtesy of Adrian Bellue) and formidable death metal melodies. Indeed, The Ossuary Lens hits hardest when these forces unite. For instance, “Carried by Delusion” voyages from serene melodies to Revocation worship to blackened tremolos to upbeat bass and guitar solos to downcast crunchy riffs, eviscerating both my heartstrings and my neck. The Ossuary Lens’ moderation goes a long way. Rather than clobbering the listener with decades-long Spanish guitar jams, The Ossuary Lens presents its creative side through measured four-minute tracks. Tech, prog, melody, and home sweet death metal unite into a potent concoction.

While each piece of The Ossuary Lens is impressive in isolation, the album sometimes loses my interest. One reason is its lack of climactic moments. During tracks like “Scythe” and “Wake Circling Above,” I zoned out and had to abuse the rewind button, because there weren’t enough valleys, buildups, and peaks to keep me engaged. Another reason is sequencing; while the five middle tracks from “Driftwood” through “Dark Matter Dynamics” shine, the bookends fall short. The most predictable reason is production. Despite aiming for creativity and dynamism in their songwriting, Allegaeon continues to brickwall their albums into tepid gruel. As a result, The Ossuary Lens often loses my focus despite its seemingly manageable length. Conversely, the album’s highlights show how it’s done. Most strikingly, “Driftwood” has colonized my brain with a soulful mix of melodeath and metalcore that recalls Venom Prison. With highs this high, it’s a shame that The Ossuary Lens often slips into uniformity.

Allegaeon is a relatively new band, but they inspire nostalgia. I vividly recall pimply nights with the addictive Fragments of Form and Function. I still think that “Accelerated Evolution” and “Genocide for Praise” are two of the greatest album closers of this millennium. And the iconic 2014 music video for “1.618” sealed Allegaeon’s place in my heart forever. Measured against Allegaeon’s first three albums, The Ossuary Lens falls short, hampered by its dearth of standout moments. Still, it isn’t a stinker. It still bangs; it still shreds; it still progs. Warts and all, it earns its keep.

Rating: Good
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 256 kbps mp3
Label: Metal Blade Records
Websites: allegaeon.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/Allegaeon
Releases Worldwide: April 4th, 2025

Iceberg

Allegaeon are something of a known quantity around here, having been nodded at by Steel, eviscerated by GardensTale, and patched up by Cherd. The Colorado crew helmed by guitarist Greg Burgess have amassed a legion of rabid followers (who are sure to raise a ruckus in the comment section) for their signature style of Gothenburg-meets-tech-death. I’ll admit to being a fan of 2016’s Proponent for Sentience, one of the first reviews I read on this site, but got lost amidst the dense material of Apoptosis and frankly didn’t even give Damnum a shot. Allegaeon’s latest LP, The Ossuary Lens, sees the return of original vocalist Ezra Haynes and a much-welcomed stripped-down runtime, two intriguing changes in my book. It’s been quite a while since I’ve been excited about an Allegaeon release, can The Ossuary Lens be the record to change that?

Allegaeon’s style of melo-tech-death needs little introduction here, but for those of you who haven’t been following the past decade’s worth of drama, I’ll provide the CliffsNotes. Sweeping, scalar guitar riffs courtesy of Burgess and Michael Stancel form the backbone of most tracks, and the dual guitars make for an indulgent offering of solos (“Driftwood,” “Wake Circling Above”). The drums here, while dripping with modern production sheen, are compelling and energetic without being overly technical, a sincere compliment for Jeff Saltzman. Allegaeon have never strayed from highlighting their bass players, and standout moments in “Chaos Theory” and “Carried by Delusion” show Brandon Michael has as much a command of melody as he does of relentless, galloping rhythms. Ezra Haynes, of Elements of the Infinite fame, comes roaring back to life on The Ossuary Lens, employing a gritty death roar alongside commendable clean vocals on “Driftwood” and “Wake Circling Above.” The performances on The Ossuary Lens are everything one would come to expect from a band nearly two decades into their career, and make for a wholly engaging listening experience.

Allegaeon albums tend to have similar issues holding them back, and the band have largely addressed them on The Ossuary Lens. First and foremost is the 45-minute runtime, a nearly 25% reduction in music from their last three records. The renewed focus on editing shines, with tracks that hit fast and get out of the way while still managing to be memorable (“The Swarm,” “Imperial”). This represents the first major improvement in The Ossuary Lens; Allegaeon have not only figured out that less is more, but they’ve also magnified the parts that work. Sing-along melodeath choruses lurk throughout the album (“Driftwood,” “Dies Irae”) but none so impactful as penultimate track “Wake Circling Above.” Clearly the best Insomnium track released this year, Allegaeon’s ode to all things Gothenburg is a monumental testament to what this band can do when they stop doing so much and let the music dictate the song’s course.

The hits don’t stop there. The Ossuary Lens takes a while to really get moving, with the first three tracks treading familiar territory. But then comes “Dies Irae,” a barnburner that incorporates the three-note musical motif for the Dies Irae text of the Requiem Mass, a nice music nerd Easter Egg that only enhances the ripping triplet-infused breakdown sitting in the song’s center. And Burgess’ requisite flamenco guitar, something sorely overused in Proponent for Sentience, is here condensed into the driving groove of “Dark Matter Dynamics,” a powerfully infectious rhythm ripped straight from a Rodrigo y Gabriela record, or the breath-before-the-plunge moments of the darkly harrowing “Carried by Delusion.” Whereas previous Allegaeon records were dense, academic affairs that required shoveling through noise and notes to discern, The Ossuary Lens presents a barebones masterclass on Allegaeon’s modus operandi.

This isn’t to say that The Ossuary Lens is infallible. Early tracks “Chaos Theory” and “Driftwood” are technically proficient, but fail to reach the emotional highs of the rest of their brethren. Final track “Scythe,” while holding some excellent verse grooves, feels underbaked after the astonishing “Wake Circling Above,” and its cropped ending leaves the album on more of a question mark than a statement. And there’s the lingering issue of the DR5 master and production, which, while not as obscene as earlier records, is still crushed and fatiguing. But overall, The Ossuary Lens represents a massively successful repositioning for the Coloradoans, making it one of my favorite spins of the year for its precision, refinement, and memorability. If Allegaeon continue on this trajectory, we may see their best work yet just over the horizon.

Rating: 3.5/5.0

#2025 #30 #35 #Allegaeon #AmericanMetal #Apr25 #Arsis #DeathMetal #FirstFragment #Insomnium #Melodeath #MelodicDeathMetal #MetalBlade #MetalBladeRecords #ProgressiveDeath #ProgressiveDeathMetal #ProgressiveTechnicalDeathMetal #Review #Reviews #Revocation #RodrigoYGabriela #Rush #TechnicalDeathMetal #TheOssuaryLens #VenomPrison #Yes

Buried Realm – The Dormant Darkness Review

By Owlswald

Colorado’s Buried Realm, the technical melodic death metal project of multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Josh Dummer, has built a steady following since 2017’s The Ichor Carcinoma. This is largely because— alongside his role as the primary writer and producer of Buried Realm’s music— Dummer is one hell of a guitarist. Additionally, he enlists a prominent cast of guest musicians for each album, adding another layer of proficiency to his progressive soundscape.1 While Dummer’s talent and networking ability are compelling, 2020’s Embodiment of the Divine received a mixed reception from AMG’s own Twelve. Since then, Dummer has made notable upgrades through the addition of drummer Heikki Saari (Fintroll, ex-Norther) and the outsourcing of post-production duties, resulting in a heavier and more polished sound on Buried Realm’s 2022 self-titled third album. With these refined elements and the promise of further evolution, I was eager to delve into The Dormant Darkness to see what I would find lurking in the shadows.

What I found was a great album. Building upon the foundation of Buried Realm, The Dormant Darkness finds Dummer taking the next step in his power-tinged melodeath assault. The opening barrage of “Bloodline Artifice,” with its relentless blasts, tremolo onslaught, and visceral screams, channels the power of tech-death giants like Allegaeon. At the same time, the album’s overall melodicism is indicative of The Living Infinite-era Soilwork. Guest appearances include the likes of Per Nilsson (Scar Symmetry) and Christopher Amott (ex-Arch Enemy), who fortify tracks like “Human Code” and “Futuristic Hollow Nation” with sweeps, dives, and wails galore. Saari’s intricate rhythms and colorful accents amplify Buried Realm’s dazzling riff craft. Additionally, Dummer’s Laiho-esque rasps intertwine with Bjorn “Speed” Strid’s (Soilwork) roars and Christian Älvestam’s (ex-Scar Symmetry) soaring choruses to add sophistication and depth. With a well-rounded mix that delivers plenty of punch and low-end heft, The Dormant Darkness features a concentrated and layered sound that is rich, heavy, technical, and a ton of fun.

For those who crave virtuosity, Buried Realm will not disappoint. Guitar wizardry is delivered in droves, with memorable solos, melodic leads, and powerful shredding across the record’s eight tracks. Nilsson’s dynamic fretwork at the heart of “Human Code,” Amott’s dive-bomb acrobatics within “Futuristic Hollow Nation,” and Daniel Freyberg’s (ex-Children of Bodom) blazing solo on “A Futile Endeavor” stand out as particularly jaw-dropping moments.2 Dummer and Saari’s merciless grooves— shredding and hammering with precision— strengthen the album’s star-studded guest list, constructing Buried Realm’s tech-heavy compositions. Contrasting Buried Realm’s unyielding virtuosity are Älvestam’s uplifting serenades on songs like “Jaws of the Abyss” and “Futuristic Hollow Nation” which present striking melodies and refreshing hooks that draw me back again and again. Ultimately, while the constellation of guest musicians warrant attention, The Dormant Darkness is filled with highlights that will appeal to a wide audience.

With its intensity and compositional depth, The Dormant Darkness could have easily become overwhelming. Indeed, the songwriting periodically suffers from overly dense passages and abrupt transitions. The disjointed vocal exchange between Dummer and Strid before the chorus in “Human Code,” for example, is jarring, as is the song’s mid-section where a whirlwind of blasts and leads stutters and starts erratically. That said, while occasional missteps somewhat detract from the album’s pacing and flow, they are minor quibbles in a record rife with strong songwriting. Furthermore, Francesco Ferrini’s (Fleshgod Apocalypse) poignant orchestral arrangements on tracks like “Ophidian Dreams” and “Where the Armless Phantoms Glide, Pt. II” provide atmospheric grandeur and emotional depth, mitigating aural fatigue and upholding sonic balance.

Overall, The Dormant Darkness is a blast. The album is the culmination of Buried Realm’s evolution and proves that Dummer’s persistence and dedication have paid off handsomely. It’s full of highlights and genuinely impressive moments, blending technical prowess with memorable melodic hooks, exceptional guest contributions, and compositional maturity. Despite the occasional minor slipup, the album’s technical and charming melodeath personality seizes my attention from the start and maintains its spectral grasp until the record’s final notes fade into the ether. With The Dormant Darkness, Buried Realm has established itself as a formidable force— one that melodeath fans won’t want to miss.

Rating: Great!
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Self-Released
Websites: buriedrealm.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/buriedrealm
Releases Worldwide: April 4th, 2025

#2025 #40 #Allegaeon #AmericanMetal #Apr25 #ArchEnemy #BuriedRealm #ChildrenOfBodom #DeathMetal #FleshgodApocalypse #MelodicDeathMetal #PowerMetal #ProgressiveDeath #ProgressiveMetal #Review #Reviews #ScarSymmetry #SelfReleased #Soilwork #SpaceMetal #SymphonicMetal #TechnicalDeathMetal #TheDormantDarkness

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

Crawling Chaos – Wyrd Review

By Twelve

Even before I’d seen the gorgeous cover art over there, Crawling Chaos had me marked. The Italian group’s third full-length release, Wyrd, is written around a theme that discusses prominent women in European folklore, mythologies, and history, and is “full of literary quotes and easter eggs, offering subtle nods to the most curious among the listeners.” Honestly, I was sold before I even noted the genre tag, but death metal and I are no strangers to one another either. So at first glance, Wyrd seems like my perfect match, but I’ve been writing here for years now, and I’ve been misled by cover art and thematic promise before. How will this one hold up?

What’s interesting about Wyrd is that a more apt description of the music is melodic death metal, but the phrase works better as a literal description than a genre tag. Wyrd is a death metal album that has melody, but doesn’t quite match what you could call “melodeath.” It is a heavy album, with no noticeable use of keys and uncompromising death metal overtures, similar to how Crescent approach their music. Guitarists Andrea Velli and Manuel Guerrieri put in some serious work here, swapping brilliantly between a veritable storm of riffs in songs like “Witch-Hunt” and eerie ambience in ones like “Necromancer.” Mind, don’t let that distinction fool you—death metal is absolutely the focus here, as Guerrieri’s roars and Edoardo Velli’s manic drumming make clear. Across Wyrd’s thirty-eight-minute runtime, Crawling Chaos make the most of their thematic source material by launching an all-out assault on the listener in a comparatively pleasing way, with nods to groups like Death, Gojira, and Nile apparent throughout.

Most of the hallmarks of death metal are present for Wyrd, but it’s the moments of melody that really give Crawling Chaos a distinct identity. William Leardini’s bass is wonderful in its griminess, and most songs are concise, speedy, and brutal, but the apparent care for memorability goes a long way too. “Veiled in Secrets” is the clearest example, a mid-paced (this is a relative descriptor) song with a beautiful, almost haunting melody that rings throughout, evocative of the desert the song describes. Similarly, the guitar leads in “To the Furies” are mighty, blending skill and style in a way that makes the song into a journey, exciting and memorable at once. Wyrd is an album of two worlds, firmly rooted in its thematic and stylistic choices, giving it the feel of a complete album, and a well-thought-out one.

I enjoy the melodic moments much more than the more brutal ones on Wyrd, which does make it feel like something of a lopsided listen at times. As I’ve said, crawling chaos can do wonders for both sides of the descriptor. Some songs lean heavier on melody and others heavier on heaviness, and that’s fine. Still, when a song like “Nomen Omen” opens with a slow, haunting melody, with genuine build-up, and then erupts into the same style of death metal that’s been so persistent across Wyrd, it feels almost like a let-down (despite, in this instance, a genuinely stunning vocal performance from Guerrieri). “Nails of Fate” does something similar with an acoustic guitar—a stirring intro that is never realized in the way you expect it to, despite the song itself being very strong. For me, the way Wyrd is structured creates a noticeable rift between the melodic and heavier choices in each song, making the full listen less cohesive than it might have otherwise been.

Wyrd is a fun listen regardless of how you like your death metal, because it is well-written, well-performed, and hits hard. Still, writing the above makes me wonder if I’m not quite the right audience for Crawling Chaos, if only because I have this bias for the melodic side of melodic death metal. And yet, I have to recommend it, which means you may like it a good deal more than I have. And I have enjoyed it—it’s heavy, it sounds great, and it includes literary and historic references. Realistically, I was always going to enjoy this one.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 128 kbps mp3
Label: Time to Kill Records
Websites: crawlingchaos-ttk.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/crawlingchaosit
Releases Worldwide: March 28th, 2025

#2025 #30 #CrawlingChaos #Crescent #Death #DeathMetal #Gojira #ItalianMetal #Mar25 #MelodicDeathMetal #Nile #Review #Reviews #TimeToKillRecords #Wyrd