Nachtmystium – Blight Privilege
Genre: Black metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Country of Origin: US
This is Nachtmystium’s first full-length album since reforming in 2017. Not being terribly familiar with their past work, I can’t really take into account their evolution, but will nonetheless state that “Blight Privilege” sounds like the result of a long and fruitful process of maturing. What you get is a classic black metal core steeped in sullen, milder atmosphere, with the harshness playing an equal counterpart to the contemplative, emotion-heavy melodies. A part of me wants to call it gothic, but the tone is much more earnestly bitter than superficially glum. There’s a real spring to the rhythms on here, making sure the music keeps moving forward and helping to remind us that this is a work to be enjoyed, despite the gloomy façade. For being black metal, it is easy to grasp, and highly rewarding to get properly immersed in.
Highlights: “Blind Spot” and “Predator Phoenix”
Lifesick – Loved By None, Hated By All
Genre: Hardcore/death metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Country of Origin: Denmark
A spiked sledgehammer blow of a crunchy death metal-riffed, metallic hardcore album that’s so friggin’ heavy up front that the band seemingly has found no other way to top off each song than going into fairly standard, whole-body-banging breakdowns. If you’re more of a hardcore fan, and this is what you feel is the highlight of any song anyway, then all is good. I would have liked to se a few more creative and/or groove-oriented solutions, but that being said, this is an absolute blood-pumping nail bomb of an album. While the backbone of the music is definitely hardcore-styled, stompy rhythms, the coarse, ominously-toned nature of old school Scandinavian death metal coats everything like a layer of broken saw blades, upping the savagery tenfold.
Highlight: “Poems for My Funeral”
Mitochondrion – Vitriseptome
Genre: Blackened death metal
Subjective rating: 3/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Country of Origin: Canada
This album is a nightmare from beginning to end, which makes the 1hr 25min runtime seem like an intentional choice mainly for the sadistic purpose of prolonging the torture. It’s dissonant, abyssal death metal that’s a bit too fast to be considered doom, but has the same kind of feel as a cavern-dwelling, monstrous death doom project. You get plenty of noisy, disturbing atmosphere, a complete disdain for melody, and a very sparing use of coherent riffing. Personally I don’t find quite enough to connect to to fully justify the massive runtime, but if you are of the mind that death metal should be pushing the limits of acceptable discomfort and hostility towards the listener, then Mitochondrion has struck a remarkably good balance between advanced musicality and disharmony on this one.
Highlight: “The Protanthrofuge”
Paganizer – Flesh Requiem
Genre: Death metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Country of Origin: Sweden
In an alternate universe, this is possibly what Amon Amarth could have ended up sounding like. Brutal, old-school Swedish melodeath but with an undeniable penchant for battle-charge riffs and an infectious, hungry energy behind the raspy vocals. This is a band that knows very well what it wants to be. The downside being that a lot of the songs on here sound fairly similar, with very few deviations from the base formula. For a death metal fan it’s still ear candy anyway, ’cause it all sounds very good indeed.
Highlight: “Life of Decay”
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