With Christmas on the horizon, Neckbreakker, Kir, Greylotus, Athena XIX and Ghoulhouse still have some waves to make before the holiday cheer overcomes all.
Neckbreakker – Within The Viscera
Genre: Death/groove metal/hardcore
Subjective rating: 4.5/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Country of origin: Denmark
THIS is supposed to be a debut album? From basically a bunch of KIDS? God fucking damn, this spells well for these guys. It’s a face-pulping beating of heavily death metal-augmented hardcore, and embracing the kind of furious groove you get with bands like Misery Index (of which I’m a massive fan). It’s on its feet the entire time, stomping, jumping and shuffling around to highly athletic drum work, backed by an ultra-menacing tone, and cursing vocal lines at you with an impressive variety of harsh styles. It has gallops, breakdowns, wild shredding and pure headbanging madness, and all of it has its place, sounding naturally intentional, and is performed with the precision and weight of seasoned pros.
Highlights: “Shackled To A Corpse” and “Absorption”
Kir – L’appel du vide (EP)
Genre: Black/death metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Country of origin: Poland
A rock solid long-EP of Polish mostly-black-slightly-death metal. “Commanding” is the word I’d choose to describe it if I could use only one. The vocals roar out like to a horde of frenzied cultists, and they know how to dwell on just the right, sinister-toned moments, only to build back up again with rumbling beats. Naturally, there will be comparisons drawn between this and Behemoth, but Kir have found their own sound, more closely related to traditional black metal, and taken a half-step in a dark melodic direction, allowing for some absolutely chilling solo highlights, and which suits them very well. As with their fellow countrymen though, this is performed with conviction, force, and just the right amount of theatre.
Highlight: “Eter”
Greylotus – Motherwort (EP)
Genre: Technical death metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Country of origin: USA
This is the kind of sound that makes me question where the line between tech death and deathcore actually runs. Not that it’s terribly important, but the band does seem to blend the kind of beat-driven, wall-of-noise, melodic grandeur of bands like Lorna Shore with the “cleverer”, more insidious and erratic technicality of the likes of Obscura. The “progressive” label is slapped on here to signal some rather abrupt switches between aggression and zen atmosphere, and it bips and bops around on crazed bumblebee rhythms, but that’s not exactly uncommon in tech death to begin with. The music is flawlessly performed and exquisitely produced, with plenty of hard-hitting and melodically solid parts, each of which only gets to live the life of a mayfly before the band hurries to the next thing. It’s certainly not free from tropes, but this long EP/short album proves that Greylotus has taken a significant step in the maturation process and is poised to compete with the very best of the subgenre.
Highlight: “Shinkansen”
Athena XIX – Everflow Part 1: Frames Of Humanity
Genre: Melodic progressive metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Country of origin: Italy
This is some good, nerdy fun right here, in the form of power metal-flirting prog metal. I think its main strength must be the band’s melodic affinity. They don’t try to go overboard with the rhythm changes, and the technical elements feel like they serve the melodies and storytelling. They use synth to embellish the sound by giving it a sci-fi feel, which fits together quite well with both the more aggressive riff sections and the more silly, hyperactive bass lines. In short, it feels like the band is enjoying themselves making this, rather than desperately trying to impress. There are a few tracks that don’t bring much to the table, which prolongs the time between the “hey, that’s cool!”-moments, but if you’re missing a bit of proggy brightness in your metal rotation, then jump into this one.
Highlight: “The Seed”
Ghoulhouse – Fresh Out Of Flesh
Genre: Death metal/grindcore
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Country of origin: Sweden
Here’s something to look to if you just need some more over-crunched death metal riffs in your life. This thing grinds on with no-nonsense drum beats, a horror-inspired tone and theme, near-mumbled cookie-monster-who-swallowed-a-cheese-grater vocals and just a quarry’s worth of stupidly catchy, boulder-heavy riffs. There’s nothing refined with this, nothing in “good taste”, just a couple of Swedes unapologetically dumping a truckload of old school, grindcore’d-up death metal right on top of you, and most of it fucking rips.
Highlight: “It Came From The Sewer”
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