Immolation

Kingdom of Conspiracy

If we’re being honest, Immolation’s days as a ground-breaking death metal band are long past. The band has not really pushed the envelope of death metal or even its own sound in over a decade. With its barely harnessed squalls of dissonance, 2000’s Close to a World Below remains the band’s creative high water mark. Though dissonance and multi-layered compositions remain hallmarks of its sound, with subsequent releases Immolation...

Past Rites

Yep, you waited. And waited. And waited. WAIT NO MORE. YES, I SAID THAT IN A WIZARD VOICE. Here's part deux of the Past Rites Summer Playlist:

Deafheaven

Sunbather

There's always a certain amount of skepticism that haunts a band that attempts to merge seemingly divergent styles. And when one of those styles is heavy metal, people transform from skeptics to irrational mouth-breathers with frightening speed. But, honestly, who can blame them? The nineties actually happened, and for some, the wounds are still fresh. Many are still sore that the general public has a skewed perception of...

Denouncement Pyre

Almighty Arcanum

Initial impressions of Australia's Denouncement Pyre had me expecting them to fall in line with the war metal sound that has been gaining notable prominence in the underground alongside the movement towards an older, darker death metal style. Glancing at the band's non-musical qualities, this isn't an unfair assumption, as the outfit showcases many of the same aesthetic hallmarks of bands like Proclamation, Archgoat, and Black Witchery....

Horse Latitudes

Black Soil

A proper introduction is a tricky thing. No matter one’s intentions, all it takes is a limp, sweaty handshake or an off-timed downward glance to potentially sour a relationship permanently. Black Soil, the latest from Helsinki’s harbingers of bass-driven doom/drone Horse Latitudes, comes dangerously close to mucking up the deal and ensuring the merger of your ears and their music never sees the light of day. However, once you’ve gotten...

Age of Taurus

Desperate Souls of Tortured Times

Ask just about any young band what they believe to be a principle advantage to knocking about in our current era and they'll likely concede that it centers around the fact that it's a hell of a lot easier to get your work into people's hands without the favor of a major label. But even during an age when DIY blissfully continues to proliferate, it's quite nice to occasionally witness what appears to be the age-old system working as it was originally intended: cut a single demo, push it within...

Botanist

IV: Mandragora

The children’s story of Goldilocks and the three bears has had a poisonous effect on the rhetorical skills of too many. *Crickets.* Yes, sure, it’s just a story about some thrill-seeking lady who likes her porridge neither too hot nor too cold, but “just right.” Beyond that, though, the structure of the choice involved is a logical fallacy when extended to nearly anything more consequential. The Goldilocks trope -- *Scornful crickets.* -- suggests...

Author and Punisher

Women & Children

Author & Punisher is a fascinating entity. Tristan Shone’s project rose to prominence with last year’s Ursus Americanus (his fourth album overall, and second to be constructed by implements of his own design), a devastating, highly corrosive experiment in sonic manipulation. Pinpointing the Author & Punisher sound has been a bit of a self-serving game...

Control Human Delete

The Prime Mover

An unfortunate side-effect of the otherwise glorious surfeit of excellent heavy metal currently churning around in the fetid underground is that “pretty good” is rarely good enough anymore. Pair that general observation with the fact that, to these ears, The Prime Mover represents a fairly sizable drop-off in quality from Control Human Delete’s debut album Terminal World Perspective, and you might be forgiven...

Tristania

Darkest White

Being a girl in the heavy metal world is difficult. I’m not even talking about “girlfriend metal” and the sort of discrimination that female fans face. I’m talking about the actual musicians in the scene. In addition to the constant “Top Chicks of Metal” lists, the frequent delegation to play bass or keyboards (which, while they ought to be essential parts of a band’s sound are the least “rock star” of all positions), or the gratuitously sexual...