A complex beast of a record, I had to sit on Melana Chasmata for well over a month and I’m still not sure if I’m completely ready to review it. I spent a couple weeks on the genre tags alone, deciding to settle on Gothic Metal —because those really aren’t dirty words when Tom G. Warrior’s involved— and Doom — because it’s slow and heavy. Really fucking heavy. I’m talking cement shoes heavy. Seriously, each chord stroke on this album sounds like all life ending (especially through headphones). But musically speaking, it’s difficult to sum up in words. The one thing I do know —which Fischer has even acknowledged himself— is that it isn’t always perfect. Anything this guy’s touched since 2006 has received the automatic Lifetime Achievement Award and I’m sick of that shit. He could record his morning piss and get a 10/10 in every publication in the free world. Don’t get me wrong, I worship at the altar of everything from Hellhammer To Mega Therion, but Monotheist is not a flawless record and neither was the first Triptykon. Great albums, not perfect ones. Melana Chasmata is also a great album. I’d even go as far as calling it the best thing TGW’s done since 1990’s criminally underrated Vanity/Nemesis LP (unless you’d like to count that truly awesome rendition of “Babylon Fell” by Apollyon’s Sun from Dwell’s 1996 Celtic Frost tribute). But it isn’t perfect, so don’t tell me it is because you have a man-crush. I’ll prove it to you. Let’s break it down track-by-track:
“Tree of Suffocating Souls” — a wise choice to lead off with; hard-charging, aggressive, big riffs; Warrior sounds pissed; V. Santura’s backing vox are a little too open-mic-night for me; could’ve done without the spoken bits.
“Boleskine House” — slow and moody; bass so heavy I pee a little every time; Fischer’s clean vox not so bad; Santura’s bark a bit more bite here; Simone Vollenweider’s voice is breathtaking; immortal chug; memorable vocal patterns.
“Altar of Deceit” — brutal mid-paced stomper; classic Frosty bends; classic Warrior grunts; “EW!!”; memorable chorus; more “EW!!”; great song.
“Breathing” — at 5:50, it’s this album’s “You Suffer”; a little speed; a little “EW!!”; great lyrics; headbang break; life sucks really bad; this song doesn’t.
“Aurorae” — a scrap from the Monotheist era; probably should’ve stayed a scrap; TGW’s cleanies again solid; just a flat-out boring song; closing solo can’t save it.
“Demon Pact” — big textures; big dynamics; sounds like Fischer is shouting, “INCINERATE MY BALLS!!”; can’t keep a straight face after that.
“In the Sleep of Death” — solid, brooding cut; haunting melodies; immortal chug; TGW moans, “Emily,” like some half-awake valley girl with the flu; momentruiner.
“Black Snow” — sorry, this song’s too long; great chorus/hook alternates with bouts of drifting filler for 12 minutes.
“Waiting” — more of Vollenweider’s angelic pipes; mmmm; very hypnotic closer, albeit a tad redundant.
So there’s your proof. A spectacular effort. An hour-long musical journey with big ups and deep downs. As emotive as it is dark, and bone-chillingly heavy throughout. Just not perfect.
Note: rating upped one-quarter of a point for the Giger artwork… which is perfect.

Picking up where last year’s Empyrean LP left off, Mechina is back again, delivering more of their patented brand of Industrial Death Metal. If you’ve never heard Mechina’s music before, they sound a lot like what would happen if Dimmu Borgir and Behemoth were digitized a-la Tron and forced to fight Daft Punk and Skrillex in an epic battle to the death within a computerized arena where no holds are barred and the laws of physics are distorted. It’s pretty wild and crazy to say the least. Parts of it are clearly influenced by the soundtrack to Tron: Legacy (written and performed by Daft Punk) but with a heaping dose of Dubstep and Techno influences added in to the mix. It’s very “futuristic” sounding, and while some may not like the overpowering keyboards and effects, I did find this album to be a very interesting listen. There’s a lot of aggressive music to be found here, which is what I liked the most. It has many atmospheric elements, but it never forgets to kick ass. If anything, the atmospherics add to the ass kicking. It’s like listening to a Death Metal version of an epic fight scene from a science fiction film, maybe the fight scene between Cloud and Sephiroth in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children or something similar. You don’t often get the futuristic vibe in Metal music but Mechina is really good at it. If you’ve heard 2013’s Empyrean LP, Xenon is a step up in terms of production and power. The music is noticeably more aggressive and hard-hitting. The futuristic elements, while omnipresent on both releases, are even more epic and powerful, too. If you liked Empyrean, you’ll love Xenon.

I’m not sure if the guys in Caliban have lost their identity, or if they’ve ever truly had one of their own to begin with. All I know is that I used to highly anticipate their new releases, and lately I’ve come to dread them. Looking back at their respectable 17-year career, I suppose they’ve always been a mirror image of the Metalcore climate at the time (even long before it became a household genre tag). They came up with Heaven Shall Burn, they gigged with Heaven Shall Burn, they’ve done splits with Heaven Shall Burn, and their earliest work unequivocally sounds a lot like Heaven Shall Burn. No complaints here, but the point in time when Caliban really began to up their game (2003’s Shadow Hearts and 2004’s The Opposite from Within) via beefier production, ballsier melodies, and emotive clean singing just so happened to coincide with the breakthrough success of like-minded scene giants in years prior (Poison the Well, Killswitch Engage, and From Autumn to Ashes to name just a few). Still no complaints. These German mosh wizards did the Emo-tinged brutality thing as well as if not better than anyone, and they essentially rode that style to glory all the way through 2009’s Say Hello to Tragedy. But now the year is 2014. Metalcore has become a dirty word, and in most cases not without good reason. The genre has stretched itself paper thin in recent years, warped beyond recognition through desperate hybrid attempts ranging from Dance Pop to Glam Rock. For Caliban to assimilate with their surroundings these days means only career suicide. Thankfully they haven’t gone that far off the deep end yet, but with 2012’s I Am Nemesis, I began to sense the infiltration of an inauthentic alien presence (“you-got-a-fuck-ing-be-kid-ding-me” is right). Still not a complete failure, the record did have its solid hits, but far too many misses by Caliban standards. With Ghost Empire, the band has drifted even farther into what’s-hot-now insanity. For the first time ever, the once-mighty Teutonic titans have delivered an LP that’s more fizzle than sizzle. It’s littered with uncharacteristic tactics like Radio Rock, Djent, Prog, Electronica, and even Southern Rock. It feels like a Hot Topic throwing up on your boots. I don’t know what this is, but it’s not Caliban. The only two songs here worth a mixtape’s B-side are “Devil’s Night” —with its infectious clean-vocal chorus— and “Your Song” — with its hooks and gang sing-along qualities. Nothing else on the album comes close. Schizophrenic trend soup from a group capable of so much more. Caliban has the talent, the passion, and the seniority to be leaders, yet Ghost Empire follows blindly.

There exists a place that music critics dread. It exists somewhere in between “absolute crap” and “could be better.” It’s where bands like Innsmouth dwell, and is a place of abject boredom and painful tedium. Everyone is familiar with it but there are no words to describe it. It just is. You’ve just entered… The Blah Zone. Cue the shitty Twilight Zone music now. Yes, Consumed by Elder Sign, the debut full-length by Australian Death Metal band Innsmouth, is almost painful to listen to. It isn’t because the album sucks. If it sucked, this review would be much easier to write. It’s just so bland and lifeless that even describing how unexciting it sounds was extremely difficult. The music is slow, ponderous and about as dead on its feet as you can get without qualifying as in a vegetative state. On paper, it looks like this should be an awesome LP. The members of Innsmouth have all played in a number of bands (some of them fairly well known within the Australian scene) prior to this and they’ve been part of the Extreme Metal scene for ages. They should know what kick-ass Death Metal sounds like, right? They might know what it sounds like, but obviously they don’t know how to create their own. This lacks any sort of energy or heaviness. Even the awesome power of Cthulhu can’t save the music from absolutely depressing mediocrity. Consumed by Elder Sign has lyrics that are based on the writing of H.P. Lovecraft, but given the music and performance, you’d think the guys were writing about the daily life of cats. Only Innsmouth could take unimaginable horrors from beyond space and time and make them boring. Seriously, I’ve seen test patterns on TV that were more exciting than this album. The aggression factor needs to be ramped up by at least tenfold before I would consider it sufficient. When I listen to Death Metal, I want it to kick my ass, not put me to sleep. All Consumed by Elder Sign does for me is make me want to listen to a different record, preferably one that causes massive damage to my neck from headbanging. If you can’t use Ambien, but you have trouble sleeping, this is the LP for you. If you want kick ass Death Fucking Metal, look elsewhere.

Despite harsh ridicule from geezers and the poseur elite, I’ve unashamedly remained a diehard Emmure fan for the better part of a decade now. After all, one can’t help what one likes, and if one lies about what one likes, well… then that one is posing. However, Eternal Enemies might very well be where I have to draw some sort of line. By far the weakest record the band has ever put out, and certainly no reward for those who defend the group’s pit-friendly, attitude-laced Deathcore. The subtle signs of decline that bled through on previous outing Slave to the Game are far more apparent this time around. Things start out on a solid note with the hilariously titled “Bring a Gun to School,” but this is more of an intro, really, and the remaining 14 tracks range from not bad to not great to WHAT THE FUCK? Six albums in seven years has unequivocally taken its toll on the band from a creative standpoint. In the past, the energy these miscreants produced through groove and bile alone provided enough adrenaline to cure the common cold. (This literally happened for me a couple years ago while listening to Speaker of the Dead. No joke.) On Eternal Enemies, they’re just going through the motions, recycling already-recycled pit riffs, and phoning in rubbish like “E,” which is essentially three minutes of incessant crowd-baiting. The best songs found here would be considered filler on any one of their first four Victory albums. Perhaps an even bigger hindrance is frontman Frankie Palmeri’s lack of overall effort. It seems like he’s doing a lot more talking than growling these days, and on the lyrical side he’s completely out of shit to say. Believe it or not, there was once a poignant side to the man’s lyrical approach. Just check out 2007’s Goodbye to the Gallows —my all-time personal Emmure fave— with its odes to heartache, depression, aborted sons, and the pain that only selfish whores can inflict. Now all we get is a hundred different ways of saying, “I’m awesome, you suck… I’m real, you’re fake.” Don’t believe me? Just read this chorus to the self-fulfillingly titled “Most Hated”:
“Yeah, I’m the motherfucker people always talkin’ about / Aw shit / I see you standing arms crossed tryin’ to stare me down / Get bent / So if you wanna see me fail, I say it nice and loud / Eat dick / And you can hate me all you want because I don’t give a shit…”
Trust me, it’s sounds even more laugh-out-loud horrible than it looks in print. Is this guy really that insecure and delusional? I don’t think so. I think he’s just mentally exhausted. Album/tour, album/tour, album/tour… that’s all his life is now. Throw in some bad criticism and you get a lyric sheet that’s 98% trash talk. (Anyone who says “I don’t give a shit” twelve times per song clearly does give a shit.) Take a break. Go on hiatus. Regroup. Refocus. I just don’t see this band ever returning to form without doing so.

The UK is home to a large number of bands that are almost criminally underrated. Though many have heard of English Heritage Black Metal stalwarts, Winterfylleth, there are quite a number of others out there that deserve a listen or two, or twelve. One such band is London-based Black/Death Metal horde Lvcifyre. Technically, the band is international, but the main member/songwriter is guitarist/vocalist T. Kaos, who lives in London. The others come from various countries and though they are full members, I’m not sure how active the group is when it comes to rehearsing and playing live. In a lot of ways, this band reminds me of fellow London residents Sidious in that they share a similar old Morbid Angel/Behemoth style, though Lvcifyre is more focused on the Death Metal side of things where Sidious is more atmospheric (though no less intense). Svn Eater starts off a bit slow and heavy, but quickly things become fast and brutal. Much like the new Behemoth LP (The Satanist), when the tempo picks up, the drumming becomes dominant. You can still hear the guitars, but Menthor (Enthroned/Nightbringer) quite nearly drowns them out when he goes into blast mode. This brings us to the drum sound. If you hate light switch bass drum tones, this album will drive you out of your mind. It’s almost constant and while the snare does push it further into the background sometimes, it’s pretty inescapable. I don’t know if they’re triggered, but the clicking sound that the bass drums make when Menthor double-basses is like a hypersensitive Geiger counter at the Fukushima Nuclear Reactor. I didn’t mind it so much, but I do know people who hate it. Musically, this LP is brutal, dark, and though it does sound a lot like Behemoth and old Morbid Angel, I did enjoy the pummeling that Lvcifyre gave me throughout the course of Svn Eater.

Eastern Frontier in Flames is a compilation of the band’s long out of print Anti-Urban (2007) and Slavonic Chronicles (2010) EPs and their “half” (more like three-quarters) of the recent vinyl-only Thousands of Moons Ago / The Gates split with Winterfylleth. My feelings on a release like this are mixed. On one hand, it’s awesome that Drudkh would reissue these rare EPs so that those of us who previously missed out can finally hear them. On the other hand, a band like Drudkh rarely releases an EP, so there’s a significant amount of time between when the songs on each one were recorded. There were three full-length albums between Anti-Urban and Slavonic Chronicles, though only one was released between Slavonic Chronicles and Thousands of Moons Ago (there were still four years between each EP, though). The difference in production and the songwriting is noticeable and it’s easy to tell when one EP ends and the next begins. In a way, this compilation gets better as you go along. Anti-Urban was kind of underproduced, having a guitar tone that was treble-heavy and paper thin. The music was also far more Burzum-esque than their later material, which was pretty representative of their style back in 2007. Slavonic Chronicles is more Slavic Folk-influenced and reminds me somewhat of bands like Graveland or Nokturnal Mortum. The songs on Thousands of Moons Ago are all cover tracks (Hefeystos, Unclean and Sacrilegium) and while they are done in the style of Drudkh, they really don’t fit in with the rest of the band’s material, although they do sound the best, with superior guitar tones and recording quality. I liked each different era of Drudkh’s music, but with so many years between the EPs, it really doesn’t represent the history of the band very well. Still, if you’re already a fan and you’re missing one or more of these releases, it’s well worth tracking down. The quality of the material here is very high, and though the sound isn’t consistent, it matches up with anything that Drudkh was releasing on their full-length albums at the time.

This is not the type of Death Metal record one would expect from a band whose moniker is a tongue-in-cheek nod to a bowel disorder. These Stockholm upstarts owe more to the likes of Opeth and Dissection than they do to Entombed or Grave on album #2. The title of this kid-gloves-off sophomore outing —meaning roughly “to dream”— is very apropos, as Sweven is certainly on the dreamier side of the Death Metal spectrum, which by no means implies weakness. More like a penchant for wandering off into Proggier —some might even argue psychedelic— territories. Fortunately for the listener, focus is retained more often than not, and Robert Andersson’s twisted Marc Grewe-circa-Odium snarl is always lurking around the corner to remind us this is, in fact, the Metal of Death. A very raw production also assists to curtail any hint of pretension that might seep through. Quite frankly, it’s hard not to be impressed by Andersson and Edvin Aftonfalk’s roaming virtuoso axemenship. If any guitar team could ever lend validity to the dreaded act of navelgazing, this just might be the duo to do so. They effortlessly channel the adventurous spirit of Morningrise on instant standout “Chains,” while the shimmering majestic melody of “Towards a Dark Sky” sounds like some lost hook from The Somberlain. Elsewhere, “It Stretches in the Hollow” recalls the schizophrenic moodiness of Pan-Thy-Monium, and just try not to get lost in the apocalyptically emotive clean-guitar passages of instrumental closer “Terminus.” I suppose my only real complaint would be the somewhat scant use of vocals. Andersson clearly graduated with honors from the Schuldiner School of Death Metal Vokills —possibly under Professor Van Drunen— and I often find myself wishing he’d use that highly effective tool more consistently. (Just a verse or two on the aforementioned “Terminus” in particular would’ve really sealed the deal for me.) This slight lack of vocal direction on such a boundless musical odyssey tends to create a bit of a mind-wandering situation at times, specifically on the latter half of the album. Nevertheless, a career-defining breakthrough effort from a promising young quartet with the balls and chops to shake up the NWOOSSDM blueprint.

When it comes to the band I’ve never heard before on Relapse, these days there isn’t much middle ground for me to speak of. It’s either going to be surprisingly fantastic (ASG’s Blood Drive was a top ten list penetrator for yours truly last year, and perhaps only Bloodbath and/or Lonely the Brave have a chance of dethroning Nothing’s Shoegaze/Alt Rock masterpiece Guilty of Everything from the #1 spot in 2014), or it’s going to be something so awfully bad it just doesn’t need to exist (trying to tell Inter Arma and Howl apart gave me writer’s block for half a year). This fifth full-length from Chicago’s Indian unfortunately falls into the latter category. Nothing more than a pointless exercise in noise-making, imagine Eyehategod playing Funeral Doom without even the slightest ability to craft a remotely memorable riff. While the quartet successfully achieves a nasty filth-ridden guitar sound, big league production quality, and a truly dark, oppressive vibe completely barren of light or hope, they don’t do a damn thing with it that the listener will have an ice cream cone’s chance in Hell of actually remembering. (On that note, this is probably the type of band that claims to not care what anyone thinks of their “music,” but there’s a price tag on their merch that says they do.) This is just endless slow-for-the-sake-of-slow chord strumming —without ever arriving at an actual rhythm figure or hook— with the obligatory feedback and prototypical Sludge screamer. This might make a decent soundtrack to an ultra-brutal snuff film, but on its own, From All Purity is more like being tortured than watching it.
Recommended for fans of: being incredibly bored.
Highlights include: pressing stop.