You’ve got to get a tickle out of it when, inevitably, any cumstain that writes a Mayhem review takes that same juvenile cheap shot at all Mayhem detractors. Apparently, we’re all just stuck in the past. We don’t like Mayhem anymore because it isn’t true (almost always read “trve” or “troo” for maximum douchebag effect). Then they call us horrible names, like “purists.” It seems our beef with Mayhem doesn’t stem from all three of their post-DMDS full-lengths sucking raw shit through a straw. Nope, it’s because the calendar doesn’t say 1994 anymore. We don’t despise Grand Declaration of War due to it being anti-memorable, zero-effort noise, it’s because no churches were burnt down. We only call Chimera a plastic, lame abomination because there weren’t any murders or suicides on that one, and our poor reception of Ordo ad Chao has absolutely nothing to do with the album sounding like it was recorded in my ass. It’s because we only want to hear those same 15 songs the band wrote from 1984-1996, and we only want to hear them when people are blowing fire and stabbing dudes in forests. Sorry, that’s just how we are… or more accurately, that’s just how people with no friends who still live with/off their parents assume we are. But things that walking abortions write that piss me off aside, Esoteric Warfare has completely shattered my (lack of) expectations. That is to say, it isn’t bad. It isn’t great, so don’t let any lifelover convince you it is, but it isn’t bad. It actually sounds like a band, as in a cohesive unit, writing songs, which is something that hasn’t pertained to Mayhem since 1997’s excellent Wolf’s Lair Abyss EP. (Strange… I like that one and Dead and Euronymous aren’t on it…) Get this: the drums actually sound like drums! There are —hope you’re sitting down for this one— actual riffs! New guitarist Teloch (Nidingr, NunFuckRitual) has exceptional skill and is not content to coast on white noise in between 4-trick juggling. All of the instruments are audible. I repeat, all of the instruments are audible! That includes Atilla’s trademark vocals. He sounds much better here, but still far away from his best. Twenty years away to be exact. With a voice so bewitching, less is truly more and more is truly less. Alas, I’ve listened to this album over a dozen times and not one song sticks. Still, I have to applaud these guys. It’s taken them 30 years, but they’re starting to nail some of the fundamentals. They’ve remembered how to make songs, now they just have to remember how to make them memorable.
Of course, these finger-on-the-pulse-of-the-working-class critics will see right through me. My real problem with this record is that Blasphemer is gone now. Because, y’know… that’s what single 35-year olds with a mountain of debt, working 45 hours a week, treading water check-to-check are most concerned with… what Blasphemer’s up to.

While this band’s previous LP, 2010’s Mainlining the Lugubrious, had some tenuous connections to Black Metal, the self-titled follow-up goes off into the deep end almost immediately. This is Progressive Post-Black Metal at its worst (or best, perhaps, depending on your musical preferences). Murmur might have started out as a standard Black Metal band back in 2007, when they formed, but this isn’t Black Metal anymore. Hell, I’m hesitant to even call this racket “Metal” at all. The song structures are weird, the music is overly complicated and every track on this album is clearly written for the subset of fans that wants to listen to music for the technical nuances. When I listen to music, I’m not analyzing the songs for weird timings, highly experimental tonal arrangements or creative picking techniques. I don’t mind some technicality or progressive structures, but this was just painful to hear. It actually made Dream Theater and Fates Warning listenable in comparison. Any band that can do that immediately earns a spot on the list of nominees for the coveted Iron Cock Award for Most Masturbatory Musical Release by a Supposedly Black Metal Band. At the moment, Murmur is the only band on the list, but the year is young so other contenders may arise to challenge them for the giant black iron dildo of shame. If you want evil Black Metal that shreds your soul and leaves you torn and maimed forever, you should stay as far away from this record as humanly possible. Unless you’re a masochist in the musical sense, you’re not going to want to waste your time on this crap.

Is it just me, or has 2014 been a year completely barren of essential Black Metal releases? Seriously… where’s the Black? There hasn’t been a single heavy-hitter from any of the scene giants so far. (I haven’t heard the new Mayhem yet, but I’m sure it’ll suck as every Mayhem album post-Wolf’s Lair Abyss has.) Not that Agalloch should or could ever be pigeonholed as just a Black Metal band. Their inspiring musical palette has always encompassed a wide variety of styles, including Black, Folk, Doom, Prog, Post… it’s more of a Grey Metal, if you will. Still, it’s a tall order not to expect these Portlandian champions of all things dark and dreary to fill the void created since I stopped listening to Try Not to Destroy Everything You Love nine hours a day. That doesn’t exactly bode well for anyone willing to accept the fact that each new Agalloch record seems to be less excellent than its predecessor. Case in point: Pale Folklore — an absolute classic; if you don’t own, you don’t know shit about shit. Of Stone, Wind, and Pillor — timeless; I still listen to the Sol Invictus cover on repeat to this day. The Mantle — godlike; utterly mesmerizing perfection. Ashes Against the Grain — …um… I don’t remember much about it, other than it staying in rotation a lot longer than Marrow of the Spirit or Faustian Echoes did. Now, with The Serpent & the Sphere, the band has delivered their slowest burner yet. A largely instrumental LP at a time when I need Haughm to hiss at me the most. It isn’t terrible. Let’s not kid ourselves, these guys couldn’t write bad music if they tried. It just isn’t immediately memorable or outright sizzling with the bleak ‘n’ grim majestic power that allowed these US legends to stand tall in a field dominated by Scandis. It is awfully damn pretty, however. Beautiful clean guitar passages ring out over an ascendant rhythm section throughout, occasionally giving way to those signature acoustic frolics. It’s as introspective and atmospheric as all get out, but severely lacking pain. There seems to be more Prog than passion this time around. More moodiness than malcontent. Glimpses of perfection do reveal themselves on opener “Birth and Death of the Pillars of Creation,” and the heart of the album (“The Astral Dialogue,” “Dark Matter Gods,” and “Celestial Effigy”), but even here there’s more table-setting than main course. Of the last four songs, three are instrumentals, the notes of which cry out loud begging for narrative verse! I need Agalloch to spin me that windswept, frozen cocoon of bitterness, rage, and despondency, where no light nor warmth nor hope dare shine through. What I don’t need is a voice as good as Haughm’s left on the shelf for what feels like 75% of the album. The better the band, the higher the expectations, and —selfish or not— mine were not entirely met.

When I see a band with a name like My Useless Life, I hope and pray to our lord and master, Satan, that it’s dark and bleak Black Metal with suicidal/depressive lyrics. All too often, I’ve been burned and the band turns out to be one of those Emo/Angst-ridden Mallcore bands that whines about how miserable their existence is because mommy and daddy bought them an iPhone 5S in the wrong color. Lucifer only knows what would happen if someone saw that the color of their iPhone clashed with their $300 Beats by Dr. Dre headphones, $1500 Mac Book Pro and their $900 iPad Air! Why, someone’s life might be completely ruined! The horror! (Insert sarcasm where appropriate.) Granted, listening to a bunch of whiny 20-somethings technically qualifies as suicidal/depressive music because it certainly makes me want to commit suicide. And murder. Not necessarily in that order, though. Luckily, My Useless Life is as dark and depressing as I’d hoped. The band hails from Sacramento, California (not exactly a hotbed of Depressive Black Metal, I know…), and this is their second LP. I missed their first album, 2012’s On the Edge, but this new one is really good and makes me want to seek out the debut. The music on Negative Memories is sorrowful and melodic, skirting the edges of Doom at times in terms of speed, though it lacks the heaviness that would put it with true Doom Metal. It doesn’t possess me to want to slit my wrists or jump off of a cliff any more than normal - I average ten to twelve suicidal thoughts a day and I didn’t notice any upticks in my desires to end my life while listening to this LP - but it did put me in a nice deep blue funk the way old Katatonia does. My Useless Life has a good grasp of melody and atmosphere, using various means to achieve that melancholic and dreary feeling you get from each of their songs. Another plus on this record’s already impressive list of good qualities is the fact that all of the songs are excellent. Each one has its own identity, but at the same time, they all fit in with the general dark and sorrowful vibe of the LP as a whole. It’s rare that I hear an album where all of the songs fucking rock, but Negative Memories pulls it off well. This is definitely one to check out.

In Chinese, a “Ghost Bath” is when you kill yourself by drowning. With a name like that, you’re not going to get happy music by any means. I’d heard that this band was Depressive Black Metal, so I kind of expected them to be more like Burzum, incorporating grim and suicidal atmospheres by way of droning guitar riffs and repetitive song structures. This is not the case. The closest we get to Burzum is the vocalist, 多诺万, wailing away like a banshee. Funeral is a strange listen to say the least. The music is melodic and unsettling, but I’m hesitant to call it depressive or very dark. There are lots of acoustic guitar parts and melodic solos interspersed throughout the length of this album, and while it’s well played, it lacks the dark atmosphere that you need for music like this. It’s like walking through a graveyard at night, but with reasonable lighting instead of stumbling around with only moonlight to guide you. You might feel a bit unsettled by the gravestones all around you, but you don’t have the terror of the unknown that you’d get if you were out there in the dark. A part of this lack of atmosphere stems from the music, but the vocals also play a significant role. The screeching that passes for singing on Funeral is disruptive. Some bands experimented with this style of vocals back in the early ’90s, but dropped it after a while because the sound took away far more atmosphere than it ever added. When you’re trying to build a grim or melancholic ambiance, nothing shoots it down faster than the wailing vocals. Part of it has to do with the pitch, which is extremely high, contrasting negatively against the lower tones in the rest of the music. I’m not saying that they should ditch their current singer, but a serious rethinking of how he delivers the vocals is definitely in order. Funeral did have some interesting moments, though. Aside from the detractions, this was a fairly well executed LP when it came to the music. If they can sort out the vocals and add some darker atmospherics to their sound, their next release could be pretty deadly.

In the most shocking turn of events this decade has seen to date, Finnish goat-worshippers Impaled Nazarene have completely changed their style on album #12. It’s true, folks. Their first record in four years finds them swapping their trademark Blackened Punk Metal for a contemporary fusion of Occult Rock, Shoegaze, Prog, and full-on Djent, with just a sprinkle of Appalachian Southpaw Jazz. Longtime followers of the band’s 24-year career will undoubtedly be taken aback by the inclusion of a 36-piece orchestra and the new positive outlook found on numbers like “Peace & Love or We (Won’t) Riot,” “Paying Bills = Awesome,” “Seatbelts Save Lives,” and “Sex Can Wait (I’m Worth It),” not to mention the group’s puzzling albeit heartfelt re-imagining of Phil Collins’ “Why Can’t It Wait ‘til Morning.” Equally questionable is frontman Mika Luttinen’s decision to forgo the microphrone altogether in favor of Finland’s oldest-known percussive instrument, the fukkiinukkiisukkiidukkii, which is entirely handcarved out of the bones of dead faggots.
HA! Just kidding. Had you going for a second, didn’t I? Come on, people. This is Impaled fucking Nazarene. Steelvagina is still their god and Sir Mikaakim Sluti666 Penetrator is still the killer of trolls. (He shoots those fuckers, no remorse.) It’s fast, it’s loud, it’s intense, it’s profane, and it’s a critic’s worst nightmare. What can I possibly say about an Impaled Nazarene album that hasn’t been said before? If you’re familiar with the band, you already know what you’re getting. Not a ton of guesswork involved with songs called “Flaming Sword of Satan” and “Pathological Hunger for Violence.” And if you aren’t familiar with them (aka: you don’t rock hard), either kill yourself or get the fuck started. Take your pick of any album. They’re all pretty much as interchangeable as the 13 tracks on offer here. If it sounds like I’m complaining, I’m not. While it’s uncertain if Vigorous and Liberating Death will have the same staying power 20 years from now that classics like Ugra - Karma, Suomi Finland Perkele, and Latex Cult still have today, it’s a worthwhile addition to their boisterous canon and well up to par with their last handful of LPs. It’s nice to see a legendary act not fixing what isn’t broken instead of kindly bending over to free us from what it says on the tin. Hail Planet Nazarene or feel the wrath of the Goat. Let’s fucking die.

Some people say that I look back upon the short-lived career of Demilich with rose-colored lenses. I’ve heard people tell me that the band was more hype than ability, and that Nespithe wasn’t even that good of an LP to begin with. Of course, these are the same people who get extremely offended when I say that Sunbather by Deafheaven isn’t Black Metal, and that, regardless of how many critics think it’s the future of extreme music, I don’t see what’s so great about a record full of angst-ridden, Alt-Rock infuse hipster bullshit. Demilich might be known more for Antti Boman’s extremely low-pitched “Swamp Thing with a sore throat” vocals than for anything else, but in terms of their music, they were ahead of their time. Before bands like Necrophagist, Embryonic Devourment or Origin, there was Demilich. Technical Brutal Death Metal didn’t exist as a genre of its own when Nespithe was released in 1993. That didn’t come until much later. Now, I’m not a big fan of Technical Brutal Death Metal. I think that the bulk of it is needlessly overcomplicated and it’s borderline musical masturbation more often than not. I do, however, make allowances for Demilich because they were trying to be different in an era when everyone wanted to be either Entombed or Morbid Angel (depending on which side of the Atlantic Ocean they were on). Their music was dark and twisted, and though it was technical, it had an atmosphere that was unique at the time. This 2CD release is a compilation of all of the band’s history, dating back to their original demo material through the last recordings made during their brief reunion. If you’re like me and you already own Nespithe, the additional recordings are definitely worth it because not only do you have their one and only LP, you have their full discography in one collection. You can track the band’s evolution, and though the music does sound a bit uneven in places although it has all been remastered (including Nespithe), it’s still an interesting listen. The newest recordings are the best sounding, but the older tracks still sound pretty good in comparison. Fans of Technical Brutal Death Metal will probably get the most out of this compilation, though old-school Death Metal fans who remember Nespithe will like it, too. If there is one thing that keeps this from complete awesomeness, it’s the fact that Demilich wasn’t around long enough to have an extensive discography. Many of the songs are repeated several times, having been recorded and then re-recorded again over the years. Each version sounds a bit different, but ultimately you’re hearing some stuff over and over again. Still, as a fan of the band, I didn’t mind that too much. I went in knowing what this was, but I still wanted to hear it anyway. I know that a full-length album with new material is probably never going to happen (though the band has reunited several times over the years), but a release like 20th Adversary of Emptiness keeps me hoping.

Few Death Metal supergroups short of the almighty Bloodbath —inarguably responsible for the greatest Death Metal songs written in the last decade and a half— impress on the level of Gregor Mackintosh’s Vallenfyre. Anyone who still hasn’t tracked down their spectacular 2011 debut, A Fragile King, needs to get the fuck on that in a hurry. Bump it up to the top of that to-do list, because the Paradise Lost guitarist and his band of (un)merry mates have made this follow-up bigger, better, badder, and beefier, so you’re going to need some lube. Splinters is without question the first utterly essential Death Metal release of 2014. The Doom parts are Doomier, the Grind parts are Grindier, the Crust parts are Crustier, Mackintosh’s growl is growlier, and the guitars… HOLY FUCK!!! Mere days ago I was 100% committed and prepped to declare the guitar sound on the new Triptykon LP as the heaviest ever achieved. No, sir. I’m glad I put Melana Chasmata on the backburner for so long because that honor unequivocally goes to Splinters. Major props to producer extraordinaire Kurt Ballou for sprinkling pixie dust on the HM-2 sound before injecting it with the same kind of Cuban horse steroids Yasiel Puig is on. GOD DAMN!!! Thor couldn’t lift this guitar sound. For the best description of these guitars, look no further than the gent playing them, as Hamish Glencross recently went on record somewhere stating that the guitars sounded like “someone sawing wood.” Apt to say the least. But the biggest overall difference between this monster and the debut, is that this time there is no filler whatsoever. Musically, vocally, lyrically, and stylistically there is absolutely nothing left for the OSDM fiend to desire except repeated listens (and perhaps another round). I certainly don’t want to say that I’m glad Gregor’s father passed away (see A Fragile King review for clarification), but I sure as shit am thankful that Vallenfyre exists. For a project that features members of Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride, and At the Gates, believe me when I tell you that Splinters could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with any random classic you’d care to pull from that overstuffed bag of goodies. Flawless.

A lot of Metal fans see the discography of a Japanese band and wonder why they have an extensive number of singles to their credit. In Japan, things are a bit backwards compared to the rest of the world. In most anywhere else, a band will record a full-length LP and then release a single to promote it. In Japan, the singles come long before a full-length LP. By the time the album comes out, most Japanese fans have heard all of the good songs on it already. Last Stardust is the latest single from Blood Stain Child and if you have any of their previous releases, you’re getting more of what they do best. It’s a continuation of what they did on Epsilon (one of the five tracks here, “Stargazer - X-,” was originally released on Epsilon) and Mozaiq, but further refined. For those who haven’t heard the music of Blood Stain Child before, they’re pretty accurately described as Trance Metal. It mixes Trance/Techno electronics with Melodic Death Metal in a combination that sounds like what would happen if Strapping Young Lad (1st LP era) was brought in to do a collaboration LP with a Japanese Dance/Pop Idol. It is on the commercially accessible side, but it still has a Metal edge to it that no amount of Trance-influenced keyboards can cover up. It’s both intense and furious but also upbeat and catchy. It’s beautiful and violent at the same time, and the band is able to delicately balance things so that one aspect doesn’t dominate the other. It’s a bit odd when you first hear it, but before long, you’re banging your head along with the music and searching iTunes for the rest of the band’s discography. They used to sound more than a little like Children of Bodom on their earliest releases, but as time wore on they started incorporating more Trance/Techno influences into their music. The previously mentioned Epsilon and Mozaiq are the best representatives of their current musical direction. If you’re a fan of Blood Stain Child (or any other Japanese band), I recommend checking the digital sites (Amazon, iTunes, etc.) because unless the band has a domestic release, buying the physical version is going to be insanely expensive. I’m a huge fan of Japanese music, and having purchased a lot of it over the years, I can tell you that a CD from Japan will cost at least twice as much (sometimes more) as a domestic release. I know that a new full-length LP might not be released anytime soon, but I’m definitely interested in hearing it.