The Booster: Death Metal #1
Death metal I like that's out now
Hey, look at that. I'm back. If you missed it, the prior Booster explains the format changes. Read that if you want. Otherwise, I don't have anything else to yammer on about. Huzzah. The shortest intro ever. Let's talk death metal.
Altars - Ascetic Reflection (Everlasting Spew Records)
I covered Altars in the July column. It was a psychedelic blurb.1 Read that at your own peril. Sure, I am known for some wild swings, real Javy Baez-type hacks, when it comes to trying to explain metal to an indie crowd. That said, I think one of my Altars analogues should be nominated for The Stretch of the Year: I used a Big Star quote to explain Ascetic Reflection. I would like to thank my bad brain and lack of sleep for this prestigious distinction. Honestly, just being nominated is an achievement.2 Anyway, maybe it's not that much of a stretch. I don't think I'm ready to call Ascetic Reflection death metal's #1 Record, but the more I listen to Altars's comeback, the more "classic" it sounds, an album that, like Big Star, seems to exist outside of time because it's strategically written to be free of elements that won't age well. The difference: Instead of power pop, this Australian trio is making classic death metal. Ascetic Reflection is death metal's soul, the 666 grams that makes death metal death metal, even in death metal's most reduced state. And, in the way that classic death metal albums tend to be, Ascetic Reflection is timeless. It could've dropped alongside Altars of Madness.3 It's loud, clangy, thinky death, but also catchy...in a college rock way? There I go again. I'm not saying you should trust me on any of this. Remember: Big Star. I've also, uh, torn a hole in the seat of my gym shorts, and, instead of replacing them, I just walk around with my drawers hanging out like the shlubbiest version of Prince at the VMAs. Clearly, something is not right with me. But this album is about as right as death metal in its most elemental incarnation can be.
Beyond Mortal Dreams - Abomination of the Flames (Lavadome Productions)
A "sonic bulldozer." As far as two-word encapsulations go, it's hard to beat that as a way to explain the power emanating from Beyond Mortal Dreams's Abomination of the Flames. That description comes courtesy of this Australian band's main brain, Doomsayer.4 The guitarist/vocalist said this to Death By Hammer Zine last year: "In an artistic or fantasized mind frame, I like to think of it as a power unleashed as a howl from the void tearing into existence, indiscriminate in its destruction. Or like a sonic bulldozer flattening everything that lays before it. You take that aspect and add some more melodic elements, some catchy riffing that you can walk away humming in your head, and some darker, film score-inspired symphonic elements, and you've got the basic ingredients for the type of music that I try to capture in BMD today." Well, damn, Doomsayer, you said it. I am suitably bulldozed. Bulldoze me, BMDaddy. Abomination of the Flames's seven songs are a joyride atop a souped-up, dimension-hopping Acco Superdozer. Wait, songs? Can I call them journeys? That seems more fitting for multifaceted death metal sagas. But even that doesn't do these journeys justice, especially when they voyage into a quadrant I can only call prime Mithras if it were made strange by space madness. As this blog falls under the jurisdiction of the Weird Metal Committee,5 I am now legally obligated to inform you that Doomsayer was also in Darklord, a supremely underrated black metal band that "play[ed] twin-neck guitars, each neck … tuned differently to achieve a wide range of pitches when playing live." Hell yeah. Darklord was the right kind of weird, using its weirdness as an accent to enweirden well-composed songs. It wasn't weird for weirdness sake. It was weird because it needed to be weird to execute the songs. BMD is similar in that there are some incredibly outré experimental flourishes present on Abomination of the Flames, such as the Jeff Wayne-y6 synth vox on "They Are Seven." But, and this is critical, BMD isn't a flourish peddler. Unlike the bevy of deathcore bands that hide behind ear candy, the flourishes aren't the focus. The riffs and leads are the focus, and the riffs and leads rule. Guitarists Doomsayer and Bloodspawn unite to slay Morbid Angel/Nile riffs with Emperor aspirations and Bal-Sagoth anthemic grandiosity. You can hum it. It feels cinematic as heck. And, if you listen to it once, you get your sonic bulldozer license.
Brutality - Sempiternity (Emanzipation Productions)
The story goes that this was supposed to be the end for Brutality, your favorite Tampa death metal fan's favorite Tampa death metal band. Hey, thanks for listening, here are some farewell songs and live cuts. That's not an uncommon death metal denouement, and it's far more respectable than hanging on for dear life because the merch still does numbers. But then Brutality realized what it had. "It started with us listening to the live stuff at Maryland [Deathfest] and thinking how fucking incredible it sounded, especially with now Jarrett [Pritchard] on second guitar," singer Scott Reigel said in the Emanzipation Productions album copy. "This is hands down the best line-up we ever had and from now on, it's going to be the five of us or nothing." The new stuff sure ain't nothing. You get two new cuts on Sempiternity, and, based on these proofs of concept, you're going to hope like hell Brutality's party of five hangs on. This band is refreshed, recommitted to death metal, living up to the legacy of Screams of Anguish. That classic turns 30 next year.7 May Sempiternity kick off the next three decades.
Chaotian - Effigies of Obsolescence (Dark Descent Records/Extremely Rotten Productions/Me Saco un Ojo Records)
The "OOGH" of the year belongs to Chaotian. The OOGH echoes over a sick riff on "Gangrene Dream."8 It is resplendent in its OOGHness, a shooting star of an OOGH. It is a tiny touch reverberating outward, substantiating Effigies of Obsolencense's trveness. Actually, hey, fitting album title. I love it when a band does my job for me. Indeed, this is an ode to the metal of death of old. These songs writhe like elder horror tentacles shoveling raw star meat into a gnashing beak connected to a hideous body too big for human brains to comprehend. Behold, I yell, with an extravagantly dramatic hand gesture, accidentally tipping over my inkwell and stabbing a quill into my temple. Less poetically, Chaotian sounds like good-era Incantation taking some pointers from good-era Immolation…but modern. Right, Chaotian belongs to a good scene currently in its good era. These Danes are my favorite from the loose confederation of related spuds that includes Phrenelith, Undergang, Hyperdontia, and the like. To me, Chaotian runs hotter than the others, barreling through its brutish death metal with greater force. While Effigies of Obsolencense is old school, it's old school in a different way than OSDM, even donning a proto-BDM heftiness like a battle vest. That might be the best way to sum up Chaotian: It's made of the same materials as any patch that would've been sewn onto the vests of the Dawn of Possession generation, those intrepid angel-dusted hellions who upped death metal's extremity. Not reinventing the wheel, but this wheel is like the one that lopped off heads in Caligula.
Exaltation - Under Blind Reasoning (Sentient Ruin Laboratories)
One of the best things about Sentient Ruin, the label releasing Exaltation's Under Blind Reasoning, is that it always nails the FFOs. Some labels try to con you via RIYL, constructing wild-comparisons honeypots.9 Carny garbage. Not Sentient Ruin. It listens to and understands what it sells. This New Zealand band gets a similar artist rundown of "Immolation, Morbid Angel, Incantation, Deicide, Blasphemy." Yes. Exactly that. Exaltation is at its best when it's doing a warrish take on Diabolical Conquest-era Incantation, mixing in the fast blasts with devastating slowdowns. A less confident band wouldn't dare crawl like Exaltation crawls in the two-minute burner "Exaltation."10 Talk about feeling yourself. That said, this quartet knows itself well enough that the fast/slow dynamics always play. Like any eponymous song should be, it's a killer statement of purpose. Good match of an aware band with an aware label, really.
In Nothingness - Black Sun Funeral (Personal Records)
Long live this mini-revival of heavier melodeath, particularly the outfits with a similar density to Intestine Baalism. Dungeon Serpent will grow into a good band. In Nothingness now joins it on that track to goodness. Indeed, this Japan-based shred enthusiast named Lord Nothingness pairs the weightiness of Baalism with the fiery fretboard forays of Shadow on Black Sun Funeral, In Nothingness's full-length debut. What pleases my ear is the The Jester Race tone of some of the melodies, that medieval majesty that In Flames was too quick to give up on and Obsequiae eventually resuscitated. Now, gasp, some actual criticism: While the blazing leads are likable and the obvious highlight, In Nothingness sounds kind of one note. Analyzing a core sample of "A Nameless Grave" highlights the potential: It really does sound like Jester Race with Benton's vox from Deicide's The Stench of Redemption. I mean, the blueprint is unbeatable: fast, brutal parts crashing into sections with elegant, nimble flurries of notes. However, in practice, these sections feel mushed together, and not in a way that's cohesive. In my mind, clearer delineation would increase the drama and add the tension that all top tier melodeath needs to succeed.11 But, hey, I'm nitpicking. This is fun. The opening riff of the title track absolutely whips. And the drums are already miles beyond Vehemence's God Was Created. In Nothingness has a classic waiting to shred its way out of the void. For now, toss Black Sun Funeral on, tap along to the leads, crush that spreadsheet. Hard to ask for more from melodeath in 2022.
Sedimentum - Suppuration morphogénésiaque (Memento Mori/Me Saco un Ojo Records)
Sedimentum's Encyclopaedia Metallum similar artist tab is already filled with fitting, big-name touchstones for the Quebec City quartet despite Suppuration morphogénésiaque being its debut. Tomb Mold tops the list. Makes sense. Both bands squeeze out grimy death metal and superglue Demilichian spikey riffs to the goo. But that's where the comparisons end. Sedimentum feels 100 percent gunkier. This is grease trap metal, leaving a thick trail of gross on anything it touches. If we were to turn "gunk factor" into a metric, Sedimentum would have a measurement placing it closer to Me Saco un Ojo Records labelmates Chaotian and that band's cousin, Sequestrum. The scuzz, the fuzz, the gnarliness it all does. But it's not just the musical equivalent of what's found in the drain of a wookie's shower. Theses seven songs are uncommonly strong. This isn't a style that requires a robust compositional acuity, but when it's present, it goes a long way. Sedimentum has it, particularly on the crawling "Supplice," which transitions from a slomo doomer to a churning groover with an ease that usually takes bands many reps to master. This year has been loaded with throw-it-on, road-trip, BBQ death metal. Suppuration morphogénésiaque is one of the finer offerings in that life-soundtrack category.
Serotonin Leakage - “TMA-2” (self-released)
Serotonin Leakage has been one of my favorite WTF projects for a long time because the logline is aces: What if synthwave and vaporwave but turbo hyperping goregrind. Here's the thing: "TMA-2" is good. This Pennsylvania experimental goo-grinder doesn't need to try this hard. It could coast atop its concept. Plenty of LDOH disciples do just that. But "TMA-2" is a real, multi-part, six-minute song that is…vibrant. After the trance beginning, it moves into spacey death/doom. Think if Sarpanitum was into early Katatonia. I like Serotonin Leakage's regular mode. After all, there's nothing like when bands blow you away with blasts. But, if Serotonin Leakage is offering, I'd sure take a whole album of ultra-brutal cosmic death/doom.
Sijjeel - Salvation Within Insanity (Comatose Music)
The comedown was going to happen eventually. The last three years of brutal death metal has been one of the style's strongest spans. Old hands like Cenotaph and Defeated Sanity reached new highs. Meanwhile, fresh blood coursed through BDM's veins thanks to transfusions from bands like Anal Stabwound, Focal Dystonia, Kakothanasy, and Urosepsis. This year, though? Pretty pedestrian. Barring a surprise fourth-quarter return from, say, Iniquitous Deeds, 2022 feels like BDM has folded and is waiting on 2023. That's fine. All genres have peaks and valleys. It just sucks to have a valley so soon after such a high peak. And perhaps that's what makes Sijjeel sound all the sweeter, a Saudi Arabia/Germany brutal death battering ram fronted by Focal Dystonia's Floor van Kuijk. True to its relation, Sijjeel smokes, playing a rhythmically rich variant of BDM that's speedy and chock full of chunky Borg Cube riffs. There are some real standout room-shaking slams on this sucker. The riffs and drum programming come courtesy of Hussain Akbar, who does a pretty solid Cenotaph across these eight tracks. When combined with Lukas Kaminski's bass *brangs,*12 you get a polyrhythmic assault that sounds like a wiggling BDM millipede. A highlight in any year, especially appreciated this year. Salvation Within Insanity, indeed.
Vomitrot - Rotten Vomit (Transylvanian Recordings)
This Swedish trio also plays in Gravkväde, the blackened funeral doom band that is very much not this. I guess you could figure that out based on the stage names everyone has adopted: Cave Belcher (drums), Rotted Vomitor (guitars), Vomitroth (vocals, bass). This is ugly, primitive, hellbent-on-caving-in-skulls-with-a-cow-femur death metal with some doomier digressions. Teitanblood at its barfiest is a fair comparison, but really, you only need a single song title on Rotten Vomit, Vomitrot's debut, to orient yourself: "Fossilized Neanderthal Puke."13 Love it. I'm usually not one for metal on the primitive caveman war side, but I can get down when it's cut with potent death metal. Indeed, you can find a lot of rotten death metal chunks in this rancid upchuck. If you can't stomach this, I get it. Only a few of us wish to be bludgeoned by puke. But if you're in need of nastiness, look no further.
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I'm not one to advise aspiring writers because, I mean, look at this slop. However, if there's one crumb of advice I can flick back onto your plate, it's this: If you wait for the perfect time to write, you'll wait forever. Unless you're lucky enough to make writing your main gig and have a block of the day sectioned off to work without interruption, writing is just something that happens in between life events. More often, it happens during those life events. For instance, I wrote that blurb on my phone while I sat in a parking lot waiting for a bad-news update. Not ideal! Still made my deadline. Anyway, my tip is this: start. Even if it's bad, you now have the hardest part out of the way.
That whole column was weird for reasons I'll get into once I get some distance from it.
It is dropping alongside this new Faceless Burial album that also might be a ripper for the ages.
Who is, let me check my notes here, neither cast down, defeated, nor never to rise again.
This is probably chaired by Timeless Necrotears.
Not the first time I've mentioned Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds, an album that scared the hell out of me as a tyke.
I normally dunk on RateYourMusic for the high concentration of weakling poseurs, but did the masses ever get the Brutality reappraisal right? Good work.
There's a reverse mondegreen for a Katy Perry song for you. Try that one out next karaoke session when you're dressed like Herbert West.
Who would do such a thing??? RIYL, Big Star.
I weep for the trifecta. Two out of three, the dreaded near-fecta.
Obviously, ymmv. I don't like a lot of melodeath for this reason.
How many BDM bands are inspired by Mudvayne? I find those nu metallers to be one of the more frustrating bands around, never quite living up to its promise. Like, "Death Blooms" is maybe the best nu song of all time, tapping into a near Voidvodian brilliance. But that's a rare hit in a discography of misses. Just saying, it would be nice for BDM to adopt Mudvayne's better qualities and make the album that band was meant to craft.
I keep reading this in an Anthony Braxton voice.