Jordablod – Upon My Cremation Pyre (2017) / 93%

Sweden rules divine

This young three-piece from Malmö, Sweden possibly released the best black metal album of 2017 with their debut full length album (out on the always reliable Iron Bonehead.) It’s everything I like about the genre in one marvelous package full of riffs and killer atmospheric bits.

While clearly looking at the olde gods of the genre such as Bathory, there’s a definite will to keep things balanced between ancient and actual. That’s something you can find in contemporaries allies such as The Ruins of Beverast or Tribulation. Like those two bands, creating an occult atmosphere was one of the goals they gave themselves and they truly did that with this record. Jordablod do something new but in a subtle way, it’s all in the details. Their style is an amalgam of primal black metal and barbaric (in the best way possible) death metal. It can recall the earliest foundations of the genres where things weren’t written in stone. They play around with different slow-burning atmospheres, some of them can recall the cold feel of pre-Christianity Sweden where Viking rituals were common (“Hin Håle”) while some others are rooted in fast quasi-folky metal à la Melechesh (“A Sculptor of the Future”.). Those numerous perspectives gave this album an additional coating of quality.

Despite those influences, they’re never silly or sugary. It’s done with good taste and a profound understanding of how their music should sound. At times, Jordablod sounds like a more organic Negative Plane. They both took the first wave sound and made it contemporary. The guitars are vivid, in your face and even in the softer, slower moments, there’s stuff happening. There’s absolutely no filler on this record. The guitar tone has this complex otherworldly charm. The band shines on those epic moments (see the conclusion/solo of “Liberator of Eden”) and I think they’re up there with Primordial for this long-winded intense approach to metal. Just like its artwork, Upon My Cremation Pyre is a grandiose, colourful record full of twists and turns

Iron Bonehead - Bandcamp

Weeping Sores - Weeping Sores (2017) / 72%

The pus is mostly gone

The new project formed by two members of both Pyrrhon and Seputus explores a slower style than what we’re used to with those guys. The duo of Moore and Schwegler is joined by a violinist and the instrument adds an extremely sorrowful layer to their compositions.

Their debut extended play is made up of four extended compositions with a lot of stuff happening. The better comparison I managed to find is that it’s midway between the atmospheric brutal death of Ulcerate and the sadness found in My Dying Bride’s heaviest material. It’s a pretty original take on death/doom as it’s mixing both the technical and angular side of modern death metal and the simplified, raw aggression of primal doom/death. The riffs are dense and often repeated (see “The Shadow in the Seer”) till your brain is mush and then, a violin break appears and the mood is transformed. It's not always quite cohesive but I must say I thought the violin is the best thing about their music.

The last track starts with a calm, soothing introduction before delivering loads of heavy riffs. Sometimes it almost sounds like they’re playing slowed down groovy deathcore, it’s peculiar. It doesn’t work all the time but there’s a lot of good ideas found on the record. The fact they succeeded at making a novel sound work is a feat in itself, let’s see if they’ll manage to go somewhere really interesting with their sound.

Bandcamp

Vokonis – Olde One Ascending (2016) / 90%

They do love their craft!

This is without a doubt one of the finest doom albums of 2016. Despite that fact, it took me a while to gather my thoughts and do a review. This challenge is a perfect opportunity to do just that. To me, this album is more satisfying than the entire Sleep discography. I know, this is perhaps hyperbolic but eh, this is great stuff, guys!

The power trio from Sweden sounds like a ton of brick on steroids. Those guys probably eat six to eight eggs a day to maintain their heaviness. I mean, to appeal to the ancient ones, you need to be convincing cultists or they will not answer your dark prayers. Vokonis' prayers are repetitive but highly effective. It’s perhaps their only weakness but they were wise enough to keep the album relatively short for doom/stoner standards. This is mostly the fault of Ohlsson’s vocals, they’re a bit redundant and samey but they do not lack power, no sir. I really love when he goes all in and screams the hell out of those bonkers lyrics (check out the huge closer “Hazmat the Ashen Rider”.) That said, this small default certainly adds another layer of psychedelic stoner to their sound.

Like Conan (the British band, not the character), their main appeal is the power of their sound. The production is an absolute gem and adds ten thousand pounds of pure steel on everything. The guitars, the clear highlight of the record, are Jabba-esque. The leads are also pretty good (like the one minute solo on “Olde One”) as they expand the sound towards proggy fields. Still, a good tone is nothing without good riffs and they deliver on that front too. The lush six to eight minutes songs are never boring and are constantly offering the olde gods something worthwhile.

They're not a slow band either, they maintain a steady mid-paced speed throughout the record as they alternate between groovy as fuck riffs and trance inducing leads. Their doom is simply fun and rewarding.

Sure, what Vokonis plays isn’t the most original style but they do it with verve and talent. Perhaps not as adventurous as a band like Elder, they’re nevertheless as talented and worth hearing.

Rookscare – Ecotone (2016) / 86%

Psych-hick

Rookscare from West Virginia are one of those bands with an interest in melding many different genres to make a new identity for themselves. I can say they managed to do exactly that with this excellent extended play. Ecotone, the zone between two ecosystems fits the wide array of genres they use but also links their southern, rural roots to their theme.

Their Metal Archives doesn’t do justice to what they play but I guess it fits the band since we can’t put an essay in there. They’re sludge in the same sense than Acid Bath or Melvins are sludge as the genre is only a part of their whole conceptual scheme. Rookscare incorporates swampy acoustic passages, progressive black metal, heavy and even trad doom at times. All of this is surrounded by a constant attention to subtle details and a thick layer of psychedelia. The vocal approach also reflects this uncompromising kitchen sink formula, from clean to harsh, they’re always interesting and hostile.

The EP opens with the extensive title track and it’s followed by another long piece before delivering the sludgey, bass heavy to the point closer of “Brother James”. It’s an album full of contrasts but the mood remains constantly depressive and uneasy. It’s like if three hicks were hunting a bunch of jocks from the east coast with axes, sawed-off shotguns while smoking really potent weed out of heavy iron pipes.

Bandcamp

Oksennus - Sokea idiootti (2016) / 84%

Finland is weird. We all know that. Still, I wasn’t quite prepared for Oksennus’ music. I was intrigued by the simple yet out there artwork so I decided to check their sound and I wasn’t disappointed. Most stuff released by Caligari Records is high quality and this is no exception.

Oksennus (vomit in Napero-speech) relies heavily on the excellent bass to build their compositions, the bass is heavy and fast but at the same time, it’s also soft and melodic. It creates some sort of dichotomy with the guitars that are often quite noisy and metallic. There’s this conscious choice to make the rhythm section louder than the guitars and it works well for them. The bass creates the main melodies and the guitars just builds the foundations underneath. It’s a cohesive album, it’s the songwriting that’s just very fucked up and original. They took the current blackened doomy death metal trend, stripped it of everything, burned the house and built a new one from scratch. There’s also this odd technical feel, probably inspired by how they thought Demilich used to sound.

The vocals are mostly deep cavernous howls but the track “Ekstirpaatio” features some clean but ominous chanting, reminding me of a twisted version of Viikate. All in all, like with most metal genres, Finland shows that it’s able to put its own touches to something and make it crazy. Oksennus’ music is cold, unforgiving and worth looking into if like the Finns, you hate everything but saunas.

Bandcamp

Malebranche - Enlisé (2017) / 78%

In Movement

The young quartet from Montréal took their time to produce their first release and it was a judicious decision. They went straight to the EP format and did no demos. That’s fine nowadays where it’s entirely possible to get a great sound with ease. That’s something the boys of Malebranche got right on their debut.

In fact, they got a lot of things right. They got their style right, for sure. At first, I wasn’t quite convinced by their approach but it won me over after a while. Their blend of black metal genres is subtle and effective. They include elements of post black metal without never fully embracing it, same for Cascadian atmospheric black metal. Those two sub genres are toppings to the intense, fast paced black metal style of Malebranche. They’re a good representative of the actual Québec black metal scene as they’re removing themselves from the famous aesthetics. Like Basalte, Eos or Entheos, they’re the new wave of like-minded bands who aren’t afraid of exploring other genres.

Their compositions are dense and even though they’re not really lengthy, they’re epic in scope. The riffs are evocative and varied, the vocals obscure and powerful and the drumming strong and above average. Their sound is midway through traditional blistering black metal and the more subdued, prone to ambient side of the genre. A strong debut.

Bandcamp

The Body/Full of Hell - One Day You Will Ache Like I Ache (2016) / 87%

"THAT'S NOT EVEN MUSIC, MAN!"

Two of today’s most belligerent forces of the underground got together to create this uneasy record. The young quartet from Maryland, Full of Hell, aren't afraid of experimenting and going all in when noise is concerned (see their collaboration with Merzbow) and Lee and Chip from The Body, two veterans of the "we'll do whatever the fuck we want" music academy, gave them the chance to go all in.

Throughout the ten songs, we're served abrasive and explosive music with a wide array of influences. Despite the numerous sounds of "One Day...", it's a coherent record with an overarching theme; nihilism... or a parody of nihilism. The Body are not to be taken too seriously most of the time and from what I've heard, their lyrical approach is based on some very dark humor.

The dirges found here are not letting go of your neck and heart for a bit more than forty minutes. The screeching vocals of Chip King (best name) and the deeper approach of Dylan Walker are perfect voices if you want to invoke total despair. The track "World Of Hope And No Pain" is a short summary of the vocal duality and it hits hard. The misery and pain found on those songs is personal but also universal, it speaks of suicide, depression but in a way devoid of emotional discharge and cheesiness. It's often more self-loathing than pure nihilism, in fact.

One of the highlights for me are the drums. At times, both a drum machine and a real drum are playing at the same time (such as on "Bottled Urn") and it creates an interesting dichotomy of styles and aggression. Sometimes it feels like The Body are using the technical skills of Full of Hell to provide an expansive yet super tight musicianship for their relatively simple but insane compositions. If it wasn't mad enough, the inclusion of short samples of neurotic TV extracts adds another dimension to the whole thing. The last track "Abel" ends with an extended one and it's just creepy. Its brother song "Cain" almost sounds like if Radiohead was actually dangerous instead of catering to boring college kids.

The ability of creating such a wall of sound with so many elements comes from their skill in using a multipurpose blender. From industrial sludge metal, slow powerviolence, striking grindcore to brooding ambient, harsh noise and even some martial black metal, the collaboration just unleashes its venom track after track. Sure, it's not quite accessible and some people would say it's not really "musical" but it's an overwhelmingly great album and it succeeds at all its goals. It's making you feel like shit but at the same time, you enjoy it.