TECH/EXTREME PROG METAL

Overall, another solid album that fans of adventurous music should enjoy. Also, at sheethappenspublishing this is available as LP or CD.

...and the tracklist is up for debate. It seems a bit odd to me, why Pestilence would chose to re-record no less than four tracks from their last album "Exitivm". Re-recordings are usually done to show how a current version of a group plays older classic material, but it seems Pestilence had another vision with "Levels of Perception". "Consuming Impulse" (1989) and "Testimony of the Ancients" (1991) are represented by two tracks each (I guess they didn´t dare leave out "Out of the Body") but that´s the only pre-reformation material featured on "Levels of Perception". It´s not that Pestilence more current material isn´t decent, but it just seems a bit strange to re-record material from 2021 on a 2024 release.

When that is said, there are unfortunately much, much worse things to say about "Levels of Perception" which is through and through a horrible release. I can´t call it anything else than an abomination and a terrible misstep in the discography of Pestilence. The material is what it is, but the performances and some of the new arrangements are tame and uninspired. Honestly it almost made me cry listening to the re-recordings of "Twisted Truth" and "Out of the Body", which are two of my absolute favorite Pestilence tracks, both of which are butchered here (Patrick Mameli how could you?).

But the performances and the weak vocals from Mameli aren´t even the worst here...it´s the production values. The drums were recorded live at one studio in 2021 and everything else was overdubbed at other studios during the next couple of years. Many artists have made live recordings of drums in the studio and have gotten great results from it, but that can´t be said about the drums on "Levels of Perception", which sound like they were recorded at a rehearsal space (and not at a studio like they are) using an old fashioned four-track tape recorder. This is demo quality sound production values. And it´s not just the drums. The guitars feature an odd high end tone which is grating on the ears, Mameli´s voice is distorted and you can´t always make out the words he sings (which usually isn ´t an issue on Pestilence albums), and the bass is completely disconnected from the rest of the instruments in the mix...and bass player Joost van der Graaf often sounds like he is playing another song than the rest of the members of the band.

A pretty harsh critique, which I´m not happy to deliver since Pestilence have long been some of my heroes, but I have to call it like I see it. Honesty and full disclosure. Pestilence have some work to do, to drag themselves back from this disaster. Their next album better be the best album they have released since reforming in 2008 or they may find themselves a fan or two short. You don´t come back from something like this without some careful consideration and reflection in terms of what went wrong, and what should we never do again...a 1.5 star (30%) rating is warranted. I´m tempted to give an even lower rating, but I´m trying to be fair and at least give Pestilence some sort of credit for existing, but there really isn´t much to give them credit for after listening to this album.

(Originally posted on Metal Music Archives).

The EP features two tracks. "Jag är din fiende" ("I Am Your enemy") was at the time a new original Shining song, which would subsequently be included on "X: Varg utan flock", but "No Rest for the Wicked", which is a The Coffinshakers cover, is exclusive to this release. "Jag är din fiende" is a brutal, raw, and heavy Shining track, in their trademark blackened metal style with lead vocalist Niklas Kvarforth sounding as deranged as ever, switching between raw snarling and odd semi-melodic shouting. It´s a great song also featuring some sharp heavy riffs and blistering lead guitar work.

Since "Jag är din fiende" is also available on "X: Varg utan flock" it´s of course The Coffinshakers cover which is the greatest attraction of this EP. Shining perform an almost one to one version of the acoustic horror rock song (which is obviously greatly influenced by Johnny Cash), and it´s not much different from the original version. It´s a bit of a shame really, that Shining don´t manage to put their own mark on the song, because it means that this cover is a bit redundant. It´s not bad by any means, but it´s unremarkable.

"Fiende" is a well produced release but as the only attraction here is more or less "No Rest for the Wicked" if you already own "X: Varg utan flock", I´d say it´s not the most obvious buy even for the hardcore fans. Still a 3 star (60%) rating is warranted.

(Originally posted on Metal Music Archives).

While Shining are probably mostly known as a depressive black metal band, their post-2007 period (from "V: Halmstad (Niklas ang'ende Niklas)" onwards) have featured more and more progressive songwriting, excursions into goth/dark rock territories, and a generally more adventurous approach to writing music, so the release of "Lots of Girls Gonna Get Hurt" really isn't that surprising. Lead vocalist Niklas Kvarforth have always been vocal about his love for melancholic rock artists like Seigmen, Kent, and Katatonia.

The EP opens with the cover of "For My Demons" by Katatonia and although it's the most metal oriented of the tracks featured on this EP, it's actually the weakest of the covers. It's decent but Kvarforth just doesn't hit the melancholic heights and subdued vocals of Jonas Renkse. "Utan Dina Andetag" by Kent is a much more successful cover, and it's great to hear Kvarforth singing pop/rock style vocals with passion and conviction. "Kung Av Jidder" is a cover of Swedish 1980s dark rock/punk act Imperiet, and Shining does a good job with this cover, although the original song isn't beaten. The Poets Of The Fall cover "Carnival Of Rust" closes the EP, and it's a good quality cover, but not terribly different from the original rock song (a brilliant song by the Finnish band), and it's therefore slightly redundant.

"Lots of Girls Gonna Get Hurt" is well produced and upon conclusion I like the idea that a talented artists like Kvarforth stretches his wings and embraces other genres and musical ideas like his done several times before and since...mostly with success. I could have wished for more personal interpretations of the source material, so I immediately would be able to say that it was Shining playing, but when that is said "Lots of Girls Gonna Get Hurt" is still a good quality release and a 3 star (60%) rating is warranted.

(Originally posted on Metal Music Archives).

R.I.P. sounds like no other thrash album I have heard besides Coroner's follow up Punishment For Decadence. On R.I.P. Coroner play high speed neo- classical tinged thrash riffs with virtuosic leads and solos. The tempo is almost entirely fast paced throughout except on the interludes. An intro a few interludes and an outro give R.I.P. some variety and a nice melodic atmosphere. R.I.P. uses a guitar picking style I have only heard on a few other thrash albums mainly Destructions Eternal Devastation and Coroners next album Punishment For Decadence. The sole instrumental Nosferatu is a clinic in neo-classical shredding and definitely would not sound out of place on an Yngwie J.Malmsteen album albeit the much higher rhythm speeds.

The band's performance is excellent throughout R.I.P. Ron Royce's vocals is the low point for R.I.P. and all of Coroner's future releases he sounds like an early incarnation of death metal growls with a more shouting thrash metal style. Fortunately his bass playing is excellent and his playing style has a similar sound to Steve Harris of Iron Maiden instead of following the guitars he sounds like another lead guitar except lower. Tommy T. Baron's guitar playing is easily the highlight of the album he is extremely underrated and has a very unique style that's all his own. The drummer Marquis Marky is quite good changing rhythm frequently with the guitars and provides many fills and fast double kick bass for the time.

The downsides to this album are few but they are definitely noticeable. The production is the typical raw European thrash style with a murky sound and a very quiet volume. While the interludes are entertaining and useful for atmosphere purposes they could have been combined into the actual songs themselves instead adding more tracks to the album. Finally the second half is definitely weaker it sounds like Coroner ran out of ideas and decided to just repeat the formula from the first half albeit less solid.

Overall R.I.P. is a classic technical thrash assault that is almost always overlooked. Best songs are Reborn Through Hate, When Angels Die, Nosferatu, Suicide Command, and Coma. I highly recommend R.I.P. to any person who wants an excellent piece of technical thrash from Europe.

Forged in the fiery pits of hell, VEHEMENZ which features members from various previous bands including Krew, Atopie and Demgoroth unleashed its debut of ravaging black metal that offered a taste of jangly spider guitars of the Deathspell Omega playbook while evoking various German bands like Bethlehem and Agrypnie as source inspiration. Likewise the band showcases a frenetic tremolo based guitar style reminiscent of the typical second wave black metal scene while alternating slower passages with more outlandish rampages.

The band's claim to fame is that it hosts three guitarists which all work together to assault the senses with heavy riffing, spooky arpeggios and distorted dissonance and dismay. The percussion varies from fully fueled blastbeats to more contemplative lackadaisical time keepers just chugging along. Unlike many black metal albums, the bass is quite distinct as the instrumentation allows for cracks in the flow for every sound to rise out of the crevices into an aural spectral range. Most compared to Agrypnie for its song structures, the band's overall sound is like a murky mix of atmospheric black metal, blackgaze and post-metal.

At times the music is caustic and at others very epic sounding with the concluding 9-minute track "Der Traum ... Im Chaos Verient" offering a more relaxed procession through the moods and dynamics VEHEMENZ delivers on their sole release. For whatever reason this band stopped cold after this 2014 debut and has been M.I.A. for the last decade with only vocalist / drummer Furor emerging in the band Heimleiden since. Overall VEHEMENZ delivered a solid black metal release but unfortunately the album also doesn't really stand out significantly in any particular way. Despite the three guitar shtick it's mostly not even apparent that three guitars are clamoring away rather than two. Decent and competent but not original enough to be considered any sort of classic by any means.

3.5 rounded down

Another chapter in the MY DYING BRIDE book but pretty much the same thematic developments as this band that was once wildly experimental between albums has long ago found the perfect comfort zone that seems to keep the fans coming back for more thus showcasing the desire to pacify the buying public rather than risk the golden goose by releasing some fusion of polka-based Gothic doom dance pop or anything of the sort. Au contraire. At this stage one can ostensibly predict without much chance of error exactly what any particular edition of the MY DYING BRIDE canon will sound like and in the case of A MORTAL BINDING, you guessed it! Another slice of oozing doom metal accompanied by Stainthorpe's plaintive Gothic vocal style set to the oozing dread of doom metal with the melancholic atmospheric backing to guarantee another soundtrack of dread and damnation only with the occasional outbursts into death metal.

Augmented by the band's now classic violin backing, A MORTAL BINDING for the most part follows the playbook cemented into place so long ago which means that one can only judge the quality of any particular MY DYING BRIDE release by the strength of the songwriting alone as the performances are always top notch and despite doom metal bands springing up from all four corners of the planet since this band's inception in 1990, MY DYING BRIDE still sounds as utterly unique as it has since day one. As far as consistency is concerned, this band certainly has it with one strong album after another, a few bonafide masterpieces and a few bellyflops in the pool that got drained over night. While A MORTAL BINDING does not reach the lofty pinnacle heights of the band's earliest death-doom works or the lugubrious perfection of albums like "The Dreadful Hours" or "Songs Of Darkness, Words Of Light," neither does it sink to the dreadful lead-lined depths of throwaway albums like "Evinta" or the lackluster mediocrity of many of the 2010 releases.

In fact as a true fan of this band having heard every album and EP, i'd have to say that the band sounds somewhat rejuvenated here with tracks that take a somewhat different approach than the automatic pilot get the job only but not much more albums since "A Line Of Deathless Kings." Sure this is undeniably a MY DYING BRIDE release through and through but the chunky guitar riffing offers a bit more of an energetic upgrade on many tracks including the opening "Her Dominion" and the lengthiest track on board, the 11 minute and 22 second "The Apocalyptist" which evoke the band's return to some of the death-doom sounds that brought them into the world's scene in the first place. The album features all those slow-burners of course with the weeping violin lamenting the tales of woe and despair but the diversity not he album gives A MORTAL BINDING a nice spicy return to the classic style of the band that once had a fiery passion to keep the BRIDE from falling into the grave.

As such MY DYING BRIDE always walks that fine line between exhilaration and ennui as the tight wire balancing feat is something that requires the ultimate finesse to maintain the attention span of an ever-increasing A.D.D. listening public and while the last few albums seemed to simmer on cruise control, A MORTAL BINDING hits me in all the right ways and gives me faith that the band still has a second wind that will propel it into a new era of prosperity however it is true that there will come a time when the band will have to rebrand itself as MY IMMORTAL BRIDE because whoever this mysterious maiden is, she seems to have a life support system and has discovered the fountain of youth while so many have crashed, burned and become buried. While A MORTAL BINDING certainly won't be declared the band's triumphant comeback of the century, it more than offers enough magic mojo by my discerning ears to grasp onto. As i stated it all boils down to the songwriting with this band and on this album the band seems to have put it all together in the right way for my liking. Better than i was expecting to say the least.

Deviating significantly from 2018's "Àmr" which saw IHSAHN approaching a more commercial sound at times, this eponymously titled release looks back to the Emperor years and rekindles the spirit of symphonic black metal only this time he replaces the synthesized embellishments with a fuller orchestral sound courtesy of advancements in sampling technologies. While orchestrated metal albums are hardly anything new, IHSAHN delivers a anew approach that eschews a mere symphonic backing and rather features two independent musical scores laid upon each other resulting in not only a more dynamic symphonic metal approach but also by spawning a secondary release that features the orchestral side of the equation exclusively.

Almost sounding like Emperor is playing over a Hollywood blockbuster soundtrack of some sort, IHSAHN crafts his usual mix of nerdy progressive metal replete with all the avant-garde elements that makes him exist in a world of his own along with the black metal raspy vocals, thundering guitar riffs and percussion to match. The album that features 11 tracks at nearly 49 minutes is reminiscent of some of Dimmu Borgir's later releases that offer an equal playing field for the orchestral musical score that oft soars above the black metal mania. And while the album sounds like IHSAHN has been accompanied by an entire philharmonic orchestra at times, the guest musicians only add up to three additional percussionists and a violinist leaving IHSAHN the chore of handling vocals, guitar, bass and orchestral sampling.

IHSAHN is actually quite a diverse album (would you expect anything else?) with varying tracks that features clean vocal led prog metal as on "The Promethean Spark" to full out raging black metal on such tracks as "A Taste Of The Ambrosia" but scattered throughout are tidbits of pure classical orchestration as heard on the opening "Cervus Venator" and the middle intermission "Anima Extraneae." Tempos vary, dynamics vary and stylistic approach may but the gist of this is a mix of crunchy black metal in tandem with classical orchestrations. Tracks like "Blood Trails To Love" feature a mix of the clean vocal prog metal with the raspy more extreme black. While hinting at Emperor's past glories, the metal on this release isn't nearly as full throttle as such magnus opuses as "In The Nightshade Eclipse."

Overall IHSAHN is a decent album but it's a bit uneven with no clear stylistic approach really dominating. While that can become a good thing if the sum of the parts add up to something more profound, this album seems a bit scattered which at times reveals both the metal aspects and the orchestral ones seem to cancel each other out a bit. The novelty of orchestral metal has long worn off and the execution of this seems less than satisfying. The addition of dreadfully long moments such as the album's 9-minute version of a ballad - "At The Heart Of All Things Broken" is actually really cheesy and i seriously would love to cut that entire track from the playing list.

The album seems to lose steam too much with half-assed percussion and metal that doesn't get up to full force. The orchestral parts just seem to dance around and don't really offer a very memorable experience either in a meaningful way. All in all it's a decent album but hardly one of IHSAHN's best. All the rave reviews about this bely it's downsides. I was somewhat impressed on the first listen but more attentive listening sessions reveal serious flaws that i can't shake. The patchiness of the album ruins its flow but as on all IHSAHN albums there are more than enough moments of triumphant victory. As a true fan i couldn't imagine not owning this but it certainly won't rank as a top contender for favorite IHSAHN releases.

3.5 rounded down

"Catalfalque - Comet" was immediately released but recorded from 1997 - 2002 which served as a transition album between the two phases of the band however by the time the band released its 2009 album "Leavings of Distortion Soul," TENEBRIS had mostly shed its death metal heritage and moved more into the world atmospheric sci-fi themed prog metal that adopted all kinds of various metal styles including a nod or two to its previous incarnation. ALPHA ORIONIS, named after a star cluster in Betelgeuse, followed in 2013 and took the band even further into the world of the avant-garde and experimental with a focus on psychedelic textures, jazz influences and even zeuhl based cyclical rhythms.

ALPHA ORIONIS is a strange album that really doesn't sound like any other. It's a veritable mix of the spacey atmospheric sounds of early Cynic especially when the few moments of death metal come in but through the run of 9 tracks that add up to 46 minutes of playing time, TENEBRIS really dishes out healthy doses of the entire metal universe with different stylistic approaches including totally distinct vocals appearing throughout the album's run. While mostly set to clean vocals, the occasional death growls occur during the more aggressive contrasts but for the most part this is a very atmospheric metallic version of space rock with layers of synthesizers offering subtle backgrounds and even more upfront cases of spacey keyboard runs.

The music can range from somewhat familiar progressive metal in the vein of early 90s Pestilence to very strange groove metal based sounds reminiscent of Nevermore. In addition to the sung vocals are lots of spoken vocals appearing throughout. The music alternates between heavy extreme metal, more atmospheric prog metal not unlike Porcupine Tree's heaviest to pacifying non-metal moments with clean guitars, heavy layers of synth and dreamy atmospheres. While all these styles come and go they usually play out for a lengthy period before changing the mood dial. ALPHA ORIONIS is a true progress metal album in that excels at crafting demanding time signature workouts despite the album's overall flow feeling quite relaxed despite the business of the heavy drum, bass and guitar workouts.

This is definitely a unique album from this Polish band and for those seeking out some of the weirdest and unorthodox extreme metal out there then this album shouldn't be missed. It features a really nice production and a strange procession of metal and space ambient sounds that somehow keep a nice flow with some zeuhl inspired rhythms. Possibly a bit claustrophobic sounding for some and admittedly a bit busy in the atmospheric department with the vocals often low in the mix but all of this guarantees a very strange album experience that won't disappoint those looking for something different. Personally i think this is a great album that showcases as much extreme originality as it does extreme soundscapes. Definitely one for fans of the difficult music listening section.

It´s Phlebotomized first professional studio recording and it means a lot as a listener to be able to hear their progressive inclined old school death/doom metal with better sounding production values than the ones found on their early demo recordings. This is a band with many interesting songwriting ideas and compostional details, which are now audible in the soundscape. In addition to heavy distorted guitar riffs and drumming, the music also features some gloomy/eerie sounding keyboards and a violinist has also been added to the ranks since the last release, which provides the band´s music with another layer. This would unfortunately be Barry Schuyer´s last release with Phlebotomized, because his ultra brutal deep growling vocals are both powerful and well performed.

If comparisons should be made to any contemporary artists I´d mention Pan.Thy.Monium as the band who Phlebotomized have most in common with. The unpreditability of the song structures, the use of gloomy/eerie sounding keyboards, and the adventurous approach to songwriting. This is a band who can go from sounding like a lot of other old school death metal artists from the early 90s (with both heavy mid-paced sections and faster-paced blasting), to playing melancholic/mournful doom/death metal parts, to playing some pretty interesting progressive ideas. All within the same song. Definitely worth a listen this one. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.

(Originally posted on Metal Music Archives).