Véhémence - Ordalies (2022)

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Nowadays whenever I see anything that looks like this album (crudely illustrated) or is slapped with a "medieval", "epic" or sometimes even an "atmospheric" black metal tag I approach with the same type of caution Nosferatu might have towards a garlic factory. I used to gobble it up, things of this ilk. But now that I'm a decade older and grumpy it just mostly sounds like overproduced wankery with no real resonance—Aural or otherwise.

Véhémence of France completely deflect any suspicions that this album is just another cookie-cutter black metal record parading around as half-baked pseudo-traditional medieval songs infused with the barbarity of black metal. Ordalies for sure leans heavily into that medieval tone, borrowing chants and melodies that seemingly harken back to the crusades, but it's done with such poise that none of it feels contrived or lame, which is where most of the other battalion of metal bands fail when writing this sort of thing.

Right off the rip this record blasts into a barrage of blistering black metal built upon the back of uncompromisingly frigid tremolo riffs which are layered upon a foundation of equally pummelling drums, both galloping, working eagerly in unison as Hyvermor's vocals scratch some primordial itch. His range (along with the group chants) carry with them a powerful weight. A genuinely antiquated atmosphere permeates every track on this album with absolutely clarity and force, which is really where 95% of the other bands fall short for me. One of the reasons I still like and listen to either Myrkgrav, Windir, Bathory or even old Moonsorrow is that they still strike a chord. No wankery, real fucking resonance.

It's completely negligent to talk about this album without mentioning how defiantly catchy it all is. Catchier than syphilis at the greasy truck stop with a strip-club called "Last Dance at Peeler's". When the first stream came out, I replayed it in full a second time once I made my way through the first listen. I never do that. Now of course that's my experience, but if you disagree you're just wrong man, and that's on you.

This is a mandatory album in 2022, don't sleep on it… Go ahead, play it more than the new Deathspell Omega record… I'd understand!

Véhémence - Ordalies (bandcamp)

Druid Lord - Relics of the Dead (2022)

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I've been meaning to have this new Druid Lord album up on here since it came out in late January but got distracted somewhere along the way. Relics of the Dead is a perfectly executed pastiche of old school death metal a la Immolation with the mid-tempo execution of Disma flanked by the THC soaked doom of Acid Witch with less vintage horror campiness, albeit Relics of the Dead leans into the retro horror atmospherics with just the right amount of profanation—A small example of this can be heard 03:05 into  'Mangled as the Hideous Feed' as that 2-cent Casio chord of gothic organ emanate around a heavily down-tuned and slow doom section breaks through for the remainder of the track.

This album is at it's strongest when it's moving around between this incredibly drooling mid tempo churn to the almost dead-stop dirge, sounding like an impersonation of Ahab playing Bolt Thrower songs at half speed—I see a lot of comparisons to Hooded Menace being thrown around, but unlike Hooded Menace's last album, Druid Lord got the production right. Absolutely nailed down. I'd say it's more in line with Disma's pace, the grime and mire of Coffins, the horror drenched wooziness of Acid Witch with moments of occasionally dipping into the molasses paced territory of Encoffination… Fuck those guys are slow!

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This comes highly recommended, so get listening. "This album is going to make a big splash in the year-end lists this year." —Nostradamus

Druid Lord - Relics of the Dead (bandcamp)

Qaalm - Resilience & Despair (2022)

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I've been sitting on my hands patiently for Qaalm's debut album ever since Hypaethral Records announced it and then benevolently dropped me an early listening link—The small perks of being a sonic traveller is that you can use tact and guile to convince people to send you unreleased records in exchange that you might put together a few (positive) words to promote a record.

Qaalm's aptly named debut 'Resilience & Despair' needs no promotion beyond its sonic achievements. This album is an uncontested aural monolith of doom and sludge coalescing into four towering tracks drenched in dour semi-funeral doom tonnage rife with crumbling sludgy guitars and plodding drums as former Harassor overlord Pete Majors lays waste through that uncanny vocal rasp of his which bears more resemblance to coughing up blood and spewing bile than it does "singing"… totally charged and feral—A similar comparison can definitely be made with doom/sludge zealots as Baton Rouge's Thou and Chicago's Indian in terms of range and grit. 

'Resilience & Despair' is an "Abandon All Hope" sign aimed at everyone. It’s like being sucked into the nether, a slow and heavy trip into the abyss filled with down-tuned guitars and a pummelling energy. That being said, I’d be remiss not to point out the success that this album has when it segues into lighter territory, trading chopping block heaviness for compelling melodies and floating passages—It's the sonic equivalent of sour and spicy. A force meant to awaken and bolster its counterpart, which is done with aplomb here by Qaalm. Devastating heaviness coalescing into something purely atmospherical with a tonne of weight behind it! Abandon all hope.

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Fans of Mizmor, Thou, Ahab, Convocation, Grief and Burning Witch will find plenty to like within the 1-hour+ runtime of this heavy hitter. 

Hypaethral Records (in connection with the esteemed Trepanation Recordings) was incredibly cool to send me 10 free download links for readers (and takers) of Severed Heads Open Minds on a first come first served basis… So big thanks to those guys! Drop a comment here or send me a message through Instagram to claim your download link ya heathens & GET THIS BILLOWOUS DOOM IN YOUR EAR CANALS.

Qaalm - Resilience & Despair (bandcamp)

Qaalm - Resilience & Despair (download link)

Reveal! - Doppelherz (2021)

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Here's an album that is absolutely refusing to be pigeon-holed by arm-chair bloggers and critics alike, a giant fuck you to those of us who feel a compulsion to tie everything down with one of our genre packages—Sweden's Reveal! are one of the rare groups impure and brazen enough to traverse a rarely contested musical swath of influences running the gamut of everything declared under the banner of "Extreme Metal".

Doppelherz is a colourful mosaic of sounds both old and new, borrowed and invented, frenetic and calculated.—Throughout its entirety, creaky cathedral chords reminiscent of Negative Plane and Funereal Presence can be heard, which is not entirely uncommon, but definitely dubious when it's pressed up against something that sounds like early speed/heavy metal a la Mercyful Fate or disoriented black metal and thrash riffs in the vein of Obliteration or Spirit Possession… But somehow these guys fucking pull it off with gusto!

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I'll spare the multitude of comparisons and say this, it feels like this record shouldn't work. Like there's a little too much going on and too many things being pulled and implemented for it to even feel cohesive, but there's just enough structure and swagger to make it work. And I'll be the first to admit, not having this album in my last years top albums of 2021 was an impermissible misstep, but as it usually goes with very late releases in the year, I overlooked and under-appreciated Doppelherz when it dropped mid December.

Reveal! - Doppelherz (bandcamp)