Void Eater - IIII (2019)

•  †  •

There's absolutely no surprise that Void Eater's EP IIII is right up my alley, as it's putrid to the bone black/death metal to the point of mummifying in it's own reverb and calcifying under the weight of itself. Too often adjectives are haphazardly thrown around and I am certainly not above it myself, but one would be out of their fucking skull if they were to try and describe Void Eater without using words like; Primeval war-stomp, barbaric body-slam, bestial blood-doner, antediluvian head-kick, troglodytic beat-down, etc, etc.

Everything about this downward spiral of black/death is impressive and far more oppressive than lesser forms mascaraing under the banner of bestial death metal.

Void Eater - IIII (bandcamp)

Heaume Mortal - Solstices (2019)

•  †  •

Heaume Mortal release a debut record that as from as I have seen has been slapped with the tag of (second wave), and though it delves into this territory the many hands (only 3 pairs total) grab at many genres. Black metal? Sure alright, but there's a whole roundup of sludge abound on here and nuances of doom, death, and maybe even a thin veneer of the darker side of hardcore floating about – Which all makes sense as the guitarist comes from the really great French sludge band Eibon and the singer cut his teeth in the blackened sludge band, Cowards.

There's many ways to cut a watermelon so I'll save the boring details for the refrigerator repair man (not an actual adage) but simply to the point; What we have here on Solstices is a brooding atmosphere swaying to and fro through some really great riffs, really great sounding drums, vocals and all that other stuff that makes noise sound like music.

Heaume Mortal - Solstices (bandcamp)

Combust - The Void (2019)

•  †  •

Very good tough guy New York hardcore. Heavyweight riffs and a kick drum that sounds like a 44 caliber round hitting a church bell all while neanderthal vocal incantations call the majority out for being kitten soft sheep. This is an easy listen if you're in the mood for a stomp or dumbbells are around.

Combust - The Void (bandcamp)

Krypts - Cadaver Circulation (2019)

•  †  •

Krypts has been consistently releasing good records since their inception in mid 2000, but the latest, Cadaver Circulation might be them at their best, full stride death metal married with the plodding gait of doom, giving their songs a more thought-out heaviness over the atypical smash and grab heaviness that is standard fare for typical death metal. There's nothing typical about Krypts and no real missteps to take note of on Cadaver Circulation, and there's definitely nothing subjective about how good this is, if you don't like it for whatever reason, just know that you're wrong and your life is probably boring and you might be a dummy idiot. Finland remains relevant.

Krypts - Cadaver Circulation (bandcamp)

Contaminated / Kutabare Split (2019)

•  †  •

I've been listening to Contaminated's debut album Final Man more than anything else in the last couple months, and though its release was in 2017 I can't find any reason that I missed it when it came out. I'm remiss. Everything within the wall of cavernous death metal is right where I want it, layers of begrimed tones stacked over a guttural churn that is often a troglodytic bellow cutting through super crunchy guitar tones, bloated and fetid while the drumming ranges from plodding dirges to a mirky standard death metal grooves with cymbals that somehow manage to sound really good cutting through the blanket of mire conjured on this begrimed beast from down under. Up there with my favourite death metal albums right now.

•  Ω  •

Contaminated have also released a one-song split with Kutabare this year worth mentioning, even though it's only mere minutes both songs are worth a listen as they both managed to pack unequivocal ferocity into each track, respectively. I'm in.

Contaminated - Final Man (bandcamp)

Contaminated / Kutabare - Split (bandcamp)

Vulture - Ghastly Waves & Battered Graves (2019)

•  †  •

If you're familiar with Vulture's denim dad past you'll know that they are the musical equivalent to microwaveable burritos, The Creep Show and stud laden leather vests all moving at the blurring speed of Satan. This amalgamation of heavy/speed metal with minces of old school thrash and hardcore are right up my alley, especially when it's executed with such Bavarian zeal as Vulture. I wish I went to house parties where the walls dripped sweat of cheap lager, the carpets stunk of cigarettes and Vulture's filth and sleaze was blasting through haggard speakers, and you should too.

Vulture - Ghastly Waves & Battered Graves (bandcamp)

Funereal Presence - Achatius (2019)

•  †  •

A magnificently articulated sophomore album from the dude behind the skin kit in Negative Plan, aptly self-monikered Bestial Devotion, and he hit the hammer on the fucking nail one-hundred times over, in a musical pool that most don't wade in without drowning in their own shit. Achatius is going to stand out as one of those albums that should blow everyone away but probably won't because it won't reach most people, and I'm oddly at peace with that as a result.

Funereal Presence has managed to nail down a marriage between a myriad of genres; black, speed, heavy, occult, death, avant-garde, etc without coming off as contrived slop, which is often times the case when something tries to be too many things at once – Especially within the elitist walls of black metal – It's a fools errand to try and pigeon-hole this, so don't even try, or you'd sure as shit isn't always solid sound like a dick.

•  Ω  •

There's nothing on Achatius I can find fault in, the production is spot on, which is big time important for something of this nature; the drums sound primitive, the guitar tones sound like the gurgling digestive tract of a primordial beast within cathedral walls and the vocals necrotic and have that old-school mix to them. The songs are monolithic both in length and experimentation, cruising through each obscurity with the speed of satan at its back, and not for one fucking second is it dull or tiresome, and those willing to wade through each fetid nuance will be rewarded with one of 2019's most successfully ambitious releases so far, absolutely keeping the underground lit with this blast from the past!

Funereal Presence - Achatius (bandcamp)

Inculter - Fatal Visions (2019)

•  †  •

There's a lot to like about Inculter's 'Fatal Visions', predominantly among them being, it rips hell. No questions asked. Bridging the gap between thrash, speed, black metal and metal punk. Stop asking questions and just get behind this already or forever be a whore. So get into it.

Inculter - Fatal Visions (bandcamp)

Obscuring Veil - Fleshvoid to Naught (2019)

•  †  •

This album has me floored currently. A monolithic slab of avant-garde black metal with a personality crisis and a gargantuan amount of enigma wafting around itself. Obscuring Veil is wholly comprised of venerable musicians from around Europe all cut from varying fabrics of musical cloth, and the musicianship is starkly reflected on each harrowingly twisting track. Obscuring Veil combined is the minds of Wormlust, Death Fetichist, Gnaw Their Tongues, Nattsol, Ævangelist, Ljáin, Craft, Chaos Moon, etc. etc. There is notably some accounting for taste to be made, and yet something created that is bigger than the sum of its parts.

I can throw a bunch of adjectives your way, but I'll distill it all down to this, Fleshvoid to Naught is suffocatingly abrasive, tragically heavy, magnificently eerie, devastatingly hard to digest and devoid of all commonality. I'm all in.

Obscuring Veil - Fleshvoid to Naught (bandcamp)

Fuming Mouth - The Grand Descent (2019)

•  †  •

Fuming Mouth comes in swinging haymakers on their debut, The Grand Descent, and for the most part, most strikes are a critical blow in the arena of metal/crust/doom/hardcore. This is a sound you have heard before, a formula followed by many already with wistful flourishes of their own style - some much bolder than others - Fuming Mouth have landed somewhere in the middle, if not slightly on the more original side of things with The Grand Descent, and I appreciate the fervour in which this characteristic seeps through. This isn't heavy the same way Thou or Floor is heavy, it's heavy in its aggression and cadence. Think of Nails, Black Breath, Hooded Menace, Gatecreeper, etc.

Fuming Mouth - The Grand Descent (bandcamp)