Chronicles of Chaos

Album Review: Admiral Angry - Buster

Dan Lake — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

No, you probably don't think you'd buy an album called _Buster_ by a band stupid enough to name themselves Admiral Angry. You probably prize your irony-clad hip indie cred far too highly to engage in that kind of weak amateur bullshit. (8.5 out of 10)

Album Review: Chryst - Phantasmachronica

Chaim Drishner — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Niederwieser is a master of his craft; _Phantasmachronica_, a 47 minutes long single track, showcases his true talent in assembling metal and other musical elements into a unified, exciting, singular product that is as progressive and always ahead of its time as any of Korova's previous albums, but without ever losing the grip on musicianship and coherence. (8.5 out of 10)

Album Review: Deadly Carnage - Sentiero II: Ceneri

Dan Lake — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

_Ceneri_ whips out a sanitized black-death blend whose most effective moments arrive when the players dial back the sonic intensity and make space for their more subtle, (dare I say...) romantic tendencies. (7 out of 10)

Album Review: Falls of Rauros - The Light That Dwells in Rotten Wood

Dan Lake — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Falls hear different voices in the wind and tread different rocks on their own spiritual path. In a world absent of _The Mantle_'s fertile gift, _Light That Dwells_ would make its own distinctive mark on the landscape. (7.5 out of 10)

Album Review: Funeral - To Mourn Is a Virtue

Chaim Drishner — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

This album, although not portraying any new material Funeral have recorded, is a great opportunity to listen to the band's rare and obscure material, having been recorded sometime between 1995 and 2002. (8.5 out of 10)

Album Review: Grá - Grá

Dan Lake — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Is it wrong for a band to just be good without needing to be hyped as essential? Grá have put their hearts in the right place, and probably the hearts of various sacrificial beasts as well, and surely we can applaud that, politely at least if not emphatically. (7 out of 10)

Album Review: Heirs - Hunter

Dan Lake — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Now Melbourne, Australia quintet Heirs are asked to endure the label "avant-garde post-doom." I'm not inclined to disagree, but that's because I don't have a clue what it means. (8 out of 10)

Album Review: Morito Ergo Sum - Moonchild

Chaim Drishner — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Morito Ergo Sum present a four-track, thirty-minutes-long EP of gloom and doom of the highest caliber. _Moonchild_ screams class from beginning to end, starting with the artwork and packaging and ending with the lyrics of this traditional or epic doom meets gothic-tinged metal album of sorts. (7.5 out of 10)

Album Review: Obsequiae - Suspended in the Brume of Eos

Dan Lake — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

All joking aside, there's no other metal that sounds like this: the ancient authenticity of a North Sea privateer's ship ghosting the shores of the Isle centuries after every crewman met his end, which is simultaneously so aware of modern heavy music. (7.5 out of 10)

Album Review: Ritual - The Resurrection

Aaron McKay — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Evident here are subtle undercurrents of Ulver and, at times, a purposefully played, clear sounding Darkthrone with maybe some Burzum elements and a hint of Judas Iscariot. (7.5 out of 10)

Album Review: Smohalla - Résilience

Chaim Drishner — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Smohalla, named after the 19th century native American dreamer-prophet, is a young French outfit, with tons of creativity and the equivalent talent for realizing all this spurting inventiveness, transforming it into a beautifully dark, exquisitely performed, singularly sounding album everybody who's hungry for good, airtight, dreamy music should experience. (8.5 out of 10)

Album Review: Vortex - Rockdrill

Chaim Drishner — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Vortex deliver mostly experimental random sounds, unappealing, devoid of interest, almost arbitrary, flaked with some ritualistic, pulsating, hypnotic, quasi-industrial sounds whose coherence and mild sense of melody could be attributed, loosely, to the concept of music. (4.5 out of 10)

Demo Review: Chromes - And Here My Disgust Begins

Dan Lake — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

If the Converge discography found a girlfriend and wrote her a love letter about how it tried not to kill her but might have done anyway, it would probably sound like this little two-song demo by London band Chromes. (4 out of 5)

Album Review: Blut Aus Nord - 777 - The Desanctification

Dan Lake — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Blut Aus Nord is another major offender in the plot to spur on black metal progress. While early blasphemies reliably transplanted the northern blood into fine wine territory, a turn of century portended the band's turning a creative corner with the distended wrong-note melodies on _The Beast of Mystical Rebellion_ and _The Work Which Transforms God_. (8 out of 10)

Album Review: Charnel Winds - Der Teufelsbund

Chaim Drishner — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Here's another band seemingly having an identity crisis, delivering an inconsistently varied musical material, finding its charm and eventually even its own identity, as ironic as it may seem. (7.5 out of 10)

Album Review: Cynic - Carbon-Based Anatomy

Dan Lake — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT

In the same way that 1993's _Focus_ was a gift of Wyld Stallyn benevolence brimming with sublimated brutality and cyber-spiritual transmissions, Cynic now bestow upon us the _Carbon-Based Anatomy_ EP, a love letter sent back from an age of atavistic bounty in which all sentient beings are "excellent to each other". (10 out of 10)

Album Review: Devius - Orphion

Aly Hassab El Naby — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT

The Argentine tech-death quartet Devius are back with yet another EP, this one entitled _Orphion_, two years after their 2009 debut EP _Infinity Echoes_. (6.5 out of 10)

Album Review: Esoteric - Paragon of Dissonance

Dan Lake — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Esoteric flout all expectations of imminent doom fatigue by constantly finding ways to make their metal marathons captivating. (9 out of 10)

Album Review: Haiku Funeral - If God Is a Drug

Chaim Drishner — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Haiku Funeral is the creation of a Bulgarian black metaller and an American experimentalist and bass player; together they produce, under the moniker of Haiku Funeral, an assembly of varied sounds -- from electronica and psychedelia, through black metal of sorts, to industrial and dark ambient soundscapes. (6.5 out of 10)

Album Review: Her Tortured Embrace - A Car Crash Fascination

Aly Hassab El Naby — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Australian prog-metal group Her Tortured Embrace makes its first appearance in the real world with its debut EP _A Car Crash Fascination_. (7 out of 10)

Album Review: Jungle Rot - Kill on Command

Aaron McKay — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT

The first thing that potentially springs to one's mind when reading or hearing Jungle Rot's title for their brand new release, _Kill on Command_, very well could be stompy thrash brutality of Vio-lence's song from 1998's _Eternal Nightmare_. As it turns out, not a wholly inaccurate deduction. (7.5 out of 10)

Album Review: Leviathan - True Traitor, True Whore

Johnathan A. Carbon — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT

I have always enjoyed Leviathan, but was hesitant to listen to Jeff "Wrest" Whitehead's newest release _True Traitor, True Whore_. For a couple of weeks, it sat on my coffee table silently emanating a glow of hatred. I knew that the time would come where I would be forced top open a world of torment and despair. (8.5 out of 10)

Album Review: Vektor - Outer Isolation

Johnathan A. Carbon — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Vektor is an Arizona thrash band who has been making their way slowly out of obscurity and positioning themselves at the forefront of new thrash metal. The band's 2009 release _Black Future_ was mind blowing, and their follow-up _Outer Isolation_ was only promising to be greater. (8.5 out of 10)

Demo Review: Lion Splicer - Slicer

Dan Lake — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Some sibling relationships are fraught with constant bickering, some with indifference, and some -- yes, just a few -- with awesomeness. Barely-born NYC band Lion Splicer arise from a collaboration of the latter variety. (3.5 out of 5)

Demo Review: Solothus - Ritual of the Horned Skull

Dan Lake — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Death/doom? Yes, please! From Finland? Hell yeah! There's your review, people. (4 out of 5)

Album Review: Altus Astrum - Antediluvian

Chaim Drishner — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

From the black/death metal aesthetics rises this new beast; corrosive, violent, hateful and potent. It finds loopholes and breaches through which is sips its poison by ways of twisted melody, sweet and thick and sick. The metallic parts at times give way to the second beast's head, its melodious character, the atmosphere inducer, the mystery generator of the album. (7.5 out of 10)

Album Review: Animals As Leaders - Weightless

Johnathan A. Carbon — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

_Weightless_ is the band's second release and marks a departure from their 2009 self-titled debut. While the components haven't changed, Animals As Leaders have increased the heaviness in their delivery while allowing the progressive liquid to flow in tubes of iron. (7.5 out of 10)

Album Review: Ghost Brigade - Until Fear No Longer Defines Us

Dan Lake — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Ghost Brigade are only on album number three and already they're lamenting the loss of youth and its dreams on _Until Fear No Longer Defines Us_. Sure, melancholia was a foregone conclusion for a band that has spent the past five years welding über-sad melodies to revitalized Isis riffs, but one expects more abstracted sorrows caused by the general decay of society. (7.5 out of 10)

Album Review: Mastodon - The Hunter

Johnathan A. Carbon — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

With steep inclination towards early '90s alt rock, the band has certainly avoided any trappings of stagnation. Whether or not it is any good is entirely up to the audience. I would make a judgement here, but I have divorced myself from this band. (6 out of 10)

Album Review: Midnight Odyssey - Funerals From the Astral Sphere

Chaim Drishner — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Everyone, from the common metalhead to the seeker of celestial ballads or the aficionado of quality vocal music could be satisfied with this album -- each with whatever part of the music suits them best, either the ambient black metal, the astral sonic-scapes or the singing. (8 out of 10)

Album Review: Mournful Congregation - The Book of Kings

Dan Lake — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

It's true that _The Book of Kings_ offers little that surprises, but the faithful didn't really show up for that anyhow. Funeral doom services are meant to provide comfort: a suitable ambiance for morose contemplation, a perfect cathedral in which to worship. (8 out of 10)

Album Review: Nightbringer - Hierophany of the Open Grave

Dan Lake — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

No matter the blast speed, there's a measured certainty in the drawn, anguished rasps and icy tremolo chords that transcends mere stage presence, as if the Colorado natives had tunneled into the haunted Rockies and discovered an ancient cult of Balrog-worshipping orcs. And then joined. (8 out of 10)

Album Review: Old Silver Key - Tales of Wanderings

Dan Lake — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

This is IT! Drudkh / Blood of Kingu. Lantlos / Alcest / ex-Peste Noire. Folk-flecked black metal, here we... Nope, shit, nevermind, let's start this whole thing over. (7 out of 10)

Album Review: Revocation - Chaos of Forms

Aly Hassab El Naby — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Revocation is essentially a three-piece melodic death/thrash metal band, which means there will definitely be another extra guitar track recorded and either playback or an extra fellow on stage. (5.5 out of 10)

Album Review: Serpent Ascending - The Enigma Unsettled

Chaim Drishner — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Earthly, yes; rotten, maybe; dark, definitely; subterranean, indeed; but also morbid, monolithic and punishing; these are far better adjectives that might describe the music of _The Enigma Unsettled_. Exquisite this music is not. (8.5 out of 10)

Album Review: Skeletonwitch - Forever Abominations

Johnathan A. Carbon — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Skeletonwitch is as filled with horror as it is cult like entertainment. It is complete soul thrashing black sorcery. (7 out of 10)

Album Review: Steny Lda - Steny Lda

Chaim Drishner — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Steny Lda is an all-instrumental group, playing an atmospheric kind of post hardcore meets shoegaze, that, I dare say, reminds a bit the latest work of Hypomanie (this year's _A City in Mono_), with a little bit of Klimt 1918 thrown in. (7 out of 10)

Album Review: SubRosa - No Help From the Mighty One

Johnathan A. Carbon — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

SubRosa's approach to doom is unsurprisingly a throwback style. However, the type of throwback is interesting and unique when compared to the genre as a whole. (6.5 out of 10)

Album Review: The Moon and the Nightspirit - Mohalepte

Chaim Drishner — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

The Moon and the Nightspirit's Agnes Toth and Mihaly Szabo play Hungarian Pagan Folk music dealing with legends, fairy tales and shamanism, and even though the liner notes within the aesthetic digipak are mostly in English, the song lyrics are predominantly in Hungarian. (9 out of 10)

Album Review: Vader - Welcome to the Morbid Reich

Aaron McKay — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

_Welcome to the Morbid Reich_ is every bit as punishingly edgy as anything Vader has done since _De Profundis_ or possibly _Litany_. All the while tightening the production and developing their wickedly attention-grabbing material with its celebrated delivery, Vader hasn't so much as lost a note of their distinguished signature sound. (9.5 out of 10)

Album Review: Warbringer - Worlds Torn Asunder

Aly Hassab El Naby — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

American combat thrashers Warbringer are back with another album that begins with a "w", barely crosses the forty minute mark and contains ten songs. Is it a trend? Or maybe a coincidence? Who cares, it's yet another good piece of thrash for those of us who have the insatiable desire for headbanging. (7 out of 10)

Chat: Fathoms Below - Johnathan Carbon discusses music with solo stoner doom artist Judd Madden

Johnathan A. Carbon — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Australian one manned outfit Judd Madden has made impressive waves as a solo bedroom doom artist. The musician / visual artist discusses the process of writing, recording, designing and producing his two releases for 2011.

Chat: In the Aftermath - Johnathan Carbon unearths his previous discussion with Aaron Weaver of
Wolves in the Throne Room

Johnathan A. Carbon — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Johnathan Carbon unearths his previous discussion with Aaron Weaver of Wolves in the Throne Room.

Chat: The Devil's Triad - Aamonael, creator and proprieter of Avichi, discusses most things with CoC

Johnathan A. Carbon — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Aamonael, creator and proprieter of Avichi, discusses most things with CoC.

Demo Review: Logistic Slaughter - Demo 2011

Dan Lake — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Logistic Slaughter, despite having a name that sounds like the overthrow of UPS headquarters, peddle a muscle-bound brand of death-grind that likes to strut its melodic leads and rhythmic upsets between noisy, blinding blasts. (4 out of 5)

Gig: Ziltoid Invasion, Good Vibrations - Devin Townsend, The Ocean and Rome Apart take over the Sound Stage in Baltimore, MD on October 12, 2011

Dan Lake — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Devin Townsend, The Ocean, and Rome Apart take over the Sound Stage in Baltimore, MD.

Album Review: Abstract Spirit - Horror Vacui

Chaim Drishner — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT

In a way, this album has received the most adequate of titles: "Horror Vacui" is a visual art term that translates to "fear of empty spaces", referring to the white spots or unpainted pieces of cloth or canvas the painter had forgotten to fill with color. (9 out of 10)

Album Review: Absu - Abzu

Johnathan A. Carbon — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Whenever discussing USBM, Absu is an obvious entry in conversation. Along with Von, Goatlord, Profantica and Demoncy, Absu is one of the older entries in the US first wave as well as apart of a strange collective of early Texan black metal bands. (6.5 out of 10)

Album Review: Arvet - Aijna

Chaim Drishner — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT

The black metal brand employed by Arvet is an okay form of metal of the semi-melodic versus the semi-raw kind, without losing the aggressiveness factor for one second throughout the recording. (6.5 out of 10)

Album Review: Dead in the Dirt - Fear

Johnathan A. Carbon — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Eleven and a half minutes. There is something very mean and very vile somewhere in the South. (7 out of 10)

Album Review: Deep-Pression - Postmortem (Modlitwa Za Zmarlych)

Chaim Drishner — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT

These recent Deep-Pression releases pretty much all sound alike, employing reflective loops of spoken verses, electronica and monotonic strumming; generating hopeless, wretched atmosphere drenched in mystery and flirting with tragedy. (6.5 out of 10)

Album Review: Excommunicated - Skeleton Key

Aaron McKay — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT

The bottom line upfront is this: _Skeleton Key_ is definitely the album to match or overcome for 2011's metal effort of the year; just that, plain and simple. End of discussion. (10 out of 10)

Album Review: Fleshgod Apocalypse - Agony

Aly Hassab El Naby — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Fleshgod Apocalypse didn't actually resurrect Wagner from the dead because it's impossible; instead they added some very evil-sounding orchestrations in all the tracks. (8 out of 10)

Album Review: Heavy Lord - Balls to All

Chaim Drishner — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT

The third full-length album by Heavy Lord is probably the most sludge-oriented of them all; the band has shed almost all the thrash metal elements it had bestowed upon us with the debut _From Cosmos to Chaos_, where the fine balance between sludge, stoner and thrash was the thing that actually made it work. (5.5 out of 10)

Album Review: Judd Madden - Drown_ / _Float

Johnathan A. Carbon — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT

It is sometimes odd to receive a promo from an artist you already have in your library. Judd Madden is a Australian graphic designer with as much musical spirit as visual.

Album Review: Necro Deathmort - Music of Bleak Origin

Dan Lake — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT

You've spent hours grinding corpses, hailing Satan, and stickin' it to The Man (whichever Man doesn't like your music and volume preferences); now let _Music of Bleak Origin_ dial back the aggression without relinquishing the leaden atmosphere. (8 out of 10)

Album Review: Nocturnal Fear - Excessive Cruelty

Dan Lake — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT

If any mirror-shaded, steel-studded patch-bazaar-on-parade ever pinched my harmonics, Nocturnal Fear might be that band. (7 out of 10)

Album Review: Opeth - Heritage

Aly Hassab El Naby — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT

The Opeth that opened our eyes to something exciting and expansive with its seminal album _Blackwater Park_ unfortunately does not exist anymore. What we have now is Opeth.2011, which is hardly similar to Opeth.2008 but doesn't sound anything like Opeth.2005. (4 out of 10)

Chronicles of Chaos

Album Review: Admiral Angry - Buster

Album Review: Chryst - Phantasmachronica

Album Review: Deadly Carnage - Sentiero II: Ceneri

Album Review: Falls of Rauros - The Light That Dwells in Rotten Wood

Album Review: Funeral - To Mourn Is a Virtue

Album Review: Grá - Grá

Album Review: Heirs - Hunter

Album Review: Morito Ergo Sum - Moonchild

Album Review: Obsequiae - Suspended in the Brume of Eos

Album Review: Ritual - The Resurrection

Album Review: Smohalla - Résilience

Album Review: Vortex - Rockdrill

Demo Review: Chromes - And Here My Disgust Begins

Album Review: Blut Aus Nord - 777 - The Desanctification

Album Review: Charnel Winds - Der Teufelsbund

Album Review: Cynic - Carbon-Based Anatomy

Album Review: Devius - Orphion

Album Review: Esoteric - Paragon of Dissonance

Album Review: Haiku Funeral - If God Is a Drug

Album Review: Her Tortured Embrace - A Car Crash Fascination

Album Review: Jungle Rot - Kill on Command

Album Review: Leviathan - True Traitor, True Whore

Album Review: Vektor - Outer Isolation

Demo Review: Lion Splicer - Slicer

Demo Review: Solothus - Ritual of the Horned Skull

Album Review: Altus Astrum - Antediluvian

Album Review: Animals As Leaders - Weightless

Album Review: Ghost Brigade - Until Fear No Longer Defines Us

Album Review: Mastodon - The Hunter

Album Review: Midnight Odyssey - Funerals From the Astral Sphere

Album Review: Mournful Congregation - The Book of Kings

Album Review: Nightbringer - Hierophany of the Open Grave

Album Review: Old Silver Key - Tales of Wanderings

Album Review: Revocation - Chaos of Forms

Album Review: Serpent Ascending - The Enigma Unsettled

Album Review: Skeletonwitch - Forever Abominations

Album Review: Steny Lda - Steny Lda

Album Review: SubRosa - No Help From the Mighty One

Album Review: The Moon and the Nightspirit - Mohalepte

Album Review: Vader - Welcome to the Morbid Reich

Album Review: Warbringer - Worlds Torn Asunder

Chat: Fathoms Below - Johnathan Carbon discusses music with solo stoner doom artist Judd Madden

Chat: In the Aftermath - Johnathan Carbon unearths his previous discussion with Aaron Weaver ofWolves in the Throne Room

Chat: The Devil's Triad - Aamonael, creator and proprieter of Avichi, discusses most things with CoC

Demo Review: Logistic Slaughter - Demo 2011

Gig: Ziltoid Invasion, Good Vibrations - Devin Townsend, The Ocean and Rome Apart take over the Sound Stage in Baltimore, MD on October 12, 2011

Album Review: Abstract Spirit - Horror Vacui

Album Review: Absu - Abzu

Album Review: Arvet - Aijna

Album Review: Dead in the Dirt - Fear

Album Review: Deep-Pression - Postmortem (Modlitwa Za Zmarlych)

Album Review: Excommunicated - Skeleton Key

Album Review: Fleshgod Apocalypse - Agony

Album Review: Heavy Lord - Balls to All

Album Review: Judd Madden - Drown_ / _Float

Album Review: Necro Deathmort - Music of Bleak Origin

Album Review: Nocturnal Fear - Excessive Cruelty

Album Review: Opeth - Heritage

Chat: In the Aftermath - Johnathan Carbon unearths his previous discussion with Aaron Weaver of
Wolves in the Throne Room