Suffering so you don't have to!
Ixone
I think I’ve reached a point in my… listening of extreme metal if you will, where the wisest thing I can do is go against what my gut tells me about an album. What that actually translates as is: The more I put off listening to an album because I’m not sure that it will be good, the better that album is going to be when I actually manage to get over myself and actually listen to it. I guess that’s one way to avoid complacency in the realms of music… but I digress.
Ixone
It’s high time I leave aside any sort of thought that indicates that I know what I’m doing and just admit that this album left me scratching my head quite a lot. Having bothered to look into the background of Grimovetust before diving into Gates To Heptagon Tower I was certain that I was in for a scratchy, raw record with the most amount of grit possible. That being said, one can only imagine my surprise when the first thing I heard was a rather triumphant synth intro, soon followed by a reverb enhanced, fairly melodic piece of music, closer in sound to First Spell rather than A Blaze in the Northern Sky. At that point I was certain that I was about to have several grapes with this record, but something seemed hellbent on telling me otherwise…
Stargazer Scholar
What makes a Metal song great?
I hope you’ll forgive me for this oversimplification. Despite the obvious personal filter that always comes into play whenever we talk about music, there is still something undeniably universal about the songs that work. You’re welcome to share your thoughts on what this X factor might be (fun fact: we have a comment section), and I promise to provide my own take in the conclusion of this review. But while you’re pondering, allow me to introduce an album that made me reflect on such existential mysteries in the first place. Enter Catharsis, the third offering by the Swedish Death Metal entity Consumption.
As we approach the end of the year, it’s almost time to annihilate whatever remains in the filter, so we can start the new year full of promises and dreams completely out of touch with reality. However, before I do that, there’s still some time to explore what the underground has left to offer this year. In this case, we return to this blog’s guilty pleasure: Death/Doom. Harkane‘s Argo claims to be inspired by The Argonautica, the most boring-interesting Greek epic I’ve ever read. Let’s hope it delivers more action!
SonikGoat
If Kalamazoo, Michigan, conjures the exoticism implied in the phrase “from Timbuktu to Kalamazoo”, then a band name like that of Kalamazoo natives One With The Riverbed immediately signaled to this writer an expectation for something rooted in the ever-growing Post-Metal genre. My mind went straight to ArcTanGent—that stellar UK festival that curates the best of Post-Metal and Post-Rock. Would Succumb merit the attention of the ATG scouts, a surefire marker of rising prominence for any young band?
Metal Eclipse Reviews 