Suffering so you don't have to!
You see that art, and be honest with me—you think this is going to be an old-school Death Metal trip. What if I told you that you’re wrong? That for once, the art lies. Wouldn’t that make you curious? Well, Open Kasket still plays your expected extreme Metal with a hammer, but Trials of Failure is hoping to surprise us in more than one way. And though, at this point, I feel nothing could surprise me anymore, I’m willing to believe!
Oh wow! We already have a new Sepulchral Curse album. It feels like yesterday when the band released Abhorrent Dimensions. So far, I only have good things to say about this Finnish pack—they deliver massive and evil Death Metal with zero remorse. However, it’s always been evident to me that the band could take another path. Maybe in Crimson Moon Evocations, the Finns will show us old-school Death Metal in a different way. Or maybe I’m just being hopeful…
When I open my magic mailbox, I start salivating because this promo had everything a snob wanted. French? Check! Post/Black Metal? Check! Band members with no names but initials instead? Check! But most importantly, has the band been embroiled in drama as intense as the album? Probably. So here we are, ready to dive into Zéro Absolu and its album La Saignée. It’s basically a French supergroup, so of course, our expectations can’t be realistic.
Well, I wonder what comes to mind when you hear the name Rats of Gomorrah. It’s quite vivid, isn’t it? But is Infectious Vermin as biblical as the band’s name might suggest? No, of course not! In Metal, brutal words are often used as salad dressing—they enhance the experience, but we could also do without them (this is the part where you confess you haven’t touched a salad in years). I know you’re here for the rats, so let’s get to it before wrath takes over again.
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.
Pegah
“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”
― Haruki Murakami
The Wrath Within is the second full-length album by the German Doom Metal band Atramentum. The album’s title reflects themes of inner turmoil and personal challenges. The cover art’s color palette complements this concept: red symbolizes anger, conflict, and bravery, while the black lines evoke grief, mourning, and death. The two wolves featured on the cover embody duality, representing opposing forces such as fear, anger, and sorrow versus love, hope, and peace.
Aren’t you excited? We finally get our first Post-Metal heavyweight of the year! I’ve been a fan of Harakiri for the Sky since III: Trauma, and though I enjoyed Arson and subsequent releases, it just hasn’t felt the same ever since. Enter Scorched Earth, an album that promises to erase all my doubts and put Harakiri for the Sky back into killer-track territory. There’s good reason to have hope because no other band can portray hopelessness as well as this one does. So let’s believe one more time!
It’s hard to stand out in the abyss of common tropes Black Metal often falls into. I know I repeat this often, but it’s genuinely difficult to be surprised lately. How many ways can you play a blastbeat before it becomes background noise? However, Scitalis seems to disagree with me. With Maledictum, its goal is to defy expectations while staying true to the kvlt essence of the genre. Being a Swedish band, I might be a tiny bit biased, but isn’t that what a review is all about? An exercise in bias? Alright, I’ll save the philosophy for later.
Look at that art! Doesn’t it look desolate? Doesn’t it make you feel like Phrenelith is going to obliterate your ears so badly that you’ll actually start wearing earplugs at concerts (as a hearing expert, I highly recommend you do it anyway)? Ashen Womb promises what any Danish death metal album would: unfathomable agony and horror. But can it really stand out from the crowd? Let’s find out!
Pegah
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.” ― George Orwell, 1984
Metal Eclipse Reviews 