The Six Stacker - Time Decorators, Inc.

One of my well worn lines when trying to pick up women online is that “music is how we decorate time,” which I think I stole from Arthur Koestler or someone much smarter than me. If they kind of swoon at that, then I’m in. Well, at least I think I am.

It’s cheap trickery, like a coin disappearing behind one’s ear. It also gets really, really fucking tedious hearing oneself say the same shit, over and over. Perhaps in the same way a band hears their signature tune played every night, an actor reciting the same monologue each performance. Or is it a comfort? An opportunity to make new memories within a familiar context? Isn’t that kind of what music is? A constant tug of war between nostalgia and novelty? I mean, Livin’ on a Prayer we complain about when Zoomers blast it across the PA at a pub for the seventeenth time. Yet, you’ll be god damned if you aren’t tapping your toes, reminded of some debauched night in a dim watering hole, a memory blurred by booze and the march of time. I mean, it’s why we keep our music on our shelves - for that far away land we call later.

Dreamgrave - Presentiment

This album was released in…2014??? What? How the hell did I miss this? Hungarian prog metal act Dreamgrave evaded the radar pretty hard if it took over a decade for me to cotton on. What begins as fairly innocuous Dream Theater worship in Black Spiral, helter-skelter time signatures and bottom-heavy synth wankery abundant, dissolves into an ethereal mist of death metal, avant-garde, and and experimental sounds that seemingly died after Pain of Salvation went all 70s for some reason. Memento Mori is all about that Scenes from a Memory jazz fusion guitar/organ/synth (fig)jam ish but gets more diffuse and ethereal as the album spins on. Hell, even the same song ends on a sparse hymnal accompanied by lonely grand piano.

The Last Drop Falls is balls-out heaviness and pinch harmonics which cements, at least in my brain, this is a metal band above all and not some art student self-love experiment. However, you can enthral any flavour of metalhead on this album by hitting shuffle. Middle Eastern sounds infuse this track like incense does your pothead mate’s couch; Orphaned Land comes to mind, especially in the more complicated sections. Then it segues into noir-like slow jazz. But it works, god damn it, it WORKS!

Hell, every track could be its own self-contained mini-album if you wanted to stretch your imagination that far. False Sense of Confidence takes on haughty Opeth and Dream Theater riffs and plays chess with them while seeing them fumble over what they think is checkers. Though, vocal entanglements between Domotor Gyimesi and Maria Molnar are the true stars of the show.

It’s not an over-the-top THIS IS A STORY ABOUT AN ELECTRIC CASTLE YOU STUPID DUMBASS Ayreon style of concept album. But there is a concept buried there, somewhere. Soprano cleans tempering guttural death growls through a tempest of riffs and arpeggiated leads in Presentiment (song) engender confusion and longing which, I was about to say hadn’t been this well articulated since Anathema’s Weather Systems, which was only two years old when this came out. Discovering back catalogue music is weird when you think about it. But worth it.

Gorod - The Orb

French tech death wizards Gorod waste zero time or fucks on mood building on The Orb, possibly their finest disc in their body of work so far. Chrematheism just bursts out your speakers on all fours, ripping and slashing at anything in its way. Flipping through the liner notes, a well of nostalgia springs eternal inside, as X-ray images of skulls and torture devices abound, reminding me of the days of late 90s minimalism as spearheaded by ex-Dark Tranquillity guitarist and graphic designer Niklas Sundin. This all occurs during a tripped-out solo exchange between Nicolas Alberny and Mathieu Pascal, a twin attack that the world will notice.

Oblique riffage and lines of guitar prowling and pouncing like crouched tigers is the order of the Orb, with the spectacular title track murmuring with synth and achieving an explosive full bloom with guitars blazing and vocals reaching stratospheric peaks, making for one of the best metal songs of the entire year. The hits keep coming in the dervish-like, Sepultura inspired Savitri, riffs firing bursts as natives dance around sacred bonfires. Old school meets tech death (Victory, Scale of Sorrows) more often than not; they even pull of an honest to goodness 3/4 waltz in the aptly named Waltz of Shades,

Gorod seemed to be overlooked during the rise of Gojira and djent in the early ‘10s - but sleep on them no more. This is S-tier stuff.

Voyager - Fearless In Love

This sentence is so brand new and foreign it may as well be in another language: Voyager, an Australian progressive metal band, represented our country at Eurovision this year.

Let that marinate around your brain for a second.

This band, who were slinging 80s style prog tunes in dingy bars about a decade ago and fighting for middle-orders on festival bills, were seen by millions of Europeans (and Australians, I suppose) “playing” (no live instruments allowed, as per EBU rules) single Promise. It’s a total Eurovision track too; staccato synths, OTT jump-around vocals, throbbing guitars, and big, bombastic choruses designed to stick to the innards of your skull for as long as possible. It works as a prog rock track as much as an old school pop track. One wonders why the collective talents of Voyager - notably songwriters Simone Dow and Danny Estrin - don’t just write hits for starlets and collect the cheques in perpetuity.

The thing is, people accusing Voyager of watering themselves down don’t really know Voyager, Jack: opener The Best Intentions is as heavy and melodic as they’ve ever been. Estrin’s sultry, sublime pipes floating like silk over crunchy guitars and sawtooth keytar synth is and always has been Voyager’s signature sound. Each track has its own character, its own texture. That’s why Voyager are the darlings of the prog scene and can also have a brief wonder ‘round the red-carpet of the pop world.

Voyager is doing success the Voyager way - get on board or don’t - but if you choose the latter, you’re definitely missing out.

Sepulchros - Vazio

Portugal’s Sepulchros just want to crush your soul into atoms. Vazio is four (technically six) tracks and thirty-seven minutes long and is a pure, untempered vein of doom metal oblivion. The eight-minute Marcha Funebre sounds like the ravens atop a wrought-iron cemetery gate, warning you off with their caws. If they were going for “what rotting from the outside in feels like,” they fucking nailed it.

Drenched in reverb, Magno Chaos could be the backing to a futuristic cyberpunk occult gathering, a melding of old and new. Their roiling, heaving sounds recalls Agalloch if they could get any more depressed (they couldn’t) and raw old school black metal threatening to decay into absolute entropy. It’s atmospheric, nigh-on-sludgy, dreary stuff. TO, you’ve signed another belter. Well, you know what I mean.

Ashen Horde - Antimony

Here’s a concept you definitely haven’t heard - an album delving into the Victorian-era murder of aristocrat lawyer Charles Bravo at his stately London mansion, the Priory. Did his wife do it? Or did he commit suicide by accident? Either way, it was death by Antimony, hence the title. (Oh, and Niklas Sundin did the cover art. Go figure.)

Each track looks at one suspect or character in the murder scene, with opener Summoning hashing out their statement of intent; doleful October Tide style riffs, leads that recall the opulence of Novembers Doom - then you’re pummelled with searing old school death metal double kick and quick-draw arpeggios. The Throes of Agony does its resolute best to snarl like a death metal beast afflicted with a side-case of prog chops. That’s only about two minutes in and I’m hooked like a kid on chocolate cake. Ashen Horde do their fair share of genre-hopping with next track The Consort thrashing things up not unlike their compatriots Nevermore (RIP) did way back when, albeit with gnarled death vocals. That wide-assed groove you’ll never find anywhere but here.

I think this is why I (and so many others) dig this disc so much; it has that US chugging, piercing axe-driven sound ala Nevermore but balances it with Euro-weirdness like Gojira or even swampy riffage with a passing familiarity to Mastodon. There’s so much going on beneath the surface - which also reminds me of oddball heavy trippers Martriden and experimental thrashers Trials. Their fresh approach to extremity is none more evident in highlights The Physician or The Courtesan. Just excise the last track, an unwelcome (and accidental) shitty cover of Knives by Therapy? and you have a nigh-on masterpiece.

Burial Hordes - Ruins

If I had been sleeping on Greek black metal gods Rotting Christ as long as I have Burial Hordes, I would have punched my Easter bougatsa in its creamy custard ass. It’s “blackened death metal” as far as the ear can hear. I mean if I stepped into a venue and this was playing, I’d expect battle-jacketed corpsepainted dudes with flying-Vs cementing themselves on stage. Though abrasive, In The Midst of A Vast Solitude does break itself down with half-time middle-8s and hails to Satan. Perish tears itself apart in its dissonance, making the most chaotic Ulcerate track look linear and bound by steel. Infinite Sea of Nothingness could make the case for its black-metallic nature, striding with that one and one-half time groove Rotting Christ or even Emperor made famous in the late 90s. Purgation and its falling-upward double-kicking cascade of arpeggiated hatred is another upside-down cross in the black metal box. But fuck me; if a black and death metalhead can’t see eye to eye on this being a top to toe banger, there’s no hope in the world. Ruins will fuck you up, and properly.