It’s still cold and I’m crammed to the eyeballs in work. I swear when I get my ducks in a row, one duck takes a good long notice only to tell me to go to hell. These discs preserved my sanity when it wore thin, especially the first one…
MYRATH - Karma
earMusic (2024)
Even the most cynical power metalhead will have to concede these albums as watersheds in the genre: Keepers of the Seven Keys. Blind Guardian’s Nightfall in Middle-Earth. Hammerfall’s Legacy of Kings. Probably. Kamelot’s The Black Halo. Maybe. Tunisia’s Myrath make the case for Karma as another watershed in this oft-derided genre (mostly by me.) As opening castenets echo around opener To the Stars, their barnstorming ‘blazing desert metal’ would win over any crowd, any where as openers for pretty much anyone. Singer Zaher Zorgati is that perfect rough-hewn blend of a soaring Russell Allen (Symphony X) and stadium-commanding rasp of Jørn Lande (Jørn, ex-Masterplan, et. al.), gliding in as bombastic horns rattle the earth in second showstopper Into the Light. Speaking of, they even out Masterplan Masterplan in closer Carry On, replete with sadboi chorus and lightning-quick fretwork.
Yes, there’s a lot of Arabic/North African pop melody here, but god damn it you cannot tell me it doesn’t work. A New Jack swing infecting Candles Cry will latch on to your brain-stem in under a Mos Eisley minute. Likewise the track Disney wished they had on the Aladdin soundtrack, Let it Go. So much of it is 12-point Eurovision fodder but that’s the beauty of this entire record. Each track feels alive with new ideas and motifs, sounding foreign yet familiar, rousing yet grounded. If you haven’t heard this record, you should. Like, right now.
Blood Incantation - Absolute Elsewhere
Century Media (2024)
The much feted Denver, Coloradans ask the question “what if those hippie stoners your dad told you to steer clear from were also death metal” and answer it in mind-alteringly trippy fashion on Absolute Elsewhere. I know scribes have written hard-drives worth of “IT’S PINK FLOYD MIXED WITH DEATH METAL OMG” and they’re right. It’s also Rush, Camel, King Crimson, and a whole bunch of other obscure prog shit I don’t know about and will likely never ever come across, ever. Though compared to some of their psychedelic bretheren such as Sigh for example, it feels a bit safe. You don’t have to smear blood across your face and direct sonic weapons at your audience to get your point across, no. Though for all the writers in a lather about how cutting-edge and groundbreaking this feels, it just doesn’t. It’s great, contrasting and deftly played progressive rock and death metal. One guy sat it next to Sigh and Gorguts, saying it was “ a towering achievement which exceeds all expectations.” Yeah, maybe? It’s good. It’s really good. Best album of last year good. But I don’t think it’s Pet Sounds.
Forgotten Tomb - Nightfloating
Agonia Records (2024)
Let’s say Jonas Renkse in the late 90s visted his government-subsidsed Swedish throat doctor and he (HE???) said there was nothing wrong with his pipes and could growl from Monday until Fredagmsys and beyond. I think that version of Katatonia would resemble Forgotten Tomb. Hailing from Italy (really?) Forgotten Tomb play a forlorn, down-tuned death metal that seemingly died out after the release of Discouraged Ones. A Chill You Can’t Taint’s icy arpeggios recall ye olde Peaceville-era Katatonia, though those delirious wandering passages give way to to some rather extraverted face-melters. Though there’s only six tracks on here, they feel like a whole lot more; a depth and diversity most straight up death metal bands wouldn’t dare touch. (c.f Drifting, the weird synth funeral dirge that sounds like a My Dying Bride offcut) It’s a death metal crew displaying their love for shoegaze and post-punk underneath about fifteen overlapped Cannibal Corpse and Malevolent Creation patches. It’s an Sliding Doors-style experience, for sure.
Amiensus - Reclamation Parts I and II
M-Theory Audio (2024)
This, along with Myrath got a solid run in my Six Stacker of late. It also becomes apparent how the two intertwine with one another - the first disc being about life and death and the second a departure into an afterlife, or altered consciousness. Just a joy to listen to every time.
Progressive black metal (if that’s what we’re calling it) over these two ambitious discs is for want of a better word, beautiful. Yeah, it’s brutal as fuck at times but Reclamation Parts I and II (which should be taken as a whole) feels vibrant, resplendent, triumphant. Just like Wilderun or Disillusion before them, it’s a grand opus that takes in the wondrous spectrum of human emotion while retaining an overwhelming joy. It’s a joy evoked by the simple pleasure of listening to these sounds, as a haze between one’s internal world and the external settles in. A crowning achievement in the genre as it spans so many - folk, neo-classical, thrash, prog - because it will leave you in pure awe.
Kanonenfieber - Die Urkatastrophe
Century Media (2024)
Here’s a new one for ya pally: death metal all about the Kaiserreich’s faild campaign in the First World War… in German. On my first listen, I couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. It felt like Amon Amarth in German with bits of Bolt Thrower mixed in. Sturmtrupp sure feels like Versus the World and Nordic windmilling n’ cosplay to me, at least on casual listen. (Gegen die Welt?) Main man Noise captures the relentless churn of trench warfare in tracks such as Waffenbrüder, opening like still dawn over a bloodsoaked battlefield before the whistle blows to initiate mindless, industrial-strength slaughter in the pursuit of mere inches of territory. There is some pummeling thrash in highlight Gott mit der Kavallerie and blunt force hulka-riffage in a Char 2C sized Panzerhenker. Anthemic yet defeated in Ausblutungsschlacht, guitars crawling across barren landscapes and punctuated with speeches by Imperial Germans, it’s a feast for the ears and the imagination. The closest we’ll ever get to the Great War are grainy photos, gut-wrenching poetry, or perhaps the comfort of a respawn in Battlefield 1. Kanonenfieber take on a grim subject and capture it with fire and intensity few other bands dream to match.
