Metal playlists from the underground
Sinewy streams of unrelenting funeral doom come courtesy of veteran UK unit Esoteric via their latest offering, a two-disc, over 100 minute affair entitled THE MANIACAL VALE. Adorned with a twisted sense of ambience and an eerie aura that creeps into your head and takes control, this ambitious endeavor’s hypnotic waves of dissonance resonate with […]
Newbie UK metal mavens Sylosis employ a myriad of modern touches to their latest offering, a disc heavily steeped in thrash metal’s golden era of double-barrel ambushes. CONCLUSION OF AN AGE blends the musicality of Trivium, Strapping Young Lad, Shadows Fall, and Megadeth with a bevy of blistering Exodus-esque solos (“Stained Humanity”), volatile vocals (“Withered”) […]
Necroblaspheme delivers a vicious barrage of muscular death metal intensity and foreboding doom metal juxtaposing on the nine-track DESTINATION: NULLE PART. Chock full of slamming grooves (“Sorry for Us”) and brazen flashes of technicality within a well-structured metallic paradigm (“Descent’s Genesis”), this French outfit’s off-kilter atmosphere stems from the ferocious flurry of tempo changes and […]
Swedish metal squad Closer aren’t ashamed to wear influences on their sleeves, as A DARKER SIDE OF SALVATION purposely plays like an amalgamation of Soilwork and later-day In Flames with dabs of Scar Symmetry and The Haunted strewn in (“Chaos Internal”). Despite this 10-track release containing its fair share of cringe-worthy similarities to the aforementioned […]
Sticking to their roots, Greek black metal troupe Naer Mataron unfurl an expected mix of blast beat mayhem, evil vocal croaks and shrieks, and wrath-inducing tremolo-picked guitars on their most recent album PRAETORIANS. This 11-track release maintains the authentic black metal template to a fault, retaining the genre’s trademark rawness sans any progressive tendencies. Making […]
Crippling Canadian quartet Beneath the Massacre is a dizzying deathcore troupe whose latest 10-track enterprise DYSTOPIA jackhammers sweeping guitar runs, feral blast beat drums, and vicious vocals into your cranium for over 30 minutes. And when it’s over, what does the listener retain besides one hell of a headache? Not a whole lot, actually, although […]
Featuring six tracks connecting a pulled-back brand of black metal with massive Pagan and symphonic overtones, Polish one-man band Hellveto lays down a multi-layered metallic strike with NEOHERESY. Able to switch from tremolo-picked rage to serenity-laden subdued with relative ease (and more importantly with the audience following along), this disc possesses both a savage grace […]
Norwegian metal merchants Enslaved have put out their most progressive album to date with their latest (and tenth!) offering, the eight-track VERTEBRAE. Far removed from their primitive origins, this squad’s psychedelic rock meets black metal approach takes Pink Floyd into the catacombs for a swirling sojourn into lands discovered by the likes of Opeth (“Ground”). […]
German Pagan metal veterans Suidakra are back with a rousing nine-track presentation titled CROGACHT. Authentic Celtic instrumentation (bagpipes and tin whistles) and epic death metal collide to bring the revered Irish myth of Cuchulainn to life with a flurry of orchestral metal providing the dramatic soundtrack. Fortified via a well-balanced mix of crushing Viking metal […]
Harpoon is a Chicago-based duo (now beefed up to a trio) whose grindcore meets metal batterings are backed by programmed drums, an element that sets a definitive tone for DOUBLE GNARLY/TRIPLE SUICIDE. Coming off as sterile and clinical when artificial beats become inhumanly overbearing (“Throngs”) despite maintaining a crushing concoction of blasting guitars and glass-gargled […]