Dark Lunacy - The Diarist

Although this album had already been out for over two years by the time I looked it up, I still had that jittery, excited feeling that someone has when they first listen to a band’s newly released album. I guess this was because I had come to love and embrace Dark Lunacy and the entire melodic death genre so much that I was extremely excited to hear something new from one of my first death metal bands. With the little background information I could find on this album, I learned that Dark Lunacy still hadn’t obtained a very big fan base and were struggling with album sales even though Forget Me Not did get some positive attention from the media and the Italian metalhead community. The Diarist was Dark Lunacy’s breakthrough album. Although they don’t seem to be very many people’s favorites, they’re one of those bands that almost all diehard fans of European melodic death have at least HEARD OF. At least having your name be widely recognized and remembered is a huge step up and enough to even satisfy some musicians. Dark Lunacy knew that they needed to prove themselves worthy to the world and the exponentially growing amount of European metal bands.

I remember every single moment of the first time I listened to the first track off this album. There was a split second at the very beginning when I thought “did they blow it?..please may this not be a disaster” because of the really weird sounding stuff the choir sung in the crappy sounding recording. The instant that the choir erupted into that major chord, I knew that they had finally done it; I knew that Dark Lunacy had finally come up with something amazing. And although I don’t let my first impressions affect my final opinion, my opinion hadn’t changed a bit when the song ended. This is still a song that I play by itself without the rest of the album because it alone is enough to satisfy me. And not only that, pretty much every song on this album is satisfying enough by itself. But honestly, none of them even compare to the melodic power of Aurora.

If you haven’t read the reviews I wrote on Dark Lunacy’s first two albums, the main problem that those albums had was that there wasn’t much of a balance between the classical elements and the metal elements. The two elements had a really hard time flowing smoothly together. So basically what they did was leave the slightly blended element chunks in the blender until they mixed together so that they could flow together smoothly as a whole instead of two separate parts. You can actually hear lots of classical and baroque influences in what the guitars are playing as well as a less abstract sound in the classical instruments. That alone shows that they’re doing more than just flowing together, they’re flowing together and within each other.

Aside from the newly implemented classical influence in the metal side, the heavier areas follow more of a traditional melodic death sound than the experimentally abstract sound they had before. I think that this change alone has made the music much, much easier to swallow and understand. Another new thing that has been introduced is deep harmonized singing (most notably in the second track, Play Dead). This is another part of the traditional melodic death sound that has been thrown into the flavoring. The growls sound even more powerful and enraged than in Forget Me Not which enhances the darker side of the music.

The Diarist is Dar Lunacy’s best album and Aurora is what I would consider to be the best first impression the band has to offer. This album is filled with depressive melodic death with classical and baroque elements and influences. On top of that, there are beautiful melodic guitar solos, signs of experimentation, and outright beauty. Even though Aurora is my favorite song off the album, other AMAZING tracks are Play Dead, Pulkovo Meridian, Now is Forever, The Farewell Song, and Snowdrifts. But don’t let that distract you from the fact that EVERY SONG ON THIS ALBUM IS PERFECT. And not only that, the album is as perfect as my score. 

Dark Lunacy - Forget Me Not

I’ve written many reviews on albums that I discovered in a particular point in my life. That point in time was from early 2007 to the spring of 2008, which was when I FIRST really actually GOT INTO extreme metal. Many of the first extreme metal bands I discovered at the time were melodic death bands. These bands were Scar Symmetry, Amon Amarth, Nightrage, Arch Enemy, Wintersun (the last band I discovered during that time period), and Dark Lunacy. I found Dark Lunacy on this Pandora-ish website (NOT Pandora) where I found other metal bands like Fleshgod Apocalypse, Vomitory, blessthefall, and Impending Doom. To this day, I remember that the exact song I heard on here by Dark Lunacy was the masterpiece known as Serenity (I’ll talk more about that particular track later in the review). In Dark Lunacy’s first album, they lay down a lot of experimentation with emphasis on the mixture of baroque/classical elements and crunchy melodic death chunks. The unfortunate thing is that they through all those hard chunks into the blender, but they didn’t let the blender run for long enough; so the smoothie didn’t flow with ease and everything wasn’t perfectly mixed together. In other words, the band didn’t put enough effort into refining and perfecting the mixing of the two elements; they had a really hard time flowing together in a smooth and efficient manner. Three years after the release of Devoid, Dark Lunacy puts out their sophomore follow-up, Forget Me Not.

Forget Me Not puts a little less emphasis on the baroque elements and a little more focus on the metal side of things. Here’s the interesting part: there isn’t as much of an improvement on Devoid’s HUGE fault as I would have liked to see. In the track after the intro, the guitars are noticeably louder than the classical instruments; but the classical instruments still seem to be REALLY out of place…but not as out of place as they were in Devoid. The violin in Lunacyrcus cuts through the music with no trouble at all like a brand new razorblade sliding across soft skin. The baroque elements sound a little less baroque-ish and more traditional. That minor change right there made the baroque elements fit the music SO MUCH BETTER! My favorite new element that Dark Lunacy put in is the accordion during the really atmospheric parts.

The BIG improvement that Dark Lunacy made during this album is that every musician seemed to get ten times better in every way imaginable! The new drummer has much more creativity and color in his playing. He also has the ability to play with considerable speed and technicality and use blast beats during the perfect times. The guitarists have a very dark and powerful sound that screams with emotion. The bassist actually plays a MUCH bigger part in the music on this album than on Devoid. The bassist plays little “solos” here and there all throughout the album and he never sounds dry and empty like some bassists do; this guy plays with color. And last of all, the vocalist’s growls fit the definition of truly powerful growls. There really isn’t much else I need to say about the vocals other than that.

The strongest and best song off this album is Serenity. Although this track is broken up into sections that alternate between soft piano ballads and SUPER melodic death metal storms; the song is pretty much 50/50 as far as balance between the two sides goes. I’ve never forgotten the part that the piano plays in the very beginning of the song. It’s one of those things that you don’t have to listen to it to jog your memory, it’s one of those song clips that engraves itself in your memory to the point where you can play it in your head on command and it sounds EXACTLY like the original recording. I wouldn’t be surprised if this particular song doesn’t do that for you, but I’m more than positive that you know what I’m talking about and that it’s happened to you before. Serenity is one of the most melodic and depressive melodic death songs as well as being one of my favorites. And it’s RARE that a single SONG speaks out to me this much; so don’t take what I just said lightly.

Forget Me Not is a HUGE improvement from Devoid, but it still has a whole lot of room for more improvement. Now that Dark Lunacy improved both the baroque side and the metal side of their music, it’s time that they put their primary focus on successfully mixing the two elements together to make something amazing. I would give this album 16/20 for being a very memorable album and for just being awesome. I would recommend this to EVERYONE. 

Dark Lunacy - Devoid

I think that Dark Lunacy was one of the (if not THE) first Italian death metal bands to integrate the local and historical baroque and classical music and death metal (let alone melodic death). Although now there are quite a few other Italian death metal groups that do this (most notably Fleshgod Apocalypse), I haven’t really come up with any good ones that have been doing it as long as Dark Lunacy. This album was released during the turn of the century and has a perfectly equal balance of baroque and melodic death. Although Dark Lunacy has greatly improved since the release of this album, Devoid still stands out to me as being an easily enjoyable listen, especially for someone who loves both metal and classical music.

The album kicks off with a single viola playing a creative line which is then lightly blanketed by the deep, distorted guitars. There are then parts with wordless choir harmonizations that are very far in the background (sometimes barely hearable). The reason why I think that Dark Lunacy has improved since this album is because the symphonic/orchestral/baroque/whatever instruments and elements fail to flow smoothly with the death metal side. Yes, they do make ends meet most of the time, but the two elements need to be able to flow side by side and weave in and out of each other with no hiccups. That’s the big downer about this album; but it’s more understandable because not only was this the band’s first album, it was well over ten years ago. But if you’re looking specifically at this album by itself, the integration of the two elements is fairly weak.

If we ignore that fault that tends to obstruct enjoyment at times, we can find that the songs themselves are extremely colorful, creative, and most of all, innovative. At the time, many people considered Dark Lunacy to be progressive death (until a couple of years later) because of all of the risky and difficult decisions the band made during the writing process of this album. There are many times where it seems like the metal part is in the background and the baroque instruments are in the frontlines. This is still something that I have yet to hear another band do (although I’m fine with it just being Dark Lunacy). I guess that’s why most people that aren’t hardcore Dark Lunacy fans don’t consider Devoid to be the band’s best release; because the classical and baroque elements take control of the melodic death elements a little TOO much. But I don’t really let that get to me except for when it gets to me.

In this album, there doesn’t seem to be anything about any of the individual members that stick out to me. They all seem to be pretty average although they still fit the bill as good melodic death musicians and songwriters. This album has a lot of experimental elements like the baroque and classical elements, certain out of the ordinary guitar effects, and odd song structures. The unfortunate thing is, these experimental elements seem to have been just slapped together without much thought or effort of refining it to make everything flow smoothly. This is a great experimental album, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not what I would consider to be the best first impression. I would give this album 13/20. 

Asking Alexandria - Stand up and Scream

We all have guilty pleasures in music (although I wouldn’t say that I feel “guilty” about any of my likes in music). There are always those bands and artists out there that we absolutely love, but no one seems to understand how they could possibly be liked by anyone. Although I am aware of the screamo genre’s faults (bands), there are quite a few bands that I feel have been negatively mislabeled. A question that numerous people have been asking me for YEARS is “why the hell do you like Asking Alexandria??” Well, this review will explain precisely why I love these guys…particularly this album. I am fully aware that there are “emo/scene” screamo bands that can’t play their instruments to get tomorrow’s lunch money for school. Let me get my opinion across the table so that there aren’t any misunderstandings: Asking Alexandria is NOT one of those bands; if you think they are, I hope you are already aware of how hard that is to accurately prove. With my absolute FAVORITE screamo albums being The Emptiness by Alesana, Lovers’ Requiem by I Am Ghost, Deceiver by The Word Alive, all post-2003 Underoath albums (so far), and This Means War by Attack Attack!, I added Stand up and Scream to that list almost three years ago when I bought the CD. Now let’s talk about the actual music behind this, where to start?

I know that there are plenty of other bands that do this, but Asking Alexandria is one of the first metalcore/screamo bands to fully and SUCESSFULY merge the sounds of electronic techno music with metal. If you can point out some bands that have any pre-2009 albums that did this VERY well like Asking Alexandria did, please drop a comment on this review, because I’m certainly not aware of any. I’m pretty sure that there were other bands out there that STARTED this trend, but Asking Alexandria obviously brought it to everyone’s attention, and did it very well. Another band that did this before was Attack Attack! in their 2008 debut album. The thing with that album is that it was more “metal, techno, techno with a little metal, techno, metal, etc.” Stand up and Scream is either one of the two opposites (techno or metal) or both of them COMPLETELY integrated. The techno used in this album actually more of a “trance” sounding thing than anything else. For those of you that aren’t aware of what trance is, it’s basically techno music that’s really mystical, atmospheric, and melodic. Unfortunately there are some less-than-impressive techno bits in this album; the most bothersome being the 1.75 minute long interlude. I don’t actually know if someone would consider it “bad” techno, it just doesn’t speak out to me in a positive way of any kind.

Here’s something I forgot to mention: if you’re someone that HATES headbanging, especially to breakdowns, this is going to be a hell of a lot harder for you to enjoy because this album is filled with extreme breakdowns. Here’s the cool thing, they all sound different, many of the breakdowns are complex, and they’re some of the best headbanging parts I’ve ever heard in the metal genre. The first track, Alerion, is one of my favorite intro tracks ever; that is not even close to an exaggeration. Although not the BEST example, this track is still a very good example of that trance/metal integration that Asking Alexandria pulls off so well. But before I go into a couple of the individual songs, I need to cover the different traits, qualities, and faults the BAND carries in this record.

The production quality couldn’t be any better; I’ll just leave it at that. Ok, next thing: the best musician on this album is definitely the drummer. I think most of you out there can agree with me when I say that the majority of screamo drummers tend to be mediocre. This guy expresses the ability to flawlessly keep time for the entire duration of the record, pull off FAST and occasionally complex kick drum patterns during breakdowns, and to flow smoothly with creativity, color, and raging emotion. I’m not really someone that can tell if something is generic or not unless it’s the album as a whole that’s generic. For me, if a specific member plays something that’s traditional to the genre, I don’t see how that’s a bad thing; it’s showing that the musician (either voluntarily or involuntarily) exposes the rawness of the genre (sometimes more than others). But on that topic, the Asking Alexandria drummer only does this on occasion; and it’s very hard to notice because of everything that all the other members are doing.

When I think of screamo albums that have amazing vocals, Stand up and Scream is one of the better ones out of the others that come to mind. The growls that Danny lets out (actually sound a lot like mine) are EXTREMELY deep and spine-chilling. The growls that are on this album could easily be put on a death metal album (that’s right, I said it) and sound amazing. Alerion is a track that exposes those growls by themselves to be heard clearly by all ears that listen to it. The screams are nothing short of amazing. The reason why I love the screams on this album so much is because they are clean, relentlessly powerful, they show an immense amount of agonizing emotion, and they’re very high-pitch. These two extreme opposites (deep growling and high screaming) are combined in several places throughout the album. If you thought that was enough, wait until you hear the singing. The singing on this album is a great refresher and reminder for me that the screamo genre isn’t completely made up of auto-tuned singers (although there are a couple of other really good screamo singers out there). The singing tends to be a little more in the higher end of the midrange, which makes it so that his vocals aren’t TOO deep for the music and so that he can’t be mistaken for Michael Jackson.

During the majority of the music, the guitarists stick to technical leads with traditional screamo harmonizations. During the breakdowns (and actually occasionally in the other parts), they play staccato chords in perfect synch with the kick drums. There aren’t any guitar solos in this album, which shows that either the band did feel they were necessary or the guitarists simply couldn’t come up with anything that truly enhanced the music (probably the latter). Regardless of that, the guitarists express their technical and instrumental skills with the complex riffs that are constantly flowing out of their instruments. The guitarists aren’t AMAZING, but they don’t do anything that holds the music down or limits it; which is why I don’t hold anything against them for not integrating any solos within the music. The bassist does something that you actually don’t hear very often; he primarily follows the root note, but plays it along with the kick drums. I’m assuming that this is why whatever footwork the drummer is doing stands out so much. Honestly, this isn’t a bad idea at all, but it shows quite a bit of limitation for what the bassist can do. When he’s not following the kick drums, he’s playing simple lower-end harmonizations with the guitars.

Okay, let’s talk about (ironically) my favorite song off this record, Final Episode (Let’s Change the Channel). If you aren’t already aware, there is a music video that those these kids going absolutely nuts (more than the majority of the screamo bands I’ve seen) while blasting this crushing track. This is a song that takes all of Asking Alexandria’s faces and sides and compresses them into one track. This song has some of the best drumming that you will hear on the album, especially regarding the kick drumming. You hear a fair amount of singing, screaming, growling, and even some yelling by the whole band. The reason why I like this song so much is the amount of energy and raging tension it holds. Most of the time, these kinds of bands build up tension to then let it all go with an exploding breakdown; instead, these guys never let up on the tension and keep the adrenaline within the listener burning at full speed. Assumingly, the lyrics of this song would be the stereotypical “pussy emo” lyrics; but actually, the message is more of a message of anger and the want for remorseless revenge. Towards the end of the song, the tension is dialed down a bit to let in the trance-sounding techno which is then built up, and dropped with one of the most emotional and most powerful breakdowns I’ve ever heard in my life (although it’s hard to imagine a breakdown being “emotional”).

Stand up and Scream is one of my favorite screamo albums because it holds a shitload of anger, tranquility, technicality, musicality, and flat out awesomeness. There’s nothing that I would change about this album except for either changing the interlude or just throwing it out altogether. Even if you hate this kind of music, if you’ve gotten this far into my review to see my 19/20 score, you should at least watch the music video of the song I talked about if you choose not to listen to the whole album. I would actually recommend this to everyone even though I know that many would just turn it down because of the stereotype and reputation this band has, but give these guys an honest try.

Pathology - Awaken to the Suffering

Pathology released Awaken to the Suffering in 2011. Since the release of Age of Onset, Pathology has become one of the biggest bands that have still stuck to the underground brutal death style. I’m not a HUGE fan of Pathology, but I do have a lot of respect for them and I am in love with their sophomore release, Incisions of Perverse Debauchery. Probably the most interesting thing (to me) about the underground brutal death scene is that the majority of the recordings seem to have really high-quality sound! As opposed to the underground (and just most of the overall) black metal bands that have shitty sounding records. I’ve always wondered why this is because plenty of the underground slam/brutal death bands don’t seem to be any more popular than the black metal artists. But I’ve come to accept that the whole lo-fi recordings are just part of the black metal thing. But it still puzzles me how there are bands like Pathology that have always had albums that (quality-wise) sound better than just about every Darkthrone album! But enough about that, what is this record like?

I personally think Age of Onset was a huge deception for Pathology. But that was quickly made up for when they released Legacy of the Ancients the next year, which is a fantastic record. With Awaken to the Suffering, it seems that Pathology hasn’t gotten any better…or worse; they’ve basically flat lined. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing at all…as long as they step up with their next release (which will assumingly be this year considering their release pattern since 2008). There are some differences and changes that have been made since Legacy of the Ancients, but they’re not huge and there’s only a few. One of them is the vocal style. There seems to be a lot more guttural pig-squealed inhales rather than just deep inhaled growls. I’m not really a huge fan of this type of vocal style, but at least they don’t sound bad at all.

Another change that is actually easily noticeable is the increase in the use of breakdowns in just about every song. In fact, the entire interlude track, Prolonging the Suffering, is almost completely made up of simpleish breakdowns. There are also several songs throughout the album that use (dare I say) deathcore-ish styled breakdowns. I’m not sure if Pathology plans to stay on this path for years to come or if they’re just experimenting with the idea. Either way, it actually doesn’t sound half bad at all. It does sound quite a bit different from the Pathology you may remember; but it’s still really good.

Like I said before, the sound quality of this album is pristine and very clean. This is actually the cleanest guitar distortion I’ve ever heard Pathology come out with. Usually, they seem to go for the really crunchy sound; but it seems that they’ve decided to soften things up a tad and give the music the chance to speak more for itself instead of relying on the crunchy distortion for the brutality.

Awaken to the Suffering is a very strong album and solidifies the fact that Age of Onset was just a hiccup in Pathology’s career and not a place they will revisit. I would give this album 15/20. I really hope to hear something that spoke out to me as much as Incisions of Perverse Debauchery did (but of course sounding different than Incisions). I would recommend this album to Pathology fans, brutal/slam death fans, and just flat out brutality fanatics! 

Cease of Breeding - Sounds of Disembowelment

Cease of Breeding is one of Greece’s most brutal death metal bands. I discovered these guys via Amputated Vein Records (like plenty of other brutal death bands). If you want a recommendation of a new SLAMMING brutal death band that will cause your head to explode, Cease of Breeding would be that recommendation. When I first looked them up, I listened to their debut EP and hated it (it actually is pretty horrid). About a year later, I got my hands on a promo copy of their debut full-length, Sounds of Disembowelment. With eight tracks of slamming brutality, Cease of Breeding win my support despite their crappy EP with this album. Although there are plenty of other underground brutal death bands that are far much better like Ezophagothomia, Visceral Disgorge, Disentomb, Bloodboil, Devourment, Cerebral Bore, and Vomit the Soul, this album has been a relief after sifting through almost 30 shitty brutal death records!

This is one of those albums where a lot of the brutality is caused by the sound of the album, not the actual music behind it. I’m not sure if the band did this on purpose, but they completely distorted their amps when recording this record. And I don’t mean a little distortion here and there on the mic, I mean they went WAY BEYOND distorting EVERYTHING; which actually gives the album an extremely crushing sound. The thing is, it doesn’t sound bad because you can still generally hear everything; so it’s not like it’s so distorted that it sounds shitty. It can get a bit irritating after a while for those of you who are sound quality freaks (like me, although I’m more tolerant than most) because it’s always distorted.

The album starts off with a radio call saying “that’s a direct order, do it now” which is then followed by an ear-shredding explosion of slamming brutality. I knew at that moment that this was going to be one of the most brutal records I’ve heard since Reek of Pubescent Despoilment by Guttural Secrete. The musicians and the majority of what they play is pretty generic as far as fucking slamming brutal death goes. But I mean, I love this kind of music; and I guess since I don’t listen to TONS AND TONS of bands from this smallish genre, I haven’t been worn out of the generic style like I have with deathcore. That’s why I wouldn’t particularly recommend this to anyone who isn’t into SLAMMING brutality like Devourment and early Aborted.

The vocals are your traditional semi-pig squealed inhales. These ones actually sound really good and help match the brutality and darkness of the rest of the band. I do wish that the vocals had more of a diverse range of sound because they pretty much always sound the same for the duration of the album. But the fact that they sound really good makes up for that lack in diversity.

Overall, this album is indescribably brutal and is actually fairly strong despite the small amount of faults it holds. I would give this album 15/20. I would recommend this to people who like the most brutal music out there; not so much to the lighter metalheads. But if you are curious, by all means, give this record a spin because it’s good. 

Pathology - Age of Onset

Although Age of Onset is one of Pathology’s most popular albums, I’m not really a huge fan of it. In fact, it’s probably my least favorite Pathology album. Of course, I’ll still listen to this and enjoy it if I’m in a brutal death mood, but overall, this album doesn’t have anything special about it. Age of Onset is one of those albums where if you look at each individual song, its filled with different kinds of anger and rage; but when you look at the album as a whole, you get one boring monotonous song. If you’re new to Pathology, this shouldn’t be your first listen.

The production quality is poor compared to the previous album, Incisions of Perverse Debauchery. The guitars have a different kind of crunch where the treble overpowers the rest of the guitar sounds. This unfortunate downside that the guitars create cause the music to have no mood and/or emotion at all. Although the guitars keep the brutality at high levels, they seem to repeatedly get lost and in their own world; it seems that they’re literally playing random chords in some cases. The vocals are probably the worst. They completely lack any sort of taste, versatility, or emotion. I haven’t heard vocals that sounded this dry since…I don’t know how long…since I went to that California Deathfest in 2009 when I saw some of the worst acts like Orchidectomy and Meat Shits (who are a lot like Anal Cunt in the sense that they’re so horrible and pointless that they’re hilarious).

You can’t tell the difference between any of the songs unless you’re actually paying attention to what track the player is on; that’s how monotonous this album is. Believe me, I’ve seen much, MUCH worse, but come on guys, you release your best album and THIS is the follow-up that you give me?? I know that it may seem that I’m just going on a rant, but this album actually isn’t that horrible, it’s just a bit below average. But the reason why I’m so pissed off is that you’re supposed to try to make a record that’s better than the previous one. But thankfully, they make up for this loss with Legacy of the Ancients the next year which is a fantastic record.

This is an album that can only be enjoyed by the hardcore fans of brutal death. I can’t see anyone else enjoying this album unless they’re completely new to the genre. I know that this is one of their most popular records, but it didn’t live up to my expectations this time. I would give this an 8/20, which isn’t a HORRIBLE score at all, but it’s a HUGE drop from their second album which I gave a 17/20. I wouldn’t recommend this album, but it’s not repulsive, it’s just not impressive. 

Pathology - Incisions of Perverse Debauchery

Having been in the brutal metal mood for the past week, I think it’s time to get some more underground brutal death album reviews out there. Pathology is currently one of the biggest brutal death bands out there that have still stuck with the underground brutal slamming style (the biggest probably being either Dying Fetus or Devourment). Pathology has also continued to be one of the most influential “slamming death” bands out there. I’m one of those people that strongly enjoy all of Pathology’s records, but I think that none are as good as Incisions of Perverse Debauchery. With the very successful release of Surgically Hacked under my favorite brutal death label, Amputated Vein, Pathology started getting offers from bigger labels that wanted to take the band to the next level. After a bit of touring here and there without many updates on the status of a sophomore record, Pathology threw out Incisions of Perverse Debauchery out into the public. The funny thing is that word about this album took longer to spread than Surgically Hacked, but after word about this brutal record finally did get around, Pathology’s fan base exploded.

Usually, a band’s breakthrough record gets close to immediate positive feedback. But with Pathology, it wasn’t really this particular album that is responsible for their “breakthrough” because that didn’t happen until several months after the album’s release. After Incisions was released, Pathology has released an album each year. This is probably made possible because they don’t really tour a lot.

For those of you that absolutely cannot stand inhaled vocals, go away, this isn’t for you. For those of you that can either tolerate or already enjoy inhaled growls, the vocals on this album have a very moist and sickening sound (that being a positive description) that matches the sickening brutality of the music and artwork. Out of all the vocalists that this band has had (it seems like a different vocalist on each album), this is by far my favorite because his growls have grit and juiciness at the same time. You can hear the guttural, moist sound; and you can also hear a lot of roughness in his growls. Sort of like putting small gravel rocks on a REALLY thick, bloody, juicy steak.

I can’t seem to decide if I like the guitar distortion or the vocals more. Probably the vocals because that’s not as easily changeable as the guitar distortion; but the guitars sound extremely crunchy like a handsaw cutting through metal. It’s more than possible to have guitars be TOO crunchy, because the gritty treble can overpower the rest of the sound, making it annoying. But in this case, you can hear the presence of the powerful crunch in the guitars, but it seems that they turned the treble way down so that you can actually hear what the guitars are playing. This is exactly what I like to hear in this kind of music. The drums are fantastic and I couldn’t ask for anything different other than that they could be turned down at some parts because they drown out the vocals in some of the songs. The drummer specifically isn’t any better than your average brutal death drummer. But regardless, the drummer still fits the bill to make this album awesome.

Incisions of Perverse Debauchery is my favorite Pathology record. I wouldn’t recommend this to people not already familiar with the brutal death scene because although this album is great, it’s not what I would consider to be the best first impression. I would give this album 17/20. 

Conducting from the Grave - Revenants

Conducting from the Grave released their second album roughly two years ago and has succeeded to get moderate attention from the metal community. This may come as a surprise to those who haven’t heard this album, but this is one of my favorite deathcore records. Usually, when people think of really non-generic deathcore bands, they think of either being heavier than normal (Whitechapel), or really technical (All Shall Perish). Conducting from the Grave isn’t what I would call COMPLETELY generic, but they do hold a lot of the traits found in almost every deathcore band. Although the deathcore fan might have a much easier time enjoying this record, I don’t see anything in this album that would work as an obstruction keeping someone from enjoying it.

Conducting from the Grave isn’t what I would call “progressive” because the things that they do have already been done before. But here’s what I think about that: there are the bands that create the base of a genre, the bands that come right after that and solidify the genre. Then there are the “progressive” bands, which can either be one of two types. There are the progressive bands that create something totally new off of the already solidified genre base, and the bands that “fuse” the solidified genre with something else. I think that everything done by these “progressive” bands should be re-done by other bands to solidify and attempt to perfect those fusions and/or progressions. The point where it really starts to get old is when there are still NEW bands doing the exact same thing that bands have been doing for 20+ years. I consider Conducting from the Grave one of those bands that is working to perfect progressions and fusions done by other bands, as well as just try to do what the other bands did…except do it better.

The introduction in the first track is played in a soft minor key with very little distortion. After that, it leads into a steady (but not super-fast) tempo with moderately fast double-kicks. The chords and melodies are unique and new in the sense that no one has done the exact same thing, but they’re not new in the sense that they’re creating something completely new. But to be honest, it sounds fucking amazing. The partial breakdowns that the band uses and the guitar melodies are memorable and extremely catchy; which is EXACTLY what I like to hear in deathcore.

None of the musicians are AMAZING, but they all know each other’s strengths and work to cover everyone’s weaknesses (if there are any). The band is extremely tight for the entire duration of the album. The way the drums sound really enhance this tightness the band has during the more complex parts and the slower breakdowns heard in songs like The Tyrant’s Throne and Curse in the Twilight. Speaking of how everything sounds…everything sounds amazing! You can hear EVERYTHING and the word overpowering fails to accurately describe any part of this record. I absolutely love the clean distortion the guitars have; they’re not too crunchy.

This album has technical riffs all throughout the record, but not in the rhythm guitar parts like All Shall Perish. The album has fairly simplistic rhythm guitar lines that have technical lead guitar parts layered on top to give the music some more power. It seems that more and more bands are picking up on the thing that Whitechapel created. You can hear in just about all of Whitechapel’s songs where there is a really edgy and ambient lead guitar part in the BACKGROUND during the slower breakdowns that make them sound so fucking dark and creepy. Well, Conducting from the Grave is one of those bands that have picked up on that trend. But it never seems to get old for me because it’s so fucking cool! I absolutely love it as long as it’s not overused; and most of the bands that have been doing that have been very careful not to overdo it.

Probably my favorite member on this particular album is the vocalist. He doesn’t have the deepest growl I’ve ever heard, but he has one of the scariest and hair-raising growls that could easily be mistaken for an enraged demon. His screams are top-notch and actually fairly high-pitched to make his growls sound that much more demonic when he drops from a scream to a growl. It seems that even though the quality of deathcore music is gradually going downhill, the vocalists seem to be better than ever! Although this album is the exact opposite of a poor quality album, the vocalist on this record should receive TONS of credit.

Conducting from the Grave have proved themselves worthy of getting the “fucking awesome” title by taking that big step up that every band needs to take from releasing an average-quality debut to writing a “fucking awesome” sophomore album. I would actually recommend this to any deathcore fan and anyone curious to hear a very high-quality deathcore album. I would give this 18/20. 

Gorgoroth - Incipit Satan

At the top of the ranks in Norwegian black metal, placeholders include masters like Immortal, Mayhem, Darkthrone, Carpathian Forest, 1349, Dimmu Borgir (yes, I know they’re not pure black metal), Burzum, Satyricon, Taake, and Gorgoroth. Of course, out of all of these, Darkthrone continues to be my favorite alongside Burzum; but that doesn’t mean that Gorgoroth holds no importance in the black metal genre. When asked what my favorite Gorgoroth album is, I can never choose between Destroyer, Incipit Satan, and Quantos Possunt Ad Satanitatem Trahunt (I still can never remember that album title). These albums actually differ from each other quite a bit. Destroyer has the typical shitty sound quality, but it’s insane as hell; Incipit Satan has much better quality and still holds the same immense amount of chaos as Destroyer. Quantos has top-notch production quality, is extremely creative and colorful, but it doesn’t have nearly as much power as Gorgoroth’s older material. If you were to lay these three records out in front of me and asked me to listen to them in any order, I would choose Incipit Satan either first or last, depending on if I wanted to have the greatest first or save the best for last.

Like I said before, the sound quality is pretty good, but not what you would see on a major record label nowadays. The drums have a moderately thick sound; not really heavy, but not weak-sounding. This is actually really good because the guitars don’t sound EXTREMELY powerful either with the more clangy distortion, so they would be easily overpowered if the drums were too much. The drums aren’t SUUPER beefy and powerful, but that doesn’t bother me because there’s still more bass than treble in them, so it’s not like they’re lacking anything. So for those of you that don’t like crappy sound quality black metal for that reason, you need not worry about that in this case. You can hear what the bassist is playing, but most of the time you can’t hear his actual guitar.

The first track starts off with an EXPLOSION of pure black metal chaos. When one of my friends told me that Gorgoroth’s music is insane, this song alone proved his statement (although this isn’t my first Gorgoroth album). The song bolts through, seemingly unstoppable until the one minute mark. Right there, everything goes silent and then a buildup of industrial-sounding electronics quickly lead into the next explosion of chaos. Why was that necessary? What was it that made the band say “that five-second part of seemingly pointless electronics is EXACTLY what this song needs!” What’s the goddamn point?? But after that huge and abrupt road bump, the rest of the song quickly and efficiently makes up for that odd part, almost completely pulling it out of the mind of the listener. I’m not kidding, by the time the song was coming to a close, I had become so lost in the song that I had completely forgotten about that meaningless transition!

The album then continues to roll through valleys of satanic darkness and anger and climb summits of melodic ambience that leave the listener’s ears quenched and satisfied. I’m not going to give a song-by-song review because that’s something that I should leave you to find out for yourself.

The vocalist on this album is amazing. He delivers my absolute favorite type of black metal vocals. The kind that are sort of a mix of a whispery, vocal fry type scream that you hear in metalcore and in Naglfar’s material, and that really dirty sound that Abbath has seemed to take credit for. So not screams that are really mid-ranged, but that are high-pitched and REALLY FUCKING POWERFUL! If you have a bunch of Dimmu Borgir material, listen to Enthrone Darkness Triumphant; those are the type of black metal vocals I’m talking about. Even Attera Totus Sanctus by Dark Funeral might be a better example of what my definition of POWER is.

Incipit Satan is an amazing record and can easily be appreciated by the few black metal fans that haven’t already heard it. This album might be a little extreme for the back metal newbies; but if you’re like me and started off with Behemoth, enjoying this album will be a walk in the park. There aren’t very many black metal albums that are as good as Incipit Satan; I would give this album 18/20.