SHORT REVIEWS Our thirtieth edition of Short Reviews for 2023 finds us picking through whatever odds and ends I’d missed in July alongside one (technically speaking) August release. I’ve done my best to showcase the most interesting works that I come across while still presenting some decent variety here but choices boil down to what sticks, what inspires or what is worth writing about. These are more easygoing than longform reviews, so relax and think for yourself — If you find something you dig go tell the band on social media and support them with a purchase! If you’d like your music reviewed, read the FAQ and send promos to: grizzlybutts@hotmail.com

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Originally a staple of New Jersey death metal’s greater underground zeitgeist (and now based in North Carolina) since 1988 (orig. Mortuary) Paul Zavaleta‘s Deteriorot were always a bit hamstrung by the endless comparisons to Immolation and especially Incantation back in the day though to some that’d always been a big selling point since these folks always had more of an early death/doom inspired sense of motion set in mind and certainly distinguished themselves beyond 1993’s ‘Manifested Apparitions of Unholy Spirits‘ EP. On the band’s third full-length album we find Zavaleta‘s riffcraft leaning into three distinct pools in admixture, the most frequent feeling achieved is the thrashing yet brutal side of USDM per the muck they’d arisen from while dipping into ‘Lost Paradise‘ for flourish and Finnish death metal weirding for coloration. Thankfully the Finndeath mode is prominent and stretches deeper than a few fairly obvious Amorphis/Abhorrence nods throughout (“Hauntings”, “The Rebirth”, etc.) and the full listen ends up feeling well-rounded enough, maybe a bit short at just ~33 minutes. The only real flop here for my taste is “Reanimate” which features some of the worst riffs on the record and arrives at a point where they’d needed to hit that song out of the park to keep the momentum of the full listen up. Before you jump into this one I’d say definitely make sure you give ’em due diligence and at least chip into their first EP and ‘In Ancient Beliefs‘ (2001) as well.

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Nashville, Tennessee-based quintet Chamber yank most of their gig from the tropes established during the mathcore, chaotic hardcore and nearby late 90’s/early 2000’s metalcore nodes formed with only the twitchiest muscles activated on this second full-length album. So, these folks aren’t the first to restate this style and certainly not innovating by plugging a few breakdowns into the formula but their energy is up and medium is naturally charged by default per nostalgia and its scatterbrained meth’d out teen edge. A band like this doesn’t need a particularly original touch to succeed but they definitely need to rethink using AI generated images for graphic design especially when you’re approximating photographs of trains and warehouse windows, I mean go any half-abandoned industrial area in the states with a phone, eh? Anyhow, despite the gripes I’d had this is an entertaining enough record that’d recalled my highschooler days surrounded by skunk emo haircuts and communal love for ‘Calculating Infinity‘.

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For their fourth and latest full-length German black metal group Porta Nigra take us to the cusp of 20th century German expressionism, specifically poetry as the polis circled down the drain toward the first world war. Musing over the end of the world with help from Jakob van Hoddis among others we find the band aiming for a well-rounded approach which maintains a thrashing attack with plenty of bounding ‘progressive’/avant-garde black metal fortitude applied. Revolt, revolution and tons of samples taken from speeches and broadcasts (all present in German) from a certain era make for an album which is charged with a morose yet rebellious energy that’d felt scatter-shot until I’d better understood the theme of the record. These folks are experts in terms of arrangements all syncing up into a grand statement per release, retaining a flexible and impressive oeuvre, and all of ’em are fine musicians yet I’d found this album’s density of profound ideas expressed somewhat difficult to approach in depth without knowing much German.

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Kastoria, Greece-based black metal band Temple of Katharsis present a modest take on Hellenic black metal to start but do not exclusively stick to tradition as they variously move into cloyingly sweet guitar melodies, some hints of Swedish melodic black metal edge and a general mid-paced style on this debut LP. For my own taste this sound is ripe with effective nuance despite any particularly grand showing of skill or songcraft that distinguishes their work. “Erasure of Religious Existence” generally finds the right balance of elements yet makes a modest hum of its work and this monotonously whirring flatness continues on with the more directly Norse feeling of “In the Dungeon with the Rats”. The tone of the full listen is dour, cold and stiff rather than mayhemic and in this sense it successfully achieves a general mid-90’s dreariness (think ‘Non Serviam‘) which is otherwise off-set per any specific scenic focus. There are yet some brilliant pieces here which transcend the dryly groaning rhythm guitar tone with riffs, specifically “The Archpriest of the Wolves” and the aforementioned “Erasure of Religious Existence” but you’ve heard it all by the time the back half of the experience rears its head. A good black metal album with a strong stylized idea in mind, there is some potential for greatness here.

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One of the newer groups to spark up in the now brimming Argentinian stoner/doom metal scenery En La Niebla are a fuzzed-over, obfuscated mid-2000’s style group who keep a heavy blues sense of movement applied to their dreadful Sabbath groove. This debut released digitally back in late 2022 but now finds its way to physical reality and should definitely appeal to folks who are big on nearby compatriots Mephistofeles and the evolution of the crispy post-Electric Wizard fallout idea as it churns in the nuclear wasteland of the global underground. Dour, cold, mischievous and leaning into a singular feeling for the duration of this record I’d found the overall sensation of this record both dismayed and lit to the point of plateau, smoked and miserable to a fine point of interest. If this is what they’re capable of running on instinct then I’m looking forward to what they do next.

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Though Vinsta initially formed as a point of folk interest for Austrian musician Christian Höll (Outlawed) the project would quickly expand into progressive metal territory with a 2017 debut oft compared to Opeth‘s ‘Blackwater Park‘ era and this has generally been the first impression from reviewers stumbling upon their work since then. ‘Freiweitn‘ is the third LP from the band and the one to make a few bolder strides in Höll‘s cerebral arrangements, which includes frequent use of hammered dulcimer oft in place of acoustic guitars alongside plenty of dual vocal harmonies. The best pieces for my taste were more focused on rhythmic statement, such as “Vinstas Valonga” (and “Entarische Gstoit”) where the dark prog metal twist to their greater rant was transfixing rather than blissful and folken per the majority of the album’s pieces.

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