SHORT REVIEWS Our thirty-seventh (37th) edition of Short Reviews for 2023 finds me grabbing at six notable releases from the second week of October, cut down to notable stuff. 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 and casual 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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Utrecht, Netherlands-based trio Laster had already made the transition to avant-garde/progressive music a few releases prior, arguably taking the plunge out of atmospheric black metal origins back in 2017 or so on their second album (‘Ons vrije fatum‘) but they’d hardly left behind the growling extremity of their origins on celebrated 2019 follow up, gaining some strong likening to groups like Virus and Dødheimsgard but not yet fully abandoning the harsh aspect of progressive extreme metal. Here on album number four they’ve shirked the growled/rasped vocal affect and now feature a progressive rock, noise rock and eerie art-rocking avant-garde metal style of their own. This will not be all that jarring to anyone who enjoys the jagged, maze-like rhythms of weirding rock music and progressive metal and they’ve certainly not left beyond the post-black/post-metal sighted folks in terms of rhythmic intensity. Bass-driven grooves, odd-timed bops, and affected vocals create a surreal sense of bodily motion for this work, that which is both disorienting and pleasurable for its tact of rhythm. The best parts go a bit haywire, such as the math-metallic break and groove of “Vorm alleen” and the worst parts sound a bit like Dutch version of a Persona game’s soundtrack (“Afgelopen tijd”) which, eh, isn’t actually such a bad thing. Entertaining to say the least, but not the sort of record that’ll stick to me for long.

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Malformed are a younger death metal band out of the currently rising Finnish death metal underground. When we look at the early work from Morbific, Disguised Malignance, Cryptic Hatred and Azatoth all of these bands are quite different and this crew stand apart per some of the more interesting riffs and rhythms of the lot with a somewhat modern bite to their grooves and a brutal, slightly technical edge to some of their attack. “The Gathering of Souls” doesn’t seem sure if it wants to go full-on ‘Erosion of Sanity‘ or something Demilich-esque and I like the 2000’s Malevolent Creation sized intensity of their pacing on each piece. I liked that their work is heading in a more technical but putrid direction and the drummer seems entirely capable of holding it all together on this live-in-studio feeling recording which doesn’t do the bass guitar too many favors but provides an accurate enough render of performance. If you’re big on that sweet, gory spot where death metal was headed from ’94-’96 in terms of rotten and ‘old school’ minded but increasingly brutal death I’d say these folks are on the verge of nailing it on this EP.

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Of the eight full-lengths from N. Imperial‘s Krieg the ones which displayed the biggest identity crisis always interested me most… until it seemed complete reinvention had become the process for each new release. The earlier work is dryly straightforward but never better than the broken-winged first (I prefer ‘Sono lo Scherno‘, though) and my favorite was a product the collaborative firsts-and onlys of ‘Blue Miasma‘ (2006) wherein we find a completely different artist sounding Nachtmystium on No Colours in the mid-2000’s compared to the focused verve of ‘The Isolationist‘ (2010) after it, the consensus should probably be that -that’d- been their peak. Today we can generally grasp what the artist brings to his vast number of projects and works, particularly the impressive weirding thing that Twilight was, but when I saw there was to be a new Krieg record in 2023 I had to stop and wonder what anyone could’ve confidently expected enough to be thrilled over it.

The last we’d heard from them in the LP department was 2014’s noisome rock-beaten hustler ‘Transient‘ and it was, eh, not what I’d expected from a collaboration with Alex Poole (Skáphe, Chaos Moon) who returns for this album alongside drummer J. Dost. The first ten minutes of ‘Ruiner‘ was a flatline per my experience until “Red Rooms” found its black metallic space rock pulse, “Manifested Ritual Horror” stumbled and slipped through its eerie rhythms, and the experience began to recall of the weird spectrum of USBM that the artist had been a part of in the 2000’s. The deathrock undertones of “No Gardens Grow Here” / “The Lantern and the Key” are interesting enough beyond that point but I’d found myself flitting between immersion and disinterest depending on the piece, leaving me a bit rocky in my appreciation of ‘Ruiner‘.

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Austin, Texas-based black/speed metal trio Sadistic Force once again impress with a unique and well-curated album cover on this second full-length album, a good eye for a classic cover is always a good sign. Comparable to Wraith in terms of a loud and traditional sound in the general vein of earlier Midnight these folks don’t really bring anything new or interesting to this style other than an enthused style and edgier themes, singing about depraved murder and even a bit of necrophilia on the way down. Where they do kind of edge out of the norm comes with some deeper slides in the black/death metal direction, such as the intro to the title track and the harsher moments of “Marked For Death”. This one won’t impress the riff obsessed or folks looking for truly catchy heavy metal pieces but it does fit the bill for the harder-edged side of black/speed metal.

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Arborescence of Wrath is a brutal death metal band which seems to have been formed by two French guitarists J.P. Battesti (Brutal Rebirth) and Michel Beneventi (Until the Uprising) who have on-boarded Origin‘s Jason Keyser for vocals, the current drummer from Marduk on drums, and a former member of Benighted on bass. The end result of this configuration is a late 90’s/early 2000’s style death metal record in the vein of early 2000’s Krisiun and Hate Eternal‘s first couple of records though the guitarists have some shared love for the classics of USDM otherwise. If you’re familiar with this style of death metal there is no real nuance to insert into it that doesn’t threaten the possibilities of either groove metal and/or Deicide style shout-alongs and they’ve opted out of both for the most part leaving this record very focused but somewhat bland across the board. A needlessly downtuned guitar sound leaves everything flopping about, precise enough but harried in terms of their more technical guitar work, leaving no room for atmosphere or cadence to develop outside of the volcanic machine that hits from to back.

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Blessed Curse are a Sacramento, California-area neo-thrash metal band who’d first sparked up as Devastator in the early 2000’s eventually changing their name in 2010 before putting out a debut LP (‘Blessed Curse‘) on Cyclone Empire back in 2012. For this follow-up they’ve brought back the same cover artist, most of the LP lineup with an additional lead guitarist and new bassist in tow, and retrieved their sound in the process still bearing a bit of circa ’89 Kreator in their aggressive strides and some cacophonic riff moments which remind me of Dark Angel here and there. This album is basically just eh, riffs, one mid-to-fast paced chunker after another with some variation to be found in the lead guitars here and there but most of the album is one down-stroked walker after another before the last couple of piece kick up some extra dirt with Vio-lence style riffs. It may not be the most amazing thrash metal record you’ll ever hear but I’m not about to swat a solid thrash crew off my stereo ’til they’ve had their say and in this case even the rough moments were solid enough.

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