Short Reviews | April 24th, 2024

• SHORT REVIEWS • Our fourteenth edition of Short Reviews for 2024 releases finds me grabbing at six more releases from the ~first week of May. This year Short Reviews will arrive every ~1-2 weeks dependent on how many extra releases are worth talking about. // These are more easygoing and casual than longform reviews, so relax and think for yourself. 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. — 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

The dark side of Barcelona, Spain-based crew BARBARIAN SWORDS‘ two album overflow, ‘Fetid‘, offers the atmospheric dread and filth-ridden stalk of black/doom metal which they were originally known for. A remarkable swap made beyond the black-thrashing aggression of ‘Anti-Dogma Megaforce‘, this album returns to the sinister dread and hellish landscapes which they’d been perfecting since 2011 and as such this album feels remarkably confident in its riffcraft and the poisonous wrath of its vocal cadence. As with all of their efforts a taste for raw, abrupt ‘old school’ sounds and ancient atmospheres all factor into the mayhemic motions here though I’d found find this to be their best produced and most refined recording to date. The tone of these songs range from exploratory mayhem to tragedian horror depending on the piece though most all are lead by the vitriol of the vocalist, who glues all together within pieces which spread their interest in broad and sometimes varietal strokes, such as “Genocidal Theogony”. While I was already familiar with what these folks had done in the past this and their complimentary but different 2023 release have made a fan of me in further development of each sound.

Portuguese artist MONS VENERIS deliver another exceptional out-of-hand and unexpected release in an uninterrupted string of evolutionary output, this time around they’re approaching the altar with weirding experimental black metal. Now active under this name for just over twenty years and only more recently stretching the boundaries of the raw black metal they’d advanced with for the first fifteen or so, this record finds the band reaching for an avant-garde voice and kicking off the first ~half of the record with a 21+ minute song and a set of three songs which echo the off-color chord choices and mangled rhythms that song deploys. I’d first caught wind of this band’s work with their untitled 2021 EP and have followed each release since then, finding this one the most complete thought so far and a worthy experimental sound.

Nuked to Hell but commanding their own chest-beating and grindcore shocked form of bestial death metal this French quartet bring a huge sound with ear-scorching leads on this debut mLP. Originally released as a cassette tape back in early December of 2023 and now hitting a vinyl release hopefully the hype circles this imposing Parisian band and we hear a lot more from them as we know these folks from Venefixion, Regarde les Hommes Tomber, and Sépulcre among other bands gave riffs to serve even beyond this level. Though this release might give the impression of “war metal” adjacency per the chaos involved but their nuclear energy isn’t necessarily black metal related in any sense and as such I’d found it consistent, tightly played and brilliant for a debut statement.

Bergen, Norway-based doom metal quintet BISMARCK were at some point labeled stoner/doom metal along the way though their sound generally resembles elements of atmospheric sludge, post-metal, and psychedelic doom metal on this third full-length album. The effect of their work is simple enough in its reach that it should appeal to fans of Dwaal and to a lesser degree Ocean Chief in terms of rough-edged aggro delivery meets spaced and often easy-going movement. Certain pieces on this record reminded me of Minsk at some point, mostly ‘Echoes‘, but either way don’t head in expecting a traditional form of doom here, nor a stoney band in any sense as they deal in modern and eerie sounds exclusively. As the more aggressive side of the band wanes beyond the first track their sleepier ambient/psych-doom metal inspired side (“Kigal”, “Ocean Dweller”) caught my interest more often.

This German pagan black metal band from Nerrath (Cross Vault) has a rich history spanning simple beginnings as an oaken atmospheric black metal project into a full folken pagan black metal group with a notable streak of records under their belt in the last ten or so years. This is the tenth album from the artist is a continuation of the catchier ‘epic’ melody driven muse of the last three albums, all which’ve been very well received for their folken, almost Primordial-esque touch which is held together with a sort of Sognametal type flair at times. He has his own sense of dramatic/epic melody, a prideful or sentimental sensibility which I greatly appreciate so I don’t have any actual complaint here as a fan of most all of his releases. If you’d wanted something drastically different from the incredibly tuneful ‘Mohngang‘ (2020) this doesn’t distance itself from that realm but there are a few songs which experiment with different sounds which sticking to representative melodicism.

This split LP features two of the more compelling German death/doom metal bands of the last few years with Berlin-based funeral death/doom metal quintet URZA already on my radar after their exceptional ‘Omnipresence of Loss‘ (2019) record, which’d stunned me upon release, and the somewhat more melodic Leipzig rooted folks CALLIOPHIS hitting more recently with their third album in 2021. Each band contributes two sizable songs and because of this they’ve each provided more than enough immersive value to pull in the extreme doom metal ear at funereal pace. In fact they are so well matched in terms of production values and sluggish movement that they’re almost -too- similar at face value. Any fan of this style will appreciate the more signature of each once they’ve taken a closer look, my preference being with the more funereal drift of Urza, though I’ve found Calliophis have become more impressive with each release.

https://urza-doom.bandcamp.com/album/dawn-of-a-lifeless-age-split-with-calliophis