• SHRT REVWS • This condensed version of short(er) reviews focuses on releases arriving in June, there will only be one of these this month. This time we’re covering melodic death metal, stoner doom, black metal, viking/pagan metal, blackened metal and more. // In an attempt to be more conversational 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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Paderborn, Germany-based melodic death metal quintet NIGHTBEARER return for a third full-length album once again centered around the classic early-to-mid 90’s Swedish style of the sub-genre and girded by a theme surrounding the His Dark Material trilogy of novels from fantasy author Philip Pullman. The first few songs that greet us on ‘Defiance‘ give the impression that they’ve made a deeper lean into melodic death metal and less of the chunking Boss HM-2 chainsawed stuff but they do eventually get there (“One Church Over All”) and the majority of the album waffles between or blends lead-driven melodeath with choppier pure death metal grooves. As always their balance of heaviness and searching atmosphere is potent if not forgettable beyond a certain point. I like that they’ve been ambitious with the sound design, chorales, and such but I’m not sure what they were aiming for within the ~10 minute “Ascension”, which accomplishes less than the ~3 minute lead driven melodic death instrumental (“Until We Meet Again”) that follows in three times the stretch. I’ve enjoyed this band quite a bit in the past so I was torn on this one as it feels like their skills have steadily improved (and this record sounds better than ever) but the songs don’t necessarily deliver anything all that alluring, at least nothing I’ve not heard a hundred times before. As was the case with the Deserted Fear record from earlier this year I like this style and what these folks are doing with it but I’m not sure their own voice is as loud as their influences.

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For this fourth full-length album German black metal act IMHA TARIKAT appeared to be ramping up their inspired credo beyond 2022’s ‘Hearts Unchained – At War With a Passionless World‘ based on the messaging and imagery surrounding ‘Confessing Darkness‘ yet the actual result is kinda rough this time around. While the general tempo map and movement of this album is compelling enough each of the performances appear a bit lost and naked within a glossier render, tacking on vocal layers and guitar effects which make fairly dry, sometimes kinda messy playing (“Voices of Bitter Epiphany” intro, “Chamber of Sin” leads) appear sparse and disconnected. The drumming is interesting in that the capture of the kit sounds heavily edited but raw/real at the same time and this is well-emphasized by the strangely backgrounded state of the rhythm guitars, leaving the vocals as the barking head of their greater beast. Lead guitars are generally lacking across the board here… and I could go on a bit more but you get the idea that I didn’t connect with this album nearly as much as the last. Still pretty shocked that this one just didn’t land at all with me.

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Polish black metal duo THANATOREAN is a newer project from the folks behind Ars Magna Umbrae and Cultum Interitum which differentiates itself quickly. You’ll likely recognize K.E.‘s hand if you’re familiar with his main project, particularly when the atmospheric ebb of this album’s second half hits, but ‘Ekstasis of Subterranean Currents‘ is generally all over the place with its irregular flow of ideas and soon becomes very difficult to sum in just a few words. Opener “The Descent” impresses outright for its roaring, grooving then surprisingly melodic jog-paced resolve though this isn’t the full momentum of the experience so much as the point where the possibilities first begin to broaden. Scribbled-out leads and dissonant riffs gild the occasional arc of riff here as the guitars remain the main focus while the vocals are distantly coughed from above and variously shouted in a cleaner tone. The composers hand is adept yet rough cut in its rhythms, a scarifying and demented hand applied to its scrawl yet the result is unavoidably atmospherically charged and doesn’t always measure itself a “riff album” first and foremost. This changes here and there: “Thrice-Hexed” is a fine example of a classic black metal feeling rhythms distorted in many different ways, “Bound Beneath and Beyond” slows to a mid-paced step and applies just enough torsion to wrench out something off-color, and I’d particularly enjoyed the incorporation of distorted bass guitar and its prominence mid-album (“To Abyss Sacrosanct”, etc.) as the ~39 minute run of this record takes us to many a destination. Disorienting in effect and dramatically stated throughout its eclectically charged motions Thanatorean‘s debut is memorable in that it covers ample ground without ever feeling rested within any one given point, a black metal album which flows through its accost while accumulating a menacing, declarative tangent along the way. Give this one more than a first impression to communicate its wiles, I think I was on my third full listen before it’d clicked even a bit.

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For their twelfth full-length album since 1992 Bergen, Norway-borne quartet HELHEIM have split the songwriting duties down the middle between H’grimnir‘s first half (‘HrabnaR‘) and V’gandr‘s second half (‘Ad Vesa‘) which represent Side A and Side B respectively with four songs each. Not only have they penned each side themselves but their own vocals feature on their own material, a feat we can consider a great alternative to disparate side projects which ultimately cannot help but sound like Helheim in both cases. Taking a sometimes avant-garde directive on his half H’grimnir‘s work is broad in scope but gemlike in each moment served, this is best exemplified on the brilliant “Sorg Er Dødens Spade” which stands out as something unlike anything around it yet fittingly within a sort of prog-black headspace. It also serves as a fine example of the band’s rhythm section being brilliantly professional in every case. “Mennesket Er Dyret I Tale” is perhaps more recognizable as derived from the signature Helheim sound in some sense, a folken black metal song with blasts and somewhat distorted guitars which strike down with some of the best riffs on the album mid-song.

If the soul of Helheim appears ripped apart by these events then we find V’gandr piecing the soul back together on ‘Ad Vesa‘ in taking an equally effective step through the hook-driven “Fylgla”, probably the most memorable piece on the album for my own taste and not only for its guitar work but the finesse of the drums and the choral vocals used in the second half. I particularly enjoy V’gandr‘s vision for Helheim‘s sound, experimental in a different sense with a dramatic hand applied, and I think the use of unusual chord voicing on “Hamingja” exemplifies this to some degree. While it is a busied and ambitious Side B I’d appreciated that each song felt singular, different in tone and instrumentation even if they’d come from the same hand. As a longtime fan of the group I’d appreciated that both halves of this record not only represent the group well but dig a bit deeper for unheard-of, experimental or outright catchy moments throughout. While many musicians who’ve been active as long as these folks tend to find a place of absolute comfort and rest Helheim still appear inspired, generating even more personal depth with each release.

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The last we’d heard from this CDMX, Mexico-based space-faring quartet was a collaborative album with the folks in Rezn back in 2023 but today VINNUM SABBATHI are flying solo on their latest 10″ EP, a release themed around missions which set Mexico into the space age circa 1985, as they’d launched their first satellites and astronauts into space. If you don’t know the Spanish language at all the extended use of sampled speech throughout most of this three song ~20 minute record, particularly the preamble within the first two pieces, won’t tell you much but the spaced psychedelic doom jam that arises crafts an unmissable vibe as they set out into the unknown. ‘Intersatelital‘ offers what these folks do best in terms of jammed and spaced psychedelia with some doom in its step and in this sense we’re there for the experience and less so the riff. Though I am not an effective Spanish speaker I’d been able to pick up enough to understand and the rest is history in terms of the Morelos satellites and the STS-61-B mission. I’m always up for this level of music made to depict historic events though I don’t know if there is much lasting value here beyond a handful of listens.

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Depending on the listener you either know Phoenix, Arizona-based stoner doom metal crew GOYA for their noisier stoner/sludge beginnings in the 2010’s spanning three full-length albums or for member’s involvement in Spirit Adrift over the last several years. ‘Obelisk‘ (2015) is the one to check out if you need context as this new record is surprisingly different, polished of its maximal atmospheric reach by a pretty damn fine Jack Endino-manned render and given a slick ‘modern’ sound to suit this decidedly more melodic album. They’re kinda gunning for that ‘Curse of Conception‘-styled vocal melody outright even as we drop into the mourn of opener/title track “In the Dawn of November”. I dunno if I’d have lead with that song in particular but the miserable sludge/doom metal bastard ache of this record is all-consuming anyhow, carrying a blues-braced Electric Wizard-esque bounding through a few Monster Magnet worthy hooks along the way. Since I’d not listened to this group in ten years I’d barely recognized them to start but in this case we get a wiser, deeper-thinking result with a huge sound to carry it through. Though the lyrics don’t do much for me I’d appreciated the heft of the recording and the tightened songcraft of the band here.

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