• MASSIVE REVIEWING CAPCITY • is our latest short review column focusing on stray quality releases a few times a month, or, roughly every two weeks depending on the current month’s release schedule. In an attempt to be more conversational these are easygoing and casual thoughts for the most part, so relax and think for yourself as I attempt to find something, anything to say about multitudes of new releases relevant to my interests. — If you find a record 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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FUATH is an atmospheric black metal side project from Glasgow, Scotland-based artist Andy Marshall who is best known for his popular melodic black/folk band Saor. The distinction between these entities has become more pronounced over time for the sake of Fuath still primarily reflecting the melancholic late 2000’s/early 2010’s atmoblack zeitgeist a la Drudkh, Wolves in the Throne Room, etc. though in this case some general depressive and “dark metal” attaché could be included. This third numbered album from the musician comes alongside the general ten year mark for the act and duly carries on with the thread. Four longform pieces directed by dual-layered tremolo-picked flittering guitar work, icebound keys and simple enough movement intend to invoke wintry bleakness, a sense of cold blustering muse and all for the sake of immersion.

“Embers of the Fading Age” highlights some of the best that ‘III‘ has to offer in terms of guitar work as the cacophonic corridor created between the two major guitar voicings Fuath opens with contract and expand throughout the piece creating a sense of intrigue in variously lucid and staggering gait. “Possessed by Starlight” offers something more confrontational, or, challenging in its rhythmic scrawl beyond the more openly floated gesturing found on the extended opening/closing pieces which bookend the record with and this valley of congestion affords the full listen a sense of grand movement. Though I am not a big fan of the well-exhausted medium these sounds are sourced from I do think this album is ambitious, above-average and worth a spin.

Entrenching their statement in tales of rotten bodies, hot boiling shit and overflowing coffin juice Los Angeles, California-area death metal trio VOIDHÄMMER fuse classic deathgrind, crust punk and pure death metal on this solid introductory EP. ‘Noxious Emissions‘ is exactly what it says on the tin, a reeking lunge which intends to clear the room with its audacious themes and I guess pretty standard groovin’ death metal pulse. Opener “Rotting in Excrement” sets expectations pretty high taking some pointed interest in death/crust and keeping it snapping fresh via grinding impulse, less the speed of deathgrind and more the crooked cyclic wind-up of grindcore. Most of the full listen carries a pretty straight-forward moshable lurch (re: “Cadaveric Bloat”, “Phospherized”), familiar sounds which sew together their loose ends with kicking hits of crust/hardcore punk a la the Bay Area scenery of the late 2000’s/early 2010’s. The best songs here do it all at once, carry the ear through hardcorish tanking and deathgrinding wield via ear-catching riffs that stick, and you’ll feel their full effect hit hardest via “Coffin Leakage” and “Rotting in Excrement”. Great intro for the band and a great way to spend fifteen minutes of your daily ear.

Bringing a cold-slammed, moshable sterility to sludgier late 90’s Morbid Angel inspired grooves Louisville, Kentucky-based quintet REDIVIDER‘s work carries a certain tradition of brutal death metal without bowing to the metallic hardcore-bound impulses implied. As a debut statement ‘Sounds of Malice‘ isn’t wildly ambitious so much as loud yet approachable stuff, carrying the sonic severity of brutal death atop waves of Eldritch-kissed rhythm which wanders and pummels its damage sans the unearthly evil aura one’d expect. The listening experience is, again, brash and loud to the point that fans of ’99-’05 death metal, Sinister, and that same era of Malevolent Creation should appreciate the chest-first approach to their craft but that insurgent energy only periodically finds itself in step with their doomed and wandering hand otherwise. The tension created between these modes of movement is especially thick as the album kicks off (re: “Quartered & Devoured) where the riffing is hottest but begins to lose focus just as the album begins to wind down its ~31 minute roll. Not a bad record at all, could use more leads a la the title track, and it needed a more conclusive finisher than “Left to Rot”.

Ohio death metal legend/Nunslaughter maestro Don of the Dead brings his brilliantly over the top snarling, gurgling and retching personality to otherwise Phoenix, Arizona-based crew NIGHNACHT on this unwieldy, brain-scattering debut LP. In two minute intervals they scrape through ten songs which reflect an extremely concise, rarely repetitious modus attributable to thrashing death and the psychosis of early USBM. Not sure how to fully describe ‘Limb Service‘ as an experience, sort of like half ‘Gloom‘-era Macabre, a dose of late 80’s horror-thrash and all of it carrying the grimed-over determination of Profanatica. The overall effect is miserable, dementing and manages a few notable riffs amidst the vocals otherwise taking charge of the release. Memorable stuff, bloated to the hilt with murderous freakery and all that but I wanted more riffs.

Houston, Texas-based brutal death metal quintet ARCHITECTURAL GENOCIDE generally reflect the sub-genre’s directive beyond the mid-2000’s in that they indulge in slamming, moshable ruckus on their slap through this second full-length album but stop short of the whole deathcore and ultra-tekk bro deal. That isn’t to say that ‘Malignant Cognition‘ hits like an old Disgorge album entirely but if you gel with early Visceral Disgorge or Devourment you’ll get some bree n’ bop here too (re: “Zed Requiem”, “Coercion into Carnality”) without sounding like some compromised shit ready to turn into bad groove metal a few records down the road. The best brutal death lives and dies by not only its drummer’s style but how their sound hits on record and I particularly enjoyed Nat Conner‘s (ex-Stabbing) performance throughout this one, belligerent and rattling stuff.

As far as I can tell the penis of the guy killing another naked dude with an axe (in a house of ill repute?) on the cover of Richmond, Indiana-based melodic death/deathcore quintet CARRION VAEL‘s fifth album, ‘Slay Utterly‘, has been “censored” online by turning it into a profusely bleeding stump. That first impression stun-locked me for a bit, just the thought that bloody emasculation is easier to get through the algorithm than an all out front and center wang was compelling. Entertaining as that imagery is the hype surrounding this prolific troupe is yet their combination of The Black Dahlia Murder inspired shred-ready melodic death-core and how that influence translates into their interest in progressive deathcore in general. They’ve kinda thrown the kitchen sink into their last few albums and I guess this one further hones the use of synth/keys, pulls in some more technical shades for their roll but still finds clearest distinction in their treatment of “progressive’ melodic death. None of this is suited to my own taste (at all) but I have to commend a decently tuneful album and any band willing to chop off a dong in order to reach a broader audience.

Basque Country, Spain-based brutal death metal quintet SUBJUGATED are clear enough in their statement of intent via this debut full-length album, ‘Inherent Belligerence‘, as everything they push across the table for these ~30 minutes radiates with direct, uncompromised violence. Though they’ve no interest in melodicism or distractions from their pummel I’d found their sound often veered into technical and slamming brutal death nodes without sounding less than dead serious. A song like “Homo Homini Lupus” should cue folks well enough into the sort of Deeds of Flesh inspired hand to some of their riffcraft but they’re pretty good about mixing it up without crowding the lane throughout, keeping the blades milling away within their carnage. Though their approach is by nature straight forward this neither belays the inherent extremity of these songs nor their focus on the riff. Don’t have much to say about the record otherwise but I definitely enjoyed how hard it went each time I put it on.

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