• MASSIVE REVIEWING CAPACITY • 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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Following up on their impressive Eldritch ‘old school’ death metal inspired debut demo from last year Coyhaique/Puerto Aysén, Chile-based quintet SPEKTRUM return with their introductory EP release in ‘From the Abyssal Depths‘. In the span of four songs and about twenty minutes they dig up some old bones from European death metal stature but present their own thrashing, brutally hammered force as a major point of interest. “Predators of the Light” in particular stood out for balancing their chunking aggression with a semi-melodic break and thrashing exit, probably the finest example of their potential among these songs. Otherwise don’t skip out on the blackened The Chasm-esque bits of closer “Eternal Vigil”.

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After releasing a skull-skinning single back in 2023 Athens, Greece-based trio CASKET DWELLER finally rise from their tombs with a smoking take on horror themed early 90’s Swedish death metal sounds on this debut full-length album. ‘River of Slumber‘ isn’t stuck on the Stockholm sound, though, as their love of the ‘old school’ death metal riff extends into the realm of Morgoth, Pestilence and Death over the course. Vocalist/drummer Vagelis Deligiorgis is the linchpin here in terms of his Van Drunen-esque vocal delivery and dynamically set battery, lending the right level of familiarity classicist ears will appreciate outright as the band delve into their own headspace. I particularly loved the doomed-out blows of “He Rows” and the ominous crawling bits of “Fangs of the Vampire” over on Side A, great examples of a band bearing that juiced-to-Hell guitar sound as a weapon and not a replacement for songcraft. The easy flow from song to song helps to sluice the ear through this record’s ~half hour length that I’d enjoyed on repeat every time I picked it up.

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Pairing two of the best bestially summoned black/death metal acts active today this split 12″ LP features the blasphemic trod of Athens, Greece-based troupe EMBRACE OF THORNS and the Valparaíso, Chile-borne wrath of INVOCATION. The crossing of occult death waves here is legendary for my own taste, two brilliant bands a few years removed from albums that’d represented fresh highs for their characterization and the damaging reach of their rituals. ‘Invoking the Noumenon/Crushing the Feeble Messianic Embrace‘ features three songs from each group and a total of about twenty minutes in span, just enough time to sink into their worming wrath and plant their seeds of corruption in mind.

I’ve been an Embrace of Thorns fan since at least their third LP and I don’t think they’ve ever released anything I don’t like. These songs are arguably leaning toward a venomous death metal sound, with “Destroyer of All Maladies” leaning into riff-forth death assail, but the opener (“Life-Strife-Transgression”) is the main event for their side, a continuation of some of the obscure verve found on ‘Entropy Dynamics‘. On the other side we find Invocation lunging and stabbing with a similar level of conviction, even more focused on the riff count to start (“Altar of Unseen Prayers”) and bearing production values which are similar or even rawed beyond their ‘The Archaic Sanctuary (Ritual Body Postures)‘ (2024) album. I’ve been following the band’s evolution since 2018 and here they’ve begun to surprise me with not only the rate of fire but the atmospheric ideas creeping into their sort of early-to-mid 90’s Mystifier-esque smash and crawl (see: “The Shattered Torch”) attack. The rugged bash through closer “Impetuous” might be my favorite song on this split. Couldn’t be more stoked to see what each band does next, especially if they retain these crypt-bound production values.

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The young folks in Swedish death metal band CRYPTORIUM have been ascending fast after forming just a handful of years ago in 2022, sporting a modern take on the classic Swedeath chunk-toned maul which continues to evolve on album number two. This second full-length album, ‘Through the Bowels of Ceaseless Dissonance‘, is their step outside the box to some mild degree as they infuse some technical edge and even a few brief shots of dissonance within their barrage. The muscle the put behind these songs is appreciable beyond the usual hi-fi, loudness wars HM-2 record setting their sound somewhere nearby the bombast of Feral, peak Entrails and such to start but as the album drills on pieces like “Revolting Obsession” break off a different shard, blasting harder and showing some potential for a distinctly modern take on old sounds. Even if you’re just looking for a Dismember-style rip through this is a great choice for loud ass death metal with insurgent energy.

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British thrash metal lifers XENTRIX are probably most infamous for their contributions to the late 80’s/early 90’s era of classic thrash, noted for their Bay Area influenced style per a trio of full-lengths for Roadrunner before the band hit diminishing returns on their path to disbandment in 1997. Revived a couple of times but solid since ~2013 or so they’ve released three Andy Sneap assisted full-lengths beyond 2019 with ‘Allied With the Enemy‘ being the third. There aren’t many 80’s spawned thrash metal groups, esp. with more than one original member, pulling off anything near the quality of their yesterdays but these folks’ve not lost touch with the spirit of thrash they were a part of back in the day. Blade sharp sociopolitical commentary, dramatic presentation, and solid enough mid-to-fast paced riffcraft all ensure that Side A is strong in feature here. Even the melodic frothing about “On Burned Remains” works as a sort of thrash apropos quasi-ballad early on but when the dramatic jog through “The Dark Eternal” hit I’d consistently fell off the experience. If they’d have cut the length of the record by a song or two and rethought the running order of the second half it would’ve struck harder for my own taste but for the Xentrix fan seeking that classic sound these are all tendencies with well-established precedence.

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DAEMOGOG is one of several experimental projects from Vancouver, British Colombia-based musician Brendan Campbell (Kerala, ex-Atræ Bilis) it being the most focused on avant-garde, somewhat technically braced death metal a la Pyrrhon, Artificial Brain and Sunless. When first interfacing with this third LP, ‘Manifest Pulsing Sequelae‘, the tautness of craft and scrambling tech-hand caught my ear as a step beyond the bedroom level spasticity of my introduction to their gig via 2022’s ‘Yawning Expanse Yearning‘. Arrangements are rhythmically fixated on crunchier, repetitious locus and most often presented in increasingly articulated expansion, modulating their core groove to generate thematic base to build from. You’ll find a generally readable path through the hanging and bending contortions of “Fractal Burden” but more importantly a sort of metalcorish confrontational motif released from it by the end, so, think less along the lines of Portal and more ‘From Wisdom to Hate‘ generally speaking (see also: “Refractory Replication”. Campbell‘s uniquely cut vision is inspired here overall but he is also a fine bass guitarist with an ear for percussive, biting and worming tones and that’d pinged my ear most on the first several passes. If I had one criticism of this record is that it is more of an assay, an exploration of a spectrum of rhythmic notions in analysis more than it hits like expression. You’ll kinda get the idea by the fourth song and while the seventh (“Amniotic Biotope Death Glint Phenomena”) still hits nothing escapes the rhythmic experiment. Not a bad thing but it definitely all lives and dies on the same petri dish.

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For album number seventeen Bergen, Norway-based vikingr metal legendry ENSLAVED continue down their own progressive metal path with the sometimes alt-metal toned, sometimes psychedelic stretched and “stripped back” focus of ‘Mið‘. Suggested as a more spontaneous creation in process and themed after the shared primal rooting of all humanity one might figure you’re just getting another Enslaved record here with a bit of spin applied but by the time “Mountain” b/w “Spirit Helper” hit it should be clear they’re reaching for the next stage, much like ‘Monumension‘ back in the day where a paradigm shift was imminent if not enacted in full. The flow of the album experience is initially awkward, each piece is singular in its meditation or moment, but with some familiarity this soon proves one of the band’s more emboldened and perhaps least ‘extreme’ efforts. There is an odd balance between prog-metal sleekness, highly expressive songs which have a moderne sort of trod (“Parting”, “Solar Will”, “Tales of Trees”) and pieces which point to a need to reflect the album’s theme in a headspace beyond the slickness of their craft. The effect clashes a bit in terms of presenting not-so organic polish beside ancient soul’d expression, a good representation of the band’s post-millennium authorship but without the dramatic presentation.

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Ten years and twelve albums later Rome, Italy-based electronic metal maestro Vittorio D’Amore still has more to push within the MASTER BOOT RECORD as their incorporation of human-handed guitar layers continues beyond 2024’s ‘Hardwarez‘. Aiming to represent a different sub-genre of metal per track ‘Computer Metal‘ offers its metacognitive extraction with fairly uniform results. The major appeal of this project on my part is its adjacency to classic video game soundtrack sounds b/w synthwave and such girding its gait, so, some semblance to old TechnoSoft games caught my ear a while back. For this album I’d point to “Plug and Play” as the one to convince me to take a closer listen thanks to its Mega Man 2/3-esque lead melody. Otherwise I don’t know if every song hits as a major spectacle with “Firmware” and “Boot Sector” kinda flopping for my taste but “Turbo Button” and most all of the heavier stuff on Side B hit like The Messenger OST at its best. As the internet becomes critically clogged and assaulted by generative AI idiots making plagiaristic trash in this style it is awesome that this act hasn’t succumbed and still seems to be thriving within their own nostalgic environs.

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