It has recently been brought to my attention that we have all been derelict in our drinking duties, especially vis a vis album pairing.  Well, no more.  It might be a little early for resolutions, but I am doing my part to make sure that I drink more beer and listen to more metal (and then tell you about it) right now.  This week’s offerings: Necrotic Assimilation by Wrath of Logarius and More Brewing Company’s Mantis Shrimp.

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The Tunes: Wrath of Logarious’ Necrotic Assimilation

First of all, love a Bloodborne reference.  Second of all, love when people try to do new things to black metal.  Black metal deserves to be experimented on, chopped and screwed and nobody can tell me any different.  Enter, then, Northern California’s Wrath of Logarius and their debut EP Necrotic Assimilation, where the anonymous collective bring forward their own proprietary creation: formless black metal.  Essentially, formless black metal brings together traditional black metal, brutal death metal and melodic post metal, allowing the song to switch between genres mid-song, hence “formless.”  It’s a cool concept, but right off the bat I’ll say I don’t exactly get that the idea comes across.  For better and worse, these compositions do change over time, but the change is subtle and the flow between the parts is fairly intuitive and predictable.  I don’t get the sense that things are shifting and swirling as much as Wrath of Logarius might claim.  But they do flow, and the flow is really cool!  There is something that is tangential to tech death about the way they bring the brutal death metal influences to the forefront, especially on “Swarm” and “Beyond the Last Gate.”  The riffs are absolutely killer and the drumming is insane.  It has been a long time since I’ve heard blast beats that are that frenzied and fast-paced, but kudos to Lord Marco on the kit.  Meanwhile on the other end of the spectrum, the post-metal comes through in waves, as it should, pulling together washes of massive guitar chords and subtle melody into a crushing wave of emotion.  A great example of this is “Soul Ascension,” a song that puts delicate lead guitar work front and shows off some of the very intriguing songwriting on display here.  It might not be anything as original as claimed, but it is very cool black metal at the end of the day, and it does leave me wanting more of…whatever this is.

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The Booze: More Brewing Company’s Mantis Shrimp

On the way to our annual post-Thanksgiving Twilight Imperium session (yes, this is a thing; no, I am not ashamed), I decided to pick up a selection of four-packs for my friends and I since More has a location that is down the street from our host’s house.  Twilight Imperium takes at least 10 hours to play and I needed fuel, plus I wanted to be a good guest and I’ve had More’s beers before; I still haven’t found one I didn’t love.  Mantis Shrimp is relatively new, but it absolutely follows the trend of being good to the last drop.  Primarily flavored by Citra, Nelson and an experimental variety of hops called Ocho, Mantis Shrimp is a Imperial Double New England IPA that, according to the label, does not contain shrimp.  It does, however, come up strong on the malty, bready flavors of a good New England IPA, with all the pine and hop bitterness you want in these dark winter times.  Normally I like my IPAs a lot more tropical, but this is, admittedly, not the right time of year for that sort of thing.  In this bleak midwinter, I will be pouring back many a frosty glass of this fine beverage.

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Hopefully before too long, cheers and be good to each other.

— Ian