album review

Album Review: Fange — “Privation”

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Fange are a band that I have been championing for a while.  Not since their inception, but at least since the first time I took a chance on them when I saw their name in our promo planner.  Their signature and self-styled blend of “industrial death/harsh sludge” has always intrigued me due to their highly addicting blend of harsh noise and bone crushingly heavy riffs.  Privation, the band’s fourth full length (and my third review of theirs for the site) zeroes in on what I really appreciate about them, though, and what I think sets them well apart from their contemporaries: despite the fact that they have a genre they fit in, they refuse to make the same album twice.

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Album Review: Gorod — “The Orb”

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Gorod - The Orb

I can’t say any better about Gorod than Buke (who *claims* he’s not good with written words, but we can all see that’s modesty at the very least) already did in the interview that went up very recently: there’s a huge difference between “tech death” and “technical death metal”.  Tech death does indeed imply wankery for its own sake (and this is coming from someone who is unabashedly a fan of wankery for its own sake), whereas technical death metal is grounded in the foundations of death metal.  On The Orb, Gorod ponders the meaning of both, and how to effectively split the difference to double down on what makes them so great.

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Album Review: Primitive Man and Full of Hell — “Suffocating Hallucination”

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Full of Hell Primitive Man - Suffocating Hallucination

Suffocating Hallucination truly is an album that answers the question of “what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object”.  If you know, you know: Primitive Man are the undisputed champions of doom and the heaviest fucking band on the planet, with Full of Hell taking a close second, albeit for different reasons.  In one corner, we have lumbering, plodding, black-hole-dense doom and on the other we have savage, razor-sharp and breakneck grindcore.  “But Ian”, you say, “when we mix them together, shouldn’t we just get songs that are, you know, a normal tempo?”  You absolute fool.  You’re not ready for what’s about to hit you.

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Album Review: BIG|BRAVE — “nature morte”

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Big Brave - nature morte

It should be no secret here that we have all been eagerly awaiting nature morte.  BIG|BRAVE is a band that fits into the nebulous space between metal and experimental, between crushingly heavy and ethereally light in a way that few of their peers manage to navigate successfully.  There seems to be no stopping their wild and creative tear they’ve been on, especially 2021’s double whammy of Vital and their collaboration with fellow game-changers The Body, it’s been a long time coming for their follow-up, but a lot has also happened, personally and globally, that has shaped nature morte into being.

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Second Circle: Anthronomicon and Helionomicon

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In Dante’s Inferno, the second circle begins the proper punishment of Hell, a place where “no thing gleams.” It is reserved for those overcome with Lust, where carnal appetites hold sway over reason. In Nine Circles, it’s where we do shorter reviews of new (ish) albums that share a common theme.

You know I couldn’t just pick one of these to review.  Ulthar are certainly about to unleash some of the most anticipated music in their career, and as if that wasn’t good enough, they’re gracing us with not one, but two full, 40-minute albums of new material, their first since 2020’s Providence.  The wait might have been long, but Anthronomicon and Helionomicon both make up for it in quantity and quality.

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