Bionic Swarm, the debut from Cryptosis has become an early favorite for many of the staff at Nine Circles. Jamming together old school thrash, progressive death metal, and a healthy dose of symphonic black metal in its arrangements, it’s the kind of debut that instantly slams into your skull and rewires your brain.
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Hard to believe it’s been nearly a year since I did one of these. This probably matters to no one, but that’s a long time and I miss the mini-review format. So, I’m sitting here having the first drink of the evening and I want to tip this glass back many times, listen to metal, and say some stuff about it. And, all of it will be pulled from the current crop of incoming releases. The deeper in I get, my glass will go from full to empty at least a couple, or three, times so results may vary. Let’s do this and don’t forget to check out the full listing from Monday’s Initial Descent.
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Long distance relationships have wildly varied results but the recording of New Jersey’s Dytopia A.D.‘s second outing have yielded pretty much gold in the pantheon of proggy technical death metal. Lead guitarist Aki Shishido recorded his parts from Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan while being deployed via the U.S. Army and the results resemble the thunderous sound of war captured in a bottle. The fact that the band employs sax, acoustic guitars, and choirs is not lost on the ambitious and epic feel of Rise of the Merciless, it’s a brawny death metal album with unexpected twists around every corner that works like gangbusters and is, surprisingly, cohesive as hell. Ahead of the album’s release we had the chance to chat with Aki and Chris Whitby via our set of Profile questions so head inside to read all the details and be sure to support them from the links contained within. Continue reading
I don’t think anyone expected the world to be where it was when 2020 kicked off. To even attempt to put into words the surge of feelings around a global pandemic that refuses to go away, a wretched history of systemic racism, brutality, and ignorance being exposed and reckoned with in the streets all over the world, and everything else the first six months has brought to light is reckless and futile for me right now. I continue to watch, listen, and learn as much as I can: to actively be part of a solution instead of passively being part of the problem.
In the moments between there is music, and if there’s even a glimmer of light right now, it’s in how good 2020 has been with regards to metal. So let’s see where my penchant lies as we cross the halfway mark of year that feels like forever. Continue reading
Sometimes you play an album and immediately know that this one is different. I almost didn’t write this review because I wasn’t sure I could even put words to my thoughts and feelings. Despite listening to Stare Into Death and Be Still by Ulcerate more times than I can count in the past weeks, I am left awestruck by this marvel of technical and progressive death metal. Yet even those words seem meaningless in the face of this revelation of heavy music.
