Blastbeat Reviews: Conan, Aborted, Cynic

I've been super bad about updating this blog, and now that summer is in full swing I'm working two jobs and trying to balance making music with the blog while catching up on Game of Thrones. Hooray! For today's reviews we have three polar opposites: Conan and Aborted!

CONAN - BLOOD EAGLE

For those of you who don't know, Conan is a disgustingly heavy British doom band whose sole purpose is to sound like molten tar pouring out of your speakers. Blood Eagle is the trio's second full-length album, despite their relatively expansive number of other releases.

Blood Eagle comes across as much more well produced than there previous album Horseback Battlehammer, the first Conan release I've heard. Blood Eagle starts off with some standard slow as all hell riffage accompanied by vocals that sound like a barbarian standing atop a mighty mountain, screaming out to the frosty air, praying to Crom for revenge upon his enemies.

Conan actually mixes it up on this album a bit. The first song released, Foehammer is pretty fast, even for a normal band. But don't let that fool you, because Conan still manage to make it sound like the heaviest thing this side of ununseptium. For those of you who like chest-crushing doom, Blood Eagleis a must listen. Overall Score: 4/5

ABORTED - THE NECROTIC MANIFESTO

I reviewed Aborted's last record Global Flatline and while I enjoyed it and wasn't blown away by it, I was expecting much more from the Belgian deathgrinders on this release. The album was hyped as all fuck by all the mainstream metal media outlets, and unfortunately, I find it didn't quite deliver. It's Aborted. They play deathgrind. There's nothing but blast beats, mile-a-minute buzzsaw riffs, and de Caluwé's iconic vocals. The problem with The Necrotic Manifesto to me is that it runs for nearly an hour, without shifting gears. It's all gore all the time, and that shit gets tiring after about 25 minutes.

I do have to commend Aborted for their single "Coffin Upon Coffin" which sounds exactly like a B-side of Heartwork (you all know how much I love that album), and their bitchin' covers of Suffocation's "Funeral Inception", and Converge's "Concubine". Overall Score: 2.5/5

CYNIC - KINDLY BENT TO FREE US

Ah, Cynic. I love this band. I've fawned over everything they've released from Focus to Carbon-Based Anatomy, loved every change in sound they've made since the beginning, and after hearing the first single off of KBtFU, "The Lion's Roar", I was super pumped for this album. Kindly Bent to Free Us delivers. Cynic have fully evolved into a progressive rock band, banishing any and all growling or guttural vocals, and ditching (for the most part) Paul Masvidal's iconic vocoder. I for one love Paul's unedited voice, and it's great to hear it alongside plenty of proggy clean guitar riffs and some fuzzed out psychedelic sections. The musicianship is still top notch, as Masvidal and drummer Sean Reinert team up with their old friend, bassist Sean Malone.

I definitely dig KBtFU almost as much as I dig Traced in Air. Kindly Bent to Free Us sounds much less spacey and airy than Traced did, but brings in more psychedelic and Eastern influences into the music, as well as incorporates samples now, which I think is cool. I haven't heard many (if any) prog rock albums that use sampling like grindcore or death metal albums do.

If you are one who disliked the changes Cynic made from Focus to Traced in Air, you're going to hate this album. If you've been liking the band's venture into progressive rock, then this album will be the progressive rock album of the year. Overall Score: 4.5/5

Also, as a PSA for the public: Fuck Vik Guitars. Don't use them. The founder and luthier of the company showed his true, ugly colours recently after Paul Masvidal and Sean Reinert came out as gay to the public. Fuck homophobia. Fuck you Vik Kuletski.

That's all for now, folks!

-DG

Album Review: Zafakon - "War as a Drug"

Hey, so uhhh... I just wanted to let everyone know I'm still alive. I know haven't posted in over a month, but I've been really busy and worn out from my new job. I'm working back where I was last summer, but I've got a boatload more work to do this time around. Enough of that, though. You folks don't read this shit to hear about what I do for a living, you read it to find awesome new music, and holy hell, have I got some awesome music for you today.

Zafakon is a band that is rising out of the Puerto Rican scene, beating the shit out of anyone's eardrums that dare stand in their way. They throwdown a crossover between old school Swedish melodic death metal, traditional death metal, and thrash. This leads to fast, brutal tunes with enough badass riffage to make even Scott Hull blush. The band is still short in tooth, having only been around for about 2-3 years now, but they've already gotten around to pumping out an EP, opening for bands like the almighty Goatwhore, and dropping their debut album, War as a Drug.

The first thing that struck me on this album, has to be the way it was produced. All the instrumentation sounds fucking amazing. Guitars sound huge and thick (heh), the bass is surprisingly defined and can be heard through the mix at all times, and the drums share that same massive sounding quality as the guitars. So far, it's a pretty above average sound coming from these dudes, but the vocals really take away from the hugeness of the band's sound. Don't get me wrong, the vocalist here has major chops (more on that, later), but he sounds like whoever produced his tracks tossed on a little too much reverb. While it's not uncommon to add some reverb to a vocalist to give them a fuller sound, too much makes them sound a bit muffled and distant, which in this case kinda clashes with the confined and in your face style of the rest of the album. By about halfway through the record I seemed to get used to the vocal style and it didn't really bother me too much. However, each time I start War as a Drug over again, it always takes me some time before I re-warm up to this.

Production nitpicking aside, War as a Drug rips pretty hard. The music itself is solid death/ thrash. There are plenty of blast beats, double kicks, and tons of facemelting riffage, but the band knows exactly when to pull back into mid-tempo groovy sections for maximum headbangability. Like I said, there seems to be a strong melodic death metal influence, with quick, alternate picked/ economy picked riffs flying around everywhere, and a guitar harmony here and there to go underneath. Very reminiscent of bands like Dark Tranquility, The Crown, and Arch Enemy, which when mixed in with the thrashy bits makes for a European thrash sound. Some bits like the guitar leads in the second song (third track) even have a distinct Michael Amott flair to them, which if I didn't know better, I would have thought he actually played. Something I really loved about War as a Drug was that the bass actually acted as another instrument, not as just a compliment to the guitars. Instead of just bouncing on root notes, bassist Wesley actually riffs pretty hard, occasionally taking counter-point to the guitars (a la Chi Cheng and Stephen Carpenter of Deftones). Coupled with the bass' awesome clarity, it really makes for something refreshing in the death/ thrash sound.

Speaking of guest artists, Zafakon have their very own on War as a Drug. The unfuckwithable Joel Grind (of Toxic Holocaust fame) jumps in on vocals for the track "Summoning the Vortex". Unsurprisingly, this is easily the most straightforward and thrashy tune on the album, and honestly, it sounds like the best song Toxic Holocaust never wrote. Joel brings his gut-wrenching snarl into the mix, and actually compliments pretty well with Zafakon's vocalist, Marcus' style.

Bomb-Ass Tracks: Fall, Summoning the Vortex, At the Mercy of Fate

On a Playlist With: Arch Enemy, Kreator, Destruction

Overall Score: 4/5

Slammin' riffing, excellent production (save for the vocals) and solid songwriting make for some headbangable as fuck death metal in Zafakon's debut album War as a Drug. It's for anyone who digs melodic death metal, European thrash, or even traditional American thrash.

War as a Drug is out now, check it out on their BigCartel page. Zafakon are also on Facebook and Myspace, so go toss 'em a like/ whatever the MySpace equivalent is. They deserve it.

That's all for now, folks! Remember, always leave a note.

-Grave Dave

EP Review: Cryptodira - "Recursions"

Hey everybody! It's been like fifty thousand years since my last post, and for that I apologize. I had some intense school work cut out for me, and then reading week (read: sleeping week) happened. None of that matters anymore though, because I'm back, and I've got a bunch more reviews (and some special new stuff!) lined up for you guys!

Let's cut the crap and get this old ball rolling again with a good one.

Cryptodira is a four-piece progressive death metal band from Long Island, New York who've combined Between the Buried and Me levels of progginess and Intronaut levels of spacey mindfuckery into an unholy beast of wonky, off kilter metal.

Even though I call them a death metal band, I wouldn't describe their music as "brutal" or "crushing". Everything sounds open and feels like it has a lot of room to breathe. Even though the actual music can get really chaotic sometimes, the production keeps it sounding like a raging storm, just looming on the horizon. Honestly, I have mixed feelings about this. When the band isn't going full steam, things sound great. The guitars, drums, and bass all sound organic and natural. A couple of the guitar riffs here and there, as well as a fair few bass lines have some chugging in them, and it's really nice to hear the guitars and basses sound like guitars and basses. Y'know, instead of massively high gain, noise gated, super-compressed shit, like most chugging bands do nowadays. So in that aspect, I love the production here. The only killer is the heavy parts. They sound like they could be wicked mosh parts. The music is all there, I think they just need to thicken everything up to make it really sound like you're suffocating in the slams.

Production aside, this EP is freaking great. There's some room for improvement (I'll touch on that later), but it's a damn solid effort from Cryptodira. Songs fly all over the place on Recursions, ranging from just under two minutes to about eleven and a half minutes. There are odd time signatures, polyrhythms, brutal growls, squeaky clean singing, massive grooves, and everything else that a BTBAM/ Intronaut mashup would sound like. I know I already compared Cryptodira to those bands, but seriously, the BTBAM/ Intronaut vibe I get from these guys is immense. Check it:

Yeah. I know I'm right. Apology accepted.

Cryptodira send you to space and back over Recursions' 35 minute run time. Their heavier moments are the aural equivalent of a colossal killer robot mechanically lumbering towards you, with only coldblooded murder in its lifeless eyes. They can shift gears and turn on a dime though, turning you away from this soulless crushing machine and throwing you into a sea of shimmering star clusters and warm, embracing light. These sparkly chords, floating basslines, and swerving drums make you feel at comfortable, at home, and at peace. I find that these dudes are at their best when they mix these two extremes together. It only happens a couple times on Recursions, but when it happens, it'll blow the shit out of your ass.

I honestly really only chose to include this picture because of the dude creepily hugging the speaker in the corner and the other dude that's just standing there, creepily watching him.

So, the couple things I think need improvement on this EP are mainly with the vocals. Both the clean and the dirty vocals are for the most part great, but I've just got a couple suggestions. As far as the dirty vocals go, I'd love to see some more variation. For the most part, it's a mid ranged throaty growl, and although I like it, I'd love to be able to hear some higher register screams and deep gutturals thrown in there too. I just want to say though, at the end of "Either Fly or Fall Faster", the vocals sound like they belong in a '90s powerviolence/ hardcore band. And that's awesome. As far as the clean singing is concerned, there's only one bit I have a problem with. On the final track, "The Affirmation", they fall just ever so slightly out of key during the same part of chorus every time (the word "measure"). Now, because it happens each time, I don't know if it was planned or not, but either way, I don't like it. It's honestly only one word of the chorus, but it hits such a sour note for me that it pulls me out of the immersive song that it is.

Bomb-Ass Tracks: Either Fly or Fall Faster, On Sleepwalking

On a Playlist With: Intronaut, Between the Buried and Me, Cynic

Overall Score

4.0

Cryptodira have laid down some freaking great progressive metal with Recursions. It's a blend of two beloved styles of prog fused together with the band's own characteristics and traits, making for some truly awesome music. I'm going to keep an eye on them, and you should too.

Recursions is a name-your-price download over at Cryptodira's Bandcamp. You can pick up a CD and a t-shirt there too if you're so inclined. These fine bros also have a Facebook page and Twitter account.

That's all for now, folks! Praise be to Basedgod.

-Grave Dave

Album Review: Cystic Dysentery - "Culture of Death"

I like death metal. Old school death metal, melodic death metal, blackened death metal, I like a lot of the shit out there. If there are two styles of death metal I don't usually enjoy, they are technical death metal and brutal death metal. For the readers who don't know what technical or brutal death metal are, don't worry, I'll give you an incredibly brief crash course. Technical death metal is death metal played at a million miles an hour, with a focus on the complexity of the riffs/ drum patterns/ solos/ song structures. In other words, you need to be technically proficient to play it. Brutal death metal on the other hand, sometimes called or compared to slam death metal sacrifices the extreme technicality for sheer unrelenting heaviness. Here is where you find your most downtuned guitars and most gurgled, incomprehensible vocals. Not to say brutal death isn't technical, it's just that technical death metal is on a whole other level of complexity. You can usually judge how brutal a band will be by the illegibility of their logo and how technical they'll be by the amount of sci-fi shit they can pack into their album covers. Alright, lesson over, let's get on with the review.

Cystic Dysentery is a brutal (see logo) death metal band with a technical flare (see alien-like humanoid on cover) from the death metal state of the USA, Florida. They've pumped out their debut album Culture of Death on Deathgasm Records. The technicality really only shines through with the drumming, coming from the wickedly fast double kicks and the occasional face-melting solo.

The band actually blends the two styles together really well. When they want to go warp speed, they can, with buzzaw guitar riffs that fly across the fretboard, and when they want to bring gargantuan pit slams, they can turn on a dime and dish out slow, heavy, and thick as fuck riffs that make you want to stomp your feet in the pit and make wiggerish arm movements while wearing an oversized basketball jersey and a snapback. The riffs themselves aren't anything we haven't heard before from the likes of Dying Fetus, Cattle Decapitation, and Aborted, but hey, if it ain't broke, why fix it? I enjoy the solos that crop up on the album, because even though they tend to exist only to show off the guitarist's mad skills, there are some sweet moments. The song "Born of Fire" has two solos in it, and the second/ outro solo is definitely the most memorable part of the entire album for me. While not also showcasing the guitarist's talent, there's something inherently rock 'n' roll about it which just gets me. From the long repeated bent notes to the dive bombs to the inharmonic noodling, I can only imaging the guitarist having a complete ball while playing it.

I'm not to crazy about the vocals on Culture of Death; they tend to follow traditional brutal death metal fashion. Crazy low growls that make Satan shit his pants and pig squeals so pig squealy I feel like I'm visiting a farm. There isn't much variation on the album as far as vocal range is concerned, and again, the vocals aren't anything that pop out at me.

The biggest problem I have with this album is the triggering on the drummer's kick pedals. I understand you need triggers to be able to hear the insanely fast drumming here, but I know that some bands have mixed both the triggered sound and a non-triggered sound together so that the bass drums sound nice and heavy while still maintaining the clarity. The kicks on Culture of Death don't sound too bad when they're played in the slower passages, but when the drummer really lets loose is when I find the clicky sounds of the triggers too distracting to properly enjoy the rest of the music.

Bomb-Ass Tracks: Dead Priest, Born of Fire

On a Playlist With: Dying Fetus, Cattle Decapitation, Aborted

Overall Score

2.5

Cystic Dysentery's Culture of Death is a brutal death metal album for brutal death metal fans. If you like the style, then I'm certain you'll love this album. If you aren't the hugest fan like I am, this album won't suddenly turn you into the worlds biggest Devourment fan. I have to give credit where credit is due, so I can say this is good shit, it's just that ultimately, it wasn't memorable enough of a listen for me.

Culture of Death can be picked up from Deathgasm Records and you can check out the rad bros of Cystic Dysentery on Facebook as well.

That's all for now, folks!

-DG

Album Review: The Faceless - "Planetary Duality"

Since announcements about the new Faceless album have been cropping up recently, I decided to give these California based tech-deather's last album a listen to see why everyone is jizzing their pants in anticipation over this new release.

"Plantery Duality" brings things to a whole new level of brutal.

The Faceless are a relatively new up and coming band, with only three albums over six years (including their upcoming 2012 release, Autotheism). I haven't heard a peep about Alkedama, their first release, but I've heard a bunch of praise and general cocksuckery towards Planetary Duality. Driven by Michael Keene, the lead guitarist/ clean vocalist/ songwriter/ lyricist, The Faceless bring a surprisingly cool angle to the mechanical and formulaic genre of technical death metal.

Don't get me wrong, Planetary Duality isn't much more than technical death metal, but it's enough more for me to want to listen through it more than a once. The basis is standard. Mega fast, mega triggered double bass drums, tremolo picked riffs out the ass and more sweeping than a broom convention. The bits I've got to point out here are the little extras that make this album stand out (albeit not by too much). A lot of the lead guitar through the songs have long, held out, slowly bent notes (especially the title track) that really give an old-school-alien-invasion-movie-soundtrack feel. Considering The Faceless' sci-fi theme with the lyrics and artwork, the guitar work fits perfectly here.

Another thing that steps up Planetary Duality's game are the little clean interludes thrown in every once in a  while. Whether its with clean guitar like in the forty-four second track titled "Shape Shifters" or the intro of "Legion of the Serpent" or the fantastic little organ and piano bridges in "Xenochrist" and "Legion of the Serpent" as well, these breaks from the albums relentless brutality are very much welcomed.

The last thing that this release offers are some of Michael Keene's clean vocals sprinkled over it. They aren't fantastic, but they switch things up, and you can tell he's putting in a solid effort, so you can't really complain.

Too much guitar wanking makes Death Metal Skrillex Michael Keene sad.

As awesome as all that is, this album isn't without it's pitfalls. The first thing that really rustled my jimmies are lead vocalist Derek Rydquist's higher register screams. I fell they lack any and all guts behind them and sound forced as all Hell. I'm sure some people like them, but they're just not for me. Another vocal issue are the vocoders used, specifically on the opening track "Prison Born". Just. No. Please. No.

Bomb-Ass Tracks


The Ancient Covenant: You all know how much I love bass solos.
Xenochrist: With that awesome piano intro/ bridge, and some pretty interesting songwriting and riffing, its no wonder why "Xenochrist" is one of their most popular songs. Also, that outro is just too good not to listen to over and over again.
Legion of the Serpent: Michael Keene gets that bitch neo-classical riffing. Bitches love neo-classical riffing.


On a Playlist With: Obscura, Decrepit Birth, (old) Cynic


Overall Score
3.0


Planetary Duality is a guitar driven tech-death album that shoots to be something head and shoulders above  the swathes of generic tech-death bands and gets close, but gets dragged back down by some sub-par vocals. I know they don't show up often, but when they do, I cringe. 2012's Autotheist has a new vocalist taking up the mic, so I'm interested in what Michael Keene and friends will bring out next.


That's all for now, folks.

Album Review: One Direction - "Up All Night"

After looking at and listening to some underground Hip-Hop, Dream Pop, and whatever genre Diablo Swing Orchestra are, I think it's time to turn around and head straight into the mainstream. Today we're going to check out who are probably my new favorite band from England: One Direction! These five best friends have put out their debut album Up All Night and it's been blaring from my speakers ever since I bought it.

One Direction (<3) just excel, in every way. Musically and lyrically, these guys stand head and shoulders above almost any group I've had the pleasure of listening to. It's hard to make jokes here when the music and messages they stand behind are so fucking good.

Everything above this image was probably the most painful thing I've ever had to write.

Don't worry, everyone. I wouldn't even touch that One Direction shit with a 50-foot pole, let alone buy it. Today I'm going to look at a band who would rape One Direction to death, eat their flesh and sew those little bitches' skins into their clothing. And if they're very, very lucky, it'll happen in that order.

Aborted (<3) are a Deathgrind band from Belgium who've been around for what's starting to close in on 20 years. They go for the classic Carcass-style gore-splattering, innards-disemboweling themes and lyrics, and with song titles like "Coronary Reconstruction", "Expurgation Euphoria", and  "Our Father, Who Art of Feces", how could you not get excited? For those of you who don't know what Deathgrind is, it's (as the name suggests) a crossover between Death Metal and Grindcore. It mixes the furious speed and aggression of Grindcore and the musicality and songwriting of Death Metal into the equivalent of being mauled by a grizzly bear with a +5 thundering warhammer.

Yeah. Terrifying, I know.

The album is pretty straight forward. The band pulls of flying at a million kilometers an hour without giving the look-at-how-good-I-am-at-playing-my-instrument wankery. The riffs stay pounding and brutal, and the drums sound absolutely massive. The real attraction on here is vocalist Sven de Caluwé's impressive range. Everything from throat shredding Grind screams to brutal as fuck Death Metal growls to even the occasional pig squeal shows up on here. His ability to cycle between a bunch of different extreme Metal vocal styles really keeps things interesting throughout this album.

Something else that adds a fun touch (but is in no way anything new in either the Death Metal or Grindcore genres) are the audio samples. The intro track is a a bunch of snippets of old movies strung together to give this eerie zombie-apocalypse-is-actually-upon us feeling, and most other tracks feature audio clips from some horror movie or another. The final track ends with the somewhat cliché "Now I have become death, the destroyer of worlds" quote, but it still fits nicely for closing the album. The one sample that I really love the most is on the title track where just as the song is about to hit full-on Grind mode, you hear "I'M GOING TO FUCKING RAPE YOUR SOUL!". Classic.

I have to say, although Global Flatline keeps it fresh throughout, it's not fresh enough for my tastes. With music like Deathgrind or Technical Death Metal, I feel there are always a few songs on thew album that really stand out, but most other songs seem to sound similar, with not enough character put into each one.

Bomb-Ass Tracks

Global Flatline: What can I say, this song fucking raped my soul.

Our Father, Who Art of Feces: This song's chorus is gargantuan. I really love the guitar work as well. There are a bunch of memorable riffs all the way throughout, and the solo is wicked sweet too.

Enstille: The closing track (excluding the bonus tracks) starts off with similar sampling as the intro track and then shifts into a driving, mid-paced monster. It's got some incredibly well phrased guitar work shredding over top of the first half. The second half picks up with Sven doing a mix of spoken word and growling like a motherfucker. I know that a lot of people really disliked this track because it didn't fit with the rest of the album, but I personally love this song.

On a Playlist With: Decrepit Birth, Origin, Cattle Decapitation

Overall Score

3.5

If you like Death Metal, Grindcore, or Tech-Death, you'll probably like this. If you don't like any of those genres, this probably won't change your stance on them. I think this is a pretty solid album. I mean, what can I say, they had me at "rape your soul". <3

That's all for now, folks. Keep being Awesome.

Album Review: Six Feet Under – “Undead”

It pains me sometimes so see a classic image get shattered. Nobody likes that. Chris Barnes, former vocalist for Cannibal Corpse (on Eaten Back to Life, Butchered at Birth and Tomb of the Mutilated) belted out some wicked sweet Death Metal vocals back in the day. I had always heard of his post-Corpse band Six Feet Under in passing but never took the time to check them out. I have heard absolutely none of their previous work before listening to Undead, where usually I check out a few random songs from a band before I ingest a full album. So Six Feet Under had a clean slate. Had a clean slate. Ladies and djentlemen, this review is going to be swift and brutal.

All the tortured looking faces pretty much sum up this album.

It was awful. It was like the musical equivalent of watching someone kick a puppy. First you stand there screaming “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?”, and then you rush over there and try and get that little shit away from that poor puppy. In the case of Undead, I sat there screaming “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?”, and then I rushed over to the pause button to try and get that shitty music away from my poor ears.

Going against my instinct of turning it off immediately, I listened to the whole album. It was an unforgiving wasteland of horrible production, mediocre music, and awful vocals. The production made everything seem flat. It wasn’t a raw sound and it wasn’t a clean sound, it was just… sound. The guitars didn’t possess that sort of visceral, face-smashing tone that old school death metal is known for. It just sounded like some 12 year old kid who just bought his new Line 6 Spyder and has no idea what all the shiny buttons do. The music itself was pretty underwhelming, too. Although there are some sweet riffs on Undead, 90% of them just sound boring. To credit Kevin Talley though, the drumming on Undead is great, cause its Kevin motherfucking Talley. To top all of that off, the once reigning king of Death Metal fizzles out with the worst guttural vocals and screams I’ve heard in a long time. Barnes sounds like a 7 year old imitating his favorite movie villain. One thing about Barnes’ vocals that did entertain me were his higher register screams. They’re fucking hilarious. I seriously burst out laughing while listening to some of the tracks.

Bomb Ass-Tracks

None. Absolutely none.

Overall Score

1.0

This was less of a review and more of a warning. I can’t tell you not to listen to it as you should always try to expose yourself to as much music as possible, but I can’t actually recommend Undead to anyone.

That’s all for now, folks. Keep being Awesome.