Tag: death metal

Northwest Terrorfest

On By Mahesh SreekandathIn Heavy metalLeave a comment

Quite like the 90s Seattle scene, Northwest Terrorfest also specializes in everything grungy. Guitars here are drop D downtuned to the abyss, decibels are off the charts, and all this at a venue which could be mistaken for a dive bar. Such bleak aesthetics would easily surpass the lows of an average Pacific Northwest winter. Mirroring those archetypal lifestyle and geographic signatures, if not accentuating them, this is probably as dark as it can get. Three days with about forty extreme bands will sort of explore the limits of your resilience. Safe to say, it’s probably not for the delicate of heart or health. But, all this translates to pure bliss if you’re one of those hardened metalheads.

Pattern here is similar to other fests, it combines the esoteric and the arcane bands with few well known acts, and then throws in couple of legends, but yet everyone here flies under the radar of most of the civilized world. Basically Northwest Terrorfest caters to an audience who are at least neck deep in metal, if not actually submerged and drowning. Even though spanning more than a few sub-genres, even by normal extreme metal standards, every band here fits exclusively within the grim and grisly end of the spectrum. Imagine cross-over thrash like Cryptic Slaughter being the most cheerful of the lot! Mighty Autopsy being the grisliest, and seeing them live qualifies as one of those unique life moments. Their death/doom imprint is deeply embedded on to a broad range of 90s extreme metal acts. Basically you have heard Autopsy, if you have been exposed to any of the Florida, NY Death or Swedish bands.

In fact, most of the entourage here owes or shares their DNA in varying degrees with Autopsy and Cryptic Slaughter. These two bands combined captures a broad set of extreme metal building blocks. Hardcore punk, guitar melodies, doom, thrash and electric blues. Bands like Necrot, Misery Index, Ghoul, Genocide Pact or Antichrist Siege Machine will basically trace their entire lineage to them. Doom/Stoner like YOB, Conan or Bell Witch shares a subset of influences. Same with post-metal like The Silver. But, there are also some curve-ball folk bands like Serpentent which shares little in terms of musical influences, but still follows similar aesthetics. Seems like Northwest Terrorfest tells a story, and it’s all in shades of melancholy and gloom, but quite memorable if you find beauty in those hues. Honestly, all this sounds a lot like life in Pacific Northwest itself.

Image Attribution: https://northwestterrorfest.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/NWTF-Poster-Final-4.5.23-768×1024.jpg

Acts Of God

On By Mahesh SreekandathIn Heavy metalLeave a comment

Immolation’s impact is beyond dispute, but over three decades of high quality records could use some reflection. Those infamous soaring leads, complex drum patterns and increasingly sophisticated arrangements. Needless to say, this melancholic train exhibits all the sublime deathly qualities, that subtle convulsive precision and more, in short everything which separates death from the rest is illustrated. Even more than that, these rather tortuous harmonies are uniquely memorable, and often tend to get stuck in our head. Riffs and drums playing in a loop, even hours after the album ended.

Acts of God does not deviate from their typical signature. Just like their earlier works, it’s an ongoing duet of contradictions. It’s like a discord of wistful guitars with bludgeoning drums, of aggressive tremolo picking with mournful growls, and of sorrowful depth with grunt tech death precision. Eventually crafting a texture so intricate, tangled, and yet comfortingly atmospheric. Just like that famous duality of man, Immolation is on a perpetual sonic duel, a tussle of contradictions which seems to never concede. Thankfully the consequence is all immersive death metal, and a career trajectory so rich and consistent, that it defies all known universal laws.

Immutable

On By Mahesh SreekandathIn Heavy metal, progressive metal1 Comment

My gun metal grey MESHUGGAH t-shirt invokes two types of responses – one is an awe-inspiring nod of approval and the other a curious grin. First reaction is from musicians and the second from older gentlemen who knows Hebrew. One is aware of the crazy genius of the band and the other knows meshuggah pretty much means crazy in Yiddish. Along with crossing genre boundaries, seems like even the typical demographic boundaries are blurred with this band.

The new album Immutable is pretty much signature MESHUGGAH, but mutating their unique mold in slightly new directions. Instead of the usual assault of mathematical precision riffs and polyrhythms, constantly slicing and exploding, we get blunt hammering of industrial tones, they are bordering on atmospheric. Even though these elements were always present, now they are shaping whole compositions. In short, while not completely immutable, they sound more or less settled in their ways. The band which discovered alien lifeforms like djent is now comfortable with their marginal revolutions.

Mark of a great genre or band is that ability to constantly chisel at the margins, and continuously evolve in surprising ways. Often illustrating layers and polycentric qualities. From that perspective MESHUGGAH has left their influence, obviously visible from their fanatic following. Then the question might be, can the world truly comprehend their crazy genius, can their disciples match and evolve the framework, even beyond the already dizzying benchmark set by the band.

Andreas Lawen, Fotandi, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Storm of the Light’s Bane

On By Mahesh SreekandathIn Heavy metalLeave a comment

Straddling Gothenburg death and Norwegian black metal, at the margin of what we might term as consonance and coarseness, resides Dissection. Crossing genre and aesthetic boundaries, Storm of the Light’s Bane prods listener into conflicting paths. Responses to this could vary, from a nodding reverence of those exquisite guitar passages, to a chilling silence, or just a morbid mosh-pit. Channeling their Scandinavian contemporaries, Dissection simply shapes their own brand of occult romanticism, often more despondent and atmospheric.

Extending the boundaries of aggression and poetry, these compositions are constantly shifting their contours. Adequately complemented by the drifts in lyrical prose — “I drown in the colour of your eye, for a black heart will only find beauty in darkness“– simultaneously conveys the elegance of an autumn night and dual guitar harmonies. With vocal textures reflecting the gloom in lyrics, Nödtveidt adds a layer of darkness unlike any other. Channeling divergent strands, and yet in perfect harmony, Storm of the Light’s Bane is one of those meticulous crafts. The rare ones illustrating extreme metal in all its glory and quirks. Described in Nödtveidt’s own lyrics — “Forged in blood by tragedy” — album leaves a lasting mental imprint.

Dissection_live_in_2005.jpg: Shadowgatederivative work: Elizabeth Bathory, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Ground Collapses

On By Mahesh SreekandathIn Heavy metalLeave a comment

Sludge and death metal, both evolved from hardcore/punk and electric blues, but a sludge-death cross-over is so much more than their shared roots. Fifty years of metal evolution, hundreds of sub-genres and here Disbelief simply continues that very captivating trend of mutations. In this case – strands of hardcore, New Orleans sludge and death metal crafts an unusual atmospheric blend. The Ground Collapses is quintessential extreme metal – in other words it encodes those long running lineage of influences, but still manages to sound novel.

It’s that familiar doom like aesthetics, that essential low, but uniquely fueled by deathly compositions rooted somewhere in late 80s Florida or Sweden. A hardcore wall-of-sound, often severed by meandering leads, and layered with cross-over vocals, creating an atmosphere so dank, deathly and gloomy. In metal, cross-genre sound is not uncommon, but this elegant cross-over aesthetic is. This subtle blend of aggression and grief makes for an essential listen, ironically one of those pockets of bliss in a rather morbid year.

Silent Waters

On By Mahesh SreekandathIn Heavy metalLeave a comment

Folk and some epic poetry can make for more than a few exquisite moments. And even with all that doom undertones, melody seems omnipresent. That’s not it – Finnish mythology, picturesque choruses, and deathly bass-lines – all layered in harmony. In other words, it’s rich, unmistakable, and Amorphis.

Music often complements that romanticism in lyrics — “Louhi spoke in riddled tones of three things to achieve, find and catch the devil’s moose and bring it there to me” – elegantly transitions to segments more appropriate for melodic-death. But, this is just one of those many instances of stunning coherence, on how their compositions accommodate hues, vibrant and diverse.

Elegant and melancholic, album does justice to the literature it adapts. “Pulled under the raging waters, my child, sank in the drowning currents, my son” — Amorphis unmistakably recreates Lemminkäinen’s tale. But now with compositions as sorrowful and gallant as his mythology, and with a “River of Death” Artwork as that fitting cover. Needless to say, exquisite and epic Silent Waters.

Stefan Bollmann, Attribution, via Wikimedia Commons

Scourge of the Enthroned

On By Mahesh SreekandathIn Heavy metalLeave a comment

With subtle dynamics, and a uniquely synchronized riff-drum assault, Krisiun forges ahead. Signatures here are inimitable. Not only is it old school as it ever gets, that intricate shredding and precision temporal switches simply elevates the band, altitudes above the numbing turbulence of run-of-the-mill death metal releases.

When a steady synchronized hammer of riffs and double bass runs into that hardly decipherable characteristic growls – “Slay yourself for the glorious day. When the bell tolls for the sins you have made” – it just provides that vocal finesse to this old school technical train. But, as expected, “Devouring Faith“ finally scorches its path into an electric blues like shredding, searing and relentless.

S. Bollmann [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Pleiades’ Dust

On By Mahesh SreekandathIn Heavy metalLeave a comment

There are bands which reinforce your conception of a symphony, and then there are the ones which broaden them. Gorguts is willfully rooted in that second category. Luc Lemay’s compositions are intimidating, and at the same time curiously captivating too. It might take a while to comprehend this level of discordance. But, quite like Meshuggah, or early Slayer, Gorguts is forging new neural pathways. In other words, they are creating a totally new classification for what we call an elegant symphony. Subtly, but effectively influencing how we perceive music itself.

If Obscura is too intimidating, then Pleiades’ Dust might be that ideal prescription, something that helps us mere mortals comprehend this transformative force.

 

 

Rubén G. Herrera [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Psychologists and Death Metal

On By Mahesh SreekandathIn Heavy metalLeave a comment

Ran into this Scientific American article on Death Metal.

“Those positive emotions, as reported by death metal fans in an online survey that Thompson and his team conducted, include feelings of empowerment, joy, peace and transcendence. So far, almost all of the anger and tension Thompson has documented in his death metal studies has been expressed by non-fans after listening to samples of the music.”

Probably, psychologists should be studying the non-fans, on why they are unable to decipher that grand symphony.

From a related Progarchy post.

The most complex of patterns is comfortably buried beneath a wall of rich chaotic sound. So, in spite of being substantive, intellectually and physically demanding, the uninitiated simply may not have the ear. We can appreciate the textures and the grand symphony only with some ability to abstract away that pulverizing sound. Actually mandates higher levels of cognition – sort of the mark of an ageing and civilized genre.

 

By Äppelmos [CC BY 3.0 ], from Wikimedia Commons