MacabreEternal

Churchburn “None Shall LIve...The Hymns Of Misery”

Yes Andy Synn. Didn’t get on with Gorod, very underwhelming.

Gorod “Aethra” nocleansinging.com dropped his top ten releases of 2018 (this album isn’t one of them, more of an “also ran” so I am going to spend tomorrow working through it.

At the start of pulling this list together I had thought it to have been a "light" year for BM releases. It was only when I got into compiling my "Best of 2018" that I realised it had in fact been quite a good year. 2018 in BM saw the return of some well established acts, some of them doing what they have always done well whereas others took to the recording studios minus long standing members. When all is said and done, I think it all turned out rather well. Honorable Mentions It is a Top 10 folks and sadly not everyone has a place, so appreciative nods in the general direction of: Shining "X-Varg Utan Flock"; Alghazanth "Eight Coffin Nails"; Summoning "With Doom We Come"; Varathron "Patriarchs of Evil" and Watain "Trident Wolf Eclipse". 10. Panopticon "The Scars of Man on the Once Nameless Wilderness I & II" By far the latest release on the list in terms of me catching up with it. Usual atmospheric BM goodness on disc 1 and not too shabby folk/bluegrass/dark americana on disc 2. Does grow on me the more I listen. 9. Wallachia "Monumental Heresy" A recent revisit to this album boosted it into the list. Those lush orchestrations supply a great foundation to those tremolo riffs and acoustic passages throughout "Monumental Heresy". Nice work. 8. Wiegedood "De Doden Hebben Het Goed II" Aggression is the name of the game here, as death and anger are thrust at you from every corner. Can pass you by completely if you don't give it proper attention, and doing so will reap rich rewards as there is so much going on here beneath the surface. 7. Die Kunst Der Finsternis "Queen of Owls" Another fine slab of vampiric, gothic and horrific BM from Sweden's finest lord of the night. This truly is the art of darkness at work right here. 6. Craft "White Noise and Black Metal" Dodgy record title aside, Craft return with a real class release some seven years after their last outing. Catchy and scathing at the same time, the Swedes fifth full length make it two back to back releases from the country of IKEA into my top 10. 5. Drudkh "They Often See Dreams About the Spring" Still no bad releases from Drudkh after 15 years of atmospheric BM. The atmosphere is just as prevalent as ever on release number 11, built into the intelligent song structures and mature riffing and growling we have all become ever so familiar with. There is just no getting away from the feeling of vastness on this record as it swallows you up track by track. Sadly this is also its main flaw as the attention required to fully enjoy this is a little too intense for my aged metal brain, otherwise it could have placed higher. 4. Immortal "Northern Chaos Gods" Abbath who? I mean this is one the most Immortal sounding Immortal albums ever, right? Showing Demonaz as the real songwriting force behind Immortal, "Northern Chaos Gods" is just chock full of FUCKING RIFFS MAN! I mean play this in a dark room, get up to switch the light and you will trip over at least 4 riffs whilst trying to get to the light switch! They have song called "Blacker of Worlds" on here, I mean if that doesn't get your average corpse paint laden BM teenager wet then there's no hope for humanity. 3. Marduk "Viktoria" Ok, this caught me completely off guard. I mean, pants down, around the ankles, pooing in a bag, in a forest in hi-vis work gear - caught off guard! Now I have stopped shitting in the woods like some giant luminous bear I am just having the time of my life listening to the short, sharp yet thoroughly enjoyable blasturbation of Marduk. Cold and melancholic melodies swirl throughout the album and fill your head like for days afterwards. 2. Sargeist "Unbound" Another band that simply can do no wrong in my book is Sargeist. I am at the point now where I listen to each new release with trepidation, just in case this is the one that drops a bollock the weight of Finland itself as the band have decided to go all Euro Pop! Thankfully, "Unbound" is most definitely not Euro Pop. It is a furiously trve representation of Sargeist's traditional sound that is complemented superbly by melodic stylings from a largely new and reinvigorated line up. No Sargeist entry at Eurovision this year folks! 1. Winterfylleth "The Harrowing of Heirdom" So, controversially not an actual BM record but most definitely a release by a BM band. I can't quite put into sufficient wording just how much I enjoy this record of acoustic storytelling. I sing along to every line, I get teary at every lush piece of instrumentation and atmosphere and I smile content as a Bond villain at every warm tone that washes forth from my speakers/headphones. An earthy, emotional and endearing experience that sits proudly atop of my list for 2018.

Druid Lord “Grotesque Offerings”

Today’s car journey album playlist: The Prodigy “Music for the Jilted Generation” Opeth “Still Life” Sadus “Swallowed in Black”

As with much of this year’s releases, it was “okay”. Not bad, but nothing special either. I can’t think of one DM record that has sunk it’s teeth in me like a “Shrines Of Paralysis” or a “Pleiades Dust” did a couple of years back. Ripped to Shreds was good too but highly overrated from some of the reviews I read online.

Hi, welcome to the forum. Hope you enjoy it here. We are solid little community here so the activity might not be at FaceBook proportions but we love our metal and beers in the main so feel free to stick around and contribute.

Golgothan Remains “Peverse Offerings to the Void” Of Feather and Bone "Bestial Hymns of Perversion" Ripped to Shreds "Mai Zang"

Bloodbath “The Arrow of Satan is Drawn”

Ok - shamelessly stolen idea from various other forums I frequent but lets see how it goes. As the title suggests it is an opportunity to post your top 3 of the week in terms of albums and eps. This week for me has been: Queensryche - Empire Megadeth - Countdown To Extinction Slidhr -Deluge

Benediction “The Grand Leveller”

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) - Alberto Iglesias

I don’t know, I listened through Vangheld’s latest release yesterday and it really struck a chord straight away. Again, not exceptional but just appealed to my inner doom/death child instantly. Will check out Amphisbaena thanks.

Had a go with the new Evoken earlier and I wasn't as impressed as I had hoped. It isn't a bad record per se, just a little too accessible for me and in all honesty a little showy. That's not to say it is full of wankery and gush I just feel it's almost too grandiose in what it is trying to deliver. I am going to give it another couple of listens but first impressions haven't left positive footprints.

Asphyx "Deathammer" - had this on digital for a while but really enjoy it and so thought I would add it to the CD collection. My PC speakers are fucked so the CD player is getting some hammer at mo.

Obliteration “Cenotaph Obscure”

Behind every great man, there's a great woman. Behind every camped up, shape throwing, garrulous Black Metal vocalist there's a great song writer. Both of these statements are true, except the second one actually does not commend Abbath as being the imaginative, creative and artistic driving force behind Immortal. This is blatantly obvious if you have heard his solo pop/rock record of a couple of years ago. What "Northern Chaos Gods" does is essentially pull off one of the best tattoo removal jobs in the history of "I Love Sharon" ink stains on most truck drivers (married to a woman called Rose) arm's being obliterated by lasers. Despite a big character no longer being present on this record, I don't for one second miss Abbath. Demonaz and co manage to put out an album that sounds so much like Immortal of old you could be forgiven for crying "Fake News!" at every mention of the turmoil and split between the founding members given the music is as strong as it has been in some while. Demonaz even sounds like a more in control albeit slightly more subdued Abbath. But it isn't the vocals that will get you sweating like a blind lesbian in a fishmongers. Nope, IT'S THE FUCKING RIFFS MAN!!!!!! It is genuinely like getting twatted by an octopus for 42 and a bit minutes, listening to this record. Utterly relentless in their delivery, Immortal just pummel away at you, occasionally throwing an atmosphere building intro before thundering off on hoofed steed to epic landscapes such as "Where Mountains Rise". There's no Judas Priest or Iron Maiden esque dip in output here in the absence of their established frontman here. Demonaz and Horgh have - to put it in layman's terms - just picked up and ran with the established format. Don't get me wrong, it isn't anywhere near the quality of "At The Heart of Winter", alhtough it does piss all over "All Shall Fall". Think of it as being the record "Damned In Black" could have been as a better precursor to the great "Sons of Northern Darkness". They have a song called "Blacker of Worlds"!!! I mean what grown man with the mind of a pubescent boy doesn't think that is cool as fuck??? If the start of closing track "Mighty Ravendark" doesn't bring you out in goose pimples, you're dead inside. Fist pumping, neck snapping metal right here folks. 4/5

The first song I heard ahead of the full 2014 release ("The Satanist") from Behemoth was "Blow Your Trumpets Gabriel". It immediately peaked my interest, setting the tone nicely for what was to become one of my favoured full lengths of that year. This time around I heard "God = Dog" (which I think means the band are more cat people?). It sounded blunted and frankly restrained. Yes, there was a brief passage of some interesting string work towards the end but generally it just passed me by. Sadly, just as my experience of the lead song/single from 2014 was an excellent benchmark for my expectation of the full length, the same has happened in 2018 but with a very different outcome. "I Loved You At Your Darkest" rarely achieves touching distance of the band's previous full length. There's lots of things that stop it from doing this, indeed the list is as long as either one of my lanky and lengthy arms. The songwriting is poor, it lacks any real structure the majority of the time. As a result there is a constant sense of this just being a very hastily written, rush of ideas. Tracks like "If Crucifixion Was Not Enough" and "Ecclesia Diabolica Catholica" show this in abundance, the former nailing the lid down on its own coffin with one of the laziest attempts at a menacing riff I have heard in a while. When we do actually settle into some sense of structure it actually works well. "Bartzabel" is a sole triumph in the songwriting/structure stakes here and this is almost ruined by the annoying double layered, chanting backing vocals. Next on my list of grumbles? The sound. It is one of the most sterile and strained sounding mixes I think I have ever heard on a record. The drums sound like they were tracked for a completely different purpose on some of the tracks, "Wolves ov Siberia" and "Rom 5:8" in particular. I can't believe that this was the intended sound the band wanted to achieve. I follow Behemoth on Instagram and they make much majesty and menace over their theatre and general pomp when performing live it seems. Surely then they haven't listened to the final playback of this record? Now then. I don't recall chanting children on a record ever working well? But there's a couple of tracks here of children chanting their disdain for Christianity alongside Nergal and co. It sounds frankly fucking ridiculous and trite even over only two tracks! In summary, this is a massive disappointment whether you enjoyed "The Satanist" or not. Hastily put together, poorly arranged and mixed terribly to boot. 1/5

Sounded like your bag when I was listening through it earlier. I find it a little too jarring although this doesn't necessarily put me off entirely. np: Blackrat "Dread Reverence"

It was 2014 when Corpsessed released their debut full length and mighty fucking good it was too. Some 4+ years later and it is time for the sophomore release to land in my music stream and seek my attention. When I say seek I actually mean possess my attention. Although the album is by no means perfect, this record grabs hold of you by your very soul, dragging it off on a journey littered with horror, darkness and crushing heaviness to boot. One of its main successes is the atmosphere that is obvious from the opening of "Impetus of the Dead" and plays an integral part over the remainder of the release. It is a very well structured album too, with strong song writing that layers tracks up to behemoth size and proportions. Yet at the same time there's a real sense of balance too, for every cavernous and mammoth like structure there's shorter and more intense bursts that whilst moving the pace slightly away from the heaviness, don't distract too much from it. "Paroxsymal" and "Sortilege" are great examples of this, two well placed tracks that add a variety to the pace and increase the memorability of the whole experience. The album only has two weak points for me. The penultimate track on the record seems just a random and not altogether necessary inclusion, especially given the quality of "Forlorn Burial" before it and the vast ending of "Starless Event Horizon" after it. Secondly, the production does seem to give off a muddled sound on some tracks although the horror of the atmosphere and those lead guitars certainly do rescue the day on more than one occasion. In a year that has struggled overall to bring many standout DM records, "Impetus of Death" will be a welcome addition to any fan's Top 10 DM Albums of 2018 no doubt. It is one of the stronger records of 2018 and also a fine step up from their debut offering also which makes me excited for album number 3. 4/5

Portal "Ion" Ulthar "Cosmovore"

My career as a legitimate butcher was short lived.

Drudkh “They Often See Dreams about the Spring”

Wallachia "Monumental Heresy"