I’m on a roll with recommending new tech death this week, what with a rapidfire review for new EPs from Sutrah and Svengahli and now a full stream of the excellent debut from Aronious. As you’ll hear for yourself below, Perspicacity (available Friday, March 13, via The Artisan Era) is…
There are a few things I’m excited to accomplish with this post, beyond highlighting yet another couple of excellent death metal releases. First, from a practical standpoint, this is an efficient means of covering two short EPs that are still absolutely worth your time. It’s the same reason I created…
Every year, it seems like there’s one particular death metal album released in the early months of the year that sets my quality standards for the next several months. Last year in January, Alterage’s The Approaching Roar hit me like a brick to the temple, while in 2018 Portal’s Ion…
For eight years, the Canadian tech-death Megazord of Beneath The Massacre have watched their countrymen and neighbours hit the (relative) mainstream in metal with varying degrees of success. It’s a hot product. Having the most technically challenging, mind-bending material and implementing it into the most extreme forms of metal isn’t…
This year is already shaping up to be a monumental year for heavy music. It seems like there’s been more great releases in these first couple of months than the entire first half of 2019 combined. Moreover, even with all the outstanding big-name resales, it’s largely been the smaller, up…
It’s fitting that my first review of 2020 should be for a spicy technical death metal rebirth. I’m of course referring here to the resurgence of death metal legends Odious Mortem, who return to we the needy many after an 11-year hiatus with their third full-length effort Synesthesia. Comebacks are…
The best part about bands with a completely unique identity is the way they not only differentiate themselves from other groups, but from their own sound with each subsequent release. This trait applies directly to Dysrhythmia and the vast field of other projects involving Kevin Hufnagel (Gorguts, Vaura) and Colin…
As a band, Xoth represent a specific challenge to review: it feels impossible to concoct the right combination of words that both accurately describes the band and makes them sound as appealing as I’d like. Metal runs into this problem more often than other genres, I think. As sounds become…
Even the best tech-death has a tendency to become pretty overwhelming. As bands increasingly add more notes and elements to their repertoire, in an attempt to push the bounds of extremity and technicality, the central textures of their compositions often becomes obscured. The genre works best when bands strike the…
Last year was an exceptional year for death metal, and so far, 2019 is doing everything it can to match (and potentially exceed) that high bar. As Jonathan and I cover each month with Death’s Door, the genre has never been as diverse and adventurous as it is right now.…
