Tombstoned – Tombstoned

Apr 18 • International News, News, Reviews, The Slumbering Ent • 2866 Views

Sriram reviews the new self-titled from Tombstoned, released via Svart Records.

If you have been following the heavy music scene of late, you have no doubt noticed the heartening proliferation of bands paying allegiance to the proto-metal sound of the early ’70s, beyond the (admittedly gargantuan, and I mean that in every sense of the word) wellspring afforded by the ’70s Sabbath catalog. The spirits of fuzzed out heavy  blues monoliths forged by bands like Sir Lord Baltimore, Blue Cheer, Mountain, Atomic Rooster and Jerusalem, and the psychedelic space-rock  liturgies of early Hawkwind and Budgie are being resurrected in heavier, grittier avatars and oh boy, is it good!

Tombstoned’s self-titled debut full length is a 47 minute opus that combines the ethos of the fuzzy, groovy, heavy rock of the ’70s pioneers with the massive, crushing dirge of more comtemporary Scandinavian doom bands like Reverend Bizarre and Witchcraft (or Greenleaf, if you, like me, think Witchcraft’s last album was a sore disappointment). Album opener “Through Days” is a mammoth groove-laden stomp that wouldn’t have felt out of place on either II:Crush the Insects OR Vincebus Eruptum. “The End” and “Rat Race” alternate between slow, ponderous sections and fuzzed-out blues gallops with stunning ease .”Faded” is the the most ‘doom’ sounding track on the record, channeling the low ‘n’ slow essence of “In the Rectory” era Reverend Bizarre (certainly helps that vocalist Jussi’s vocal style is redolent of Albert Witchfinder’s, especially on “The End”) and even shades of Witch’s eponymous debut S/T album. “Daze of disintegration” is a bit of an oddball, sounding the end result of an LSD-binge jam between Hawkwind, Black Sabbath and Blue Cheer (with industrial percussion, even!). The closer “Last Waltz” is a 11 and a half minute epic that opens with an almost old-western sounding intro and heads into a full-blown dirge. This song draws more from bands of the southern/desert rock movement like Kyuss and Queens of the Stone Age and is probably the most different sounding track on the album.

The album is sure to appeal to fans of heavy rock/stoner doom and is certainly a testament to Tombstoned’s growing prowess (something already bolstered by an endorsement by none less than Jus Oborn!). This is right up there with Goatess and Clutch’s 2013 releases, both of which have set the bar for heavy rock albums this year.

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Gorguts – Colored Sands

Apr 18 • International News, News, Reviews, The Slumbering Ent • 2905 Views

Jayaprakash Satyamurthy reviews the new album from Gorguts titled Colored Sands, released via Season of Mist.

If you’re going to wait 12 years to release a new album, it had better be something special. Considering that Gorguts’ initial 4-album run was all special, all the way, the pressure’s even higher. While their first two albums combined uncompromising brutality with great songwriting, their third album ‘Obscura’ ventured into sonic experimentation and set the pace for a generation of technical death metal bands and their fourth album, ‘From Wisdom To Hate’ combined the two strands into a heady weave of brutal assault and intricate overthrow.

Singer and guitarist Luc Lemay has long been the band’s driving force. On this album, he steers a crack squad of musicians through a set of powerful, complex songs that stand up to even the most ridiculously elevated expectations. Packed with churning, queasy riffs, intricate melodies and soaring dissonance, these songs are lengthy, complex and heavy on atmosphere and, well, heaviness. The album isn’t an in-your-face brutal speed attack, but the oppressive feel it conjures up makes in sheer presence what it may lack in beats per minute, although some of the drumming here is insanely fast, and its complex and punishing even when the pace lets up. There’s a lot of room here for introspective breaks that take the pace down without losing the intensity, as in the mid section of ‘An Ocean Of Wisdom’ with its layered arpeggios, seamlessly moving back into a mid-paced, ominous section that bands like Abyssal or Portal would be proud of. In fact, this album is closer to the weird, expansive soundscapes of bands like the aforementioned as well as Mitochondrion, to say nothing of black metal bands like Krallice and Deathspell Omega than the colder precision-engineered tech death of bands like Origin, who were also influenced by Gorguts’ original run of albums.

When I heard Lemay had been listening to Opeth and Porcupine Tree before writing these songs, I was understandably dismayed. I know that these bands are the mainstays of a whole new generation of progheads, but they’ve tended too much towards the soaringly melodic and tiresomely ethereal end of the heavy/progressive spectrum for me. It’s a relief to hear that the influences lie more in the realm of extended song structures and layering, with the actual music as jagged, unsettling and creepy as ever. The title track, ‘Colored Sands’ is a great example of what I mean. It takes time building up, starting at a sedate pace and hanging in there for a while before going into mid-tempo pile driving, but at all times the atmosphere is absolutely grim and morbid, the way great death metal should be whether or not it’s technical or progressive or whatever. Even the string quartet instrumental, ‘The Battle of Chando’ shares that atmosphere of ill-omen, while being as stirring and propulsive as you’d expect from a string quartet that has found its way into a death metal record. This isn’t just video game soundtrack-style generic blood and thunder string-scraping: it’s an interesting piece with brilliant shifts in pace and some great scoring for all the instruments. And somehow, it’s still metal.

And there’s the great thing about all of this: this music is complex. It is technically advanced, intricately composed and arranged; and all that complexity and technicality is put to use in constructing a great death meal album that is, to use the simplest words possible, really huge and really scary. And that’s everything I’d hoped the new Gorguts album would be.

Stream the entire album below:

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Exhumed – Necrocracy

Apr 18 • International News, News, Reviews, The Slumbering Ent • 3169 Views

 Achintya Venkatesh reviews the new album from veterans Exhumed titled Necrocracy, released via Relapse Records.

Exhumed has often been subject to endless comparisons with, and is often deemed as the liminal alternative to Carcass in light of the prolonged hiatus of the British extreme metal pioneers (until their recent reformation, of course), and this should come as no surprise given that the band’s stylistic leanings are in fact rather evocative of Carcass’ various styles across their prolific career. The San Jose natives have known to be a band that has been subject to a slew of critical line-up changes, and ‘Necrocracy’ sees the comeback of axe man Bud Burke after almost a decade, who originally parted ways with the band due to a personal aversion to heavy touring schedules. ‘Necrocracy’ picks up where the solid 2011 release, ‘All Guts, No Glory’ left of, albeit in a more coherent fashion. The record essentially marks their evolution from being a death-grind band to a more settled and focused death metal sound that is in one sense, reminiscent of ‘Necroticism – Descanting the Insalubrious’ era Carcass. However, such notions do not wholly do justice to this effort and thus deeming Exhumed as mere sonic offspring of Carcass is assuredly a notional leap. Exhumed brings quite a lot to the table that is verily rare in the realm of extreme metal in terms of pure conceptualization of their song-writing.

The album wastes no time with ambient intros or ritualistic dirges and kicks straight off into ‘Coins Upon the Eyes’ that presents a blistering old school aesthetic with pacing riff work, in addition to a number of tempo changes. The song makes a pleasant shift to alternative rhythms while the commendable soloing takes place. ‘The Shape of Deaths to Come’ showcases similarly groove-laden rhythms and Heartwork-esque melodies that serve as an aural relief of sorts amidst the petrifying vocals and punishing instrumentation. The standout here is the hyper technical bass work that comes to focus during many of the fills. The following track, the title track of the album sees the band indulging in some immensely enjoyable but not blatantly derivative Carcass worship, and this is reinforced by the following track ‘Dysmorphic’. By now it’s hard to ignore the fact that Rob Babcock has a keen ear and vision towards creating vocal hooks within the harsh mould of death metal vocals, which is certainly praiseworthy.

‘Sickened’ sees the band amalgamating their new found punctiliousness with a death-grind indulgence which should please fans regardless of their leanings towards either the grindcore or melodic death metal side of things. Mike Hamilton leads the band into this crescendo of sorts, and unleashes a percussive fury that is reminiscent of the early works of the band. The lead work and guitar harmonies present on the latter half of this track warrant as much commendation as any classic record with similarly stellar guitar work, such as ‘Rust in Peace’ or ‘No More Color’. The next track, ‘(So Passes) The Glory of Death’ is a pinnacle of sorts of the band in terms of sheer song-writing abilities and is a testament to the cohesive nature of the band’s latest avatar. The riffs flow with absolute ease in chinks with a solid, unrelenting percussive base, while the melodies are so incredibly well thought out that enjoying them is literally visceral for the listener. ‘Ravening’ is yet another example of the sheer conceptual brilliance of the band – a controlled frenzy is seen in the instrumentation – Slayer-esque whammy bar abuse to melodic, traditional metal leads, Napalm Death/Terrorizer-invoking blast beats and a hideous vocal pillage. This punitive vocal approach continues onto ‘Carrion Call’, accompanied by every extreme metal fan’s favourite tremolo riffing that makes for a gruelling aural experience. Things are slowed down to some extremely catchy grooves and as ever, resplendent guitar melodies. Exhumed closes this forty minute affair with ‘The Rotting’ which is a relentless grinding experience that seamlessly flows into a more melodic segment and ends on the same note of ferocity that the album began on.
Stream the entire album here :

In a sense this album could indeed be deemed a realization for the band, whose earlier records seemingly in mutiny to this comparatively coherent and lucid sound, almost as if to say that the band found some efficacy in a more scrupulous musical approach. The capriciousness of their grind/death-grind era may well be missed by some, but this new approach that invokes the incipient death metal sound of the mid 1990’s, that hadn’t been stripped off its traditional metal and thrash metal roots would be a treat for a slew of enthusiasts. This is evident in some of the groovier/thrashy and melodic segments of the songs. The songs on this album are rather brief and barely hit the five minute mark in most cases. In light of the same, it is very laudable that the band is savvy with the art of being able to compress such lofty musical ideas in such short spans of time, which most bands take time in building up to and thereon market as ‘progressive’. The guitar work is admittedly more refined and clinical relative to their older efforts, but is far from descending into a boring, methodical approach adopted by a legion of technically-oriented bands. In terms of pacing, Matt Harvey and Bud Burke lean back on more beefy, chugged chord progressions that go hand in hand with their gravelly, goblin-like, raspy snarls and on the flipside, more low-register guttural growls. This vocal alternation is fantastic and yet again is one of the many facets of the band that enthrals the listener. Mike Hamilton’s drumming showcases a great deal of percussive dexterity and moreover, ability to acclimatize to the moods being invoked by the guitar duo’s instrumentation in terms of tempo changes. Amidst all this magnificent instrumentation, technical finesse and excellent production, Rob Babcock’s bass work adds a grimier element to the dynamics of the band.

‘Necrocracy’ is not the most stylistically innovative record, and yet this polishing of the band’s sound and brings in a certain mastery of their craft that is unique in itself within the context of the band. Essentially the outstanding song-writing ideas on this effort are innumerable, which is what makes the album an absolutely sterling record.

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Erra – Augment

Apr 18 • International News, News, Reviews, The Slumbering Ent • 3794 Views

Deckard Cain reviews the new album from Erra titled Augment, released via Tragic Hero Records.

I’d vouch for this. ’50 % of the metal loving populace of India grew up on nu metal/ metalcore’. Well for obvious reasons I cannot further substantiate this ‘supposed’ fact. Oh hell, just take a gander at your local metal scene (if in existence of course), and there is a good chance that most do metalcore. Yet again, that is not in itself a bad thing. Metalcore was always the most promotionally backed and accessible (both taste wise and availability wise) form of ‘heavy’ music that we were first rushed into, especially for those born in the late 80’s and 90’s. For once we were able to part with the almost insipid nature of most mainstream rock and find something more primal. From there on, most musical tastes (metal ones) expand and shoot off into different directions while some stick with different adaptations of the ever ubiquitous ‘breakdown’.  This is not about being a hipster or uber kvlt or anything as ridiculous as those names denote. It is about exploring. With curiosity and an insatiable appetite leading the way to better music. Personally, I no longer listen much of anything metalcore, but I am darn proud to have grown with it. It was the cornerstone on which my listening palette developed early on.  And it is heartwarming indeed when certain bands still have a trick or two up their sleeve to keep the genre relevant.

Slowly cleansing the cesspool that the genre has grown to become is Erra. After raising hopes and turning quite a few heads with their 2011 debut LP Impulse, 2013’s Augment was much awaited. Maneuvering out of every possible hint of a sophomore slump, they’ve brought out a release that surpasses its predecessor. Erra has always been a mix of sounds from bands more popular, and one might easily discern their influences here as well.  Impressions of Misery Signals and Born of Osiris simply jut out while the cleans remind of Cove Reber from Saosin. They marry these influences and still air an authenticity that one could well call their own. With Augment, the listener is likely to be held captive by the stunning melody on showcase. Interjecting them at exactly the right places and done with a finesse almost unparalleled (except maybe Ryan Morgan’s) within the genre. Jesse Cash and Alan Rigdon simply rule the roost throughout Augment. They trade their repertoire of guitar pyrotechnics for direction and composition. The leads tow the Misery Signal line while the groovy palm muted riffs resemble Born of Osiris’.  A single listen to tracks like Hybrid Earth and Prometheus, be it the vocal style or a guitar lick, is all it takes to set in. The solos in Hybrid Earth’s bridge section and towards the end of closer Dementia are sure to make their way inside your head. On the other hand vocalist Garrison Lee treads the grey area between Karl Schubach(Misery Signals) and Ronnie Canizaro (Born of Osiris) which befits the music at hand and adds a sense of power and character. The drums and the bass just seem to be happy to serve as supporting structures, which is unfortunate to a certain extent.

While the album as a whole do not really differ in overall pace and style, it does enough as a collection of great standalone songs. Erra’s brand of emotionally grappling melody espoused by djenty grooves makes for a satisfying listen. Augment is up there with Norma Jean’s Wrongdoers for top metalcore status.

Stream the entire album below

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Enbilulugugal – Noizemongers for Goatserpent (Re-issue)

Apr 18 • International News, News, Reviews, The Slumbering Ent • 2320 Views

Rohit Chaoji reviews the re-issue of Enbilulugugal‘s Noizemongers for Goatserpent, released via Crucial Blast Records.

The eccentrically-named Enbilulugugal are a Black Metal/Noise band from CA, United States. They released their debut Noizemongers for Goatserpent in 2004, which featured noise-laden, primitve black metal tracks with a slight punk edge.
In 2013, Crucial Blast re-issued the album with 50 extra tracks from demos, and out-of-print EPs.

Noizemongers begins with a short intro which features a sample with a short noise passage, prior to beginning its assault of harsh, noisy black metal. Musically (hah!), this project reminds me of the harshness of Merzbow and Masonna and the primitive quality of Les Légions Noires bands thrown into a blender. The direct influences from the latter can be heard in the more coherent tracks that feature actual riffs and song structures, although they seem to be pointless besides providing the listener with a “rest” of some kind among the massive walls of harsh noise that is found throughout majority of the album.

The noise sections, however, are made rather well. Even though they are mostly unstructured, those tracks consist of some really cool analog noise effects reminiscent of 90s Dark/Ritual ambient and industrial acts. It would have made more sense to make these tracks slightly longer and more tense than they are, since they tend to end before they have any real effect on the listener. The noise tracks that accompany blast-beats are rather annoying to listen to, since they only add any substance to the actual songs on the album – in the form of a metronome. Luckily, in the production job, the drums take a back seat and allow the noisy guitars and reverb-laden vocals more prominence.

The most striking quality of this release is the vocals. They are incredible harsh and demented. There is pure hatred and misery emanating from them and there is no mistaking it. The vocals are very similar to those heard on the Belketre side of the Vlad Tepes/Belketre split album, titled March to the Black Holocaust.

Enbilulugugal are clearly not a serious band and Noizemongers for Goatserpent is definitely not a serious album, with songtitles like “NekroShit” and “NecroKvntPuke” being testimony to that. These are only a bunch of people with the intention to make one of the noisiest, most primitive albums of modern times, and they do succeed at doing so. It is definitely an enjoyable listen and its rather short length (29 tracks in 38 minutes for the original album) makes it worth listening to at least once.

Stream the entire album below:

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