A mid year reflection: Jayaprakash Satyamurthy’s best of 2013

Mar 23 • International News, Releases, Reviews, The Slumbering Ent • 2097 Views

With the rest of the (active)writers on board, we’ve decided to put up our own little mid year best-of lists. Hopeful to the fact, that you guys might stumble on something new in the process as well. We had Mohammad Kabeer’s list posted last week, check that if you haven’t already. Today we have our own doomlord Jayaprakash Satyamurthy, talking about his favorite ones.

Best Of 2013 by Doom Lord

1.       Victor Griffin’s In-Graved – S/T ( Review )

I greatly prefer this album to the last Pentagram offering; the best bits on it were Griffin’s solos, anyway. A soulful, heavy and integral collection of excellent tunes by a consummate songwriter and guitar player.

2.       Goatess – S/T ( Review )

What some of the latter-day trad doom bands forget is that their influences always turned in albums that were as diverse as they were definitive. Goatess understands this, and each song has its own character while maintaining a consistent feel. Chritus, of course, is in fine form.

3.       Kongh – Sole Creation ( Review )

Just four songs, but each one is a sprawling epic of heavy, sludgy guitars, mesmerizing, almost post-metallic textures and a great mix of gruff and melodic vocals that don’t sound gimmicky at all.

4.       Primitive Man – Scorn

Abrasive, grimy, downtempo and heavy as heck, the Colorado sludgers’ debut album is one of the finest slabs of dissonant, pissed off riff abuse in a while. A fantastic production job abets songs that emerge and fade in squalls of noise while providing a surprisingly healthy quota of genuine hooks in between.

5.       Endless Boogie – Long Island

This is blues rock the way it’s rarely heard – not an effervescent virtuoso showcase, but a series of strung-out, stoned jams that reverberate with washes of glorious fuzz, oddball storylines and eccentric but very authentically bluesy ritualism.

6.       Abyssal – Novit Enim Dominus Qui Sunt Eius

Imagine a slowed-down Portal. That begins to describe this UK black/doom band’s sluggish, weighty sound. The ambience is nightmarishly oppressive and the structures are more abstract and free-form than on their debut, ‘Denouement’, which only works in favour of the uncanny atmosphere conjured up by this band.

7.       Dark Buddha Rising – Dakhmandal ( Review )

Not an album as much as a ritual, a trance-inducing, terrifying, alluring song-cycle that takes you through a stunning diversity of musical textures. Their best album yet.

8.       Dragonauta – Omega Pentagram

The band with the Sleep-worshipping name delivers a doom/sludge album that doesn’t wear any of the expected influences on its sleeve, choosing instead to revel in some of the most original and distinctive riffs and melodies I’ve head being carved out in this genre in a while.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuP5C10uUQ0&w=420&h=315]

9.       Fragarak – Crypts of Dissimulation

Intelligent, questing and melodic progressive extreme metal with an introspective bent. One of the best debuts of the year and certainly the best Indian metal release of the year so far.

10.   Reino Ermitano – Veneracion Del Fuego ( Review )

This Peruvian doom band has fallen beneath the radar for me in past years, but this platter of seasoned, immersive music ensures that I’ll pay them a lot more attention henceforth. Dark, mystical music with great tone and songs that stretch out to great effect.

Notable albums:

 Cathedral – The Last Spire

Not their finest hour, but a wonderfully doomy set of songs.

Sacred Gate- Tides Of War

Proof that the battle of Thermopylae and Iron Maiden still have the power to inspire some really good metal music

Blood Ceremony – The Eldritch Dark

Their most assured and original album yet

Hexvesselc – Iron Marsh EP

This EP shows the gains this band has reaped from bringing heavier textures into their musical mix

Timo Tolkk’s Avalon – The Land Of New Hope

Great melodies, dramatic over-the-top vocals and some brilliant soloing make this Tolkki’s best album since the demise of Renaissance Revolution

Anvil – Hope In Hell

A catchy, likable album that underscores the real reason you should listen to this band – their incredible consistency

Krypts – Unending Degradation

Delivers on the promise of their self-titled EP with one of the most idiomatic and well-conceived old school DM sets this year

Asgard – Outworld

Metalheads who swear by Helloween’s ‘Walls Of Jericho’ simply must check out this album by a band that puts the power back in power metal

Abysmal Grief – Feretr

This band occupies the common ground between goth and trad doom, and does a fine job of it

Cauchemar – Tenbrario

The trad doomers take it up a notch or two from their debut EP, delivering a very strong follow-up

Ramlord – Crippled Minds, Sundered Wisdom

Crusty sludge with shades of d-beat and black metal. Another supremely abrasive, scalding album

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Reino Ermitaño – Veneración del Fuego | Review

Mar 23 • International News, Releases, Reviews, The Slumbering Ent • 1823 Views

Jayaprakash Satyamurthy reviews the new album from Reino Ermitaño titled Veneración del Fuego , released via I Hate Records.

Reino Ermitaño – Veneración del Fuego

Tracklist:
1. Quimera 09:19
2. El Sueño del Condor 04:50
3. Sobre las Ruinas 06:21
4. Desangrándote 06:29
5. Cuando la Luz te Encuentre 09:03
6. Soy el Lobo 06:19
7. El Rito 08:20
8. Vente al Fuego 05:02
9. Sangre India 09:44
10. Cadáver, Semilla, Renacer 01:16

Pre-dating the recent trend of female-fronted doom bands by a decade, Peru’s Reino Ermitano have been flying the flag of fuzzy, riff-driven, mystical doom metal since their formation in 2001. I am not familiar with their back catalogue, having only heard their sophomore release, ‘Brujas del Mar’, so I wasn’t sure what to expect when I loaded their new CD into my player.

First of all, there’s the guitar tone – thick, heavy and with a satisfying backwash of fuzz. The bass tone is more glassy than I favour for doom, but blends nicely with the guitar. The drums aren’t a standout element, but they get the job done. The riffing clearly draws from traditional doom motherlodes – some Cathedral, traces of Saint Vitus and Pentagram, a dose of Wino worship, and a general atmosphere of lugubrious, mystical ritual. Need I mention that there’s some Sabbath in the mix? The vocals are sonorous, haunting, somewhat straightforward but very effective. The fact that I don’t understand the language the lyrics are penned in perhaps adds a touch of exotic mystery to the whole production, although it is not too hard to piece together the meanings of things  like the album title or song titles like ‘Quimera’, ‘El Rito’ or ‘Sangre India’. Or maybe it’s just that I’ve watched a lot of horror films from South American countries.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1FGsiWssig&w=420&h=315]

The songs here tend towards the drawn-out, with an average running length of around 7 minutes, but they never feel excessive. While the feel is pretty constant from start to finish, and the band doesn’t indulge in shifts for their own sake, there are enough distinctive and memorable sections sequences into each track to keep it interesting. The band strikes a happy balance between the sense of iterative stasis that is so crucial to true doom music and the dynamism without which that music can become a mere exercise in funereal texture with no real tension or allure. And solos of the quality and length of the one that stabs in around the 7-minute mark in ‘Quimera’ ensure that there is a payoff for the listened who has weathered the tectonic drift of Reino Ermitano’s songs.

Other standout moments are the keening, droning guitar textures on ‘El Sueño del Condor’, reminiscent of the more atmospheric expanses of certain death metal bands, when they slow it down, the swirling, Candlemass-goes-to-NOLA riff that opens ‘Desangrándote’, the elegiac violin solo on ‘Cuando la Luz te Encuentre’, or the epic ‘Sangre India’.

This one deserves to make it to more than a few best doom of the year lists. A strong, dynamic offering from a band that has honed its craft and is sure of the musical statement it is making.

Stream the entire album below:

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A mid year reflection: Mohammad Kabeer’s Best albums of 2013

Mar 23 • International News, Releases, Reviews, The Slumbering Ent • 1816 Views

Two months into 2013 i was absolutely gutted. I was dumbfounded by the sheer lack of good metal this year. Probably so because i did not do the required amount of digging and unearthing that i usually do. Yet again i was plain upset compared to the spate of brilliant releases that dotted (quite frequently) the previous year, and nothing of the like this time around. All said and done, the fact remains that metal will come through come what may. And that is precisely what happened. It was time for a second session of dumbfoundedness, only this time, spurred on by the sheer quality of good releases, i seem to have ignored all long.

Well with that in mind, along with the rest of the (active)writers on board, we’ve decided to put up our own little mid year best-of lists. Also hopeful are we, to the fact, that you guys might stumble on something new in the process as well.

Mohammad Kabeer, the man of Grind has just sent me through, this little list. He’s a lazy half ass, but yet still one of the best men in the country for all the latest grind and hardcore. A genre that is still really to catch on around here. Read on!

Best Of Grindcore, Hardcore 2013

All right here goes!

 1. Disciples of Christ/TRIAC split

Great DOC owns this split right here creating some really fast grind that is pure aural destruction. It is unstoppable. TRIAC is not far behind, although much more predictable but still raw and brutal

2. Nails – Abandon all Hope

A pretty decent follow up to their last album not as epic but still a lot of fun!

3. Sex prisoner – State property (EP)

Sex Prisoner make a triumphant return after a pretty dismal split with Magnum Force and ACxDC sounding a lot heavier, almost falling into the category of Entombedcore.

 4. Inter Arma – Sky Burial

Fantastic album which refuses to fall into any category, if you haven’t heard it HEAR IT NOW!

5. Seven sisters of Sleep – Opium Morals

Just really thick and punishing Sludge/hardcore that just makes me bang my head without fail, every single time!

6. Full of Hell – Rudiments of Mutilation

Full of Hell make their mark this year with a really experimental hardcore album that refuses to play to the gallery

7. Fuck the facts – Amer (EP)

As always these guys know their grind and do what they know best! To shock and awe!! Do what no one else can. Definitely a must listen!

8. Rotten Sound – Species at War

Rotten Sound still sounding heavy and a letting go of their robot like precision which makes this record sound much more raw in terms of playing.

9. NVRD – Coma

Some great catchy hardcore in the vein of converge.

 10. All Pigs must Die – Nothing Violates this Nature

Another great hardcore/sludge album. A lot faster and kinda like fusing High on Fire or Black Tusk with hardcore.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAFyrjHREZ8

11.Call of the Void – Dragged Down a Dead End Path

Awesome old school grind mixed with a slight touch of technicality!

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/82395799″ params=”color=ff6600&auto_play=false&show_artwork=true” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

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Hypnosia – Horror Infernal (Compilation) | Review

Mar 23 • International News, Releases, Reviews, The Slumbering Ent • 1752 Views

This is our first ever compilation review and sometimes compilations are better than single albums. Achintya Venkatesh talks about the latest compilation from Hypnosia titled Horror Infernal, released via I Hate Records.

Hypnosia – Horror Infernal (Compilation)

   Tracklisting

1. Crushed Existence 03:22
2. Threshold of Decay 02:46
3. Undead 03:49
4. Paralyzed by Persecution 03:19
5. The Last Remains 02:49
6. Operation Clean Sweep 03:57
7. The Storms of Dead Worlds 03:14
8. Funeral Cross 00:36
9. Haunting Death 03:59
10. Undead 03:40
11. Perpetual Dormancy 03:45
12. Mental Terror 02:06
13. The Storms 03:05
14. Outbreak of Evil (Sodom cover) 02:34
15. My Belief (Possessed cover) 03:23
16. Haunting Death (Live) 03:45

Växjö-based thrash metallers Hypnosia’s career span was indeed very much like the music they presented. With its genuinely no-bullshit approach, like a whirlwind that has hit you and gone you before you even realized what precisely happened, their releases created quite the furore in the underground, especially considering that they played a non-normative style of music at a time when it was considered passé, old-hat and non-trendy in a music industry swamped by the trend known as grunge. Thrash metal had taken a back seat and was merely a shadow of its glory days in the decade that preceded the time, but these Swedish war-mongers released a slew of pulverizing releases amidst an environment that was dominated by in-vogue grunge in the mainstream and extreme metal in the metal underground. Before they could be touted as the next big act, with merely a single studio album to their name, they decided to call it a day in 2002 and disbanded. Horror Infernal is a commemoration and in a sense, a remembrance of these forgotten underground heroes.

The opening track, ‘Crushed Existence’, from their rather successful 1996 demo of the same name is a straight-forward, speed-driven thrash metal number. Vocalist Cab Castervall sounds a great deal like Mille Petrozza of Kreator in its early days, albeit less dramatic in his vocal approach – think more Endless Pain as opposed to Pleasure to Kill. The next few tracks are also from the very same demo. ‘Threshold of Decay’ has a comparatively slower pace, and also features some lower growls as opposed to the regular screechy, raspy screams – much like Tom Angelripper’s effortless alternation between raspy chants and lower growls in a number of Sodom’s releases. ‘Undead’ is a more diverse track alternating between velocity-driven parts and slower, groovier, percussive segments, with ‘Paralyzed by Persecution’ being in a very similar vein. The compilation thereon moves onto The Storms demo, released in 1997. It doesn’t take long to realize the comparatively murkier nature of the production of this release as well as the shift in tuning. The three tracks here – ‘The Last Remains’, ‘Operation Clean Sweep’ and ‘The Storm of Dead Worlds’ are all very brief tracks, but very crushing with their back-to-basics, aggressive and minimalistic approach.

We thereon move onto their 1999 EP, Violent Intensity which begins with an intro titled ‘Funeral Cross’ that directly bleeds into the overwhelmingly fast and pulverizing ‘Haunting Death’. It is rather apparent that Hypnosia have upped the intensity at this point of their career, while at the same time gaining further adeptness in the technicality department, in effect making things more dynamic while retaining their basic thrash-tasting aural onslaught. The next track is a higher-tuned version of ‘Undead’, shifting from the demo’s lower C♯ tuning to a standard tuning and in fact sounds far more wrathful than the demo version that preceded it. ‘Perpetual Dormancy’ showcases some interesting rhythmic interplay between the guitars and the drums – amidst the chaotic speed, the band seems to almost charter into the territory of syncopation at times, and only further reinforces the raging and incensed mood of the song. ‘Mental Terror’ could’ve well been on Terrible Certainty and truly evokes mid/late 80’s Kreator – furious thrash metal embedded with dabbling in more mature, technically-oriented musicianship. ‘The Storms’ further continues this theme – adrenaline-fuelled thrash with a good measure of instrumental complexity and ingenuity, coupled with some well executed tempo changes.

There also two kickass covers on this compilation – ‘Outbreak of Evil’ by Sodom and ‘My Belief’ by Possessed. The first cover truly hits the spot and show-cases where exactly the band is coming from in terms of their sound. It simply rips. The Possessed cover is one of the slower numbers of the seminal death metal forefathers, but is also well executed nevertheless.

If speed-driven death metal tinged thrash metal is your drug, Hypnosia is certainly the to-go dealer. I can only imagine what a great band they must have been in their local scene, and should’ve made for a blistering live act, which the last track, a live rendition of ‘Haunting Death’ perfectly reflects. However, one often approaches bands that hail from an era that post-dates thrash metal’s zenith with a great amount of scepticism, being uncertain as to how successful the band in question is in avoiding the commonplace phenomenon of bands simply being rehash acts indulging heavily in sonic necromania. But the end result is rather positive, and Hypnosia presents a brand of thrash metal which exhibits the characteristics that has come to define the genre, namely velocity-driven, unrelenting ferocity and ruthlessness in the vein of Sadus, early Kreator/Sodom and Morbid Saint, while maintaining a fairly distinctive sound to their name. The production has also been well handled and the quality of the production is fairly congruous across the songs despite having originally been on different demos and EPs. This compilation is a must have for any self respecting thrash metal enthusiast, and should be of special interest to any heavy music enthusiast considering all of the songs precede the incessantly derivative retro-thrash metal movement that post-dates Hypnosia’s dissolution. Hypnosia will certainly be one of the bands in the ages to come that will be referred to in any discussion pertaining to the realm of death/thrash metal.

Stream the entire compilation below:

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Heavy Prescription (Freebies Edition) – Aronious, The Moon Mistress

Mar 23 • International News, Releases, Reviews, The Slumbering Ent • 1786 Views

People tend to get excited once the word “Free” is put in context. And as for us Indians, every form of exaggeration would turn out to be too kind in that case. Off late, primarily through Bandcamp, more bands face the hard truth of piracy by giving out their albums for free. In fact, this is great forethought, as today people are more wary of putting their money where it is due. What with the sheer number of metal releases over the last two decades, it seems only logical to do so. To be blunt, people would like to try out an attire before going on to purchasing it. Checking in on how it suits you, damages if any, print mistakes etc.But in the end you are either assured of your choice or dislike and discard it.  The same logic applies here. There are good sides to this as well, as it in a way promotes the album as well as the purchase of its physical copy.

Freebies

So here today are two pieces of legally downloadable music. Set aside your tingling conscience and feel free to judge the music.

1.Aronious – Demo

2012 was a banner year for Technical death metal with great releases from the stalwarts and new bands alike. 2013 so far has only a few, albeit excellent (Deeds of Flesh, Fallujah, Ara) records. Aronious seems to be a new find and well worth the yearning for a bit of technicality. Sonically they sound similar to the likes of Gorod and Obscura with a trifle little of Meshuggh-esque groove (not DJENT!) put in for good measure. All the technical melange is then interjected with subtle melody, adding to the overall catchiness.

What you have here for download is not exactly an album nor an EP. The band did make a statement regarding it – “Just so everyone knows, the “demo” up on bandcamp is in no way an official release, album, or EP. The way bandcamp works you need to group songs together in order to play them back to back. Otherwise you’d have to switch between each song. We did this for your convenience, but it is in no way complete. It is a little over half of our EP which will be released later this year.”  – Aronious

This does keep my hopes high for a dashing new record from this relatively young band, in the near future.

2. The Moon Mistress – Simla EP

The Russian Federation has always taken a liking to Indian Mythology and culture. The Moon Mistress  a doom band from Moscow, Russia has just come out with an EP, eponymously titled Simla. This probably stands testament to the fact that Hinduism and Indian culture, something which is generally common place here seem to evoke interest in distant parts of the world. Post-independence, socialism was an important ideology in our country. Especially during the Nehru-era. And it is specifically during this period(Cold War), i surmise, that a lot of the cultural leanings of both countries were exchanged. In fact there is an institute just for cultural relations between both countries. Things are interesting indeed. A bit of worldly info doesn’t hurt.

That said the Moon Mistress’s Simla is an exercise in the more primal leanings of doom. Probably musically closer to early day Saint Vitus. Long, meandering and despondent. And yet the semi clean guitar intro, the in-between leads, the almost chanted out vocals,all seem to harbor a certain Indian classical vibe. A disposition knee deep in the Indian occult. Or so it seems. Entrancing nonetheless.

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