Panzerfaust - The Suns of Perdition - Chapter III: The Astral Drain Review

The third instalment in Panzerfaust's The Suns of Perdition series is (I think) the last part of what seems to be a conceptual trilogy that marks the return of the band and a much more serious and dominating musical presence in the underground. Chapter III: The Astrail Drain is the continuation of Render Unto Eden from 2020, a record that I found fascinating. Two years later, it seems like nothing has changed content except some compositional decisions the band has taken regarding the structure of their tracks. While listening to The Astral Drain, I am really missing the more intense moments that existed in the previous records and were even more violent in the first album of the trilogy. Most of the material in this new record is almost constantly middle paced, constantly waiting, with a few more distinct riffs appearing here and there, but never really taking off to levels of heaviness that it could reach. The opening track "Death Drive Projections" is basically an ultra long introduction to something, while the third track "B22: The Hive and the Hole" seems to just be afraid to open its wings, sounds too similar to parts of Render Unto Eden and makes such wholesome, fantastic vocals go to waste, because it would be an earthquake if they actually played heavy. There are a couple of short drone-ish / noise interludes that amount to nothing in the album's flow and the only time things get real in "The Far Bank at the River Styx", the main riff sounds too much like Mgła's "With Hearts Toward None VII". The last two tracks in The Astral Drain are almost skippable, making this album a serious miss for me. On the positive side, Panzerfaust somehow maintain a certain atmosphere and the drumming is decent. [2.5/5 - Average]

Origin: Canada

Label: Eisenwald

Release date: July 22nd, 2022

Listen: Bandcamp

Nechochwen - Kanawha Black (2022)

Nechochwen definitely take their time creating new material and their discography might be short but very efficient, as they have had a rather splendid series of full length albums since their debut, Algonkian Mythos in 2008, especially their latest work, 2015’s Heart of Akamon. I was also impressed by their side on the split with Panopticon in 2020, which made me re-run the band’s earlier records while waiting for their next chapter. Kanawha Black now arrives seven years after its predecessor, and not only doesn’t disappoint, but has some of the most well-worked Nechochwen have put together in the project’s lifetime.

Once started as a pure neofolk / acoustic band, such elements still resonate very strongly in Nechochwen’s music. The record has plenty of melodic, almost purely acoustic chunks with enjoyable clean vocals, which are sometimes used exclusively (for example, in “The Murky Deep” and “I Can Die But Once”) but also as parts of longer compositions. The production glorifies the band’s earthy sound and emphasizes the variety of melodies Nechochwen employ, in a record that is by no means down lifting but rather epic and of great conceptual concept. Apart from the slightly more surprising short piece “A Cure for the Winter Plagues”, which has the pattern and deep growls of a funeral doom metal track, most tempos in Kanawha Black are middle / fast paced and its flow is impeccable. 

When the tracks get more direct and closer to clear black metal, there is always a set of dominating, blistering guitars that completely lay on folk / atmospheric black directions, yet don’t imagine the use of extra instruments to achieve an atmosphere. Shrieked vocals are awesome and the song structures are especially appealing, as it is demonstrated in “Visions, Dreams and Signs” or the opening, self-titled. The last part of Kanawha Black features another set of two amazing pieces, “Generations of War” and “Across the Divide”, which include all the fine tools of the band’s arsenal combined together in a quite successful way. I would personally prefer more screaming than singing especially in the distorted guitar parts, yet that is only personal, it doesn't really take any merit from the final work away.

It has been proven before that Nechochwen a really powerful band and their newest work is surely compelling at all levels. Not the average folk black project, full of interesting ideas and intense compositions with great riffs and some soloing only when needed, and not as a means of making an impression of skill. Kanawha Black is, as their previous works, strongly connected to nature and would make great company for a short hike out in the woods. 

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Label: Bindrune Recordings

Country: Canada

Release date: May 13th, 2022

Website: Facebook

DAMAGE: 4/5 [Excellent]

Ifernach - The Green Enchanted Forest of the Druid Wizard (2020)

Genre: Black Metal

Location: Quebec, Canada

Release date: 20.06.2020

Label: Tour de Garde

Listen: Bandcamp

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I started listening to this project's works in the reverse order, as The Green Enchanted Forest of the Druid Wizard was the first release I got my hands on, and there have been several interesting mini-releases as well as three full length albums before since, since their inception in 2015. Ifernach belongs to the cast of black metal artists exploring native American folklore but not just out of interest, as they are usually closely related on the topic even outside the borders of music.

The first thing to quickly notice in the record is the impressive riff work. When it goes deep into melodic / harsher guitar parts, I would say that all the riffs are just wonderful, and all of them memorable. The Green Enchanted Forest... opens with an introduction that honestly reminds too much of Burzum's "Dunkelheit" days, but it's more of a homage than a rip-off, much like Watain's touch on Mayhem on the opening "Devil's Blood" of Casus Luciferi in 2003. Nevertheless, following with "The Passage of Dithreabhach", the most bombastic track of the record and in my opinion, its highlight, shows clearly Ifernach's skill to compose great black metal, combined with an interesting clean guitar part towards the end.

More ominous playing is found in "In the Hollow of the Togharmach " and "Teimn Laid II", making me think that Ifernach must be really into Norwegian black metal and more specifically, the aforementioned legends. There's traces of punk in these tracks too, and above all I really enjoyed the thick and dusty production the record has. With an album cover painted by Megan Walsh, the record conceptually clicks with all its different aspects apart from the music itself and definitely offers a journey worth taking.

On the other hand, I found the interludes of The Green Enchanted Forest... just too long. While still above average, "A Cursed Spear" feels unnecessarily long, and I had the same impression of "Teimn Laid I". Building on that, "Hidden Palaces Under the Green Hills" is a nice ritual / dark ambient track, and all of these grant the record with another, more meditative side, which helps with its originality and the story that is told here, but just didn't keep me personally attached in the end. However, as a whole, The Green Enchanted Forest... has some seriously powerful black metal in it, and that's not only what you will find here.

As a whole, Ifernach have achieved something special. The album is really interesting once it sets in, and you could find yourself returning to it more than you expect, with awesome guitar lines and a great and unique atmosphere. I enjoyed most of it, and I have been listening a lot on repeat since the time I found it (which was even later than when it was released), but its beauty was revealed to me after a few listens and not right away. It is also a project that deserves listening time for their EPs, demos, and especially split albums, but still i consider  The Green Enchanted Forest... as a fairly high point at their discography.

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Tracklist:

1. The Green Enchanted Forest of the Druid Wizard

2. The Passage of Dithreabhach

3. A Cursed Spear

4. In the Hollow of the Togharmach

5. Teinm Laida I

6. Teinm Laida II

7. A Winter Tree Clad in Black Frost

8. Hidden Palaces Under the Green Hills

Damage: 4/5 [Excellent]

Tomb Mold - Primordial Malignity

Release date: February 2017

Genre: Death Metal

Origin: Canada

Label: Blood Harvest

Listen: Bandcamp

As a first taste of Tomb Mold's capabilities, the debut Primordial Malignity set the stage well for the band even though I wouldn't have foreseen the evolution that followed with their two later releases. There's a lot of potential in this first offering, as well as a rawness characterizing their first steps, in a sense that it makes it quite more specific in its goals and just plain enjoyable. As a, by now popular act of the modernized, with cleaner aesthetics but studio-ensured heaviness, likeable brand of old school death metal, Tomb Mold are in the eye of the cyclone and not by chance.

Primordial Malignity is half an hour long. It has direct, fury-fueled, futuristic lyrics and songs that span from 3 to 4 minutes, if you exclude the outro from the last piece. Its down-tuned, thick production grants a pleasing amount of heaviness, and the growling is on point. It's not a chatty album, as Tomb Mold just go for direct clobbering instead of more complex death metal pathways. There's nuance of sludgy passages, yet the grooves are dominant throughout the record, along with faster, more technical playing that has been thriving in the genre for 30 years now. The tempo changes are frequent, as Primordial Malignity freely offers plenty of headbanging moments in its solid tracks. Apart from the few ticks that you can check out of your how-to-death-metal list when listening to a new artist, Tomb Mold don't throw in anything new but already aim well with the material of this album, to be considered worthy of your time.

A few of the faster, more maniacal playing in some tracks of Primordial Malignity stand out for me, as the main plus here is the ample, brutal riffs. As the record goes on, it proves to be a bit flat and difficult to distinguish one track from another, as Tomb Mold stay too focused on one line of playing, yet by picking out specific tracks and listening to them alone, the listening becomes easier. Despite being in Blood Harvest, the band is well-rooted in the modern US scene rather than going even close to the Swedish chainsaw sound, yet hints of attempting to put together their own sound are already evident. Primordial Malignity does not have anything groundbreaking to show to the listener, however it's undeniably heavy in its approach without overstating things. While they definitely had all that was needed at the time, the material wasn't yet perfected to higher efficiency.

Correctly, we're dealing with some capable death metal. Not always fast, a bit more groovy, with nice guitar lines and solos, deep growls (that could really go places with a bit more variety), nice texts, but yet not the explicit motives of the band, as it is not sure what direction they're going to take, or if they plan to at all. Later on, significantly more interesting content would be unleashed from Tomb Mold, just a year later.

Tracklist:

1. Intro - They Grow Inside

2. Coincidence of Opposites

3. Bereavement of Flesh

4. Primordial Malignity

5. Merciless Watcher

6. Clockwise Metamorphosis

7. Twisted Trail

8. Vernal Grace - Outro

Damage: 3/5 [Good]

Ushangvagush - Mntu

Release: August 1st, 2021

Genre: Black Metal

Origin: Massachusetts, US

Label: Self-released

Listen: Bandcamp

Having relished the band's first demo Inanition in 2019, I got around to listen to Ushangvagush's debut a bit later than the rest of the world and after the fair amount of praise it got from the internet. Since the last listening session, I didn't remember what to expect from this but the wonderful cover served well as a hinting reminder of what might possibly be a great release for this year, or at least that's what I hoped. And it is partially the case, as the project's highly emotive playing style with just the right melodic tactics is here to be appreciated by many non-regular black metal listeners: prepare for comments like "I don't usually... (...) ... but this ...

First things first, points given for Mntu not being a one more faceless record in the crowd. It's powerful at several moments, written in the band's own way and it has a fairly raw production, that's quite listenable (not cavernous raw BM from the depths) but still not polished. The vocals sound beautifully distressed, while it's unclear what the lyrics are about and in general, before you think that Ushangvagush have invented their own language, the strange words of band name / album title / track titles comes from Miꞌkmaq, which traces back to the indigenous tribes of Northeastern Canada. Mntu opens with a banger, and possibly a highlight track "I", which features some of the heavier moments of the record and a great introduction, it's as intense as it gets and will have the listened hooked on the spot. 

As it is sometimes dangerous with albums like these, more often than we would like, it's a dominant track opening up a record and then things blow out later on. I personally was on the verge of getting into this mindset with Mntu, even though the quality of all of the album's content is evident. Ushangvagush's prominence lies in the expression of emotion and talks more on that particular side of black metal musically, so it's not aggressive in the sense of traditional hatred or misanthropy that is met otherwise. It is not one of the failing cases of such execution, on the contrary the band rocks. For me personally though, some tracks in Mntu just didn't click, specifically parts in "Amasia's Letter" and "VII", or the whole of "Npuaqan Ms't Wen Sama'i'j", I found repetitive and at times, mundane. 

On the other hand, the first two tracks are favorable and the outro instrumental offers adequate guitar lines (even if it seems simplistic at first), and the overall impression Ushangvagush leaves to me leans on the positive end of the spectrum. Mntu will move a lot of people and it has what it takes to be considered a fine, legit black metal album in the underground. Even if I didn't absolutely fancy all of its tracks, the first recognizable step of this project is making its own mark. 

Damage: 3/5 [Good]

Cursed Altar - Midnight Reprisal (Review)

Origin: Canada

Label: Extinctionist Records

Release: January 11th, 2020

Type: Full Length

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Extinctionist Records is a small underground label featuring a handful of raw black metal bands in the whereabouts of the US and Canada, as well as the unknown Swedish act Abzyrglak, that I know because I happened to listen to their promising 2019 demo, A Graveyard for Humanity..., last year and enjoyed myself. Looking into Cursed Altar's one and only member, Extinctionist, it seems like many of his personal projects are in his label too, which makes him rather busy and also responsible for a small corner in the underground scene with several solid mini-releases.

Having released two demos prior to that, he moved fast into the debut full length album, titled Midnight Reprisal, which clocks at almost half an hour and is only released in tape format (at least for now), a typical and well embraced tactic in the more obscure areas of black metal. I hadn't heard any of Cursed Altar's previous material, or almost any of Extinctionist's other projects, so Midnight Reprisal was basically the introduction to this person musical mindset and after listening to it for several times, the one name glowing all over my face is this: Ildjarn.

Despite the record's relatively short length (even though I was always fond of thirty minute albums), it features twelve tracks, which should make you think that most of them do not last very long, and that's the truth. There's several 1-2 minute tracks in Midnight Reprisal, while the longest are up to around 3, something that the aforementioned apparently big influence to this project, has also done in the past. From some track titles, Cursed Altar also hold an anti-human thematic concept, even though I found the boar in the artwork and some similar references in the album, very appealing for such a raw black metal release.

If you have ever listened to the black metal side of Ildjarn, you will immediately recognize the patterns in Midnight Reprisal too. Monotonous, scourging guitar riffs, in a simplistic and straightforward manner, based on only a couple of different ideas per song, which justifies their length as well as paves a very edgy road during the listen. Most of them are mostly middle paced, and the production is indeed fairly noisy, but not the extent the Norwegian mastermind used to record in the 90's.

The opening track "Ancient Cruelty" is one of the highlight moments for its interchange between the torturing guitar playing, and a few other that I liked more are "Lone Boar", "As the Final Breaths" and "Bewildered In Midnight Blackness". Midnight Reprisal is empowered a lot by its raspy, scourging vocals, a powerful tool painfully used in all of the tracks of the album. Assuming that his voice didn't have this power, the album would probably be unlistenable for me. At a couple of moments, Cursed Altar throw some extra elements in the songs, like the snail paced ending of "Last Night of Human" even though this doesn't really change the fact that this is very close to Ildjarn's music.

For its kind, Midnight Reprisal is a special record that needs an aware listener before being discarded as repetitive and dull. The musical ideas of Cursed Altar in this release do not make it unique but hold some personality and I was hooked to the album more than several, well-produced and recently released records. Raw black metal made hateful and aggressive, it doesn't rely on just a dusty production but offers minimalistic tracks, most likely inspired by an artistic outsider in the scene, without being a copycat of it (thumbs down Ødelegger). Extinctionist's other bands might not be like this but one day I should check some more.

Track listing:

1. Ancient Cruelty
2. Last Night for Human
3. My Revenge
4. As the Final Breaths
5. Tormented Rays
6. Bewildered in Midnight Blackness
7. Song of Rain
8. Darkness Consumes...
9. Shrouded Hate II: Reprisal
10. Screaming Wind
11. Lone Boar
12. Morning