Bongripper - Empty (2024) Review

Doom-sludge titans Bongripper from Chicago have always dwelt in the low end. With their eighth full length album Empty, the band keeps ripping boundaries of repetition to shreds, expressing themselves through immense instrumental doom metal weight at levels of meditative heaviness that almost no one can replicate. Four tracks (two of them above 20 minutes in duration) and a total of more than an hour of crushing doom in the purest form, at which you'll either surrender to or wholly pass by. 

From the outset, Empty reeks of riff-devotion: detuned guitars, distortion thick as molasses and drums slow-rolling like glaciers in motion. The album has a constant, overwhelmingly dominating hypnotic nature, standing out due to the band's everlasting patience for the long haul. Melodies ruminated upon and stretched to uneasy forms, twisted into murky drone / sludge before returning to clearer doom metal stomps, all delivered with lumbering brute force. 

Opener piece "Nothing" features the slowest build-up and features some interested, distorted Sleep worship towards its last five minutes. Mid-tempo dirges that flirt with crunchy tremolos and ghostly leads appear both at the very end of that track and in the one that follows, "Remains". On "Forever", the band takes a more atmospheric approach that hints at post-doom grandeur rather than blacksmith hammering, reminding of YOB but still quite distinctly played as a Bongripper jam.

The final, self-titled track consolidates Empty's themes of doomy repetition with subtle yet substantial variations, but includes a cathartic release of a blast-beat induced black metal section, that breaks free from the drag of the rest of the rest of the record. At that moment, it brought 2010's Satan Worshipping Doom to mind, as they did something similar on a track on that album, yet I have to admit that I am not sure if it's a more frequent stratagem by the band or if it just appears these two times.

No sound is reinvented on Empty, but that's not what Bongripper are about. The band takes its time on how long to hold notes, when to pull the rug out, and how to compose the most direct, low-tuned and heavy doom metal possible, with neat influences from sludge, drone and stoner. It takes time, and it needs time. The formula might be a bit too comfortable by now, the terrain too familiar, but in this genre, this mastering of atmosphere is what counts. If it's your first time, welcome to the underbelly of doom. [4 out of 5]

Nothing remains forever empty 

Pendaison - Haut & Court (2025) Review

Grief moves like smoke. Shapeless, endlessly circling, always clutching at what little warmth remains. Somewhere between the cracks of screaming and the silence, beauty still dares to shape. Montreal-based duo of Kevin Barrier and Cymon Lamarre (former bassist of Plebeian Grandstand..?) whispers the decay of the living with a new and obscure outlet named Pendaison, and their first work Haut & Court that makes the edges between black, death, doom and post-metal indiscernible. Carving deeply into experimentalism along the way, the project manipulates sound and ambiance with layers of electronics, guitars and a variety of vocals that make for an outcome that's both vividly avant-garde, but also surprisingly listenable from the get go.

The fuzzy wall of riffs and painful shrieked vocals on the opener "LRDTVBI" immediately bring the listener into a hostile territory of modern black metal, reminiscent Debemur Morti-inspired French artists active in recent years, yet Pendaison springs around its influences totally unexpectedly. Soon enough, fiery post-metal streams of energy pour into the track, which dissolve into an ethereal outro that links perfectly to the second and highlight piece, "Mausoleum". The longest in duration and in funereal pace, abdicating any sense of commitment to technically impress, it's cathartic doom metal anointed in beautiful clean female vocals, that will also dare to slap you in the face when you're laying comfortably five / six minutes into the composition (once you're there, you'll know).

A one-minute dark ambient / noise interlude, "Ci-gît la Dignité Humaine" (=here lies human dignity, such an Anaal Nathrakh-inspired line, right) gives way to one of the most menacing moments on Haut & Court, "Exil du Néant". Its discordant, lethal doom / death metal opening melodies, along with the lowest growling vocals found on the album, very distantly reminded me of bands like Krypts, especially in conjunction with the open notes of the closer "F.A.L.L.". Apart from the scattered noise-based fillings in these two tracks, Pendaison dances on harsher and more anguished black / post-metal toward the end of the album, before the absolute destruction of chord monotony and tormented screams in the final seconds of "F.A.L.L." that ends it all.

I (almost) don't know what Pendaison is about textually with Haut & Court, but maybe it's better to not even look under that rock. The record is raw and immersive, from a band seemingly adept in taking steps either toward visceral fury, or ambient sorrow. The cello / piano / viola additions in "Mausoleum" are still my favorite here, but the whole album makes a good case for attentive listening. Through well-conceived tonal shifting, atmosphere and context, Pendaison calls for an engaging journey through human grief, cursed but with its glimmers of transcendence. Clearly, lots of artists' toil has been put into this sublimely disorienting effort, and fans of more atypical underground metal may resonate. [3.5 out of 5]

Each kiss a veil of shadowed stars

Gorod - A Maze of Recycled Creeds (2015) Review

While missing input on Gorod’s debut full-length album Neurotripsicks (and while the title sounds promising) from 2005, I hold both Leading Vision (2006) and A Process of a New Decline (2009) in quite high regard, as prime examples of top-notch technical death metal fueled by great musicianship and not lacking in heaviness. In 2012, the band released the exquisite A Perfect Absolution, which got them even more traction in the scene, but it still didn’t live up to their previous two works for me, despite its excessive bombast. The first thing that caught my eye with A Maze of Recycled Creeds (2015) was the fantastic cover art, almost to a point that I hoped for the album to become my favorite from them, even before listening to it. While it may not be the case, eventually, it remains a high point in the band’s discography, highlighting all the elements they excel at. And in some of these elements, they excel ridiculously much.

The virtuosity and musicality that overflows A Maze... is immediately noticeable, but it comes as no surprise to anyone familiar with this band. It is not a case of a record that is characterized by clear-cut brutality, as the progressive and jazz intersections throughout the death metal corpus are frequent, expertly executed, and highly effective. Through tempos constantly chopped and re-wired in new frequencies, unfurling fierce riffing in between fretwork aerobatics and thrilling soloing, Gorod communicates their story from their own, particular perspective. A Maze... is a clear tech-death album, yet it separates itself and makes the band’s sound, completely recognizable. Despite the complexity of the compositions, the record succeeds in being accessible and pleasant to go through, as it also isn’t shy of uplifting moments, when things dare to get more fun. 

By flashing a short, hopeful piano introduction in “Air de L'Ordre”, it’s almost as if it’s unsuspected of what’s about to follow. Both “Temple of the Art God” and “Celestial Nature” burst with tense and airtight, prog-driven death metal played on time signatures impossible to count, and the first listen serves purely to sit back and appreciate the mind-bending capabilities of all the members and their instrument worship. Harmonies are used and abused in the entirety of the record, but it’s also the spectacular bass lines and drumming that lives up to the needs of such material. There’s not a lot of space for pure headbanging here, as the brain will constantly be trying to catch up with the number of exciting ideas constantly appearing and dissolving. 

Gorod’s jazz adeptness sometimes takes over (check “The Mystic Triad of Artistry” or “An Order to Reclaim”), and the heavier moments are more distinct when they unfold, than constantly being in the forefront. For example, potent grooving is what opens “From Passion to Holiness”, which transforms into an almost funk metal crescendo later, and the intro of the last track, “Syncretic Delirium”, is possibly the album’s most aggressive instance (nearly reminding me of Spawn of Possession). I must admit, I am not the biggest fan of the shouty vocals sometimes employed in the tracks, like in “Rejoice Your Soul”, which was the weakest for me in the record. Pieces like “Inner Alchemy” (despite the vocal elasticity) are among the strongest points in A Maze..., while e.g. “Dig Into Yourself” were for me, significantly less memorable. 

I still haven’t heard The Orb (2023) properly but remember Æthra (2018) positively, which shows that there’s still homework to go through when it comes to Gorod. In A Maze..., I found the framework in which this band operates quite exciting, despite not enjoying all parts of the album at the same extent. There are so many hooks and twists in the tracks, so much energy out of the band, and so much creativity, that it’s hard not to recognize the musical level of the record, even if such a demanding genre isn’t your cup of tea (as it might not be mine). Naturally, the band has moved on from what they had been trying to do up to that point, but it’s not a matter of abandoning previous approaches, just reinventing them. [3.5 out of 5]

Out of reach of idle hands

Gulch - Impenetrable Cerebral Fortress (2020) Review

Half comic, half nightmare. At first glance, the pastel palette almost softens the scene: a fleshy figure pours a torrent of crimson liquid into a pit of spikes, where a distorted head waits to be submerged. But linger for more than a moment, and the playful tones turn sinister. Skulls grin mutely from below, architectural shapes rise like fragile monuments, and faceless bodies stand frozen in ritual. 

Several references can be observed: These bizarre juxtapositions (a faceless head in a fountain, skeletal masks at the bottom, distorted anatomy) strongly echo surrealism’s embrace of subconscious imagery. Its primitiveness, topped on bold colors and disproportionate figures, is reminiscent of outsider art, while its crude intensity touches upon neo-expressionism.

Wth its flattened perspective, bold color blocking and exaggerated anatomy, the style is deceptive naïve, yet the the depicted brutality undercuts any innocence. This tension puts the artwork at the crossroads of surrealism and brut art, where raw draftsmanship is the vehicle for psychological violence. The horror is not polished, instead it’s closer to George Condo’s or Jean Dubuffet’s grotesques rather than conventional metal aesthetics.

The ambiguity is what makes the piece striking. Is the liquid blood (or something more symbolic) rage, memory, spirit? The setup feels both ceremonial and absurd, a Boschian hell rewritten through a child’s hand.

Oh, and the album itself is great too.

Purposeless matter merge into a form that's true

Rating | 3.5 out of 5 [Great]

Fauna - Ochre & Ash (2025) Review

Some years ago, I went on to put a few words together about Fauna's then latest and final album Avifauna, but was so oversatisfied with their own description, that I quoted them in full instead. This time, to urge you to visit their Bandcamp page and support this once in a lifetime kind of artistic entity, I won't take the whole text as is, but instead I'll define some important terms:

• Animism: The belief that natural objects, places, and beings possess a spiritual essence.
• Shamanism: A spiritual practice in which a healer or mediator communicates with the spirit world to guide or heal a community.
• Atavism: The reappearance of traits or behaviors from distant ancestral origins, often seen as a throwback.
• Ochre: A natural earth pigment, usually reddish or yellowish, used by humans since prehistory for art and ritual.
• Ash: The powdery residue left after something is burned, often symbolizing both destruction and the possibility of renewal.

The rest of my review, would actually be the Bandcamp description itself, and a 5/5 rating. That's all there is when it comes to this band's presence in black metal.

Extending much further than the conventional atmospheric or ambient black metal template, unfurling in long, organic movements that breathe 9000 year old air and with an overwhelming focus on the element of atmosphere, Ochre & Ash is a ritual for both performer and observer. You may have seen the words atmosphere and ritual being passed around with a light heart elsewhere, but this here is the epitome of their essence.

The album art itself nods: Cueva de las Manos, old hands stencilled into rock inside Argentina, some older even than agriculture. In that image lies the soul of Ochre & Ash, symbolizing the human animal as more than craft or survival, but belonging to earth, to spirit, to what endures beyond the blood-letting of time.

I often mention how the interludes are the first to skip in these albums, yet here they are stunning in their own right. Weaving field-like sounds, drones, and subtle textures that conjure the presence of forests, caverns, and the ghost of ancient ritual fires, they're as effective as the three main (and seriously long) compositions. 

Each one of these three, requires a separate post. Until then, I'll just say that there's no band in this sub style, that feels more real than this. And to think, we haven't even recovered from the return of Volahn last week, and now this...

Nature and madness

Rating | 4.5 out of 5 [Brilliant]