Sunken - Livslede (2020) Review

Funnily enough, I remembered that Sunken were preparing a second album about a month ago when I was browsing through a record store in a city near here and found not their debut Departure, but their first demo The Crackling of Embers, originally released independently in 2013 but re-released through Vendetta Records on vinyl in 2018. The Danish band have already come a long way and left a deep mark in 2017 with Departure, which might have not get the exposure it deserved but still featured some of the best atmospheric black metal of the recent years. 

A turn has been taken to their native tongue with Livslede compared to their first full length album, which also has a elegant, beautiful cover that has been drained of all color. This goes along with the conceptual approach of the record, which paints a picture about the world that is rather helpless and desperate, often making references to the natural elements (storms, the vast sea) to correlate with living life. In these bleak lyrics, it feels like the protagonist is not trying to avoid the suffering but find the meaning in going through it, while contemplating death as the final cleansing towards peace of mind.

Musically, Sunken hit hard and at the same levels as with Departure, with a marvellous sound that efficiently combines potent atmospheric black metal and elements of post-rock / post-metal, the latter being more obvious in the track "Delirium" and the second part of "Foragt". There, the band has created a small partition to Livslede that slightly strays from the more direct black metal sound they have in the rest of the album, but this will most likely go unnoticed due to the overall fantastic flow. The production is clear and apart from the long guitar lines, aching vocals and synths, credit ought to be given to the audible and neat bass work.

Since I rarely find merit in such instrumental introductions to such records, I skip them more often that I would like. Not the case with Livslede, as the touching introduction "Forlist" with deep, echoing piano opens the album, immediately setting the stage and hooking up the listener, it properly directs the attention to what Sunken is about to present and works exactly as what an introduction piece should. Of course, it gives way to the album's highlight "Ensomhed", which shoots all that Sunken can do in top-notch fashion, and it there's one piece you have to listen to from Livslede, this is it.

"Dødslængsel" is as capable of closing the record as was the "Forlist" of opening it, swinging back and forth from middle-paced thrilling melodies to fast-paced atmospheric black metal, and ending with a melancholic clean guitar / ambient outro. It's now two quality albums in a row for Sunken, which should make the fans of atmospheric black metal keep and note and look out of this band's movements from now on. Livslede is a well-written and emotional album, without falling in the disease of being corny, as sadly several bands in this sub-genre of black metal.

Panzerfaust - The Suns of Perdition - Chapter II: Render Unto Eden (2020) Review

Last year, I had almost skipped Panzerfaust's Chapter I: War, Horrid War. When I finally listened to it, it didn't take me that much time to place it among the albums to return to for the rest of the year, and until now. A band completely unknown to me with a long history starting from the early 00's, which lived through a very obvious change in their path by releasing War, Horrid War in 2019, which lifted them from the average underground corridors of extreme metal to the high peaks of artists to constantly keep an eye out. Momentum has now been growing even more, with the second chapter in this concept tetralogy, Render Unto Eden, attracting the attention of an even bigger portion of the scene. And it's by no mistake.

From all the war-themed metal albums in the world, how many would you tell manage to convey the message and provoke the feeling adequately enough to avoid being crushed by their own pretension? The atmosphere Panzerfaust construct is unique, and with subtle compositional fixes show how well they know how to play and what they're doing. By nature, Render Unto Eden has space for interpretation (compared to a more direct War, Horrid War in my point of view) and has been improved in terms of musicianship, production and mainly, flow. The band masterfully builds the album's intense moments, maintains a dim, menacing character throughout the listen, having placed together five tracks that go along in absolute brilliance. 

While the sound is very characteristic of them by now, slight traces of other famous bands of our time can be found in sparse riffing and the more general approach of their aesthetics. Mgła influences can be found in some potent guitar melodies of "The Faustian Pact" (and the stunning structure of this song), but more clearly in "The Snare of the Fowler", just by listening to the drumming session in the middle of the track and on. In Render Unto Eden, the guitar lines have grown, the bass work is impressive and should not be overlooked, drumming is on point, and the depth of the compositions certainly surpasses its predecessor. 

Apart from Arkona's Maria Arkhipova, who is featured and contributes to a breathtaking part of the introduction track "Promethean Fire", I also adore the chosen cover for Render Unto Eden, which could be taken from the works of Käthe Kollwitz and specifically The March of the Weavers in Berlin, one of her more popular pieces. Other than the fine aesthetics, "Areopagitica" is the total banger of the record, deserving to get higher exposure, as it is addictive from the first seconds and quite memorable. I think all five tunes are of high quality, but only once the listener invests into the band's world. The closing of Render Unto Eden with "Pascal's Wager" is plain melancholic, offers a smooth transition back to reality and makes up for this hell of a listening experience.

There is backstory to the tracks and the complexity of the album is not so much in terms of technicality but more in the level these musicians understand what they want to write in their music. In my opinion, it's really hard to achieve this and shows endless compositional potential. I know for a fact that the band can be mistaken for nothing special as I almost was in that loop once, yet Render Unto Eden can make a lot of extreme metal records obsolete, and it just makes me wonder how will the next two albums look like in this story. Until then, listen to Panzerfaust and listen to this, but as a whole. 

Precambrian - Tectonics (2020) Review

This is the second time it's happening. Back in the middle of 2019, one day I decided to re-listen to Wintewolf's debut Cycle of the Werewolf (which was also my first vinyl purchase) and at the end of that post, I was wondering about the future of this project, if there was any. Soon afterwards, they surprise released a second full length (review here), which had me scratching my head as if it was a joke then. Fast forward to this year's May, I also re-listened to Precambrian's discography up to date, the two EPs they released in 2014 and 2016, through the 2019 compilation that contained them. In my thoughts, this compilation was more of a concluding mark for the band, but little did I know that they were about to start on fresh, with not an EP, but an actual full length this time. 

When the album's single Cryogenian was released some time ago, I didn't believe my eyes that another side-project I was very much into and recently wrote a post about, spawned a full length unexpectedly. Tectonics is barely half an hour long, it contains five new tracks from the band, which has chosen the stripped down, straightforward and combative approach they have been following since day one. Thematics revolving around climatology and geology, thick sound and often incredibly heavy tunes is what characterizes Precambrian, unlike their members' other projects that tend to infuse a lot of melancholy and melody in their music. Though you will not find that kind of atmosphere here, with Tectonics there are some concealed, well placed melodic parts in the songs, that turn events into more epic directions.

For those new to Precambrian, prepare to be met with material that is dense and hostile, where the tools are simple: potent repetitive riffing, hard hitting drums and above all, monstrous growls and screams. The vocals take the record to a different dimension (the singer's growls have been a long time favorite of mine) and make the already impressive, minimalist structures of the compositions even stronger. Moments in "Fossilization", "Archaebacteria" or "Cryogenian" feel like a bulldozer, in a way that is almost rare to find in black metal nowadays. Precambrian have not chosen a color outside black - grey - white - black yet, they don't talk about the typical uninteresting subjects you are used to and above all, are talented in what they do.

"Volcanic Winter", a rather interesting phenomenon on its own, is also a highlight track. Traces of the aforementioned melody are present, along with some of the most monotonous parts of the album, and it works great. One will notice how abruptly tracks get cut when they end, as if there was a continuation that is not in the final mix, a choice that I sense was done consciously and aims to not have a comfortable flow. In normal conditions I would be alienated by this, but Precambrian is not the project that aims for anything different than what they offer. Since this project is very specific musically, I don't know how they want to continue with it but a synth based album, Ildjarn style, would be interesting to hear.

Once you've taken a course in Hate Forest's albums, the next step would naturally be to check and invest into this rather quiet an unknown side project from the universe of Drudkh. Not many bands sound like them and there is nothing friendly in this album, in a sense its release was a very satisfying event for me and another secret wish I had came true. By all means a release that is worth your time, especially if you are into underground extreme metal and you're looking for elements that have been coming and going the recent years during the musical expansion of the genre. Precambrian creates its own thick layer, with hardly any outliers. And for that reason, Tectonics can be assimilated and appreciated as it should. 

August 21st, 2020 | Primitive Reaction

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Primitive Man - Immersion (2020) Review

Three years after Caustic, Primitive Man releases an album which is half as long in duration, and also the shortest of their three full lengths, including the debut Scorn from 2013. For some reason, this was the first characteristic that drew my attention before getting into Immersion, which has already been widely praised by everyone who knows this band. Primitive Man have been relatively active in between the full lengths with a lot of split releases, most of them with quite interesting underground artists, however I have to admit it's only Scorn and Caustic that I had heard of them until now (and of course, the cover of "Sweet Leaf"). The band dictates its own law with immeasurable heaviness, playing one of the most direct and ugliest forms of doom out there, and to even call it like this feels slightly out of place. Doom metal can be beautiful.

The sludge / noise combination of elements, widely used by bands from the United States in the recent years, along with openly expressive lyrical negativity, has been a weird growing trend over there. Primitive Man leave no space for anyone to doubt their sincerity though, and this comes from someone who wouldn't claim to be their biggest fan. For the first time with this band for me, I gave them points and acknowledged the album's title being aligned with its effect, as Immersion can get quite immersive. The band's music was harder to follow with Caustic, a record which was over an hour. The content has been distilled multiple times now and the result is more consistent, more solid, and not at all less violent.

For its own sake, Immersion has an amazing production. The natural and pleasing sound of the drums makes each snare hit directly through your heart, the monstrous growls are unsettling, and the guitars are ripping all along during the album. No unwanted dust can be found in the overall sound, except when Primitive Man wants it to be there. Noise touches are of course present like before, especially in "∞", even though the real terrifying moments for me with Immersion are when they play faster. Parts of the closing track "Consumption" and the introduction of "Menacing" (one of my favorite tracks from them by now) display this clearly. At the same time, most of Immersion is painfully slow, putting shame to a big chunk of the scene that includes bands that even touch the same musical subgenres.

Arguing that Primitive Man got more accessible is false argument, they just got better. The tracks in Immersion are all memorable and they co-exist in one album perfectly. As a band that can achieve heaviness like no other, one couldn't say that the same verdict has not been delivered once again. Generally, I do believe that bands from the US today tend to get too much promotion and too much praise. Especially experimental artists, who touch a bit of grindcore / black metal / noise, seem to get into a wave that favors them even though the music is supposedly extreme. On the other hand, Primitive Man I can stand and admire. Immersion could be their best album to date, not much more to say for it.

August 14th, 2020 | Relapse Records

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Kriegsmaschine - Deathdriven: Archive 2006 - 2010 (2020) Review

By releasing this compilation, Kriegsmaschine now have a really tidy discography: Prism: Archive 2002 - 2004, released in 2014, covers all their material prior to the debut Altered States of Divinity, this one covers the two splits they released in between the debut and Enemy of Man, and the rest are the infamous full lengths. Neither the split with Infernal War nor the split with Szron come quickly to mind when thinking of the band, especially when they have released such monstrous albums recently, yet the quality of the material is equally powerful and in a structural sense, even more approachable than the slow-paced yoke they enforce with what came afterwards. In this time period, Kriegsmaschine laid the foundation and were slowly taking form, before exploding with Enemy of Man in 2014, one of the best black metal albums of all time. 

Deathdriven starts "backwards", as the first thing featured is the Transfigurations split that was originally released in 2010. Both tracks are massive, the guitar work is exceptional and the evoking atmosphere is naturally closer to what was composed for the full length that followed. These two pieces are hidden gems in the band's discography and they get along really well together, how one gives way to the next almost feels like it is one whole piece. "Onward Destrudo" has this KSM crushing tempo and quite memorable riffing here and there, while "Fear and Loathing in Gesthemane" can't help but make someone wonder where they thought of the title? Could be slight reference to the unconventional black comedy Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the eight minute song describes Christ's struggle from an absolutely human, regretting angle, but I think it doesn't really depict Kriegsmaschine's finest lyrical work. On the other hand, "Onward Destrudo" is perfect in all sections.

Following are the three tracks from the Szron split from 2006, and they lay in the same area as the material from the album they are closest to, Altered States of Divinity. The familiar, painful shouting vocals, along with chants, are present, at times the band goes full speed, which became sparser and sparser until it completely disappeared later on. This is an extra reason to listen to this compilation if you're a fan of the band mainly for the latest records. For example, parts of "E" as well as "The Fall in All its Glory" employ the traditional black metal framework of frenetic speed. The lyrics are nothing less than impressive and the talent of this band in general, gloriously shines through this release.

Sometimes compilations are void of meaning, but Deathdriven is a good opportunity for you to purchase and own this part of Kriegsmaschine's discography. The five tracks contained have been possibly left on the shelf due to the exposure the last two full lengths have gotten, but I don't see anything lesser here in terms of quality. A blast from the recent past to remind their audience of their early endeavors, and to never skip a mini-release. In my opinion, Deathdriven is totally worth it and makes up of a fine listen, something that is quite rare among compilations even from well-acclaimed bands.

Find it here: No Solace Store