Albums of the Year 2022

"Aye", the eldest of the owls answers softly. "They are still glittering in the night of those who tread the path of solar solitude. To the rest - to the flock - they are already dead and all but forgotten."

- Lines from The Long Defeat.

A realm at the edge of sanity - Interview with Elminster / Ithildin Tape Production

I was already a few years in the blog cosmos when the first posts of Andrew Werdna surfaced on his now historic website, describing a certain style of dark / fantasy ambient with forlorn medieval aesthetics and initially coining the term "dungeon synth". The genre, initially loosely consisting of side projects of musicians of the second wave of black metal, has undergone a time period of rebirth and reform the last 10 years, with more and more projects and dedicated labels coming up and honouring the forgotten art of the cassette tape. And if you've followed this micro scene even a little bit lately, the name Elminster will surely ring a bell. Restless and with seemingly unceasing inspiration, an abundance of projects are maintained almost solely by one musician, Maeglin Aumar, all at the same time, releasing material quite often and a lot throughout the year, while maintaining his own tape label Ithildin Tape Production too. Under different monikers, he experiments with a wide array of musical templates, spanning from dark ambient, to dusty hip hop, to dungeon synth, to raw black metal, and all over again. Elminster agreed to a discussion that includes an extensive description of his artistic presence, his motives, insight on past releases and a glimpse into the future.

 

Autophagy - Bacteriophage (2022) Review

Experienced members in the modern sludge / doom / death metal scene comprise Portland's Autophagy, who caught the attention back in 2018 with an initial, quite solid first demo release. In the form of Bacteriophage, the band presents a concise debut full length album with a simplistic but effective formula: Swedish death'n'roll and old school death metal, with some doom metal touches, all drenched in down-tuned, grisly sound directly from the swamps only meant to disgust you. The magnificent cover art was catered by Brazilian designer Marcio Blasphemator, it immediately catches the eye and thankfully the material inside doesn't disappoint. Again, Bacteriophage doesn't overstep its own boundaries, so after a couple of tracks, you know what you're in for. Wonderful hidden guitar solos arise here and there (for example in "Beneath the Moss, Between the Roots") but for the most part, the whole record is one giant groove with a handful of faster and even less slower parts, but at least executed quite adequately. Doom / death metal glory resides in the self-titled track and the latter part of "Sacrificial Spawn, which also includes speedier tempos as in "Eviscerated Remains", "Abhorrent Abomination" and "Dawn of the Endless Plague". Tunes like "Return to the Charnal Hall" sit comfortably sit in what basically is pure death'n'roll, and "Becoming" has a little bit of everything, which actually is the case for all the tracks in Bacteriophage, and points out their tolerance in combining these few elements that make up the record. I was never overwhelmed by massive musical insight when listening to this, but all the tracks maintain a certain level of ugliness that is always admirable in death metal and its own kind of beauty, which I think shines with Autophagy and their neat debut. Hats off to the deep growls of the singer as well, who never dared to exit the cave when recording these vocals, and why would he. [3.5/5 - Great] 

Pit Lord - Gallery of Skewered Swine (2022) Review

Man, this blows hard. The colossal amount of sub-par extreme metal bands coming and going the last two decades is difficult to avoid, yet most of the times it is wiser to ignore than to indulge. For once, and with such a grand cover art, I slightly had some hope for the second Pit Lord album, a parody death metal band focusing on the subject of grilling meat and barbeques, and as much as I appreciate this craft, the band is ridiculous at best. While not being a person pre-determined against groups with humorous lyrics (even if there is good ground to be), I always take the musical content into account above all, and Gallery of Skewered Swine is one of the most poorly made, generic and weakest death metal albums I have heard this year. Its production is a complete failure, as the guitars completely lack any kind of impact in their sound, something that could have saved them from the fact that they haven't written not even one riff worth listening to in the whole album. The vocals feel forced and frail too, and the drum machine sounds as good as the sound of typing on a keyboard. Pit Lord go for slam / brutal death metal grooves really often but the structure of the tracks is so flat and so predictable, in a completely unoriginal and deficient record that has only two nice points: the cover and some funny samples about grilling. An attempt of the classic word altering joke title of "Sons of a Northern Breakfast" just makes the whole situation more embarrassing, because at least when e.g. Cannabis Corpse do it, they are also capable of writing some actual music to support it. There's nothing worth it in this album and most of death metal you will hear is better than it, so don't even consider investing the time. This genre has much better artists with substantial vision and considerable musicianship for you to enjoy, instead of toying with material way below mediocrity. [1/5 - Really poor]

Spiral Staircase - Visions Shifting Form (2022) Review

At last, after a series of mini releases and demos, Spiral Staircase channel their focus into creating a full length album. This debut sums up the band’s path until now quite well and with slightly clearer sound, but don’t be scared that it goes too far. Visions Shifting Form has an abundance of great riffs, slight punk-ish elements, a distant epicness with frequent ominous passages and plenty of melody for a raw black metal album. It flows nicely, and while listening, it is easy to notice that it’s a hardly repetitive record, as numerous different parts of changing tempos co-exist in the same tracks, yet the feeling of the whole outcome is kept the same. The band released the excellent EP Cellar Dream last year, and continues with an even more convincing statement in Visions Shifting Form, but I couldn’t help but notice the relatively short duration of most of the project’s material. Excluding the eight minute cover of cult band Asakku “Endless Woods”, the album would clock at 22 minutes but in all honesty, you’d rather have short but competent material than never ending mediocrity. Visions Shifting Form has a lot of great moments and really enjoyable tracks, and Spiral Staircase strike well this time with a release that deserves all the attention of folks wandering in the dungeons of underground black metal. Classic second wave guitar lines in “Returning”, “Empyrean Wolven Gate” and the self-titled track, the opening “Infinite Shadow” is clearly energized through some d-beat punk aggression, “The Hallucination” has even more atmospheric riffs that a different band would stretch to 10 minutes, and there’s an one minute shot “In the Scrying House” with just a couple of sections. The cover on Asakku is wonderful, it brings back the ghosts of the mid and late 90’s and makes it easy for you to label Spiral Staircase, not only musically but also chronologically. If you’re gonna look backwards, at least do it with decency. [3.5/5 - Great]