Weekly Digest October 25-31
New Mastadon and Whitechapel, Monolord’s doom and Lucifer’s occult rock, depressive black metal by Ghost Bath, OSDM Conjureth, progressive everything by Kayo Dot, sick hardcore punk from Colombia Unidad Ideológica, garage punk by Wine Lips and even more black metal by Goat Torment – all this in the latest issue of our regular column Weekly Digest.
Conjureth — Majestic Dissolve
The trend of replaying or "reimagining" the old school death metal has been going on for half a dozen years and is slowly getting tiring. So when I saw the band Conjureth with the tag OSDM I had very specific expectations, but something interesting happened here. Although the Conjureth are inspired by bands from Florida to Finland, their sound is not based on the continuous blastbeats, caveman riffs and ultra-low guitar tune, but on the first wave of death metal – with thrashy riffs and a high level of technicality. I emphasize that this is, without a doubt, an old school death metal album, but when comparing to other bands within the revival trend, Conjureth were able to stand out.
Ghost Bath — Self Loather
Ghost Bath is a representative of depressive-suicidal black metal (DSBM), a genre that has been repulsing listeners for more than two decades. Despite the very narrow genre niche, Ghost Bath signed on the biggest label in the world of metal-mainstream – Nuclear Blast. The record features CJ McMahon from Thy Art Is Murder and their colleague in the genre – Graf from Psychonaut 4. "Self Loather" is quite friendly to listeners, the music is not by any means life-affirming, but it can be listened not only in the bathroom with a blade in hands. Music of "Self Loather" could also be attributed to atmospheric black metal or post-black metal genres. So if you've seen pušča or White Ward live and enjoyed getting the blues – Ghost Bath is for you. If you actually experience symptoms of depression and you have suicidal thoughts – do not be afraid to consult friends and professionals. There are always those who love and miss you. I will leave this link here just in case.
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Goat Torment — Forked Tongues
"The band Goat Torment was formed in 2008 with the intention to create music as a weapon of mass destruction and to annihilate everything which the so-called society stands for” – this is how Belgian blackers (who else!) present themselves. Anger, Satanism, the punishing wall of sound.
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Kayo Dot — Moss Grew on the Swords and Plowshares Alike
Multi-instrumentalist Toby Driver has created a project Kayo Dot, an avant-garde combination of rock, metal, classical, gothic, indie, pop music and jazz structures. In addition to standard, there are metal guitars and drums, a vibraphone, violin, synthesizers, flutes, clarinets, and saxophones were used for album recording.
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Lucifer – IV
One and a half year after the album "III", Lucifer returns with the fourth full-length. Beloved occult rock sound awaits the listeners, Lucifer had definitely found their niche and from album to album only improve and sharpen the skill.
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Mastodon — Hushed and Grim
Mastodon's longest, proggiest, slowest and softest album to date. If the band reaches the level of popularity that Mastodon has achieved, while calibrating their sound on each album, the reactions of fans will always differ, so it is better to listen once than to read 100 times. But personally I was bored.
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Monolord — Your Time To Shine
Five songs in 38 minutes, a strong bass overload, everyone knows what to expect from this Swedish trio and they are happy to give fans exactly what that they do best – epic hard-hitting stoner doom.
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Unidad Ideológica — s/t
Hardcore punk from Latin America is always even more intense, loud, and politicized. The sound of Unidad Ideológica from Bogota, Columbia, is pure high-intensive hardcore. The eight songs on their debut take 15 minutes in general, and not a single second is wasted. Intense punk and a raging vocalist, full of venom, singing about fear, control, technology, and the rampant neoliberalism, destroying their land and literally killing as we speak.
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Whitechapel – Kin
"I feel with every album, we learn what worked best on the last one and try to utilize that in our writing. Early in the writing, there was some discussion of the album being like "The Valley", part II, not literally called that, but in how the songs sound and flow through it. It’s very much a storytelling type record like "The Valley" was," says vocalist Phil Bozeman, "Musically, we just want to create what we vibe with at the given moment. We write music with how we feel and not what is expected of us, while lyrically the idea of continuing from the story of "The Valley" was always the goal. It’s still very much a metal album, but there are elements of the record that have more of a rock and open vibe. We really wanted these songs to breathe and have life and to sound bigger than anything we’ve made so far. We have explored more singing on "Kin" too. It wouldn’t make sense to have the majority of the fanbase enjoy that sound and then shy away from it” – Phil Bozeman, the vocalist, comments".
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Wine Lips — Mushroom Death Sex Bummer
Could not pass the album with this name. Wine Lips from Toronto play garage punk rock with elements of psychedelia, fuzzy loud and fast. If you compare it with Ukrainian performers, imagine Straytones, who instead of chilling on the beaches of Dnipo river went full Jackass at a 24/7 ATБ (Ukrainian supermarket chain – ed.).
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