2019 Albums Archives - Page 5 of 12

Micro Dose: Blackwater Burial – The Prison Of Belief (Tech Death)

November 4, 2019 zaxrecordreviews

Blackwater Burial have released a solid tech death record with crazy good musicianship. The guitar and bass work here is incredibly technical, but it never feels unnecessary or wanky, everything fits incredibly well. It’s mixed nicely so all the individual layers stand out nicely. The vocals are these low growls with a nice bit of clarity to them. They are brutal and very well performed, but i can make out a lot of the lyrics which is always appreciated. […]

Album Review: Deadwood Lake – “Immortalised In Death” 7/10 (Black Metal)

November 4, 2019 destroyerhands

This is my first encounter with Deadwood Lake and I have to say that, all in all, it’s pretty positive. This band is a black metal outfit that is on the melodic side of the spectrum. Melodic and atmospheric black metal is kind of my domain, as it’s what I tend to listen to the most, so I’m usually a harder critic on these types of bands. That being said, I’m pretty pleased with this album. […]

Album Review: Holy Serpent – Endless 10 (Stoner/Gaze)

November 4, 2019 Noob Heavy admin

Endless is straight up ‘the shit’, that’s the most important fact of this review. It’s an album that has made me swoon like few others this year and it’s not exactly that metal or heavy. It is however, perfectly suited to the current climate of stoner rock and doom, bringing something quite zesty and refreshing, a fusion of fuzz, alt rock and doom rock. I’m hearing influences from Type O Negative and My Bloody Valentine, it’s super inspired and engorged with energy despite the doomy tempo. They nailed it musically and in terms of doom aesthetic – something Australia has been refining for some time now. […]

Album Review: Exulansis – “Sequestered Sympathy” 7.8/10 (Black Metal)

November 3, 2019 zaxrecordreviews

Opposites attract is a cliche that has long applied to metal music. Crossover and fusion genres are a huge part of metal and do a lot to keep the genre interesting. From crossover thrash, to the numerous core genres, to folk metal, the possibilities are endless. The band we will be talking about today mixes quite a few genres for a very unique sound. Their Facebook biography describes their sound a lot better than I ever could, so here’s a excerpt, “Exulansis forms a nuanced variation of antifascist black metal, doom, crust, folk and chamber music by presenting acoustic elements with rapid blast beats, soaring melodies and dark harmonies.” […]

Micro Dose: Vulvodynia – Mob Justice (Deathcore)

November 3, 2019 zaxrecordreviews

So to end off the week, we have a band I never really saw myself talking about. Yeah, Vulvodynia just put out a really fucking good record. They’re one of the biggest, if not THE biggest name in slamming deathcore. They are super genuine guys, but for some reason the tunes never connected for me, but that has definitely changed with this new album. […]

Album Review: Hell Yeah – Welcome Home 7 (Groove/Southern)

October 28, 2019 Noob Heavy admin

It was back in 2012 or so that the American super-band HELLYEAH (consisting of such members as Vinnie Paul of Pantera and Damageplan, Chad Gray and Greg Tribbett of Mudvayne and Tom Maxwell of Nothingface) came into my attention with Band of Brothers. Way before that, they had released Alcohaulin’ Ass, a southern-rock-sounding track, which I had heard on some occasions. But it was Blood for Blood (2014) that established them as a groove metal act I would call qualified. Their 2016’s Undeniable, being not on par with its antecedent, tossed the band back to normalcy again, only having a few highlights here and there. But with the founding member Vinnie Paul’s untimely demise in June 2018, the band has had so much to prove whether they are able to pick up where they left off or they are just another run-of-the-meal metal band with a couple of commendable songs and quite a handful of fillers per album. […]

Album Review: Rings Of Saturn – Gidim 10 (Deathcore)

October 28, 2019 Noob Heavy admin

Rings Of Saturn have been around for a bit perfecting their insane brand of techno death metal, and with this latest album they prove they can soar alongside current titans Infant Annihilator and Cattle Decapitation. 2019 keeps upping the vocal game and setting an insane standard that most just can’t compete with. Add an overgrown child prodigy of a guitarist and you’ve got the essence of RoS, it’s excessive… and fancy. Utilizing brutality with finesse rather than toxic bravado. I’ve heard so many albums try to reach this peak but fall short, so it’s not without pause that I consider this one of the greatest tech death works of like… the decade? Imagine if Dragonforce was good. […]

Album Review: White Ward – Love Exchange Failure 8 (Post Black)

October 25, 2019 zaxrecordreviews

I love coming across albums that are very long, but feel like nothing. Albums you can just sink into and lose yourself in are the absolute best. A prime supplier of records like these are post-black metal and atmospheric black metal in general. White Ward fit this quite well with their new album “Love Exchange Failure” that eclipses an hour in length with only 7 tracks to its name. […]

Review/Interview: Moon and Azure Shadow – Age Of Darkness and Frost 9 (Blackgaze)

October 25, 2019 Noob Heavy admin

I’m so excited to share this album with you guys, it’s an absolute gem. Moon and Azure Shadow is a solo project that mixes atmospheric black metal with Japanese style soundtracks. You have to listen to this with headphones on in a dark room to get the full effect of how grand this album is. As a fan of soundtrack style music and dark ambient, I’m so stoked to see that type of sound being so well mixed with the harshness of black metal. […]

Interview: Satta (Visual Artist)

October 25, 2019 Noob Heavy admin

I became familiar with Satta through IG as I follow a lot of dark artists suitable for band merch, Satta however has a classical approach to the style that outshines the rabble of common assets and lazy work ethic. His art is not just dark by subject, it embodies it fully, from conception to technique to completion. It’s a higher brow darkness. I also became familiar with the aussie OSDM band Aeon’s Abyss through instagram, who ended up commissioning Satta for their upcoming album Impenitent (Nov 1), a fortunate pairing sharing similar classic metal values. Here is an interview with the artist Satta in which we discuss influences, the upcoming album and living as an artist. […]