Insatanity – Hymns Of The Gods Before (2021) – Insatanity have been around since 92, though have only dropped three full lengths in that long tenure. They’ve switched things up by adding a few more black metal elements to their sound as well as a pulverizing frontwoman by the name of Venessa Cordoba. Even so, I don’t find the experience all that rewarding, mainly passable at best. This is what a lot of other reviewers have been stating, and I seem to follow along those lines here. There are definitely moments, but the best song on the disc for me would have to be the bonus Deicide cover “When Satan Rules His World.” The listen is certainly groovy, there’s a few breakdowns and of course your common death metal fare. Cordoba’s vocals also seem to sound a bit more like Angela Gossow and I like that. There’s no clean singing here, like we got with the last Arch Enemy (which I knew was bound to happen). However, I just can’t get over the fact that this album was just kinda there and that’s not good enough. It would have been nice to hear some solos or maybe even just some unique melodies. I’m not sure what kind of band Insatanity are trying to be, but there’s not even enough action going on in the drumming to make me take notice there, unlike a lot of BDM acts I’ve heard where the drumming is incredible. In fact, some BDM drumming can be so momentous that it becomes the core point of the album. That’s not so much the case here. The main issue with Hymns To The Gods Before is that it sounds a bit too much like The Gods Before and doesn’t really add anything new to the formula. If you’re up for a decent death metal album, you’ll dig it – but it just feels like a boneless skeleton that needs a bit more meat.
9 Tracks, 32:00
Perfecitizen – Humanipulation (2020) – Now here is a record that definitely needs more attention. At first listen, you might assume Perfecitizen to be another BDM band, and that while they definitely are that, there’s more to this record than meets the eye. Like a Transformer, it later adds in slight moments of acoustic and avantgarde bits as it completely throws the listener off guard by adding female vocals on “Blind Ignorance.” Yes, female sung vocals. Now don’t get too worked up about it, I know how some of you can be when it comes to someone throwing unwanted stuff in your BDM, but folks this is honestly a welcome change. There are about ninety thousand BDM bands with a similar style who wouldn’t even entertain these kinds of changes that you would probably rather listen to, but not me – I’m looking for something different after all these years and that’s what Perfecitizen manage to do here. It’s not enough to get the attention of the big metal rags who would these days rather fill up my feed with politics, and I get that music is definitely political, but that doesn’t meant that these trusted sources for music news and information should be doing the work of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Routers, Associated Press and other (arguably) accredited journalistic news sources. This record certainly has a strong political nature and that’s fine too. However, there is a bit of an issue I feel when a source that would have a much larger following than I could ever hope to have would decide it better to not cover a band like this and instead focus on something that is in all honesty, better covered by journalists with more experience in the field. Moving back towards the album, I find that I am not quite a fans of the singing and spoken word vocals on the disc, however. The spoken word doesn’t really seem to shine all that well and the clean singing isn’t really all that memorable – but at least it is a step away from the common BDM formula. There’s also a bit of a techy, djenty sense here which I believe was present on the last album and reflects here a bit too. If you’re looking for a sound that is a step away from the common BDM constructs, you will certainly find it here.
8 Tracks, 30:00
Dessiderum – Shadow Burn (2020) – Dessiderum are a tremendous symphonic melodic black metal act, with touches of death metal for good measure. They bring a strong sense of structure and variation that is only accentuated by the synths. In fact, I don’t think I would really enjoy the act as much without the synths – again, those really bring them to life. Aside from familiar pulse-pounding metal, there also exists “Serenica” which is a welcome atmosphere piece, showing the strength of the synths. Although I found the record pleasant, there was an awful lot of artifacting in the 128k promo that I was sent for review and it made every beat sound a bit fuzzy, which I felt ruined the overall quality of the album a bit for me. Chances are that you’ll be downloading this one in much higher quality (which I’ll start recommending from band submissions, please do not send me anything lower than 192k if you can help it) and that you’ll be able to enjoy it in a way that I could not. Dessiderum are a strong band, a memorable band only accentuated by the synths, rather than just being nondescript background noise as in other acts. You can tell that the whole thing was carefully placed together and has a definite flow and structure that doesn’t stick to one note. There are obvious blasting black metal sections, but it doesn’t live or die by those, thankfully. I’ve heard a bit too much of that over the years. I look forward to future releases from the act and hope they’ll take this sound into new territory. There’s nothing really all that catchy here, but it all seems to flow nicely and feels like it is meant to be absorbed in just one listen, which is perfectly fine.
8 Tracks, 53:00
Empress – Premonition (2020) – I was very surprised which this one, being a diehard fan of Junius. By the way, did you know that they remastered and re-released a lot of their old material? You didn’t? Well, you may want to pick that up. In any case, Empress seem to continue that formula, albeit with one difference – there are some hefty moments that I don’t think Junius would have used and that’s fine, we don’t need another Junius. So what we do have here is a fiercer, more threatening (yet still light-hearted) variant of the aforementioned. That’s not to say that several other post-metal bands didn’t influence them, because I’m quite sure there’s a few hundred I can’t think of at the moment. Then you look at “Sepulchre” and there’s more than a little bit of QOTSA/Mastodon influence, so I’m quite fond of that – especially when these guys take from a pummeling monster like Remission or the crunch of Leviathan. “Trost” seems to want to be post-black at first, but then it seems to go for blues. Being a lover of many different kinds of music, I humbly agree with their decision to make such a rapid change mid-song. I think more bands do need to change up their styles every so often. When I got to the title track, I felt it was a bit of a waste. Why? Well, it’s a seven-minute epic with plenty of spots for vocal lines, choruses and moments where a point can be brought home, but that never happens. Then you have the title which is “Premonition” and obviously there’s got to be a stack of songs an inch thick about the end of the world or something, which happens in a lot of metal bands – they could have easily applied one of those and had some epic, powerful message about how we need to find unity or try to keep the planet clean or something. Maybe plant more trees. You can get metalheads out there planting trees or creating gardens, growing their own food or something. Maybe more a song about preparation – things are going to get rough, so you had better prepare for living off the grid. Pretty strong message, could have been conveyed in the lyrics. Not so much for me, when this all goes, I’m going with it – but for some younger folks, they may get with it. Start becoming energy independent and such. The final cut, “Lion’s Blood” really kills though, even though it begins with a rather calm moment. You’ll be surprised at how heavy it actually gets. I guess that’s as good an “epic moment” as any. All in all, I really enjoyed this disc and I’m not gonna let one oddly placed instrumental knock me down. Premonition is a remarkable record for fans of Junius, Mastodon (maybe Tool and Queens Of The Stone Age as well) and other merited post metal acts, so check it out. You won’t be disappointed.
7 Tracks, 49:00
Prezir – Depridation (2020) – I could have already told you by now that a new Prezir record was going to equal out to brilliance and they’ve done that here. And no, I promise that it’s not because of the monumental amount of solos and killer riffs utilized on the album. However, we have to look at “Sacrificed, The Honored” and those amazing end melodies. I’m reminded a little bit of the Capcom guitars there, certainly caught my attention right off the bat. “Emissary Artifice” also has some incredibly tasty riffs, showing that yes, you can black fierce black metal while not forgetting how important strong melodies and solos are. The harsh vocals are also delivered well, as wonderfully shrill or as cavernous as they’re supposed to be. This is clearly a disc with bite, but it also focuses on what I used to call back in the day, “guitarmanship” and that alone will definitely keep me hooked. As I listen, I’m focusing on the next set of riffs that will be pulled out of this veritable back of tricks and that keeps me anticipating each song on the album. With “Deprivation Doctrine” it goes into full shred mode just after a minute, not to mention the fact that the vocal delivery is timed perfectly. There’s even another shredding moment right at the end. Aside from all the shredding, the disc is chock-full of familiar tremolos and even some death metal sections, not unlike the previous record – but this one goes all out. Perhaps the cover doesn’t showcase it, it looks like a common death metal album; but this disc goes above and beyond in terms of sheer guitar showmanship, it goes in places that other bands unfortunately just won’t go.
I really don’t know why guitar acrobatics and memorable melodies have gone out of favor with metal. The genre has been in a “how dark can we get” mode for decades and that’s not what really brought it to prominence. People love the classically inspired melodies and solos that have caused this genre to have a much larger level of popularity in places like Japan where the guitar is still welcomed, it would seem. Think about it – what western show have you seen in the last couple of years that was not related to heavy metal or even rock music, had a rock theme song? You see this a lot with Japanese anime. A lot of strong guitar melodies, a lot of featured solo moments, harsh vocals – and fans actually go look up these songs and get interested in those artists. Not so much here as we’ve almost been completely absorbed by pop music and a kind of second-rate “trap hip-hop” that is so bad the greats would have laughed at it, had they still been alive to hear it. Meanwhile, you have ancient acts trying to keep up the pace in a genre that tries to convince it’s listeners that Twenty-One Pilots and Imagine Dragons are on the same level as acts like peak-era Motley Crue and Guns & Roses, who both featured actual guitars and people who could play them. As an American, I apologize for both of these bands, and I also apologize for Poppy. Though she gained influence from the Japanese rock that I mention, she bastardized it in the end and that’s a good example of where American music is right now – in the gutter.
Getting back to the album, I find that I’m having a bit of a time hearing the guitar melodies on “Terrors Of The Steppe.” There’s a portion in the middle and towards the end where these are accentuated, but they seem to be a bit quieter than on other tracks. I even had to turn up my volume a bit to discern them better. Probably just a simple error in mixing, but definitely noticeable on my end. This is rectified on “The Falcon and The Lionheart”, particularly during its solo section. It’s fair to say that said track is more straight-forward with it’s delivery though and focuses more on black/death delivery than it does on showing off. I particularly like the somewhat folky militancy present on “Krvopolice I Propast” as it slowly moves towards accepting some major full-on death thrash and a moment of shredding. Although it has an admittedly unique start, this is a song that truly delivers as it gets going and will cause the listener to bang their head (wait, I don’t think we can do that anymore) furiously. Just as I enjoyed the odd opening riff on the previous, I also found the opening on “Feasting From The Cradle” rather memorable and of course that deviates into something that I feel might be stretching into avantgarde territory, which is fine as Prezir doesn’t seem too stringent on what “metal rules” they need to follow for the given genre. Towards the middle we have another impressive little melody, which later gets followed up by a moment of deadly groove. That later rolls into black metal and around that point, the song truly sends us off on a good note. Speaking of notes, the last set of notes on this album comes in the form of a rather folky melodic number called “Peasantry Messiah.” It doesn’t stay melodic for long as it switches between black and death metal moments, which result in familiar territory and don’t see the band jumping the shark anytime soon. Tremolo melodies echo as the record comes to an abrupt, though satisfying end. Prezir have definitely delivered this time around, offering a record with more focus on guitar melodies and shredding, while keeping the familiar black/death and occasional thrash sound that their fans love. They’re showing that you can play memorable clean melodies and shred in black/death metal, something that I think more bands in this genre and other extreme variants need to understand.
8 Tracks, 48:00