Begrime Exemious - Begrime Exemious / Flash Out

| LABEL |

Filth Regime Records

| AVDIO |

Bandcamp

| Black/Death Metal/Crust | TRAILING fucking dirty BM with the right attitude and with a sickening darkness.

Begrime Exemious begins with its lead heavy interpretations that rides on the loose flapping base in all the songs. It's catchy as hell, a total discharge of emotions. It rumbles like doomsday is near, and the singer messes with his persuasive voice that the end is near. And I enjoy it along my entire bony spine of pleasure and ungodly terror.

The next half is dedicated to Flash Out which plays a mix of Death Metal, Crust, Grindcore to name a few. It's bluster, madness and total fucking war in every song. It's fast and deafening like a cannon on speed. It is as crazy as a sergeant possessed of a thousand spirits of dead soldiers. It's a damn nice experience, which unfortunately is over way too fast!

| EXECVTION	| 82	| COMPOSITION	| 80 |
| INNOVATION	| 85	| PRODVCTION	| 88 |

| GRADE | 84 |

Desolate Shrine - The Heart of the Netherworld

| LABEL |

Dark Descent Records

| AVDIO |

Bandcamp

| Death Metal | An ancient darkness and a mysterious aura surrounds the entire album, creating a sound as if it were from another world, netherworld!!!

First and foremost, this is a solid album. The structure is as stable and mysterious as an ancient stone monument. Everything is covered in a veil of darkness and mystery, it is cloudy and majestically at the same time. Dark as a forgotten chamber and glistening like a copper shield.

There are several nuances and layers in the album. In the background is constantly a roaring darkness and in the forefront, we find ancient divine melodies that speaks to the body and blood of the inner self. It is an epic soundscape that is created by small means and suggestive undertones. The album oscillates constantly between DM and BM, with the intemperate weight of DM with darkness and mystery of the BM.

It feels like this obscure creation comes from a bygone era. It really manage to conjure up an entire landscape of sounds that you get drawn into, whether you are conscious of it or not. A disc that can be played over and over again. There are so infinitely much to discover. It even activates other senses than just hearing. I think I can feel the odors, tastes and ancient deities in my vicinity. A divine experience!!!

| EXECVTION	| 92	| COMPOSITION	| 89 |
| INNOVATION	| 88	| PRODVCTION	| 94 |

| GRADE | 91 |

Hexis - Abalam

Finally I had the time to review this BM/Hardcore hybrid that has been laying in the pile for a while. First thing first, this record is heavier than antimatter, the weight of the downtuned guitars together with the solid bass (which actually take a lot of space on the record). It delivers an extremely groovy concrete rough sound that you don't hear every day in the genre. The mix of hardcore and BM have been proven to work excellent together before, and this is no exception. They have taken the rawness from BM and shuffled it together with the aggressivity of Hardcore into this thick sludge of nihilism and anti-christianity. They have also taken the length of the songs from the hardcore genre, with the average length of the tracks being around just two minutes, which works just fine for this adrenaline pumped manifestation!!! I can see followers of both genres enjoying this record. Should not be missed if you're tired of lo-fi BM and want something new!!!

8,5/11

Listen and buy it here

Akrotheism - Behold the Son of Plagues

From the ancient land of old thinkers, poets and mathematicians comes this, to use the term orthodox black metal band with their first full-length album and sets the bar bloody high on the pillars. Theres no doubt that this is high quality BM from the first tones that rings out, and then this abyssal serpent just grows in lawless untreaden proportions!!! This opus has all the elements that I'm always searching for, great songwriting and musicianship, interesting lyrics and the most important of all, a heavy, ever-present atmosphere that really captivates you to the innermost burning flame. It grabs hold of your subconsciousness, and you just know how dreadfully awesome this release is!!! As the atmosphere goes, there are an thick nightmarish soundscape surrounding it all and closes it all together. They accomplish all this with simple means, without any fancy keyboards or the national symphony orchestras. One of the biggest things is the use of the underrated instrument theremin, the special horrific and dreamy sounds it generates is an perfect match for this type of music (and more bands should fucking use it!!!). The other thing is the great guitar melodies that are both mood setting (and of the more catchier kind sometimes), chanting choirs that are an hit this time and the excellent and well fitting production (mixed and mastered by Tore Stjerna, do I need to say anymore?!?).  It doesn't make things worse either that they end this album with an great cover of "To Swarm Deserted Away" from the norwegian experimental masters Ved Buens Ende. One of the more interesting releases so far this year, don't miss it if you're into the more serious stuff!!!

9/11

Listen to a sample here

Buy it here

REVIEW Withering Night - Within the Shadows We Lurk

Its now time to serve up some glutinous cake with so much cream and sprinkles that you almost will choke in form of this ultra melodic BM release. Yeah, this is what i call a melodic black metal?!? release with endless masses of guitar melodies and so much keyboards that you almost drown in them. But is it any good?!? Yes and fuck no!!! But lets try to start on a positive note. The album manifests musicality on a high level with advanced guitar compositions and riffs (that contains a lot of inspiration from heavy metal inter alia) that feels interesting and exciting for the most of the parts, some of the stuff even sticks to me, and I can't help thinking to myself, hey this is good! The vocals are the standard stuff (raspy middle pitched voice) nothing that really stands out, with some clean male and female vocals that are both a hit and miss. And the bloody keyboards that always lays there, sometimes in the background with just atmospheric sounds and occasionally on top as a sweet ass cherry (and even plays some folk melodies). For the most of the parts it just feels superfluous and the guitars are more than enough!!! But for most of the first half of the album its a refreshing experience as a whole.

But now to the bad fucking shit!!! The second half of this record!!! Suddenly they start playing  pure fucking power metal (the shitstorm starts with the song Forsaken Judgement) but with harsh vocals (as they should call it), this shit would have fitted equally well on a fucking pussy ass Dragonforce record!!! I get nauseous and almost want to puke up my spleen out of this shit!!! And it goes on for a couple of a songs before they try to redeem themself with the title track, but then they put some faggy clean vocals on it, and Im just wondering, what the fuck were they thinking?!? The album ends at least on a higher note with the closing track Blood Worship and everything is back to normal after the trip to the gaybar. To sum it all up, I find it hard to recommend this album for you, but at the same time are there some good things here if you search for it and are into hyper melodic and heavy metal inspired stuff (and skip a couple of tracks), so check it up, but be warned..!

5 (7 if you skip track eight and nine) /11

Best track: Lifting the Veil

Check them out here:

http://razedsoul.bandcamp.com/album/within-the-shadows-we-lurk

REVIEW Azziard - Vésanie

Now we are entering the sick and twisted domain of this french five man strong group!!! They bring to us a more modern type of BM that reminds me of bands like Khold and Gehenna to name a few. Pay attention to that they are modern in the right way, without adding any techno elements or making it an gay gothfeast!!! Its rather an logicall evolvement of the genre building on a solid ground with more weight on the technical level and some death metal added as an extra spice to this deadly cocktail. They keep it interesting all the way with a kind of hypnotic and bit catchy riffs with some DM swing to it! Its a great mix that commutes between classical midtempo to the blastbeat stuff and add some solos to that. The lyrics are as you probably understand in their mothers tongue, and they are delivered in an appropriate manner with a more darker and rabid tone to them. They have also given the guitars a great dirty but clean (like a maniac in a clean straightjacket) sound to them, which gives a real heaviness to the album!!! If you're tired of the old and cold shit, look up this absurd release!!!

8/11

Best track: Sur La Toile

Check them out here:

REVIEW Valkyrja - The Antagonist's Fire

Finally a new album (after almost four fuckin years of slumber and waiting) from one of the lords of swedish black metal together with Ofermod and Watain (if you ask me). The comparison with Watain isn't that far fetch to begin with, the music is vastly in the same vain of the above mentioned band together with the lyrical and imagery themes are close to each others. And to top it all are both bands complete full-length catalogue recorded at the excellent Necromorbus studio by Tore Stjerna which obvious sets a quality mark on the releases. So it isn't that hard to see why these bands often get paired together. But were they differ them self  from each other is in the evolution of the bands, were Watain always seems to be a step ahead and Valkyrja following after (nothing bad about it!!!). But enough said about Watain, this is a Valkyrja review for fuck sake!!! This is a horrifically awesome recording from the first opening riffs of "Betrayal Incarnate" to the last infernal tones of the closing track "Treading the Path of the Predator". I enjoy the whole terrible and interesting journey through the bottomless chasms to the endless darkness of abyss. This album grows on you for every time you hear it, getting higher and higher like the black flame. It has every element that you ask for from a great BM band and all the things you crave!!! Its an extremely rewarding journey to take for all your senses, you don't fucking want to miss this release!!! 

9,5/11

Best track: Madness Redeemer

Check them out here:

https://myspace.com/valkyrjaswe