London trio Urne have been up against it this festival season, having been stranded at a flooded Metaldays, they will hopefully play Bloodstock this weekend. However on the back of this new album I'm sure they will channel these experiences into another happy go lucky record like A Feast On Sorrow. I kid of course as the second studio album from this band is more emotionally devestating than their first record, the more upbeat parts of the debut washed away in sea of introspection and grief. Frontman Joe Nally this time mulling over the effects of disease, dementia and old age, all of which have personally affected Nally in the build up to this album. It means that A Feast On Sorrow, is an album that will move you and just don't mean with physical heaviness.
Werewolves - My Enemies Look And Sound Like Me (Prosthetic Records) [Paul Scoble]
The trio of death metal lunatics that are Werewolves have been flaying the death metal scene since 2019. The Melbourne based band have made 3 albums before My Enemies Look And Sound Like Me; Dead And Screaming in 2020, What A Time To Be Alive in 2021, and From The Cave To The Grave in 2022, and with metronomic precision 2023 brings a new album. Werewolves is a three piece band made up of David Haley on drums, Matt Wilcock on guitars and Sam Bean on vocals and bass.
Werewolves play a style of death metal that is Old School in style, incredibly tight, with lots of really great blast beats. This is all backed up by a technical proficiency that is pretty new school. Personally I’ve always thought Werewolves have a bit of a similarity with Welsh Old School Death Metal Legends Desecration. The songs are mostly short, ridiculously fast (with a couple of notable exceptions), incredibly savage and wonderfully tight.
Opening track Under The Ground is a great example of the fast, insane blasting, as the track starts with a savage blast beat and viscous riffs. The song is ridiculously tight and focused, all that aggression and spite is concentrated to a point that will smash through anything. The song does have a couple of mid-paced sections that are also incredibly taut and sharp. Title track My Enemies Look And Sound Like Me is another insane blast fest. The song is incredibly fast and viscous, it sand blasts you into submission with a machine gun snare that pulverises the listener. The song does have a slow section that stomps about breaking the furniture for a while, but the overriding feeling on this track is High Speed Blasting.
Final track Do Not Hold Me Back has some wonderful fast riffs that have a beautiful flowing feel that infuses them with inertia and pace. The song has lots of nasty, fast blasting as well with that incessant snare battering us, but those fast flowing riffs are definitely something special.
Some of the material on My Enemies Look And Sound Like Me has a feel that is more death/thrash than sstraight death metal, and that thrashy edge really works well. Bring Me To The Kill has some great thrashy riffs keeping the energy high. Neanderhell is packed with thrashy riffs as well, its a fairly simple song that mixes thrashy death metal with a more Old School high speed blast sound. The song is simple but is also very effective, a head battering blast of concentrated energy.
Werewolves might have a reputation for insanely fast death metal, but these speed freaks can also do slow and heavy, in fact they manage slow, heavy, and very nasty as well. The best example of the is is the song Destroyer Of Worlds. Destroyer Of Worlds is a super slow, heavy and very dissonant piece of doomy death metal. The song is full of nasty riffs full of dissonance and putrid melodies that are just vile. The song does have one section of high speed death metal as the band probably couldn’t help themselves, but the main thing you will take away from Destroyer Of Worlds is slow, heavy, putrid and Nasty.
As you’ve probably worked out this a fantastic album. It’s so nice to get to review an album that gets it right from the very first note/beat/scream. The album is full of insanely good riffs, blasts, unhinged vocals, and neck breaking tempos. Everything is so tight, fast, and focused if you shone light through this album you could probably start a forest fire. It is an adrenaline fuelled blast of an album, that is so much fun you’ll be smiling all over your battered face. 9/10
By now I am pretty sure if you read my reviews, you know that I think Ripple Music is the best label in rock. The consistency of the material released by the untouchable roster is unreal. Todd’s ear for bands in the stoner/doom/metal genre is one of the best, consistently signing artists that wind up in my top ten albums of the year lists regularly. This includes the Boston “supergroup” KIND, whose 2020 record, Mental Nudge, was in my top five that year and who is now releasing another gem, Close Encounters, for our grunge/stoner/doom/psych enjoyment, dropping in to screw up your AOTY list. Close Encounters is the band’s third album, and quite possibly their best, which is saying something considering how awesome Metal Nudge is.
These guys come from great bands like Elder, Black Pyramid, Roadsaw, and Rozamov, and if you know any of those artist’s work you will hear bits of each in KIND, including leveraging that background on the nine killer tracks on Close Encounters. Burn Star kicks us off in grand fashion, with some killer grungy goodness. I love the riff and the vocals are excellent, even giving us some oohs amongst the tuned down riffage.
No one is going to start being disappointed with a Ripple release with this one, as KIND has a top ten AOTY contender on their hands with Close Encounters. KIND brings all the elements I love in heavy rock today. The playing and vocals are a major step up from an already impressive two album run. Check this out and play it loud. 9/10
Din Of Celestial Birds - The Night Is For Dreamers (A Cheery Wave Records/A Thousand Arms) [Mark Young]
Something that is surprisingly welcome for August is some instrumental metal which given my on/off relationship with this kind of music, I really wasn’t expecting to like. The 5-piece from Leeds come in and drop a vibrant collection of music that doesn’t rely on overlong noodling on guitar or execrable drum solos. Each one is crafted so that we take a journey into a soundscape that balances the light and heavy, and you don’t miss the lead vocals at all. For me they provide a reset against the extreme music I normally review and its like a summer album for metal heads.
Kicking off, Utopia is a busy, energetic instrumental of melody and countermelody that shows its heavy as the track wraps up but doesn’t lose sight of keeping it interesting. Starting with keys and a subtle arrangement, it just casually builds, keeping the refrains going until we get that heavy side in, it’s a great start and from there we bounce straight into Junebug, which follows up with more happy sounding chords and movement. Similar Utopia, it builds on the lighter phrasing, using trem picking to emphasise speed and again drops in some bottom end to balance things out. I should point out the use of ‘Happy Chords’ is not me being snarky, I should say ‘Major’ Chords but because I am a philistine, and I’m not completely sure.
Launch continues along with that storming perpetual motion and has a top section where they drop some high quality riffage and Laureate of American Lowlife, with its sampled introduction comes straight out with the most metal moment on the album. It settles down into a clean phase with the sample coming in and out but never overshadowing. When they hit the pedal, it changes from before, just enough to keep the theme going. What I love about it is the constant forward movement that it possesses, like they all possess. For me this is the standout on the album, just pure class.
Even on the slower or more subtle songs they move, keeping you engaged. Going back to Laureate when it gets heavy, it gets heavy. There are bands out there who would love to put songs together that are half as good as these. This Transient Spring welcomes us in with a piano that is gradually underpinned by further keys, swelling the sound. This is the soundtrack to those time-lapse videos that show the changing nature of the seasons and I suppose the individual would get their own take from it.
Downpour has more of an urgent feel, building and building to a crescendo until it falls away for a moment.
The general vibe is one of positivity, at least that is what it brings me as each track comes and goes. The use of those ‘happy chords / movements’ and please correct me if I’m wrong because I’ll continue to call them that until someone puts me right but for the sake of this review let’s say its correct.
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