Reviews: Voidgazer, Apocalyptica, GURT, Withering Surface (Reviews By Mark Young & Matt Bladen)

Voidgazer - Dance Of The Undesirables (Reigning Phoenix Music) [Mark Young]

Have you ever heard an album that makes you smile? Something that seemingly comes out of nowhere and stakes a claim for what could be one of your favourite releases of the year? Say hello to Voidgazer, who have released what should be considered as a future classic. The album just has everything that any fan of loud, unabashed heavy metal should love. But there is a minimum word count so here goes as I try to find as many ways of saying ‘This is Ace’ as is possible (because it is) and try to capture why it’s such a cracker.

Jesus Takes The Needle kicks off with a thrashing introduction that morphs into a sludge slow-down that is chock full of immediate riffs from Manny Watts and some guttural vocals courtesy of Omar Olivares II. It grinds, stomps and is like Mastodon on crack. It is frenetic, possibly schizophrenic and constitutes one of the best opening songs I’ve ever heard. The closing section is fire, and makes you want to play it. Driving a car to this is dangerous and over the course of 5 minutes and 42 seconds have dropped a massive marker on how you take different genres and mould it into what metal should sound like. 

The tone darkens on Expectations Management with lead heavy picking intro that drops into something akin to rock and roll, dressed in 2024’s clothes. It mixes in triplets, guitar lines that run everywhere on the neck. The progressions are mint and then it goes into classic rock territory with lead licks that could have come from 1985. That is not a dis, it’s just mental that it works so well. Face melting solos are the order of the day here and as a song it is completely different from the track that preceded it.

The end licks are royal but there is no time to breathe as we get into the title track which is just 8 minutes of pure quality. It’s the way it is put together, the mix of low-down riffing, the chiming chords, the melodic fills and then more melting of faces. I defy anyone to listen to this and not be uplifted. There is a genius at work here, the way that they turn on a penny and charge into a new direction and carry it off is superb.

Blast Equalizer goes down that progressive/technical route with a standout opening sequence before getting their stomping boots back on for a tear up, double bass firing like machine guns. The break down is perfect, giving the lead over it the necessary foundation before they wind themselves back up for Sexual Sadist Serial Slasher which takes great delight in beating you around the head with a blunt instrument. 

Even in amongst the bludgeoning they don’t forget that it has to engage you and they do just that. It crams so much in without any drop in excellence that the inclusion of an interlude (GRRRRR) with Grand Appeasement, it doesn’t take the shine off the closing track, From Nothing. Back on the progressive train with this one, it’s one blinding riff pattern after another, occupying that mid-tempo range that allows the lead to come in and scorch the earth in front of it.

It has been a while since I’ve had a review like this where there are no standouts or highlights. This is simply because the quality is that high right the way through. It deserves to be on your album of the year lists because it is THAT good. 10/10

Apocalyptica - Plays Metallica Vol. 2 (Throwdown Entertainment) [Matt Bladen]

How and perhaps more pertinently, why do you record a sequel to the album that made you? That’s the question I posed when the new album from Apocalyptica dropped into my inbox. 

Plays Metallica Vol 2 is the sequel to their 1997 debut Plays Metallica By Four Cellos. That album slowly built them a reputation, one that has seen them get bigger with very new studio album, eight in total, with addition of Mikko Sirén on drums it was probably 2007’s Worlds Collide that saw them collaborate with guest singers such as Corey Taylor, Till Lindermann and Christina Scabbia that solidified them as more than just “that band with the cellos”. So why return to Metallica when you’ve done so much to become a rock/metal band in your own right? 

Well it’s been 25 years since their debut and as the band have opened for Metallica in the past they maintain a great relationship with them to this day, so this is a homage to the band that first inspired them to record that lo-fi, simple tribute all those years ago, but to perform new cuts from their back catalogue in their current form. 

I’ll say right now that as the band have delved further down the metal band with cellos route, this is sonically much bigger than the first one, there’s all sorts of effects and distortion on the cellos, to make it more like the traditional set up, the trio of cellists having played this way for years now, what sets it apart from the original though is the drums. It was the thing that was missing and not matter what you think of Lars as drummer, you just can’t beat that double kick blast in One or even the donk in St Anger, which isn’t emulated on this version. It’s a shame then that this is the final album with Mikko Sirén behind the kit as he’s integral to this record. 

The track list was chosen to vary from the debut, no songs are duplicated, with some more modern era and album cuts included I was excited to hear To Live Is To Die and Holier Than Thou and they don’t disappoint. In fact nothing disappoints but you can’t help but wonder why they have gone back to Metallica covers. 

For me it would have been better to have this album and to re-record the debut in the same style to show the evolution of the band. Still it gets the seal of approval as both Robert Trujillo and James Hetfield appear on the album, speaking volumes about the link both bands have to each other. If you’re a Metallica fan or an Apocalyptica then you’ll get excited about this album, but try not to worry too much about the why. 7/10

GURT – Satan Etc. (When Planets Collide) [Matt Bladen]

GURT LUSH as 'party doom' crew GURT return with their first album in five years. Following up the brilliantly titled Bongs Of Praise, they stoked another fatty and mulled upon Satan Etc. With this album they've tried to be shorter, sharper, more direct and to the (knife) point, keeping their clowning around and satirical wit but delivering it with the most savage song writing of their career.

Focussed on survival, our survival in this crazy world, the band have had deaths, births, botched vasectomies and dodgy haircuts in this lay off, putting it all down on several pieces of A4 and taking it to Steve Sears to record it. He's poked and prodded, begged and pleaded and showed sympathy and friendliness to again get the best out of them on their fifth collaboration.

There's a groove to The Most Dying Way To Die while Knife Fever (a tale of that vasectomy) is visceral with hardcore bile sloshing out of the pores, Satan Etc feels angrier, maybe the phrase to use is, aggressively absurd, if it's all going to shit you may as well have a laugh about it. Musically they take no prisoners, biting riffs from Rich Williams undercut with David Blakemore's stinging bass and love of Slavic hardcore.

With Blakemore and Williams grinding and chugging away, Bill Jacobs gives it the beans behind the kit, a fully stoked furnace that gets the doom pop bubbling over on Appetite For Construction and Doi Of The Doid, Gareth Kelly snarling and screaming with black metal ferocity on Exit As You Enter and Sandworm Fleshlight.

Whether lyrics that have their tongue in their cheek, music that leaves your ear ringing and one man's odd to how much he loves his kids, Satan Etc is evil and more. 9/10

Withering Surface - Exit Plan (Mighty Music) [Mark Young]

Exit Plan is the 6th release from Scandinavian melodic masters Withering Surface and is an album that proved to be challenging for them in terms of set-backs courtesy of Covid, line-up changes which might have forced other bands to succumb and return to hibernation. 2020’s Meet Your Maker was their first after 15 years and should have seen them capitalise upon it with festival appearances which would have spread the word even further. 

As we know, Covid came and said hello and put the brakes on their activities. Not wanting to let that stop them, they managed to put everything into delivering Exit Plan which shows that sometimes good things come to those that wait. As a slice of melodic death metal, it’s a very strong release that does enough to keep your attention right the way through. Melodic death has been around for years and dependent upon where the band is from there are certain wells from which they draw influence from. 

We know that At The Gates have cast a massive shadow over this genre and they have stayed true to their core beliefs in what good sounds like. It is sometimes unavoidable to have moments that sound like ATG, but these are kept to a minimum. What they do well is putting these songs together so that the vocal lines are delivered so that they expand the guitar behind them. Exit Plan is the proper opening track and is one of those mid-paced stompers that have a riff build that draws you in. 

It is a fine starter, its insistent and is a great marker for the songs that follow on. It feels like they opted to keep it simple for simple’s sake (not that they are using simple riffs here) so that it doesn’t overwhelm. Where Dreamers Die keeps that idea going, its classic Scandinavian melodic metal that grooves from start to finish. If you imagine that they start off slowly and ease themselves into it so by the time we get to The Oracle which is a slow number, it has a certain weight to it as each component part is firing on all cylinders. 

Then allows for them to add a bit of speed with I Finally Lost (All Faith In Humanity) that quickly starts and then takes off, with some prime melo-death. A conscious decision to do it? Not sure but in the context of following The Oracle it slams, as the big bag of riffs is ripped open and the contents sprinkled on Denial, Denial, Denial which has a storming progression to it. As they run through it, everything links back to that movement and the way the vocal lines are delivered.

 
Finish What You Started is another class work through with a tight riff line that carries it along and wraps quickly into the final duo of You Hurt This Child and Mindreader. The former has that rumbling tempo to it and once again has that classic build to it. It has all the key parts for what makes good melodic metal, but with their stamp on it whilst the latter just propels and is a fine song to finish with. Mindreader uses those discordant riffs that remind me Orion (honest!!) whilst dropping in some mental down picking.

I think that they should be rightly proud of what they have done here, given all of the problems they faced along the way. They have managed to craft a strong set of songs that possess all the necessary requirements whilst not aping what has come before. I’m not suggesting that this is all new or ground-breaking and I don’t think they would say that either. But It does what you want it to do, and it does it well. 7/10