Duskwalker - Underground Forever (Black Lion Records) [Mark Young]
With savage intent, Duskwalker drop their third full length of thrash/death metal which motors along at a fair old lick. Hailing from Ontario, it lives up to its promise of aggressive and raw production, although some clarification of what raw constitutes is required. There has been some time spent in capturing their natural aggressive tendencies without losing it with poor recording. I’m assuming that they meant it is not as polished as others and I think it serves them well.
Lyrically, it’s varied, from the perils of cosmetic surgery through to the use of social media down to those unable to let go of past events. Musically, its heavy, fast and is the equivalent of a 47minute pasting. Crippled At The Core blasts in, gnarly guitar tone and urgent drumming delivering a cautionary tale of cosmetic surgery and vanity. It’s low down and nasty as Joey Scaringi drops some low vocals whilst the pinched harmonics are raining down. Going back to that raw production they have got it spot on here because its suits their style so well.
The Loss, as you might imagine is about death but not necessarily a loved one. A monster riff on this one, fully supported by more of that quality drumming from Cale Costello it rears up and gets in your face. They are not afraid to drop some incendiary leads in there too as it rips towards Never Going Back, their anthem to every bad situation a person may face and those who finally quit and move on. Its rapid, it’s thrash base given the death metal once-over.
A pick slide announces Underground Forever, a rumbling, stomping beast that combines an old school flavour with the nasty one of today. If you imagine Judas Priest put through a blender with a touch of early Metallica added to it, that should give you an idea of what those harmony lines reminded me of (this is not meant as a snarky comment, just in case). It feels like a tribute to those songs of the 80s, big chorus, speedy execution but with a hammered flat arrangement.
City On A Cemetery reflects on those lost souls who cities are built upon. In this case it is about Niagara Falls, their hometown which has put tourism first over honouring the dead who protected what it when it needed it. It is tight, focused and has that arrangement that grabs and keeps you right to the end. Its not as direct until they get to the lead break and then they drop in the heaviness. The outro riffing is top class leading into the dirge-like intro of Posing Corpses. As the album has progressed, the arrangements have continued to drop aggressive statements of intent but have avoided the dreaded spectre of repetition.
Artillery Communion is an exercise in the efficient use of a central idea, allowing the bass and drums do the heavy work in carrying this one along. The main guitar part envelopes the song with a mid-pace tempo that works so well, again rolling over all in its path. Vanquisher brings the speed back, it’s a relentless assault that starts in high gear and stays there. The transition into the lead section is nifty with an extended break that twists along before breaking free and back into that in-your-face attack.
It’s what I think of when a band says, ‘it is our most brutal effort yet’ and you could probably argue that for the whole album really, except they have enough going on to avoid it becoming monotonous. While Blasted Past Extinction opts for that mid-ground after a quick opening, it just crushes and I’m still thinking how can they consider this to be raw? It sounds great. There is a guitar line they drop in similar to an aural figure of eight in how it lands.
Final track Inhaling The Dust Of Bones grinds along with a simple chugging line that provides the foundation for the melodic lines to be played out. The simplistic approach works so well, echoing the efficiency we have already seen on Artillery, it’s so heavy and closes the album out on a sombre note.
There feels like there is a subtle transformation at play, from the opening bars of Crippled At The Core through to the end, the arrangements are constantly tweaked so they sit well with the one before whilst providing something new.
As a whole all the parts knit together well and with the lyrical topics at hand, they offer something different and actually say something. In doing that they are treating us with a little respect which should be reciprocated by giving this your full attention. It offers you a brutal time without the one-note vocal delivery and there some prime leads on here. Of course, the riffs are huge, and sound huge too. Get behind them, they deserve it. 8/10
Pohl - Mysteries (Wrong Speed Records) [Joe Guatieri]
Sheffield based Noise Rock duo Pohl return with their first new release in four years being the aptly titled Mysteries. A changing of the guard has happened here for this album as Pohl have added a new member with that being Dr Linda Westman joining on drums. She is known for playing in the Canadian Death Metal band, Old Hope.
Mysteries starts off with track one, Narrator a hypnotic number with punchy drums and angular guitars. A part within the song that I really enjoyed was in the way that the vocals were used. Not being front and centre but laying at the back of the mix, colouring the background with its waves, leaving room to think. Also there was a little sprinkle of Queens Of The Stone Age in there too, as the fuzzy guitar riff jumped up an octave, trying to break free through the earth's atmosphere.
From there we go into track three with The Whale, starting off with a great and thunderous drum solo until the song explodes into walls of guitars. That power combined with the weirdness of very wobbly guitar passages makes for a satisfying moment, it’s like High On Fire meets Hella.
Later on my favourite song on Mysteries comes in at track five with Revelation. Surprisingly enough it starts off with something very hard rock-esqe with a side-to-side dancey vibe before descending into hell with Grindcore punishment. The end of the verses are met with an eruption of down-tuned proportions as everything shakes in its path.
Overall with Mysteries, Pohl have made their bed and are laying in it, providing comfort in consistency within its sound. There’s a clear theme going on here but with only a handful of detours, I was looking for a lot more surprises here. I give it 6/10
Summoning The Lich - Under the Reviled Throne (Prosthetic Records) [GC]
In the 3 years since the release of their debut album Summoning The Lich has have built up a dizzyingly feverous reputation for creating unrelenting technical death metal with fantasy twist, the buzz around their second release for Prosthetic Records, Under The Reviled Throne is there for all to see, so lets see if the hype can be backed up.
It starts with Return To The Soil which isn’t really as technical as I was expecting, it is however a furiously heavy way to start the album full of incredible drumming that’s backed up by a solid, hefty and remarkably deathcorey sound and while it wasn’t what I was expecting it’s a good start, it all gets a bit more blasty and slightly more techy on the bonkers Reviled Crystal Waters but once again the deathcore elements really form the main part of the song.
Here the beatdowns are ferocious and really the highlight of the song but when they do let go of the reins and experiment it still all fits in well and doesn’t get messy and complicated, The Forest Feasts is more of the same a blizzard of superhuman drum work and while I’m not getting really tech death from the guitars its still a relentless and heavy deathcore that stands out from the crowd and the vocals are also mental on this track.
My Horrors Unending has an undeniable hardcore influence from the beatdown filled beginning and the stompy verses but also manages to easily switch back to the more familiar sound without missing a beat, Bastell Dirge comes in goes without doing anything as it’s a mid-album interlude before Carrion Fleet offers a slower more melodic death metal feel at the beginning but this slight lull in proceedings doesn’t last long before the onslaught continues.
The melodic elements carries through into parts of the song and is a nice way to change up the feel of the song because Arrias Groans has no room for subtlety or politeness its just full on beatdown fury and blasting intenseness throughout which carries through into Will To Survive but here they mix in a bit of the melodic vibe from earlier and it helps the song to not sound one paced and dare I say it boring because in all honesty much of the album has all sounded very similar and while its all done well.
I am feeling myself drifting a bit now and Potion Seller doesn’t really do too much to change my mind unfortunately its once again fantastically played and absolutely unrelenting in the heaviness created but its just all sounded like this and I really feel that there needs to be some sort of variety to keep you interested.
The Void Gate does feel slightly different as it’s a bit slower and has the ability to switch seamlessly between savage brutality and more measured and thoughtful savagery and the mixing of the 2 styles does make you a bit more invested to the song, got to say though I can do with out the brie brie vocals that are included, there hasn’t been many on the album so far but when I hear them they just grate on my nerves, and so onto last track Praise To The Bog which ends the album in another flurry of relentless and dizzyingly paced deathcore.
In all honesty as I have heard so much about Summoning The Lich, I think I may have expected a bit too much from Under The Reviled Throne there was a lot to be said about the playing and talent involved and while I liked what I heard I did find it all too samey throughout, when the mood did change it didn’t change for very long before it was just more of the same, I also didn’t get the tech death I was promised?
Overall, the album is a good listen, and most death metal fans will enjoy it without a doubt but personally I was just left feeling a bit disappointed and like I wanted a bit more. 6/10
Sirius - A Quest For Life (Self Released) [Matt Bladen]
Having supported Luke Appleton in Greece as part of his 2019 tour, Sirius are a classic metal band from Athens. Despite being around since 2007 they only released material in 2017, after band founder Dimitris Napas, managed to get the right musicians. He's the vocals and lead/acoustic guitars and musically Sirius remind me of Judas Priest and Gama Ray, he's got a lower sounding voice which is decent, but his guitar playing is excellent.
Dimitris' voice is actually better than guest Tim 'Ripper' Owens who feels like he's phoning it in on Unbound The Scream, but the music makes up for it with some thrashy classic/power metal. With Napas are another two Dimitris' Stathopoulos on guitars, Simiakos on bass and Nick Samios on drums. Sirius add some Celtic touches to Desdichado, a song inspired by Ivanhoe, Fragment is an instrumental/solo that leads into the chuggy Lostlight while Land Of Swords has some guest organs/synths/keys from Derek Sherinian (Black Country Communion/Whom Gods Destroy)
A Quest For Life matches it's ambition well with some fairly good classic metal. It's not world beating but am enjoyable listen. 7/10
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