Fresh from the psychedelic Philadelphians Ritual Earth comes their awaited debut album, MMXX- seven tracks of slow, sludgy and doomy goodness. Featuring a tighter sound, better production, and even heavier tracks than their demo, it’s the perfect debut album, encapsulating everything great about the demo and turning up the heat in the process.
Ritual Earth’s sound is a distinctive blend of all things slow- doom, space rock, psychedelia, alternative, and atmospheric metal, and features only the best aspects of each, blended perfectly into a style that’s both unique and excellent. It forgoes the usual distorted, low vocals of doom and the fuzzed out vocals of space rock, instead opting for clean vocals that ride atop the riffs rather than slink along the bottom end alongside them. These clean vocal melodies are provided by one George Chamberlin, who lays out some absolutely magnificent bars that effortlessly surf the slow and sludgy waves. The standout track for me was the appropriately titled I Am Dreadnought, a heaving mechanical beast of a song that grinds through the void, forcing planets and stars alike as it tears across space.
The riffs are heavy enough to teeter on the verge of doom, but retain enough speed to keep them separate. The lyrical contents feature allusions to epic ventures across the universe a la space rock, but the songs are a tad too slow to fall in with them too. They lack the frequent allusions to drugs typical of psychedelia, but the songs still retain that floaty, atmospheric feeling. It’s the combination of the best aspects of each of these sub genres gives MMXX a really unique sound that’s fresh, distinct and above all else, fucking rules. Wholeheartedly recommended, Ritual Earth is certainly a band to keep an eye on. 8/10
Assignment: Reflections (Massacre Records) [Rich Oliver]
Reflections is the new album from German progressive power metal band Assignment. Assignment formed back in 1994 as a death/thrash metal band before making the shift to the progressive power metal sound. Assignment have a string of albums released with Reflections being the fifth full length album by the band. Progressive power metal is a tricky genre in that I find it either completely enthralling or I find it dull. It really depends on the dynamics of the band. Assignment sound like absolute pros having completely nailed the progressive power sound. They are clearly hugely talented musicians with long term guitarist Goran Panić belting out a plentiful supply of tasty riffs. The band also have a great vocalist in Diego Valdez who has that classic, dramatic power metal voice. Drummer Michael Kolar also impresses with his first album for the band with a dynamic and energised performance.
The songwriting on the whole is very solid but quite unremarkable which is the downfall of this album. It’s a fabulous sounding album with the aforementioned fantastic performances and a great production but I just found myself lacking in engagement with the songs. It all sounds lovely but there isn’t much that sticks around in your head afterwards. There are of course a few exceptions with the driving power metal of Submission and the dramatic tones of Endlessly (which features guest vocals from singer Inés Vera-Ortíz). On the whole Reflections is a decent album but it very much falls into formulaic progressive power metal territory. It is a very safe sounding album and it’s lack of dynamics overall meant the album failed to engage with me. If you like progressive power metal then this is a very solid listen but it is nothing beyond that. 6/10
Nuclear Warfare: Lobotomy (MDD Records) [Paul Hutchings]
Nuclear Warfare: Lobotomy (MDD Records) [Paul Hutchings]
18 years into their musical journey, and South German thrash outfit Nuclear Warfare release the follow up to 2017’s Empowered By Hate. Lobotomy is 40 minutes of thrash metal which leans heavily on the early influences of the 1980s, particularly the Bay Area titans and of course their fellow countrymen in Sodom, Kreator, Tankard and Destruction. Recorded at the Oversonic Studio in São José dos Campos (Brazil) under the direction of Friggi Mad Beats and mastered by Neto Grous/Absolute Master in Capivari, Lobotomy is a no-nonsense 40-minute steel backboned thrash record that pulls no punches. The line up of Florian Bernhard (bass/vocals), Sebastian Listl (guitar and backing vocals) and drummer Alexandre Buito deliver their trash in a manner which gets you cracking the cranium.
It’s addictive stuff, with varied tempo – Gladiator for example, varies between slow chugging and more explosive thrash in true anthemic style. I particularly enjoyed the track Death By Zucchini. It’s not often you get an ode to a chocolate cake and it’s a fabulous anarchic explosive punky song of ridiculous proportions. This would get the crowd at any gig rocking. For the purists, songs such as the title track, Fuck Face and the closing Ages Of Blood steer closely to the likes of Death Angel and Exodus. The key thing for me with thrash is that the production is okay. Lobotomy contains all that I need in a thrash metal album. 7/10
Döda Havet: Tid Och Rum (Gaphals Records) [Matt Bladen]
Last year Swedish progressive rock monsters Opeth released their latest album In Cauda Venenum in both English and their native Swedish. We here at MoM Towers were in agreement that the Swedish version was far superior to the English version as you could focus on the music a bit more than usual as there was a mysterious edge to vocals (none of us speak Swedish). Döda Havet have pulled the same trick with their second album Tid Och Rum (Time And Space) which sees the band a much more honed unit due to live shows following the release of their self titled debut album making this album much more musical dense offering with luscious piano and shimmering synths met with heavy progressive guitars and soulful low vocals which lend themselves an Akerfeldt-like quality.
Döda Havet: Tid Och Rum (Gaphals Records) [Matt Bladen]
Last year Swedish progressive rock monsters Opeth released their latest album In Cauda Venenum in both English and their native Swedish. We here at MoM Towers were in agreement that the Swedish version was far superior to the English version as you could focus on the music a bit more than usual as there was a mysterious edge to vocals (none of us speak Swedish). Döda Havet have pulled the same trick with their second album Tid Och Rum (Time And Space) which sees the band a much more honed unit due to live shows following the release of their self titled debut album making this album much more musical dense offering with luscious piano and shimmering synths met with heavy progressive guitars and soulful low vocals which lend themselves an Akerfeldt-like quality.
The band have spoken about this record having a duality and on songs such as Hjärnspöket, which in English translates into Chimera, they have certainly shown this as the electronically-tinged piano opening unfurls into some anthemic instrumental end. The band consists of Peter Garde Lindholm (guitar), Julia Stensland Vinrot (keyboard), Martin Pettersson (drums), Lawrence Mackrory (bass guitar) and Staffan Stensland Vinrot (vocals/guitar/ songwriter) and this record opens with the grooving, indie styled Atlantis Mitt, then we get a really intriguing record which brings in not only those modern Opeth tones but also bands such as Riverside and even Katatonia full of melancholic atmospherics, heartfelt performances and an uplifting overall feel Tid Och Rum is a great second record from this Swedish five piece. 7/10
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