Reviews: Avatarium, Growth, Dendera, High Command (Reviews By Matt Bladen)

Avatarium: An Evening With Avatarium (Nuclear Blast)

Recorded live in Stockholm, An Evening With Avatarium was captured in their native Sweden just before the Covid-19 outbreak and after releasing the show as a downloadable video concert via an internet streaming service back in August, they have now taken the next step and released the album as a audio only version. For those of us who have never seen the band live An Evening With Avatarium is probably the closet we in the UK will be able to get to the band for a while so it's a chance to close the curtains, turn it up loud and indulge in the magical sound of these heavy doom aficionado's. Drawing from the bands four albums the majority of the tracks rightly come from their latest release the brilliant The Fire I Long For. Voices and Rubicon open up the evening the powerful riffs of Marcus Jidell (guitar) and Mats Rydström (bass) giving you a rumbling gut shot as the massive organs of Rikard Nilsson really flesh out the dynamic heavy doom sound of the band, especially on the Purple-esque Rubicon. 

From here out it's crushing, evocative, dynamic heaviness as tracks such as Medusa Child from Hurricanes & Halos led by the brilliant drumming of Lars Sköld. As with all of their studio albums the bewitching, soulful vocals of Jennie-Ann Smith is what draws you into this live album leading from the front you can 'feel' her performance on tracks like the Sky At The Bottom Of The Sea another slice of Deep Purple/Rainbow worship Nilsson in full chugging Jon Lord/Tony Carey mode as Jidell unleashes a a Blackmore-like solo. The band are magical on record and even more so live from what I can hear on this live release, even when they strip things back for the cover of Blind Willie Johnson's In My Time Of Dying (there is a more famous cover but I won't mention that) and the gospel-tinged The Fire I Long For there is a enigmatic occultism to everything Avatarium do. The record climaxes with Moonhorse from the first album ending this extended show with brilliance. In a year where live shows are a rarity An Evening With Avatarium is something of a delicious rarity. 8/10  

Growth: The Smothering Arms Of Mercy (Wild Thing Records)

When the press release states that this record is for fans of old-Opeth, Gorguts, Black Crown Initiate, Fallujah then you sort of know what to expect from this Aussie trio before you press play on their debut album The Smothering Arms Of Mercy. It's the first part of a conceptual trilogy around "connection, trauma, despair, and the fragility of hope." Mostly though it deals with recovering mental illness, using the music to put across the trauma, vulnerability, and suffering dealt with when trying to return to a healthy mind. The music here comes from the Barnes brothers, Tristan taking guitars & bass, while Nelson is behind the kit. They recorded it themselves in Australia the album was mixed and mastered by Fredrik Nordstrom (Opeth) making it an album that abuses your earlobes with fusion of technically ferocious death metal, shifting time signatures, dissonant post metal detailing in sometimes horrifying detail the mental health struggles of both Tristan and vocalist Luke Frizon. 

After they began to heal they were brought together after their respective periods of self isolation, with the following conversations leading to the formation of Growth. The record is deliberately sadistic, vitriolic and painful matching the lyrical content perfectly with tracks such as Fortress Of Flesh & Bone slowing the record down with some melodies and doom phrasing between the out and out battery. The Smothering Arms Of Mercy is not for the faint of heart, it's 50 minutes of almost mechanical metal assault, Lead Us To Our Glorious Times and Darkly It Tightens Its Grip are both great displays of this explosivity with the shifts of tone making you uneasy as you expect yet another battering. Luke's vocals are raw and tragic in equal measure, Nelson is a monster behind the kit while Tristan's string technicality is something to behold. I doubt you'll find a denser and distressing album this year. With this being the first part of a trio of concept albums there is a lot more to come. 7/10        

Dendera: Reborn Into Darkness (Self Released)

The follow up to their 2017 EP Blood Red Sky sees Dendera shifting their style a little, they are now a nastier, heavier more aggressive act than the Maiden/Priest-aping metal act they were on their debut in 2013, each subsequent release has given the band another layer resulting in what we have on this new EP, the aptly titled Reborn Into Darkness which draws from the more extreme style of metal as much as it does those classic galloping bands. Blood Red Sky was the first release from the band to up the aggression and Reborn Into Darkness does it again this time even adding some guest screams from CJ McMahon (Thy Art Is Murder) and Tom Barber (Chelsea Grin) for the most vicious release of the bands career. 

As the intro of Insurrection subsides we get into the meat of the album quickly with The Void reinforcing that shift in direction as Andy Finch's drums and Bradley Edison's bass gives it a crushing groove while the riffs of Steve Main and David Stanton shifting between technical riffs and intricate leads as we get more melodic on The End Of Days which brings some melo-death sensibilities the powerful clean vocals of Ashley Edison counteracted by Tom Barber, it's Ashley's voice that has most benefited this shift into the more down-tuned and heavy style as he no longer needs to hit top level shrieks as he did on the debut record showing a much more rounded vocal style. The End Of Days is the EP's most progressive song as it leads into the thrashy Endless Suffering where Sabaton's Tommy Johansson gets to do something a little different from the bouncy power metal he normally deals in. 

The EP closes with another death metal influenced rager CJ McMahon providing the harsh shouts. If this is the way Dendera are moving as a band then I can't see any issues, they have slipped into the heavier sound easily and in the long run it's going to gain them more attention, than being 'just another melodic metal band' this is the new Dendera, focussed, pugnacious and aiming at the top. 8/10     

High Command: Everlasting Torment (Southern Lord)

High Command's debut full length Beyond The Walls Of Desolation was probably one of my favourite albums of 2019 the crossover thrashers had a punk/hardcore crossover edge but with conceptual fantasy edge that stems from their love of Michael Moorcock and Robert E Howard and this two track EP keeps that swords & sorcery style with some more face melting crossover nastiness. Kicking off with the title track that shifts through numerous rapid riffs as it gallops towards the climax the blasting drums and roared vocals as Sword Of Reason brings a slightly more progressive sound. A stopgap yes but one that shows that High Command are keeping things nice and nasty ready for a second full length. 6/10