Reviews: Phobetor, Karybdis, Devil Electric, Jackal's Backbone (Reviews By Matt Bladen)

Phobetor - Through Deepest Fears And Darkest Minds (Black Jasper Records)

As the year draws to a close, there are still plenty of excellent records being released. We've come across loads of albums that just miss out on being included on AOTY lists (which is why we don't do them any more). One that may make some AOTY lists is the second album from Midlands based extreme metal group Phobetor. Following on from their 2020 debut, where Paul Scoble offered up that the band play a broad spectrum of music within the 'death metal' template, on this second full length they have moved closer towards what the idea for the band really is. Through Deepest Fears And Darkest Minds is a expansive, impressive offering that uses a blackened death metal groove as its base but fleshes things out with an experimental style. 

The band not held back by conventions or stylistic boundaries. Mixed and mastered by Krysthla's Neil Hudson, the record sounds gargantuan, retaining the industrial harshness of the guitars from their debut but increasing the scope and effect of the music, espey through headphones. With an ongoing theme of dread filled dreams and nightmare visions the angst and discomfort is palpable here, from the layered dissonant guitars to the bottom end that creeps under your skin, the record feels ominous and intimidating. One Last Breath helps you understand the Phobetor style with raging black metal that gets plenty of fret slides and groove, before it also has some doom elements to it, Screaming Silence is a bit more direct with Marc Dyos' blastbeats leading the charge as Dredgewood's bass and Ross White's guitar playing bring a thrashing. 

On the last album the vocals of Debora Conserva were singled out as being a great part of Phobetor's sound and yet again they make a mark here, rasping and raging on Your Empty Shadow while also able to move into deep grunts on Within Death's Embrace. An album with plenty of extreme metal impressiveness throughout Through Deepest Fears And Darkest Minds, adds more heaviness to your festive season. 8/10  

Karybdis - Order & Chaos EP (Self Released)

Order & Chaos EP came about when British melodeath/groove metal band were thinking about basing their next set of recordings around Gustav Holst's The Planets Suite. Now this isn't a new idea as for years Mars: Bringer Of War has been one of the most used intros in the metal sphere, most famously used by Diamond Head at the beginning of Am I Evil? So when a band have used strings and orchestrations to augment their sound for years, it seems a perfect fit that they would base their music around a classical composer. Drummer Mitch McGugan says that this time they wanted to "push the boat out" adding more orchestral elements as well as brass and choirs. 

The Moirai is a great example of this the symphonic sound cutting through the thunderously heavy and speed driven riffs, while the title track is a fully string driven piece. Mitch is responsible for the string arrangements here while production is taken by new guitarist Dave Klussmann, who is no amateur when it comes to the producer's chair. More melody comes through Maja Valles where the clean guitars sit at odds with the muted bass riffing of Jay Gladwin. It's vocalist Rich O'Connell though who makes this album, giving the most accomplished performance of his career here. Order & Chaos is the first new music from Karybdis since 2018 and it has them reaching into the next stage of their life as a band. 7/10    

Devil Electric - Godless (Kozmik Artifactz)

Aussie doom foursome Devil Electric return with yet more witchy, riffy magik. Their 2017 debut set out the store with an album that saw frontwoman Pierina O'Brien decked out like a ghostly Carmen Sandiego. It was full of occult leaning psych doom as Pierina's sublime hauntingly soulful vocals weaved spells over the throbbing voodoo rhythms of Tom Hulse (bass) and Mark van de Beek (drums) with the band is rounded out by guitarist Christos Athanasias bringing riffs and yet more riffs. On this second album he does it again, chugging on the strutting Mindset, adding those lush doom phrases on All My Friends Move Like The Night. 

Godless refines the sound from the previous album and EP in to a more structured occult doom rock sound, deeply owing to the occult and retro themes. Devil Electric are attempting to sound like the numerous European bands doing this sound and putting their name in the same conversation as Blues Pills, Lucifer and Blood Ceremony. We go from moodiness to wild abandon on Your Guess Is As Good As Mine while I Will Be Forgotten is crafted around fuzzy riffs and echoed vocals. There's swirling heavy doom on the title track and the last song The Cave strips things back at the beginning before launching into some more thundering doom riffs. The Antipodean mystics of Devil Electric have carved out more fully charged occult rock. 8/10

Jackals Backbone - Red Mist Descending (Self Released)

Hmm, when I'm told that a band is for fans of Arch Enemy, Nervosa and Sepultura, then I expect them to deliver expertly performed melodic death metal that has lots of technical elements and aggressive vocals. Well Beccatron certainly has that, her voice is deep gnarly and squawks over the songs. Unfortunately musically Jackals Backbone seem either to be too ambitious making for songs such as Evade The Throes which don't know what they want to be. Or you get tracks that are just basic Melodeath fodder such as Release The Kraken. The folksy feel on Desolate Embers makes for a song that comes straight out of the nu-metal era and Blackout has a decent solo section I guess. But I found this record just feeling like it promises more than it delivers, it's let down to by the muddy production. Red Mist Descending is an album that does have some ambition but at times I'm not sure whether Jackals Backbone have decided what kind of metal band they want to be. Hopefully they can build on this. 6/10