Reviews: Wallowing, Existentialist, Graveworm, The Medea Project (Reviews By Matt Bladen)

Wallowing - Earth Reaper (Church Road Records)

If you’ve ever wanted a band to be fucking terrifying then, step through the wormhole into the galactic terror that is Wallowing. The un-named, faceless, spectral figures of Wallowing have been catching audiences in their tractor beams before ritualistically dissecting them to gain greater knowledge in how to conquer them for a while now. Their live rituals, often cloaked in darkness and scarier than a zombie Margaret Thatcher have gained them renown across the UK as being on the ‘must see’ list of anyone that likes music so heavy it’ll permanently injure you. Having seen them live it’s an audio visual feast the noisy sample driven heaviness of the music, booming from a stage often filled with smoke and lighting effects, it’s a site to be hold, but how does that translate to their recorded material? Well pretty well mainly because they rely on concept albums to tell their post-apocalyptic, sci-fi storyline, accompanying them with alt reality games, merchandise, collectors’ items etc, a clear passion for science fiction and nerd culture is what draws me to them as well as the music. 

This second album Earth Reaper, deals with an outcast attempting to free herself from the dead planet she inhabits and find the truth behind existence, a philosophically challenging storyline that is interpreted through the cavernous riffs and haunting soundscapes of Wallowing’s music. The themes of isolation, tyranny, racism et al crossing over into the ‘real’ world (red or blue pill depending). The first 6 songs have been written to be 22 minutes long meaning they don’t lose any time by building atmosphere or background, lurching forward with heavily distorted guitars, demonic screams and layers of synthetic noises from synths and electronics, though much of the background comes from organic noise recordings, to run behind the rest of the music as unsettling sound bed. It’s a sound that is all encompassing like Carpenter’s The Thing it undulates and evolves taking many forms but always retains the horror of its creation. 

The first part is only actually three full songs as the others are small interludes to maintain the atmosphere and move the theme along, linking the tracks together so the raging Flesh And Steel can seamlessly segue into the city destroying doom of Cries Of Estima, as they crawl inhumanly towards the 22 minute title track which is all guns blazing, throwing the kitchen sink at you, as it undulates between from world ending doom, into classic metal harmonies, then back again in just the first 5 minutes alone, from here the musical journey continues dragging you along with it as the Earth Reaper claims victims and Wallowing ascend to cinematic highs. The records are only half the story with what Wallowing do but Earth Reaper is a mind flaying record that needs to be experienced at full volume. 9/10

Existentialist - The Heretic (Seek And Strike Records)

Yet more blackened deathcore, with Melancolia last week, Essex based Existentialist are the latest band to put Satan worshipping, tremolo picking, black metal with the crushing breakdowns and guttural growls of deathcore. Existentialist take things a little further than most as despite the chaingun breakdown in opener Shrouded In Darkness the rest of the song sounds like a Cradle Of Filth epic, with orchestrations and soprano vocals against black metal squawks and melodic lead guitars. 

The use of strings is magnificent, on this album even on the outright technical ragers such as The Zealot’s Demise the orchestral stabs take it from being your average deathcore beatdown to something more evil and dramatic. It gives complexity to music that is of course welcome but also needed due to the saturation of the deathcore genre. I will say that if you listen to this album a few times in a row like I did you will get battle fatigue because of the maximalist approach it takes, dialling up the synths, strings, guitars and drumming to make sure that it bombards you with intensity, because of this the middle section does sort of blend into one another even with the inclusion of Jason Evans of Ingested on Embers Upon Calvary. 

It’s not until the last track, The Abyssal Embrace that I once again got more of the dynamism that was in the first part of the record, the piano driven intro giving some emotion before they are unleashed again. Existentialist would make a great black metal band, but they continue to be a very good blackened deathcore mob, they are just a little too in your face for a long time, adding the deftness of the final track across the whole album would keep the power but make it a bit more pleasurable to my ears. 7/10

Graveworm - Killing Innocence (AFM Records)

After an eight year gap the inhabitants of South Tyrol, an autonomous province in Italy, Graveworm bring us their ninth studio album. They play a death/thrash mix with gothic keys and orchestrations, similar to the bands that inspired them such as Kreator and Sodom, despite being from Italy they do sound very German, with thunderous drumming and vocal growls as the riffs are fast and buzzsaw like, Wrath Of The Gods, grinding your bones with its hybrid assault. 

Even on slower tracks such as A Nameless Grave where there’s lots of piano and the death metal groove of End Of Time. It’s these other elements added to their extreme metal that will catch the ears of anyone well versed in death or thrash metal. 30 odd years since their first album Graveworm have managed to make this record sound like their earlier ones but have used modern production so it feel sharper and more potent. 

Killing Innocence will be a must for fans of the band, and its gothic death/thrash style will hopefully attract new listeners to these veterans as well. 7/10

The Medea Project – Reflections (Trepanation Recordings)

Leaning on the Lewis Carrol, Through The Looking Glass, twisted nature of reality idea, gothic doom band The Medea Project release Reflections again letting the misery wash over you like a jet black sea. Thrown into a pit of darkness and despair, this EP comes with yet more intriguing atmospheric metal that slowly burns away draped in a velvet cloak of synths while the fuzzing slow riffs of songs such as Cain, where spoken words are joined by shouted choruses and heavy doom. 

This duo thrive on invoking a certain style or journey, mashing together numerous styles like the slinky post-punk of Nightmare – The Dreamtime with the huge doom riffs on The Ghosts Of St Augustines the opener of this 5 track record, which also has a shorter radio edit later on. They have been compared a lot to Tiamat and you can hear them and the Peaceville Three as well but The Medea Project take an avant-garde stance too letting their creative vision run riot. 

The only thing I will say is that when not growling, on songs such as Warhead and Cain, the vocals sound like Chris Jericho, I’ll leave you to decide if that’s good or bad. Still it’s dark and dreary music for a dark and dreary world, these are Reflections into the other side. 6/10