Reviews: Far Beyond, Durbin, Verminthrone, Cercenatory (Reviews By Paul Scoble, Matt Bladen, Mark Young & GC)

Far Beyond - The End Of My Road (Prosthetic Records) [Paul Scoble]

Far Beyond is a one man project of Eugen Dodenhoeft, who is based in Bavaria in Germany. Far Beyond has bee going since 2001 and in that time Eugen has made two other albums and an EP, first full length was called An Angels Requiem and was recorded in 2005, the EP was called Songs Of Hope And Sorrow and was released in 2009, and the last full length album came out in 2016 and was called A Frozen Flame Of Ice. Eugen plays all instruments, including drum programming and vocals. 

Initially Far Beyond classed themselves as symphonic black metal, however they now feel closer to symphonic metal or atmospheric death metal. In my opinion all of these descriptions have merit as I can hear bits that are still savage enough to be considered black metal and the same goes for symphonic metal or atmospheric death metal, all these sounds are there, blended together. This does have a definite orchestral, composed feel to it.

Eugen has used lots of strings and other classical instruments (I realise that these may all be on a computer, but this is what it sounds like) and choirs, with heavy guitars, bass and drums in the mix as well. The mix of orchestral with metal varies throughout the album, in some places full on black or death metal, in others soft classical instalments with barely any metal at all, and everything in between. The album is structured with four long and complex songs with three short minimal instrumentals. The short instrumentals are the first, third and fifth tracks on the album, and as more than one of the longer songs have long build ups and fade outs the album has a very pleasing ebb and flow to its structure. 

The first of the long tracks is A Symphony Of Light, which is aptly symphonic, orchestral with a huge arrangement and a choir! The song mixes big symphonic metal with clean vocals, with more riffy metal with harsh vocals, the big multi-layered sections are, in places, reminiscent of some of Devin Townsend’s huger material, and other massive progressive metal. The song also boasts a very good guitar solo, another great feature as great Guitar solos are scattered across the album, and they always add to the songs. 

After one of the short instrumentals, we get the song Tempus Fugit, a mix of riffy purposeful Guitar parts with choir and Guitar harmonies with sections where melodies that feel quite folky and have a ‘World Music’ feel to them that I thought was similar to some of Thy Catafalque’s more recent material. Again we get another short instrumental before the next longer track, From The Stars And The Crescent Moon. Which is the fastest and most extreme track on the album, as some of the sections have a similar feel to symphonic black metal such as Emperor, and in one section that features some melodies that are baroque in style, this gives it a feel that is quite reminiscent of Japanese band Sigh’s song Purgatorium. The song also features some thrashy black metal, big orchestrated symphonic metal and another great guitar solo. 

The album comes to an end with the title track The End Of My Road. the song opens in a soft ballad like way, with clean guitar, strings and clean Vocals, the song builds over it’s length, increasing the tempo and drive of the song, whilst keeping the melodic components constant, so although the arrangement builds from very minimal to a huge and complex, as the melodies stay the same it helps to hold everything together so that it feels like one complete piece of work rather than a amalgam of disparate parts. 

The End Of My Road is a great album. It’s made up of a huge amount of different elements melded together in a way that feels complete and cohesive. As a piece of composition this is very impressive due to its complexity and the fact that it is still very easy to appreciate, Eugen Dodenhoeft has managed to get the mix of complexity with melody and an almost perfect feeling of ebb and flow. It’s a very enjoyable album, full of great melodies, huge arrangements and, when it is needed, really savage, blasting extremity. Getting this mix right without any of the elements dominating over any of the others, The End Of My Road is a triumph of balance. 8/10

Durbin  - Screaming Steel (Frontiers Music Srl) [Matt Bladen]

American singer James Durbin, reinvented himself with 2021's The Beast Awakens, after appearing as the 'metal guy' on American Idol, he could have taken the route of fame from his TV background, and his collaborations with Zakk Wylde, Mick Mars, Tom Jones, Stevie Wonder and others but decided to build himself up with his own heavy metal project. So with a multi album deal under his belt here comes his second album of heavy metal machismo Screaming Steel. Look at the title, look at the album cover, hear the vocals, the two main influences on Durbin's style are Judas Priest and Dio, his histrionic the air raid screams pure Halford and co as this new album kicks off with Made Of Metal, the biting guitars of Aldo Lonobile and Luca Birotto the Tipton/Downing of this album. 

Lonobile is known to Frontiers fans as the man behind Secret Sphere and Sweet Oblivion, he also produces this record, imbibing with it with an old school charm. On Screaming Steel it is of course all about Durbin's vocals but the boiler room of Mike Roberts (bass) and Marco Sacchetto (drums) drives the pace on Where They Stand, Hallows and the other classic 80's metal workouts such as the dramatic Power Of The Reaper. The guitar interplay is razor sharp but there are a lot of guest artists joining to play solos on nearly all of the tracks so I'm not sure how they transfer this into the live sphere but I guess that's a future problem. On the record though Blazing High will have you air shredding and hurting your neck if you're over 30. You can smell the leather seeping out of Screaming Steel, Durbin continues to rev up his Killing Machine with each release. 

Classic metal fans rejoice as James Durbin again flies the flag for heavy metal's acceptance in the wider music world with Screaming Steel. 8/10

Verminthrone - The Cull (Self Released) [Mark Young]

Following on from 2022’s Kingdom Of Worms, Verminthrone unleash their debut album The Cull. Building on appearances at Bloodstock plus sharing the stage with the likes of Eyehategod, this is a band that can deploy a sledgehammer to crush and a scalpel to slice as they see fit.

Don’t Trust Morning People is exactly the kind of song you want to kick off with. It has that sludge feel in that the riffs are as thick as a dockers sandwich but are delivered with a clarity, so you don’t miss a beat. Vocals are suitably impressive, matching the music accordingly meaning that there are no weak links. It’s a great start that is given some competition by It Always Snows In South America that goes back to Sabbath and twists it. 

Sometimes you know that you are going to love an album based on the opening one-two salvo and this is the case here as at 2.21 they drop some prime thrash and a wah-infused solo that kicks it up another notch, making it two for two. On Kuru they drop one of the best earworm guitar moments I’ve heard in ages. Straight onto my songs of the year playlist, this is one of those songs that just lumbers into sight and crushes all in front of it like an enraged Rhino. That riff is just mint, you will know what I mean as soon as you hear it. Just from these you can see why they are held in wide regard. 

Birth Is A Rope Death Is A Knot continues with those drop-dead riffs, opting for a lighter feel which is no less aggressive than Kuru or the others, they manage to throw some melodic touches in there changing dynamics ever so slightly before Pulling Teeth (Spitting Blood) tells you that God is Dead and We have killed him as they channel a little bit of Slayer with some harmony parts (thinking Divine Intervention or later Slayer where they used them before dropping into one of their slower numbers) that I always think should be used more especially when they are deployed as an lead into more riff goodness. It’s not as immediate as It Always Snows but it has that build to it including this bottom end break out that will cause mayhem in the pit as the pace is picked up. For me I love that they can just conjure up great parts that appear and make the song that bit better. 

Youth For Euthanasia slows things down a spell and is the most straight forward song, using that mid-tempo as a change of tack. Its also the weakest of the tracks here, not because of that slower tempo but because it doesn’t have as much going for it as the other songs. It’s back to all guns blazing with Aorta, any worries that they might have blown themselves out are displaced with some more of that urgent attack carrying the song onwards to a storming solo which just slides in like the best songs do. Unfortunately, it has to come to an end with Feral, and again they bring the riffs and a considerable amount of fury to go with it as they sign off in style.

I must admit, it wasn’t what I expected it to be as having sludgecore in the bio I thought it would be on the slower, methodical and sometimes dull side of the musical spectrum. I guess that I am being dumb as it does say core which should have tipped me off. I can say now without fear of contradiction that this is not boring in any way. Its direct, aggressive and it moves with a purpose like its main purpose in life is to cause maximum carnage live. What is impressive is the level of quality on display. 

There are no bad songs, and out of the 8 tracks only Youth For Euthanasia lags behind the others, purely because it lacks that killer touch and I’m probably being too harsh. This is the problem when you have so many strong tracks that are just about equal with each other that you can’t really pick a ‘best’ one out. It’s an incredibly strong album that should see them garner a higher profile amongst the UK metal scene and some prominent festival dates await. You get the feeling that there is so much to come from them, and they will have go some to top what they have delivered here. 9/10

Cercenatory - GoreSphere (Comatose Music) [GC]

My last couple of reviews have had less than favourable score, so this week I have been given something that usually gets a decent score from me, I have some death metal from Cercenatory and new album GoreSphere but this isn’t just death metal it ‘’Brutal’’ death metal! Which also doesn’t usually get very favourable scores either, let’s see if this will change my mind!?

Devoured By Shadows–Annales Imminentis Exilium is my least favourite of all things, an intro so not off to the best of starts, when it does get going with Inquisitor Vortex Soul Torturing its exactly what I was expecting really, but the blasting drums completely overpower everything else recorded. So make it almost impossible to hear any actual guitar riffs the its all covered over with layers of pig squeal high and indistinguishable low grunts, that just zoom by in 3 minutes, and its more of the same with Through The Deep Thoughts of Tartarean Sadistic Cannibalism but this time you can make the guitars out slightly better which does help to distinguish it all that little bit more. 

It helps because as ‘’brutal’’ death metal goes this isn’t THAT bad but you always just lack that little bit of a twist that keeps you interested all the way through as there is never anything but full on heaviness and while that's not necessarily a bad thing it can get slightly tedious very quickly. He, Who Stands Upon Holy Corpectomies once again does nothing different and chugs, blasts and squeals its way along and what should be applauded is the drumming here because it never lets up and is the standout thing on the record but that could be because most of the time it is all you can hear on the songs, now this could be a production issue also but still needs to be looked at so all different things are given equal room to show what they can do? 

With Into The GoreSphere we are now halfway through and finally a title I don’t need a dictionary to understand and its just really more of the same and again while its not awful it just feels like they try to hard to bombard you with brutality so you think this is so heavy, and there are so many other ways to be heavy and creative, maybe I’m just expecting too much? Its back to the dictionary for Infernal Festival Of Lecherous Dismemberment and the lack of imagination is really starting to grate on me now, yeah, I should know what to expect from a brutal death metal band and that is not any type of variety but when it all sounds like one long song it just gets a bit tiresome and boring really.

Crucified, Gutted, Desecrated has the obligatory woman getting murdered sample at the start of the song and almost makes me give in but the actual song isn’t that bad, its faster than anything else so takes on an almost grindcore feel which is always a bonus for me and when they slow it down and you can actually make out some of the guitars clearly it finally sticks and I get something I genuinely like! Macabre Trepanation Orgy In Hell’s Dungeons then goes back to what you would expect to hear but with what feels like a crisper production so the song benefits from this massively and you can differentiate between things for once and when you can make out the different parts its so much more a better listen all round! 

Abyss Of Impaled Religious Incandescent Torches continues on with the decent form and you wish that these songs had come earlier and earlier tracks had this conviction and arrangements as they have definitely saved the best for the back end of this album and then Phalaris Bull Seraphic Extermination And Infinite Carnage gets one last use of the dictionary and ends on a decent if not slightly predictable note!

If there was a bit more care and attention to the finer details at the start of this album it could have got a much better score but, it just started off way too messy and unfocused and despite the lack of imagination in places I do have to say when they did get it right, I enjoyed what I heard. 6/10