Reviews: Axel Rudi Pell, Ulcerate, Embryonic Autopsy, Xeneris (Reviews By Matt Bladen)

Axel Rudi Pell - Risen Symbol (Steamhammer/SPV)

22 albums! 22! There's no doubt that German guitarist/songwriter Axel Rudi Pell is a machine and while he does love a ballad, having two(?) full compilations for his slower numbers, on Risen Symbol he keeps the rock as it should be, loud and heavy. 

Still heavily inspired by Hendrix, Iommi, Page and Blackmore, he has drawn from these inspirations on this new record, even covering Immigrant Song. That will make you listen to the album if you've heard none of ARP's 21 previous releases but once you get into Risen Symbol you'll find many reasons to stay. Complete with Rainbow drummer Bobby Rondinelli, keyboardist Ferdy Doernberg, bassist Volker Krawczak and Johnny Gioeli who has one of the best rock voices around. 

They bring ARP's visions to life and it's a cinematic, epic sounding vision that builds from intro The Resurrection, as Forever Strong absolutely blitzes to life with full on blast beats and thrashing riffs, this is heavy metal 101, showing that Gioeli as his Crush 40 self rather than his Hardline one. We go from Hammerfall on Forever Strong to Dio on Guardian Angel and Darkest Hour, as Ankhaia has Eastern mystery. It's Hell's On Fire that is what I would call the 'traditional' ARP sound as Crying In Pain has a lot of Savatage and Rainbow about it. 

After 22 albums Axel Rudi Pell has his style perfected, but with each album there's something to draw you in and hook you. Risen Symbol is an album of resilience from one of heavy rocks survivors. 8/10

Ulcerate - Cutting The Throat Of God (Debemur Morti Productions)

Cutting The Throat Of God aye? It's edgy but then Ulcerate are a band who never air on the side of caution. Quoted as being unorthodox death metal, Ulcerate live in the Avant Garde, the progressive, the controversial. Their music is hard work and on this 7th album they attack the synapses with their most experimental and uncompromising release to date. 

The trio of Jamie Saint Merat (drums), Michael Hoggard (guitar) and Paul Kelland (bass/vocals) have been unleashing impressive, forward looking extreme metal, each album adding more to their musical menagerie. So album number 7 follows a more dissonant 6th record with some hooky death/black metal which seamlessly blends the extremity the melody. 

Cutting The Throat Of God, pitches itself as an intensely progressive album and the playing backs that up every step of the way, more off kilter rhythms come on Transfiguration In And Out Of Worlds, Kellands bass the anchor for the psychedelic weirdness. There's still room for outright violence though as To See Death Just Once progressive yes but mainly as tough as any death/black metal band you wish to mention, as can Undying As An Apparition. 

To Flow Through Ashen Hearts begins in earnest, tremolo picking against a thundering groove, post metal power, with some visceral vocal shouts as they weaves their way into blackened blasts. Across 7 minutes the trio shift and undulate between various types of extreme metal but all the while keeping the engagement of anyone who isn't as won over by ultra aggressive music. 

Continuing the dissonance The Dawn Is Hollow has a guitar and drum pattern that almost counteract each other, as if playing different songs, it is a death metal assault but played with a lot of progressive metal elements, as the atmospheric middle section links the two more brutal halves of the track, this segues into the post metal harshness of Further Opening The Wounds, more ringing cleans from Hoggard and ungodly double kicks from Saint Merat.

With just 7 tracks but nearly an hour of music, Cutting The Throat Of God is a masterclass in progressive extreme metal. It needs time and repeated listens as there's a lot going on but Ulcerate put a declarative stamp on their position in the metal world. 9/10

Embryonic Autopsy - Origins Of The Deformed (Massacre Records)

30 minutes, 10 songs, death metal, let’s go! Embryonic Autopsy follow up their debut; Prophecies Of The Conjoined with their second album of hybrid death metal Origins Of The Deformed. Continuing the X-Files-like story of alien/human interbreeding, the tracks fly by in a haze of double kick blasts, buzz saw riffing and guttural grunts. 

Gore soaked and grotesque, expect to understand nothing lyrically from Tim King, unless you really hone in on it, though Human Vessel Of Alien Hybrids has more clarity. You get battered by Scott Roberts (guitar/keys), Kenxi Dupey (bass) and Marco Fimbres (drums), it’s pretty raw and definitely hostile as the track titles add to the disgusting putrid death metal approach Embryonic Autopsy have. The US style of death is prevalent as is grindcore, acts such as Obituary, Cannibal Corpse and even Suffocation the bands you conjure up. 

This is also witnessed in the guest guitarists lending solos to most of the tracks, James Murphy ex-Death/ex-Obituary has three moments to shine, Jack Owen of Six Feet Under two and Terrance Hobbs of Suffocation just the one. They take in several styles from the death metal universe but never move away from their brutal US death metal assault to the senses. Hawaiian shirt death that will leave you asking where Greg is? 7/10

Xeneris – Eternal Rising (Frontiers Music Srl)

Xeneris arise from the ashes of Kalidia, guitarist/composer Federico Paolini and bassist Roberto Donati founding the band in 2022 after Kalidia dispanded. Alongside singer Maryan and drummer Stefano Livieri, Xeneris take the best bits of the founder’s previous bands and bring more cinematics with tracks such as Equinox and Shahrazad which is full of Middle Eastern influences. 

The album is about the phoenix’s rebirth, happening every 500 years, the concept of resilience and return are very close to the band due to forming out of another. Most of the songs are fantastical tales from history/fantasy/legend; pirates (Barbarossa) and Greek myths on Pandora's Box/Scilla And Cariddi all told by some orchestrally dense and riffy symphonic metal and the soaring vocals of Maryan. 

Only time will tell if they make as big of an impact as Kalidia did but there's a lot of positives on Eternal Rising. 7/10