Wormhole – Genesis

Wormhole
Genesis - 2016

While Lacerate Enemy Records deserve an entire article for themselves for releasing some of the best slam albums of the last decade, Wormhole's first full-length « Genesis » is worth a review on its own.

Released November 30^th 2016, I only came across it a couple of months ago. I clearly missed out, as it not only has the kind of riffs that tickle my eardrums just right, it's also got Duncan Bentley from Vulvodynia on vocals. If that isn't a selling point since Psychosadistic Design (Lacerated Enemy Records – 2016), I don't know what is.

Genesis starts out as an average 20XX slam album, reminiscent of Gluttonous Chunks (Inherited Suffering Records – 2016) era Coprocephalic, with memorable grooves and a fun introductory slam. Overall, the flow is controlled and intelligently written, with counterrythms and disorienting fills keeping you on your feet. It's the kind of band during which you'd see a crowd of uncoordinated heads bobbing to imaginary beats, each in different tempos.

The composition is good, but the actual riffs are stellar – Genesis is one of those rare albums that sounds like it's telling a story. After a couple of songs, you begin to feel the exertion of running from predators, hiding in the dark, or vaulting over obstacles while feeling death's breath on your neck. In the heat of the moment, you trip into a solo, sending you into a hellish roller coaster of screams and terror. Speaking of solos, some guitarists find themselves in that terrible spot wherein they write similar sections. This isn't the case for the Kumar brothers, both responsible for the melodies that accompany you through madness and despair. Part beautiful swan-songs, part terrific shred demonstrations, each solo has its personality. The fact that Sanil and Sanjay can write such good slams, tech-death riffs and solos almost makes it sound like three different bands wrote together.

The vocals might be the weaker point of the album, though I'd put that on the mix. They do the job when accompanied, but their tone is somewhat lacking when alone. I wouldn't want to sound like I didn't like them though – the second half of the album forgives a lot of what was missing during the first, with the ending of Gravity Manipulation Unit being an unholy chorus of diseased voices, or the trademark Duncan Bentley deep « spoken-word » death metal.

As a parting note, no matter what you think of the programmed drums trend, Wormhole did a great job making it sound believable and entertaining. Switching beats around and having fun with realistic fills make for a much better album.

Giuseppe Fitzsimmons

Comments

Sulphurous - Dolorous Death Knell

Sulphurous – Dolorous Death Knell December 2018 – Dark Descent Records 90s revival and cavernous death metal started gaining popularity about two years ago, with bands such as Phrenelith and Pissgrave being propelled into quasi-mainstream success thanks to a couple of public figures introducing their audiences to an otherwise relatively underground facet of death metal. Dark Descent Records have certainly capitalized on said revival, signing giants of the genre like Blood Incantation, Spectral Voice, and previously Chthe’ilist (and Mitochondrion to a certain degree). As with any other cavernous death metal record, the production is the first thing you’ll notice – it’s all suffocated, as if the amps were draped in thick curtains. Few effects and no triggers are applied to the drums, giving the whole package a very live/practice room aspect. Despite the apparent muddiness of Dolorous Death Knell, everything’s quite audible – even the lower registers somehow retain ...

Kataplexia – The Rise of the Unknown

Kataplexia – The Rise of the Unknown January 2019 – Rotten Music Kataplexia is Finland's best Indonesian brutal death metal band. You read that right, Indonesian is now a valid qualifier for brutal death metal. For those unaware, I explored and wrote about the Southeast Asian brutal death metal scene two years ago, discovering a gigantic scene with an uncharacteristic public acceptance. One of the members of Jasad began a side-project, Kaluman, which is the definition of high-quality Southeast Asian brutal death metal. A couple seconds into Kataplexia's latest, I expected to see Rottervore or Extreme Souls as their label, as every element pointed towards Indonesian origins – the tone, production, vocals, riffs and even album art all felt like Ferli Suferli (Jasad, Kaluman) was behind the project, yet Helsinki is listed as their base of operations. Admittedly, there's only so much one can actually say about the music without endless comparisons. A modern ...

Uboa, the interview

UG You’ve gone over the “Jouissance” title in the past. Would you mind going over Coma Wall? It’s got quite grave and final undertones. First, Coma Wall has no totalised meaning for me, but death of the author could suggest otherwise. But there are themes. The Coma Wall, also known as the CfA2 Great Wall, is a galactic filament - thread-like structures composed millions of galaxies - of and one of the largest structures in the observable universe. It’s 750 million ly high x 200 million ly in width x 16 million ly in thickness. There are few structures bigger than it before you get to the “End of Greatness”, where the universe no longer is seen in discernible structures (filaments and voids, which combined look awfully organic, almost like clusters of interconnected neurones) and you get undifferentiated noise, like static on a TV or white noise. Basically, in cosmology, there seems to be an upper limit to how big things get before the universe seems to become pure undifferentia...

Undergrind Metal

Search This Blog