Undergrind Metal

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 h...

Misantropologi – Undergang Dark Descent Records – 2017 Another album featuring David Torturdød, this time listed as David Mikkelsen. 2017's been a busy year for the man, and we thank him for it, as the three records he's participated in have been phenomenal ! Undergang is a danish death metal band whose cover art has always been reminiscent of that oldschool, hand-drawn demotape-style art common 20 years ago. David is responsible for most of it, shaping him out to be some kind of twisted artistic genius, only capable of creating the ugliest and most suffocating pieces.While their sound isn't that close to old-school death metal, they do oscillate between an osdm-tinged bouncier style and a more straightforward, brutal-influenced death metal, giving Misantropologi a very fun and almost merry aspect. Mid-tempo grooves, slower dragging power chords, and drawling tremolo-picked melodies that trail off into the hellscape Undergang's created – Misantropologi, w...

Phrenelith Desolate Endscape – 2017 Remember when the Internet went crazy for Pissgrave – Suicide Euphoria (Profound Lore Records) back in 2015 ? It's time for a new riot straight from the abyss, and the demon's name is Phrenelith. Born in 2013 in Copenhagen, Phrenelith started their career out with a split with Spectral Voice (Iron Bonehead, 2016), followed shortly by an EP (Chimaerian Offspring – Extremely Rotten Productions, 2017) and a masterpiece of an album, Desolate Endscape (Dark Descent Records, 2017). Desolate Endscape is the kind of album that reminds me why I like death metal – it's inherently primal , evil and intimidating. This record is a massive slab of death metal, dense and heavy and being thrown at your face. The fact that there's zero flourish or unnecessary technicality brings Phrenelith to the forefront of the cavemanesque caverncore scene that's been simmering for the past decade. The entire album drips with ichor, and while ...

Iron Pike – II Unsigned – 2017  Labels, if you're out there – Iron Pike is cheap gold. Seriously, sign these men and send them on tour, it's cold in Sweden. Hardcore/Sludge act straight out of Malmö, Iron Pike takes influences from both scenes, then paints on a grimey veneer and puts it in the freezer overnight. Ethereal, hope-filled chords clash with heavy riffs, the latter taking the best of the hardcore and sludge worlds, while the drums put you in a ritualistic trance, not dissimilar to that of nodding opium-den lowlifes. An opium den would be a good descriptor for the studio this was recorded in – muffled by the thick gray smoke, II sounds like what happens when the police finally show up, and bodies scramble upon bodies to escape, blinded and uncoordinated. There's something so inevitable about their riffs, as if they warned of unavoidable pain and death, and all you could do is watch the events unfold. While some chords give breathing space, the bas...

Hexis – XII Hexis have been impressing me ever since Abalam back in 2014. Their splits with This Gift is a Curse (2015) and Primitive Man (2015) introduced me to both of those bands, and they've always been part of the best in the catastrophic, dissonant blackened scenes. XII is similar to previous albums, with their classic suffocating sound of tremolo-picked pieces of hatred and despair staying untouched. That being said, there are some slightly heavier elements, as well as slightly more focussed songwriting which help XII stand out. Hexis has the habit of writing very short songs, but quite a few of them – it almost feels as if they divided their albums into chapters rather than wrote individual pieces. Everything flows, there are no breaks or interludes – it's a grindcore-esque approach to black metal, except with actual continuity between songs. By doing this, they turn their albums into dense, impenetrable slabs of hatred in which one must either dive and a...

Five the Hierophant – Over Phlegeton Dark Essence Records – 2017 There's a rare breed of album which instantly becomes a cult classic, and I can confidently say Over Phlegeton is one of them. Experimental, weird, bizarre, none of these words come close to describing just how extraordinary and interesting this record is. If I had to draw parallels with another band, I'd say it's a heavier, more mature version of Mamaleek, with many similar elements such as the ethnic percussions or non-traditional scales, but with a much darker visage and more detailed composition. There have been incredible avant-garde metal albums using unconventional instruments, but none have been so tactfully used as the saxophone is on Over Phlegeton. Played as a full instrument and not a token nod to some jazzy experimentation, Five the Hierophant explore the extremeties of what the sax can do – from screaming leads floating above the guitars to wailing voices in the wind, passing by hear...

Hell – Hell Sentient Ruin Records – 2017 Hell, an aptly named and album given just how evil and malevolent they sound, is probably the best one-man act in doom metal this year. It's got some of the most effective riffs in the genre, paints an impressive and terrifying mental image, and has vocals reminiscent of the rawer side of black metal. MSV, sole member, describes the music as extreme funeral doom, and I'd be inclined to agree – I'd prefer to stay vague on the genre when there are so many influences. Death-doom and blackened doom both appear, as well as some more ambient elements, which all contribute to making this monster of an album a masterpiece. Some riffs sound like what blunt trauma feels like, others are more somber, and some are straight up acoustic sections such as the bridge in Victus. Variety is what surprised me the most, as MSV shows he's up to the task of writing an interesting, full album without getting tunnel vision, as a single perso...