With artists like Undeath, 200 Stab Wounds and Celestial Sanctuary all on the way up we have been enjoying a surge of popular and high-quality old school death metal bands in recent years. Sanguisugabogg (or just the ‘Bogg for those who don’t have the faith in their spelling to type the full name) are one of the bands at the forefront of this spearhead. With Homicidal Ecstasy they have added their slab of meat to the butchers table of death metal in 2023 – and it’s a prime cut.
Opener ‘Black Market Vasectomy’ is riff heavy and almost Meshuggah-esque at times, a huge wave of chugging and rolling guitar rhythms emulating a mechanically precise beating. ‘Followed by Face’ ripped off – a single released in January featuring Aaron Heard of Jesus Piece. This track showed off what becomes one of the crowning features of this release – it’s very catchy for an extreme metal song. The snare sounds just like you’d expect -think metal box being headbutted – and it’s prevalent in the mix so you don’t miss it. Cheeky doubles here and there keep the rhythm spicy, it’s a great start to an album.
South Wales’ Dream State went viral back in 2017 with breakout single ‘White Lies’ that introduced the world to their emotionally resonant post-hardcore, while their debut album Primrose Path showed a band pushing into more synth-heavy territory without losing any of their trademark earnestness or emotional fragility. Just as they were gaining traction, though, the last few years happened and they were thrown into disarray; with the entire original lineup, bar guitarist and primary songwriter Aled Evans, leaving the band at various points for various reasons.
But, to borrow a phrase, you can’t keep a good band down. Rebuilding the lineup during the pandemic, including Glass Heart’s Jake Bowen and new singer Jessie Powell, who has freely admitted she’s got some huge shoes to fill, the band sought to flesh out what Dream State sounded like, learning from Primrose Path and pushing those synth sounds even further forward, as well as with – literally – new voices round the table. The answer is Untethered, a 3-song EP specifically to get new music out in the world as soon as they could, to prove to people, and to themselves, Dream State were back and here to stay.
Maybe it was just the return of a comfortable albeit dull routine that we all yearned for. Funny, how we longed for lives of 9-5 work weeks punctuated by silent commutes, searching for escapism via scrolling social media in the bathroom and buying Tesco meal deals just because we can’t be arsed to make lunch the night before work. Days of saying the exact same thing to bus drivers, collogues and friends. ‘Hows work, hows life?’, an acquaintance might ask at pub. Grinding, replies one’s inner monologue impulsively. Despite it being something we once longed for, working life is rubbish. However, thanks where thanks are due, because it also gives us Cans; the brilliant new record from Brighton’s Regal Cheer.
Composed of ten carbonated shots of effervescent indie-punk and clocking in at just shy of 18 minutes in total, Cans isn’t exactly what one would call an epic; at least not in the classical sense of the word. But such is the entire point of this record. Optimised for an age where every single second of spare time must be savoured, this is an album that distills the timeless joy of those sweat-and-lager scented shows where soul crushing monotony is briefly forgotten. As the opening shoves and barrages of ‘P.P.L’, ‘Castanets’, ‘Ante’ and ‘Feet Glued’ prove, every millisecond of this album is utilised to it’s full effect.
After eight long years brewing in the darkness in the arctic circle city of Rovaniemi, Finland, Serotonin Syndrome emerge with a dark and evocative album that underlines the fragile beauty of hopelessness. Utilising elements of black, doom and alternative post-metal, the Finnish quintet put forward their bleak observations of the world around them into a soul crushing and though provoking album, Seed Of Mankind channels melancholy, hopelessness, anger, frustration and plain suffering and every nuance in between. With that in mind every song feels like it could be the soundtrack to the apocalyptic demise of the world, in a time where humanity could have everything they ever needed.
The overarching theme of the album is something that many of us have noticed over the last decade or more, humanity’s incompetence in prioritising the needs of our home, Earth. As exhaust fumes congregate in our atmosphere, Serotonin Syndrome make a strong case that with vast resources and possibilities that we have in our hands, we continue to suffocate ourselves and our environment. With that knowledge, and that it took three years of pain and suffering for the band to create, Seed Of Mankind is an incredibly intense and visceral listen. In many ways, the pain, frustration and suffering that has been poured is in many ways reflective of the band’s very essence. While still playing to their beautifully melancholic and sombre strengths, Serotonin Syndrome’s brand of post-metal has gotten a lot heavier, especially when compared to the band’s debut 2015 album Sarajas there is an incredible shift in sound and tone. With the intense, cold atmospheres of black metal co-inhabiting the space with gigantic doom riffs it is certainly a departure from their early Katatonia influenced days.
The debut record from the death / doom metal collective, Grief Symposium are fully aware of what they’ve created with this record. They know this isn’t a comforting nor even remotely comfortable listening experience. But that is the point, especially given the thematic inspirations, thematic lyrical subjects and ideological undertones. Inspired by how our own decisions alter the course of life around us and how faith in higher powers – and the lack of it – can manifest in abhorrent behaviours justified through a warped mind, the crux of the record is one of regret, one explored and presented through a monochrome kaleidoscope composed of all things dark and purposefully uneasy.
Despite pondered evaluation of our personal sins being a major theme of the album, ...In The Absence Of Light doesn’t shy away from it’s overtly abrasive nature. Opening with hulking primordial riffs and echoing bellows that would be granted with approval from Conjurer and My Dying Bride alike ‘Among Dead Gods’ is quite frankly a baptism of filth. Corrosive and nature and cynical in tone, the track is bile distilled into sonic form, it’s presentation that akin to a regurgitation of blackened phlegm to the face. The borderline powerviolence stomp and D-beat hostility of the proceeding ‘Temple Of Decay’ only places further emphasis on the sheer aggression and antipathy of the record; especially given how it’s obsidian, esoteric nature is reminiscent to fellow labelmates Wowod.
However, despite such upfront antagonism, this isn’t just a one-speed offering of baseless and hollow aggression. On the contrary, under the scum that sits atop the textures of the record and coats the muscular riffs that drive it lies a body of work full of nuance; none of it pleasant yet all of it crucial. Whilst the brief mull and spoken word within the aforementioned opener gives one a brief glimpse of the intricacies of the record, it’s the nine minute ‘In The Shadow Of The Sleeping Monarch’ that see’s the Grief Symposium lifting the veil to expose the gothic architecture of the record. Blanketed by a grim and oppressive post-metal atmosphere and introduced by a spoken word rumination on faith that’s flanked by foreboding minimalistic fretwork, the track is a crawling post-metal dirge that ultimately blossoms into a beautiful key and viola passage alive with melancholia and splendour. It’s a dramatic moment, one totally unexpected given how Grief Symposium appear to be a band of pure death and doom, but one that’s disarming and elegant. Such a baroque and rich moment is ultimately counteracted by the revulsion and haste of the proceeding haste of ‘Veil Of Transformation’ though, but with the veil lifted, one is able to appreciate the technicalities of the record beyond the initial splash of bile.
Taking inspiration from their experience of forced immersion into the sex industry at the hands of a toxic former paramour, as well as their eventual triumphant liberation from those influences, these additional five tracks to their initial exploration on this torrid time in STORRY’s life are jam packed full impressive production value but also that of a new found emotional prowess.
Such inclusions of merit include the ‘House & A Range – Jeia Remix’s big up banger which seems to pursue feminine ascendancy while the Roy David Jr remix of ‘Bow Down’ serves up some early 2000’s The Prodigy-esque big beat twists on Queer centric power-hunger. Throughout this emotional excursion STORRY has consented to an access all areas mentality in an effort to divulge the peak of suffering, especially when considering the magnificent strength depicted on their latest double release of ‘Intimate Abuse’ as well as its acoustic counter part.
