Taking a peak into the more commercially friendly, today we have Secret Symmetry and their EP titled “Emerge”. Hailing from Portugal, this band mixes Progressive Rock/Metal elements with Modern Metal (AKA radio friendly stuff) and delivers five very catchy and engaging songs that command attention.
Opening with the extremely catchy chorus section of “Broken Shards of Glass”, the band comes out strong thanks to powerful guitar riffs and the charismatic vocals of Pedro Nunes. Moving into “Curtain Call”, the band changes the speed of things and starts a bit slower and in a more Progressive fashion. Thanks to the great production behind this EP, we can greatly appreciate the tight percussions and excellent bass guitar line in this solid song.
Featuring all the right ingredients to make a great Symphonic Metal band, today we have Enemy of Reality and their bombastic debut release “Rejected Gods”. Filled with catchy vocal melodies and excellent atmospheric passages, these newcomers from Greece deliver the WOW factor with 45 minutes of brilliant music.
After the typical warm-up intro, the band starts things with the super catchy “My Own Master”, a track that features Mike LePond handling the bass guitar duties. In this song we are gladly impressed by the very mellow and yet powerful vocal performances, allowing Iliana Tsakiraki to instantly standout. The band’s music is much like your Serenity / Sirenia type of Symphonic Metal with Gothic elements, and they greatly interate their guest vocals into the band’s unique groove as we can hear in “Needle Bites” which incidentally features Ailyn from Sirenia.
Being huge fans of Death/Doom/Gothic Metal release, we instantly jumped on Rain Without End Records release “So Many Years of Longing”. This one-man outfit hails from Italy and it delivers some pretty solid barebones music that while it gets a bit repetitive and tiring, has some glimmers of hope.
Building up into “Coldness Gods” via the intro “So Many Years”, all the elements of releases in this genre are pretty well executed, such as the strong riffs, highly atmospheric passages and hearty grunts. Things remind us a bit of Forest of Shadows and Rapture for the most part, with sprinkles of Draconian and such when the female vocals appear on songs like “It Devours my Faith”.
Making it our review stack, today we have Russia’s Fright Night and their sophomore release “Life Eternal”. Featuring a keyboard-driven Gothic Rock/Metal style, the band nicely blends elements of other groups like Lacrimosa, Lacrimas Profundere, and End of Green, but keeps their sound timeless with a high atmospheric emphasis. Clocking in at 45 minute, this release consists of nine tracks that will surely please any fan of the genre.
Opening with lush atmospheric elements and prominent keyboards, “Cherry Blossom” is one of those bleak sounding tracks that is both catchy and dark. The usage of three different vocal styles is quiet solid, and the main female/male singers do a great job in fusing their vocals in several brilliant dual sections. The album mood is quite melancholic and tracks like “Gerda” and “Numb” bring us back to some of the early days of Gothic Metal from bands like Edge of Sanity.
Seems like there is something in the water in France that has been coming from the Norwegian highlands in the last few years, and that something is making some of the most vicious Black Metal bands come out of France instead of the Nordic lands. Today we have a very brutal outfit called Strynn and their sophomore release “Alienation”. Released through Mortis Humanae Productions, this is yet another of their finest releases for those of us that like savage Black Metal like it was originally envisioned many years ago.
Quickly pummeling through demoralizing tracks like “Anthropophobia”, “Sadistic”, and “Obliteration”, the band perfectly blends the rawness of Black Metal from the 90’s with a vicious clarity that we rarely hear these days. Not only looking to viciously attach through brutality, there are some atmospheric/’melodic’ elements like on “Desolation”, “Reminiscence” and “Plague” that make this release even more incisive and dynamic.
Greatly improving from their 2010 debut release, today we have Belgium’s Pestifer and their sophomore effort “Reaching the Void”. In a scene as competitive as Technical Death Metal, there are always bands that are clearly better than the ‘known alternatives’ and one of those is Pestifer. Cranking out nine brutal hyperactive headbanging anthems, this album will blow you away since the first song.
Showing their insane musical skills since the opener, “Witness of the Loss”, the band demonstrates immense improvement since their previous release. Filled with hateful growls, acrobatic riffing and sick bass guitar lines, the album demolishes its way through tracks like “Exiled to the Abyss”, “Tree of Thorns” and the personal favorite “Abominations”. It is immediately evident that the dual guitar onslaughts by Antoine Paterka and Emerson Devresse will be responsible for multiple sore necks.
Today we have one man band Sick’s Agony from Italy, and ‘their’ debut full-length release “Towards My Places”. Playing a very mournful flavor of Death/Doom Metal, this outfit delivers nearly one hour of highly melancholic music that draws similarities to bands like Forest of Shadows and Inborn Suffering.
Opening with the slowly demoralizing “Obsessive Paranoia”, we are treated to very traditional slowly paced Doom riffs with sparse growls, just like the doctor ordered. Not moving away much from the initial tempo of this album, the 15-minute piece “The End of Dreams” continues down a path of despair with excellent guitar arrangements and the addition of clean vocals into the mix. This first ‘half’ of the release shows in two songs that Sick’s Agony pays tribute to old-school Death/Doom bands while managing to add their own brand into the mix.
Hailing from France today we have an excellent Power Metal band called Waverly Lies North, and their debut full-length release “A Soul in the Void”. Being in the intersection between bands like old Stratovarius and Rhapsody of Fire, this French outfit delivers nearly 50 minutes of explosive music that will have you cheering and psyched up from start to end.
Opening with the epicness of “The Curse”, this release is off to a great start with lush orchestrations, solid guitar leads, and excellent vocals (courtesy of Eric Pariche). With a very well defined Power Metal foundation, tracks like “A Soul in the Void”, “Labyrinth” and “Chimaera” have a very epic mood that is greatly enhanced by excellent atmospheric elements, dramatic guitar leads, and very well rounded vocal performances that elevate the music.
While cleaning up stacks of CD’s from our review table we found this little hidden gem from 2014. Necrotted is a German outfit that produces some crushing Deathcore/Death Metal and on their sophomore release “Utopia 2.0”, they state their case for being one of the best German bands in the genre.
Opening with the pummeling “Utopia (We are the light)”, we get a classical DM vibe at first, and it suddenly morphs into more modern sounding Deathcore brutality. This mixture of styles is quite engaging and sets them apart from the majority of bands that just abuses the traditional formulas of modern Deathcore music, more evidence of this perfect blend can be hear on the intricacies of “Rebuild and Revive”, “Assimilation”, and the punishing “Xenophobic Attitude”.
As a side project of Blake Green of Wolvserpent, Aelter produces some of the most enigmatic and hypnotic music that we have heard in quite a while. Mixing some ambient elements with Americana, Darkwave, and other murky influences, this release is truly a very unique album with tons of chilling moments and a very somber vibe.
Slowly building into “Death Eternal” with a well-paced intro track, Aelter sets a very mysterious and ritualistic mood with sparse percussions and hypnotic guitars. The extremely bleak mood of the songs make for an excellent aural experience that features some nice atmospheric highlights and a chilling cinematic vibe, a clear example of this is one of our favorites “Love Eternal”.
