After much technical difficulty, The Metal Observer is proud to bring you seven of September’s best.
Mgla – Exercises In Futility by Nathan Hare
There isn’t much to say about Exercises in Futility that Shawn didn’t say in his excellent review. Everything about this album—it’s riffs, drumming, lyrics, vocals, pacing, atmosphere, and melodies—is so finely crafted that it’s difficult to deny that Mgla are one of the best active black metal bands. Exercises in Futility is a brilliantly dynamic, emotionally powerful effort that demands repeated listens. “I” and “V” are my favorite tracks.
Windhand – Grief’s Infernal Flower by Neil Bird
Virginian Doom act Windhand released my favorite album of the year in back in 2013. From the opener to the end, Soma was a heavy yet soaring and ethereal experience. I saw them live for the first time a couple month later and was just as impressed with how well everything translated to the stage. It’s been a hell of a two-year wait, but Grief’s Infernal Flower is everything I wanted in a follow-up to that record. Between the heavy, fuzzy riffs and the soaring vocals and crushing drums, Grief’s Infernal Flower stands as a more-streamlined version of Windhand’s sound. They’ve taken everything that made Soma such a great record and left off some of the filler stuff to make a more impressive and impactful release.
Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats – The Night Creeper by Ailo Ravna
Following the monumental Mind Control (2013), Cambridge’s drab four return with another orgy of sex, drugs, and every kind of filth. From the slow ominous crawl of the title-track, to the evil-Beatles stomp of “Melody Lane”, Uncle Acid and his Deadbeats are as morbidly perverted as ever. A delightful concoction of nightmarish trips and glassy-eyed horror, The Night Creeper hits all the right notes.
My Dying Bride – Feel The Misery by Jamie Cansdale
In a month that has seen many gloriously doom-laden masterpieces, including Skepticism’s triumphant return with Ordeal, none have come close to reaching the class that Feel the Misery has done. The return of Calvin Robertshaw has taken the band back to their most gloomy days: when Aaron Stainthorpe’s growling was at its prime, when the riffs were beautifully elegant yet fundamentally powerful. The songs actually haunt you this time around and feel a lot more personal too. For many, this is as close to reliving the days when doom was mercilessly miserable as we’ll get. The masters are back, and better than ever.
Nechochwen – Heart of Akamon by Shawn Miller
Blending neofolk, black metal and Native American instrumentation, Nechochwen’s Heart of Akamon is in a league of its own. The band was originally conceived as a non-metal outlet for exploring Native American heritage and history through music, but as the years have gone on the project has incorporated more metal into its sound. Heart Of Akamon brings an ample supply of both the heavy and the serene, allowing for a smooth yet varied listen. The lyrical content focuses on the emotions of Native Americans as they were pushed westward from their homeland and the music mirrors that indescribable mix of resentment, anger and fear garnered by hope and desire.
Slugdge – Dim & Slimeridden Kingdoms by Evan Mugford
When the slugs come crawling, you best answer their phlegmy call. And when Slugdge release a new album, you best bang your goddamn brains and pay unerring obeisance to the great and slithering shell-less mollusk. Partners in slime Matt Moss and Kev Pearson are at it again with the band’s third full-length release Dim & Slimeridden Kingdoms, an absolutely killer display of high-flying and garden-tearing death metal that hears the duo surpassing 2014’s excellent Gastronomicon. With greater scope, more melody, upgraded vocals and lyrics, and some seriously mean guitar work from Pearson, there’s no question that Slugdge are helping lead the DIY charge.
Dim & Slimeridden Kingdoms is available (along with the rest of Slugdge’s albums) for “pay what you want” over at their bandcamp page.
Terminal Function – Clockwork Sky by Joshua Bulleid
I didn’t get around to reviewing Clockwork Sky when it came out (which happened to coincide with my birthday) but that doesn’t mean you should waste any time picking up a copy of your own. As if the Willowtip stamp of approval wasn’t already enough to convince you that Terminal Function’s sophomore effort was a worthy addition to your collection, the fact that they are one of few Meshuggah-aping bands to actually equal the quality of those Swedish, progressive metal juggernauts should put it over the edge.
Terminal Function have remembered one very important fact that all the other Meshuggah warpers out there (especially the more hardcore-leaning djent crowd) seem to have forgotten; and that is that Meshuggah are a death metal band, or at least an extreme one. The complex aesthetic of ObZen has dominated the progressive metal landscape ever since Meshuggah dropped it back in 2009. However, Terminal Sky (who include Vildhjarta drummer David Lindkvist) are the first band to pick up on the more menacing template laid down by its follow-up Koloss (2012). In fact, Clockwork Sky so perfectly resembles and continues the style of Koloss that it’s hard to believe it’s not the bona fide follow-up to that record. It might be mere imitation, but it’s a perfect imitation, and when the bar is already set so high it’s hard to see Clockwork Sky as anything but an utter triumph.
