The Asteroid Bullet Belt

Thankfully death is sugar-free. (Originally submitted to the Metal Archives on May 4th 2024)  Imperishable, despite their rather recent arrival to the death metal stage, had quickly risen among the bands I was most excited to see new material from. Following 2021’s riveting, if imperfect, Deathspawn EP, I’ve been curious to see how they’d develop their sound and how they’d evolve. Lo and behold, after a year of radio silence we finally got some new material to sink our teeth into, and it was a full-length at that. To say that I was excited upon hearing the news of Come, Sweet Death ’s release would be an understatement. Mercifully enough, it was one of those times where having expectations didn’t lead to disappointment. For anyone unacquainted with the group (or my review of their EP), Imperishable’s style is heavily rooted in the classic Stockholm sound, albeit with a greater emphasis on melodies, akin to later-era Dismember. It’s not a sound you see bands emula...

Fangs elegantly rending flesh.  (Originally submitted to the Metal Archives on January 2nd 2022)  They say that the more things change the more they stay the same. If there’s one thing that has remained stable despite the advent of 2022 it’s that I love Swedish death metal. The style has become a favourite of mine over the past few years, second only to caverndeath. Something about the guitar tone just makes me want to devour any release that can be described as “Inspired by Entombed and Dismember”. The good thing is that there’s an incredible wealth of bands that draw from that well. The bad thing is that said wealth leads to a lot of bands becoming indistinguishable due to how samey they are. Thankfully, Imperishable’s Deathspawn EP manages to stand out from the pack, in no small part due to breaking away from the genre’s usual trappings. As you might have already gathered, the band draws a lot from the Stockholm scene, more specifically Dismember. What’s really...

A feral beast with dulled teeth. (Originally submitted to the Metal Archives on December 17th 2021)  I’m gonna be honest, part of me didn’t want to write this review. Outre-Tombe’s been a band I’ve held close to my heart over the past couple of years, with their sophomore Nécrovortex being my go-to comfort album. Naturally, when they announced Abysse Mortifère I immediately hopped on Bandcamp and preordered it, full of excitement. I listened to it as soon as I could, and it turned out to be the biggest disappointment of the year. The main thing that drags this album down by quite a lot for me is the production. I cannot wrap my head around how they managed to botch it this badly after Nécrovortex ’s “loud-but-not-brickwalled” production. The guitars, while not necessarily bad, are so high up in the mix that they drown most of the other instruments here, especially the bass. The bass is so hard to hear it might as well not even be there, it only shows up during th...

An unstoppable force meets an immovable object. (Originally submitted to the Metal Archives on March 4th 2021)  2 years after the great Deserted , Gatecreeper released the aptly named An Unexpected Reality back in January. It was released with no warning whatsoever, and it most certainly lives up to its name, seeing as the band tries things that I doubt anyone would’ve expected of them. It's a 17 minute release that not only takes us through the band's more hardcore roots, but also expands on some concepts that we have merely seen glimpses of in the past. The first side is what vocalist Chase has referred to as "Blastcreeper". It’s comprised of 7 tracks that in most cases barely break a minute in runtime. Here we see the band showing us more of its hardcore roots by creating some blazing fast powerviolence-influenced bangers. Despite their brevity these tracks aren’t without small standout sections, such as the opening of ‘‘Starved’’, which kicks the...

 Lots of fat, not enough muscle.  (Originally submitted to the Metal Archives on January 23rd, 2021)  Over the past few years ("past few years" meaning a decade and a half by now), we've seen a steady revival of old-school death metal, with bands taking from many scenes dating back to the subgenre's heyday. One of the most popular scenes for bands to draw from has been that of Stockholm, with bands like Gatecreeper and Black Breath championing the sound in the new millennium. Disrupted is one of the less popular bands in that field, and while their 2020 release Pure Death was quite good, their debut EP, Heavy Death is much simpler, and suffers as a result. Things kick off with "Reverse the Cross", featuring punky drumming and buzzsaw riffing that reeks of Entombed's Left Hand Path . This song also highlights the production on this EP. The guitars have the overdriven sound we've all come to love by now, the bass is surprisingly high in t...

Masters? More like journeymen.  (Originally submitted on the Metal Archives on December 24th 2020)  Following 2019's explosive The Grand Descent , Fuming Mouth got signed to Nuclear Blast and released their new EP, Beyond the Tomb . Here the band tries expanding on some of the ideas on their debut, while also attempting to inject some new elements to their music, to mixed results. The release starts with the title track, which is the weakest song on offer. Fuming Mouth is attempting to inject some melodic characteristics to their music with the lead work and the chorus riff. While the song isn't terrible, those elements weaken the impact of the song, and could definitely be further improved or better implemented. That being said the song does still have those high impact riffs Fuming Mouth is known for, like the one at 1:15 and the breakdown that follows it immediately after.                 ...

Craving Riffs. (Originally submitted to the Metal Archives on April 17th, 2020)   After reviewing their sophomore effort, Deserted , I decided to review the Arizonians’ debut album, one that I had listened to quite a bit before the release of Deserted , just to see how it stacks up in comparison to its sibling. All in all, it’s not as good, but that doesn’t mean that it’s bad. The album starts off at a thundering pace with the opener, “Craving   Flesh”, which, coupled with the second track, “Sterilized”, give us a taste of what’s on offer, which is mostly mid paced death metal with occasional speedy passages, some doomier sections and the occasional breakdown, which is to be expected since the band has injected some hardcore influences in their sound. The album’s tracks are generally evenly distributed along its 30 minute runtime, and as a result there aren’t any parts that’ll feel too boring or bland. The midsection of the album is held up by “Rotting As One” and “Stronghol...

A Logical Step Forward. (Originally submitted to the Metal Archives on March 21st, 2020) Arizona's finest Gatecreeper return with their 2019 sophomore release, Deserted , an album which shows the band tweaking and evolving their sound by improving their songwriting and adding more interesting details to their original formula of riffy death metal first seen on 2016's Sonoran Depravation , which, while extremely fun, suffered from being a bit too one dimensional and lacking variety. Deserted builds on the extremely solid foundation laid by its predecessor without losing what originally made Gatecreeper appealing to begin with. The album's opens up with the title track, "Deserted", a slow-to-mid paced crusher that gives us a taste of what we're going to be getting throughout this album and some of the new elements introduced to their tried-and-true formula. The song actually has some leads in it and a solo, things that were originally seen on the Sweltering M...