New Music: Terra Tenebrosa - The Purging

Album Score: 8.5/10

There’s something about three dudes in black capes and demon masks that just never gets old. It really should, but it doesn’t as long as they've got the music to back it up. In stark contrast to Swedish compatriot Ghost’s tongue-in-cheek doctrine, Terra Tenebrosa legitimately gives the creeps with its genre-defying attack and macabre imagery. The trio came together in 2009 from the ashes of post-hardcore outfit Breach and delivered a promising debut, but it’s on their sophomore effort that they’ve laid claim to territory all their own. Full of distorted chants and screams, paranoia-inducing machine noises, and all sorts of other bizarre sounds, The Purging is a tour de force in wonderfully terrifying songcraft.

New Music: Secrets of the Sky - To Sail Black Waters

Album Score: 8/10

At its best, doom metal is all about atmosphere – not the kind you get from diminished-chord synths and primeval recording quality, but the way an album changes your outlook on the world around you. Ominous becomes welcoming. Bright colors become offensive. Cold becomes invigorating. Drowning sounds like a beautiful way to go when the time comes, and to that end, Secrets of the Sky’s debut is a positively suffocating slab of blackened doom. Hovering somewhere between My Dying Bride’s tortured overtures and Agalloch’s mellifluous black metal, To Sail Black Waters moves like a powerful beast – never at more than a crawl, but with tremendous momentum and poise.

Artist Highlight: Rorcal

Key Release: Világvége (2013)

"You have no idea what to expect."

It’s the sort of line a band throws on packaging to dare you to buy its album. Nine times out of ten, the ploy works (and it’s exactly that, a ploy), but it’s that other ten percent in which the real meat of modern metal lies. That’s where the chimeras of heavy music dwell – the fearless bands with nothing to lose. It's where the visionaries come from, bands like Mastodon and Opeth who are now household names for their ingenuity and steadfastness. That's where Rorcal is clawing its way up from, and for a beast like Rorcal, every road from here on is the one not taken.

Artist Highlight: Death

Key Release: Symbolic (1995)

There may have been earlier death metal bands (Possessed is often credited with being the first), but none shaped the genre with way the aptly-named Death did. The brainchild of guitarist Chuck Schuldiner, Death released its debut Scream Bloody Gore in 1986 to the shock and awe of fans who previously had thought they knew “heavy.” Full of horror-themed lyrics and sporting gruesome cover art, Death’s first three albums (Scream Bloody Gore, Leprosy, and Spiritual Healing) laid the blueprint for bands like Morbid Angel and Deicide who would take the genre to new popular heights.

Artist Highlight: Intronaut

Key Release: Prehistoricisms (2008)

Just when you think Intronaut can’t twist and grow any more, it knocks down another musical wall and continues on its way. This nigh-unclassifiable Californian quartet has changed the game with every release – from Meshuggah-slaying debut Void to stoner-jazz tour-de-force Valley of Smoke, every album has been different from the last and enjoyable for new reasons. It’s fascinating listening to the group’s breakthrough opus Prehistoricisms and hearing the difference between two consecutive songs; take, for instance, the meticulously planned polyrhythms and explosive drumming of “Australopithecus”, immediately followed by “The Reptile Brain,” whose impressively authentic Indian raga impression foregoes technicality entirely for an otherworldly trip into Eastern melody and meditation.

Artist Highlight: National Sunday Law

Key Release: La Storia di Cannibali

It's astounding how often mediocre bands consistently become huge while far more interesting artists remain in the shadows. Sure, there are the heavyweights of progressive metal like Tool and Mastodon, but the vast majority of bright ideas aren’t coming soon to a music store near you. Unfortunately, National Sunday Law’s work has so far fallen into that vast majority. National Sunday Law’s sound fluctuates between sprawling post-rock complete with GY!BE-style samples (“City Dwellers”), and what sounds like a Baroness record played at half speed. Songs evolve over several minutes, with dissonant guitar riffs skittering over thunderous doom-metal chords; acoustic guitar interludes tread lightly over Derek Donley’s seismic drumming as he maximizes the impact of each tom hit and cymbal crash. There are a number of ideas that permeate their lyrics, including paganism and spiritualism, supported by cave painting-esque bucks on their most recent alsbum cover and the occult-nature song titles (“Theriocephaly” means having the head of an animal, while “Antoillier” is Old French for “antler”).

Artist Highlight: Kalmah

Key Release:
They Will Return (2002)

Few bands have exemplified the maxim “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” better than Kalmah. Since 1998, Finland’s answer to In Flames and At the Gates has been machining high-octane death metal with commendable consistency, with a slight turn towards thrash in the middle of its discography. Now on its seventh album in fourteen years, Kalmah seems to have flown under the radar somewhat compared to contemporaries such as Dark Tranquility and Children of Bodom. Perhaps it’s because Kalmah arrived on the scene a few years late, or because they’re from Oulu instead of Gothenberg, but this oversight certainly isn’t due to a lack of quality material. It wouldn’t be hard to make a case for Kalmah’s second album They Will Return being a genre classic, and five of its six full-length efforts are generally held in high regard (with 2008’s For the Revolution perhaps falling short of the rest). Kalmah’s core lineup of brothers Pekka and Antti Kokko, bassist Timo Lehtinen and über-drummer Janne Kusmin have been together since 2002’s and that quartet is still keeping the band going strong.

Artist Highlight: At the Gates

Key Release: Slaughter of the Soul (1995)

If there’s a poster child for going out on top in the music world, it is Swedish band At the Gates. The quintet spent all of two years in the limelight before calling it quits in 1996 at the peak of their popularity, having just released their fourth album Slaughter of the Soul to international acclaim. Based around the talents of brothers Anders and Jonas Björler, At the Gates also featured Tomas Lindberg  on vocals, and Adrian Erlandsson on drums (rhythm guitarist Martin Larsson was brought aboard after two albums).

Artist Highlight: Gamma Ray

Key Release: Land of the Free  (2005)

Few bands have impacted their genre the way that Gamma Ray has. The origins of power metal can be traced back to the early 80’s, beginning with Savatage and Accept and continued by Stratovarius and Blind Guardian. However, it wasn’t until 1988 that the modern power metal sound really found its groove. German speed metal band Helloween released its second album Keeper of the Seven Keys, Pt. 1 that year, melding intricate and high-energy guitar work by Kai Hansen with Michael Kiske’s operatic vocals. After releasing a sequel the next year, Hansen withdrew from the band to pursue other projects. One of these became Gamma Ray, which released its debut in 1990.

New Music: Ulcerate - Vermis

Album Score: 9/10

There may not be a more convincingly apocalyptic band than Ulcerate. Death metal groups constantly promote themselves as “brutal” or “heavy” or “crushing,” but this New Zealand trio has mastered the art of soul-withering songwriting by honing its craft on a deeper level. Fitting together layers of dissonance in a way that makes sense is a difficult task, since it often goes against established musical paradigms, but it’s what Ulcerate thrives on. Due to the fact that every line on Vermis builds off this foundation, the album is fundamentally saturated with intense emotions of utter dread and bitterness towards a crumbling world. Welcome to Ulcerate’s perfect musical hell.

Artist Highlight: Godspeed You! Black Emperor

GY!BE finally broke through into the
mainstreak with 2012's Allelujah!

Few bands have had such a wide-ranging impact and legacy on their music scene, and yet remained as relatively anonymous, as Canada’s Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Often considered one of the most important bands in post-rock along with Mogwai, Explosions in the Sky, and Sigur Ros, the septet has been creating heart-wrenching soundscapes for almost 20 years now. Its sound is almost unclassifiable, as it ranges from samples of street preachers to impressions of Americana, unsettling portraits of crumbling dictatorships to soaring and uplifting anthems, and just about anything else worth taking the time to appreciate.

New Music: Scarred - Gaia/Medea

Album Score: 8.5/10

The waves are expected to reach up to ten meters high…the news gets worse: 343 is the confirmed death toll…a volcanic eruption in the east of the country has sent clouds of ash almost three kilometers high…witnesses described the ground shaking before a tremendous explosion…

The inherent risk in sticking close to your influences is that no matter what you create, fans will compare you to multiple bands that that have done it before, and done it better. Luxembourg death metal band Scarred lists Meshuggah, Gojira, and Machine Head as prime influences on its death/thrash hybrid sound, but anyone who is likely to stumble across the group’s second album Gaia/Medea could probably figure that out within about ten seconds of the opening song’s first riff. It just so happens that Scarred is a rare example of that band that not only does its antecedents justice, but often outclasses their corresponding latest efforts. Fans of L’enfant Sauvage may howl with derision and Unto the Locust’s proponents may beat their chest, but Gaia/Medea is a shot across the bow of the genre giants that places Scarred squarely on the tech-death podium. Despite the obvious technical proficiency of all involved, there are a number of compositional techniques and production values that make Gaia/Medea a breakthrough effort for the band.

Artist Highlight: Echoes of Eon

Echoes of Eon released their
debut, Immensity, on April 30.

Instrumental metal has arrived at something of a crossroads lately. A few bands have gained recognition as pioneers in the past – Pelican, Gordian Knot, and Buckethead come to mind – but several groups are beginning to lend credence to the idea that heavy music without vocals is not only a viable art form, but one with a bright future. Fans of the prog scene may recognize names such as Animals as Leaders, Scale the Summit, Behold…the Arctopus, Dysrhythmia, Cloudkicker, and Chimp Spanner; while these are perhaps the best prospects in the genre, there are plenty of other talented acts worldwide waiting to break through. This is where Echoes of Eon comes into play.

New Music: Sannhet - Known Flood

Album Rating: 8/10

Hailing from Brooklyn, NY, Sannhet has managed to brew up a following the hard way. As in business, initial investment pays dividends, and the post-black metal trio has parlayed an intense touring schedule and wicked live show into a growing fan base in only a few years. Sannhet’s debut album, Known Flood, distills all of this work into a 45-minute barrage that falls somewhere between early Isis and U.S. Black Metal acts like Krallice (whose guitarist Colin Marston recorded the album). Known Flood is about as spot-on as any title could be: the songs here ebb and flow from devastating metallic bursts to long periods of ambience and percussion-driven interludes. Early cut “Invisible Wounds” begins with a bizarre, spacey Sprechstimme piece that sounds like an incantation sung through a box fan, then transitions suddenly into pounding tom-toms and guitar distortion, in a fitting encapsulation of the album’s sound.

Artist Highlight: Wolves in the Throne Room

Key Release: Two Hunters (2007)

American black metal band Wolves in the Throne Room have come under some fire for shunning the cult roots of their genre, but really, their brand of black metal – played by firelight on vintage amps – isn’t so different from Emperor and Ulver’s pagan aesthetics. In fact, Wolves’ quartet of albums are about as black metal as it gets, as they blast and shriek through albums full of ten-minute epics about returning to nature, occult mythos, and stories of post-apocalyptic landscapes.

Artist Highlight: Ulcerate

Ulcerate's fourth album, Vermis,
drops this September.

In the field of Death metal, it’s becoming increasingly hard to stand out from the crowd. Progress is often limited to incestuous genre hybridization, so bands turn to advertising themselves as the most “intense” and “brutal” out there. Immolation created suffocating dissonance, Morbid Angel perfected blast-beat thunder, and Death injected the genre with philosophy and unpredictability, so it would seem there’s little left to say that hasn’t already been screamed. Meanwhile, in New Zealand, Michael Hoggard and Jamie Saint-Merat decided it was time for the genre to take a step back and breathe a little. Born of their insane guitar and drum chops in 2000, Ulcerate started as a talented but otherwise unremarkable death metal outfit. After the band added and dropped a number of musicians, it settled on a trio of Hoggard, Saint-Merat and bassist/vocalist Paul Kelland. Those three would lay down the album Everything is Fire, and for once, death metal had a legitimately fresh sound.

Interview: David Sanchez of Havok (7/2/2013)

Unnatural Selection, Havok's third
album, was released on June 25

Havok is a metal band from Denver, Colorado that plays old-school thrash with a modern twist. Their newest album, Unnatural Selection, was released on June 25 through Candlelight Records. I interviewed founding guitarist and vocalist David Sanchez about the band's sound and new record.

Interview with Robin Staps of The Ocean

The Ocean released their 6th
album, Pelagial, this past April.

The Ocean is a progressive metal band from Berlin, Germany led by guitarist Robin Staps. The band released three albums between 2004 and 2008 as a revolving cast of musicians (upwards of 30 at points) before settling on its current five members. The quintet's sixth album, Pelagial, was released earlier this year on Metal Blade records. I interviewed Robin about his writing process, the new lineup, and their spot on the upcoming Summer Slaughter tour with Dillinger Escape Plan.

New Music: Kalmah - Seventh Swamphony

Album Score: 8.5/10

Few bands have exemplified the maxim “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” better than Kalmah. Since 1998, Finland’s answer to In Flames and At the Gates has been machining high-octane death metal with commendable consistency, with a slight turn towards thrash in the middle of its discography.  Now on its seventh album in fourteen years, Kalmah seems to have flown under the radar somewhat compared to contemporaries such as Dark Tranquility and Soilwork. Perhaps it’s because Kalmah arrived on the scene a few years late, or because they’re from Oulu instead of Gothenberg, but this oversight certainly isn’t due to a lack of quality material. It wouldn’t be hard to make a case for Kalmah’s second album They Will Return being a genre classic, and five of its six full-length efforts are generally held in high regard (with 2008’s For the Revolution perhaps falling short of the rest).  So Seventh Swamphony comes with something of a pedigree, as Kalmah’s core lineup of brothers Pekka and Antti Kokko, bassist Timo Lehtinen and über-drummer Janne Kusmin are back for another swamptastic voyage.

Artist Highlight: Light Bearer

Key Album: Lapsus (2011)

There are bands that take their music seriously, and then there is Light Bearer. Behind the monolithic riffs and post-metal crescendos is a group of musicians who have a story to tell, and Light Bearer’s scheduled four-album cycle is their medium. Drawing from a wide array of influences, including the Book of Genesis, Dante’s Inferno, Paradise Lost, and His Dark Materials, Light Bearer has put together an epic narrative as a metaphor for human nature and the corruption of religion. Also presented over the tetralogy are ideologies on such diverse subjects as gender discrimination, the evolution of sexuality, and cultural stereotypes. This is a band that has put a great deal of time and thought into its project, and so far the results are stunning.

Interview: Josh Durocher-Jones of Howl

Howl is a heavy metal band based in Providence, Rhode Island. The group released its sophomore album Bloodlines in April of this year. I contacted guitarist Josh Durocher-Jones, who was brought in shortly after the band released its debut in 2010, to ask some questions about how Bloodlines came together and the group’s creative process.

Artist Highlight: Revocation

Key Release: Chaos of Forms (2011)

With so many bands vying for the limelight these days, it’s hard to craft a musical identity that stands out from the crowd. Boston thrash act Revocation has managed to not only be heard over the din, but is starting to turn heads with an eclectic brand of metal rooted in guitarist David Davidson’s studies of jazz and Classical music at Berklee College of Music. Founded as a trio, Revocation unleashed its debut album Empire of the Obscene in 2008, and landed a second haymaker to the jaw with Existence is Futile only a year later. The band’s sophomore effort gained the attention of major publications such as Spin and AllMusic, who awarded the album a stellar 4.5/5 and called it “one of the best pure metal albums of 2009.” Loudwire even went so far as to name the band’s 2009 single “Dismantle the Dictator” one of the fifty best metal songs of the 21^st century.

New Music: Leprous - Coal

Album Score: 9/10

Yes, Leprous is still known for being “Ihsahn’s backing band.” But if it keeps this up, that’s going to change in a hurry. With its fourth album, the Norwegian quintet has created something truly its own, perhaps comparable to acts like Opeth and Enslaved, but bursting with fresh intensity throughout. There are moments that challenge you to wrap your head around exactly what’s going on, and equally numerous times that you’ll be swept away by anthemic choruses. Opener “Foe” revolves around a 5/4 time signature broken into 3+2 as the instruments run circles around each other and refuse to settle into a groove; the second half of “Chronic,” however, does the heavy lifting you as singer Einar Soldberg intones, “Stars, they lie where we can’t see them...” over and over, sharp guitar lines building behind him, the sound growing in intensity despite an ever-slowing tempo. Many of the songs contain a balance of styles as the band toys with the line between being soothing and stimulating.

Metal Scenes: Finland

Key Release: Once (2004)

Nightwish

You know you’ve made it when people are lining up to write movies to your soundtrack. Perhaps Finland's most famous metal band, Nightwish has crossed over into the mainstream with its keyboard-driven power metal, often accompanied by a full orchestra. Long-time vocalist Tarja Turnunen was fired in 2007 – though not before an extremely emotional and bombastic final concert that became the End of an Era DVD – and new singer Annette Olzon has taken the band in a more mainstream direction with increased commercial success. The backbone of the band has always been keyboardist and songwriter Tuomas Holopainen, who also handles the symphonic accompaniments. Nightwish’s most recent effort, Imaginaerum, is set to be released as a feature film later this year.

Artist Highlight: Agalloch

Key Release: The Mantle (2002)

Crossover metal is all the rage these days: progressive jazz-fusion, melodic post-hardcore, symphonic tech-death – just throw a bunch of genres in a blender and see what you get. But before all the stylistic absurdity, Agalloch made a name for themselves by putting some beauty in the most extreme of genres – black metal. Founded in Portland, Oregon in 1995 by multi-instrumentalist John Haughm, the band has become one of the most popular “extreme” acts in the United States thanks to its gripping storytelling and widely appreciable sound. In its four full-length albums, Agalloch has explored a wide spectrum with Scandanavian-style black metal at one end and lush acoustic folk arrangements at the other. 2002’s The Mantle proved a breakthrough effort, tipping the scales in favor of clean vocals and dreamy guitar interludes and saving the caustic peaks for the most emotionally gripping moments.

Artist Highlight: Giant Squid

Key Release: The Ichthyologist (2009)

With some bands, you know exactly what you're going to get each time out. They sit in your comfort zone and make you feel happy and at home. Then there's Giant Squid, San Francisco's most wonderfully bizarre progressive metal group. The band began as an indie-rock outfit with Monster in the Creek, hit us with their first full-length -- the contemplative, doomy Metridium Fields -- and then threw the playbook out the window on their stupefying follow-up, The Ichthyologist. Attempting to pin Giant Squid’s sound down is an exercise in futility, but much like its namesake, it’s generally dark, massive, and mysterious.

Metal Scenes: Atlanta / Savannah, Georgia

Mastodon

Key Release: Leviathan (2004)

From its thunderous debut Remission through 2009’s psychedelic journey Crack the Skye, Mastodon has reinvented itself with each of five stellar LP’s. The band's most recent effort, The Hunter, netted it a second Grammy Nomination and “Album of the Year” awards from prominent magazines Kerrang, Metal Hammer, Rock Sound, Classic Rock, and The Times.

New Music: The Ocean - Pelagial

Album Rating: 10/10

In the wake of The Ocean’s polarizing duo Heliocentric and Anthropocentric, its next album was bound to be a make-or-break affair. Pelagial arrives on the heels of two and half years of hand-wringing, lukewarm positivity, and general bewilderment over its immediate predecessors. After Precambrian (2007) capitalized on The Ocean’s ability to meld atmospheric and brutal songwriting to critical acclaim, bandleader Robin Staps broke up the Collective in favor of a stable lineup. It turned out some growing pains were in order: 2010’s Heliocentric showcased new singer Loic Rossetti’s dynamic voice, but often subjected its audience to awkward lyrical concepts and ballads that hung their new singer out to dry. Seven months later, Anthropocentric showcased a tighter and heavier sound , but otherwise did little to dissuade the trepidation of many fans. With Pelagial, those fears about the Ocean’s future can finally be laid to rest.

Metal Scenes: Boston / Springfield, MA

Key Release: Chaos of Forms (2011)

Revocation

Led by virtuoso guitarist and Berklee College of Music graduate David Davidson, Revocation brings a jazzy and experimental twist to its precise thrash metal attack. Pick up the band's 2012 EP Teratogenesis for free courtesy of Scion AV.

New Music: Intronaut - Habitual Levitations

Album Score: 9/10

Just when you think Intronaut can’t twist and grow any more, they knock down another musical wall and continue on their way. These nigh-unclassifiable Californians have changed the game with every release – from their Meshuggah-slaying debut Void to stoner-jazz tour-de-force Valley of Smoke, every album has been different from the last and enjoyable for new reasons. It’s fascinating listening to their breakthrough opus Prehistoricisms and hearing the difference between two consecutive songs; take, for instance, the meticulously planned polyrhythms and explosive drumming of “Australopithecus”, immediately followed by “The Reptile Brain”, whose impressively authentic Indian raga impression foregoes technical wanking entirely for an otherworldly trip into Eastern melody and meditation.

New Music: Light Bearer - Silver Tongue

Album Score: 8/10

Post-metal is an inherently self-indulgent genre, where bands posture about ideals and enrapture your world with apocalyptic soundscapes, but sometimes that's what makes it awesome. In the tradition of legendary outfits Neurosis and Godspeed You! Black Emperor (who aren't metal but have an immeasurable impact on all things post), Light Bearer continue to up the ante on multi-dimensional album-crafting. The story behind Lapsus and Silver Tongue is as important as the thunderous musical creations themselves, and is required reading for fans seeking the full experience intended by the band.