Mining Metal: An Abstract Illusion, Barn, Floating, Lunar Spells, Mamaleek, Miscreance, Toadeater, and Toughness
The post Mining Metal: An Abstract Illusion, Barn, Floating, Lunar Spells, Mamaleek, Miscreance, Toadeater, and Toughness appeared first on Consequence.
As the first summer this decade that felt like a true summer winds down, metalheads rejoice as the seasons turn in our favor. We trade in our black cutoff death metal shirts for black long-sleeved death metal shirts, battle jackets give way to actual jackets (denim and patch-filled, of course), cut-off cargos transform into jeans while combat boots…actually, who knows what metalheads wear to shows these days, though Dave Mustaine is hopefully still kicking about in his Nike Air Tech Challenge IIs.
The point is, temperatures will start dropping throughout most of the world soon, and inside those cold weather months is peak metal mise-en-scene. The black metal that champions either Scandanavian pastures or American fauna usually comes with a wintery tone, though that’s not to say that fall doesn’t get any love. The mid-autumn sky burns across many an album’s sleeves, and the first chilly wind of the season cuts the ankles of anybody still wearing Suicoke Kisee-Vs late into October. All that being said, it’s a little strange that when summer comes around, metal doesn’t tend to poke its head out.
It’s been nearly a decade since Deafheaven’s Sunbather crashed onto our airwaves in the middle of the summer and earned a place as a go-to metal album for the season. Bright pink color aside, it’s one of the few metal albums you could listen to on a beach. Its humidity comes without sacrificing intensity or dread, which is an accomplishment in itself. Yet, what Sunbather reveals more than anything else is that there aren’t that many metal albums that people associate with summer.
Truth be told, summer is not about the heat, and neither is metal. There are plenty of albums that will scorch your ears if you listen too closely. Immolation’s Closer to a World Below is a great example, but it’s fiery rather than solstitial. Summer is about openness, longevity, appreciation for nature, and showing off your winter bulk’s results. People are game for new experiences in the hotter months; they want to adventure. More than anything else, everybody wants a summer fling.
Hopefully, it’s clear where this is going, as all of those traits are readily apparent in heavy metal. Sure, you may not be listening to Songs from the North in July, but just like how there are boundless activities open in summer, there are limitless expressions of the self that people communicate through metal. It’s the season when gargantuan riffs thrive, when choruses and bridges reign supreme, and when you may actually listen to folk metal in public (or at all).
To cap off the first semi-normal summer of the 2020s, we present you with eight of the finest albums from the past month. September was a stacked month that pleasantly frustrated us as we scrambled to limit ourselves to just eight albums. But through the decisive powers and goal-focused mentality granted to us through our adherence to NoFap, we’ve abstained from covering this month’s column in a thick coat of neverending praise.
—Colin Dempsey
An Abstract Illusion – Woe
Progressive death metal is at its best when it’s at its ballsiest, and there’s nothing more ballsy than returning six years after your debut album with an hour long, seven-track suite of a concept album. An Abstract Illusion don’t stop there. No, “Slaves,” Woe’s first real track, announces their intentions with a proverbial cinderblock to the front lobe. It showcases Woe’s density, a mix bounding with heroic guitars, ’70s-prog rock keyboards, and unpredictability. The last aspect is crucial because for Woe to sustain its format, An Abstract Illusion challenged themselves with songwriting that evolves within and between songs but never breaks overall cohesion. On the surface, it’s paradoxical that they found their answer in a wide swath of influences, yet they assert that every inclusion is a necessity. Buy it on Bandcamp. –Colin Dempsey
Barn – Habitat
I have been repeating the following words like a mantra for the past month: “Barn is a cosmic progressive death metal band from Idaho.” Between the band name, album cover, and place of origin, very little prepares you for just how delicious these riffs are, calling to mind all the greats of those star-spackled devious realms. And as you might notice from the track lengths, these guys mean business, bringing to bear just about as much firepower as Blood Incantation and the like through these great and winding tracks. But at no point, it should be said, do they lose a sense of melodicism and rhythmic snap to their riffs, refusing to get lost in the sauce as it were and in turn delivering a shockingly tight record. These guys should be on your year-end lists, do you hear me? Buy it on Bandcamp. –Langdon Hickman
Floating – The Waves Have Teeth
This month was a tight race between a great deal of excellent death metal for me. Between records from groups like Warforged, Gutvoid, and Mortuous, there was a hell of lot of great material spanning the avant-garde to the progressive to the downright nasty. Ultimately though, my little gnome tricks aside, I went with Floating for one of these slots for two simple reasons: first, they sound like a more triumphant Ulcerate, as though that other great group’s murky darkness was given just a dollop of clarity; and second, they seem the least likely to get this kind of platform. There’s a nearly post-punk sense of melodic drive to the guitars and drums, juxtaposed against a grime-and-gunk set of vocals and bass, creating an atmosphere that’s both heady and visceral. I want to see where these folk go next; so should you. Buy it on Bandcamp. –Langdon Hickman
Lunar Spells – Demise of Heaven
Despite coming from a nation with one of the most distinctive scenes in all of black metal — Greece — Lunar Spells err more in line with ’90s Scandinavian black metal. Their second album Demise of Heaven sounds like a bottle of wine being uncorked after 30 years in preservation inside a dingy winery basement, the long gestation period sharpening the riffs and spit-shining the keyboards, without relying on a nostalgic crutch. Of course, that uncorking comes with a rawness, though it’s blunted by the tinny production. While Nicky-Nicky Naysayers may complain that lo-fi production and rawness always add edge, Lunar Spells proves them wrong as they needn’t rely on either element to be dangerous. Case in point; vocalist Cryptic’s grunts, which rank among the best of this year. It all comes together for a traditional yet nonetheless welcome dose of golden-era black metal. Buy it on Bandcamp. –Colin Dempsey
Mamaleek – Diner Coffee
There’s so much to be said about Diner Coffee that exceeds the scope of this column. Mamaleek, the San Francisco/Beirut black metal weirdos on The Flenser, the San Francisco weirdos label, deserve hyperbolic praise for their eighth album. They took the jazz that swelled outwards from 2020’s Come & See and turned it into lounge jazz from hell while also digging a six-foot grave for irony while, most enchantingly, being as much terrifying as they are hilarious. All that being said, Diner Coffee has less immediate rewards than its predecessor, but even saying that ignores that “Boiler Room” worms its way into your head. The best way to look at Diner Coffee is that it’s as much of a metal album in spirit as it is not a metal album in sound, considering that most of the airtime is split between ambient, jazz, and experimental rock. Buy it on Bandcamp. –Colin Dempsey
Miscreance – Convergence
I can’t quite adequately sum up what this approach of death, thrash and prog means to my heart, at least not succinctly. I wrote a lengthy chapter on Atheist, the kings of this style, as part of I’m Listening To Death Metal, a serialized longform work I wrote over at Invisible Oranges. That Miscreance makes me look in my heart back to those magical crucible years of my early sincere metalheaddom, mail-ordering records by Atheist and Cynic and listening to them in headphones while my parents slept in the early 2000s is a good thing, a sign of a successful venture from these players. It’s a style that, to their credit, has largely fallen by the wayside, lending these tunes a sense of freshness despite being a revisit of an older style. They carry in particular notes of the demo years of Cynic, an under-represented period of that illustrious (and still brilliant) band’s career. I’d heard their demo years ago; that their development on this, their debut, is such a quantum leap implies great things for their future. Buy it on Bandcamp. –Langdon Hickman
Toadeater – Bexadde
Whatever you expect Toadeater to sound like based on their name, that’s not what they sound like. The German group’s third album is so palpable, so lost in despair, so dismal, that “Let the Darkness Swallow You” enforces learned helplessness. Their black metal stylings are modern wherein they apply a dulled grey colorway to the genre’s nascent passages. It’s in this combination of repetition, pummeling tempos, and dour outlooks that you sigh and say, “Damn, they’re really going through it.” Despite all that, it’s an accurate representation of L.L. Schneider’s condition at the time, meaning that it doesn’t try to impose so much as communicate a mood, which is an honest pathway to emotional transference. If you’ve never heard depressive black metal then, although Bexadde doesn’t fit the mold, it’s a pummeling reflection of the condition. Buy it on Bandcamp. –Colin Dempsey
Toughness – The Prophetic Dawn
Trey Azagthoth, praised be his name, famously refers to his solos as “lava.” That primordial and chthonic sense of death metal, rife with heat and tectonic power, seems best to describe the work of Toughness, who are rough-hewn like stone but in a way that feels pronounced in its burliness. Add in a dash of the imperial discipline and heft of peak Immolation as well as the alien brutality of Demilich and you have a good approximate understanding of their sound, something that has chewed up and absorbed progressive movements within its intense magmas and externalizes them more through intriguing chord choices and shocking rhythmic changes rather than heavy use of odd time signatures or winding song structures. Everything from the recording quality to tones to album cover conveys a roughness that perfectly captures this band. I expect this one might bounce off a few, but realheads will understand the value of what is brought to the table here. A devilish death metal delight. Buy it on Bandcamp. –Langdon Hickman
Mining Metal: An Abstract Illusion, Barn, Floating, Lunar Spells, Mamaleek, Miscreance, Toadeater, and Toughness
Langdon Hickman and Colin Dempsey
Popular Posts
Post Malone in Hospital After Experiencing "Stabbing Pain" on Side of Body
Foo Fighters Complete Lineup for Taylor Hawkins Los Angeles Tribute Concert
Foo Fighters Honor Taylor Hawkins with a Second Six-Hour Musical Lovefest in L.A.: Review
Artist Uses AI to Imagine What Dead Musicians Would Look Like Today
