Manierisme - Everyone Has Two Sides

This one-man black metal project from Japan named itself after a period of rebellious and intellectual European art, but frankly this is about as intellectual as checking your petrol tank with a cigarette lighter, and if this is a rebellion I imagine it would be crushed quickly and silently by higher forces (not that it would inspire any rebels in the first place). This is raw black metal of the very obscure sort. Note how obscure is a neutral word with no positive or negative connotations and allow me to add plenty of negative ones. It’s basically the most tedious piece of brainmelting monotony I’ve heard in a long time. Classical influences are clear here, but the riffs remind me personally of symphonic music from a ‘30s or ‘40s melodrama (a very cheesy one) forced through a black metal filter far too quickly; not exactly a grim formula. I’m all up for genre fusion and experimentation, and even ungrimness, but it needs to be interesting. This is just so boring! Whining melodies which sound almost all exactly the same plod on through cacophonic production, oblivious to the listener’s excruciating boredom. Jekyll does some blurted out burps into the microphone for vocals. And that’s the way it rolls from start to end. But OH WAIT, I forgot! Everyone Has Two Sides gets some variation at one point when it decides to break out a cover of the James Bond melody. Seriously? That’s the break you give me to your incessant monotone record? What a joke. I’m giving some points to this only because I’ve unfortunately heard worse music in my life.

In conclusion: No.

Standout tracks: Not available as every song on this record is irritatingly similar.

Score: 2.5

Middle Eastern Metal - Part 2

Saudi Arabia, while generally known for its vast oil (money) supplies and the iconic holy city of Mecca, these days has a potentious metal scene despite the still strict Islamic cultural and social impositions of the country’s government. The past ten years or so has seen changes in Saudi Arabia though, and while still a far cry from the explosive European and American lack of censorship, it is currently freer of artistic expression than it’s ever been, opening paths tentatively into cultural diversity and even gender equality. In 2003, a piece in the Guardian on metal in Islamic countries reported that “Saudis aren’t really into rock and heavy metal”, but today if we look up SA on Metal Archives we are given a list of a fully twelve bands all playing extreme metal, mostly black and death related projects, while a number of other metal and rock related bands can be found through other avenues of the internet. Two of these groups who’ve recently been producing music are Creative Waste, SA’s only grindcore band, and Al-Namrood, who mix traditional elements of Middle Eastern music with symphonic black metal.

Creative Waste - Slaves

 

Creative Waste are a self-stated Nasum worship band from the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia. It’s good to see the nice open nature of their attitude though, as clearly their music does hold many debts to Nasum, the only real difference between the bands being the song structure which in the case of the Middle Eastern band often tends to be a bit longer like a traditional death metal song. Originality aside, Creative Waste are a musical wrecking ball. Slaves to Conformity displays three young musicians who have considerable skill with their instruments and a knack for dropping catchy grind hooks that ranks with the best of them. Ten songs run a solid thirty minutes, with guest drum work from Kevin Talley (current Six Feet Under drummer who’s known for his work with the likes of Dying Fetus and Misery Index). Every song holds consistently to the bar of the attention-grabbing opener “Divide and Conquer”, and blessed with crisp and crunchy production from beginning to end the album is a very listenable affair (at least to grindcore appreciators) that shows no concentrated weak spots or moments of disappointment.  The Orwellian cover art is classic grind/punk social commentary of the dark and unforgiving sort. While Saudi Arabia appears to be allowing more musical freedom than in the past, it must be noted that it is still difficult for bands to play live or acquire non-digital foreign musical goods, and of course on top of that the Saudi metalhead has to deal with aged political traditions of repression and oppression that apply to all citizens of the country. I hope that this makes the country a susceptible spot to the sways of a traditionally rebellious and notoriously political subgenre like grindcore, especially with the Internet sweeping globalization broadly across the planet’s most far out corners like it is these days. To me it doesn’t matter how many notes Creative Waste took from the books of Nasum, in fact personally I fucking love Nasum worship bands, especially if they know what they are doing. Slaves to Conformity is a ferocious little album and a kicking start to a scene I hope this band manages to create and influence.

In summary: If you like Nasum, you will like Creative Waste. A very solid slab of grindcore, and a band I can’t wait to see further releases from.

Standouts: “Kingdom of Fear”, “Slaves to Conformity”, “Cradle to Grave” and others

Score: 8.5

Al-Namrood – Kitab Al-Awthan

 

Black metal is everywhere these days, as any fool can see, and all forms of this once obscure musical style are being experimented with at rapid rates. Saudi Arabia is no exception. All of Al-Namrood’s music is about ancient Arabian history, and incorporates folk elements into their brand of symphonic black metal, using real Middle Eastern scales. The album opens with a symphonic introduction that, if you’ve never listened to Al-Namrood before, sets half the tone of the entire album. These symphonics – almost always in Middle Eastern modes – are strangely unsettling, like back when you first listened to black metal and it was still weird and alien and creepy in the way only obscure amateur shit can be. They are also invasive and sometimes grating against the other half of the album’s tone – raw Middle Eastern folk black metal with an incredible guitar tone, rocking mid-paced riffage and great vocals. Everything otherwise of the keyboards has a very organic tone, so the keyboards might put a few people off this one because when they come in they attach a synthetic kind of tackiness and weirdness to the music. This crudeness is weirdly effective sometimes, however, and I have to say it’s one of the only ways I could discredit the album. Riffs are perfectly fused amalgamations of folk and black metal, similar to Melechesh if they weren’t a thrash band, so when this is combined with those odd, finger-pounding keyboards (this dude plays the piano like he’s playing Street Fighter) and you can expect a pretty exotic sounding metal album. This is the best thing about Al-Namrood, really – they make something different that is a nice change to common metal customs practiced in other parts of the world.

In summary: An atmospheric cross of Middle Eastern and metallic sounds, Kitab Al-Awthan offers a different sound to most metal you will hear, and despite the sometimes clunky and irritating keyboards, an interesting and worthy listen.

Standout tracks: “Al Quam, Hakem Al Huroob”, “Bani La'em”

Score: 7.5

The Wretched End - Inroads

Samoth is back with his newest project The Wretched End’s sophomore album, and it strikes up in pretty much exactly the same way as the first one: A charging, mechanical, modern black/thrash/death blast. Expect clean, crisp, blade-like riffs, firmly rooted in thrash and death metal while black and industrial hover around the pulsating, double-kick-driven core. Inroads is a marked improvement from 2010’s Ominous, sporting a darker, more mature grip on this unholy trinity of metallic styles. From beginning to end, Inroads crushes and stomps robotically – juggernautically (!) - over the listener. Cosmo’s vocals are competent and evil, mixed with perfect clarity into the band’s refined, organized sound. Across the board, it sounds a bit like a blacker, more apocalyptic version of The Haunted; the edge of TWE’s knife is sharper and colder. This coldness allows only one completely linear emotion to escape: Anger. Expect no diversity here, and don’t expect that the band will be disappointed when you find none. While definitely not the focus, diversity is not Inroads’problem either. Certainly, originality is lacking as well, but that’s not what I disliked about the album either, but rather the consistency. While most of the time tightly coiled riffwhips unleash themselves with more-than-ample ferocity and know-how to suffice, the album is intermittently let down by uninspiring segments that break up the thrashflow, not being quite either dark or pounding enough to keep the atmosphere intact (as on “Cold Iron Soul”, a would-be monstrous song).  Although unoriginality is not Inroads’ downfall, it is perhaps this hit-and-miss nature combined with unoriginality that really stops the album from jumping out at me in any notable way. Also I feel that the punishing sound from beginning to end could be improved with an increase in black, atmospheric segments (maybe a little bit more diversity would help). Only on the odd track such as “Deathtopian Society” do TWE succeed in staying up from beginning to end. Bottomline, I think TWE need more thought and revision applied to song structure in order to achieve a piece of work that is no less relentless (this would detract from the nature of the band) but has a more potent atmosphere. I would still recommend this album to anyone who likes dark, modern thrash, as it is a skillfully conceived and undeniably vicious work.

In summary: Thrashing death metal with evil black metal sensibilities, Inroads manages to create an album that is very enjoyable and yet somehow not quite fulfilling.

Standout tracks: “Deathtopian Society”, “Hunger”

Score: 7.0

Yayla - Sathimasal

Yayla’s Sathimasal is my introduction to the Turkish metal scene, and I’d have to say a pretty damn good one. Hypnotic is the word that’s being used about this band and it’s the right one. Being one man with a low budget, Yayla presents repetitive black metal in a structure similar to Abyssic Hate – long, simple, repetitive riffs that intend to draw you vortex-like into their sounds – but with the outer aesthetic of Paysage d’Hiver – lo-fi guitar tones sat with ghostly, ambient keyboards. Yayla, however, delves into much more indecipherable territory than both of these bands, at times being difficult to comprehend through the blare of static that shrouds the interwoven layers of the music. This is not necessarily a bad thing. The white noise serves somehow to fuse the very sounds of each instrument together. The production is actually very nice, raw yet filled with rich layers. Drums sit right back. In fact mostly all you can hear of them is a metallic, artificial pounding of a snare drum. This is a classic blacknoise beat that totally inverts the way drums are used to create rock (?) music, so I’m giving it the thumbs up. The incantatory vocals sit slightly away from the foreground, and they are pretty awesome. Dark whispers curdle forth from the yawning caverns opened by Yayla’s dense atmosphere. Vocal use is actually quite sparing, which puts emphasis on the repetitive riffing and ambient sections. Opening and closing tracks are completely instrumental.

“Fordreame Wonderlore” is a powerful opener, too - dark, insistent, and brimming with feeling. This is followed by the trio of songs which use Emir’s grim-ass vocals entitled “Emperor”, “Harvester” and “Conjurer”. “Emperor” is my least favorite track on this record, as some riffing I found to be not in keeping enough with the grim atmosphere, but it’s a long song and it still has moments of dark beauty. The other two tracks juggle entrancing black metal and dark ambient brilliantly. The final song, a thirteen-minute instrumental entitled “Will to Walk Paths to No Temple”, is an epic journey into dark emotions, like staring inwards to your soul and when you’re there and finally see it, only the bleak sadness of the world is there. Of course in that sadness is reflected the beauty of life.

Sathimasal is a work that’s being praised for its relentless dark nature, and I suppose that’s one way of looking at it, but I found it to be a heartfelt trance-like voyage into some very murky waters that are not always easy to appreciate. I recommend listening to this album several times if you want to properly appreciate it, as there is more depth to the music than initially meets the eye. It’s music that requires patience and I admire that in a band. Not everything should always be laid out accessibly for us the immediately indulge in.

Conclusion: Sathimasal is an excellent example of how bedroom black metal can be done with taste and substance, and proof that you don’t necessarily need loads of money to make excellent music. Highly recommended.

Standout tracks: “Foredreame Wonderlore”, “Conjurer, Prophetillars Will Follow”, “Will to Walk Paths to No Temple”

Score: 8.5