Edge of Sanity - Kur-Nu-Gi-A

Dan Swanö today is one of the best metal producers in Europe, but things weren’t always so. Back in 1990, at the time when this demo was released, Edge of Sanity were a ripe young death metal band, one of the original Swedish first wave death metallers, along with Entombed and Dismember. While Entombed would go on to pioneer the death’n’roll minigenre and Dismember would hold true to their old school roots, EoS became the precursor to the more accessible niche of melodic death metal. For those of you who don’t know, however, EoS’s material was deeper and far more eclectic than most of the things bands like Dark Tranquility or In Flames released which made the Gothenburg scene popular. It all built up to a legendary point in 1996 when EoS released Crimson, a single progressive/death metal song that ran for forty minutes and established a place for itself immediately in the death metal halls of fame. However, the “original sound of Edge of Sanity”, as Swanö himself puts it, was a more typical old school style similar to Death or other seminal death metal bands. The original demo release of Kur-Nu-Gi-A (the underworld of ancient Babylon) had five tracks played in this style and a synth outro. This picture disc release gives us these songs remastered plus two live tracks and a rough version of “Maze of Existence” as bonus. The demo songs are pretty cool, although certainly dated now and not really historical death metal moments. The live tracks are nothing to speak of, really. I never heard the quality of the original demo, but from what I can gather it was apparently not so great. I’m not sure if the “Maze of Existence (roughmix)” is the original, unremastered mix or what, but it sounds very similar to the new mix earlier on the disc. So it’s unclear to me exactly how much better the sound is here than on the original, despite the positive rumors I can provide.

In summary: Kur-Nu-Gi-A in itself is decent, and it’s certainly nice to be able to listen to this part of EoS’s history for those who weren’t around back in the day, and also for fans who will appreciate the renewed production, but the extras are really unmentionable, and in the end this is really not a very important re-release.

Standout tracks: “Maze of Existence”

Score: 6.0

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Mordax - Violence Fraud Treachery

The new Danish thrash band Mordax’s debut full-length, Violence Fraud Treachery, came unannounced to me and it wasn’t an unpleasant little surprise. It is a breed of thrash metal and melodic death remarkably similar to benchmark group The Haunted, but it perhaps pays a bit more homage to Metallica than that band, taking the song “Contrapasso” as an example. Mordax rely on catchy thrash breakdowns; old school riffs with a more clinical modern edge, and present a pleasingly easy-to-listen-to set of numbers based on this principle. Indeed we’re given little else apart from a few well-played acoustic segments. Dan Swano is producing (suitably) so the sounds are all tight as hell. I would criticize the vocals for being the kind of standard crap heard in melodeath and metalcore these days, but one has to admit the riffing is pretty badboy for most of the album. The remainder of the album is made of cast-away riffs, though in Mordax’s case, these are relatively few. The rest of the metal world however is a different story. I don’t know if record companies put pressure on bands to create albums of greater length, but I really feel that many bands of certain styles (namely thrash, death, and black metal) should not be worried about length or how epic their albums are, but instead strip them back to only the most vehement riffing and concentrate what metal is really about: raw, dark, powerful intensity. There is often no need for filler or second-rate material. There is often no need for your album to blast on for a full hour. Shoot short and fast but shoot to kill. And *cough* Mordax are not an exemplary culprit of this, so let’s conclude the review…

Mordax sound young and fresh and they sound like they’re enjoying themselves very importantly, yet it remains to be seen whether or not they will climb the ranks and actually break any ground in the future. They do however seem to be very skilled musicians with a real talent for writing heavy thrash riffs, so I hope the best for their future. I suspect they will make a name for themselves, because VFT is just a very, very listenable forty-five minute chunk out of your day.

In summary: Mordax present a slightly generic yet effective and extremely accessible thrash/melodeath combo. Recommended for fans of The Haunted, Black Breath etc.

Standout tracks: “Silhouette of God”, “Treachery”

Score: 7.0

Doombringer - Sevenfold Pestilence EP

Supposedly the child of those behind two other Polish bands – the legendary Bestial Raids who have given us some of the most ruthless war metal of recent years, and the reputable occult black metal act Cultes des Ghoules – Doombringer brings to the table a bite-sized portion of grim, ritualistic death metal. While not always fully hitting the mark over the brief span of the two 6 minute songs offered here, there are enough morbid pleasures to keep you happy while listening. But what lets this release down bigtime is that there’s just nothing said or done here. There was no time to say or do anything! For some bands, or some records, it works putting out releases that are only ten minutes long, but not for Doombringer. By the time you start to get accustomed to the band’s style the record is over and you are left with no climax and a bunch of ideas that never really seemed to fully develp. Doombringer really need to get their act together and release a full-length album, is basically what my only complaint boils down to. What is here is very good death metal that, while holding no musical qualities seems to embody the dark energy of black – so, not really your everyday, run-of-the-mill death bollocks but pretty cool underground stuff. Such material needs to be fully panned out and given more room to breathe, as the potential is here already. We have here musicians from two prominent acts in the Polish underground with a number of demo releases over the past five years showing they can do it, just that they haven’t yet.

In short: Good, ever-so-slightly blackened death metal music, but way too short! This band needs more substantial releases.

Standout track: “Seven Evil Spirits”

Score: 6.5

Aborted - Global Flatline

Another act we see revamped in 2012 is Aborted. These Belgian death metallers didn’t do so well in the years after 2003’s wicked Goremageddon, being accused of abusing -core breakdowns and losing the edge of their filthy brutality. With the release of Global Flatline Aborted have changed not only half their lineup but their entire game all over again, going at once backwards and forwards simultaneously in their musical evolution. This is closer to Aborted’s original brutal death metal sound than the past three albums in terms of sheer catchy nastiness, but it is also unexpectedly manages to push the band’s music forward in the quarters of technicality, brutality, and production.

Global Flatline is the fastest, heaviest thing Aborted have ever made. It is so highly-charged that it bursts forth with the intensity of an ejaculation. And yet with so many notes crammed so brutally into forty-three minutes (fifty-one if you have the bonus version) it is absolutely incredible how precise and cleanly the album has been produced. Every crunching guitar tone comes through clear as day, the diverse vocal shrieking and bellowing is executed with attention to detail and is so crystalline you can sometimes even understand what the words are without reading the lyrics. Fifteen songs with the two bonus tracks, and only the introductory one is filler, but Aborted keep it solid and don’t drop the baton with any weak songs. Between the thrashy madness seen of “Of Scabs and Boils” and the frantic death metal stabbings of “The Kallinger Theory” the listener is absorbed by memorable riffing that’s been executed with incredible dexterity and clarity. Keeping a lot of listeners’ attention has always been a problem for brutal death metal because you have to be an extremely skilled musician to pull it off in an interesting way and then successfully produce the typical onslaught of sounds found in such an album, and Global Flatline is practically the perfect example of how to do such a thing.

Gore bands are not something I’m usually interested in, but Aborted have once again managed to cross that threshold for me and given me a great album; modernized, yet still flexing Aborted’s original strength: catchiness combined with brutality. Though different, this still comes in second rank from their breakthrough Goremageddon, but it’s a close call. Global Flatline is a big release for the band that will definitely take their music in a more popular direction.

In summary: Excellent brutal death metal for people who don’t like death metal. Extremely accessible yet unforgiving.

Standout tracks: “Of Scabs and Boils”, “The Kallinger Theory”, “Our Father, Who Art of Feces”, “Grime”

Score: 8.5

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