Formloff - Spyhorelandet

Six years after an absolutely shocking debut album sees Formloff return a different band. It hits you when you see the cover art immediately, how very grim it looks compared to the gaudy motor stage show cover of the debut. They even have a trve black metal logo now! In fact, if it wasn’t for the cover art I never would have gone anywhere near this album after being so offended by the first one. The band probably deserves a new name in all honesty. 2006’s Adjo Silo saw this two-piece add vocoders of the infamous sort and asylum escapee-cum-indie rocker vocals (a terrifically heinous pair of things to have near each other) to songs that were basically cheap Solefald rip-offs, resulting in an all-around, generally insulting failure.

 But now that Formloff has realized that Skywalker was a douche they’ve crossed over to the dark side like all the other cool people, making one of the only possible moves they could have made in order to recover their stained dignity. For a band credited as part of the black metal scene (even if it’s in the avant-garde quarter), the new addition of actual musical components of black metal on Spyhorelandet helps to not piss me off instantly. We have blastbeats aplenty and certain grim quality for the majority of the listening, actually. Only two things really remain from the debut: One, a sensibility to create progressive and/or experimental music, and two, the accordion keyboard passages, which work in the colder climate of this sophomore release. Keyboards and synthesizers in general are much more subtle on this record. Gone are the crooning Norwegian pop artiste regurgitations of yore. There are very few clean vocals on Spyhorelandet and they are honest efforts. Formloff are still experimenting, or perhaps this release is where they’ve actually begun. Musical styles such as indie, progressive and jazz creep their way in without crossing any lines. There is also plenty of pace and time signature changes to keep things interesting as well. But it really all boils down to black metal in the end (thankfully). I myself, in spite of myself, found myself really enjoying every one of the songs on this album, some more than others but overall they are polished, atmospheric, and interesting. There is a lot of great really cold BM riffing on this album too – who would’ve known they had it in them? Apparently, however, this was the style of their earlier demo material.

I’ve got to give the band credit, it’s pretty impressive how they manage to make us forget all those bouncing, happy melodies on Adjo Silo and provide a work of quality black metal that actually sports bleakness and frost. Traditional black metal overrides and integrates the band’s experimental tendencies in a far smoother way than anyone was ever expecting. This is certainly the most surprising album I’ve listened to so far this year, the distance in quality being one of the greatest I’ve seen between two consecutively released records. I encourage the band to stick with it now that they’ve got it right. I encourage metalheads to listen to this album and give Formloff a second chance because Spyhorelandet shows they deserve it.

In short: Well-played “avant-garde” black metal that still has its spirit close to the core of true black metal. Not for fans of their first album.

Standout tracks: “Det Dritet Som Renner Ut I Ua”, “Drokkne I Ei Flo Ta Åske”

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

Nekromantheon - Rise, Vulcan Spectre

Nekromantheon are a bunch of Norweigans who play old school brutal thrash in the vein of Dark Angel, and they are very competent at what they do. Practically every song these guys ever beat out of their instruments would feel just as natural if it had actually been made in the late 80s-early 90s. But Nekromantheon have only been around since 2005. So, yes, what we have here is an emulation. It has been a trend in metal in the 21^st century to hark back to the good old days and bring back old school sounds in every subgenre (eg. Witchcraft, Electric Wizard, Insinnerator, Violator, and thousands of death metal bands), and then call it a “New Wave” of that subgenre. And hey, that’s pretty cool. After all, it’s not like old school thrash doesn’t kick The Haunted’s arse. And it’s a nice, tributary thing to do, as well. As far as I have seen, though, none of these thrash bands have actually furthered the genre (like Electric Wizard did with doom metal).

You get the sense nothing is meant to push the envelope here, only keep the torch alive. Instruments are tight and the thrashing is relentless – no Black Album-esque farting about, no sir, thank fuck. It’s raw, fast, frantic and furious (what thrash is meant to be, right?) and I especially like the old school vocals with plenty of echo on ‘em. I found the riffs to be a bit more memorable on the debut LP, but this is undeniably deadly music.

In summary: Thrash fans will love this, it’s old-school-as-fuck. No bullshit, just dirty, superspeed, evil thrash.

Standout tracks: Embrace the Oracle, Coven of the Minotaur

Score: 8.0

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