Malichor - Lurkers in the Crypt [EP] (2012, Self-released)

One of my major beefs with black/thrash is that some bands tend to take the easy way and make it sound like terribly simplistic bedroom black metal with a few thrashy riffs and d-beats strewn around here and there. All in moderation, really - It's not like Desaster is the most technically advanced band ever, and Deströyer 666 often follow the exact same patterns in songwriting. But the difference is that those two bands do it with moderation; Their music may not be the most varied of sorts and may not have crystal clear production, but they make it work and make up for any shortcomings in brilliant songwriting.

A band that has chosen to take the high road is Australia's black/thrash quintet Malichor. The Lovecraft-themed band don't overdo anything. It's straight to the core black and thrash metal in equal amounts, and it works astonishingly well for them. Their recipe for disaster consists of iconic, catchy riffs over a high tempo rhythm section made up of a thrashy and audible bass aswell as drums presenting varying degrees of blasting. The vocals too are greatly varied, ranging from animalistically roaring growls to the more classic, rasping black metal vocals.
Though melody is seldom part of the equation in black/thrash metal, Malichor has found room for a rather melodic riff in the track Jackal's Spell. I was worried that it would break the malicious atmosphere that the band had already by the second track created on the EP, but I found that it added another element of mysticism to the music that fits Malichor's Lovecraftian style very well.

It's obvious that Malichor take a lot of influences from the 80's, both in their stage names and their music. But to me "Lurkers in the Crypt" is so much more than blatant 80's worship. It's not so much that they're revolutionizing the genre, because let's face it, they aren't. But in later years it seems all bands are either tighty than a nun with crystal clear production, or the directly opposite, making Hellhammer sound like the afforementioned. Malichor found a great median between the two. Their half-sloppy playing provides the EP with some much appreciated dynamic, and I found the EP to be very well written in general. Of the four tracks on the EP there aren't really any tracks weaker than the others, and all the tracks provide the release with it's own element to make it a wholesome experience. "Jackal's Spell" provides the more melodic elements aswell as a pumping headbanging piece, even if melody is something seldom seen in relation to black/thrash, and the iconic "Demonic Power of Infinity" is probably the fastest of the four tracks aswell as being the most unrelenting. It reminds me of some Norwegian black metal which combined with their hints towards Deströyer 666's memorable choruses and satanic solos makes it a breathtaking experience.

The music in itself isn't very lovecraftian and doesn't invoke visions of the great old ones or anything like that, but the cover reminds me of a certain short story by H.P. Lovecraft called "The Statement of Randolph Carter", in which the main character, Randolph Carter, describes how he and one of his associates visits an old graveyard and how his partner goes into a crypt only to suffer a horrible death to some unspeakable, unnamable horror. The whole ordeal is quite vividly described and as such, to me, goes very well hand in hand with this devilish EP.

All in all Malichor show great potential on "Lurkers in the Crypt". Their sense for songwriting and ear for riffs is astonishing. Following in the wake of a new wave of satanic speed metal they measure up to some of the genres forefathers in terms of songwriting, and I found Malichor to be just as vigorous, profane and unrelenting as some of the genre's revered progenitors. 9/10 guitars.

Tracklist:
1. Lurkers in the Crypt
2. Jackal's Spell
3. Demonic Power of Infinity
4. Cerebral Debauchery

MALICHOR official MySpace site

Hell United - Aura Damage [Full length] (2012, Hellthrasher Productions)

Poland has had a good run of metalbands that fuse the raw brutality of death metal, the faster elements of thrash metal and the evil that drips from black metal. Like Norway produces black metal bands, Poland has in the last few years produced many great bands, including Behemoth, Hate and Vader that have probably been more or less responsible for creating this new wave of blackened death metal. I've had the pleasure of reviewing many bands like Pandemonium, Centurion, Embrional, Sphere, Stillborn and Empatic, and like these bands Hell United have sought a sound that combines the collected evils of black and death metal with some serious nods towards thrashy tendencies.

9 songs strong, Aura Damage - the second full length album from Hell United - perfectly showcases a great understanding of how to create high-tempo metal riddled with tremolo riffing and blasting drums. Songs like the sinister "Deathlike Cold", the equally fast-paced "Apostle of Plague" and the tenebrous closing track "Totality of I" are what make Aura Damage an album worth checking out if you are into the bands mentioned earlier.
The Polish quartet show great craftsmanship in the terms of writing metal, but it's not all fun and games. While the 2012 album shows great promise and provides great consistency in genuinely good songwriting, I found most of the album to border on a run of the mill type of stuff. True, the album makes for a good listen and consists of mostly pretty good songs, but in the end it all flows together into an immemorable blob, and only the three songs I mentioned earlier are really memorable.

Hell United's Aura Damage is an album that I won't deny has a good vibe to it. It yearns to be listened to, and the energy the album perveys is something speciel. But I gotta be honest and say that it isn't an album I would put on for my own listening pleasure. I wouldn't put it on for anything other than background music for when I do other stuff. But this purpose it serves greatly in that it has a great, oppressive atmosphere, good dynamic song structures and pretty good riffs. But what makes it weak as a piece in its entirity it's the fact that most of the songs sort of blend together. But even so I feel I must give Aura Damage by Hell United 7/10 guitars because of the sheer force that the work conveys.

Tracklist:
1. Red Limitations
2. Apostle of Plague
3. Deathlike Cold
4. Let the Sleeping Dogs Lie
5. Aura Damage
6. Hinterland
7. Maelstorm's Gravity
8. In Odore Sanctitatis
9. Totality of I

HELL UNITED official Facebook
Hellthrasher Productions official site

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Dead Hills - Purgatory / Winds of Time [Demo] (2012, Cloister Recordings)

I think it's safe to say that Australia's export of metal bands isn't very impressive. Other than a few bands like Portal, Psycroptic, The Berzerker, Vomitor, Abyssic Hate, Sadistik Execution, Hobbs' Angel of Death, Mortal Sin and Deströyer 666 I hardly know any Australian bands worth mentioning, and for a country its size it seems odd that the scene is so relatively small globally. As such Dead Hills with all its depressive black metal tendencies and electronic ambient elements was a rare sight for me.
The Purgatory / Winds of Time demo, which is Dead Hills' debut release, immediately struck me as having a brilliant production and sound. Having listened to a lot of bedroom black metal projects I've experienced that most people apparently think that shitty production is mandatory in black metal. Dead Hills, however, presents its material with an astoundingly solid production. It provides the music with a vigorous guitar sound that still leaves room for plenty of organic warmth aswell as audible drums.

The main thing that draws my attention is the fact that Dead Hills have a thing for epicness. There is something soaring and grandios about the sustained intrepidness of the entire demo, but especially on songs like the 15 minutes long Leaves of Ash has Weaver found room for a certain epic sound that is rarely heard otherwise in the black metal scene. The stark contrast between the tortured Varg Vikernes inspired screams and the beautifully organic and naturesque moods created by the creative riffing is also worth mentioning as this is one of the central elements that makes Dead Hills stand out from so many other black metal acts.

In a scene where there are so few internationally known bands, such as the Australian black metal scene, creating an easily recognizable sound and/or style is imperative. As such I'm not saying that Dead Hills are unique or othwerwise really original - The influences from classic 90's black metal such as Darkthrone and especially Burzum is highly prevalent and dominant, but then again Weaver has a certain touch that makes his music relatively easily distinguishable from the bands from which he takes his inspiration. One might say that the interest for the creative impulses of the classic bands have propelled Dead Hills to a more modern sound without being completely removed from the roots that spawned it.

I was told the demo is to be understood as two seperate demos/albums put into one, and the Purgatory / Winds of Time demo does seem excessively long for just one release, even if most depressive and atmospheric black metal bands tend to produce longer releases. But even so the music itself never gets boring or dreary, and I never felt that anything was missplaced or otherwise didn't fit in. I can see how it would be beneficial to split up the release as it would make it easier to focus on a few of the songs. Having to listen to 1 hour and 30 minutes straight of black metal it makes me grateful that the music doesn't such monumentally. 8/10 guitars.

Tracklist:
1. Clearing
2. Purging Fog
3. Nocturnal Hatred
4. After
5. Majesty in Mystery
6. Flight Through the Opaque
7. Twilit Trees

1. Wells
2. The Wilt
3. Haze
4. Leaves of Ash
5. Graveyards Over the Sea

DEAD HILLS official Facebook
DEAD HILLS official Bandcamp (WITH FREE DOWNLOAD!)
Cloister Recordings official site

Sanity Obscure - Subterranean Constellation [Full length] (2012, Self-released)

When I read that Sanity Obscure was for fans of such bands as Pestilence, Nocturnus, Coroner, Vektor, Atheist and Death it naturally created very high expectations with me. I consider myself a pretty big fan of especially Nocturnus and Vektor, so if Sanity Obscure are anything like them that's a start at least.

As the album starts out with Dreams - Manifestations I got some almost jazzy vibes from them, and the portrait Sanity Obscure were starting to paint was indeed somewhat akin to those created by Nocturnus in the 80's. Throughout the album there are profound nods to those legends they worship, and from the amount of quite formidable bands the band itself lists as major influences it seems relevant to ask whether or not Sanity Obscure manages to fill their shoes.

From the first few listens I wasn't entirely convinced that Sanity Obscure were "mature" enough to wield the mantel of such revered bands, but tracks like Rise of the Machines forced away my doubt. They almost added up to my expectations, neatly combining elements from many progressive and technical bands from the 80's and early 90's, and their sound and songwriting does bear certain hints of both thrash and death metal. But one of the things that made the album appear like a mishmash og things is the myriad of elements they're commandeering into their sound. I like the fact that there is so much variation, but when Patient Zero goes from Nocturnus-esque chugging riffs to melo-death-ish melodies to chugging powered by blast beats it makes it sound like, to me, that they're not entirely sure what they want to play or like they're taking on too many influences. Regardless of that the Singaporean quintet got away with making some really enjoyable technical death/thrash by reusing the ideas of their idols. I especially enjoy the semi-progressive riffing tendencies, the widely varied vocal performances, the insisting bass and the variation of the drums.

To answer the question I posed in the second paragraph, Sanity Obscure doesn't quite amount to the greatness of the bands listed. Obviously it's tough to surpass such bands, and the reason for this is that those bands are unique. To be truly unique Sanity Obscure would have to combine and distill all the revolutionizing elements of Atheist, Nocturnus and Death into something amazing, but they never really succeed in detaching themselves from the incongruent mass of technical bands out there, and ultimately they amount to little more than a fairly skilled but very enjoyable tribute band. 6/10 guitars. 7/10 guitars.

Tracklist:
1. Dreams - Manifestations
2. Rise of the Machines
3. Incarceration Divine
4. Synergistic Permutations
5. Patient Zero
6. Doublethink
7. Hyperboreas
8. Afflicted Mind

SANITY OBSCURE official facebook

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Hammerspace - The Kings of Mediocrity [EP] & Volume 1: Reset, Repair, Restore [Full length] (2012, Torn Flesh Records)

Taking the 80's route to heavy metal is an approach many bands choose. The 80's saw heavy metal become a rather popular genre, and in that particular decade the genre underwent incredible amounts of change and innovation - Mimicking the sound and atmosphere of that decade has more or less become the new black, whether it involves organic production, a particular way of writing songs or using other contemporary elements in the music.

Hammerspace is a virtual band, meaning (as far as I know) that the sole member, Timothy Branch, has invented a sort of "fictional" band, kind of like Brendon Small's Dethklok. The band focuses on certain RPG/adventure elements, meaning that the lyrics often involve gaming, roleplaying games, adventure and the likes. This review was originally supposed to be about their first EP, "The Kings of Mediocrity", but in the light of the more recent release, the full length album "Volume 1: Reset, Repair, Restore" released by Torn Flesh Records, I decided to instead review both releases and hold them up against each other.

I found The Kings of Mediocrity to be pretty much what the name implied - A fairly mediocre journey through heavy metal scapes of varying quality and characteristic. Most of the EP was, to me at least, entirely unexciting and uneventful, with only a few moments to catch the eye. The intro for this review may seem entirely pointless, but the reason I brought up the 80's is because of the opening track, Pull the Trigger, which seems to be trying to portray the soundtracks often heard in the darker science fiction movies of the time. The problem with the opening track is the same that goes for the entire EP: It's so overdone and saturated with the concept that it becomes more of a parody rather than a homage.
Songs like The Rat with its whispered vocals and Into the Future with the harpsichordesque intro melody to me sounds like the band (or Branch, if you will) is trying too hard to fit a concept that it sort of becomes shackles chaining the band to a creed of nerdiness, which to some may be funny or interesting, but to me just seems a bit try-hard-ish.

The entire thing is a composit of thrashy nineties-like heavy metal riffs with a thing for groove, but ultimately the EP lacks edge and intricateness. The last track, Game Over, is by a long shot the best piece on the album. It is both groovier, heavier and more original than the rest, and all these things in unison make for a much more effective track than all the other tracks on The Kings of Mediocrity.

My problem with a band such as Hammerspace is that, like I mentioned earlier, the gimmicks have just completely taken over and makes it hard for me to take it seriously as a musical endeavour. Really, Hammerspace has more clichés and gimmicks than all of Batman's adversaries put together. Gimmicks don't have to be bad. Take a band like Gama Bomb: Their lyrics and concept is about video games, comics and movies too, but not to a degree where it inhibits their writing abilities.

I was hoping the full length would change my mind. When I heard Prologue, the first track, I had my doubts. It sounded like a less memorable theme song from Runescape. Considering the fact that the album is released only a short time after the EP I'm not too sure what I was expecting, but Volume 1 features the exact same weak vocals, start-stop riffs, boring melodies and cheesy songwriting as its predecessor did.

More often than not repeated listening will make something stick to your halfway melted brain, but even after having listened to Volume 1 a number of times I couldn't remember anything, maybe except for the weird last half of Dagger and Cross. When I got to this part I had to pause it for a moment. Trying to bring in a bit of a folky feeling are we? It was one of the only times I felt that Hammerspace were really trying to experiment, and it obviously had some sort of effect on me. The heavy groove riffs that make up the majority of the album (and the EP for that matter) are probably best left as background music for browser games or Babo Violent, but even so the trollish humptidumpty stuff in Dagger and Cross are a bit too weird for my tastes.

Volume 1 also sees the resurgence of the track "Into the Future" from the Kings of Mediocrity EP. It was one of the stronger (though I use the term loosely) tracks on the EP, but Volume 1 is long enough in itself that it doesn't really need to reuse old tracks to achieve a decent length.
Summing up Volume 1: Reset, Repair, Restore is simple, mostly because the album itself is simple. Uninteresting synths, groovy but repetitive riffs, uninspired vocals and songwriting of repetitious behaviour is really what's going on, and while a few songs on the album, namely Presage and Signal Strength, did manage to provide me some minor enjoyment, but the formula quickly grows stale. The entire formula lacks depth, and while listening my mind quickly wanders to other subjects, like how interesting the wallpaper is. At least it's Branch's playing is pretty tight, and the production isn't that bad. 4/10 guitars.

Tracklist (The Kings of Mediocrity):
1. Pull the Trigger
2. The Kings of Mediocrity
3. Into the Future
4. The Rat
5. To the Fallen
6. Game Over

Tracklist (Volume 1: Reset, Repair, Restore):
1. Prologue
2. Reset, Repair, Restore
3. Dreamland
4. Dagger and Cross
5. Timeline
6. Outcast
7. Into the Future
8. Signal Strength
9. Warpath
10. Presage

HAMMERSPACE official facebook

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