TRACK PREMIERE: Polish progressive death metallers Youdash defy the laws of physics with "Astral Anxiety"

Deformeathing Production is pleased to announce that they will release “Astrophobia”, the debut album from Polish extreme metal titans YOUDASH. While the band do not conform to any one genre, the overall sound is firmly rooted in death metal and recommended if you like Gorguts,  Meshuggah, Dillinger Escape Plan, Mr. Bungle

The album’s official release date is on December 16 2016 and today at The Sludgelord we are premiering the stunning track “Astral Anxiety” which you can check out below. 

“Astrophobia” track listing:

1. Astrophobia (Intro)     

2. Celestial Phenomena    

3. Hunting Among The Stars  

4. Deathstar       

5. Devouring Cell

6. Astral Anxiety

7. Force Guide

8. Strip Tease (Acid Drinkers cover, feat. Uappa Terror)

Band info: facebook

Gorguts - ‘Pleiades’ Dust’ (Album Review)

By: Daniel Jackson

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 13/05/2016
Label: Season of Mist

I think more than anything ‘Pleiades’ Dust’ has shown me the absolute absurdity of the expectations we’ve set for Gorguts. ‘Pleiades’ Dust’ is a great album and what it lacks in song writing hooks, it makes up for with brooding musical atmosphere and crafting an engaging, emotional journey.

‘Pleiades’ Dust’ CD//LP//DD track listing:

1. Pleiades’ Dust

Gorguts is:

Luc Lemay | Guitar, Vocals

Colin Marston | Bass

Kevin Hufnagel | Guitar

Patrice Hamelin | Drums

The Review:

Everyone reading this knows what Gorguts is all about. No one is, or should be reading this review as their introduction to Gorguts. Gorguts completely decimated the standards for what death metal is or could be in 1998, when they released ‘Obscura’. The album was a jangled, contorting audio nightmare. Since then, every release has had to meet a completely unfair standard, and yet they have matched it in spite of this. The world levies heavy expectations upon Gorguts, and they meet or exceed them every single time.

‘Pleiades’ Dust’, is a one song album. I say album, because its thirty three minutes long and it’s pressed on an LP and sold at the cost of a full length album, so I can’t call it an EP, no matter what the reasoning is. The obvious question with a band as beloved and respected as Gorguts is always going to be “how does it stack up to their best material?”, to which the best answer I can give is “reasonably well”. On the whole, this album is going to make “Obscura to present” Gorguts fans very happy, and I too am very happy with the album as a whole.

What I can’t help but shake is the feeling that this album is missing those big, impactful moments. Or maybe that the album’s “big, impactful moments” just don’t resonate or stick to the memory banks as well as they have before. ‘Obscura’ and ‘From Wisdom to Hate’ are loaded with riffs that burrowed their way into your brain and stay there forever. There isn’t really any one moment that sticks in my brain from ‘Pleiades’ Dust’ that has gotten its claws in me the way the opening moments of “Le Toit du Monde” or “An Ocean of Wisdom”. There isn’t really a moment as devastatingly heavy as the back half of “Forgotten Arrows”.

I think more than anything ‘Pleiades’ Dust’ has shown me the absolute absurdity of the expectations we’ve set for Gorguts. I caught myself feeling disappointed in a great album, which is fucking ridiculous on my part. And ‘Pleiades’ Dust’ is a great album. What it lacks in song writing hooks, it makes up for with brooding musical atmosphere and crafting an engaging, emotional journey. I just wish it was easier to point specific moments and say “you don’t want to miss this!” or “this riff at ?:?? is going to be with me ‘til the day I die!”. But I can’t. Still, it’s a beautiful blur while it’s happening.

You can pick up a digital copy here and a CD/LP copy here.

Band info: Facebook

Grey Heaven Fall - ‘Black Wisdom’ (Album Review)

By: Daniel Jackson

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 30/10/2015

Label: Aesthetics of Devastation

 ‘Black Wisdom’ is an album that by all rights should be revered as one of the great black metal albums of this decade. That it might go unrecognized due to a lack of exposure would be an absolute shame. The music is simply too good to deserve that sort of treatment. If it seems as if I’m almost begging for you to listen to the album, I apologize. It’s not something I’d do unless I truly felt strongly about an album’s quality. Speaking purely as a black metal fan now: do not let this thing pass you by.

‘Black Wisdom’ CD//DD track listing:

1. The Lord is Blissful in Grief

2. Spirit of Oppression

3. To The Doomed Sons of Earth

4. Sanctuary of Cut Tongues

5. Tranquility of the Possessed

6. That Nail in a Heart

Grey Heaven Fall is:

Arsagor | Guitar, Vocals

Sunsay | Bass

Pavel | Drums

The Review:

Sometimes, for whatever reason, there’s an album that metal critics simply missed the boat on. In this case, I’m not talking about an album wrongly getting negative reviews, but instead that there was simply not enough coverage of an album. Such is the case with Grey Heaven Fall’s phenomenal ‘Black Wisdom’, which was released to criminally little fanfare back in October of last year. While a handful of blogs ran reviews of the album, the ratio of coverage to album quality is severely out of whack here. There is no doubt in my mind that if I’d known about this album prior to this month, it would have ended up on my best of 2015 list.

Of the few reviews that have been written, Grey Heaven Fall have drawn comparisons to Deathspell Omega, which is musically fair, though I believe there are enough musical differences to stave off any accusations calling this band a clone band. A fair analogy might be to call Grey Heaven Fall the Artificial Brain to Deathspell Omega’s Gorguts, though in certain ways, Grey Heaven Fall is actually the superior band. They might certainly occupy a similar musical space, but each band puts a very different spin on those surface similarities. With that said, Grey Heaven Fall doesn’t really help avoid comparisons by using similar lyrical content, steeped in a familiar brand of theatrical theistic Satanism. In fact, that kindred lyrical approach is probably their only real mistake with the album.

From a purely sonic standpoint, Grey Heaven Fall are less chaotic and more, well, musical. They’re certainly prone to fits of ugly dissonance, but they also use sorrowful melody and a stronger sense of dynamic to give those truly ugly moments greater weight and impact. Using “Spirit of Oppression” as an example, at about three minutes in, the band indulges in a bit of winding prog before dropping speed into a melodic doom section. Then they begin to add guitar layers and the drumming more complex as the song progresses. As they transition back into the black metal, the song retains those melancholy characteristics, even as the pace quickens. There’s an emotional depth here that Deathspell Omega has never really even experimented with.

‘Black Wisdom’ is an album that by all rights should be revered as one of the great black metal albums of this decade. That it might go unrecognized due to a lack of exposure would be an absolute shame. The music is simply too good to deserve that sort of treatment. If it seems as if I’m almost begging for you to listen to the album, I apologize. It’s not something I’d do unless I truly felt strongly about an album’s quality. Speaking purely as a black metal fan now: do not let this thing pass you by. Go to the bandcamp link below and give this album a shot. My hope is that you’ll understand why I’m so passionate about the album.

‘Black Wisdom’ is available here. 

Band info: Facebook

Cryptopsy - ‘The Book of Suffering - Tome 1’ EP (Review)

By: Daniel Jackson (Review One) &

Richard Maw (Review Two)

Album Type: EP

Date Released: 30/10/2015

Label: Independent

Every song sees Cryptopsy firing on all cylinders, including Matt McGachy, who seems to be channeling his inner Mike DiSalvo at certain points through the album, resulting in his best performance to date. With this EP, Cryptopy finds themselves as a band every bit as good as they were at their best. For a band that just recently passed the twenty year anniversary of their debut, that’s no small accomplishment.  Cryptopsy are one of the finest exponents of “extreme” on the face of the planet and dammit, I know real metal when I hear it. This is as real and as extreme as it gets. Hail.

‘The Book of Suffering - Tome 1’ CD//DD track listing:

1. Detritus (The One They Kept)

2. The Knife, The Head and What Remains

3. Halothane Glow

4. Framed by Blood

Cryptopsy is:

Flo Mounier | Drums/Vocals

Chris Donaldson | Guitar

Matt McGachy | Lead Vocals

Olivier Pinard | Bass Guitar

Review One:

It wasn’t all that long ago that people were starting to write Cryptopsy off, after 2008’s ‘The Unspoken King’, an album that a substantial part of the band’s fanbase rejected. It’s hard to argue that the kinds of different ideas implemented on the album, Matt McGachy’s melodic singing in particular, were bound to have that effect. Pairing the abrupt vocal change with some musical choices that were almost certain to put the orthodox part of their audience in a bad mood as well, and sadly you had an album that was something of a disaster.

There are plenty of bands that have bounced back after a bad experience with an album. Cryptopsy themselves came back with a strong follow up with their self-titled album in 2012. While the album certainly made a lot of progress towards righting the ship, as far as death metal purists are concerned, there was still something missing compared to their classic 90s material.

‘Book of Suffering - Tome 1’ sees the band reaching that same kind of peak again. The four songs that make up the EP are their best in seventeen years. In fact, the album most closely resembles their last truly great album, ‘Whisper Supremacy’, of any of their previous work. It has that familiar mix of violent chaos and tasteful, melodic death metal, which made ‘Whisper Supremacy’ a landmark album for death metal in the late 90s. ‘Book of Suffering - Tome 1’ is the work of a band inspired to be as good or better than they’ve ever been, and it shows.

One of the benefits of the EP format is that there’s less chance of a song being a clear weak link in the chain, and ‘Book of Suffering’ is an excellent example of why the format can be a great advantage. Every song sees Cryptopsy firing on all cylinders, including Matt McGachy, who seems to be channeling his inner Mike DiSalvo at certain points through the album, resulting in his best performance to date. With this EP, Cryptopy finds themselves as a band every bit as good as they were at their best. For a band that just recently passed the twenty year anniversary of their debut, that’s no small accomplishment.

Review Two:

Cryptopsy is a well known name in the death metal world and they deliver an EP here which is almost impossibly extreme at times. The band has been around for a long time, you could forgive them for mellowing out, slowing down or even... giving the vaguest nod to commercialism. Instead, there are many changes. There are many blast beats. The sound is punchy, digital and captures every snare beat, every bass pop and every growl and scream. The production really is crystal clear and the mix is stellar. The material is extremely aggressive, with opener “Detritus (The One They Kept)” straying into grind territory in its approach and level of aggression.

“The Knife, The Head and What Remains” is prime time Cryptopsy and is as visceral an example of modern death metal as you could find anywhere. The band play with all the subtlety of a jackhammer, so dynamics are off the table. This is about speed and aggression, plain and simple. “Halothane Glow” is barbarically extreme with some blasting sections being a maelstrom of metallic fury.

It would be fair to say that to most people, Cryptopsy would be unlistenable. The material is so dense and so lacking in hooks or even repetition that most listeners simply would not fathom it. We live in a world where most of the masses cannot conceive of a band more extreme than the material played by Metallica in the 1980s (if they have ever heard real metal at all). The likes of Cryptopsy, Nile or black metal like Marduk would be simply “noise” to most. Doom at least has recognisable patterns, time feels and riffs. Death metal, for me, stands alone as the most extreme form of metal there is. And Cryptopsy are one of the finest exponents of “extreme” on the face of the planet.

This nasty little four track EP finishes with “Framed By Blood”. I honestly have not made out a single lyric over the course of these four tracks but, dammit, I know real metal when I hear it. This is as real and as extreme as it gets. Hail.

 

You can pick up a digital or CD copy here.

FFO: Suffocation, Gorguts, Origin, Wormed

Band info: Facebook | Official

Zillah - 'Serpentine Halo' (Album Review)

By: Daniel Jackson

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 02/10/2015

Label: Sea of Corruption Records

I don’t think I’m going out on a limb by saying that ‘Serpentine Halo’ is easily the band’s most accomplished work to this point. If forced to give an easy reference point, I’d say that this is a blend of ‘Whisper Supremacy’-era Cryptopsy along with very early Mastodon and a dash of Gorguts at their most disjointed and jarring. If that sounds as appealing for you as it does me, you should be in good hands with this album.

‘Serpentine Halo’ CD//DD track listing:

1. Therefore I Am

2. Something Done Cannot be Undone

3. Made Flesh And Bone

4. Karras

5. Not All Of Me Shall Die

6. Man Son Of Swine

7. One Thousand Stones Thrown

8. He Who Knows All

Zillah is:

Roddy Anderson | Guitar, Vocals

Rob Coverdale | Guitars, Bass

Matt Holland | Drums

The Review:

Being that I’m a newcomer to Zillah, and having only briefly acquainted myself with their previous work to get a sense of what led to this album, I don’t think I’m going out on a limb by saying that ‘Serpentine Halo’ is easily the band’s most accomplished work to this point. If forced to give an easy reference point, I’d say that this is a blend of ‘Whisper Supremacy’-era Cryptopsy along with very early Mastodon and a dash of Gorguts at their most disjointed and jarring. If that sounds as appealing for you as it does me, you should be in good hands with this album. Where Zillah’s previous album, ‘Substitute for a Catastrophe’ seemed content to revel more in chaos than order, ‘Serpentine Halo’ sees the band reign some of those noisier, free-form tendencies in a tad and replace it with focus and a more skilful ear for building to big moments.

As with most albums, how you’ll feel about this album as a listener is going to depend largely on how you feel about the various elements that make up its sound. To break things down in a bit more detail, you have the more or less Mastodon-ish tendencies of some of the less heavy sections of the album. The first thirty second of “Something Done Cannot Be Undone” is a solid example of that tendency, inclining more towards the crawling, dissonant, plucked chords of pre- ‘Remission’ Mastodon than anything more recent. Drummer Matt Holland opts for a less flashy beat underneath the guitars, which might actually be a better fit for this style as Brann Dailor has had a tendency to overwhelm these kinds of sections with relentless drum fills. Once the build-up of that first half-minute hits a crescendo, Zillah plays things off with a disjointed and glitchy climax. The guitars alternately rumble and screech, and the drums thunder and rattle like two fighters in a gym hitting a heavy bag and a speed bag in sync with each other.

That same theme is used to equally powerful effect in songs like “Karras” and “Not All of Me Shall Die”, though “Karras” also pairs that dissonant guitar plucking by using deep, droning rhythm guitar to give that riff more weight in each song. They both also make use of vicious, cyclical tech death riffing, which is another Zillah specialty. “Karras” also feels like the song where Roddy Anderson’s vocals are best served. His throaty, borderline hardcore vocal delivery is reminiscent of former Cryptopsy vocalist Mike DiSalvo, and he excels most when his vocals are laid atop sections that are a bit more straightforward rhythmically.

While I’ve pointed to a number of other bands in this review for reference, it should be stated that Zillah turns the mixture of those elements into something unique enough to thoroughly avoid accusations of clonism or failing to find their own footing. They take elements that sound over-worn to hear them and find new ways to implement them. This is a strong showing to be sure, and while the descriptor of sludge-loving tech death would normally throw up red flags for me as a rule, it’s an accurate description for a band that succeeds for me in spite of that.

You can pick up a CD & Digital copy here.

FFO: Crytopsy, Mastodon, Gorguts

Band info: Facebook | bandcamp | Twitter

Adversarial - ‘Death, Endless Nothing and the Black Knife of Nihilism’ (Album Review)

By: Daniel Jackson

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 21/08/2015

Label: Dark Descent Records

Anyone with an affinity for death and/or black metal that looks to both unsettle and get your adrenaline going should give this album a shot. It’s atmospheric without relying on increasingly clichéd post metal influences, but it’s got more than enough grime and grit to go around.

‘Death, Endless Nothing and the Black Knife of Nihilism’ CD//LP//DD track listing:

1. Dissenting the Waking Shell

2. Intro

3. Immersion Void Paragon

4. Eonik Spiritual Warfare

5. Interlude

6. Cursed Blades Cast Upon the Slavescum of Christ

7. Old Ruins Slumber in a Crushing Hatred of Man

8. Lone Wresting Hymns to the Warmoon of Chaos

9. Death, Endless Nothing and the Black Knife of Nihilism                   

Adversarial is:

CS | Vocals, Guitar

EK | Drums

MM | Bass

The Review:

Adversarial specialize in a sort of warping, dissonant guitar maelstrom that’s becoming more and more common in death and black metal as the years go on. Some day, maybe even soon, the ugly, mood-altering darkness that made Gorguts, Immolation, Akercocke and Deathspell Omega stand out in days gone by may very well become the new normal. Styles tend to lose their lustre for a while before the cycle comes back around and what was old becomes new again. While the tide of cavernous Incantation lovers seems to have ebbed slightly during 2015, the cacophony of those aforementioned death and black metal bands seems to be more prevalent in the albums coming out this year.

With great albums already released by Imperial Triumphant and Shrine of Insanabilis featuring a similar brand of disjointed, caustic blackened death metal, Adversarial and ‘Death, Endless Nothing and the Black Knife of Nihilism’ had an exceptionally high bar to meet. While this album does come up short of those benchmarks, it’s still more than worth your time as a strong album in its own right. It’s not as unabashedly weird as Imperial Triumphant, and there’s a stronger death metal inclination than with Shrine of Insanabilis, so perhaps a more fair point of reference is ‘Gesundrian’, last year’s unholy colossus of an album from Diocletian. I’d still have it a notch below albums that are likely to appear on my year-end list, but that likely has more to do with me than Adversarial.

What keeps me from keeping this Adversarial album in the same league with any of the albums I’ve mentioned is my own well-documented distaste for American style blasting, where the kick and snare are struck simultaneously. In my case, the use of that blasting style has a tendency to soften or even undo some of the tension the bleak, unnerving guitars create. I more than realize that won’t be the case for most listeners, so be prepared to enjoy this album a bit more than I do as it is. Drummer E.K. seems to prefer the American blast in especially high tempos before alternating to the more favorable European blasting during “more reasonable” tempos, and the drum sound being as well-suited to the material as it is keeps the technique from truly souring me on the album like it has with others.

While a couple of my own personal preferences are going to stop me short of shouting praise for ‘Death, Endless Nothing and the Black Knife of Nihilism’ from a mountain top, there’s no denying that there is some potent, powerful work going on here. Anyone with an affinity for death and/or black metal that looks to both unsettle and get your adrenaline going should give this album a shot. It’s atmospheric without relying on increasingly clichéd post metal influences, but it’s got more than enough grime and grit to go around.

You can pick up a digital copy here, a CD copy here and an LP copy here.

FFO: Antediluvian, Mitochondrion, Imperial Triumphant, Shrine of Insanabilis

Band info: Facebook

The Sludgelord News: GORGUTS announce release of 'Obscura' and 'From Wisdom To Hate' reissues in April

Century Media Records are proud to announce the re-issue of two groundbreaking technical death metal albums by long-running Canadian legend GORGUTS on April 6, 2015 in Europe and April 7, 2015 in North America. Founding member Luc Lemay (vocals/guitar) comments:

“Hi everybody!
It’s with excitement that I write these lines to you today, because I’m proud to announce that our 1998 record “Obscura” and 2001’s “From Wisdom To Hate” will finally be re-released! We did a lot of touring for our latest record, “Colored Sands”, and everyday someone would ask me when “Obscura” would be out again. Well, here we are!!!!
For this re-issue, I decided to include liner notes that tell the story behind each record. How we got together as musicians, what was the composition process that made this sound possible and that made us grow as artists.
You’ll also notice that both re-releases bear the new logo. Well, I decided to change the logo because, with a step back, I realized that I never really like the original one on “Obscura” and I wanted to give the record a fresh look. I kept the same logo for “From Wisdom To Hate”, because it was created for this record.
Thanks again to all our fans for their unconditional support through all those years…
Krank the volume to 11………INTRA LIMPIDUS OBSCURA!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

The following editions will be made available and will be up for preordering from March 9^th, 2015 on!

GORGUTS “Obscura (Re-Issue 2015)”
-       Gatefold black 2LP
-       Gatefold mint 2LP – limited to 200 copies (only available via CMDistro.com / European & US webshop)
-       Gatefold lilac 2LP – limited to 200 copies (only available via CMDistro.com / US webshop only)
-       Gatefold transparent blue 2LP – limited to 100 copies (exclusive to GORGUTS’ current label Season Of Mist)
-       Standard Jewelcase CD

GORGUTS “From Wisdom To Hate (Re-Issue 2015):
-       Black LP+CD
-       Silver LP+CD – limited to 200 copies (only available via CMDistro.com / European & US webshop)
-       Transparent red LP+CD – limited to 200 copies (only available via CMDistro.com / US webshop only)
-       Clear vinyl LP+CD – limited to 100 copies (exclusive to GORGUTS’ current label Season Of Mist)

These 2015 editions were created in close cooperation with Luc Lemay, who reveals the entire history of these ambitious masterpieces in the accompanying liner notes and both are dedicated to the memory of former members Steeve Hurdle (R.I.P. 2012) and Steve MacDonald (R.I.P. 2002).

Enjoy two classic, storied albums transcending the stylistic boundaries of death metal towards ingenious yet extreme art!

GORGUTS online:
http://www.gorguts.com
http://facebook.com/GorgutsOfficial

Century Media Records online:
http://www.centurymedia.com
http://www.myspace.com/centurymediaeurope
http://www.youtube.com/centurymedia
www.twitter.com/centurymediaeu
www.facebook.com/centurymedia
http://gplus.to/centurymedia
Century Media webshop:
www.cmdistro.com

Source: The Noise Cartel