REVIEW: Malakhim - "Demo I"

By: Ernesto Aguilar

Album Type: EP

Date Released: 01/12/ 2017

Label: Iron Bonehead Productions

Rather than retread classic sounds or noisy metal that is in vogue, Malakhim offer a debut that harkens to the best of what you love while introducing you to what it sure to be a new favorite.

“Demo I” CD//DD//LP track listing

1. A Thousand Burning Worlds

2. The Mass of Flesh

3. The Golden Shrines

The Review:

Swedish black metal act Malakhim makes its presence felt with a debut that offers promise in a year filled with rejuvenated black metal performances. "Demo I," a debut EP filled with harsh tones, singing vocals and murky themes, manages to shake off initial iffiness to leave you wanting far more.

There is weird logic in some sectors of extreme music that suggests it is better to simply let the music do your talking and to keep as much of the backstory of the artists behind the scenes. 2017 has been dotted with those acts – bands known by alphanumeric characters, masks or nothing at all. The times it works, it is hard to quibble with success. While this lack of information can be interesting or even mysterious, however, this self-indulgence misses a fundamental part of why people bring musicians, actors or other entertainers into their lives at all: people want connection, stories, mythology and something with which they can identify. It also creates such distinctiveness to music when people understand the artist's process and the context in which the sounds were forged. The world is filled with dozens of legendary acts whose personal trials, circumstances or beliefs formed what they created.

Picking up Malakhim's debut demo, which is shrouded in the mystery that has been a thing this year, you may at once be fascinated by what is a strong first outing. Where it begins to sound like a lot of other black metal or grindcore, you almost crave more detail to appreciate this particular effort past a name that bears little identity.

There are a few bits we know, such as players having been with Swedish black metal bands Wormlight and Ancient Wisdom (not to be mistaken with Austin act Ancient VVisdom). We also know the quintet was formed in 2016. And listening to its debut record, you get a number of influences, including noise, in its black metal sound.

The first recording begins with "A Thousand Burning Worlds," a track that highlights the gifts of the five-piece. Its abrasive rhythms and classic elements make this opener familiar enough to draw you in, but yet unique enough to make you appreciate the density for all it is. A return in metal to more corrosive energy saw a renaissance in 2017, with established and emerging acts like Primitive Man, Septicflesh, Full of Hell and Ledge among those to deliver volume and blasts of guitar far beyond the expected. Malakhim honors that movement from its start and into the song "A Mass of Flesh," where guitars hammer you repeatedly and the distorted vocals careen over the mountainous drums and bass. The double-ax assault continues into the final cut, "The Golden Shrines." Without revealing much, it is said that Malakhim is a seasoned group, and that experience comes across clearly in both songwriting and maturity in approach. Rather than retread classic sounds or noisy metal that is in vogue, Malakhim offer a debut that harkens to the best of what you love while introducing you to what it sure to be a new favorite.

At just three songs and a shade over 15 minutes, Malakhim's first offering is powerful. What's more, "Demo I" is a spectacular preview to what may assuredly be a legendary 2018 for the new crew.

"Demo I” is available here

Band info: bandcamp || facebook

Ifrinn - "Ifrinn" (Album Review)

By: Daniel Jackson

Album Type: Mini-LP

Date Released: 25/03/2016

Label: Iron Bonehead Productions

I’ve spent a lot of my life listening to 90s black metal, and those bands seeking to duplicate that sound in the present. There are bands that that can do it well, even if they’re outright re-using another band's ideas. That’s not Ifrinn. This isn’t a clone band. They’re a band entrenched in the past creating music that would be revered alongside the classics of that era, were it released at the same time. Instead, “Ifrinn” is one of the great black metal albums of 2016, despite looking backward rather than forward.

“Ifrinn” MLP//DD track listing:

1. Descent Into Shining Labyrinths

2. Oracular Phantasms

3. Dweller Within the Gulf

4. Sulphurous Oscillations

5. These Darkened Shrines

The Review:

As with just about any subgenre in metal, there are a ton of bands doing what’s already been done. How you feel about that is up to you, but if you’re looking for something that sounds like Iron Maiden or Judas Priest, there are plenty of bands doing an admirable job of taking that sound and making it their own. The same can definitely be said for black metal, though not really any more than any other genre. For every forward-thinking band, there are multiple others trying to recapture old magic to varying degrees of success. When a band genuinely succeeds at sounding like they’ve been dug out of some closet and given first exposure to the world decades later, there’s a magic to that too. Such is the case with Scotland’s Ifrinn.

It’s as if they recorded the album in 1991, locked it in a time capsule and someone found it twenty five years down the road. It’s important to note a distinction being made, though. It sounds like it came straight out of 1991, but it doesn’t directly pilfer riffs or influence from the bands making their mark in that era. “Ifrinn” conjures that old atmosphere while creating a thunderous roar you can’t find anywhere else. They don’t sound like Mayhem. They don’t sound like Darkthrone. Instead, they’re like a denser, more complex contemporary of those bands, except that we’re just hearing the album in 2016.

Ifrinn is mature and developed in a way that those early second wave black metal bands had no chance of being, as those bands were primal trailblazers taking music in places it hadn’t been before. So while Ifrinn has the benefit of taking in decades of fantastic music in this style from a multitude of great bands, they avoid the trap of trying to replicate any specific band’s sound. It’s really difficult to pinpoint who they’re blending together, if they’re even doing that at all.

Looking at “Oracular Phantasms” as a microcosm for the rest of the album; the song opens with a droning two-chord riff atop a blast beat. The aura is immense. The recording is drenched in reverb, though not enough to make this a black metal cousin to caverncore. The sound is lively, in that the drums aren’t over compressed and the performances are human, though never really sloppy. The riff, while seeming sort of plain, effectively builds a whirling tension while slight variations and drumming changes keep it from feeling monotonous. When the song finally makes that giant shift into its second act (so to speak) at about 2:40 it feels like some great explosion. It’s all crashing down beats driving deeper the notes a riff that borders on doom/death. It’s the sort of songwriting payoff that exists in other forms throughout “Ifrinn’s” thirty minutes. A true indicator of the quality that permeates the rest of the album.

I’ve spent a lot of my life listening to 90s black metal, and those bands seeking to duplicate that sound in the present. There are bands that that can do it well, even if they’re outright re-using another band's ideas. That’s not Ifrinn. This isn’t a clone band. They’re a band entrenched in the past creating music that would be revered alongside the classics of that era, were it released at the same time. Instead, “Ifrinn” is one of the great black metal albums of 2016, despite looking backward rather than forward.

“Ifrinn” is here and will find an LP copy here. 

Band info: Facebook

Sacrocurse - ‘Destroying Chapels’ EP (Review)

By: Daniel Jackson

Album Type: EP

Date Released: 15/01/2016

Label: Iron Bonehead Productions

The formula Sacrocurse use is well-worn and time-tested, which is also to say familiar and less than innovative, but they also manage to produce a personality within their songs that sets them apart from hundreds of other bands working in a similar sound; this band is absolutely fucking lethal and when I look at my favorite EPs for 2016, I can virtually guarantee you that ‘Destroying Chapels’ will be on that list.

‘Destroying Chapels’ LP//DD track listing:

1. Total Devastation

2. Sacrocurse Temple

3. Destroying Chapels

4. Total Destruction (Bathory Cover)

Sacrocurse is:

ZK | Guitar, Vocals

SW | Bass

LZ | Drums

The Review:

Truth be told, Sacrocurse’s 2014 debut album ‘Unholier Masters’ slipped under my radar, something I now regret immensely, because this band is absolutely fucking lethal. ‘Destroying Chapels’ is everything I want out of an orthodox death metal album. It sounds devastating, there’s a fair amount of atmosphere, and riffs you think about long after you’ve last heard them. The formula Sacrocurse use is well-worn and time-tested, which is also to say familiar and less than innovative, but they also manage to produce a personality within their songs that sets them apart from hundreds of other bands working in a similar sound.

‘Destroying Chapels’ is criminally short, falling shy of the fifteen minute mark, but its brief duration is absolutely brimming with top notch bestial death metal. When I say it’s familiar, anybody who is well-acquainted with Canadian legends Blasphemy and similar bands should have a decent idea of what to expect here, though they’re by no means a clone band. Sacrocurse mix things up quite a bit more, at least in terms of the mood the music conveys, with the title track being the best example. The title track, at under three minutes, covers a lot of ground, with the opening thirty seconds being focused on building ominous atmosphere over driving drums, before exploding into blasting and chaos, before returning back to the previous, more controlled tempo.

The only real issue I have with ‘Destroying Chapels’ is that the recording quality for their cover of “Total Destruction” from Bathory’s all-time classic “The Return” is somewhat weaker than the rest of the EP, losing some of the heft from the production on the original songs. Still, looking at the cover as an isolated song, the band does a really nice job of taking the song and finding a way to make it work within their established sound, even if the thinner sound of it is the first thing you’re likely to pick up on.

Even accounting for the inconsistency in production from the first three songs and the Bathory cover, Sacrocurse have left a lasting impact with ‘Destroying Chapels’. If you have an interest in this style at all, I’d consider this release an absolute necessity when it comes out in January. The performances are too strong and the songwriting is so dead on, that it simply will not be denied. When I look at my favorite EPs for 2016, I can virtually guarantee you that ‘Destroying Chapels’ will be on that list.

‘Destroying Chapels’ is available digitally here and on LP here in January.

Band info: Facebook