Beyond Grace - Seekers

By Professor D. Grover the XIIIth. Greetings and salutations, friends. Once more, I return from the void that is adult life and parenthood to discuss a particularly appealing and intriguing musical work. Today, we examine Seekers

By Professor D. Grover the XIIIth.

Artwork by Michael Cowell

Greetings and salutations, friends. Once more, I return from the void that is adult life and parenthood to discuss a particularly appealing and intriguing musical work. Today, we examine Seekers, the relatively recent release from Nottingham's own Beyond Grace. I say relatively because Seekers has been out for several months, but I've been otherwise preoccupied and so it has taken me much longer than I'd prefer to work up a proper review.

Beyond Grace are something of a modern-style technical death metal band, although the label itself is unduly restrictive. Technical death metal may be a large part of the foundation of the band's sound, but it's heavily dosed with melodic, progressive, and blackened aspects of death metal. Now, I know what you are likely thinking: there are a lot of bands out there that meld these styles together, and so it gets harder and harder for a band to stand out, so why should you give Beyond Grace your precious listening time? And you are correct, the modern technical/melodic/progressive/blackened death metal scene has become incredibly saturated in the past several years. It's not enough for a band to possess a great deal of technical skill, because there are a hundred other bands full of chaps filling their songs with fleet-fingered arpeggios and mind-melting scales. It's not enough to have a drummer who can change tempos on a dime. It's not enough to have a bassist who can simultaneously underscore the riffs and provide an adventurous counter-melody.

And that brings me to Beyond Grace's true strength, which is their songwriting. They clearly have the elements I just mentioned, like many bands, but those talents are often wasted on disjointed, uninteresting songs that exist more as a collection of technically impressive but ultimately monotonous musicality. Beyond Grace, on the other hand, understand and value the importance of restrained and cohesive songwriting, and that's the true heart of Seekers. There are moments of absolute ferocity, instances of brilliant technicality, but there is always a sense of control, which lets the band take on mid-tempo material effectively, something a lot of technical death metal bands struggle with.

It helps that the album sounds immaculate. Sometimes this can lead to a feeling of sterility, of inhuman mechanality (I'm not sure if that's actually a word, but it is now), but there's a sense of power in Seekers' production that keeps the listener grounded. Vocalist Andy Walmsley alternates deep guttural roars with higher-pitched screams with ease, yet his vocals remain intelligible enough that the lyrics can be understood. Guitarist Tim Yearsley shows a knack for laying down bruising riffs and intoxicating melodies, while bassist Andrew Workman intertwines his own melodies, granting the songs additional depth. The backbone of it all is drummer Ed Gorrod, whose nimble style sees him switching tempos seamlessly while adding texture to the songs with his fills and footwork.

The lyrics are one of the highlights of the album, thanks to the writing of Walmsley. You may know him as Andy Synn, a longtime writer for No Clean Singing, and his work as a writer serve him well, granting his words an intelligence that elevates Seekers even further above many of their contemporaries. One of my personal favorite details is that the track "Apoptosis" is heavily influenced by Jeff VanderMeer's brilliant novel Annihilation, the first book in the deeply unsettling Southern Reach trilogy. Moreover, Walmsley reached out to VanderMeer and got his permission to use some excerpts from the book in the lyrics. It's a wonderful touch on an already excellent song.

In some ways, Seekers is linked in my mind with Blood of the Prophets' album The Stars of the Sky Hid from Me (reviewed by yours truly here). Both bands are stellar examples of how the ability to write coherent, intriguing songs can help a band stand out among similar sounding bands. Seekers is a labor of love from a hard-working band, and the attention to detail paid to these songs is what makes them truly shine. I simply cannot recommend this album highly enough. Beyond Grace have established themselves as a band to be reckoned with.

Podcast of Death: Ingurgitating Oblivion Interview

By Bryan Camphire. Welcome to the Podcast of Death, the first (but hopefully not last) podcast on Metal Bandcamp. In our inaugural episode Bryan interviews Florian Engelke from Ingurgitating Oblivion, a death metal band from Germany.

By Bryan Camphire.


Welcome to the Podcast of Death, the first (but hopefully not last) podcast on Metal Bandcamp. In our inaugural episode Bryan interviews Florian Engelke from Ingurgitating Oblivion, a death metal band from Germany. Their latest album, Vision Wallows in Symphonies of Light, is unlike any other record you'll hear this year, and it is excellent. Florian, the mastermind behind Ingurgitating Oblivion, was kind enough to speak to our intrepid reporter via Skype to answer some questions about his unique vision of music.

Visions... is a collection of four long-form tunes that are packed with dynamics. The heavy sections are chock full of unorthodox guitar harmony and blistering convulsive rhythms. The guitar uses a lot of sustain - letting notes ring out for several beats, which is a technique more common to doom rather than death metal. Interestingly, the rhythm section keeps churning and pummelling throughout, giving the music an almost seasick off kilter feeling like an uproarious crashing sea amidst a horrible storm.

The above quote is from Bryan's review of Vision Wallows in Symphonies of Light. You can read the rest, and listen to the album, right here.

Yellow Eyes - Immersion Trench Reverie

By Justin C. I've always had an interesting listener-band relationship with Yellow Eyes. I jumped on board with their 2013 full-length, Hammer of Night, but not without some resistance. It's entirely possible I'm developing synesthesia

By Justin C.


I've always had an interesting listener-band relationship with Yellow Eyes. I jumped on board with their 2013 full-length, Hammer of Night, but not without some resistance. It's entirely possible I'm developing synesthesia, but Yellow Eyes' sound is abrasive in an almost physically tactile way. Describing metal music often involves figurative physical descriptions of head-snapping and gut-punching, but Yellow Eyes sometimes seems like they're trying to scrape the outer layer of my epidermis off. I resist it at first, sometimes finding it a bit too hard to listen to, but then I end up listening to each new album 17 times in a row.

And that remains true on their new album, Immersion Trench Reverie. I really loved Sick with Bloom, which our own Mr. Sunyata described thusly: "Whorls and eddies of dense melodic alchemy evoke the nofucksgiving of Weakling, while skirting the esoteric inhumanity of Krallice." That certainly applies to Immersion, and I'd have a hard time topping that description, but I'll see what I can do.

Immersion Trench Reverie lacks some of the immediacy that I felt with Sick with Bloom, but that's not a knock on either album. Immersion is dense, dissonant, and difficult, but every time I thought I might take a break from it, I felt pulled back. I started to crave that low-fi-but-not-really esthetic, scratching an itch somewhere in my brain. I needed to hear the contrapuntal riffs that open up "Shrillness in the Heated Grass," punctuated by Will Skarstad's pained shrieks. Or the quiet acoustic instruments that open "Blue as Blue," only to give way to layers of distorted guitar I'd call "lush" if they didn't retain so much of their harsh edge.

The visual imagery invoked by the song titles and lyrics are another fascinating facet of the music. The album title brings to mind the trench warfare of World War I (when the term "trench foot" came into use to describe the horrible damage done to the feet of soldiers constantly standing in cold water), while "Velvet on the Horns" of course brings to mind deer shedding the fuzzy outer coating of their horns--often by scraping them against trees--in preparation for rutting season and stag battle. "Velvet" was the only song I had lyrics to at the time of this writing, and the lyrics manage to be evocative and oblique at the same time. The song opens with the stanza

Overnight
Or was it not
Green ragged cloth had fallen
On the path
The way I took had velvet on the horn

Certainly sounds woodsy, but the later lyrics go in almost a suburban direction:

Imagine that a propane tank
When squarely struck
Becomes a bell
Yet huddles by the driveway in the cold

Why do I suddenly have melancholy feelings for an anthropomorphized propane tank? What is this black metal witchery?

Kim Kelly summed up Sick with Bloom in her 2015 year-end list as simply "The future of American black metal." I agree wholeheartedly, and that makes Immersion the beguiling next step into that promising future.

Bell Witch - Mirror Reaper

By Justin C. If you peruse the metal interwebs, you probably already know the headlines about the new Bell Witch album, Mirror Reaper. It's one song, and it's nearly an hour and a half long. This sprawling piece is, for the most part

By Justin C.

Artwork by Mariusz Lewandowsk.

If you peruse the metal interwebs, you probably already know the headlines about the new Bell Witch album, Mirror Reaper. It's one song, and it's nearly an hour and a half long. This sprawling piece is, for the most part, composed and played by just two members on drums, bass, and occasional organ. In lesser hands, this could devolve into a droning, aimless mess, but Mirror Reaper is as far from that as it could be. It's an enveloping experience that you have to surrender yourself to.

Trying to give you some minute-by-minute breakdown wouldn't give you a great idea of the whole, and it would probably bore you to tears, but there are a couple of things worth nothing. Some vocals are recordings done by former member Adrian Guerra, who passed away during the writing of this album. This is funeral doom, so it's going to lean toward the sad side, but knowing that going into the album, it's hard not to hear that current of loss. I'd also be remiss if I didn't mention what happens at about the 53-minute mark. Guest vocalist Erik Moggridge adds pure, aching clean vocals that run throughout the rest of the song. They're understated, almost to the point where you feel like you're eavesdropping on someone singing to themselves in another room, but they're as powerful as any scream.

Bell Witch 2015. Photos © John Mourlas. All rights reserved.

And of course you do get harsh vocals, along with the bass guitar doing double duty as the carrier of the melody and thundering bottom ends. Quiet sections that are almost barely there alternate with mountain-crumbling heaviness. It's an amazing amount of sound and passion to be made by just two people with (primarily) only two instruments. If you were a fan of Four Phantoms, as I was, then you have a general idea of what kind of sounds to expect. What you won’t expect is just how massive this album is, well beyond what the runtime might suggest.

I've seen arguments that Mirror Reaper is just several songs smushed together, but I beg to differ. My primary listenings to this album were in the car during long drives, which was the only way I could immerse myself in this with minimal distraction (save for the occasional motorist trying to kill me, but I live in Massachusetts, after all). It's possible I'm willing to buy this as a single composition because that's what the band told me it is, but I honestly don't think that's it. It feels like it's all of a piece. I'd liken the experience to floating in a sometimes-calm, sometimes-tempestuous body of water, absorbing waves of emotion--loss, defiance, and the swelling joy of hearing music so well done.

Yes, you're going to have to sit with this and listen to it, and at its running length, it's a big ask for music listeners who have a million distractions and other streams to click on. You can't listen to 0:00 to 13:47, then come back to it a few hours later and listen up to 28:57. You're depriving yourself of a large amount of its power by breaking it up. You miss the arc, the repeating melodic motifs, and the sheer expanse of the thing. I'm asking a lot, but I urge you to give it that time and allow yourself to be as moved as I was by this masterpiece.

Antiversum - Cosmos Comedenti

By Bryan Camphire. The time has come for Antiversum to rear their ugly head once again on Invictus Productions. They're here to deliver their debut long player, Cosmos Comedenti (Cosmos Eater in Latin). The title is full of portent

By Bryan Camphire.


The time has come for Antiversum to rear their ugly head once again on Invictus Productions. They're here to deliver their debut long player, Cosmos Comedenti (Cosmos Eater in Latin). The title is full of portent: we've got some nihilistic music on our hands. Glistening obsidian adorns the cover, confirming any and all suspicions: this is oppressively heavy material of elemental depredation.

Antiversum adopts a sound that is well-defined and make it their own. You'd be forgiven for comparing them to Portal; the influence is palpable. However, Antiversum is no mere simulacrum of the gods. The band stands tall because they write great songs. Would Portal exist if not for Morbid Angel? Asking such questions is only useful in illuminating how pathways have been paved for new ideas over time. When all is said and done, solid songwriting is what's tantamount to transcending one's influences. Cosmos Comedenti is an expertly crafted work that continuously beckons the listener back for more.

The first minute of the record sounds like gathering gloom on a hopeless night. This is before Antiversum have even struck a note. "Antinova" is the name of the tune in question. It's a made up word, perhaps referring to some kind of cosmic increase of darkness. How fitting for a record about eating the universe.

Antiversum comes ripping through space like a nemesis to heavenly bodies all and sundry. A churning rhythm locks into place, throwing all equilibrium out of orbit. Ghostly whispers enshroud the atmosphere in a thick putrid all-encompassing fog. Stars blink out. Fear sets in. Unwholesome melodies smear the senses. "Antinova" winds down and things get stranger still. Guitars scratch through the black, opening up the landscape like a wound. This gaping maw murmurs forth a remembrance: This is not a dream.

Cosmos Cemedenti clocks at thirty eight minutes with four tracks. It's a succinct offering, one that sticks with you long after the music stops. Invictus Productions have put out some of the darkest metal to be heard this year. The first proper full length by Antiversum is a formidable addition to the roster of this fiendish imprint.

Altarage - Endinghent

By Bryan Camphire. The more I listen to this record the more I want to turn it up. Bilbao's Altarage have delivered another scorcher of a release, and repeated listens can feel like witnessing the spreading of wildfire.

By Bryan Camphire.


The more I listen to this record the more I want to turn it up. Bilbao's Altarage have delivered another scorcher of a release, and repeated listens can feel like witnessing the spreading of wildfire. The band has upped the ante for themselves on Endinghent, their second proper full length in as many years. The record plays on the strengths that made their debut Nihl so remarkable, and makes everything meaner. This is caustic death metal played on a colossal scale.

Opener "Incessant Magma" gets right to it. Searing guitars are tremolo picked as the rhythm section pounds out a violent undulating dirge. It erupts white hot and blots out everything in its wake. Endinghent is a record that makes you want to throw up your fists while it pulls you under, deep into its pyroclastic flow. Still, for all of the band's vivid roiling might, it's the excellent song writing that keeps the listener coming back. The tunes each possess a distinct individuality, and there is not a dull cut in the batch.

Photos by Pedro Roque.

What makes Endinghent a meaningful record is its ability to deliver hopeless blackened death metal in a fresh way. Altarage add a secret ingredient to their ominous sound—something which has made metal so engaging since its inception, something that has a tendency to get subjugated in the name of innovation. Simply put, they play riffs that make you want to headbang.

All of the instruments possess this propulsive quality. And yet the playing is never formulaic, always nuanced. The rhythm section changes things up often enough to keep things from getting predictable, yet still manages to grind out rhythms that make you want to break stuff. The guitars come across like parasitic cordyceps worming their way into your brain and dominating your thoughts and feelings. Unique unexpected chord choices open the music up at intervals. The sinking spiraling entropy never lets up.

Endinghent triumphs as a work of meticulously calculated order that gives way to an outpouring of raw, cataclysmic fury. It infiltrates and takes control. All the while, this music breeds virulent destruction like a nemesis bent on stopping overpopulation. Listen to Endinghent and bang your head as the world burns.

Spirit Adrift - Curse of Conception

By Calen Henry. There's a bit of a doom renaissance going on. Bands like Crypt Sermon are carrying the traditional doom torch alongside the likes of Monolord and Elder; deep down the rabbit holes of their own sound.

By Calen Henry.


There's a bit of a doom renaissance going on. Bands like Crypt Sermon are carrying the traditional doom torch alongside the likes of Monolord and Elder; deep down the rabbit holes of their own sound. Meanwhile Khemmis, Pallbearer, and Dvne are pushing the boundaries of the genre by incorporating myriad other influences. Nate Garrett's solo doom outfit Spirit Adrift burst onto that crowded scene last year with the impressive and impressively traditional Chained to Oblivion. A year later, backed by a full band, he follows it with Curse of Conception.

By sticking close to traditional doom Spirit Adrift show what's possible within its confines. The songwriting and playing are incredibly varied but extremely cohesive. In almost complete antithesis to bands like Monolord, Curse of Conception is a barrage of riffs, acoustic interludes, and dual guitar leads. Never really leaving the confines of doom, Spirit Adrift nonetheless push them. The varied tempos and searing solos edge into traditional metal territory but it always comes back to the doom.

It's stand-out riff after stand-out riff; from the legato stomp of "Curse of Conception" through its major key change outro (also beautifully employed on "Spectral Savior"), into the very Pallbearer'y (and very excellent) intro to "To Fly on Broken Wings" and through the mandolin/synth intro on "Wakien". Then, saving the heaviest for last, the absolutely obliterating "Onward, Inward".

The riff madness is all anchored by Garrett's soulful vocals. I initially found the vocals to be the album's weak point; Garrett isn’t the most technical singer but ultimately his vocals really complete the band's sound. They are mostly clean with just a bit of "grungey" grit and are delivered with absolute conviction. Like with many great bands, anything he may lack in technical skill is more than made up for in the commitment with which he sings. He sells every note.

Fans of Khemmis and Pallbearer absolutely cannot miss Curse of Conception. Softer than Hunted, more traditional than Heartless and as crushing as it is gorgeous, it elevates Spirit Adrift to new heights making the doom darling duo a triumvirate. A traditional doom record this good in 2017, with such strong competition, is a jaw dropping achievement. Unless you hate melody do not miss this record.