Clamfight - I Versus the Glacier

Written by Natalie Zina Walschots. Originally published here by Exclaim.

Artwork by Josh Wright

Hailing from the depths of Westmont, NJ, Clamfight have created a weighty, shambling monstrosity with sophomore album I Versus The Glacier. The riffs are torrential in intensity, vicious as a hailstorm, while the martial drumming keeps the pace relentless. For all their thrash-like aggression and mercilessness, the structure of Clamfight's songs draw much more from the sludge and doom genres. The tone is fat and gelid, scouring the listener, while the emotional timbre of the album vacillates between lung-raw anger and the bleakness of an Arctic sunrise.

Photos by Kevin Riley.

"Age of Reptiles" is a particularly doom-laden, guttural track, exemplifying their sound most clearly. However, it's the stirring, sweat-reeking "The Green Gods of Yag" that's surprisingly the album's standout track, with its compelling rhythm and cinematic density. I Versus The Glacier is the perfect soundtrack to a wrestling match held by frost giants.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

Falls of Rauros / Panopticon - Brotherhood

By Justin C. When I got back into metal a few years ago, it took me a while to sort through all the subgenres to find out what I liked. (And given that there are 378 known subgenres with "-core" attached to them alone, it took a while.) As a result, I came to a lot of subgenres backwards. I don't have a story of my transformative introduction to black metal

By Justin C.


When I got back into metal a few years ago, it took me a while to sort through all the subgenres to find out what I liked. (And given that there are 378 known subgenres with "-core" attached to them alone, it took a while.) As a result, I came to a lot of subgenres backwards. I don't have a story of my transformative introduction to black metal by listening to A Blaze in the Northern Sky or De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas. For me, Falls of Rauros was one of my entry points. The Light That Dwells in Rotten Wood is still one of my all-time favorite albums, and I’ve been chomping at the bit for more ever since. I discovered Panopticon a bit later on, but Kentucky is simply brilliant, so I actually pre-ordered this split on vinyl, even though I don't own a record player. I wanted that download card in my hot little hands as soon as I could get it, even if that meant getting a big black circle that I didn't need, but now both bands have put their halves of the split up on their respective Bandcamp pages.

Falls of Rauros' two songs have more of that blend of modern folk and black metal that resonated so deeply with me when I first encountered them. Their acoustic guitar work remains heartfelt and integral to their sound, although their first track, "Unavailing," sees the band mixing in some tasty, classic rock-esque guitar harmonies and bluesy, bent-note riffs. But as good as "Unavailing" is, "The Purity of Isolation" is a true showstopper. My favorite part comes about halfway through the song, when the main melodic line is put front and center. I can only guess as to precisely what they're doing here--I don't know if the sound is purely electronic or if there's an instrument underneath being tweaked, but it's haunting. At times it sounds like a cello, and at other points almost like a saxophone. It's accompanied by quietly but insistently strummed acoustic guitar, and it's heart-breakingly beautiful. It remains so when it then explodes into a full tremolo-picked, blast-beated fury. It makes me feel like I should be on a mountaintop, screaming my lungs out in sweet relief. It's probably one of my favorite things the band has done.

I was initially thrown a bit by Panopticon's half. I still very much have Kentucky in my ears, so I was surprised when the blackened Appalachia of that album was replaced by the classic Norwegian black metal sound of these songs. (I shouldn't have been surprised, though, because Austin Lunn hasn't gotten his well-deserved praise by churning out the same material over and over again.) But that said, it didn't take me long to warm up to these songs. As many people who write about music will tell you, if you're going to work with a well-established sound, you have to play the ever-loving hell out of it, and Lunn does just that. Granted, this is Norwegian black metal filtered through Panopticon's very distinctive sound. There's no mistaking Lunn's roars over the infectious tremolo riffs and furious rhythms. The songs aren't steeped in cold, Norwegian atmosphere as much as they are just downright spooky. I don't know if "Can You Loan Me a Raven?" is an allusion to Edgar Allen Poe's work, but it would make a brilliant soundtrack to it.

Sometimes splits can feel a little schizophrenic, but somehow Fall of Rauros' blackened folk and Panopticon's Norwegian revival work together. Having the split on two separate Bandcamp pages gives you the option of picking and choosing between the two halves, but I think fans of black metal will want to get both and keep these songs together.

Dread Sovereign - All Hell's Martyrs

Written by Ulla Roschat.

Artwork by Costin Chioreanu

If Mr Alan Averill, alias “Nemtheanga” ever should consider to quit his career as a musician, which god forbid (or devil, or whoever is in charge here) he’ll always make a successful guru or cult leader. His ability to convey his passion and emotion via his voice combined with the charismatic aura of his personality is extremely captivating and enchanting.

I had the great pleasure to see him with his band Dread Sovereign on stage at the Heavy Days in Doomtown III festival in Copenhagen this year and, well, let me put it this way, if he had told me the earth was flat, I would simply have believed it. Luckily he is extremely busy using his persuasive power in his music in various bands and the newest one is Dread Sovereign in which Simon O’Laoghaire (Primordial) alias “SOLDubh” and “Bones” (Wizards of Firetop Mountain) join him.

Photo by Ulla.

The band formed in the beginning of 2013 in Dublin/Ireland and released a 3 song EP in April of the same year and their full length debut now one year later called All Hell’s Martyrs.

The first track is a short ambient psychedelic intro that kind of sets the sinister eerie mood for the album minus the heaviness, but you won't have to wait long for that, for the following songs offer tons of it. All Hell’s Martyrs is basically raw, old schoolish and occultish Doom, quite epic in style with a spacey and ambient edge to it which gives it a kind of modern classic Doom sound, intense and heavy, with a dense atmosphere of pure menacing evil. The songs are uncomplicated in their structure, but by no means simple. They are so carefully composed and arranged, with subtle variations, that make them both, very organic sounding and moving forward by momentums varying in their degree of impact, but always effective.

Everything (or most everything) is right in place, the heavy bass, the structurizing drums, the expressive passionate vocals that carry the melodies and the heavy guitar riffs and solos to die for.

Photo by Ulla.

All the different moods and emotions, be it sorrowful mourning, the menace in ritualistic chants or the pathos of hymnic worship, all feels right, nothing exaggerated, nothing weak and I never heard a song before, that could give such a majesty to sorrow and pain like the final song of the album “Live Through Martyrs - Transmissions From The Devil Star”.

As the album is quite long, its playing time is more than an hour, it was wise to give it some kind of partitioning elements and Dread Sovereign did this in form of two short instrumental interludes, which do even more than that. They suggest to listen to the album as a whole and in the given order, otherwise they don’t make much sense, and they function as doors or transition points that lead into another room, another level of atmosphere, where the light is even darker, the air still thicker and everything’s getting even more intense. The songs merge into each other seamlessly which is another hint to conceive the album as a complete and organic entity.

All this, but most of all the excellent musicianship of all band members and their ability to play off each other so well, gives the album that great sense of organic completeness. Listen to All Hell’s Martyrs and you’ll know this is not just “Nemtheanga” plus two, this is Dread Sovereign.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]