Scorched - Ecliptic Butchery

By Matt Hinch. Back in August, I saw Scorched play at Migration Fest. I knew enough about the band that I wanted to stick around and watch them instead of going to a bar with my friends. That says A LOT. It wasn't an easy decision but it turned out just fine.

By Matt Hinch.

Arwork by Misanthropic-Art.

Back in August, I saw Scorched play at Migration Fest. I knew enough about the band that I wanted to stick around and watch them instead of going to a bar with my friends. That says A LOT. It wasn't an easy decision but it turned out just fine. 2016's Echoes of Dismemberment made enough of an impression that I was happy to reacquaint myself with their brutal style of death metal in the live setting. A mere two months after that earplug workout they've released another exercise in gruesomeness with Ecliptic Butchery.

Here we see the Delaware death crew taking the horror off the planet. They brought all the gore with them though. Blood still sprays in zero gravity! Just look at the song titles. “Blood Splatter Eclipse”, “Exhibits of Torture”, “Barbarous Experimentation”, “Dissected Humanity”, you get the idea.

Sound wise Scorched keep things pretty brutal. More California death than Florida to these ears. That's just how I hear it anyway. Heavy either way. While they have the chops to pull it off if they kept it fairly standard, they don't keep it standard at all. There are more than enough tempo changes to keep things interesting and some sci-fi synths/samples give it flavour. A song like “Mortuary of Nightmares” has it all. It's a total neck-breaker with galloping riffs, a sludgy part, chugging beatdowns, and percussion that kicks you while you're down.

Elsewhere they channel Cannibal Corpse (and not just with the vocalist's circling headbanging), work in some creepy organs, fall into a pit of doom, and even rub up against some d-beat rhythm. Throughout though the atmosphere one feels is truly dark and horrific. They don't necessarily do anything specific to set that feeling up. It's just part of the whole package. Well, save for the cavernous death growls. They suck all light from the room and enhance the death/doom quality woven into their precise instruments of aural torture. Let's not forget the slick, incisive solos that tip their hat to the mighty Slayer though, as they strengthen a certain familiarity. In my opinion anyway.

It's also my opinion that if you're going to play death metal with a sci-fi twist, do it like this. Keep the brutality. Keep the groove. Keep it death metal. Give the listener something they can sink their teeth into and chew on for a little while. That way if you aren't the kind of person that can discern lyrics, you can still wrap your mind around everything else hurtling you towards your demise. 2018 has been a pretty solid year for “traditional” death metal and with Ecliptic Butchery Scorched add their name to the list.

Abysmal Torment - The Misanthrope

By Bryan Camphire. Maltese metalheads Abysmal Torment churn out mighty intense brutal death. Their music is ultra complex, and their releases are totally unrelenting from start to finish. They play their own brand of brutal death metal

By Bryan Camphire.


Maltese metalheads Abysmal Torment return with their fourth full-length in a dozen years. Their music is ultra complex, and their releases are totally unrelenting from start to finish. They play their own brand of brutal death metal with an extra emphasis on the moshpit. Yet, this new record, The Misanthrope, doesn't divulge its secrets easily. The torrents of blast enshrine the majesty of this release like the walls of a fortress shield the riches of the keep.

With The Misanthrope, Abysmal Torment have upped the ante on all levels of their music including the production, squashing the mix with massive amounts of compression so that it sounds as loud and as in your face as can be. It's easy to view this type of production with disdain: it's very modern; it's the type of thing done by nauseating bands like Metallica today. Truthfully, I had to lower the bass on the equalizer on my car stereo while listening to The Misanthrope just so that I could hear more of what was going on with the guitar work on this release. I can not think of any other musical release I've heard that has this much kick drum in it, both in volume level and in quantity. This was off-putting for the first few spins. Then it drew me in. The bold-faced velocity of Abysmal Torment's full frontal assault beckons me inwards to look for subtlety in the eye of their mile-wide mayhem.

Indeed, subtleties abound in the music of The Misanthrope. The intricacy of this set on display more than makes up for its lack of dynamics, like a church ceiling that transfixes you despite your lack of faith. No doubt the sheet music for these songs would be liable to make a person cross-eyed. The details are dizzying, yet ever so meticulously composed and executed. Abysmal Torment are surgeons of slam, precise and exacting after they lay you out flat.

The emotional thrust of this brickmason-like music is what becomes so surprising about it over repeated listens. Tracks three four and five are a highlight for me, and each of them make me feel like Beavis and Butthead on speed as I listen. This is one of the bands best slight's of hand: amidst their unrelenting onslaught - riddled with odd meters, delivered at blistering speed - it's the groove they deliver that hooks you and riles you up.

I became such a big fan of Abysmal Torment over the years that I've scoured the rosters of many a record label that peddles this type of brutality - including Pittsburgh's venerable Willowtip Records, home to this release - and have found no other band who produces this sound with such finesse. They almost make it seem easy. If you're a fan of hyper complex rhythms, listen to the first track on Abysmal Torment's 2009 release, Omnicide, and try to count it. That song continues to mesmerize me many years after first hearing it.

The band has stayed true to their trademark density on The Misanthrope. Like Abysmal Torment's colossal records before it, I'm certain The Misanthrope will trickle clues to its mysteries that will seep slowly into the consciousness for many years to come.

Bosse-de-Nage - Further Still

By Justin C. Reviewing Bosse-de-Nage's new album feels a little like a homecoming to me: III was one of the earlier reviews I wrote for this site way back in 2012. It was in December, and I remember a lot of long, cold commutes to and from work

By Justin C.


Reviewing Bosse-de-Nage's new album feels a little like a homecoming to me: III was one of the earlier reviews I wrote for this site way back in 2012. It was in December, and I remember a lot of long, cold commutes to and from work trying to wedge my brain into what, at times, seemed like almost impenetrable music, a sound that seemed to try to push me away while at the same time continually revealing hidden depths. It haunted me, in the way that only good art can, much like All Fours did three years later. Now, in 2018, the band is back with their fifth full-length, Further Still.

In a break with their more anonymous past, the band has actually done some press this time around, with vocalist Bryan Manning sitting down with Invisible Oranges for an interview. The interview briefly touches on whether Further Still has "nostalgia" moments from earlier albums. I started this review talking about nostalgia, so it's an interesting question. I don't hear "throwback" elements to earlier albums as much as I hear the band refining their core sound. As early as II, the band had come to the kind of sound that, to my mind, defines them, but doesn't confine them. Maybe at some point they’ll do a complete stylistic shift, but so far, sinking into new Bosse-de-Nage always feels both familiar and bewildering at the same time.

Duality in general has long been the band's hallmark. The lyrics to the first two tracks--"The Trench" and "Down Here"--are both bleak little short stories of people who have been abandoned or about to be, yet there are moments of sweeping, chiming melody in the guitar lines in "Down Here" that, ironically, sound almost sunny. "My Shroud" starts with a slow burn, then alternates between energetic, almost poppy guitar lines and sections with some of the most intricate and harrowing compositions they've done. (Big emphasis on "almost" when I say "almost poppy"--they're probably not going to tour with Ed Sheeran any time soon.) The lyrics themselves describe an invisible shroud the narrator wears from birth to death. The listener is free to read whatever they wish into this narrative device--does the shroud represent the inevitable grinding down of life, or is there more to it?

"But wait," you might say. "That doesn't seem as weird as 'The Washerwoman' from All Fours. Isn't there something stranger?" Oh yes. I won't give away the whole story, but tension builds throughout "Sword Swallower." What might seem like an old-fashioned circus trick takes on new dimensions as the swallower takes his act in a fairly extreme direction before his crowd responds. It put me in mind of Kafka's story "A Hunger Artist,” but that's not surprising since Manning discusses his enjoyment of Kafka in the IO interview.

The music, as ever, is abrasive, punishing, and glorious. Manning's vocals are still of the strip-paint-off-the-walls variety, and the instrumentals grind, stab, warp, and soothe as needed. And as always, those drums. Those crazy, intricate, deft drums. I can say without exaggeration that the percussion on these albums are some of my favorite in all of metaldom.

I think the cost of entry for the listener of Bosse-de-Nage remains high. As Iggy Pop once said of John Coltrane, the music is difficult to get close to. But as with their previous work, this album will plant a seed inside you and grow if you let it.