The most interesting albums of the week!
Blessings Of Despair starts off with a big inhale, and then follows it up with an Ulcerate-esque opening track. Devenial Verdict‘s second full-length, from Transcending Obscurity Records. This band writes long, atmospheric death metal that uses some nifty guitar effects to augment stellar songwriting. This band writes with a focus on tone, letting guitar notes ring out when they get a sound that they particularly like, and letting the drums go ham underneath a repeated guitar rhythm when the situation allows.
While these songs are long, they use their time well, with a wide variety of sounds ranging from rambunctious death metal to bass-driven exploratory instrumental breaks. The performances on this release are stunning, with some marvelous guitar solos and precise effects, an authoritative bass, drums that switch from the backbone of the music to organized ballistic nonsense, and some of the best death metal vocals I’ve heard this year. Devenial Verdict have it all for the adventurous death metal fan except an easy-to-spell name.
The Blame Dagger is Nubivagant‘s third release, brought to us by Amor Fati Productions. The clean vocals give the album a theatrical and emotional sound compared to the more sinister and evil vibe that you can give from black metal growls growls. Instrumental passages on The Blame Dagger don’t always offer much, but they aren’t meant to. Here, the guitars serve as backing for the vocals, and bridges are excuses to get back to the good stuff. It works. Mostly.
Given the obvious strengths and weaknesses of Nubivagant‘s songwriting, it’s a bit baffling that they spend so much time in instrumental interludes. But when the vocals come back, things kick up a notch. These highly controlled, highly emotive vocal lines carry the song, as the vocalist is able to emote over simple melodies with subtle but impressive flexibility and variation. The instrumental performances aren’t bad, but the way the songs are written they’re not able to shine. Either more emphasis on the vocals or more interesting instrumentals would have made this a stronger release, but as is you’ll get memorable songs and a good time.
Bile Caster plays dark and slow sludge, similar to the more dismal moments of Primitive Man or Mizmor. Their production is covered in a layer of sulfuric ash, their strings seem to wilt after every note, and their songs continuously sound like they’re collapsing. Writhing Between Birth and Death lingers long enough to be a full-length release, but they’re calling this an EP. The band’s debut has yet to come.
Writhing Between Birth and Death won’t work for everyone. Outside of the atmosphere, the songwriting is repetitive and direct. There’s a part in the middle of “Trapped” where the band just hammers their chords repeatedly, each one being played into oblivion before the passage progresses. When this section finally collapses, there is a spoken-word section with distorted guitars lurching in the background. The songs are written slowly, even when the tempo picks up. Individual ideas stretch until they break. Riffs are repeated for minutes at a time. Bile Caster will either hit the mark exactly or you won’t make it through the first track, and that seems to match what the band was going for.
