Albums of 8/16/24

The most interesting releases of the week!

I can’t take death metal seriously when it’s named after my grandmother, but Evilyn‘s debut release on Transcending Obscurity Records rose to the top of my rotation anyways. On their debut record Mondestrunken, Evilyn explore a Gorguts-influenced technical death metal sound with some catchy riffs and a lot of open space.

The beginning of the second track “Omission” does a fine job at showcasing Evilyn‘s tricks. The riffs linger on a single note for far longer than feels comfortable, and will occassionally trip themselves up and repeat a single note seemingly out of time before continuing like nothing happened. The actually riffs themselves are short and direct, but they’re ornamented with so many stutters and odd sounds that you quickly get lost in the vortex. This is the best release of the week and a fantastic debut.

There is exactly one person in the world who could name an album “Stealing Jon Chang’s Ideas” and have it come off as witty, funny, and heartwarming. Houkago Grind Time is an anime grindcore band from Andrew Lee, of Ripped To Shreds fame. Some of this project’s previous albums have been more meme than substance, but Houkago Grind Time is always a good experience.

For any other genre, Stealing Jon Chang’s Ideas would be a blinding chaotic mess, but for grindcore this is about mid-paced music. The drums have a raw, piss-to-the-wind quality to them, and the buzzsaw guitars keep this album’s solid songwriting in the forefront even when some of the other factors overwhelm. Despite the album title, there’s a large range of vocal noises here. If you’re looking for something serious, I have no idea why you’d come here. But if you’re looking for a surprisingly solid passion project, Houkago Grind Time always have your back.

After the first listen I was ready to be done with Mekigah. While the album was interesting and different, I bounced off of this about as hard as I have anything this year. But extreme negative reactions stay with you just like extreme positive reactions. To Hold Onto A Heartless Heart stayed in my mind and I found myself returning to Mekigah far more than albums that gave me a much stronger first impression. I grow more impressed every time I come back.

Mekigah have created a synth-ridden, doomy, drone-filled, blackened mess of an album with long songs and more ambience than riff. There are vocals that register more as echoes than verses, song structures that collapse on themselves, drums that get lost in the mix. This is a unique album that stayed in my brain against my will. And it’s good that it did. The frontier of music has never sounded so murky.

Senescence is the proggy death metal debut from California band Vile Rites, released on Carbonized Records. Anyone who was upset by Blood Incantation‘s ambient album will be relieved. While Vile Rites aren’t doing anything new on Senescence, the band adds tight performances on top of flexible and full songwriting to create interesting music that you can return to repeatedly. No matter how many times you listen to Vile Rites you will find something to enjoy.

The bass sticks out on Senescence, but that’s more a function of the album’s excellent production than anything else. Each instrument has enough space to be clearly heard, and does plenty with that space. The punchy drums snap at the same time as the razor-sharp guitars, the vocals blend in well with the string instruments. Vile Rites have made something very polished, expansive, and deep. Everything you want from a progressive death metal album.