Page 94 - Metal Hammer Issue 334 - UK (May 2020)
P. 94
ALBUM REVIEWS
gently ebb into the vast
recesses of the mind. It
would be hard to sustain
the dramatic pacing for all
40 minutes and songs can
occasionally bleed together.
Still, the compositionally
taut and highly polished
MEDICO PESTE tracks connect as an
ʡ :The Black Bile arresting passage into
SEASON OF MIST spiritual dimensions, all
Polish black metallers offer tickets leading up to the rapturous
to a psychic unravelling The Highest Tower. If you’re
Medico Peste’s second taking a long hike in nature,
album sits on the avant side here’s your soundtrack.
of black metal, uncovering QQQQQQQQQQ
a host of peculiar realms as FOR FANS OF: Pelican,
it journeys through off- Karma To Burn, Nebula
kilter riffs, dissonance and JOE DALY
ecclesiastical passages. MP
play with your expectations,
offering a window into an
unhinged mind. All Too
Human begins on familiar
tones before it segues into
Igorrr: putting the something altogether alien
‘mad’ into ‘nomad’
as orthodox chants push
IGORRR sombre sphere. The cloying NEKROVAULT
the song into a more
Totenzug: Festering
groove of Numinous
Spirituality And Distortion Catastrophy and its jangling Peregrination
VÁN
piano feeds into the absurd
Dirty death metal murk anthems
nature of : The Black Bile,
METAL BLADE which becomes increasingly from the Bavarian shadows
Gallic absurdists unleash a globe-trotting tour de force eerie as it progresses to its If you believe death metal
feverishly wonky end. should sound ugly and
QQQQQQQQQQ disgusting, rather than
JOAN OF ARC. Nostradamus. The blackened death metal blast Cradle would FOR FANS OF: Lychgate polished and pristine,
guy who made Irreversible. France is have loved to have borrowed in 2010. Mord’A’Stigmata, Furia Nekrovault will hijack your
synonymous with extremity, and while Calling it ‘Igorrr by numbers’ is CHERYL CARTER shrivelled heart. This is
Gautier Serre won’t burn at the stake for churlish, but it’s a neat summation. From hideous, resolutely murky
his art, his one-man-project-turned- there, Gautier rattles through Primus and opaque DM, just as
full-band, Igorrr, follows by way of breakbeats on Satan intended. Lumbering
his country’s flagrant Very Noise before collecting and loose-limbed in
tradition. And that’s pretty his Cultural Appropriation a manner that would
much the only rule he Award 2020 with, er, make Autopsy proud,
sticks to. Igorrr’s fourth Camel Dancefloor. But it’s eight-minute riff-maze
full-length, does what so brilliant. Authentic. Sepulkrator and the
many acts strive and fail to It sounds like you’re in rampaging, tank-attack of
achieve: it creates a world. an ancient Egyptian NAAT Psychomanteum – Luminous
Gautier’s previous rifftomb. The same goes Fallen Oracles Flames get the balance
efforts could be fairly for Paranoid Bulldozer ARGONAUTA between hazy mystique and
dismissed as too random Italiano, the drama of Italy’s instrumental cosmonauts all-out savagery exactly
– his concoction of which evokes Downton give your mind room to wander right. This has all the grim,
punishing metal, Baroque and electronica Abbey on a cybergrind bender. Naat’s second album is abyssal menace and
often sacrifices quality for weirdness. Parpaing features Cannibal Corpse’s a richly hued mosaic of churning dissonance
Not here. Vaguely rooted in the organic, George ‘Corpsegrinder’ Fisher growling textures, melodies and underground nerds
metal-leaning bedrock of 2017’s Savage over 8-bit keys, and it’s sublime, spacey atmospherics, demand, but there is colour
Sinusoid, this record spends 56 minutes hilarious. Embarking on an aural journey wrapped around driving amid the bubbling sludge,
commuting between France and the across the planet Spirituality And Distortion tempos and surging via woozy post-metal
East. Harpsichord and accordion feature is engaging, congruous, steeped in post-rock climaxes. At interludes and the
one minute, sitar and violins the next, mysticism and utterly unique. It’s Igorrr’s once meditative and disorientating dynamics
their rich textures underpinned by Laure greatest achievement. And it ends with exhilarating, tracks like and psychedelic undertow
Le Prunenec’s haunting, operatic wails funky bass. And a bleating sheep. Because Liquor and Inner Shelter of closer Eremitorium. A foul
and Laurent Lunoir’s mightiest orc it’s Igorrr. showcase moments of real and uncompromising debut.
impressions. Downgrade Desert kicks QQQQQQQQQQ brilliance. Pounding metal QQQQQQQQQQ
things off and presents an apéritif; you’ve FOR FANS OF: Diablo Swing Orchestra, riffs push, gather and FOR FANS OF: Tomb Mold,
got olde-style harp, Laure’s chanting, Öxxö Xööx, Rïcïnn eventually crest, giving way Obliteration, Witch Vomit
glitchy electronics and an orchestral, ALEC CHILLINGWORTH to melodic cascades that DOM LAWSON
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