G'day cunts! Another year, another pile of discombobulated and mentally suspect noise that wormed its way into my brain and set up a hobo camp there! Meet the inhabitants...
The nostalgia on this album hit me like a ton of bricks! For example the song "Nekrodome" was uploaded to Youtube in demo form for years and years after the band had split up in 2010, and I listened to that track A LOT. Imagine my glee when over a decade later they finally re-recorded it for their sophomore album! Thrashin' post-apocalyptic metalpunk!
Noisy & nihilistic, HEAVY AS FUCK rock 'n' roll that sounds like anything from Melvins to The Stooges to Brainbombs and a billion other things, played by Sami of Opium Warlords & Reverend Bizarre and Harri of Ride For Revenge & Hail Conjurer! This is sloppy, tinnitus-inducing noise punk chaos.
Bit different from the last album. Little creepy bass parts, slow interludes that aren't just set ups for faster parts. They even threw in a killer Abscess-style jam called "Toxic Death Fuk" which was unexpected. Really like the production here too, especially for the audible as fuck bass sound. Reifert still sounds like a beast.
They kinda fit into that whole acid freak side of sludge that isn't afraid to tangle with stoner/psychedelic/jam elements, a bit like Nightstick. One of my favourite sludge bands for a long time now (Endofyorerror is a cult classic!) and they're still as fuckin' HEAVY as ever.
Crusty doomy black 'eavy metal for working class curmudgeons. "Seething Cauldron" is one of my favourite songs of the year overall! I've found as I get older, I really like this specific niche style of earthy, crusty 'down the pub' black metal that is in touch with its heavy metal roots. RIFFS OR FUCK OFF.
Might be Malokarpatan's best but I need more time. Amazing production. The drum sound especially is so crisp! This album feels a bit more heavy metal to me, and less black metal. The best song on the album is an instrumental called "Panstvo salamandrov jest v kavernách zeme" that sounds like a horror/fantasy/Goblin-esque synth prog jam, with guest appearances from Hands of Orlac members, and there's a Jethro Tull-esque flute and a closing drum solo!
Weirdo cryptozoological death metal slop! Apparently this material was supposed to be on different splits that fell through due to the lockdowns. Surprisingly coherent as a mini-LP. Listening to "Bug Sounds (Osedax)" out in the bush on my boombox was a trippy experience!
I'm kinda glad they dropped the whole '1 cover song per album' thing they had going their whole career. This album is just pure top-to-bottom Church of Misery originals! Honestly I might like it more than The Second Coming at this point. That Koresh tune goes so fuckin' hard.
Bahb & Corey from Fistula? Check. Steve Watson from Iron Monkey? Check. Marco from Grime on vocals? Check. They're all collaborating to make some of the nastiest sludge metal of all time? Check, motherfucker! Don't sleep on this one!!
A slight step down from the first album if I'm being honest but still killer doomy death metal from Reifert & Wilkinson. Has some oddness to it that I appreciate, slightly off-kilter at times, just check out one of my favourite songs by them, the incredibly creepy "Unrepentant Mutant Serpent" and you'll see what I mean.
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Cheers & beers to: Chris Reifert for giving us so much these last couple of years (please can we get more Violation Wound!?), Wagyu steaks which I finally learned how to properly cook to rare this year (I even nailed a pretty delicious blue steak once), Joachim for all the Funereality goodies and Madonna's The Immaculate Collection compilation which I had on repeat all night while making this post!
Fuck off to: my cunt neighbour who blasts techno at all hours of the day and night! Die!
~ Cistern Rumbler
