The Fifth Alliance - Death Poems - Review

Post-apocalyptic sludge is a form of musical art that is very close to the reviewer’s heart. The ability to create massive soundscapes that permeate the realm of reality and overwhelm the listener is what I perceive as tragedy. It doesn’t only attract and welcome the listener inside its world, but it also allows that listener to release emotional energy while being a spectator of a massive and crushing movement.

The Fifth Alliance have these aesthetics. Their gargantuan sound is a means to explore one’s deeply rooted despair and fear through a great movement. After all, we are all specks of dust into the infinite, destined to perish and return into the unknown and unattained nothingness. But, until that time comes, we struggle, we love and we get hurt. We fight for a better world, we try to free ourselves from our demons and seek inner peace.

Is this the mentality that Sylvia, the band’s singer, expresses through her performance? What would it take for your screams and shrieks and shouts to be fully and unapologetically expressed? She screams repeating phrases that echo a need for release, an intense force to free oneself from guilt, shame, pain while the guitars move with a slow but crushing pace. The drummer sets steady rhythms and the leads are a sensitive narration that accompanies the singer’s performance; and at times the whole movement merges and becomes an assault.

While the steady building pace of the song creates a massive structure, the shrieking voice appears until the riffs come crushing. The bass holds the walls of sound intact while there is bounce between the echoes of the singer, which are that of despair and deep emotional strife and the steady and massive vibration of the music; a contrast that gives birth to a uniquely sensitive being. This album gives away the feeling of the humane struggle to free oneself from the world and ascend to the spiritual.

I have experienced this immense fire towards the unknown, not only through meditation but also through art that functions as a transcendental agent and The Fifth Alliance are moving unto these territories. “Death poems” is about the spiritual experience that comes not through peace, but through war, through a massive movement that brings about a worldly realization that resistance is futile. It expresses an amalgam of the beyond and the here, the unknown and the known, a conversation between the frail-voice and the firm-music; a slow dance in front of the inevitable collapse of our being and they are doing so with the passion of a rough artist that is being haunted by demons. 

Recommended track: Death Poems

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Begrime Exemious - The Enslavement Conquest - Review

The riff is and always will be the core of metal and rock music. It may be simple, it may be technical, but it will always be the riff that will catch our attention, make us jump along with the music, drink a few beers and have fun. One could argue about the other, more spiritual and experimental approach, where the riff may take a secondary role and I am down with it. I like both, when they are done with inspiration and conviction.

Begrime Exemious belong to the first, large category of composition. They are a straight forward riffocentric band and it can be immediately understood from the very first song.  A punk aesthetic fills your ears, riffs fly and the aggressiveness is expressed in a way that feels fun and enjoyable. “The Enslavement Conquest” is a fun, punkish black/death metal album. 

10 songs and almost 50 minutes of unstoppable riff menace make “The Enslavement Conquest” an album that I am certain it should be felt at a concert, if someone wants to experience the full dynamic of it. They play music best suited for live performances and it is all because of the riffs. The production is helping in communicating a feeling of an audio torrent moving towards you. It feels loose, but it is not, it feels punk, but it is not. The composition is simple but successful and the riffs have the necessary murkiness and groove. At times it brings to mind a certain British death metal band.

Right at the middle of the album there is a slow and doomy song that allows the listener to stretch and relax. A well placed song, since the minor problem in this type of albums is that a continuous aggressiveness may tire the listener. Then we have the cover of “Impending Diabolical Conquest” from Incantation, which may feel like it doesn’t fit in the album, since their style is different, but it shows the genre’s fluidity. It doesn’t feel misplaced, since it has the same aesthetics with the rest of the album.

Begrime Exemious is a concert band, for that I am certain. Their strong and memorable riffs and aggressive composition make them suitable for mosh, beer and circle pit dancing. While I may sit, with my head phones, in a calm and familiar environment while listening to “The Enslavement Conquest”, air guitaring and moshing feels the most natural expression. It tells me to go out and drink a few beers and while I am at it, headbang with friends. It tells me of the origin of death metal. And if I was to explain it in two words, then: Darkness and fun, my friends! Darkness and fun!

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Blodorn - S/T - Review

Blodorn successfully create what a lot of bands can’t, when they try to play post sludge. This form of expression is unique in one very specific way. It must feel massive and absolute. If the feeling of despair comes across as the struggle of an individual, then it fails. This type of music is not about the inner struggles and pains that a human endures in life. It is about the aftermath of a global destruction. It is about deserted urban landscapes and the complete absence of humans. Buildings collapsing; nature taking over; wild animals roaming the streets of Berlin or Athens or New York. It has to convey the feeling that civilization used to exist but is now just a myth. A myth that is not written in books, it is not spoken of between the last few remaining members of our species, but it is engraved on the unburied corpses, on the abandoned factories, on the rust that is covering the industrial areas, on the water that is dripping through the cracked concrete of skyscrapers and on the rats that are now living on the surface. It has to drain you from life and allow you to feel the aloneness, the insignificance, the majesty of life that exceeds man and forever will.

This is what Blodorn achieve in their first EP. In two songs of massive and absolute despair, oblivion and loss that are called “Birth” and “Death”, Blodorn create a painting between the times of man and nature, where the traces are still there, but will soon be forgotten. Maybe, in a hundred thousand years from now, a new species will find these relics and will speak about a time where mythical beings lived on earth and created giant and complex societal structures and fake gods but they succumbed under their arrogance and their greed. They will speak of beings that invented a place called hell and then did everything they could to bring it to life. Could it be that art can convey humility through the majestic? Maybe! It feels that way.

Blodorn are at their beginning, with a release of a single in 2014, called “Valhalla” and this EP and they are good at what they do. If they continue on this road we may listen to a fantastic full length in the future. But for now, let us experience the absolute and holistic despair of their debut EP.

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Hath - "Hive" - Review

There is a difference between music that creates visualizations and music that speaks directly to the heart, without the mind engaging. This difference cannot be defined by genres and a distinction like that could be misleading, since music is experienced in different forms. What appears as a mystery to me is that art can be highly subjective and at the same time be loved by a huge number of individuals. There is universal language, something that is actualized though music, but it has its beginnings in a place that is common in us all. Such is the approach of the mystic and as such “Hive” appears to speak to me.

“Hive” is the debut EP from Hath and it has, in every song, a sense of movement. Like a hammock that swings between undefined points. Especially the bass gives away the sense of swelling, like the surface of the sea does when it forms waves. They appear and they fall back in endless cycles. Between those movements the lead guitars speak in simple motifs, giving away the sense of diversity. They are decorating the song, dressing it in pretty melodies that transform into solos. Yes, solos. It feels like solos aren’t cool any more, but they can add so much emotion and depth to the songs.

The voice is growling and talks and at times feels complacent with what is being expressed, while other times invokes something greater. “Hive” is not aggressive but it is not introverted either. It moves from being angry to esoteric and this is what makes it feel so rich and interesting. The songs have a progressive feel to them, where the composition is more complex than usual, with layers that develop and riffs changing form, pace and rhythm. Listen to “Commandment” for example; the EP’s shortest song and you’ll listen to the diversity.

Hath have released a very good and promising debut EP. I am certain that an equally good or even better release from them will be coming in the future. I do not know if they are in the process of creating a new album or searching for a label or both, but what I do know is that they deserve our attention. Listen to “Hive”.

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