Wow! That is only thing I can say after listening to this sophomore opus of French trio called Mind Imperium. There are eight songs on this one, first being kind of synth atmospheric eerie intro to the maelstorm that follows afterwards. Mind Imperium play a mixture of melodic doom metal, atmospheric death metal with some post metal and thrash metal influences in guitar riffs and song structures. Vocals are growling and anguished sounding, but you can understand what they are singing about and that is always a plus in my eyes. Lyrics are so superb, personal and speak about depression, hopelessness, anger, resentment, death and being able to survive through the day, also loss. Besides growling, there are clean melodic vocal lines, spoken words and I love how all that fit perfectly in the picture. I am so glad that underground provides the way to have a listen to bands like this one. Superb. My personal favorites: Screaming out your name, Burning Embers.
I remember Agathodaimon well from second half of the nineties when they released their great albums Blacken The Angel and Higher Art Of Rebellion, both being a masterpiece of gothic influenced vampiric black metal with long songs, perfect mixture of black screaming and clean vocals and great melodies bringing something progressive and fresh into the scene. They released six albums and disappeared and now they are back with new opus and new line-up, but the constant backbone is guitarist/vocalist Sathonys. New opus contains 10 songs of beautiful melodic atmospheric black metal with great songwriting, fantastic melodies but the one thing that really stands out for me is interplay between Ashtrael´s shrieking voice and Sathonys´ clean and gothic voice thus delivering the skinprickling atmosphere of almost touchable darkness. The songs are not so long as in the first albums, but they tell the story of persistence, emotions, darkness, a bit romantic gothic vampirism and longing, eros and thanatos. My personal favorites are Mother Of All Gods which features ex member Vlad Dracul, also Ain´t Death Grand and both In My Dreams conceptual songs. Welcome back Agathodaimon, with a strong return album.
Cannibal Corpse are death metal legends and an institution delivering their gore blood soaked death metal for more than thirty years. Their singer George Corpsegrinder Fisher released this solo opus full length and it is a blast. These ten songs of horror are not far from what he does with his main band, but this one, besides death metal blast beats and sharp riffs with fast solos, also offers some hardcore influences, almost horror punk riffs masked in the rear of death metal, also some thrash old school influences. Corpsegrinder´s voice is one of the most recognizable and mightiest in the death metal scene and he growls and screams with ease through horror lyrics and you can understand what he is singing about, with songs like Acid Vat, Devourer of Souls and Master Of The Longest Night flying the flag of Florida American death metal high and being sight for wanton ears of many death metal fiend out there. Good one.
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 