“Totalitarian Doctrine” opens with some anthemic tremolo picking and builds nicely through the first verse. This one has a nice clean tone break before going into some tasty arpeggio lead work. “Transcending the Hierarchy of Knowledge” may be the most progressive of the five songs on The Orwellian Dream.

“Omnipotent Panopticon” opens with a spacey reverb-heavy bass instrumental before vocals and guitars come into the picture along with the drums. Some of the catchiest riffs on the album are on this song.

The title track “The Orwellian Dream” finishes the album. This one has a nice clean tone instrumental beginning that builds a nice groove. Distortion kicks in and things continue to pick up. This is the longest track presented at almost eight minutes.

I look forward to hearing how their sounds mature as they have the foundation you would think is on their fourth or fifth album release. Check it out.

I scour the virtual depths from decaying cathedrals, basement dungeons, and abandoned warehouses hoping to find audio relics of unique minds.  Projects that bend the rules but don’t exactly break them. That twist the form into something of their own image without being over-wrought or try-hard.  One would think finding such examples within brutal death metal is more difficult to accomplish ,or encounter, than with other subgenres of metal.  Yet, over the past few years a frontier is being pressed in brutal death metal, where the dumb mingles with the technical, is being transmogrified into ghastly new shapes by a small force of bands.

Like sentient nano-bio weapons evolving themselves and encroaching on enemy territories past known space, these dangerous new lifeforms threaten fragile treaties of traditionalism.  Bands like Afterbirth, Edenic Past, and Defeated Sanity are enhancing this style not only technically, but also in ambiance.  An element almost completely unregarded in slam.  However, Laparotomy is distinctly pushing the boundaries of ambiance…inward.  In some abstract way Ascendancy… is the counter to Dripping’s basement dwelling, drug induced psychosis suggested by, Disintegration Thought Patterns of a Synthetic Mind Traveling Bliss from 20 years ago.  Ascendancy… instead, however, leans into the ideals of a modern generations utilize the latest in natural hallucinogenic substances as tools to unlock greater understanding and potential of oneself, in effort that, in a collective sense, the self improvement and explorations that come from such exploratory sessions can propagate cultural and scientific uplifting for the positive advancement of humankind.  Laparotomy does this but for, you know…brutal death metal.

From the first shower of synth keys over straight up ‘dummy thicc’ guitar slams it’s clear Laparotomy is one of those projects that will likely draw a stark line with ‘old heads’.  Molesting The Decapitated this is not.  In fact, the album’s gauzy, timepiece melting slam is neither silly, gory, nor particularly dark.  The feel of these songs brought to mind Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.  The animated masterpiece is a lesson about the runaway effects on nature by man.  In it, much of Earth is being overtaken by an extreme mutation of nature; possibly a freakish consequence of man’s genetic manipulations over time.  Both the cover art and the music paints a similarly alien world dominated by complex and extreme plant life, fungi, mold, and insects in a disorienting saturation of texture and color, in a haze of expelling spores and fumes, bathing the air in low level intoxicating potpourri, attracting humans and other beings to this exotic and unique center of mind-body ascendancy.  The figure on the cover seemingly having been completely enveloped by the surrounding environment.

All of these elements best coalesce in the album’s track 5 centerpiece, “Delicate Yet Jagged Refinement”. Dense, euphoric synths deliver pharmacological peace while competing with ominous yet deceptively soothing drop-tuned riffs of poisonous gas replacing the oxygen in your blood.  Gradually, changing from creme toned sking to neon purple, over several minutes, you begin to commune with the fungal-ONE, represented by the vocals of drummer Justin McNeil; like a giant radioactive tardigrade gurgling sickly from its single orifice. Pulsing within its glowing lair deep under the noxious, living forest.  The album excels at remaining in its own writing pocket yet provides plenty of outstanding points of confusion such as in track 7, “Engagement in Extinguishing Malevolence”, which begins with a down right chiming, slightly stoned riff that wouldn’t have been out of place on any later era Dinosaur Jr. albums!  Shortly, death vocals boldly come in on top.  This transitions to a more traditional and menacing slam part, coming back once more into the Dino Jr. riff, before the song progresses toward rapturous indecency of pummeling gravity blasting and glistening synth maximalism.  One is liable to feel dehydrated, mentally disassociated, and physically dislocated as the guitars lumber back into the sparkling haze, trailed by keyboard wafting briefly and to a close in the final transcendental come down of “Rejoicing in the Vanquishment”.

Wow… what the fuck was all of that!  To my ears it’s easily earned a place in what will likely be a top 5 record on my metal year end list.  An album like this is what inspires me to spend many patient hours briefly sampling a lot of new music and, frankly, the real benefit of social media: that once in a while album that somehow seems custom made to fit your own finely sculpted taste.  Sometimes fulfilling a niche you never knew you were missing.  Laparotomy often enough lean into expected death metal blasting charge.  There is plenty for the brutal maniacs to enjoy, but it’s the measured, pulsating, almost hypnotic quality of much of the record that gives it character and charm.  Now, grooving as it can be, nobody is exactly moshing to Laparotomy’s narcotic elixir of progressive slam. It’s more of a hovering 5 feet off the ground, eyes rolled back, glowing purple -experience.

To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with enjoying the often reductive genre of slam and crude brutal death metal, but like Disentomb, Afterbirth, or Edenic Past, Ascendancy Through Hypnagogic Thought Process is, and should make for, a stark exception of simultaneously moving, extrasensory ambiance and patiently executed riff macerations.

I say sort of, because a new album this is not, and frankly, the band, and/or CDN Records, has got a lot of nerve for for marketing it as such. Out of nine tracks you get eight originals and a damn fine cover of Deicide‘s, “When Satan Rules His World”. The problem is is that out of those eight originals, six not only appear on the band’s 2018 Pathologically Explicit Recordings EP release, Upon the Ivory Throne, but they make up its entirety: and one, “Trail of Terror” dates back to the 1994 demo, Ad Maiorem Satanae Gloriam. Now look, I get re-recording older tracks for various reasons, demo songs, and even material that maybe never saw the light of day except for a self-released pressing or such, but this is ridiculous.

To be fair, all the previously released material has been tweaked and/or reworked in certain, mostly successful ways, that do seem to add something to the original versions. And yes, the fact that this album is called Hymns of the Gods Before isn’t lost on me in that 90% of the material are songs that the band has done before, but like I mentioned earlier, passing Hymns… off as a newfull-length seems a bit shiesty. Maybe it’s just me, or maybe I missed the info from the band that stated this wasn’t a full-fledged, all new  full-length offering as much as a compilation, or a retelling of the Upon the Ivory Throne EP or such. Oh well, not to quote Linkin Park, but in the end it doesn’t really matter.

Insatanity, if you’re not previously familiar with, employ a blackened tinged helping of brutal death metal and honestly always have. Ever since their demo days, and up to this very moment, the band has done a good job at having and preserving their own established and competent sound. In fact, I never really understood why they didn’t get a bit more recognition back in the day; sure their band name is both clever and silly as fuck, and if anyone remembers them in the mid ’90’s, then you know that not only would they sport corpse-paint unnecessarily, since it didn’t fit their more brutal death metal sound, but their corpse paint was, to this day, some of the worst/most laughable shit ever. Regardless of the reasons, Insatanity never really went beyond Divine Decompositon other than a few independently released EP’s and the aforementioned Upon the Ivory Throne release.

With the reworked tracks and the one new original track from Hymns…, “Ashes of the Apostle”, the band delivers quite a tasty treat of Deicide meets Incantation like barbarity, though wrapped in a swaddling tight blanket of black metal ferocity. Even the aforementioned Deicide cover track manages to sway to the blacker side of things here and there, giving the track a bit more to offer than a standard carbon copy affair. I know, it seems kind of dickish of me to bash on the group one moment and then turn around and say that the material presented here on Hymns of the Gods Before is quite satisfying, if not necessarily original in style or actual “newness”, but it is what it is and I said what I said.

Having said all that, I do have to give bassist/vocalist, Chris Lytle his proper dues. As the only member with ties going back to the mid ’90’s, the man has done a bang up job of keeping the blood flowing and retaining that vibe of appeal the group  has always had while definitely upping the ante and bringing a bit of a faster and  blacker edge to the group.

Honestly, my earlier angst simply comes from a fan’s standpoint of wanting all new and uber fresh material. Who knows though, maybe Hymns… is simply a type of introduction for the band to those less, or not at all, initiated to the sounds of Insatanity. Maybe  these reworkings of older tracks are simply the beginning of something a lot more procreative and prolific, as well as indictive of things to come.

Whether or not this is the case is anyone’s guess, yet as it stands, Hymns of the Gods Before is quite a powerful and enjoyable forray of death metal that easily will appease the most ardent of listening beasts. Even if it isn’t really quite a new full-length album.

The album opens up with a piano instrumental called “Suspended in Animation”.  Definitely not reinventing the wheel with having an instrumental intro. “Suspended in Animation” segues into “Beginning of Extinction” which opens up with strong notey riffing and Mournier’s trademark aggressive double kick attack. These guys seem to like to write longer death metal songs as this one is over eight minutes.  This nowhere near as technical as Cryptopsy. Bordering on thrasher elements at times. The problem I have with longer death metal tracks like this is It is quite difficult to hold the attention of the listener through for that long.

The total running time of this album is over fifty minutes which at times makes parts of this album difficult to maintain interest. Production wise everything is quite tight and locked in.  I think maybe it is more so a matter of getting a project done.  There are a lot of cool elements through Deity and I am sure that if these guys actually work to put a full line up together their songwriting will improve over time.  Being that they just started in 2016 it is admirable that they put these tracks together in such a short time frame.

Now, as to the music kicking off with “Parasitic Devourement” my first thoughts were HEAVVVVVVVY!  These guys are by no means doing anything different for this style but they are quite proficient at beating up the listener with down tuned riffing and typewriter sounding blast beats and then finding relief points throughout the middle of the song for the listener to bang their head and maybe throw some elbows during an imaginary circle pit.

“Analgestic Subjection” starts off by absolutely wasting no time hyper blasting. Riaan Ondier Els is definitely a sick drummer and each track the drum performance stands out and does a great job of flowing with the riffs and there is enough breakup between the straight blasting parts and flying double kick parts displayed through Origin of Abhorrence. No guitar solos on this either. Just relentless slam riffs and awesome drumming. “Infernal Machine” is one of my favorite songs on Origin. I like that it doesn’t start off with blasting or flying double kick.  The parts build well from riff to riff and is a little bit more technical then other previous tracks. The riffing and drum work builds up to a very nice American Psycho sample that transitions into one of the heavier beat down parts on the album.

“Malignant Misery” is one of the featuring tracks which with the ways the drum fills come in you would think almost that this track would be a bit different versus the majority of the album. Nope right back into the slam and blasting. Also, there is not a huge amount of vocal variation throughout which is more or less an observation. Either you are going to have the attention span for this or you are not. Song length wise these guys seem to be in the three to five minute range which for this style of death metal is pretty impressive and for the most part every song seems to have similar writing structure. I would say it works.

“Human Cattle” finishes up the album and continues to stick to the same formula used throughout this release. If these guys keep on maturing with this sound and style of songwriting it wouldn’t surprise me to see these guys picked up by a label like Comatose or Sevared.  I hope this album does well for these guys as even though it’s not the most original thing it is very tight and well produced. I am also curious to check out the past projects of Riaan Ondier Els as his drum work really steals the show on this release. If you are in to brutal death with slam beat downs this should be right up your alley.  Enjoy!

Guitars are of the heavy riffing sort, an unrelenting sawblade assault that cuts you down with its intensity.( “A Place In Hell “) The 1-2 1-2 drumming are the 120 MM guns, just set on pounding you into submission. The shouted, deep throated roar of vocalist & bassist Jonathan Boulay, acts as the battlefield commander shouting out battlefield orders to the troops above the cacophony of war. Some standout tracks are opening track “Pleasure of Hate”, I love the standout bass in the production. Jonathan’s playing really gives you that added punch.

When listening to this, touches of Exodus (with Rob Dukes) a slight touch of Demolition Hammer and Sodom are all part of the auditory assault but primarily I would say this is if Overkill had a more death style approach (this is musically of course, not vocally) I say this because in opener “Pleasure of Hate” there are a lot of moments in the sound and plus the bass playing is a bit more evident in some of the other songs as well. The title track “Burn Up The Dead” is another which may ( or may not ) give a tip of the hat to Overkill. Then with songs like “The Executioner”, “Sold To Bleed”, slows things down a tad with a more mid paced overall presentation but still manages to intersperse those mad riffing skills and solo moments. Then there is “Parasite” with its almost catchy chorus and “Bloody Mess” with its interesting song structure, heavy at times, melodic in others and all the while still maintaining the Mortör 

Mortör have been on my listening radar for a bit from their first album Shoot Em All (see? Another video game tie in ) and having heard this album also, I was generally pleased with their overall intensity and their raucous energy and with this album, continues that trend. Nothing groundbreaking by any means, but nowadays with the proliferation of all metal bands and in all genres, you have to listen and adjust accordingly, hence by applying the video game reference it gives you that much more appreciation, I think. Also, just look at that cover art, it just screams video gaming.

Not a whole lot of subtleties involved with this record but like mentioned above it’s not necessarily a bad thing, just perfect background music.So call your friends, get the case of Redbull, put on the gaming console, sit down and get ready for war! both musically and video game speaking of course!

One could make the case that there is something in the water in Canada, as there is no shortage of phenomenal death metal that comes from our neighbors to the north.  From Cryptopsy, to Gorguts, to Kataklysm, to recent up and comers Archspire, Deformatory has made no secret of the fact that they are here to run with the big dogs.  On Malediction they prove that they definitely have the chops, but they do creep dangerously close to the “clinical” side of things.  First off are the drums, which I swore were programmed before I re-looked up the band info to confirm it was in fact a human drummer.  I despise albums with a drum machine and have no issue with triggers and a solid production, but the drums here are way too overproduced (though not quite as bad as Ingested’s Surpassing the Boundaries of Human Suffering, still the worst typewriter drums I have ever heard).

The guitar work is pretty damn awesome, courtesy of Dan Rogers and Charlie Leduc, who also handles the vocals.  His death bellow fits the music very well, and never gets old or tired.  Each song has some swingin’ groovy sections, and a nice guitar solo thrown in for good measure.  A solid production, courtesy of Dan Rogers at From The Frost Audio in Ottawa, really helps the music here, especially with so much going on.

The inspiration for the album is pretty damn cool as well, with Malediction as the first installment in a series of concept albums revolving around Saväel, the creator of Darkness, and the original source of pure evil. In Malediction, the story follows the discovery of the sacred incantation text, his re-awakening, and the subsequent obliteration of the Light, the Heavens, and all remnants of humanity.  Definitely beats the whole murder-death-gore unholy trio of death metal songwriting.  Can’t say as I’ll be buying this one, but a very solid start to 2016 nonetheless.