Oblivionized - Nullify The Cycle

Well this was unexpected. Oblivionized released a second demo and it's significantly shittier than their EP. Let me reiterate: demo status does not excuse it from being bad.

Two things you'll notice upon listening to Nullify The Cycle: the production and the vocals. They're significantly weaker and more flimsy than those featured on Abhorrent Evolution, with highs being the primary form of enunciation. Not that highs are bad, but these are just pathetic. They sound like a dying parrot squawking out to a hardcore song. The production and mixing makes them that much more annoying since there's hardly any low-end at all. In fact the bass drum sounds like a defunct metronome. It's not the sound you want to hear when it's set to the high tempos one would expect from a grind band.

The guitar tone is more subdued, the drumming and rhythm is muddied up by a weak snare, and the songwriting...well, at least the first two tracks are pretty okay in that department. The title track however is a completely forgettable clean guitar, clean vocals track. It's BORING. I don't care if you think it's "artistic," I think it's fucking stupid and a dumb way to end what should've been a killer deathgrind demo. There's only three tracks, so there's not much to really listen to here either.

Here's hoping the next release won't be this unquestionably bad.

3.25 out of 10

Tracklisting:

1.	The Nullification of Philanthropy
2.	Cycle of Deprivation
3.	Nullify the Cycle

Dark Castle - Surrender To All Life Beyond Form

Dark Castle is (was?) a cool sludge and post-metal duo. Their debut Spirited Migration featured straightforward, fuzzed out riffing and the psychedelic stylings of genre titans Ufomammut. Sadly Dark Castle took the elements that made their debut decent and tossed them out the window in favor of a more "freeform" approach to songwriting that neither flows well nor succeeds in creating a compelling psychedelic atmosphere.

Surrender To All Life Beyond Form is a bit heavier than its predecessor and a bit more fuzzed out or noisy. That's not a bad thing at all and if I spun it the other way I'm sure I'd convince you that this album kicks ass. Don't get your hopes up. It doesn't. The doom riffing on "Seeing Through Time" is pretty cool and chick vocalist Stevie Floyd does a decent job on there with both spoken word cleans and her scratchy, high-pitched rasp. However for the most part her vocals are weak. There was a stylistic change here from Spirited Migration, where she implemented more guttural vocals that were surprisingly impressive. Instead her screeching gets a bit grating and often sounds forced and unnatural, especially on "Stare Into Absence" and the intro to "I Hear Wind." "Spirit Ritual" is a dull ambient-fest that could put even the most coked up dudebro or acid-eyed stoner to sleep. "To Hide Is To Die" isn't much better either. This spoken word track fails to capture any emotion at all and serves as filler on a filler-filled album.

To be honest it's painful to listen to Surrender To All Life Beyond Form. The album is awash in the aforementioned droning 'psychedelic' noise, and more often than not it detracts from the atmosphere. I've listened to pure noise albums more exciting than this and with significantly more artistic elements that don't feel forced. I read a review that commented on how pretentious the song titles are and I can agree wholeheartedly since the album doesn't do a good job of holding up to its own arrogance. Some songs aren't THAT bad though. "I Hear Wind" does feature some interesting atonal riffing ala the infamous French black metal scene and "Heavy Eyes" isn't half bad either. However songs like the stupidly-titled closer "Learning To Unlearn" are pure shit and serve no other purpose than to annoy the listener.

I wouldn't doubt if this album was written solely to fulfill a contract deal since it's so devoid of quality elements. The lack of structuring (Get it? These songs are "Beyond Form" hurr), weak vocals, and nonexistent riffs really make this one of the bigger letdowns of 2011.

3.0 out of 10

Tracklisting:

1.	Surrender to All Life Beyond Form
2.	Stare into Absence
3.	Create an Impulse
4.	Seeing Through Time
5.	Heavy Eyes
6.	Spirit Ritual
7.	To Hide Is to Die
8.	I Hear Wind
9.	Learning to Unlearn

Don't even bother. Not that I could find a link anyway.

Unexpect - Fables Of the Sleepless Empire

This album screams cheese. If you enjoy this stuff then I don't know whether to be sorry for trashing it or sorry for you,

I've outgrown this stuff. I might've enjoyed this years ago, but Unexpect's Fables Of The Sleepless Empire is everything I absolutely hate about flamboyant, noodling "progressive" metal. The band's juvenile attempts at being "avant-garde" come off as half-baked and cheesy. Symphonic elements - violins, operatic female vocals, neo-classical guitars, and some of the most fruity keyboards this side of Cradle Of Filth - rule Fables Of The Sleepless Empire from beginning to end. There was a time where I thought Kalisia was tolerable, and Persefone was pretty badass, but now is not that time.

As long as you understand that, you can go ahead and dismiss (or applaud) the rest of this review.

Structurally speaking, most of these songs are actually fairly predictable in that they have different movements that build to a particular climax. That's about all they have going for themselves though. Otherwise you're subject to a forgettable and disorganized blur of arpeggiations emanating from both guitar and keyboard. Talented but trite female vocals really dampen the excitement offered by the flurry of instruments. Add some forced, high-pitched harsh vocals underneath the female lead and you have a recipe for me getting a headache. This headache peaked during the first half of noodle-synthfest "Mechanical Phoenix" and didn't go away until I walked away from my damn speakers.

Now that I think about it, my hatred for this album - piss poor songwriting aside - might be due to it not being "heavy." I've heard acoustic folk albums heavier than this. Atmospherically speaking Fables Of The Sleepless Empire falls flat on its face. Why? Because there isn't any atmosphere. Unexpect even manages to botch the atmosphere in longer tracks where they have time to build like "Unfed Pendulum," and did I just hear fucking palm-muting? Seriously that was some of the weakest palm-muting I've ever heard this side of newer Whitechapel. This is largely because of the no bass, ultra compressed production values present throughout the album. The snare sounds flat and the pillow bass drum is insanely aggravating. There's no escaping them either, except for when this shit stops spinning.

At least the musicians have a degree of talent. It's just a shame they decided to waste it on this pretentious, musically inept album.

3.5 out of 10

Tracklisting:

1.	Unsolved Ideas of a Distorted Guest
2.	Words
3.	Orange Vigilantes
4.	Mechanical Phoenix
5.	The Quantum Symphony
6.	Unfed Pendulum
7.	In the Mind of the Last Whale
8.	Silence this Parasite
9.	A Fading Stance
10.	When the Joyful Dead Are Dancing
11.	Until Yet a Few More Deaths Do Us Part

Morbid Angel Tries Something New...

...And it fucking sucks.

Read some quotes on the new album by famous death metal musicians:

"No other band in the entire Extreme Metal genre but Morbid Angel would have ever dared to make 'Illud Divinum Insanus'. There are going to be quite a few unimaginative underground purists who think they know better what kind of album Morbid Angel should or should not be putting out, but with 'Illud Divinum Insanus' Trey and David prove that they answer to no one but themselves. It is an incredibly well written, performed, recorded and produced record." - Karl Sanders, NILE

"One of the best death metal releases since their last album with Vincent. I'm not too much into the techno bits but I am a dude who will appreciate and respect bands doing new things, progressing... So it's all good. Vincent's vocals of course are still as good as they come. And the riffs are definitely there, Trey always delivers. New drummer is killer too!" - Mikael Akerfeldt, OPETH

"Morbid Angel still prove they can continue their legacy and deliver their madness with a skill so elite. The metal scene has no choice but to give back the crown to the undisputable kings of death metal! MORBID! MORBID! MORBID!" - Anders 'Blakkheim' Nyström, KATATONIA

Well, those glowing comments might actually mean something if they were from bands who released a good album sometime in the last half-decade. Illud Divinum Insanus leaked a week or so ago and it is pretty much shit. How is it even possible for Morbid Angel, the most consistent and creative death metal band of the progenitors (and easily my favorite), to create something so bad? Bare with me while I try to explain the laziness apparent on Morbid Angel's latest.

Frankly, Illud Divinum Insanus is not a death metal album. From the opener "Too Extreme!" it's pretty apparent that Morbid Angel wanted to experiment with some industrial or electronic elements. That's cool and totally possible to work into a death metal context (see: The Berzerker or The Amenta on Occasus). Instead it's a poorly done Rammstein-soundalike that manages to be less catchy. Trey Azagthoth's normally virtuosic guitarwork is limited to a few power chords while the pounding "unce" of the industrial undertones gives the listener a headache. Coming from someone who normally likes industrial electro, that's saying something.

The tracks progress in a similar fashion, each one reduced to a groove with a few melodic lines and patterns produced over the top of a steady drum beat or industrial beat. "I Am Morbid" is one of the most insipid tracks I've ever heard by a death metal band. It begins with a sample of a crowd chanting "MORBID!" and then after Trey plays a few simple licks, it degenerates into a Pantera-like groove that makes Phil Anselmo and Dimebag look like musical geniuses. There's even an obviously placed hook right after. Granted, David Vincent is older now, but his vocals are utter garbage on this album. Perhaps I hold Morbid Angel  to a higher standard than some other death metal bands, but goddamn there is no excuse for how poorly he belts out "MORBID."

"Destructos Vs. The Earth / Attack" is literally Morbid Angel's attempt at an industrial dance anthem. Vincent once again displays how poorly his voice has aged with his chanting and clean vocals, and much to my disappointment the 7-minute track doesn't exactly improve from the first minute. Then there's fucking Radikult. Jesus christ I don't know what Morbid Angel was thinking, but that song is absolute shit. Stupid brainless chugging riffs, poorly placed palm mutes, and bland drumwork make the (also 7-minute) track seem like a huge, blundering waste of space on the album. Oddly enough "Radikult" has the best solo on the entire album, but even then it's more a showcase of studio effects rather than Trey's guitarwork.

Old Morbid Angel rises to the surface for several seconds on a few tracks like "Blades For Baal," "Nevermore," (released as a single) and "Beauty Meets Beast," but the hallmarks of their success are all but nonexistent on Illud Divinum Insanus. Even those few death metal tracks are seemingly uninspired. It's pretty damn disappointing since it has been an eternity since their last album. Eight years and you produce this piece of shit? What the fuck Morbid Angel.

3.25 out of 10

And I completely understand that doing something different often polarizes fans, but the industrial and electronic elements present on this album really could've been done better. I feel like people will still praise it for what it stands for (a big "fuck you we do what we want" sort of thing), but the music itself is at best a pathetic shadow of former Morbid Angel.

Tracklisting:
1. Omni Potens
2. Too Extreme!
3. Existo Vulgoré
4. Blades of Baal
5. I Am Morbid
6. 10 More Dead
7. Destructos Vs. the Earth / Attack
8. Nevermore
9. Beauty Meets Beast
10. Radikult
11. Profundis - Mea Culpa

The leak was taken down, sorry guys! Well not really. I just saved you from listening to this garbage.