. . .
Let’s be honest: there’s more metal out there than any one site can cover. With our small (but dedicated) staff, Invisible Oranges is squeezed even harder than other metal sites to try and cover just one percent of the albums that come out in a month.
To bring you more metal reviews without exhausting ourselves, we’ve decided to run a monthly column or two, or three, of brief, easily digestible reviews. They’re like Chicken McNuggets, except that they really are all killer, no filler! And hey, if you can form opinions about important and complicated world events from 30-second news clips, why can’t we use just a few sentences to review an album?
Also, we just wanted a chance to rip off Robert Christgau.
What follows is an alphabetical list of releases starting with A through M. N through S and T through Z will publish later this week.
. . .
Biipiigwan – God’s Hooks
Dark, satisfying, noisy goodness. I think this is a reissue. — Aaron Lariviere
[Bandcamp]
Caliban – I am Nemesis
DevilDriver for Euros, with clean vocals. Impressively bland. I dub thee: EURODRIVER. — A. L.
[YouTube]
Cannibal Corpse – Torture
What the hell, Cannibal Corpse!? You weren’t relevant between 1994 and 2004, but you’ve just released your fourth great album in a row. It’s like you want me to call myself a Cannibal Corpse fan or something! — RSJ
[Soundcloud]
Desecravity – Implicit Obedience
Ever wanted to hear Immolation fast-forwarded? Outsource your desire to Japan! The riffs seem ‘backwards’, but it’s tough to tell through the blasts and helicopter double bass. Desecravity have songs in ’em, but not on this album.
—Doug Moore
[Bandcamp]
Desecravity – Implicit Obedience
This is a solid debut that might grow on me. Like a Mitsubishi Zero of old, it drove out of the Rising Sun (of obscurity) and caught me by surprise. As 2012 tech death goes, my gypsy fortune-teller powers tell me this won’t be as good as Psycroptic’s new effort. — RSJ
[Bandcamp]
Dodecahedron – Dodecahedron
Holland infringes on France’s creepy-crawly black metal territory. Less wobble and more punch here than with most of their peers—the genes are alien, but the form is human. Screaming into a vocoder is a good idea! —D.M.
[Bandcamp]
Drudkh – Eternal Turn of the Wheel
About as exciting as the Wheel of Time books, which is to say: not very. — A.L.
[YouTube]
Funerus – Reduced to Sludge
Like the title: sludgy, excellent death from Jill and John McEntee. Slower and more riff driven than Incantation, with thick thick thick production. Altogether excellent. — A.L.
[YouTube]
Goatwhore – Blood for the Master
Good cheap fun, but has a surprising amount of staying power. WHO NEEDS RE-THRASH WHEN YOU’VE! GOT! GOATWHORE! — RSJ
[Soundcloud]
Graveyard – Altar of Sculpted Skulls
Good so far as HM-2 bands go; at least they’ve got the riffs and vocals to make it halfway original. Not to be confused with Swedish hard rock Graveyard, though these guys sound “more Swedish” and, for me, more badass. — Rhys Williams
[Bandcamp]
Huata – Atavist of Mann
Straight outta Brittany, Huata worship at the altar of Electric Wizard and Church Of Misery. Tight songwriting, cool arrangements, and unholy sludge tones give debut LP a big leg up on its doomy competition. Remember: there’s no such thing as too much bass wah. — Chris Rowella
[Bandcamp]
Iron Mask – Black as Death
Balls out, totally shameless power metal from Belgium. More than a whiff of cheese, but they’ve got the songs and the chops to back it up. — A.L.
[YouTube]
Kolga – Demo 2012
Seidr guys try hand at being more atmospheric than heavy; result is shimmery blackened post-metal, almost like a Nordic Pelican (only not boring half of the time and with kvlt vocals). If you can find it, don’t sleep on it. — R.W.
[Bandcamp]
Macabra – Blood-Nurtured Nature
Death metal the likes of which I can barely describe, due to unmemorable execution and songs. Rough around the edges, but dull. — A.L.
[MetalHit]
Meshuggah – Koloss
Streamlined, pulverizing, and less tech than usual. Surprisingly organic, and stronger for it. — A.L.
[Soundcloud]
Meshuggah – Koloss
Yes! Sweden’s grooviest nerds return with an album that eschews some of their prior technical nerdery. Sounds like a mix of everything from Contradictions Collapse to Obzen. It’s not a step forward in terms of progression, but it’s a step forward in terms of songwriting quality. — RSJ
[Soundcloud]
Mortician – Mortician
German traditional/power metallers finally release their debut 25 years after forming! Most bands would be dead long ago. Mortician’s alive and kicking, and their debut is no dead body, either! Raise your fist and worship metal!
— RSJ
[Reverbnation]
Thumbs up for Biipiigwam (and Metal Bandcamp for providing me the link and exposure) and Kolga (and The Flenser Bandcamp page). Every Biipiigwam track starts off sounding like brutal hardcore then goes off into “post” territory seamlessly and awesomely. Been enjoying that a lot this past week. Kolga’s nice to just have on… kinda get lost in it. The intentionally lo-fi/necro production bothered me at first but my ears adjusted after the first track or two.
If there’s been no mention of it here yet, Think the new Mutilation Rites 12″ http://forcefieldrecords.bandcamp.com/track/negative-space that came out last month and the upcoming Windhand album http://windhandva.bandcamp.com/ through Forcefield are worth checking out.
Good call on Mutilation Rites and Windhand! I heard em both after the deadline for this piece, but they both seem pretty rad.
m’s and n’s… not my strength apparently. BiipiigwaN.
2 reviews for Meshuggah….nice!…considering its the only one on the list I’m really waiting for
Just listened to that Caliban, and i need to wonder why in the hell the euros go so fucking nuts for this band. They sound like Heaven Shall Burn, except without the Heartwork influence, radical left lyrics, old-school prog metal covers and cohesive aesthetic.
That is to say: everything cool about Heaven Shall Burn.
Whoa there son, don’t tar us all with the same brush. I LOVE HSB, from the first to the latest album, but… dear sweet zombie jesus I cannot STAND Caliban.
They don’t sound like HSB imo (acronyms ftw…), but a terrible mix of sub-KsE whining (which their guitarist just can’t do live) and sub-DD pseudo-aggression. With some extra breakdowns thrown in for good measure.
I do like the term “Eurodriver” however.
Desecravity’s ‘Implicit Obedience’ has been a pretty big surprise for me. It’s a little bit ’samey’ and overwhelmingly fast,but I agree, next album could be killer.
Also,Dodecahedron spooked me late at night. Cool album.
Yes! Thanks for the sifting. You must do this feature every month from now on.
The idea of this feature seems like a good compromise between ignoring less notable releases and giving them bloated coverage. I wish some of the positive ones were a little longer, but that Drudkh review says pretty much all that needs to be said in a Drudkh review.
Funerus, blimey. That shit hits you like a ton of bricks. Reduced to Sludge indeed.
poor caliban. i mean, forgetting the fact that they’ve been around way longer than coal chamber 2; they’ve put out at least one good record in that time.
Awesome feature, keep that up. And thanks for pointing Dodecahedron out, that definitely soothes a DsO itch!
HA! This is great. Reminds me of the pithy two-to-three sentence reviews I wrote for the tiny stickers I would affix to CD covers during my college DJ days.
I like this feature, but I hope it doesn’t replace traditional reviews. I think I’d rather see full reviews for some of the more major releases (Goatwhore, Meshuggah, CC this month IMO), then at the end of the month do a re-cap feature like this one where you quickly go over what you missed. Full reviews for obscure releases have their merit too. I’ve found some pretty good stuff by reading reviews for artists I’ve never heard of.
Just my opinion though. I know y’alls busy. There was talk at one point of chopping reviews from the site all together. I’m against that. These short ones are better than nothing.
Don’t worry, there are no plans to cut full, traditional reviews. This is only meant to allow us to cover/review more albums. It’s especially good for demos/EPs/splits.
The Mortician you mentioned is from Austria not Germany. Also, I suppose you mean power metal in the older sense. As they’re far more in the Accept/early Grave Digger than the power metal of Stratovarius and Dragonfarce. They have more sound clips here: http://www.mortician.at/