ALBUM REVIEW: Dead Woman's Ditch - “Seo Mere Saetan”

By: Ernesto Aguilar


Album Type: Full length

Date Released:27/08/2017

Label: Third I Rex

Dead Woman's Ditch have composed a genre-bending journey of music and words, that is certain to create an atmosphere you will not soon forget.

“Seo Mere Saetan” CD//DD track listing

1. The Ugly Truths

2. Failed To Rot

3. We Are Forgiven

4. Break The Mind

5. Mr. Kipper

6. Crusade

The Review:

It is hard to be truly unique as a black metal group on the scene. So many far afield concepts, music and vocal styles make being an original artist unusual in what is already a subgenre of metal that pushes boundaries and buttons aplenty. Consider a few black metal innovators, such as Deathspell Omega, Ruins of Beverast and the Meads of Asphodel among many others. Each of them pioneered elements that were in many cases never quite repeated or else became part of our contemporary canon. Enter Dead Woman's Ditch, a worthy successor to these artists.

Now on their second full length – though technically its their fourth record, following two demos and a full length before this – Dead Woman's Ditch composes a genre-bending journey of music and words. As with a lot of metal, there is a lot of conceptual vision happening, yet it is a stunning sound that is far more exciting. The quartet, composed of guitarist/vocalists George Rhone and Glenn Charman (known for his live work with Electric Wizard), Chris Rust on bass and drummer Robin Corbet, is certain to create an atmosphere you will not soon forget.

The release, intended to tell the darker stories of the settlement of Somerset, UK, comes at you with a fresh dual-vocal style. With the opener, "The Ugly Truths," the listener gets one part sung or shouted and the other side with a growl most associated with death metal, but increasingly with black metal today. You hear this attack throughout the recording. It is jarring at first, but spellbinding going forward. It is the equivalent of a knife in the boot – it is not flashed every song. Just enough to remind you it is there, and to fill the air with menace.

While you may dig the black metal touches, the beauty of the new Dead Woman's Ditch release is its diversity. "Failed to Rot"shares some psychedelic and sludge influences in the guitar work. "We Are Forgiven" has hints of doom and haunting vocal effects to ballast the track. There seems to be a great deal of thought and intention across songs, with the pairing of each truly standing out. By the time of "Break the Mind," with its blackened doom ala Barathrum, you come to appreciate how well done “Seo Mere Saetan” really is. Rhone and Charman in particular elevate the album and make it a stifling experience.

What makes “Seo Mere Saetan” additionally fascinating is the blend of gear used.  In one instance, a drum machine is looped through a guitar amp and pedals. There are plenty of subtle vocal and bass production tricks that will have you listening again to confirm what you heard. The conclusion, "Crusade," highlights many of these aural touches – intense drums, a wonderfully chosen sound clip and more that must be heard – that make the release an infernal triumph.

“Seo Mere Saetan” is available here:

Band info: bandcamp || facebook

TOP 16 ALBUMS: The Sour 16 for May 2017

Nightbringer

Yes, it is that time again O ye lover of riffs, “The Sour 16” returneth.  You know the drill by now, each month you the reader are unwittingly compiling a list of the top 16 records of the month, covering all genres of metal.  Is it not a chart, in which reviewers or contributors extol their opinion about their favourite music.  To put it simply, “The Sour 16” are the records that have been trending the most at The Sludgelord Headquarters.

The results are compiled based on the amount of page views the reviews have received and are then calibrated into the list below.  All reviews can be viewed by clicking the artwork and we have included album streams wherever possible. (Total views since their publication are highlighted in the red numbers)

16). Dodecahedron - "Kwintessens”(446)

At 41 minutes, “Kwintessens” is deceptively compact for the multitudes within.  Each track, even the instrumental interludes, displays remarkable prowess while remaining confrontational and almost unbearably anguished.

  

15). Longhouse - "II: Vanishing" (450)

The tone, mix and mood of the album is one of darkness, menace and depression. “II: Vanishing” will terrify your consciousness and haunt your soul into painful contortions

14). The Ruins of Beverast - "Exuvia" (461)

“Von Meilenwald has created a terrible, tremendous and frightening invocation of blight and the invincible progress of erosion and disintegration. More than its component parts, an album to haunt the dreams of Lovecraft and Ligotti alike. Recommended without reservation.”

13). Lord - "Blacklisted" (476)

In a genre often bogged down by soundalike bands, Lord offer a sharp shot of adrenaline in the form of “Blacklisted”. The band’s distinct blend of gnarly thrash and filthy sludge deserves to see them go far.

12). Space Witch - "Arcanum"(521)

The band still sound like a collaboration between Bongripper, Hawkwind and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop to create the ultimate sci-fi B-movie soundtrack, but  this latest release sees them develop their cosmic barrage further out into the void., they showcase a leaner, meaner Space Witch that still push the boundaries of heaviness but with a more streamlined attack.

11). Woodhawk - "Beyond The Sun" (522)

“Beyond The Sun, is overflowing with everything one could want from a great stoner rock record, thick, rumbling bass tones, sizzling guitar fuzz and infectious, mid tempo riffage, making this the kind of album that is very hard to stop listening to

10). Craven Idol - "The Shackles of Mammon" (567)

This new album does not disappoint, and capitalizes on a lot of the germinal promise that was present in spades on “Towards Eschaton”: zero bullshit, zero pretence, zero fucks metal.  Vocally it is  truly, truly spectacular and unique. Riffs are dynamic. Bass is deeply discernible and the leads are crazy, fiery and have a tone that reminds that metal solos can be a deadly weapon in the right hands, like a flail made of scalpels and razor blades.

9). Blaze Bayley - “Infinite Entanglement” and “Endure and Survive” (588)

Both “Infinite Entanglement” and “Endure and Survive” are the best work of his entire career, better than Wolfsbane, better than his tenure with Maiden and better than his past solo work.  Blaze's fire is burning brighter than ever

8). Sjelferd - ‘Fortid’(619)

7). The Cosmic Dead - "Psych Is Dead" (646)

Somehow the band manage to make relentless repetition sound like a captivating journey into the unknown, packed with more subtle detail than a million prog metal odysseys.

6). Ghost Bath - "Starmourner"(686)

From the gentle piano intro of “Astral” to the vibrant and triumphant radiance of “Seraphic”, the tone of the album is pushed ever outward to match the theme of an infinite dream. It’s a theme that weaves its way through the whole album. There are certainly tracks that dive back into blast beats and hyper tremolo picking such as “Ambrosial” and “Elysian”, but the theme always returns to shimmering and heroic major chords.

5). Mouth of the Architect - "Time and Withering" (703)

Each new Mouth of the Architect release is my new soundtrack to oblivion, but revisiting “Time and Withering” is definitely worth your effort.  It has held up over time and is still as big and bold as it was 13 years ago.

4). Gurt - "Skullossus" (868)

This is some quality music that draws from many influences and I feel any metal fan should be able to enjoy it…. possibly even as the soundtrack to their next doom party.

3). Memoriam - "For The Fallen” (1012)

There is no huge introduction needed here. Bolt Thrower may be over, but Memoriam are very much here and ready to take up where Karl Willett's previous troop left off. You know what to expect from the names involved: crushingly slow grooves, like a tank rolling over piles of bones, bursts of thrash tempos and a sound that is thicker than tar.

2). Mutoid Man - "War Moans" (1113)

“War Moans” is fast, heavy and vocally arresting, it is an album that is certain to leave you breathless. 

1). Nightbringer - "Terra Damnata" (1160)

Remarkably, with Nightbringer approaching two decades of existence, they’re pulling off some of the best black metal the country has to offer, with a rabid intensity that, for all its darkness, remains inspiring.

A big thank you as always to our amazing writers, your dedication knows no boundaries and for that I am truly grateful.  May 2017’s “Sour 16” features reviews by:  Richard Maw, Daniel Jackson, Andre Almaraz, Mark Ambrose, Charlie Butler, Conor O’Dea, Phil Weller, Josh Nichols & Ben Fitts

ALBUM REVIEW: The Ruins of Beverast - "Exuvia"

By: Conor O’Dea

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 05/05/2017

Label: Ván Records

 

“Von Meilenwald has created a terrible, tremendous and frightening invocation of blight and the invincible progress of erosion and disintegration. More than its component parts, an album to haunt the dreams of Lovecraft and Ligotti alike. Recommended without reservation.”

“Exuvia” CD//DD track listing:

1). Exuvia (15:27)
2. Surtur Barbaar Maritime (08:51)
3. Maere (On a Stillbirth's Tomb) (11:22)
4. The Pythia's Pale Wolves (14:34)
5. Towards Malakia (09:39)
6. Takitum Tootem! (Trance) (07:45)

The Review:

There is potential in corruption; there is creation in collapse. The Ruins of Beverast have built both brilliance and darkness amid the rubble of fallen stereotypes, and have generated horrific life within the cadavers of decaying subgenres for the last 14 years. For Alexander von Meilenwald, devolution, atavism, degradation of boundaries and borders represent always the opportunity for evolution, a cacogenic alternate genesis that reanimates what was once sterile with septic potential. Impurity and corruption are, of course, a running theme. The Shrine is Unlocked: from “Rain upon the Impure” and “Foulest Semen” to “Blood Vaults”, which invokes the tainting influence of the maleficar, rot signifies potency and possibility, an anti-hermetic immanence of putrefaction. The world we choose to not see, the world of the defiled, is Enchanted by Gravemould, as it were. Alexander von Meilenwald has time and again acted as ethnographer par excellence of this corruption as well as its agent and catalyst. His latest effort, “Exuvia”, both follows this teleology and transcends almost through a weird autophagic turn, sloughing off some of the worn Beverast motifs and arising anew; a corpse worm, a rotting phoenix.

What is “Exuvia”? An exuvia is the cast-off outer skin of certain insects after moulting. It is excess, it is waste, it is the left-behind. It is the carapace more often than not of carrion insects, those necrophagous creatures that speed the process of decomposition. Von Meilenwald harnesses this necrophagic power of the discarded in his own compositions to move beyond the symphonic corruption of “Blood Vaults” to what amounts to a fugue of deterioration: it picks up elements from across all his works, infuses them with shamanic chants to reassemble and reanimate a musical body that is both uncanny and weird. Uncanny in that it resonates with terrible familiarity. Weird in that it is alien, twisted and novel. From the fires of “Surtur Barbaar Maritime” to a song of stillbirth, from the attenuation of malakia to the unspeaking totem, Von Meilenwald has created a terrible, tremendous and frightening invocation of blight and the invincible progress of erosion and disintegration. More than its component parts, an album to haunt the dreams of Lovecraft and Ligotti alike. Recommended without reservation.

“Exuvia” is available here

FFO: Batushka, Bolzer, Elysian Blaze, Blut aus Nord

Band info: bandcamp|| facebook