Squawk it, I’m not into an intro today. Let’s just get into it, shall we?
Now, this will be a difficult one for me to review. It’s a little hard to separate people from the music they create at times, but I’m going to give this one a fair peck… or attempt to anyhow. NACHTMYSTIUM’s swansong, The World We Left Behind, comes out and, well, it’s okay. I really have a hard time separating Blake Judd’s issues from this music. (Can we all agree Blake is a lame name?) So, let me perch on the music here; that’s why you’re reading, right? This is a pretty good note to go out on. This, and black metal in general, has never really been in my cage, but this record kind of covers the gamut. There are black metal parts, thrash riffs, definitely psych riffs, and each of these tracks has its own mood and atmosphere; yet the album seems cohesive as a whole. I dunno, fans of this band will really like this, I feel. And although I don’t dislike it, I can tell you that it’s not really my thing. The production here is properly black metal — there’s not a lot of low end, and sometimes the lyrics come across as a little tacky and pedantic. Like I said, it’s hard for me to hate on this, but I don’t really love it either. I know I’m going to get blasted on this one, so go ahead and pecking hate me. 5 Fucking Pecks.
Well, Tim Lambesis may be rotting in a prison cell, but his bandmates have carried on and seemingly wasted no time at all getting a new band together and recording their first full-length. WOVENWAR release their self-titled debut with new vocalist Shane Blay from Oh, Sleeper. Not a huge fan of either band, but I can hear a difference from AILD. True, there are a lot of similarities to the last AILD record, but there seems to be a stronger focus on melody here. There are little screamed vocals here; they’re really just used for punctuation. There will be complaints of “not heavy enough,” and justifiably so. This is the sound of a band that can’t change their sound, but wants to make it a little more marketable. So, you know, it’s tight and the production is pretty good, albeit a little dry. Pretty low in my pecking order. 4 Fucking Pecks.
SWASHBUCKLE, We Hate the Sea EP. Well, I hate this record. (I’ve never heard it.) Bonus points for have a song title with the word “poopdeck” in it. 2 Fucking Pecks.
