We covered Montréal-based progressive technical death metal band Sutrah, back when they released their demo, and it seems that our crystal ball was no liar: they are releasing their debut full-length, Dunes (no, they didn’t liked my name suggestion), on 22 September, with pomp and circumstance! Fortunately, only positive changes were brought to the Sutrah formulah. First, obviously, it’s produced with a much higher quality. It feels like a proper product and the result of professional work, and it lets us enjoy the fifty-five minutes of puzzling death metal to the fullest. Secondly, their use of Oriental music … Read more
Tag Archives: tech-death
Nyn – Entropy: Of Chaos and Salt
Nyn is a technical death metal project with a now solid history. Entropy: Of Chaos and Salt is the project’s third release and sophomore full-length album. This time around, Noyan Tokgözoğlu sought the talents of Tom Geldschläger, also known as Fountainhead, and Jimmy Pitts, of the Pitts Minnemann Project fame (among others). While I was no fan of Nyn’s first two releases, this one is different. Through the years, musicianship improved greatly, and so did composition and production skills. First of all, the bass and guitar parts on Entropy are some of the wildest available in the tech-death world. So … Read more
Cybergrindr – Fully Automated Psychic Violence
Cybergrindr is a probably-solo project from British Columbia. It is one of the few bands whose name actually reflects the genre they play… and they do it very right! Cybergrindr’s cybergrind is far from mundane. They see the opportunities the genre brings them, and they take them. For example, they profit from the obviously-programmed drums to go beyond what would be realistic: on ‘The Overseer Has Come Online’, they use drum hits – seemingly kick drums – at superhuman speeds to create what we interpret as musical notes, with pitch and length. And even though it’s the only place where … Read more
Grizzly – Reaper
Ontario’s Grizzly band just released their second publication, Reaper, and it rips. Don’t get fooled by the opener, ‘Grave’, this is not horror ambient, but rather some crushing and technical experimental grindcore. You can see this right on the second track, but they keep on providing extra crunchy riffs with weird timings and rapid successions of notes. Though it is barely more than ten minutes long, excluding the Pantera cover at the end, this EP shreds mountains. I guess mathgrind wouldn’t be too far-fetched a description, as it certainly has aspects of both mathcore and grindcore working together. Reaper … Read more
Ancestors Revenge – The Archaic Return
Do you need some more tech-death with fretless bass in your life? Because that’s just what Ancestors Revenge are about, with, I guess, the added blackened adjective to it, given the black metal elements in their music. Blackened tech-death, now we’re talking!
The Archaic Return, the band’s debut album, is long enough to satisfy your hunger and varied enough to keep you interested from start to finish. The drums are absolutely relentless, greatly supporting the riffs and song structure. That drummer is definitely one of the best I’ve got to see recently, he … Read more