First up is Castevet's Obsian. On this record, Nick McMaster of Krallice plays bass. The first four songs go about as I expected; McMaster's inclusion in the band hasn't changed anything. The songs still sound like a combination of black metal and hardcore. He doesn't provide vocals, either. The last two songs veer off into weird territory. The title track is an instrumental and the closer incorporates clean vocals that are a bit off-putting. Overall, it's a good record, but not quite the match of Mounds of Ash.
I don't think I'm in the right frame of mind to assess the new Pelican or Corrections House. I should revisit them early in 2014. At least, that's what I'm going to try to do. We'll see how that turns out.
I wasn't necessarily surprised about the new Inquisition album. I'd say more, but since I'll be reviewing that one elsewhere, it's best for me to save my comments for that.
That leaves the other two bands who did surprise me: Thrall & Zemial.
I was a fan of Thrall's last release, Vermin to the Earth. I thought it was an underrated slab of blackened (among other sub-genres) art. But I wasn't really prepared for how different Aokigahara Jukai is. The vocals are far more expressive, even if I can't understand the words most of the time. The music behind the vocals seems to be more well-written and better-paced. They labeled the last track "Slaves" as a bonus; I think it's one of the better songs on the album. Not bad for a bonus!
I had heard about Zemial's new album Nykta by reading reviews of it. I figured it might be worth a listen, but when I did listen to it, I was blown away. I knew it was worth my money immediately. What Zemial does isn't all that weird; Archon has taken influence from 80's thrash and the first wave of black metal to create a record that sounds like an artifact from that time while bringing the riffs and a bit of weirdness. Pretty much every song starts out with a speedy riff that gets expanded on with progressive structures. There are also some funny-sounding toms and creepy keyboards. The lead guitars are worth mentioning too, as they take over "In the Arms of Hades" and "Pharos". All of these elements swirl together to create a great record that should be on many year-end lists.
I'm sure people are aware that Ævangelist's new record was pushed back to later this month. So I should be ready to give my thoughts about that one early next month. I have no doubt that it'll end up somewhere on my year-end list. Death metal in particular has done quite well in 2013 after a couple of off years. It wasn't something I expected, by any means.
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