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Articles by Ben Serna-Grey
Review: Bumblefoot - Bumblefoot…Returns!
Hey sorry I was out for a bit there, guys. I was in the bathroom. Bumblefoot’s return to solo material actually marks the first time I had heard of the guy. In my defense, when his debut solo album released I think I was more concerned with finger painting and looking forward to naptime and a snack, and in the years after that I didn’t much care for Guns N’ Roses, where he had a steady gig playing guitar with the group.
Review: Non Serviam – Labyrinthe
It’s times like these I wish I knew French. The world’s most consistently working black metal collective, and friends ov the bowl Non Serviam are back with a new incredibly heavy EP. The group describe this work as the lead up to their next album, a successor to their excellent Le Cœur Bat from 2021, which the heavy juxtaposition of musical traditions and instruments attests to.
Review: Enslaved – Heimdal (Deluxe Version)
A Bean is never late. And he sure as hell isn’t early this time around, so let’s say I’m arriving precisely when I mean to. Astute residents of the Bowl will note that Heimdal (Deluxe Version) is the deluxe version of the band’s album that dropped in March of last year. This version contains 11 extra tracks, a fair amount of them being live tracks from their Otherworldly Big Band Experience in December of ’21.
Review: Ihsahn – Ihsahn
Ihsahn you to check out Ihsahn’s upcoming self-titled album. It should come as little surprise to folks familiar with his work that the new offering from Ihsahn is an orchestral black metal epic. The intricacies come in that the album comes in multiple versions to form one complete concept album—one metal version and one fully orchestral version, both with differing but parallel narratives to the story.
Track Premiere: BASSOON - “Pentisept”
Disclaimer: no actual bassoons are present here. Sorry, band geeks. BASSOON is an avant-prog trio of instrumentalists from Brooklyn, creating sludgy and complex tunes with Stuart Popejoy on bass and keyboards, Sean Moran on guitar, and John Mettam on drums. On offer for you today we have a premiere from their upcoming album, Succumbent. “Pentisept” features growling bass and crunchy harmonies working over the top of a shifting rhythm in the drums, leading to some fun and interesting music making.
Review: NYOS - Waterfall Cave Fantasy, Forever
Hello, friends. It’s been a while. But I return to the bowl once again slinging wares of experimental music and stuff that’s mostly tangentially related to metal. I hope you check this one out, it’s a good one. Now I’ll admit I’ve been away from my duty of keeping up with current music for a little bit now, so forgive me if these are big names I should know about.
Track Premiere: Jonathan Hay – Touch Peel and Stand (Nü-Jazz Mix)
I am 13 years old. I am in the passenger side of my brother’s car, on my way to buy Enter The Matrix with money I’ve saved up from my allowance. The radio is tuned to 101 KUFO, Portland Rock Radio. After some hits from the likes of Korn and Pearl Jam and Sublime, three acts the station seemed to be obsessed with, Days of the New comes into the next slot with their hit “Touch, Peel and Stand.” My brother and I are wearing matching trench coats.
Premiere: DECIPHER - Penance
Toilet Ov Hell are no strangers to Transcending Obscurity, and today we have one hell of a premiere from Greek black metal band Decipher. “Penance” is off of the upcoming full-length Arcane Paths to Resurrection, dropping April 21 through Transcending Obscurity.
Premiere: Ablaze My Sorrow - The Loss of All Hope
Time to bring in the new year with some fresh despair-filled melodic death metal. The Loss of All Hope is a relatively short EP, clocking in at around 15 minutes. The EP marks the band’s 30th anniversary and has all the hallmarks of Swedish melodeath devotees to the genre know and love. Plenty of anthemic melodies in the guitars, lots of galloping chugs, and the occasional clean vocal section. My personal favorite is “Boundless,” with that spooky synth line at the beginning.
REVIEW: Non Serviam - We Are Nothing But Your Krill
Non Serviam are back with more glitchy avant-garde black metal to shove into your ears, including a song featuring members of Agoraphobic Nosebleed. If you liked Le Coeur Bat and the recent side project Biollante, then you’ll dig this one too. We Are Nothing But Your Krill is a lot heavier than Le Coeur Bat, and feels a little more focused. The title track serves as a short intro to the ripping single “O My Whale,” featuring a lot of glitchy electronics and vomit-y vocals.
EP Review: Cytokine - The Cytokine Deception
Cytokine are going to be a new name for most folks, though people active in the New England metal scene may recognize a few names on their roster, as the group is made up of veterans from their local scene. The band has a debut EP, The Cytokine Deception, coming out April 9 as an independent release. The debut EP consists of 5 distinct tracks, some with a fairly progressive bent to them.
Album Review: Last Ice - S/T
Last Ice is a collaborative project between members of the Austin, Texas band Bloody Knives, and Portland, Oregon’s We Are Parasols. The debut self-titled album drops February 19 through No Movement Records. The artists behind the project, Jeremy Wilkins of We Are Parasols and Jake McCown of Bloody Knives, became friends while on tour together and wanted to start a project once the time was right. In the face of the ongoing pandemic, the two jumped into working on Last Ice.
ALBUM REVIEW: Katatonia-City Burials
Everybody’s favorite group of sad bois are back, with City Burials dropping April 24th through Peaceville. Folks familiar with the group will recognize their signature melodic, gloomy sound with a light swirling of progressive experimentation and electronic textures. Folks very familiar with the group will recognize this hallmark gloomy melodic sound is a pretty big departure from their foundations as a death/doom outfit. Just between you and me, though, I much prefer the melodic gloom.
ALBUM REVIEW: Hexvessel - Kindred
When I first discovered Hexvessel I was drawn to them by their folky elements and abundant nature worship lyrics, though over the years they’ve delved more into their old school doom and psychedelic side. Their latest album, Kindred, dropping April 17 through Svart Records, strikes a good balance between the two, along with some more experimental harmonic forays.
Album Review: Oranssi Pazuzu - Mestarin Kynsi
The weirdos in Oranssi Pazuzu are back with their new record, Metsarin Kynsi, coming out April 17 through Nuclear Blast. Fans will know their brand of off-the-wall psychedelic black metal, but Metsarin Kynsi brings an extra layer of spooky that adds something very fresh and welcome, if a bit unsettling at times.
Album Review: Testament - Titans of Creation
There’s been a lot of news surrounding Testament lately, mostly surrounding one unfortunate discovery—Chuck Billy tested positive for Covid-19. So be sure to send the lads in Testament some love because holy shit that’s scary. The good news is Testament has a new album coming out and it hits hard. Titans of Creation comes out April 3 through Nuclear Blast, and the old thrashers have continued to sound better with age.
Album Review: Mamaleek - Come and See
The anonymous brothers in Mamaleek are back with another off-the-wall record of the type that will piss off black metal purists but is perfect for me. Come & See is dropping March 27 through The Flenser, and features a lot of blues and jazz influence this time around, along with their usual penchant for odd textures and mild, rhythmic experimentation.
Album Review: Intronaut - Fluid Existential Inversions
Progressive metallers Intronaut are back at it with a new record dropping February 28 through Metal Blade Records called Fluid Existential Inversions. The album features some heavier sounds than previously heard, with some parts even flirting with things like a slight essence of tech death, as seen in the opening track “Procurement of the Victuals.” This isn’t to say that if you really dug the older Intronaut sound you’ll be completely alienated.
Art Show: Punk on the Western Front
Art Attack SF is holding a month-long art show called 1984 // 2020 : Punk on the Western Front with opening night on February 29th. Featured artists include Winston Smith, Jello Biafra, Rikk Agnew, Edward Colver, and many, many more.
Shadow Frost Music & Arts Festival Announced
A convention-style concert festival in Western Maryland has been announced for February 21st and 22nd, featuring a lineup of various rock and metal bands including Vastum, Deceased, and Doomstress, as well as a sizable chunk of local bands from the Baltimore area. Shadow Frost producer M A Spiro says: I am not trying to host bands that you can see at a lot of other festivals, but I want to showcase a few of the best that that underground music has to offer.
News: Samiam is Working on a New Album
Berkeley punk band Samiam announced they would be working on a new album in a series of Facebook posts on December 30 and January 8. The announcement was made in a post for an upcoming show with the bands Quivers and States of Nature Saturday February 22 at the Golden Bull in Oakland, CA. This was followed by the clarification post on January 8 stating that Samiam would be recording a new album and signing to a new label.
Album Review: Alcest - Spiritual Instinct
Alcest is a band that made its mark by taking the trappings of black metal and applying them to a cleaner, brighter, post-black and shoegaze sound. Lots of major tonality and clean vocals stand in stark contrast to the performative grimness so often seen within the scene. The band’s latest album, Spiritual Instinct, drops October 25 through Nuclear Blast, and sees the band keep their more upbeat approach to black metal, but with a slightly heavier sound than seen in their work before.
Album Review: Abbath - Outstrider
Outstrider, releasing July 5 through Season of Mist sees Abbath really grow into his own. The debut solo album, setting aside all controversy and allegations about stolen Immortal material, was good but wore off quickly, with a lot of similar sounding material. The upcoming sophomore album, however, sees him gain a unique, slightly experimental bent, with a heavy dose of black and roll tinged by trad metal aesthetics.
Album Review: Heilung - Futha
Kai Uwe Faust really put in the legwork to get his growls to stand out on Heilung’s new record, Futha, dropping June 28 through Season of Mist. The album was made to be the more feminine counterpoint to Ofnir, with lyrics based off of old Icelandic poetry that was chanted by women casting spells. Futha also sees the band take more of a texture-based approach. The chants are still pretty engaging and otherworldly, but they’re less melodic than a lot of material seen before.
Album Review: Sunn O))) - Life Metal
Anyone familiar with Sunn O))) should know that they are not the band to come to if you want a toe-tapping, riff-based banger. A Sunn O))) record is more about letting the drone textures and ambience flow over you as you are slowly buried alive.
Album Review: Månegarm - Fornaldarsagor
Månegarm have been around a lot longer than I expected, nearly 25 years, and with this landmark of a year, they’re ushering in a new record. For those unfamiliar, Månegarm is a Swedish band hailed as one of the pioneers of folk metal, and are notable for being one of the few bands that doesn’t take that moniker and decide to just dress up like cavemen and play bad songs about beer while trying to use an 80s Cassio keyboard as a stand-in for actual folk instruments.
Album Review: Eluveitie - Ategnatos
April 5th will see Eluveitie dropping their first metal record since a complete lineup overhaul and release of their second acoustic record. Ategnatos, released through Nuclear Blast, is definitely an event long-anticipated by fans of the band curious to see how this new ensemble holds up with some new heavy material.
Album Review: Devin Townsend - Empath
Devin Townsend likely needs no introduction, but for those unfamiliar, the guitarist’s career has spanned 25 years, through multiple solo acts, Strapping Young Lad, work with Steve Vai, and plenty more impressive things that all adds up to one incredible portfolio, including a metal opera concept album about an evil alien overlord coming to take all of our coffee.
album-review-trollfest-norwegian-fairytales
Trollfest is a fun band, and for a while that was the most I could really say about them. They make decent music, and they’re fun to see live, but the goofiness wears off quickly. With Norwegian Fairytales, releasing through NoiseArt, it seemed on the surface that the band was going in a different, slightly more serious, direction.
Album Review: Maestus - Deliquesce
Maestus are a blackened doom metal band from the Pacific Northwest who are releasing their sophomore album Deliquesce through code666. The title of the album is a word that means to melt away, to give you a taste of the mood they’re going for. Deliquesce doesn’t have a single song shorter than 10 minutes, overall spanning about 50 minutes over a four-track album. These are bitter, miserable, longwinded songs, and the vocals really dig into the blackened side of their sound.
Album Review: A Swarm of the Sun - The Woods
The Woods was my introduction to A Swarm of the Sun’s work. I hadn’t heard of the band before this, but when I looked them up and checked out some of their previous work, they caught my interest enough to give their latest offering a try. The Woods is being released January 11 through Version Studio Records and features a deceptively short, three-track lineup, though each song is well over ten minutes and goes through ebbs and flows and movement-like sections. They’re long without being longwinded.
Album Review: Karg - Dornenvögel
Just in time for the somber changing of seasons comes Dornenvögel by Karg, dropping November 16 through AOP Records. Karg is the project of Harakiri for the Sky vocalist J.J. who plays all the instruments on the record and as such features the same depressive, bleak hallmarks, though they are more introspective and muted for a large portion of this album.
Album Review: Dirge - Ah Puch
It’s not every day you get to listen to an Indian band’s doom metal concept album about the downfall of post-European contact Mesoamerican civilization. Dirge’s album, Ah Puch, named after the Mayan god of death who takes a central role in the album’s story, comes out on October 19, 2018, as an independent release from the band.
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