HUNGARIAN INCANTATION
What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think about Hungary? The out of world leggy babes of course, how a stupid a question that was. So, more specifically when you think about Hungary and its connection to extreme metal music how many bands come to your mind? Not many will answer be able to answer that question because Hungary and extreme metal haven’t really mixed but there are a few noteworthy bands. Pokolgép for example was a brilliant heavy metal band. Void Of Sleep is decent doom metal band and Sear Bliss have gained some attention in the black metal scene, but amidst all this lies the exalted Tormentor and the brilliant black metal album ‘Ano Domini’ and the most revered track of all, the infamous black metal anthem of all ages, ‘Tormentor’ without the mention of which no black metal discussion is complete. So, when an old school death metal emerges from that country it does turn your curiosity notch up a bit.
The band in question here is named Tyrant Goatgaldrakona and has 2 members which boast the names Hellfire Commander of Eternal War and Pain and Grave Desecration and Necrosodomy, with a logo designed by a company called Sickness 666 and a black and white album cover which has a goat reading an old black book in front of a sacrificial altar on which lies a pile of skulls and is surrounded by a few members of some secret satanic cult while there is a meteor shower in the sky. Oh, and there is of course a pentagram just above the band logo. If this doesn’t scream bloody metal I don’t know what will. As contrasted to the image that the band tries to put forth with their over the top imagery and names the music is primitive and brutal.
The mold of death metal that this band embodies is that of a savagely violent form of death metal. The band obviously worships at the altar of Incantation as is seen in their music and is at rare occasions dotted with influences from the Swedish metal scene. The bands main aim is to arrive, raise hell and leave. Its inclination towards just leaving a message in a small compact form without the frivolous sweeping solos or highly technical compositions is in a way the attitude that started the metal genre as a whole. Right from the onset the band the band unleashes an aural onslaught of a thick slab of death metal suffering which with its unrelenting constitution grips the attention of the listener. The heavy Incantation aura can be heard throughout with the signature Incantation like extremely heavy riffs being pummelled out like there was no tomorrow. The vocals range from guttural to whispered and when guttural they are very reminiscent of the mighty Craig Pillard. As compared to the bands previous release which was their debut was an EP by the name of ‘Sign of Moloch’ which was more on the slower side of things this release is relentless throughout. The songs are more varied, complex and well thought of and instead of coming off as a brainless Incantation clone the band add a whole lot of originality in the composition. Though the band is very highly influenced by the American scene of old school death metal there are shades of the archetypal buzz saw guitar tuning and riffs of the Swedish death metal scene as is seen in a couple of riffs in tracks like ‘The Mountains of Irkalla (From Life to Death)’, ‘Church Of Fire’, ‘Dawn Of Decay’, ‘King of the Desert (Malkum in Rex)’ and the title track. The drumming is never just lost in the background. Though the drumming for the majority of the part acts just as support it never takes the centre stage but at times it used as the catalyst to thrust the band forward with blastbeats in tracks like ‘The Mountains of Irkalla (From Life to Death)’ and ‘Church Of Fire’ which are evocative of Jumpin’ Jesus played with sincere precision. The true strength of the band lies in its ability to change the momentum from hyperspeed to snail paced death doom riffs that are highly infectious with their simplicity and headbangability with impossible fluidity as seen in tracks like ‘The Mountains of Irkalla (From Life to Death)’, ‘Dawn Of Decay’ and ‘Arcanum Secretum’. If you have been following the band since its inception you will notice unlike most bands that write good small songs and falter at longer track, Tyrant Goatkaldrakona can craft the longer tracks very well. In a rather short album where most tracks are 2 – 3 minutes long the first and last track are over 6 minutes long and everything that the band stands for can be heard here, and with such a unique ability and track placing the band starts as well as ends off with a bang begging the listener for more. Though highly influenced by the Incantation school of music the band also reminds the listener of Black Witchery is songs like ‘Horns in the Dark’ with its frantic drumming and its penchant for war metal.
In the vast spectrum of death metal the class of music the band chooses to play the and with the influences the band has chosen the scope for variance reduces to quite an extent but with the album lasting only 30 minutes the album never becomes tedious. This and the fact that there are numerous tempo changes and solos dotted throughout also prevent boredom and sounding as if the band has run out of ideas. The clear production and the slightly muddy guitar tone aid the band well in its objective and adds the depth this kind of music needs. A bone that I’d like to pick with the band is its guitar solos. The few solos which are here sound rather similar and scattered all over the place and lack construction which is rather surprising because the band has the ability to write memorable solos when well constructed and thought of as seen on the track ‘King of the Desert (Malkum In Rex)’ and in their Morbid Carnage which in this modern day and age is one of the very few old school thrash metal bands that are worth hearing and do not sound like trash. Maybe the band wanted to keep things fast keeping in theme with the album and that may be the reason for such faulty scattered solos but I think they act as a hindrance to some good song writing. Despite this, the band knows its death metal and knows what audience it wants to target. Not being from a country that is known for death metal or a well known label may be the reasons the band does not garner as much attention it deserves, but for those into the old school of music this is a band to follow in the future and a death metal album that is surely worth hearing. This band may well be the finest extreme metal import from Hungary after Tormentor.
SCORE - 76/100
KRYPTS HAVE ARRIVED
This is the definition of Death Metal as on RateYourMusic - Death Metal is a Metal sub-genre that began in the United States in the mid 1980s and was heavily influenced by Thrash Metal(particularly bands like Slayer and Kreator). Pioneers of the genre include bands such as Possessed, Death, and Morbid Angel. This genre often utilizes abrupt changes in tempo, key, and time signature, although this is not present in all forms of this music. Guitars are heavily distorted and down-tuned, and are often played using techniques such as palm muting and tremolo picking. Chromatic chord progressions are often featured in Death Metal songs. Death Metal drummers typically play in very fast patterns and often employ double bass drum techniques and the use of blast beats to create a highly aggressive sound. Vocally, Death Metal uses a style consisting largely of guttural growls, grunts, and gurgles. Lyrics are bleak and often violent or anti-religious. Even today, this style is considered a largely underground form of music.
A pretty good definition covering almost all characteristics of death metal. Almost. This definition, and the definition of death metal as on Wikipedia are quite similar but both do not mention one very important characteristic of death metal. The atmosphere. Remember the golden era of death metal when the only aim of playing death metal wasn’t just playing blast beats and aggression but an inherent evil foul and wicked almost suffocating atmosphere? Not many in this ongoing new school of old school death metal have been able to grasp and master this concept, hell, not many of the old school bands were able to do it unless you’re a band member of Incantation or Autopsy but Krypts seem to have grabbed that elusive devil by the collar and make it its own and in the process have written a chapter on death metal atmosphere that would have made the masters proud.
Krypts, a Finnish band have been around for a while. Even if you’re a new band when you come from a country that has birthed the bastardly putrid sons of bands like Demilich, Demigod, Convulse (who, for those living under a rock have come up with a pretty nifty little EP earlier this year) , Adramelech, Xysma, Cartilage (to name a very very few) you carry of extremely legendary tag of Finnish death metal which can be a huge burden to carry. They formed in 2008 and have released a self titled EP in 2001 and a demo called ‘Open The Crypts in 2009 and since then have lived up to their expectations and released stuff which created ripples of excitement in the death metal community. A glance of at the album art which has been inked by THE Timo Kotela who has made the famous Deathspell Omega and Watain covers has also done artwork for bands like Kaamos, Teitanblood, Katharsis and Dead Congregation is a visual showcase of the music contained within the debut album labelled ‘Unending Degradation’ . It’s bleak, dark, and oppressive yet possessing a sense of all that is unholy.
If ‘Open The Crypts’ and ‘Krypts’ were teasers into the putrid make of death metal this band was about to churn out then ‘Unending Degradation’ is the full monty of unabashed, rancid death metal that if I may be completely honest may have surprised many of fan of this band including me as something this heavy and lumbering was not expected. But then again it may not be as surprising considering Dark Descent records have signed ‘em up, a label that over the years has signed only the best of the best to their catalogue of death metal, some bands being Adversarial, Goreaphobia, Lvcifyre and Anhedonist. The album consists of 8 tracks and lasting nearly 40 minutes has 3 tracks from their 2009 demo. These tracks are ‘Open The Crypt’, ‘Dormancy Of Ancients’ and ‘Day Of Reckoning’. These tracks have been re-recorded and given an atmosphere and feel that make it go consistently with the other tracks of the album instead of just being copy pasted and makng them seem out of place, which once again is not every surprising since Dark Descent is anything but an amateur. The music can be described as a mixture of Death and Death\Doom with its traditional Finnish styled downtuned heavy goodness, sepulchral bass lines, visceral bellows and sunken drums that mesh together to create an unforgivingly dark, deep and debauched atmosphere. Throughout the album there are various tempo changes which change between mid paced and slow lumbering with well thought of precision. After all its the heavy and slow riffs that make for a more morbid atmosphere than the hyperspeed technical ones. Each time the gear is changed it brings about the unmitigated change in the cavernous atmosphere which the band intended to do so in the first place. Whether the riffs crawl along at a maggot like pace or a faster more paced approach the band never meanders from its pivotal aim which is of creating a monstrously perverted atmosphere.
Throughout the album the band permeates an esoteric intelligence by showing it knows what it wants backed by an unbridled creativity of the instruments through which the bands can bring forth unto the listener what the band needs. The song writing and song placing on the album is another brilliant feature innate here. The way the band uses extended outros as intros to the upcoming tracks as well as further piling to the suffocating atmosphere and how the band meshes the slow placed lumbering riffs of the track ‘Inhale...’ as a precursor to the unhinged crushing brutality of the following track ‘The Black Smoke’ shows the vision of the band which is further cemented in this all killer, no filler consistent release when the band finishes of with a bang with their final track ‘Beneath The Archaic’ which is masterpiece of modern death/doom and everything the band stands for.
Devastating stuff. Unending Degradation has cemented Krypts place in the modern death metal scene by creating an album that is so full of emotion and by merging its old and new stuff with amazingly perfect liquidity. This is an incarnation of old school death metal.. the Finnish way. In a year that boasts of releases by Zealotry, Convulse, Mitochondrion, Lantern, T.O.O.H, Mithras, Vorum, Portal and Suffocation amongst others and with 10 of the 12 months of this year still left toppling this beat beast of an album will not be an easy task, and if some band old or new does manage to best this.. well then this year will bring back a smile on the face of an old school death metal fan.
SCORE - 89/100
