Review : Zealotry - At The Nexus Of All Stillborn Worlds by PinnacleMusic

Via PinnacleMusic : "Sit down for this one. Not recommended while driving operating heavy machinery. Such is the density and gravitational pull of this hugely complex and technical release of Zealotry’s latest, At The Nexus Of Stillborn Worlds.

Wasting no time, the title track cracks open with Alex Zalatan’s incredulous blasting along some frantic upper-neck fret permutations of guitarists Phil Tougas and Jake Himelfarb. The throaty roars, growls burps of R. M. Temin (Chtheílist) help lend the album’s disgustingly well-done sense ofwarped technical barbarism, and Aodan Collins provides a relentlessly tricky and meandering bass armada throughout.

With dissonant leads and bass soloing trills, the track allows a crack of melody to creep in then rips into a classic-metal solo with an estranged, Mithras-style reverb-heavy twist. Operatic chants at the end of the song add an off-putting cake-topper to an already nauseously great affair.

And, with little fanfare Accursed is a simple piano and synth interlude that just sort of harmlessly floats past, albeit with a Lovecraftian horror touch. Erm, OK then. This is weird.

And it only gets weirder. Named after the Greek god of oblivion and concealment, Lethe’s Shroud launches back into to a distended mix of clanging bass, rolling drums and harmonic-punctured riffs over larger-than-life growls. Eschewing much sense of traditional verse-bridge-chorus, as with the others, this track feels more an endless web of trickery.

This album is already sonically a multi-tentacled space horror but, like creatures beyond our comprehension, all we can do is to stare and listen, transfixed.

Take Primus Venatoris, for example. With forlorn melodic leads a-la early Dark Tranquillity, there’s also jazzy shuffling drums and confused bends and leads, giving a sickly-sweet contrast of dissonance and resolution.  Labyrinthine passages lead you through tight but furious intricacy. Everyone is flying off the handle. You’ll hear this during the tapping-flecked creepy soloing, the playfully exploratory bass and drums. In fact, the only constant in the mix is the perpetually gruff death growls and roars. Epic synth and orchestral arrangements and a bass solo truly throw the latter end of this song out of whack, in a good way.

The Hole similarly opens widely with a super-bluesy riff that could easily be lifted off from the classic rock era, feeling almost queasily juxtaposed against a bunch of minor chords, oddly shuffling rhythm and relatively doom-paced (for this album,anyway) sluggish roaring vocals. The mid-paced slumber kicks in around the two-minute mark, a clunky distorted bass solo riff followed by an almost distressingly warbling, off-key soft padded synth.

Before we have time to scratch our heads, however, the riff speeds into oblivion, blasts and tremolo at full pace. The aural giddiness and tightness demonstrate that this is clearly an album you’ll need to flog regularly, just to get a bearing on it’s ever-shifting landscape.

There’s almost a sense of trepidation with the creepy leads at the beginning of Universal Deceit,the very jazzy, Gorguts-esque rhythms reminding us again that change is the only constant. A tumbling and skittish number, the various low-range bellows, growls and gruff roars only serve to keep the footing more uneven.

Moments of vertigo induced by this trickery are cleansed momentarily by savage runs of blastbeats, tremolo and slamming breakdowns. Although hyper-speed, the change is almost a welcome breath of air in an anxiously unpredictable album.

Then, like an ode to old-school horror the tolling bells,chants and choirs of The Sky Bleeds Nightmares demonstrate these guys can’t keep their love for old-school macabre from their beloved tunes. The Disney-on-bath-salts intro is washed away by that tight, cleverly chaotic wall of riffs.

Interludes here are tighter and more hectic with snappier solos, faster bass trills, schizophrenic drumming and vocals that rasp and roar in the murky ends of the sonic spectrum. A more straightforward thrashing and blasting outro sends this mind-numbingly caustic track off into the depths of the cosmos.

Oh, last track already? Where… where are we? Let’s regain our bearings and – oh. Oh my. Irredeemable is eleven goddamn minutes long. Nothing for a post-metal or ambient band, but eleven minutes of this band may just kill us, in a good way.

And as such it goes – luring us in with playful bass runs and soaring leads, we’re of course a bit wiser to what comes next, but still enjoy the brief solitude and relative quiet. Crashing and thundering with almost death-doom pace, the vocals bark from a wall beyond the tangible alongsidesplendidly evil arpeggios from Hell.

Rocking into their now-ubiquitous churning brand ofatmospheric tech-death, the blasts pick up and the beautiful cacophony beginsonce more. It’s almost beyond our cognitive capacity, but then we cop a coupleof minutes of just pure crushing stomp, followed by a strangely off-putting choral section (who I’m convinced are in black hooded robes) before one last rubber-banded epileptic riff showcase, and that’s it. Done.

What an exhausting, horrifying, clever and dense musical experience. This is a late-2018 death metal musical highlight."

Originally written by Pinnaclemusic.org

Review : Zealotry - At The Nexus Of All Stillborn Worlds by Pasif Agresif Webzine

Via Pasif Agresif Webzine (translated) : "As we prepare to close 2018, one of the best death metal albums of the year knocked on our door. The dark, cosmic corps of Death metal does not pass by the day, so that it does not offer us a new ugliness, a new scum. The genre is so stretchable in general that, unlike many species, I do not think that death metal will have any problem finding innovation in any period. Elbet, like all kinds of death metal, a thousand repetitions, stereotypes, boring commentators, etc. There is, however, death metal looks like the type that can be most different and meaningful when you look at the big picture.

The group I am talking about today is ZEALOTRY, which is a formation that floats in the death metal waters, but unlike the above paragraph, it does not sound completely different to the genre. Those who closely follow the relatively underground side of death metal are also aware of the beauty / ugliness that Phil Tougas has added to this genre in the past few years. The number of quality albums that the man has been in in recent years is really incredible. From CHTHE'ILIST to FIRST FRAGMENT , from ZELAOTRY to SEROCS , in FUNEBRARUM; Every group, every album, without exception, is a good quality brother. No such statistics I would like to focus on "At the Nexus of All Stillborn Worlds" rather than the group, since I explained ZEALOTRY sufficiently in the " The Last Witness " review. Although the band's third album, “At the Nexus of All Stillborn Worlds,” was released in the last part of the year, we can easily say that ZEALOTRY has created one of the best albums of 2018. Although there was no comment on the “The Last Witness” review, 6 people noted the album; I would also like to reiterate that ZEALTORY is a group that the audience will love the side of death metal that does not come to light in the "At the Nexus of All Stillborn Worlds" review. When we come to the album, ZEALOTRY has several very special sides. One of them is that the group knows very well what it does and does not look like anyone. Indeed, they make a very organic, breathing death metal, and they manage to create something very impressive without following the patterns. The group, which is a highly creative and intelligent guitar department, colors the blur created by the roundabouts that will ask a thousand witnesses to rif with their Loomis / Malmsteen solos like razors; While letting our ears grow with the bass guitar mixed in the foreground, it offers a wonderful death metal feast with excellent drums and on-site vocals. While knowing what this is doing is one of the top things the group does very well, ZEALOTRY's mysteries don't end there. For one thing, the technical structure of the group is seriously admirable. It does not contain thirty firsts in any way; This character, kneaded with the love of SPAWN OF POSSESSION, which has a very meaningful technical level and feels very clear, adds a lot to the group in “At the Nexus of All Stillborn Worlds”. Another thing to mention about ZEALOTRY is the delicious production that makes this music so attractive. Many people may think that the solos in the album are overly mixed; the press may dismiss it so much. However, I think this is a conscious and wonderful result. ZEALOTRY presents the album with such a production that you think the band plays in front of you. It is so real, as I said, it is such a breathtaking album “At the Nexus of All Stillborn Worlds”. Of course it is a matter of taste, but I want to listen to “At the Nexus of All Stillborn Worlds” many times, just because of this production being alive, raw and organic. “At the Nexus of All Stillborn Worlds” is simply a wonderful death metal feast, and if those interested in the genre make their year-end charts regardless of this album, they would have made a big mistake. Eliminating phrases such as old style and new understanding of the event; there is a creative, fresh, bloody live death metal here. One by one, you can separate everything one by one; What to do with these 43 minutes, where you can listen to great musicianship, creative ideas and wonderful compositions, do not miss. "

8.5 / 10

Originally written by Ahmet Saraçoğlu for http://www.pasifagresif.com/

Review : Eternity's End - Unyielding by MetalCrypt

Via MetalCrypt : "Eternity's End first album with Ian Parry (vocals, Elegy) was absolutely killer, so would these dudes be able to top such a massive effort with significant changes in the lineup? Well, the answer comes quickly with a thunderous, grand beginning in "Into Timeless Realms", a heavy, powerful display of classic euro-centered Power Metal. Iuri Sanson's howling vocals match Phil Tougas (Chthe'ilist), Hannes Grossmann, and Christian Münzner's (former Obscura members) instrumental speed perfectly, as he screams throughout the verses and chorus easier than taking candy from a baby, all while Mike LePond's magical fingers pound the bass non-stop and Jimmy Pitts' wizardry in the melodic lines put the icing on this insanely beautiful start to an album.

"Cyclopean Force" showcases the neoclassical side of the sextet with virtuous songwriting and prolific execution. The track exhales an early Symphony X vibe without losing the pure essence of the genre. When things get more rythmic and heavier, like on "Blood Brothers (The Oath)", classics like Metalium's Millennium Metal–Chapter One (1999) come to mind, while when melodic and speedier lines are in place such as on "Under Crimson Moonlight", memories of Lost Horizon's A Flame to the Ground Beneath (2003) will pop in your head. This happens during the whole course of the album, from showcases of technique à la Cacophony and Yngwie Malmsteen to more brutal moments akin of Stormwarrior and even Obscura. Hell, there are even some Orden Ogan-esque parts on "Triumphant Ascent".

Every track here feels in their right place and sufficiently balanced between velocity and cadence, even the surprisingly good instrumental "Dreaming of Cimmerian Shadows". Less fruity, more direct approaches like "Necromantic Worship" are also present, giving the experience a more than welcomed heterogeneous nature, especially when talking about Power Metal, which can be overwhelmingly uninspired at times. There isn't a single filler here, rest assured.

To answer my question earlier in the review, Eternity's End managed not only to match the quality of The Fire Within (2016), but surpass it in every way possible. Ace execution, impressive songwriting and passionate playing are what make Unyielding a monster of an album, and worthy of every respect and praise. Had it came out earlier in the year, it would definitely have been on my top 5 Power Metal records of 2018, without a doubt; all in all, it's actually pretty simple: if you love Prog/Power Metal, you can't miss this album, period."

Originally written by Bruno Medeiros for Metalcrypt.com