Veldraveth - Malformations of God

Artist: Veldraveth
Release Title: Malformations of God
Year: 2016
Label: Evil's Records/Satanath Records
Genre: Old-School Black Metal
Tracklisting:
1. Yetzer Ha'ra
2. In Chaos Born
3. Malformations of God
4. In Terms of Violence
5. Ominous Omen
6. No Place for God
7. Thunderstorms
8. No Return
9. Murder
10. Zyklon-B in Conclave

Coming up through the ranks, Venezuelan black metallers Veldraveth have taken a long, winding road from their start back in the early 2000s as they’ve brought more ravenous and devastating material that furthers their deadly attack even further. Taking their time to get the release right with a lengthy six-year break from albums, the trio’s third full-length album was originally released March 26, 2016 in a co-release from Satanath Records and Evil’s Records.

Marching along with impunity, the group offers a wholly caustic and explosive old-school style attack that charges along with quite a devastating tone. Led by the tremolo-based riff-work that carries this one along into tight, frantic set-ups that offer straightforward, simplistic tones without really deviating much from this basic framework, offering up the kind of darkened bouts of fury that’s wholly engaging here when the band is clearly in their furious stages. Balanced out by a series of mid-tempo sprawling patterns that act as buffer-sections that are kept to a minimum throughout here rather than being placed at the forefront of the album and a series of challenging, intricately-designed epics that bring forth more stylized tremolo-picked patterns as well as charging thrash-influenced segments that add a dynamic sense of chaos to the proceedings, overall this is a furious if slightly familiar attack while becomes the albums’ main failing point here. However enjoyable the blasting chaos and furious intensity derived from the riff-work may be, there’s still the overriding sense of being far too close to the source material to really generate the kind of creativity featured here that allows this one to stick out here as this one tends to feel way too similar to dozens of other acts in the genre playing this particular style and it really does lower this one slightly.

While there’s still plenty of highly enjoyable elements found here that makes for a truly enjoyable, vicious and intense black metal album, the few flaws present here are enough to placate those enough here to leave this one more for those who prefer the South American style of black metal or prefer the more intense stylings in the genre.

Score: 87/100

Does it sound good? Order it from here:
http://veldraveth.bandcamp.com/album/malformations-of-god

Evil Reborn - Throne of Insanity

Artist: Evil Reborn
Release Title: Throne of Insanity
Year: 2016
Label: Evil's Records/Satanath Records
Genre: Retro Death Metal
Tracklisting:
1. Black Dahlia
2. Evil Reborn
3. Adicción visceral
4. Possessed Angels
5. A Morbid Encounter
6. Destroying the Trinity
7. Throne of Insanity
8. Night Killer
9. Bendita malevolencia

Formed just in 2012, Venezuelan death metallers Evil Reborn have quickly set about taking their love of old-school death metal to their quickly-released first EP before taking a slight gap to deal with their lineup issues. With bassist/guitarist Armando Henriquez departing to let Alfredo Herrera join in on guitar while being the first-recorded output for bassist Jesús Maneiro, the debut full-length was issued as a co-release between Satanath Records and Evil’s Records on May 17, 2016.

Throughout here the group is dependent upon the old-school style of attack here which manages to run through a rather simplistic attack for the most part here. There’s a huge proficiency of deep, churning riff-work on display here which is carried along by the ravenous rhythms present which makes this one all the more tight and intense by making the riffing fly through the faster, up-tempo paces here. With this approach balanced along quite nicely by a hard-hitting, chugging intensity that gives this a charging, vicious attitude that owes to slight influences from the chug-heavy Deathcore scene which strangely still goes along quite nicely with the old-school swirling rhythms, the overall approach and design along the way here gives this one a lot to really like and really offers a lot to really enjoy about this one. This makes for some rather good times here though it does have a rather small factor involved here that brings it down somewhat. There’s a rather strong attitude here that’s really not that concerned with the more prominent death metal aesthetics throughout here as the chug-heavy riff-work keeps this one strangely mid-tempo for the most part. It’s mostly fiery and enjoyable enough, but the pacing here really could’ve been livened up by having more thoroughly atmospheric death metal patterns here, and it really does stand up here as the main issue for the most part.

Though there’s not nearly as much fiery and lively work here that really could’ve exploited the greatness of their attack to the fullest, there’s still more than enough on this one that works well that it becomes a curiosity piece for those who appreciate this kind of slow-churning death metal as a whole or those that enjoy Latin American death metal as well.

Score: 80/100

Does it sound good? Order it from here:

https://evilreborn.bandcamp.com/album/throne-of-insanity

Irillion - Egledhron EP

Artist: Irillion
Release Title: Egledhron EP
Year: 2016
Label: Self-Released/Independent
Genre: Atmospheric Black Metal
Tracklisting:
1. Turpial
2. Tierra negra (Parte I)
3. La lucha del Catatumbo
4. Tierra negra (Parte II)
5. El Yann
6. Egledhron

Formed just in 2015, Venezuelan one-man atmospheric black metallers Irillion have formed themselves into a solid semblance of atmospheric black metal as the instrumental portion of their attack is a rather true portion of the style. As sole composer and instrumentalist Rayner V. continues along his fine quest, the project's debut release was originally self-released digitally September 24, 2016.

On the whole this here is wholly simplistic and rather primitive-styled black metal built around low-fi, swirling tremolo riffing and buzzing basslines while featuring raw, thudding drumming pound away in the background. The simple-minded riffing is given quite a free-reign of the material here which lets the atmospheric passages weigh on this one quite heavily with the straightforward arrangements bringing that buzzing tone and tremolo riff-work to let the band be able to switch over quite nicely from the blaring riffing to a more relaxed, melodic atmosphere. This comes off rather nicely throughout here with a nice deal of variety thrown into the mix, though the album’s overall simplistic nature does seem to strike up a series of overly familiar patterns and rhythms quite easily. This one tends to run into the same overall patterns quite early and often with long stretches of the running time devoted to simplistic strumming and plodding tempos over and over again which does evoke a fine atmosphere as was intended even though it’s quite repetitious and could certainly get hammered out over time. Likewise, the raw recording material is a bit much for this one to take at times with the weak-sounding material likely putting some off who care more for a professional, polished sort of material. Though these do hamper the project, they’re somewhat excusable due to being part of their debut release.

Despite a few minor issues here holding it back that are more likely concerned with being involved in a debut release and can be somewhat excused and forgiven here, the remaining parts here are certainly worthwhile enough for those who can look past those for some decent-enough and overly simplistic atmospheric black metal.

Score: 65/100

Does it sound good? Order it from here:
https://irillion.bandcamp.com/