Rapid Fire Reviws: Experimenting With Metal with Pupil Slicer, Thantifaxath, & Portrayal Of Guilt
Blossom - Pupil Slier
While I wasn't the earliest adopted to Pupil Slicer I had been catching some buzz about the band for a while, even before their lead singer made a memorable appearance on Backxwash's fantastic record last year. Lead single, title track, and closer Blossom was my favorite song from the band to date when it dropped as a single and I still love the frenetic pacing and composition a lot. I also love the more sheer brutality of the record's first full song Momentary Actuality, together the two tracks bookend thing quite nicely. So going into the sophomore effort of the genre-fusing metal group all I was really hoping for was a versatile collection of songs that held my attention throughout.
On that first point, they delivered. Songs here exist on a spectrum from dark but somewhat languid space to blistering technicality, sometimes making drastic shifts within the song itself. Creating The Devil In Our Own Image is one of the best examples whose arena-sized mix presents a great opportunity to show off the furious performances. The point of how good a job the album does holding my attention is a bit more mixed. Many of my favorite songs on the record come on the outside edges, making the middle run feel like a bit of a slog sometimes. The 12+ minutes of The Song at Creation's End and No Temple is the hardest mountain to climb on the record. With No Temple in particular the band loses so much of their spontaneity and spend much of the song feeling surprisingly predictable. While nothing ever craters this record, it does feel like the band is being held back from their full potential. All of this is to say that I hoped I would love this record, but in the end I just like it. It's not the worst thing in the world to say, particularly because I do think this is an improvement over their debut. If the band continues to take similar steps forward they could be one of the best metal acts around in no time. 6.5/10
Hive Mine Narcosis - Thantifaxath
Thantifaxath are an anonymous Canadian black-metal band who have seemingly been turning heads for about as long as they've existed. When I started getting into more experimental flavors of metal the band's 2014 debut album was already out and more than a few people recommended it to me. I liked that record and I enjoyed the significant amount of material they dropped as an EP a few years later. Now I'm finally getting the chance to cover new material from the band and it's delivered in the form of a 7-track 45-minute torrential downpour of technically proficient black metal. Consistently throughout the album there's one blurring compositional shift another that makes these compositions roar with fervent intensity. Thankfully the band never lets their technicality over-step its bounds as the album largely remains rabidly furious throughout.
Four of the record's tracks hover in the 6 to 7-minute range. The opener Solar Witch is an instantly unsettling way to start the album off with these alarming guitar tones and brutal vocals. The way the songs continually fades out its layers of instrumentation to set up for another vicious return is consistently satisfying and the dizzying final minute is the cherry on top of a wonderful highlight. Speaking of highlights, Burning Kingdom Of Now is another one with its rising dramatic start and ripping vocals. It's one of the more compositionally spacious songs here leaving plenty of room where you aren't being completely crushed. Even as different phases oscillate back and forth they do it in an immensely satisfying way. I'm a lot less fond of the way Hungry Ghosts starts. The vocals just sound so out of place once the instrumentation is dialed back and I think it could have benefited from some shift in style. Finally, Sub Lilith Tunnels is the record's furthest wander from expectations. The track combines slow brooding riffs that feel like an entirely different style of metal with obscured spoken word vocals from a different vocalist. It occasionally goes as far as to feel like ambient or drone but ultimately it's all in service of a crushing second half. It's an experiment I like a lot which adds quite a bit of versatility and creativity to the album.
Elsewhere on the record is the monstrous 10-minute Surgical Utopian Love. There's something about the vocals and refrains on the beginning stretch of the song that don't really do a whole ton for me though I can't exactly explain why. Unfortunately, this carries on into the middle portion of the song which feels like a quiet part just for the sake of a quiet part without actually setting up the eventual return. By comparison, the 4-minute The Lost Wisdom Of Wolves is like a microdose of that same set-up and I think it plays a lot better. I enjoy this record quite a bit. Though I think there are improvements that could be made they're largely within the margins as the core of this record is very strong. In a year that's already seen its fair share of solid black metal releases, this isn't just another name on the pile. With an embrace of technicality that never drowns in it, Thantifaxath hit on something uniquely appealing and serve up what is certain to be one of the better metal records of the year. 7.5/10
Devil Music - Portrayal Of Guilt
Portrayal Of Guilt is a Texas band who dabble in all things hardcore a brash. The band first got my attention in 2021 when they released two albums, the second of which dropped on Run For Cover Records. This, their fourth project is once again dropping on Run For Cover and comes with a highly conceptual format. The 30-minute record features ten tracks which serve as five compositions each played in two different styles.
Each section rounds out to a little over fifteen minutes and the first half is played in a black metal style that will be familiar to fans of the band. While the blistering 90-second opener serves as the height of intensity its far from the only infusion of energy into the project. My favorite song of the bunch is Where Angels Come To Die whose filthy layers of sound blend together into something completely irresistible. The bursting metallic drums and vicious screams go together perfectly in a filthy haze that I just can't get enough of. When it shifts into a more eerie style of vocals on the bridge and then into a clearer even vocal mix afterwards the sledgehammer blunt instrumentation gets even more effective.
The second half of the record features the same five compositions staged at similar lengths but this time with a very cinematic array of orchestral instrumentation behind them. In my opinion, the issues with this style start to show pretty much right away. While the instrumental performance aren't bad by any means hearing the opening track revised as a low-grade Jaws theme song with black metal vocals that sound horrifically out of place on it certainly turned me off of the idea quickly. While it doesn't remain as misguided throughout, things also don't improve immediately. Burning Hand is the first song on the second half that I think really works. The primary reason is the way its composition sets up for the dramatic swelling and building of strings and occasional percussion behind it. The last three tracks generally feel much more suited for the orchestration which is nice as they're the longer ones by comparison. Still though I can't help but think this style fails to overcome its novelty. Even taking into account what unique interest the style provides, I would still ultimately prefer to hear an entire album worth of more conventional black metal and I can't identify a single song here whose second version I prefer to its first. I admire the band for undergoing this artistic risk and I look forward to what they do next, but this just isn't one of my favorite works of theirs so far. 6/10
