Metal Catch Up with Scarcity, Krallice, Nails, Full Of Hell, & Pallbearer: Rapid Fire Reviews
At some point I've got to get better about reviewing metal records. Since I'm so bad at it I felt the need to do a recap of some of the most notable ones to drop this year so far.
The Promise Of Rain - Scarcity
Scarcity are a NY black metal band that I'm a bit late to the party on. They debuted a few years ago on The Flenser, which really should be enough to get me to tune into anything at this point, but I let the debut slip by me. I almost made that mistake again when this new record didn't immediately blip on my radar beyond the actually beautiful album cover it sports. Thankfully some positive coverage the album received has led to me attempting to right both wrongs with an overdue review. Promise serves up just 6 tracks, but with four of them powering past 6 minutes it's grand total runtime reaches 40 minutes. It opens with the bold "In The Basin Of Alkaline Grief" which wastes no time introducing its brutality and ferocity. It takes a seemingly bold risk directly in the middle by dropping out all the instrumentation save for this incessant beeping and showing you the grit of its vocals up close and personal. It's a grueling start to the album, but in a good way.
Speaking of grueling, the same could be said about "Undertow." Though it's a shorter song it features the same anxious squelching guitars and even more brutal screams belting out lyrics about a very physical and highly personalized destruction. "Venom & Cadmium" has one of my favorite moments on the record, a late stage eruption that gives way to an eerie ambient outro. It takes wading through a bit of occasionally unpleasant in the wrong way kind of grime to get there, but it's probably worth it.
The record's longest song "Scorched Vision" is actually more digestible, at least by comparison. It's mix feels less muddy and the squelching guitar leads the burst out of it have a razor sharp edge. It also features a vocal performance that's less brooding and more harrowing, something I think fits the instrumental palette better. But in it's long runtime the song does still find moments to get gritty in its lowest register. The album also concludes with a highlight, and the first song I heard from it, the title track. It feels like it reaches a perfect medium of the obvious ferocity and intensity of their sound without drowning in the excess sludge of the denser parts of the record. Even though I didn't originally cover Scarcity's debut, I did find it promising once it finally made its way to me. I'm equally intrigued by Promise, which fittingly continues to show quite a bit of promise. Even if it feels like the band occasionally shoots themselves in the foot stylistically, I like this record more than I don't and I'm looking forward to what they'll do next and if it will be an embrace of the more dramatic and harrowing side of black metal. 6.5/10
Inorganic Rites - Krallice
Krallice are a black metal band who have been around for nearly 20 years now and release music pretty prolifically throughout their entire tenure. By technical count this is their 15th album, but that lens can end up overlooking memorable moments in their discography like 2016's Hyperion EP. I last talked about the band in early 2022 when their album Crystalline Exhaustion was picking up some key cosigns in metal spaces. I enjoyed that record and though I've heard the material they've released since, none of it really hit me as something I needed to talk about. With this being their first and seemingly only new project of 2024, it felt worth diving into one of the metal outfits with the highest potential for this recap.
The album gets off to a pretty solid start too. Opener "Parataxis" does have a compelling build but in the grand scheme of things it mostly feels like a table setter for what's to come. "Flatlines Encircled Residue" is one of just three songs on the record that extends past 10 minutes, though only barely. The track is kind of a full on journey running the gambit of long instrumental passages intercut with ferocious breakdowns. It's a format that works even if its easy to wish the composition did a little better job at reinforcing itself. The second of these goliaths "Universe Ancestral Tailsman" picks up where the song preceding it left off, synth notes reverberating out into space. Much of the first half of the song is a slowly building instrumental around that premise but it's so textured as distant drums pound away and the synths become smothered in cracking noise and soaked in reverb that feels like it goes on forever. If you're like me, you'll be waiting for a more conventional metal breakdown, but one never actually comes. Whether that's anti climactic or simply a subversive style choice is something I can't quite settle on.
That leaves us with "Fatestorm Sanctuary" the longest and fittingly most epic song on the album at 13 minutes. It too takes its sweet time with an introduction but wow when it finally kicks in is it satisfying. The instrumentation just slashes through the mix and the brooding vocals linger underneath the soaring guitar leads. It's probably my favorite moment on the record as a whole. But the shorter tracks here also sometimes make themselves worth paying attention to. One of the highlights of musicianship on the record comes on "Irdischen" which feels like it begins as a pretty typical song before just devolving completely into a showcase of technical prowess and force. "Death by Misadventure" follows an extended quieter sequence on the record and the rush it floods the record with, particularly on the explosive drumming is infectious.
Inorganic Rites may not be the best I've ever heard Krallice, but it's a strong addition to their already bulky discography nonetheless. The dramatic interpolations of horror movie sounding instrumentation throughout makes its darkness feel more playful and makes the moments where they really submerge things hit that much harder. A lull in the center of the record may be a bit challenging to overcome, especially with its 66 minute runtime, but for the most part I liked this record about as much as I anticipated. 7/10
Every Burning Bridge - NAILS
NAILS are a California band who have dabbled in realms of many hardcore, grindcore, and metal stylings across their first 4 albus, but the point is they're one of the loudest and most intense acts in all of music. It's been 8 years since their last release, the pounding critical success You Will Never Be One Of Us and on the back of a handful of singles, they're delivering a tight 17 minutes of new music spread out across 10 tracks. You probably don't need me to tell you that this isn't for everyone. These songs are tight and ferocious and the vocals are absolutely guttural. Opening track "Imposing Will" is really all you need to hear to gauge whether you've got a shot at liking this or not, and it does so in just 80 seconds.
Rather then break down every single individual element of this record I'll just point out that it has a propulsive energy I find absolutely energizing. Even on songs I'm not crazy about for one reason or another, usually the vocals, the band never turns it off for a second. And then when they do hit their stride on highlights like the squelching title track which transitions perfectly into the neurotic "Give Me The Painkiller" it's impossible to look away. The first half of the record ends with my favorite of the singles, the obviously pointed "Lacking The Ability To Process Empathy." It's a great punctuating moment to an absolutely exhilarating start, but the entirely new second half was where the record would make or break it's intensity and momentum.
Despite being just a minute long, "Made Up In Your Mind" certainly gives you plenty of reasons to remember it, none more than the brutal repetition of the title phrase. I also like "I Can't Turn It Off" even if the instrumentation feels a little familiar for NAILS at this point and plays out in relatively routine fashion until an epic guitar solo at the end of the track, it still manages to be one of the most memorable cuts here. While NAILS certainly aren't re-inventing the wheel here or anything and the short and repetitive approach of these songs does kneecap how much they can say, I don't really care. The emotion of what their doing still remains in full force with intense performances and themes that say a lot even when the lyrics themselves don't. What results is another strong effort from a band who I'm starting to wish would pop up a bit more often. 7.5/10
Coagulated Bliss - Full Of Hell
Full Of Hell are one of those bands whose output can be difficult to keep up with between all their own projects, splits, collaborations, compilations, and the like. But at many points in their career the band has been worth tapping into especially during a span of less than two years when they shared two collaborative records with The Body and their own discography highlight Trumpeting Ecstasy. Just last year they teamed up with Primitive Man for the excellent Suffocating Hallucination. So when I weas looking back at metal records from this year I wanted to try, Coagulated Bliss jumped off the page.
A big part of that was the singles, a trio of songs that I still enjoy as a bunch. "Doors To Metal Agony" came first and it's a flooring 90 seconds whose relentless drumming is the primary reason it digs its hook in me and holds on tight. The title track is shorter and even more ferocious though I'm not sure what results is as satisfying. But honestly my favorite of the three may be "Gasping Dust" which pops up on the second half of the album. Despite being just a minute long the blast beats erupting in tandem with the vocal snarls sounds great and the song manages to fit in a surprising amount of sonic shifting during its short runtime.
Nearly every song on the album runs under two minutes long with the exception of "Bleeding Horizon" whose 6-minute runtime takes up a 4th of the record on its own. Thankfully though I do enjoy the track. It's slow pummeling drums and more stretched out vocals are a pleasant shift halfway through the record but it also manages to end in a way that keeps up the intensity. When that eventually becomes the one-two punch of "Schizoid Rupture" and "Vacuous Dose" it's one of the most throttling moments on the entire record. Though the album has moments among the deep cuts where it feels like it's ripping itself off, the record also serves up more than enough highlights across 25 minutes to justify it. 7/10
Mind Burns Alive - Pallbearer
Pallbearer are an Arkansas-based doom metal outfit who have become known for epic compositions and progressive instrumental stylings across what is now their 5 studio albums. With their excellent 2012 debut Sorrow And Extinction and their even more beloved 2017 effort Heartless they tapped into deploying those epic elements to their hardest hitting conclusions. But on 2020s Forgotten Days, it started to feel like the band's approach was getting less and less interesting and the space left in the cracks of their songs more and more boring. It's an issue that unfortunately rears its head on this album's opener and lead single "Where The Light Fades."
That problem pops up occasionally on Mind as again the indulgences of this record can often get out of control. Take the first 3 full minutes of "Signals" which feel like the kind of build-up an absolute colossus warrants. While I do like the peak of energy the song eventually reaches, it never does anything to quite justify that build-up. As you may suspect, the indulgences don't get any easier as they get longer. Take Endless Place a track who's climaxes don't even really click with me that much across the propulsive middle of the track. That makes it extra unfortunate that it takes up a full 5th of the record on its own.
Thankfully, not all songs on the record require those kind of gymnastics. The title track pops up in the first half and it's a really exciting moment whose epic peaks feel like they justify the momentum-generating instrumental passages. I'm also a fan of "Daybreak" which deploys a more patient maneuvering compositionally. But it definitely pays everything off with a finale minute that's another highlight on the record. I also think "With Disease" is a strong note for the album to end off on as it's final moments feel like a fitting destination. Mind Burns Alive may be a slight improvement over its predecessor, but it suffers from many of the same problems. Too many of the album's climaxes don't feel like they justify the journey it took to get there. Through that lens too much of the tracklist feels wasted on passages that don't serve the ultimate purpose of the genre. Still the musicianship on display is solid enough in individual moments that prog metal and doom metal fans are sure to find something to like. 5.5/10
