apanthropy

2018 is just about finished. Top (x) “albums of the year” lists are in full bloom. The mainstream music industry is still beating the udders of their old cash cows into total fucking dust and the underground continues to host – for whatever reason – its own demise through over-saturation and, now, nanny-state social-political bullshit, we have the usual problem of good bands getting overshadowed by unimportant nonsense.

Let’s focus on what may have slid through the cracks. Not the “best” albums of 2018, and not a list focusing on the 4th, 7th, or 10th album a major group has put out. Both categories totally dominate most larger online publications and it’s all pretty much different configurations of the same pool of albums.

Do yourself a favor and check out these 10 albums before 2018 is over:

Siege Column – Inferno Deathpassion

Abrasive ripping death from the New Jersey dumpster empire. Superb arrangements flanked with prominent rhythmic attacks that conjure 1985 Kreator as much as they do modern-day Archgoat. Joe Aversario is also linked to Abazagorath, Death Fortress, and Dethroned Emperor.

Ataraxy – Where All Hope Fades

Atmospheric, asphyxiating death metal from one of Spain’s more overlooked groups. Ataraxy’s ability to scale back from the constant barrage of information typical to death metal songwriting and execute melodic passages that are as expansive as they are crushing is deserving of a listen.

Evil – The Gate Of Hell

There’s extreme music. And there’s Japanese extreme music. An instrumental intro, two songs, and a Sarcófago cover. Seven minutes. Minimalist riffing combined with absolute snare drum destruction to create dense, short-lived bursts of sonic information. Thrash designed for speed and attack with little space given to melody or relief.

Moenen of Xezbeth – Ancient Spells of Darkness…

This is one of the few occasions where the cover is indicative of the actual contents of the album. Grand crashing church bells and grimy keyboard soundscapes work to drive mid-paced black metal that invokes memories of Hades, Ancient, and Darkthrone. The title track is perfectly acceptable as background music for spiking your newborn nephew into a boiling cauldron.

Apraxic – Gun Eye Implant Demo

Delivering tempered modern-day death metal and grind without losing the plotline and turning into nu-hardcore dickcheese, Apraxic’s first strike is an off-the-radar gem that’s good for terminating dens of synth refugees to.

Invocation Spells – Spread Cruelty in the Abyss

We’ve been here before. Total shame their 2018 American run was scrapped. Read the comprehensive review here.

Warp Chamber – Abdication of the Mind

Dense, roiling death metal that compares tonally to Demilich and early Suffocation, while aligning compositionally to Timeghoul, Blood Incantation , and Artificial Brain. That’s a lot of big names. Warp Chamber backs it up hard. You fucked up if you didn’t get the your hands on either of the tape pressings that came out in 2018.

Antiversum – Cosmos Comedenti

Debut full-length album from Swiss merchants of cosmic darkness; a gurgling blood pool representing an expansive amalgamation of death, doom, and black metal. Passages of noise, feedback, and ambient soundscapes mix with chord slabs and non-traditional song structuring to crack the standard mold of traditional extreme music.

Archaic Tomb – Congregations for Ancient Rituals

Synergy in the writing process is absolutely mandatory for any successful band. Archaic Tomb’s lineup of musicians work in unison to craft riff-based narratives under a murky, yet surprisingly clear, production to create a cavernous thundering example of long-form death metal with a slight influence of black metal on their debut demo.

Bog Body – Through the Burial Bog

Bog Body have the tar-saturated guts to revisit a difficult question regarding extreme metal’s existential state. Without the electric guitar, is heavy metal still heavy metal? While the answer, or considerations for answers, is entirely too long for this feature, Bog Body does provide an updated and convincing argument against the necessity of the electric guitar. Bog Body utilize only bass, vocals, and drums in this debut demo to create an insect-laden, soupy mess of rancid doom death. While a vast abyss in the overall sound is created as a byproduct of forgoing the electric guitar, the heat from the low-end of the sound spectrum rides the foul and ancient analog production and spreads itself from bottom to top. At the time of writing, the short run of 100 independently-distributed tapes is long sold out, but the digital version is still available on the band’s Bandcamp page.

-A.Krause