Vathek - Aborted Origins Review // Independent Release

Out of one of Canada's lesser talked about areas, comes the Death Metal band, Vathek. Formed in Winnipeg, Manatoba, Vathek have been creating a name for themselves opening for some of the biggest hitters on the road these days. After releasing the debut EP Apocalyptic Pandemic in 2013 and sharing the stage with the likes of Skeletonwitch, Kataklysm, and Aborted, Vathek got working on their first full length release, Aborted Origins.

The first thing to note is the mix of influences throughout this album, the speed and lyrical content similar to Grindcore. Blitzing guitar work and melodic undertones from Thrash Metal. Most prominently though is the chugging and blasting of Old School Death Metal. Instrumentally, Vathek take on a sound very similar to Cannibal Corpse in a lot of sections. "Martial Ingestion" is the perfect instance of this, throughout the majority of the song, the guitar work goes from chugging consistent riffs to small tapping sections. While songs like "Exsanguination Asphyxiation" and "Gratification From Despair" are much more fast paced throughout and take on a much more aggressive, pit-inducing form.

The use of snippets is also used throughout, music like those familiar with Kataklysm's use in almost all their albums. One is found is the heavily Grindcore influenced "Syphilis Shotgun" (originally from the debut EP), which literally just details what it's like to have syphilis in the most gruesome, Metal way possible. While guitar solos are far and few between on Aborted Origins, "Syphilis Shotgun" has a quick little piece near the end of the song, giving the listener just a little nibble at what could be on album number 2. 

From beginning to end, Aborted Origins is a hard hitting, no joke Death Metal album. The songs range from the absurd (see the aforementioned "Syphilis Shotgun") to absolutely destructive. Vathek don't hold back from dabbling into Grindcore, Thrash Metal and Brutal Death Metal throughout and try to push the boundaries of what's possible on this album. If Vathek continue to explore and expand their sound going into their next album, the next big Canadian Death Metal band could very well be on the way. Don't hold back, Aborted Origins is definitely worth a listen.

9/10

Geostygma "The Die Is Cast" Review

France may be in a bit of turmoil right now, but what would be a better time to release a death metal album? France's newcomers Geostygma are looking to burst on the scene with their aggressive, serious and totally non-serious new EP The Die Is Cast. While the release may have been hidden under some massive album drops and of course, the news, this is worth your time.

Right of the bat, you'll notice this is a band who takes their music seriously. Mixing tech and melodic death metal together with a splash of grindcore influence. Geostygma burst right out of the gates with “Enqweentine 2.0” and don't let up. What is very notable about The Die Is Cast is while it's obvious Geostygma take the music seriously, they're clearly also having fun with it. While you may get lost in the intensity of “Enqweentine 2.0” the song ends with a little giggle before bursting into “Fanatic's Chant”. While some of the more serious fans of the music may be turned off by this, it makes the album a lot more human and a whole lot less mechanical.

“Fanatic's Chant” is one of the two main stand out songs on this album. This song is absolute power in its delivery, maintaining a solid pace throughout with interchanging riffs and a solid bass to match. The other standout song being “Withering Breath” simply because it packs the most on. There's ever changing riffs and easily some of the best work on the album. On top of that about half way through there's a random almost nu metal style section that takes you back. While the section is strange, it doesn't take away from the music at all. The song ends with essentially a “meme moment”, as one of the riffs comes back, even slower and heavier. The final song, “Formatted Brain” is a little bit different from the rest of the EP. This is for good reason, as it will be on the band first full length. This track I'll leave you blind with, judge for yourself.

If you're a fan of Cryptopsy, Cattle Decapitation, Benighted or Autopsy this is absolutely a record for you. In all the turmoil going on in France right now, it's not surprising to see something this pissed off and aggressive come out. Check out the Bandcamp stream for The Die Is Cast below and if you're in/around France, Spain or Belgium I highly suggest catching these guys on tour with Pitbulls in the Nursery, Exocrine and Ceild.

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Top 10 Albums of 2017

               Hello everyone, Welcome to Five Magics Music's top 10 albums from the past year of 2017. With so many great records being released this past year, much like most years, it was a tough decision, but we got there so without any further hesitation here is the top 10 albums from 2017!

10. Slave One – “An Abstract and Metaphorical Approach to Deceit” – Dolorem Records

                This was an incredibly surprising release to me. Death Metal is always kind of touchy when it comes to checking out new bands, there are far too many that follow the same copy and paste formula with a slightly different sound and expect to make it to the size that Cannibal Corpse or Obituary have reached. Slave One though, have a different tone to them. This is a band that knows how to take the formula and shake it up, “An Abstract and Metaphorical Approach to Deceit” deserves it’s spot on this list solely for the balls it took to include a Death Metal cover of Dimmu Borgir’s “Blessings Upon the Throne of Tyranny” which brought a breath of life back to a dormant and momentarily stale band.

check out our review of the album

North American Cover

European Cover

9. Kreator – “Gods of Violence” – Nuclear Blast Records

                I’m sick of hearing “there were no good Thrash metal albums this year” when the year kicked off with probably one of the best Thrash Metal albums out there. Kreator has a little bit of.. let’s say numbness, with song of their past albums, while “Phantom Antichrist” stood as an anthem to me when it came it “Gods of Violence” brought back the extremity and intensity of Kreator for me. Songs like the title track “Gods of Violence” and “Satan Is Real” have become synonymous with the band at this point while the album continues to create more anthems with “Hail to the Hordes”.

8. Warbringer – “Woe to the Vanquished” – Napalm Records

                So again, how were there no good Thrash Metal albums this year? Warbringer dropped this monster “Woe to the Vanquished” and it is straight to the point. The biggest draw I find in Warbringer is the war focused lyrics, war, having always been an interest of mine, it entices me. With some of the most intense Thrash Metal songs you’ll hear this year like “Shellfire” and “Descending Blade” along side the heavier and slower tracks “Spectral Asylum” and the epic “When the Guns Fell Silent” there was just too much to miss on this latest record for any real Thrash Metal fan.


check out our review of the album

7. Astaroth Incarnate – “Omnipotence – The Infinite Darkness” – CDN Records

                Black Metal and Death Metal have always gone hand in hand, but none more than the first EP released from Toronto’s Astraroth Incarnate. Compared to the bands original demo, it is night and day the change in maturity in this band, the vocals sound less demonic as a turn but come out much more frightening in the end and with tracks like “Curse of the Black Plague” blasting you away alongside “Unfleshed” and “Re-Creation” this was a release that should have made it into the collections of any Black Metal band.


check out our review of the album

6. Aborted – “Bathos” – Century Media

                Another EP release, Aborted dropped “Bathos” and fans were stoked, best thing about Aborted is their consistency with music, releasing stuff far more often than most bands do and the quality of the music is always outstanding and nothings shows this better than this release. Consisting solely of two tracks, it’s an EP you can listen to on repeat for hours, there is so much packed into the two songs that thinking about it, it should be an overabundance, but instead comes out as the essential mix of Grindcore and Death Metal that most bands miss the mark on.


check out our review of the album

5. Alestorm - “No Grave But the Sea” – Napalm Records

                The pirate based Power/Folk Metal band are back with another set of tales upon the high sea. “No Grave But the Sea” is simply a whole lot of fun, everyone who knows the band knows they don’t take themselves too seriously, that being said, each of the musicians take the music itself seriously. Tracks like the heavier “Alestorm” which consists mostly of keyboardist Elliot Vernon’s harsh vocals and the softer “Fucked With An Anchor” which, while it sounds like it should have the harsher vocals, is actually more of a ballad, show off that the band cares about the music, the lyrical content itself may be silly but the songs are very well written. As much as some of you may like the most extreme of the extreme, this is the kind of music that’s fun to drink and enjoy yourself to.


Check out our review of the album
Check our our interview with Chris Bowes

4. Trilateral - “Elliptic Orbits” – Independent Release

                Jazz infused Technical Death Metal band Trilateral dropped an incredible album pretty close to the beginning of the year. This twelve track release should be enough for anyone looking for the more Technical side of things to get their rocks off. Songs like “Whalefall” and “Nomad” are the real standouts, pulling the entire things together, the jazz influence comes through incredibly blatantly and it’s actually the real draw the album has, most Tech Death bands hide the more jazzy tone underneath the insanity, but much like Beyond Creation, Trilateral put it upfront on display.


Check out our review of the album

3. Unbowed – "Through Endless Tides" – Independent Release

                This is a band I’ve had a soft spot for ever since I saw them for the first time back in 2014 opening for Battlecross, Unbowed have always been the kind of band to drop an album unlike anything they’ve done before, every single release has become more expansive and intense than what came before it. The original “Unbowed” EP was a Blackened Death Metal release along the vein of Behemoth, then came “Collapse the World” which incorporated a more Melodic side and “Dogma” to infuse it with a bit more of Symphonic element. “Through Endless Tides” is the next heir to the throne for Unbowed infusing a more modern sounds, I hesitate to consider it a “Metalcore” sound, but it’s not completely off the mark. Becoming much more focused on the overall sound and quality, not to say the quality of anything in the past was bad by any means, the focus became the end product this time around instead of what more can be added into the music and much like Metalcore which is a genre that seems to always have incredible production compared to its more extreme counterparts, it made Unbowed’s latest release sound HUGE and gave the band the last push it needed to find the key sound it deserves. Through 4 releases and a lot of hard work on the bands side, “Through Endless Tides” is the end product they deserve and it’s hard to imagine how they’ll step up from here.

2. Carach Angren – Dance and Laugh Amongst the Rotten – Season of Mist Records

                The latest story from Carach Angren is one of the harder ones to follow, not in a bad way. The past releases from Carach Angren have become a little less on the nose with the story they write, “Where the Corpses Sink Forever” was a split up story that crafted an overarching story and “This Is No Fairytale” was one you had to read a little more into for the full story. Carach Angren have figured out how to make more diverse stories and less obvious stories, “Dance and Laugh Amongst the Rotten” follows the trend, based around Ouija boards and possession, you’re introduced to our main antagonist Charlie. Things continue to get strange as we discuss the strange “Blood Queen” and “Pitch Black Box” are outstanding tracks but the album ends on a high note with “Three Times Lightning Strikes”. Carach Angren get better with each release, the struggle is getting gathering the story at this point, it gives the album replay ability, makes it easy to listen to over and over again.

1. Artificial Brain – “Infrared Horizon” – Profound Lore Records

                While these have been in no particular order, Artificial Brain’s “Infrared Horizon” is easily my favourite album of 2017. This monster of a Death Metal album takes you on a Sci-fi journey though the post-apocalypse, I would say it’s a pretty safe bet that the character on the cover would be our narrator. While the music itself may be incredible, that isn’t the stand out factor, that honour is for the lyrics, throughout the album there is a conversation happening, the narrator has dialogue. This is such a unique thing to concept albums and while I’m not 100% sure his classifies as a concept album it already makes me excited for the third album from Artificial Brain.

Aborted "Bathos" Review

 

        Internationally renowned Death Metallers Aborted have been all over releasing new music regularly. Between 2016s “Terminal Redux” which was followed a few months later by “Retrogore” which at this point is a highly praised album, Aborted have had no issues keeping fans happy. Now that we are in 2017, of course it’s time for some new Aborted and this time around they released the 2 track EP “Bathos” onto the world.

        First thing to mention is the artwork, Aborted always have some of the best artwork, ranging from the weird and obscene to the goriest, or in the case of “Bathos”, the occult. The cover sees a house with hooded figures peering out from behind it and in the front, a pentagram with dead bodies, the most obvious of them being impelled in the centre. This artwork is classy for Death Metal, this is the kind of art I want on a shirt because it’s going to shock people, but they’ll also do a double or triple take to finally realise what the hell is going on.

        The music of “Bathos”, as I mentioned before, the EP is only 2 songs. The first of which is “Bathos” itself. The song treads lightly between Technical Death Metal, Grindcore and has hints of Deathcore elements mixed in. It can’t quite decide where it wants to go with the intro itself sounding a lot like Suicide Silence and many parts and vocal patterns being reminiscent of the same, while at the same time there are more than enough portions that combine the sound with Death-Grind as made famous by some other bands like Cattle Decapitation. The other piece of music on the album “Fallacious Crescendo” goes much more to the roots of what Aborted is known for, being a heavy slab of Death-Grind much like a lot of their previous work.

        All in all, great release. Aborted tried something a little different with the two songs to make them distinctive from each other. One taking cues from the more recent popular bands in the Metal subgenres while the other pays homage to what got Aborted so well known. “Bathos” is out July 7 through Century Media Records and if you’re a fan of the band, old or new, you should probably pick it up for some hints to where the next album might be going.