UPYR - Altars / Tunnels

As far as I am aware, Upyr are the first metal band from Bulgaria that I've ever listened to, and judging by the bleakness of their demo Altars / Tunnels it must be a fucking horrible place to live. Seriously, despite doom becoming the most prevalent genre of metal to arise in the past few years, very few new releases sound as genuinely miserable as this.

Opening with a spot of string-strangling feedback, 'Altars of Necrotic Karma' soon unveils its malicious intent when the skull-rattling drums and doomed-to-death riff kicks in. The mix unfortunately leaves the drums sounding a little too echo-y and out of sync with the rest of the band, but seeing as this is their first demo recording, it's a small fault that can be forgiven.

A fast-paced midsection allows the band to drag things out of doom territory for a short while before the tempo comes crashing back down again, making the slower sections seem all the more devastating. It's clear that the musicians in the band have a grasp of dynamic songwriting that is often all too lacking in the doom genre, whilst vocalist Brodnik has a great range, switching between death growls and blackened shrieks. If UPYR are able to develop the depth of ideas heard in this first track alone, their debut full-length is going to be something truly special.

Second track 'Into the Tunnels of My Sleep' begins with sparse, mournful guitar before unfurling into a monstrously bleak slab of funeral doom. Here Brodnik's vocals are akin to the almost drawled delivery of Scott Kelly, before he dredges up a truly harrowing bellow to accompany the crushing atmosphere of the music. As much as I hate to just endlessly focus on the vocals, there's another section in this track where you would swear that they managed to rope in Jeff Walker to lend his foul rasp, it's such an uncannily accurate piece of Carcass karaoke. The interplay between guitarists Spasm and Tymnokryw is excellent, especially towards the end of the track, when one of them takes the opportunity to rip out a solo that flows perfectly alongside the main riff. It's one of this chill-up-your-spine moments. So damn good.

'Hymn to Pan' opens with some pretty, plaintive guitar, a stark contrast to the oppressive heaviness of the previous track. It's a welcome variation, though you can't help but wonder how long this peace can last? It turns out that the majority of the track is in this vein, but the overall vibe is one of unease, constantly wondering when the calm will end and the storm will descend.

Final track 'Welcome to the Ritual' is exclusive to the cassette release, and is an early rehearsal recording. The blown-out drum sound of the earlier tracks is thankfully replaced by a much more organic sound here, while the music is a heady mix of hypnotic passages and lurching, stop-start riffage. It sounds completely different from the previous tracks, which rather than making the demo sounding messy or unfocused, is an excellent indicator that UPYR simply have more ideas than they know what to do with. If they continue to crank out such interesting, varied tracks on future releases, they could well become Bulgaria's premier exponents of all things heavy.

You can pick up a copy of this demo on cassette via Serpent Eve Records which I highly recommend you do as it's one of the best demos I've heard in a long time.

UPYR on Facebook | Bandcamp

Malthusian - MMXIII

Anyone who is even vaguely aware of the writing of Thomas Robert Malthus will immediately recognise the significance of the monicker Ireland's Malthusian have bestowed upon themselves. In simple terms, the primary tenet of Malthusianism is the knowledge that the Earth's population growth far outstrips the increase in resources required to sustain it. As such, the population must be reduced by factors such as war, famine and disease; that suffering and death is necessary to sustain the human race at even a basic level of subsistence.

From this, it can be construed that these factors, known as Malthusian catastrophes, are the base inspiration for all those who espouse misanthropy and the stated desire for the infliction of suffering; pretty much most death/black/doom metal, in other words. The three tracks of skull-scraping racket contained on Malthusian's MMXIII perfectly embody these principles in horrifying aural form.

With a ghastly hiss, the ominous opening of 'Wraith//Plague Spore' seethes its way from the speakers. The keen, atonal edge of the guitar winding serpent-like through the cacophony of percussion, while the vile vocals escape like gas from a bloated corpse. The sepulchral atmosphere of this opening section soon becomes a shuddering death rattle, all blastbeats and churning guitar.

The unintelligible invocations barely audible over the thunderous din of the music, which writhes between black, death and doom metal with horrifying ease, are spewed forth by each member of the band, each throat possessing a different demonic timbre.

With MMXIII, Malthusian are a howl of rage against a sickening species in dire need of a cull.

Read my full review over at Echoes And Dust...

Coltsblood - Beyond The Lake Of Madness demo tape

I was lucky enough to catch Liverpool's Coltsblood live a few weeks ago, and was utterly blown away by their crushingly miserable strain of doom. Their demo was available for just three pieces of gold, so in lieu of continuing my alcohol intake, I decided to reward them for intoxicating my mind with maddening heaviness instead. Worth every filthy penny.

The lo-fi hiss that permeates the cyclical, hypnotic riff that opens 'Abyss Of Aching Insanity' gives you a good idea of what Coltsblood do; creeping, crawling doom with all the malevolence of black metal. Lovely.

When the vocals kick in... wait, 'kick in' sounds a little too energetic for how the vocals arrive... okay, I've got it: when the vocals are wrenched, howling and clawing from their prison within the cassette, the guttural, anguished quality of the voice, combined with the clatter of drums and distortion make it sound like powerviolence played at a hundredth of the intended speed.

The intensity of the delivery is something I can attest to, having witnessed the raw rumbling fury that bassist/vocalist John manages to strangle out of both his throat and the neck of his bass.

The loose structure of the track allows for plenty of space; for squalls of feedback from guitarist Jem to stab out at you from the speakers inbetween the torture she inflicts on her strings, for the cacophonous battery of the rhythm to sound like drummer Steve should be convicted of cruelty towards his kit. It also allows for a bit of elasticity, so when the wail of the guitar solo escapes the tape around the halfway mark, it feels interminable, like they could go on abusing your ears with this black noise forever, were it not for the time constraints of physical media.

The endless excruciation reflects the title of the track, truly feeling like an endless abyss of audio terror designed to destroy your mind. So really fucking good, basically.

The flipside of this little black horror is a catchy little ditty entitled 'Beneath Black Skies', which announces itself with a crash. At first it seems like just more of the same, but it coalesces into an almost catchy track.

Well, relatively catchy.

Another of Jem's expansive, skulldrilling guitar tangents threatens to further warp the mind, but thankfully the full band lock into an actual rhythm again, and about a minute later there's a section I remember hazily headbanging to at the gig.

As I recall, it's a misleading couple of bars, because soon they're back to stretching out the time between notes with more feedback. I'd like them to stick to it when they lock into these great rhythms, by abandoning traditional song structures it tends to feel a little unfocused, too 'jammy', to really hold my attention.

I hate typing stuff that sounds negative, but sometimes I just yearn for a band to realise when they're on to a good thing, and just fuckin' riff on it, y'know? But the rest of the track passes by sans-riff, so I guess I'll hold out hope for their next recording.

Coltsblood are one of the finest new bands I've had the pleasure of seeing play, and hearing in their formative stage. I'm really excited to see where they'll take their disgusting concoction of tar-black sludge, and you should be too. Ignore this band at your peril.

The tapes are sold out now so sucks for you if you didn't get one. Don't cry, you can still listen to the demo over at the Coltsblood bandcamp and pick up one of their awesome t-shirts while you're there.

Also, just announced at the time of writing is that Ulthar Records will be releasing a remastered version of this demo on vinyl. So get that, and go watch them play mountain-crumblingly heavy riffs live next chance you get!