Temple of Void - Of Terror and the Supernatural (2014)

   In an old interview with Temple of Void it was written that they want to be the best death/doom band of the world. By the release of their debut "Of Terror and the Supernatural" the whole thing didn't even sound as an exaggeration, since the record sparked wider attention than what non-romantic death/doom bands used to get.
   No wonder, because the album was all-round excellent. Maybe a bit more intense than how most bands in this style used to be, but this at one hand was quite advantageous, since the slower and more miserable extreme music is, the lower is its chance to reach wider audiences. And the whole thing suited their music well, that despite had high quality sound and was definitely fitting into the main scene of the mid '10s, also had quite strong early '90s touch. It wasn't the well known tendency of the underground that focused on musical minimalism and the increased importance of noisy sound  possibilities. On the side of higher intensity, the band operated with simple, but catchy melodies, great heavy riffs and more diverse drumming style that could also reach the tempo of ordinary death metal. This resulted not only a wider perspective and more diverse main view, but also it was a step ahead of the meantime developing complexity based tendencies of the underground. Whether it was an intentional step from the band, or they simply enjoyed old school death and death/doom bands and just wanted to play what they like, the timing was great, seemed like a brave step, and turned out to be pretty effective the same time. The measures of raw heaviness and melodic melancholy are balanced and completing each other well, therefore the album didn't become one sided or repetitive in any directions. In total: "Of Terror and the Supernatural" definitely became one of the best death/doom albums ever, and became an unavoidable release of the subgenre. 

Ealdath - Ancient Oath (2014)

   Ealdath was a short lived death/doom band with only one very impressive demo record, that could be also nominated to a "longest demo tapes" competition on the side of Esoteric's debut. 
   This 50 minutes long record is divided to 4 songs, and despite the songs extended lengths, they simply never turning overly monotonous or boring, thanks to the excellence of their compositions and catchy themes. It might be not an exaggeration to state, that "Ancient Oath" is one of the best records of the death/doom subgenre. And the same time one of the most underrated ones too, unfortunately. The way how the features of the down pulling, traditional form of death/doom and its audience friendlier, softer, melancholic aspect are merged is genius. Probably the sound, that isn't bad at all for a demo, since it's a studio record, but still not on the level of high quality death/doom albums, also had role in creating the impression of diversity. The simple noisy riffs can't be as noisy as they supposed to in similar cases, but this had advantageous effect on the main view. However, the excellent themes that could be heard on "Ancient Oath" requiring practiced musicians with complete understanding of the style. For the experiences involved, probably Josh Banke (bass), Tim Call (drumms) and Kody Keyworth (guitar) could be found responsible, since all 3 members played together in Aldeberan since a while. The music has quite '90s feeling, possible influences could be Winter, Paramaecium, Ceremonium, Thorns of the Carrion and Paradise Lost. The combination of catchy themes, soft melodies, and heaviness is pretty effective and well applied. Despite the plenty of suspected influences and the fact that Ealdath's music didn't offer anything new, their perspective gave the subgenre a pretty extensive and obvious definition, that was seemingly performed with ease. 
   Strongly recommended for the fans of death/doom!

Nausea - Condemned to the System (2014)

   Formed in 1987, Nausea counts as one of the earliest grindcore bands, on the side of Napalm Death, Extreme Noise Terror, Carcass, Repulsion and Terrorizer. But unlike these fellow coatenous bands, Nausea had to wait longer for a full-length release, and didn't spark wider attention. It was partly due to their debut's poor rehearsal quality, and partly because of the primitiveness of their early music, that simply couldn't even keep up with the intensity of other grindcore bands.
   While "Crime Against Humanity" was still kind of an experimenting death/grind album filled with a lot of basic punk influenced themes, their returning album, "Condemned to the System" decades later did reach the quality and intensity that a grind/death or grindcore band supposed to. The second album is basically incomparable with "Crime Against Humanity". However, more than 2 decades have been passed meanwhile, and after so many things did happen in the underground on the side of the renaissance of grindcore, that mainly came in the form of porngrind, this kind of strongly Napalm Death and Terrorizer influenced death/grind sounds quite vintage. The concept is also strongly relatable with those two bands. The production is high quality and flawless, and whether the band's intention was to create what they couldn't perform in the early '90s, or just to return to their roots, and release an old school styled album that's actually the main scene was pretty much missing since a long while, they definitely succeeded in both cases. Recommended for the fans of old school grindcore!

Parfumerie - Transmundane and Unprofessional Delocation of Superfluous Extremities and Rare Tissues (2014)

   Parfumerie was a short lived goregrind project of thrash/death band Besieged guitarist Nolan Smit and Joe Belanger, known from grindcore band Archagathus.
   Weird, but the different background of both musicians could be sensed on Parfumerie's short one and only demo record. Compared to the raw simplicity of Archagathus, the songs seemed a bit more complex (by goregrind standards), and simply having better riffs. This slight difference proved to be enough to provide some diversity for the music, and even if it's about songs that barely reach 1 minute in length, this is mainly responsible for the higher enjoyability compared to Archagathus. Heavy, old school riffs giving perfect ground for the insane grinding that follows, and even the demo sound turned out to be pretty advantageous for the exaggeratedly filthy disharmony of the songs. These are brief moments of course, but endlessly sick and effective moments. The same could be told about Parfumerie in general in the extreme metal scene. However, even if Archagathus switched their style to goregrind later on, their music was never really able to outpeer the sick greatness of this short Parfumerie demo. If it's about musical minimalism in the era of the increased importance of sound, such similarly subtle differences could be quite determining. Parfumerie might be a potential favorite for the fans of grindcore and goregrind!

Portal - Vexovoid (2013)

   Since their debut, Portal kept going on the path of their experimenting concept, and album by album they tried to introduce their complex style from a slightly different perspective.
   These changes they applied mainly by different sound on each album, and since the importance of the variations of noisy sound highly increased from the late' 00s, it's not an exaggeration to say that Portal counts as one of the heralds of this tendency in the underground scene. Compared to their previous albums, 'Vexovoid" had the most distorted sound, and therefore probably this record reflected the most obscure impression as well. From this aspect, by heaviness "Vexovoid" is comparable to Impetuous Ritual, but the same time maybe this album is somehow easier to go into. And that's because their endeavor to switch between harmonic and disharmonic elements isn't so usual this time how it was used to be. The song structures are similar, the simple, repetitive leading noise is still there, and this time it's maybe even more pulsating than before, but there are less radically chaotic disharmonic elements, and therefore the album sounds more unified than previously. However, "Vexvoid" is still light years away from being audience friendly, but for those who prefer distorted, down tuned sound, it might give a very familiar, easily relatable impression. This also made the music more enjoyable, and even though it's basically a different alternative to create unified sound, the album still fits well next to the band's previous works. Just another seemingly double paradox formed to high quality excellence by Portal.
 

Altars - Paramnesia (2013)

 Similar to Portal and Impetuous Ritual, Altars also plays death metal that's heavier, more complex and harder to go into than usually, but doesn't count as technical death metal yet.
    If it's about their possible main influences, Incancation, Immolation, Dying Fetus and Disembowelment could be mentioned. Compared to Portal and Impetuous ritual, their music doesn't sound so mixed by other style features and it's also not too complex. The band relies only on the toolbar of death metal, and by sound and song structures their music reflects the modern aspect of death metal, to be more specific. Therefore, experimentations aren't far from them, and in case of longer songs, they're not missing the opportunity to give a taste of diversity through complexity. "Paramnesia" is all-round high quality, the sound and theme switches might strongly remind to late Immolation. However, disharmony is dominant on the album, and this is the main reason why it's harder to go into, even if it's somehow not having any effect on the uniformness of the record. Probably it's because "Paramnesia" is simply too raw and heavy the same time, and this proved to be enough as a unifying frame. This combo of raw heaviness, complexity and high quality production works pretty effectively to make Altars long time enjoyable for the fans of the genre.  

Pathogen - Lust of Evil (2013)

   Pathogen debuted in 2008 with a stunning and unified full-length release "Blasphemous Communion". Various influences could be sensed on the album from Slayer through Morbid Angel to Autopsy throughout their themes and tempo switches. These have been pretty well composed, therefore these references might be not evident for the listener at first hearing.

   The band did a quite good job in creating their own style that occasionally also building from even more classic (heavy metal and hard rock) references. These could be mainly discovered in their complex solos. 'Lust of Evil" basically came out as a demo, and in 2013 it had a remastered release with a few extra songs as a compilation. Since the debut Pathogen shortly became a well practiced band, and seemingly they realized the possibilities for diversity that came by their influences in the very beginning, and they applied them with ease. In case of extended song lengths the compositions are pretty good too, it's thrash influenced old school death metal at its best, monotony simply never occurs. In general pretty basic thrash influenced riffs are dominant on the album, but the frequent theme and tempo switches, noisy, short and complex solos spicing them up over and over again, making the record very enjoyable and a potential favorite for the fans of old school death metal.