Deamonolith - The Monolith Cult of Death (2024)

   By the complexity of Deamonolith's full-lenght debut, it's evident that the band members having a longer past in the metal scene, since the album just doesn't sound like the debut of newbies. 
   Their music in general could fit next to the '00s progressive brutal death bands, except they laid way more importance on unified sound and song compositions. Therefore the experimenting ambitions are limited, and progressive and other mixed influences are easily distinguishable from brutal death hammerings (usually they come by slow downs). Probably the sound went through the most widest spectrum of experiments. While the brutal death parts having a more modern, but the same time noisy, rumbling impression, the softer parts are varying from classic progressive metal themes supporting sterile sound to late '90s third wave black metal atmosphere. The clear separation of death metal and progressive parts turning the contrast between the two directions quite evident, and basically making the music easier to go into than in case of  '00s progressive brutal death bands. The whole thing also might have a more old school oriented, "respect the classics of the genre" perspective, and somehow it seems like as a necessary step to keep the most identifying style features clear. By their intensity and complex themes, bands like Dying Fetus, Vital Remains, Kataklysm and Vader could be named as their possible influences. "The Monolith Cult of Death" might become a potential favorite for the fans of the modern sound of death metal. 

Forensic Clinic - Robe of Immortality (2010)

   Similar to Keeper of Dreams, Forensic Clinic's debut also took a progressive direction that was probably influenced by Death's "Symbolic" and Morgoth's "Odium". 
   This isn't a common pick amongst young bands, and in most cases also not the most fortunate one, since that level of progressive metal requires experience, but Forensic Clinic sounded enough determined and were able to make something promising out it. Compared to Keeper of Dreams, they didn't build on intensity that much, instead they preferred middle speed with melancholic, melodic switches. In the themes exact references to "Symbolic" are also common to find, and it was definitely their essential influence, but not their only influence. Further progressive metal hints are there to find in experimenting form, such as occasional clear singing, unusual switches in solo themes, or relaxing atmosheric melodies. The style mix had strong effect both on the basic sources. If someone might desire to listen some face ripping death metal, "Robe of Immortality" definitely wouldn't the best choice, since the death metal themes are rare, and on the side of the sound, were completely complied to adopt the progressive style. In reverse for those who are used to progressive metal, the album might sound kind of simple. So the band played something quite mainstream compatible. In summary even though the EP is still in experimenting state, the band have found the middle way successfully, therefore it counts as a promising start.

Keeper of Dreams - Taste Smashed to Pieces (2009)

   There have been and always will be bands who are so obsessed by the influence of an exact band or album, that they just trying to play exactly the same.
   About Keeper of Dreams it's easy to tell from the beginning, that they've listened to Death's "Symbolic" 7/24 from morning to evening. The only difference is that they didn't have enough long musical past to go far with technical/progressive themes, so on the side the very familiar and recognizable Chuck Schuldiner styled themes, simpler, mostly thrashy riffs and melodies are assisting. But because or the strong similarity of the sound and vocal style it's not that notable, cause the "Symbolic" nostalgia easily takes the attention, and even unwillingly the listener might focus to figure out from where the exact themes came from. Even though the sign of maximalism and dedication could be definitely sensed in their music, the problem is with similar bands, that their own self-dedication is bonding their hands. "Taste Smashed to Pieces" could be entertaining and enjoyable for similarly "Symbolic" obsessed fans (or for others, who never heard about it), but the too strong and evident influence will never let the band to come out from it's shadow. The other thing is that it's never a good sign if a young band suddenly starts with technical/progressive music. That already suspects a short existence, cause basically progression and technical ambitions are coming with time and experience, and musicians who doesn't have that, might change style or burn out soon. Keeper of Dreams tried the first option to gain wider popularity, but it wasn't very welcome by the small audience that they've gathered in a short time. 

Baroness - Blue Record (2009)

   Baroness represents a genuine spot in the progressive metal scene. It's a band that even though plays quite comprehensive music by an unusual style mix, still didn't turn to a musical masturbation of fripperies, or not falling into the returning problem of many progressive bands by trying to express the simplest things in such a complex way, that everything is losing it's sense.
   There isn't more effective way of sludge killing, than turnig with sludge into a progressive direction, because this way the style is losing it's main features. Still, Baroness was able to manage the whole thing to keep it enjoyable, and even though the themes are frequently changing, the sludge parts didn't lose their effectivenes, but even having important role in the main view. And the most interesting thing is: the main impression (such as the message of the music) is positive. It's not about self-destruction, inner struggles or other morbid things, but about life, and the heaviness of the sound supports the emotional load of the songs instead of demoralizing effects. The root of the concept probably lies somewhere in the '70s, when musical progression, diversity and heaviness came hand in hand. When the musical challenge was to show all-round creativity on the side of being entertaining for wider audience. It's like a modern form of that concept, minus the impression of heavy self-destruction of course. The "Blue Record" is somewhere between artistic ambitions and the expression of simple and essential posivive feelings, free from any disturbing dark clouds. But in case of their show up, the calmer, chilling themes are suspecting a meditative way to find the solution.
   Even though Baroness' music might be compatible with wider audience, it couldn't repeat the overwhelming success of the '70s hard rock/progressive rock bands, because more intelligence is needed for it's reception than how much is available for the masses on the other side.

Control Denied - The Fragile Art of Existence (1999)

   After the last Death album Chuck Schuldiner finally had the chance to focus on his side project named Control Denied, that gave him an opportunity to keep merging into progressive metal between more melodic musical frames.
   Musically "The Fragile Art of Existence" sounds like the next step after Death's "Symbolic". Plenty of themes are sounding like to refer back to that album, while there are no signs of the needlessly overcomplicated frippery themes of "The Sound of Perseverance". The typical Mr. Schuldiner-styled themes and song compositions are waving back druring listening. The easily recognizable bass lines of Steve DiGiorgo also had important role to form the main charecteristics of the album, and of course to give another Death reference, in this case to "Individual Thought Patterns". The vocal style of Tim Aymer is able to make jelous any power or heavy metal singer, and definitely fits better to progressive ambitions than growling. The lyrical background is fortunately more serious than power/heavy metal lyrics used to be, and follows the almost philosophical approach of societal problems, that was the main feature of the late Death albums too. So even though Control Denied used to show something different than Mr. Schuldiner's main project, it became the part of the Death life work.

Death Sea - Imagination World (1995)

   Death Sea was another name in the line of early '90s one album death metal bands. A name that probably never sounded familiar for many people and was forgotten very soon too. But their first and last album may worth for a little bit wider attention because of it's interesting and genuine impression.
   Similar to many bands that time they tried to pick up the new trends in the underground scene, but while others did that after trying themselves in old school style, they directly debuted with progressive influences. They involved the retro '80s relaxing soundtrack-like style like Schismatic did (probably it was a direct influence), but in their case these parts had less role and they didn't count that much on the effectiveness of surprise. Of course the light melodies are still unexpected and sudden, but they played death metal in a progressive, technical way too, so the contrast didn't become so strong and hilarious like in the case of Schismatic. Old school death/thrash influences are frequently returning to ease the chaos, so some kind of balance exists, even if it's a twisted one and may be not so easy to find. The main impression could remind to Cynic and Catacomb. "Imagination World" was a an interesting and surrealistic experiment (or imagination) on the extreme field.

Death - Symbolic (1995)

     I hate that this album gets called overrated by a portion of the metal community. But hey, opinions are like assholes. Symbolic was the first album by Death I ever listened to and will, hands down, always be my favorite Death album. It's one of those death metal albums you listen to over, and over again, and each time you're reminded of all the different elements found in this album that make it an absolute progressive/death metal classic.

     The album is notably as progressive as previous albums but delivered with more intensity, more speed, and I guess you could say, a few hints of more non-metal influence? Groove, perhaps? We'll call it melody. Upbeat tempos and heavy riff arrangements keep this album from being anything but boring. This album is full of memorable moments, from intellectual lyrical structure to riff transition.

     To the left and to the right

     From behind - they're out of sight 

     Plunging into a new found

     Age of advanced observeillance 

     A world wide, foolproof cage 

     Privacy and intimacy as we know it

     Will be a memory 

     Among many to be passed down

     To those who never knew

     Living in the pupil of 1000 eyes

     This album is enough to keep my attention the entire length, and that's what I deemed the deciding factor whenever I was asked what my favorite Death album was. It's difficult to pin down exactly which Death album should be deemed the most influential, the most creative, the most unequivocally death metal album of our times, but what is certain is that Symbolic is up among the top of the ranks. 

Schismatic - Egregor (1994)

   To change drastically and to turn into unusual directions to impress the audience, or to get wider attention wasn't something new in the mid '90s. Actually it was the main trend that time. But Schismatic may interpreted this situation a bit exaggerated, and made something extra weird by "Egregor".
   It was so different from the first album, like if it wasn't even the same band. They borrowed a new frontman from Necrobiosis, plus they involved light melodic and jazz elements unexpectedly, without any warning. Pestilence experimented with something similar on "Spheres", by mixing death metal with fusion jazz, but that was at least unified, resulted an interesting atmosphere and they tried to reach some balance. On "Egregor" the concept was the high level of contrast, to turn from one extremity ot another. In this case the highest level of contrast that's possible to make. Whether "Egregor" was  made for unserious reasons or it was a failed innovating ambition, it could be fun to listen to because it's simply so weird. It shows how death metal could end up in so light melodies that may appear in the worst retro family tv series, or in a jazz club report, or even in such music that could be used up for soundtrack in old socialist educating documentaries about manufacturing technologies. An interesting and unusual album for sure.

Amorphis - Tales from the Thousand Lakes (1994)

My first introduction to Amorphis was the farthest possible example of music from this album. Today they're more of an average Finnish heavy metal band; with catchy riffs, clean vocals that sometimes find death growls intermingled, and albums released that sound.. catchy and similar to the one released before it. (Kind of like owning 20 of the same album. But I'm not gonna lie, I own at least 10 of them). They've come a long way since Tales from the Thousand Lakes. However, a friend once told me that he hadn't met a metalhead who hasn't heard of this album. Enter me!

     Tales is a concept album, not the last one they'll do, based on the Finnish novel Kalevala. This album holds a complex sub-genre argument throughout it's entirety. While it's predominantly death metal, it also holds an influence of doom, melodic, and heavy or alternative themes and even folk metal. This being an earlier album than what they're known for now, this album incorporates clean vocals throughout dominant death metal vocals. Don't let the sound of synthesizers worry you, the use is far from any Bon Jovi type of sound, and is a consistent sound the band carries to this day, albeit more refined and slightly more tolerable to listen to. If it's not the entire album you can find yourself able to listen through, at least give Black Winter Day the few moments it deserves in comparison to how far the band has grown to today. A remarkable album that is "so 90's". I'm now reminded that I need to buy this band shirt.

Crypt of Kerberos - World of Myths (1993)

   An interesting mix of genres could be heard on "World of Myths" by Crypt of Kerberos, that lateley was more known as a progressive metal band. Their debut was different from ordinary death/doom, because it's more like an unusual approach of their late style.
   In general it's an intense album filled with quite diversive themes. The slow downs are common though, but these are not to express the heaviness of their music, but only subordinated to the intense themes that could be heard in the followings. The album starts with typically '80s heavy metal melodies, than it sounds like changing to some blackened death, but before it could be diagnosed, it continues as death/doom, and changing to heavy metal again. This constant changing continues during the whole album in arbitrary order. Slowly as the progressive elements are getting revealed, it's getting clear that these having the main role, and the whole aggregation of contrasts are serving nothing else, but progression. Ths was everything but usual that time, and Crypt of Kerberos was one of the earliest heralds of similar musical experiments.

Pestilence - Spheres (1993)

   The changes in the main scene that foretold that death metal was out of date, didn't avoid Pestilence either. Similar to plenty of other oldies, they've also turned to a more progressive direction.
   "Testimony of the Ancients" was also like a turning point, since the unnecessary intros before every song turned the main view lighter than it was usual in death metal. But "Spheres" was an interesting jazz fusion experiment that made the album unique not only in the band's discography, but in general in the main metal scene. Instead of the usual distorted sound the experimentings on guithar synthesizer took the main lead, and that resulted interesting space rock effects. The suffocating vocal style that was usual from the band (in this formation performed by Patrick Mameli) is like echoing from the distance of some grotesque hallucination, and this effect fits perfectly to the jazz fusioned space travel. When the absurd becomes reality and what was reality before turns more irrational compared to the deformations that happened in the meantime. Pestilence still sounded aggressive, and even though progression lightened the main impression, the album still more counts extreme than trend following, because of it's weird approach. "Spheres" was one of the few well made experiments, but didn't seem enough for a new start, because soon the band had to split-up.

Tool - Undertow (1993)

Although Tool is not widely considered a metal band as much as  they are alternative rock, they're obscure enough to hold reverence for those fans of extreme genres thanks to the members' odd stage presence and occult, obscure, and social structure examinations; only made clear when one takes the time to study their lyrical content; that extends beyond memorizing all of the lyrics to Ænima.

Undertow deserves a spot on the blog for being softer than what was actively considered metal at the time. After all, the album embodies everything metal was at the time, without the intense musical stimulation (they saved that for their visuals and lyrical impact): in it's 20's, angsty and nihilistic. I think Tool has done an irreplaceable job of creating this visual and musical entity that either 1) Completely creeps people out and gets the band banned from your local Walmart or 2) Intrigues the listener enough to want more. And as a metal head, what else compels us to continue down this "path of destruction" for more, faster, better, raunchier metal than the fact that there is mental intrigue? Tool has cornered the market with mental intrigue. Undertow contains classic songs such as Prison Sex and Sober. It's influenced a countless amount of bands and opened a strange door between the booming grunge scene of the early 90's and metal at the time. A complete embodiment of 90's in a unique and re-released album covered album, Undertow is a hidden gem in a complicated tree of what is metal.