Mutant Breakfast

While many black metal (BM) bands were busy last year unleashing boisterous tremolo bonanzas, the lurking warlocks in Crymych carved out a niche for themselves in the crowded world of dark ambient / atmoblack. Contrary to the worn-in routine of welding vibey space drones and elongated pads to oppressive blast-beat savagery (think Kvelgeyst ), the supposed duo approach the genre from the other way around. After a debut dabbling almost exclusively in electronics, their 2022 offering, Endless Fucking Winter , let the pale and repetitive BM elements glow dimly through its fragile ambience. Less than a year later, they’ve taken things to even more dismal extremes. Songs of Sistrum is not a breakout album by any stretch of the imagination. Its chiming keys and churning cymbals are forever condemned to ring the sewers underground. As if trapped on a quarter-inch reel tape, Crymych screech and hiss, suppressed and distant, like demented wraiths under your bed. The profound atmosphere that made

“Blackened skramz” is among the most ubiquitous of emo-metal hybrids, perhaps because its two constituent subgenres share a lot of common ground. For better or worse, the combination between screamo and black metal (BM) often does little to differentiate itself from traditional outings in the former mode, simply played with more speed and blastbeats. More compelling genre fusions tend to highlight the idiosyncrasies of each style, which is exactly what Hylda set out to do on their debut album, Juniper Pyre . The Connecticut trio flaunt a masterful fluency in post-hardcore, screamo, sludge, and BM, which helps them mix and match the most explosive traits from each to really bombard the senses. Although the record comes branded with the “blackened skramz” tag, there’s more here than just woe-is-me songcraft at a faster tempo. From the opener, “Garden of Eyes”, Hylda let listeners glimpse their wide-ranging repertoire. A post-metal dirge abruptly becomes a rollercoaster ride that careens

It’s a testament to Worn Mantle ’s command over post-dissodeath menace that Hole more than once made me jump out of my skin. Being foolish enough to take the opening six minutes as reflective of the whole record, I settled into the Monarch -esque, thick-as-treacle drones for the long haul—only to be knocked on my ass by the eruption of a frantic tremolo so viscous and encrusted with grime that it wouldn’t be out of place on an Altarage record. The following hour is a riff-drunk tour de force , deftly weaving through the scorched labyrinth of Hole ’s two gargantuan tracks. The guitar work itself is often deceptively simple, but it’s imbued with infernal magic at the producer’s desk; behind the layers of char, there’s an undeniable sharpness to the recording quality. The rhythm section is captured with the energy and precision of a manic craftsman, particularly in the subtle metallic recoil of the bass strings. Hole ’s second half opens very differently, and on paper the extended clean

This year has been replete with longform records from established figures in underground metal. Between Sól án varma ’s collective of Icelandic mystics and Mutant favourite Asthâghul ’s middle finger to fickle curmudgeons , it feels like big and operatic is back in vogue. More exciting, perhaps, this trend isn’t for proven scenesters alone. The Ohioan dreamers in Amun have been flying under the radar for five years, forging their own legend of progressive black metal (BM) behind the scenes. This formidable sophomore effort, Spectra And Obsession , appears unfortunately to be their last, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t layered the glitching resonances of their “electro-organic death music” and left listeners with a genuine epic. Amun’s members each hail from disparate musical backwoods, but they’ve leveraged this diversity to romanticize BM’s vast gothic soundscapes, resulting in a work of art not only coherent but fiercely ambitious. Relying on BM’s ability to swerve into a multitu

Despite using electronics in an analogously complementary fashion, Jute Gyte kill one of my biggest gripes with that overcrowded subgenre atmoblack: it always sounds too pretty. Starry-eyed shoegazers have brightened the grimy earth tones that were once emblematic of the genre, using mawkish post-rock goo, glazed reverb, and acoustic frills like a set of oil pastels. It’s hardly any surprise. It was only a matter of time before the schlocky sentimentality of Explosions in the Sky , This Will Destroy You , and MONO —which sugar-coated a lot of post-rock in the 00s and early 10s—bled into extreme metal. Today, bands like Panopticon , Trhä , and Sadness carry that sequined baton into the future. Every yin has its yang, however, and even post-rock has a hidden dark side. Dissonant black metal (BM), perhaps in reaction to atmoblack's incessant beautification, often draws from the uncompromising atonality and grit of Swans , Slint , and early Mogwai , melding piquant guitar experimenta

Symphonic metal is often maligned as the domain of cheese, a creatively desolate environment wracked with ear-piercing MIDI instruments whose timbral varieties conceal an utter lack of songcraft. Thankfully, some key exceptions like Obtained Enslavement have modelled how to use these elements for more creative ends, in their case taking the Baroque angle and running with it to contrapuntal glory. These more articulate manifestations have paved the way for Vertebra Atlantis to retrofit their emotive and thunderous dissodeath with an intelligent and discerning array of symphonic accoutrements, building on elements that were only present as understated flavours on their debut. Lustral Purge in Cerulean Bliss was always going to be an incredibly difficult release to follow, and its commitment to atmospherically enhanced weight, which drew as much from the magnificent sentimentality of Abyssal as it did the frenetic morbidity of Our Place of Worship is Silence , is more or less preserved

Thrash isn't typically associated with experimental metal, but when it's properly kinked, its swashbuckling pace and bare-chested braggadocio can put a theatrical spin on otherwise deadpan avant garde. Crossing the hazy border into first wave black metal (BM) adds even more melodramatic flavor. Bands like Negative Plane , Malokarpatan , and Jordablod have transformed vintage sounds into something chic and retrofuturist, blazing left-hand paths while paying homage to torchbearers like Venom and Mortuary Drape . But the Global North isn't the only place where artists are rediscovering the old ways, and Chile's rising underground is the prime example. The slender South American country exports budding metal talent as if its economy depended on it—and across a variety of subgenres too. No matter how diverse, though, there's a common theme that unites almost all modern Chilean bands: an almost monastic reverence for classic heavy metal. Add Solipnosis , a one-man proje