MMXXI: The Mollusk's 2021 Extreme Metal Advent Calendar

[The Mollusk]

MMXXI: The Mollusk's Extreme Metal Advent Calendar

Continuing my celebration of how much of a great year this has been for the genre, over the last month and a half I've been steadily compiling a list of my top 24 new releases and writing a review for each one. I'll be dropping one per day from today, with my top pick going on on Xmas Eve. How delightful!

~~~~~~~~~~~~

DECEMBER 1st

24. MASTIFF - LEAVE ME THE ASHES OF THE EARTH

The new album from this Hull five-piece is rooted in the whirlwind punches of a hardcore pit but seeks to push the genre from relative stagnancy to vicious extremes by way of merciless, thick and doomy sludge metal. I'm normally not the most engaged fan of hardcore but it's a testament to the sheer force of this album that I was hooked in very quickly – this is a band clearly fed up with their hometown roots and the stale UK punk scene and venting every bit of their frustration into their sound to great effect. I'm also fairly certain that "Midnight Creeper" is a direct reference to Bob Mortimer's superbly funny Athletico Mince podcast which earns Mastiff an extra bonus point.

REPULSE

[close]

[The Mollusk]

DECEMBER 2nd

23. SEUM - WINTERIZED

From a band whose name means "venom" in Arabic and is also french slang for disappointment or frustration, and an album named after an essential part of the cannabis oil extraction process, you probably know what sort of a trip you're in for before you hit the play button. What you might not be expecting however is a distinct lack of guitars, as this Montreal three-piece play with two basses and drums only.

I read a review warning me not to be turned off by this, as if a stoner/sludge metal fan would have never heard of such a thing, completely discounting the single-bass mammoth weight of doom titans Om. Winterized is far grittier though, and Iron Monkey fans won't walk away disappointed from this album, least of all for its prominent feature of wretched gut-churning vocals. There's also a decent amount of Melvins swagger and the album rounds up with a slow, steamrollered cover of Ramones' "Pet Cematary". This is 30 mins of heavy sludge blues from a promising up-and-coming band.

BLACK SNAIL VOLCANO

[close]

[The Mollusk]

DECEMBER 3rd

WHARFLURCH - Psychedelic Realms ov Hell

Sometimes you just can't beat a classic formula. California's WHARFLURCH go hell for leather on their debut LP, which in many ways is a traditional death metal effort – pure head banging brutality, frenzied wailing solos and a short and sweet 35min runtime – but also expands pleasantly on the traditional themes by slowing it down in places with some cosmic synth breakdowns, doom-laden crawls and a bit of spacious soul-searching post-metal for good measure.

This is certainly by no means a perfect album. It leans a little too heavy on those reliable death metal tropes at times, and moreover it feels like they're still scratching the surface of their potential. When this album really slaps – notably on the two 7-minute tracks "Abandoning Reality" and "Psychedelic Realms ov Hell" – it's because the band are weaving together bigger tapestries of progressive and spacey doom/death metal to great effect. The record overall sounds great; it's sludgy and sinewy and stoned as hell, but if they'd taken the time to expand on the other four tracks, it could have been fantastic. A band to watch for sure!

ABANDONING REALITY

[close]

[Dirty Boy]

You're doing a good thing here mate : )

(unless #1 is Dream Theater)

[The Mollusk]

IS IT FUCK

[The Mollusk]

DECEMBER 4th

DOMKRAFT - SEEDS

In a world of diluted, derivative and totally unimaginative stoner metal (anyone heard the Bongzilla comeback album yet? Fucking hell) it feels appropriate to utilise this meme here:

_{[Image embeds don't work in spoilers containing other content. Please imagine here the picture of Gordon Ramsay saying "Delicious. Finally, some good fucking food."]}

Don't let the abysmal cover art fool you: This album is immensely satisfying, especially if you're in the minority camp of me and me alone who thinks good stoner metal is so hard to come by that even Sleep's "The Sciences" was unnecessary and honestly boring. Not only are Domkraft churning out sweltering hot riffs and soaring top-of-the-mountain vocals with high proficiency here, they're also pushing them out into expansive psychedelic space rock territory by way of thunderous rolling drum grooves and reverb-soaked lead guitar excursions. Time to blow the cobwebs off the ol' bong.

INTO ORBIT

[close]

[iamcoop]

Top work this mate. Lots of new stuff for me to wade though.

[The Mollusk]

Cheers @iamcoop <3

DECEMBER 5th

EYEHATEGOD - A HISTORY OF NOMADIC BEHAVIOR

As a long time fan of the "cleaner" side of EHG ("Confederacy of Ruined Lives" is one of the best sludge metal albums ever if you ask me), their self-titled comeback and this new album were very welcome to my ears. Their tentative toe-dipping into hardcore punk was equally as refreshing, especially since a stylistic change like this isn't really necessary from a band as proficient in writing spectacular riffs as they are.

The band have tapped into the same youthful vigour that fuelled their excellent comeback album – although that's not to say they don't sound as thoroughly wretched and fed up as they always have. The hardcore influence is back, Mike Williams sounds younger than he has in years, and the riffs just keep comin' (if you can discount the weird ass circus clown riff in the first track of this record, dunno what they were thinking with that one). It's exactly what you'd want from the band and they deliver it with great success.

HIGH RISK TRIGGER

[close]

[Noodle Lizard]

Thanks for this, keep it up! I'm sure I'll only end up getting round to half of these, but I'll take that half very seriously.

I hope the new Ad Nauseam makes it on there!

[Shaky]

CARCASS BETTER BE NUMBER ONE, OR FEEL MY IMPOTENT RAGE

[The Mollusk]

I hope the new Ad Nauseam makes it on there!

It is!

CARCASS BETTER BE NUMBER ONE, OR FEEL MY IMPOTENT RAGE

It isn't!

[The Mollusk]

DECEMBER 6th

DISKORD - DEGENERATIONS

Fucking wild Norwegian technical death metal band whose style is all over the shop – a really interesting jazzy style of experimentation which sort of reminds me of a more loose Cephalic Carnage. The batshit time sigs and song structures are here but it feels a bit more rooted in the OSDM sound as opposed to CC who are much tighter and cleaner.

They clearly have a good sense of humour about their music which blows away any air of pretentiousness – there's quite a prominent use of cowbell throughout which is absolutely bizarre and I still can't quite decide if I'm into it or not – but this album is still satisfyingly frantic and brutal amidst the weirdness.

ABNEGATIONS

[close]

[The Mollusk]

DECEMBER 7th

GATECREEPER - AN UNEXPECTED REALITY

Grindcore fans rejoice! Arizona death metal band's new album (or is it an EP?) kicks the gate off the hinges and vaults onto the tracks with 7 songs with less than 7 minutes combined runtime, before slamming a foot on the brakes (grindcore fans, you can sit down now) for the 8th and final song, a monolithic 11-minute death/doom crawl.

The two contrasting styles are both hammered out so perfectly that once the record's over you'd be forgiven for wanting to give it another one or two spins to relive the experience, since despite not sounding like anything particularly mindblowing, it's still a refreshing and riotously fun spin on extreme metal standards.

SUPERSPREADER

[close]

[easytarget]

I love that Gatecreeper EP/little album. Very surprising.

[The Mollusk]

DECEMBER 8th

MARE COGNITUM - SOLAR PAROXYSM

PRETENTIOUS SNOB OPINION ALERT! Typically speaking, when black metal artists steer the genre away from its trad roots I much more favour the avant garde efforts over atmospheric stuff. You'll notice an absence of Wolves in the Throne Room and Panopticon from my picks this year. For the same reason the same reason I can't stand crescendo-core post-rock bands like Explosions in the Sky, I think that sort of symphonic sentimentality in metal music is too easily achieved frankly boring. I mostly listen to metal for its weird and nasty tones, and I almost always want it to sound unpleasant or unreal, if not brutally triumphant. Panopticon's banjo does absolutely nothing for me, I'm afraid.

In steps the latest effort from Jacob Buczarski, a one-man soaring and highly emotive atmospheric black metal album lamenting the irreversible damage humans have done to their planet. I'm sort of glad I read up about it after I heard it, otherwise I may never have given it a chance, but in all honesty I have to concede that it's really very good. MI's co-collaborator and label mate Spectral Lore edges black metal much further into my sort of territory (his album's coming later) but the epic songs on "Solar Paroxysm" burn with such a bright intensity – maybe emulating the sun that's cooking our poor planet now – that it's hard to deny their majesty. Above all else, Buczarski's musicianship is highly proficient and the album glides and stampedes across its scorched terrain brilliantly throughout.

ANTARESIAN

[close]

[iamcoop]

DECEMBER 7th

GATECREEPER - AN UNEXPECTED REALITY

Grindcore fans rejoice! Arizona death metal band's new album (or is it an EP?) kicks the gate off the hinges and vaults onto the tracks with 7 songs with less than 7 minutes combined runtime, before slamming a foot on the brakes (grindcore fans, you can sit down now) for the 8th and final song, a monolithic 11-minute death/doom crawl.

The two contrasting styles are both hammered out so perfectly that once the record's over you'd be forgiven for wanting to give it another one or two spins to relive the experience, since despite not sounding like anything particularly mindblowing, it's still a refreshing and riotously fun spin on extreme metal standards.

SUPERSPREADER

[close]

This sounds fucking mega

[The Mollusk]

Getting into the really good stuff now.

DECEMBER 9th

SERMON OF FLAMES - I HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT, AND IT WAS REPULSIVE

It's one thing to create a consistently good death metal album. Writing a consistently good death metal album and then embellishing it to make it sound like an explosion in a steel mill is something else entirely. But that's exactly what this duo from Ireland have accomplished on their magnificently titled debut album.

Taking their atmospheric cues from titans of noise such as Anaal Nathrakh and Full of Hell, "I Have Seen the Light..." packs a thoroughly impressive amount of caustic brutality into its 37 minute runtime. Pools of molten dissonance bubble and hiss below the pummeling assault of the instrumentation, and toxic chemical fumes creep up into the nostrils and sting the eyeballs on the album's dark ambient interludes.

The band teases a possible solo on "Vacuous & Disjointed" only for the single guitar note to wail out in lonesome terror before fading back into the smoke, and it's moves like this which demonstrate a withheld showmanship in favour of a sound which is wholly accomplished in its simplicity. Seriously heavy shit from a very promising new band.

CHORDS RUNG FROM THE RIBS OF THE EARTH

[close]

[The Mollusk]

DECEMBER 10th

REPLICANT - MALIGNANT REALITY

I have a feeling that, for a couple of reasons, Replicant's particular brand of death metal might be divisive among fans of the genre: maybe it's the crisp, clean production with immaculate drumming and occasional forays into atonal guitar screeching that flirt with the djent style, or it could be that tracks like "Relinquish the Self" or "Chassis of Deceipt" feature shamelessly crowd-pleasing hardcore beatdown sections. Some people might simply be turned off by how the singer's guttural roar frequently mutates into the tortured howl of a mummy getting his rotting balls trapped in the sarcophagus door.

Maybe I'm wrong about how other people feel, but for me personally, all these traits are part of what makes "Malignant Reality" so damn great. Replicant wears its polished sheen with pride and boasts its more rudimentary riffs on its sleeve without shame, but elsewhere there's plenty of weird moments to offset this. Flourishes of jazzy bass, dissonant alien guitar tones and whiplash-inducing technical swerves keep the record fresh, engaging and downright fun throughout. It's punchy as hell which never allows the listener to sink into a daze of muddy repetitious riffing. Honestly this thing just slaps fucking hard from start to finish.

CHASSIS OF DECEIT

[close]

[The Mollusk]

DECEMBER 11th

HELLISH FORM - REMAINS

If you're anything like me and you didn't find yourself turned off by the ethereal new-age cosmic synths on Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' album "Ghosteen", you might want to take a few steps further into the scorching light of the beyond with the debut LP from Hellish Form, created remotely by two men 3000 miles apart from one another, a project conceived during the 2020 pandemic.

Willow Ryan of Body/Void makes up half of the band's lineup, but where B/V's sound seeks to explore unending chasms of harrowing blackness, "Remains" instead casts its focus upwards to the ethereal, processing its grief and trauma through a vein of funeral doom which somehow manages to be as anguished and desolate as it is uplifting and hopeful. The guitar tones are bone-liquefying in their density and the vocals are truly pained, but here they take on a form which is therapeutic, as demonstrated perfectly on the stunning opener "Your Grave Becomes a Garden". The slow amble of the song very gradually rises across it 14-minute runtime, the chords eventually switching from downtrodden and hopeless to bright and almost optimistic, aided by rich, soaring synths which – true to its name – elevate the sound from the rotting flesh below to the new flowers blooming above.

My one criticism of this album is that it does sometimes sound a bit too much like a band figuring out ideas as they go along, which is mostly apparent in the drumming which is sadly quite sparse and unimaginative, but otherwise on the whole "Remains" is a great album. You might think it strange to hear a funeral doom record described as "beautiful" – especially coming from someone like me who fails to see any appeal in the positivity or major chords of blackgaze – but here we are. If this is the sound of dying and floating off into obliterating nothingness, fuck it, sign me up for a ride.

YOUR GRAVE BECOMES A GARDEN

[close]

[The Mollusk]

Forgot to do this yesterday, soz. But getting double the chocolate in one day is always great innit?

DECEMBER 12th

KNOLL - INTERSTICE

Hey, I know what you might be thinking right now. You're probably all like, 'I've heard "Garden of Burning Apparitions". I know all I need to know about this year's most excruciatingly savage deathgrind releases.' Well let me tell you, you're wrong! "Interstice", the astonishingly accomplished debut album from this fresh-faced Tennessee six-piece, could best be described simply as a 35-minute non-stop aural assault, and a glorious sounding one at that.

The aforementioned Full of Hell are an obvious point of comparison, owed in part to the musicianship but also equally to the mixing job by big man Kurt Ballou, whose mighty production chops include FoH as well as other notable noisemongers such as Cult Leader, Old Man Gloom and Nails. This record is claustrophobic and brutal as fuck but every element has ample room to breathe and stretch. Technical guitar flourishes lash out at you like tentacles, cymbals ring out clear as day like flashes of light above the chaos, and grindcore vocals stand firm as an impentrable wall of sound.

Where Full of Hell have focused more on expanding their sonic palette further across their last three albums, Knoll on the other hand seem more concerned creating a mission statement that batters the listener with a near-ceaseless wave of extremity. This isn't a slight on Knoll, however; their sound is brilliantly refined here, the songs weave together with a superb pacing and the end result is a tight and consistent blast of relentless ferocity. Not merely an admirable first attempt, but a startlingly awesome and refreshing release that already stands toe to toe with some of its most well-seasoned peers.

EARTH'S IRON LUNG

[close]

________________________________________________________________________________

DECEMBER 13th

VEILBURNER - LURKERS IN THE CAPSULE OF SKULL

It's difficult to know where to start with this album. It pulls so successfully from so many influences and styles of black/death metal that it sends my ADHD into overdrive trying to focus on all of its merits, but suffice to say that "Lurkers..." is – and I hate this word so I don't use it lightly – EPIC.

Overall if you're a fan of the sprawling tech/prog death of Nile and you want something that wriggles and scrapes further into the depths of evil, perplexing weirdness, then you're gonna find something to enjoy in here... and boy is there a lot to enjoy. The 8 songs across its 54 minute runtime are serious journeys, exploring vast sonic textures through a multitude of styles, all of it moulding together gloriously through time-bending prog, dissonant blackened blasts of noise, ritualistic chants, incredible solos and straight up superb death metal riffing. The variation in vocal styles alone is really something to behold. "Lurkers" is a bizarre and brutal work of art.

CURSED, DISFIGURED, AMEN!

[close]

[The Mollusk]

DECEMBER 14th

OPHIS - SPEW FORTH ODIUM

I'm only just beginning to really appreciate doom metal. My attention span sucks and the speed of this stuff often doesn't keep me as engaged as it could, but after mainlining breakneck death metal for the last couple of weeks, at the point of writing this I find myself sinking blissfully into this album for the second time today.

Ophis' fifth album is a bleak landscape of weighty despair, its 6 tracks clocking up a hefty hour runtime, and yet at no point does this record feel like a slog. It's well-paced throughout, and the powerful blows of every guitar chord and guttural death vocal are complimented with some gorgeous reflective melodies. Add to this the occasional wave of feedback noise and a few smatterings of spoken word and double-kick death metal rumblings and the result is an excellent body of work – brilliantly measured, deep and full of sorrow. Soak it up and get sad.

DEFAULT EMPTY

[close]

[The Mollusk]

DECEMBER 15th

BIG|BRAVE - VITAL

I saw a comment somewhere not long ago saying that Big Brave could do an acoustic album and it'd still probably be heavy as fuck. I'd not heard the band yet but as soon as I started listening to "Vital" I began to agree with the sentiment (and then found out later that they used to be a folk band, lol). They're a band who use simple textures to brilliant effect, to the end that they can plough forth 4 out of its 5 mammoth songs all of similar speed and style and at no point do you ever thing "alright, this is dragging on a bit now".

"Vital" is an enormous steam train, the coarse edges of its guitar feedback scraping the inner walls of tunnels and sending sparks flying under the colossal weight of the cargo, whilst Loel Campbell's voice is the roaring fire at the heart of the engine and the great billowing plumes that soar out above. Essentially minimalist folk dirges mutated into hulking black tar giants, their raw power is undeniable and the band plays them out with measured perfection, not a single step out of place and each one just as worth the wait as the last.

HALF BREED

[close]

[Brundle-Fly]

Your poor new wife. ;)

[The Mollusk]

Your poor new wife. ;)

She actually really likes a lot of the doom and black metal I've introduced her to (ah YES mate the look on your face you are GUTTED etc). She grew up listening to goth and shoegaze so it makes sense I guess.

[Brundle-Fly]

She actually really likes a lot of the doom and black metal I've introduced her to (ah YES mate the look on your face you are GUTTED etc). She grew up listening to goth and shoegaze so it makes sense I guess.

Ha ha, I guessed as much. You were hardly going to pair up with Adele's biggest fan, were you? I'm enjoying this thread very much BTW because metal must have more sub-genres than any other (non-EDM) style and its always an education hearing those distinctions. Merry FUUUUUUUUUCKKK-MASSSS NRrrRRrfrrrgggghhhhhhh!

[The Mollusk]

I'm enjoying this thread very much BTW because metal must have more sub-genres than any other

Glad you're enjoying it! And yeah, it's a great genre. The best, in fact, so sez I.

I wrote a bit about why I made this thing by the way (for my blog which lists these entries in full) if anyone's interested:

It's been a weird couple of years, and what kind of journalistic retrospective would this be if I didn't mention it? So here I am, mentioning it. Amidst all the harrowing mental health stuff I've had to endure throughout the pandemic thus far – most notably a huge depressive breakdown amidst a total existential nightmare of non-existence and the mounting horrible anxiety that comes with having all your social buoyancy gradually eroded throughout extended periods of isolation – I find myself standing at the threshold of 2022, oddly, wrapped up warm in the secure, loving embrace of disgusting and brutally heavy metal.

This is the most obsessed I've been with the genre in all my 20 years of listening to it, and so although music of this nature is typically designed to unsettle listeners in the extreme, it's maybe unsurprising that at a time when I feel like my mind's taken a total flaying from so many looming forces of the world at large, I'm suddenly compelled to crawl back into the womb of my cultural awakening. The sound I fell in love with at age 14, before I even knew what it meant to appreciate art: Extreme metal.

So, I've been busy. 2021's been an astonishing year for metal (again, it's an intense form of escapism, so this doesn't surprise me at all) and I've been voraciously devouring new releases with elated gusto across the last few months – from iconic legacy artists still waving their vile flags high and free, to fledgling debuts tearing the genre a new arse where you wouldn't think there was any room for a new arse – and I'd like to share with you some of my favourite discoveries.

[easytarget]

I also appreciate this thread. I make a half-hearted effort to keep up with new music (especially in some of these sub-genres) but when things get stressful I find it much easier to listen to music I already know.

This has been brilliant. So have many of the Album of the Year lists - even though they seem to come from the most obscure corners of metal "Finally - here's what the bass player from Soilwork reckons 2021 best records were!"

[Brundle-Fly]

Forgot to do this yesterday, soz. But getting double the chocolate in one day is always great innit?

DECEMBER 12th

KNOLL - INTERSTICE

Hey, I know what you might be thinking right now. You're probably all like, 'I've heard "Garden of Burning Apparitions". I know all I need to know about this year's most excruciatingly savage deathgrind releases.' Well let me tell you, you're wrong! "Interstice", the astonishingly accomplished debut album from this fresh-faced Tennessee six-piece, could best be described simply as a 35-minute non-stop aural assault, and a glorious sounding one at that.

The aforementioned Full of Hell are an obvious point of comparison, owed in part to the musicianship but also equally to the mixing job by big man Kurt Ballou, whose mighty production chops include FoH as well as other notable noisemongers such as Cult Leader, Old Man Gloom and Nails. This record is claustrophobic and brutal as fuck but every element has ample room to breathe and stretch. Technical guitar flourishes lash out at you like tentacles, cymbals ring out clear as day like flashes of light above the chaos, and grindcore vocals stand firm as an impentrable wall of sound.

Where Full of Hell have focused more on expanding their sonic palette further across their last three albums, Knoll on the other hand seem more concerned creating a mission statement that batters the listener with a near-ceaseless wave of extremity. This isn't a slight on Knoll, however; their sound is brilliantly refined here, the songs weave together with a superb pacing and the end result is a tight and consistent blast of relentless ferocity. Not merely an admirable first attempt, but a startlingly awesome and refreshing release that already stands toe to toe with some of its most well-seasoned peers.

EARTH'S IRON LUNG

[close]

________________________________________________________________________________

DECEMBER 13th

VEILBURNER - LURKERS IN THE CAPSULE OF SKULL

It's difficult to know where to start with this album. It pulls so successfully from so many influences and styles of black/death metal that it sends my ADHD into overdrive trying to focus on all of its merits, but suffice to say that "Lurkers..." is – and I hate this word so I don't use it lightly – EPIC.

Overall if you're a fan of the sprawling tech/prog death of Nile and you want something that wriggles and scrapes further into the depths of evil, perplexing weirdness, then you're gonna find something to enjoy in here... and boy is there a lot to enjoy. The 8 songs across its 54 minute runtime are serious journeys, exploring vast sonic textures through a multitude of styles, all of it moulding together gloriously through time-bending prog, dissonant blackened blasts of noise, ritualistic chants, incredible solos and straight up superb death metal riffing. The variation in vocal styles alone is really something to behold. "Lurkers" is a bizarre and brutal work of art.

CURSED, DISFIGURED, AMEN!

[close]

Now, THIS I really like! Listened to some more off this album. Something quite filmic about it and reminiscent of Killing Joke (well, to me anyway). You forget how talented these musicians are when you get beyond the iconography.

[Noodle Lizard]

I really love that technology has allowed low-budget extreme metal acts to make their own music videos. Nobody quite knows how Immortal were able to manage it back in the 90s (perhaps Norway's generous artist grants?), but now you can't move for them.

[The Mollusk]

Now, THIS I really like! Listened to some more off this album. Something quite filmic about it and reminiscent of Killing Joke (well, to me anyway). You forget how talented these musicians are when you get beyond the iconography.

It's ingrained in my system now but I get where you're coming from as I remember having similar revelations, like there's no reason high concept metal records shouldn't be held in the same high regard as works of fantasy in other mediums like literature or film.

The epic tale of a wee lad with hairy feet travelling far and wide with wizards and elves to banish a conquering evil forever is critically and universally adored yet for some reason the fantastical realms envisioned in metal ranging from Iron Maiden to Veilburner is still looked down upon by a lot of people with a bit of a giggle and "well, boys will be boys!"

I think a lot of it has to do with aesthetic, like the romanticism of a book or the arresting high budget of a blockbuster film are so much more immediately appealing whereas music of this ilk still seems to have the stigma of basement dwelling nerds and "you just don't get it, mom!" which sucks because beyond the knowingly daft escapism of head banging/mosh pits and striving to create the spookiest atmosphere possible, there's a rich depth of skill and artistic merit in all areas of the genre. The ridiculous octave range on King Diamond or Devin Townsend, the eye-watering percussion skills of Brann Dailor or Pete Sandoval, you can't move for guitar virtuosity across the board, and that's before you even get started on songwriting ability.

A lot of the huge conceptual proggy stuff on my list this year - Veilburner, Mare Cognitum, Spectral Lore, Worm - is coming from one or two piece bands as well. Incredible talent. This isn't a new thing either as demonstrated in the baffling talent of songwriters like the aforementioned King Diamond or Death's Chuck Schuldiner.

Metal's the fuckin best.