“Album Of The Day” is a Last Rites Facebook feature we started whose purpose is quite straight-forward: highlight one album per day and say a few words about it. Understanding that not everyone chooses to participate in the booking of faces, we thought it might be nice to toss in a feature that gathers the albums in a single piece on a weekly basis.
Here are the seven albums we picked for the week of November 25th — December 1st.
Sunday, November 25th
Deceased – Surreal Overdose (2011)
“Mother?…What’s wrong with me?”
Surreal Overdose doesn’t flash much of anything we haven’t heard a hundred times before, particularly if you count yourself a long-time fan of Deceased. But what sets this band on an entirely different plane from the rest of their peers is the fact that they do everything that comprises the “it” a hundred times better. So while the thought of hearing yet another sample of poor little Regan might prompt a number of you to reach for the cliché flag, Deceased manages to use it perfectly by tacking it to the tail-end of a face-peeling ode to a deranged Mother who spends her days birthing an endless chain of bedeviled babies. And really, that’s Deceased in a nutshell: deranged, born in a cellar and with an unquenchable thirst for revulsion…FOR OVER 25 YEARS. [Captain]
Monday, November 26th
Deathspell Omega –Kénôse (2005)
The sort of melody found on Kénôse is a sort of pulsing fluxation of dissonance which is a constant undercurrent throughout the album. Even though Deathspell Omega leans heavily on the ambient parts of their songs in creating a vexingly dark, sinister atmosphere, the black metal parts are equally responsible for crafting a brooding sound of horror that remains prevalent throughout the album. What is so amazing here is that the intensity of the album never fully dissipates during the intermezzos between ferocity. Actually, the breaks in aggression lend to the tension as the album fluctuates a push-pull tension that is waged throughout all the songs. The diversity of this album is what leads to its ultimate success. From the alternating ambiance and aggression, to the alternation of the vocals to a snarl resembling satyr to a lower growl, these changes keep Kénôse interesting. [Jeremy Garner]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDAUuaWhYGY&frags=pl%2Cwn
Tuesday, November 27th
Napalm Death – Time Waits For No Slave (2009)
“Time Waits For No Slave is a monster, through and through; another entry into one of metal’s most esteemed catalogs and another success from a long-running band approaching the three-decade mark atop a wave of rejuvenation. Slave is vicious and violent, supercharged and superb, unflinching and undeniable. Napalm Death rarely disappoints, but only in a few select instances have they equaled this one. One of the top releases of 2009, hands down.” [Andrew Edmunds]
Wednesday, November 28th
Sanctuary – The Year the Sun Died (2014)
“As much as Nevermore felt like a logical jump from the direction laid out on Into The Mirror Black, The Day The Sun Died feels like a section of the bridge between the two. Whereas Nevermore’s basic formula was the combination of chunky riff, instrumental flash, and vocal pomp, Sanctuary’s is a more traditional power/thrash approach, one that has ultimately always really been about the vocal, about Warrel’s operatics and piercing shriek. Though they’re certainly good at what they do, guitarists Lenny Rutledge and Hull don’t possess the head-spinning technique of Loomis. Still, in the context of Sanctuary, that’s no detriment—with fewer notes but appropriate skill, they provide a rock-solid base for Dane’s melodrama. And here, Dane is in godlike form, his voice as strong as ever, although he does sidestep the super-highs in favor of the more Nevermore-ish baritone. He’s one of metal’s finest vocalists, and on top of his game still.” [Andrew Edmunds]
Thursday, November 29th
Giant Squid – The Ichthyologist (2009)
The Ichthyologist’s strongest feature may be its uncanny balance of so many competing elements. Never have I heard a single album that incorporates bludgeoning doom guitars, wailing Arabic vocal melodies (“Blue Linckia”), hoarse Tom Waits-ish whispers, cello, violin, flute, oboe, trumpet, and fucking banjo without sounding like an irredeemable mess. Giant Squid have done an unbelievable job of reigning in all the elements of their sound and squeezing them into coherent songs (no 20-minute jam number here), though master producer Matt Bayles deserves a great deal of credit for his work in streamlining the band’s catholic instrumentation. These tracks border on orchestral at times (as during Anneke van Giersbergen of The Gathering’s appearance on “Sevengill”), but somehow never become overbearing. [Doug Moore]
Friday, November 30th
Bloodbath – Resurrection Through Carnage (2002)
Everything old is new again; that is the story of the decade. The Swedish death metal revival, in particular, began with Bloodbath. Bloodbath itself started as some drunken fun in the studio amongst some big names in Swedish metal, and ended up as death metal’s first supergroup. With the infamous rusty chainsaw guitar tone that is a hallmark of the Sunlight Studio sound and some positively demonic vocals from Mikael Akerfeldt, Bloodbath rampages through ten tracks of the catchiest death metal of the ’00s.
Saturday, December 1st
Nucleus – Sentient (2016)
“‘Dosadi,’ the second and first proper song following an intro, is a stroll down a heavily wooded path of influences. It opens with a heaping serving of Demilich that’s ladled upon two crisply distorted guitars. But where bands like Demilich and Morbid Angel may have leaned toward a more technical take, Nucleus applies a more straightforward, halting style with blast beats that alternate bass-snare in jovial gaiety, making them feel more like a demonic polka/rockabilly affair than a blast beat.” [Manny-O-War]
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See you next week.
