Missing Pieces: The Best Of What We Missed In 2023 So Far, Pt. 3

And so we’ve come to the end of the road, and still we can’t let go… So here is the third and final installment of all the wonderful heavy records that snuck by us in the first half of 2023. If you’re only joining us now, you can find more here in Part 1 and Part 2. As always, thanks for accompanying on this crazy journey, and may the Gods Of Great Music smile upon us all in the second half of the year…

THY CATAFALQUE ‒ ALFÖLD

released June 16; Season Of Mist

CENTURY ‒ THE CONQUEST OF TIME

released April 21; Headsplit / Electric Assault / No Remorse

Within the boom of traditional metal occurring right now, perhaps no country is playing their roots like Sweden. Strong pumping one-two beats, whippy speed, and reverb-drenched vocal melodies that find a balance between might and mysticism sum up the style of Swedish classic acts like Heavy Load, Jonah Quizz, Axe Witch, and Mindless Sinner.

After a promising demo and a few singles to garner interest, Stockholm’s Century throw their steel into the arena with their debut, The Conquest Of Time. Released through the ever-vigilant Electric Assault Records, the likes of road-ripping opener “The Fighting Eagle” and the glistening “Sinister Star” strike the sword/sorcery balance perfectly. The simple melodies speak to an emotional depth beneath the surface, a warren of strength drawn from mystic realms beyond.

The production is humble but serviceable. Like the pulp fantasy of yesteryear, it highlights the strength of the tunes, reminding us the magic is in the content of the music and not in fancy polished covers or dazzling studio tricks. Hitting the sweet spot of just under 40 minutes, The Conquest Of Time never overstays its welcome as Century cast spell after catchy spell of heavy metal might in the Swedish tradition. Whether they or their contemporaries ever take it further remains to be seen, but for now I’m more than satisfied with the balance the younger cats have struck. [RYAN TYSINGER]

ΣΥΝΤΡΙΜΜΙΑ ‒ REPULSIVE INEXPRESSION

released May 5; Desolate Depths / Esagoya

Greece: It’s not just for power metal and black metal.

Our Greek friends should use that as their tourism slogan, when they’re done with the whole “Forget France. The French can be annoying. Come to Greece: We’re nicer!” campaign. Alongside the Sacred Outcry, Triumpher, and The Silent Rage albums that have lit up the more power-leaning ears amongst us of late — and alongside the long-established tradition of Hellenic black metal — Greece also gifted us with this debut ripper from Σyntpimmia, henceforth to be typed in the Anglicized form of “Sintrimmia” because I’m lazy.

Blending their death/grind with hints of near-black melodies, Sintrimmia is a savage beast, and Repulsive Inexpression is an expression of that, pure anger in the form of blastbeat and riff, choked scream and full-throated roar. The guitar tone is heavily distorted; the drumming is merciless; the bass is a blown-out clank between; the vocals alternate between an also-blackened shriek and a more traditional death growl. In some moments, the pounding blasts and some stop-start chunky riffs combine to lend Inexpression an almost mechanized feel, though it’s neither robotic nor traditionally “industrial.” Taking elements from all those various aspects of extremity, Sintrimmia’s first effort comes up smashing, seventeen tracks of blunt-force trauma. Definitely a band to keep an ear on. [ANDREW EDMUNDS]

BLOOD STAR ‒ FIRST SIGHTING

released April 21; Shadow Kingdom

A good and excellent thing is to listen to heavy metal that requires further qualifiers, no hyphenated subgenre tags, no bloody A, B, C, or D. First Sighting, the debut album from Salt Lake City’s Blood Star, offers the grateful listener just such a good and excellent opportunity. This side-project of Visigoth’s Jamison Palmer is decidedly more traditional in its alternately cruising and walloping style, and the grit-and-sweat downcast melodicism in Madeline Smith’s vocals land somewhere in the area of Sanhedrin’s Erica Stoltz, Midnight Dice’s Mandy Martillo, or Christian Mistress’s Christine Davis.

The album’s tone occasionally splits the difference between the fading neon of the Sunset Strip and the blue-collar speed of the NWOBHM, but in all things on this tidy, 32-minute powerhouse, Blood Star puts the sturdy, unwaveringly catchy songwriting first. The choruses to certified jams like “Fearless Priestess” and “Cold Moon” are indelible, and although the riffing nods to forebears like Saxon, Accept, or Judas Priest, there’s also a hint of the playfulness of High Spirits. Throughout First Sighting, though, the colors are shaded a little darker, the edges left a little raw, the wounds not quite healed.

Think of it a little bit like riding off into the same sunset as Priest’s “Heading Out to the Highway” or “Living after Midnight,” but saddled with regrets that you’re not quite sure you can outlast or outrun but goddamn if you aren’t going to make something happen anyway with the still air and the roar of the engine and the past in the rearview but also maybe on the horizon. A blood star streaks the sky and you’re gone. [DAN OBSTKRIEG]

ACACIA STRAIN ‒ STEP INTO THE LIGHT / FAILURE WILL FOLLOW

released May 12; Rise Records

In 2014, The Acacia Strain released Coma Witch, which included a second disc housing a single 27-minute bonus track. “The Observer” was far and away the band’s most ambitious and experimental effort in what had been a 12-year career at that point. While much of what followed stuck to their primary formula, the fingerprints of “The Observer” continued to appear, particularly with 2019’s It Comes In Waves EP offering seven tracks that flowed together like one single song. 2020 full-length Slow Decay returned to form but emphasized slower tempos and a darker sound that matched the previous EP.

Nearly a decade after their previous emphasis on pushing their sound to new limits, The Acacia Strain has proven more ambitious yet with their first double album in the forms of Step Into The Light and Failure Will Follow. Double albums are often a bloated mess that over-promises and under-delivers, but not so for these Massholes. The band opted to separate out two of their primary styles to deliver two equally concise yet wholly different experiences to truly justify them existing on a pair of discs.

Step Into The Light takes the band’s sound back to some of their earliest and most popular albums, such as The Dead Walk and Continent. Much of its 24 minutes is spent blasting, grooving, heaving and breaking down. While the focus is on short, sharp shocks, the album still manages to provide a variety of attack patterns. “Calf’s Blood” has a grooving bounce to it before a huge breakdown, “Fresh Bones” has whirling blast beats, “Teeth of The Cursed Dog” leans into a slower chug, and “Is This Really Happening” has a fantastic fluttering riff along with a fantastic pummeling atmospheric stretch in the middle. Plus, when you’re going back to your hardcore roots, how could you not want to yell out “Fuck you, die slow!” before a breakdown?

In the complete opposite direction, Failure Will Follow is all about doom and sludge during its nearly 40 minutes spread across only three tracks. For this particular writer, this is the album between the two that really sinks its teeth in. While all three tracks lean into lengthy odes to sludge, the approach for each is different. “Pillar of Salt” most aligns with “The Observer” stomping through slow-progressing doom, but it also features an absolutely haunting clean passage from iRis.EXE. “Bog Walker” is a fantastic take on Crowbar and even sees vocalist Vincent Bennett doing some great Windstein-esque gruff “cleans.” Disc two closes out by unleashing more noise and ugliness, leveraging guest vocalist Ethan McCarthy’s (Primitive Man, Vermin Womb) style of doom. Even that track still has a dreamy clean passage with an ominous spoken word over top.

More than 20 years into a career and The Acacia Strain isn’t content to rest on their laurels, knowing full well fans would continue to eat up what they’ve been doing best throughout their career. No, instead, they challenged themselves to try different things and create a new experience that will reward fans immensely while, hopefully, bringing them plenty of new ones. [SPENCER HOTZ]

Posted by Last Rites

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