DEATH METAL—AVULSED

"Then it happened. With a crash of drums and a thundering bass, the sound of heavy-metal music came blaring from the loudspeakers."——Sweet Valley High.

  At least at this point in their career, Avulsed no longer consider themselves an underground act, which is a well deserved feat. This is one of the most competent bands to grace Death Metal so far. It is beyond overwhelming that a given album can go from Slam to Doom Metal so  fucking effortlessly! Gorespattered Suicide. . . .

  Oh slamophiliacs, Goresplattered Suicide, Yearning For The Grotesque have the covers begging for ingestion. And swedeath is the magnet that holds Avulsed's metal together. Ritual Zombi and Goresplattered Suicide have special moments of dragging guitar work drenched in atmosphere—sometimes achieved with keyboards. It shows the urgent need for further exploration of the same. And consequently, Famishgod! And this says a lot about Death Metal origins for incredible Death-Doom outfits——Hooded Menace.

  Dave Rotten. I will not obsess about his vocals. But I could never wish for less.

Inhuman vomits—The best in the business.

Subhuman topics/artwork.

Anti-human lyrics.

—I denounce my humanity.

  However, I have yet to see them come out with their own distinct, Avulsed sound. But it's still a journey. Alter Of Disembowelment is closer to being the identity they want to portray but damn goddamn, Avulsed kicks major ass.

BALLS-OUT HIT-'EM-UP ACTION

  Expect more machinismo when the freaking Avengers return as showcased by Thanos lifting an iron glove from an automated holder—similar to Yashida's ailing founder's. It seems marvel is pro-dinosaur eye-candy and stuff in between such sinew. Tylosaurus, the great sea lizards, swim across Manhattan sky, in the name of Leviathan—huge-ass warships and assault crafts bringing forth the Chitauri beasts. Ultron masterminds a plan in the vein of Chixhulub impact.

Art... Art... Art... Art everywhere

  I'd say J.A.R.V.I.S. went full A.I. if it occurs that hiding is possible after an altercation with Ultron—not to mention participation in unaided finalization of Ultron's remainder.

  Ultron becomes sentient enough to leave his Virtual Environment to fashion a body for itself. Pretty funny, considering the human push for a physio-virtual merge—with Age of Ultron and Chappie shedding meagre light on A.I. and its possible downsides. That of course being not at the expense of the aforementioned balls-out hit-'em-up executions.

  Since Ultron views man as detrimental to his habitat; then there sure is another angle, and I'd be more fascinated by an apolitical A.I. because earth is beyond minuscule in regards to space. With that, what would such A.I. need planet Earth for? Political tendencies just hold humanity back in mighty frightening proportions.

Orgasmatron:49% Fuckmother—51%Botch of a sin

 Addiction to the virtual world is highlighted in Chappie—Vincent Moore's Orgasmatron; the neuro-helm for controlling Moose—because man will have created A.I. better or parallel to him. And he will be engaging them online and offline. Will they allow man to control the non-sensitized robots again if they reach a level of pointing-out such or even the slightest disparity, or will man eventually become one of them and start making the closest biological versions of himself as he could. Is dystopia part of the myopia?

BLEEDING EYES (GAMMY)

  Coming across a group called Bleeding Eyes, the chances of ignoring them are high. Add Metalcore to their Doom/Sludge tag, and that rises even higher. Well, not the present Bleeding Eyes; five albums later, although I'm not familiar with anything beyond their A Trip to the Closest Universe.

  Here is a sextet that greatly wields some of the main strains of Doom; Sludge, Stoner, and Psychedelic with this release from 2014. It kicks off with an instrumental that is an oversight to the record's overall sound: Doom  off-shoots  which  are  not   force-fed  i.e. every  root  has  its chance  to  relay the  music's  intention—invoking emotion by engaging its audience. Psychedelic fledgling into Doom, spiraling to Sludge, receding with psychedelia. 

  Most of the Psychedelic echoes and some effects in the record nod to if-we-were-a-space-rock-band. Like the other tracks, one style morphs into the other.

  Kevin's Space rams drum and bass (after cymbal) with sludge that shows their Metalcore origins. But there's an instrumental called Full Fledged! Starts with Stoner . . . Demon Haze produces a terrific Sludge riff, growing into a Doom overlay, if Lacrime Fiume Sangue Dolore or A Fistful of Dynamite did not Sludge-out enough.

  Closing with GAMMY, which has a commercial sample with heavy-ass unfolding tinged with psychedelia and picks pace before steeply falling into a droning passage to the end. How could the Vitruvian Woman move her legs after this? So game! As profoundly conveyed on the cover's art—Doom's penchant for isolated cabins that insinuate covens.

4.5/5 

SKYFOREST (AFTERMATH)

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  Black Metal  is quite a marvel. However, with its teeming with passable outfits, one can only be on the qui vive for outstanding bands. Skyforest happened to be a great encounter, with their first release, the full-length Aftermath.

  Aftermath kicks off with an orchestration that befits a dreary score. It increases the dramatic effect of the preconceived scenes about the album's unfolding landscape.

  The ethereal melancholy is immense. Bled profusely by the instruments, with the lyrics mostly wailed out , accompanied by moments of enthralling singing. Tracks end with  evoked rainfall. Austere and Windir come out as some of the main influences. Nothing, Worthless  could especially be said to be the best balance of the two there could ever be. A Windir arrangement where a song shifts direction somewhere around midway, leaving one yearning for a continuation—with the blissful wails of Austere.

  With such a beautiful closing, this is the ultimate soundtrack to an ephemeral drowning in grief. And in accordance to the project's name, intros and outros fade in and out with the atmospheric abundance expected in a forest.

5/5
 

THE JUDGEMENT OF PARIS

  Behold. Fantasy is always a striking substance as of today, when it is not being abused in various mediums. It opens the gates of imagination.

  Back to the engraving, top center lies a portal. Work from Marcantonio Raimondi The Judgement of Paris C16, after Raphael.

Detailed engraving. Not a mean feat. Nope.

ANTS—METROPOLITAN NIGHTMARE

 The Times ran an adequate story,
 But nobody reads those stories but science-cranks.

 —Stephen Vincent Benét

BERMUDA TENTACLES

  Z-grade cinema.

  The age of irony.

  The dawn of meh-ism.

look . . . at. . . .

  Without stating any of the obvious flaws—quite a hard task—there are a few moments that would make a genre fan mad. Once a film creates ideas too awesome, it can become quite a task to handle it enough in regular running time. Or so it seems, leaving disaster in the paced sections. Good sci-fi is something to delight to once you come across one.

  On the other hand, the creations are the spectacle expected by the viewer, but it will matter less if it was too fantastic in a way that it's easy to kill the entity than effectively create one — without making the origins or its explanations seem like a patch-job for the story to proceed.

Diamond and pearls and . . . wait!

  Event evolution. So crucial in making suspense of disbelief worthwhile.A good example being Transit, regardless of genre, as nothing unfolds reading like coincidence. So fucking good.

  The science is handled pretty well—a classification hypothesis can only be rectified with actual experimentation—and the doctor's presence can not be argued out — just that his unrolling is pretty jabbed-in. Conspiracy theories are great morsel for a good story if handled well. The main reason being they are not bound to a single story-line or explanation. Is the take here the best one yet? In reel-life?  

.  .  .

  The exploration costumes  were great but it is up for debate if they can serve the purpose of underwater navigation; other than alien-atmosphere navigation. A dual purpose seems impossible, yet underwater suits would ruin the only tolerable scene!

. . . into the dome

  As far as comparisons go, if still bad yardsticks for leveling a case, the pulps—at least—were proponents of genre progression. It appears sci-fi is doomed for its own merit. Should there be good concepts, shitty FX ruin — I, Frankenstein. Should the FX be great, acting etc. ruin — Skyline.Perhaps beyond the self-aware retrogradations of some The Asylum productions, if that is really a focus point because sci-fi is known for some entry-level ideas.

  Bad sci-fi is better than no sci-fi... 

A maxim can only cater for so much.