THE PEOPLE THAT TIME FORGOT

  OTHER EPITHET OFT GOT AMPLE when trying to highlight the brilliance of THE PEOPLE THAT TIME FORGOT, if not The Place That Time Forgot. Time proves to be an illusion, once the present shifts periodically. Superseding this is when the present time shares two periods with consecutive physicalities. Unofficially, this is a time travel escapade with zero concern to the concept itself—which aids at keeping some perils at bay; while preventing a stray from the set premise.

  The time machine in question is an biplane aircraft with a crew of four, set out to search for a lost naval hero. Embarking for an island located amid a polar enclosure, the mothership keeps their track from semi-frozen waters. Unaware of what to expect, they glide into a tropical isle, well sheltered from view by snow-capped ridges and peaks. Stumbling into a giant pterodactylus, they crash-land and realization sets in—expect anything, except it will be prehistoric.

  They encounter a number of thecodonts, with the props made to be as convincing as possible, given this is an old film—one of the precursors to time travel and dinosaur films recurrent today, such as  Walking with Dinosaurs. Concurrent with other film overarchings, there is a created language for the tribe of Nargas, who are fantastically costumed. Learnt broken English  for the set's Sheena, Ajor, eliminates a lot of misunderstandings between her and the protagonists.

GOT A TITLE PROP. TO HEFT METH...

  Even though adventure prevailed and the mission went awry, it still incorporates to make it a task to pin down satisfactorily. Ah, time travel.

ACID DEATH (HALL OF MIRRORS)

  Heavy Metal and anagrams are quite the mother's milk to The Mad Mane Machine. Per se, either is based on a self-reflection in order to arise with the end-product; making this review awash with the same logic—without being too overt.

  Coming across Hall of Mirrors, I hadn't figured what to expect from an Incurso-esque human on the cover, being handed a (skeleton) key via a portal—how mirrors make operations covert.

  In accordance to the tastiest breakdowns to grace The Mad Mane Machine's ears, the same had to be done to the tracks, anagramatically.

HELL'S MAW—features shrieks from the depths. Steering LAW'S HELM.

MENTAL SLIME—unmercifully drumming and pounding MILE LAMENTS and hedonistic grime.

TRUTH REVEALED—THE RED VALE RUT LED THAT VEER. Diverting becomes cyclical. It's the work of mirrors to repeat.

THE UNFAIR FIGHT—UGH! FAINT HER FIT.

HALL OF MIRRORS—I'M FALL'S HORROR. The reflection of throaty vocals.

TASTE OF THE ERRATIC—FATE TO HERETIC ARTS, well deserved.

GHOSTSHIP—HIGH STOPS. If hall of mirrors could anagram to horror film.... They always fog out.

PLANES OF THE ETERNAL DEAD—EA, HE PORTENDS A FALLEN DATE. Lord of depths!

SUPREME ACT OF HEROISM—PRIME MOSH FACT, USE ORE. And smelt!

  Being a Thrashy progressive Death Metal album, parallels can be drawn to Witheria, the throaty vocals too, with Witheria managing growls and much technical music. A commendable release from Greece.

DOPPELGANGERS XI

  From what I saw off Pentagrvm's work, the Metal element is not a mere coincidence. The music is instrumental, lo-fi, modern rap . And with an album titled Doomed . . . .

—Rap
—Funeral Doom

SLAWTER BY DARREN SHAN

  There is no high-jinks without the jinks; no slaughter without the laughter; no slawter without the law! And Grubbs Grady is just about the law, when it comes to the grisly, gothic, gore-fest—demonic desecration. But does all the fun end there?

  Slawter is the third installment under the Demonata universe from the two-tiered Darren Shan book-verse. On reading this as a second Darren Shan offering, what arised was an inherently YA targetship, more-sore the youngest of its readership. Why so? Comparing to the impact of Cirque Du Freak to The Mad Mane Machine's freshman self, and whatever effect Slawter tried to elicit, not much avails.

  Consistent with the author's work, the book does stand on it's own, regardless of the reader's familiarity with the adjacent installments. It unfolds with poetic discourse that gives it an awkward edge, almost rife with wordplay, puns and references—things that would not be a far cry from Brian W. Aldiss—as the Gradys are enchanted by a cult director to aid her realize a new horror film.

The Lambs follow the path of science. Demons are creatures of magic.

The gore factor is kept at maximum, but the magic feels lacking, and less portrayed (poof—magic!); appearing as rushed as the "Battle" saga. With the stupendous "Film Folk", up to the climax, "The Chase" couldn't fall short of filler. Sometimes a bargain takes more than a life. I'll term with that. Praise for Lord Loss!

DOPPELGANGERS X

  Aaaaaah—nthrax! It's Scott Ian's (my favourite human) disbanded band. S.O.D. cannot deny their taking from S.O.B. And when around here, speak English or die!

—Grindcore / Hardcore
—Crossover

 

THE RITUAL AURA (LANIAKEA)

  A description like The Ritual Aura casts a wide net for a Technical Death Metal band, moreso when trying to put ritual into perspective. But beyond that, it sure is a sci-fi proponent. Labelled as both progressive and technical, the latter is the most prescriptive on this record. Technical Death Metal goodness.

   

  Laniakea opens with a soulful piano intro before barraging into fret-board wizardry, partly aided by the ex-Obscura shred master—Christian Muenzner. Shredding is in the element of Hellenic Terror Kronos, featuring similar shrieking but with better production—however befitting Kronos' is. Sub-par releases had the Mad Mane Machine wishing some tracks were longer than teaser material. The Precursor of Aphotic Collapse features amazing trade-offs with a dual breakdown work before the lead bursts into a solo closure.

   

  What of a Perry Rhodan exo-world with a dome barrier aligned with fleet as they await entrance. A protective dome deactivation that only Perry's hand can aid for it to be achieved. The mass of orbs is puny to the propitiously titled Laniakea. Uninhabitable space is as unforgiving as rightly wielded Technical Death Metal. Furrowing and flitting forward across the exosphere with a wrecking, calculated weight.

 

 Supermassive superclustural supremacy FTW.

BOGTROTTER (DARK MATTER)

  

Emanations. Gurgling from below the porous marshes. Bubbles collecting, spiraling to the bog's sodden expanse. Dark Matter, what else pulls the sonorous visions together?

  Cerberus echoes netherworld proliferations. Slushing with vigorous vibrations as foggy psychedelia spouts from the quagmire, in a bass closing SkairHaap.

  Slippery animated frogs exist, camouflaged in a tapestry of moss covering outcrops and lichen draping and veiling trunks—croaking and enchanting quicksand victims to the awaiting Ghoul Train underneath.  

Reptiles something something scaly texture from glitches.

TIME TRAVEL IN FRANKENSTEIN UNBOUND

A Timeslip stands no worse than a landslide—a fault in the spatial infrastructure. In a near-future world, there had been an ongoing war among opposing Western, South American, and Third World Powers who have been using nuclear weapons of increasing caliber—within the orbits of Earth - Luna system. 

  The effect of this is man learning a bitter lesson on the indivisibility of Nature. The short-lived relief that everyone had—since it all happened above the stratosphere—was all gone as timeslip hazards might as well be equated to fallout. Both space and time goes on the blink. On one hand, it's still a null relief since nobody gained anything from the showdown, which managed to obliterate Moon colonies—something termed a doubtful benefit.

  Professor Ransome concludes that it came to be perceived as a hitherto undiscerned relationship between the planet and the infrastructure of space which surrounds and supports it. The infrastructure has been destroyed or at least damaged to the point at which it malfunctions unpredictably, and now the consequences must be borne with. 

Consequence one includes slipping either into the past or the future, as wherever one is standing could face a sudden geo-locational change. Consequence two is time-shock. Lastly; getting trapped in 'The Present' of the past or the future, as Joe Bodenland. 

'The Present' must be viewed with with increasing suspicions as T/timeslips increase—some timeslips are not timely enough to warrant a capital T. Herefore, these jumps can only take place in an Eternalist's universe; since when Joe slips back in Time, the world is still unfolding as per that date. Remember how they say about alternate universes coming to save time travel from its paradoxes? Then, doesn't that give it more power? Like merging a fictional lifeline to an existing one. A Timeslip eventful enough in length requires the chrono-marker to regard its time as Time, so Joe Bodenland does that, to events lasting beyond a few hours.

Well, Joe the time traveler could sell his timepiece from the (eternalism, forbid a) 2020 U.S.A., traverse the past with a Felder, but a (alternate universes be damned) May 1816 Geneva needs some music.

  

Let's meet the olde poets.

SURFACE TENSION BY JAMES BLISH

   In the Devonian period, life began to earnestly reach the land—395 Million years ago. Plants had began to flourish and managed to stabilize the carbon dioxide-abundant atmosphere by releasing large quantities of oxygen—paving way for land colonization by arthropods i.e. mites and millipedes. Vertebrates followed—lead off by lungfish, advancing to amphibians.

"Are we going to tell them they're microscopic? I'm opposed to it. It may saddle their entire history with gods-and-demons mythology that they'd be better off without."

  Picture this; a miniature wooden spaceship, out to conquer space! So it ensues that whichever race is inside must be microscopic. And as the title of the tale gives away—SURFACE TENSION / SAFE UR-ION SCENT—a liquid that occurs in plenty and of significance to this race, will play a major role. Surface Tension is hard science fiction explaining life from its origins—the sea. 

"Martin, what would you think of our taking to the sea? We came out of it once, long ago; maybe we could come out of it again through Hydrot."

  The tale of a galaxy-trotting, planet-hunting crew on a mission to scatter men, or at least lifeforms very much like men, all over the galaxy. Until they crash-land on a target planet, with zero survival chance. They rush against time to 'create' the new race through pantropy. These creatures (pantropes) are calibrated, with detail that once out of the water, they go through a couple generations as amphibians before breathing through the larynx.

"Those people will be of the race of men, Eunice. We want them to win their way back into community of men. They are not toys, to be protected from the truth forever in a fresh-water womb."

  Ensuing is a description of the lifeforms appearing in the classic novella; found descriptions; and relations to each other.

 .  .  .

 Location: Hydrot—A waterscape, similar to Earth, immersed in water bar a triangular slab. Evolution here seemed to have stopped with the crustacea. Crayfish.

 Star: Tau Ceti—performs the role of Solar System's Sun. 

 

 Man: Was fashioned from the genes of his crash-landed ancestors. 250 microns in size. He had a thermocline to protect them from cold during hibernation, an amniotic fluid produced from a winter-induced protective shell. At this (hibernation) time, he lived in spores. Had webbed extremities, all lead by Lavon."They are creatures that look alike."

 Shar: Knowledge keepers of the race. With each awakening from hibernation, the (new) Shar's responsibility is to drill Lavon of his environment before he (Lavon) embarks on leadership duties. Translates the first words of the corrosion-proof micro-engraved record from the ancestors—'i/terste//are//e/ition.' ...this was as fascinating as the prevalence of sound /ə/ in the same language.

 Protos: Man's accompanies. On the same hierarchy level with Euglena. A family of Paras, Didins and Stent. Could be taught man's language. Their bodies flared regularly with blue-green pulses. Were gleaming mobile cylinders. "Not green and had a visible nucleus, no matter how strange its shape."

 Paras: Man's Proto allies. Communicated with invisible cilia vibration in even, emotionless tones. Each separate hair-like process buzzed at an independent, changing rate. The resulting sound waves spread through the water intermodulating, reinforcing or cancelling each other. "A transparent bubble-filled cylinder, a colourless slipper of jelly, spirally grooved, long as the length of man".

 Generation XVI Para: Has cilia and hover with a muted whirl. "Slipper-shaped organisms, nearly transparent except for the thousands of blue and silver granules and frothy bubbles which packed its interior. 

 Didins: Shared hierarchy level with Para and Stent, all Protos. "Barrel-like creatures ringed to rows with cilia, and bearing a ram-like prow."

 Euglena:  On the same hierarchy level with Protos.

 Vortae: From one level with Paras. "Placid and murmurous."

 Eaters: Man's number one foe/predator. Occurred either as Rotars or Rotifers. Rotars only locomoted by swimming. "As beautiful as the fruiting crowns of water-plants. " All had the whirling crown of cilia which could suck quarry into the incessantly grinding mastax in a moment."

 Dicran: Man's foe. They were Eaters, Dicran. Their method of locomotion was leaping. Have an armour plate for defense, a mastax and cilia which make a rhythmical pulsation to create an illusion of rotating corona. They are poisonous. Means of locomotion; leaping. "The armoured trumpet-shaped body".

 Notholka: They are leapers just like Dicran. They are Eaters.

 Diatoms: Same hierarchy level with Desmids. Beautifully marked, oblong, pillbox-like shell swarming with greedy bacteria. "Everything which was green and had an engraved shell of glass."

 Desmids: Flexible shells which could not move. Was the food source for Man before he started growing his own. 

 Syn: Fronds in the water. Plants that communicate with Paras. Refused to help men as they expected them to be dead before the Eaters awake (they rise the last from hibernation/awakening).

 Bacteria: Was visible to Man. Appeared in rods, globes, and spirals.

 Noc: A flagellate with no natural weapon against rotifers. Drifts like star-shell. Of the same size with Dicran. Produces a blue light in flashes when excited.

 Caddis-Worm: Live in sand-built houses—a masonry tube with everything in form of a conical bore differing from the next tube only in size—clinging to mountainous slopes of under-water rock. This was the first City of Man—once the Caddis-Worm was exiled.

 Stephanost: A predator of Man, but is easy to avoid. A trapper, but not a hunter.

 

 Flosc: They live in castles; which are all tunnels and exits and entrances. They are colony-builders. Man fought them out of their castles, which were much better than the worm-houses.

 .  .  .

SAFE UR-ION SCENT / UR+ION SAT FENCES (so undecided)

  

DOPPELGANGERS IX

  Electronic mayhem and the madness of Em's Hip Hop. Hardcore is relative—the sinew holding the two together.

—EMINEMƎM
—Striker
—The Final Destination IV

DOPPELGANGERS VIII

  Not much in the doppelgänger style availed by this site, but it's compelling enough to grant a feature. Because yes, English.

—Looper
—Deathgasm trailer.

DOPPELGANGERS VII

  The tree of life—

As above, so below.

—Opeth

—Obtest

 

MYCONITH (ENVIROGLUTTON)

  Brutal Death Metal. Random in-genre sifting—the exciting part that at most/best leads to the ush; relentless self-indulgence in gore, guts—and goo, automatically making outliers a less disappointing consideration: Such as Myconith. 

  Biological Science Fiction. This is a first encounter from a Death Metal band purveying such; and a Brutal Death Metal one just alienates itself off to the less served branch of sci-fi. AGAINST THE GRAIN / GAIN IN-STATE ARGH!

  What makes this interesting is bands associating themselves with physical sci-fi tend to obsess over weird OUTER WORLDS / RULED TO ROWS effects. Myconith is neither from that school, nor does it's take on Brutal Death Metal for now incorporate for such. Either from speculation, disregard, or something is in the offing.

  Murky from the out-pour with groovy vents. This is what the murkiness provides—rummaging through the thickest mire of greenery and pulsating with with bog-like entrapments one can't help plodding even faster. Realistically it's the groove that holds it together. Heard in song one as it preps for closure—before the short but tasty solos in the second song. Beyond that is death metal fare and sounds—live scene from the inter-planetary onslaughts as life forms intermingle with with spores. some DM bands blast, while others groove; keeping the two drawing lines on forms of brutality—when not dispensing both.

  The drummer is more likely on a pace after the axe-man. Audibly visible all over Shroomshire. Enviroglutton is the better of the lot with upfront riffing. The leads have a penchant for Entombed-core with the kind of tone used. Although quite formulaic in display of chops in moshing sections. This does not render it any less headbangable. The only question left is why let those tasty licks trail off like smears when they add substance to the heaviness that is dragged through grime and countless swarms of Myconid species off the fourth dimension—in an effort to sporify the listener's oblongata.

  It has its serving of slam, the songs are short, but nothing short of melodic sections—check title track—and heavy breakdowns; sometimes ending or surrounded by unpaced melodic riffs. Murky production keeps things enjoyably lurking in grime. This is the alpha of a concept band unfurling the events surrounding Deimos 9, a star-port system on the edge of the galaxy.

DOPPELGANGERS VI

 —Defenders Of Tanelorn
 —Rage Of Angels
 —Sylosis
 —Synthetic Scum

 Partly informed by this.

 Original artwork found here.

DOPPELGANGERS IV

  Death Metal, Nu Disco.

—Psychoparadox
—Synth Dimension

 

CYBERNETIC WITCH CULT (MORLOCK ROCK)

   B-Movies. Science Fiction and it's loony cousin—Horror. Doom Metal and its staple... Relatively much the gasoline that keeps the Mad Mane Machine running; and an album can only get better.

  Although not a very solid release, Morlock Rock from Cybernetic Witch Cult is right at home here. The Mad Mane Machine would wish to be human. Would wish to be Psychedelic. Would wish to be so fuzzy. For ever. Not a bad fantasy—ASTROGALACTIC SPRITES / OR SPICE GLASS ATTIC ART.

  The blue man. Yes, the bloom urn. Ample supple sample. Go!

3.5/5

DOPPELGANGERS III

  Stoner rock aficionados.

—Samsara Blues Experiment
—Causa Sui 

DOPPELGANGERS II

  Yeah, still Ophelia, courtesy of;

—Ghost Bath
—Jex Thoth
—Baby Woodrose

DOPPELGANGERS

  Motor, taking a straight heads-up from Meat Loaf.
Sweet-mother-of-pencil-art-from-their-kid-cousins! Dedicated pins—motör on hard.

—Meat Loaf
—Motor

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)

. 

  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