Metal Album of the Week: Asphyx - Deathhammer

If I had to pick a favorite subgenre of metal, I would have to say death metal, even though most of it is unbearable.  But I like my metal evil, and next to black metal, it’s the evilest, and even bad death metal is better than most good black metal, which sounds like a bunch of noise mixed with the ramblings of a humanoid reptile.  Death metal’s deep, growling vocals; thick, downtuned guitars; and fast drumming that relies heavily on double bass work together to create more fitting soundtracks for the Chief Rebel Angel.

The death metal that I usually find most appealing is melodic death metal—bands like Amon Amarth and Entombed are two good examples—but I’m always on the lookout for any death metal that doesn’t follow the blast-beat, Cookie monster formula popularized by bands like Cannibal Corpse and Morbid Angel.  “Deathhammer,” the latest album from the Dutch band Asphyx, is a notable example of a recent death metal album that offers metalheads something different.  At the beginning of the title song, vocalist Martin van Drunen announces, “This is true death metal, you bastards!” and it’s hard to argue with him, but what makes this album so enjoyable for me is the way it mixes the deep growling vocals and thick guitars of death metal with the slower tempos, heavy riffs and touch of melody more characteristic of doom metal.  Asphyx’s style of metal is thus often referred to as death/doom.

The album’s mix of death and doom results in a sound that provides an appropriately dark and brutal atmosphere for the lyrics that focus mostly on the horrors of war.  This is pretty standard for the subgenre, but what makes Asphyx unique is the powerful vocals that are somewhere between throaty screaming and raspy growling and remain surprisingly intelligible.  “Deathhammer” has a nice variety of mid-to-fast tempo songs and slower, doom-laden tracks, and thus avoids the common problem in metal of sounding like one long, droning song.

One of the album’s best songs, “We Doom You to Death,” displays a bit of wittiness in the word play of its lyrics and also shows that Asphyx don’t take themselves too seriously.  The song is a perfect hybrid of death metal and doom metal, and although the title might suggest that it’s about sentencing someone to death, it’s actually punning on “doom” and “death” to make a statement about the kind of metal Asphyx plays.  I usually detest metal songs that are about metal, but this one works because of the clever way the lyrics and music work together.  It also provides a nice break from the rest of the album’s gloom.

The brutal sound of “Deathhammer” makes it great music for cleaning the bathroom, washing dishes, or doing any kind of cleaning that involves scrubbing.  In fact, it wasn’t until I listened to the album while cleaning the bathroom that I truly appreciated it.  To get rid of mildew, try the third track, “Minefield.”  After 7 minutes of this slow, grinding tale of soldiers trapped in a mindfield, the grout in your shower will be white again.

Next:  Death -  The Sound of Perseverance 

The Cabinet’s Metal Album of the Week: Candlemass – Psalms for the Dead

I’m terrible at describing music, and I’m particularly bad at explaining why an album is “good” or  “bad,” but I’m going to try anyway in what will be one of the revived Cabinet’s weekly columns.  I’ll start with the latest album, and purportedly the last, from the Swedish doom metal band Candlemass, Psalms for the Dead.

Before buying this album, I knew nothing about Candlemass and very little about doom metal, but I was already interested because, as any true metalhead knows, with a handful of very notable exceptions, all the metal that matters comes from Sweden.  If I were still in high school and just discovering metal, the name of the band and the album cover alone would have been enough to peak my interest, but ten minutes sampling metal on iTunes is more than enough time to learn a lesson that those of us who grew to musical maturity in the pre-MP3 age learned the hard way:  there’s often an inverse relationship between the coolness of a metal band’s name and album covers and the quality of its music.  After reading very positive reviews of Psalms for the Dead in Metal Hammer  and Decibel magazines and then sampling the album several times, I was glad to learn that this rule doesn’t apply to Candlemass.

Listening to Psalms a few dozen times has confirmed my earlier impression of doom metal:  it sounds like doom.  I know this description isn’t very useful, but if you’re familiar with the subgenre, I think you’ll agree that it’s apt.  However, a much more useful way of describing doom metal is simply to point out that in addition to inventing metal Black Sabbath also invented doom metal or that the brand of metal Sabbath invented was doom.  Chances are if you’re reading this, you’ve heard Sabbath, so you know what doom metal sounds like.  In case you haven’t, the best I can do (other than telling you to check out Black Sabbath and Paranoid immediately) is to explain that it relies on slow, heavy guitar riffs and that the vocals are more melodic and less grunty, screechy, or screamy than you probably expect from heavy metal.

Psalms consists of nine songs that the band’s website describes as being about “the presence and absence of time. . . about leaving, goodbyes and farewells . . . inner demons and false.”  Not surprisingly, the music portraying these dark themes is suitably doom-laden, with slow, heavy guitar riffs, deep, bellowing drums, and the occasional keyboard accompaniment adding a touch of eeriness throughout the album.  The songs gain variety from melodic choruses that periodically punctuate the doom.  I seem to remember reading the vocals described as a bit “Dio-ish,” and this is a good way to characterize the vocals, which are sung, rather than growled or screamed, at a pitch that’s somewhere between James Hetfield’s and King Diamond’s.

There’s not a bad song on the album, and two that stand out are “The Sound of Dying Demons” and “Waterwitch,” both of which sound scary enough to make me think twice before playing them while I’m alone in the dark.  “Dying Demons” is about an inability to escape inner demons, and its layered sounds invoke impressions of being surrounded by demons.  It opens with a ritualistic drumbeat that leads into a slow, droning guitar riff that’s soon accompanied by thunder and faint sounds of howling demons.  Melodic vocals singing of hopes that demons are gone and noting that “you thought the voices were dead” are followed by a demonic whisper claiming, “You didn’t listen!”  “Waterwitch” personifies time or death as a witch that’s stealing our lives.  Thick, doomy basslines underlie the vocals as they describe the witch whose victims can’t be saved by angels’ tears.  Slow, grooving riffs with a slight waa effect add to the sense of dread.

Part of the reason I like this album so much is that it adds variety to my metal collection.  It’s heavy and very dark while also being melodic and thus enables me to give my ears a periodic break from the brutality of bands like Skeletonwitch and Goatwhore.  It’s also nice to have choruses that I can sing along to while running.

Psalms is my only exposure to Candlemass, so I can’t compare it to their other albums, but I’ll definitely be checking them out in the near future.  The band have claimed that although they will continue playing live shows, this will be their last album.  If it does end up being their last, they will have ended with a shot of doom that’s likely to give metalheads nightmares for years.

Next week:  Kreator – Phantom Antichrist.