The Scrolls of Akhenaten: April 12th, 2024

April 13, 2024 / Akhenaten / Leave a comment

This one is coming to you a day late because life got in the way this past week and I didn’t get as much time to hammer out which albums I wanted to recommend to you all on Friday. I was also busy hosting a show at The Traxide in Montreal featuring some rather excellent bands from the Maritimes, namely the blackened death metal stylings of Paratomb and progressive metal wizardry of Omnivide, along with local thrashers Grimhold and death-sludge riffologists Obelisk. Now that I’ve got a few moments of free time to myself this Saturday (between recovery) I’m going to make up for it. Read on for some of your (somewhat) regularly scheduled riff recommendations!

Black

The first time I heard this record I was absolutely floored and to this day it continues to shock me. I’d like to thank Devon Milley for this recommendation as it was through him that I discovered this band. I’ve never heard a band so perfectly emulate the sound of Darkthrone’s early material. Everything on this record from the guitar tone to the drum approach to the production to the vocal approach is the closest I’ve ever heard a band mimic that style, and they do it wonderfully. The riffage is so pure and kvlt and trve and devoid of any bells and whistles. Even the vocals sound eerily similar to the range and tone of Nocturno Culto on those classic black metal albums as well as the post-Panzerfaust era of the band. All you have to do is listen to the first track here, “Three Desecrated Hosts”, and you’ll see what I mean. If you’re at all a fan of that style of Norwegian black metal, then Germany’s Pakkt is a must-listen, especially for Darkthrone die-hards like myself.

Death

I first discovered this band through a video made by the YouTuber known as The Punk Rock MBA. I think that guy sucks but I’d be lying if I said he hadn’t put me on to some cool music over the years. Human Remains is definitely one of those bands. The first time I put this record on I couldn’t quite believe what I was hearing. “A deathgrind diamond” as one Bandcamp reviewer named Brett put it, this thing is fucking weird. There are sounds on here that I didn’t even know a guitar could make before I listened to this thing. It’s exceptionally brutal, uncompromising, relentless, and unapologetically experimental. There’s plenty of moments where the music remains firmly rooted in brutalizing the listener with blast beats and atonal guitar riffs before launching into interludes that feel like they’re drawing upon bands like Mr. Bungle and The Dillinger Escape Plan. Of course Dillinger was probably influenced by this band considering that Human Remains predates them.

Doom

Wardehns – *Now Cometh the Foul*
**December 21st, 2018**
**Stoner Metal / Sludge Metal / Crust Punk**
**Independently Released**
**Wausau, Wisconsin, USA**
**Standout Song:** “Denim Dogs”

I was put onto this band through a friend of mine who just happened to be playing them out loud on a Bluetooth speaker while I was hanging with some pals at their house. I was pretty much immediately hooked by the quality of the riffage, the production value, and just how similar it felt to the kind of sludge metal that I am really drawn to: bands like Mastodon, Kylesa, and Black Tusk. The ones who are a little artsy but aren’t afraid to get deep, down, and dirty with their music. Wardehns certainly scratches that itch for me and I’ve had this record on repeat ever since that initial encounter. It’s monolithic in size, with every song imparting the image of a group of intrepid travelers and warriors climbing their way to the top of a frostbitten mountain, surviving blizzards and avalanches, and fighting horrible beasts all along the way. The album cover is indeed a perfect representation of what kind of music you’ll hear on this thing. It comes highly recommended.

Prog

I brought up Omnivide in the intro to this article not just to tell you about the show I was at last night, but also as a genuine recommendation for a band that kicks fucking ass that doesn’t live all that far from Newfoundland. This New Brunswick progressive metal outfit just released their debut album, A Tale of Fire, last month, and are currently embarking on a tour across Canada in support of it. Having seen them live a couple of times now as well as having listened to this thing all the way through time and time again I can attest to this band absolutely ruling. If you want your brain to be disassembled and then put back together wrong then this is the record for you. Their music certainly draws heavy influence from big-name prog bands like Between the Buried and Me, but there are also shades of groups like Cynic, Obscura, and Beyond Creation to be found within. If you like any of those bands you’ll almost certainly like this.

Punk

I was lucky enough to catch Flower at Varning Fest last year, an annual underground crust punk and metal festival that occurs in Montreal. They came up from New York City to play here and absolutely tore the place apart. I thought their live performance was already great but it was checking out their recordings after the fact on my own that really sold me on them. This right here is the kind of punk I like the most. It’s loud, aggressive, angry, and dirty as fuck. All the best crust punk is only a few steps removed from speed metal and black metal and Flower really embrace that vibe on this LP. The album opens with an atmospheric blackened guitar riff that reminds me extensively of Gallhammer and Darkthrone, before the unruly punk ripping starts at full force. It’s so gross and nasty, from the raw guitar tone to the punchy drums to the pissed off vocals. Flower are fantastic, and this LP absolutely slays.

Thrash

Mexico’s Phantom are pretty much everything I want from modern thrash. Their sound is supremely old school, drawing clearly upon the bands of the 80’s, with the Teutonic sound in particular being a primary influence. If you like Sodom, Kreator, or Destruction, or at least the way those bands used to sound back in the day, then Phantom may be for you. That’s not to discount the American influence in their sound either, because notes of Slayer and Metallica definitely crop up from time to time, but ultimately they keep things rooted in that more aggressive sound that veers on the edge of black metal without ever stepping forth into the blizzard. What makes this album even more impressive is that the dudes in this band are really young, most of them being around the ages of 18 to 20. For being as young as they are they’ve got a fantastic grasp of their instruments and their songwriting capability is excellent. I’m stoked to hear what they put out next.

Trad

I never thought I would unironically enjoy a NASCAR-themed metal band but then I am the Intimidator came out of nowhere and showed me the errors of my hubris. This is the new solo project of former Poison Idea guitarist Andrew Stromstad and the entire thing is lyrically and aesthetically based around the final day of NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt’s life. If that wasn’t already enough to sell you on the concept, then I’m happy to report that the music contained within is just as fucking awesome. It’s old school speed metal that draws as much influence from Metallica, Motorhead, and King Diamond as it does from a blackened speed metal act like Venom and an epic doom metal band like Candlemass. While the record may be all over the map in terms of influence it is surprisingly consistent all the way through, featuring fabulous riff after fabulous riff and vocals that’ll put hair on your chest.

Non-Metal

Shpongle – *Tales of the Inexpressible*
**March 29th, 2001**
**Chillout / Psychedelic Trance**
**Twisted Records**
**Chobham, England, UK**
**Standout Song:** “Star-Shpongled Banner”

I discovered Shpongle years ago when I was still in high school. While sick and staying home from school one day I went down an enormously long musical rabbit hole on YouTube (this was back in the day before algorithms ruined everything) which eventually led me to a fan-made animated music video for the song “Star-Shpongled Banner”. I was so enamored by the combination of the music with the visuals I was experiencing made that song stick with me for years to come, and to this day I still revisit this record from time to time. While I don’t often find myself listening to electronic music, when I do I prefer the kind of stuff that’s outside the realm of the typical club fare. I don’t go to clubs often, mind you, but I have a hard time imagining that this is the kind of thing played anywhere outside of a hippie drug den. It’s not for everyone, but if you like weird electronica you should definitely check this one out.

~ Akhenaten

Metal Maniacs: Greg Ravengrave

July 29, 2022January 20, 2024 / Akhenaten / Leave a comment

This edition of Metal Maniacs features Greg Ravengrave, the multi-instrumentalist behind Mistwalker, drummer of Ratpiss, as well as numerous other projects, and the founder of Heavy NFLD.

Hey folks! After doing this project for a few months thanks to the inspiration of Winterhearth frontman and guitarist Andrew Marsh I figured it was finally time for me to sit down and write about my own series of inspirational and influential records that led me to become the musician I am today. For those of you who don’t know, my name is Greg, I’m the founder of Heavy NFLD and the guy who mainly writes for this blog. I write and record everything in the black metal project Mistwalker, play drums in the crust band Ratpiss, and have umpteen-thousand other side projects besides that which span a number of different genres. With that out of the way, let’s get into it!

The Sword – Age of Winters

When I was but a wee lad I was growing up in the town of Glovertown, which is about three hours outside of St. John’s, in the Gander area. I grew up in a pretty strict Christian conservative household where my family did everything in their power to shelter me from the outside world. In all honesty, it was pretty fucked. Thankfully we eventually got the internet. At this time in my life I was pretty heavy into gaming and I was obsessed with the PS2 video game Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction. One day I was browsing YouTube and found a trailer for the game’s sequel, Mercenaries 2: World in Flames. The song used in that trailer? “Iron Swan” by The Sword. The heaviness, aggression and insanity of the instrumentation in that song was unlike anything I’d ever heard before. Coupled with visuals of vast swathes of Venezuelan jungle being burned to the ground and tanks and attack helicopters blowing shit up, it kicked my ass. From that moment I was hooked and needed more. Thankfully the rest of this record, including such classics as “Freya” and “Winter’s Wolves”, had plenty more megalithic riffage to offer my adolescent brain.

Slipknot – Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses

While The Sword was my gateway drug into metal, it wasn’t until Slipknot came across my ears that I delved fully into my nu metal cringelord phase. I first heard “Before I Forget” on Guitar Hero III as a teenager and, in all honesty, it didn’t quite click with me. However, when I eventually came across the song “Duality” on YouTube I was hooked. The rest of the album was like a drug, from the absurdly heavy and chaotic early tracks like “The Blister Exists” to the absolute banger that is “Pulse of the Maggots”, this album was exactly what my miserable, angst-filled teenage brain needed. Even the quieter, more solemn songs on this album, like “Circle”, “Vermilion”, and “Vermilion Part 2” hit me right in the feels. From this record I would eventually branch out into the rest of Slipknot’s discography and became a die-hard Maggot.

Judas Priest – Painkiller

Around the same time that Guitar Hero started to fall off as a franchise, Rock Band came in to absolutely dominate the rhythm game market, and me, along with many of my friends, became obsessed. Towards the end of high school we used to host Rock Band parties on a pretty regular basis, and I can even credit the game with being how I first learned how to play drums. When Rock Band 2 came out near the end of the 2000’s I ate up the amount of metal tracks that had been included on the game’s disc at release, including Judas Priest’s “Painkiller”. I was blown away by the sheer sonic assault of the drum into. I had never heard anything quite like it. I was obsessed and immediately went to listen to the rest of the record. I remember having the thought, “this is fucking metal, man”. For real, if an alien visited Earth and asked me to define heavy metal I would play this album. Every single song on this thing is an unabashed banger. This is one of the few records in existence I would say is an 11/10, and to this day it remains in fairly constant rotation on whatever device I’m using to listen to music.

Mastodon – Crack the Skye

Similarly to Judas Priest, I also discovered Mastodon through Rock Band 2 thanks to the inclusion of “Colony of Birchmen”. At the time, however, that song didn’t quite click with me. Luckily it was only about a year later when the band would drop one of the most critically lauded records of their career. Crack the Skye came to me at exactly the right moment in my life. It was dirty and dark but was incredibly complex. This album introduced me to progressive metal but also encouraged me to push my drumming skills to the next level. Brann Dailor is an absolute monster on this record and I spent many hours in the rec room of my parent’s house trying to nail this entire album behind the kit.

Between the Buried and Me – Colors

Yet another artist discovered through Rock Band 2, albeit this time through the game’s downloadable content. “Prequel to the Sequel” was my first exposure to progressive metal of this stripe. The guitar playing on that song is on another level and the sheer complexity of the track as it twists and morphs into so many different areas still boggles my mind to this day. When listening to the full record it’s clear that Colors is in a class all on its own when it comes to contemporary progressive metal. Aside from showing me just what was capable within the framework of the “metal” genre, this band also got me into harsh vocals. There was a long time where I didn’t like screaming, no matter if it was the ultra low gutturals of a band like Cannibal Corpse or the higher pitched snarl of metalcore bands, I wasn’t into it. I could only tolerate Slipknot because for some reason in my adolescent mind Corey Taylor’s yelling wasn’t the same as a straight up death metal scream (don’t ask how I justified that, because I wouldn’t remember). But once I got into Between the Buried and Me I really understood just why harsh vocals were so appealing to people, and from then on I was sold.

Devin Townsend Project – Addicted

This was my introduction to Devin Townsend, an artist who has arguably had the most effect on my life as a musician, at least from a work ethic perspective. Addicted, like many of the other records on this list, came to me at the perfect moment in my life. It melded heavy guitars with a 100% pop aesthetic, fusing heaviness with absurdly catchy bubblegum melodies, and it was like a sonic version of crack to my ears. I couldn’t get enough of it. It was this album that made me realize that no matter how complex or impressive the musicianship on any given record is, what really matters to me as a musician is if your songs are memorable, and so I started putting a lot of focus into trying to craft catchy hooks over anything else. Granted, I wasn’t actually recording my own music at this point (around 2009/2010-ish), but it greatly influenced the music I did end up working on in the coming decade. Aside from that, the sheer amount of music that Townsend put out around this time wound up having more of an effect on me than the music itself did. How he was able to put out so much material so quickly, most of which was pretty damn good, astounded me, and I aspired to try and live up to that as much as possible with my own works.

SikTh – Death of a Dead Day

The first time I heard “Bland Street Bloom” by these UK tech metal legends I was blown away. If Between the Buried and Me opened my mind to what was capable of being played on guitar, and Devin Townsend showed me that prog and metal can still be catchy and poppy without sacrificing heaviness, SikTh showed me that you can maintain both of those qualities while also being insane. No doubt a huge influence on the djent scene that emerged in the 2010’s, none of the bands that followed in SikTh’s footsteps could ever really hold a candle to these guys. Sure, I love Meshuggah as much as the next guy, and they undoubtedly started the style, but SikTh has a special flavour that nobody could ever really match. As much as I love groups like Periphery and Tesseract and Born of Osiris, SikTh is the gold standard for technical and progressive metal, and this album is the pinnacle of that. To this day I’m still mesmerized by the guitar and drum work on this thing and I can only hope to one day be able to even come close to what is performed on this record.

Stolen Babies – There Be Squabbles Ahead

I was never quite a goth kid when I was in high school but I always kind of wanted to be. There was definitely an appeal to the aesthetic presented by what is considered typical “goth” media like The Nightmare Before Christmas or My Chemical Romance, but given the oppressive nature of high school in small town Newfoundland I never really went full tilt, so to speak. Musically I wouldn’t even end up getting into actual, honest to Satan, goth rock until recently. Back in high school I found myself drawn more to avant garde metal, which, in my opinion, is usually just a fancy way of saying carnival musical with distorted guitars. Stolen Babies were my entryway to that world, and to this day I don’t think any band has quite managed to capture the feeling that their debut record, There Be Squabbles Ahead, has. I remember hearing one song from these guys on YouTube and being unable to find the rest of the record anywhere, save on a torrent site, so I let the album download over the course of a week and when I finally got to listen to it I was enthralled by what I heard. It’s fair to say that this record has influenced my own music to a degree, especially when it comes to some of the Halloween-themed releases I’ve dropped as Mistwalker (namely Of Pumpkins and Pinecones). And yes, before you ask, I did end up buying the album. I own a CD copy of it at my parents’ place in Glovertown.

Amon Amarth – Twilight of the Thunder God

This one probably doesn’t come as much surprise to anyone. The band’s most popular and critically acclaimed record, Twilight of the Thunder God is remembered fondly for a reason. This album is another 11/10 for me. Every track on here is so flawless both with their songwriting capability and memorability. Every song on this album is memorable and stands apart from the others on the record with their own individual flavour and uniqueness. This was probably the first death metal record I ever full enjoyed, this or At the Gates’ Slaughter of the Soul. However, it was this album’s (and band’s) Viking themes that drew me. It was around this time (2011-2013) that I became very interested in Norse mythology and Viking history, and this record was my gateway to that. The riffs and the vocals are so powerful that nary a melodeath record has risen to accomplish what this album has. It was this record that led to me incorporating occasional themes of paganism and Norse myth in my own music when I officially started recording under the name of Mistwalker in 2013.

Darkthrone – F.O.A.D.

It was when I was in college (from 2012-2014) that I met my Kristopher Crane (from the projects Nemophilist and Acorn to Great Oak and also from the bands Impaled Upon the Mountains and Grimacing, which we formed together) who introduced me to black metal. I was aware of black metal before college but it never quite clicked with me. Once I was a bit older and felt a bit more depressed in my adult life I think that’s when I fully got it. The album that really did it for me was F.O.A.D. by Darkthrone, which Kris had introduced me to. Songs like “Canadian Metal”, “The Church of Real Metal”, and “Raised on Rock” just hit me right in the gut. To this day Darkthrone is the band that has inspired me the most as a musician, particularly in terms of style. Their mixture of black metal with old school heavy metal and crust punk (particularly their 2000’s era) and even the doom metal they’re doing these days is exactly the kind of music I want to create.

Honourable Mentions:

At the Gates – Slaughter of the Soul
Baroness – Red Album
The Black Dahlia Murder – Nocturnal
Darkthrone – Transilvanian Hunger
Diablo Swing Orchestra – The Butcher’s Ballroom
Equilibrium – Sagas
High on Fire – Death is this Communion
The Human Abstract – Digital Veil
Judas Priest – Screaming for Vengeance
Kylesa – Static Tensions
Mastodon – Leviathan
Periphery – Periphery
Slipknot – All Hope is Gone
Whitechapel – A New Era of Corruption

~ Akhenaten

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The Scrolls of Akhenaten: April 12th, 2024

Metal Maniacs: Greg Ravengrave