Having recently come off a US tour with fellow Muskegonites The Omega Experiment, Technical Deathcore quintet Bury The Silence have released their sophomore EP via Rogue Records America. The Architecture Of Struggle EP retains similarities to their début Phobiotic EP, although a new vocalist has meant a shift in another direction. Taking orders from The Faceless, All Shall Perish and The Black Dahlia Murder, they cook up a 19-minute morsel filled with the mandatory noodling guitar work and breakdowns. However, never fear that this is a Beneath The Massacre castoff, there is strong songwriting to be had as well.

At first glance, the most striking element of this EP is the number of influences thrown into the pot, most prominent of which being The Black Dahlia Murder. The intro is akin to a horror-orchestral version of “Unhallowed”, sans spoken word, which sadly undersells the band as a first impression. Better to skip to the main meal, where “The Jealous Heart Of A Weak Man” provides ample twin-riffs and harmonized solos, with a strong rhythm section to back it up. New frontman Garvey has several Strnad-like moments, although his lows recall more Oceano or All Shall Perish. The song improves as it continues, particularly in Barrett’s bludgeoning drumming, and the production ties everything off well, if not quite as refined as I’d prefer it.

Solvet Saeclum is marked by a most remarkable album cover; every time I play this record, the hellish space art manages to keep me captive for at least a few minutes. The laughing skeleton and the serpentine Communist, lifting his red flag high, have a charming effect on both eyes and mind, while the large planets and numerous rockets make for a bombastic, hellish landscape.

Stylistically, Solvet Saeclum is a very interesting, as their brand of Technical Death Metal is quite unique. Many Tech Death-outfits, like Gorod and Ascariasis, have a tone, cold as ice, while Ophidian I literally burn through forty minutes of fire and brimstone, spread about over nine infernal songs.

[Edit: Our newest writer Robert is back with more. Robert turns out to be a massive fan of Nile and sets himself to the task of reviewing the band’s 2002 album In Their Darkened Shrines. It is the start of a new series: Albums You Should Own, in which he will review the classics of (Extreme) Metal.]

One of the most listenable, best-produced yet brutally technical and frantic albums in Death Metal, Nile’s In Their Darkened Shrines, remains fresh and accessible today despite being a decade old this year. The album built on the solid foundations Nile had crafted through previous releases Amongst the Catacombs of Nephren-Ka and Black Seeds of Vengeance and cemented their place at the top of the Death Metal game, combining breakneck riffing, blastbeats and eerie instrumental passages in equal measure – all tied together by Nile’s signature Egyptian themes and lyrics.

Following a period of instability and line-up changes, English tech-death purveyors Foreboding Ether release ‘Beyond Conjecture’ – a punchy, unrelenting effort that showcases a band with great promise.

As native of the area of England I was raised, I feel a degree of pride reviewing the second EP from Foreboding Ether. Just where the hell were decent local bands like this when I was growing up? A friend of mine introduced me to this band over the summer and I figured they were a good place to start with my first review for the site. Seriously though, local scenes have gotten a shitload more sophisticated since my youth. This is the kind of band local kids are going to see these days!? When did this happen? How old am I!?

Not long ago we did a short interview with Russian Tech-Death outfit Shturm, in which vocalist-guitarist Adar talked to us about, among other things, their recently released album Karmaruna. Last week the band released a second music video, for the song Eagles Above Tibet.

Musically Shturm offers us the same blast-beat rich, technical-guitared frenzy that we first heard in Karmaruna’s first single. Eagles Above Tibet carries plenty of story and features a lovely melodic solo towards the end. Solid song!

Knowing that you will have picked up this news already some time ago, I still deemed it just for me to serve you this. You know, there may always be people that missed it and shit.

7 Horns 7 Eyes, from Seattle, is an absolute novelty to me, but I guess that’s because their first record is yet to be released. Still, the band are leaving a major buzz across the web already. Quite an achievement, and I’m not quite sure what’s fueling it. Other than that the upcoming shit sounds hot, of course.

The end of humanity. On the cover is an old hitman holding a silenced pistol. God who’s about to put a bullet in Humanity?

The album is Divultion’s first. The Ukrainian band out of Simferopol has been a musical unit since June 2005, but only saw its efforts come to full fruition with the early 2011 release of The End of Humanity. Titles like Worms Under Skin, Eat My Guts and Rotting give a strong suggestion of Brutal Death Metal and reality proves this right at least partly. Divultion does focus on delivering a product that is as loud and harsh as it could possibly be. On the contrary, there is a strong technical focus in the eight songs – there’s also an outro with Boondock Saints outtakes – that The End of Humanity is rich.

For some reason, Canada is Technical Death Metal-land in my head, easily taking the crown with Ascariasis and April 20, they will solidify their position with Derelict’s third full-length Perpetuation. We already covered the fact that two of the twelve songs were up for free download before, but vocalist and owner of Ricburn Media Eric Burnet offered us to take care of his baby. A duty I will fulfil with the greatest pleasure.

The fact that I mentioned Ascariasis is a bit problematic, because they are just fucking epic, and in such I have a hard time in objectively judging Perpetuation. It will most probably be the case that in my effort to not underestimate this album, I’d grossly overrate it, which is good for the band image, but bad for mine. So I’ll dive in while trying to forget Ocean of Colour, which we didn’t even cover on here. Where have we been with our meat-covered asses over the past few weeks?

Just got a message about this band called Shturm. I cannot begin to compare this to anything I’ve ever heard, but it’s good. Boy is it GOOD!

Shturm is a group of four guys from Krasnodar, Russia, a city located in the South-Western corner of the country. Taking a quick look through the band’s profile page on Encyclopaedia Metallum, my guess is the band started out in 2003, doing a brutal sort of Black Metal. Their first record came out in 2004 and carries the title unambiguous title Fresh Christian Meat.

Stepping forward in time to the current year, the band released its third album, called Karmaruna. I don’t proclaim to have heard anything more of that than the one song for which they released a video, but that does seem to suggest the band have drastically developed their style since 2004. I’ve lined up the video past the jump.

As a reviewer, you often need to do some extensive research before you write down anything, and Derelict was a band which I discovered while doing research about Dischordia. It is as such, that Dischordia are promoted by RicBurn Media, lead by our friend Eric Burnett, who in turn is the lead singer of Tech Death-outfit Derelict. At first I wasn’t bothered much by the busy kind of Death Metal, but with this little novelty, they completely fixed that for me.

On the 20th day of April, we will witness the birth of this Canadian Death Metal monster, and a monster this will be! As I can judge from the two songs presented this album will have all the guts needed in order to get Derelict to the next level, the “big” level.