Lost Soul - Atlantis: The New Beginning (2015)

It seems like the album took forever to make. Changes in line-up and finding new label boiled down to almost seven (yes!) years of silence, but Atlantis: The New Beginning is finally here. And it is good to hear Lost Soul is back, alive and kicking.

Atlantis: The New Beginning is reminiscent of, but also an improvement on the band's previous release. It is not as speed-focused, and has more breather moments scattered here and there (Red Giant), but the band sticks to its heavy guns. 

A truly overwhelming cavalcade of sounds at first, Atlantis: The New Beginning takes a bunch of listens to digest and enjoy. Not an easy ride, but certainly worth the effort. It's a dense, rich, technical and very demanding piece of death metal which brims with detail.

Atlantis: The New Beginning is very fast and technical at times, yet in the bounds where it serves the songs rather than destroys them musically. The songwriting is very conscious and mature and there is tons of amazing riffage. Soloing is definitely on the shred side, but still melodic and quite biting.

Shodan - Protocol of Dying (2015)

Shodan is a death metal threepiece from Wroclaw, Poland and -- cutting the long story short -- it's time you started keeping an eye on them. The band, still obscure to many, is now gaining musical momentum and Protocol of Dying, the trio's second offering, is a solid piece of extreme metal you should not miss this autumn.

The album was mixed and mastered by Arek "Malta" Malczewski which, to many, may be a perfect recommendation itself. Protocol of Dying sounds consistent and firm all along. Guitars are thick and heavy. Bass is distinct, maybe a bit dirty, but pleasantly throbs in the background, giving the low frequencies this reassuring feeling.

The Ocean - Pelagial (2013)

The Ocean is a German band founded in 2000 by guitarist Robin Staps, who is the mastermind behind the collective. In many respects, the music of The Ocean has become more tonal and accessible with time, but this is not necessarily a gripe. Progressive-inspired works of The Ocean made the band really stand out from the crowd of all this somewhat fashionable yet uninspired post-metal genre. The band has crafted some of metal's most unique and telltale soundscapes to date, making decent albums across the years. But they never really hit it big time as they did last year. The Ocean, as opposed to its peers, offer raw, beautiful, and deep music, crafted with much attention to detail and atmosphere. Staps, the creative force behind The Ocean, has changed its line-up several times to eventually end up with proper personnel to create the album in question, Pelagial.

Behemoth - The Satanist (2014)

Blackened death metal, crafted and produced to perfection, this is what it is. Should metal be like this? I am not really sure. Behemoth The Satanist is the latest offering of the band, released five years after Evangelion. While I've never really been a fan of Behemoth, considering it somewhat average, yet consistent band, The Satanist is a testimony of how much the band has evolved musically over the years. It might as well be the best release of Behemoth, if you ask me, but the album is nothing to get excited about. This is not to say Behemoth are just an average band, as The Satanist undeniably has its moments, with impeccable production and refined songwriting across all songs.

Behold... The Arctopus - Horrorscension (2013)

This cover is spot on. This is exactly what you might expect from music on the album. Never in my life have I heard musicians putting so much effort and ferocity into making so much noise.

Do not get me wrong on this one, the musicians behind it: Mike Lerner, Colin Marston and, Weasel Walter are a bunch of really talented people condemning themselves to eternal musical exile in the hell of dissonance and awkward riffing. If music is art (which it quite undeniably is), then Horrorscension must bear the same kind of purpose that makes fashion designers put a pair of shoes or a bucket on a model's head. And I absolutely love it.

Gorguts - Colored Sands (2013)

It goes quite without saying that Canada has spawned creme de la creme of out-of-the-box metal to date, with Voivod, Martyr, Cryptopsy or Strapping young Lad to mention just a few. After a long hiatus following the untimely death of Steve MacDonald, Gorguts made their long awaited comback in late 2013 with Colored Sands, a concept album revolving around the history of Tibet. The reformed band, led by mastermind Luc Lemay is strong as ever, offering what the band does best, a dense, technical and insanely brutal death metal. And it is the kind of comeback worth waiting for.

I personally had opportunity to see Gorguts live in 2012 as a part of festival lineup, and their relatively short performance made it obvious to me that the band sounded powerful as ever, virtually crushing any other death metal acts I had seen live in terms of both ferocity and quality.


The band, underestimated as they are, never really ceased to deliver, although their style has evolved from early, more conventional death metal to a more technical feel started with their trademark album Obscura. For the reunion lineup of Colored Sands, Lemay surrounded himself with talented musicians Kevin Hufnagel and bassist extraordinaire Colin Marston of Behold... The Arctopus. The resulting mix is an album that, not surprisingly, easily made most top album lists of 2013. The musical style of Colored Sands fits that initiated with Obscura. The album is crafted to perfetion, with lots of detail to grab your attention every other time you listen.

Colored Sands, although originally intended as Luc's own interpretation of Mandala (the eponymous colored sands) ended up as a tale inspired by the history of Tibet. The album is conceptually divided in two parts. The Battle of Chamdo following the first four songs of the album provides an atmospheric interlude part, a piece written by Lemay on piano and arranged for the strings, and is a rendition of the Chinese invasion of Tibet in the 1950s.

The songs on Colored Sands are much what a fan of the band might expect: impeccable musicianship and overall dark, suffocating, very unique atmosphere, consistent across all the album. Musically, a proper balance of textural dark beauty, heavy breakdowns and punishing blast beats is maintained to grab the attention of the listener up to its last moments. Epic as it appears with lengthy songs and progressive feel, this is a journey you definitely want to embark on. If death metal was art, I bet its name would be Gorguts.

Semantik Punk - abcdefghijklmnoprstuwxyz (2012)

Highly recommended for the fans of The Dillinger Escape Plan or The Locust is honestly the best description I can think of now, and still hardly nail it at all. If there is anything that eludes virtually any label, this must be the music of Semantik Punk. The four-piece from Warsaw, formerly known as Moja Adrenalina, make music that is not only awkward to review, but also quite difficult to swallow at first. Considering this, there are only two ways to handle the album: you either absolutely love it, or hate it.