Skip to content

Category: duo

Published on

Of all the fallen members from the short-lived “Stop At Nothing” line-up sometime Dying Fetus drummer, Midnight Video employee and former Wicked Woods Haunted Forest House operator Erik Sayenga has done the best for himself. Since his ousting from the Fetus in 2005 Sayenga has kept releasing music with Warthrone, his Virginia symfo death/black metal project that sees him handling rhythm guitars, drums, and vocals alongside his wife Kristel Dawn who provides keyboards and bass guitar. “Crown Of the Apocalypse” is only Warthrone’s second full length effort and the first to feature Sayenga in the position of frontman as Richard Johnson bade his farewell prior to the studio sessions. Compared vis-a-vis to “Venomassacre” from 2014 “Crown Of the Apocalypse” is superior on all fronts. Hell, even the artwork is decent this time around. This is the record that Dark Funeral’s “Where Shadows Forever Reign” should have been…

Which is more than you can say from the remainder of the “Stop At Nothing” line-up. Mike Kimball helped co-write “War Of Attrition” (the only real black page in the Fetus’ storied history) and the less said about Vince Matthews’ various projects the better. No, Sayenga has done good for himself all things considered. Kristel’s association comes from Virginia-based death/black metal combo Witch-Hunt (which Warthrone is a spiritual continuation of) that released their sole album “Soul Enshrouded Fire” in 2000. It came brandishing unintentionally hilarious gothic horror cover art that it makes you wonder why it was never distributed internationally by Napalm Records, who were infamous at the time for their so-called Breast Brigade artworks from designer Tor Søreide and photographer Petter Hegre. We were on the fence about Warthrone when we initially were introduced to them with “Venomassacre” and pretty much completely forgot about them until “Crown Of the Apocalypse” turned up in our social media feed. The few years between releases have worked wonders for Warthrone, it seems. They have heeded the critics and honed their assault accordingly.

Warthrone might not be the most novel thing around, but at least it knows what it wants to be and how to get there. Instead of the symfo black metal atmosphere they no doubt were aiming for “Crown Of the Apocalypse” exudes clinical modern death metal vibes, mostly of the Myrkskog kind. There’s just something about Warthrone that screams “Superior Massacre” or records of similar predilection. There’s a lot of things you can say about a band like Warthrone, but the long and short of it is that the whole black metal aspect is fairly negligible all things considered. Before anything else “Crown Of the Apocalypse” is death metal, plain and simple. And with Sayenga’s resumé, did anyone truly expect anything else? Erik and Kristel sound positively devastating on their sophomore. Kristel’s keyboards felt unnecessary to say the least and somewhat amateurishly pasted over the music on “Venomassacre”. Here they are integral to the compositions without ever becoming a dominant force or portentously overbearing.

Sayenga and his wife always had a penchant for Halloween and dressing up. In the promotional pictures accompanying the release Sayenga and his wife can be seen sporting post-apocalyptic/medieval garb that looks as if it came straight out of a budget-starved 1980s Filipino (Cirio H. Santiago would be proud) or Italian post-nuke movie. Not that you’d expect anything else from the former proprietor of Wicked Woods Haunted Forest House. Horror houses - especially in deep religiously diseased and red Southern states where they serve to keep the gullible, the uneducated, and the superstitious subservient and thus the larger Chrisian constituency in line – after all are big business in America. The epilepsy-inducing music video for ‘The Blood Of the Prophets’ is an atrocity of epic proportions and makes Immortal’s ‘Call Of the Wintermoon’, Hecate Enthroned’s ‘An Ode for a Haunted Wood’, and Unholy Ghost’s ‘Under Existence’ look as paragons of unbound professionalism and restraint in comparison. They’re clearly very devoted to their specific artistic vision. That has to count for something too.

The merits of a death metal record are judged by the quality of its production values and Warthrone has improved in leaps and bounds on that front since their first outing. “Venomassacre”, while a decent enough record, was marred by the typical defects of a home-recorded affair. “Crown Of the Apocalypse” is also home-recorded but sounds notably more professional in the way it was recorded and mixed. It would behoof any band, irrespective of the genre they play, to record in a professional studio environment but that increasingly appears to be a dying practice in underground metal. It makes you wonder what Warthrone could sound like if they ever decided to record at Nightsky Studios in Waldorf, Maryland instead of the comfort of their home. The artwork by Santiago Francisco Jaramillo for Triple Seis Design is something you’d expect from a Marcelo Vasco, Daniel Valeriani, or Gyula Havancsák. It looks like something you’d expect to see on a Horncrowned album, or bands of similar persuasion. Also partaking on the record are renowned British singer Sarah Jezebel Deva, Egyptian-American artist Nader Sadek, and Kim Dylla, of Kylla Custom Rock Wear, who for a short time performed as Vulvatron in GWAR.

Any way you slice it, “Crown Of the Apocalypse” is a vast improvement over their debut. We’re far more interested in high-quality playthrough videos or dedicated drum cam recordings from Erik’s home studio. There’s always additional streams of revenue to be mined if they know where to look. If Warthrone does insist on making more music videos it’s perhaps advisable for them to gather the necessary funds and hire somebody like David Brodsky, Kevin Custer, Rick Carmona, Darren Doane, or Chris João. Music videos, at least in terms of underground metal and niche music markets, are something of a dying breed ever since streaming services have made DVDs and televised music programs increasingly, if not entirely, redundant. No. “Crown Of the Apocalypse” shows that there’s tons of potential that is yet untapped. If Warthrone manage to cultivate that potential by the time the next album rolls around and accompany it with a professional music video or two they might just make a big enough splash and break themselves to a larger audience. It never hurts to have a goal…

Published on

Bavarian progressive death metal trio Odetosun have been one of our favourite constellations in the underground of recent years. The trio – Luke Stuchly (vocals), Benny Stuchly (guitars, bass guitar, keyboards) and Gunther Rehmer (drums) - formed as Oden’s Raven in 2008 as a typical melodic death metal band with Viking themes, not unlike early Amon Amarth and Unleashed and their ilk, before steering towards more adventurous realms. We extensively sang our praises for their 2013 debut “Gods Forgotten Orbit” on these pages, but never came around to properly covering their second opus “The Dark Dunes Of Titan” from 2015 the way it probably deserved and the way we probably should have. Now, four years removed from their second album, the Stuchly brothers are back with ‘Spiritual Decay’, the first in a series of thematically interconnected singles to be released seperately. Whether Odetosun has abandoned the album format as a whole is presently unclear, but it’s good to have the masters of the atmospheric and the meditative back all the same. So how does ‘Spiritual Decay’ fit in with Odetosun’s repertoire?

There has always been a profound Pink Floyd influence evident through out the music that Odetosun writes. Whether it’s the David Gilmour inspired manner that Benny solos or the resounding booming bass guitar and the serene keyboards that feature prominently in the trio’s compositions. The more progressive – and ambient aspects of both “The Division Bell” and “A Momentary Lapse Of Reason” all can be heard in the two records preceding this single. Comparatively ‘Spiritual Decay’ is on the uptempo and upbeat side of things compared to what Odetosun usually does. However not soon after the opening section the single reverts back to the trio’s usually meditative midtempo and it sounds like nothing substantial has changed since Odetosun last released music. “The Dark Dunes Of Titan” was a nearly 50-minute conceptual exercise inspired by the 1972 Ben Bova novel “As On A Darkling Plain”. ‘Spiritual Decay’ was inspired the ubiquitous decline of civilization and spiritual achievements of human culture, and the first in a series of singles to be sporadically released until the trio’s third album materializes. As an isolated track ‘Spiritual Decay’ fits in seamlessly with what the trio has done before.

What has always separated Odetosun from more conventional bands is their staunch refusal to let themselves be dictated by their metallic components. Odetosun is far more dreamy and ethereal than, say, an Obscura or a Pavor. Like both those bands the bass guitar features prominently and their classification as death metal is secondary to their progressive - and post rock inclinations. Another great thing is that Odetosun never adheres to the typical metal imagery and visuals. Like Neurosis before them these three men are comfortable in their everyman and mountain man look. Stuchly’s signature melodies run rampant through out ‘Spiritual Decay’ and that it could have been culled from either “The Dark Dunes Of Titan” or “Gods Forgotten Orbit” speaks volumes of the creative alchemy that these three men have going on. There have been changes in the Odetosun camp. Their production value has steadily increased and their musicality and creativity is on an all-time high since the days of “Gods Forgotten Orbit”. If ‘Spiritual Decay’ is but a prelude to further new music we can only hope that Odetosun will continue to release new singles until their following album at long last arrives.

Suitably below the mainstream and somewhat of an underdog Odetosun is the ultimate musical pariah. They’re probably “too heavy” for the progressive rock crowd and, logically, too laidback and esoteric for the stereotypical death metal fan. Odetosun is guided only by their creativity and since their inception they haven’t paid much attention to what they classify as. Whether you want to classify them as a progressive rock band with death metal overtones, or as a death metal band with progressive inclinations – the long and short of it is that Odetosun is one of the better independent metal bands currently working the German underground. “Gods Forgotten Orbit” sounded very oceanic, breezy, and exotic, “The Dark Dunes Of Titan” gravitated towards a more spacey, airy and celestial direction. ‘Spiritual Decay’ combines the two in something that can only be described as meditative and, well, spiritual. If Nümph or Caelestis played death metal, they would probably sound something like this. As it stands Odetosun remains criminally underappreciated in their own genre. If ‘Spiritual Decay’ can turn a few more people towards their music, then it served its purpose.