Technical Death Metal band Spectrum of Delusion from Katwijk, The Netherlands
Spectrum of Delusion is the 5-man Technical Death Metal band it is today since late 2015, consisting of Jeroen Mostert on Drums, Nathan Bonkerk and Frank van Rijswijk on guitar, Jerry Kamer on bass and Douwe Negenman on vocals. In august of 2017 they released the debut album Esoteric Entity worldwide, which was very well received by public and critics alike. Described as a combination of Necrophagist, Obscura, Spawn of Posession and Suffocation by metalinjection.net amongst others, this band is a must-see for every death metal fan who loves technical music.
The band has bombarded a myriad of stages in the Netherlands and the rest of Europe together with Misery Index, Defiled, Hiss from the Moat, Cryptopsy, Irreversible Mechanism, Bloodshot Dawn and more, to promote their debut album. In the meanwhile work has started for the successor of Esoteric Entity, which will be an even tighter and heavier album.
After years spent playing in hardcore bands, these 6 individuals decided to slow down their riffs and rip off their old skin. Riffs thick like smoke, slow, painful, heavy and steeped in filth. The band have been hard at work crafting their particular sound since late 2014. There is no image or a gimmick to uphold, only their discontent with convention from the very beginning. After the Eurotour with Cornered, the addition of guitarist EvB sparked a flame in LIFELONG, molding the band’s second offering of soul-crushing and noise-ridden claustrophobia. ‘SEUL CONTRE TOUS’ is 6 songs divided in 2 parts and 22+ minutes. These are hymns of outcasts, confessions of the addicted, a portrayel of crude reality from the backyard of a city’s daily life.
Influences both within and beyond metal abound, rounds out a thundering package of stoner, sludge, doom, rock, blues and metal. Prepare to be taken on a narrative musical journey through 6 acts each portraying a different picture but transcending into one moment where everything seems to fall into place perfectly.
Bloid, despite their name, play energetic Death Metal. Bloid is Frisian for ‘happy’, and judging by their album cover these guy are pretty ‘Bloid’. They’ve just released a new EP, ‘The Perfect Machine’ and I’ve been enjoying it for a few hours now. Their answer on facebook as to why there are geese on their album cover was ‘why not’. I guess the guys have been playing ‘untitled goose game’ too much during lockdown. That, or there is a pack of killer geese on the loose in Alkmaar that we don’t know about.
The Perfect Machine (EP)
The Perfect Machine is a 6-track EP released early July of 2022. The whole EP is recorded, mixed and mastered during one of many lockdowns by the band members themselves and we are glad they did. It makes this EP feel like you are with these guys in the studio and they are playing these tracks live.
Inspiration and breakdowns
The Perfect Machine is this EP’s title track and the band released a hilarious video to it, that shows these guys probably don’t take themselves too seriously. Severed is the fastest track and I can feel the circle pit building up in the first 15 seconds of the song. Leech is more on the heavier and slower side, and starts with a melodic bass intro that gives us a nice rest before the heaviness starts again with a typical death metal twin kick riff. However, there is some Gojira-like vibe to this track that makes me wonder what bands these guys are inspired by. Also; in line with the ‘Bloid’ theme, the breakdown that starts at 2:48 sounds like the Dutch kids song ‘alle eendjes zwemmen in het water’ would fit over that perfectly, so maybe the band needs to record a version of that to accompany the Geese video they made for the track ‘The Perfect Machine’ 🤣.
Rorschach is probably my favourite track of this EP and I imagine this being a crowd pleaser live. It has the best guitar solo of the EP as well. Speaking of solo’s, at the end of the next song ‘I Am’, there is a bass solo that almost makes the song feel like a rock ballad, which is a big contrast to the fast heavy riffs in the beginning of the song. The final song, Insomnia takes it right back to the heavier side of things, with the growls of frontman Mike in full force again.
One point of critique: of course they aren’t robots and it won’t be flawless all the time. There is a little stutter in the first track (ironically, called ‘The Perfect Machine’) and while normally this wouldn’t really bother me, because it’s the first track it really stood out to me. Luckily the rest of the tracks sound pretty solid.
Verdict
All in all: The Perfect Machine is overall an uptempo, headbangable circle-pit-in-the-living room kinda release, with blast beats, heavy riffs and death metal rage in the vocals. An enjoyable record to listen to, and a hilarious video that I would definitely recommend 🙂
This is more than just music. This is a challenge. This is a calling out to those who know that knowledge is of more value than a pose. This is for those to whom questioning, criticising, reflecting are modes of expression. This is raging passion.
Terzij de Horde combine an amalgam of progressive black and doom metal with a rawness and live presence reminiscent of extreme hardcore or chaotic screamo. Throughout their existence, Terzij de Horde has been described as a mix between Khanate, Wolves in the Throne Room and Neil Perry. The band has received widespread international attention and many very positive reviews both of their recorded music and of their explosive live performances.
The 2015 album ‘Self’ focuses on the problem of self, with each track exploring different ways to live or fail to live with self and world, and the struggles these paths and strategies create: the blindness, suffering, desire for release, for the destruction of self and others, and the turning toward or away from life. Self as prison, self as a source of power, self as vessel for manipulation by outside forces, self as shield and as inner world, self as medium for Dionysian rapture, self as something to be overcome. Here, the rage of black metal is paired with a cathartic destruction as well as a contemplative melancholy. Instead of navel gazing or the worship of constructs, Self is analysis forced. A cerebral celebration of liberation at all costs and a requiem for spheres rendered apart.
nn
nn
nn
nn
nn
nn
nn
nn
nn