Review by Vladimir on January 3, 2024.

Last year, I had the opportunity to check out the release of a polish death metal band Tortured Corpse from Silesia, which was their debut EP Rites Of Putridity And Death. Overall, I found that EP to be pretty generic for a death metal release but still nothing terrible or avoidable, however on the very beginning of 2024, they released their second EP Burial Mounds. Let’s take a look at what they managed to come up with after almost a year since the release of their previous EP. 

After 20 seconds of flies buzzing and intense vomiting in the toilet, we finally kick off with the first track 'Lord Of The Worms', showcasing violently brutal death metal consisted of insanely heavy guitar riffs, blood wrenching guttural vocals and drums that incorporate thrash metal drumming, blast beats and mid-tempo drumming. The songs heavily rely on brutality and wicked atmosphere that is expressed through the genuinely traditional death metal output from the band, which for the most part is stylistically consistent and pretty intense sounding. The band also managed to throw in a cover of Impetigo’s 'Boneyard' as the final track on the EP, which I think fits quite well with three previous songs.

Overall, I’d say that the EP is very easy to follow along with all four songs that pretty much keep the same mood flowing all throughout, and it is indeed a solid listening experience from start to finish. In comparison to its predecessor Rites Of Putridity And Death, it is certainly a highly improved performance in terms of the songwriting and overall execution, as well as the sound production which did a very solid job at capturing that oldschool death metal essence. What I really like about this EP other than the overall performance is the purple cover art that represents a very macabre and wicked vibe to it, and I certainly prefer that over the generic gore and torture art from the previous EP. 

After checking out this EP, I felt much more satisfied than I did after their previous output, which in itself is a very enjoyable and a pretty solid death metal performance. I can definitely say with certainty that Burial Mounds is an improvement from Rites Of Putridity And Death and it is just objectively better in every way. I believe that this latest release hints at the kind of direction they’ll be going from now on in terms of the kind of ideas that were incorporated, and I have no doubt that their creativity will only expand from here. 

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Review by Vladimir on January 3, 2024.

Last year, I had the opportunity to check out the release of a polish death metal band Tortured Corpse from Silesia, which was their debut EP Rites Of Putridity And Death. Overall, I found that EP to be pretty generic for a death metal release but still nothing terrible or avoidable, however on the very beginning of 2024, they released their second EP Burial Mounds. Let’s take a look at what they managed to come up with after almost a year since the release of their previous EP. 

After 20 seconds of flies buzzing and intense vomiting in the toilet, we finally kick off with the first track 'Lord Of The Worms', showcasing violently brutal death metal consisted of insanely heavy guitar riffs, blood wrenching guttural vocals and drums that incorporate thrash metal drumming, blast beats and mid-tempo drumming. The songs heavily rely on brutality and wicked atmosphere that is expressed through the genuinely traditional death metal output from the band, which for the most part is stylistically consistent and pretty intense sounding. The band also managed to throw in a cover of Impetigo’s 'Boneyard' as the final track on the EP, which I think fits quite well with three previous songs.

Overall, I’d say that the EP is very easy to follow along with all four songs that pretty much keep the same mood flowing all throughout, and it is indeed a solid listening experience from start to finish. In comparison to its predecessor Rites Of Putridity And Death, it is certainly a highly improved performance in terms of the songwriting and overall execution, as well as the sound production which did a very solid job at capturing that oldschool death metal essence. What I really like about this EP other than the overall performance is the purple cover art that represents a very macabre and wicked vibe to it, and I certainly prefer that over the generic gore and torture art from the previous EP. 

After checking out this EP, I felt much more satisfied than I did after their previous output, which in itself is a very enjoyable and a pretty solid death metal performance. I can definitely say with certainty that Burial Mounds is an improvement from Rites Of Putridity And Death and it is just objectively better in every way. I believe that this latest release hints at the kind of direction they’ll be going from now on in terms of the kind of ideas that were incorporated, and I have no doubt that their creativity will only expand from here. 

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Review by Vladimir on March 15, 2023.

Canadian one-man black/folk/Viking metal project Burden Of Ymir, spearheaded by Joe Caswell, has released its fifth full-length album Heorot on March 10th 2023 via the label Flowing Downward. This latest album is a bit of a conceptual departure in terms of the lyrical theme, ditching Norse mythology for the epic tale of Beowulf, whereas the album is titled after the mead hall at the center of the tale. Although I am always very skeptical about US or Canadian metal bands singing about European folklore, paganism, mythology, tales and such, I still somehow manage to let it slide and give it a chance. So, I figured why not do the same thing this time, I am sure I can’t go completely wrong.

The album starts with a folk instrumental intro 'Hwaet' which builds up the pagan atmosphere from the get-go, while the second track 'Recounting On The Seas' nicely transitions to folk inspired Viking/black metal. There is plenty of melodic guitar work, accordion, drums that vary in speed between slow, mid-tempo and fast, all the while vocals switch between harsh to clean and melodic pagan singing. The third track 'The Great Mead Hall' features some catchy and folky melodic guitar riffs and mid-tempo drumming, without necessarily incorporating that many black metal elements other than the harsh vocals. The fourth track 'Revenge Found In The Night' finally throws in some more folky black metal along the line, with some d-beat drumming that later switches to blast beats, as well as an occasional accordion in the song’s mid-section. My personal favorite is the sixth track 'The Ninth Hour Approaches', which in my opinion does a wonderful job thanks to its melodic and emotional songwriting. Accordions appear frequently on this album when you least expect them, but not to the extent where it’s shoved in your face, rather appropriately placed where it does the job. The songwriting on this album is quite various in style when combining elements from the three aforementioned genres, which provides a richer and wider specter of influences like Finntroll, Windir, Ensiferum, Forefather and Falkenbach, all the while suspecting that the idea for the use of accordion is most definitely coming from Windir. Although I am not a huge fan of Finntroll in particular, I do like the fact that there is a good amount of stuff that I find suitable for my personal taste. Weird as it may seem, even though there are similarities to Windir, I still think that Burden Of Ymir doesn’t quite radiate the same level of energy when applying everything by the book, even with the use of melodic/pagan songwriting with accordion interludes. It’s probably due to the fact that the music obviously doesn’t come from the same mind, but cast all differences aside, I think it would be unfair of me to compare any musician to a genius that Valfar was. The sound production is quite solid in my opinion, it’s not grandiose or anything, but it does the job well, and I like the fact that the bass guitar has a nice distortion added to it, which sounded badass in the second track 'Recounting On The Seas'. 

Although the album is not something to gawk at and admire like other releases of its kind, I consider Heorot as a pretty solid work for a one-man project that did its best at doing what’s right. I would recommend Burden Of Ymir only for those that really like some or all of the aforementioned bands, I think that this is something you might want to check out and see for yourself if this really is your kind of thing. 

Rating: 7.7 out of 10