Review by Raphaël on February 15, 2024.

Hailing from grey and rainy Portland Oregon, Lord Dying appeared over a decade ago, founded by Chris Evans (Guitars) and Erik Olson (Guitars, Vocals), playing pretty straightforward sludge metal. In 2019 however, they were joined by Kevin Swartz (Drums) and Alyssa Mocere (Bass, Vocals) after they released one of the best albums of the year, going full progressive sludge. They added so much depth and layers to their sound, so I’m excited to see what the new members will bring to the overall sound. To quote their bandcamp page, “In a time where everyone is trying to out-sludge or out-doom each other Lord Dying gives something less than a fuck”. That should give you a pretty good idea of how the band approaches music. Anyway, back to their last release. It was a concept album, the first of a trilogy, following the main character, The Dreamer, an immortal being that desperately wants to die. Well, on Clandestine Transcendence, he gets his wish! What follows is 59 minutes of dark, sometimes incredibly heavy and aggressive, and other times softer and more melancholic, but always captivating piece of art. From the magnificent cover art, to the intricate story and of course, the musical prowess, this album is an early contender for album of the year!

The album begins with 'The Universe Is Weeping', a simple melodic picking without distortion, giving a real Western feel, but then goes pretty quickly into a fast, heavy metal style, galloping riff accompanied by repeating guitar notes in the background, playing a kind of unsettling melody. Vocally, they go from harsh, screamed/growled vocals to both male and female clean vocals. The end with Alyssa singing those lines repeatedly: “We know, We’ve lost our way now, We won’t succumb to, The worms in our minds”. You know the melody is catchy when it is sung a cappella and it get stuck in your head. Lyrically, we had a good preview of the albums subject matter, death is always present but I would say, it’s a way of talking about life and all the pain and hardship everybody has to go through. Next is one of my favorite songs of the album, 'I AM NOTHING I AM EVERYTHING'. It starts with a rolling and repeating drumbeat soon joined by powerful minor chords and coupled with harsh vocals and some kind of droning guitar notes in the background, giving a very apocalyptic feel to the whole thing. Right there you see one of the strong points of the band, the songwriting is on another level. They mentioned in an interview that although it’s a concept album, they approach each song individually and put a lot of work so that each song can hold itself alone. The song goes in a lot of directions, it goes super heavy, death metal style, with blast beats and tremolo picking, to a great buildup with that rolling drum beat and of course, a shredding solo towards the end. We still follow The Dreamer: “The Dreamer stands, Before the cosmic eye, The door is open, Open wide” as he begins his journey after life. With truly powerful images: “Abysmal death surrounds us all there is no life or reason The path is paved in blood, the eyes open forever seeing”, the lyrics are as important as the music in my opinion. Another thing that stands out is the production. The whole album sounds impeccable. Every instrument is clear in the mix, the drums sound clean and organic and the bass, sweet Jesus the bass. I think one of my highlights is that bass sound! It sounds so thick and massive!

The next two songs are at the same time really different but still sounding familiar. There is a clear influence heard all throughout the album, I’m pretty sure they listen to a lot of Mastodon. It's riffs after riffs after riffs, being super heavy while still conveying strong emotions of both hope and despair, facing the massive emptiness of death. On 'Dancing On The Emptiness', they really showcase their prog side. It’s a long song with a superb buildup before the chorus, where you go through funky guitars, multiple solos, complex drumming and super thick bass lines with pauses that really highlight every instruments. And then there’s the chorus, I have chills just thinking about it. It’s so grandiose and emotional and it goes well with the lyrics that are a bit less dark and shows the beauty and the relief, in a way, that death brings. Thinking about your past life: “All the time we shared, And the love we felt, All times we fell apart, We still got up, To face another day, As we leave the void”. This is what metal music is all about, making you feel all kinds of things, from anger to hopefulness. Next is 'Facing The Incomprehensible', a short, fast and aggressive song that gives you the feeling of wanting to punch a wall! Followed by a short interlude of soft acoustic guitars, filled with minor intervals and an electric guitar melody that transition perfectly to A Bond Broken By Death, another prog epic. It’s a super diverse song with twist and turns, with key changes that transforms the mood from hopeful to darker vibes, all within five minutes. In the middle of the song, there’s a fairly long instrumental pauses that consists of only acoustic guitars playing a bluesy melody. It’s a song that focus less on aggression and more on emotions, the musical prowess and the songwriting. The song is as much musically powerful as it is lyrically:” Division is the way, it's What we have become Everything will fade to grey Till it consumes us all away”. I’m a big fan of bands having a political message, now I don’t know for sure if it was their intention, but I hear a lot of them sprinkled here and there throughout the story. Again, like on all of the songs actually, everything sounds so good, the drums, the bass, the electric guitar solos and the low clean vocals all come together making this another highlight of the album.

January gave us a lot of good records but none come close to this one. The refreshing take on sludge and progressive makes this a definite album of the year contender and is without a doubt, their best album to date! I can’t wait to hear the next one and know what happens to The Dreamer.

Rating: 9.5 out of 10

Review by Jeger on November 3, 2024.

You can argue all day as to what is and what is not true death metal. Some enthusiasts claim that Chuck Schuldiner’s vision for DM as realized through Death’s debut “Scream Bloody Gore” LP and the successive rise of outfits such as Cannibal Corpse & Obituary are what testify to genre trueness, while others claim that Jeff Becerra’s Possessed, their debut, “Seven Churches” LP, and the inception of bands like Morbid Angel & Deicide are what makeup DM’s true foundation. I’m inclined to agree with the latter. I mean, Possessed did release their very first demo recording, “Death Metal”, in 1984… 

France’s death metal scene is an oft-overlooked movement; overshadowed by the US and Swedish scenes, which is naturally understandable, as no one does death metal better than us Americans and the Swedes. That being said, France’s Mercyless have been doing the DM thing since 1987 - diabolical visionaries of the genre whose ideas fall in line with the notion that true death metal is indeed Satanic and blasphemous in nature. Their discography features eight full-length studio LPs. Number eight, Those Who Reign Below, was spawned in Daemon seed and shat from the Great Whore’s vile womb on October 25, 2024, under the gaze of the nefarious Osmose Productions.

Those Who Reign Below is a record of antediluvian proportions: evil and blasphemous, Satanic and Biblical with tracks like 'Phantoms Of Cain' and 'Zechariah 3:1' that dive into Christian concepts like Daemon cock through divine uteri - blasphemy of their precious doctrines - a sinful slight against the Book of Lies! Morbid Angel worship and production quality as malleable and textured as their famed “Blessed Are The Sick” LP. Not quite as technical though and with more of a focus on melody as evidenced by the melodious solo in 'Evil Shall Come… Upon You' and the intro to 'The Resplendent Inferno'. All tracks ornamented with thrash-laden passages reminiscent of “Pleasure To Kill” era Kreator, but not enough in my opinion to label it a death / thrash metal album. Not much in the way of modern-day bells & whistles either, only wisely-composed death metal that harkens back to the salad days of the early ’90s when the genre was at its apex. 

You can tell by each album cut’s segmented passages and intelligently interjected solos that this is a band of veterans. There’s discipline here; the kind of patient, less-is-more songwriting that only comes with experience. Mercyless really focuses on creating an experience that you genuinely want to relive again and again, and at just over 40 minutes of runtime, they wear not out their welcome, but provide a record that’s accessible to all levels of death metal connoisseurship: memorable riffs, wailing leads and a myriad of varying rhythmic patterns, but put together in a way that makes sense. A little more bass wouldn’t have killed anyone though… 

To cross over from the realm of gore into Hell’s enthralling fires! Diabolical energy coursing through each second - the kind of shit that never gets old. Gore-based death metal rarely hits the sweet spot for this ole boy anymore, but this shit just never loses its value. Death metal for torchlit Bibles and the desecration of holy things. Just what we need in this infectious age of Christian progressivism and Mega Churches. Lest we forget the importance of this art and its purpose! And to have it packaged so profoundly within the capsule of true death metal? Doesn’t get much sweeter. Mercyless - a true-to-form collective that has been a reliable source of viable DM as of late and showing no signs of retreat or weakness. Raise your chalice of blasphemy high! A salute to infernal truth and an admonishment of holy guise. Those Who Reign Below is true… fucking… death metal from start to finish. 

Rating: 8 out of 10