The North Gate - Center of Homes
(https://thenorthgate.bandcamp.com/album/center-of-homes)
The North Gate are a difficult band to define. They tie together elements of black, death, doom, and hardcore punk, without letting any individual element become their defining aspect. At times, the band feels like a heavier metalcore band—at others, a blackened sludge project. "Filthy Garments," for instance, opens with a black or death metal riff before transitioning into a sludgey bridge and ultimately ending with a dark acoustic passage. The only uniting features of the record, besides the general heaviness, are the prominent doomy basslines and raw, aggressive, punk-inspired vocals—both strong suites of the band. An interesting, if very short (and a little messy) debut from this New York band.
Recommended.
Necrolytic Goat Converter - Demo MMXVI
(https://necrogoatconverter.bandcamp.com/album/demo-mmxvi)
New York has no right to this many great metal artists. This one-man black metal debut has in spades what most releases by scene veterans lack entirely—tight songwriting, catchy riffs, and robust production. Tracks like "Absolution" and "Second Skin" highlight Necrolytic Goat Converter's straighforward and melodic take on black metal, reminiscent of Tribulation's most recent album in the best possible way. This is a true bedroom black metal album—recorded on a single guitar and produced in Garageband—but the drum arrangements are varied and tasteful and C. Voss avoids all the typical self-producing pitfalls, neither smothering the vocals in distortion nor drowning the guitars in reverb. A great debut from a great musician.
Highly Recommended.
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