Best of 2024

 9) Siderean - Spilling the Astral Chalice

Remember last year, when I said Afterbirth was a flash in the pan, that no one else would be taking brutal death metal into the astral plane anytime soon, and I shouldn't get my hopes overinflated that death metal would transcend from pure violence?

It's happening, it's fucking happening right now. What we're witnessing is nothing short of a renaissance. The cause for this new direction could be argued. I have a feeling it has to do with a sort of pendulum swing. Death metal for a very long time has been about brutal violence, torture, rape, but it wasn't always like that. Death metal's beginning was characterized by bands seeking meaning. Death, Gorguts, Cynic. These bands took something that was relatively new and swung for the fences with existentialism. Then bands like Cannibal Corpse, Dying Fetus, Aborted, etc brought the genre into a much easier place of endless brutal gore. All you have to do to write violent death metal is to open any anatomy book and channel your inner abused child, let them free to run wild with abandon, let them dissect, bleed, and meat hook mount the women who rejected them, the parents who didn't understand them. This, while cathartic to some extent, is very childish and gets old very quickly.

So what are extremely intelligent post-modern death metal musicians expected to do in a space characterized by brutality? Transcend, reflect on what Chuck, Luc, and Paul were trying to accomplish in the 90s, reflect on what it means to truly break free from a society attempting to impose conformity onto every system it encounters.

I termed Afterbirth as Psychedelic Brutal Death Metal last year, but I want to take a step back and reassess (since I'm a genre whore) and begin using a different term that allows more bands into this merry troupe of miscreants: Cosmic Death Metal. The genre is characterized by brutal dissonance, by creativity, by transcendence beyond the earthly plane. I'm expecting many more to join the ranks over the next few years and I'm here for it.

In explaining this I haven't said a damn word about this particular album and I'm not going to correct that now. Just go listen to it if you give a damn about music.