Mondo Bungle

Entropia - Ufonaut
Albums always come along that have me completely enamored, where I think about it all the time, listen heavily, and anyway just make themselves a great presence in my life. I definitely love this album dearly. I think it deserves a grand amount of praise and admiration from the heavy metal community and general music community alike. It's hard to pin down just what you'd call it to someone else, it's surely a mix of psychedelic black, sludge, and shoegazey post metal. Oranssi Pazuzu came out with a stellar album earlier this year within that psychedelic BM world, and it was fantastic, their best work. They've grown with each album and dropped their most forward thinking and expansive yet, but all the while it was still the trademark kind of thing they've been doing. Entropia are a younger band with another studio album aside from this under their belt. But I dunno, I think this album is real special. It is relatively succinct, and it conveys it's psychedelic and alien atmosphere through the heavy, blasting metal throughout. There's not much in the way of extended ambient passages of whacky sound effects and surreal instrumentation you might find in other psych metal contemporaries. It's metal that rarely lets up, but in their compositions is presented it's own unique feel of abstractness. The music is incredibly technical/progressive, with so many original ideas jammed into each track. It never sounds disjointed or clumsy, or erratic like a lot of techdeath might be, with wanly riff after riff played for like a second before moving on. Each idea on this album is presented and continues for pretty much always the perfect amount of time, never dragging on too long or leaving too soon. Breathtaking riffs jam with ease throughout the whole record. The vocals aren't too low or too high in the mix, and are both original sounding in vocal style and modulated very well at the same time. Everything about this is executed perfectly in my opinion. Never a dull moment at all, and such a wonderfully fresh sound within extreme metal. I can't stress enough how much I admire the songcrafting and general musicality/ideas of this album. I would love to see it held in the same light as albums like Gorguts - Obscura, Demilich - Nespithe, Lykathea Aflame - Elvenefris, Blut Aus Nord - The Work Which Transforms God, Deathspell Omega - Paracletus, Disembowelment - Transcendence if the Peripheral, etc etc (all different styles but same sentiment). It's a welcome addition to the music world. 10/10

Marching Church - Telling it Like it is
I already felt, to some extent, a lot like I did for the album above as I did for the debut Marching Church full length from last year, despite a fair amount if negative response. But this one is better, so obv it's love again. The one before was jam packed full of avant-garde ideas and influence but could often times fail in it's delivery. The songs would go on for too long and descend into dullness, be very self indulgent and pretentious and all that good stuff. The new one is a continuation of the style, a Nick Cavey amalgamation if artsy post punk, folk, jazz, chamber music, and general avant garde... But it's also dialed back a bit more, so it doesn't wear out ad much as the last album. I definitely love love love it, but it's still not a perfect execution if ideas. The band is growing though and could eventually grace the world with an immaculate album.

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