LIAM’S LISTENING ROOM – 22/4/25

And we’re back again with some more albums! This week’s post is going to be a little different, namely because while I’ve got a good pick for my favourite album of the past week(ish) and picks for my general listening habits, I for once have no non-metal picks. This is due to being on a total death metal kick, mainly old school tech-death, but also some newer stuff. 

My pick for my favourite new release this week is going to be the only non-death metal pick. So without further ado, let’s get on with it!

Epica – Aspiral

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I’m not too familiar with Epica’s wider discography, and I also do not proclaim to be a symphonic metal fan, especially when it comes to symphonic power metal, but Epica’s last album, “Omega” really, really impressed me. I still love that album and was revisiting it again only a couple of months back. I admittedly haven’t been able to give this newest effort as much of a chance as I maybe should have before writing about it here, so I don’t know yet if this album is going to prove as good as “Omega” was, but I do know that it was still my favourite new release from the past week. 

As I said, I’m not a symphonic power metal fan, and in general, operatic vocals make me want to carve my own eardrums out. Simone Simons is an exception to this. Where other operatic metal vocalists can come off as totally obnoxious to the point of annoyance, she is able to walk the line between pop sensibility and opera, and she also has a really good sense of when to go full on in either style, and which style would suit a particular musical passage better. Instead of going full opera all of the time, she’s really good at picking and choosing when to do so. 

The riff work on this album is also pretty damn killer, with plenty of heaviness to drive the songs along, and some absolutely awesome lead work. Sometimes those guitar moments can be buried underneath the barrage of orchestral layers and keyboards, but for the most part, on here and on “Omega” they were able to cut through and shine, providing a very much needed level of “chug” to what is overall a much more grandiose sound. 

My only gripe so far is a matter of personal preference on the production. While the drums sound pretty good, there are times when I feel like they sit a bit too far back. There were also times when I felt like the compression was turned up just a little bit too high, so some moments where the music was meant to crash in felt a tiny bit too subdued for my liking. The most glaring example of both these issues was the intro to the song “Darkness Dies in Light”. I know that with this amount of layering, getting the balance right for how far forward to put the drums is very difficult, but with a bit more punch from them, that crash in could have been way more epic and impactful than it ended up being. It’s a small gripe, but it’s just something that bugged me slightly. I imagine if they were to play this song live, the real impact of it would be realised. 

Overall, this is a pretty solid release. Right now, I’d give it a 3.5/5, with the caveat that it could go higher when I eventually return to it. But alas, I was unable to give it any more time because in the middle of the last week, I ended up being completely gripped by death metal!

So with that, let’s move on to my general listening habits, and I’ll start off with a newer one, and without a doubt the most stupid and hilarious one: Macabre – Carnival of Killers.

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If death metal/thrash/grindcore with very dark humour is not your thing, then I’d give this one a miss. If you are like me, a person who loves this shit, then I can’t see any reason why someone wouldn’t enjoy it. Macabre have managed to carve out a really interesting niche in extreme music over the past 30+ years, and “Carnival of Killers” is a great addition to that legacy. Of course, if you’re familiar with the band at all, then you’ll know that the songs are about serial killers, with lyrics that very much tell the story of a specific killer in a very humorous and entertaining way. “Sinister Slaughter” and “Dahmer” are probably my favourite examples of this style, with this one not following too far behind, simply for its absolutely hilarious blending of actual carnival music, children’s nursery rhymes and their signature brand of extreme metal. Seriously, if you’re gonna listen to this album, then just read the lyric book. It really is funny. My favourite song on the album by a country mile is “The Wheels on the Bug”, a song that is about Ted Bundy. I think you can guess what the lyrics will be, given the title, with a surprising but genius twist in the second half. I don’t know which member’s idea it was to take “B-I-N-G-O” and replace it with “B-U-N-D-Y”, but whoever it was I say, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. You provided me with some absolute comedy gold. Other great cuts include “Stinky” (about John Wayne Gacy’s house), “Richard Speck Grew Big Breasts” and the opening track “Your Window Is Open” (about Night Stalker Richard Ramirez). You could argue that the album is a bit too much of a novelty release, and I would kind of agree. The production could also be improved, with the drums being a little too out front in the mix. But you know what, it’s great, dumb fun. Now we get onto the real shit. 

My next pick for this death metal bender is an absolute icon in the world of technical death metal, and in my opinion, the best album this band has produced. The album in question is Nile – “Annihilation of the Wicked”. 

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To be totally honest, I don’t think this band or album needs much introduction or backstory, we all know what Nile are and we all know their iconic brand of technical death metal and Egyptian-themed lyrics and musical passages. They have had a pretty solid discography, with no real misses as such. Sure, you can argue that they went through a period after this album where they just settled into a groove, meaning that while the albums were great, there was nothing that really made them stand out among the rest of their discography. In my opinion, that was changed with their newest album, “The Underworld Awaits Us All”, but “Annihilation” is still on another level even to that. This whole album is Nile at their absolute peak. If you somehow haven’t heard it, you need to change that immediately. 

My next pick is yet another icon, and probably the biggest icon in the world of tech-death, brutal death metal, and even a major influence on deathcore and slam, and that is Suffocation – “Effigy of the Forgotten”.

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Probably a band and album that needs even less of an introduction than Nile, Suffocation’s impact on the world of death metal and extreme music cannot be understated. In my mind, they are literal icons, arguably inventors of the breakdown as we know it, and still the gold standard when it comes to death metal as a whole, alongside Cannibal Corpse, Nile and Death. While “Effigy” is not my favourite Suffocation album (that award goes to “Pierced From Within”), it is such a close 2nd that the differences between it and my number 1 are so minute that you might as well call them numbers 1A and 1B. If you want to know how technical and brutal death metal ended up the way they are today, then “Effigy” is the album you can trace it back to. If you want to know where deathcore bands got their breakdowns from, you can also mostly trace it back to both “Effigy” and “Pierced From Within”. This is an iconic album and an essential piece of listening for any extreme music fan. Again, if you somehow have never heard it, then you need to fix that now. 

And finally, we’ll round it off with another brand new pick: the song that started this whole death metal bender off. The song in question is Cryptopsy – “Until There’s Nothing Left”. Jesus f+#~$g Christ, this song is heavy. Obviously, if you know Suffocation, you likely know Cryptopsy, and they’re probably more responsible for the tech-death sound as we know it, “None So Vile” being the prime example. I’m going to be controversial and say that I’m not actually as big of a fan of it as others are, just because I am not a fan of Lord Worm’s vocals. The music absolutely fucking slaps, but the vocals are sadly a turn-off for me. No such issue exists with Matt McGahy on vocals. While their discography is a bit more sparse and indeed spotty (I always try my hardest to forget “The Unspoken King” and sadly, while writing that sentence, I remembered it), their last full-length “As Gomorrah Burns” very quickly found itself among my favourite efforts from Cryptopsy. It is totally relentless, and every song doesn’t just kick your face in, it crushes your skull to powder. This song has exactly the same effect. To say that I can’t wait for the new album “An Insatiable Violence” would be an egregious understatement. For the love of god, listen to this, then thank me once you’ve managed to get rid of the severe case of stank-face that this song will give you. 

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And that is it for this week’s segment of the listening room. As always, let me know what you think of my picks if you care to, and please send me some recommendations! See if you can get me out of this death metal kick before I can drag myself out of it! I’ll be back next week