The EP, Split and Single Post Part 2 [Things You Might Have Missed 2023]

Long albums are fraught with perils: the wasted potential of pre-release singles or powerful openers; repetition as a band feels obliged to fill more time than they have ideas; inconsistent quality as some songs clearly supersede others; and the sheer fucking expanse of music being too much for a listener. They’re such risky business that I’d counsel against even bothering.

By contrast? I’d advise you either create or consume short-form releases. They’re among my favorite things in the world1. They convey their meaning expeditiously, prioritize quality over quantity and are far more economically viable for the artist2. Grindcore acts learned this over 30 years ago and who am I to deny the immense popularity and evident commercial viability of grindcore? As if all this wasn’t enough, bands that favor EPs, splits, singles and collaborations are also more sexually desirable. Don’t question the science; just open wide and accommodate the following releases. –El Cuervo

This is part 2. Part 1 is here.

Blood Incantation // Luminescent Bridge – As much as I enjoy synth-based ambient music, Timewave Zero was a little too slow to represent more to me than a mere curiosity in Blood Incantation’s story. Luminescent Bridge is a more harmonious fusion of the band’s warped death metal and spacey, synth aspirations, a 19-minute EP bridging what was previously quite a wide gap. What results is the thinking man’s death metal; less fist-pumping and compulsive than previous albums, but just as thought-provoking and technically mesmerizing. What helps most is that the lilting interludes and synth elements are more purposeful and form the connecting tissue between the death metal aspects. The band constitutes an unmissable modern metal band with both elements in their sound. –El Cuervo

Shadowrunner // Ocean of Time – Rebirth and Oblivion – Shadowrunner are low-key the best post-The Midnight retrowave act. All of their singles and EPs to date – note, no full-length album – offer essential listening for lovers of all things synth, sax, and nostalgia. The Ocean of Time duo represents a strange choose-your-own-adventure take on music, levering the same opening four songs but closing with four different ones. While I question this marketing gimmick, I absolutely cannot question the quality of the new music available here. Rebirth is warm and welcoming, while Oblivion balances this with crisper tones and marginally darker themes. Two sides of the same coin, the pair constitute the best synth-based music of 2023. –El Cuervo

Wreathe // The Land Is Not An Idle God – If your group contains members of Fall of Efrafa, Morrow, and Arboricidio, you can expect some amazing d-beatened, passionate emokrust, and Wreathe’s debut EP The Land Is Not An Idle God definitely fits that bill gloriously. Based on vocalist Alex CF’s own grimoire, The Book of Venym; An Egalitarian Demonology, The Land Is Not An Idle God seethes with defiant energy and heartfelt passion, with “Enemy of All Reason” pummeling ruthlessly while “The Stumps Are Graves of the Land” channels the forlorn-yet-hopeful energy of Morrow’s best moments. If you’re at all a fan of any of the aforementioned bands and you somehow don’t pick this up… the fuck’s wrong with you?! –Grymm

Dream Unending/Worm // Starpath – The collaboration I believed only existed in my wildest fantasies. While Dream Unending wears their heart on their sleeve with soaring, ethereal melodies, Worm’s allure comes rising out of spooky, clamorous aggression. Yet the contributions of both are—literally—resonant with otherworldly grace, with Justin DeTore (DU)’s low bellows echoing over layers of cymbals and ascending guitar, and Phantom Slaughter (Worm)’s vicious rasps bouncing off spidery riffs and ominous drums. And when Worm’s blackened death metamorphoses into ascendant, glittering soloing, it’s easy to see how well these two artists compliment one another. Each, in the songs allocated to them, shows the impressive reach of their own individual style, and goes just a bit further than before. “So Many Chances” sees DU extensively using clean vocals, for instance, while “Ravenblood” includes what is probably Worm’s slickest and most beautiful solo. Absolutely unmissable for fans of either, let alone both. –Thus Spoke

Dragoncorpse // The Drakketh Saga – Power metal meets deathcore. We’ve seen this before with Shadow of Intent, but we haven’t seen it the way Dragoncorpse do it. These Aussies’ first foray into two genres that seem antithetical to each other results in one of the most fun and whimsical deathcore experiences I had this year. Granted, this idea is still in its infancy and hence lacks cohesion in songwriting, and is rife with way too many expositional interludes. But between the awesome vocal variety and cool songwriting, I find it hard to care about the disjointed nature of the journey. The choruses are huge, the riffs and breakdowns heavy, and the story epic. “To the Sky” and “UNDYING” in particular are huge successes, testaments to the potential Dragoncorpse’s style holds. Flawed though it might be, it’s worth taking notice of this EP as the promise of something new and exciting for the future of hybridized extreme metal. –Kenstrosity

Spider God // The Faith Trilogy – To avoid another bout of ire from the public, I won’t talk about Spider God’s expanded catalog of black metal pop covers, even though it is a literal metric ton of silly, raw fun—including several covers of famous ad jingles, of all things! No, instead I’m going to talk about The Faith Trilogy, a collected work that includes all three of Spider God’s original EP trilogy based on Ingmar Bergman’s trilogy of the same name. While this material is not new, having been recorded between October and December of 2020, this newly unified compilation still represents everything that I love about Spider God’s original material. Delightful melodies, hooky songwriting, and an entertaining contrast between blackened rawness and jubilant, poppy performances. Nobody sounds like Spider God, and that’s a great thing. Don’t believe me? Just check out “Still No Words,” “Fight the Raging Storm,” “The Echo-God,” “Blood and Water,” “Horrible Forces,” “Strangers and Tears,” and “Embrace Despair.” –Kenstrosity

The Ember, The Ash // Venerate / Abnegate – A side project from 鬼, the creative mind behind Unreqvited, past efforts from The Ember, The Ash simply have not clicked with me. It was unexpected, therefore, that a death metal EP, sounding slightly clinical, even synthetic, in tone, replete with stuttering synth notes and heavily distorted guitars, and vox, should be the thing that finally works for me. But work it does. Concussive and thunderous, but (particularly on “Abnegate”) carrying a grand, semi-symphonic note driven by the synth work, it’s both brutal and beautiful. And it’s perhaps through that lens that I really hear the EP’s roots, anchored in the gorgeous post-black of Unreqvited’s Mosaic I: L’amour et l’ardeur, but now transformed into a snarling, riffing DM beast. –Carcharodon

Mortual // Evil Incarnation – Writhing, festering, booming, this disgusting Costa Rican death metal outing erupts the senses with overwhelming filth and unrelenting riffcraft. Mortual harkens back to a time when metal of this knuckle-scraping attitude reeked of frenetic thrash riffs and piercing whammy bombs—envision the Golgothan clamor of early Incantation trapped under the festering bed of the rainforest floor. Mortual abuses every microphone in the room to capture their hideously toned guitar drags and cavern-creaking kicks. Snarling, wide-cast tremolo rip and hammer-cast tom roll command heads to whip and bodies to flail. Succumbing low-end heft only for hideous solos (“Sadistic Obsession,” “Dimensional Chaos”) and half-time gut-punches led by murderous ride (“Morbid Thoughts,” “Master of Possession”), Evil Incarnation refuses to release you from the underbelly of its decay-imbued roars. In their own words, Mortual seeks to find through their amplified sermons the “ecstasy of death.” While I might still be standing, this loin-stirring EP has brought me, at least, to la petite mort. –Dolphin Whisperer

Spiritbox // The Fear of Fear – After the mainstream success of first full-length Eternal Blue and its singles “Holy Roller” and “Circle With Me,” Courtney LaPlante and company release an EP that sharpens the edges of their blurry debut. Heavier songs, catchier choruses, more guitar acrobatics, and LaPlante’s honed harsh vocal attack, incorporating growls alongside her already formidable pipes. Spiritbox immediately hits like a bomb with the frantic and mathy “Cellar Door,” a brutality further explored in “Angel Eyes.” Reconciling the heaviness and the ethereal quality, runaway singles “Jaded” and “The Void,” and closer “Ultraviolet” recall the act’s first two EP’s in dreamy guitar melodies and sultry choruses braced against brutal djent verses. Centerpiece “Too Close / Too Late” features LaPlante at her most vulnerable and charismatic, yearning lyrics taking front and center alongside a crescendo of a track. I don’t say this often, but with Spiritbox’s unique blend of ethereality and djenty brutality, The Fear of Fear is earning the Spotify fame in a spotlight surrounded by the Sleep Tokens and Knocked Looses of the world. –Dear Hollow

The Callous Daoboys // God Smiles Upon The Callous Daoboys – No one caught the feature-long joke in my TYMHM of The Callous Daoboys‘ Celebrity Therapist, and you bastards should be ashamed. Like, Nachos BellGrande ashamed. Here’s its fucking follow-up. God Smiles Upon The Callous Daoboys is the Atlanta six-piece’s first semi-self-titled offering, and God smiles ’cause it slays. “Pushing the Pink Envelope” and “Waco Jesus” are the carbon-dated slices of mania you expect from your favorite mathcore slayqueens, chunkier and heavier in its riffs but willing to snap your fingers snap your neck (not with Prong though, Steel Druhm) with whiplash, jerking you off from catchy choruses to panic chords to electronic beats to bone-crushing off-kilter chugs to salsa breakdowns (???) to piano trills – somehow conjuring the ghost of the memeworthy Iwrestledabearonce while sounding more cohesive. Closer “Designer Shroud of Turin” is where you take a hard left at Atlanta. Jazz, flamenco, and wildly intense electronics (courtesy of Netherlands DJ pulses.) infect the brutality and offers a new direction entirely. Go figure out my joke, then listen to this bad boy. No more Taco Bell for you. –Dear Hollow

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