TL;DR Reviews: Mortis Mutilati, Ovid’s Withering, Hammer King, While She Sleeps, Mendel, Carnival of Flesh, Aion & Spectral Darkwave

Mortis Mutilati is a depressingly beautiful funeral black metal band from France. Consisting of only one sole member, Macabre spreads his darkness across these 8 tracks in magnificent splendor on Mélopée Funèbre. The sound is ultimately dark but the grand instrumentation creates a high quality atmosphere that appeals to me quite easily. Divine black metal. 8.8 out of 10

http://www.naturmacht.com/2015/02/np056-mortis-mutilati-melopee-funebre/

Ovid’s Withering originally released Scryers of the Ibis in 2013 so I’ll keep this simple. This is intense progressive death metal, with big experimentation, unique composition and tons of story driven lore. Very good. 8.5 out of 10

https://ovidswithering.bandcamp.com/album/scryers-of-the-ibis

Hammer King brings forth powerful riffs dressed in power metal energies on the album Kingdom of the Hammer King. The cheese is matched by actual musical talent and interesting song writing. Very fun to listen to. 7 out of 10

https://www.facebook.com/thehammerking

While She Sleeps is a UK metal band with melodic guitar emphasis and catchy guitar hooks and flowing writing. While keeping a truly grooving mentality, this band knows how to write some headbang inducing riffs. 7 out of 10

https://www.facebook.com/whileshesleeps

Mendel’s Oblivion is a solo instrumental shred album by Aborted guitarist Mendel Bij De Leij. This album is packed with intense metal moments, melodies and progressive shred that just truly melted my face and had me grooving along with the music while I listened to it. Very killer guitar work and everything else behind him is stellar! 7.5 out of 10 http://mendelian.bandcamp.com/

Carnival of Flesh is a symphonic blackened death metal band from Serbia, whose dark music is reminiscent of old school black metal in many ways but on a grand scale of musical greatness. 6 tracks are what they offer you and it’s a blistering delivery of foul music. A wonderful treat for the ears. 8 out of 10 https://carnivalofflesh.bandcamp.com/releases

Aion’s Verses of Perdition is a very straight to the point ominous style of black metal. Nothing new here, just headbanging good stuff. Very typical and average I must say but still good. 6.5 out of 10

http://a-i-o-n.bandcamp.com/releases

Spectral Darkwave’s First Last Contact is an odd electronic European metal meets symphonic death/doom metal. Some of the music being played here is pretty good, there are some rad headbang moments on here but it’s mostly just average decent metal music. Vocalist sounds tired and weak, the technique he is using isn’t sounding well to me. 6.5 out of 10