DIE BY DESIGN
Now It Starts to Make Sense
(Mother Should Know)

THIS WILL DESTROY YOU
S/T
(Magic Bullet)

EGYPT
S/T
(Lyderhorn)

BROWN JENKINS
Angel Eyes
(Moribund)

DUB TRIO
Another Sound is Dying
(Ipecac)

HATE ETERNAL
Fury & Flames 

(Metal Blade)

BITCHSLICER
III Lycathropic Fellatio

(Worldeater)

MORE REVIEWS

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t getting bored with black metal. For all the individuality the genre is supposed to promote it seems like most of what we are getting these days are reheated versions of the same old once mind blowing albums. The aesthetics of black metal are still not only jovial fun, but musically, where at the conception of its parameters Satanic artists seemed focused on challenging preconceptions and innovating with bizarre arrangements, now conformism is de rigueur with artists from Chile to Tasmania and the Philipines recording music that so reveres their favorites they may as well just burn a copy of Burzum, Bathory, Emperor or what have you and scribe some Satanic funny name in order to pass it as their own.

So to me, this doom laden Texas based artist totally stands out. Amongst a handful of other talented fellas Brown Jenkins is one of the few that possesses a unique sound. It is not all his own and in the weird factor, some of the tempos and atonal melodies remind of France’s Blut As Nord, except Brown Jenkins is much louder and not as drenched in bad acid trip psychedelia. But so massive are the songs Angel Eyes’ killer dragging pace and absolute electricity literally jump off the speakers in order to get out of the black metal realm, which is exactly the point I was trying to make. There is no point in comparison between what Brown Jenkins is doing and what about 98% of the other black metal bands are doing. Like its previous Dagonite, Angel Eyes is a corrosive and experimental work that seems manufactured to challenge our beloved ideas of the genre.  This isn’t what a black metal band is supposed to sound like. And for that I cheer for Brown Jenkins.