NEW MUSIC ROUND-UP: VEKTOR, BENT SEA, THE FALLEN DIVINE

November 21st, 2011 at 3:20pm
Vince Neilstein
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The year may be winding down but that doesn’t mean there aren’t still a few new releases coming our way. With new releases come streams, and today we’ve got three excellent ones for you: Vektor, Dirk Verbeuren’s Bent Sea, and The Fallen Divine.

Vektor’s new album Outer Isolation brings the thrash, and it brings it wicked fast. Vektor’s angle is that they utilize black metal melodies and vocals to make themselves stand out from the pack. Is that enough to make Vektor worthy of your attention over the countless other re-thrash bands vying for your ear? To at least some degree, yes; Outer Isolation is an engaging listen bolstered by Vektor’s astute understanding of harmonic structure and what makes a good song, but it’s ultimately carried by their breakneck-paced galloping thrash riffs. Whichever you prefer, this record is pretty dern good! Think: Skeletonwitch at their fastest and most furious. Stream the entire record at Heavy Artillery Records’ website.

Still not fast enough for you? Try Bent Sea, a death-grind side project helmed by drummer Dirk Verbeuren of Soilwork/Scarve that also features one Devin Townsend on bass. That Verbeuren and Townsend are collaborating should come as no surprise; Verbeuren recorded drums on Devin’s Deconstruction album and the two posted an entertaining jam session video just one month ago. I like Heavy Blog is Heavy writer DamienTheOcean’s description of this record as “completely inoffensive grind that brings to mind a really well produced Napalm Death,” and I really like this record too. Aborted vocalist Sven de Caluwe brings it to life. Stream the album’s opening track “Noistalgia” below:

Bent Sea – “Noistalgia”

The Fallen Divine, a band I featured in an October 2011 edition of Unsigned and Unholy, are streaming their brand new album The Binding Cycle on Metal Underground. The Fallen Divine are a band that’s hard to classify. They’re progressive in the sense of the word that means “complicated arrangements and time signatures,” but they’re not avant-garde in any way you haven’t heard before. They take their primary building blocks from death metal, but they’re definitely not going to bludgeon you with their brutality. Their music is littered with keyboards and atmospherics, but those elements aren’t often out-front and they’re never cheesy. Listen to The Binding Cycle to find out what I mean; the album comes out on November 28th.

-VN