Mining Metal: Ænigmatum, Amargor, Anatomy of Habit, Arise from Worms, Cabinet, Coprolith, Hexorcist, Torpor

Mining Metal is a monthly column from Heavy Consequence contributing writers Langdon Hickman and Colin Dempsey. The focus is on noteworthy new music emerging from the non-mainstream metal scene, highlighting releases from small and independent labels — or even releases from unsigned acts. Death metal has always felt like a magical portal to me. So much of this is the chimerical nature of it; it is just as capable of emulating the manic laughter and mad color of psychosis as it is the grime and darkness of overbearing sorrow. It can be mild or feral, extravagant or direct, psychedelic or straightforward. So much of my life has been spent trying to parse why I love it so much and why it moves me so deeply, why I gravitated to it as a child after seeing the music video for “Where the Slime Live” and hearing “Hammer Smashed Face” on cassette. All of those efforts have, in my eyes, failed. I’ve heard from others about them being moving or inspiring them toward stabs at art criticism themselves which sometimes have turned into careers, which is deeply flattering, but I am still unable to see the thing I wish to convey and that which came out on paper. An aspect of the problem is that dea...