Xibalba to release Ah Tza! EP

Xibalba performing at Black Flames of Blasphemy

The post-Christmas malaise has set in worldwide, but there’s still time for the occasional pre-2016 release and/or news story.

After what was apparently a pretty good performance at Black Flames of Blasphemy, the Mexican black metal band Xibalba is releasing a short three song EP. Entitled Ah Tza!, its first track is already available through Bandcamp due to the services of the band’s current record label (Nuclear War Now! Productions). The other two will be available on December 31st. As of yet, there’s not really enough information to figure out what this shortalbum will sound like, but the first song at least conforms to the musical language of black metal; not that such is exactly difficult.

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Sadistic Metal Reviews: Dark Symphonies Special

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Many lost “gems” have been reissued to capture undiscerning millennial money. Most never found a market as they weren’t up to par. The Death Metal Underground hopes that readers were not gifted any of these on the Unconquered Sun’s birthday.

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Hydra Vein – Rather Death than False of Faith (1988)
Raining blood, from a lacerated sky! What? This isn’t Slayer. What the hell is this? Did Tom Araya have too much to drink? Wait this idiot’s British and doing drunken Motorhead karaoke and Kerry King air guitar solos at the pub. The cover looks like a ten year old’s Clash of the Titans fan art. This album is a fifteen year old’s Slayer fan art. Maybe if I drink half a bottle of whiskey my  brain will think Hydra Vein is actually Slayer. I could just turn it off and play Slayer.

morpheus son of hypnos
Morpheus – Son of Hypnos (1993)
Morpheus (no relation to Morpheus Descends) was an early nineties musical project put together by four residents of a Stockholm group home. The vocalist sounded like Sylvester Stallone imitating Glenn Benton, the guitarists idolized the Hoffmans, and everyone attempted to cover Kreator. During the recording sessions, the band members expressed situational homosexual behavior by prostate massaging one another with their genitalia. The orgasmic screams of these disturbed sodomites echoed jungle fowl being rended by monkeys. Son of Hypnos makes for an amusing pornographic soundtrack.

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Bloodstone – Hour of the Gate (1996)
Hour of the Gate was produced by Tomas Skogsberg and Fred Estby at Sunlight Studios. I hit play and instead of crusty Swedeath my ears hear Incantation’s “Profanation” breaking down into Necrophobic riffing. Then Gothenburg leads and more Profanation. That lick’s from Megadeth. How many salads were tossed here? The shit-buttered anus of death metal was licked right well and clean. I need to get a drink. I blacked out listening to this turkey. This CD was not repressed as history wanted to black it out too.

sacrifical - forever entangled

Sacrificial – Forever Entangled (1993)
The sound of groove riffs ‘cross the glade,
Heshers cover your ears in horror.
This death trash is rather staid
Chugging along into the gutter.

Sacrificial, Sacrificial
Pantera meets Destruction
Sacrificial, Sacrificial
What a horrible production

Vocals are just way too loud.
Matti Karki would not be very proud.
Many metal songs are raped.
Their holes torn apart and gaped.

Sacrificial, Sacrificial,
Watched Blackadder the Third.
Sacrificial, Sacrificial
Another reissued turd.

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Upcoming tours – Venom Inc, Necrophagia

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According to the folks at Earsplit PR, the “Prime Evil” lineup of Venom is joining Necrophagia on a tour of the United States this January. This tour was initially planned for fall of 2015, but was apparently postponed. Venom Inc. (as the lineup is called) is to be distinguished from the current official line up of the band, which revolves primarily around Conrad “Cronos” Lant and spends its days touring and releasing the occasional forgettable album. Band bashing aside, if you’ve ever felt the need to see one of Venom’s more polished and mainstream lineups touring with god knows what Necrophagia is up to (outside of promoting 2014’s WhiteWorm Cathedral), then you’re a far more specifics driven person than I am.

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Asphyx working on a new studio album

Martin van Drunen may be out of Hail of Bullets, but he still apparently has time to dedicate to Asphyx. After releasing a demo compilation on compact cassette earlier this year (Embrace the Death) and touring throughout South America (see the silly attached video), the band is now working on a new studio album. The band’s Facebook page claims the band will spend January 2016 working on the new album’s material, and furthermore that this will be their first album to feature Stefan ‘Tormentor’ Hueskens on percussion. No official release date has been set yet, and the band’s previous album (Deathhammer) didn’t go over well on the DMU forums back in its day, but that this upcoming album is planned is at least relevant to our interests.

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Upcoming release: Voivod – Post Society EP (2016)

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We got a hint of Voivod’s upcoming plans a while back. Post Society may or may not be building up to Voivod’s next full length, but it still might be of value to fans of the band; it will release on February 26th. Besides compiling the tracks Voivod released as part of their recent splits with At the Gates and Napalm Deaths, this EP will also feature two original tracks and a cover of “Silver Machine” by Hawkwind. At least going by “We Are Connected”, it seems that Voivod is continuing the path set forth by their previous full-length – an accessible mixture of of their signature late ’80s sound with more modern alternative and progressive rock influences.

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Steve Wilson criticizes the glut of “progressive” metal bands

Steve Wilson of Porcupine Tree recently conducted an interview with Metal Wani. In the linked second part, he suggested an aesthetic reason for the backlash against the swarm of “progressive” metal acts – according to him, there are too many progressive metal bands that are overusing the “metal guitar sound”, to the point that such loses its impact. In the mean time, Wilson is trying to explore dark and melancholic themes outside of metal, most notably in his collaboration with Mikael Akerfeldt in Storm Corrosion. This is obviously a different perspective than our usual narrative here at DMU – if you ask us, your pseudo-progressive band failed not because metal guitar is a cliched sound (which doesn’t eliminate the possibility), but more likely because your songwriting either took the form of modern pop in disguise or incoherent nonsense.

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#Metalgate: SJW accidentally admits real reason for censorship

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Safespace Jihad Worriers (SJWs) generally insist that they are metalheads who are not in favor of censorship. Those statements however include two lies, which are only tolerated because they are indirect: first, SJWs are in favor of censorship because they intend to exclude everyone who does not agree with them. Second, they are not metalheads, although they are pretending to be metalheads, as the following somewhat neurotic article shows:

The heavy metal fan-base also has a problematic history with race. While many bands (including those within the Big Four) contain people of color, more often than not, the heavy metal audience in the West is mostly white. Bands that are solely comprised of people of color, like the Bay Area’s Stone Vengeance, have reported that labels would be interested in signing them based on their sound. However, when the labels saw a photo of Stone Vengeance, they would backpedal, saying the band did not have the “right look.” Some great discourse is arising around this subject, with scholars and journalists such as Laina Dawes raising their voices to unpack issues of race, as well as gender, within the heavy metal music scene.

As a burgeoning heavy metal academic, I have attended several academic conferences on heavy metal. Heavy metal academic conferences that I have attended have consistently had a high percentage of women presenting. This stands in stark contrast to conferences I have attended that are dedicated to other fields of study, in which women are less represented. Some conferences, like the latest one I attended, the inaugural Legion of Steal Metalfest and Conference in Berkeley, California, was organized solely by women.

So, to my heavy metal colleagues and friends, thank you for fostering discussions on gender, race, and sexual orientation in heavy metal music that make me a better feminist.

The usual SJW agenda is here: the one-sided, unsubstantiated accusation; the implication that no good person could disagree with the agenda; and finally, the calling together of the group for action as one. And in that, there is an admission: this writer is feminist first, and only secondarily a metalhead. She wants to conquer metal and make it into a subset of feminism because feminism is where her loyalties lie.

SJW incursion into metal became noticed when people pointed out that these “new metalheads” were not very much into the classics of the genre. Instead, they listened to only SJW-music: late hardcore, indie rock and other SJW-leaning genres. Of course they found metal not to their taste, and it had nothing to do with politics — these people do not actually like metal, but they like the idea of being metal so they can act cool in front of their friends, and thus they claim to be metalheads… if the metal is SJW-correct, and sounds a lot like indie rock.

Dual loyalties never really work for anyone. You can be a metalhead and listen to lots of other types of music, and think lots of other types of thought, but when your agenda becomes a mission to replace how metal thinks with how those other groups think, you are no longer a metalhead. You are someone who wishes to destroy metal and replace it with something more like the rest of the drivel out there. And that is indeed a problem.

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SJWs launching coordinated attacks on anti-censorship Facebook accounts

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#Metalgate explodes in full bloom as the gloves are off: SJWs, who call themselves “Social Justice Warriors” but are more accurately referred to as “Safespace Jihad Worriers,” are using mass messages on Facebook — and secret, anonymous profiles — to coordinate to mass-complain about anti-censorship Facebook accounts.

During the last 48 hours, accounts belonging to Brett Stevens and Richard Corbin, founder of the Anti-Censorship group Make Baltimore – NO PLAY ZONE!, have been deleted by Facebook after receiving hundreds of complaints coordinated by Safespace Jihad Worriers (SJWs). The Baltimore group has been under a lesser form of attack as SJWs have swarmed it to post negative messages, memes and pornography in the hope of getting the group banned. Facebook, which itself vigorously supports certain kinds of censorship and nagging nanny content restrictions, has complied despite these accounts not having anti-immigrant speech at all.

In particular, Stevens’ account was attacked for his posting of a feminist article about positive body image. Although no other users complained, and although Facebook can see the secret group from which all complainers were coming, Facebook rubber-stamped the deletion because of its policy of censoring content that might offend someone somewhere, mainly because it wishes to create a “safe space” free from controversial news items and images. This is in addition to censorship where Facebook works with repressive regimes to remove content contrary to the official propaganda. Internet users have compiled a long list of privacy and censorship violations by Facebook.

Others have pointed out that Facebook’s nebulous content censorship policy permits abuse of the type that is happening here. Certainly, it seems odd that Facebook would allow secret groups to form lynch mobs against pages on its own site. Then again, Facebook censors mentions of its competitors as well as blocking trending news stories that contradict the political leanings of its administrators. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has rated Facebook a censorship risk that has failed EFF’s censorship test, and many in the moderate wing of the tech industry have expressed doubts about Facebook’s intentions. Some have even started watchdog groups to track Facebook censorship and political bias.

In the meantime, rumors about as to who is the mystery “MAS” or “ALS” who coordinates the hidden group, which is reminiscent of both the JournoList scandal and the foundations of #metalgate. In the meantime, SJWs such as Mary Spiro, whose daughter reportedly dates Bestial Evil guitarist Shawn Rucker II and who book shows in Baltimore with rumored political intent, can be seen justifying the mass attacks via Facebook:

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What it feels like to be the target of an SJW hate mob

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How did this all start?

To the best of my knowledge this all began when the singer of Bestial Evil (Shawn Wright) suddenly became aware of a Facebook status I made approximately 7 weeks ago from the time of this writing, about how the band should be dismissed by fans of Metal, because in my opinion they aren’t any good. Simple as that! We got enough awful crap around here as it is. That being said I never accused them of anything other then being posers, no trigger warning required hahaha. I am not alone in this low opinion of the group either.

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Apparently receiving criticism is not one of their strengths however, so they started a smear campaign complete with all the usual name-calling and threats. I want to point out that it was a private post that I made and only my friends could see it… so how exactly it came to the attention of the people in question is unknown to me, probably a screen shot or word of mouth. I don’t care. I wasn’t hiding it from anyone in the first place and I still stand by what I said too. Bad’s bad and good’s good, tough shit. This is Heavy Metal, not a reality TV show where you get a prize at the end from Carson Daly. There is already a band from Italy named Bestial Evil anyhow so that just goes to show you they didn’t even do their homework in the first place.

How did these guys try to rally an internet army?

Again, social media was involved, like always. Facebook to be specific. A concerned friend showed me a post made on Shawn Wright’s Facebook page inciting a “boot party” if anyone ever saw me out somewhere and proclaiming that I was to be “banned” from the city of Baltimore, that he was gonna come to my house, etc.

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This was based on accusations brought on by Shawn himself that I am a homophobic/neo-nazi or some other completely unfounded nonsense like that. One person even commented that I “infiltrate shows” to sell white power music, which is an outright lie. People ask me to vend at shows very often, I never have to sneak in, let alone with the intent to slip some poor unsuspecting SJW a skinhead album or whatever. The whole thing is totally absurd.

Anyhow, not long after this stuff was brought to my attention I started to receive threatening calls and texts to my phone from Shawn himself. None of which I ever replied to. The voicemails have been recorded and saved though, as well as any other evidence of threats against my home or person. So if anyone does do something stupid I have evidence of a conspiracy I guess. They have done some tidying up on the band page it seems, I think their attempt to raise an army has faltered for now.

Is there truth to their accusations that you run a white power friendly distro?

Absolutely not. While I personally do not believe in censorship of any kind, especially with regards to music and art… there’s just nothing in there that qualifies. The merchandise and albums that I sell span across multiple genres of extreme music, everything from black and death metal to harsh noise and grind, but there’s no “white power” bands…

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The thing they have accused me of is totally baseless and merely an attempt to incite a witch hunt against me to fulfill a personal vendetta and stir up trouble. People of this SJW/hipster type of mindset seem to always invoke these things to try rally an angry mob as a means to carry out intimidation tactics or make it seem like they’re in the right because they got a couple hundred views on their webpage. You see it more and more as of late.

What have they threatened you with? Do you think they can accomplish it?

I was told multiple times that I would be visited at home, that they would kick down my door and “destroy my life”, and then there was the foolish claim that I was going to be sued for “defamation of character and distributing hate material”. Loads of ignorant threats and boasts were made. I welcome any legal action from them, as I am sure the courts would like to hear the voicemails that Shawn left on my phone, threatening me with home invasion. And as for the defamation of character thing, I am pretty sure they just did that to me so good luck getting that charge to stick.

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Personally, I do not think they can actually accomplish these things, especially the part about being sued, but I am not taking it for granted either. That’s not the sort of thing you joke about. I am prepared for all eventual outcomes of this retarded comedy.

What are your distros/bands/projects that people can support?

For over ten years now I have been proactive with music in the Baltimore Maryland area in some way or another, although I do not reside in or claim the city. I was in a weird band a long time ago but I don’t play anymore, there’s too many bands and not enough fans anyhow, I would rather be a fan. I printed shirts for local bands and old school heavyweights like Blood Storm, Nunslaughter and Gravewurm for many many years… and I used to book concerts in Baltimore sometimes but I have taken a hiatus from organizing live events. My label/distro is called Diabolic Force Distribution, the purpose of which has been and always will be to support underground bands and zines get out there to the maniacs that need it.

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Heavy Metal isn’t about fashion or climbing the social ladder, it’s a way of life. It’s outsider art and it’s meant to be challenging and dangerous. Diabolic Force likes to do things the old-fashioned way because I believe in the life force of the music itself and the people in the trenches fighting to keep it real. Diabolic Force will always offer support to those individuals and bands who hate posers and love Satan. Our motto is “Support the underground, bury yourself.”

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Sadistic Metal Reviews mini-feature – Arreat Summit

A quick EP of melodic metalcore/techdeaf – Arreat Summit’s Frostburn definitely hits all the expected points of 2008’s darling fusion – high levels of technical proficiency, candy coated melody, constant breakdowns, haphazard composition, and so forth. Usually this sort of thing doesn’t even rise to the point of being worthy of discussion (and I did find the actual music went almost unnoticed as I listened), but in this case, it resonated with me how eerily similar this is to playing the video games in the Diablo series that inspired it.

A quick primer – The first two games in the series are surprisingly atmospheric titles, at least by the standards of their age. In fact, I would go as far as to say that much of their potency is a result of Matt Uelmen’s excellent soundtrack work; Diablo II in particular frequently demonstrates his ability to mix coherent thematic development into unsettling ambient soundscapes. Back when I was most thoroughly engrossed in the game (read: 2008), though, my attention was instead turned towards repetitively grinding the game’s bosses in the slim hope of locating a powerful item that would allow me to do so slightly more efficiently. That was a much shallower and less fulfilling experience, albeit a powerfully addictive one more capable of destroying productivity than heroin. When you remove the setting from Diablo, it turns the game into a series of tangentially related and nonsensical murders. Similarly, when you remove the ‘setting’ from metal music, you’re left with what is little more than a technical exercise.

In summary, Arreat Summit’s successful portrayal of the grinding postgame of the series (to the point that they are named after a valuable piece of treasure that has no real lore attached to it) is a dubious honor at best.

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