War metal band Kaeck — integrating elegant northern European black metal and technical death metal with its rampaging, atmospheric assault — will make its latest stream, “De kwekeling,” live at 12:00 EST on YouTube.
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Dauþuz – Vom schwarzen Schmied (2021)
For underground metal to inherit itself, it must become what it is, which is a complex transition between modern decay and a scientific pagan folk music that brings out the natural order in a transcendental beauty of light paired with darkness, and to do that, it must go inward and unleash the complexity of its conflicts.
3 CommentsTags: Black Metal, dauþuz
Hideous Death – “Remnants of Archaic Evil” (2021)
This demo mixes the anthemic aspects of 1980s heavy metal and melodic speed metal with the primitivism of early war metal, achieving a sound later than Venom but earlier than Slayer, while covertly working in techniques from underground metal for a hooky but self-possessed release.
No CommentsTags: hideous death, Speed Metal
Katavasia – Invoking the Spirit of Doom (2021)
The problem with black metal is that it tried to evolve, not realizing that it was the ultimate evolution and had to go within, making more complex melodies and keeping its droning ambient mood-shifting textural structure. Katavasia attempts to return to black metal with heavy metal roots like Varathron, from which it borrowed personnel.
3 CommentsTags: Black Metal, katavasia
Massacre – Resurgence (2021)
Like most of nowadays death metal, this album has its moments, but fundamentally, is a speed metal and heavy metal hybrid dressed up as death metal. Like rock music, it focuses on establishing tonal centers and then using fills around those to keep its riffs together, instead of getting fully chromatic and using phrasal, through-composed music.
2 CommentsTags: death metal, massacre
Sinister Perpetual Damnation Reissue Arrives
Foundational Dutch death metal band Sinister has re-issued its 1990 demo “Perpetual Damnation” on a CD, cassette, and vinyl release titled Perpetual Damnation. You can get your copy from Xtreem Music or on the Hammerheart Records compilation The Blood Past.
No CommentsTags: death metal, hammerheart, sinister, xtreem
Sadist Reveal Upcoming Album Firescorched
Progressive death metal band Sadist, who brought an early fusion of 1970s prog with 1990s technical death metal, intend to revisit their origins with Firescorched, their ninth album, due out in 2022.
5 CommentsTags: death metal, Progressive Death Metal, sadist
Deber – Aspire to Affliction (2021)
This band wears its influences on its sleeve — Evoken, Worship, Skepticism, and Colosseum — but at its core, this is something more like EyeHateGod, a riff look that breaks into an inner sanctum of something like rage, emulating a cry from the betrayed generation that carved out the rudiments of underground metal.
No CommentsTags: deber, Doom Metal
MDD Records Re-Issues Abomination Abomination (1990)
One of the heads of the Paul Speckmann hydra — Death Strike, Funeral Bitch, Master, Abomination, and Speckmann Project — Abomination presented an early vision of the grinding punk, speed metal, and 1970s rock fusion that formed the basis of the Speckmann ideal of death metal.
2 CommentsTags: abomination, death metal
Birth Ritual Records Re-Issues Sentenced Down
Birth Ritual records added Sentenced Down to its roster of tapes licensed from Century Media. Originally released in 1996, the album showed where Sentenced went after the formative North From Here, and while it was quality heavy metal, it missed out on the mystical atmosphere of earlier releases.
No CommentsTags: birth ritual records, Heavy Metal, sentenced
