Traversing the Underground: The Beginning of a Journey

tolkein moria gate

Article by David Rosales.

We often use the term underground following the multiple discussions of underground extreme metal started on Death Metal Underground by Brett Stevens himself. Conceptualizing it here would be redundant and confusing. Instead, we might benefit more from brainstorming that allows for the reveling of authenticity that so characterizes underground music. What we are interested in here is not metal only, or metal as a whole, but rather metal as conducive to realization, breaking of false boundaries, destruction of a false mainstream, doing away with a useless society, and a contempt for a decadent civilization that through negation is blind to its own fatality.

The answer is not in this or that genre, in formal philosophy, or in the bare findings of the scientific establishment, but in their use in service of individual discernment. Music itself, if taken as more than mere sensual distraction, is the intuitive way leading to the shattering of illusions perceived through the senses, instigated by the mundane. This is not mere sophistry,; its most practical result is that in the abstract realizations thereof the mind is free to challenge what before appeared as commandments written in stone. Reality does not belong to anyone; truth is a quest.

baphomet pan shub-niggaurath
Unaussprechlichen KultenBaphomet Pan Shub-Niggurath (2014)
The tumultuous death metal of Unaussprechlichen Kulten captures the rawness of exploring black magic in darkness upon the listeners mind. What is significant about the interest of metal at large in what is hidden, what is occult, is not the morbidity alone, although that is the explanation that even luminaries may conjure and the only one that the rabble may consciously understand. The open door to asocial darkness, to inhumanity, to disintegration, is the contrast between ephemeral and the immanent. However, facing this burning darkness is also a voluntary act: it lies beyond good and evil, where the primal breath of the whole that puts our non-divinity into perspective. Here, the old school death metal expressions within free structures that never overextend and are perhaps inconclusive, nevertheless represent a perfect introduction to an energetic flow of destruction and consumption.

snowland mmxii
Sorcier des GlacesSnowland MMXII (2012)
A well-deserved update of Snowland, Sorcier des Glaces’ Snowland MMXII shines with self-attenuated glow, hiding vibrant vitality. This is the course of nobility after or through darkness. Sorcier des Glaces takes us to the essence of black metal as post-nihilism. What some would confuse with empiricism or mere scepticism, but is in reality free transcendentalism following death, complete nihilistic destruction. The dark light emanating from image and action, from reality and unreality, the delight beyond sensuality in the universe as it is as perceived imperfectly as we see it in the thousand ways in which we tune in to it.

Departure at Sunset
Isa – Отход на закате [Departure at Sunset] (2015)
Risking death by lynching, I’ll introduce this rather inconspicuous and only vaguely metal album as the culmination of this discussion. This lies more in the realm of ambient and is liable to be confused with post-rock when seen from a certain angle. Departure at Sunset captures the naturalist side of metal in a stronger way than do most these days. This is done in perhaps an extreme way that does not befit the always-hidden, the underground spirit of metal. That is, there might be too much sunshine in this for the traditional underground, so that it might seem counter-intuitive for some to see this as more authentically revealing than what sounds traditional. But the trademark old school sound has been hijacked for a long time now, it has been commercialized in what is almost a counter-spell to its original black conjuration. The truth seems to emerge, then, in the opposite, sunlit, ice-clear sounds of this ambient metal that transports us to Siberia as the antithesis to the modern world.

31 Comments

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Denner / Shermann Ready Masters of Evil

denner shermann

Michael Denner and Hank Shermann (the dueling guitar virtuosos behind Mercyful Fate) have announced that the mixing and mastering is done on the upcoming album from their technical power/speed metal project, Denner / Shermann. Hopefully Masters of Evil (to be released by Metal Blade Records on June 24th ) is better than their previous EP but don’t get your hopes up. Check out the preview track below:

No Comments

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Sadistic Metal Reviews: Fisting Female-Fronted Pseudo-Metal

goetz iron hand

Resistance fuels hatred and must be crushed beneath an iron fist.

the oath
The Oath – The Oath (2014)
“Whoa!” – Keanu Reeves. These women are actually fairly attractive! Usually metal girls are fat, under 5’4, and have saggy tits. Or they love Slipknot. I can see why Lee Dorian is dicking the hot one. This at least has riffs even if most of the songs wear out their welcome fairly quickly. There are Cathedral albums more boring than this but most of these songs feel like Motorhead if they smoked dope instead of cranked speed. Motorhead if Motorhead were boring and the songs went on two minutes too long and had random riff salad bridges. If these two would actually get naked on the cover like the real Coven and separated or refined their compositions, maybe this would be more listenable. Hold it is that riff from Bad Company? Who steals riffs from Bad Company? What kind of degenerate does that? If this is among the more listenable grrrl metal…

agoraphobic nosebleed arc
Agoraphobic Nosebleed – Arc (2016)
As ridiculous as their band name, Agoraphobic Nosebleed’s 2016 effort is a lazy mixture of stoner rock and deathcore. It consists of interleaved Black Sabbath-core grooves and pointless breakdowns accentuated by a menstruating screamo vocalist. By the very definition of those two genres, the reader should know this is but a string of feel-good moments with absolutely no point whatsoever.

One has to wonder if the band even knows what “agoraphobic” means, given their blatantly idiotic use in their band name. From there, we can easily tell how they would also try to use “fancy vocabs” from the metal terrain without even knowing what they are for, hence the constant groove with no beginning or ending. The meaningless breakdowns that do not necessarily make the stoner rock more bearable, but just emphasize what white trash trailer park music this is. It is an updated distorted-guitar redneck music.

Baroness Purple
Baroness – Purple (2015)
The most generic heavy metal rhythm guitar riffing possible clipped with too much compression and mixed with queer hipster rock for those who question their sexuality. I’m pretty sure the hairy girls in this band are in a polygamous relationship with the dude singing and blow roadies on the side. Kind of like how Carrie Fischer let the crew members of the original Star Wars rip the tape off her tits only with more Hepatitis C positive semen from people who tried intravenous drugs. This album sounds like my local modern rock radio station who plays Bush twice a day. Baroness is the most generic 2003 rock possible only maybe one of these girls’ brothers had Led Zeppelin and Metallica posters in her bedroom. Baroness should go back to VH1. Wait VH1 doesn’t air this crap anymore as even VH1 realized how terrible it is. VH1 is Rock of Love now.

wolvserpent
Wolvserpent – Aporia:Kāla:Ananta (2016)
Who knows why we ever receive these sort of promos that are not remotely metal, though perhaps some suppose there is a connection because the sound and procedure may remind one of the pointlessness of post metal/rock. At the center of Wolvserpent’s music is a violin playing repetitive music while the fringes are filled with synthesizers, bass and some kind of distorted noise to fill the space. I imagine this purports to be ambient, and it evidently takes cues not only from what we know today as classic ambient but from the old, more noise-inclusive and experimental one. At some point during the 40 minutes of this release, towards the approach of its middle section, a growl-screech appears and we become the audience of a post-doom-black nothingness that lasts for about 5 minutes. After this, the music tries to pick up by adding some synths to beef up the emptiness of the lame doom metal writing that approximates what Esoteric do most of the time (waste your time with largely content-less sections while pretending to have an ambient edge). This amounts to little more than piled up noise with some consonance. This melting away proceeds for about 8 more minutes, after which we are introduced to a 4-minute hum. This hum gives then serves as background for some 3 classical string instruments playing repetitive disonant arpeggios for 3 or 4 more minutes until only they remain and the music fades out to the sound of soothing, rolling, waves. Empty and boring. Throw this away

Cult-of-Luna-and-Julie-Christmas-Mariner
Cult of Luna & Julie Christmas – Mariner (2016)
Enya songs with randomly inserted post-metalcore sludge bridges. Are those bongos? Is this Arise? Who thought of this? Whoever thought of this should be shot in the back of the head by their local troika, have their children post-nataly aborted, and their women deported to the camps for wives of traitors to the motherland.

snake tongue
Snake Tongue – Raptor’s Breath (2016)
Random stolen eighties metal riffs made into Entombedcore with gang vocals by Kurt Ballou. I think that’s a woman in the promo picture. Maybe it’s a man who is just confused that his baby dick is a big clitoris. Yeah they can get that big. Haven’t you seen Backdoor to Chyna?
band

necrosic cover
Necrosic – Putrid Decimation (2016)
These girls imagine what would have happened if in 1990 Autopsy had written songs entirely out of mosh riffs broken up by hardcore and shameless lifts from Slayer’s catalog. The answer is a metal band that would have only have been fit to play pizza parlors filled with 17 year olds too busy playing arcade games to pay attention. Anthrax if Anthrax decided to cash-in on sludge instead of nu-metal in the early 90s.

sacrilege reissue
Sacrilege – Behind the Realms of Madness (1985)
This is the sort of release that exemplifies that some releases were never meant to be heard, not to mention be re-released. To pretend this is some sort of hidden gem is to pander to the clueless audience’s sense of nostalgia in the most dishonest way. Sacrilege never amounted to much as their music was never much. What we hear in hear in Behind the Realms of Madness is the sort of simpleton’s generic metal any angry teenager could be writing and playing in his garage with his friends after huffing glue. Each of these songs is based entirely upon a single riff played ad nauseam while an angry woman shouts about how much she hates her father. There are random supplementary riffs here and there but they are just meant to provide some sense of dynamism to the propulsion of the main riff. The main riffs in every song are generic and almost indistinguishable, the vocals are identical (some angry British woman screaming about how she got fucked over by her dad who wouldn’t pay for her BA in Womyn’s and Sexual Identity Studies), and every single song has the same kind of poser-trudging-accross-the-mall-food-court from Hot Topic vibe about it.

sacred few - beyond cover
Sacred Few – Beyond the Walls (1985)
Another mediocre eighties heavy metal album with an annoying vocalist that deserved to be forgotten. Manilla Road this is not; the songwriting is generic, the riffs unoriginal, and the guitar tone too thin. This was only pressed to CD to cash in on idiot hipsters dumb enough to be deluded by Vice into believing that metal needs more dumpy women. I would rather listen to every Motorhead album I don’t remember even exists than this lame woman who drinks too much Budweiser again. This is retro-metal for cuckolded submissive males who think Steve Harris is Pogrom and jerked off to the blonde women in catsuits from The Oath instead of real porn. I’m going to crack open another Coors Banquet and use this CD as a coaster. Wait is the Puerto Rican  guy in the collar her slave?
Sacred_Few-promo_photo

lizzies cover
Lizzies – Good Luck (2016)
Judas Priest covered by Spanish pre-op transsexuals. Listening to this album makes me want to chop my leg off so my femoral artery will bleed out in three minutes. Two tracks in and I just put on Unleashed in the East instead. Let’s all listen to that classic instead of this crap:

59 Comments

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Question – Doomed Passages (2014)

question-doomed_passages

This review was contributed to Death Metal Underground by Neil Sigmundsson.

The best albums are greater than the sum of their parts and provide the capability for listener immersion due to their length and integration but the song is still generally the most important and most fundamental compositional unit in death metal. Paying too much attention to atmosphere, musicianship, individual riffs, or other aesthetical and shallow (though important) qualities of an album can lead to overlooking compositional shortcomings, especially after the mind starts to fatigue or when listening to dense material. This is the case with Doomed Passages, which feels convincing – and in some aspects it is – but suffers from a number of flaws that might be missed during casual listening. That being said, even though the music of Question is imperfect, it is modest and sincere and at its best moments overflows with contagious vigor and energy that leaps fearlessly towards the abyss, a mark of the upper echelons of death metal artists.

First, praise is due to some of the mechanical and aesthetical elements of this album. The roaring, expressive vocals, replete with various single-syllable exclamations and grunts, are highly enjoyable and benefit from a cavernous quality due to studio-induced reverb. The drums are commendable in their creativity and in demonstrating a subtle understanding of the level of activity that best complements any given situation. Rumbling double bass creates a “rolling” sensation of high momentum at certain tempi. The production is deep and clear, and has a bit of cushion, but more separation between the instruments might have been beneficial.

There are two truly excellent songs on Doomed Passages: the second and fifth tracks. “Nefarious Conclusion” is the most structurally rigorous composition on the album, being basically linear but still having a clear exposition, rising action, climax, and falling action. This results in a rewarding experience. 0:00-0:50 is an example of creating variation, exploration, and motion out of a single phrase. The drum build-up to the invigorating climactic riff is genius; it sounds like transitioning from walking to running. The transitions at 1:15 and 4:34 are somewhat rough, but not enough to harm the composition. “Universal Path of Disgrace” has one of the most memorable riffs on the album, a sprawling eight bar tremolo-picked cycle. After the second occurrence of this riff and its accomplice, the song heads logically into a strange middle section that sounds like being in an unstable, slightly psychedelic limbo. A climax and resolution emerge from there. This song offers an interesting journey but it is slightly less satisfying than “Nefarious Conclusion.”

Aside from these two tracks, the remainder of the material on Doomed Passages shows promise and has shining moments but suffers from various problems. Some of these issues are abrupt transitions (“Mournful Stench” at 3:35), weak conclusions (“Devoured from Within”), and segments that overstay their welcome (the introduction of “…Bitter Gleam of Inexistence”). However, the major recurring problem and the biggest downfall of Question, though it is not immediately apparent due to the large number of riffs (many of which sound similar), is the purposeless, wandering song structures. In their template, Question take a single riff or a small group of riffs that act as an “anchor,” and they dance a bunch of ideas around that anchor before departing in an uncertain, random direction. This resembles a very relaxed version of what Slayer pioneered on tracks like “At Dawn They Sleep,” which completes two verse-chorus cycles and then departs radically from pop structure. The difference – and it’s a significant difference – is that Slayer maintained a strong narrative and a sense of purpose and tension throughout the entirety of their songs, whereas Question is usually content with wandering aimlessly. That Question can string a huge number of riffs together without the result sounding like patchwork is impressive (see “Grey Sorrow”), but cohesion alone does not make death metal of lasting quality, and as a result an appreciable amount of this material feels pointless and is frustrating to endure.

As hinted at above, there are simply too many riffs on Doomed Passages, a large proportion of which are interchangeable and forgettable, appear only once, and serve no vital function. Question demonstrate that they know how to overcome this problem in multiple ways (developing phrases, relating riffs through common or similar phrases, writing highly memorable riffs, returning to previous ideas in different contexts, etc.), but they need to apply these habits more diligently. There are focused passages, and there are highly memorable riffs, but ideally all of the passages should be focused and all of the riffs memorable and necessary. Thus, whereas many death metal bands have simplified their song structures to the detriment of the music, Question can actually benefit from being somewhat more repetitive in order to remove the forgettable and less evocative riffs and develop only their best and darkest ideas. This can be done while retaining the narrative, exploratory song structures. It will occurs more  naturally and easily when the music is written and played with specific purpose and direction. More dynamics might also help in stressing important sections, as the sound sometimes blends into a monotonous stream. The digital, compressed production is of no help.

Another lesser issue with Doomed Passages is that consonance sometimes feels out of place when it appears in the midst of the generally dissonant and chromatic music. The interlude “Through the Vacuous River” is the most blatant offender, though the riff at 5:28 of “Universal Path of Disgrace” is questionable as well. While consonance is not vital for this music to express something meaningful, there is potential in its skillful application, as demonstrated by 3:00-3:35 of “Mournful Stench,” a section that arises at an appropriate time but is unfortunately not fully developed. The acoustic final track also works fairly well in context. If Question would hone their skills at incorporating consonance into their musical language, the wider range of expression will provide them with more tools for communication.

The standout songs on this album prove that Question is capable of writing intense and adventurous narrative death metal of the highest caliber. All of the tracks have redeemable and enjoyable qualities and marks of skilled craftsmanship, but most are hampered by the flaws discussed above. To further improve their already above average music, Question need to at least  scrap the forgettable riffs and instead develop more extensively their best ideas while taking  the reins and writing more directed and focused compositions. The second change can be realized either by forcing the songs to move toward clear climaxes and satisfying conclusions or by finding some wisdom and inspiration that can be represented in and communicated through the music. These young musicians are certainly technically proficient but need to write more coherent compositions if they want to inspirit their music instead of joining the ranks of so many other failed techdeath endeavors.

Readers may listen to Doomed Passages on Chaos Record’s Bandcamp page.

10 Comments

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Occult Burial – Hideous Obscure (2016)

occult burial - cover

Article by Corey M.

Overall satisfying (but not quite inspiring) straightforward songs with equal parts thrash and proto-death metal present. I don’t quite hear the “occult” sound these guys are evidently going for; their music sounds too immediate and, weirdly, fun. The band members clearly enjoy creating this music and therefore their work is free of pretense; no revivalist coat-tail riding here. Expect to hear fairly similar-sounding riffs throughout, without much in the way of dynamics. Compared to their contemporaries in bands like Nifelheim and Aura Noir, Occult Burial are competent and maybe even a step ahead of the more popular bands that mix thrash with modern metal because they aren’t impeded by gimmickry. Their lack of theatrics may work against them because they will probably continue to be overlooked until they learn to cut loose and let their imaginations run a little more wild with their songs. Compared to the more aggressive speed metal classics from Coroner and Razor, parts of Hideous Obscure are downright boring. Even playing a bit faster and cleaning up the recording could do wonders for the effectiveness of these songs. Some parts sound truly terrible. For instance, the snare drum sounds  in the words of my favorite robot puppet “like a bag of sardines thrown up against the side of a pole barn.” Nevertheless there is promise here and I would reserve more judgment until Occult Burial release a proper-sounding album or I can catch them live.

22 Comments

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Ihsahn: New Emperor Album Would Be Pointless Disappointment

emperor bandt

Ihsahn has stated that if Emperor reunited, there would be “Absolutly no point” in recording a new album as “It would be a disappointment.” He claims any new Emperor work would be similar to his masturbatory solo material. Perhaps Ihsahn should have come to this conclusion over two decades ago; Emperor’s post In the Nightside Eclipse material after Faust and Samoth went to prison consisted of merely interesting black metal riffs arranged into one-note verse chorus verse songs propelled forward mainly by soft versus hard contrasts. Ihsahn is right that creatively bankrupt guitar magazine pandering is not worth Hessians’ precious time. Listen to the original master of In the Nightside Eclipse again instead:

8 Comments

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Beer Metal Label Goes Broke, Starts Ponzi Scheme

witches brew

Blockheaded beer metal label Witches Brew is bankrupt from releasing beer metal and the owner’s bottom feeding A&R at German beer halls and rethrash bands’ MySpace pages. Many record labels are passion projects or Ponzi schemes. Witches Brew is openly the latter now. Their failure proves that experienced Hessians would rather buy actual beer and Obsessed by Cruelty reissues than sub-Little Caesar’s pizza thrash.

State of the Brewery address 2016. Despite having maintained a super positive attitude since our rebirth in 2013, the current state of Witches Brew is that the label is broke/bankrupt. Having invested nearly 90% of my job income into the label and in the end now being in debt over 7000 EUR, reality has hit me that it’s just not possible to keep going at the level I’ve been trying. Especially not in light of the fact that I will be jobless at the end of this month. I took a lot of chances, invested a lot of money in bands that in the end basically used me for a free ride. Disappointed is how I have felt in the last weeks. I’m NOT stopping the label, I’m just downsizing to a handful of bands and releases will be a few a year, because I’ll need to raise the money from sales in order to pay for the releases since my job money won’t be there anymore. I also have to get myself out of the damn debt somehow.

3 Comments

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Death Fortress – Deathless March of the Unyielding (2016)

death fortress deathless march of the unyielding

Article by Corey M.

Death Fortress play a truly bellicose version of black metal but not in the Blasphemy war-metal style aped by pointless tribute acts. Deathless March of the Unyielding is minimalist in that it eschews all excessive instrumentation like all the best black metal. Guitars slash out streams of elegiac tremolo melodies or simply strummed chords (there are no leads or trippy guitar effects). The drums either play blasts or dominant marching rhythms. Vocals orate battle commands or agonizingly recount Pyrrhic victories. The overall theme of the music seems to be battles with no heroes and wars with no victors. It’s a deconstruction of Graveland‘s or Bathory‘s style that brought forth the glorious aspect of defeating and conquering: war is still the object in question but the subject isn’t life; it is sorrowful, lonely death.

The melodies are crafted with a tenuous balance between intense grimness and clouded dejection. This is music about warriors and war but not in the fantastical sense that black metal usually takes: no witchcraft or frozen forests are to be found here, only shredded tank tracks, bent artillery barrels, crushed bodies of hapless infantry infused in twisted heaps of smoldering slag, and blackened holes gouged into the earth itself. A useful comparison would be Sammath‘s mid-period output of Dodengang and Triumph in Hatred, though those albums reveal a deeply heartfelt motivation to illustrate the gruesome carnage of warfare without completely abandoning the near-romantically empathetic ties to the fallen fighter. Death Fortress take a more distant, aloof approach, neither glorifying nor condemning the act or outcome and treating the soldier as another soulless statistic. Both bands approach the horrific topic with a sternly wide-eyed, unflinching resolve, giving us the opportunity to witness visions far more stark and distressing than the cartoonish swords ‘n’ sorcery take on combat that black metal too often peddles.

Yet this album suffers from a major drawback: the musicians share the contemporary tendency to disappear up their own asses in wringing all emotive potential from a line of melody. There aren’t any comically awufil or idiotic chord progressions but some of them are inappropriate and others repeated for far too long. The songs have plenty of breathing room and the band never seem to be at a loss for direction or trying to cram in too many lyrics before their riffs overstay their welcome. At times, it’s too easy to become impatient while waiting for the band to introduce the next segment. No amount of drum fills or effects trickery would fix this; the fat needs to be trimmed and the compositions made more concise. A leaner, more refined Death Fortress could easily rise above the better-than-average position in which they sit now.

Readers may listen to Deathless March of the Unyielding at Death Fortress’s Bandcamp page and purchase a physical copy from Fallen Empire Records.

10 Comments

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Actual Death Metal Band Booked to Play Maryland Deathfest 2016

deathfest speedoman

Incantation have replaced Australian beer metal stalwarts Deströyer 666 at Maryland Crustfest 2016. The social justice warrior-ran parking lot sludge fest has attempted to branch out into the hipster, Coachella festival mainstream in recent years, abandoning its death metal roots and highlighting the divide between metal and the mainstream’s attempts to co-opt it. A band such as Arghoslent would present the perfect compromise between melodic speed metal catchiness and underground credibility to please both crowds. Hopefully, the Sludgefest organizers will not find out that Craig Pillard was once in Incantation.

34 Comments

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Sadistic Metal Reviews: Monday Mastications

FeedingPenguin
Oh here she comes. Watch out boy she’ll chew you up. She’s a maneater. – Darryl Hall and John Oates, 1982.

black tusk pillars of ash
Black Tusk – Pillars of Ash (2016)
A fusion of party rock, screamo, and hardcore punk, Pillars of Ash brings a risible contribution to the rock/punk spectrum that many a beginner is prone to confuse with metal. The relevant question here is whether or not Black Tusk have anything worthwhile to offer to the listener that may not be found in higher quality elsewhere. The answer is a resounding NO. The album plays like a tenuous stream of echoes of 1980s hardcore bands rearranged with Mario Paint.

tombs all empires fall
Tombs – All Empires Fall (2016)
Tombs is described in some places as black or post metal, and while there is some borrowing from black metal techniques in the use of some blast beats and an imitation of traditional black metal vocals, Tombs isn’t isn’t black metal. The post-metal is correctly applied in that this isn’t much more than a poor excuse for pseudo-ambient experiments with haphazardly connected sections being paraded as composition. There are strong references to doom metal, cheap and stompy heavy rock, with post rock being added as the way to get away with 3rd rate writing. All in all, boring, generic, unfocused, and unoriginal background music. Tombs is lounge music.

howls of ebb third eye
Howls of Ebb – Cursus Impasse: The Pendlomic Vows (2016)
Entirely random pastiche of metal clichés loosely held together by psychedelic interludes and a drunk vocalist feigning faux lunacy. If a blend of Voivod, galloping heavy metal, canned black metal and fuzz drenched noise rock wah wah soloing wasn’t pointless enough, the band commands and impressively dissociated catalog of occult vocabulary to match.

nucleus sentient
Nucleus – Sentient (2016)
Nucleus have fun in the studio and they want you, dear listener, to have fun at home with them. If you like Demilich but thought it was too strange, too serious, or too weird to play around your sister then Sentience is the record that delivers all the thrills of Finnish extradimensional insectoid death without danger of unthrashability. All the more perfect for fucking your sister behind the dumpster at the skatepark.

candelabrum necrotelepathy
Candelabrum – Necrotelepathy (2016)
Two twenty minute tracks of spooky landscapes, sad vampire vocals, and canned drum patterns. If the goal was to stride the line between hysterical and uncomfortable, this record is a resounding success. Necrotelepathy is more Vampire Diaries metal.

abyssus once entombed
Abyssus – Once Entombed (2016)
Another pizza thrash band with a veneer of death metal fronted by a Greek John Tardy fan. The album art and song titles make adequate use of Death Metal Band Generator. Perfect comedy for those Saturday mornings when you are drunk with fellow “scene veterans.”

clawhammer abortion slaughter campaign
Clawhammer Abortion – Slaughter Campaign (2016)
This band took every criticism levied against death metal and wrote an album of it. In order to get through, I turned it into a drinking game: Hear a cliché, drink. The only problem is I passed out drunk after three songs and the Editor took over. He heard so many Sodom breakdowns and generic grindcore riffs that he kicked my ghetto blaster into the campfire. Only the most calcified kidneys and fattiest livers prevail in the Eternal War.

13 Comments

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Classic reviews:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z