Polemicist – Zarathustrian Impressions (Fólkvangr, 2019)

In the past, metal journalism used to function mainly as a filtering device; weeding out the bad so that the good stuff would rise to the top. Nowadays, it’s more likely the other way around. We’re now searching for potential in a seemingly endless flow of “interesting” or pleasant-sounding junk. This task often requires time and patience, because those rare and far between releases will often sound similar to their lesser peers on a surface level. One illuminating example would be the Pennsylvanian epic death/black metal act Polemicist and their debut album Zarathustrian Impressions. Their music may not appear spectacular on casual listen, but repeated and concentrated exposure reveal unexpected qualities.

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Dayton Shooter Was Failed Goregrind Vocalist, Antifa Member

As the nation mourns the deaths of 9 people killed in the Dayton, Ohio shooting on Sunday more information about 24 year old shooter Connor Betts is surfacing based on his newly unearthed Twitter profile. While mainstream media outlets such as the Daily Beast have falsely reported that Betts had no links to extremist ideology, the account contains tweets that profess the gunman’s support of socialism, Satanism, and “Antifascism.”  

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Vargrav – Reign in Supreme Darkness (Werewolf Records, 2019)

Article by Belisario

Among the latest newcomers of note to the realms of underground metal we find Vargrav, a Finnish one-man-band with a debut album released in 2018 and a sophomore effort published just a few months ago. Under the title Reign in Supreme Darkness, this latest album has stirred some attention not only on account of the material itself but also owing to its recent live debut as part of the notorious SteelFest festival which takes place in Hyvinkää, the very city Vargrav hails from.

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Sammath – Across the Rhine is only death (2019)

Sammath returns to the days of its second and third album with a shredding assault that emphasizes tight, technical riffing that keeps to a simple theme and develops it with precision strumming integrated with exacting percussion. This takes the war metal idea into the technical death metal realm while preserving the black metal sense of melody and epic architectures to unite these alienated and reductive riffs.

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Sadistic Drive – Street Cannibal Gluttony/rehearsal 05/2019

Street Cannibal Gluttony/rehearsal 05/2019 consists of the Cannibal Gluttony demo and two new songs played in rehearsal,”Sadistic Drive” and a cover of Discharge’s “Maimed and Slaughtered”. A short release clocking in at just over seventeen minutes but shows the progression from a band alternating between Demilich like riffs and rapid fire Grindcore, to a band combining both in a smooth melange.

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Brief Analysis: Call and Response with Autopsy’s “Dead”

Upon initially hearing “Dead” on Autopsy’s Mental Funeral. Many would imagine that the second half consists of the same idea played on two different octaves before being harmonized together. While the call and response nature of this section may allude to that, the truth is surprisingly more complex as Chris Reifert and co decide to explore a much trickier idea of contrasting two related ideas played in opposition before reconciling them. Such notions are abound in rock music where the voice will alternate with the guitars during the verse before uniting with the chorus but in Metal such attempts have been met with general laughter. The more technical Hardcore bands would then introduce the poisonous and confused idea of then contrasting two completely unrelated ideas. Here Autopsy show that despite the simple nature of the melodies, that they are truly masters of the genre.

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