Totten Korps – Tharnheim: Athi-Land-Nhi; Ciclopean Crypts of Citadels

South America holds a very unholy place in the minds of Death Metal legions around the world, with the Brazilian scene of particular note for unearthing a bestial and blasphemous mode of Death Metal worship that drew inspiration from the mightiest warriors of Satan known to them: Bathory and Slayer, and would infuse these ideas with a level of wreckless primitivism and rawness unheard before. Chilean veterans Totten Korps’ music is an advancement of this style, assuming the forms of infamous Speed/Death barbarians like fellow Chileans, Pentagram and Brazilians, Holocausto and Vulcano within a cleaner soundspace that allows for more exploration of sinister melody in a winding, maze-like structure that is symbolic of the album’s perpetual struggle for primordial knowledge and occult powers. This is what separates Totten Korps from the trendier bands like Krisiun who have little taste for well thought-out narratives, preferring a collection of soundbites that cleave to a roughly Death Metal template. The band also knows how to keep the South American atavisms of bouncy and rhythmic passages that are punctuated by a vague melodic pattern in line with the greater whole of composition, often reflecting a central, recurring theme. There’s almost a Kataklysm-ic sense of grandeur in this method, although it sacrifices the flair of such precision for the fragmented and impulsive butchery of a good, old school Death Metal album from the land of condors and corpses.

Havohej, maggot
They are going to drag
Yourself in the dust
Ethereal orb
Let your thought go

Achtung! Totten Korps Kommen

In the abyssic southern lands of the Americas, an ancient force is re-awakening, as one of Chile’s best Death Metal bands prepares their next attack on this complacent world. After an absence of 9 years from the scene, within which saw the re-release of their last album, ‘Tharnheim: Athi-Land-Nhi; Ciclopean Crypts of Citadels‘ in a double-CD package along with another abomination of occultic Death Metal, Imprecation‘s ‘Theurgia Goetia Summa’, Totten Korps evoked the images of their forthcoming creation with these words to Deathmetal.Org:

Francisco Torres: I tell you that it’s gonna be really wicked, 9 songs and 2 old school bonus tracks… it is worth waiting for, we are very motivated and convinced that it will be a very good production. Right now, it’s 100% produced by Totten Korps, although we don’t discard any offer that may raise our interest. It’ll become a reality in April, at the latest.

Obviously the way we play and the sound have evolved in a very good way, take account of the 9 years that had passed by. Back in those years, the reachability and technology weren’t the same of today, so, now it’s much easier to achieve something monstrous.

Recalls the change in sound that occured in Sarcofago‘s music two decades ago, so it will be very interesting to hear what level of brutality can be summoned by this premier South American Death Metal band. For those unfamiliar with the capabilities of the Chilean commanding veterans Totten Korps, a review of their only full-length album is due to burst from the festering cadaver of this post and onto your screens.

Thanks to Octuple of Forest Poetry for the translation of Totten Korps’ update.

Dawn of Demonaic Possession, London Will Burn

Following a performance over at the Maryland Deathfest that had several generations of Metalheads mesmerised by their energy and pervasive, irreligious spirit, the enduring Immolation will be voyaging across the Atlantic to headline the London Deathfest later this month. The line-up should be turned on it’s head by the veterans at the end of the night. I recommend any morbid souls in the area to get a ticket soon and pay their respects to one of the most dedicated bands in Death Metal history.

27/06/2009 – London Deathfest, Camden Underworld, London UK

Clips
Into Everlasting Fire
Harnessing Ruin

Late July, and the height of Summer will bring to London one of the southern hemisphere’s most legendary Satanic Death Metal bands, Pentagram. Not to be confused with the band from Virginia, Chile’s Pentagram are representatives of the raw and uncompromising South American old school, contemporaneous to the likes of Sarcofago, Vulcano, Mortem and Sepultura. The band have re-united for several shows, apparently leading up to Wacken, so this appearance in London will be something of a preview and a chance to be possessed by your primal self before the dark altar of the Underworld.

21/07/2009 – Pentagram, Camden Underworld, London, UK

Clips
Fatal Predictions
Demonaic Possession