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Glorious Times: A Pictorial of the Death Metal Scene (1984-1991)

Some readers may have noticed the recent addition of a side bar promoting “Glorious Times -A Pictorial of the Death Metal scene (1981-1991)” and this inclusion is not without good reason. Laid out like the highly evolved Heavy Metal magazine we all wish we would see at the nearest news-stand, “Glorious Times” in true discriminatory fashion includes amongst its pages bands actually worth discovering and rediscovering, and although the layout is consciously rooted in the DIY mentality of early fanzines, this highly professional document provides a genuine glimpse into the workings of the early and mainly North American Death metal phenomenon.

Providing a visual assault via rare and intriguing photos that both neophyte and seasoned veteran alike will find delightful, “Glorious Times” also includes entertaining and enlightening anecdotes by and about many of the foundational North American death metal acts. Although some of the accounts are funny, juvenile and downright adolescent, they remain above all inspiring, standing as a testament to the devoted individuals who were dedicated to an art form that for them was the last bastion of truthful expression in the time of “The Great Lie”.

Given the “glory” of the documented time era we read thus with a slight sense of melancholy and loss, the release of a text such as this proving that these times have passed. With some misgivings we witness within ourselves a nostalgic longing for the mutual respect that those participatory individuals had for one another by virtue of their commitment to a common goal. We marvel additionally at the perseverance and DIY mentality of these restless and visionary artists, and commend their youthful and innocent intensity. We look fondly upon the early exuberance and the inherent excitement that permeated a movement that was giving birth to new and truthful forms of expression, but above all we witness and thus long for a genuine spirit of brotherhood and camaraderie such that now seems lost, although not dead, on the Hessian community.

However, the potent power of a document such as this, its capacity to inspire, rally and excite may yet prove itself invaluable in infusing the Hessian community with the spirit with which it was once animated. The seeds are laid – Onward!

DeathMetal.Org imperious choice picks of 2010 a.y.p.s.

Looking back on another fallen year, we might be reminded that the prior chapter of 2009 represented a global uprising of Death and Black Metal bands opposed to the phenomenon of underground Metal as a commodity as perpetuated by an impulsive, media-consumed, mass internet cult who denounce the culture of values which necessitated the very form of the music itself. This served to strengthen already riotous scenes of desecration and barbarity in extreme territories such as Australia and Canada, and forces across the United States and Europe began to mobilise with a renewed sense of dedication, guided by a selection of ancient voices who have not compromised their integrity to capture a new but deluded fanbase like their peers. The golden ages of Death and Black Metal have long since past and any campaigns to revive the spirit of Hessianism in Metal are not only in their infancy but vastly overshadowed by the populist trends that define the landscape of the genre today. As such, with the burden of anticipation on it’s shoulders, 2010 was by and large seized by veteran armies determined to distill the essence of their unholy craft from the impurities of our age, guiding further generations of warriors to victory. And though our imperious choices of 2010 are dominated by the hands of experience, a few young hordes also rose to the yawning of this battlefield to make bold and vigourous statements as the continuing legacy of true Metal’s eternal spirit.

Ares Kingdom – Incendiary

There is a certain door that any contemporary thrash band seeking quality must go through, a certain threshold that requires imagination and the indispensable talents of assimilation to really cross; in metal today, we see countless fragile trends that depend upon a rigid nostalgia and a lifeless worship of what has already happened, fully ignorant of the fact that what has true staying power is never something that was an idle imitation of something that was actually born of genius. In contrast to these bands, specifically the ones which belong to the so-called ‘retro-thrash’ trend, Ares Kingdom is of the opposite mindset; Ares Kingdom does not want to merely copy its primary influences, but to implement and authentically incorporate these influences into a relatively bold and forward-looking composition. The basic idea of ‘Incendiary’ is quite simple: destroy the phoenix so that she may be reborn, an idea which is not so far from the opening narration of the Destroyer 666 track, Rise of the Predator. The execution, on the other hand, is what brings the band closer to actually demonstrating this vision than any other insignificant band that elects to portray death and apocalypse for aesthetic reasons alone; from the dismal album artwork to the indifference in Alex’s vocals, from the sad, painful melodies to the caustic and fiery riffs and solos that Chuck Keller (Order From Chaos) delivers, the listener can derive a sure sense of impending, even immediate doom. In conclusion, Ares Kingdom is not your average headbangin’, beer-swillin’, hell-worshipping thrash metal; ‘Incendiary’ offers us all the pace and vigour of the classic eighties bands, only it is properly assimilated and raised to a higher level through the cold visage of death metal and the individual imagination of the album’s creators. While sacrificing a bit of the rampant speed of the earlier recordings, ‘Incendiary’ compensates with a thoughtful development that is essential in allowing the band to convey its dark, apocalyptic vision; in other words, through the utility of a confident and dynamic mindset, Ares Kingdom has defiantly revealed a genuine idea independent of its forebears, and in so doing has crossed the threshold that has left so many inferior bands begging at the door. -Xavier

Autopsy – The Tomb Within

Of the artists who remain from times past, under whose names were unleashed the most disturbing and poignant sounds that defined Death Metal, Autopsy belong to a radical minority in rejecting the expectations of the contemporary audience and find their way back to the essence of their own sound on pure instinct alone. While the last couple of years has seen a rising of undead hordes practicing the ancient forms in a global campaign to transcend the pollutant mainstreamification of Death Metal, very few of these bands have really unlocked the primal secrets which were channelled into every classic of the old school – the dynamics of energy and the implementation within a brutal-violent, hysteric-emotional or transcendental-contemplative narrative, which the veteran likes of Asphyx, Autopsy and Goreaphobia have all recently demonstrated. The simple, largely hysteric level that ‘The Tomb Within’ operates on makes it a powerful exercise of a seamless compositional style that is completely shaped by a savage state of consciousness, unintelligent yet impulsively aware of it’s own imminent death. Like an onrush of blood pumped through contracting arteries, guitars portray the frantic inner drama of one of Dr. Herbert West’s re-animations, diametrically opposed to his precise formulations regarding post-mortem. Atonal layering in the manner of Slayer’s more pathological works increases tension during these surging passages, punctuated by lead guitars that put to rest any hope of sanity returning. The trademark sludginess of Autopsy’s sound comes from instruments that are seemingly encased in adipocere, retaining within them all the character of their most memorable titles; not aspiring for a modern, clinical definition to their riffs but instead emphasising the rhythmic flow of energy in order to convey the sensations and suffocating experience of mortal dread. The band finds the balance once again of deathly force and doomy realisations as slower riffs offset the hysteria with tollings of morbid heaviness and an inescapable fate. Though Autopsy have stripped Death Metal to an essential skeletal frame, with the added simplicity of a horror movie-like thematic approach, this EP brings a much needed dimension of fear and madness to a world obsessed with ‘zombie horror’ as a populist, retro-hipster, marketing aesthetic. -ObscuraHessian

Avzhia – In My Domains

Another excellent tonal poem by this Mexican symphonic horde sees a sense of orchestration and riff balance that has all the consistency of ‘The Key Of Throne‘ from 2004, though takes a deeper foray into the realm of cinematic, ambient orchestration that recalls what Summoning have been getting at for the last 15 years, mixed with the battle hardened epics of Lord Wind. This new turn in a more heavily instrumental form recalls what fellow countrymen The Chasm brought about in the form of last year’s ‘Farseeing The Paranormal Abysm’, with a little less emphasis on the central role of vocals. Though rather than the syncretic, melodic death metal of their peers, Avzhia’s black metal assault owes it’s periphery to the best works of Emperor, Graveland, Ancient, Summoning and Xibalba, throwing them into a cohesive and bombastic mould. I would not say that this tops their previous full length, but this follow up is very worthy indeed and consolidates their status as one of the great torch bearers of what black metal stood to express, the embodiment of restoring mystical imagination in the listener. -Pearson

Divine Eve – Vengeful and Obstinate

Graveland – Cold Winter Blades

The unstoppable Rob Darken took again some time from swordfights and armour forging to take a look at the barbaric-modernist thematic system devised by composers such as Richard Wagner and Basil Poledouris, with a metallic energetic pulse rarely witnessed since “Following the Voice of Blood”; the last of the fast Graveland albums. The lack of Capricornus hardly matters because the authentic or perfectly synthesized drumkit recalls the same Celtic tribal warmarches and the raw, unsymmetric heartbeat of a primal man hunted by wolves, perfectly countered by the dark druid’s usual cold and hardened vocal delivery. A deeply neo-classical realization how to build heaviness through doomy speeds and chordal supplements still elevates the Polish seeker-initiator into a force far beyond today’s puny black and heathen metal “royalty”, looming beyond as a frightening presence of unrealized wisdom; nothing less than the Manowar of black metal, with no hint of irony or self-loathing. There exist two directions of expansion since the ethereal melodic chime of alfar nature in “From the Beginning of Time” is Summoning-esque (“Spear of Wotan” even features a variation of the “Marching Homewards” melody) while the harmonic perception takes a sudden dive into folkloric origins in the proto-rock riffing of “White Winged Hussary”, reminiscent of the most “redneckish” moments of the early albums. No essential component has been changed in a decade of work, but slight improvements of formula keep the mystically oriented listener spinning towards the distantly heard croaking ravens that herald the upcoming axe age, one that shall bless our corrupted world with a merciful blow from Wotan’s spear of un-death. -Devamitra

Immolation – Majesty and Decay

Inquisition – Ominous Doctrines of the Perpetual Mystical Macrocosm

Recent history has borne witness to developments in Black Metal that sets the music more at war against itself than with it’s traditional enemies and time has accumulated vast quantities of debris resulting from this internal crisis of identity and credibility. The shape of all the rubble is appropriately rocky, resembling the multitude of “fairy land” daydreams based on genres of alternative popular music incorporated to gain the approval of outsiders who possess no more understanding of the wolfish, warlike and mystic poetry of Black Metal’s spiritual essence, but want to claim this ‘niche market’ as their own. Even the cloak of demonic symbology, long-since regarded as a joke to even the casual listener – little more than a generic garb for posturing and associating with the genre’s ancestors – has been accordingly stripped of all occultic luminance, which shined too fiercely over the eyes of the humanist infiltrator, such that the tears of depressive-suicidal ideologies would instantly evaporate. None of these signs of the times, however, have influenced the veteran duo of Dagon and Incubus, who, in an ultimate statement of Satanic zealotry and inhuman purity, tunnel back to the hypnotic primitivism of Black Metal’s first waves, re-formulating and refining the style of early Bathory to produce an album that reveals the inherent mystical wisdom which inspires Black Metal’s sinister imagery, with no recourse to obvious cliches nor over-intellectualisations in order to clutch at some idea of artistic credibility and potency. Based on the technique of Immortal’s ‘Pure Holocaust‘, Inquisition craft expansive yet blasting soundscapes from swirling portals of riffing immediately reminiscent of ‘The Return……‘ by Bathory in it’s Punkish brevity. These are inflected by dissonant open-chords and all manner of string-bending and sliding chaos to create a legitimate sense of increasing cosmic awareness and trans-dimensional ascension, as they circulate around each song’s central melody in a bizzarely motivic fashion. This is a component that bands such as Blut Aus Nord, who aspire to embellish their songs in such an experimental way, simply do not possess. Even the most meandering of arpeggiated open-chords don’t feel derivative as they sound out powerful and song-defining melodies rather than merely filling out time and space. Similarly to fellow Latin Americans Avzhia, Inquisition create a total sense of grandeur by bringing songs to an apex of expression through essentially simple but epic power-chord riffs. The masterful percussive transitions of Incubus guide the album fluidly between the various evolutionary elements of Inquisition’s sound, from the majestically crashing and pounding cadences of Burzum to the rolling avalanche of Immortal. ‘Ominous Doctrines of the Perpetual Mystical Macrocosm’ is in many ways the album that the Blashyrkh horde should have recorded instead of ‘All Shall Fall’, as even Dagon’s toneless chanting style is somehow more expressive than past vocalisations in its similarity to Abbath. But all comparisons aside, there is no doubt as to which band reigns the Black Metal underground almost alone these days as Inquisition have created another uncompromising and profound work that no other so-called Satanists have the power to match. -ObscuraHessian

Into Oblivion – Creation of a Monolith

Mutant Supremacy – Infinite Suffering

The New York City borough of Brooklyn might be better known to the universal consciousness as “The Hipster Capital of the World”, “A Fantastic Place to Collect STDs”, or “Where Culture Goes to be Sodomized”, amongst other colorful and imaginative epithets. Naturally, any self-touting Metal bands originating from this region ought to be approached with utmost scrutiny, as these are all almost invariably revealed to be alternative rock acts hiding beneath a masquerade of long hair and Dionysian discord. Breaking decisively away from this brand of perfidious whoredom are nouveau death metallers Mutant Supremacy, who occupy a peculiar nexus in between Monstrosity, Dismember, and Infester — thus setting them apart from the archetypal NYDM style as well. Seemingly fueled by an intense hatred for the free-loving cosmopolitanism that surrounds them, this band constructs theatrically explosive war-anthems conceptualized around a post-nuclear-apocalyptic Hell on Earth, rife with Thrasymachan rhetoric, biological abominations, and grisly accounts of human extermination. Songwriting on this debut mostly shows a clean-cut and sharp sense of narration clearly indicative of a studied discipline in the arts of classic Slayer, although there are a few odd weak moments where stylistic confusion vomits forth a spate of old school clichés and uncompelling Flori-death/Swe-death/British Grindcore aggregates. Overall, however, there is certainly something refreshingly violent in development here, and it’s a victory to hear such a proud death knell coming from what is otherwise an utterly syphilis-addled portion of the planet. -Thanatotron

Profanatica – Disgusting Blasphemies Against God

True to form, Profanatica release a focused, energetic and iconoclastic opus that shatters and mocks any infantile and moralistic conception of reality. Both compositionally and aesthetically powerful, the production on “Disgusting Blasphemies against God” is both clear and full, lending itself nicely to an analysis of its subtleties and providing the clarity necessary to gain a chuckle at the expense of nearby spectators privy to the album’s intrusive vitriol. Ledney’s vocals are hilariously clear yet retain a threateningly violent quality that is becoming of this style of Black Metal. As Ledney vomits forth his blasphemic ritual, listeners are treated to a notably ominous musical atmosphere that is uncomfortably somber, deranged and challenging. Utilizing single note tremolo picking, reminiscent of a cross between a more consonant Havohej and the effective and simple melodies of VON, Ledney in is his genius, develops motifs, that while perhaps more obvious and accessible, remain potent and successfully create an intriguing state of anxiety. These motifs both seamlessly emerge from, and return to sinister Incantation style riffs which work together to develop a unity and structural coherence that while primal and simple is undoubtedly effective. The interplay between these musical variable creates an overall experience that portends the celebration of the powerful, living and animated chthonic mysteries and perhaps more pressingly the apotheosis of their necessary destructive capacities. -TheWaters

Slaughter Strike – At Life’s End

Toronto’s death dealers unearth the forgotten formulas of 80s-90s extreme metal in their second offering, a follow-up to the debut cassette “A Litany of Vileness”. This punk-driven death metal statement delivered by veterans of Canadian scene (former members of The Endless Blockade and Rammer) shows no mercy: it is short, volatile and dirty. Yet, at the same time the material is well weighed and balanced, blessed with the genuine feel of old-school art. The production helps conveying old metal nostalgia whereas Spartan songwriting confronts useless acrobatic tendencies of the modern scene. The band’s uncompromising music is perfectly collaborated with artwork by Moscow artist Denis Kostromitin. Standing on the shoulders of giants like Autopsy, Carnage, Pestilence, Repulsion and Discharge these reapers managed to find a voice of their own. We can only hope that this beautifully presented vinyl-only release is a “carnal promise” of Slaughter Strike’s prospects. -The Eye in the Smoke

Death Metal Album of the Week: Immolation – Unholy Cult

For most death metallers, evil is not spread at the behest of a paranormal entity lurking beyond the horizon, demonic possession or a tempter, but instead there is a devious core of man’s unawareness, parasitic tendency and “blind leading the blind”, leading society to a vicious circle of uncaring mutants annihilating each other through various games and contrivances of modern culture, seen as necessities. Immolation, one of the most skillful yet direct conjurers of death metal art, organized “Unholy Cult” as a series of statements in man’s capacity to evil and the existentialist oblivion in realizing God’s falsehood, because despite the possible existence of transcendental unity the hypocrite “cults” of man wreck the vision into a disturbed dualism. Rarely has death metal sounded as subtle and smooth, yet nerve tingling, as the best line-up the band ever had utilizes its effortless sense of dynamics to “groove in” an approaching storm of apocalypse with subdued counter-rhythm of Hernandez against the dissonant riff, something their obvious modern copycats Deathspell Omega often fail to do because of flawed pacing. Distinct from “Close to a World Below” in fist-pumping doom and black metallic blastbeats interjecting the symphony of diminished intervals, making this probably the first step in the gradual descent of Immolation to “meet their audience”; however here the impression is not pandering at all but perfectly persuasive slithering of a mind-virus that awakens the listener to a moment of tumult realizing retroactively about five minutes of mental build-up having led to an indescribably intense resolution of themes akin to a musical Nibbāna where the tenets of both light and dark are annihilated in a moment of musical nihilism. As is shockingly customary for Dolan, Vigna and company, the songs are riddles and glyphs requiring a reasonable effort from the part of the listener to decipher and actually recombine the parts of the song in one’s mind and through the puzzle man is led to realize an impossible paradox of nature: evil as part of, yet beyond, theology. If blasphemous metal was ever made into a mental exercise, “Unholy Cult” is the crystallized moment of it.

Death Metal Album of the Week: Incantation – Onward to Golgotha

You all had to see it coming… with the morbid pall on the skyline and the eerie chanting of despondent disciples. As the wheel of the year has turned again to unite Christendom in a moment of silence for the pains of the crucifixion, blasphemers pay respect in their own ways. A serious, appalling and invigorating death metal installation, “Onward to Golgotha” turned traditional streams of melody inside out in order to unleash a churning madness quite impeccably produced to sound like a neptunean battle on the bottom of an ocean, or a dragon trashing in its sleep, such is the bottom end riff barrage and the asymmetric droning commands of Craig Pillard‘s throat. The aspect most evocative of uneasiness and suffering is the control of tempo, from chaotic blastbeats raining as a multi-tailed scourge upon the back of the savior to the prolonged slow sluggish chords heavy and strained as the steps of one who bears his own cross on his back – symbolic of the aimless and hopeless moments each one of us has to face in the dark night of the soul, in order to resurrect once more, into flames and fire. The development of John McEntee to a potent composer was hardly a surprise since he was tutored by Henry Veggian in Revenant and early on accompanied by Paul Ledney and Aragon Amori of the ground-breaking Profanatica; yet, Incantation‘s debut is a hammer of darkness more suited to comparison with Krzysztof Penderecki‘s “Requiem” than anything descended from rock music.

Immolation – Majesty and Decay

The mind can’t erase what the soul can’t embrace

The most anticipated death metal release of 2010 (along with the upcoming Morbid Angel, of course) “Majesty and Decay” has everything to please any sophisticated fan of the genre, yet still doesn’t quite meet the impossibly high standards of the group’s past. The 2007’s “Shadows in the Light” while it seemed to have retained all the ingredients of the New York masters’ brew somehow failed to live up to spoiled listeners’ expectations. The unfortunate flirting with “nu metal” elements as well as almost complete discarding of drumming-based structure poisoned the arrangements and conveyed a bad aftertaste to the whole record. Still head and shoulders above any fellow North American squad Immolation has taken the prolonged break in order to revise their direction and yet again prove themselves the ruling kings of the genre.

The best news “Majesty and Decay” has to offer is Steve Shalaty’s drumming. The man has been replacing Immolation’s godly Alex Hernandez ever since 2005’s “Harnessing Ruin” but it is only here that he unlocks his true talent. Steve has surely developed his own musical language since 2007 and the band has finally regained its rhythmic “pillars”. Everything has fallen into place at last: blasting endurance, inventive drum breaks and mid-paced punishment. The “inverted” riffing – although not as all-pervasive as on, say, “Close to a World Below”, – stresses the drumming very nicely and allows for some smooth gliding down the interwoven landscape of melody. Indeed, what sets the album apart in the vast Immolation discography is the use of melody. While the band is still a riff-fed beast, the heavy metal melody injecting the solos and seeping through the riffs enriches the sound world of the group, introduces “humanity” to the demonic environment of their instrumentation. The songs are shorter compared to the classic 90s era material, more to-the-point composition-wise, and definitely more “human” than we have come to expect from these New Yorkers.

Vigna (wonderfully supported by Bill Taylor as usual) goes right after Shalaty in this album’s list of heroes. The tight, powerful riffing, the wild soloing echoing with sadness and despair – all of it enhanced by the tasteful and balanced production ensures a satisfying listen. Guitars are put to good use in both the “Intro” and the “Interlude”, which indeed set the atmosphere very well. Ross Dolan’s vocals have become completely decipherable on here without loosing the emotion and recklessness, while his bass is so elegantly put into the mix that it acquires percussive quality at times. All of the above perfectly reflects the lyrical themes of the album: the loneliness of modern man lost in the midst of colossal fight for world domination, the evaporation of values and purposes igniting intrinsic hells and leaving no hope for the spirit.

“Our threatened kingdoms
The world is divided
Trample ourselves
While we claw for the prize”

Still, the album comes with its share of flaws too. The band implements the tension buildup/release approach in some of the songwriting here and not only fails to achieve the desired effect, but sometimes looses momentum completely (most notably “The Purge”, “Divine Code”, “Power and Shame” ). The distribution of Immolation’s volatile energy here often reduces the impact instead of boosting it. This new trick is still very raw/unrefined and cannot fully replace the mathematic complexity of their 90s output. The classic (and eagerly awaited) “last song devastation” is also pretty much wasted here: next to all the best, epic songs scattered across the album “The Comfort of Cowards” feels pretty weak (while certainly not entirely filler) for a killing blow. The cover art is a disgrace. This computer game-like visual representation does justice neither to music nor lyrics. Also, the band probably needs to consider revising their logo after all these years of using a stretched font as one.

All in all, this is a mandatory purchase for anyone with at least a slight interest in today’s metal. It is entirely possible that Immolation’s return will be the finest mainstream death metal album by the end of the year (even with all the mentioned flaws taken into account) as this reviewer doubts Morbid Angel or any other competitor for that matter has the guts to top this material.

Death Metal Album of the Week: Morpheus Descends – Ritual of Infinity

The power of Death Metal as an esoteric form of popular music was perhaps never better demonstrated than by New York’s Morpheus Descends on their collosal debut album. These grotesque and violent mazes of deconstructionist composition are so ridden with diseased, downtuned guitars and seismic drumming, it presents a indistinguishable cacophony that somehow elucidates as much as it obscures the decaying riffs, like the rotten animation of countless maggots covering and consuming the matter of an otherwise soulless corpse. The guitarists’ manipulation of the lower extremities of their axes remains an unmatched exercise in brutal craftsmanship, with both rhythm and subtle melody pinned to a logical structure far greater than the sum of those parts, quite unlike even the more complex examples of NYDM such as ‘Pierced from Within‘. Also, thankfully disimilar to arguably the best from Suffocation‘s discography, the production here has been carefully engineered to retain a filthy sound with an appropriate amount of space between the instruments so that even the bass can stand out from the rumbling guitars, and the drums have a depth in the mix that enables a really tangible influence over the musical dynamics where the guitars, in their sludgy modulations, are largely unable to do so on their own. The content of this album turns away from another New York outfit, Cannibal Corpse, who would later even bear the influences of Morpheus Descends. Though caught in the stench of decomposing bodies and scenes of graphic gore, as the title ‘Ritual of Infinity’ might imply, there’s a profoundly mystical coordination to the music rather than the aforementioned band’s mere infatuation with graphic perversions or the morgue therapy of early Carcass. The multi-faceted burdens of mortality are stripped away as this album decomposes, with songs like ‘Trephanation’ reciting lyrics that sound like a kind of lobotomy as exacted on neophytes by a group of violent Vedantins in order to, we must imagine, negate the mind and its individuated, finite perceptions. As if possessed by the direct insight of an Aghori, ‘Ritual of Infinity’ is an intense meditation on the supremacy of death and the ultimate moksha that the corpse state represents.

O.D.I.R.

Death Metal Album of the Week: Ceremonium – Into The Autumn Shade

New York Death Metal is synonymous with the brutal, rhythmic style pioneered by Suffocation, Baphomet, Morpheus Descends and the less-than-able proliferous hordes who followed. The region was no stranger to slower, Doom-influenced Metal, but the surge in popularity of Brutal Death Metal and the faux-tough-guy images of wiggers that came with it saw that bands like Winter, Sorrow and Ceremonium would not receive much attention within or after the span of their careers. Of all the aforementioned cursed undertakers of doom, it was the last of them to disband after a relatively lengthy existence who created enduring albums that had as much in common with the European tradition of melodicism as they did the desultory and engulfing heaviness induced by their own locality.

‘Into The Autumn Shade’ is a massive recording and a great debut by Ceremonium, using their sound setup of deep guitars and bass to thunder out intricate and epic songs that develop slow to mid-paced melodies, drawing inspiration from northern European bands like Creepmime and early Darkthrone, and with ‘Soulside Journey‘ and Paradise Lost‘s own morbid inauguration very apparent in the greater narrative sense of this album. Deep, mournful melodies are formed from the outset like an epitaph being inscribed at birth and are subjected to a rich, harmonic interplay which highlights the spiralling sadness of these riffs, fragments of which are carried away by heavier and more brutal passages, as the attachment to sorrow in life strips away all joy and comfort to reveal the inevitability of death. These elements are balanced well enough to preserve the emotional impact of such music. The pacing is managed with a riff’s melodic direction in mind, rather than through the awkward tempo shifts that many newer Doomdeath bands fall prey to in their divisive mentality. Keyboards appear frequently but this electro-vocal, choral layer bears down on the music as unintrusively as a forlorn, angelic statue that looms over an open grave, as the casket is lowered into the dirt. The actual vocals provided by Brandon Diaz are sometimes at odds with the mix, but the guitar thickness is usually powerful enough to even the sound out. Ceremonium’s statement of doomed Death Metal stands alongside the European heavyweights of this style, before they would move onto a more Black Metal influenced sound and successfully contend with those across the Atlantic once again.

Death Metal Album of the Week: Wicked Innocence – Omnipotence

Following the course of American Death Metal through the early to mid-nineties shows the beginnings of a noteable schism in how bands approached Death Metal composition. As a new wave of fans became immersed in this extreme music, exposed via. mainstream outlets such as MTV and Music for Nations, the underground ethos of pure artistry became sacrificed to some degree, to reflect this broader audience. On one hand, there were bands like Cannibal Corpse, Deicide and Obituary dumbing down the music and setting a tradition of thoughtless extremity for musicians to pursue until this surrogate activity became formalised under titles like ‘Brutal Death Metal’ (also latching onto the furthest extremes of rhythmic Death Metal to that point – Suffocation, and the simplicity of Grindcore technique). On the other hand, an obviously smaller number of bands went in an opposite direction, inspired by the Jazz-infused music of Atheist and Death’s ‘Human‘, to create varieties of technical and progressive Death Metal. Whichever the case and whatever the quality of any individual example of music that sits within this timeframe, it’s obvious that there was somewhat of a spiritual decline in American Death Metal at this point.

To find this week’s prized album will then require us to venture away from the centres of Florida and the northern tri-states of America, and instead to Mid-Western Utah’s capital of Salt Lake City, famous for its infestation of polygamous Mormons. Here we find a band who were pretty much loners in that continent’s extreme music scene, but seemingly not placed there without a purpose. Their equidistant view of both scenes lead Wicked Innocence to create an album that, though sounding firmly in the camp of mid-nineties Brutal Death Metal, has a very progressive edge with lyrics that are closer to the cosmic existentialism of Cynic or Atheist. ‘Omnipotence’ gets rolling with a barrage typical of the aforementioned north-eastern, essentially, purely rhythmic style of Death Metal, but this music has very little in common with the tedious likes of Dying Fetus and Dehumanized, and gradually more and more progressive tendencies and flourishes of Floridan musicality creep into the album to leave an impression of something quite unique and stimulating.

Even on the level of rhythm, a direction is established within micro-rhythmic units of those riffs and sent spiralling into disarray with a Grindcore fervour for destruction. These kaleidoscopic patterns are hyper-extended into heavier chunks of guitarwork which get disintegrated further in another grinding sequence of powerchords that resembles a frustrated echo bouncing within the walls of some symbolic cube, floating meaninglessly in deep space. The melodies that tear out of this method resemble a less occult Incantation or Infester but are imbued with all of their insanities. Shades of Revenant appear in the shredding of more melodic riffs, whereby the rhythmical aspect is suspended above the beat, causing a profound sensation of impending death. As the album progresses, the melodic/rhythmic interplay becomes more integral to the sense of deconstructionism that the music conveys, revealing ever broader contexts of consciousness, like a reversed Hegelian dialectic. Bass guitar is extremely competent in underscoring this growing expanse of nothingness, similar in role to Cynic on their legendary demo, without being very discernably Jazzy. The drumming is reasonably technical as should be expected from any band that can trace their origins back to Suffocation, which the vocalist acknowledges with some amusing performances that are spewed out from an intestinal level of depth. Clearly, ‘Omnipotence’ was a timely release, before this intricate mesh of popular styles would be undermined by another generation of bands who randomly throw ideas together for no purpose at all.

Nile and Immolation go for a winter campaign

I don’t know if it’s the right season for war, but here’s a list of dates for you lucky Americans again. Go see them, as even the new Nile album “Those Whom the Gods Detest” has been growing on me, not the least because it has the best death metal use of the “allahu akbar“ phrase so far. Here’s the review by Mr. Stevens, for more information. Plus maybe Immolation will play something from the forthcoming album.

Jan. 15 – Baltimore, MD – Sonar
Jan. 16 – Worcester, MA – The Palladium (MA)
Jan. 17 – Philadelphia, PA – The Trocadero
Jan. 18 – New York, NY – The Blender Theatre
Jan. 20 – Cleveland, OH – Peabody’s
Jan. 21 – Chicago, IL – Metro/Smart Bar
Jan. 22 – Milwaukee, WI – Rave
Jan. 23 – St. Paul, MN – Station 4
Jan. 24 – Kansas City, MO – The Beaumont Club
Jan. 25 – Denver, CO – Bluebird Theatre
Jan. 27 – Seattle, WA – El Corazon
Jan. 28 – Portland, OR – Hawthorne Theatre
Jan. 29 – Orangevale, CA – The Boardwalk
Jan. 30 – San Francisco, CA – Slim’s
Jan. 31 – San Diego, CA – House Of Blues
Feb. 02 – Los Angeles, CA – Key Club
Feb. 03 – Las Vegas, NV – House of Blues
Feb. 04 – Mesa, AZ – U.B.’s Bar
Feb. 05 – Tucson, AZ – The Rock
Feb. 06 – Farmington, NM – Gator’s
Feb. 08 – Corpus Christi, TX – House of Rock
Feb. 09 – San Antonio, TX – Scout Bar
Feb. 10 – Houston, TX – Scout Bar
Feb. 11 – Dallas, TX – Trees
Feb. 12 – Tulsa, OK – Marquee
Feb. 13 – Louisville, KY – Headliner’s Music Hall
Feb. 14 – West Springfield, VA – Jaxx
Feb. 16 – Virginia Beach, VA – Peppermint Beach
Feb. 17 – Atlanta, GA – The Masquerade
Feb. 18 – Charlotte, NC – Amos Southend
Feb. 19 – Raleigh, NC – Volume 11
Feb. 20 – Charleston, SC – Music Farm

Immolation builds a new WMD

You love Immolation, don’t you? If you do, you’ll be as excited as we are about this piece of news. If not, what’s wrong with you!?

Unique-disharmonic-blackend-death-metal legends Immolation, have entered Millbrook Sound Studios in New York with longtime producer Paul Orofino to begin recording their Nuclear Blast Records debut and eighth over all album. The band checked in from the studio today to offer the following details and update:

“We are still in the process of getting ideas together for the album’s concept and cover art, but these final details will be worked out in the near future.”

Hopefully it will be convoluted, insane and maniacal again as “Close to a World Below” was. I mean, the last album was great of course but maybe not as awe-inspiring after about 100 listens, which should be the norm for Immolation studies by death metal fans.