Rotting Christ and Marduk Fall North American Tour

by Daniel Maarat on May 6, 2016

rotting christ marduk 2016 tour

Greek black metal gods Rotting Christ have announced an extensive North American tour for this fall supporting generic war metal veterans Marduk. They’re coming out here to do some gigs! Shit will be wild man, wild! Here are the dates from Marduk’s Facebook page:

Frontschwein 2016:
NORTH AMERICA
09/02/16 Ft. Lauderdale, FL Culture Room
09/03/16 Tampa, FL The Orpheum
09/04/16 Atlanta, GA The Masquerade
09/05/16 Baltimore, MD Soundstage
09/06/16 New York, NY Gramercy Theatre
09/07/16 Boston, MA Brighton Music Hall
09/08/16 Montreal, QC L’Astral
09/09/16 Toronto, ON The Opera House
09/10/16 Columbus, OH Al Rosa Villa
09/11/16 Chicago, IL Reggie’s
09/12/16 Minneapolis, MN Triple Rock
09/13/16 Kansas City, MO The Riot Room
09/14/16 Denver, CO Marquis Theatre
09/16/16 Vancouver, BC Rickshaw Theatre
09/17/16 Seattle, WA Studio Seven
09/18/16 Portland, OR Bossanova Ballroom
09/19/16 Oakland, CA Metro Opera House
09/20/16 Las Vegas, NV LVCS
09/21/16 Los Angeles, CA Regent Theater
09/22/16 Phoenix, AZ Joe’s Grotto
09/23/16 El Paso, TX Mesa Music Hall
09/24/16 Dallas, TX Gas Monkey Bar & Grill
09/25/16 Austin, TX Dirty Dog Bar

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Intolitarian – Suicidal Allegiance (2016)

by Brett Stevens on April 6, 2016

intolitarian_-_suicidal_allegiance

Back in 1995 someone cut metal’s balls off. Underground metal (death metal and black metal) had gone to the furthest extremes: denying rock music, smashing down mass religion, and finally, endorsing a Nietzschean natural selection against the will of the herd. There was nowhere left to conquer, except perhaps politically.

As the odious and 99% horribly boring and pointless NSBM movement showed us, however, Nazism was not just captured by a group of unibrow SJW types, but it was boring and not very extreme. Nazism was an attempt to stop the collapse of our civilization, its breakdown by good intentions, and as a result was like a nagging Nanny albeit one that committed horrible genocide, even if relatively mild compared to the USSR and Genghis Khan (elite company).

Metal needed to push further. When war metal combined the dark primitivism of Beherit and Blasphemy with the unrelenting forward drive of high intensity rhythmic death metal bands like Angelcorpse and Hate Eternal, it reduced the “busy” tendencies of those bands but created a type of monotonic texture music that was both comforting and violent. Intolitarian pushes things a step further by using the war metal model to incorporate a more technical version of early Napalm Death style grindcore, and harsh industrial noise.

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Starting songs with samples and feedback, Intolitarian then launches into a song pattern like that of war metal but with more idiosyncratic internal structures, eschewing the darker riffs in favor of pure deconstructive chaos riffs in the Napalm Death From Enslavement to Obliteration style. From harsh industrial noise it takes a ton of guitar feedback, fuzz and abrupt samples, but even more importantly, the tendency to hang on a squeal or shriek and then let the chaos surge in again, like waves on a beach put on fast forward before a storm.

Much has been said about the political dimensions of Intolitarian, and nearly all of it is painful nonsense. If this band wanted to be Nazis, they would have just joined up with the usual crew of basement-dwellers who have made “white nationalism” a walking joke like their liberal counterparts for the last fifty years. Intolitarian want to be worse than Nazis. There is no safety in politics with this band. Only a raw need to destroy the walking dead that is our society, and replace with with a feral and atavistic struggle for survival.

Suicidal Allegiance was recorded in 2012 and finally saw release last month through a yet-unnamed van-down-by-the-river underground label. If anything, it is too short; these songs feel like a window into a different world, and one that is more structured than industrial noise and more focused than grindcore with the easy engagement of war metal. Let us hope this provocative and stimulating band continues to refine its attack.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETShglbLEos

https://youtu.be/9PFZ7J8jQtE

https://youtu.be/LgG2N1hSW9w

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Sadistic Metal Reviews mini-feature – Infernal Curse – Apocalipsis (2016)

by Staff on February 5, 2016

infernal curse

Article by David Rosales

When listening to most of these modern funderground bands, one gets the impression that a group of random guys eating hot dogs suddenly came up with the idea of recording a death metal album to give some variation to their Saturday afternoons in which they normally just discuss fantasy football. Is this derogatory? You bet. Is this accusation completely out of hand and unjustifiable? Not really, there are very clear reasons to say this.

For starters, a release like Apocalipsis by Infernal Curse amounts to nothing more than foggy noise, lacking any memorability but the memory of a passing metallic cloud of percussion and occasional chords. You might perceive this as being only the personal impression of the author, that it amounts to nothing more than another opinion on an otherwise objectively tolerable and enjoyable work of music. But nobody here is objecting to the idea that someone might enjoy this music. The point is that it is indistinguishable from anything even vaguely similar and devoid of its own character.

Apocalipsis is only the reflection of the disaster that war metal has been for death metal, a poor and superficial of what being an underground art movement is. This is usually the result of becoming self-referential, very much like university “revolutionaries” and other posers who confuse image with content. The trap is believing that through imitation of appearances you might somehow bring about the essence of what is being imitated. Nothing could be farther from the truth, and this piece of unrecognizable shit is just more ammunition for our poser-bashing posts.

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Folteraar – Vertellingen van een Donkere Eeuw (2016)

by Staff on January 30, 2016

folteraar_cover-e1453943147973

Article by David Rosales

Folteraar’s 2016 release comes to us with a proposal that is very much in vogue in the current metal underground. To any wary of the pitfalls of following trends, this might ring alarm bells almost automatically. But we must not be hasty in this judgement, since even though the establishment and spread of a method may really be, in fact, taken up by a large number of hands who are not up to the task and will undoubtedly produce subpar results, this does not mean that we won’t also find those out there who have focus and vision to make use of pre-defined rules with a sober mind. A clear example of this is Condemner’s Omens of Perdition.

As much as we all yearn for another quality release, however, Folteraar exemplify the rule and not the exception to the avalanche of high-spirited but poorly thought out metal albums that make up the bulk of releases nowadays. Since there is nothing in particular to point out about Folteraar, as it has no particular value or fault but just repeats every cliche of the underground war-metal-noise-garbage intersection, we won’t spend too much time pointing out flaws that have been pointed out once and again in the past in this site. The duty still falls on us to point out the very particular approach Vertellingen van een Donkere Eeuw brings to the table as a representative of the most blurry instantiations of this line of thinking.

This brings to mind several influences that served to furnish the raw materials for the formation of early ’90s underground metal. These are primarily heavy metal of the so-called ‘doom’ stripe and hardcore punk. It is easy to appreciate a deconstruction of these in this music which seems to be violent for violence’s sake. Worse than that, it seems to ape so much at the tropes it has learned from the past that the music does not seem to build anything else. Folteraar’s music is just a sequence of cliches that build up to no content. Themes do not build up, in either melody, harmony or rhythm. This is just a sequence of loud screams; a hysteric madman in a padded room would make more sense.

Do yourself and the “community” a service and do not put this aside but actively campaign for a distinction between its utter nonsense and the codified communication that is achieved by its betters. The author encourages (and will keep doing so while releases such as this keep coming) the reader to return time and again to Condemner and allow it to rise in his consciousness, as its structures become more familiar and its development thereby becomes evident. Throw most, if not all, war metal such as Vertellingen van een Donkere Eeuw in the trash bin.

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Revenge – Behold.Total.Rejection (2015)

by Staff on November 27, 2015

revenge
Review by Daniel McCormick

While listening to this album I find myself wondering… What is the value of qualities without purpose? What is the value of all this vague imagery – shackles, skulls, knives, goat headed eagle crests, as if synaptic plasticity somehow became enhanced by yet another butchered attempt at speaking through indeterminate representation? Flip through the booklet and you’re met with page after page of disorganized and undirected symbolism that falls into stereotypes we are then obligated to assign meaning to. This is a common theme in modern art, the idea that a work’s purpose can be wholly derived from imagined substance in its qualities and that actual intent is an unnecessary notion. Today’s thinking sets imagery on a pedestal as the contemporary method of artistic communication and gives primary focus to one’s impulses and feelings. In this philosophy, personal bias will blend with empowered selfish instincts and a form of aggrandizement deludes one with a sense of elevated ideal from which the reward is derived. There is an important distinction which occurs whereby the projection of substance into the indefinite imagery engenders a form of external relation and this fictional attachment emerges therefrom as a personal investment of belief. This ‘believing’ belies all the pissing about feelings and impressions and arises as a fabrication in lieu of actual purpose; art as Dionysian beggary.
The music of Behold.Total.Rejection is in every way as communicative as the textual/ visual content and thusly fails because of a formulaic approach in tone and structure that completely abandons traditional values in song writing, such as melody or harmony or creativity. Because of this, the album comes off as considerably one dimensional and with the memorability of a passing siren. It contains too much unqualified imagery and overt shock effect with too little direction, story telling, or definition. As Dr. Steven Pinker has written, “images are interpreted in the context of deeper understanding,” and that, “the postmodernist equating of images with thought has not only made a hash of several scholarly disciplines but has laid waste to the world of contemporary art.” Behold.Total.Rejection is ironically in step with status quos in this respect as there is little to no textual or audio context for the array of imagery presented. An example of this would be the track “Mass Death Mass”, with the lines, “if we succeed we will be dead and gone but so will they.” Militant iconography and rhetoric, but it’s us versus them intergroup dynamics that say nothing about the actual groups in conflict, nor the conflict, and supports a ‘merely for effect’ argument towards lax creativity. It puts onto the audience the burden of definition so as to deepen the shallow artistry. Another example of this creative void comes from the track ‘Nihilist Militant’, “lone wolf segregation worship existing within the zone at all times”,… the zone? If the artist’s intent was to confuse and communicate little to nothing beyond throwaway lines of imagery then success, but the text communicates in a form of stale sensationalism and clichéd ‘it was dark and stormy’ style generic mannerisms that while it may leave purpose free for personal narrative it also renders potentially strong topicality sterile.
Thus this is a problem of a minimalist memetic device and how the imagination will imbue the ill-defined object with character that is then seen as possessed and not appropriated. The platitudes and redundant nature conceal themselves in this illusory veneer and somehow the repetition of simplistic ideation achieves a propaganda-like effect. As you listen you can begin to see how this album takes on an ambient experience through this subtlety in variation, as the tracks bleed into each other, and the lack of interesting activity leaves the individual elements merging into a cacophony of poor production qualities and you become lost in the directionless effort. Perhaps fifteen years ago, this novel approach would’ve proven of interest, but to linger too long is to stagnate and rightly the rehash of a rehash of a rehash provides insufficient framework to support powerful ideas. If nothing else, I do appreciate the supremacist malevolence expressed by the general themes as antisocial nihilist misanthropy is something we can all relate to, but there is no grander framework of structure by which this is advanced and to which I can pay compliment. Perhaps the repeated audio form represents a philosophy of elitist consistency for which sentimental value can be argued but is this not also the bane? It would seem then the real worth of this album is in the individual experience, not its potential artistic qualities.

 

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Dakhma – Astiwihad-Zohr (2015)

by Staff on November 8, 2015

Dakhma cover
Article by David Rosales

What is up with this sudden influx of nonsensical war metal? Is this some sort of epidemic? Is there no end to subpar minimalist death metal clones? Dakhma’s Astiwihad-Zohr is one of the many albums that, once weighted and considered in the light of everything that has come before, forces one to ask if it was really necessary that someone waste any kind of resources recording it. While not outright offensive, it is lukewarm, at best while at worst, it is comical in its unabashed mediocrity.

It appears that anyone with a penchant for occultish themes and an appeal for the underground metal most superficial aesthetic feels entitled to put out one of these turds that the supporting community, the “scene”, considers an invaluable contribution to the ever-growing stack of EPs and albums nobody will give a second listen to. This needs to stop now. This metal funderground is destroying everything underground metal meant as an artistic refuge for true expression, even though uneducated and rough on the edges. No, it isn’t “cool” that we are immortalizing any of this shit in vinyls. No, it isn’t cool that nowadays there are so many bands to choose from when most of them are not worth a second of your life and they only drown and even suffocate those with actual potential.

With no heads or tale to speak of, these songs meander between heavy minimalist riffs, meaningless silences and long growls and grunts for “the feels”. This is all part of the idiocy of postmodernist thinking that falls into the trap of awarding relevance only to individual, ultra-subjective feelings towards passing moments in the music, and meaning to nothing in art. This is psychobabble for morons trying to feel smart. They forget that although human rules of social engagements are, indeed, “constructs”, this does not mean they are less relevant. They forget that all spoken or written language is also a “construct”, yet it is not any less meaningful because of it. This understanding that requires a journey into complexity and back again into perspective seems to be out of reach for most. Enslave the masses. Take away their means of assailing our senses with this display of mental retardation.

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Necrosemen – Vglns (2015)

by Staff on November 7, 2015

necrosemen - cover
Review by David Rosales

Necrosemen play the kind of war metal going on death metal that has become increasingly popular in recent years. There are several reasons for this, and popularity being what it is, none of these are particularly flattering. This style of music concentrates on the texture generated by the sheer, gross output of a good amplifier through high-quality effects, a deep voice and blasting drums. The most prominent value – if we may call it that – this music has is the shock of its production quality and the immensity of its sound. It’s “darker” music for the average moron. Then, there is the fact that this sort of music is extremely easy to write. Very little artistic insight is needed and minimal technical competence (learn a few key pattern styles, be able to play them with a metronome, and that’s about it) suffices to come up with a couple of these songs.

In terms of its composition, this Vglns could not possibly be more derivative than it already is. Not only are the patterns tired and tried, patterns that never really were spectacular to begin with, but they’re also lazy riffs that rely on the impact of distortion and big sound. The problem here is that these tremolo-laden riffs are “atmospheric” in the same sense that a constant blast beat barrage becomes a blanket and background. When you have a uniform set of these parading one after the other, with minimal variation, what you have is a blanket of guitars with “cool tone” over a blanket of pounding drums, and an occasional growl here and there. Now, very few changes are all right when you have a long composition whose aim is literally to create an atmosphere, and when, in the grand scheme, a real journey is traced from beginning to end. But Necrosemen give us between 4 and 7 minutes of utter sameness while expecting to be taken seriously as metal.

For those who would dare point fingers at bands like Incantation who also play a minimalist style of death metal, I would point out that the difference lies in that the classic band presents an articulate differentiation of songs within a relatively homogeneous style. Such differentiation between riffs and their combinations into mega riffs are varied enough to constitute different meanings as the music slows, speeds up, the phrase is inverted, is cut off, or is extended. At the same time, the similarity is such that they stay within range of the aura of what was expressed before and is cohesive with the “topic” of the album (and band) as a whole. In the case of these new bands, what we have is riffs that are virtually the same being played again and again through the song and through different songs in the album. The only difference between them is the particular notes played. In short: there is not enough vocabulary to actually say more than a sentence.

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Megiddo returns with The Holocaust Messiah

by Brett Stevens on October 21, 2015

megiddo-thm-flyer

Canadian one-man band Megiddo, who back in the late 1990s ushered in the transition of black metal to a war, black, death and speed metal hybrid, have returned with a new album The Holocaust Messiah to be released on Iron Pegasus Records for Halloween, October 31, 2015.

Sounding much like old Sodom, Blasphemy and Profanatica in a blender but built around the rhythms of punk and simpler song structures of older speed metal, Megiddo burst forth in the middle to late 1990s with two demos, “Hymns to the Apocalypse” and “The Heretic,” which have now been re-issued by Iron Pegasus as Hymns to the Apocalypse / The Heretic.

megiddo-flyer-kl

In addition, you can read the writings of composer and lyricist Chorazaim in our archive of Larm: The Fourth Reich of Reviews, a review site which popped up a few years after the DLA and covered black metal releases that were current at the time with an inimitable style.

https//www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwjUVkccKdM

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Trench Warfare releasing new split albums

by Brett Stevens on October 12, 2015

trench_warfare_-_band_photo_casual

Militant complex war metal band Trench Warfare plans to unleash two new splits, hot on the heels of its three-song EP Perversion Warfare. This shows the band continuing its style of textured riff-frenzy with songs that reach a definite apex and conclusion, in contrast to most of the war metal genre.

The band released the following statement:

Trench Warfare is currently recording three tracks for an upcoming four-way split entitled “Of Vultures and Vermin” which will be available via Surrealistic Fatality Releases (SFR). The other bands featured on the split are Sturmtiger (UK), Formulus (Alabama) and Lugubrious Descent (Florida).

We have also begun writing for a split with Morocco’s Agurzil for which we have enlisted the exceptionally talented drummer Lee Fisher. Lee has performed with Commit Suicide, Psyopus and Overlord Exterminator.

Someone close to the band also leaked three demo tracks from forthcoming Trench Warfare compositions. I traded a brick of Semtex for a dub and was able to hear clearly the progression in this band. Their same unrelenting approach has deepened its texture, with more interplay between riffs, and more fast tremolo riffs in the death metal style. The result is just as hard-hitting but has more internal variation and conflict, leading to a style of war metal that borrows the complexity of death metal, the intensity of grindcore and yet keeps true to its hammering martial assault.

Good things are coming from this promising Texas band, who raised eyebrows with the inscription on their debut EP:

NO MELODIES, NO GROOVES, NO SLAMS, NO BREAKDOWNS
ONLY HATE AND WAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Revenge posts “Wolf Slave Protocol (Choose Your Side)” from Behold.Total.Rejection

by Brett Stevens on October 10, 2015

revenge_-_behold_total_rejection

War metal band Revenge have posted a peek into their upcoming Behold.Total.Rejection, which will be released November 13, 2015 on Season of Mist Records. The new track “Wolf Slave Protocol (Choose Your Side)” shows this band going further into its Blasphemy-inspired noise-fueled attack that uses almost linear evolution of a central theme to create a texture of grindcore-style riffs.

Like most of metal, this band navigates between the extremes of fru-fru technical rock which is essentially warmed over 1970s music, and the droning three-chord “authenticity” that finally ushered punk into entropy. Metal fans should ask whether they will be able to listen to this song repeatedly over the years and still get a sense of energy and purpose from it. Many of the best metal bands use some melody and more structure to spice up the otherwise raw aural attack in order to avoid lapsing into intense similarity between tracks and albums.

The band also released a tracklist for Behold.Total.Rejection:

  1. Scum Defection (Outsider Neutralized)
  2. Shock Attrition (Control In Decline)
  3. Wolf Slave Protocol (Choose Your Side)
  4. Mass Death Mass
  5. Mobilization Rites
  6. Silent Enemy
  7. Desolation Insignia
  8. Hate Nomad
  9. ETHR (Failure Erased)
  10. Nihilist Militant (Total Rejection)

Season of Mist released the following statement:

Founded in 2000 by J. Read (BLOOD REVOLT, ex-CONQUEROR), REVENGE has since delivered some of the most severe and violent music the metal underground has ever produced. Using militant imagery, and behind the force of savage live shows, the band has built a die-hard following amongst the extreme factions of the black and death metal scenes. Simply put: they are one of the most extreme bands in existence. ‘Behold.Total.Rejection’ is arguably the most fervent release and a manifesto of rejection – rejection of the groundswell of mediocrity within the scene, rejection of compromise as a means of embracing of a wider audience, rejection of the dogma and strictures of religion and the trappings of the feeble social slave. ‘Behold.Total.Rejection’ is a torrential barrage of relentless animosity. No scene. No brotherhood. No remorse.

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