Sadistic Metal Reviews: Pushing It All Out

by Staff on June 11, 2016

unicorn poop

The Sadistic Metal Reviews are were we squeeze all the empty calories out of our guts into easily digestible packages for readers’ amusement. The leftovers are distributed to starving third world children to hasten their Malthusian death through infection with the type of drug-resistant bacteria that can only thrive in a Honey Bun.

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Nokturnal Mortum & Graveland – The Spirit Never Dies (2016)

by Staff on June 11, 2016

graveland & nokturnal mortum

Article by David Rosales.

Splits are usually revealing for reasons the bands do not intend. By allowing their music to be placed alongside that of another band in a way that listening to them one after the other is not only encouraged but, in metal culture, almost mandatory, they make comparisons and judgements based on performance differences inevitable. The aim might be to publish a few tracks more efficiently and getting the music to more people since people who know one of the two bands will listen to the other band out of curiosity. The more zealous metal fans, however, are bound to make harsher judgements of anything that is placed too close to the band they follow.

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Defining Metal

by Staff on June 8, 2016

Slayer hell awaits

Article by Lance Viggiano inspired by International Day of Slayer.

A candidate for the best work within a genre of music should capture every manifestation as best as it can and be able to answer the question: what is X? One might make the argument that the best album must capture the genre at its summit; still, that is a far more difficult essence to capture as in the case of metal, both black and death metal scaled adjacent but different peaks and therefore offer their own unique views of the same musical landscape.

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Space Rock Special: Hawkwind (1971-1973)

by Staff on June 4, 2016

Hawkwind

Article by Johan P.

The stylistically inclusive nature of progressive rock allows quite a lot of stretching of the genre’s musical boundaries. This part of Death Metal Underground’s 1970s Progressive Rock for Hessians series looks into the early, classic period of the English group Hawkwind – a group of sonic shaman-warriors who transgressed more than one genre border right from their inception. Well, almost. Their unconvincing 1970 self-titled debut album can rightfully be dismissed as a failed attempt at improvisational psychedelic folk rock, with songs that sound too much like flawed byproducts of the flower power era. Luckily, the following years saw the band re-forge their sound on In Search of Space (1971), articulate it on Doremi Fasol Latido (1972) and finally push their newfound style to its limits on Space Ritual (1973).

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Depressor – Filth / Grace (2014)

by Staff on June 2, 2016

Depressor Filth Grace

Article by Lance Viggiano.

In its best moments punk music transcends volk-rage by serving as a cracked mirror reflecting the forlorn realities that industrialization and intangible goal of perpetual progress wrought as this civilization awaited technological rapture to deliver its destiny among the stars. The reflection was always unclear because of its nature as folk music, marred by smudges and dust that lead it to misdiagnose the cause of its own woes. Depressor spiritually and musically channel this ethos while stepping into the well-worn boots of Godflesh resulting in a body of work resides between industrial, doom/death and punk music. The artists understand that heaviness is not merely a novelty or a token, but a vessel.

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Sadistic Metal Review: Chalice – Chalice (2014)

by Staff on June 1, 2016

chalice ep

Article by Corey M.

Chalice is a real shit show. From a purely musical perspective, the self-titled EP Chalice is transparent hard rock with some metal-ish riffing that never gets quite as aggressive as Deep Purple. Now indeed, aggression is not the only or even most crucial element that goes into making good rock or metal, but Chalice fall fa(aaaaaaaa)r short in every other facet of songwriting and performance.

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