Morpheus Descends to return at Martyrdoom Festival

by Staff on May 2, 2013

return_of_morpheus_descendsOne of the original death metal bands, Morpheus Descends made heavy old school death metal during the hazy transition between 1980s and 1990s styles, preferring a slower and resonantly crushing approach to their percussive music just as most bands were opting for faster and more technical work.

With 1992’s Ritual of Infinity, the band showed the culmination of their early demos and live appearances in an album that came to define not only old school death metal, but become the example of the New York Death Metal sound: industrial textures, crushing rhythm changes, primitive riffs in complex combinations.

Many of us who uncovered Suffocation’s Effigy of the Forgotten remember seeing Terrance Hobbes wearing a Morpheus t-shirt. As it turns out, there was another Morpheus who wanted the name; history doesn’t mention them much. Morpheus Descends kept going and influenced all of American and European death metal.

After Ritual of Infinity, Morpheus Descends went on to release two more EPs of a technical nature before disbanding. Now at the Martyrdoom II Festival, where Morpheus Descends will perform at a club called Paper Box on 17 Meadow Street in Brooklyn on June 29th, we will see what this band has been up to in the intervening years.

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Impiety to unleash mini-album “The Impious Crusade”

by Staff on May 2, 2013

impiety--the_impious_crusadeOn August 6, 2013, Impiety will release its latest assault upon the world of mortal beings. Titled The Impious Crusade, this mini-album (that’s an EP for you 80s fanatics) will include five new songs of what we can only assume is the characteristic ripping fullback-rushing-at-Satan rhythmic metal that has made Impiety famous.

Unfortunately, assume is all that we can do. Other than describing the music as “innovative, brilliant and totally unforgiving,” the band has given us no clues. However, Impiety rose to fame for — in a time when bands were “experimenting” by including known influences from other genres — being cuts-to-the-bone pure rhythmic high speed chaotic death metal. Unlike war metal, they kept in the complexity of old school death metal and worked in even a bit of melody without turning into the over-tuned saccharine that afflicts many metal bands today.

In short, people have loyalty to Impiety because Impiety had loyalty to metal at a time when it was unfashionable and definitely not trendy to do so. Over the years, their output has been consistently within this theme, although it has improved, and has attracted numerous tributes. With this release, however, more may be afoot because the band are suspiciously mute on the topic of style.

The Impious Crusade will be released on Hell’s Headbanger’s Records, who promise more information today on this developing story.

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Eternal Rest – Prophetic

by Staff on April 28, 2013

eternal_rest-propheticThis upcoming death metal band tries to explore the style that Immolation developed on Harnessing Ruin but give it additional forward force with war-metal-styled ripping fast phrasal riffs and battle-style percussion attacking in clusters of quick notes. What distinguishes this band is the inventiveness of its riffs and the ferocity of its attack.

Prophetic as a result carries through the intensity of death metal but imports many additions from both older speed metal, and modern metal. Vocals lead the riffs, giving the music a sense of uniformity interrupted by bursts of activity. Drums tend to blast or make textures out of alternating blasts and slower material. Songs often drop from a frenzy into a mid-paced death metal rhythmic harbor in which the band injects slowly played, resonant melodies.

Eternal Rest presents a strong compositional voice, and in many ways, this is what they work against; their language of songwriting is so clear and their ability to craft riffs so powerful that sometimes it swallows up everything else and thus songs seem like extensions of one another. Many riffs descend from the speed metal technique, like a more aggressive Exhorder or Exodus, but others are straight death metal and often quite inventive. The use of gentler melodies to balance the extended periods of furious blasting breaks up any grip on the sound any particular technique has.

Much like later Immolation, Prophetic shows us a band trying to find a way to merge high-intensity death metal with a mellower, almost doom-influenced melodic influence. Eternal Rest achieve this quite handily and throw out some powerful riffs besides. While the vocals may not be strong enough for traditional death metal, and the frenetic tendency may be too modern metal for some, the promise of this band is in its ability to create a mood on two levels of intensity and support each with the other.

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Sadistic Intent prepares “Reawakening Horrid Thoughts”

by Staff on April 28, 2013

sadistic_intent-reawakening_horrid_thoughtsLong-dormant old school death metal band Sadistic Intent, whose members toured with the resuscitated Possessed during the resurrection of that august act, now prepares to release its first new material in many years.

Legendary for its 1990s material in the style of Slayer or Morbid Angel, the band continues in this style with three new songs which are being billed as “the unholy return of Sadistic Intent.” True to form, they will be released on 10″ vinyl from Iron Pegazus records.

Reawakening Horrid Thoughts could be crucial to getting Sadistic Intent material back into print, since the band’s prior releases, Resurrection and Ancient Black Earth, are out of print and the former is a re-release of earlier out-of-print material. If this attracts an audience, the band may be able to re-release compiled material so that new generations can appreciate this classic act.

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Bands that keep making the same album but do it well

by Staff on April 28, 2013

unleashed-where_no_life_dwellsAlthough AC/DC and Motorhead have been putting out basically the same album over and over for 30 years, fans of these two bands never blamed them for not being different.

Instead the audience continues to cherish this phenomenon, as this straightforward, wild and raw music style is the trademark of these bands. Risen from rock music and propelled by underground metal, this kind of music stands for the desire of liberation, freedom and simplicity in this plastic world. It will never go out of time.

In the realm of death metal, there is a band which greatly influenced by AC/DC and Motorhead also has a constant style of music. This band is Unleashed.

Unleashed was formed after the disbanding of Nihilist. Unlike the other key figures Entombed and Carnage whose members were in Nihilist, Unleashed brought the roadhouse rock style of AC/DC and Motorhead into death metal. However as a death metal band, Unleashed has more creative ideas than the old classics. You can tell that by just looking at the names and covers of their albums, each one is as exciting to look forward to as a new Pirates of the Caribbean movie. The scent of fighting in their music also demonstrates that death metal ponders on our existences in world.

The mystic and adventurous sense of Unleashed comes from the extension of the typical “verse-chorus-bridge-verse-chorus” structure the phrasal riffs of death metal. Under an emphasized theme, each phrasal riff acts like a puzzle and combine into an epic scenery. Therefore Unleashed’s musics are richer and more narrative comparing to AC/DC and Motorhead (Before the Victory which completely lost all apprehension of mysticism). To the fans of AC/CD, Motorhead who also enjoy underground metal, do not miss Unleashed.

Translated from this post.

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Last Burzum metal recording ever

by Staff on April 27, 2013

burzumBurzum composer Varg Vikernes has posted a “goodbye” to his old self as a metal composer and in a sentimental posting, announced his retirement from metal and his intent to pursue ambient music alone.

Burzum appeared from nowhere in 1991 with a demo tape made up of a dozen guitars-and-bass-only tracks in rehearsal quality. I made a few more or less successful metal albums, but they all always included at least some ambient music. With time I moved further and further away from metal, and today only the ambient music remains. Today (2013) I think I am done playing metal music for good.

Many of you followed Burzum through the years, some even from the beginning, and I think metal-Burzum deserves a proper “good bye”. So, just like I started out I will finish metal-Burzum with a guitars-and-bass-only track in rehearsal quality. “Back to the Shadows” is made up of the last metal riffs I ever made (in 2012). It was never released in any way, or recorded (beyond what you hear here), and it will not either — beyond this short “video”.

Take it for what it is; a sentimental good bye to metal-Burzum.

The music is playing with an image of the 17 year-old me, taken from the time when some of the first Burzum tracks were made. You can see this track as a good bye to that fellow too.

For those of us who have been watching Burzum and Vikernes over the years, this is a welcome development. Heavy metal is beautiful but it will always be attached to popular conceptions of entertainment. Ambient music, especially complex material, gets treated as culture.

While we hope to change that perception of metal and to have it be studied as art and part of culture, that’s an uphill battle when the fans routinely rush to gimmick bands and depthless clones in a hope to be part of the next popular trend.

Either way, this bodes well for more interesting compositions in Burzum’s future.

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Zombiefication – At the Caves of Eternal

by Staff on April 26, 2013

zombiefication-at_the_caves_of_eternalZombiefication incorporate many styles into their old school styled death metal but their ultimate forte is melodic death metal in the style made popular by early Necrophobic or Unanimated.

This band contributed a track to the Cenotaph tribute album and it’s hard not to think of the second and third Cenotaph albums which used the stylistic span between At the Gates and Therion’s Lepaca Kliffoth. In addition, Zombiefication use riffs much like early Amorphis, if Amorphis were interested in single-string picking of quick melodies.

Not all is old school however. At the Caves of Eternal features vocals that might be more at place on later At the Gates or The Haunted albums. They are nearly monotonic and do not vary style or inflection between songs, which gives them a consistency that breaks from the death metal tradition that all instruments labor toward the same effect. Drumming is more modern as well, with a jazz-fusion influence that is understated but prevalent. In addition, many of the leads follow more of a rock sense of theme and balance than the metal goal of high intensity chaos forming order despite itself.

At the Caves of Eternal uses the melodic death metal style effectively across this album, with the songs clustered near beginning and end having the most punch. If it has a fault, it is not stylistic, but in substance; the emotions and approach do not seem to vary between songs, making them variations on a theme that may be entirely musical. However, if you want to revive the old school melodic style, this album presents a potent option.

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