Gorrenje / Infamous – Italian-German Black Metal Brotherhood (2017)

By now established as one of few post-nineties black metal acts worth saving for posterity, Infamous returns with yet another joint effort production on the Hammerbund label. Joining the bill is the somewhat amusingly christened Gorrenje, a band previously unknown around these quarters but apparently of a slightly older vintage than their Sardinian counterpart. As has earlier been the case, Infamous proves to be vastly superior to their collaborators and is therefore the one most worthy of our attention.
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DMU needs you!

Death Metal Underground emerged victorious from the siege at the hands of Tulio Baars and his team of confused, frustrated individuals that carried out these attacks in an attempt to receive validation from their peers. These attacks were characterized by the ego putting itself above all and not the community uniting in order to create something greater than the sum of each ego. Since the start Death Metal Underground has had a myriad number of writers casting aside their self in order to build this resource of Death Metal tradition. (more…)

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Varathron – Patriarchs of Evil (2018)

Article by Belisario

Almost four years after their previous full-length, Varathron is back with a new effort that meets expectations and offers a fantastic black metal listening experience in the distinctive Greek variety. The veterans from Ioannina have been able to maintain a difficult balance between respecting their classic sound and developing new forms, something they had already achieved on Untrodden Corridors of Hades. These new forms are slightly different and more modern, yet clearly related to their older albums.
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Funeral Mist – Hekatomb (2018)

Funeral Mist are a Swedish band that came after the heyday of the second wave Norwegian bands. They were desperate to find a gimmick to stand toe to toe with their idols, but actual acts of hatred and violence proved too much for them. The band resorted instead to samples and pseudo-biblical lyrics, only to see themselves remain as irrelevant as they were before they even started. (more…)

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Apostasy The Blade of Hell (2016)

Rising from the pit of late nineties underground speed metal, Chileans Apostasy revived during the last decade to bring back to life a pure demonstration of metal as it is. There is no need to claim to be progressive, harsh, technical or the milliard other epithets that bands and marketing agents have come up to single out bands which present only narrow facets of what the genre can be. We can hear traces of what came to be known as the ‘riff salad,’, but like later death metal outgrowths of the style, there is a sense of organic flow and revolving around a main riff-idea. (more…)

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Sadistic Metal Reviews: Flavor of the Week Metal Pt 2: Death Metal

Last month we ran the first  of a two part series on flavor of the week metal subgenres, focusing soley on black metal. The plan was to release a second edition a week later, but the Tulio Baars DDOS attacks prevented that from happening. That is, until now…
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Atrocity – Todessehnsucht (Longing for Death) (1992)

Most Death metal bands don’t age gracefully and tend to either become parodies of themselves or end up playing pop music. Atrocity after having conquered Death metal decided to experiment with various genres but each of those experiments has been abysmal failure. This band therefore destroyed its reputation in both underground and mainstream circles to the extent of being forgotten by all. But from 1985 to 1992, Atrocity were on the war path until the release of their Magnum Opus Todessehnsucht (Longing for Death). Five musicians with an obvious passion for classical music combined with Floridian Death metal and the Teutonic trio. More precisely their main influences seem to be Death, Destruction, Kreator, Morbid Angel and Richard Wagner.

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Did Rock & Metal Engineer Societal Destruction?

What do Jonathan Davis, Corey Taylor, and Scott Weiland have in common?  Answering the question “90 Hard Rock singers” would not be incorrect, but there’s something darker beneath the surface – all three men are rape victims.  Davis even documents the experience in graphic detail in a platinum selling album from his band, and many of Taylors lyrics are riddled with sexual abuse.

Why were the executives of the murder industry so keen on pushing rape victims as the new face of rock n’ roll?  Furthermore, why were the most popular genres of rock and metal so lyrically obsessed with self destruction?  From Grunge “morality is useless and life is hopeless” to Nu Metal “I’m a freak and everyone hates me” to Emo and Screamo “I’m lonely and will never be loved” to indie (soy) metal and rock “We failed to be what we should have been” the message of mainstream rock and metal music has constantly be one of self destruction.  This trend is mirrored by a 25% increase in American suicides in American suicides since the 1990s:

Suicide rates increased by 25% across the United States over nearly two decades ending in 2016, according to research published Thursday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Twenty-five states experienced a rise in suicides by more than 30%, the government report finds.

More than half of those who died by suicide had not been diagnosed with a mental health condition, said Dr. Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the CDC.

“These findings are disturbing. Suicide is one of the top 10 causes of death in the US right now, and it’s one of three causes that is actually increasing recently, so we do consider it a public health problem — and something that is all around us,” Schuchat said. The other two top 10 causes of death that are on the rise are Alzheimer’s disease and drug overdoses, she noted.

With statistics like this, it’s absolutely time to panic: our society is being marred by growing influences- intentional or not – to destroy ourselves.  Let’s examine music’s relationship to this now obvious horror and see if we can determine why this is happening.

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