Paganizer / Skinned Alive split hits shelves in 2016

paganizer_-_skinned_alive_-_split

Death metal bands Paganizer and Skinned Alive will unleash a split album on vinyl in early 2016, featuring two songs from each band. Released via Brutal Art Records, the split LP will feature art by Roberto Toderico and be limited to 250 copies.

Tracklist

    Paganizer

  1. Bred by demons
  2. The hammerhead
  3. Skinned Alive

  4. Gallery of the Impaled
  5. Human landfill

Paganizer belts out mid-paced old school death metal with a focus on hook-laden choruses, reminiscent at times of old Pestilence and Kreator, with a fair amount of the ancient speed metal feel present in riff fills. These songs march along and keep the energy high but not excessive which is a welcome counterpoint to the lightspeed bands that blend into a blur in the background! These two tracks show the same style, but the second picks up the pace and has even more speed metal references. They use more of a stop-start approach to songwriting in the style of bands that influenced Meshuggah, but know when to break this pattern to allow riffs to interact and themes to expand to prime us for the restoration of order with the chorus.

Skinned Alive on the other hand sounds more like an uptempo version of Asphyx with influences from Swedish death metal in its tendency to use longer riffs with a broader space of intervals in them, making them technically melodic without overdoing the melodic tendency through tuning/higher register playing like the melodeath and retro-Maiden bands do. The clear crust heritage of bands like Carnage shines through in the percussion, but like Dismember they know how to write a heavy metal style catchy choruses. Riffing here also shares a space between middle death metal, speed metal and classic heavy metal, where the Swedish bands were more hard death metal. These songs move systematically toward intensity and then conclusion, avoiding the generic verse-chorus loop despite relying heavily on a verse chorus structure upon which to add additional riffs, Slayer-style, as divergent themes. Like Sodom or Destruction, this band knows how to build up to a good chorus and then work it into brain-programming, toe-tapping, pure motion music.

In other Skinned Alive news, the label Brutal Art Records announced that the split between German death metal legends Fleshcrawl and Skinned Alive will feature four tracks from each band, instead of three, in the CD release. For more information, pursue the link above.

For the Paganizer/Skinned Alive split, pricing is as follows:

  • 70 – Clear / Neon Green – 6,00€
  • 80 – Blue / Black – 6,00 €
  • 100 – Purple / Orange – 5,50 €
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Orcrypt Mercenaries of Mordor (2015)

orcrypt_-_mercenaries_of_mordor

This style is emerging as the new front for underground metal: a Paradise Lost-style lead rhythm melody laced doom metal as if played by a war metal band at death-doom paces. This takes last season’s favorite, the Incantation-derived “cavern metal” band, and adds to it melody and more distinctive traditional riffing, but keeps the same morbid subterranean atmosphere.

Orcrypt add to this formula that ability to wield classic, catchy choruses in the style of Pyogenesis or later Sodom, so that like war metal songs rumble through a series of riffs and then break into a clarity that resembles the moment on Pink Floyd album when storyline and music united. This is done within a riff vocabulary that would fit alongside later Emperor, early Mayhem, Revenge, Blasphemy and Order from Chaos. The result avoids the off/on hard/soft approach of bands from Pantera through nu-metal, and instead works up to the catchy choruses with embedded melodic rhythm leads among the surly and rapacious war metal/black metal riffing. This creates a haunting anticipation that flowers in the choruses, which are less frequent than with purely verse-chorus bands.

Pacing follows that of a doom-death band: breaking from slow to fast, to return to a mid-paced option that leads into the slow. This perpetuates the dark ambiance and enriches it with a sense of internal motivation. Orcrypt know how to remove everything but the essential in songs and then later, where it has no negative impact, work back in noisy leads and vocal accents. The result is both dark underground and has the power of traditional heavy metal.

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Obscure Oracle sneak previews “Pray for Nothing”

obscure_oracle_-_live

Texas heavy metal band Obscure Oracle has released its latest work, a track which takes us back to both the early 1980s and its grandiose power metal, and an improved version of the melodic death metal of the mid-90s. “Pray for Nothing” features 1980s style choruses with less repetitive verses than bands of that nature would use, sliding into melodic guitar riffing that would have At the Gates envious, but used sparingly like an Iron Maiden/Judas Priest era band would have used. This track foreshadows great things to come from this original Texan band! Because it is a sneak preview, you cannot hear the track at this time, but you can catch the band live just a few months ago:

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Autopsy debuts “Waiting For The Screams” from Skull Grinder

Autopsy released a single from Skull Grinder today, giving me an opportunity to taste something of what the album might be like. If “Waiting For The Screams” is any indicator of upcoming content, this album is going to be overtly influenced by traditional style doom metal. Much of its runtime is given over to shouted vocals over slow, relatively consonant riffs reminiscent of Black Sabbath, interspersed with some passages of more standard death metal riffing more like what I’d expect from Autopsy. The band claims not to have made any stylistic changes, but this sounds to me like a more accessible and melodramatic Autopsy than the one that produced Severed Survival and Mental Funeral. I guess we’ll see what the full album is actually like.

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Upcoming tours: Voivod

Promotional picture of Voivod by Valerie Gagne from their official site
Two tours of note today. First, and presumably better, is Voivod’s impending US tour. The band is currently traveling through Europe with Napalm Death and Obituary as part of Deathcrusher 2015. This February, they will join Vektor and Eight Bells for what is mostly a tour of the eastern USA, with some later dates in the Midwest. If an interview from February 2015 is to be believed, an album (and one that may be more overtly progressive rock oriented than usual for the band) is coming some time next year; the splits with At the Gates and Napalm Death that it mentions appear to have released without issues. The tour dates follow:

2/06 – Providence, RI – Fete Ballroom
2/07 – New York, NY – Gramercy Theatre
2/08 – Philadelphia, PA – Kung Fu Neck Tie
2/09 – Morgantown, WV – Mainstage
2/10 – Pittsburgh, PA – Altar Bar
2/11 – Asbury Park, NJ – Stone Pony
2/12 – Lancaster, PA – Chameleon Club
2/13 – Washington, DC – Black Cat
2/14 – Richmond, VA – Strange Matter
2/16 – Raleigh, NC – Kings
2/18 – Charlotte, NC – Neighborhood Theatre
2/19 – Sanford, FL – West End Trading Co.
2/20 – Ybor City, FL – The Orpheum
2/21 – Atlanta, GA – Masquerade
2/22 – Knoxville, TN – The Concourse
2/24 – Chicago, IL – The Abbey Pub
2/25 – Cudahy, WI – The Metal Grill
2/26 – St Paul, MN – The Amsterdam
2/27 – Omaha, NE – Waiting Room
2/28 – St. Louis, MO – Firebird
3/03 – Ferndale, MI – The Loving Touch

I could theoretically make it to the Rhode Island show, and I am certainly interested in doing so, but we’ll have to see how things shape up in the next few months.

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Vox Day SJWs Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Police (2015)

Vox Day: SJWs Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Police

Vox Day: SJWs Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Police

Science fiction author and video game designer Vox Day has written a handbook for dealing with SJWs including who they are and how to identify them, how they think and act, and how to defend against them and counter-attack. His writing style is easily digestible, and the information he presents is conveniently organized into enumerated laws and steps, such as the three laws of SJWs (the first of which doubles as the book’s title), the stages in an SJW attack, and the points to keep in mind during an attack.

SJWs are bullies who wield social pressure as a weapon.

Since his intent is practical, he gives only a brief overview of the ideology and history of SJWs. In his words, “knowing everything there is to know about shark DNA or what fish grizzly bears prefer to eat doesn’t do you any good when you find yourself nose to nose with a hungry one.” This focus is a strong point, as the result is a succinct instruction manual.

In the universities, in the churches, in the corporations . . . free speech and free thought are under siege by a group of fanatics as self-righteous as Savonarola, as ruthless as Stalin, as ambitious as Napoleon, and as crazy as Caligula.

They are the Social Justice Warriors, the SJWs, the self-appointed thought police who have been running amok throughout the West since the dawn of the politically correct era in the 1990s. Their defining characteristics:

  • a philosophy of activism for activism’s sake
  • a dedication to rooting out behavior they deem problematic, offensive, or unacceptable in others
  • a custom of primarily identifying individuals by their sex, race, and sexual orientation
  • a hierarchy of intrinsic morality based on the identity politics of sex, race, and sexual orientation
  • a quasi religious belief in equality, diversity, and the inevitably of progress . . .

The information in this book will be useful to metal band members and concert organizers who are the targets of SJW attacks. Vox demonstrates, using numerous examples of attacks, that the worst thing these targets can do is apologise, as doing so simply hands the attackers “a confession to bolster their indictment.” In fact, if one learns only a single thing from this book, it should be that SJWs can’t be reasoned with at all: do not engage them in good faith, do not expect them to be honest in any way, and just plain do not take them seriously. This should come naturally to members of an artistic movement fascinated with aggression and violence. And yet, #metalgate has shown us that heavy metal is in the SJWs’ crosshairs.

The reason for this is that metal has been infiltrated by SJWs, whose primary allegiance is always the Narrative, which is the nebulous and frequently changing concept of social justice to which they all adhere, regardless of inherent contradictions and absurdities (see the First Law). To them, the goals of a movement or institution will always be secondary to this, though they mask this insincerity by wrapping themselves in its superficial trappings. When they look at a band like Disma, they ignore what would be most important to a metalhead — the musical, artistic and philosophical content — and instead search for anything about its members that violates their Narrative, then point and shriek hysterically until a crowd forms. Fundamentally, SJWs are bullies who wield social pressure as a weapon.

If you have any SJWs working under you, fire them.

For a work that deals with such bitter and unlikeable people, the tone of this book is surprisingly positive, and the message is hopeful. Referring to an organized campaign against SJW control of a Science Fiction award, Day says “the importance of Sad Puppies is that it shows how even in a field that has been dominated by SJWs for more than two decades, they are weaker and less numerous than most people believe.” If their weapon is social pressure then a successful resistance would consist of simply not bowing to it. Since they always lie, even to themselves, they operate with a false understanding of the world, which puts them at a disadvantage to those who are honest.

Target the enemy at every opportunity. Hit them wherever they show themselves vulnerable. Play as dirty as your conscience will permit. Undermine them, sabotage them, and discredit them. Be ruthless and show them absolutely no mercy. This is not the time for Christian forgiveness because these are people who have not repented, these are people who are trying to destroy you and are quite willing to harm your family and your children in the process. Take them down and take them out without hesitation. If you have any SJWs working under you, fire them.

The truth is that SJWs care so much about the institutions they control that they will destroy them rather than relinquish control over them. They will consume metal, video games anything else by using their crazy ideology in order to assert individual self-importance. When confronted by them, don’t apologise, but instead counterattack by ruthlessly pursuing and defending truth. In other words,

Forgive me not
This knowledge makes me strong

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsAFNBrVI3Q

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Deadhead Fanzine #6 out now

Several copies of Deadhead Fanzine #6 stacked on top of each other
Afterlife Productions has recently released the latest issue of Deadhead Fanzine. This Malaysian label (calling themselves “Asia’s last stand for conservative metal literature”) has compiled an substantial quantity of metal literature into a package that’s apparently more like a paperback book than a simple magazine. Besides the usual reviews, articles, and etc, the major selling point is likely the dozens of included interviews with both well known and more underground metal bands. Morbid Angel headlines, with former members Mike Browning and Richard Brunelle talking about the band’s earliest days, and the latter also makes his way to the front cover. Deadhead Fanzine 6.66 also understandably devotes some space to Malaysian underground metal in particular, featuring interviews with bands from all over the country. The sheer quantity of content here could make it a very tempting purchase, and it is available from Afterlife’s website.

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Celtic Frost’s To Mega Therion turns 30

Celtic Frost - To Mega Therion (2015)
It might not be as important to the Celtic Frost/Hellhammer legacy as its immediate predecessors, but To Mega Therion is still a fine work of metal 30 years (and four days) after its release. Many early underground metal recordings are noted for stripping their musical content to a bare minimum of function and simultaneously exploring new methods of arrangement and songwriting. To Mega Therion, on the other hand, takes a step towards refining the new standard, with more elaborate instrumentation, production, and songwriting than the EPs that came before it. It’s still more restrained in its aesthetic exploration than anything else Celtic Frost released, but listeners can easily hear how some of the more obvious experiments here (timpani, occasional female vocals, etc.) anticipate elements that would become fixtures in the band’s later works, and furthermore in the plethora of subgenres to follow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SgtScsVUg4

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Hades Almighty – Pyre Era, Black! (2015)

Hades Almighty - Pyre Era, Black! (2015)

Review by Daniel McCormick

According to the FBI, 90% of arsonists are male, and usually white. Studies show that these perpetrators are young, angry, and often acting out of a belief of revenge. The founder of Hades Almighty, Jorn Tunsberg, was 22 when he decided to make a “statement to breakdown Christianity” and proceeded to torch the Åsane church in Bergen, Norway on Christmas Eve in 1992. This flair for dramatic communication, based in anti-Christian sentiment and pride for heritage, is still forging quality metal after all these years. Enter Pyre Era, Black!, the first album released by Hades Almighty in nearly a decade and a half. This EP clocks in at just under twenty minutes and consists of three tracks with rather ambiguous titles. Because of the ambiguity I didn’t know what to make of this prior to actually hearing it, but I was skeptical. Luckily, upon my initial play through, I was happily surprised while also finding the direction had gone somewhere unexpected.

The music is reminiscent of prior Hades material, but with a diminished black metal feel, and a greater focus on cleaner texture and ambiance that lends a modern body to the traditional Hades sound. This is embellished by a well mixed depth in the structures that actively engages the listener, and by building within the repetition via a variety of ideas that keep the experience from growing dull. This is backed by a crushing rhythm section that is a perfect fit to the style. The vocals on the album are consistent, well laid out, but done in a mostly folk/viking style with very little in the black metal voice of old.

Of the three songs the final track seems the most interesting and developed, and I hope to see Hades advancing more in this direction. It differs from previous works of Hades by incorporating greater accessibility, a more stylized tonality, and also by incorporating a sense of abstraction into supporting ideas. Despite its less than ingenious title this track has an extremely creative mixture of things going on: from stand out bass work to well dispersed acoustic/ clean guitar to a peculiar industrial break to oddly melodic screaming etc. I find my tongue nearly tied to explain the diversity, there’s a progressive, folk, black, viking, original thing going on here that is just beyond the scope of a great number of generic modern acts. Which is more to say that it doesn’t try, but is; a sound denoting inspiration not aspiration. The arrangement seems an orchestration with an ‘inner law’ as Nietzsche defines, “relative to an individual culture.”… …in this case, to true Norwegian metal. Particularly in the main portion of the final track, running from about 01:00 to 07:00, one finds a mix of nontechnical riffs with hammering aggression in accentuation, and an emotional, black ponderance arising in the revolving tonic chord which therein is impressed with a number of tension inducing, numinous evincing, foreground embellishments.  A fine example of song writing prowess, and the best track to check out to decide if you should pick up this release.

Overall, I’ve been a fan of Hades since ’98/’99 and I’m proud to say this heathen is still one. So go pick up this record now(!), blast it on eleven, and burn down a church for the glory of Odin.

 

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Cryptopsy – The Book of Suffering (Tome 1) (2015)

Cryptopsy - The Book of Suffering (2015)

Would it be too brief to say that The Book of Suffering is like older Cryptopsy, but not quite as good? Probably not. Cryptopsy’s legacy after 1996 appears to be one of steady decay and loss of focus, although you could be forgiven for placing too much importance on the aberration that was The Unspoken King. Bands that aren’t able to jump to a new trend successfully often retreat to what they know, hence this utterly safe and sterile EP. It’s almost as if Cryptopsy wasn’t merely imitating None So Vile, possibly with some brief intrusions from more recent albums, but that the only song they’d heard by previous band lineups was that album’s introductory track (“Crown of Horns”), and that this EP was an effort to imitate that specifically.

Cryptopsy wastes no time in trying to forge the appropriate links in your brain. The spoken intro to “Detritus” (which is so obviously self-referential that it will probably insult you) made me suspect that the band was about to blast and scream, and from then on not a moment passed that wasn’t analogous to something off None So Vile. The overall effect evenly splits between being more orderly and more chaotic than this EP’s obvious inspiration. 20 years of studio experience understandably make for a more precise performance, as does the apparent use of a template. On the other hand, the Cryptopsy of the past had a better understanding of how to glue riffs together to create narrative and contrast in their songs. This incarnation of the band isn’t quite there yet and often uses breakdowns laden with pinch harmonics instead. Furthermore, None So Vile drew on a greater palette of musical language; part of this is that Lord Worm was a more versatile vocalist in his prime than Matt McGachy; a greater part is that Cryptopsy wasn’t relying merely on themselves as a template. Funny then, that this problem should also happen to another one of today’s reviews

In summary, the main problem with The Book of Suffering is that it’s uninspired, more than that it’s pseudorandom. Cryptopsy knows how to sound as if they are about to collapse into random noise at any moment without actually doing so, but they don’t do much of interest with this approach. Maybe if they hadn’t burnt themselves playing with the metalcore fire, this wouldn’t be a problem, although the amount of people looking forwards to a second The Unspoken King has to be rather less than those who will nonetheless accept The Book of Suffering as a continuation of form, if not necessarily substance.

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