Interment – Scent of the Buried (2016)

Interment Scent Of The Buried Cover

Article by David Rosales.

We tend to be skeptical when receiving a promo of a retro Swedeath band given the history of the style, but we can’t help but feel a vague and healthy excitement for the raw feeling this improved grindy sound can offer when done well. Despite the long history of shams, Dismember and Entombed followers receive an enthusiastic and welcoming reception here every time. This is also, perhaps, the reason why they also get beaten down with the most derisive of tones when found ‘guilty’.

Interment‘s Scent of the Buried is one of the best cases of the usually-unfortunate retro Swedeath we have seen in the last few years. While much praise is due, it is also interesting to try and understand when and how blatant such style appropriations fall short of the excellence of the originals. The band does a very good job at creating a flowing narrative in the style of Entombed, taking the best from the older band and approaching Dismember’s power chord and tremolo melodies in low tones while discarding the most overt poppisms of the first. After the first half of the album, the B-ness (the quality of being a B-grade album) of Interment’s release becomes obvious, after which it is easy to see that the band ran out of things to say.

While for some this has to do with style itself, and a superficial appreciation of music leads some to want stylistic variety, this is not what is meant here when pointing out the bands shortage of meaningful content. It has to do with a narrowness in the variety of patterns in melodies and riffs, not stylistic divergence itself. This is something that does not happen in the seminal works of Entombed and Dismember, whose style is natural-born from themselves, hence their whole effort is bent on trying to say something. In the case of stylistic followers and clones, which encompass the likes of Interment, there is a conscious will towards adhering to the stylistic conventions those older bands laid out.

This is much more confining and goes beyond genre style; these b-bands are not trying to reflect abstract ideas but the most superficial traits of the music. Hence, Scent of the Buried has enough excellent material for a 3-track EP, but not a full album. Despite the technical re-production of this vintage style being a success1, Interment doesn’t have much more to offer other than a passing pleasure for those who enjoy the hell out of the Swedeath sound.

Scent of the Buried may be listened to and purchased from Pulverized Records’ Bandcamp.
The CD may also be purchased in the US from Dark Descent Records.

1Scent of the Buried was actually recorded by Tomas Skogsberg at his legendary Sunlight Studio were most of the Swedish bands recorded back in the early nineties. – Editor

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Sadistic Metal Reviews: Sunday Funday!

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Today’s F-grade death metal is brought to you by Corey M.

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Mortuary – Nothingless than Nothingless (2016)
The opening track is made up of the same chords for two and a half minutes. That the drummer can play five different beats over the chord progressions illustrates the pointlessness of the progression. This happens with most of the progressions in any given song – the drum beat is switched up in middle of the passage. Why does the band even bother writing these progressions if they’re so boring that not even the band wants to hear them played with the same beat for four cycles straight? This is the kind of “metal” that fans of modern “hardcore” get into. I can practically hear the PETA stickers and Vans shoes. You needn’t listen long to hear the influences – Pantera, Rob Zombie, and various Warped Tour-tier metalcore. At least Mortuary spared us any ironic rap verses or shout-outs.

 

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Phobocosm – Bringer of Drought (2016)
Though it was easy to feel optimistic about Phobocosm’s future based on 2014’s Deprived (which this author still recommends – C.M.), it’s now time to give up on the band. Bringer of Drought shows Phobocosm embracing the Deathspell Omegacore post-modern metal virus, complete with songs of absurdly excessive length, mind-numbing guitar drones, artsy-fartsy dissonant chords that ring and grate, and minimal blasting-riffing which is the one part (all of about two minutes) that still sounds like death metal. The term “sellout” is severe and reserved for dire circumstances, but in this case it applies; Phobocosm has abandoned their obscure malevolence and Immolation-style warped riffcraft in favor of inoffensive but “deep”-sounding D-grade post-rock (see also: Adversarial). People who hate metal are the target audience.

 

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Ferium – Behind the Black Eyes (2016)
Extremely repititous, faux-angry-man vocals set to white-boy groove-metal rhythms. Choppy, math-rock-wannabe drum beats. Guitars that barely even play melodies, just semi-random notes on whatever beats the drummer somehow decides to play. My guess is that he is using a random number generator, or maybe a set of dice, to decide the rhythm. One cringe-inducing track made up of three piano chords and a whining voice repeating “She feels like home”. Mix all these ingredients in a big rusty pot, heat over an open flame til melted to a liquid, apply liberally to your (or a consenting partner’s) scrotum, and then revel in searing agony. Recommended for fans of being raped.

 

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NilExistence – Existence in Revelation (2016)
Terrible band name, terrible title, and terrible art aside, this is some tastefully brutal blasting with skillful musicianship and some evocative riffing. The vocals quickly become overbearing, which is a shame, since the intriguing Morbid Angel-style riffs sway to and fro, one moment up-close and vicious like a buzzsaw held to your face, the next distant and vast like a yawning cavern begging to swallow you whole. As usual with bands that try this, NilExistence trip on their own artillery by crashing together too many dissimilar riffs, like pages of a book shredded and then glued back together at random. These songs lack focus and therefore lack identity but something good may come out of these guys if they stay true to their influences and reign in the random deviations.

 

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Hemotoxin – Biological Enslavement (2016)
Human-era Death worship by competent musicians with a keen sense of exactly how much melodic variance per riff it takes to keep a listener’s attention from wandering. This could be a strength rather than a handicap but the riffs aren’t related through anything other than temporal closeness. The feeling of each song jumps from here to there with little rhyme or reason. Slow, chugging sections interrupt tremolo-picked blasting segments, then vice-versa. Occasionally, a tasty guitar lead explodes out of nowhere and then vanishes without so much as a trace of smoke, leaving us longing and dissatisfied. Lyrically we get a mish-mash of edgy lyrics about homelessness and suicide that seem to hint toward some insincere positivity by outlining gruesome subjects in a “profound” light. This all makes for a very frustrating listen since it’s apparent that the band care much for their presentation and musicianship but lack the crucial element that makes metal tolerable: the natural intuition required to coherently structure songs. Sound familiar yet?
Not even AIDS can keep Chuck in the grave.

 

4.1.1

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Blaspherian to release next album on Dark Descent Records

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Roaring subterranean primitive occult death metal band Blaspherian have signed to Dark Descent Records and plan to release their yet-untitled next album on that label in 2016. Comprised of eight tracks of Satanic blasphemy, the new album follows up on the Imprecation/Blaspherian split showing an increasingly focused style for this primeval band.

Blaspherian released the following statement:

By the blessing of SATAN, and the blasphemous pride we are excited to announce that BLASPHERIAN will be working with Dark Descent records, for our next full length release.
This full length will feature 8 tracks of old school SATANIC DEATH METAL….and is slated for a 2016 release….

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Denmark’s Undergang to release Døden Læger Alle Sår

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Denmark Death Dealers Undergang will release its third album Døden Læger Alle Såron CD and digital formats via Dark Descent Records July 10. The vinyl version will be released on Me Saco Un Ojo Records. Long live the new flesh!

Døden Læger Alle Sår was recorded at Earhammer Studio, California subsequent to UNDERGANG’s three-week U.S. tour in July 2014. The new material is a blend of the suffocating and filthy heaviness heard on the band’s previous two albums, Indhentet Af Døden (2010) and Til Døden Os Skiller (2012), whilst adding more twists and neck-breaking brutality to the mix. The new album will out just in time for Undergang’s European tour with Stargazer.

www.facebook.com/undergangktdm

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House of Atreus’ The Spear and the Ichor that Follows Out Now

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The Spear and the Ichor That Follows from Minneapolis Death Metallers House of Atreus is out now on Dark Descent Records.
 
Stream the album: https://darkdescentrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-spear-and-the-ichor-that-follows
 
The band’s debut full-length features eight tracks of battle-ready audio full of mid-paced riff glory, melodic death flourishes and lyrics inspired by ancient Greek tragedies and tales of war. The Spear and the Ichor That Follows is available on CD, vinyl and digital formats. Order it all HERE
 
Side A
1. Trenches of Fortune
2. Messenger of a Shaken Host
3. Throne of Chariots
4. Oresteia – The Unforgotten Scorns
Side B
5. Heir to the Crown of Sodom
6. Beasts of Antiquity
7. Veiled in Dignities of Wrath
8. The River Black

 

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Death Is Upon Us death metal compilation planned

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The German zine Legacy – The Voice From The Dark Side plans to release a death metal compilation entitled Death Is Upon Us featuring cover artwork by infamous death metal artist Mark Riddick.

The first 14 tracks from this compilation feature bands from Dark Descent Records:

Thevetat
Morpheus Descends
Horrendous
Blood Incantation
Spectral Voice
Grave Ritual
Divine Eve
Father Befouled
House of Atreus
Imprecation
Blaspherian
Weregoat
Ritual Necromancy
Ghoulgotha

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Zombie PMRC attacks Morpheus Descends

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During the 1980s, a group of wives of senators and other busybodies got together to form a group they called the “Parents Music Resource Center,” or PMRC. Their intention was to protect children from the dangerous heavy metal, rock and rap music which had sexual, drug and occult themes. After essentially shaming the interesting bands, the group finally used the coercive power of shame to force labels and record stores to insist on warning labels for albums with content that might upset the precious snowflakes and their absentee parents.

Unlike acid-washed jeans and Valley Girl slang, the PMRC unfortunately did not die with the 1980s. It lives on in zombie form through the Parents Music Resource Center appreciation group, which has taken to flagging certain metal bands, zines and labels as hostile to decency, morality and good taste as all metal should be.

Morpheus Descends proved to be the most recent instance of quality metal running afoul of these deranged censors, who feel that the new material from this band will cause “casual sex, drug use, enema fetishism and voting Republican” (PMRC boss Tipper Gore was wife to Al Gore, at the time Democrat senator from New Hampshire). We’re not really sure that people — at least still living people — want to have sex to old school death metal, but as the internet’s “rule 34” implies, any imaginable fetish has already occurred.

This clash between good and evil occurred at the moment when Morpheus Descends released one of the two newly written and recorded tracks to be on their From Blackened Crypts compilation. Check it out below.

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Dark Descent Records plans US death metal compilation

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Dark Descent Records has announced plans to unleash a compilation of US death metal bands which will accompany an upcoming issue of Legacy magazine from Germany which will be themed around death metal.

Bands confirmed so far:

Morpheus Descends
Thevetat
Blood Incantation
Spectral Voice
House of Atreus
Grave Ritual
Imprecation
Blaspherian
Horrendous
Father Befouled

Dark Descent Records label head Matt Calvert adds: “We’re still working on a couple others as well. These will be rare/unreleased tracks on this CD compilation and may include 7” tracks, vinyl or cassette only tracks or some early teasers (in the case of Grave Ritual). More soon.”

In the meantime, interested listeners can look to the last Dark Descent Records compilation which unleashes free digital music in the underground metal styles.

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Morpheus Descends – From Blackened Crypts box set in pre-order

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Dark Descent Records announced the pre-order of a CD/DVD box set of classic underground death metal band Morpheus Descends (formerly Morpheus) featuring two CDs and a DVD including all past material from this formative act which influenced Suffocation, Cannibal Corpse and many other death metal bands from the early 1990s.

The box set will include, in addition to the 2CD digipak, two new and unreleased tracks wich will see issue as a separate 7″ entitled From Blackened Crypts and a DVD entitled Visage of Malady, as well as a 11×17″ double-sided poster and 24-page booklet. The tracklist is:

Disc 1
1. Oozing from the Urn
2. The King’s Curse
3. The Way of All Flesh
4. Corpse Under Glass
5. Immortal Coil
6. Trephanation
7. Proclaimed Creator
8. Accelerated Decrepitude
9. Submerged in Adipocere
10. Enthralled to Serve
11. Ritual of Infinity
12. Trephanation
13. Accelerated Decrepitude
14. Triformed Limbs
15. Stigmatic Crucifixion
16. Residual Kill
17. Cairn of Dumitru demo 93
Disc 2
1. The Cruciform Hills
2. Cairn of Dumitru
3. Autumn Bleed
4. Signs of Gehenna
5. Moupho Alde Ferenc Yaborov
6. Begging for Possession
7. Valley of Undead War
8. Shaitan the Unborn
9. The Horror of the Truth
10. Corpse Under Glass (Live Reunion-Martrydoom)
11. Accelerated
12. Trephanation
13. Triformed Limbs
14. Accelerated
15. The Cruciform Hills pre-release ’94
16. Residual ’91
17. Autumn Bleeds ’93

For more information, see the pre-order page at Dark Descent Records.

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Funerus – The Black Death

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Following up on its doom-death full-length Reduced to Sludge released in 2011, Funerus surges forth with three new tracks on a 7″ entitled The Black Death to be released on Dark Descent Records within the next few weeks. This short work shows that where Reduced to Sludge finalized the Funerus style, newer works further intensify the strong doom-death sound which has propelled this band for decades of enjoyment in the death metal underworld.

Sounding very much in company with widely varied acts such as Divine Eve, Cianide and Asphyx, Funerus writes grinding death metal riffs which develop over the course of a song with hints of melody and layers of texture, building an incrementally crushing atmosphere around a strong theme. On The Black Death, melodic elements serve a stronger role but entirely without becoming fluff or reducing the impact. Funerus uses melody in death metal correctly, which is to underscore the evocative vocal rhythm of a chorus and bring out variation in riffs so that repetition increases the crushing sense of morbid doom instead of adulterating it. These songs build like the experience of descending into a deep cave, with the heaviness of the air growing more oppressive and the fear surging with each foot further into the void that return from this abyss will be impossible. Where older Funerus relied on more varied technique and sometimes conflicted with the pure power of its doom-death riffs, this new incarnation clears out everything but the essentials and uses them to complement the fiery riffing to give it a further sense of oppressive hopeless violence.

In addition, vocals provided by bassist Jill McEntee, who shares instrumental duties with her husband John McEntee of Incantation, both through clarity of production and greater savagery produce an effect of urgent despair like chanted emergency messages broadcast by loudspeaker in the ruins of a dystopian city. Of the three tracks on this album, “The Black Death” grinds almost like a Bolt Thrower track but builds to a staggering sledgehammer doom-death riff instead of a melodic counterpoint to the abrasive chromatic dirge. The second track “The Minding” applies a melodic Swedish-style death metal riff much as might appear on a Carnage or Amorphis record but throws behind it a bulldozer of rhythmic momentum. Closing out the record, “On the Edge of Death” charges more like early Asphyx and keeps the intensity higher at a mid-paced speed with relentless vocals calling forth like battle command. Together these three tracks show a streamlined, stripped-down and more articulate Funerus that intends greater malice and achieves a sound competitive with the best of the underground that shows us this band at its greatest power yet.

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