Near Death Condition prepare Evolving Towards Extinction

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Swiss extreme death metal band Near Death Condition plan to unleash their sophomore full-length Evolving Towards Extinction on Unique Leader Records.

Evolving Towards Extinction was mixed at famed Hertz Studios (Vader, Hate, Dead Infection, Vesania etc.) in Poland and mastered at Iguana Studios in Germany.

Track List:

  1. Words Of Wisdom
  2. Between The Dying And The Dead
  3. Intelligent Design
  4. Pandemic Of Ignorance
  5. Praise The Lord Of Negation
  6. The Anatomy Of Disgust
  7. Anagamin
  8. Evolving Towards Extinction
  9. Vertigo
  10. Communing With Emptiness
  11. Nostalgia For Chaos

Founded in the band members’ native Switzerland thirteen years ago, Near Death Condition unleashed their “Delusional Perception Of Reality” demo in 2005 which earned Near Death Condition a signing with noted brutal death metal label Unique Leader. In 2011 the band released their first album, The Disembodied – In Spiritual Spheres.

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Slayer releases May tour dates

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Those who read this site on a regular basis know of our devotion to the unholy triad who invented underground metal, namely Slayer, Hellhammer and Bathory. You can see one of these bands, albeit missing one original guitarist and drummer, as Slayer comes to your town this may.

2013 brought some good and some bad, but the shockingly and disturbingly bad was the loss of Slayer’s Jeff Hanneman. Nothing can really be said here except that he was the voice of a generation — Generation X — and one of the few people to spin a truthful line about reality instead of writing “yeah yeah yeah” and some chat about hooking up with girls in discotheques.

With Gary Holt (Exodus) on guitars and Paul Bostaph (Forbidden) on drums, Slayer rattles onward with original members Tom Araya and Kerry King rounding out the lineup. With tourmates Suicidal Tendencies and Exodus, both members of that liminal time in the early 1980s when all of these genres formed, Slayer will be visiting the following cities in May, with more dates to be posted soon:

  • May 9 The Great Saltair, Salt Lake City, UT
  • May 10 Fillmore, Denver, CO
  • May 11 Shrine, Billings, MT
  • May 13 Uptown Theatre, Kansas City, MO
  • May 15 The Pageant, St Louis, MO
  • May 16 Eagles Ballroom, Milwaukee, WI
  • May 17 Rock on the Range, Columbus, OH
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Oration of Disorder reviews 01-19-14

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What’s an oration of disorder? What most people think of as “order” consists in telling other people what they want to hear and then manipulating them. That’s how you sell them products. But the selling of products is the opposite of what art and listeners need, which is a harsh voice to tell us the truth.

shroud-of-the-heretic-_-revelations-in-alchemyShroud of the Heretic – Revelations in Alchemy

From the latest attempt of the Incantation clone camp comes Shroud of the Heretic with an album that combines a subtle melodic sensibility and the roaring chordstream bassy tremolo riffs that define that style. What is great about this is that it brings out the doom metal aspects of doom-death and is willing to allow the thunder to build and create the sense of sonic tunnel vision that makes this style so crushing. Shroud of the Heretic specialize in letting the music breathe through two riffs in combat from which a third rises, allowing the majority of the song to be taken in the interplay between those two riffs and then connecting them to other possibilities before returning for the descent. Revelations in Alchemy aims more for a doom metal aesthetic than a death metal one, and so benefits from the kind of repetition and churn that would not have worked on an Incantation album. It does not offer the same intensity as the older albums its worships, but it provides an alternative to the modern metal of this time that is well-composed even if not outright thrilling and terrifying. Given that its goal is, like that of most doom metal, to slowly press you into earth with inescapable repetition, Shroud of the Heretic seems to be on a path toward that end.

james-labrie-_-i-will-not-breakJames Labrie – I Will Not Break

Coming to us from Dream Theater, James Labrie knows his audience likes jazzy heavy metal with a focus on positive themes. It makes sense that Dream Theater’s heritage is half Iron Maiden and half Rush, because they adopt the rhythms and harmonies of the former while using the quasi-prog stylings and outlook of the latter. Labrie continues in this vein but with more of an alternative rock sense of melody, creating something that sounds like a hybrid between Queensryche, Foo Fighters, and the kind of inspirational alt-rock-folk music that makes it into Lifetime Movie Network films at the end, when the girl hooks up with the right boy and apologizes to her mother and maybe even, finds Church (or God if she’s lucky). The result is probably a perfect commercial product in that it makes you feel good, with a “positive message found in the unlikeliest of places” (NPR) just like Rush, but has a basically good rhythm and is melodically compelling enough to hum along. But, like fellow Canadian artist Bryan Adams, Labrie has also indulged in a cheese fest that takes him firmly out of metal and plants him into the category of adult-oriented radio rock for people who want something a little cheerful and a little “edgy.” Thus he has left the hall and entered the suburban living room, while a vacuum runs or taxes are done, and the kids are upstairs listening to Dead Infection.

asgardsrei-_-dark-fears-behind-the-doorAsgardsrei – Dark Fears Behind the Door

The distinctive ambient intro that opens this album remains one of the high points. While all of the elements are correct, like many post-genre bands, this is essential a mishmash of styles put into the framework of faster abrupt death metal. Many of the tropes here are familiar from black metal and death metal of the past two decades, but are put into a uniform flow of high-speed tremolo picking. There are some bizarre riffs here, and the band specialize in horror movie-sounding lengthy power chord phrases, but these often seem to lead nowhere. There’s a good aesthetic idea there, but for it to become musical, it must arise from the other riffs. Instead, it’s more like a tour of compartments on a train where each one offers something different but in roughly the same style and so it seems to add up, but ultimately it’s a search for the compartment with the interesting riff and that’s fairly random. As far as style, these guys have a distinctive one that’s all their own, despite being very retro to the point of outright allusion, but because of the way riffs are contexted as part of the overall rhythmic composition nothing stands out as out of place.

subreality-_-endless-horizonsSubreality – Endless Horizons

Imagine Blind Illusion, kicked forward a half-generation and thus using deathy vocals over melodic but buoyantly regular speed metal. These six songs were recorded in 1996 and finally released in 2004 but they sound like they’re straight out of the days of later Kreator or any of the death-influenced speed metal of the late 1980s. If you live for 1980s speed metal and like the somewhat shaky instrumentals of the underground, as well as the hangovers from 1970s metal which infest this like a Dave Murray impersonators’ conference, this divergence into metal history might appeal. Rhythmically consistent, Subreality has found a few grooves it likes and stays within them, using the mid-paced beat to hang riffs from like tentpegs holding canvas. Many of these riffs anticipate patterns that Pantera would later use to make its own music, previously a glam hair band with extensive heavy metal stylings, seem more “tough” on its way to discovering bro-core. Like most speed metal that does not take the riff salad approach, this quickly heads toward repetition as a familiar comfort and sing-song choruses outlining the rhythms of the song title. Not only that, but in the worst of the European approaches to speed metal, this is strictly verse-chorus (w/occasional riff detours) music based on the pace of the vocals, so it develops slowly if at all and features heavy repetition. Some have said this is an underground classic. “Classic of what?” I might ask.

grace-disgraced-_-enthrallment-tracedGrace Disgraced – Enthrallment Traced

If you combined later Carcass’ Necroticism with later Suffocation, and decided that from modern metal you’d take the twisted riffs that converge on themselves through intricate lead rhythm patterns and discard the true randomness, you might be on a path to Grace Disgraced. Despite its fondness for internally rhyming names, this band makes a noodly type of death metal hybrid that emphasizes a contrast between spidery lead riffs and djent style percussive single-string riff texture. These songs do well once they get started and maintain a solid internal correspondence and tension; the real challenge this band is going to face in the future is figuring out how to make these songs distinctive. Much gets lost in the wash of riffs, blast beats and interludes; without shaping these songs around some distinctive trope, as Suffocation did (but Carcass ultimately did not) they’re going to find themselves getting lost in the background noise. In addition, many of the riff types are highly similar between songs which leads to a further loss of distinctiveness. All instruments are well-played and songs hold together without becoming random although often it’s difficult to discern what they’re trying to say.

adamus_exul-arsenic_idolsAdamus Exul – Arsenic Idols

The black metal that doesn’t sound like “post-metal” (emo, indie, shoegaze, metalcore) fully is generally built on the same model that later Gehenna and Gorgoroth built on, which is the churning sweep riff followed by a fast metal tremolo riff and over the top vocals. Adamus Exul makes a competent bid for this style and generally does it well but adorn it in so many other decorations that it becomes hard to tell where each song is going. In that there’s a revelation; these songs introduce themselves well, and deepen the experience with internal richness, but never manage to pick a place to go. Thus the band uses a lot of radical percussion and decoration to transition out of each song. By the last two tracks on the album, Adamus Exul have almost totally lost concentration and/or their hoard of ideas, and the release trails off into gibberish and leftover speed metal tropes. The first four tracks however show some potential as a musical experience but fall short of exposing themselves to the raw nihilism of black metal, in which they can no longer hide in the world of what is socially valued, but most confront the emptiness of life itself and the need to give it meaning through finding purpose which is not necessarily inherent. That is lost here and so what has promise ends up being an entertaining and aesthetically distracting experience but never leads to any profundity which might give this album staying power, even if it is better in technique and composition than most of what crosses my desk.

malevolent-supremacy-_-malevolent-supremacyMalevolent Supremacy – Malevolent Supremacy

Looking at this title, you might think: middle of the road death metal with deathgrind influences. That indeed describes Malevolent Supremacy, who write songs around the blast-beat buildup and breakaway much as the Skinless-style bands did, but instead of aiming for slouchy brocore grooves, Malevolent Supremacy like high-speed riffs and clattering drums racing to a conclusion. These riffs rip along at the high speeds you might expect from the second Vader album and do fall into grooves, just not the simplistic bouncecore ones favored in fraternity houses and meth dens worldwide. Songs are well staged and unravel with some subtlety. However, this band relies too much on vocals to lead the guitars, which is backwards, and have a tendency to build up perfectly good songs only to extrude them into repetition as a way of preserving whatever mood was created. Too many flourishes on guitar also interrupt what would be, if stripped down and allowed to breathe as themselves, some powerful death metal songs. The frenetic approach rarely works because it smooshes all of that nice death metal textural complexity into a single background drone, which then requires the vocals get dramatic to compensate, but that doesn’t work so perfectly workable song structures get interrupted with “contrast” that amounts to fast breaks and quick turns to evade the attention of the listener. This band has potential but should probably try another tack.

queen-v-_-decade-of-queen-vQueen V – The Decade of Queen V

Flopping into the metal pile because guitars are used, Queen V should be filed instead under 1968 style music: brassy female vocalist, ironic songs, lots of hook and some boom. This is music designed for movies in that I can’t imagine anyone sitting down to something this unsubtle and finding meaning in it, but it would be something that a brain-dead leech like a movie producer might use to symbolize a character having a rebellious moment in between blowing her boss and getting mugged by hipsters. The music itself is crass and obvious. It whallops you over the head and howls at you. Nothing in it is poorly-executed, but as a judgment call, it seems to be designed for either people who have trouble digesting five-note runs or who like to play loud music to assert their personalities while they shower, mow lawns, mope over breakups or other drama. That erects a barrier for metal fans who would probably find it unsubtle and repetitive, but this might appeal to people who like Tracy Chapman and Liz Phair and other strong female vocalists with very simplified points to make.

grave-_-endless-procession-of-soulsGrave – Endless Procession of Souls

On the surface, this album is like later Fleshcrawl or Dismember works, a big warm hug of fuzzy Swedish distortion and adorably principled misanthropy. It stays within the traditional death metal style, but imports a lot of its song structure and riff from speed metal, which means there’s more chugging and bounce on this one. There’s also too much reliance on vocals leading the rhythm guitar and, while contrast is generally a good thing, too much contrast that is wholly unrelated to what went before and therefore seems more like an unmarked subway stop than a discovery of something sublime and previously obscure. For many who remember the speed metal of the late 1980s, a lot of this will seem paint by number: riff etches out a chord progression, counter-balances it with some unique feature like a melodic hook, and chorus re-hashes what is implied by the riff. Songs rip along and might warm you up on a chilly day for their uptempo but not pointless faster consistency. Like At the Gates Slaughter of the Soul, most songs focus around a family of similar rhythms which gives this album a very consistent feel. Many of the patterns on here show a strong Celtic Frost influence, and there’s nothing wrong with that. As an album, it is not detestable and definitely is better than the majority of stuff out there, but it may lack the clarity and unique articulation that makes people want to throw it on the player in the first place, which is much how I feel toward later Fleshcrawl and Dismember.

nebiros-nekromanteion-splitNebiros / Nekromanteion – In Command Tenebrae split 7″

The new black metal underground has mixed the 1980s style of black metal with some of the more punk-influenced elements of death metal, creating a new style that is equal parts Angelcorpse and Venom, Bathory and GBH. Nebiros leads in with a track of fast storming proto-black metal in the Sarcofago style, complete with emulation of the “catch-up” drum fills which filled in the space between uneven length guitar tracks and the drums which were recorded later. This song rips through several quick riffs, then slides into a groove like one that early Samael might have used, before trailing out in a blaze of reprise of earlier riffs. Nekromanteion begins with a more melodic ripping death metal approach, using a grand riff to instill a sense of rhythm that explodes outward in a combination of two riffs, an open percussive riff more like something on a hardcore album, and a Norwegian-style minor key melodic riff. The result cycles after this point before ending in a processional riff that contrasts its initial theme. This goes for a softer approach with more atmosphere than the Nebiros track, which is why the two complement each other well. It’s hard to tell from this limited sample whether these bands are able to develop more material that maintains this level of interest, but for a starting gambit this 7″ shows a lot of what is missing in contemporary metal and two styles that can render it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCH1RKRfp38

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Morfin – Inoculation

Morfin emerge from the potent musical texture of the late 1980s and the transitional era between speed metal and death metal where Sepultura, Destruction, Kreator and Sadus ruled the day. This period was known for its tendency to wrap up a diverse influences under a speed/death banner and make music that straddled the genres, which often produced a potent ferment of riffcraft but left songwriting behind as it tried to balance many diverse elements in the same band.

Although the vocals on Inoculation are heavily van Drunen-influenced and often exhibit rhythms found on the first two Pestilence LPs, riffs and their underlying melodic sense are straight out of late speed metal, with a comparison to a more melodic version of Kreator or Arise-era Sepultura being apt. The primary technique in riffcraft is the ability to ride a rhythm established by the vocals, then extrude it to achieve an effect of completeness, and then return to its initial state. This creates riffs with lots of focus on the offbeat and a tendency to wrap up firmly at the end of each phrase. While this is more compelling than your average death metal riffing, it is also less likely to rely on the phrasal riffing that produced the best of the death metal genre.

Fortunately, like transitional bands Dark Angel and Sadus, Morfin uses a great deal of internal riff variation and knits these riffs together to keep a mood rolling. In these riffs, familiar patterns from heavy metal through death metal can be recognized, but ultimately the band will return to the roaring rhythmic hooks that create foot-tappingly powerful choruses. Notable is the ability to use melodic mid-paced riffs to flesh out the second half of a song, creating an intermission and contrast before returning to bouncy mayhem with more of those classic Destruction-era riffs. Like Mortem from Peru, Morfin is not so much a death metal band as it is a retrospective of metal past and present with a focus on energetic, compelling tunes.

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Agonized – Gods…

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Agonized will violently sodomize the inner core of your fragile soul. – Sarjoo Devani/Explicitly Intense

Not every band from the frozen north aimed for melodic and energetic interpretations of death metal; many, like fellow Finns Belial or the Swedes in Obscurity, chose instead to write grinding cudgels of primitive bass noise that sounded like a winter avalanche of the soul overtaking all hope. Agonized created a six-song demo in this vein and sadly were lost to time after that point.

Gods… resembles a Scandinavian version of the ultra-primitive death metal of Morpheus Descends in that songs start with simple motifs, often two notes shaped into a compelling rhythm, and then ride that pattern through textural changes such as alternating tremolo/single-picked, tempo doubling, and layers of vocals. This pattern is then confronted with an oppositional pattern which is extremely similar, causing a kind of crossover which tends to find itself in a third pattern which is a mid-paced melodic overview of the previous two. It creates a result that must be like rising from the frozen wastes to walk along mountain ridges.

Perhaps most famous for its title track, which includes a distinctive riff shared between Agonized and Beherit (on both Engram‘s “Axiom Heroine” and Drawing Down the Moon‘s “Thou Angel of the Gods”), Gods… evokes the raw purpose of the death metal and black metal underground. This was not political music; it was a rejection of what civilization had become in its reliance on friendly, happy, positive, “human” values. Thus it turned toward the inhuman. These churning dark riffs and gurgling demonic growls convey the point aesthetically that the days of enlightenment have failed us, and darkness has come again, rising from below to destroy all who were fooled by the false light.

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Sadistic Metal Reviews 01-12-14

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What are Sadistic Metal Reviews? Music is art when it has something to say, entertainment when it’s distracting. Since none of us have infinite time, we pick the best and strongest music we can and mock the rest. The path to true metal is littered with sweet, sweet poseur tears and the occasional gem of non-failure, a secret delight for the wary traveler…

behemoth-the_satanistBehemoth – The Satanist

Promising to make a “statement” and deliver “art,” The Satanist summons borrowed Morbid Angel and Angelcorpse cliches thrown into a carnival style arrangement with such poor taste it makes late 90s Ancient seem good by comparison. A typical “song” — they cut this album up like a pizza because the riffs in each song have no relation to one another — begins with a slow build up that is awkwardly discarded to make room for a blasting section that sounds like Trey Azagthoth circa 2001 trying to intonate his 7 string while Pantera is rehearsing in the background and reggaeton horns are thrown over the top. If you can imagine a drunken outtake from a later Septic Flesh album that randomly ends after about 3 “riffs” that meander about without purpose are played for about 2 minutes each, that approximates the effect here. It’s not atmosphere, and it’s not death metal. It’s circus music. You will never fail to be distracted as the riffs dance past. And yet, they make no sense when put together. The only thing holding these songs together is that you know roughly when there’s going to be a chorus to tap those toes and listen for the melodic riff. Not even a crappy Gateways to Annihilation imitation act anymore, Behemoth now make it well known that they’re a merchandising front that’s somehow more shallow than recent Watain. Stupid music, regurgitated themes… this is the Marilyn Manson of “underground metal.” No, scratch that; he wrote actual songs. Lullabies for molested children struggling through impossibly awkward teenage years, perhaps, but actual songs. This is just gee-whiz riff practice with incoherent blasphemy and angsty mincing underneath the guitar masturbation.

obscure_oracle-demo_2013Obscure Oracle – Demo 2013

Hybridizing power metal, progressive speed metal such as Anacrusis, and death metal, San Angelo’s Obscure Oracle focuses on the newer metal styles of a stream of technical riffs but unlike the newer bands, returns to the 1980s for a chorus-focus in rhythm and riff shape which holds these songs together better than most bands can manage. The detours into instrumentals often inspired by other genres are usually pretty well managed but the problem of making them a steady feature of the stylistic canon is that they must appear frequently and they must stay distinctive, so never really fit within the composition but serve as a kind of oppositional interlude. Obscure Oracle do this better than 90% of other bands and keep the focus on the song, giving us some hope for these guys despite the unfortunate modern influences.

centinex-subconscious_lobotomyCentinex – Subconscious Lobotomy

I always wondered why this album did not go farther back in the day. It had the thunderous electric distortion, heavy vocals, hardcore-style drumming (but flattened from offbeat emphasis to cadence), and everything else. Maybe it was the amateur hour cover drawing on the original? On re-listen to this beautifully re-mastered re-issue, I realize the actual problem: where Entombed was rocky, this album is death metal and punk that never picks up on a direction and so ends up back in rock ‘n’ roll. It sounds like regression. Entombed’s songs expanded out into these soundtrack-influenced beautiful sections that gave them death and intensity. This thrashes around, then ends up on bouncy hard rock riffs. Even more, it’s almost strictly verse-chorus without allowing for melodic development between the two. Thus, it trudges. Repetition emerges. It feels like being lost in the back alleys of an unfamiliar city, and the sensation is akin to boredom. The story the record labels want you to believe is that somewhere, someone buried a lost cache of genius Swedish death metal under a carpet somewhere. The reality is that it was a relatively small group of people who figured it out and everyone else missed the boat not through lack of opportunity but lack of cognition.

ingested-revered_by_no_one_feared_by_allIngested – Revered by No-One, Feared by All

Another worthless band that plays jockcore masquerading as a death metal band. Nothing about this album is morbid, sinister, or “brutal”. It’s just a bunch of stop-start mechanical rap/rock grooves sandwiched between random Cryptopsy (circa the “wearing Earth Crisis sweatpants promo pics” bad years) blasting randomness without any rhyme or reason. Do you enjoy opening storage containers with your face? Do you know how quickly you can shotgun a PBR if it’s room temperature and the game is in two hours? Put on those wife beaters, cheer for the team, and here’s some tailgate party slam death metal brocore to get the night started! If Pyrexia were tasked with rewriting Machine Head’s Burn My Eyes in a way that would appeal even more to Wu-Tang Clan fans, this EP would be the result. This “slam” garbage is Tupac with better merchandising, but since the cover art here is crappier than what they had on their debut, it seems they’re failing as being a merchandising brand used to sell “death slammer bro” lifestyle products to confused backward ball-cap fratboys as well. Another drink coaster that might as well say Aborted or Skinless on it.

alcest-shelterAlcest – Shelter

It has become painfully obvious that the lucrative bandwagon of “post-black metal” has headed off the road and is now tumbling down a gentle hillside, to be followed by a sudden drop into total irrelevance. This won’t be surprising to those who recognized “post-black”, sludge, shoegaze, indie-metal, etc. as basically warmed over 1980s emo music. At this point, Alcest sounds about like the average generic indie rock band as these artists and their fan bases stop with the lies and come to terms with what they really want to hear: socially acceptable whine rock. If you ever want to know what a lobotomy feels like, give this track a listen. You will feel emotion on the surface, followed by an emptiness which is your brain recognizing the total lack of content other than a veneer of meaningful music. There will be wheedly-wheedly guitars, extensive arrangements that go nowhere, vocal posturing and lots and lots of false drama like that diabetes-inducing icing they spread on the cheap cakes at American grocery stores. Everything is on the surface however, designed to fool you like a Those who value their mortality, stay far away from this brain bleaching turd.

metallica-metallicaMetallica – Metallica

While it may be unfair to classify this as the first “commercial speed metal” album, it certainly was the most breathtaking example of a band choosing profit over artistry. We all know they’re out there: the vast horde of people who will buy just about anything as long as you dumb it down so it doesn’t confuse them. They like verse-chorus structures, gentle melodies, pentatonic soloing and big buoyant 4/4 verses. Metallica took one look at this audience and thought, “Well, Cliff’s dead — he’ll never know!” and so they made an album after the butt-rock that sold out in the decade before Metallica was formed. If you’re thinking Boston and REO Speedwagon with more muted E chords, you’re right! The continuation of …and Justice for All‘s proto-nu-metal stop-start riffs combined with adult contemporary crooner vocals and rock-style song structures represent a distillation of the lowest elements of metal in a form suitable for easy consumption by the masses. It’s not technically incompetent, and in fact is reasonably well-executed, if you’re expecting rock music. It misses the point of metal song construction and instead is rehashing the blues-rock and stadium country hits from the 1970s. This is the album most people think of when they hear the term “heavy metal” — and we wonder why they find it hard to respect heavy metal from that point on. Abandon all hope, ye who go down this path of listening.

tennessee-murder-club-_-human-harvestTennessee Murder Club – Human Harvest

Promising a “timeless” death metal album, this immediately sounds unlike anything a self-respecting fan of death metal fan would listen. Never mind the off putting metalcore vocals and modern guitar tone (plus the stupid metalcore band name and logo), under the surface this is Lamb of God with “horror” riffs thrown in random arrangements. With albums like this alongside Repugnant and Entrails, the blame could always be placed on Bloodbath for mixing Pantera mall grooves with generic third tier Entombed wannabe Stockholm death metal and creating a new lifestyle product for mainstream “headbangers” during their interim between Slipknot and the Dave Matthews Band. “Death metal” for angry truck drivers. So it’s really just Pantera with tremolo picking, and I wouldn’t wish for this rancid batch of sonic diarrhea to befall the ears of even my worst enemy.

hellbastard-_-heading-for-internal-darknessHellbastard – Heading For Internal Darkness

Debut album from the band that likely coined the term ‘crust’, this ambitious work falls short of excellence due to a few unusual and unsavory choices in aesthetic and composition. First, though certain songs pick up the pace much of this album sticks to one or two tempos? a bit more variation (such as the track “Civilized”) would be welcome. Second, poorly and sometimes awkwardly inserted female vocals are placed in parts of songs where the riff should instead be emphasized. It doesn’t take much to filter them out, but it would be far better without them? they add nothing to the music and in some cases detract from it (the faster section of “Death Camp” is a prime example). Otherwise, this is an energetic and spirited work. Chunky speed metal riffing mixed with thrash and early death metal touches compliments a loose­playing drummer. There’s an unhindered exuberance to the performance which echoes the best of hardcore punk. Basically sounds like early Metallica or Exodus mixed with Amebix, Crass, and Discharge. Its flaws hinder it from truly ascending to the top, but this is still a solid album that ranks in the top 5% of the crust genre.

disfiguring-the-goddess-_-black-earth-childDisfiguring the Goddess – Black Earth Child

Apart from growling and blast beats, this is nu-mu. Rap/rock chugging thuds (djent) and “ambient” synth/sampling forays in guitar driven rhythm oriented songs (where attention is given to vocal rhythms) give this more of a Korn character than anything else. This is a produced to perfection turd of a release that was no doubt made to pacify the simple minds of neckbeards that spend too much free time on Facebook. Songs go nowhere, literally being a series of blocky rhythmic chugging sequences reiterated in different ways. It’s monotonous and stupid. The solo “metal” project of a dubstep producer, this release borrows the surface aesthetic from “brutal death metal”, but accomplishes little more than sounding like a more “extreme” Slipknot. Considering the interest in this project has more to do with its merchandising and the personality behind it all, it’s no surprise all of this “slam” vapidity functions as an embarrassing social tool for indie-rockers and hipsters: another lifestyle product that under the surface of “crazy music”, provides more of the same disposable radio rock.

clit-commander-_-tex-mex-ass-blastClit Commander – Tex Mex Ass Blast

How can you hate a record with this hilarious title? That’s what they’re hoping your friends will say to you. They only need to fool you for about thirty minutes, long enough to place that order and slide that card. Then the sale is made and everyone wins… at the label. The fact is that if you buy this, you’ve not only wasted money but done something stupid enough that you really should end your life! This is predictable death-grind of the mid-paced variety that specializes in linear riffs and abrupt tempo changes that lead nowhere. Song construction is circular and yet still manages to be disordered. If you already feel a massive ennui overwashing you such that you no longer care if you live or die, imagine listening to it. It’s worse.

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Sammath – Godless Arrogance pre-orders shipping now

sammath-godless_arrogance-cover_photo

Most bands have two or three good albums in them and once they’ve made those, they’re relegated to re-living old influences. Sammath on the other hand has continued improving with Godless Arrogance, the band’s new album on Hammerheart Records.

Luckily for all of you who like quality metal, you don’t need to wait until the official release date. Godless Arrogance is available for pre-order at the low price of €9.90 and will begin shipping on February 5, 2014.

Crossing the melodic structure of black metal with the vicious riff attack of primal death metal, Godless Arrogance expands upon this band’s career with an album that shows technical skill but doesn’t show off, and is focused on delivering raging tunes with an underpinning of melody.

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Massacre reveals track listing for Back From Beyond

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In March of this year, formative Florida death metal band Massacre will release their highly-anticipated followup to 1991’s From Beyond. On a Facebook post, the band released the following tracklist.

Track list:

  1. As We Wait To Die
  2. Ascension Of The Deceased
  3. Hunter’s Blood
  4. Darkness Fell
  5. False Revelation
  6. Succumb To Rapture
  7. Remnants Of Hatred
  8. Shield Of The Son
  9. The Evil Within
  10. Sands Of Time
  11. Beast Of Vengeance
  12. Back From Beyond
  13. Honor The Fallen

Composed of ex-Death personnel and musicians from nearby Florida death metal bands, Massacre in its From Beyond days was a unique animal in that it was straight-ahead death metal with an intelligent vibe. That is, these songs were well formed to deliver an intense emotional dose and thrill-seeker hairs on the back of your neck standing up at some of the riff combinations. It was like an adventure story through an unknown land.

What made it unusual for the time was that it threw out the chunky/bouncy riffing that most bands were choosing at the time in order to be closer to mainstream metal. Instead, Massacre used guitarist Rick Rozz’s immense tremolo skills and big burly fuzzy distortion to create a sound like thunder through the clouds. The tremolo riff enabled them to join together riffs and keep momentum flowing, rather than relying on the constant interruption-based expectation as chunky/bouncy riffing does, and thus the band was able to assemble simpler riffs into songs with malevolent grandeur.

It will be interesting to see what they cook up for Back From Beyond. Self-referential album titles can work out poorly for bands, although it worked just fine for AC/DC. The band released the Condemned From the Shadows EP last year to some acclaim, and from that work it appears the band may be heading in a more traditional heavy metal direction.

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Rotten – Cryptic Catacombs

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Death metal in its heyday achieved an atmosphere: an impending sense of demise from impersonal forces beyond the listener’s control. Technique was used to achieve this, but mechanical dexterity was not the end objective of an album – which is where many modern death metal bands go astray. This, coupled with crystal-clear production, often creates a product which evokes no sensation beyond being pummeled with a digital baseball bat. Fortunately, the real “underground resistance” against this monstrosity still exists.

The first demo from Rotten, a solo project from the vocalist of Avulsed, shows a denial of all contemporary aural standards in a return to Joined in Darkness style riffing. Recorded “live from the sewer” production showcases intense lumbering melodies alternating between longer power-chord notes and tremolo picking; which trades rhythmic motion off from the guitars to the drums, creating a “push-pull” effect elongating each melody and strengthening its texture.

The incorporation of synth elements – including programmed drums, strengthens the demo’s inhuman sensation, embodying a subterranean force manifesting itself among human civilization. Simultaneously familiar and foreign, this demo represents a strong foundation from which further works may arise.

Released only on cassette, interested parties may order through the project’s website.

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Is rock ‘n’ roll assimilating metal?

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Metal interviews are like connecting violent minds to an amplifier. The musician is given a chance to speak plainly, and rewarded for saying something outlandish enough to make a headline. It’s like pouring gasoline on a fire.

Much as “in vino veritas” describes how drunk people often accidentally blurt out the truth, interviews often get the essential thoughts out of musicians. Tired, often doing multiple interviews in a day, musicians are apt to cut to the chase. Further, since they’ve been working that part of the brain that makes language, they’re often at their clearest several interviews into the process.

Thus it’s not sensible to either discount interviews, or to wholly accept them without being critical. But recent comments by Nominon drummer Per Karlsson highlight why metal interviews will always be popular — the offhanded, casual and yet direct blurting of truth:

I’d say that black and death metal pretty much go hand in hand, but that’s just my opinion. I am a bit worried though, since more or less all death/black metal of today has turned into rock ’n’ roll or something, all the new bands seems to be more into retro-rock, either that or looking/sounding like Ghost. I am ashamed of what this has turned into, it makes me sick.

Score one for the surly musician. First it makes sense to discard is the “that’s just my opinion” which is a passive-aggressive way of saying that some opinions coincide with truth where others do not. Then to analyze his main point, which is basically that rock music is assimilating metal.

For a brief historical re-cap, metal is a breakaway genre from rock, itself a breakaway genre from blues, itself a breakaway genre from folk. Rock music represents a distillation of many traditions down to the simplest transmissible commercial product. It was always a simpler option to the popular music of the time, and then at some point in the 1960s it took over not just music but popular culture. Much of this has to do with how our commercial society worships whatever seems popular at the moment.

Metal never wanted to be rock. If it had, it would have stayed in the rock camp. It also didn’t fully want to be blues. The influences on Black Sabbath were not only previous rock and heavy blues, but progressive rock and horror movie soundtracks (these inherited heavily from modernist classical, notably Wagner). With metal, rock’s rather static textural riffing evolved into the power chord phrase, which is closer to the horror movie music than what rock was doing at the time.

This upset the existing order.

Rock music saw itself as the bad boy and rebel, the counterculture upsetting civilization. Now there was a counter-culture to the counter-culture. Where the rock boys were singing about flowers, love, peace and our bright future, metal brought in the harsh discordant notes of realism: idealism is poppycock, death is ever-present, and the obliviousness of the average person (see “War Pigs”) is what brings evil into the world. Where the rock guys thought you could fight evil with love, metal counter-posited that you can only fight evil with vigilance, and eyes-wide-open awareness of life, warts and all. That shocked the rock community.

Since that time, metal has been the go-to imagery for advertising firms, movies, books and other entertainment products to symbolize “rebellion.” They also try with punk. Metal and punk are the two drop-out genres that consciously elect to be outsiders, and to avoid just doing what other rock bands doing and, by following that trend, to choose “success.” Popular music is fairly simple: find a unique version of doing what everyone else is doing so your audience both recognizes what you’re doing, and has some unique “mental handle” that causes them to single you out. It’s basic memetics.

This means that entertainment products have both a core and a surface. The core is the actual musical content; the surface is the aesthetics, the quirk, the irony, the imagery, and so forth. Metal has rebellion both in its core and its surface. However, if that metal surface could be transferred to rock, the ideal product would result. The band that came closest was Guns n’ Roses who managed rock song format with later Black Sabbath-styled riffs and bluesy leads. If someone were able to make hard rock that felt like metal, the market would roll over and beg for them.

As a result, the primary threat to metal is bands that “look like” (surface) metal but are actually the same old stuff. A number of bands are indicted under this banner, including Opeth and all nu-metal (which under the skin is “rap/rock”). Recently this process has picked up more steam in the underground. “Post-metal” — which is basically late 1980s post-hardcore, emo or indie rock — has begun to be sold as black metal. Nu-metal with late hardcore stylings has been sold as death metal. The result is fans unable to tell the difference between metal and rock.

This advertiser’s dream will backfire. The more metal gets like rock, the more it loses its outsider status. The more metal shows up in “legitimate” publications and entertainment, the less it is consciously outside of the mainstream world. Like punk, it will end up a “flavor” of rock that is used to sell certain products like motorcycles, cologne, hot dogs and chain saws. This is what Karlsson is warning us against, and it’s a good thing we heed him.

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