Apr 092020
 

 

The name Death Courier has a history in the Greek metal scene that goes back to the first of their early demos in 1987, and with an extended break that began after the release of their 1992 debut album (Demise), that name is still alive. Their first studio after the band revived, Perimortem, was released in 2013, and now a long seven years afterward Transcending Obscurity Records has set June 5th as the due date for Death Courier’s third record, Necrotic Verses.

The first song released for listening off the new album was “Mourning Ecstasy“. It’s a fast death/thrashing escapade — an electrifying torrent of thunderous drumming, ecstatically vicious riffing that seethes and pummels, and vocals that sound like a rabid mastiff. It’s over almost before you know it, but the kind of song that leaves you hungry for more, which is why it made a good choice for the album’s first teaser.

But now it’s time for all you miscreants to be fed again, and we’re here to help stuff your head with graveyard nutrients as we premiere a song that reveals other dimensions of Death Courier‘s morbid and malevolent talents. Continue reading »

Mar 182020
 


Abysmal Dawn

 

Here we are again. with so many new songs and videos that I want to recommend that I’m resorting to what I did last weekend — compiling lots of sights and sounds (which are all over the map in genre terms), accompanied by only very brief comments of my own. I also added one news item that excited me, though there’s no music to be heard yet.

I should add that I hope you are all well, and that you’re doing your damnedest to physically stay away from other people to the greatest extent possible.

ABYSMAL DAWN (U.S.)

We begin with a jackhammering, shivering, and slithering piece of death metal menace, complete with thoroughly beastly vocals and twisted melodic accents and grooves that both prove to be ridiculously catchy. I could swear they actually used a heavy-caliber machibe gun instead of drums for parts of this, and that they tortured a poltergeist for the solos. Continue reading »

Jun 262016
 

Fistula-Longing For Infection

 

I enjoy hosting premieres of music here, but when those commitments accumulate in large numbers as they did over the last three days, they tend to restrict my ability to assemble round-ups of music appearing elsewhere. And so once again I find myself awash in new discoveries with not enough time to roll them all out for you. Hard choices must be made, and I’ve made them.

I confess that my decisions may have been influenced by the bleak feelings of dismay that I’ve been experiencing over the results of a certain referendum across the Atlantic coupled with the celebratory gasbaggery of a certain apricot-faced hellbeast hoping to capitalize on similarly ignorant, bigoted, and self-destructive impulses among the electorate on this side of the ocean. But I’ve also attempted to express my foul emotional state in a musically diverse way. Continue reading »

Aug 282013
 

(TheMadIsraeli has found time to whip up a few quick reviews while participating in the Seattle NCS Confab, and this one seemed like a good pick for today.)

So, here we have a band who have been inactive since fucking 1992. They have been reformed by the bassist/vocalist (who seems to be the songwriter) with two new guys (being a three-piece seems to be the Death Courier “thing”). The original guitarist is dead, and I don’t know why the drummer didn’t come back.

I don’t pay much attention to Greek death metal — I usually find it underwhelming — but Death Courier’s brand of deathgrind is a fucking beastly affair, and Perimortem is both savage and catchy as shit. Short songs (the album is only 19 minutes long), chainsaw guitars tuned down to B, old-school vomity death vocals, grinds, slow drags out the ass, classic Swedish style riffing that brings forth memories of bands such as Bloodbath and Hypocrisy, and devastating Suffocation-style breakdowns: it’s a pretty satisfying meal for its insanely short duration. Continue reading »