I had a plan for today. I was going to finish a review of a new album, I was going to watch a few hours of sportzball (to see if the resurgent Seahawks continue their run into the NFL playoffs), and I was going to spend the rest of the day editing and formatting a big group of year-end-list posts we’ll be rolling out this week as part of our annual LISTMANIA extravaganza. I’ll still accomplish some of these things, but I kind of got derailed at the start of the day.
What happened was that I decided to listen to just one new song, and that put me in a certain kind of mood. And I started bouncing around among other songs that fit the mood, going even deeper into that mood. And then I decided, what the hell, maybe I should share what I listened to. And voilà! Maybe you’ll guess what kind of mood I was in by the time you finish this playlist — IF you can finish it.
PRIMITIV
This was the brand new song that started me on a roll. It’s the first advance track from the new album by an Indian band named Primitiv. The name of the album is Immortal & Vile, and it’s projected for release on February 1 by Transcending Obscurity Distribution.
This new song is “World War Zero”. There is truth in advertising here: this is primitive metal of death, mid-paced and grisly. The vocal growls and howls are monstrous, the grooves are heavy enough to crack your cranium, and the song includes some very tasty riffs and sinuous melodic leads. It’s an infectious beast, too.
Immortal & Vile is available for pre-order now at Bandcamp:
https://transcendingobscurityindia.bandcamp.com/album/immortal-and-vile-death-metal
https://www.facebook.com/Primitivband
EXCORIATE
From Primitiv, I moved to a new-defunct Bavarian band named Excoriate. After releasing three demos the band broke up in 2006. Their only full-length album, On Pestilent Winds…, was released in 2009, after the band’s dissolution. I had only heard a couple of songs from that album in the past, but they popped into my head this morning for some reason, and I listened to one of those, “Bestial Slaughter”. And I was reminded of how fucking good this band was — if you’re in the mood for a good black/death skull-fucking.
So I decided I really needed to listen to that whole album, and I discovered it’s now available on Bandcamp. So I bought it — and I’m embedding the full stream below the YouTube stream of “Bestial Slaughter”. I’ll just share with you a quote about the album from a review that appears on that Bandcamp page: “Fuck progress, forget treatment, and let it fester!”
https://excoriate-death-metal.bandcamp.com/releases
ORACULUM
In the fall of 2014 we premiered (here) a song from the superb debut EP (Sorcery of the Damned) by a Chilean band named Oraculum, which was released by Invictus Productions. After listening to that Excoriate track, I discovered that in September Oraculum uploaded a live video of the band performing the last track on Sorcery of the Damned, “Endarkenment”.
It’s so wretchedly doomed at the beginning, and then it becomes relentlessly barbaric. The band drop into more ghastly crawls during the song, alternating those with more campaigns of remorseless savagery — while managing to integrate threads of dismal melody.
Sorcery of the Damned is available at the Invictus Bandcamp, so I’m including the full stream after the video.
https://invictusproductions666.bandcamp.com/album/sorcery-of-the-damned
https://www.facebook.com/oraculum.chile/
OBSESSÖR
I realized that I had never “liked” Oraculum’s Facebook page, so after I fixed that oversight, Facebook gave me a list of other pages I might also like. One of those was for a German band named Obsessör. I scrolled down their FB wall in search of a link to some music and found the next song in this slaughtering playlist, which kicked my ass all over the place. I also found a post from October indicating that the band had split up — which is a damned shame.
The name of the song is “Assassins of the Pentagram”, and it’s the title track to the band’s second (and now last) album, which was released in 2014. It gets the adrenaline pumping in a flood of sulfurous speed metal. Hot shit!
https://www.facebook.com/blitzkriegbattalion/timeline
DAMAAR
I decided to listen to one more song this morning, after which I forced myself to stop and write this post.
The song is “Preaching For Mass Suicide”. I had listened to it for the first time yesterday, because someone had recommended this band to me for one of our Rearview Mirror posts. Given the mood I was in this morning, I decided to listen to it again — because its unbridled savagery is so off-the-charts.
The song is “Preaching For Mass Suicide” and it’s by a now-defunct Lebanese band named Damaar (the Latin spelling of their Arabic name, which means “destruction”). It comes from the band’s only release, a demo entitled Triumph Through Spears of Sacrilege (released in 2006 or 2007).
The beginning of the song sounds like a black/death hurricane, with a vocalist who is certifiably insane. As you get further in, some discernible rhythms appear (along with some skull-crushing hammer blows), and then about half-way through the song slows… and just pounds mercilessly for a while as the vocalist insistently poses a question… until they explode in one final orgasm of ferocity (with an amazing guitar solo).
Whoa, that Primitiv tune! It’s like Sonne Adam and Domination-era Morbid Angel had a baby!
Nice reference points!
This seems like a perfectly good way to spend a Sunday afternoon
..and dont forget some of the guys from Excoriate spun off into the completely awesome Venenum (who really need to get off their asses and do a follow up to that EP) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ix8VbSa4qW0
Yeah, Venenum is fantastic as well. I have a soft spot (and a burning hole in my wallet) for OSDM revivalism gems like this.
Yes! I forgot about that….
Riffs! I’m fairly certain that by the time I reached the end of this post, my chest hair had grown by an inch. Thank you for this early morning dose of testosterone.
I immediately pre-ordered the Primitiv album when it came across my Bandcamp feed the other day, but it doesn’t look like I had previously owned Excoriate’s. This has been rectified.
Obsessör and Damaar are new to me, and both sound killer. That Damaar track, in particular, hit like a truck. I wouldn’t be surprised if the vocalist was rabid.
“Obsessör and Damaar are new to me”
…unfortunately theyre both broken up now. Obsessör has a couple of full lengths and a couple of EP’s to track down, but Damaar only has the one demo
As the saying goes, I’ll most likely be late for my own funeral.
I definitely plan on tracking this stuff down, though.
“That Damaar track, in particular, hit like a truck.” Absolutely — like a truckload of hate.
That Obsessor track sounds like someone lit a fire behind the members’ respective arses.
HAHAHAHA!!!
The Primitiv track sounds really good.
Dang, you found some old school awesome with Primitiv and Excoriate, very cool! 🙂
🙂 Glad you liked them!
Such a shame that Excoriate split,they had so much potential.
OBSESSÖR! Never heard of but damn those riffs are great. The speed metal flavor in them make the high pitch screams fit so well! and the production is pretty nice too. Sufficiently dirty