Feb 122015
 

 

The French band Decline of the I are nearing the release of their second album, a seven-track work entitled Rebellion. We’ve paid close attention to the music as individual tracks have been released for public consumption. Last October we wrote about the first advance track from the album, a song named “Hexenface”, and then covered the premiere of a second one — “Lower Degree of God’s Might” — in mid-January. Now we ourselves have the pleasure of bringing you a third example of what Rebellion holds in store.

The song we’re premiering is “Le rouge, le vide et le tordu” (“The red, the emptiness, the twisted one”), and it is yet another display of the diverse talents of the band’s principal creative force, multi-instrumentalist  A.K., who has also performed in such bands as VorkreistMerrimack, and Malhkebre. Continue reading »

Feb 102015
 

 

Talk about eye-catching cover art! What you’re looking at above is the creation of Tim Jacobus (Goosebumps) and it graces the new EP by Australia’s Sewercide, entitled Severing the Mortal Cord. This is the band’s sixth release overall, following a demo and four splits, and it delivers five full-throttle blasts of mayhem — one of which we’re about to premiere.

The song’s name is “Hypothermia”, but there’s nothing cold about it. It’s a gritty, brawling blast of high-voltage death/thrash loaded with a hornet swarm of vicious riffs, gut-punching bass, and rambunctious percussion — and highlighted by a fret-burning solo that will singe your eyebrows. In keeping with the balls-to-the-wall atmosphere of the music, the vocalist sounds like he’s on a straight liquid diet of lye and pure, concentrated ethanol. Continue reading »

Feb 102015
 

 

As we’ve noted more than once at this site, the last 12 months have produced a stunning number of stunning black metal releases from Greece, and the flood of blood shows no signs of abating. On February 24, W.T.C. Productions will be releasing the second album by the Athenian band Devathorn. The new work, Vritra, follows the band’s Diadema debut by more than seven years, but the time has not been wasted. As proof, we offer a premiere of the album’s second track, “Doctrina Fide”.

Vritra is named for the great serpent of legend, the archetype of the draconic adversary, the bringer of chaos and liberation. Using this symbol of arcane knowledge and otherworldly fury, Devathorn have poured their musical devotion into a chalice of sulphur flame, where it burns with obsidian light. Continue reading »

Feb 082015
 

 

The Whorehouse Massacre have been churning out catastrophic heaviness from the bowels of British Columbia since roughly 2005, with almost a dozen short releases, one full-length album, and a live recording to their credit. On February 20, Transcending Obscurity will release a compilation of the band’s most recent EPs under the title Altar of the Goat Skull / VI. It comes as a precursor to the band’s next album, which will be released by the same label, and at the end of this post you’ll have the opportunity to hear it in full.

But if you’re not already familiar with this band’s brand of sludge, I should probably warn you: Listening to this album all the way through risks severe spinal compression, concussion, bleeding in the brain, black eyes, and gradual suffocation. It’s a low, slow death inflicted by pulverizing riffs and gut-punching percussion. About the only light that escapes this maw of darkness are the sparks that come from the crash of cymbals. Continue reading »

Feb 062015
 

 

The head-wrecking, head-twisting grind trio from London known as Oblivionized are nearing the release of their debut album Life Is A Struggle, Give Up, and today we’ve got the premiere of an official music video for one of the new songs — “Cry Yourself To Ash”.

We’ve been following Oblivionized pretty closely, reviewing their debut EP (here) back in 2011, their second EP (here) in 2012, and one of their contributions to a split with Plague Widow in 2013 (here). They’ve already amply proven their ability to vent fury with megawatt power and technical intricacy, but this track is a good example of the band’s ability to put some interesting twists and turns into their ferocity. Continue reading »

Feb 062015
 

 

When I heard the first two tracks from the new album by Virginia trio The Vomiting Dinosaurs, I wrote that they were a blast to hear — an open-throttle, ass-kicking combo of grind, thrash, and death metal bent on ramming your head right through the wall and into the furnace next door. Now that I’ve heard the whole album, I realize that I probably under-stated the album’s impact because I failed to include some kind of reference to carpet-bombing with napalm.

The band obviously have a sense of humor, which carries over from their name and the album’s title to the individual track titles as well, but the music is punishing — in a very good way. It romps between made-to-mosh, punk-inspired thrashing,  massively headbangable grooves, and flame-throwing grind eruptions. Continue reading »

Feb 062015
 

And now for something completely different.

You may gaze upon the macabre cover art for the debut album by Corpo-Mente, and you may wonder what lies within, cloaked in the image of a girl crying blood in a forest. Trust me, you won’t be able to guess. But making you guess isn’t the object of this post. Our mission instead is to bring you the premiere of the album’s sixth track, a song named “Dulcin”.

Corpo-Mente is a French duo consisting of vocalist Rïcïnn (Laure Le Prunenec) and multi-instrumentalist/producer Gautier Serre, who is better known as the man behind Igorrr and Whourkr and a collaborator with Öxxö Xööx. If you know anything about the music of those bands, then you know that attempting to guess what Corpo-Mente is about would be fruitless anyway. Continue reading »

Feb 032015
 

 

The French band Blockheads have been spitting rage at high speed for more than two decades, with five full-length albums  beginning with Last Tribes in 1995, and an assortment of split releases. Their latest album, This World Is Dead, was released by Relapse Records in January 2013, and today we bring you the premiere of one of its most devastating tracks, “Crisis Is Killing the Weak”.

Capturing on video the explosiveness of the kind of grindcore destructiveness manifested in a song like this one, and the impact it has on an audience in a live setting, is never easy. But this video does that. Filmed from multiple camera angles and artfully edited, it brings the mayhem vividly to life. Continue reading »

Feb 032015
 

 

Last fall we had the pleasure of premiering a full stream of The Final Outcome, a new EP by the Roman band Black Therapy, as well as a lyric video for the title track. And today we’re helping premiere an official music video for another song on the EP — the band’s cover of “Mad World”.

The cover was an interesting choice for the EP and a significant change of pace compared to the high-voltage melodic death gallops that precede it on the EP. Of course, the song was originally recorded by Tears For Fears, though in this case the band took their inspiration from the Gary Jules cover of the song that was included on the Donnie Darko movie soundtrack. Continue reading »

Feb 032015
 

 

Here’s yet another example of why music videos matter. Distance are a metal band from Madrid, Spain, whose debut album I was released by Mighty Music in November 2014. I overlooked the album when it was released, but the video we’re about to premiere has put it on my radar screen, and I hope it will put it on yours, too.

The video is for a song from the album named “Seeker of Truth”. It was made by one of the band’s guitarists, Alfredo Fernández, and by Miguel Mateos from Firefront Pictures. It combines a lot of interesting imagery, including computer animation as well as creatively framed shots of the band’s performance, and it suits the music. Continue reading »