LEGION OF THE DAMNED: “RAVENOUS PLAGUE”

Jan 022014

(In this post TheMadIsraeli reviews the new album by Legion of the Damned from The Netherlands.)

This is a good way to start the New Year. I’ve been a fan of Legion of the Damned’s (or LOTD from here on out) brand of blackened death thrash attack since they formed. They’ve managed to put out nothing but consistently good to great albums since they started. What’s kind of surprising to me is that even though these guys have a six-album discography, a lot of people don’t know who they are. Because of that, I’m going to write this review from a kind of introductory perspective, rather than assuming that our readers already knows of these guys.

The way to really view LOTD’s music is old school as fuck. In thinking about all of their influences, all the bands they obviously look to, focus on the early end of those catalogues. We’re talking Hell Awaits Slayer, Pleasure to Kill Kreator, Scream Bloody Gore-era Death. The black metal influences are more difficult to pinpoint; they are more just an extra element mainly added into the guitar performances. The name of the game is gritty, fast as hell, riff-driven thrash metal with death metal and black metal fringes.

The name of LOTD’s latest offering is Ravenous Plague. It’s a fitting name, because everything about this album is like a fast-moving, civilization-slaughtering disease at work. This album is a bit on the filthier side as compared to their previous work, which always maintained a more mechanically precise attack. This is, to my recollection, the most that the band’s thrash roots have dominated their sound, and the result is pretty fucking killer. Ravenous Plague is nothing but ravenous feral sonic evisceration. Continue reading »

IMPENDING DOOM: “DEATH WILL REIGN”

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Jan 012014

(Who could have predicted that our first post of 2014 would be… DGR’s review of Impending Doom’s latest album?)

It feels weird for this to be my first review of 2014, but this is one of those discs that has been gnawing at me to be reviewed since it hit, considering how much I’ve listened to it since it came out in early November. Covering -core bands like this one is not the usual fare for NCS. We’ve long made a big deal about how if we don’t enjoy an album, then we’re probably not going to write about it, and with the -core genres currently suffering from a transformation into one homogenous mass of breakdowns, verb-the-noun names, and splatter font, it becomes more and more difficult to get around even to the groups that you would consider the stalwarts and veterans of the genre. That’s especially true in the case of deathcore, where it has long seemed that if you found roughly three bands to follow, then you really didn’t need to listen to anyone else; you would get everything that was happening in that scene through your chosen trinity.

It makes things difficult, because you have groups like Impending Doom in that mix, who, religious quibbles aside, feel like a band’s band. They’re known for always being busy and, like clockwork, pounding out new discs filled with their pared-down-to-its-very-core-elements brand of deathcore. They’re one of those bands that I’ve felt have always improved their sound with every disc. Every cycle has brought a new awareness of differing styles and whole new pools of riffs, reinforcing what makes the formula of that band so solid. Over time the breakdowns have become much thicker, the lyrics more violent, and the songs more groove-oriented. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: INTO DARKNESS — “TRANSMIGRATION OF COSMIC CREATURES INTO THE UNKNOWN”

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Dec 272013

After only one listen, I proclaimed the debut demo by Italy’s Into Darkness “one of the best death/doom releases of 2012”. I wasn’t alone — the surprising first effort of this new three-piece drew praise from many quarters. Now, after a change of line-up, they’ve followed that auspicious start with a new 7″ EP entitled Transmigration of Cosmic Creatures Into the Unknown (also available for download on Bandcamp), and it proves that the 2012 demo was no fluke.

Vocalist/lead-guitarist Doomed Warrior is the only surviving member of the band that produced that demo — now joined by Ken Hunakau (also a member of Fuoco Fatuo) on bass and rhythm guitar and drummer Pide Guts (Necro) — but the new release proves she was (and is) the heart and demonic soul of this band. She still sounds like she was separated at birth from Martin van Drunen, despite being born more than 20 years later, and if anything her voice has grown even more depraved and destructive since Into Darkness’ first outing. And her songwriting and guitar work are equally striking this time around. Continue reading »

STANGALA AND STONEBIRDS: “KREIZ-BREIZH SESSIONS VOL. 1”

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Dec 242013

(With this post we welcome Comrade Aleks, a new guest contributor from Russia who writes prolifically for other sites under different names.)

It will be useful to remind our readers about the region located in the northwest of France, and of course I mean Brittany. It is a region washed by the English Channel from the north, the Bay of Biscay is located to the west, and look – there’s fairy forest Brocéliande right in the middle, with Carnac stones and ancient alleys of menhirs. Fucking informative and romantic! Glorious sons of forests and mushroom glades StoneBirds and Stangala did record a solid unit under the name “The sessions in central Brittany”. Turn on the music and you will hear that Stangala really demonstrates proximity to the Celtic culture. And what about StoneBirds?

StoneBirds are good in their own way, and they’re on top of their form now. The band’s first release Slow Fly did not surprise me; yes, it was a not-bad traditional stoner album with songs laden with fat and groove, not very original, but that’s not to say it was of secondary quality. The new stuff sounds more straightforward, heavier, dreary, and more restless. The men have switched to the dark side of the Power. Darth Vader approves, and I would not like to argue with him. Continue reading »

PESTILENCE: “OBSIDEO”

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Dec 232013

(Earlier this month TheMadIsraeli finished a review of the entire discography of seminal Dutch death metal band Pestilence prior to their newest work. And now he fills that gap as well.)

“Grotesque” is the word when describing Obsideo. Its bloody, puss-dripping, rotted-flesh, hulking frame can be seen coming from miles away with the last gasps of a human life that open the record. Pestilence have been vicious, feral, filthy even, but never have they sounded more obsessed, fetishized, and depraved than on this record. When it’s done turning your body into a sandbag of shattered bone fragments, it drowns you in its putrid excrement afterward without mercy.

This is the kind of shit Pestilence have always done well, and this particular turn of sound has produced the band’s heaviest record since Consuming Impulse. The thing that really makes this record is just how fucking carnivorous its assault is. Everything sounds eager for blood, eager to destroy, eager to desecrate. I don’t know whether it’s the dank tone of the eight-string guitars this time around, the deeper, more feral nature of Mameli’s vocals, David Haley’s tribal blunt-force drum performance, which sounds like a cacophonous death rattle, or what, but this record has me frothing at the mouth for carnage. In a sense, Obsideo is the record that most fits the Pestilence name. It’s corrosive, pernicious, destructive, and polluting in all possible ways. Continue reading »

INNER MISSING: “PERJURY”

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Dec 232013

(DGR felt compelled to review the new album by a Russian group named Inner Missing before this fine year draws to a close. Approach this with an open mind, won’t you?)

I still haven’t written my top list. I know the site is in the midst of Listmania, but there are still albums that came out this year that I feel like we owe something to. This is always the case at the end of the year, though. A million discs come out and we swear up and down we’re going to get to them, but we never do, for whatever reason. And thusly, we find ourselves playing catch up, or in my case discovering shit that came out way earlier this year that I really enjoy and want to share with you fine folks. Such is the case with Perjury, the 2013 self-released disc by St. Petersburg, Russia-based group Inner Missing.

Somehow, the band’s video for the song “The Sea Of Grey” wound up in our staff discussion space, and I really took a shining to it. I know everyone else reacted pretty strongly to it, but for some reason I was drawn to this band’s style. Maybe it is the whole underdog nature of it all: a Russian group who take themselves very seriously put out a disc that is incredibly goth, so much so that all the tropes of that style of music are identifiable to a ‘T’ from the get-go. For some reason, I found it so goddamn endearing that the group has always been on the back of my mind, and only now have I found myself determined to review this album.

So, for a change of pace and something a little different from the usual No Clean Singing slate of madness, I give you Inner Missing’s Perjury. Continue reading »

LITHOTOME: “LITHOTOME”

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Dec 222013

I first heard the name Lithotome last March via an e-mail from an Australian label named Fall of Nature, offering a promo of the band’s new self-titled debut album. I don’t remember why, but I didn’t follow up. Then I saw the name again on a year-end list by NCS reader 365chaosriddendays. And then I saw that Lithotome had made the album available on Bandcamp yesterday.

I listened to the first three songs, and then stopped and bought the album, because I already knew I would want to clutch it to myself like a misshapen offspring.

Lithotome began as a collaboration between Philadelphia musician Alex Poole (Chaos Moon, Esoterica, Krieg) and vocalist N. Imperial (Krieg, Twilight), and eventually came to include Jack and Steven Blackburn (Esoterica), and Dan Martin (Vrolok) as well The e-mail I received last March drew comparisons to Australia’s Portal and early 90s Finnish death metal, and having now heard the music, I can understand why. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: “OBLITERATIONS” BY OBLITERATIONS

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Dec 212013

With as diverse a group as Leperkahn, Phro, and Sean Golyer all uttering surprised exclamations about this EP on Facebook, it had “can’t miss” written all over it, right? And on top of that, there was the mention on Obliterations’ Bandcamp page of the members’ musical pedigrees (with time spent in the likes of Black Mountain, Saviours, Bluebird, Night Horse, and Pink Mountaintops) and their love of both Black Sabbath and Black Flag. Also, photos of nuclear detonations.

So, although I’m buried up to me neck in unheard promos and other recommendations that have been gathering dust, I ventured into this L.A. band’s self-titled debut release. With four songs flying by in 8 1/2 minutes, it’s over before you know it — but it leaves its mark. Or rather, it leaves marks, the kind that will scar when the scabs come off.

The music is a galvanizing blend of bolting punk rhythms and fat guitar and bass tone, with gut-pummeling drum beats, rambunctious bass work, and blinding solo bursts. The riffs are immediately catchy and compelling, Sam James Velde lets it all hang out in his enraged vocal shrieks, and the sound quality is damn-near perfect for the hybrid punk/metal animal these dudes have created. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: VILDHJARTA — “THOUSANDS OF EVILS”

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Dec 202013

(Here’s TheMadIsraeli’s belated review of the latest release by Sweden’s Vildhjarta.)

THALL

Now that that’s out of the way…

It’s a shame I’m only just now reviewing this. Vildhjarta are easily one of the most important bands in the whole djent/prog-groove scene. Måsstaden was a masterpiece in the way it interwove djent, deathcore, and doom into a cohesive atomic sonic clusterfuck of sainthood. This EP, Thousands of Evils, sees a band already known for strange sounds and strange ideas experimenting even more. It’s cool, if for nothing else, that this is a band who are unafraid to put their mere fucking around out there and see how it’s received. The results are, as one would expect from these guys, dimension-opening.

All of the elements that made the band are still here: The relentless dual vocal assault, the guitar tone that sounds like a nuclear fallout, and of course Daniel Bergstrom’s brand of “how in the fucking fuck did he make that noise with a guitar?” style of riffing. What is impressive about Thousands of Evils is how balls to the wall it is, and how little of a fuck it gives for cohesion. Instead, it aims to achieve simply the most extreme reaches of whatever parts of the spectrum they hit. The heavy parts are gargantuan in stature, the clean ambient moments soul-cleansing. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: EARTH CONTROL — “DEAD WRESTLER”

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Dec 162013

(DGR reviews the latest EP by Earth Control from Tacoma, Washington — the band formerly known as Owen Hart.)

When I reviewed Ovid’s Withering’s recent release Scryers Of The Ibis a few days back, I mentioned that there were some discs that I could not in good conscience let the year end without discussing in some form, if only to explain why they may be appearing on certain year-end lists from seemingly out of nowhere. Earth Control’s Dead Wrestler EP is not one of those discs. Instead, it is something of an old touching of bases for me — in part because I had just recently rediscovered them after curiosity got the best of me and I wondered what happened to the group Owen Hart, only to discover that they had received a cease and desist order from the WWE/Hart Family (which, let’s be real, was probably the only way this was fated to go) and the band had to change their name.

They chose the name Earth Control, after the title of the CD Owen Hart had put out earlier — but by that point I had long since lost the thread with this Tacoma, WA based grind band. I discovered the Earth Control disc in part due to another writer at one of the sites I was at. She described them as sounding like Converge (of whom she was a huge fan, and thus a huge fan of the Earth Control disc) and she was partly right. Owen Hart (now Earth Control, in case you’re losing track) have a very chaotic sound, reminiscent of how Converge sound sometimes — 70% noise/30% music, buried in all the reverb, feedback, and static that they could produce and just hammering away at their instruments. Owen Hart do the same thing, but they sound like Converge if Converge were to throw their instruments off the side of a building and record the impact.

Thus, when I found out they had taken the name Earth Control and in the summer of this year released an EP entitled Dead Wrestler… — at least I think they released it this summer — I had to check it out, if only to reconnect with the band who had given me the songs, “Fuck Morrisey, Fuck The Smiths, Fuck The Cure” and “Welcome to Worthless Piece Of Shit-ville Population: You”. Continue reading »

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