AN NCS PREMIERE: EXXXEKUTIONER — “MANIAC ASYLUM”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Jun 252014
 

I hadn’t even made it to the last song on my advance copy of Fear the Priest before I was blasting an e-mail to the publicist for Exxxekutioner, begging for the chance to premiere a track from this debut EP. I got my wish, and now you’ll get a taste of what got me so pumped up about this six-song main-line of pure mosh fuel.

This group of four twenty-somethings from the vicinity of Manchester in the UK have only been together since the spring of last year, but you’d never guess that from the music they make. They have mature skills and old souls — and by that I mean a direct channel to the early spirit of bands like Venom, Sodom, and Destruction, delivering a brash and authentic blast of thrash, black, and speed metal like they’ve been doing it for decades.

The hell-ripping songs on Fear the Priest fly like a horde of bat-winged demons, the kind of speed you’d reach if you were on fire and the nearest water source was three blocks away. The riffs are to die for — super-charged with adrenaline and loaded with irresistible hooks — and the tumbling, rumbling drumwork and booming bass will get their hooks in you, too. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: A WOLVHAMMER-KRIEG SPLIT

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Jun 242014
 

Two of my most highly anticipated 2014 albums are Crawling Into Black Sun by Wolvhammer (due for release by Profound Lore on July 8) and Transient by Krieg (coming from Candlelight Records in September). And today Broken Limbs Recordings has released a split by both of those bands that just provides more reasons to get stoked for the coming albums.

WOLVHAMMER

Wolvhammer’s contribution to the split is “Slaves To the Grime”, an alternate version of a track that will appear on Crawling Into Black Sun.

I’ve heard the album version, which is a standout song — a body-moving bulldozer of concrete-heavy riffs and vocals that are acid enough to etch glass, with other alternating segments that lumber into a sludgy, soul-sucking abyss and gallop like a hell-horse. The version on the split is, if anything, even more thoroughly pulverizing. The production gives it a thoroughly radioactive quality, and it’s shot through with bolts of squealing, squalling lead guitar, like that crazy part of your brain trying to get out of its prison. And man, when it hits those doomed, dragging segments, it falls like granite blocks dropped from a great height.

Truth be told, I like this version even more than the album track (and I’ve been a big fan of that one since the first listen) — completely crushing, but also infectious enough to warrant a call to the Center for Disease Control. Continue reading »

APOPHYS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  6 Responses »
Jun 232014
 

Good bands die, and sometimes other good ones rise up from their ashes like a Phoenix. A case in point: I’ve been in mourning over the death last year of God Dethroned, but that great band’s members are moving on to other things, including drummer Michiel van der Plicht (also ex-Prostitute Disfigurement, ex-Detonation) who is now a member of the new Dutch band Apophys. I also experienced pangs of grief a few days ago when I learned that Mondvollond had also disbanded — and lo and behold, Mondvolland’s Mickeal Schuurman turns out to be the bass player for Apophys. Apophys also includes talented guitarists Sanne van Dijk and Koen Romeijn (Detonation) and vocalist Kevin Quilligan (Toxocara, Erebus).

I’ve been investigating Apophys since discovering them for the first time this weekend, and I’ve included in this post a selection of what I found. Eventually I’ll come to their music, but I’m beginning with a medical procedure.

The subject of this procedure was Apophys vocalist Kevin Quilligan. He paid a visit to phoniatrician Enrico Di Lorenzo (who also happens to be the frontman of Rome’s Hideous Divinity) for a vocal assessment. I had never heard of phoniatrics before, and if its a new field for you as well, you can learn a small amount about it here. This consultation was videotaped, and fortunately it turns out to be more interesting than film of a colonoscopy, although both procedures involve the insertion of tubes with cameras into fleshy orifices. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: SPAWN FROM DECEIT – “NEW THRONES”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  6 Responses »
Jun 192014
 

(DGR catches up with the latest offering of grind from Finland’s Spawn From Deceit.)

Sometimes, you want some music that you can not only scream along with but also scream at in a white-knuckle rage. I went through this a huge amount last year, and the feeling has been sticking around since then. It sent me on a massive grind kick (of the loud, banging, DIY Punk style, about as close to Nasum and Rotten Sound as I could get with every band) and wound up covering a variety of bands.

Finland’s Spawn From Deceit were probably the most punk of the grind bands that I covered when I launched that vast swath of reviews in the genre late last year. Since then though, I haven’t done my due diligence to see what the guys have been up to. Should’ve known better, because grind is a genre that lends itself to fairly prolific releases, and lo and behold, Spawn From Deceit have another six-song face-to-the-grinding-wheel release out called New Thrones — though I don’t think there is any way to get your hands on it at the moment. Continue reading »

MUSIC FROM THE BLISTERING EDGE: FALLUJAH, EATEN, OMNIHILITY

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  4 Responses »
Jun 192014
 

I’ve collected here new music from three bands. As suggested by the title of this post, the songs have something in common, though they are different in other respects: They all include certain instrumental elements that are very, very fast. Your hair may be singed. The skin on your face may bubble like a broiled fetus. You may void your bowels. I myself only experienced the last of these effects, but I thought it best to provide a complete set of warnings.

FALLUJAH

Damn, but I surely do love that album cover, don’t you? It’s a collaborative effort between Polish artist Tomasz Alen Kopera, whose work I’ve featured about a dozen times in the daily art posts on our Facebook page, and the band’s vocalist, Alex Hofmann. The album’s name is The Flesh Prevails and it’s due for release by Unique Leader on July 22.

What I heard yesterday was a new song named “Carved From Stone”. It’s an interesting song. Certain instrumental tracks are moving at about 1,000 mph. The kick drums eject shells at the rate of am M134 minigun, and the riffs whip like hurricane winds and pummel like a jackhammer. On the other hand, Mr. Hofmann growls his lyrics as if patiently telling a bedtime story, presumably to a brood of orcs. And the lead guitar carefully unspools an eerie atmospheric melody like a coil of razor wire. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: DECEPTIONIST — “THE BEGINNING”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Jun 182014
 

(DGR reviews the new release by Deceptionist from Rome, Italy.)

Deceptionist are a band I discovered via the Hideous Divinity Facebook page a few weeks back. Hideous Divinity are one of the bands that grew off of the Hour Of Penance tree, and their vocalist Enrico H Di Lorenzo was posting about how he had provided guest vocals on Deceptionist’s song “Through The Veil” on their new EP.

Deceptionist are a new band hailing from Rome and consisting of Andrea Di Traglia on vocals (usually in a middle- to low-range growl), Antonio Poletti on guitars, and drummer Claudio Testini, who is frightening behind the kit and whose name must now be added to the ever-growing ranks of Italian blast masters. Di Lorenzo described them as being a tech-death band with a light electronic element, using them in an industrial form to add to their overall sound. He also mentioned that this new EP, their first, bears the name of The Beginning (Promo CD 2014) and that it was available at “name your own price” on Bandcamp.

To ballpark a comparison band, Deceptionist veer into the spectrum of tech-death that Spawn Of Possession seem to inhabit by themselves. Instead of going for the intensely low-end, humongous sound with all of the whirs and whistles on top of it, Deceptionist go with the knife-sharp, machine-typed-out and mathematically precise playing that Spawn dish out in spades. This means that their promo EP should be very familiar to fans of the latter group, because Deceptionist’s promo sounds like a swarm of angry insects being delivered into your eardrums via a tech-death funnel. Continue reading »

BLACK PUNK: A SPLIT BY KRIEG AND RAMLORD

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Jun 172014
 

If you google the phrase “black punk” you’ll discover a music genre known as Afro-punk, as well as a band named Death — not Chuck Schuldiner’s ground-breaking group, but a “proto-punk” band from Detroit formed in the early 70’s by three brothers, who happen to be the subject of a recent critically acclaimed movie. What you won’t find is any reference to the forthcoming split release by Krieg and Ramlord — at least not yet.

I’ve been listening to this four-song split once a day for the past week (while gazing fondly at its killer cover art), and my first impressions haven’t changed: At its core, this a fusion of black metal and punk. It would be tempting to file it away under the heading of “blackened crust” along with bands such as Young and In the Way and Martyrdöd, but to these ears the music on this split is an even more primal union of black metal and punk, and its primal appeal is strong.

KRIEG

Krieg has been kicking out releases since the mid-90s, with a steady flow of splits and EP’s to go along with six albums. This split with Ramlord is one of two scheduled for release this summer, the other being a split with Wolvhammer that I’ll also be reviewing very soon. For this release Krieg contributes one original song and a cover. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: KILL-TOWN DEATH FEST, THRONE, VILKACIS, FELIX MARTIN

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  10 Responses »
Jun 152014
 

Well, it’s Sunday, and that means … more blog posts! I have three in mind for today. Of course, having them in my mind and getting them out on the web are two different things, but at least there will be this one — a Sunday round-up of things I spotted yesterday.

KILL-TOWN DEATH FEST

This first item falls into the category of Things Worth Applauding Even Though I Will Never Hear Them. This is a very small category, especially when it comes to tours and festivals that I can’t see, because if they look really enticing they usually just make me green with envy and kind of ill-tempered and not in an applauding mood.

Where was I?

Oh yeah, the Kill-Town Death Fest. It will take place on September 4-7, 2014, in Copenhagen, Denmark, which might as well be Mars as far as I’m concerned. But good god almighty, look at that just-announced FINAL line-up on the above poster! (If you’re having any trouble reading it, clicking on it will make it bigger.) I mean, all those bands are so up my alley that I can’t even take a piss in it any more because there’s no room left! Hail Santa and all his elves!

If you’re lucky enough to live within striking distance of this thing, please don’t tell me because that will open my bile ducts I’m very happy for you. More info and ticket sales can be found here. Continue reading »

SPLITS: RUINS/USNEA AND SHUDDER/SECTIONED

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Jun 082014
 

Maybe sometime soon I will attempt to review a full-length album by someone, but this weekend I’ve been trying to catch up on shorter works. I have two recent split releases to recommend, with full music streams accompanying the following reviews.

RUINS / USNEA

This two-song split makes for an interesting juxtaposition of styles and a good introduction to two bands who deserve more notoriety.

Ruins make their home in Bielefeld, Germany, and this split is their most recent release following a 2013 album (Incidents) and a couple of other shorter recordings. Their track is named “Discrimen”. The band start ratcheting the tension immediately with a buzzing hornet swarm of guitars and the rhythmic thunder of a heavy bass line and tumbling drums. It’s a galvanizing start, and the music grows even more energized and potent as the song progresses and the vocalist’s gritty howls join the fray. Just as the slashing riffs start to really get their hooks into your head, the music veers off the road briefly before getting traction again in an intense finish.

The music fuels a blood lust, but the fist-swinging hardcore aggression is balanced by the band’s talent for interweaving rhythmic dynamism and subtly infectious melodies that have a way of hanging around your head after the song ends. Good stuff.

*** Continue reading »

GENOCIDE PACT AND GRUESOME

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  4 Responses »
Jun 072014
 

I was in a death metal mood this morning and spent some time exploring music from death metal bands I hadn’t heard before. From that foray, I surfaced with two offerings that I’d like to recommend.

GENOCIDE PACT

Genocide Pact are from Washington, DC. Two of their members (Tim and Nolan) also play in a grind core band named Disciples of Christ, and the third (the drummer, Connor) is a member of other bands as well. To date, Genocide Pact have recorded a demo that was released in 2013 by Malokul, which I discovered because A389 Recordings is distributing it on 7″ vinyl with cover art by Joshy of DC’s Ilsa.

The four songs on the demo are stripped-down and devoid of frills or fads. They lumber and crunch like a phalanx of huge earth-moving machines that haven’t had a tune-up in decades, belching the smoke of distortion and periodically squealing with feedback as the gears come close to locking up. The rhythms alternately bolt forward in a d-beat-driven rush, chug like a hellish locomotive, and stagger like a dying giant, with the crash of cymbals and the vocalist’s hoarse growls cutting through the cacophony of this brute-force demolition project. Continue reading »

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