Apr 062023
 

We don’t know much about the background of Kuolevan Rukous. The names used by the band’s three members — Unholy Necrosis, Tuliips, and Buer Enkoimesis — are not the ones they were born with. Although a German band, they chose a Finnish name for themselves, one that translates as “The Prayer of the Dead“. And apart from the track names, we don’t have any special insights into the inspirations or conceptions behind their first demo release, which will be out on April 14th.

And so, Kuolevan Rukous are a paradigm example of an obscure group whose music must speak for itself. It turns out to be a very interesting form of speech. A trio of underground labels — Vita Detestabilis, Reaping Death Records, and Grieve Records — will release this debut demo on tape, and Vita Detestabilis previews it by telling us that Kuolevan Rukous have expressed themselves “through asphyxiating dissonances, noisy atmospheres, and using death doom as a conductor for funeral black”.

Those words created intrigue around here, and the music itself proved to be intriguing, and far, far more than that. It was not a difficult decision for us to be the bearer of the demo’s premiere today. Continue reading »

Apr 062023
 

(Today we present Comrade Aleks‘ extensive interview with Philippe Courtoisfounder of the foundational French extreme metal band Misanthrope, who are still alive and well 35 years after the band’s inception.)

The ancient city of Angers, Maine-et-Loire, is famous with its rich history, and you may have heard about Angers Cathedral, Château d’Angers, and the Apocalypse Tapestry. At least you may have heard of the liqueur Cointreau and it’s not a bad choice after all. But the city is known to metalheads for another historical event – almighty Misanthrope raised its head when Philippe Courtois (also known as S.A.S. de l’Argilière) gathered the band’s first line-up in 1988 proclaiming his manifest of hate to mankind.

The band gained well-deserved recognition fast, as their avant-garde and technical death metal demonstrated a unique blend of influences stretching far from metal music. French lyrics, a highly artistic approach to the songwriting, and energetic live performances soon became the band’s trademarks, a features which differentiated Misanthrope from other death metal maniacs.

Besides that, Philippe played an important role in the world-wide metal underground as he’s a co-owner of the French metal label Holy Records alongside Séverine Foujanet. A lot of bands from the ’90s started their career with HolyNightfall, On Thorns I Lay, Orphaned Land, Septic Flesh, and more. Continue reading »

Apr 052023
 

Having taken their first steps with a four-song, 21-minute demo nearly three years ago, the part-Finnish, part-U.S. band Veriluola are taking a very big next step with the May release of their debut album Cascades Of Crimson Cruor via Nameless Grave Records.

This duo — guitarist/bassist Santeri and guitarist/vocalist Malus — obviously used the intervening time very productively. It was already evident from their debut demo that the band desired to root their creative expressions in a by-gone time when stout fences hadn’t yet been erected between now-well-defined extreme metal genres. But the new album makes this even more obvious.

The new Veriluola songs effortlessly intertwine strains of black metal, death metal, thrash, and what we now label “classic heavy metal” as if they were all born together as brood from the same monstrously regal mother and feel their kinship instead of warring against each other for attention.

In addition to the kind of songwriting that makes that possible, the album also shows significant attention to detail. None of the songs feel hastily thrown together, but instead sound carefully plotted and fully realized, even though at the time you hear them they’re reflexively captivating… and feral… and sometimes forlorn… and sometimes downright heroic. You’ll get a strong sense of what we’re trying to describe in the song we’re premiering today — the aptly named “Regal Barbarism“. Continue reading »

Apr 052023
 

(Andy Synn has four more albums to recommend from March that you, and we, may have missed)

For this month’s catch up on “Things You May Have Missed” I’ve elected to cover four bands who – in my opinion at least – don’t conform neatly to any particular genre stereotypes or fit into one specific stylistic box.

That doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a heap of other, more genre-specific releases to check out last month – Death Metal fans would do well to check out the malevolent murk of Aphotic and/or the sheer brutality of Thanatophobia, whereas those of a more “blackened” persuasion should give Blaze of Sorrow and Malphas a try (the latter especially), while anyone looking for something moodier and doomier will doubtless enjoy the new Isole and Weight of Emptiness (and I may still try and find time to write a few words about the former if/when I get chance) – but I thought I’d go with a few selections that are a bit harder to pin down.

Continue reading »

Apr 052023
 

We were a bit late in leaping aboard the Lucifuge hell-train, but quickly realized what a high-adrenaline rush that is. In 2021 we premiered their fourth full-length Infernal Power and spilled a lot of words on it, ending with these: “This really is a hell of a good album, with a lot more going on in the songs than discharges of blast-furnace heat and berserker mayhem. It definitely WILL get your motor running fast and hot, but the songs’ addictive appeal goes beyond that.”

The band followed up that album by releasing a split with Italy’s Bunker 666 last fall (Of Night and Lust), and we had the fiendish pleasure of premiering that one too, accompanied by another torrent of words, which included the erudite exclamation that the music of Lucifuge was “fucking glorious”.

And now we’re once again in the fortunate position of sharing new Lucifuge music with the world, this time through the premiere of a song off their forthcoming fifth album, Monoliths of Wrath. This one, like the two records identified above, will be discharged by Dying Victims Productions.

In hindsight, the new record proves that we picked a good time to get on board with this German band two years ago, because especially starting then and continuing through the new album, they’ve been increasingly spreading their creative wings (bat-shaped to be sure), resulting now in their most accomplished and varied work to date. Continue reading »

Apr 052023
 

(West Coast extremists Deathgrave will release a new album on April 14th via the Tankcrimes label, and today we present Todd Manning‘s review.)

To be a dedicated fan of old school death metal often means not seeking out surprises, but rather looking for a vibe. So when one comes across a new band which includes Greg Wilkinson, who has done time with Autopsy along with sludge masters Brainoil and Graves at Sea, one can assume that those vibes will be there in spades. Deathgrave’s latest full-length, It’s Only Midnight, certainly captures that old-school death metal atmosphere, but actually does provide some surprises along the way. Continue reading »

Apr 042023
 

“Oakland, California has summoned the rituals of many metal legions over the decades. Its stench is filled with dark art, morbid riffs, death and doom. There’s a scorched place in the corner of the crumbling landscape evoking evil and witchy magic where Larvae feast on the remains of those who perished.”

In the press materials, those evocative words precede the release of Larvae‘s long-awaited second album Entitled to Death, which (to quote again from the same materials) “pursues a human experience, traversing the middle realm seen thru the eyes of a defected warrior,” who is bound to a grim and hostile reality “until the final collapse in a land filled with ruin and loss… crossing over into a cosmic abyss.”

In the musical telling of this uncomfortable tale Larvae draw inspiration from such divergent  ’90s legends as Runemagick, Paradise Lost, Immolation, Bolt Thrower, Neurosis, and Dismember. How they interweave those influences might be difficult to guess, but today no guessing game is needed because we have the complete album stream for you. Continue reading »

Apr 042023
 

(Arizona doom/sludge quartet UGLY will release their new album Autograph via Satanik Royalty Records on May 5th, and below you’ll find Wil Cifer‘s review.)

Since the ’90s sludge has branched out from crust punk to meld the apocalyptic rumblings passed down from bands like Swans and Killing Joke. This band from Arizona carries all the foreboding of the genre’s forefathers in their sound. They know the value of atmosphere as a tool to empower the aggression of their riffs. The guitars chug with crushing vitriol. One of this album’s strengths is the use of samples to set the mood, in a manner we have not heard since the glory days of Neurosis.

The vocals of the first song are an exercise in raw larynx-scraping  They are recorded in a very dry fashion with scant use of effects. Just a crazed man screaming into a mic.

This crazed man is not alone. He is joined by Krysta Curry from Landmine Marathon, who not only shares vocal duties but also helps out with synths, samples, and additional percussion, though her vocal presence is not really felt ’til the second song, which finds an odd syncopation embracing a weird, more grandiose arrangement. Continue reading »

Apr 042023
 

(Here’s DGR‘s review of the new album by Finland’s Rotten Sound, which is out now on Season of Mist.)

The thing to keep in mind with Rotten Sound‘s newest album Apocalypse – arriving almost five years after the group’s last recorded material in the 2018 EP Suffer To Abuse and almost seven years if you want to stick strictly to full lengths in 2016’s Abuse To Suffer – is that it is the sort of grind album that starts and stops. That makes no sense, you say, every album has a beginning and end, what sort of difference does an album starting and stopping have to do with the descriptor of an album?

To refine it a bit, let’s treat Apocalypse this way: There is no build up to Apocalypse and there is no wind-down in Apocalypse, at any point, at all. You hit ‘play’ on the album’s first song and Rotten Sound are already screaming at a thousand miles an hour and every song after that does the same. The start/stop mechanism is the most perfunctory in existence. It’s a quick blast of feedback and the song is over with not a single song getting close to the two-minute mark. Continue reading »

Apr 032023
 

(We’ve just barely breached the walls of April, and so our friend Gonzo makes a timely reappearance with a selection of five albums released in March that made a big impact in his listening.)

Before I get to writing this month’s helping of my choice cuts from last month, I gotta get something out of the way first:

I am still absolutely buzzing from last night’s Death to All show here in Denver.

To see the likes of Steve DiGiorgio and Gene Hoglan play music of any kind on stage, in person, is a treat enough by itself, but having them rip through selections from the inimitable Death for almost two hours was an experience that I plan to re-live in perpetuity. Possibly forever. Who knows?

It was an insane spectacle for the eyes as well as the ears, and I’ll get to writing up the entire thing soon enough. If you missed this tour, you have my condolences.

Let’s get to the good stuff from March.

Continue reading »