When you mentally strip away all the small and large luxuries of life, you are left with the basic rudiments of existence, the core elements necessary for subsistence — food, water, shelter, and in our case, death metal. Nothing fancy, mind you, just the stripped-down, fuzzed-out, palm-muted, drop-tuned, guttural-voiced, percussive approach of the old school, preferably played at a galloping pace.

Rhythmic dynamics and squalling guitar solos are plus factors. Melody is not required.

Eye-catching album art is also a plus, like that busy piece of black-and-white ghoulishness up above by an Indonesian underground artist who calls herself “Oikwasfuk“, depicting the Virgin Mary being impaled by a flying-v guitar while five zombies eat her alive. You know, fun for the whole family! Bring the kids!

Yes, when the band wrote us, they cleverly used that piece of art to hook our attention, like fish caught in a gill net — that, and the band’s viciously cool one-word name. But that was only the beginning. The art and the name only lured us into the music, which in this case (to persist with our commercial fishery metaphor) works like a processing plant — removing the head, guts, and pin bones and then blast-freezing the carcass.

The band is Carcinogen, the album is a five-song EP called Unholy Aggression, and the very satisfying sound is death/thrash of the old school. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »