SEEN AND HEARD: KANONENFIEBER, OCEAN OF ENTROPY, PYREXIA

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Jan 272022
 

(Andy Synn takes over SEEN AND HEARD to present a trio of tracks you should pay attention to.)

Sadly Islander has, as is not uncommon, been swamped by the pressures of his day job (being a world-class rocket-sled racer is a high pressure career after all) so it has fallen to me to pull something together for the end of the day.

Thankfully I had two of these recommendations already waiting in the chamber, with the third making an appearance as I was writing it, so there’s still more than enough metallic goodness to go around, even if this particular edition of “Seen and Heard” is a little more abbreviated than normal.

So, without further ado…

Continue reading »

PYREXIA: “UNHOLY REQUIEM”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Sep 122018
 

 

(On September 14th Unique Leader Records will release a new album by NYDM band Pyrexia, and here we have Vonlughlio’s review of the album.)

As I sit in the santuary part of the house on a Saturday night, being sick, I have been thinking about the early- and mid-’90s living in the Dominican Republic and being a metalhead. It was a time when you would go to small get-togethers and see local bands perform, and to talk music with that guy who seemed to have all the info, as well as cassettes (I’ve mentioned him in some of my previous small write-ups). Sure, it was not a perfect time, but people weren’t uptight, and if you liked a band, cool, and if not, that was cool too. Nowadays, well, it’s not the same, but I won’t get into that.

So, why was I going back down memory lane?? Well, it’s because I had been given the opportunity to write about Pyrexia’s new album, Unholy Requiem. This band, founded in 1990 in New York, made waves in the scene with their demos and their 1993 debut album Sermon Mockery, one of the best Death Metal albums to be released and a true classic, at least for me. That album is ferocious, unapologetic, and in-your-face, with everything working together perfectly, from the riffs to the vocals, the drums, and the production work. This band, along with Suffocation, Internal Bleeding, and Dehumanized, were bands who left a mark in the scene, and that will be forever evident. Continue reading »

TOURISM: CARNIVAL OF DEATH 2014 AND ELUVEITIE IN NORTH AMERICA (WITH A NEW ALBUM COMING)

 Uncategorized  16 Responses »
May 162014
 

Here are a couple of North American tours announced this morning that I thought were worth spreading around. The music in the two tours lies on divergent ends of the metal spectrum, but both shows should be excellent.

CARNIVAL OF DEATH 2014

This death metal blockbuster is co-headlined by Suffocation and Kataklysm, with Suffocation closing the shows on the US dates and Kataklysm playing the final sets in the Canadian shows. Accompanying those two heavyweight acts on this tour will be Jungle Rot, Pyrexia, and Internal Bleeding.

As the poster up there indicates, the tour schedule hasn’t been announced yet.

Now, changing gears… Continue reading »

VIDEOGRAPHY: BELPHEGOR (“IN BLOOD”), DEICIDE (“THOU BEGONE”), GROAN (“WOMEN OF DOOM”), PYREXIA (“INFLICTION”), and VENOMOUS MAXIMUS (“HELLENBACH”)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Nov 012013
 

In the realm of metal, Halloween has become a big day for news and for the premiere of new music and videos. We had more than our average number of posts yesterday in an effort to keep up, but we still didn’t even come close. So to start this post-Halloween Friday, here are five new videos that premiered yesterday.

Because there’s so much to see and hear, I’ll be cutting back on my usual verbose introductions — literally — by largely eliminating the use of verbs. In the next post, we’ll present some new Halloween Day songs that debuted in non-video form.

BELPHEGOR

The music: “In Blood — Devour This Sanctity”, a song inspired by “The Hungarian Dances” by Johannes Brahms. The album: Blood Magick Necromance (2011) (reviewed here). The video: filmed live at “Moskva Hall”, Moscow, October 6, 2013, plus assorted Belphegorian imagery.

Impressions: spine-tingling; heat lightning indoors; holy shit that drumming; satanic imperialism extends its reach; next album due May 2014, bring it! Continue reading »

DEVOTED TO DEATH: VORE, UNCANNY, AND CATASTROPHIC

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Apr 212012
 

I like almost every kind of metal yet invented, though not to the same degree. Straight-up death metal holds a special appeal, and so periodically I need to return to the great swollen bosom of the death mother and nurse on the sticky, putrescent fluids that leak like winter sap, viscous and foul-smelling, from her maggot-swarmed nipplage.

Umm . . . I don’t know if that last sentence came out quite the way I intended.  Maybe it needs more work.  On second thought, nah.

Anyway, last night I sampled the music of three bands whose music is new to me, though the bands have been devoting themselves to death metal for a long time. I really liked what I heard from all three. There’s some eye-catching cover art in here, too. So, nurse on this music from Vore (Arkansas), Uncanny (Sweden), and Catastrophic (New York).

VORE

This three-man band have been churning out punishing music since 1994. They’ve self-released an EP and three full-length albums, the most recent of which is Gravehammer, which appeared late last year. But yesterday, the band announced that they had signed a deal with Germany’s AFM Records. AFM is going to re-release Gravehammer in CD and vinyl formats on July 20. That’s the news that grabbed my attention, and I decided to check out a song from Gravehammer that’s been released for streaming. And holy death mother, it’s a great song. Continue reading »