Category Archives: Death Metal

Hostis Humani Generis “Asphyxiation In Blood” tape, 2017

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Oggi il Dottor Marciume ascolta: Hostis Humani Generis “Asphyxiation In Blood” tape, Death Metal from Finland, 2017 Unholy Domain

I had to listen to this tape over and over before assembling a reasonable string of thoughts into a review, and that’s because while the band is so primitive in songwriting every member is a 20+ year veteran on the scene and I had to clearly envision why they decided to go this minimal.
Many things on this recording work. For a start, the recording has a weird ambience, typical of earlier finnish recordings of bands like Belial or Unholy (quite different stuff, but just to give an idea), that music that was not yet defined as either Black or Death or whatever, just grim and painful. One riff: much feel. And the vocals are amazing too, hellish and evil.
Yet while I think I got their point I am not able to get too hooked, I love this stuff in general but when things get this simplified I believe one riff, just one great riff is enough to change the game, but then I cannot hear a single great riff in there. Huge potential and yet hitherto unexplored.

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Sacrocurse “Destroying Chapels” 7″ EP, 2016

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Oggi il Dottor Marciume ascolta: Sacrocurse “Destroying Chapels” 7″ EP, blasphemous raging southern Death Metal from Mexico, 2016 Iron Bonehead

This breed of blasphemic whirlwind of apocalyptic Death Metal expanded from South America upwards to Mexico where the seeds planted by bands like Domain/Ravager obviously grew up to the new standards of Chilean-like barbarity. This EP is probably my favorite recording by the band so far and is nothing short of devastating, it lashes like Abominator or a less guitar shredding version of earlier Angelcorpse with an extra dose of south American intensity, think of the late 90’s Brazilian wave taken to newest standards of production.
The Bathory cover closes reasonably well side B but the opening Destroying Chapels is really “a fist in the face of God”, I am really a sucker for these savages of the southern lands, there is a huge need of this music today.
A collaborative work between the tentacular Hell’s Headbangers and Iron Bonehead since the beginning the band released a second album two years ago. Go get this 7″ as it’s still quite cheap. It comes with a nice insert and it has something you seldom see anymore these days: lyrics!

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Incubus “Incubus” 7″, 1987-1989

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Oggi il Dottor Marciume ascolta: Incubus “Incubus” 7″, THE Death Metal, Gore (1987-1989)

There is basically no excuse not to own this record if one listens to Death Metal, as it captures the true Death Metal essence in its most untainted form. Because, yes, Death Metal is something way more than gore lyrics and blasts, something that I believe many people are missing today, especially coming from other genres. It’s the vibrant energy of blood and transition, of pain and trespassing, of loss and blissful abandonment. Recorded back in 1987 and re-released on a legendary German label that also released a bunch of other huge classic vinyls like Asphyx, Disastrous Murmur and Macabre, this EP contains all of this and more. Think of the schizophrenic vocals and drumming of Nuclear Death transferred into Morbid Angel’s demos and you get an idea of the necromantic leather and spikes savagery of this immense recording. You get all the intricate distant riffing, delirious solos, crazy vocals, all the three-dimensional textures of sweat, spikes, and black leather that this music used to stand for. I still rate it one inch from Morbid Angel or Necrovore, but these guys were playing in the same game and they definitely got to the finals.

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Lobotomy “Against the Gods” tape, 1992

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Lo so che volete i vecchi classici quindi ogni tanto parliamo di qualcosa di vecchio.

Oggi il Dottor Marciume ascolta: Lobotomy “Against the Gods” tape, swampy and chunky Death Metal from early Sweden, Raptured Anus 1992

It took two years for this band to record a second tape after the IMMENSE 1990 “When Death Draws Near” debut ❤, one of the best Swedeath demos of the time, a thing so dark and heavy it could well be Finnish (whopss!). This band released albums so shitty during their late career that someone might be deceived in thinking they were never any good and they would be wrong as fuck. Loyal to the “first demo was better” adagio, which despite webzine SunnO hipster editors actually is absolutely true of most scandinavian death metal bands, this is a band which released a cvlt gem in the golden year of the genre. To be honest, this second effort is not nearly as good as the first one but I believe it’s mostly due to thinner production and a thinner sound as structurally it’s not much different. This is classic solid mid tempo Death Metal with guttural vocals and some very vague 80’s slayerish riminiscences, but with way more chugs, could be a bit like Grave’s poorer cousins if one wants to classify different schools of a subgrenre’s subgenre. This plus the following demo were both repressed on CD by almight Thrash Corner label from Puerto Rico 25 years ago, I have currently no idea of the cost of that CD today but it was a pretty cheap second spin basket kind of record (means it’s probably worth 20000 euros after the age of Ekeroth).
Impossibly small font makes my old eyes ache to read anything now, but there is a nicely sized fuck of list in there that includes some words that mr Zuckerberg won’t appreciate ahah.

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Morbid Gods “Rotting Prophecies” 7″, Temple Of Abomination 2011

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Oggi il Dottor Marciume ascolta: Morbid Gods “Rotting Prophecies” 7″, insubstantial Death Doom from US, Temple Of Abomination 2011

Punk crusties turned to OSDM sometimes score great bands like Black Blood Invocation and sometimes they just shoot in the flock to catch some easy prey with debatable results. I still have no idea why Blood Harvest created this sub label for just a handful of releases as I can’t exactly catch what’s the conceptual difference between the two entities but nevertheless this 7″ has been released on this small imprint called Temple Of Abomination. I picked up this 7″ totally convinced it was some repress of old Altar (swe) stuff (check the logo!) until I was already handing money for it at the record stand. I told myself hey, the logo is cool the art is cool, the worst that could happen would have been just another regular doomy Death Metal item to add to the EP crates in the Crypt of Rot. And so it turned out to be – generic songs with 3 tempo changes of routine death doom that could actually have been recorded in 1991. It sounds like a mix of demo era Profanatica and Incantation BUT played by someone who listened to the songs just once. I am not complaining too much as there is nothing wrong besides being totally soulless and without any quality of note, I personally like the idea of a recording being minimalistic and unpretentious yet there is really very little meat to chew here.

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Killing Addiction “When Death Becomes An Art” 7″, Inverse Dogma 2015

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Oggi il Dottor Marciume ascolta: Killing Addiction “When Death Becomes An Art” 7″, generic technical Death Metal from US, Inverse Dogma 2015

I have no idea why I keep giving this band a chance, obviously, the best stuff they released was the Necroshine 7″ on Seraphic Decay and well I have a fetish for that label, but I think the shitty raspy production gave a kick to a band that composition-wise just doesn’t have “it”. The CD they had on JL America was already highly generic uptempo meh techie Death/Thrash with boring, dangerous kind of boring I mean, you can’t really listen to that while driving, influences. And yet I still have my copy of that too, you know, amazing Nick Curry cover you can’t miss that. Arguably the return of the band meant better production that probably suits even better their sound. This 7″ was released on a little label from Italy and I think they did a decent job, indeed the recording is crisp and probably these riffs are way better than the ones on the album, but I cannot stand all that mid-tempo chugs and vocals that just follow every single twist. They added some melody in the twist as well, shifting inexorably the band towards a sunny corner of this genre I am not interested in.

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Beyond “Enter Transcende, Iron Bonehead 2012

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Oggi il Dottor Marciume ascolta: Beyond “Enter Transcendence” 7″, awesome true Death Metal from *gasp* Germany! Yeah, Germany! Iron Bonehead 2012.

You know, Germany is not only home to “highly average Death Metal” bands on Cudgel and late Morbid Records. It actually can produce amazing recordings, and hearing that coming from Iron Bonehead whose catalog of bands is 88% booooring testifies that you can expect great things any time anywhere if you just keep your eyes open and just don’t catalog anything as shit just because of previous experiences. Even MBR released shitty recordings!
I am not entirely sold on the packaging, a bit too slick, layout is a bit too modern, but the cover art is killer and lyrics too have a total 1990 vibe, with mutants and all the sick Death Metal shit.
Music? This band plays true Death Metal. Great vocals, relentless savage drumming, neat powerful riffs, oscillating between the old swedish and the old south american with a great raw production, morbid guitar solos, well I cannot really find anything weak here even when they momentarily slip to mid tempo. THIS IS AMAZING. If you missed it, get it now 8 years later.

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