Category Archives: Scene Reports

Italian report 2021 addendum

TYRANNIZER Ă–RDER

I really forgot about these in the previous articles, but I have to make amends because Tyrannizer Order with the dieresis on the “o” in Motorhead style is actually one of the best early Marduk style Black Metal bands we have left, a band featuring Max from Natron, a band who I have to admit I started to lose interest in after the sophomore record. This band doesn’t rely on chilling atmospheres typical of the genre, but goes towards the spear-point massacre typical of bands like Black Witchery, even if without that depth of field. More than good in my book.

Lebbra

Known absolutely by chance, these Lebbra from Salerno were a pleasant discovery, as they prove that not only Americans like Gruesome can make their own reference to early pre-masturbation Death, those Deaths that many of us old fuckers grew up with. Leprosy don’t play a plagiarism, opps I mean tribute, like the band above, but are more generically inspired by that early 90’s Death Metal that has its roots in bands with distinctive vocal tracks like Morgoth, Asphyx, Obituary. The songs are few but decently recorded, more than anything else I find it interesting that they sometimes indulge in such banal structures that in other formulas might be overly adolescent but that in the sphere, let’s call it OSDM, have their interest.

Pugnale

Here, however, we are missing the point. These Pugnale, from Bergamo, show how you can do formally perfect homework at the art academy but fail to express anything interesting when you go to exhibit in a proper gallery. There’s nothing formally wrong here, if anything it’s a band perfectly capable of fusing crust, powerviolence, even certain black/death metal atmospheres into a single sound that however resolves, on the whole, to be a completely forgettable track after track, as often happens with bands from Eastern Europe or Germany. Add to that a singing as bland as boiled rice and no matter how hard I try I can’t find anything interesting. There’s a live show on YouTube, though, that shows they’re good on stage, so we’ll see how that develops.

Blood Artillery

This wonderful little gem is intolerant’s Soul Devourer solo project and it’s objectively a small bijoux. Probably recorded in a Pakistani 7/11 store, with a martial minimalist layout seen a million times and a general blurring of sound like early Beherit, this is overall a work of heart and you can hear it, especially because you can hear actual songwriting going on within the chaos. By the way a full-length was released by local label Extreme Chaos this year, unfortunately only in digital format, but we hope to see at least a tape soon.

Derelict

Here instead is a band that works great, in my opinion. Also from Rome and also on Extreme Chaos like the band before, but this time it’s the right combination of punk instinctiveness applied to a form of putrid Black Metal that would fit on a seven-inch with a photocopied cover of some shitty punkabbestia label at Leoncavallo, and boy, I would invest my euro I saved on warm beer cans for it, any day. Not as filthy necrotic as Gonkulator but some of those vibes are here. I really like it when these genres so distant and yet so close mix well.

Demonomania

My rotten heart silently and manly approves when he hears this shitty attempt at playing Black Metal while high on acid. Everything falls apart and goes its own direction in these tracks recorded on lo-fi noise/grind label Olivia. This is a band that makes Derelict sound like Sabaton. Actually what I heard is probably just a late-night intoxicated jam session and I love it: think Goat Vulva after overeating spaghetti alla trabaccolara and cold wine + various psychotropic drugs.