Archives: Reviews

1 - Justice Day 2 - No More 3 - The Cage 4 - The Old Man 5 - Choose Death 6 - Nowhere to Hide 7 - Synchronized 8 - Too Fast 9 - Private Room

I didn’t know New Renaissance was still active after all these years but not only they obviously are, but they’re also healthy and doing an excellent job at re-releasing these ultra rare classics we would have a hard time finding today. This label was among the very first to release Cd versions of their albums in the eighties: I personally got my copy of “Ride the Lightning” on Cd only in 1985 or 1986 and that was the very first thing I got on compact and one of the first Metal releases hitting the “deluxe” fomat ever I think, so it’s interesting to read how close this album was released for the first time, 1988! It’s been really quite a while since I have listened to this kind of Power/Thrash Metal (read the words Power as in Jag Panzer, Warlord, Exciter etc, not sexually ambiguous fantasy inspired pop-metal), so all of a sudden I have a complete blank area in my memory and I cannot mention any bands which might convincingly remind of this Steel Prophet, which is ridicolous becouse they’re definitely not “strikingly original” at all. Sticking to sheer impressions, this is definitely above average, absolutely non-mellow Metal, but rather a crunchy and relatively powerful sort with raucous vocals and power moshing structures that could be remotely remind of the crustiest, dirtiest skateboard-core era Metallica, right after Burton died, but before their delusion of grandiosity produced the “…and Justice for All” folding Lp. Even if I guess not every band can sound as tight as Rigor Mortis, there is just a lot of empty space hovering here which makes everything sound a bit diluted, lacking a small todbit of energy. I am sure one has to get acquainted to older sounds before digging this fully, my ears just have been calibrated to different sounds year after year so today I am just a bit out of synch with this breed of Metal. Compared to modern sounds, the songwriting is delicious taking each element singularly but in the whole it comes to be a bit too loose. However I got the same impression last week when, in a rush of revival, I picked up a few albums I did’t remember well by bands like Sacrosanct, Slammer and Iron Angel, and hell, I admit time tends to make everything look so much bigger and better, so you know how much of a picky arsehole I have become eh. I am afraid this album doesn’t stand well the test of time like the other amazing reissues by this label named Dream Death and Blood Feast. But this is a limited, numbered release of just 1000 copies world-wide (now how fucking statistically impossible is it that only two copies have been sold in Italy so far and the other one was bought by a girl whose name I never heard of in my whole life, but living in my same hole of a CITY?) and the cover alone recaptures the style and mood of the good side of 80’s metal, AND this is also the only release by this band ever, so if you don’t want to run the risk of losing it forever, go and buy a copy in a hurry, becouse even if very vintage sounding and looking, this is still high quality stuff. If according to the Iron Pegasus label manager the Massacre demo release was meant to look vintage and not just bare, I think one gets the idea of what he meant by wtaching this booklet: just a few elements fill up everything on the single sheet booklet like only those old records were able to.

1 - Deriding His Creation 2 - Mentally Deprived 3 - Realization of Betrayal 4 - Induced Deception

When I heard Deprecated first, I told Carlo of Headfucker I thought this was their label’s best release and I still confirm it. Maybe the sound is a bit vintage, but here is one of the milestones that helped building today’s world wide Brutal Death Metal scene. Haling from the same strip of earth that spawned Deeds of Flesh and Disgorge, here we have bass-heavy, steel sharp Brutal Death Metal with guttural vocals and a churning mass of chunky riffs hacking and chopping with stubborn efficiency. This one of the first bands I can think of that dropped all sense of melody and obscuity in order to follow the utterly cold and calculating methodology of American Death Metal brought to its current limits. No solos in here, just a bunch of crushing slams to break the pace of the songs. The drummer is quite precise for the time being and the bass has just a stingy sound that adds to the sense of inhumanity (same bass player that now is in Suffocation). But the vocals of monsieur Magana are the real icing oin the cake. Considering we’re talking about stuff released 8 years ago, I believe it still has some dignity. I just read the band is again on track so… I will not upload soundclips this time even if I was ready to, becouse you can hear their FULL MCd at their myspace page. The mp3 quality is a bit low, the sound on the Cd is not so rough, but hey, you get this for free. The packaging is a bit bare but this was planned to be a debut release at the time, probably not the only one.

1 - Gorelust 2 - Embalmed In Gastric Diarrohea 3 - Proctologist Of The Dead 4 - Zombie Island Massacre 5 - The Disembowelment Chick 6 - Piss Drinking Poofter Zombies 7 - Zombie Flesh Eaters 8 - Eatery Of The Dead 9 - Cornholing Corpse 10 - Reanimate The Dead

Okay you won’t believe me but I actually have already heard of Corpsickle a few years ago, I think I have even some stuff by them in the dimensional rift that’s my collection up there behind my back. Indeed, this band was disbanded for a long time and this is their come back. In respect to Roadside Burial, things change quite noticeable here. The drum machine (I am not sure but the sound is very mechanical) adds a degree of sterility to the music but the work remains quite real. The vocals are real good, deep but with some added malignity, not just guttural. I don’t like it very much when the music starts to go faster becouse the plastic drums just become too invasive and the riffs tend to fall into overly listenable melodies a la Aurora Borealis. But the mid and slower tempos just work out really neatly. I’d like to hear this band with a real drummer, becouse if we drop the cold melodic chords, we have some scattered interesting parts. At the end of the listening, I have to admit this side leaves a few question marks, tho. The songs have no real structure but really suffer from the lack of a coherent flow, seems as if every single riff has been glued together with the next one without much afterthought. They also tend to be a bit repetitive and some of them even fall dangerously close to the dreaded tarantella borderland. The only memorable thing here in the end is the singer, ah, I guess they should swap him with Amok‘s one then, since they have the opposite problem meseems ahr.

1 - Gonna Kill Em All 2 - Acid Bath 3 - Ivan 4 - Mattock Attack 5 - Vomit Whore 6 - This Hammer Has A Date With Your Forehead 7 - Drawn And Quartered 8 - Gorelust

Roadside Burial is a new band, so new we’re talking about months here, take note. This album was recorded just 3 months ago and the band has been active for just the same time before going to studio! Can you smell the fragrance of shrinkwrap already? So we’re talking about a very young band here, and with just no pretenses at all in their straight ahead grind/death metal apprach. No frills, no queers, just beer, vaginas and mangled meat says their bios and I just feel like shaking hands with these guys. There is nothing like rocket science recording or mind bogglin’ riffs a la Amok here (eh, no pun intended of corpse, *wink*), just neat fast riffs with a heavy and sick crunchy guitar sound (reminds me even of Grave!), guttural growls, and simple drum blasts that close the picture. I find the cover art quite boring, man I am really a bit fed up with humour, but musically this stuff works indeed. It’s brutal and fast and effective. Simple as that. Original? Nah. But who the fuck cares? Go for a beer, now and enjoy this massacre!

1 - Lullaby Of Silence 2 - Fortress 3 - Sip Of Thorns 4 - Jailed In Mind 5 - Internal Void 6 - Shattered Honor 7 - Rynch 8 - Lady Addiction 9 - Screams Noises 10 - A Life With No One

After so many years of hearing tons of bands of varying degrees of quality, I can almost instinctively discern bollocks from strawberry cream. Yet at times, my gut instinct and my rationality just kick each other in the groin, like with this Swiss Amok. My rational pro journalist side says this is amazingly intricate, hyperfast Death Metal with all the inbred dissonance and experimental trips of Blood of Christ, Korova, even fucking Cryptopsy and the likes. Super stuff indeed, with a jagged multifaceted sound that displays technical prowess and a sense for the hectic and the irrational. Yet my guts are screaming: “how boring is this stuff???” First BIG flaw is the vocals which, to follow the uneven flow of the music, shift from a deep growl with is just massively weak, to really, really awful, horrendous, intolerable, excruciating to hear shrills. This is the high pitch which disturbs the horses in their stables, think Daffy Duck of the Looney Tunes but even higher. They’re really impossible to stand, recording vocals like this is plain offensive. If you manage to erase them from the mix… man they’re intolerable… you get a technical, highly disharmonic affair which is full of sharp turns and weird arrangements, sometimes at the limit of schizophrenia… man these vocals are impossible to stand… The production is again very sharp… man I give up, let’s turn off the stereo, whew…

I was saying.

The production was very sharp and the package fully professional, with pantone silver and all. I won’ recomenf it for people into more emotional, strong Metal, but for those who are always looking forward to hear good musicians deprived of feeling this might be interesting. Man I’ll dream the vocals of this albums tonight. How absurdly weak are these? I cannot even manage to read the lyrics…

1 - Paroxysmal Prelude 2 - Cannibalistic Disfigurement 3 - Putrescence 4 - Cadavers In Medical Jurisprudence 5 - Uterogestation To Abortion 6 - Exhumed Dead Body 7 - Infectious Agonizing Parasitism 8 - Gynaecological Sickness 9 - Secretion of Ejaculate 10 - Malignant Introduction 11 - Open The Dissection Ward 12 - Reek With Suppuration 13 - Cadaveric Metamophoses 14 - Genital Pathological Perversity 15 - Tumorous Defects And Diseases 16 - Anatomical Necropsy 17 - Progression of Putrefaction (Part Two) 18 - Decomposition of Corpses 19 - Carcass Dismemberment 20 - Vomitory Corporal Dysfunction 21 - Rotten Outroduction 22 - Progression of Putrefaction 23 - Cadaverous Murmurs 24 - Dissolution of Corpses 25 - Anatomical Evisceration 26 - Tumorous Illness And Mutilation 27 - Vomitory Necrotic Disgorgement

You know how sensitive I am about reissues, especially when we talk about real good bands from the past like this Pathologist. I admit I’d have preferred something a bit more deluxe for this farily complete reissue of Pathologist material. But the poster that opens when you unfold the booklet is a heaven for gore maniacs, so much blood, guts and chopped flesh there is, arghhhh I cum! I have a small cult for this band, I also have their picture Lp hung on the wall of my bedroom between the first two Carcass so go figure! Taken singularly the riffs on the second album (the first ten tracks of the Cd) are not the most extreme, but I just like the concept so much I can only hear the good things. The vocals here are a mix of Demilich and Mexican Disgorge, a real liquid, low croak, while the song structures tend to vary quite a bit from the beginning to the end of the Cd (the releases are arranged in reverse chronological order). The second album is way more classic Death Metal, whicle the real shit, gore-gore grind is contained on “Putrefactive…” and on the demo tracks, which are deliciously noisy and grinding if elementary to the the extreme. I would like to go more in detail on the review of the single albums taken one by one (got them both already on my desk staring at me with blind eyes, I’ll review them in due time), so let’s just say a few words on this collection: there are no lyrics, no band pictures, no liner notes, basically nothing extra other than the music. The only cheapest reissues I can think of are Xtreem’s Funebre and Disgrace and this says MUCH. But nonetheless, you got 77 minutes of Pathologist for the reasonable price of one Cd and all compacted in a single disc. Instead of downloading music from the Internet, I’d surely go for this one if you don’t have the old albums, this is great gore drenched stuff from Czech republic and being released in 2001 it should be easy to find as well. This reissue could have been done far better with a double Cd containing ALL the demo stuff instead of just a bunch of songs, and surely some extra pictures or notes would have been great, but here’s great stuff nonetheless. Ah, great vocals!! It shoud be clear that the vote is meant for the value of the reissue and not of the singular albums.