Archives: Reviews

1 - Suffer the Slave 2 - Dead King's Eyes 3 - Summon the Nameless 4 - Right Cross 5 - Albion 6 - Bring Me Back

Yes, I was pretty curious to hear this Vore, since I must have read their name in some thanklist back in mid nineties and the name stuck in my mind. I saw this MCd used for like 3 euros and wanted to give it a try. Well one thing you can say, this album is really spawn of that period, surely worth the price I paid for it (but not more). It sounds like one of the earlier attempt at slow Death Metal made is US (I repeat this is NOT Doom, just slow Death Metal, there is no sense of despair and loss in here.. leave that to the Europeans), with overly simple, muted g-string riffs ranging from slow to mid-slow tempos. Sometimes the band does sound a bit like Obituary but mostly it’s just a short vocal pattern into a song made up of a hanful of riffs that chug repeately for dozens of times with expressionless vocals that remind me surprisingly of a band from Arizona called Psychic Pawn (nice album and Ep single on Cacophonous). I am not a huge fan of this elementary Death Metal which mosltly sounds like a painfully slowed down version of Massacre meets Dead World meets Occult, but at the same time I recognize only today, after so many years have passed, that this genre did make a bit of sense in his time. The album is fully downloadable from their website so you can as well have a listen to it, so much it costs. The cover art is deliciously simple and old school, just lie the music, depicting a brawnly muscled barbarian with a barbed sword hacking at alien plants on some forgotten planet. Bare layout reminiscent of old Thrash/Wild Rags! ingenuity which in all honesty I have come to miss in this age of glowing logos and low resolution covers. I was barely aware there was sentient life in Arkansas so that was not bad to know a band could come out of that plainfield, and Fayetteville has been even claimed by Money Magazine as one of the “Best Places to Live in America”. Go guessing. In short this is an interesting mini-album, in its cosm of minimalsim. Not sure about the whole concept (the lyrics too deal with sorcery and sci-fi) but it was nice to hear for 26 minutes.

1 - Raking The Weak 2 - Dismember Pleasing 3 - Binasakan Benih Bidadari 4 - Getih Jang Getih 5 - Annihilate The Enemy 6 - FFF 7 - Jemput Ajal, Cari Mati 8 - Pathetic Unidentified Obsession 9 - Rotten Body Fluids (Cover Embalmer) 10 - Bless My Wrath

Generally I tend to have a special regard from bands coming from exotic countries, and seeing this band comes from Jawa Barat (western Java) was an interesting thing to take note of. It was also curious to hear that Jasad was not just the usual sloppy second class tape band and well, they do not incorporate any angklung or exotic bamboo instruments in their sound, thanks god. They instead play surprisingly neat, precise American style Brutal Death Metal with professional production, mid-solid songwriting and well, also a rather good packaging, usual Zig cover but this work is well above his average which is good. I haven’t really found an artist capable of such lows and heigths, some of his works ae really exceptional, and some just plain bad. This one is obscure and plays greatly with shades of blue and black. The Jasad logo remains almost invisible thanks to the usual horrible effect of trasparency/shades etc. so dear to all the modern Death Metal bands but what the fuck, some ideas and the color schemes are good to me. The layout is indeed a good work, but please some tells Dani to throw that raggamuffin cap in the sea, it’s horrendous ah ah ah. Other from their origin, there is really not much to add about this “Annihilate the Enemy”. The music more or less keeps the same tonality from start to end, even the vocals are mostly an even growl, same note from start to end. You got Brutal Death that is fast but not overly so, more in the New York vein with no real blasts of speed and a general greater attention for punching riffs. One funny thing I noticed is that there is a riff that is an EXACT copy of Suffocation‘s “Liege of Inveracity” middle breakdown, even the vocal patterns are identical, one of the most blatant rip offs I have ever found! And now that I think about it, most of this album sounds like a cross between the mosh parts of “Effigy” plus some more modern song structures minus Suffo’s sheer brutality minus solos minus the Mullen’s vocal punch. I won’t cry out that this Cd is huge, but I cannot criticize it too much either. It is well played and the sound quality if good, as are the arrangements. The reviews I read regarding the touches of grindcore or goregrind which were supposed to be here are totally whacked. There is neither of these styles in this album believe me. And it does not sound old school at all, unless you consider Entorturement and Prophecy old school. It is cool to see how well this genre has been transplanted on the coasts of the Indian Ocean in such a professional way however. I receive lots of mail from this country, even if it’s mostly rip off or non existant fanzines asking for questionable promo shirts, but people from this country are in general very cool, the Death Metal seems really to have exploded here in the last few years.

I found it weird that Sevared didn’t intervene in fixing the grammar and syntax of the lyrix, several lines really made me think something was a bit lacking in form (isn’t it “Embalmer cover” instead of “cover Embalmer” for instance?). Oh well just a detail.

1 - Of One To Conflict It 2 - Revolution Decimation	3 - Veiled Cast of Judgement 4 - Wrath Pounding 5 - God-Eye Command 6 - In Wait Lie	7 - Cube of Odium 8 - Masterrorder

Hearing an album like this after two clockwork releases like Lust of Decay and Insidious Decrepancy was a relief. Axis of Advance (ex-Sacramentary Abolishment) play this kind of filthy, totally original mixture of extreme Death Metal which is at times difficult to decrypt. The songs are crazed and deviated in the vein of old Order From Chaos, yet you get moments of Australian thrashing blasts a la Abominator or Black Witchery, and moments of breath ripping unmelodic tempo shreds a la Revenge. Listening to this album is not easy, you might not be used to the production which makes the guitars a bit falling behind and the drums taking predominance, but other than that the point about this album is that it’s absoltely non standard. I pity the fool who said this album is Black Metal becouse there is really nothing here except for the raw sound that might recall a bit of the 80s general Black Metal spirit. Anyway it has nothing to do with ’90s Black metal for sure. The vocals are a mix of brutal growls and screams which just meld in the mix and pops out constantly; you have a real maelstrom of riffs going on here, with a consistent dose of Slayer like solos a fat metallic bass sound giving lot of body to the guitarwork, and atypical drumming with some martial snare drum tricks a la Morbid Angel. It’s good to hear a band so extreme without being directly assimilable to anything else. The songs are just freshly chaotic and instinctive and they have a clear pattern which can be followed among the chaos. Savage while traditional in its singular elements, this is a band with shitloads of originality, they surely made quite some steps since the Sacramentary Abolishment days able to mix moments of ultraviolent music with slightly dissonant obscure passages or almost melancholic melodies, which then get truncated by hammering martial beats and wicked solos. While their imagery is purely War Metal, the lyrics deal more with sci-fi scenes of apocalyptic planetary wars than second world war, kind of Laibach martial aesthetics meets Orwell/Philip Dick. There is a superb mixture of violence and class in this disc, this is a highly reccomended release, Red Stream for US, Osmose for the rest of the world.

1 - Befouling The Adoration Of Christ 2 - Surreptitious Misanthropy Voraciously Consuming Rationality Thus Invoking Dormant Sociopathic Desirest 3 - Enchanting Fantasies Of Insurmountable Torment Upon Innocence And Piety 4 - The Inerrancy Of Profanation 5 - Festering Oral Infestation Of Parasitic Arsomaly 6 - Inebriated By The Blood Of Divine Suffering Through Secular Dissection 7 - Ordainment Of Iniquity Lurigly Asphyxiating Righteousness 8 - Unrelenting Agony Bestowed Upon The Holy Disease Ridden Minds Of The Ignorant

With all my best intentions, I cannot take off my mind the fact that this guy plays everything alone. Even if Insidious Decrepancy is not a one man band for ego but for necessity, there is just something that kept buzzing in my ear for the whole listens of this album. The show I saw last month was appalling, I am sure that was the less brutal Death Metal show I have ever seen. There was this guy, Shawn, frighteningly similar to Bill Gates, completely stale in the middle of the stage, he was not even shaking his head, with his short pants, baseball cap and glasses and a drum machine on a stool beside him. It was horrible. It was like assisting a computer geek introducing each song as if it was source code of a software. When a song ended, he just announced the next one in a nasal voice which was the farthest thing from a Brutal Death singer I can think of. I was speechless. The songs were complex and brutal sure, but it was not more exciting than seeing a dj changing records on a turntable. Sometimes a DJ can even transmit energy, turns, twists, screams, but this guy was as excited as a husband reading the shopping list.

Other than that, the packaging of the Cd is neat, even though this is one of the famous half-hurried works by zig, where his art is half defined and half blurred. Just look at the hands of this Jesus. Zig has probably not lost a third of the time he put on the Sarcolytic cover. But the concept is nice, a Jesus impaled pon an inverted cross in a landscape of alien vegetation. Also the lyrics are of the anti-christian kind, I am curious to hear this other project of Shawn Infant Jesus Bukkake which shouls be along this line. Musically you got super cold and mechanical Death Metal with drum machine, mathematical riffs, plain guttural vocals, I really think the whole Cd can just be a single track since there is no real scheme other than collecting brutal riffs together. But don’t be befouled by my words, this Cd works. The vocals are devoid of any feeling but they’re guttural and while very cold the whole production is precise and powerful. For a student of music science the riffs are impossibly technical and complex and there is stuff to learn from this guitarwork. I just can’t take off my mind the image of Bill Gates writing this stuff in his office, arranging riffs like Windows APIs and COM plus objects. Classic Brutal Death Metal on top of technical ability, but really I want to hear fucking musicians otherwise I can as well buy Merzbow if I have to hear pure electronics.

1 - Atavism Infernal 2 - Shifting Forms 3 - Wine Like Clotted Blood

At merely 10.14 minutes, the Sarcolytic debut on Zdenek’s (Godless Truth) label Lacerated Enemy qualifies as little more than a 7″, or a Cd single. Yet in these 10 minutes we have a huge array of battering brutality, on the vein of Deeds of Flesh‘s earlier work. I didn’t know that Zig, tattoo artist and super sponsored artist of countless Death Metal covers was also a singer, but hey he’s totally great, his vocals are deep and ogrish, not just “ree” squeals, it’s not so common today to find one of these real guttural zombie singers (Joe Ptacek where have you gone?), and what’s more he has given the cover art of this release an extra push. Generally speaking I feel like some his covers are at times a bit faded/blurred, as if they were just hurried car aerograph airbrush works, but recently I really got impressed by the depth he’s able to give his more detailed works. The sharp traits that surround the demon on the cover are really the missing tile in some of his earlier paintings, there is even a touch of Gerlad Brom in the musculature (one of my favourite modern painters). This guy has really reached a new level of quality. And the quality of the riffs is also top notch, with a cool flow that makes every song a complete work and not just a mumble jumble of riffs. The drumwork is impressive just like Ricky did with Disgorge and well, also the recording is right this time, everything seems arranged to perfection, sharp riffs that mutate and twist yet with a coherent pattern, and also the vocals deep but articulate (a bit prominent but that’s the way I prersonally like it). The new full length is probably going something at the level of the best Deeds of Flesh (I repeat myself but that’s likely the most similar band I can think of, if we speak of “Trading Pieces”). The main fault in this Cd is the length, I really find nonsense releasing a 3 tracks Cd unless it’s a demo, a thing like this sould really not cost more than 4-5 euros, no polemics here. But on the good side, this time we have lyrics here, it’s cool to know that somebody still thinks a riff alone does not make a good album. They deal with demons and satanic rituals, which to me is delicious in Death Metal (for Black it’s just clichè), staying in tune with the cover artwork, a winged demon raising from the flames of hell. Ah. For fans of Brutal Death of topmost level. Can’t wait for the full length.

1 - Exchanging Perversities 2 - Scarification 3 - Intolerable Cruelty 4 - Licking Bacterial Ecstasy 5 - When Anesthesia Fails 6 - Embryonic Breeding For Cannicalistic Devourment 7 - Raging Swarm 8 - Ejaculation Extermination 9 - Purity Through Dismemberment

This is Lust of Decay‘s third album and much probably the heavier of the three so far. Here we have once again no big surprises, they kind of refined and thickened the scheme they already tested before on the previous two full lengths. Totally Brutal Death 100% American style, with some referrals such as Deeds of Flesh, Cinerary, Disgorge, Severe Torture, Bound and Gagged etc.; some slow fat riffs give heaviness to the mix but most of the time we’re talking about a highly technical jumble of chaotic riffs blocks sewn together. Taken singularly each chunk is a coherent and neat microcosm, even more crisp due to a monster recording, but when put together you get the idea of a complete mess, it’s difficult to get a clear idea of the whole picture but that’s a cool thing, thanks Disgorge for testing this approach. Chaos from order. Again taken singularly each section does its job in a zealous, precise way: guttural growls with a full body, sharp technical riffs with no taint of melodies and abundant use of harmonics and a competent, grating drumming. As a whole, I generally like this Cd, it’s effective on the path it has chosen. The “school” the riffs fall into is mostly the “chug chug” truncated chords one, it is no surprise the band started out in the vein of Pantera or something like that, the power chord and the massive sound are the main elements here, but well, the feeling seems to lag a bit. Even in a recording that seems flawless at first I can come up with some critics. The sound is maybe perfectly balanced but the sound of the drums so synthetic it sounds like a drum machine, the use of triggers is really shameless to the point of insolence. There is no way a double bass can have this sound, never. Anyway some people seem to like the ICQ typing drums of Vomit Remnants so I guess if one likes traditional ’00s Brutal Death here one gets what he looks for. The lyrics deal with gore fantasy like self devourment and massacres, and well I always like this shit, so go Lust go!

And well… the real weak spot I think this time falls outside the music: this is the worse layout/graphic work I have seen this year. Computer graphics are really NOT my cup of blood, they really llok cheezy no matter if it’s cheap stuff like late Morbid Angel or Incantation or professional like Visual Darkness works, they just don’t click on me. And this time things are just in the bottom scale. The subject is cool, a nun with an axe in hand in a cabin full of mutilated female body parts hanging on a cross. Gore is always fun. But the skin tone and the textures are really looking false, they give the impression the nun is a Barbie doll dressed and painted. And there is that hateful use of embossing and this mania of filling every detail of this booklet with 2 minute photoshop filters. Really this artwork rates as a 2 in my scale. Overally though, this album is a piece o’ cake, super brutal and guttural, intense, technical, this is a band that deserves to be counted among the top ones fro US today, for sure. At least when we talk striclty about derivative Brutal Death. I am personally more into dirtier, grittier stuff a la Pustulated, Suppuration, Reinfection etc.