Archives: Reviews

1 - Fire, Death, Fate 2 - Ultimate Death 3 - Blood For Blood 4 - Death After Death 5 - Morbid Lust 6 - Possession 7 - Rotting Decay 8 - Blood For Blood 9 - Attack Of The Archangels 10- Fire, Death, Fate 11 - Carnivore 12 - Night Of The Dead 13 - Ritual 14 - Extinction 15 - Ultimate Death

I was in France last new year’s eve, visiting Paris for a couple of days before greeting the new year before the cathedral of Notre Dame drinking mango falvoured fanta. And as we walked along the streets I decided to pay visit to the local Virgin mega store. Scoffing at the shit metal displayed on the shelves, I coughed my fucking entrails off when I saw Insanity‘s logo showing among so much commercial garbage. I had to grab it to verify it was really THAT Insanity I thought and… Yes, holy fucking shit, they have discovered that monster jewel of early Death Metal, and it seems this re-release has been done with cognition as well!!! I am sure it’s difficult to be familiar with this name becouse the band has really been famous in the limited lapse of time where tape trading was not yet surclassed by cheap mp3 dowloads. But I remember I had this demo recorded at least on 4 different tapes. I had some tape trading pals who used to send me 90′ tapes full of great demos and I used to do the same in turn, but it was quite common that when space allowed it, and the demos requested didn’t fill up the whole tape, you threw in some extra tracks of your choice, and Insanity was really one of the top faves world-wide with those 3 killer songs. I seriously believe this band had all che chances to be as big as Morbid Angel today, for their 1985 demo is not so far from “Thy Kingdom Come” in quality, skill and energy. I never knew much from this band, except I read a news about the singer’s death a few years later in some fanzine. So – I said – the adventure of Insanity ends here. Well I was wrong becouse the band actually recorded some more stuff and even reformed recently, so here on this disc there was a lot of stuff I had never ever heard of! It was a torment waiting to be home before listening this becouse, let’s be honest, we do not really have bands of this caliber today. Or maybe we have and I am just too fucking old or ignorant who knows. Let’s say few bands move me today as earlier Death Metal bands from late ’80s to early ’90s.

And so I had time to browse through the booklet, and to come up with several news. I realized how totally clueless I was. Oh my I have so much to learn! Parasitic Twin, the label founded by Matt Harvey of Exhumed, came up with the idea of this collection and licensed it to Black Lung, which to my surprise, is the label run by Insanity guitarist (and later guitarist/vocalist) Dave Gorsuch. How exactly this works I am not sure. but Insanity had to get a license from a third person to press this (?). I will make some research and update the review if I manage to know something more. But the nastier hit I got when I read that MBR released an Insanity album without me knowing anything, which meant another line in the top ten of my endless “missing list”. I don’t know if it was on vinyl but considering all the MBR records I have are on vinyl…

Anyway let’s go a bit to the music now. I knew the first 3 tracks so I skipped to track 4 immediately. Those first 3 were indeed tracks recorded live a few months after their forming in 1985; very noisy but totally brilliant fast technical and intricate first-year Death Metal in the vein of early Morbid Angel, Possessed, Sadus etc. Probably these three tracks remain the best in the whole collection in my opinion. You get here a totally fierce attack of thrashing Death Metal which had all the energy of the first enstabilished genre and the roaring brutality of what was to become the second. The songs on “Death After Death” have a totally clearer and darker sound, with prominent bass lines a la Sadus, even though their music is not as fast, nor stylistically close except for some faster parts. You get lots of palm muting metal riffs, even longer than before super intricate solos (holy shit listen to the tapping monster scales in “Rotting Decay”!!!), and a sound definitely more obscure and more morbidly Death Metal. However despite the grotesque injection of darkness, you have also so many changes and a lot of “progressive” ideas which remind of early Atheist, Disharmonic Orchestra and at times maybe even Macabre. I am generally not very much for the protagonism a la Watch Tower but this album indeed sounds so Death Metal and so genuine I can’t complain. You get hundreds of turns and twists but the structure remains pure Death with lots of guitarwork beneath. Every single riffs sounds like a solo in itself and regarding this Morbid Angel definitely spring to mind again, “Fire Death Fate” is not too far from a song of demo era Morbid Angel, but also Florida’s Incubus, Nocturnus, Slayer all have a bit of their their magic touch here… Oh fuck. It is funny making band comparisons becouse some of the bands I cited above were barely in embryonic stage when Insanity formed. It was totally unexpected to have a new classic to listen in the car again, besides all the early 90’s Nuclear Blast / Earache picked selections. Even the new tracks that close the Cd are total cult, recorded based on music written by the ex-singer De Zuniga (like one of Conan’s comic book pencilers). The booklet is not fabulous in layout and stuff, difficult to read at times, but it works in its simplicity without much praise.

This album is a mine of gold, I have no idea when I’ll discover another jewel like this. Strong handshake to Matt Harvey for having rediscovered this classic. I owe you one beer!

This classic is also going to be repressed on vinyl by Hell’s Headbangers, while the demo is going to be put on 7″ by the great Nuclear War Now!. Watch out for both!

1 - Coprobaptism 2 - Room of Inhuman Devour 3 - Tunnel of Viscera 4 - Vortex of Sadomasokism

I had this demo floating on my desk for a while even before I decided to restart the webzine, this guy (I think it’s Diego) appreached me and left me a free copy for review plus a couple of flyers. I am happy having restarted the publication becouse bands like this Wormphilism need support and finally I can assolve to my duties. This band is actually a two piece and I think the second member is the person who was printing the Mondocrudo fanzine a few years ago. Both are deliciously obsessed by gore and this is something I cannot but support thoroughly. Gore rules. Always. The cover art is a mockery of the “Spaghetti Incident” by Guns’n Roses but done with earthworms (ah ah) instead of disgusting American spaghetti with tomato (I wonder what tastes worse), but apart from that the layout is really non existant, just a folded piece of color copied paper but this is just a demo so that’s the spirit. There was a time when bands from the east came up with all these professional glossy color tapes and they were only demos, really it never made much sense to me.

Musically Wormphilism are not grindcore, but maybe more into Brutal Death with lots of sludge power riffs which sometimes even remind me of southern rock bands like Kyuss or Mastodon, you know, those super heavy filthy riffs that seem to dig the ground like a plow. There is also some slam chugga chugga guitarwork with guttural “ree” vocals a la Sikfuk/Goratory, but that’s not what fills the whole disc, here you got a multitude of aspects of brutality that range from the fast beats to stop and go staccatos a la first-album Fleshgrind. The production is excellent, always considering this is meant to be just a sample. I don’t think the band exists anymore but might as well be, since over an year has passed already since I got his. I am not sure but I think the guy who handed me this demo was the same who now runs the band Orifice (email me for infos so I can correct this review if I’m wrong). Brutal Death with some slamming parts and guttural vokillz, might be worth checking out!

1 - Blood Oath 2 - Heretic Death Call 3 - Profane Savagery 4 - Baphomet Throne Exaltation 5 - Holocaust Summoning 6 - Hellstorm of Evil Vengeance 7 - Darkness Attack 8 - Scorned and Crucified 9 - Upheaval of Satanic Might

Hey, I am really glad bands like Black Witchery that stick to the roots of the genre still do exist, as much as I am glad we still have Nun Slaughter and Cianide around. This band succeeds in catching the very basic essence of Black Metal and turning it to a Cd like this “Upheaval of Satanic Might”, a triumph of true Black Metal mayhem – just how fucking violent and true this thing is can be understood only by listening to this stuff. Black Wicthery have all the integrity that lacks in basically all the gay Norwegian band ranging from Carpathian Forest to Taake etc. Here you don’t have the nice melodies to hum along and the nice gleaming black hair flowing in the northern wind which attracted ninety-nine percent of the present populace of underground girls in Metal (which thought Black Metal was just gothic music with popeye vocals and faster riffs). It is amazing how can a band from Florida understand so much about trhe true Black Metal spirit. No fake shit like Mutiilation, Maniac Bucther (ah ah) or Nargaroth, here you got real necromantic fury just like the kings Blasphemy taught us to identify Black Metal for. Musically here we have no finesse, thanksfully. Here you get a riff per song and that riffs fucking sticks to the end, a droning, dissonant chord that pulses evilness till the end with ever blasting hate, top of the lungs blasphemy shouted at the face of christ, and a ritual hammering beating which can be compared to the first Sarcofago releases. I also love the production which is rude and grating but totally fitting, this recording sound is as acid and masculine as the best Cianide. There is not a second of stop and not a second of nice easy music here, and I totally love it this way, god damned! You got the essence stripped of all bolloks, just the basics of the genre. You also get a cover of “Ritual” by Blasphemy at the end of the Cd, which of course rules and sticks a middle finger in the ass of all winter forest posers. My only complain is still the same I had before: the vocals are an inhuman scream but lack depth, they’re violent sure, but a singer like MkM of Antaeus would have definitely made this album a definute masterpiece, using his vocals to add variation to the music while keeping the songs simple. Black Wicthery are a stand alone insigna of true Black Metal spirit, no shit, and I think this is one of the best true Black Metal bands around, together with Revenge, Blasphemy, Antaeus, Deathspell Omega, Funeral Mist etc. If you like it evil don’t go for the Scandinavian penguins, please. The true icing on the cake here is Chris Moyen’s artwork which we also previewed on their first album. True Black metal artist for true Black Metal art.

1 - Chamber Of Ages 2 - Clangor Of War 3 - From Beyond 4 - Symbolic Immortality 5 - Cryptic Realm 6 - Aggressive Tyrant 7 - Death In Hell 8 - Mutilated 9 - Infestation Of Death 10 - Clangor Of War 11 - Aggressive Tyrant 12 - Cryptic Realm 13 - Peretual Domination 14 - The Traitor 15 - Corpse Grinder

This is the third of the recent Iron Pegasus reissues. This time we have the target on one of the most important (if not the most important) band for the development of what is today known as the Death Metal style. Kam Lee proclaims he was the real inventor of the Death Metal growling approach he calls “death vomit” and from what I know I cannot really debate on this. Massacre has been a good choice for me when I was bored of modern Death Metal, I just plugged in any song from “From Beyond” and I was ready to go, that’s real stuff you can pump up at full volume in your car or in your house. The guitar style is what in my opinion defines the Massacre sound more than anything else and by hearing this demos I can tell the Rick Rozz style was already clear cut from the very beginning, tons of 100% metal palm-muting power chords, battering drums and a totally distorted vocal approach is what you hear from the very first demo. The vocals in demo 2 (first 5 tracks) and still somewhat hybrid and not completely distorted grunts, and they are camouflaged by very strong reverb, but here you already hear the satanic principle that was to become the landmark Death Metal vocal style. This band to me represents Death Metal much more than the band Death (and when I talk Death I only talk about the first 2 albums, the rest is complete shit), not to mention the fact it was Kam Lee and Rick Rozz who founded Mantas/Death, not the guitar fag hero so many blabber about today. It is therefore quite normal that there are some faint reminiscneces of early Death in the guitarwork since this is the guitarist which half created it, but here we have even more obscure, heavier music. On demo I, which you get to hear after demo II, you get a totally different thing yet. Music was almost mid tempo, so basic you can compare it to Venom, and what’s weird is that the vocals sounded maybe heavier and clearer than on demo II, half spittle and totally deranged. The sound is complete garageish, and the drums are almost completely muffled, the guitars non existant and well, it is not to hide this stuff is only for true fans which want to hear what Death Metal year zero was about. But there is feel about it, and genuine inspiration. Kam’s vocals are here a constant vomiting gargle, with lots of variation, yet quite clear to understand. There are also six bonus live tracks that make up for the full hour length of this reissue, grabbed at a show in Tampa in 1986. In the end this Cd is a must have file for your archives, although don’t expect flamboyant double riffs and shit like that, most of this music is about the innovation this band gave to the total ’80s metal style they play, get it for what it is. The booklet is well made with lots of old flyers, pictures etc, althoug I find highly debatable the idea to include an interview which is freely available on the Internet. A scan of some fanzine of the time would have been much cooler to read. The layout also seems a bit simplicistic, but I won’t describe it as bad, after all it does the job. What can I say, I had to get it myself, what about you?

9 - Rectal Blast 10 - Juicy Holes and Hairy Balls 11 - Sexual Deviation 12 - Liquidation 13 - You Slut - Bad Luck 14 - Uterine Carnage 15 - My Obituary 16 - Addicted to Carnal Delicacies 17 - Charge

The atmosphere becomes a little bit looser with the Putrefied Genitalia side. I was not familiar with previous releases of theirs so no comparisons here. The recordings is a step less oppressive and the music a bit more played, if you know what I mean, with some Slayersih riffs, which sometimes remind a bit too much of a musical scales than real chords, but generally speaking, it’s all an up and down of delicious grinding riffs with an evil, gargling vocals and more standard Death Metal with super guttural grunts, with some arpeggios, some experiments and stuff. I am afraid there is not much coherence in the whole and it’s probably due to some inexperience, becouse you have good elements here, just a bit scattered. I cannot tell if it’s all a fault of the mix, but some chemistry is missing definitely in these songs. It’s like there are a bunch of good ideas but the arrangements are a bit abrupt, sound like cut and paste. After a second spin I have started to see a bit of logic in this stuff however, and my liking has increased, after all this is an original mix of melancholic bridges, gore vocals and almost Black Metal grimness. Sure there are some bad riffs (the opening in “Liquidation” is BAD), but the singer has nasty vocals with a lot of phlegm and swicthes from minotaur gargles to mucous spittle with right timing (the vocals are definitely the best thing in Putrefied Genitalia, real clever and versatile), and what’s real good is that sometimes you got the old magic Greek touch of adding some melancholic melody above the lines, even within the thickest of brutality. This is very different stuff from Atavism but not necessarily bad. Two complains: they might be a bit more selective of the choice of riffs and get rid of 70% of them – in my opinion, they don’t need that many – and maybe should give the songs a bit more flow (that’s the most important) and give some time for the drummer to ger rid of some stiffness and you might get some real neat original, brutal stuff with some feeling. Oppressive and weirdly disturbing, this is a band that I really want to hear improve.

1 - Intro 2 - Flesh Eater 3 - Soul Embalmer 4 - A Task of Butchery 5 - Post-Mortem Bloodshed 6 - Silent Night, Bloody Night 7 - Unholy Embalment of Seraphimic Cadaver 8 - Hoggish

Time for some genuine underground self-produced stuff now! This is a split Cd between two Greek bands, Atavism and Putrefied Genitalia. While self-produced, the Cd has professional packaging and full color artwork. The layout is very amateurish and a bit cheap but in the end it works, and that new loko looks nice indeed. The cover from this side looks pretty cool with these two screaming zombies, even though I admit I am not a big fan of computer graphics. I first knew Atavism when they sent me their first demo back in 1998 when Nuclear Abominations was still on paper and well, that demo was honerstly plain terrible, that’s why I was afraid to put the disc in the player. I can’t remember much about it but I remember I didn’t like it at all, maybe the totally whacky production, can’t tell right now. Anyway I need to check it out again becouse this time the songs sound rather cool to me! The good thing might be that contrary to (well, old) Mortician they have a real drummer that while not blindingly fast does the job at battering the snare drums in semi-blasts a la old (crippled) Mick Harris, so no need for fucking drum machines. This music sounds also total Mortician worship as I remembered well, with the super-bass crushing power chords and goregrind distortion (a la early Squash Bowels). While this music might sound relativbely simple, I think it’s indeed quite difficult to come up with the right riffs, or you might easily end up playing tarantella tempo which are definitely not my cup of pus. It’s a music that relies totally on good taste and appropiate sound and this Cd delivers in both fields. You got a super-saturated guitar distortion plus zombie guttural vocals, crushing staccato riffs and a genrellay oppressive atmosphere, it’s damn good. The last track “Hoggish” has that humid atmospheric wickedness of Catasexual Urge Motivation (hey that’s a big compliment for me!) and I can definitely tell this is my favourite of the whole tracklist (it’s taken from an Ep recorded in 2002). For fans of dense, obsessively sludgy Death Metal, this is cool shit to get! And let’s support some fucking underground for once.

1 - Spilling Holy Blood 2 - Final Hour of Christ  3 - Weeping in Heaven 4 - I Arose

Profanatica was one of my favourite Black Metal bands when it was becoming a solid enstabilished genre per se, with its aesthetics and stuff, and the fact they came from a district of New York just made the thing for me all the better. I feel really annoyed by Scandinavian Black Metal, however you call it. This band originally formed out of a very early version of Incantation when both Ledney and McEntee left Revenant (if you want to hear the other bands which came before this: Contrivisti and Toten, check out the excellent – as usual – retrospective on Nuclear War Now!) or as Ledney put it, when John left the band and took the name with himself. Whatever the case, it seems their friendship must have been deteriorating afterwards becouse McEntee is on the first line in the thankslist of this “…Tormenting Holy Flesh…” split album. Profanatica is quite atypical for the modern interpretation of the Black Metal band, for several reasons. The riffs of their songs were not just constrant buzzing tremolos a la Immortal & Co. but you can call them riffs old school Death/Black with Doom laden bridges and powerful twists, there is even one small touch of the early Incantation here, when I really like the guitars, the impossibly bad recording and shrieking vocals just don’t annoy me so much, on the contrary, I am pleased by the total garage sound, it really reeks evil like the worse south American recording and the malignity just results heightened. Ledney here handles both drums and vocals (like Nocturnus or Autopsy) and I believe he does a good job at both things. His screams are a blasphemous agony, not your ridicolous typical popeye Scandinavian-style shout, I really picked this out becouse some resemblances to Messiah which I reviewed yesterday might not be totally out of place, when we talk about the slower grinding sections. Track 1 is the only new song here, as both “Final Hour of Christ” and “Weeping in Heaven” previously appeared in other works, and the 8 minute “I Arose” is just a fucking evocative instrumental masterpiece. No really this stuff is so neat I am not afraid to say I like it more than 99% of today’s Black Metal (there are exceptions, but you get my point), this is what I mean for Black Metal, not paper penguins. I don’t care much for the panda corpsepaint but seens it’s a must have for any so called satanic band (bah). Profanatica was really, really direct and sick in their blasphemy. I have seen a video of these guys playing naked and smeared with blood on stage, masturbating on the bible, smashing a virgin mary statue stained with blood on stage, spitting urine at the crowd, they were really, really nasty and disgusting, trying to break all of jesus christ’s rules not just by writing lyrics in their flats but also by acting disgusting and against the laws of nature (a bit like G.G. Allin). I haven’t heard anything since their reunion (except for the collection picLp but that’s all old stuff) so I can’t tell if things changed for the best or stayed so primeval, you should check Hell’s Headbangers website often to stay informed. I have compared both vinyl and Cd versions of this split and I haven’t found any differences. There was a flyer insert withing the Lp cover however where Osmose was sponsoring the “The Raping of Virgin Mary” unreleased album, ah. I don’t know if there was a mistake on the flyer but what was to become the cover of this split was instead placed as the cover for that never released album. Blasphemous and totally crude the way this is meant to be, once again! Fuck polished sound!