Archives: Reviews

10 - Locust Reign 11 - This Is Mine 12 - They Stretch For Miles 13 - My Great Devastator 14 - The Human Shield 15 - Minnesota

Not interesting to me. Hard Core is not this shit.

1- A Skull Full of Maggots 2 - The Undead Will Feast 3 - Scattered Remains, Splattered Brains 4 - Put Them to Death 5 - Bloody Chunks

The demo that got CANNIBAL CORPSE engaged with Metal Blade, according to the label owner, the band was signed right after he listened to the title track ahah. Actually the band was formed from the ashes of two other bands from Buffalo, TYRANT SIN and BEYOND DEATH (of course all of you knew this info already). Chris “the Sink” Barnes vocals at the time were rather different, I think you can get an idea listening to “Eaten Back to Life” and “Butchered at Birth” in a row and then trying to make one step back. Actually the vocals remind very, very much those of Max Cavalera in “Beneath the Remains”, although the vocals follow a pattern which is made of very short sentences and try to strip every humanity and tone. Basically, all of the songs herein contained were later enclosed in “Eaten Back to Life” with little or no variation except for a better production (even the pace is basically the same, just the vocals got deeper). I think the song which starts out in the most different way is “Bloody Chunks”, which begins with a rather confused gore twist. The Demo came out in a professional blank tape and a slightly azured carboard cover, with the old logo cheaply printed (the pixels are rather big, as if it was printed with an old dot matrix printer), and song names handwritten.

1- Human Waste 2 - Involuntary Slaughter 3 - Reincremation

This is right, even SUFFOCATION did release a demo tape almost a dozen years ago, and surprisignly enough, it went quite unnoticed for a few years before the big clone war began in the States. Recorded with a somewhat fuzzy, bass-saturated sound very, very similar to that of the first “Human Waste” press, this demo nonetheless is pure cult, already showing EVERY detail of a band which was already ripe even at the time of this debut: in other words, their style was already strongly clear cut, instead of developing through release and release like almost every other band has done. Reincremation defines SUFFOCATION’s unique sound made of ultra-skilled rhythmic which has a flow and a heaviness unheard before, contrarily to other grind-core acts, SUFFO was the founder of a style of thier own, impossible to imitate in the future even by the most skilled PYREXIA of “Sermon of Mockery” or the million imitation that have shown in these last 5 years, when the term Brutal Death, deservingly credited to the band, has become of common use (and abuse). SUFFOCATION’s style is technical to the point of excess, it erases your eardrums with this incredible plethora of ultra-technical riffs and never so guttural vocals (at the time even Barnes had quite clear vocals. The tracks contained in this demo were later included in their debut MCd “HUman Waste” recently remastered and re-sold by Relapse and the almighty milestone “Effigy of the Forgotten” with the Corpsegrinder on backing vocals. Tape came with a xeroxed cover and a white sticker with the demo title printed with a typewriter. Bow down and shit in your pants babes, becouse a band like this would never exist again.

1 - Emanating Darkness 2 - Blackening Of Souls 3 - Loyalty To The Tyrant 4 - Living Death	5 - Malkuth	6 - Voluntary Enslavement

Fundamentally a good, energic, Brutal Death Metal band, with grunting, powerful vocals, and an impressive bass/drum department. The rhytmic section indeed knows to blast fast, sometimes in the vein of DEVOURMENT/CRYPTOPSY but with some unexpected variations into mid tempo/technical shit, on this ENTORTUREMENT come to mind but even more fusion/jazzy. Musical proficiency into this shit is undeniable and gets immediately to the brain, despite all these evolutions the sound is definitely and enjoyably raw: the drum blasts, while sometimes almost a machine gun, maintain a genuine, almost rehearsal sound, the vocals split up in shrieking/barfing, all following an entirely not straight direction. Again, I think the first DEVOURMENT demo could help identifying the sound, thoroughly and genuinely American and schizoid while not too much to become like bad ATHEIST/latest PESTILENCE defecation. I think the Canadian GARBAGE kind of sickness can’t be omitted to mention as well as well as EUPHORIC EVISCERATION ferocity for the vocals. It’s not the best way to describe a band to continously compare them to others as ACERBUS is particularily weird and has a particular, twisted class. Brutal as fuck yet with uncountable variations. The CDR is only a quarter of an hour long but packs lots of changes and technical rage. Pity for the running time, I await fervidly a follow up.