Absolutely exquisite, very high level Death metal with vocals that remind me a bit of IMMOLATION, old DEATH or CREMATORIUM. There’s something evil lurking beneath the eerie music of COFFIN TETXS which clearly reclaim the feel you had in your bones when listening to “Dawn of Possession” the time it came out in the shelves. The Malign itself crawls up the chords of “Ethereal Conjuration” or Crypts of Eternity” and pervade the whole CD length. The songs are structured in e definitely brilliant, complex way, all the time heavily delving into old school Death Metal that is where this band come from (yes, they’ve been luring in the background for more than you think). What I find more enthusiastic about this CD, is this old school feeling I get from start to ending notes. It really has all the right fundamentals to be a CD released 10 years ago or more, it smells like an old crumbling fanzine, it slithers like a snake winding through ancient stone crypts. The tuning of the instruments is obscure and heavy and the vocals absolutely unearthly. Damn, this album is GREAT.
Archives: Reviews
CLOTTED SYMMETRIC SEXUAL ORGAN (Jap): “Are you excrements?” Cd 2001 Morbid
Convulse, heavily rock grind, absolutely original on a purely compositional basis, although not very interesting for my tastes. Some of the songs seem like Jimi Hendrix or some high on acid band from the 60’s/70’s which have some burst of grinding viciousness. If somebody find interesting to hear those old rock guitar digressions with lots of multi-effected stretches, twists and heavily into amphetamine atmospheres, this might be interesting, especially if you are into smoking shit and stuff, thing I personally couldn’t care less for. That’s it, I don’t need this fucking trippy stuff at all. Although it has very personal attractiveness and some might find it worship material for sure, I am not one of those. It stings my nerves just like that old rock’n’roll did. Useless.CIVIL DEFIANCE (USA/Ca): “Circus of Fear” CD 1999 Nuclear Blast/Grind Syndicate Media
Hm take the latest VOIVOD and strip them of everything interesting which they still had since they changed the original line up. Add some new school crossover and almost MACHINE HEAD-asque vocals and you’ll get the picture. Although the guitarists have some interesting ideas which can even lead me to remember (although in a very distant way) JANE’S ADDICTIOn or KILLING JOKE, they are more of a second class Metal band which was too in a hurry to release a superfluous CD. And the singer has to be killed.CASTIGATE (Ger): “Bring Me the Head of Jesus Christ” CD 1999 Pavement
GOREAPHOBIA. This is the very first band which even reminded of that long gone godly band (although there are rumors of concerts of the band in NY with some of the original members, excluding of course Chris Gamble/Mezzadurus of BLOODSTORM). Actually a little bit less complicated in approach and a bit less mushy in consistence, CASTIGATE is a killer Death Metal band. Doesn’t really matter what other publication say, this band has class, talent to produce Death Metal of the finest quality, with double vocals, one guttural and one that is halfway between early ATROCITY and some malign, slightly nasal gargle. The production is fucking excellent, the songs have the right balance of twisting and pounding and accelerations, with a pretty peculiar style, which isn’t exactly easy to describe, but has a sincere old school feeling. The tracks have a genuine and completely original bend, with lots of changes which stay on the obscure frequency of some early 90’s demotape. Cover art is great, album title is great, the music is great. One must buy release.BREAKING SILENCE (Gre): “Impact” Cd 1999 Serious Entertainment
Here we have arrived to one of the 2 worst CDs in this review section. Well suffice it to say, there’s a crying clown on the cover, which almost lead me to rate it as 0 and throw the CD away without even listening to it. But then I was curious to hear if the band was playing melodic gothic black or heavy metal. Well the band falls in the second waste bin, the intolerable clean castrated wailing served with some banal, very banal simple riffs and well, the same stuff as other heavy metal excrements. Too bad there’s not a negative scale for worst CDs this would probably classify among the first 5 of the last 5 years.BEHEMOTH (Pol): “Thelema.6” Cd 2000 Avantgarde
At this point, the label Black Metal stands very narrow to BEHEMOTH. Indeed they have a very personal style in weaving a music that could be easily be considered in the Death Metal family somewhat and nobody would curl a lip. Flawless production and brilliant design definitely stimulate interest in a CD which is definitely steeled in every spot. It lacks some of the savagery of “Pandemonic Incantations” but more space is given to parts which are definitely particular to the band, in a way evocative yet clear cut and sharp. An interesting spot is the explanation of every lyric in the booklet, and a very crystal clear sound (hell, somebody would call it too clean in a way but fact is, this is one of the few bands which doesn’t lose intensity with the perfectioning of the production). Weird stuff which evolves continuously to new directions.AVULSED (Spa): “Cybergore” Cd 1998 Repulse
I would ask some real DJ what they find of techno in this CD. In my opinion, AVULSED should give up to experiment, they simply don’t have the taste nor theright ability to experiment. Period. Actually they could be quite a respectable Death Gore band if they left this experiments alone. But they seem to always
try to do something different and then , this whole CD is based on some Techno/Death attempt. What I hear is just some basic electronics added to Death Metal
music, which isn’t much more entertaining than mixing folk and Grindcore. I remember two good attempt at doing this unlikely mix by BRUTAL TRUTH (“Perpetual
Conversion” anyone remembers?) or the first (repeat: first) FEAR FACTORY album. Well that was a funny attempt, succeeded in creating something different and
in both cases it was something l8imited to a handful of songs. Doing a whole CD on this topic is already a bit pretentious (and useless) by itself, but the
vocals are so guttural I don’t really find the link for the rest of the music. Two genres, totally separated, in the same song, without any connection.