I don’t feel ill at ease saying that Hour of Penance (or Hour of Penanz as they say in Rome) is the best band Italy has spawned in the last couple of years. I could count world-challenging level Death Metal bands on a hand in the last 15 years and this definitely falls among them. It’s a combination of different things that makes this band unique: despite they broadly belong to the “Brutal Death” scene, there’s something which parts them definitely from the strict set of laws of the genre. There is a vague old school feel in their chords which just part them from the roster of other Amputated Vein – Unmatched Brutality – Neurotic – Unique Leader bands (from what I understood have some works going with this last label). The point is that this band has VISION. A clear concept they explore in every release from the songwriting to the lyrical concepts. Even on stage, this is a band with no frills, no smiles, no clownish attire – they just blast and spew forth blasphemy. Period. I really find it gratifying that one of the first bands able to mix the old and new world of Death Metal so well actually comes from my country.

Trying to portray them musicwise, Hour of Penance are a powerhouse of razor-sharp edged riffs, technical tempo changes, swirling solos and complex hyperfast drumming, all intricately woven and recently reinforced by a new singer whose fast spoken style is definitely similar to that of a way deeper Corpsegrinder (albeit maybe a little bit flatter). Musical references to Morbid Angel, Centurian, Krisiun – and hell one can even whisper Noism or Rotten Sound – are harder here than any post-Suffocation American band (which honestly drove some doubt in me on the choice of covering a song like “Catatonia” on stage).

This 3 track sampler is a recent release made to spotlight this new singer to the world. Forget any layout here, this is just a Cd-r with home printed cover (I can grumble this is actually the kind of demos you give for free… even if 3 Euros was cheap enough) – which might be Ok, if at least track titles were written here!

Summing it up, this is a good hope of things to come. This is surely one of the five best bands ever out of my country, talking about extreme Metal.

|I just finished reviewing that cool Haemorrhage collection on Power It Up and now I have another excellent Spanish band doing a similar release. This Cd holds tracks taken from 6 years from Machetazo‘s tormented existance (1998-2004) of Eps and singles. There is not a big advancement between the various tracks that I can perceive, at least not as evident as on the full lengths, but this is a real good complement to the Razorback albums: get them all and this, and you have every Machetazo track released thus far, including five killer covers by great bands like Massacre, Repulsion, Venom, Carcass and Impetigo (plus sadly, two covers by the terribly faggot shit bands that are Black Sabbath and… sigh… Saint Vitus – oh my shit, you read it well it’s not a joke – Saint Vitus). All of these tracks have be a remastered for the occasion, but luckily the sound has been preserved thick and grisly raw, not polished at all. Whew.

I just finished reviewing that cool Haemorrhage collection on Power It Up and now I have another excellent Spanish band doing a similar release. This Cd holds tracks taken from 6 years from Machetazo‘s tormented existance (1998-2004) of Eps and singles. There is not a big advancement between the various tracks that I can perceive, at least not as evident as on the full lengths, but this is a real good complement to the Razorback albums: get them all and this, and you have every Machetazo track released thus far, including five killer covers by great bands like Massacre, Repulsion, Venom, Carcass and Impetigo (plus sadly, two covers by the terribly faggot shit bands that are Black Sabbath and… sigh… Saint Vitus – oh my shit, you read it well it’s not a joke – Saint Vitus). All of these tracks have be a remastered for the occasion, but luckily the sound has been preserved thick and grisly raw, not polished at all. Whew.

If the layout generally looks better than the Haemorrhage haematology, there is one big problem with this collection compared to that one, and it’s that there are no liner notes AT ALL. Just the release covers, one per page. Tsk tsk. Also there is a nice collage of posters inside, but images tend to become too small to read all crammed in one fold. I guess the general item arrangement could have been studied better (what about a folding booklet that opens like a poster?).

None of this however compromises the fact that the songs are killer. If you know Machetazo you know they’re no Insidious Decrepancy (just to say a fag band) sissies. Real raw – almost punkish – grooves, roaring vocals, grime encrusted chords – all influenced by the old school feel of all the bands covered here. There is surely some Repulsion rawness, some heavy Massacre riffing, and some of Impetigo‘s old school grinding style. Of corpse, none of this is extremely advanced. They stick to they right riff and go for the throat, and that’s all we need. And the intros are just so nice. Old classic horror movie, not Hollywood blockbusters.

Musically all of this is a must have, but the packaging could have definitely been somewhat better.

|Oral Mutilation strikes back after a couple of months from their other demo, and this time things are getting slightly more in order, but not necessarily much better. The medium is still Cd-r and this time it has a somewhat horrible but otherwise colorful cover – honestly the other one in black and white was much better. This one looks like Macromedia Flash cartoon but I guess it’s ok for a cybergrind project.

Oral Mutilation strikes back after a couple of months from their other demo, and this time things are getting slightly more in order, but not necessarily much better. The medium is still Cd-r and this time it has a somewhat horrible but otherwise colorful cover – honestly the other one in black and white was much better. This one looks like Macromedia Flash cartoon but I guess it’s ok for a cybergrind project.

The vocals here are still very deep and gurgling, and the recording level is good enough , but the music itself is extremely unripe, and not just as far as composition goes. The sound is good enough to tell the riffs but it seems it’ only made of medium frequencies without any bass or treble vibes, and it sadly gives the whole work a “live” effect which spoils most of the moshing goregrind fun. Imagine Cock and Ball Torture or Plasma with a recording sound like this. It just doesn’t click. The problem is that recording quality is really mandatory in this genre and if you strip it away you get just a bunch of sloppy redundant riffs. This is not Death Metal, and it’s not even grindcore – it’s much closer to pure electronics if we have to make a comparison and I know you know what I mean when I say filth is Ok but the sound has to be FAT and not FLAT.

That said, training and practice have done their work, even if I still really cannot rate it anything more than a political average. Structures are taking form, and you even get a SOLO on song “Zombiegrinding Braineater”. But that said, this is really little more than frog croaks and repetitive chugs halfway from extremely barebone death metal and goregrind. Let’s see where this band is leading to…

|Power It Up has been a surprisingly active label of late, I have gotten ahold of several interesting releases by them, and this excellent singles collection by the band Haemorrhage is a real high quality thing. That’s what you manage to do with a collaborative band, a serious label and a honest artist to assemble the whole thing (curious thing is this collection cover features the original artwork that should have been used on their split with Christ Denied – am I only one who doesn’t like Luisma’s cartoonish drawing style?).