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Man I am a real poser but the logo of this band was really APPALLING. I could tattoo myself the Birdflesh one in place of this monstrosity, an unbelievable combination of ugly fonts, flame effects and Photoshop random embellishments. Luckily it seems some effects have been dropped. But the Cd remains legendary in ugliness. Totally wrong resolution, one ton of flaming and glowing effects all around, and to top it off a guy with the Beatles haircut in the band. Things look grim indeed…
FULLY CONSUMED (USA-Oh): “Fully Consumed” Cd 2006 Epitomite
FULLY CONSUMED (USA-Oh): “Fully Consumed” Cd 2006 Epitomite
Man I am a real poser but the logo of this band was really APPALLING. I could tattoo myself the Birdflesh one in place of this monstrosity, an unbelievable combination of ugly fonts, flame effects and Photoshop random embellishments. Luckily it seems some effects have been dropped. But the Cd remains legendary in ugliness. Totally wrong resolution, one ton of flaming and glowing effects all around, and to top it off a guy with the Beatles haircut in the band. Things look grim indeed…For some reason I remember I was in touch with the singer at the time of Ton, I think I still have a tape he sent me which is halfway made of Ton tracks and halfway dub music. I must be regressing with time because I really don’t remember I ever liked Ton. Fully Consumed is admittedly somewhat better. All the trippy stuff has gone, replaced by some sort of ultra technical stuff. The recording is sharp, the tracks complex and probably musicianship is also quite good, but I really cannot get into it, maybe it’s a period who knows. This band from Akron plays ultra-tight Brutal Death with a double vocal front and a huge dose of contaminations, from funky bass slapping to some elements of Swedish HC. Everything is in constant motion. The vocals are stretched all through the whole spectrum, and the drum and bass section is just hectic. I have no elements to fully appreciate the skill, so I will tell you what it makes me feel. Well, pretty nothing actually. All the sounds are quite artificial. And I don’t really this metallic bass sound a la Cryptopsy stinging so often within the tracks. This must be for lovers of schizoid and technical stuff, a kind of metal I am not predominantly into of late.
One last good thing is that while the booklet is awful, it’s complete for once. It has full lyrics in it and all the stuff. The lyrics are the kind made of short sentences a la Dillinger Escape Plan – not my stuff either, but at least present.
BLACK THE SKY (USA-Il): “Simplistic Mechanics Of Deformable Bodies” MCd 2007 Epitomite
I am not sure I will be able to explain the reason why I didn’t like this Ep, but my problem is that I really cannot find any interesting elements in here and I cannot explain why. It might just be that each one of these tracks is quite forgettable. Black The Sky is the new band of ex-Lividity drummer Mr. James Whitehurst. And it just plain sounds as if the band was founded somewhere in 1998 or ’99. Last millennium’s end was an year or limbo for Death Metal, slightly before the Internet became popular and the revival of old school Metal begun taking ground. It was the time when bands contemporary to Umbilical Strangulation, Prophecy, Fleshgrind and a score of other similar ones were releasing a huge quantity of really uninteresting demos and albums. A formless breed of a new guttural Death Metal scene which looking hindsight, was appallingly plain (with some exceptions, some bands were actually quite interesting and survived to this day, see Necrotic Disgorgement). This Black The Sky‘s Ep has a rather good production but other than this – it is terribly flat. This band plays a contaminated form of late nineties American Death Metal and late hour Hard Core with a particular eye towards slow crunches and power metal chugs but also adorned with a form of pervasive new-school HC melody a la Integrity. The vocals are mid-deep and sometimes have higher peaks, but I cannot count really powerful riffs to make my day or even one memorable track. The worse thing is that the vocals just follow the flow of the muted palm riffs and this a scheme that just sound so dreadfully green, not to mention the riffs seem to be cut and paste without a real concept behind. It goes fast now, slow then, repeat twice… not my cup of tea. The voice in the intro that says “Time To Play” is also identical to the one used in Broken Hope‘s “Loathing” album… I guess it’s from Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Hm. I cannot say it’s a bad album becouse in the end there are good ideas and no clear weak spots, but I am afraid the problem is structural. Professional cover art and excellent work of graphics for the booklet and packaging, although I am not particularly enthusiastic about abstract subjects.FAECES ERUPTION (Hol): s/t split Cd with FLATV5 2007 Grindfest/Urethra
As usual, things get hotter when we are talking about Faeces Eruption. This band plays sick and blasting goregrind the real Dutch way, in the vein of Tumour and Acrotomophilia. Excessively soaked sound, hyper-harmonized hog vocals, gruesomely chaotic riffs that tend to blend in the background and sick pathological song titles. Geert here does everything, from drum programming to bass work, seems like Holland has a good share of one man projects playing Goregrind, maybe an offshoot of their formerly huge electronic music scene. I listened through and through the album 5 times and yet I cannot understand exactly the difference between the two productions as announced by the label. The sound seems quite similar to me but according to the info sheet, the second part should be way heavier with multiple bass lines. What else to say, this is a real massacre to pump up at full volume in the parking lot front of a cinema so you can look the horror on the face of common people. Multilayered grotesque vocals and one million bpm drum bloodbath, so adorable.FLATV5 (Cze): s/t split Cd with FAECES ERUPTION (Hol) 2007 Grindfest/Urethra
Lately I have not been listening to much goregrind with drum machine, it all just kinda got me saturated with dozens of mostly pointless bedroom projects. But I recognize something good when I hear it, and this Flatv5 one man product does a nice work. The best part in the whole project is the songs are made up an extremely good guitarwork, reminding more of moshpit grindcore a la Neuropathia or Ahumado Granujo, rather than sludgy German stuff. The vocals are a mix of liquid gargles and hoarse screams, which are used mostly as an instrument (Sublime Cadaveric Decomposition-style) as I strongly doubt there are any lyrics here. George also uses some burps and animal squeals to spice things up and it works nice. Even if the songs are fast, it really sounds a bit lighter and simpler than the Faeces Eruption part but I admit I liked this band I didn’t know before. Flatvs5 is a project of Definitive Verdict member Geroge Prczaag, which recently moved from Metal to cyberworks. Even if one man projects are usually boring, this is a good band with lots of good ideas. You have to like relentless drum machine gunnery to properly appreciate it – though. Nice cover art , if somewhat clichèd. Dying Fetus / Skinless / Cattle Decapitation / War From A Harlot’s Mouth live @ Bologna May 10, 2007
This is the first try at uploading a video on Youtube. The original file was fucking HUGE so it took ages just to shrink it to the maximum size allowed by the host. You will see it’s not been edited. I will try to do a better job with thenext videos.
INCINERITOR (Ita): “Morbid Iconoclasm” MCd 2007 Skullbuster
It is really great to hear that the passion for old school Death Metal (sigh, I really wish I could write only Death Metal but people would misunderstand my words if I exclude the words “old school”, wouldn’t they?) is intact nowadays more than ever. One of the few good things of the Internet generations, is getting in touch with other people form all around the world which were listening to the same albums you did 15+ years ago. But even as cool is to hear fresh new faces in the underground scene discarding the bollocks of today’s technical wanking in favor of morbidity and obscurity. For a few years I thought it was just a matter of nostalgia when one sticks to old sonorities, but when you see people that were barely born at the time the classic Death Metal records were released playing the real shit, well you realize there actually IS something different in the “old ways”. And it looks as if this band knows it.
This Incineritor (?) debut Ep reeks of dust and cobwebs – the riffs have a demo-level minimalism but the concept beneath this band’s existence is rather clear. The drummer’s primitive bashing coalesce with Matt’s guttural vocals into a mix of old Hellhammer, Master and Cianide. Some attempts at playing slower, denser parts however do not seem to be particularly effective, as they just sound just a bit unripe and a tidbit too strident for my tastes (the guitar work is a bit rigid). This is an Ep for lovers of unrefined Death Metal with really no polishing at all. I also liked the vocals which have no forms of harmony at all. On the downside the four tracks tend to sound a bit similar, and there is a Unleashed-like gallop in track “Ritual Carnage” which worryingly sounds like tarantella, but other than that this is very good shit.
The lyrics (hey at last!) deal with demonic hordes and Armageddon, in pure Immolation “Here in After” style (but without biblical referrals). They’re nicely (ah!) old fashioned as well.