tisdag 30 april 2013

SVART CROWN "Profane"

In late 2011 I got my eyes on Svart Crown and their last record "Witnessing The Fall" and was impressed by their ferocity in the same vein as Behemoth and other eastern country bands with their typical harsh sound . This time we have a bit more diverse album, which isn´t easy to take in the first times you listen to it. You can´t call them a clone of the modern death metal sound, they have more aces upon their sleeves. The sound is somewhat cold and mechanical as polish Hate has used in some of their later records, combined now and then with frenetic parts actually very much alike the american noise heroes Converge(!) The chaotic and desperate feelings are there and give the songs a more brutal and suggestive vibe. So if you´re a death and black metal purist these parts doesn´t appeal to you, but since I am a pure death and black metal fan I actually find these parts refreshing and like an extra spice upon this slab of brutality. The vocalist JB Le Bail uses both deep growls and high shrieks. He uses both a more black metal style kind of shrieks and a style more common in chaotic grind and noisecore bands. The least adapting word to this release must be "generic", because their are so much going on here. You have apocalypitc spooky parts, grinding madness and slow heavy parts. Before you know it the slow part has become a grinding nightmare ready to destroy everything in sight. Like I said before, it can take a while to really, really take in this record but once you´ve done it, it´s like a tornado of great sounding innovative metal coming at you fast and without mercy. The production could be more dirty and some of the chaotic parts could have been excluded in favour of more traditional death and black metal, otherwise I find this one really amusing and like Svart Crown will have a bright future.

8,5/10

torsdag 25 april 2013

GUTTURAL SECRETE "Nourishing The Spoil"

American brutal death metal has grown very big over the last 10 years. Bands are coming just out of everywhere, Guttural Secrete is among the more hyped bands around when it comes to bashing my head to pieces and write lyrics about topics you won´t mention to your mother. I think the brutal death genre has become very stale and generic lately with a very few good bands releasing albums worth hearing. It´s always the same kind of awful pig squeal vocals and guitars sounding like they were recorded underground in a cave full of mud. The riffing is mostly neither very interesting, just chugging, palm muted riffs in a pile with no direction, or technical stuff just for the sake of being technical. Fuck that. Well, Guttural Secrete actually impress me a little bit this time, the lyrics are still the usual gory, bloody demented, gruesome, twisted and sick stuff. But the music and production this time is pretty catchy, and quite technical without sacrificing the dynamics. But the biggest improvement is definitely the vocals, you can almost here what Jeremiah Blue Jensen growls about most of the time. A vocalist that is good, can actually make a band twice as good. If the music is well performed and the vocalist is very crappy and without any kind of uniqueness I will probably don´t give a shit about the band. Well, let´s about the music again, they use quite a lot of pinch harmonics this time. Not all the time, but every now and then. Besides that it´s pretty basic death metal riffing with a bunch of great hooks this time. If you don´t mind sicker that sick lyrics and are used to throaty vocals I think Guttural Secrete´s latest can give you some good moments. Acutally I hoped I was going to really hate this record, cause their last record wasn´t something I have listened to more than twice. Can I pinpoint something bad about this record then? Yes, actually. Even if I like the record, I need more dynamics and memorable riffs all over. Any contradictions here? Yes, sometimes I am not easy to understand folks.

7/10

tisdag 23 april 2013

DESERTED FEAR "My Empire"

This is gonna hurt, like Nikki Sixx would´ve said. German death metal in a good old fashioned way, some would call them copycats but I don´t. The sound is very similar to newer releases by Asphyx, including the voice of Mahne, he almost sounds like he IS a very angry Martin Van Drunen with a little touch of John Tardy of Obituary. Is this a bad thing? There is the original band and Asphyx have released a couple of good albums, but when the songs are this well performed and the riffs and the production are so very intense you can´t do nothing but bow to the end result. This riff fest is very hard not to like, since almost every song is like glue in my brain. Brainglue. Except the excellent riffing, the sound of this record combined with the great vocalist makes this record a very great one.
They mix that old school feeling with a fresh vibe, it sounds old but at the same time new and so full of power. The whole soundscape of this record is powerful and damn it´s so violent yet catchy and easy to digest. Yes, I have reviewed a lot of good records lately, maybe I will review a very bad one soon. Anyway, this is gonna hurt, and it´s gonna hurt good. Let us all listen to great german death metal in the vein of Asphyx!


8,5/10

torsdag 18 april 2013

VORUM "Dance of Heresy"

Old school worshippers beware! Land of the thousand lakes give us some creepy, festering death metal that smells more of rotten flesh than fresh tomatoes so to speak. I like the sound of this record, it is for sure old school sounding. But in a modern and crunchy way. Your speakers will nearly die if you turn them up to 10. Cause this is some hardhitting and very catchy music fellas! If you combine the best parts of,old Entombed, Dismember and the almighty reborn Nominon. Than spice things up with Asphyx and the new kid on the block Necrowretch and you got the sound of these finnish maniacs. Pounding production and pounding songs pretty much all the way. Some have it, some don´t. Vorum has the ability to write brutal songs while they still are bloody catchy and they got a lot of distinct tight drumming, the grinding parts are just great! The vocalist Jonatan Johansson has a voice pretty similar to Henke Skoog in Nominon. With other words, he sounds like he is possessed. Definitely one of the better nordic death metal releases this year. Even if we´ve just reached  mid April this will stand tall among a lot of other releases 2013. Anything bad about this record? Well not a lot actually. Some sound engineers can surely find some flaws in the production, but since I am a death metal fan and not a guy who complains about every little detail I think this record kicks a lot of ass!

9/10


onsdag 17 april 2013

IMPIOUS BAPTISM "Wrath of the Apex Predator"

Within the extreme metalscene it has become pretty common with one-man and two-piece bands. This one-man slayingmachine comes from Australia, and since we all have come to really like the famous australian "warsound" through bands like Abominator and Bestial Warlust and also american bands like Angelcorpse and Perdition Temple among others we all gonna bang our heads to this great cd. Multi instrumentalist "J" (he plays everything including the drums, and he also growls) gives us a fusion between the aforementioned bands and dirty crude death metal in the vein of Nominon and longtime unknown legends Abominant on Deathgasm Records. It´s not a neverending chaos with no slower parts, it´s a very well created musical experience including both hate, anger and occult messages. Add to that flawless musicianship when it comes to creating well sounding songs with substance and charisma . You can hear that this guy didn´t start creating brutal music yesterday. You have an album full of ultraviolence but also parts with a gloomy dark atmosphere that builds up the scenario of total deprevation (in a good way of course, metalheads!) and downfall of mankind. I really like the contrast between the wall of grinding drums with a production similar to "controlled chaos" mixed with the extremely well balanced death metal parts with a lot of great riffing and awesome hateful vocals. If you don´t have a clue what this sounds like after reading this, I bet you´re not a extreme metal fan, but everyone else obey this piece of unholy and very meaty steak of black and death metal.

9/10

torsdag 4 april 2013

LOST SOCIETY "Fast Loud Death"

Aren´t we tired of old school thrash bands coming out of every country like a disease? Actually not, at least when it is this well played with blistering solos and frentetic riffing from some youngsters that seemed to have listened to all the great bands from the golden time of thrash metal. I am actually quite stunned that this four-piece create such blistering music, since Finland isn´t exactly a country where thrash bands have popped out everywhere. These kids (The eldest one is 19) play like there´s no tomorrow and after what I´ve seen on youtube they act like a young Kreator or Sepultura on stage too and their vocalist is a guy who spits, roars and screams in every way he can. The songs on this disc released by Nuclear Blast is a really entertaining ride with so much speed, so much frenzy and the joy of playing intense thrash metal that you can almost feel the vibe if you try. If you take pieces of Exodus and the totally amazing brazilian thrash band Deathraiser and combine that with Destruction and hints of the craziness of S.O.D and the fun factor of  Tankard and Municipal Waste, than you have this great finnish band. If I should compare this to a newer record I will mention the first exploding riff fest of Bonded By Blood. That record is intense and so is this, add to that songs that stick into your head.
Of course some lyrics are juvenile and so it should be, kids don´t care that much about politics and stuff, do they?  The only downside is that there are some songs that should have been excluded, because of the lack of intensity, but 2 songs that are not great out of 15 songs are not a lot to complain about. But the first record shall not be perfect, there shall be things to improve. One thing I like as an longtime Kiss fan is the "I Stole Your Love Cover" at the end of the record. It´s not top notch, but it´s decent and they make it pretty much their own song instead of just copying everything in it.
Well, this is some very good "fist up in the air thrash". Prepare to catch em live whenever you can!


8,5/10


onsdag 3 april 2013

LOGIC OF DENIAL "Atonement"

Death metal from Italy isn´t very exotic today, since the amount of great death metal belonging to the catholic country have now reached impressing levels. With bands like Hour Of Penance, Antropofagus, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Hideous Divinity and more we can now count Italy to Europe´s and one of the best "death metal countries" in the world. Logic Of Denial plays a brutal kind of death metal with aggressive fast
riffing, doublebass drums and roaring vocals. Just like you expected, right? If I compare this band to the aforementioned I think Hour Of Penance´s little brother meets US brutal death metal is a pretty good description. They have the skill and energy to create lethal death metal, but since the quality today is so high in this genre I get a little picky. Most of the songs have the same formula, but I should not say it´s generic music. Not at all, but I´ve heard it before and better. One thing that irritates me a bit is that the vocalist now and then uses the awful pig squeal which isn´t a great thing for me. Fortunately he doesn´t use this kind of technique very often, which should be a waste of talent since his regular voice is good. The production is heavy and chunky with a little dirt on the edges. Not crystal clear like most bands with a more technical approach uses today. These guys have done their homework skillwise, now I am waiting for really good songs.

 6,5/10