Death Metal – Page 155 – Wonderbox Metal

Execration – Morbid Dimensions (Review)

This is the third album from Norwegian Death Metallers Execration.

So what do we have here then? This is a bit different to what I was expecting. The name certainly implies straightforward Death Metal, but the album cover looks more Black Metal to me. And when you press play…you get a straight up Doom Metal Black Sabbath riff. So far so interesting…

Execration are not your typical Death Metal band. Theirs is the sound of a band experimenting with their chosen medium and pushing the envelope.

They have included elements of Doom, Black Metal and even a bit of Post-Metal into their repertoire. This is Progressive Death Metal that spiritually leaves off where Death ended and builds on the firm foundation left by the masters.

The music on this album is carefully crafted and considered Metal that makes it clear that the band are no longer interested in the old genre restrictions and are more than willing to incorporate whatever Metal influences they feel like to get the sound they want. And more power to them for this.

These songs are very impressive and finely realised. This is atmospheric Death Metal that still has the power of the style but has a firm Progressive edge to it that allows them to ably tread new territory with ease. Blackened riffs, technical solos, blasting drums, slow and building Doom, Post-Metal atmospherics, Progressive meanderings; it’s all here and it’s all done remarkably well.

The mixing of styles never sounds forced and each track sees the band develop their sound into a force to be reckoned with.

Mixing bits of bands like Death, Cynic, Atheist, Enslaved, Morbid Angel, Gorguts; this album is a firm winner.

I highly recommend this album. Seek it out now and prepare to be impressed.

7 H.Target – 0.00 Apocalypse (Review)

This is the third album from Russia’s 7 H.Target. They play Brutal Death Metal.

This is modern Sci-fi themed Death Metal with enough brutality to leave you bruised.

The band are rhythmically aggressive and technically devastating. Their fury is unrestrained and each track sounds like it’s going straight for the jugular to rip it out and replace it with complex cybernetics.

There’s a healthy Slam component to their sound only this is not quite as blatant as some purveyors of the style. It’s a strong influence nonetheless but it’s tempered by the sheer brutality of the band. It’s not just heavy groove; there’s some serious blasting and grinding going on here.

Add to this the rather more interesting and inventive touches to the music; odd moments of technicality and Industrial Sci-fi influences and this is more than just “another Slam band”.

The sound is heavy, thick and serpentine like a robotic snake, twisting and coiling around its victims before tightening slowly. 0.00 Apocalypse sounds immense and it’s the perfect aural vehicle for their inventive brand of mayhem.

The vocals are guttural nightmares drawn from the bowels of a festering pit of dying servitors. Enough said.

This is a truly extreme work of Brutal Death Metal cyber-art and the songs on this album need to be heard, preferably at ear-bleeding noise levels.

If you’ve a taste for cutting edge brutality then this is a must.

Dying Out Flame – Shiva Rudrastakam (Review)

Dying Out Flame are from Nepal and play Death Metal.

This band are somewhat of a unique proposition as they combine the raw, brute force of Death Metal with traditional Nepalese music, instruments, female singing and influences. This lends the band a distinctly exotic edge.

What’s important here though is the sheer quality of the songs on this release. In the hands of a lesser band this combination of styles could easily sound mismatched and ill-judged, but Dying Out Flame have the talent to merge the two disparate worlds quite seamlessly. It sounds natural and it sounds good. Bloody good.

The traditional instrumentation enhances and adds to the ferocity and pure elemental force of the Death Metal parts. And boy when the Death Metal kicks in it sure does so hard.

The sound and fury of the band is first-rate and the deep growls of the singer are delivered at the perfect pitch. The Nepalese music doesn’t detract from the bite of the Metal at all; in fact it works exceptionally well with it to create atmospheres and moods quite in keeping with the epic and ferocious music.

If you’re a fan of Death/Extreme Metal that experiments with influences that are not typically found in the realm of Metal then this is for you. Think bands like Nile, Orphaned Land, Rudra, Therion, Markradonn, Panopticon, etc. – all quite different but all incorporating wider influences into their Metal sound. Dying Out Flame can safely be added to their ranks.

This is an innovative and creative release with lots of personality and high quality levels. Definitely make sure you check this out.

Noctem – Exilium (Review)

Noctem are from Spain and this is their third album.

The band play Blackened Death Metal with a bit of pomp and plenty of bite.

After a symphonic intro the first track proper Apsu Dethroned wastes no time introducing you to the band’s particular brand of blasting and heaviness. What is not quite as expected, however, is the orchestral accompaniment that forms a nice link to the intro.

It’s a great touch that precedes the actual singer who belches out occult growls with the fervour of the possessed. His is an unrelenting, uncompromising style that gives no quarter and knows no mercy.

The rest of the album continues the theme of a Death Metal band with Blackened influences that incorporates plenty of interesting ideas and sounds into their Extreme Metal repertoire.

The brutality and blast beats of their core Death Metal sound share space with more melodic riffs and a healthy dose of Black Metal influences. The orchestral sounds/choirs/keyboards add a deeper layer to Noctem’s identity and are embedded well rather than just sounding tacked on.

The musicianship is first rate, with the drumming being a precision assault and guitar solos and leads flashing by like lightning. It’s all wrapped up in a stellar production job that allows everything to shine and just sounds crushing.

None of this would have any longevity of course if it wasn’t for the songs themselves. The band show quite capably that they can write a good tune and Exilium is full of them.

If you take elements of bands like Behemoth, Nile, Atrocity and Septic Flesh, mix them in a blender and make a tasty hate-filled frothy shake then Noctem would be the cream.

A high quality, ambitious release; Noctem have proven they have what it takes to become forerunners in the Extreme Metal world.

Watch them go.

Deathronation – Hallow the Dead (Review)

Deathronation are from Germany and this is their début album. They play Death Metal.

This is morbid Old-School Death Metal with dark malevolent feelings rubbing shoulders with some nice graveyard tunes.

Their brand of Death Metal has a few influences from the Doom, Black and Thrash Metal genres mixed in with their Deathly attack, which makes for a nice, well rounded album that has good pace and variety.

Doom? Some of the riffs are superbly downbeat, slow and mournful. These sections typically don’t last long but they’re there and they sound good.

Black? A slight Blackened tinge to some of the guitar licks and leads lends a slightly Old-School Blackened feel to the songs on occasion. It’s not overly blatant but it gives the band an extra depth than just employing pure Death Metal influences.

Thrash? This part is apparent in some of the riffs; sometimes they just Thrash out and an older, crusty vibe is brought to the fore.

All of these are worked around an Old-School Death Metal base that places songs, heavy riffs and horror-fuelled melodies firmly in the limelight.

Hallow the Dead is an impressive collection of tracks that remind the listener that it’s not all about the hyper-blast or the Slamming grooves; the most important thing about Death Metal is the songs themselves and the feelings they invoke.

It seems Deathronation have made a great start to their career. It’s definitely worth checking this out.

Ævangelist – Writhes in the Murk (Review)

Ævangelist are from the US and this is their third album. They play Death/Black Metal, of sorts…

Following on from their horrifically terrifying second album Omen Ex Simulacra, Ævangelist waste no time with the first track Hosanna establishing and that this new album follows on from the first in a suitably Hellish and hideous manner.

As I stated about their previous album; Ævangelist are not for the weak of stomach. This is music that tests the limits of what the human mind can endure.

Writhes in the Murk is a suitable title for this collection of horrors as the songs seem wrapped in the murk and writhe as if alive.

Everything seems lower in the mix this time with the exception of the dark noises and sinister effects that blanket everything like a deathly fog. The growling vocals are almost unrecognisable from the ambient levels of darkened atmospherics, although they’re now joined by cleaner vocals as well more akin to Black than Death Metal.

There’s more of a Black Metal influence on this release in general. The atmospheres that Ævangelist create have always had more in common with Black than Death Metal, but this time the guitars, vocal experimentation and overall vibe seems Blacker than ever.

The riffs, when they raise their heads above the sea of nightmares, are sinuous and evil, recalling the dark practices of Axis of Perdition and Blut Aus Nord at their most sinister. The entire thing feels alive and squirming, like something is struggling to be born in the darkest reaches of a pitch-black pit of suffering and desolation.

The band don’t write songs, they create experiences of tormented soundscapes; environments of pure terror, dread and disgust seep out of the speakers as if made flesh.

Holy crap. This album is almost a full hour of punishing music but if feels almost ten times that; time seems to lose all meaning as the music pulls you into its dark, sickeningly warm embrace to lose yourself in the cloying smell of a million forgotten corpses condemned to suffer for all eternity…

This is not for the casual listener. However, if you think you have the fortitude then delve right in. Ævangelist have such sights to show you…

Lago – Tyranny (Review)

Lago are a Death Metal band from the US and Tyranny is their début album.

Lago play a mixture of Old-School and New-School Death Metal and manage to reach a comfortable medium between the two. Think Morbid Angel and Immolation meeting Behemoth and Wormed.

Dark melodies and rampant brutality hold sway here, although the band allow themselves room to experiment a bit with some longer songs and nice touches here and there, (Reckoned features an almost, gasp, Folk section!).

The songs are well-written and feature a good recording that gives the band a wonderfully heavy sound. All of the instruments sound really good. The drums, guitars, bass and even the vocals; they all stand out which effectively means that everything stands out. As I listen to this the old “everything louder than everything else” phrase comes to mind. It’s a class production all round and lends the songs the power they need to make their mark.

The drums pound away nicely and there are a bucketfuls of tasty riffs to get stuck into. They play the heavy, brutal riffs well but also mix things up with darker melodic riffs, some of which have a nice Blackened edge to them.

Tyranny has some good solos on it which stick out against the pitch black rhythm guitars and spice things up a bit.

I keep coming back to the rhythm guitar riffs though as they feature the kind of darkly melodic brutality that makes Immolation so compelling and individual. The wonderful thing is that it may be reminiscent of Immolation but it doesn’t actually sound like them; in other words Lago share a similar stylistic space with the masters rather than ripping them off, which is brilliant as I love Immolation and now I love Lago also.

The vocals are so deep it almost hurts and seem to dominate everything else with their presence. Higher screams are also used for a bit of variety.

Lago have impressed me no end with this release. It’s a strong collection of Death Metal tracks that showcase a powerful new band who have arrived on the scene with the force of a meteor strike.

Highly recommended.

Stench – Venture (Review)

Stench are from Sweden and play Death Metal. This is their second album.

Opening with a wowzer of a riff, Archways sets the bar high straight off the bat and continues in this vein for the whole 39 minute running time.

Stench play Old-School Death Metal that may be influenced by the Swedish sound but isn’t defined or limited to it. Theirs is a more varied sound that incorporates elements of Black, Heavy and Doom Metal into their Death Metal core.

Subtle aural enhancements are added at strategic points throughout the album to create an extra layer of mood to these songs. Combined with the emotive nature of the riffs and the half-growl, half-shriek of the vocals it means that Stench have somewhat of a Blackened feel to their songs.

There is somewhat of an eerie, otherworldly feeling to these tracks. It’s as if they’re channelling some nameless horror and are acting as a lightning rod for all things mysterious, dark and rotten.

It would be a mistake to dismiss this band as a standard Death Metal band, as although this is exactly what they appear to be on the surface of things the reality of the situation is quite different. They have a further depth to them that is made up of the extra influences and added parts of their sound as mentioned above. These work together to create a true journey of an album that straddles multiple genres in its quest for Metal perfection.

This is a band who have produced an album that’s just so much more than I was expecting. Stench bring something powerful and dangerously individual to the Metal table. I cannot recommend this album enough.

Favourite Track: Road. Quality riffing, infectious bass and atmospheric mood.

Puteraeon – The Crawling Chaos (Review)

Puteraeon are from Sweden and play Death Metal. This is their third album.

Old-School Swedish Death Metal will never die, and I for one am happy about this.

So what of Puteraeon? Think early Entombed with dirty great Doom riffs and some punkier influences to boot. They faithfully reproduce That Chainsaw Sound as all real purveyors of this style must and the concentration is firmly on the songs and the heavy-yet-melodic riffs.

As you can see this is the usual fare for Swedish Death Metal, but that’s not to denigrate the band at all. They may have chosen a well-trodden route but they’re not without ability; the songs here are enjoyable romps through the blood-soaked Swedish landscape and the vocals in particular sound more bestial than most.

Also; Puteraeon do inject a few influences outside of the standard Swedish template – hints of Carcass, Pestilence, Autopsy and Bolt Thrower can be found here and there, buried beneath the chainsaws. That’s the beauty of Death Metal, no matter which particular subgenre a band specialise in there’s always room to throw in other influences.

If you’re fed up of this style then there won’t be much here to convince you otherwise, but if you still enjoy this particular brand of Death Metal then The Crawling Chaos hits the spot. It’s also a release that gets better the more you listen to it, which is always a good thing to be able to say about an album. It has top cover artwork too.

Check them out.

Internal Bleeding – Imperium (Review)

Internal Bleeding are from the US and this is their fifth album. They play Brutal Death Metal.

This is Death Metal that prizes brutality and heaviness above all else. Internal Bleeding were one of the earliest bands who took a so-called Slam approach to Death Metal and this latest album continues this trend.

This means they play heavy Death Metal with lots of chugging and groove mixed in with the blasting; plenty of double bass and mid-paced mosh-friendly chugfests to get you moving around and bouncing like a loon. It’s infectious stuff.

The obvious comparisons would be bands like Dying Fetus and Suffocation, but Internal Bleeding cradle their own inner monster and deliver a collection of songs that really just want to be let loose to rip your face off.

The songs are rabid and nearly unhinged; there’s a very real impression of a band being hungry and wanting to prove themselves. After all it’s been 10 years since their previous album and there’s now a lot more competition in the Brutal Death Metal world than ever before. Based on the evidence here though Internal Bleeding have a made a more than welcome return to the fray and can easily still cut it amongst the newer breed.

Play Imperium at full volume, then quickly get out of its way as it destroys everything nearby.

Recommended.