Sacramental Blood are a brutal death metal band from Serbia. This is their début album.
This is savage, ferocious death metal that wastes no time in establishing its presence with blast beats, daemonic growls and lightspeed riffs. Yes, Sacramental Blood have arrived.
The vocalist spews forth powerfully delivered growls that seem to Continue reading “Sacramental Blood – Ternion Demonarchy (Review)”
This is the second album from this Swiss death metal band.
This is 34 minutes of modern death metal that effectively combines speed and groove.
Cannibal Corpse-esque riffs mix with elements of deathcore and bands like The Kennedy Veil and Origin, as well as sprinklings of thrash metal here and there. The resultant music sounds like none of the above bands too much, although you can hear where their influences come from. That the band can clearly acknowledge Continue reading “Omnicide – Constants and Variables (Review)”
Abnormality have just recently released their latest album, Mechanisms of Omniscience, and it’s a ripping, tearing 39 minutes of utter brutality. In honour of this ode to devastation, I took the chance to catch up with frontwoman Mallika Sundaramurthy about the how things are going in the Abnormality camp…
Abnormality is an extreme metal band hailing from Marlborough, Massachusetts, USA. We formed in 2005 and have been releasing albums and blasting eardrums ever since.
We are largely influenced by fast, technical and heavy bands like Cryptopsy, Origin, Deeds of Flesh, Suffocation, Krisiun, Hate Eternal, etc. Continue reading “Interview with Abnormality”
This is the second album from this Russian death metal band.
Katalepsy have a dynamic and vibrant sound for a band that are, essentially, brutal death metal. They seem to be able to pick energetic riffs with ease and form their compositions around interesting structures and ideas.
This album’s a monster, and crushes like one, too. A clear, crisp Continue reading “Katalepsy – Gravenous Hour (Review)”
Aborted are a veteran death metal band from Belgium and this is their 9th album.
The return of Aborted! Huzzah! After recently catching them live, I was eagerly awaiting their latest foray into the killing pits. Their brand of blasting mayhem and huge groovy riffs has been refined over the years so that they’re definitely one of the best in the genre at this point.
The singer has always been Continue reading “Aborted – Retrogore (Review)”
This is the fifth album from this Ukrainian Death Metal band.
Here we have 39 minutes of brutal Death Metal in the USDM style, influenced by the likes of Suffocation, Dying Fetus, Severe Torture, etc.
This is a release that has a satisfying and dense sound, crushing and maiming all around it. The band can play too, and are given ample opportunity to show off what they can do.
The vocals on this release are just the right side of pignoise, so that the singer still has power to his voice rather than just sounding like he’s got a bad case of the burps. He sounds on top form.
The songs are ultra-brutal exemplars of the style and unless you’re just not a fan of this kind of stuff then it’s hard to find fault with their delivery. With decent riffs and good structuring, the tracks on Denial of the Scriptures make for an enjoyable listen and this timeless form of Death Metal is easy to get on board with.
Blast beats are accentuated by mid-paced aggression and even small hints of barbaric melody here and there; these are few and far between though, added to some of the riffs on occasion to sharpen them up to a killing point.
This is a solid and gratifying Death Metal release from a band that have honed their craft over time. Denial of Scriptures has had the excess fat mercilessly chewed off so all that is left is a lean, mean killing machine.
Recommended for all fans of brutality.
Inherit Disease are a US Death Metal band. This is their third album.
Combining some technicality and lots of brutality, Inherit Disease play a classic USDM style that allows them to showcase their love of the genre and all things brutal.
The music on Ephemeral combines speedy aggression with some chunky slam riffs, producing 39 minutes of utterly depraved brutality.
The singer’s vocals are sickeningly deep, stopping just short of descending into the kind of ridiculous pignoise burping that tends to ruin bands. His voice is as ugly and as gruesome as the music.
Ephemeral is unrelenting and harsh, rarely stopping for breath as it chops, hacks and carves its way through the tracks. There’s something very satisfying about this kind of music. It’s just so timelessly appealing; despite what other musical trends and moods might take you, Death Metal will always be there. Waiting. Lurking. Ready to strike.
I like that the more you listen to this, the more you enjoy it. It’s an unstoppable juggernaut of groove and blasting, easily absorbed by anyone who has a taste for bands like Deeds of Flesh, Suffocation, Cannibal Corpse, Severe Torture, Dying Fetus, Defeated Sanity, etc.
For a solid fix of heavy brutality and death-dealing, Inherit Disease have got you covered.
Check them out.
This is the second album from Canadian Death Metal band Corprophemia.
Playing savage Death Metal that has elements of the brutal and technical styles, this is a modern approach to the genre that injects a bit of Deathcore and slam into the mix to further increase the violence factor.
Canada seems to be very good when it comes to this kind of thing. Fellow Canadian Death Metallers such as Cryptopsy, Deformatory, Pronostic, Antlion and Unbreakable Hatred to name but a few have all released some top quality music in the not too distant past and we can now add Corprophemia to that list as well.
The singer has a fine set of lungs it seems, with his clipped barks reeking of aggression. His is a very satisfying voice and perfectly complements the precise and exacting nature of the music.
So what of the music? It’s well-played, well-written and well-recorded. This pretty much covers all of the bases and all that remains is for this to be played at full volume to annoy the neighbours.
The band use crushing rhythmic riffs well and mainly sound like a combination of the dynamics and technicality of Cryptopsy, the staccato brutality of Beneath the Massacre and the sheer violence and cold assault of Coprocephalic. Add some snippets of cut-short melody here and there and brief ambient synth interludes between tracks and you have a very compelling 30 minutes.
Highly recommended.
This is the début album from Spanish Brutal Death Metal band Virulency.
I really enjoyed their 2012 début EP, Unbearable Martyrdom Landscapes, so when this much-anticipated début album found its way to me, I knew I had to give it a thorough listening as soon as I could.
First impressions – I like the album cover as it just screams BRUTAL DEATH METAL at the top of its blood-ridden lungs. Nice.
So, delve into the pit of Virulency and what do we get? We get ultra-brutal Death Metal that’s nicely heavy and suitably extreme. This is not the kind of thing that Joe Public would like. At all.
Elements of Grindcore and the slam-Death Metal styles are to be heard scattered throughout these tracks and the relentless hammering of the music definitely hits the spot.
They have retained the tasty sound that they had on their EP, with a satisfying guitar tone and nicely balanced drums. You can even hear the bass, which is always good, especially as it is played well and does some interesting things; it adds a strangely-tense undertone to the music and is a welcome constant companion as you tour these depths of corruption and mutation.
The only real disappointment for me is the vocals, as these appear to have gone a bit more into the realms of pignoise squeals than previously. This is not a vocal style I massively enjoy as when it’s over-used it tends to rob a singer of all of their power when compared to actual growls. To be fair to the singer though, his vocals tread just the right side of ridiculous, and he retains enough vestigial strength in his voice to just about pull it off, which I’m very grateful for. It’s just that, for me, in an ideal world, actual growls would have been so much better. On the odd occasion that growls do appear on these tracks it’s like a filter has been removed and all of a sudden the band are complete. But hey, that’s just my taste.
Overall, slight vocal issues aside, this is still a very satisfyingly brutal 29 minutes, one that I heartily recommend you check out.
Blade of Horus are an Australian Death Metal band and this is their début EP.
Now I don’t know about you, but with a name like Blade of Horus and furnished with the kind of exotic album cover that Monumental Massacre has, I have certain expectations of the band before I even hear a note.
At 22 minutes in length, this is a decent intro to the band and definitely leaves me wanting to hear more in the future.
Growls, shrieks and pig-squeals are the order of business for their vocalist, with the band sounding like they’re whipping him to ever greater heights of fury and devotion with every beat of the drum and pluck of the string.
The band combine brutality and technicality with some minor Deathcore influences to produce short and succinct tracks that go straight for the throat, yet also have enough about them to take the time to consider alternative ways of improving their murderous assault.
The songs are brutal enough to absolutely slay, but technical and complex enough to add a certain level of restrained chaos and further depth to the band’s impressive noise. Interesting riffs and ideas are showcased easily, and there’s a fair amount of stuff going on here despite the short length. Huge chugging riffs in the style of Dying Fetus effortlessly share space with complicated guitar-widdling the likes of Nile would be proud of.
Extra impressive is their ability to add in small sections of atmosphere into these crowded tracks, allowing them the space to incorporate melody and mood into the music, to great effect.
All of this helps create the impression of a band who really do have a lot to offer the discerning Metal fan.
So here we have another band who have seemingly come out of nowhere to impressively crush listeners everywhere with their enjoyable take on Extreme Metal.
Expectations met. Expectations exceeded, in fact.
Wonderbox Metal 