Death Metal – Page 194 – Wonderbox Metal

Interview with Ichor

Ichor’s third album, Depths, is a thoroughly modern aggressor that drowns the listener in blast beats and hyper-aggressive brutality. I got to explore the darkened reaches of the sea with vocalist Eric…

For those who are unfamiliar with your band – introduce yourself!

Hi , we are a five piece extreme death metal bastard from Germany . We like the horror of the deep sea and live by the code of metal! Drinking beer and listening to metal all night!

Give us a bit of history to Ichor

Ichor started blasting in 2008 and shortly after in 2009 the début full length “the siege” was released via Bastardized Recordings. We started touring immediately, playing a lot of live shows all over Europe supporting bands like Aborted, The Black Dahlia Murder or Benighted. When we weren’t on the road we wrote songs for the next album Benthic Horizon which was released in 2010, again via Bastardized Recordings and re-released in the UK via Siege of Amida. Again we started touring relentlessly and worked on our latest record Depths which was released last year.

What are your influences?

I would say that our main influences are polish death metal bands like Behemoth, Hate or Decapitated and some old school american death metal like Cannibal Corpse, Suffocation and Morbid Angel. Everyone in Ichor has kind of a unique taste in music, not only metal but throughout all kinds of genres and everyone brings new ideas to rehearsals. But we don’t see music as our only source of inspiration. The deep sea for example has a huge impact on our work, the secrets that lure deep down in the unknown, its cataclysmic force which destroys everything in it’ way once it is unleashed.

What are you listening to at the moment that you would like to recommend?

Behemoth’s The Satanist, Watain’s Lawless Darkness, Whitechapel’s This is Exile, At the Gates’ At War with Reality and Vader’s Litany.

What’s your views on the current state of Death Metal in 2015?

The development is going crazy, more brutal, more faster, more tech. It is fucking amazing how many good bands are out there, I would love to buy every single CD, but my pockets are always empty har har! Sometimes I am loosing the focus out of all these bands, but there are many talented kids out there.

What did you want to achieve with your new album?

As I said, we are really big fans of the polish scene and we’ve recorded in the same studio as Behemoth and Vader. Our aim is just to play extreme death metal which we like most, just to live our metal way of life. Of course it’s not easy to be outstanding, we just wanted to play some great metal shows and blast some shit out to the crowd and drink some beer with good old friends.

As this is your third album, how do you feel you have progressed since your earlier work?

Yes, we have changed in some way. In the early days we’ve had more modern death core elements in our sound and nowadays we are blasting more than ever. No mosh just blast beats.

Are you happy with how Depths turned out?

Yeah, we’re satisfied with the outcome. We would never release anything which is unsatisfying for us. Of course in retrospect there are always things which we could have done better, but it’s no use to be pissed off about things like that. Sometimes when you hear the songs you think, ah damn, I could have done that differently, or play this harmonic or whatever. But that’s part of the process as an artist. It makes you wanna try harder on the next record, get to a new level and when you have reached that new level, technically or in terms of composing and songwriting, you produce and release a new record, be pissed off about that and so on and so on. That’s progress 😀

What’s your favourite song on the album and why?

The Heretic King it shows the whole spectrum of the band.

What can you tell us about the lyrics?

Depths is about the end of the world as we know it. Most of the surface gets destroyed by an asteroid and humanity divides itself into people who stay on the surface, being heavily mutilated and those who were forced to find a new place to live in the depths of the sea. They form a new civilisation, hybrids of humans and underwater creatures. Depths describes the inevitable war between those two societies.

Give us a bit of information on the songwriting process.

Usually we just start jamming for a while. When we find any harmony, riff, rhythm or something else that we think could work in a new song we look into that and try to build it up, play variations of it. Most of the time we feel right on the spot whether it will work or not. But sometimes one of the members writes a song at home, records it and sends it to the others so that they can work with it at home and when we meet in rehearsal we can directly start playing. Both kinds of processes work for us.

How do you see your songs/direction developing in the future?

I think we will try some new elements perhaps more heavier stuff like Desire of the Depth. Expect the unexpected is usually said hehe.

What’s next for Ichor?

We started writing songs for the next album. We will take our time to make it sound as good as possible, we’re definitely trying to reach a new stage, beyond Depths and everything we have done before. But until that, we are planning to play a lot of live shows and touring Europe. As much fun as writing and recording is, the best part of being a musician is playing live, seeing different cities and meeting all those crazy-ass metal people out there.

http://www.bastardizedrecordings.de/

Tales for the Unspoken – CO2 (Review)

Portuguese band Tales for the Unspoken play Thrash Metal and this is their second album.

The singer has a nicely deep roar that’s almost a Death Metal growl. It lends a brutal air to already aggressive music. Ethereal cleans also appear but these are certainly the exception rather than the norm.

The music is solid Thrash Metal that locks into a good groove when it needs to. Faster sections are frequent while melody is used sparingly, usually in conjunction with the clean vocals.

The songs are largely quite short and sweet, hovering around the 3-4 minute mark in the main. The band revel in their portrayal of Metal and there are decent amounts of leads and shredding licks peppered throughout the album.

The guitars have a good crunch to them and the drums pound with the best of them. Tales for the Unspoken have a clear love for this style and this comes across in the music.

This is Thrash metal that’s on the more aggressive side of the spectrum. This can be considered Death Thrash in many ways, as even with the inclusion of the odd clean vocal here and there the majority of the album is harsh and heavy. I’d probably stop short of really describing them as such though as the music is almost completely Thrash Metal and it doesn’t really add much to them by describing them in such terms. I mention it mainly for completion, as there definitely are Death Metal aspects to their sound.

I also like the fact that Tales for the Unspoken don’t go down the retro-Thrash route with this. CO2 is fully-contemporary Thrash Metal with an aggressive streak and quality riffs aplenty.

A thoroughly enjoyable release. Tales for the Unspoken sound good and CO2 is fit for consumption.

Abjvration – The Unquenchable Pyre (Review)

Abjvration are from France and this is their début EP. They play Death/Doom Metal.

Imagine the most hideously disgusting type of Doom that’s congealed around some sickening Death Metal to form an unholy mass of evil…this is The Unquenchable Pyre.

Huge, heavy-as-Hell riffs populate this release like disaster sites, almost relentless in their assault. Colossally slow guitars crush all before them and faster, more-Death Metal riffs punctuate the blackness like knife wounds.

The vocals are a thing of beauty, albeit a very warped and disturbing type of beauty, of course; utterly deep and pitch-black in their delivery of rolling, growling terror. They sound immense and ancient, just like the music.

The music oozes and seeps along, like some sort of infectious disease. There’s a real rank feeling of a wet, unhealthy underworld to this release and that’s an entirely complimentary comment. Abjvration have created something disturbingly special here.

The Doom riffs keep flowing and it’s only when the Blackened Death Metal parts break out that you remember they’re not just a pure Doom band.

What little melody there is on this EP is aimed at increasing the listener’s unease and the entire 27 minute playing time is a masterclass in creating rotting, noxious, heavy music.

This isn’t Black Metal but it shares a lot in common with the more foetid styles of the same. A deep, dark, miasma of Blackened pestilence hangs over this release like a funeral shroud and Abjvration milk this for every last drop of feeling that they can.

This is unapologetically Old-School Death/Doom that’s flawlessly delivered and expertly realised.

France continues to keep its reputation for producing high quality Extreme Metal intact. Abjvration are a dark revelation.

Coathanger Abortion – Observations of Humanity (Review)

Coathanger Abortion are from the US and this is their second album. They play Death Metal.

This is ultra-brutal, underground Death Metal that has no time for anyone or anything apart from killing and bloodshed.

The vocals are so deep and guttural that they actually make you feel sick. It’s as if the singer is committing horrible, heinous acts whilst vomiting forth his diatribes and that these acts have somehow found an outlet in his malignant deathgrunts.

Now, with all of this brutality and sickness on display here you’d be forgiven for thinking that the songs were short and nasty affairs. But this is not the case, (well, the short bit anyway); this is quite a long album at 55 minutes and the songs are much lengthier than the standard Death Metal band’s reach.

These tracks are brutal in a riff-hungry way. Their Death Metal is not all about speed for the sake of it and instead take a leaf out of the USDM playbook and spend a lot of time as mid-paced aggressors that chug and groove their way through the carnage. They also have a quality bass sound, which I like.

The songs are surprisingly engaging and many a time I found myself nodding along to the tunes without even realising it, which is never a bad thing.

This is a true slab of sickness that must surely only be appreciated by those looking to delve into the deep, dark underbelly of the Death Metal underground. If you can stomach it, look in on them today.

https://www.facebook.com/CoathangerAbortionOfficial

Interview with Profanity

Profanity’s first release in over a decade has been their storming new EP Hatred Hell Within. Containing 20 minutes of absolutely top-notch Technical Death Metal, it put Profanity firmly on my radar and, if there was any justice in the world, should definitely find a place in every Extreme Metal fan’s collection. I traded words with guitarist/vocalist Tom to find out more about this supremely talented band…

Give us a bit of history to Profanity

Hello Nigel, so I will try to keep it short, but 23 years of being in Profanity makes it not easy to keep it short!

Profanity was founded by myself in the year 1993. With this first line-up we recorded two demos. But the music on both demos has not much to do with Profanity sounds today. It was a weird mixture different styles. The reason for this is simple, it was hard for me to find people which wanted also to play Death Metal in the style of Monstrosity or of course Death at this time. So everybody threw in what they liked. That was also the reason for me to change the line-up. I knew there was a crazy bass player out there named Martin who was also very into the Death Metal style I wanted to play. So after some meetings Martin joined Profanity, and it was just perfect. We also needed a drummer who also wanted to play fast and technical. The girlfriend of Martin at this time knew one, and his name was Armin. She managed to get a meeting with him and so he came into our practice room one day, made his drums ready and that was it. It was one of those great moments…Armin was fantastic.

So from that time on we worked together as a three piece and it worked very well. We all had the same motivation, to create something “different“, I mean we had the same vision of how our music should sound. Our first “try“ were the songs which we recorded for our first full-length “Shadows To Fall“. But a very sad thing was, before we did the recordings Martin had to quit with Profanity because of a very sad family situation in his life. There was no other opportunity for him, but we had the luck that we had found Daniel. Daniel had the same intention like us and was also the same Death Metal head like we are so Daniel practiced all the stuff for “Shadows To Fall“ and in 1997 we recorded it. It was released by ourselves.

From 1997 – 2000 we played a lot of great shows and we also got in contact with Cudgel Agency from Germany. Our first colaboration with them was the split 7″ which we did with Lividity from USA. The name of the seven inch was “Drowned in Dusk“. We had also new material written for our next release and so they released also our second full-length in 2000. On this record Martin was back in Profanity, so Martin recorded the bass guitar on this album. His family situation was now good again so he came back to Profanity. Daniel wanted to try something different and all was very cool so.

We played a lot of shows again and 2002 we got the great chance to go on a European tour with Cryptopsy, Haemorrhage and Spawn. So we did and for this reason we thought, it was a good idea to release something new. We made another 7″ called “Humade Me Flesh“. We recorded three songs, “Humade Me Flesh“, “Zombie Ritual“ from Death and “Fear of Napalm“ from Terrorizer. Then in 2004 it should be our last show for a longer time. We played in New York with Exhumed, Misery Index and Uphill Battle and a few days later on the great Maryland Deathfest. This was our last concert.

We always wanted to write new stuff but it’s not easy or almost not possible when you are working 40 hours per week and at weekend you are out on the road to your shows. So we decided to make a break from playing live. We fully concentrated on writing new stuff, and so we did. We wrote eight new songs whith a playing time of 60 minutes and the stuff is absolutely great. But sometimes things go an other way. The “normal“ life just took place. I got married in 2006 and now we have three girls. Martin got also married. We all went and studied further education and each of us started at a new job. So at these years there was not much time for Profanity.

But in 2011 the time was there again and the fire was still burning of course. We started to practice and also played a live show. Then we decided to start recording by ourselves the material we had written in the years from 2003 – 2006 and so we did. But another sad thing happened. Martin and his family decided to move from Germany to Australia. That was very sad for us. So we cancelled all confirmed shows and we also stopped the recordings. But maybe it’s destiny, Daniel got back again. We never thought of this! So the thing was we wanted to release something new as fast as possible so we decided to release an EP with the three songs we had recorded so far. Daniel practiced our live-set and so we were able to play live again in 2014 and our EP came out in December of 2014. So here we are now, 2015. All is perfect, we play live shows, we are working on our next full-length and we will see what the future will bring for us.

profanity

What are your influences?

I think all kinds of music we are all listening to are our influences of course. But when it comes to Death Metal, Suffocation, Cryptopsy, Hate Eternal, Dying Fetus, Necrophagist, Death, Morbid Angel, Deeds of Flesh…I think the list would be endless. This is stuff we all like in Profanity. But from the first days of the band we always had our own vision of extreme music. With every release of us I think we are getting closer to that vision. We don’t want to copy stuff, being creative feels so good and when, for example, all recording is done and you take a step back and listen to your own stuff, that feels great. We have many new ideas and we are very excited about how it will turn out. The journey of finding our final vision of extreme music will go on.

What are you listening to at the moment that you would like to recommend?

At the moment, ha…I am listen to Leprosy from Death. A classic album of course. I like also the new Cryptopsy stuff, very cool, new Sinister is great, too. New Dying Fetus “Reign Supreme“ is stuff that I like. Oh I don’t have to forget Aborted’s “Necrotic Manifesto“, awesome stuff, such a brilliant mixture of technique, straight-forward, blast stuff…it has everything you need! I like so many bands, and I am listening to so much stuff. Isn’t that a great thing?! Death Metal for me is just more then music, it’s definitely a part of my life. Every day when I am biking to work, I have my earphones and while cycling I am listening to crazy stuff like Suffocation – Pinnacle of Bedlam……

Are you happy with how your new EP turned out?

Yes, absolutely. Everything is the way we wanted it to be. We got mazing cover artwork, done by Federico Musetti from Italy. To work with him was just amazing. The Hatred Hell Within he created for us is just amazing. The same thing what concerns the studio. We recorded the three songs with a total playing time of 20 minutes by ourselves and mixing and mastering we did at the Iguana Studios, owned by Christoph Brandes. He is also responsible for the great albums of Necrophagist. So he is absolutely familiar with technical Death Metal. He has all the equipment and of course the know how, how to get the best result out of our music. We wanted to have of course a brutal sound but for us it was also very important that you can hear what every instrument is playing. We put so much time into the bass lines and it would be sad if you are not able to hear what the bass is playing. Christoph is the man, and I think with our next release we will go to him again. We also got the opportunity to release this EP on a label, so Rising Nemesis Records from Germany gave us this opportunity and we are very happy with that.

The songs on this EP are “I am your soul“, “Hatred Hell Within“ which were both written in 2004 and “Melting“, which is the newest one. I wrote that song in 2010 when there was a bit of time.

Give us a bit of information on the songwriting process.

Our songwriting has changed over the years and for myself as a musician this is very interesting. We had times, when the first parts of a song were created by, oh that drumbeat sounds good here and do here a splash and there a ride and so on and this way we went through a whole song. For us it worked very well. When we had the feeling, ok, the song is done I wrote all the guitar and bass parts fitting to what the drums are playing. It worked but now, the guitar parts come first, or sometimes the drum parts are first. But that is what makes it so interesting. For example “Hatred Hell Within“ I had in mind to write a song which is like a stream. I mean the song structure. When a stream or a river is flowing, the water will pass never the same place again. The waters flows around stones and here and there but the water wants to move on. So I decided to write a song in which part A will be only played one time and part B also only one time and so on, hard to explain. “I am your soul“ does not have such a complex song structure I think. The song is very hard to play, for every instrument but the song structure is not so complicated I think. The best thing, just listen to it. That would be the best I think. Just let the music do the talking ;-).

What’s you favourite song on the EP and why?

I don’t have any favourite song on this EP. All three songs are different, all songs are written from another perspective that concerns songwriting. Every song on this EP stands on its own. Every song is its own picture and all together, every song is a part of our vision of extreme music.

How do you see your songs/direction developing in the future?

We have still some material of 40 minutes to record from the years of 2003 – 2006 and that stuff is amazing. It has just to be recoreded but this will for sure take us quite a while. Everything you want to be good needs time, the same of course with our music. I think the stuff we have for our next release “The Art Of Sickness“ is the sickest, the most brutal and of course the most technical stuff we have done so far. But for us the most important thing is the song itself. We don’t want to just be technical or brutal and stuff, we want to write good music. We see all things as tools and we have many of them I think and we will use them, just to create extreme music, our vision of extreme music.

What’s next for Profanity?

We already have started with the recordings because we also want to use the little break we have now from live playing efficiently. In April we played our last show and the next will be at the amazing Deathfest in September in Germany. The headliners are Nile, Suffocation and Asphyx so we are very excited about that. We have to find a good way, to get all things managed. I mean to keep in shape for our live shows, to have time for the recordings, doing all the “promo“ – stuff for Profanity and of course to stay healthy and have time for our families and our kids. That’s not always so easy.

But the thing is, once infected by a virus called Death Metal, there is no chance for healing. I hope that we all in Profanity will have a good time and we are very looking forward to create “The Art Of Sickness“. We will see when the time will be there to go into the studio and we will see how all things will turn out.

Nigel, thank you very much for doing this interview and many thanx of course for your great support of Profanity. We really appreciate this! Keep on blasting, Tom and Profanity.

https://www.facebook.com/ProfanityDeathMetal

http://profanitydeathmetal.bigcartel.com/

https://profanitydeathmetal.bandcamp.com/

https://www.youtube.com/user/nothingremain

www.profanity.de

Entrails – Obliteration (Review)

This is the fourth album from Swedish Death Metallers Entrails.

Upon pressing play you’re greeted with some ominous bells. What follows is authentic Old-School Swedish Death Metal, and everything that this much-loved/maligned sub-genre offers.

Obliteration has a crushing sound and features the full compliment of chainsaws, as is normally expected from the style. Everything sounds great and the music immediately sucks you in.

I do have a soft-spot for this type of Death Metal it’s true, but this is such an honest style of brutality that it’s hard not to be captivated by it.

The band write good songs and good riffs. That alone should be enough to endear them to most metalheads in my opinion. Add to this the strong production and vocals that sound like they’ve been dredged up from the deepest pit and Obliteration is a very well-rounded album.

The best thing, though, is the songs themselves. They have an energy to them that cannot be denied and it’s clear that the band still have a healthy passion for the style even though this is their fourth full-length outing.

Coupled with the quality riffing is the Swedish Death Metal melody that we know and love. Then there’s the catchy songs with decent choruses; this is a recipe for a winner, not to mention what I can only imagine is a phenomenal live show.

A very impressive album. Entrails demonstrate once more why they’re at the top of the heap when it comes to Swedish Death Metal.

For fans of Grave, Dismember, Unleashed, Entombed, and the like.

Ululate – Back to Cannibal World (Review)

Ululate is a one-man Chinese Death Metal band and this is his second album.

His take on Death Metal is one drenched in horror and cannibalism. It’s an Old-School brand that has lost none of its teeth despite its age.

Ululate play Death Metal as it was originally intended and infuses dark melodies with enough morbidity and graveyard rot that in some ways it’s hard to believe it’s 2015 when you listen to it.

Classic riffs and winding melodies work their way into your mind and soon the Metal is all that matters once more. There is some quality riffage on display here and the songwriting skills of the brain behind the band is highly polished, even if the music is not.

Back to Cannibal World combines a few different Old-School sub-genres into one thoroughly foetid release. It’s a difficult sound to pin down in some ways, as it incorporates elements of bands such as Immolation, Autopsy, Incantation and Cannibal Corpse.

Ultimately this is just a really good Death Metal album, regardless of how one chooses to classify or talk about it. It has a whole bunch of interesting riffs, flawlessly delivered deep growls and songs that hit the spot. When you want an Old-School Death Metal fix that sounds fresher than most, Back to Cannibal World is where it’s at.

Highly recommended.

Gutter Instinct – The Insurrection (Review)

Gutter Instinct are a Swedish Death Metal band and this is their début EP.

Upon pressing play you’re immediately confronted with a massive Swedish chainsaw sound and the band firmly set out their agenda for musical destruction in the first ten seconds.

This is authentic Swedish Death Metal and yes, I’m an absolute sucker for this style.

The band rage and roar along the 18 minutes playing time of this EP with all of the abandon of a giant running through a sea of delicate flowers. Or some other, more manly image. Whatever.

The vocals are a particular delight, as they’re utterly guttural, bestial and gruff in all of the best ways.

The guitars are heavy and have the tone all right. The band generally go for a little less macabre melody than a lot of Swedish Death Metal and instead opt for a more brutal approach; the melodies are still employed but the rhythms are the main stars of the show.

As an introduction to the band this is more than capable. Swedish Death Metal is a much maligned sub-genre in many ways, but as I’ve said before – what’s not to like here?

Check them out.

Creeping Flesh – Rising Terror (Review)

Creeping Flesh are from Sweden and play Death Metal. That’s right, it’s Swedish Death Metal time again! This is their latest EP.

Well, you just can’t keep a good sub-genre down, despite what some may wish. I have a bit of a fondness for this particular style of Death Metal so I was looking forward to checking this out.

War Metal. Swedish Death Metal. Old-School Death Metal. Whichever way you cut it, this is this stuff, right here.

Straight away the chainsaws are revved and the macabre melodies are introduced. Creeping Flesh waste no time in making their intentions known.

Heavy riffs are dropped like bombs and a deep growling bellowing is unleashed on an unsuspecting populace. Like all Swedish Death Metallers, Creeping Flesh recognise a good marching groove when they get themselves into one.

This EP boasts a strong recording and everything sounds crushing. More importantly, the band show themselves to have some good songwriting skills and the 5 tracks on Rising Terror hit the spot.

Dark melodies, chugging riffs and decent leads/solos mean this is a very satisfying way to spend 23 minutes and a very solid lump of Swedish Death Metal.

Highly recommended.

Killing Addiction – When Death Becomes an Art (Review)

Killing Addiction are a Death Metal band from the US. This is their latest EP.

This is a short, two track EP that lasts 8 minutes and showcases Killing Addiction’s brand of brutality.

They open up with the first song Promethean. The style is that of Old-School Death Metal and the band sound suitably heavy and gritty.

Deep, growling vocals share their time with higher, rasping screams, and both are performed well.

The rolling guitars and double bass lay a firm bedrock for the band to do their stuff. A few melodic leads poke out here and there and there’s a good solo about two thirds of the way through.

Top work for track one. What’s next?

Well, after that we’re onto the final track Legacies of Terror. This song is shorter than the first and starts off with some nice drumming before launching into its mid-paced assault.

The higher screams start us off and some thunderous chugging follows soon after. The deep growls once more sound quite cavernous and do a good job of sounding rough and gruff.

Overall both of these songs are solid slabs of Death Metal and hold a lot of promise for the future.

Nice work!