Slaughterday are a German Death Metal band and this is their latest EP.
After thoroughly enjoying their début album Nightmare Vortex I was looking forward to listening to this.
This EP is 4 tracks long and features 19 minutes of music; 3 originals and a cover of an Acheron song.
Slaughterday play Death Metal that’s brutal, heavy and has a firm Old-School influence to it.
The band are on fine form here with the music sounding as crushing as ever. The vocals also sound particularly savage when the guttural deep growls are twinned with the higher screams. Pulse-raising stuff.
When they slow the pace Slaughterday manage to foster a real air of menace with their crawling, oppressively heavy delivery.
The songs are well-written, memorable and played proficiently. Some nice solos make an appearance too. The riffs are nicely done and there are some choice cuts amongst these tracks.
One thing I like about Slaughterday is their ability to combine a good vocal rhythm with a perfectly matched mid-paced riff. In themselves each of these things is a desirable result, but combined together the effect is greater than the whole. They did this to great effect on their début album and judging by the tracks on Ravenous this is something that they are getting even better at doing.
A very strong EP that builds on the hard work done with their début album and promises good things for their next.
This is the latest EP from German Technical Death Metal band Inexorable.
It starts with Doom. First track, Praeludium Mortis, is 2:39 of slow, agonising crawling through broken glass and razor shards. It sets the scene perfectly for Inexorable’s brand of impenetrable Black Metal-tinged assault.
This is no normal Death Metal. This is for fans of Gorguts, Portal, Mayhem, Axis of Perdition, etc. – bands that are interested in pushing the boundaries of traditional genre restrictions and will do so in their own way. If Mayhem went Death Metal, Inexorable might be what they sounded like.
The riffs congeal together to produce dark, murky feelings and the guitar lines almost seem alive with malignant presence.
Vocals are kind of an ethereal growl that reside half in our reality and half in some other, twisted dimension; or sometimes a plaintive semi-clean sung from the depths of a churning abyss. Either way they are not the standard for this kind of music, with the semi-cleans in particular coming across strongly.
The songs, and the EP in general, is a holistic experience; a nightmare reality to visit but hopefully to escape from at the end. Sometimes bands which attempt music like this can come across as unfocused or messy, but I’m pleased to say this is not the case with Inexorable.
Throughout all of the evil, grim sounds and communing with other realities is a firm foundation in, (atypical), Death Metal. This serves them well and keeps them grounded whereas they might otherwise carried away by the dark and lost to us forever.
This is not music for the weak hearted. If you can stomach it, however, there are some evil delights to be had here.
Collision are a Grindcore band from the Netherlands and The Rotted are a Crust-influenced Death Metal band from the UK.
This is a short split at just over 6 minutes in length that shows off what both bands can do, so let’s see what we have here.
Collision have two songs. The sound is raw and brutal, with serrated vocals screaming and shouting out over speedy Grind. Both tracks are a fast and furious blend of Hardcore-influenced Grind and angry outbursts.
Both are good songs that have plenty of blastbeats mixed with moments of heavier restraint. The riffs are solid and the band seem to be having a blast.
I’m sold. Bring on The Rotted!
After Collision’s barrage of ferocity The Rotted pound out Rotted Fucking Earth which is a d-beat Punk-esque song with a good sound.
It has a drunken swagger and an aggressive temperament; it’s probably not something you want to mess with.
Simple-but-effective songwriting is powered by decent riffs and pure attitude. As Metal songs go it’s a veritable anthem.
Short but oh so sweet, this is a worthy split to add to your collection.
A nice acoustic intro starts us off, shortly followed by the opening track Self-Infected. It’s immediately apparent that the band can play well, and also that the type of Death Metal they play is non-standard.
Azooma play Progressive Death Metal with Technical Death Metal clearly playing a role, but rather than the schizophrenic complex-for-the-sake-of-it route that a lot of Technical Death Metal goes down, Azooma have chosen the arguably more interesting Progressive Death Metal route. This means more coherent song structures and more emphasis on the song itself and its accompanying feelings and moods. With this in mind A Hymn Of The Vicious Monster is a roaring success.
Think old-Opeth if they were more Death Metal. Think Gorguts and Death mixed together in a Progressive Metal melange. Tasty.
As mentioned; the musicianship is top-notch, which even includes a noticeable bass. The band proficiently play Death Metal, Progressive Metal, acoustics, Jazz-style interludes, and essentially everything else with pure class.
The vocals are deep and satisfying and the band even find space in their expansive songs to include a couple of low-key cleans that enhance proceedings on a couple of occasions.
A strong sound and production rounds of the package and Azooma have a winner on their hands here.
This is a supremely impressive release and one that you should definitely get if you’re even remotely interesting in challenging, stand-out music.
Bloodstrike are from the US and this is their début demo. They play Death Metal.
For a demo the production is very good indeed; strong and heavy. They have a very dark sound and the songs sound better than some albums.
The band play aggressive Death Metal with a preference for the Old-School and a nod towards the Swedish style. It’s an addictive sound and the band play it with an expertise that belies their short existence as a new band.
The vocals are cavernous guttural roars that sometimes are straight growls and other times have a snarling quality to them. She is capable of a fair degree of diversity as higher vocals are also used on occasion as well. They all sound very good.
The music is straightforward Death Metal with some good riffs and melodies. Combining blasting and groove, the band have birthed three very enjoyable tracks that show a maturity of songwriting and an intimate understanding of the Death Metal genre and of what makes a good song.
This demo showcases the massive potential of Bloodstrike. Their first album should be very good indeed if this is any indication.
Apocrophex are from the US and this is their début EP. They play Technical Death Metal.
This is only a short release; 2 songs in just under 5 minutes.
With such short tracks it’s a brutal and dense affair straight from the start.
The band make a good impression with their deep vocals and rhythmically pummelling brand of Death Metal, all backed up with some fretboard wizardry and blastbeats.
The second song Halos of Light surprises by having some interesting melodic riffing and some semi-cleans in amongst the blasting and brutality. It’s unexpected and shows that Apocrophex are willing to experiment with areas not typically of the Death Metal template. This is to be encouraged, of course.
For a first release the production is functional but could do with giving the band a bit more room to breathe next time. Only a small thing but something they could benefit from.
Other than that this is an all-to-brief hint at what this band is capable of. My interest is peaked. Bring on the full length.
Oath of Damnation are from Australia and play Blackened Death Metal.
This release features a heavy and dense sound, as if the band condensed a planet’s worth of matter and used it to fuel the recording process.
The deep vocals sound equally impressive, with a depth of guttural growling seldom seen. This is coupled with higher Black Metal shrieking that offsets them.
The music is fast and furious, combining the intricate riffing of Nile, the claustrophobia of Immolation and the Blackened bite of Arkhon Infaustus. It’s a heady mix and the resultant cocktail is as intoxicating as it is venomous.
The band also incorporate symphonic elements into their brutal repertoire. These are used to punctuate and accentuate the churning maelstrom of chaos that the band create. These are used sparingly to good effect and never sound over the top or out of character with the rest of the music.
Oath of Damnation have released something special here. Seek them out and listen to them today.
This is Reciprocal’s second album of Technical Death Metal. They are from the US.
A strong start introduces the band and their heavy, sprawling sound to the listener. It’s complex and interlinked whilst retaining a brutality and nastiness a lot of Technical Death Metal bands are lacking in.
This is Technical Death Metal mixed up with the modern, New-School breed of crushingly Brutal Death Metal. It’s a heady combination that immediately makes you sit up and take notice of them.
The songs are long, (for Death Metal), and the band use this time to explore the labyrinthine riffs and to show off their musical chops.
They appear to have quite the mixture of influences on this release. I hear elements of Cephalic Carnage, Carcass, Spawn of Possession, Arsis, Gorguts, Decapitated and many more crammed into the technically dense songs. There is too much going on here to absorb in one listening, which is a good thing as it increases the longevity of the album.
Vocally the band incorporate pretty much all styles in the album somewhere, although high-pitched Carcass-esque screams are the most used.
The sound is absolutely immense. It sonically shines and the tracks hit home like hammers. It doesn’t get stale or boring as the band have enough variety within their framework to introduce elements of several Death Metal sub-genres; Brutal Death Metal, Melodic Death Metal and Deathcore being the main ones in addition to the core of Technical Death Metal.
New Order of the Ages is an ambitious album; 68 minutes of music with plenty of ideas and enough talent to hold it all together. Piano and samples are used liberally to help spread the band’s message and to provide breaks between bouts of swirling riffs and widdly fret-wizardry.
I heartily recommend this album to anyone who enjoys bold, challenging, heavy, technical music. If this is you then this is a must listen.
Invidiosus are from the US and they play Death Metal.
After the usual pointless intro we get dirty Death Metal with a Grind influence. It’s foetid, riffy, and full of rotten warmth.
The singer has an impressive growl. Deep and satisfying, straight from the bowels. Nice. The higher screeches are good too.
This is a kind of timeless Death Metal that might take cues from the past but is quite content in the present also. It’s heavy and fast, but also allows moments of technicality into the fray as well as slower, more considered parts.
The riffs rip and the drums pound. The gritty nature of the recording works in the band’s favour and overall this is a most enjoyable ride down the Death Metal canal of grisly delights.
De Profundis have recently released their latest EP Frequencies, which has been receiving a lot of praise from every quarter with the band even being involved in a promotional tie-in with fabled UK Extreme Metal magazine Terrorizer. I asked Shoi Sen some questions and here’s what he had to say…
Give us a bit of background to De Profundis
De Profundis started life in 2005 when Craig (Vocals) and our ex guitarist Roman met in a pub to discuss how to take over the metal world, the meeting was interrupted by Roman’s father who wasn’t happy that his underage son was in a pub with a older man, maybe he thought his son would be ‘followed home then killed’! The band released its first album Beyond Redemption in 2007 followed by 2 more albums and more recently our first EP ‘Frequencies’. The band evolved from playing some form of Progressive doom and now is firmly entrenched in delivering bone crushing progressive Death Metal.
What are your influences?
This is always the difficult question because our influences are so diverse. On the metal side the usual suspects like Death, Morbid Angel, Maiden, King Diamond etc. But also our schizophrenic side would come from early Queen and Zappa so you see difficult to really pin down. Its fair to say De Profundis operates like the Borg, we are a collective of musicians, with well assimilated influences and once you hear us all resistance will be futile 🙂
What are you listening to at the moment that you would like to recommend?
We’ve just toured with Demonic Resurrection from India, they are very good and an awesome bunch of guys. Otherwise if I was to recommend you stuff it would more old school music, I don’t tend to listen to current stuff much to be honest, nothing really grabs me. I can tell you what I wouldn’t recommend though, that one string wankery called Tech Metal/Djent with shit autotuned pop vocals.
What did you want to achieve with your new EP?
We have a number of goals for this EP. Musically showcase our new ethos of going for the throat earlier. Commercially although this EP is free we wanted a maximum of people to hear it share it and create a buzz around us, which is actually happening. Generally the reviews so far have been very positive but a few have questioned our more direct approach. What I can say is that the album which is also ready covers the wider range of De Profundis’ music, with this EP we wanted to showcase our more direct songs.
Your style has changed over time; how do you feel this release has progressed your sound since your previous work?
As mentioned previously our songs are more about going to the point earlier in general, that’s the major shift or progression from the previous album. Also with the arrival of Paul (Guitar) last September we had a new toy to play with (I am referring to his musical talents), his riffs were even more crazy than what I came up with so the sound of the EP has a lot to do with the way this new line up just gelled instantly.
Are you happy with how it turned out?
Yes once we got rid of Roman and Paul joined the writing went really quick and it was an awesome creative period. In previous writing sessions I always felt drained with all the infighting caused by one person in the band, and basically couldn’t get myself back in a writing mode for over a year. Now I can’t wait to start writing again.
What can you tell us about the lyrics?
Craig our vocalist is the man to talk to about lyrics but unfortunately he is currently away on holiday so won’t be able to contribute and I don’t want to interpret his lyrics for him.
Give us a bit of information on your songwriting process.
We write as a band. Either Paul or myself will bring some riffs to rehearsal and then we jam the ideas we have and looks at what would work together. We spend a lot of time thinking about transitions, we have a real fear of writing songs where parts don’t transition into each other smoothly, which some prog metal bands tend to do.
How did the link with the Terrorizer promotion come about?
Miranda Yardley the owner of Terrorizer is a fan of De Profundis so when I approached her about using Terrorizer’s distribution to release the EP she was very receptive so it worked out great.
How do you see your position in the wider Death Metal musical framework/genre?
We are here to become a major player in the death metal scene. I think there are too many bands our there playing Death Metal forgetting about writing songs, so we are there for people who want their death metal to be brutal, melodic and technical with full of hooks which makes them come back to our music over and over again.
I hear you’re planning a new album – what can you tell us about this?
The EP and album were actually written and recording during the same session so the album is also ready. We are now trying to sort out a label to release it. Hopefully we will be in a position to get the album late this year early 2015.
How do you see your songs/direction developing in the future?
At the moment its too early to say as we’ve just finished writing this album a few months ago, but I think we will carry evolving into the death metal genre whilst maintaining our progressive elements. I imagine in the future we will come back to longer song structures but at the moment we are enjoying playing shorter punchier songs. And it’s a lot easier to build a set list with shorter songs.
What’s next for De Profundis?
Well we are playing Bloodstock in 2 weeks time which we are very excited about. Its been 6 years since we last played that fest and we have done so much in that time. After that we are currently in negotiations about a tour with a pretty big name in Death Metal so if that happens it would be a great opportunity for De Profundis. When we are planning this EP and Album cycle we had one word in our mind and that’s touring, touring and touring. So our agents Nazgul are working on a whole bunch of potential tours for us so expect to see us everywhere over the next 18 months!
Slaughterday are a German Death Metal band and this is their latest EP.
After Collision’s barrage of ferocity The Rotted pound out Rotted Fucking Earth which is a d-beat Punk-esque song with a good sound.
What can you tell us about the lyrics?
Wonderbox Metal 