Here we have a short split between death metallers Lago and Calm Hatchery, from the US and Poland, respectively.
Lago’s 2014 album Tyranny was an album that had a kind of darkly melodic brutality to it. It saw the band balance their style somewhere between the old-school and the new, to great effect. Continue reading “Lago/Calm Hatchery – Split (Review)”
This is the fifth album from Bestial Deform, a Russian death metal band.
Bestial Deform were created in 1990, so it’s safe to say they have a lot of experience playing death metal. This is their first album since 2005 and features both new songs and older ones that have been re-recorded.
The band play a Continue reading “Bestial Deform – …Ad Leones (Review)”
This is the fifth album from Bulgarian Death Metal band Enthrallment.
After enjoying their fourth album The Voice of Human Perversity very much, the band now return with a new offering and 37 minutes of Death Metal to make your ears bleed.
Taking influence from the kind of twisted Death Metal that Immolation do so well, Enthrallment spend their time on this album fusing brutality with dark melody.
The album has a very clean, serpentine sound; lean and ready to strike. All instruments are clear, (including the bass), and everything is balanced and gets a chance to shine.
The singer’s deep growls are very effective and are really well performed. Although it’s impossible to discern what he’s saying, they have an emotive quality to them nonetheless that works well with the darkly expressive music.
Enthrallment have written a collection of songs that go further than the pure brutality of a lot of their peers. Frequent usage of interesting leads, solos and snatches of warped melodies make for tracks that have a lot of depth and nuance to them. There are also some very tasty, (and sometimes quite atypical), riffs here too. Just check out Last Judgment Waltz for a great example of this.
Very enjoyable stuff – five albums in and Enthrallment have their style nailed down.
Against the Plagues are a US Death Metal band and this is their third album.
Featuring a crushing and professional sound, Against the Plagues play Death Metal mixed with lashings of Melodic Black Metal.
Deep growls and higher screams are the singer’s weapons of choice, with both sounding feral and full of hatred.
The band manage to take the savagery of Death Metal and infuse it with the melodic poison of Black Metal’s dark soul. This mixture means that Purified Through Devastation contains a good deal of catchy and memorable content. It’s not all blasting and brutality, (although they’re quite adept at that too), and these songs have quite a bit of atmosphere when they want to. Think a combination of Immolation, Morbid Angel and The Kennedy Veil crossed with Dimmu Borgir.
The muscular sound backs up the innate strength of the songs and subtle keyboards add a nuanced juxtaposition against the bare brutality of the drums and aggressive riffs. Mood and feeling is created with melodic workouts and the band can get quite martial and epic in scope on occasion.
It’s a modern take on Blackened Death Metal that sees the band highlighting the glossier, state-of-the-art side of both genres, resulting in a well-polished album that is also very well crafted. The band clearly know what they do and do it well. As Extreme Metal goes in 2015, this is a definite winner in my book.
This is an album that spits venom and fire, one that I’m more than happy to visit again and again. I suggest you do too.
Voros are a Death Metal band from Australia and this is their début album.
If heavy Death Metal with good riffs and pacing is your thing then look no further. Voros feature a thorough approach to Death Metal that sees them take the Classic style and infuse it with a modern energy.
Believe it or not, but Diseased Deity covers a lot of bases; Death, Thrash, Progressive, Technical and Modern Metal are all thrown into the blender and feed into this Death Metal feast.
The vocals are savage shouts full of anger and hatred which seem to lash out of the music like diseased barbs. The singer has a touch of the Meshuggah about him, giving his voice a different edge to that of the normal Death Metal vocalist.
The songs are well-written and see the band showing off what they do, whether it’s riff-hungry, mid-paced Thrashing, faster complexity or blasting destruction.
I like the combination of older and modern influences that give this a feel of Lamb of God and Gojira conspiring together to cover Morbid Angel, Death and Immolation tracks. It’s a really good way to approach this album; modern fire with tried-and-tested Old-School steel. On Diseased Deity it all comes together perfectly and the songs are an interesting, varied and engaging vision of what the band want to achieve.
The various influences work together very well to produce an album that takes from several different styles, with the band having enough skill and talent to make it all their own. Diseased Deity is very impressive and these songs have both immediate appeal and longevity of delivery.
This is a great find. I recommend you get hold of this immediately.
This is the latest EP from German Death Metallers Inexorable.
For Death Metal that’s dark, obscure and worrying, look no further. Operating in the netherworld of the deep Death Metal underground, Inexorable are like a gathering storm, ready to rage and destroy in dense, murky fits of violence.
Their last EP Morte Sola was a disconcerting journey into the abyss, and this is much the same only further down into the maelstrom. I described them on that release as Mayhem gone Death Metal, and I’d stick to that on Sea of Dead Consciousness.
Vocally the singer doesn’t really do a very good job of convincing us he’s human and I see no real reason not to believe he’s actually some daemonic entity. I’m pretty sure that every time I play this EP a rift to Hell gets slightly wider somewhere, but that’s the price we pay for good music, eh?
The EP offers us three originals and three covers. Of the covers, we get Mayhem, (fitting), Immolation and Mysticum. The original Inexorable tracks are terrifying and disturbing, and the cover versions are stamped with the crippling malevolence of Inexorable’s dark vision. It may not sound it, but that’s a compliment and all three are reimagined in grimmest glory.
So have they progressed from Morte Sola? Yes. Speaking plainly, Sea of Dead Consciousness is the superior release. The songs are more fully-realised and confidently performed. They were good before, but here they’re even better.
When they eventually release their first full-length album you can be sure I’ll be queuing up to get at it. After all, that rift to Hell isn’t going to open itself is it?
Obedience to Dictator are a Death Metal band from Italy. This is their second EP.
The band have a tight and precise approach to their music, with everything sounding balanced and where it should be.
These songs have faster sections as well as slower, groovier ones. There are some good riffs on these tracks and they’re arranged well, showing that the band have a grasp of songwriting rather than just stringing bits together.
Modern Death Metal meets an older style, settling for something that’s closer to the latter, but with a nod to the former. Dark melodies are sometimes used to improve the tracks and the band show that they are not interested in recreating just one style of Death Metal. The songs are relatively diverse, with quite a few different ideas and themes being explored throughout, all within the Death Metal framework, of course.
The vocals are mainly deep growls, although screams and other vocal effects are used to add a bit of variation.
In their sound I hear bits of Immolation, Malevolent Creation, Suffocation, Morbid Angel and even a bit of aggressive Thrash similar to Dew Scented in a couple of places.
I enjoyed this and look forward to what they might do next.
Favourite Track: Megabong.
Ogotay are a Death Metal band from Poland and this is their second album.
This is muscular Death Metal that has a touch of the mystical and the mysterious about it. There’s an occult vibe that hangs around the tracks like a dark aura, infusing them with the feeling that there’s more going on here than just mere music.
The songs share some elements of fellow Polish band Behemoth, as well as, (to a lesser extent), Vader and non-Poles Nile. There’s brutality and extremity on display but Ogotay also manage to foster those occult atmospheres, as mentioned previously, and these lend the tracks an extra level than if they were purely standard Death Metal; like something feral restrained by ritual.
Bands like Behemoth, Nile, Immolation, Morbid Angel, etc. are a huge influence in the Death Metal world because they are doing something a bit different with the style and do it very well indeed. Due to this, when bands are influenced by them this can easily be to their detriment as it usually ends up coming too close to the original.
What I like about Ogotay is the fact that while they are reminiscent of bands like these genre-leaders they have enough of their own personality and character to step from out of the shadows and into the light on their own merits. Yes, there may be shades of other bands in their style, (as with all bands), but they are definitely their own beast.
To this end, Dead God’s Prophet is full of interesting ideas and well-developed themes and concepts. The band understand what’s needed to write a good song and use this within the Death Metal framework to unleash eight quality tracks in 37 minutes. Each song is identifiable as its own entity and holistically the album flows and fits together very nicely.
I also like the way that they manage to flip between a riff-based approach and a more emotive, atmospheric one, yet they still retain that core of brutality that we demand from the best death Metal.
I’ve been very impressed with this release. Ogotay have managed to stamp their own personality and identity onto the Polish Death Metal scene seemingly effortlessly.
I’m sure we’ll be hearing more from this band in the future, as Dead God’s Prophet is strong enough to easily fight its way to the top of the pile.
Essential listening.
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.
Dawn of Azazel are from New Zealand and play Death Metal. This is their fourth album.
Dawn of Azazel play Progressive Death Metal with enough brutality to keep people happy.
They have a very satisfying production with the guitars sounding heavily distorted and full of fuzz. Combined with the blasting drums and vocals it’s a good solid sound.
The vocalist has a the kind of shouted growl that’s forceful and savage. His voice tears out of the music with fury.
Their music is a wonderful combination of the Progressive, Modern and Brutal Death Metal subgenres, so much so that there’s a lot on offer on The Tides of Damocles.
A multitude of inventive riffs and interesting ideas are tried and tested throughout these 10 songs. It’s an impressive melting pot that the band create and they forge it into a cohesive attack over the course of just over 48 minutes.
The guitars are a highlight for me as they lead the assault and you never quite know what they’re going to do next. That’s not to imply that they’re a hyper-chaotic Techdeath mess, far from it; it’s just that Dawn of Azazel pour so many different riffing styles into the mix that you might be listening to a Morbid Angel section at one point only to have it change into something Meshuggah-inspired, or maybe a riff Immolation would be proud of.
Ultimately though it all flows together quite naturally and The Tides of Damocles is a very striking record.
Yes, I look forward to listening to this more and more over the years and getting to know it really, really well. This one’s a keeper.
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