Wömit Angel are from Finland and this is their second album of Black Metal.
This is dirty Black Metal fuelled by Punk and raped by Thrash.
The band boast a raw but strong sound and their filthy rage-filled attack comes off loud and clear.
Vocally we get stinging, lacerated shrieks with the occasional deeper, daemonic grunt. They sound authentic and intense.
The songs are short bouts of violence that may be underground blasts of hatred but manage to be remarkably catchy. Some nice hooks are included in the tracks and odd flares of melody are thrown in with the general chaos of the guitars.
It’s as if Impaled Nazarene, Motörhead and Venom have been crushed up, eaten and regurgitated as gooey Black Metal projectile vomit. Eat it. Eat it all back up.
Wömit Angel have produced an enjoyably venomous assault on the ears. Check them out.
Skull Koraptor are a Thrash Metal band from Greece and this is their début EP.
Skull Koraptor play Old-School Thrash Metal with a pinch of Heavy Metal added to the mix. They’re influenced by the old Big Four and wear their influences on their sleeves.
It’s energetic and played with passion. We may have heard this style many times before but there’s no denying the enthusiasm that the band attack the material with.
The instruments are played well and there are a fair few enjoyable solos sprinkled around.
Each song is well written and the band have a good grasp of what it takes to write a catchy Metal song.
The vocalist does a good job and overall this is an authentic recreation of Old-School Metal that should be recognisable to any fan of the genre.
If you’ve reached your saturation point with this type of Metal then there’s probably not much to tempt you here, however if you still carry a torch for this older Thrash sound then Skull Koraptor are actually way better and more authentic than a lot of those in the retro-Thrash movement.
Want some enjoyable and honest Old-School Thrash Metal? Look no further.
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.
This is the début album from International supergroup Voodoo Gods. They play Death Metal.
Featuring members of bands such as Cannibal Corpse, Sceptic and Severe Torture you know that a lot of talent and experience has gone into making this release.
This is song-oriented Death Metal with plenty of hooks, solos and a Thrash influence.
The tracks are catchy and memorable. They roll along enjoyably and the Thrash aspect gives the riffs an extra energy. There are frequent solos which are played well and it’s always nice to hear the colour and interest that a good solo brings to a song.
The dual vocal approach works a treat and provides nice variety to the tracks, as well as some good rhythms and vocal interplay. George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher is, of course, immediately recognisable. The second singer Seth Van de Loo certainly shouldn’t be discounted, however, and holds his own against the seasoned Cannibal Corpse veteran. Together they growl, grunt and shriek their way across these songs with power and conviction.
Coming from the people involved this is not as brutal as you might be expecting. The Thrash influence and the emphasis on songs means that this is more catchy and mid-paced than brutal and blasting. It’s still Death Metal and still heavy, of course, but not as much as you might think.
There are also moments of lighter reprieve and a good Death influence to some of the riffs. It all adds to their palette and the end result is a rich, sumptuous Metal meal.
Enjoyable and accomplished, this is the kind of album you throw on when you’re in the mood to be aurally beaten around the head by a band with a bit of groove who know how to write a good tune.
Iron Reagan are from the US and this is their second album. They play Metallic Crossover and feature members of bands such as Municipal Waste, Darkest Hour and Cannabis Corpse.
I have enjoyed Iron Reagan’s previous work so I was expecting good things from this album. It doesn’t disappoint.
Iron Reagan play Hardcore and Thrash mixed in a blender and shat out at escape velocity. It’s highly aggressive and kicks your door down looking for a scrap. There’s no hiding.
The songs are short, heavy and usually exceedingly violent. Iron Reagan have a nice malevolent streak to some of their riffs that keeps things gritty.
The band play tight and fast, and some short, sharp guitar solos are also included in their spiky package.
Vocally the shouts straddle that rarely seen line where you can imagine them being transposed into either an 80’s Thrash band or an 80’s Hardcore band with equal ease. They inhabit both worlds flawlessly and effectively represent both.
A quality album. 24 blasts of anarchy in just under 32 minutes. Play loud.
Osmium Guillotine are from the UK and this is their début album. They play Heavy Metal.
This is 80’s style Heavy Metal with a sexy guitar sound and plenty of attitude. The production is largely apt for this kind of band, although in a feat of differentiation Osmium Guillotine have a guitar tone that’s both thicker and heavier than most bands playing this genre and it works very well for them.
The music is played with passion and obvious zeal and everyone seems to know their job well. Nice solos too.
This is Old-School Heavy Metal that manages to encapsulate quite a few different feelings from early Metal and distil them into this release. Classic Metal is a given, but Doom Metal, Proto-Thrash and NWOBHM all get a look in. There’s even a touch of Punk to things now and again.
The vocals are great, and there’s not a hint of Power Metal to be seen. I love Power Metal as much as anyone, but it’s nice to hear a band like Osmium Guillotine who are just pure Heavy Metal without the more extravagant ostentation inherent in Power Metal. The singer here has a great set of lungs and possesses the charisma to do the tunes justice.
These are a strong set of songs with plenty of hooks and choruses to keep you coming back for more. Memorable melodies and good riffs flow freely and everything feels just as it should.
Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Anthrax…if these bands float your boat then Osmium Guillotine are a logical band to check out. Along with the recent stellar release from Johnny Touch this proves once again what any real music fan already knew – True Metal isn’t dead.
This is the début album from Exordium Mors who are a Black Metal band from New Zealand.
This is Black Metal with a Thrash influence and songs that are interesting and well developed. The riffs are powerful and propel the songs onwards and upwards in a blaze of raw melody and colourful leads.
The band have a strong grasp of dynamics and have lots of ideas that they pour into The Apotheosis of Death. This makes for a fascinating and satisfying listen as Exordium Mors provide an important lesson in Extreme Metal in 54 minutes.
It’s a chaotic frenzy of Blackened Thrash and bloody sacrifice. It’s frenetic, impassioned and coursing with vitality. It’s imbued with a terrible majesty and undeniable presence.
Exordium Mors have built up their own kingdom of Extreme Metal and lord it over their subjects with the confidence of those who know they are untouchable in their own lands.
The Apotheosis of Death is varied and interesting and you’re never sure what dark labyrinth the band are going to explore next. The savage Blackened brutality of the songs is a multidimensional, expertly realised and fully textured Extreme Metal reality that the band have carved out for themselves.
This is an advanced album that’s probably not for the casual listener. For hardened Black/Extreme Metal fans though this is what you’ve been waiting for.
Breakdust are from France and this is their second album.
Breakdust play Thrash Metal that’s aggressive and heavy. Their style is influenced by Classic Thrash but delivered in a modern style.
The band manage to mix the old and the new together quite well, with some songs being straight ahead Thrashers, and others having some different influences, (splashes of Death Metal hints here and there, for example).
They incorporate a fair few different ideas and feelings into this release, usually quite small things amongst the Thrashings but they all make a difference. Keyboard effects and female vocals, for example.
For a basic idea think a combination of Testament and Sepultura which the band then add to to make it their own.
Vocally the singer mainly uses harsh mechanistic shouts, but variety is added to this with deeper growls and some cleaner vocals.
The music is of the heavier variety with plenty of double bass, crushing riffs and even some blast beats making an appearance.
It’s clear that the band can play well and there are some nice technical passages and good solos floating around.
This is a comprehensive album that’s been impressively put together by a coherent vision of what they want to achieve.
A very worthwhile listen – check them out.
Favourite Track: Mother Will Kill Us All. A proper Thrash Metal epic.
Methedras have recently finished their latest album System Subversion and are getting ready to unleash it on the world. This is a hard working band who clearly love and believe in what they do, so I decided to get a bit more information from them…
Give us a bit of background to Methedras
Quintessence of the most direct-in-your-face thrash-death style, Methedras sets among the leading underground Italian bands, a real war-machine which has been able to release a demo and three full-length albums during its 18-years old activity, as well as have performed hundreds of concerts throughout Europe, many of them in support of big names of the international metal scene (Testament, Dismember, Hatesphere, Destruction, The Haunted, Onslaught, Exodus, Overkill, Sepultura, Deicide, Hirax and many others), without ever losing an ounce of anger and energy. Quartet formed by Claudio (vocals), Eros (guitar), Andrea (bass) and Daniele (drums), originally near Milan in 1996 with a double-guitar line-up, the band has changed over the years various members preferring in the end a solid line-up with only one guitar, arriving to a proper own style with no compromise: a sort of derived thrash metal spiced with more typical death metal influences and a groove-hardcore approach concerning the vocals.
What are your influences?
I think our influences are everything rock and heavy, ‘cause our background is right that. We love thrash and death metal, of course, but we also do listen from hard rock to grind and brutal, we have no kind of musical prejudice, for example we’re actually attracted by the industrial side of some of the new stuff written…we are in “experimental mode on” right now, and cannot say at the moment where this will end up, for us it’s enough to be free to create, without mental chains. By the way let me say everything that comes from the american bay-area of the early ’80s, being inspired by such big bands like Metallica, Testament, Megadeth, Exodus, Slayer and many others, then we grew year by year opening our minds to a more specific North-European death metal attitude, trying to mix in our sound these two different and typical metal streams.
What are you listening to at the moment that you would like to recommend?
I’m currently in love with the killing productions of the German thrash metal heroes Kreator and Destruction, especially “Enemy Of God” and “Violent Revolution” for Kreator, and “The Antichrist” for Destruction. These cds are a brutal assault to the ears of each metalhead, with brilliant productions, and great riffs and solos.
From USA I recently listened a lot of Exodus, Machine Head, Nevermore and Overkill. Especially Machine Head are one of my favourite bands of the last decade, they started their career with an incredible album like “Burn My Eyes”, recently repeated by two CDs like “Through The Ashes Of Empire” and, of course, “The Blackening”, in my opinion the best Thrash Metal album of the latest years, with an incredible production, tons of killer riffs and solos, and a supreme singer like Rob is. I think that “The Blackening” broke with the actual returning of the 80’s thrash metal, it is a modern way to see this kind of music, with some new ideas that brings a breath of fresh air. The same that Nevermore has done until few years ago, with their personal vision.
However, I usually listen to a lot of other genres, in death metal I loved so much the reunion’s album of Carcass, all the recent production of Cynic (but it’s hard to define “Death Metal” their last albums, I think it’s better to say “Prog Metal”) and many other bands.
What are your opinions on the current state of the Thrash Metal in 2014?
In the latest years, Thrash Metal is having a new life, with numerous band that resurrected the glories of the 80’s, with modern sound and most of all brighter productions, in some case also new ideas which carried the genre into new territories.
For example the Italian scene is healthy and continuously growing, despite the very few occasions where to show up and the total lack of a more professional approach by the music system. There are tons of very good bands worthy to be discovered and listened to, but interests from media, promoters, venues and labels pretty always focus on the usual four old big names.
They’ll never get the chance to arrive to a bigger audience if this kind of situation keeps on going, we’d need the help from everyone involved in the underground in order to let these bands grow and become more-exposed, we all should finally act as a whole family, not only when it’s time to fest and hang out!
What did you want to achieve with your new release?
Ten years ago we imagined Methedras still on the road betting to gain a place on stage just a step behind heavy metal legends like Testament, Overkill, Exodus, Destruction, Entombed, Dismember, The Haunted, Onslaught and many others.. well, we won that bet ‘cause we really did it, and all of them teached us the real meaning of the music we love: blood, sweat and passion, ever! We learned that lesson (in violence ahahah) and we kept it as a way of life, everyday, on and off the stage…so, openly speaking, with the new release we’d love to imagine the same thing but at an even bigger level.
Are you happy with how it turned out?
Oh yes definitely satisfied man. We believe to have reached a milestone in our career with System Subversion, achieving the long-time target to build up a delicious platter full of tastes and well-balanced. We have to infinitely thank our dudes at Domination Studio (RSM) for this, in the persons of Simone Mularoni and Simone Bertozzi, who followed all the sound tuning, recording, engineering, mixing, mastering and producing processes leading to a final great outcome such the album you’ve listened to.
Talk to us about the lyrics
The lyrics are all written by Claudio, the singer, and are mainly about experiences he directly lives on his own skin everyday. So we can consider ’em a kind of belief-extensions directly coming from his mind, outlining how he’s used to analyse such political, cultural and lifetime subjects, viewed through his eyes and deformed by his apparent pessimism and nihilism, which instead lead to, if focused to a deeper level, an unwavering and immovable faith in the humankind and his capacity to always resurrect from his foundation, no matter how bad have been his actions, like a phoenix who recursively arises from its own ashes after being dead.
Tell us about the themes behind the album
The new songs are literally more aggressive, faster and well-balanced, rather than our past stuff, offering to the listeners a varied mix of modern heavy thrash-core, spiced with the usual band-trademark death influences, which gave to the music something darker and groovier. Let me say we believe to have been able to put together ten real killer songs which are gonna blow out your mind!
How do you go about writing your songs?
Usually the songwriting process starts with the guitar player breaking through with a killer riff, then the drummer and bass player follow building under a bone-saw drumming and some harsh bass-lines and finally the singer finishing spitting over all the shit of the world, simply telling the truth, the best thing to do the most of the times.
How do you see your songs/direction developing in the future?
Well at the moment is too much early to analyse any kind of further development, the new album is still in a pre-release step, and has been kickstarted literally few days ago, so the time spent has been really too short in order to reply to this question…what I can say is that a couple of reviews already arrived and they seem to be very optimistic and enthusiastic. The most part, pretty everyone, of media and music biz related people in Italy who have had the possibility to listen to it, tell this is our best album, with killing, fast and very exciting songs in the name and spirit of the best thrash-death metal around…so let’s see what kind of feedback we’ll first receive with this one before to start thinking about a new path for the band 😉
What can we expect from the future of Methedras?
Of course releasing System Subversion worldwide, hopefully under some good label, trying to catch the more attention possible as we believe this new album deserve a serious hype around, it’s really well-done, aggressive and brutally melodic, if you’re a fan of thrash-death-speed metal, then you should definitely diggin into it…moreover we’ll be soon engaged in a couple of imminent summer fests to officially present the new songs, at Metal Crowd in Belarus on the 16th of August, headlined by Hate, and at Malta Death Fest in Malta on the 6th of September with our bros Hour Of Penance headlining…and finally during the next fall, we should take also part to the “Sentencing Europe Tour”, supposed to happen end of November and beginning of December, and directly supporting the mighty US thrash-death maniacs Solstice from Florida, for the first time appearing in Europe. So the imminent future seems to be great for us and we’ll try to our best as usual!
Thanks so much for this interview and your time to read it, we hope to see you all at our next live events truly supporting what is the most important thing: the real metal attitude.. we exist because of you, thank to all of you out there!!
This is the début album from The Hole, who are a Spanish Death Metal band with Thrash leanings.
The Hole thunder nicely out of the speakers with a heavy sound and crushing presence. It’s riff-heavy music intent on causing as much destruction and devastation as possible.
I’m not sure why but based on the album cover I was expecting this to be more commercial than it is, and I’m pleased to be mistaken as this is pleasantly brutal and harsh.
I think I was maybe expecting the Thrash element of their sound to be the dominant partner, but no; although their Thrash influence has its place and keeps the album from sounding stale, it’s the harsher Death Metal sound that is the driving force here.
The Thrash edge lends the songs a more considered side than if it was pure Brutal Death Metal, but nonetheless this is raging and storming music for the most part. Some of the riffs and ideas are actually quite inventive and the band strive to keep the album as varied and interesting as possible, which is to be commended.
The heaviness is offset with occasional melodic moments and the band know their business. A good amount of solos are played too, which is always nice.
Blast beats and mid-paced double bass sections force the guitars to keep up, and the bass actually has a presence in the songs which is good to hear.
The vocals alternate between deep, evil sounding growls and higher rasps. Both sound good; both do the job. Good vocal rhythms and structures are used.
An enjoyable and solid release. Have a listen to this.
Wömit Angel are from Finland and this is their second album of Black Metal.
What are you listening to at the moment that you would like to recommend?
Talk to us about the lyrics
Wonderbox Metal 