…You date a girl and find out later
She smells just like a percolator
Her perfume was made right on the grill
Why they could percolate the ocean in Brazil…

…And when their ham and eggs need savor
Coffee ketchup gives ‘em flavor
Coffee pickles way outsell the dill
Why they put coffee in the coffee in Brazil…

The oft loved, icon of all guidos everywhere, seems to make no sense here. Why would I want to hear this? She smells like a percolator? It seems to me that ol’ blue eyes was banging the cashier at 7-11. My point is usually made, followed by awkward silence, and then a discussion begun with, “So, you listen to Metallica?”

I mention all of this because I have finally found the most aurally disturbing album in the history of death metal. I can remember days when I was the designated driver certain weekends and my well-baked friends (not fans of death metal) would forbid certain albums to be played during their ride home because they were “too scary.” On this list were (with actual given reasons in parentheses):

- Deicide – Once Upon The Cross (riffs too Satanic)
- Devourment – Molesting the Decapitated (repetitive heavy riffing causes nausea)
- Drawn and Quartered – To Kill Is Human (just too damn heavy)
- Splattered Cadaver – Merciless Butchery (bass sounds like standing in the middle of a fire)
- Embalmer – There Was Blood Everywhere (the screaming)

Although my friends new little about the genre, they were well aware of these albums. Ironically, I agreed with them. There was something about these albums that made them disturbing, from the vocals to the style of music itself. There is a lot of death metal out there but few made one say, “Damn! That is some nasty shit!”

Infester’s only album, To The Depths… In Degradation, is a lesson for all. This is some of the most disturbing and upsetting music I have heard. Firstly, the vocals are horrifying – deep gruff growls to throaty shouts to mesmerizing shrieks, Jason Oliver had to be one bad-ass dude who had to have ordered like this at the Wendy’s drive-thru at least once. At times, it sounds like there is a small man emerging from his chest. During other times, he sounds so pissed that I could imagine him actually knocking the head off of another human being with a single punch.

The guitar riffs vary from nasty brutal madness (some nice slow mosh and seemingly classic grind) to blackish shredding. Sprinkle in some Dusk/Evoken/Ceremonium-style doom and it makes for some nasty stuff. A “fuzzy” bass adds depth to the music with the occasional organ thrown in for atmosphere. My favorite tracks are the title track, “Chamber of Reunion” (the part at the 4:30 mark is incredible), and “Mephetic Exhumation.”

After some research, I had found that the album had been linked to some negative “press” after being accused of having racist overtones and a swastika in the band photo (could not find it in the photo). The band members refuted this in various interviews as well as the idea of being racist. The one reference uses the word “ebony” but in a song about shit, with the obvious connection to a much different type of brown (or black depending on what you ate). If it was obvious and intentional, I would not have even given it a chance but I have a hard time seeing it even after reading all the lyrics (for the first time in my career). I also doubt Amazon.com and the iTunes store would offer it if there was any sort of problem. In essence, this may be one of the reasons that this album has fallen by the wayside.

Some of the members of the band have moved on to different bands such as the Meat Shits and Drawn and Quartered but none have come close to replicating this monster of an album in their new bands. Many of you will enjoy it for nostalgic reasons. Many of you will question why you listen to such lame shit. Some of you will agree that few, if any, albums can match the intensity and horrific nature of this album. Some of you think I am an asshole and am a ridiculous character for thinking this is heavy. At least we can then agree that this is the heaviest album to emerge from Seattle. And if you can name a heavier band from Seattle (and not Drawn and Quartered because the drummer is now their drummer – conflict of interest), then I will mail you a granola bar, a Soundgarden CD, a picture of a Subaru Forester, and an umbrella for your Seattle starter kit.

But let me not pigeonhole this band by mentioning their brutal side. Flesh Consumed display plenty of variance from some very old school, almost Butchered at Birth style riffs and some technical wizardry. I am always bitching and moaning about how bands attempt to meld frenzied technical parts with slow mosh and it ends up being a mess like the one at the bottom of the bag when your 7 layer burrito explodes on the way home. The bands that fail at this become annoying after the first minute of the first song, like trying to put a sock on a wet foot. A good example is the song “Sadistic Incineration” which features an excellent mellow, prodding riff with enough pinch harmonics to rival Malignancy. One of the things that makes this album great is some of the magnificent sets of chords that comprise many of the songs. It raises it quite a few notches. The vocals are varied, and at the right times, and the drumming is excellent, almost machine-like at times.

Flesh Consumed give us enough here to make this very worthy of your ears. It’s nice to listen to an album and anticipate the next riff. These guys have created a unique style that I have not exactly heard yet all on one album. There is so much variance on this album that most people will find something to latch on to. And even the last track fades out with a droning solo over a sad riff, just like Immolation. Right when you thought you had run out of Ritz crackers, you find a hidden sleeve in the cupboard. Talk about metaphors!

Both Artery Eruption and Inhuman Dissilency have put out albums and demos previous to this. Both showed some promise and both were interesting because of their penchant for the slow, sludgy, and heavy. The extreme demo quality of previous releases actually added to the excitement especially Artery Eruption’s (on their first full-length) metal baseball bat to full keg sound on the snare and Inhuman Dissilency’s (on the first demo) love for playing the same riff for three-fourths of the song.

Artery Eruption begin the split with four songs, with one of them being an Internal Bleeding cover which is sadly the best of the four. The songs lack any structure and the riffs are sloppier than your dad’s “secret” Sloppy Joe recipe. Even the supposed mosh riffs are bland and poorly played. The production is better than previous releases but it is not good enough to polish all of the blemishes.

Inhuman Dissilency, by far, have created the better half of this split with some better-than-average drum machine-induced slam metal. The songs are decent and are mildly similar to those played by Cephalotripsy. It is just tremendously dry and mundane and it takes a superior amount of mental preparation to get through the songs. They do a cover of “Babykiller” by Devourment, which does it little justice. I would have rather heard a cover of “Little Deuce Coupe”by The Beach Boys. I guess when I heard the first demo, the music was heavy enough to make it interesting. Here, there is little variance from that and it makes it pretty damn bland.

In a world filled with flat brims and ninja kicks, one has to really nail this style of music to stand out from the crowd. How this style of music really gets “nailed” is a mystery to me… This one can be avoided.

Like past recent Razorback acts, Festered returns a Razorback alumnus to the fold- Elektrokutioner of Decrepitaph and upcoming act Tombstones. However, Elektrokutioner is also joined by Goat from American long-distance dark death metal blasphemers Father Befouled, an act whose recent Incantation-loving album, EP, and split with Helcaraxë have been turning some heads amongst those in the underground.

The sound that Festered goes for is somewhere between these 2 madmen’s main projects: the music is a decidedly primitive mix of old Death, Autopsy, Massacre, a little bit of Nunslaughter, Master, newer acts like Gravehill, and I’d even argue some of Possessed’s less focused moments. Goat’s vocals are gloomly and garbled, resonating a vocal approach that goes more for the darker sound of Incantation or Convulse. The guitars are basic but thrashy, emulating that early 1985-89 primitive riffing mixed with the occasionally well-placed crushing slow part that later death/doom acts would expand upon and master. And Elektrokutioner’s drumming is straight-and-to-the-point: there are no frilly tricks or fancy overly technical wankery. The drum performance is solid and varied ranging from simple rhythm to pummeling speed, but ultimately a wham-bam-thank-you-mam matter designed to keep focus on that primordial death metal heritage.

Granted, everything on Flesh Perversion you’ve seen before. But that’s not what Festered (or the rest of Razorback for that matter) is about. This entire record and band are a celebration of one very specific, isolated tradition of metal, and they replicate it impeccably. Festered are here to teach your little brother what Scream Bloody Gore was about, and they plan to teach him well; let’s leave innovation to the newer bands like Ulcerate.

It seems the past year has been pretty good to the Portal gang. In addition to finishing a brand new album (on a timely schedule at that!), some of the blokes from the band found time to found a side-project. What is this side-project you ask? Well, none other than the band I’m reviewing right now: Impetuous Ritual!

The musical aim of Impetuous Ritual on this debut album can aptly be described as this: an attempt to merge together the martial sounds of Bestial Warlust and Incantation, while filtering it through a light haze of Portal’s trademark disjointed insanity.

Relentless Execution of Ceremonial Excrescence opens with a broodingly slow, crawling piece that drags its mass along in a most terrifying manner, where it torments the listener through rumbling guitars and dreary drums, until it explodes into the second track, which is a full of chaotic, pounding Bestial Warlust worship. Throughout the album, Impetuous Ritual alternates between these moments of brooding doom-like dirges and chaotic war metal battles, supported by vocal emissions that sound like a razorback boar being gutted with a jackhammer.

And every so often, Impetuous Ritual’s progenitor slowly rears its head into the chaos There are tiny but noticeable pieces of Portal’s abstract and convoluted song structures scattered throughout Relentless Execution of Ceremonial Excrescence. But keep in mind, this is not Portal. The record, while echoing Portal’s heritage, has more in common with bands like Cemetery Urn and Bestial Warlust. That being said, however, all things Portal’s detractors hate are on here, too; so if you’re one of the unwashed fools that cannot appreciate the blunt insanity of Portal’s immense sound, you probably won’t be able to appreciate Relentless Execution of Ceremonial Excrescence, either.

Relentless Execution of Ceremonial Excrescence is a more than solid introduction for Impetuous Ritual into the metal world. It’s sick, cacophonous, deranged, and as impenetrable as a cursed and damned Trojan city being burned to the ground by its own rabid, disease-addled, possessed, and cannibalistic citizens. But for those of us who like our metal secretive, bizarre, and down right brutal, Relentless Execution of Ceremonial Excrescence is a welcome addition to the music library.

I first saw Brian in a mugshot.  My friend sent me a link to a mugshot site, and I was amazed.  Fucked up photo after fucked up photo had me convulsing with amusement.  Then the guy with the Cryptopsy neck tat shows up.  Holy shit, that guy is fucked up!  I later discover that this is Brian in one of his gloriously pickled states.

Syphilic is extra brutal.  If the drums were real I could easily end up with a little tip juice saturating my shorts.  Moving past that, I am thoroughly pleased.  The vocals are dredging the very colon of old pointy tail.  The evolution of inhuman gutturals have been proliferated with this contribution.  The occasional layering of vocals reminds me of Phlegeton’s approach from Human Mincer and  Wormed. This is sick shit.  The cover art will convince you of that.

The drums are not organic, but Forgue knows how to do some serious programming.  Relentless pummeling of digitized skins and cymbals  meet the ear in a surprisingly pleasant way.  The sound quality of the drums are very good.  In fact, if you act now, Mr. Forgue will send you a copy of his drum software, with a CD or t-shirt purchase, absolutely free (RIP FZ).  That’s awfully nice, isn’t it?  Check the Syphilic MySpace page for instant savings.

The bass player, Brian Baxter, holds down the fort with an effortless feel.  This is quite a feat since the music is so relentless, chaotic, and  technical at times.  I have to hand it to a guy like this.  He just upped Syphilic’s ante, and it’s piled high and deep. When I heard Syphilic’s 2007 release, Erotishock Therapy, I knew there was something seriously devastating in development.  The problem was not really the programmed drum parts, but the programmed bass.  It was quite painful to be honest.  Real bass playing adds massively to the overall feel,  sound, and legitimacy.

Finally, we come to the guitar.  Forgue delivers chops and song writing ability that are so rarely paired.  His riffs and phrasing are excellent, and sometimes layered.  You won’t be left feeling like you just listened to another guy’s basement creation (even though that’s what it is).  The jack-of-all-trades thing is sort of happening here, but it is so far above the average metal guy’s wet dream, it’s ridiculous.

This is brutal death metal.  Love it or leave it.  One song doesn’t sound entirely different from the next, but I don’t care.  21 minutes of relentless aggression is cool with me.  Oh, and if you’ve been pining for some good audio clips laced with your metal, hold tight.  Beavis and Butthead, Something About Mary, and some angry black guy are just the beginning of the fun you’ll find.  This is a great EP, and  I give it the “fuck yes” seal of approval.  Thanks Kin.

As I got a bit older, a bunch of black metal bands emerged, such as Mayhem, Bathory, and Gorgoroth, that were eerie and creepy but by that time I was jaded enough to not really care too much. So, even as churches were being burned to the ground, I wasn’t convinced that there was any true evil being wrought upon the world.

Today, the only band that brings back any of those feelings of fear I had when I was young is Anaal Nathrakh. Obviously, as an adult I am not too worried about the wrath of God or the thought of burning eternally in hell. However, if there was going to be a band to make me second-guess that decision, this would be the one.

On their newest release, In The Constellation Of The Black Widow, Anaal Nathrakh just embodies evil. Dave Hunt’s tortured screams sound like what one would expect to hear in the lowest depths of hell.   Haunting vocal melodies interspersed with truly insane-sounding screams only serve as proof of this.    Additionally, the songwriting seems to have improved immensely since Eschaton, an album I liked but not enough that I ever got around to listen to Hell Is Empty, And All The Devils Are Here (which I will now have to do, obviously) Comparatively, the songs on …Widow are more unique and memorable, with excellent titles such as “The Unbearable Filth Of The Soul” and “Oil Upon The Soils Of Lepers.” One instantly noticeable difference is the more prevalent guitar leads by Mick Kenney.   Almost, but not quite bordering on full-length solos, the music is captivating and much more interesting throughout the album.

Anaal Nathrakh is the band that should be played when you want to scare the shit out of your family, friends, or co-workers.   If hell had a soundtrack, there is no question it would be performed by these guys.

When not dressing up in hilarious outfits and playing gigs that involve their three buds who mosh hard and who eat Rice Krispy cakes the whole time, these guys can be found in the basement of their parents house crafting literally hundreds of short blasty wigger songs on home recording software so that they can join in with the myspace metal underground and amass themselves an impressive discography of comps “limited” to 20 and various CDr’s that no one has ever heard of except I guess by other myspace metal underground warriors with home recording equipment.

I figure that it went like this: each drooling idiot prowled the cable stations for two weeks like crazed apes, each procuring the most “brutal” samples they could find. They ended up getting transfixed by the brutality in “America’s Most Wanted” from the sounds of it since “Scary Movie 4” and “Disturbia” was already harvested by one of their myspace metal underground friends’ bands. Cuts from skin flicks were also located and used for yuks as well. “Cunt, faggot & slut” were used in various sequences to create some of the most flaccid “offensive” song titles ever, over sixty in total.

Then one Saturday afternoon, these morons came home high on sugar from all those sodas at the IHOP to lay down those “hilarious” and “brutal” vocals. While not trading Pokemons, these guys took turns being hilarious and ironic into the microphone, I guess. Oh, and there are some guitar riffs there too. Whoopee. Everyone had fun laughing at how awesome they all were.

Anyways, these guys think they’re hilarious. I suppose that it’s kind of amusing that they claim to have been around since 1996. Hahaha, really? 1996? Let me guess, it’s the same line up too. Oh look, these guys are all BFF’s! That’s so cute. Other than the fact that 13 years seems like a lot of time spent bragging in the IHOP about that one time they got to touch a whores’ boob for free.

Boys, the story got old a long time ago. You need to stop playing music, get a fucking job and leave all of this behind you. San Antonio may be a fucking toilet, but it doesn’t mean you have to sit there like an asshole and settle on your sorry and unmemorable lives of shit for the rest of your days. Your album is called Vagina – try actually looking into getting some of that one day.

I rarely ever read press releases for the simple reason that the person writing them is always full of shit.  I don’t care what you think your band “sounds” like, that’s up to the reviewer to decide, just give me the basics; who is in the band, how long have you been playing, what bands have your members been in?

Every single press release I’ve received from an unsigned/demo band in the past 15 years contains the following selling point: “Our band has opened for such legendary acts such as…”  Really?  Why should I, or anyone else, give a flying fuck who your band opened for?  Oh wow, your band was on stage when the doors opened so you were able to play in front of 8 people, before the actual crowd showed up to see the headliners?  Who the fuck cares?  I especially enjoy the pride they take in announcing that they “opened” for a “big band” like they just won a gold medal the Special Olympics.  “We played before Slayer!”  Did anyone actually remember your band after Slayer played?  “Well, no, but…”  Yeah, shut up, you fucking dolt!

What does this rant about press releases have to do with Without Mercy, you ask?  The press release given to me by this Vancouver-based death thrashcore act is, by far, the biggest pile of shit I have ever read in my 15 years of covering metal.  These are actual excerpts from the press release so you can follow along and join me in my endless laughter at their expense:

Vancouver based, female fronted Without Mercy have certainly stayed true to their name.  Ruthless and menacing, these Canadian metal titans (ti-tan.  Function: noun.  Definition: Any of a family of giants in Greek mythology born of Uranus and Gaea and ruling the earth until overthrown by the Olympian gods.  Well… there are a couple of fatties in the band and they’re definitely from Uranus and totally Gaea…) have cultivated a death/thrash sound that combines a respect and dedication for both genres. (I’m assuming this requires a lot of manure to cultivate a sound that combines a respect and dedication for death and thrash.)  Their progressive hybrid has earned them an ever-growing fan base in Canada. (I live in Vancouver and have never heard of these guys before now.  I guess having one fan is “ever-growing.”)  Coupled with a notorious reputation for throwing down an unyielding live show, (How can you have a reputation if I, who fucking live here, have never even heard of your fucking band?  I have a reputation for masturbating while juggling my balls with my free hand.  Just take my word for it…) this up and coming four-piece have proved that hardcore attitude can only equal hardcore results. (hahahaha… are you fucking serious?  You actually wrote that?  hahahaha… wow…)

Following their 2007 EP All Else Fails, Without Mercy have just released their self-titled full-length debut.  Recorded, mixed and mastered at Vancouver’s legendary Factory Studios (Marilyn Manson, Bad Company, Billy Talent, Holly McNarland, Yuca, Barney Bentall, and Zubot & Dawson all recorded there.  Clearly they are on the cutting edge with that group of hit artists!  That’s so much more impressive than the other Vancouver studio, Armoury Studios who’ve only been graced by the likes of AC/DC, Chicago, The Cult, Fear Factory, Joe Satriani, KISS, Motley Crue, Nickelback, Strapping Young Lad and Van Halen.  Sure, Armoury may have had all of those huge big hit bands record at their studio, but they didn’t have Zubot & Dawson!  Stick that in your pipes and smoke it, motherfuckers!  Zubot & Dawson are kvlt!) this release is the next evolution for WOM. (Without is one word.  Why the fuck would you call your band WOM?  This is Teufel’s Tomb, should I shorten it to TST because there’s an apostrophe S?  How is this release the “next evolution?”  What did you evolve from before?  Ameoba?)  “As the culmination of over a year of writing, preparing and planning, we feel that this album represents Without Mercy in its truest form” states guitarist DJ Temple. (What else would your music represent?  The meaning of life?  The Coca-Cola recipe?  Bloods vs Crips?  On a side note, anyone who goes by the name DJ, even if their name is Darren James, is a fucking douchebag.  You may as well just call yourself DJ Polesmoker.)  “This is the first time we’ve really been able to articulate musically and lyrically the ideas we’ve been developing since the band’s inception” adds vocalist Alxs Ness. (Alxs?  Were your parents dyslexic?  Clearly they weren’t capable of articulating your first name, so why should I believe you’re able to articulate your musical and lyrical ideas?)

Besides a strong work ethic and epic sound, (What does a strong work ethic have to do with anything?  Are you applying for a position with my company?  Can you scrub toilets?  What “epic sound” are you speaking of?  Epic implies something beyond the usual or ordinary.  Playing generic slam riffs stolen from other, much more successful bands, isn’t epic, it’s just fucking lazy.)  WOM has some behind the scenes experience with vocalist Alxs’ gig as journalist for Abort Magazine and Absolute Underground. (What the fuck does “behind the scenes” experience have to do with your fucking band’s music?  At all?  You’re a “journalist” because you write for a metal zine?  hahahaha… dude, I’ve run a metal site for 15 years and even I’m not so completely full of shit to consider myself a “journalist.”  Half the time I’m so wasted writing articles on this site I have to close one eye just to see straight.)  She has interviewed some of the biggest names in metal such as Cannibal Corpse, Testament and Arch Enemy to name a few; giving WOM an advantage in understanding the inner sanctum of a grueling and merciless business. (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!  Are you fucking retarded?  Why would you even put that in your band’s biography?  You couldn’t find bullshit more pointless to fill up space?  You should have just put in that day’s grocery list instead as I feel it would be more relevant to learning about your band than listing a few bands you’ve interviewed.  I know tons of guys in bands, but that doesn’t mean I have “an advantage in understanding the inner sanctum of a grueling and merciless business” it just means I hang out with losers in bands.)

WOM has already shared the stage (Oh shit, here we go…) with Norwegian Black Metal legends Satyricon, Taiwan’s Chthonic and Canadian favorites, Nuclear Blast recording artists Divinity. (I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.  Who fucking cares who you opened for?  When you headline a show featuring any of those bands, then it’s worth mentioning, until then, you’re just the local guys getting paid sweet fuck all by a promoter who just needs some extra bodies to fill up time while the touring bands grab a bite to eat before they’re ready to hit the stage.)  Expect to hear a lot more from the band in the very near future as they make some key appearances and prepare for a Canada-wide tour. (Before then I’m sure I’ll see you at McDonald’s taking my order.  I want a double cheeseburger, with bacon, a large coke and large fries.  Try not to get any hair in it.)

To top it off they included some press notes and this is where it goes from good, to fucking epic: “One of the best up and coming Thrash bands!” – Asylum Radio, WCNI.  Not familiar with this radio program?  WCNI is Connecticut College Community Radio (non-profit) and Asylum Radio is their metal show they do at 2am on a Sunday.  Why not just write “My mom thinks we’re cool.”?  More people probably listen to your mom than people who listen to Asylum Radio at 2am on a Sunday, any sane person is too busy jerking off or sleeping at that hour.

“Music to hurt each other by never sounded so good!” – Grimm Culhane, Abort Magazine.  You’re using a quote from the magazine you write for in your own press release?  hahahaha… what the fuck is wrong with you?  Did your mom drop you down the stairs when you were a baby?   Is there some kind of crippling brain damage we should know about, because you’re clearly not even using enough of your brain to be considered a halfhead by including shit like this.

“Saving Canadian Metal!” – Abbotsford Times.  Abbotsford Times circulation: 39,980.  Of those 39,980 people reading the local paper, how many do you think actually bother to read the local music report?  2,000?  Of those 2,000, how many do you think actually listen to metal?  300?  Of those 300, how many actually listen to thrashing deathcore?  3?  At least remain relevant to the audience you’re directing your press release towards.  Getting your name in the local paper is nothing… I got my name in the local paper for bowling 100 pins over my average when I was 12.  I got my picture in there two, and a free 2L of Pepsi!  Oh fuck, I need to add an achievements section to this website and include that.  “A one-time recipient of a free bottle of Pepsi.”  I’m a fucking star!

If this band was actually decent, I could overlook all of the incredibly dumb shit they’ve included in their press releases, but their music is so simplistically generic it’s laughable.  They put no effort into writing original music.  The entire eight tracks of this release are simply segments copy-pasted from  extremely well known bands’ songs as their own, from System Of A Down to Dying Fetus to Cannibal Corpse to Pantera and even Korn.  It’s one thing to write an album inspired by the music of other bands, but to blatantly rip off some very well known riffs and try to pass it off as your own is incredibly lame and you’ve got to be a fucking moron if you think no one is going to notice and call you on it.

To best exemplify the band’s blatant bullshit, here’s an excerpt of the review from their self titled album from Abort Magazine… yes, the same magazine Lady Dyslexia writes for, please note how deep the reviewer’s nose is jammed up her asshole; “Lead by a remarkable female vocalist, Alxs, they are on a non-stop train to metal acknowledgment.” (hahahahahaha… what the fuck does that even mean?)  “Without Mercy is soaked in influences and is built in the best metallic tradition of the past two decades, absorbing everything you love from Pantera to Lamb of God.” (If Pantera and Lamb of God are the best the metal scene have had to offer in the past two decades, I fucking quit.  hahahaha… Jesus Christ…)

They gave me written permission to post a sample for all of you to hear.  It’s definitely soaked in something, but I’m pretty sure “the best in metallic tradition in the past two decades” doesn’t smell like shit and be covered in white sticky stuff.  On a side note, it’s very obvious Alxs, the singer, is a chick.  She has the raspy grunts of my girlfriend trying to dislodge a massive turd from her bowels after eating too much cheese.  It’s cute, but not very intimidating.  I’m not picking on the band because the singer is a girl, there are actually a lot of really good extreme metal bands with female members, this just clearly is not one of them.  Check out Estuary or Fuck The Facts if you want to listen to some female fronted extreme metal that’ll grab you by the throat and skull fuck you!

I could go on, but I’ve said more than enough and I’ll let their music speak for itself.  Thank you for the laughs, now kindly smash your instruments and toss the destroyed remains into the fireplace and set them ablaze so they can do no further harm.  To be perfectly honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if a major label signed these guys, they actually are that generic and do suck that fucking bad.

For those of you who are new to death metal, or have simply been living in a cave for the past decade, Nile are a South Carolina-based three-piece death metal outfit who’ve built a cult following for their inventive fusion of blasting technical death metal and non-traditional Middle Eastern influences. In essence, the music of Nile is like playing a blasting death metal album and an ancient Egyptian-themed movie soundtrack in unison.

Despite the band’s popularity, I’ve never been a fan of Nile. I’ve always found they put style over substance with regards to their music. Recent efforts have reminded me very much of late 90s-early 00s Dying Fetus and Cannibal Corpse, not stylistically, but just in the manner that they started out with a successful more simplistic approach and rather than continue creating catchy music, they decided to try to be the fastest, most technical, most blastingly brutal band in the scene, all while completely forgetting how to write a memorable riff, let alone a memorable song or worthwhile album.

On Those Whom The Gods Detest it seems Nile have decided to do something they haven’t done in quite a while and are actually making an effort to write some good material and with moderate success. The album starts out with easily the best Nile song in quite a while, “Kafir!”, which sees an even mix of blasting and shredding and mid-paced chugging. Enough time and effort is put into the song writing and structure to actually make it worthy of several listens, which surprised the shit out of me considering how quickly I tend to zone out while listening to Nile albums.

The solid song writing continues on the following track, “Hittie Dung Incantation”, although this is also where things start to fall apart as the vocal cadence does not match the music in the slightest which takes away from the song quite a bit. They follow up with some pure technical Cannibal Corpse worship to start out “Utterances Of The Crawling Dead”, however don’t go overboard and stick with a relatively more simplistic catchy death metal approach.

The title track starts with non-traditional acoustic guitar playing, before breaking into a mix of high paced technical shredding and slow paced plodding chugging. The faster material is typical of Nile, but the slow paced approach is something I don’t recall hearing on previous efforts, then again I usually fall asleep after 5 minutes. It almost seems like Nile are attempting to bring Incantation-style doom into their material, but simply aren’t capable of pulling it off. “4th Arra Of Dagon” is a continuation of this snail’s paced approach and gets old after about two minutes but continues on for another six and a half minutes.

“Permitting The Noble Dead To Descend To The Underworld” sees Nile returning to their typical blasting/shredding style. This track is followed by a typical Egyptian atmospheric song, which I guess is them giving a reach around to the war god, or something. Following this interlude are the remaining three tracks “Kem Khefa Kheshef”, “The Eye Of Ra” and “Iskander Dhul Kharnon”, all three of which are mid-to-up tempo death metal tracks which don’t flow very well and drone on for far too long.

On the whole, the song writing on Those Whom The Gods Detest is a vast improvement over previous releases through the first three tracks, but quickly deteriorates into some of Nile’s most boring and uninspired material to date shortly thereafter. The guitar playing of Karl Sanders and Dallas Toler-Wade is solid, technically they’re very proficient, but the songwriting is more miss than hit. The vocal performances of both Karl and Dallas are pretty solid as well. The drumming of George Kollias is technically solid, but he relies on his triggers far too much and it often makes his drumming sound too mechanical. He does show some decent range as a drummer by being able to slow things way down and stick to a more simplistic approach on the slower tracks, but generally his drumming tends to distract my attention more than it flows with what Karl and Dallas are doing.

Nile are what they are. Their fans already know what to expect and whether they’ll like it before they even listen to it for the first time. Non-fans, such as myself, may find enjoyment out of the first 16 minutes of material on Those Whom The Gods Detest but will quickly lose interest and not make their way through the final 40. The album isn’t worthless, but it isn’t a must-own either. Nile do a few good things, but not enough to be worth spending money on this release. It was nice to see them attempt to go in a slightly different direction musically, unfortunately, they just aren’t good enough song writers to come up with a full album of quality material. It’s better than I expected, but still typically unsatisfying overall.

Portal isn’t about sounding like an old school death metal clone. They’re not about replicating Necrophagist or Suffocation worship acts. They’re not about overly technical but sterile musicianship nor are they about easy-to-grasp, simple rhythms. Sure, the experienced death metal enthusiast can spot a few individual elements that echo back to the  golden days of Morbid Angel, Gorguts, and early Incantation within the haunted halls of Portal’s nightmarish cacophony, but the total picture of this grotesque caricature of metal is more like what would happen if Goblin became a death/black metal when they decided to write the soundtrack to Suspiria while doing a fuckload of gnarly hallucinogens. Portal plays the world’s most inaccessible, convoluted, bizarre, and horrific death metal whose sole purpose is to drag you kicking and screaming through a purgatory full of the wallowing souls of Holocaust victims, eternally screeching and feasting off the flesh of their late Nazi captors who are condemned to be everlastingly devoured with no satiation in sight. Portal is the stuff Ted Haggard screams out at night in hot sweats when he awakes from his slumber, realizing there is no God but only oblivion.

On this third full length effort Swarth, the guitars wail and drone, convulse and sway, encircling and wrapping around each other like a boa constricting its prey. The riffs don’t move in any fashion resembling an attempt to create pleasant groove or hooks, but are more crafted to make the listener increasingly unsettled and disturbed. At times they purposely try to give birth to a murky atmosphere with every intent on sounding alien to the listener’s sense of musical harmony. The drumming is increasingly ominous, utilizing everything from martial rhythm to chaotic rumbling. The percussion always sounds like the distant war chant of the the creatures from William Hope Hodgson’s The House on the Borderland, pounding in the background as they grow closer and closer to their ever-so-mortal victim.

And The Curator’s vocal performance is as nether-worldly as ever. He doesn’t so much scream or yell, much less guttural growl; no, The Curator uses a vocal technique that sounds more like the dying emissions of a possessed Cossack, speaking in damnable glossolalia that neither resembles words nor gibberish but some unholy, eldritch language from before time immemorial.

To be critical, though, if you’ve heard Portal before you already kinda had an idea how Swarth would play out. But like Immolation, Portal manages to maintain that lofty, yet bizarrely unmatched standard of quality. While there are now bands slowly coming close to what Portal has to offer (such as Mitochondrion), Portal is still very much a within a league of its own. If you can swallow what it throws at you, you’re in for one of the best releases of 2009, alongside Teitanblood and Ulcerate.

Somewhere between my drive from SLC to Orem, I noticed a very familiar groove metal song structure. Somehow- SOMEHOW- Five Finger Death Punch, easily the closest thing I have ever heard to a homosexual quadriplegic orgy, managed to write a second album of musical dick fencing. Yes that’s right: between finger-banging the audience of pasty female juggalos that listen to “metal” and finding new, inventive ways to enlarge their own musical assholes, Five Finger Death Punch wrote new music. And what’s more astounding is that they got regular play on a substantially successful commercial radio station.

This is tantamount to BET giving ICP legitimate recognition. And it’s one of the worst things in the world because with War Is the Answer the band has demonstrated that they learned nothing from their prior groove abortion.

War Is the Answer is roughly 45 minutes of groove metal merged with elements of metalcore and watered down radio rock in the vein of Skillet. The music is simplistic, generic, and about as individual as the dog shit you find festering in the mid-day sun at the dog park. War Is the Answer is nothing more than a DevilDriver clone channeling Pantera and MachineHead with whatever band of the moment is popular at Hot Topic. In fact, this album is so pitifully inept, it makes DevilDriver look like Unquestionable Presence-era Atheist.

Yes, that’s right. Five Finger Death Punch is so shitty and untalented at their basic, run-of-the-mill, scraping-the-bottom-of-the-barrel groove metal that they make DevilDriver sound legitimately good. There is high concept gay porn that features regularly heavier music than this attempt at metal.

The guitars are everything you expect from a poorer DevilDriver album mixed with the rejected riffs from an early Shadows Fall effort. The clean vocals come across like every other Clear Channel hard rock act, and the drumming is damn near lethargic. Then you get songs like “My Own Hell” which have these segues and bridges that make absolutely no sense  and do nothing more than to lengthen the song for another 30 or so seconds.

Then there is the cover of “Bad Company”. Oh god. It doesn’t sound like they’re covering “Bad Company”. It sounds like they’re trying to cover Metallica covering “Turn the Page” and “Whiskey in the Jar” mistaking them for “Bad Company”. While drunk and trying to fist Lars Ulrich’s asshole with Rob Trujillo’s entire arm and Hammett’s whole guitar.

War Is the Answer appeals to only the most white trash, pathetic, impoverished shit stains in the US. It’s an album that wants to ooze charisma and machismo but instead comes off like the second string masochist quarterback at a backwoods high school being caught by the town newspaper fucking an overweight homeless man in the shower of the locker room. And the homeless man decided to lube with icy hot, causing the quarterback to thrust in excruciating agony, screaming sweet gay S&M nothings into the previously empty locker room doorway. It’s the kind of album you’d see in frequent rotations in the cd player of a mudding truck owned by a kid wearing fishnet sleeves, Jinco pants, and sporting that unbearably douche-y full-chin goatee you see on nu metal scene kids so much; you know he probably owns 6 multi-colored dildos for his own “experimental” purposes.

It wants to play with the big boys, and goes out of its way to sound tough (just check out the “threats” in the title song), but in the end War Is the Answer is yet another worthless, neutered offering from Five Finger Death Punch.  I find it amazing that these guys didn’t implode, much less get decent exposure on mainstream radio rock stations. I now hate Utah.

As You Drown is one of the new bands emerging out of Sweden who embrace a heavier, angrier sound and putting the “death” and “metal” back into the term “death metal”, although they also seem to be adding the suffix “core” as well. The quintet’s Metal Blade Records debut, Reflection, isn’t an ode to the early days of Swedish death metal like Entombed, Carnage, Nihilist, Dismember, Unleashed and the like, but more a reflection of the current death metal scene, with heavily triggered drums, raspy barks, chuggy guitar tones and choppy riffs.

The most surprising aspect of Reflection is the production, which is very atypical of Swedish death metal and more akin to Swedish grindcore with the material having a strong Nasum sound to it. The chuggy riffs spread throughout the album’s 34 minute run time are a little unusual, having a sound more closely related to deathcore or metalcore than death metal, but the material is still heavy enough to have an overall death metal sound.

The song writing is okay, although none of the album’s 9 tracks are particularly memorable. The material just lacks any true depth to make me want to listen to this album repeatedly, it’s simply “okay” and not a terrible listen but as soon as I turn it off I can’t remember what I just heard and have to start it up again just to be reminded of how forgettable the album is.

There’s really nothing about As You Drown that will make you stand up and take notice. They play rather tedious, safe and predictable death metal that isn’t very inventive, although they do play it rather well. The Nasum sound is somewhat interesting, but the song writing is so uninspired I doubt anyone will bother listening to Reflection more than a couple of times before sticking it on a shelf to collect dust. This isn’t a horrible album, it’s just not a very interesting one. It’s a decent start, but these guys have a long way to go before they’ll inch their way up beyond mediocrity and stick out from the pack.

Despite being one of the more successful and popular metal acts, and one of Metal Blade Records’ top sellers, I hadn’t bothered to listen to Michigan’s The Black Dahlia Murder prior to reviewing this, their most recent full length offering, 2009’s Deflorate. While I was aware of the band’s existence, I was also very aware of the vast number of horrible bands who have been influenced by, or whose press releases claim to sound very much like, The Black Dahlia Murder. If that many shitty bands “sound like” The Black Dahlia Murder, putting two and two together, I came to the conclusion that The Black Dahlia Murder must really fucking suck, and never bothered subjecting myself to the aural atrocity that must be their music.

It wasn’t until Metal Blade Records put me back on their press list earlier this year that I decided to finally give the band a listen. Since I was wrong about Goatwhore sucking, I figured there might actually be a chance I was wrong about The Black Dahlia Murder too.

Nope.

To be fair, my expectations for The Black Dahlia Murder were extremely low and, honestly, they’re actually a lot better than I was expecting. Based on things I’d heard I was expecting the band to be a direct, and very shit, At The Gates clone, but that wasn’t really what I’d found while listening to Deflorate.

The Black Dahlia Murder play a hybrid style of blackened melodic death metal fused with metalcore. The tracks generally tend to be very aggressive and high tempo, which is pretty much the exact opposite of traditional melodic death metal, whose songs aren’t very abrasive with a mid tempo approach. In fact, the approach The Black Dahlia Murder take is more heavily rooted in metalcore, with an emphasis on chuggy riffs and choppy time patterns. The drumming is especially non-black metal, with Shannon Lucas, with kit triggered to the tits, chop-blasting his way through the entire album.

The riffing of Brian Eschbach and Arsis‘ Ryan Knight alternates between chuggy metalcore riffing, and At The Gates-style gentle melody. It’s an odd combination that actually doesn’t sound out of place, but really isn’t that appealing to my ears. Despite obvious skilled displayed by the two, and bassist Bart Williams, the songwriting itself isn’t very unique or interesting. Take an At The Gates song, take a metalcore song, fuse them together and there you have a The Black Dahlia Murder song. Repeat it 10 times and you’ve got Deflorate.

The vocals are split pretty evenly between black metal screeching and deathcore barking, both of which fucking suck. Deathcore barking sucked 10 years ago and the fact bands still think it’s cool and use it today only helps reinforce my opinion that the youth of today are even stupider and have shittier taste than my generation. That said, the barking does fit the style of music the band plays, the black metal wailing, sounds really out of place and is both annoying and terrible.

While the music of The Black Dahlia Murder is loud, fast, angry and aggressive, it’s not intimidating. It’s like listening to a toddler having a fit. It’s cute and funny and you just feel like mocking them and egging them on, but you know full well if they try to start some shit you can easily knock them to the ground, grab them by the wrists and slap them in the face with their own fists while they weep openly while you mockingly chant “Stop hitting yourself! Stop hitting yourself!”

If you’re aged 14-20 and are very inexperienced in metal, then this is something that will surely appeal to you. If you’re older than 20 and listen to this and enjoy it, you clearly need to be punched in the face for allowing your taste in music to be decided for you by what’s popular among kids not old enough to have hair on their balls. There are thousands of bands out there whose music is infinitely heavier, faster, more aggressive, more technically proficient and violent than this and seek them out. If The Black Dahlia Murder is the most intense thing you listen to, you are a complete failure as a metal fan. Fucking kids these days…

After 25+ years, Slayer can obviously do whatever they want without giving a fuck about what anyone else thinks of them.   Unfortunately, they’ve apparently chosen to completely bore the shit out of anyone within earshot.   I’ve come to that pained conclusion having been a long-time fan of the band.   As a matter of fact, it wasn’t long ago that any rumor of an upcoming Slayer release would be cause for an instant boner – and a possible premature ejaculation, as well.   Honestly, simply because of Reign In Blood, the band could record themselves farting into a glass jar and I’d by the CD, though I’d probably pass on the DVD.   While many Teufel’s Tomb readers may have it, I haven’t met anyone else that has a copy of “Sick Boy” in their Slayer collection like I do.  This band has been a personal favorite of mine for a long, long time.

In fairness, Slayer really doesn’t qualify as an underground band at this point.   But, after repeated listens of World Painted Blood I had an innate need to comment on it, and this was the best forum in which to do so.   Also, who among us hasn’t had some type of connection to Slayer?   While there are varying opinions on the band at this point, there is no denying their overall impact on metal over the years.

So the album, unfortunately, sounds like the band is going through the motions.   As much as I wanted to like it, it sounds like a case of “we don’t really give a fuck.”   Throughout their career, Slayer has consistently offered up some cool riffs, and their playing is as tight as a nun’s asshole.   But the band has clearly run out of ideas, and is simply rehashing music that they’ve put out before now.

There are a few highlights:  the title song is pretty cool until the ultra-stupid half-time section.  “Beauty Through Order” has a creepy feel to it that will grow on you, until the fucking god-awful guitar solo appears, and “Psychopathy Red” shows what the album could have been if some effort had been put into it.

However, there is so much mediocre crap here that a loyal Slayer fan should feel insulted. “Hate Worldwide” and “Public Display Of Dismemberment” are both so mindless that it’s hard to know what the band was thinking when these songs were written.  “Human Strain” actually offers a unique change of pace, but I swear to God I thought it had to be a cover song the first time I heard it.   And, for some reason, the band’s finger picking tendency that appeared on Christ Illusion continues on “Playing With Dolls.”

And that’s even before we get to “Americon.” Seriously, this is not only the worst song ever recorded by Slayer; it may also be one of the worst metal songs ever.   Think about that for a minute.   If you listen closely to the beginning of this song, you can almost hear Dave Lombardo playing a fucking cowbell.   Never in my life did I think the day would come when a Slayer song could be so fucking bad.  Coupled with a Kirk Hammett-inspired wah pedal fetish and stupid fucking juvenile lyrics – “it’s all about the motherfucking oil” oh, really, Kerry? thanks for that bit of intellectual insight – this song is a complete embarrassment to the band’s career.   I’m listening to this crap as I type this and getting more and more pissed off by the minute.   Can you imagine this garbage being included on Reign In Blood?

In recent interviews, the band members have hinted that they may be ready to retire in a few years.   All I can say is, that time has now arrived.  No question, Slayer’s contribution to metal is legendary.   But at this rate, their next album should be titled “God Help Us All.”

Without question, the band has some serious chops.   Drummer Mario Mercurio, in particular, sounds like a human drum machine.   His ability to maintain some serious tempos is definitely impressive.   Likewise, guitarist Giulio Moschini can certainly play.   Everything he does is well executed and doesn’t let up for a minute.

The drawback to this album is the lack of variance among the songs.    Each song is pretty much about the same tempo, while sharing the same vocal phrasings.   Vocalist Francesco Paoli has the death metal growl down pat, but he doesn’t really vary his delivery very much.   As a matter of fact, if a few classical music samplings were added this would fit in with Paoli’s Fleshgod Apocolypse quite nicely.

The songs never really develop into anything memorable.   Even after repeated listens, it has been difficult to differentiate the songs, as everything blends together.   Shuffle this release on your iPod, and it would pretty much sound the same as if you played it straight through on the CD.

By way of comparison, the recent new releases by Asphyx and Blood Red Throne contain some rhythms that stick in your mind, or to use one of Teufel’s measures, will get your foot tapping.    The Vile Conception is a well-performed collection of brutal death metal that has been a welcome addition to the Piledriver metal library.   At the same time, it is not something that screams “play me” each time I turn on the stereo.  Fans of technical death metal will enjoy it, but it won’t go down as a classic.

Flayed Disciple is one of those rare exceptions.   I caught the track “Drawn Viscera” on a recent Terrorizer compilation and thought it was pretty good.   Good enough that after a few listens, I found the Flayed Disciple MySpace page and ordered their 5-track EP to hear what else they have going on.

Flayed Disciple is a death/grind metal band from Great Britain that plays in the vein of their country mates Porkfarm, which have also become a Piledriver favorite this year.   While not quite as spastic as Porkfarm, they offer a nice combination of death metal with a bit of grind throughout the songs.   Vocalist Tim “Death Grindin’ Chuggin’” Whyte will definitely catch your attention with his low gutturals and high pitched shrieks.   The variety of the vocals is a strength, as the band is able to avoid sounding sterile and stiff.   There are some nice layers in the songwriting and the rhythms that begin some of the songs progress nicely, particularly on the title track and “Walking Dead Flesh.”

The musicianship of guitarists Jon Whitfield and Thurston Howe (no, not the guy from Gilligan’s Island), drummer Phil Tolfree, and bassist Nathan Stevens is solid.   While the guitar solos are standard fare and the track “Dead Disfigured Babies” falls into the annoying trend of raising the rhythm by a whole step, there’s not much about which to complain.  Flayed Disciple are playing some great stuff, and I’ll be looking forward to hearing more from them.   Check them out if you can.

That opinion changed the day I received a copy of Behemoth’s Metal Blade Records debut EP Ezkaton in my post office box and decided to give them a listen. When I tossed the disc in I fully expected to be bored to tears and write a scathing review, but that all changed when I first heard “Chant for Ezkaton 2000 e.v.”, a re-recording of “Chant for Eschaton 2000” from 1999’s Satanica. Having never heard the original I had no idea what to expect, but I certainly did not expect the catchy high paced blackened death metal that screamed from my speakers. Then I listened to the track again. And again. And again. And again. By the time I wrote the review of the album I’d already listened to that single track more than 50 times and the album as a whole more than 20 times. Needless to say, I was impressed and looking forward to more.

Luckily, I didn’t have to wait long, as a mere 9 months after the release of Ezkaton, Behemoth unleashed Evangelion, the band’s ninth full length studio effort in their lengthy 18 year existence. Evangelion picks up right where Ezkaton left off as Behemoth unleash 9 tracks of up tempo melodic blasting blackened death metal splayed out over 42 minutes, with the band’s clearest production to date, courtesy of the renown Colin Richardson. The effort is filled with choppy riffs, catchy melodies, pummeling blasts and the raspy barks of front man Nergal.

On previous efforts Behemoth have occasionally sounded a little loose, but on Evangelion Behemoth are tighter than a pair of extra small spandex bicycle shorts on my bulging girthy package. Technically this may be Behemoth’s sharpest studio effort to date with no obvious flaws and a very fluid performance by all four musicians. In some ways the group have simplified their sound, abandoning much of the theatrics prevalent on prior efforts, focusing more on letting the music speak for itself.

Despite having his kit triggered to shit, Zbigniew Prominski, unlike many death metal drummers who use a triggered kit, doesn’t rely solely on relentless blasts and has proven himself to be a highly capable drummer with a good ability of mixing up rhythms. On so many death metal albums the drummer seems to settle into one specific performance style and sticks to it throughout, but Prominski is able to blast like a maniac when needed, slow it down to a gentle crawl when needed and plays a surprisingly varied percussive assault.

The riffing and songwriting of Nergal and studio musician Patryk Sztyber of Nomad and Vesania is top notch. Both are very capable guitarists and combined have created a new layer of depth to the band’s sound with their sharp technical shredding, catchy melodic segments and entertaining trade-off solos spaced throughout the release. Backed by the powerful rumbling bass of Tomasz Wróblewski, and a much clearer and more natural vocal tone for Nergal and this quartet delivers some of the most entertaining and varied death metal released this year.

From beginning to end it’s clear Behemoth have taken a big step forward from being just a mere face in the crowd to one of the frontrunners in the genre. While Evangelion is clearly not as vicious and the band’s earliest studio efforts, it is by far their most varied, best produced and best written.

2 years ago, I couldn’t give two farts about Behemoth, but with the release of Evangelion and Ezkaton, I’m a converted fan and eager for more. While I won’t go as far as to say Evangelion is worthy of being regarded as a classic, it is a damn fine release and will remain in rotation for quite some time to come. Definitely a worthwhile purchase, even if the band does still dress like a bunch of World of Warcraft nerds who take their hobby far too seriously.  They look like gay He-Man villains in all of their press photos, what the fuck is up with that?

After hearing their first album, When Landscapes Bled Backwards, I felt that they were an imminent threat to the throne of experimental death metal royalty.  The tones, song writing, and overall feel was unique and worthy of praise.  Although their latest delivers killer material, the band has not stepped up in my opinion.  This album is right in between excellence and the “worth a few spins” category.  I have been struggling with the appropriate rating for a couple months.  The fact that I have a life is now open for debate I guess.

The only big change to the band on its sophomore effort was that heavyweight drummer Kollias departed.  If that sounds unsettling, I don’t blame you.  He is certainly one of the best metal drummers of all-time.  His replacement, Alex Zachos, is great in his own right.  He isn’t Kollias, but he is much better than the average death metal drummer.  His style is similar to Kollias, but his overall musicianship isn’t quite up to championship standards.

The 6 and 5-string attack are very distinctive in approach and tone.  As I mentioned in my review of their first album, once you hear a few notes, separating their sound from the herd is simple.  You have to appreciate a band that is, at least, distinctive.  The bass tone sounds like there are hints of chorus, compression, and a dusting of reverb.  It’s hard to pin those tonal colors down, but that is the way it sounds to me.  The guitarist and vocalist, George Antipatis, relinquishes only the most cold and angular deliveries.  He is a truly skilled front man.  His vocals are grizzly and toeing the line between intelligibility and its opposite.  Overall, the band has continued down the same path.  It basically boils down to semi-technical death metal with some experimental and industrial flavors.

The synthy sounds and drum pads are hitting on mostly industrialesque flavors.  They are hit or miss.  The opening to the album has some drum pads triggering what sounds like the intro to some gay-ass techno or house music.  After that, the first track just feels “worthwhile”.    Don’t forget about the clean “jazzy” bits that all the technical bands want to throw in these days.  Sickening Horror will let your ass have that shit about one minute into the first song.  It sounds cool, but it’s so played out at this point.  I’m waiting for a death metal band to incorporate some reggae or funk just to get off the beaten path.

About half the songs on this album are excellent, the others just feel like a sophomore cliche.  The song writing shows that they can be on a superior level, but it just isn’t held at a consistent level.  The coldness, the hookiness, and the occasional grooves are all there in doses.  Track two, The Universe Within, gives you just that.  There is even a thrashy bit that cues a very short, but killer, solo.  As the track progresses, the intro riffs mutate into slower and more sinister incarnations.  There is a torch somewhere just slightly out of their collective grasp.

There are no bands that come to my mind as an easy comparison.  I won’t even try to force any venn diagrams here.  These guys have a sound all their own.  The synth stuff adds greatly to this equation, but on this album it just felt unneeded 50% of the time.  I’m all for experimentation when the extra ingredients add something.  I was left scratching my head on a couple too many extra-curricular synth/triggered moments.  A few of the songs, including the first track, just don’t have me nodding and thrashing as much as I would like.  Even though I like their first album better, this is still very solid.  The metal world needs more bands like Sickening Horror.  Sell some of your stupid DVDs and pony up for a worthwhile ride if you’re done watching Independence Day and all that other bullshit you call entertainment.

What really boggles the mind is that The Ruins of Beverast is ONE GUY. I have tried to write classical music and various compositions for years, and to achieve what this album achieves is quite a feat. Foulest Semen Of A Sheltered Elite is sheer genius. It is easily THE best album I’ve heard in over 10 years. It combines droning, doom/black guitar passages, samples, clear vocals, and an atmosphere almost unrivaled in the current metal scene. The growls and screams on this recording are powerful to say the least, and the clear vocals are more than tolerable; they add a much-needed diversity to the album’s sound.

I’m including one of the songs in this review to give you a glimpse of what you are in for when you hear this. It’s called “Mount Sinai Moloch” and it’s a fucking monster! By the way, at the end of this track, the clear vocals are saying: “In profane and moribund solitude, thou shall vegetate.” Haha! That’s fucking brilliant! If you don’t get it by the riff at 4:21 into the song, just turn it off, slap on any various grind CD and enjoy listening to some 1-minute songs with about as much depth as a puddle… and go fuck yourself, too, lover-boy.

One thing I noticed about this recording is I can’t remember the last time I haven’t had to adjust the EQ on my music player. The album is recorded flawlessly. Unarguably the best release of 2009. Fuck that, the best release of the past few years, easily. This stuff makes me want to stop writing and playing music. I can’t fathom competing with this kind of artistic genius. Absolutely essential.

Yesterday’s arrival was none other than Grindvirus, the brand new release by Polish grindmeisters Squash Bowels.   Squash Bowels have been around since 1994 playing a consistent, if formulatic style of grind.   Upon giving the CD its first play, my expectations were a bit tempered.   This is because even though I enjoyed both No Mercy and The MassRotting-The Mass Sickening by these guys, I found both albums to be a bit lacking in variety.  While they were both brutal and intense, I thought most of the songs sounded too similar and tended to get redundant quickly.

Well – stop the presses, back the truck up, hold your horses, and any other fucking cliché you can use.   Because this CD, as they say, changes everything.   As this review is being typed, the CD is on its’ 8th play in about 24 hours.  Forget potential, Squash Bowels has put it all together as far as I am concerned.

The band has gone through some changes, and all for the better.   New guitarist Andy plays with a fluidity that I found lacking in previous efforts.    Instead of simply pummeling you with a buzz-saw style approach, Andy throws some awesome fucking riffs on “Sheep Dag,” “Shit Oneself,” (great title, by the way) and “Child Victims.” Drummer Marius comes to life as well, adding some creative rhythms to “Bacterial Fertliser” and the gruntstramental “D.I.” One of my gripes with No Mercy was the lack of variance in the drumming.   That is definitely not the case here.    The band seems more willing to throw in some tempo changes periodically, which allows the songs to develop and progress.  Because the songwriting is better, the tempo changes don’t take away from the intensity of the CD one bit.

Finally, we have remaining member Arthur on bass and vocals.   Arthur is in fine form here, offering both manic screeches and low guttural vocals throughout the disc.   With the improved musicianship, the vocals stand out more and fit the songs perfectly.    The band maintains their sense of humor with titles like “Don’t Look A Gift Horse In The Ass” and “Nose-Lunger” (yum!).

In the few months that I’ve contributed to Teufel’s Tomb, I have yet to submit a review that I deemed an Essential buy.   Well, you can consider that cherry popped in a big way.    As always some may disagree with that assessment, but this is my fucking review not yours.    Feel free to go write your own review and have your mom tape it to the fridge if you want.   I’m sure she’ll be proud of you.   For the rest of you, stop whatever it is you’re doing right now and go get this fucking album.

I am very impressed by the production on this album.  It has the clarity and punch that I don’t always have to have, but for Vomit The Soul’s style of metal it fits together like my hand and cock.  This is the way new school death metal should sound.  With the sickest of execution these Italian’s blend blasting, breakdowns, mid-pacing, grunts, squeals, growls, and just about anything else you could expect from a modern sounding death metal band.  They are not technical on the whole, but there are shades.  Basically, these dudes have exercised great taste.  Some may have a problem with the number of breakdowns.  To you I say, “Suffocation” and “Fuck off.”

Apostles of Inexpression is one of those rare albums that can hold a spot on my little bitch of an ipod (2GB) for months while I’m constantly updating it with new shit almost daily (I have summers off).  This album is also a rarity in that it makes me feel like dancing like a black man.  The last time this happened was when I was first listening to Benighted’s Icon.  I would have been doing the Kid N’ Play kick-step had another like-minded individual been in the vicinity.  The way Vomit The Soul combine so many elements so tastefully doesn’t come along too often.  Unless you only listen to “real” death metal, you might want to get with this ASAP.

This self-produced effort at Offbeat Studios treads down the same beaten path that this gaggle of Swedes has treaded down in previous outings. It’s big, bold and bloody. From the brief into that fuck-starts “Necronomics” and kicks this thing into high gear, it’s clear that General Surgery does not plan on settling down or headed in the direction of Necrotisism – Descanting the Insalubrious in the same was that fellow Carcass loving one-nutters Exhumed did with their 2003 Anatomy is Destiny album. This is a good thing and while fickle fucks who demand progress and diversity will tear up that this doesn’t sound like a 3rd rate Arch Enemy band, those who enjoy a brutal fusion of death metal and gore grind will continue to revere General Surgery as a band who have always understood their calling.

Goddamn, that drum roll on “Final Excarnation” is awesome. As is the entire drum production. A fat fucking snare blasting, with toms that sound like the axe embedding itself into the trunk of the last tree I chopped down and cymbals that splash entrails soaking with piss that grip my mind like a deer in headlights. The majority of the stench wafting through the speakers is offered up is provided by the chainsaw roars of the dual axe attack churned and spit out by OG member of General Surgery, Dr. Carlsson as well as co-conspirator, Dr. Wallin

The departure of a vocalist is a tricky thing to manage well. Take a look at what happened to fucking Journey when Steve Perry wrecked his hop and could no longer go on as lead singer. Has anyone ever heard any of the revolving cast of people hired to cover for him in the past twelve years? No you have not. I think that newcomer Dr. Sahlström offers a vocal performance that is raspier than his predecessor, Dr. McWilliams. But with the familiar gore soaked back ups, it turns out that Dr Sahlström ends up fitting into the mold very nicely. It’s a transition that went smoother than I thought it might.

It’s pretty simple folks. Corpus in Extremis is a dismembered fifteen track casket of grotesqueries, exhumed for a back alley autopsy. This sick platter flies off a cliff in a black hearse kissing its own anus the whole time and doesn’t let up. It is a fine example of what is right about the state of gory grindcore in 2009. Get this damn album and enjoy life without being an idiot about it.

Of course, nothing lasts forever and even the best stumble.

BUT NOT YET MOTHERFUCKERS!!! LASSE IS GONNA MAKE YOU HIS BITCH!!!!

That last sentence is pretty much Claws in a nutshell. Eschewing the death/doom and early Earache worship of Lasse’s past 3 Razorback offerings, Claws is a completely one-man project dedicated to the forgotten sounds of Sweden’s Crematory and Finland’s Abhorrence. Now, there’s only 2 reactions to that:

1) “Who are those guys?” – GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE AND GO DEMO DIGGING ASSHOLE!

2) “Whoa. That… is… fucking… AWESOME!” – I love you. Will you let me lick you? Please let me lick you.

Yeah, needless to say the prospect of an album that captures those 2 bands’ essences is pretty much a dream project. And Absorbed in the Nethervoid more or less captures this dark, dirty, and dreary essence. It possesses both bands’ murky, extreme riffing and sense of melody with a bit of Abhorrence’s atmosphere. And while it’s a considerably cleaner production, Absorbed in the Nethervoid can still recreate the sense of dark brutality and foreboding dread that was present in both bands’ demo offerings and it still has that thick, fuzzy production sound that death metal enthusiasts have come to know and love.

What’s even more impressive is that everything on here was entirely handled by Lasse: bass, guitars, drums, and vocals. Granted, one-man bands aren’t at all unheard of and quite many put out excellent releases, but Claws has a feeling of authenticity that’s not usually present on these one-man offerings. It captures everything morbid, heavy, and bleak about Scandinavian death metal’s most elite acts, and does it with a flair that would make you think it was created by a full 4-piece sitting inside some decrepit studio in 1993.

This isn’t to say that Claws isn’t without some of Lasse’s trademark techniques. The vocal approach hasn’t changed much from his other Razorback projects and some of Lasse’s guitar melodies have a distinctive Hooded Menace ring here or there, but this gives Absorbed in the Nethervoid a welcome feeling of familiarity for fans of Lasse’s past bands who are just breaking into the record.

Absorbed in the Nethervoid is easily my most anticipated Razorback Record of 2009, and I’m not disappointed. Claws delivers a much needed revival of a classic Scandinavian style, and delivers a truly mandatory death metal album. Grab this fucker.

Oh, and if Crematory made you think “German” please take a set of dull razors and proceed to de-glove the skin of your penis. There is only one true Crematory, and it ain’t German.

So unfortunately, this 3-way will require you to keep your pants on and focus on the 2007 three way split Altar Of The Old Skulls by Deathevokation, Kingdom, and Mandatory. However, in the spirit of all things Male, we’ll equate the performances of these bands to our imaginary orgy.   And, if you decide you don’t want to keep your pants on, I really don’t want to know the details.

We start off with fucking Deathevokation – see how this can work?   Deathevokation is the classic girl that you love to get naked with.   Well-executed and sophisticated with enough energy to keep you excited, Deathevokation offers 5 tracks of quality death metal.   The band plays crushing riffs that alternate nicely with some more dynamic interludes. The songs build to a peak, kind of like the girl next door who takes a little time to get warmed up but is definitely worth the ride.   The vocals of Götz Vogelsang have a bit of an Amon Amarth feel to them at times, which is a good thing.   This is old school death metal played with intensity but also with variation.   Deathevokation is the girl that you’d fuck again and again and actually wouldn’t mind having a relationship with.   With only 5 songs, my only minor complaint is I wish there were a few more tracks by these guys.

Next up from Germany, we have Mandatory. Mandatory happens to be the fat chick that you’ll take home and fuck but never admit to your friends that you’ve done so.   You’ll want her to leave as soon as the first crack of sunlight comes through the window in the morning.   While not terrible, the performance in comparison to Deathevokation and Kingdom sounds sloppy and directionless.   The vocals of Stefan Steinhaus come across as flat and are actually even annoying at times.  The guitar lines are pretty standard and uninspiring. Like the fat chick you’ve taken home, Mandatory will give you some short-term pleasure – it’s listenable, after all – but it’s pretty unmemorable and will leave you wanting something a bit more substantial.

Last is Poland’s Kingdom, who is completely at the other end of the scale.   This is  the girl at the end of the bar that you want to take home but probably never will.   She’s wild, exciting, and will probably let you have your way with her without hesitation.   With a style from vocalist Lewan that shifts from low gutturals to insanely manic high-pitched shrieks without notice, Kingdom is the girl that spits your cock out of her mouth just long enough to scream “now put it in my ass!” at the top of her lungs.   Or, if you’re lucky – vice versa. With blast beats, mid-paced riffs and some cool song titles (“Arrival Of The Goat,” “Final Carnage Of Worms”) their performance is unpredictable and just plain fun to listen to.

So there you have it – the Piledriver musical 3-way.   While not an instant classic, the album overall is definitely a good listen and worth picking up if you like old-style death metal, and really – who the fuck doesn’t???