Category Archives: Black Metal

Satanik Goat Ritual/Vomit Angel “Cacodemon” split 7″, Blasphemous Arts (2019)

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Oggi il Dottor Marciume ascolta: Satanik Goat Ritual/Vomit Angel “Cacodemon” split 7″, breathless demonic Black Metal vs ugly and metallic Grindcore, Blasphemous Arts (2019)

What do you get when you assemble rotting shit expelled from Morbosidad and Sadogoat/Sadomator? A hell of a good 7″ I can guarantee with a certificate of sickness.
The care taken to release this vinyl is vibrant, it comes with a poster and insert other than a black innersleeve, and the cover itself is a piece of art by none other than Paolo Girardi this time in b/w, I personally love the fact that the art has some reminiscence of old 70’s horror comics and the layout is genuinely simple. The only thing I don’t like is the color on the logos, they could have gone entirely black and white and the final result would have been twice as good, two colors is way too much for the music of Satanas.

Other than that, Satanik Goat Ritual is a monstrously sick creation of grinding southern blasphemy, they have the choking, hyper-saturated sound that locks you in one-inch face to face eye contact with the demons of the Abyss. They have such a suffocating sound that when you turn to Vomit Angel they get a little displaced. I have the whole discography of Sadogoat since day one, but never managed to hear this band before, they sound like a more punkish incarnation but with rotting influences of early grindcore like Gut or Gonkulator, and that vaguely garage atmosphere of late ’80s protodeath metal bands (think of the earlier Nihilist) I am not entirely sold to be honest, they’re certainly raw and I appreciate the uncontrolled attitude but there is some extra alcoholic fun I prefer not to have in my tea.
All in all the idea of combining the bands was excellent anyway.

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Chaosbaphomet “The Black Communion” 7″, Under the Sign of Garazel 2012

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Oggi il Dottor Marciume ascolta: Chaosbaphomet “The Black Communion” 7″, average greek-sounding Black Metal from Greece with the guy from Unholy Archangel,
Under the Sign of Garazel 2012.

Under the Sign of Garazel is a Polish label specializing in average Black Metal and its mediocre variants, including this diluted greek Black Metal project that despite the classy folding (ultraglossy as usual) 7″ cover doesn’t really push anything as dismal as its 1990 countrymates. The two songs are not entirely bad, being mostly regular Black Metal with a tinge of that special greek obscurity. The idea of having double vocals would have been interesting if neither sucked this bad, they sound like the Simpsons aunties complaining about coffee. I appreciate the idea of keeping it minimal and the Hellenic tinge is certainly here to some extent but hardly worth buying it on vinyl like I did.

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Morbid Sacrifice, 2019 Cursed

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Oggi il Dottor Marciume ascolta: Morbid Sacrifice, decent basic Black Metal from Italy, Cursed recordings 2019.
Lim. to 66.

Decorously obscure, almost punklike at times, with cavernous vocals and an excessive pinch of mid tempos that gets sleepy instead of hypnotic. They recently released a full-length that sounds killer when it doesn’t slow down (they do it very poorly), albeit with a logo that has been hideously ravaged by 1999 Photoshop bevel. Could be paired with porter beer and Demonomancy and nobody would complain.
As a side note, this is probably the only good stuff the label released, the rest being Black Oath (fag hippie music) and other mediocre generic black metal.

EBOLA (Ita): “You Know” tape Ep

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Argh, this is one of those nightmare cases when I don’t really have an idea on how to store a  record. I got this seemingly unknown Cd-r together with a tape cover, so I could either use a deck and copy the songs on a standard tape or store the CD-r as it is in the inextricable forest of CD-r and random formats on my shelf. In any case, I probably lost the envelope and accompanying sheet so I have no clue who sent me, nor any extra details. I can only presume the band is Italian as there is an address of an Italian distro added by hand on the envelope. Who knows. But. It was in the big pile of stuff to review so regardless how it fell there, it deserves at least a note.

This band plays an hybrid of noisecore and black metal, in particolar I’d say the first 3 tracks are definitely more noisy and the latest one more on the traditional side, but nevertheless you can say it’s the same band all the time. The first songs are just a mix of super-distorted cyclical raw noise without any sort of melody, yet if you listen with some attention you can hear there is some structure in the background. I am not much into these screams but I think they complement decently with this raw mass of corroded chords, especially because they tend to disappear in the background. The good thing about the vocals is they sometime turn into bellows of agony, as if someone is being grinded into some machinery. I won’t rate this tape as mandatory, but it’s certainly better than most of the “plastic lame and weak” black metal of today.

 

IMPRECATION (USA): “Sigil Of Baphomet” Ep 7″ 1993 Drowned

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Let’s open the weekly “flashback” review with one of my favorite Eps. I have heard often the name of Imprecation of late and every time I hear it this 7″ immediately comes to mind. Well there are several things that make this one of my favorite records, first and foremost the concept, Black Metal. When I speak of Black Metal i don’t speak about granny vocals and buzzing guitars, I speak of Black Metal as a conceptual thing, much like what the call today “the first wave” when being a Black Metal had nothing to do with the sound. Imprecation had its roots profoundly dug into the occult, with added elements of Lovecraftian horror in the best early Morbid Angel way, plus an added touch of gore, which is just something I am obsessed with and always live in an extreme metal band.

“Sigil Of Baphomet” is a Drowned Records release, and we basically all know how Drowned was possibly one of the best labels around before 1993 in terms of both sound and aesthetics. How all this was progressively lost with Repulse and totally canceled in Xtreem is still a matter of speculation, but for sure Drowned is in my top 10 personal best labels of all time, from the earlier compilation tapes (might be reviewing them one day) up to records like Purtenance, Demigod or Rottrevore. Everything in this label reeked of decrepit Death Metal and old books, and even the artwork was always in line with the concept that some labels try to recapture today (hey, I am not blaming anybody here, I am one of those eheh!).

In particular this 7″ had this deep red and black print which was an exact expression of the sound, claustrophobic and eerie at the same time. It came with an insert too, with lyrics, band pics and the so incredibly useful thank list that was our main source of information on the new bands to check out.

I personally find this Ep also has the best tracks that this band ever recorded, way darker and heavier and suffocating than the demo they recorded right before, and the newer tracks they recorded in 1994 found in the later classic Repulse compilation “Theurgia Goetia Summa”. The sound here is absolutely nothing short of frightening, a real trip to an hell of dismembered limbs and rivers of gore regurgitated by an horde of cloven-hooved demons. Try to follow the unrelenting slow crunch of the songs reading the lyrics and you find yourself entangled in a dimension of blood red horror. Incantation Eps or “Onward To Golgotha” days are definitely the first albums you can relate this record to, but there is something that keeps it on a different track. I find Imprecation a little bit more brutal, and straight in your face in their approach compared to early Incantation (which, honestly, remain unparalleled in style). i personally like this garage, muffled sound because it really brings me to a dungeon where corpses are hung to hooks ready for being sacrificed to some dark entity. Not a lot more to say, this is an all time classic in my favorite format that is 7″ vinyl, so I know this would be one of the ones I will keep if I had to choose among the best in my collection.

MORTORIUM (Ita): “Whore of the Liar” demo Cd-r 2008 s/p

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I knew I was hearing right even beneath the folds of inexperience when I first heard Mortorium. The first demo (review soon, damn! I still need to review the first one and I already got the second ahah, that’s what makes you understand how slow you have become) was not one of face paling blasphemy, but things have improved ten times so far.

They sadly give up to some mellow Black Metal clichès at times (in the second half of “Bleeding Wounds” – I have to skip the track becouse I cannot stand it), but mostly they’re good at composing brutal Black Metal with throat ripping roaring vocals. The singer knows his due, sometimes reminds me of Funeral Mist‘s Arioch (now Marduk I think, not sure) , in which the vocal range is broad, but always evil. You get 12 minutes in all on this demo, but the material is pretty intense, I am quite happy we have bands like this in Italy after all the incredible mass of shit I had to hear in the ’90’s (and sadly today still going strong with all that shit about witches and trolls). Bands like this and Mefitic or The Krushers make me hope for a better future of burned down churches and Satan-centered Black Metal. Mortorium plays straight ahead Black Metal with raw structures, slightly Swedish riffing and a good balance of South American madness..

I am not a fan of war imagery, so I’ll skip comments on the machine gun in the back. But the rest of the demo follows the big principles of “good demo design”: no advanced Photoshop tricks, just a b/w cover with gothic fonts and a picture of Padre Pio (which is the whore in question) with an upside down cross on his forehead, ahah!

Cut the second song at 1.50 and we’d have a killer demo!

PROFANATICA (USA/Ny): “Profanatitas De Domonatia” Lp Cd 2008 Hell’s Headbangers

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I decided to exhume an old review from the previous website (remember you can access all the old reviews by clicking the “old reviews” link in the sidebar) just for the occasion. Like I used to say, Profanatica was one of my favorite Black Metal bands, to receive their new album is a fucking event. The question is: will this reunion work? Or we’ve just been lucky with Archgoat?

In short, I will tell you that this is really one of the top 5 Black Metal albums of the year. Ask someone with a brain what Black Metal is and you’ll get similar answers. It has to be misanthropic, alienating, mesmerizing, insane, demonical, inhuman. All these elements are still present and strong in Profanatica‘s sound, goddamnit! And in a perfect balance as well. This is one of the bands that paved the genre and they still do it brilliantly. You don’t get the evocative ballads of Burzum or the merry sing along riffs of Watain here: just unrefined, raw Black Metal force, a sticky black fluid that absorbs life and happiness flows out of the stereo once you put “Profanatitas…” on the turntable. This is also one of the best releases from Hell’s Headbangers so far too, it was a cool relief to hear that some bands actually withstand the test of time so well.

Just like it should be for real Black Metal, there are no fancy evolutions here: everything is stripped to the absolute minimal – drums are just a constant droning sound in the background, an almost tribal hypnotic beating. The riffs have the crushing, slow force that pressed nails in jesus’s hands and feet. The vocals a lacerating lament, gargling with hateful spite for living things. I cannot think of a better expression of good old fashioned BlackMetal. You can almost figure yourself in the middle of a bestial orgy, surrounded by the smell of sulfur and brimstone, black robed priests with leper gnawing human bones and virgins fucking with goats and dogs. This is definitely a must-fucking-have album.

The artwork is cool but the booklet is a little bare, just folded cardboard. Thinking about it a second time, it fits the release – but I’ll personally go for the vinyl. Get the 12″ version if you find it, its force is doubled on old school vinyl with all the pops and crackling. Again, absolutely a must have.