RAICES TORCIDAS (Slv): “Digital Metal Flesh” Lp Cd 2007 American Line

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100892.jpgEven admitting that science fiction is not my favorite metal topic (it wasn’t even with Nocturnus or Hawkwind), I must say this Cd comes in a surprisingly deluxe format. Sci-fi is a strong concept here: futuristic post apocalyptic machine wars a la The Terminator appera on lyrics, cover, layout and all. The package contains a double disc that includes a DVD containing a detailed footage on the recording of the album. A huge folding digipack with thick glossy booklet and slick digital art: things have been done seriously here, with tons of computer graphics and a very accurate layout. I still prefer black and white, but things here have been done quite well. I just plainly don’t like computer graphics, be it Lust of Decay or Putrid Pile.

I had to make some research on the band, whose name I never heard of before. Raices Torcidas is from El Salvador, and comprises some members that also swapped lines with Kabak as well (great band – this one I knew!). I was surprised to read that this is their THIRD full-length, I must be very ignorant on the El Salvador metal scene.

I was pretty afraid that with all this advanced technological stuff all over and the terrible opening aggro riff I was in for some Fear Factory-like modern metal monstrosity. Well, I was quite wrong. Their sound is not sick or grisly but they play pretty good, decent Brutal Death anyway, with an excellent if uneven production, swine vocals, distorted guitar and all the rest. This band sounds pro and powerful, with tons of those tremolo riffing so dear to late Cannibal Corpse, Putrilage and Enthrallment. I liked much their multi-layered vocal approach, even though in the end we’re not listening to anything impossibly brutal or memorable. Good and honest Brooootal Death Metal of new generation but played with passion. Good and very focused in the end. Something to appreciate.

But I still prefer gore.

GOSPEL OF THE HORNS (Aus): “Realm of the Damned” Lp Cd 2007 Invictus

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Gospel of the HornsI am not sure why sometimes my tastes just change from one year to the other. I used to consider Gospel of the Horns a good band, with a retro thrash touch which was simple but honest. The songs on this album however have managed to bore me heavily even before reaching the 20th minute. The sound is deliciously “Celtic Frosted” and just none of the guitar riffs here is a let downer. Yet something is definitely missing, and that’s the total lack of bursting rage… it’s like a perennial intro that never ends, a kind of constant mid tempo that erode me. Surely you can headbang at this stuff, thanks to choruses and epic riffing and all the classic Asutralian stuff. Yet the total lack of bestiality is heavy here.

Once upon a time I used to pass through the whole discography of a band before hearing a new album, and I admit I didn’t do it this time, but I have the strong impression that the previous releases were a bit rawer and heavier than this one. Sometimes this “Realm..” just sounds like plain Metal without the heaviness, and that’s not something I dig much in a band. Thrashing riffs abound, but none of these have the same intensity of the real ones from the good old eighties. If you want good Thrash Metal get “Power and Pain” by Whiplash, not a band from 2008. And too bad the vocals are just plain bad. Raspy but quite weak.
Best thing on the whole release must be the booklet: the cover art is inspiring and the lyrics are just as powerful. Excellent work has been made by the studio who worked on the layout. This looks damn professional. Not my kind of Metal, even if not disastrous. Sufficient to stir some attention here and there if you ask me. Definitely didn’t deserve an Lp version, or such popularity – though.

SPEARHEAD (Eng): “Deathless Steel Command” Lp Cd 2006 Invictus

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SpearheadI want to set things straight from the beginning: my opinion on this record is sandwiched somewhere between “terrible” and “mediocre”. One of the weirdest thing on this album is that the majority of these guitar riffs seem just pointless. Some are just variation of a single one in different speeds. Only the solos are maybe not that bad. The production too, is not raw, (one thing I would highly appreciate) but just completely unbalanced – bass lines disappear and vocals get completely splattered in this forceless “mid-range only” guitar sound. The worse thing of all is the vocals, completely devoid of strength and pressure, just like a flaccid, pierced tire. I honestly don’t understand why someone could possibly consider this album “classic”, “violent”, “a perfect blend of thrash and black metal”, or riminiscent of Bolt Thrower (I have read all of these comments). There is even a terrible Norwegian theme on the song “The Glorious Dead” which just made my head shook all the time. I was expecting something powerful in the vein of Allfather or Axis of Advance, or even some more classic Australian-like stuff like Destroyer 666, but instead I got my hands of nothing but “War Metal” hype. It’s this “we’re all brothers of denim and million colored patches” scene which I just find hard to understand. These songs are plainly unmemorable, and just make you think “why should I listen to this while I have a million obscure Thrash Metal records from the eighties just out there to be listened and finally get all the powerful Metal sound tat bands like this want to recreate? No really, I pass this on. Too bad becouse there are some blasts and some good parts, but all these mid tempos and gay vocals just kill all the good that could be said. The work behind the lyrics is interesting – though: one big concept on war that blends with a superb cover and brilliant b/w layout work, one of the best I have seen in grayscale actually. What i don’t understand is how can evoke images of war desolation and bombardments by imitating Gargamel’s vocals. Maybe the war they’re talking about is between smurfs tribes?

Deathless Steel Command

PROCLAMATION (Spa): “Messiah of Darkness and Impurity” Lp Cd 2007

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ProclamationProclamation‘s “Messiah of Darkness and Impurity” is, on my part, one of the most anticipated album of 2008. Of all the bands belonging to the recently mutated (in better – I mean) Black Metal scene, they stand aside like clumps of rotting flesh hanging from the spear wound upon christ’s chest. Proclamation definitely has a couple of elements which I personally consider to be most representative of what REAL Black Metal should sound. The sound on this album is raw, hypnotic, almost tribal. They capture in the best of ways all the droning trance-like intensity and blood red strength of Von, in a sulphuric concoction which is undoubtedly Theirs. For years I wondered what was the matter with thin childish vocals in Black Metal, and here I am proven right – they have always been pointless. Proclamation‘s vocals are a balanced mix of demoniac runts, bestial roars and enraptured enchantments of Metal of Death. Pure Beherit furs and horns on record – layered on a hypnotic ultra-low subliminal waveline of classy, simple but charming riffs that evoke images of pain and bestiality – with a proper attention to Hellhammer and earliest incarnations of the Black Metal art. Hail Satan. These songs are at the same time utterly chaotic but also mesmerizing in their scattered complexity – not even the Slayer-ish solos manage to break the rhythmic pace of these temples. As one could find some sort of ordered pattern in their Chaos most Dark and Sublime.

If you want my opinion, this is possibly one of the best Death Metal bands around (did I say Death Metal? Fuck yes, let’s inject some pride in the name once again) today. They are at the same time extremely personal, but also carelessly derivative of the great classics of the genre – Profanatica, Sarcofago, Blasphemy etc. As it should be.

Usually I tend to give a thought or two on the cover art and booklet layout as well, and once more I say things here fit like hand in glove. The classic red logo/white line-art combination is still the best in Metal, and the booklet is simple but coherent and well balanced. Nothing fancy but you don’t have the idea of having bought a Cd-Rom either. I am just annoyed by the punch hole, but you know, here’s how the promo thing goes – you give publicity to dozens of bands but don’t even deserve a 1-euro Cd for the exposure… whatever.

Apocalyptic nuclear vomiting satanic hellish massacring Black Metal for you, sirs.

VV.AA. (Jap): “DDDH – doomed to death, damned in hell” compilation Cd 2007 Grindmind

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Coffins Grudge Anatomia Well. Even if I have an inborn intolerance for 3 way splits (nothing more annoying to place in your collection cabinet… I am always undecided whether to open a new row for 3 way splits or just place them among other compilations… not to mention how to write them in a list! Ah these are real problems-…ah ah!) this might as well be the best release of the year. All three bands from japan, all three playing personal variations of totally ground digging hyper-deep doom death a la Winter, Disembowelment and Autopsy. Starting out with Japan’s best band today Anatomia, with their unparalleled class, elegance and flawless ability to weave webs of dark terror and freezing cold asphyxiation. Pure classic Death Metal, played so fucking good I got thrown back 20 years, as I could feel all the vibrating magic this stuff used to have at the beginning of the genre. Everything is just perfect with Anatomia: all songs are classics with immense riffs, crushing guitar sound, powerful and sick vocals, you just have it all, I really cannot add anything to that. They just have “it”. Grudge could have easily stood the hardy test of following such a powerful band, if it was playing strictly instrumental tracks. There is little space for vocals in these tracks, but this little that gets through is really disastrous. The idiot that sings on these tracks sounds as if he got an emphysema. These are possibly among the worse vocals that ever existed. Seems like hearing Dave Ingram in “The Dreams You Dread” or Barney in “Diatribes”, but after a throat surgery. So incredibly ludicrous… what the fuck?? Despite this weak spit however these riffs are really crushing, and luckily take up 98% of the running time. Grudge has a damn dirty sound, which sounds perfectly fitting with these crudely carved riffs of ton-heavy saturated death. I have a few 7″ by them (mostly for the bands they shared splits with I admit) but didn’t remember they sounded so good. Coffins have also been a recent addition to the celestial bureaucracy of Japanese Death Metal, but they have already established a name in my playlist as one of the best bands around today. They sound like a less refined and perfected version of Anatomia, with crude, tape-like sound but still overly bass-saturated sound which is good for this stuff, damn yesh, definitely good. Dark and deep, a vortex of black sludge swallowing the light of the sun. If we replaced Grudge with Catasexual Urge Motivation this could maybe have been the ultimate 3 way.

I am not impressed by the cover art and layout 100% but no shit – this is super professional and original. Easily not only the best Grindmind release so far (this label is getting better and better each month, watch out for its world conquest!) but definitely one of the 5 best releases of the last year. Amazing.

PS: Someone shot Grudge‘s singer in the face please!

HIPERMENORREA (Mex): “Lymphadenectomy for Carcinoma of the Esophagus and Gastroesophageal Junction” Lp Cd 2008 Alarma!

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HipermenorreaAh ah ah! Great!! This is the fucking stuff I love to hear. Chainsaw slashing through bone, sinew and muscle, and blood spurting everywhere. Screams of agony and fear as the carnage grows. An incomprehensible logo, a face completely ripped off in a pool of blood on the cover, splattered entrails all through the booklet and meter-long song titles about horrible pathological monstrosities. This Cd has it all even before putting the Cd up. Complete with that respectable no-nonsense of gore-grind played below the longitude of the United States. Fuck humor, this is the real grind, faggots.

Once the Cd is on ans spinning however… things are definitely as good as expected! Contrarily to what happened before with other bands like Flesh Grinder, this is not a band that will delude you. This stuff really rocks: super-raw sound, complete with ultra crackling bass and gurgling gore vocals, sewage guitar distortion and fast blasting drum smashing. I definitely reccomend Hipermenorrea to all lovers of real goregrind, especially the ones that, like me, got tired of the comic book humor of Razorback bands, the nice and ordered grind of Swedish bands like Regurgitate and -horror – the fun loving approach of western European bands (bleah) or this disco music grind made in Germany. Mexico is still the shit to go if you look after the real spirit of GORE. These incomprehensible blood gargling vocals only deal with the most insane and deranged pathosplatter topics. Lovable. One might be tempted to do a comparison with early Disgorge… well on such a statement I would not agree… Disgorge was objectively much, much more complicated, original and suffocating, but anyway this band remains a good choice of pure goregrind, with even a good amount of sludginess now and then, among the grinding blasts. The abundant use of screams, bubbling and fermenting sounds between songs add sickness to the package. Total respect.
One thing I definitely have to admit I don’t like in this release is the booklet layout however, even though there is a good choice of splatter pictures. The arrangement of elements, the choice of fonts and the whole layout is as bad as early Garden of Grief or Last Episode releases. Seems like a kid placed this booklet together. This is the only thing that takes this Cd one little point below 9. Real great stuff. Buy or die.

WARPATH (fin): “Thorns Pest Blood” split Cd with VUOHIVASARA (fin) 2007 Iron, Blood & Death

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VUOHIVASARAAlmost the other side of Finland stands the town of Mikkeli, where this band comes from. There are quite a few differences from Vuohivasara, as their music is much more influences by Celtic Frost, Hellhammer, and definitely slower and slightly more minimalistic tempos. I personally like this kind of retro Black Metal even less than the one proposed by the other band. Mid tempo rock’n’roll riffs just make my knees drop water. I have appreciated the crispy, crackling, filtered sound of the vocals and the sick sound of the recording, yet this band just leaves me quite indifferent. Most of this record is slow ballads instead of straight in your face hate for god. Time to shrug away some clichés if you ask me.