Stavolta tanto per cambiare, voglio fare una roba ignorante. O meglio, la riprendo da dove l’avevo interrotta. O meglio, ci provo visto che per qualche motivo non ho salvato in cloud un backup del dump SQL dove era registrato quel microblog che cominciai a scrivere nell’ormai – cazzo sono passati già SEI ANNI? – lontano 2015.
In breve, Abominazioni fu una brevissima pausa che mi presi dalla fanzine principale. Quella che scrivo in inglese per capirci, anche se ormai 2-3 post all’anno non li definirei manco più “scrivere”; sembra più un “not a blog” alla George Martin. Però ammetto che a scrivere quelle mezze recensioni su Abominazioni mi aveva divertito parecchio perché #allafine (cit.) scrivere in Italiano forse non sempre è congeniale, poichè certe frasi scorrono davvero meglio in inglese (un po’ come si dice che il tedesco sia la lingua della filosofia), ma indubbiamente riesce ad essere più viscerale. E siccome la visceralità è la chiave di tutto per quanto riguarda la musica dello schifo che mi piace ascoltare e discutere sin da… Abbastanza. (No dai, le prime recensioni risalgono tipo al 1993? Ecco i conti son quelli.). Insomma per quei motivi adesso mi garba scrivere un po’ in Italiano, perché hun si pò Madonnina bona? Ma anche un po’ dio bestia perché in sto periodo qui dopo i miei soliti lunghi silenzi esistenziali alla Celentano dei bei tempi ma protratti per tipo mesi la voglia di ascoltare un po’ di porcherie m’è tornata.
Io non ho mica voglia di stare a mettere le mani avanti come si fa oggi che tutti sembrano aver paura di dire qualcosa di scorretto o sbagliato. Non sono fradello di nessun gruppo, il metal e il punk/core e simili si dividono in gruppi boni e gruppi di merda, e mettendo assieme tanti gruppi di merda si forma un genere quindi se mi va di dire che un genere, aggregato da caratteristiche simili, come chessò lo Stoner Rock è merda, allora su sta blogzine si scrive che lo Stoner è tutta merda. Eh si. Stessa cosa vale ovviamente anche nel particolare ma c’ho già perso abbastanza tempo a fare premesse del cazzo o come le chiamano oggi “disclaimer”. Qui il progresso non è arrivato e la globalizzazione vuol dire solo che arrivano dischi un po’ da tutto il mondo. Un poco come succedeva già 40 anni fa poi, con la differenza che ai tempi le divisioni si assetsavano da sole e gli stronzi che vengono a fare la morale se ne stavano a farsi cannette in qualche spazio occupato di una qualche inclinazione politica a caso.
Comunque, dai che vedo di recuperare un po’ di cagate come si deve per parlare male o bene di qualche uscita discografica o formati limitrofi. Che tra l’altro mi toccherà incollare video da youtube o link a formati digitali che oggi i gruppi e le etichette han tutti le braccina corte e col cazzo che spendono 2 euro per mandarti un promo. Ma meglio così che tutto sommato anche se non mi sono mai preoccupato della sensibilità del cazzo di qualcuno che dovrebbe suonare musica da duri non c’è manco il rischio che qualcuno pensi che alleggerisca la mano per il fatto di aver messo un pezzo di plastica e carta in più su uno scaffale. Vediamo un po’ che si può recuperare di recente va, poi per andare a scavare nel passato c’è tempo (e poi comunque ristampano tutto, adesso persino in vinile che ahahah già fa ridere quello ma lasciamo stare va che se dico quel che peso delle ristampe in vinile delle etichette “born again vinyl maniac” mi bruciano davvero casa. Cioè lo dirò lo stesso mi sa ma almeno spalmo il livore su più post che sennò mi brucio subito il più bello.
Sublime rotting sewer sludge-slimy grind, wherewith grind I use the term in its most ancient of acceptions, there is an eerie echoing vibrancy in these tracks that pair obscenely with the slightly out of place rehearsal sound texture. What it doesn’t deliver in massiveness it does in sheer nightmarish opera. Top release where sound and aesthetics fuse in the perfect balance of true Death Metal with the due doses of horror, garageish noise, and the sensation of writhing maggots writhing under your tongue. Few tracks released so far but they have a solid base.
CONGENITAL DEFORMITY
I don’t know how they managed to do it but this recording totally sounds like a demo from 1992 and I mean it as a compliment. It has some of the chaotic roughness of early Deranged, Goreaphobia and a hint of Autopsy morbidity in properly placed corners. I also love the shitty logo here. All in all this is a complete win for me. Top notch band, deserve proper release soon.
Little precious from Despise the Sun records, a limited batch of fifty musicassettes brought this band from the ancient cracks of Rome’s cemeteries to its postapocalyptic unlife. Certainly nothing new or excessively intense for a genre that relies on sheer savagery (check Totalitarian or Intolerant for that), but definitely an interesting listen with its obsessive barrage riffs, multi-layered vocal blasphemies and so on.
https://simvlacrvm.bandcamp.com/releases
CONTINUUM OF XUL
While I definitely support the idea of playing that nowadays rare typology of infernal themed Death Metal I could never force myself to like the previous project called Hellish God which I just found completely aimless and without a clear direction, you know, the John Travolta meme. You have plenty of south american bands conceptually closer to this approach that unleash the powers of Hell upon Earth that you could prefer over that band.
Yet, things have clearly improved here with the name change and while I still have the feeling that the music convolutes endlessly in spirals, without ever bursting out, after a few listen I realized this might actually be a conscious approach from the band: to recursively wind spires upon spires of demonic hordes rending themselves to pieces in a spiral of bottomless sin. This is no easy listening, even compared to other bands in this list that raised the bar of songwriting sometimes bordering on wanking.
ERASER
I never review variants of grindcore that don’t deal strictly with horror of death or better yet gore ♥ on this fanzine, but Jesus fucking Christ, this stuff is AMAZING. These guys have all the nuclear aggressivity of the original second world grindcore that labels such as Rotthenness or Grinding Madness used to harvest back in early ’90. Top distorted bass backed grindcore of the finest quality, highly recommended. By the way I appreciated the fact that their logo makes the Congenital Deformities one look like Unleashed meet Dark Throne. Total favela illiteracy here! Thumbs up.
CINERARIUM
An interesting new band that plays really good Brutal Death Metal with a general approach that is more organic and has more “feeling” than the average mid-eastern product that always sticks to the same sound, same lyrics, and same artwork since Amputated Vein crystallized the whole brutal guido slam aesthetics. Cinerarium does have its share of trademark Enmity-like squeaks but the final product is more complete with a big dose of darker, tighter ideas. It is an evolutionary pattern similar to that followed by countrymates Blasphemer of late, for instance, and I like it. Part Liturgy part Krisiun part Reincarnacion, the band gors for the throat and comes out with an overall impressive product that however creaks violently on the slower parts. There is a whole riff at the end of the song below that makes me want to turn off the computer (I admit it, I am not reviewing records when I make these reports). They should really get rid of the slow-mid tempos and go full speed all the time because they really perform very well there (and the slow tempos suck badly, don’t do that).
ENGROSSED
Interesting if somewhat vanilla Death Metal with a shitload of influences that range from old Bolt Thrower to old Gorefest, basically a salad of Death Metal from the early 90’s glued together with a strong dose of dark heaviness. Initially the sound was way more on the early swedish side but turned darker and darker over time. Now we are left with a genuine breed of Death Metal that is basically a sum of everything that was morbid and obscure in the beginning of the genre.
When I heard the few first minutes of Hadit on their bandcamp page I told msyelf “I bet either this band is from Rome, or they signed to Terror from Hell, or both.” For some reason our capital seems to have become a catalyst for the most complex exercises of Death Metal with a brain, and TFH just seems to have an affair with bands that defiantly pierce the membranous barriers of reality with hints of ancient esotericism.
Obsessively melodramatic and hypercomplex long songs that are a cosmogonal voyage through infinity riding a million riffs of parallelly eerie and brutal Death Metal. They have some hints of that bardo method-o’malley hipsterism I generally hate when overly intellectual writing overcomes the primal savagery and horror that this genre is made for, but somehow I liked it anyway. Shall I start trimming my beard, chop off my fingers in a Zoidberg fashion and start yelling about inclusivity in metal?
Hell, how did I underestimate this band! I reviewed a tape not too long ago (for this zine standards) and now it feels as if I am listening this recording for the first time. Honestly this stuff is even better that I recalled. The finnoscandian inspiration is clear and the massive, crunchy, sound is accurately reconstructed assembling among the best of elements of the genre. All riffs properly placed, with long, breathtaking incursions in the depths of space and sick mind trip, more akin to Krypts than Hadit (above), however.
Whoah! Three full-lengths already, really? I heard this band name before but always forgot to check them out. They play good solid Black Metal with some structure and attention to sound, yet nothing particularly memorable for a genre that is supposed to live upon its filth and hateful spirit. Nothing wrong here but hardly sucks you in.
HURONIAN
Huronian decided to take the hard path (again) of playing a genre that basically everyone misinterpreted and was initially thrashed by precursors like Kaamos and definitely obliterated by the new renaissance of Swedish Death Metal. Huronian plays what could be properly called “melodic Death Metal” in which however the “melodies” are not necessarily soft and mellow – think Unanimated, Eucharist and so on. The world might not be still interested in a genre that was overexploited years ago but at the same time, who the hell still understand how things work nowadays? Their music is complex, extremely well written, vicious and yet has that thin veil of harmonies that makes everything work properly. Not a band I would sign on Nuclear Abominations, but do yourself a favor and check them out because close to nobody play this styule anymore!
Spiky, acidic Death Metal with a strong militaristic vibe inspired by the post Conqueror / Order From Chaos movement that over recent years produced bands like Diocletian. Order of the Iron Fist plays everything in line with expectations, including the caliginous recording typical of other eastern noisier experiments like RotUGF or Tsalal. I really like this newer branch of Death which someone defines as Black/Death, although I can’t really see what “black” one could find here besides the vocals, which to be honest, I find here plain and lacking punch, and yet I don’t think a vocal style could strictly define either genres, I think Black Metal in general is more about the feeling of “something else, something wrong, something from the other side creeping in”. Whatever. This is a good band even though it doesn’t really deliver 100% yet in my opinion, the path they chose is narrow and inhabited by generally top level bands already. I would buy their new stuff when it’s out but I expected to be blown away, I didn’.t.
INTOLERANT
This is music that makes you hate yourself. BUY IT.
Nuclear Wargod recently released an advance tape on Despise the Sun and they fucking shred. They’re on the Blasphemy side of gasmasked Black Metal (is that, think about it honestly, a fault?). They completely lose it when the slow down but if they manage to fix it this is a band that really would deserve a full-length release. Suffocating and miasmic, this is a band that drags you across a nuclear wasteland with sore-covered cannibal mutant priests of Satan. Not surprisingly they have some links to Sadomortuary and they actually play a very similar game. Can’t wait to hear more.
ABIGEATUM
This is a one man band that hardly would fit a list on this fanzine you’re reading in normal times, but I found this solo project honestly flawless. It’s just a bunch of slow riffs and guttural vocals the likes we’ve straight out heard a million times recently (last 10 years or so when Doom Death has become a thing again), but you can actually feel her agony. In total fairness I have found this EP, recorded during the first wave of this world pandemic, perfectly fitting the mood of this period and impeccably inspired. Manly nod to this good job.
TENEBRO
Ultra down tuned, raspy and guttural Death Metal with that obsessive, coagulated sound and the fragrance of bloodspattered torture cellars. Hearing tenebro Today gives me today more or less the same feeling of hearing “Butchered at Birth” in 1992, only gore – no air. They have a repetitiveness that borders on drone sometimes, like a slowed down version of Deranged played 18 rpm, which is great but a tidbit too still for me to listen for too long. Natheless, I’d definitely place their recordings in a good position if I had to dub a compilation tape of italian bands in 2021.
https://tenebro666.bandcamp.com/album/demo-1
PHREATOMAGMATIC DEATH
Interesting liquid-amphibian goregrind with lyrics about volcanoes. I am generally not particularly attracted by such liberal SJW deviations from the sacred conservative duties of splatter and pathology, but gorenoise has been lacking a bit in this country and to be honest this one is also of superior level compared to a gazillion other bedroom projects. To his credit, the themes are actually about destruction and consequence of horrible burns and death by lava.
NIHILISTHROPIST
Solo project of Hornhammer, not the most intense of releases but worth mentioning in this report for several honest and interesting ideas. There is some Nifelheim inspiration here and with a proper line up there could be a real interesting follow up.
NERASCESI
I am afraid this is a band that hasn’t aged well, probably because the field of Brutal Death Metal is unlike its older brother, extremely sensible to the passing of years, when drummers blast harder, riffs get ever more complex, and sound production crispier and heavier. I am sad to say don’t like this new incarnation of Bastard Saints and believe me I have known these guys for 25 years now – listening to these new tracks give me the same yet opposite feeling I had when listening to “Hanged For A Blessed Masturbation”: unripe for its time.
Might be the lack of their trademark guitarwork that kinda glued every piece of this madman hallucination together, and it certainly doesn’t help that some of the tracks are in Italian, including the terrible name they opted for. Either way this time the music doesn’t click for me. The Brutal Death Metal soul is here predominant and yet not as brutal as it used to be when it was just an opaque ligament to connect all fragments of a sick psyche together. The drumming is overly martial and mechanically cyclical and cold but that was a problem I had with latest Broken Hope records too so maybe it’s just me. That said it’s a good band, really, just not special as Bastard Saints used to be.
Oggi il Dottor Marciume ascolta: Abruptum “The Satanist Tunes” demo tape, unholy black misanthropic glossopoeia from Sweden, 1990.
What do you get when you put together an evil dwarf and an alcoholist? You get the best of combinations for some of the best Black Met.. well, Music, ever from Scandinavia. The interior “mal de vivre” of these two guys on this tape is so thick and real you could almost feel it on your skin. This Abruptum recording is not just music, it’s an experience in the misanthropic folly of lost deviated humanity. It’s dissonance and distorted melodies, an unholy abandonment in the shores of suicide, it’s noise/grind meets dungeon ambient, with the best alcoholic vocal performances by the guy who calls itself All (who did basically nothing of interest ever again besides Abruptum, if we exclude some Ophtalamia). Listening to this tape even in the best of your days is guaranteed to fuck your mood bad. A tribute to a shapeless horror lurking within an unholy beyond and a true (probably involuntary) masterpiece of glossopoeia. Pure Black Metal at its finest.
Vote:
PS: Please if you want to get this, get Sound Pollution represses, do not buy anything by Southern Lord, BOYCOTT beard hipsters!
Oggi il Dottor Marciume ascolta: Corpse Molestation “Descension Of A Darker Deity” demo tape, chaotic brutal madness of Death made in Australia, 1992.
I understood you like me reviewing older stuff so here it is, one of the biggest jewels of Australian extreme metal and one of the greatest demos of the genre: pre Bestial Warlust in all its gory and dismal schizophrenia! Jesus fucking christ, this stuff is so savage and at the same time so intense and raw it feels like the sound of a million deranged butchers cleaving flesh in a dungeon cellar. You know aussies can be out of their mind but here we got that formula transfixed to some of the heaviest, ghastlier Death Metal of all time, still scary after almost 30 years. The overall sound is massively choking and uncontrolled, heavy and deep and vaguely Autopsy/Goreaphobia in feel, but then things get out of control and all the folly of primitive Oceania stirs in chainsaw in hand. The vocals are a sink that grinds human waste, the guitars vibrate with sheer madness, the drummer is just fucking possessed and to top it off, the production is ugly, dense and filthy as every black/death/grindcore release is supposed to be. There is really little to add besides everything here is perfect, including those handful of samples and slow grinding moments of demonic despair. A classic among classics, and to think this is 1992???? It’s fucking un-be-lie-va-ble!
Oggi il Dottor Marciume ascolta: Schizo “Total Schizophrenia” demo tape, ultrafast metallic crossover from Catania, 1986.
A classic extreme metal/core recording from my country by a band that in all honestly could not survive its reputation after the year 1990. Over the years I have heard this demo being labeled as the very first grindcore recording in this country, but well, no, I don’t think so. As much as I think this demo is amazing, I won’t label it as anything close to the sound that would evolve into the first instances of grindcore. This demo might be considered part of that combination of elements that grew up to that genre, but despite it’s incredibly fast for its time I would describe it as a more metallic slayerish/vadeirsh version of Cryptic Slaughter and Septic Death. This demo really showed the band’s full potential that would crystallize into “Main Frame Collapse” with superior songwriting and really crazy vocals (rag. Filini was singing here for the last time) and when the songs speed up, it is there that the band blossoms into a unheard before, ultraviolent instance of hardcore massacre. The slower parts are a bit naive and cheezy but that was the point with the whole punk/core movement at the time, huge when things are fast, sloppy when they slow down. The thrash/core crossover was really like a shark, it could give its best only in full movement. There is not much to say about this classic: it is a great example of hybrid proto thrash/grind/core, and really deserve the reputation it has. Do not expect darkness or sickness here, we’re talking about speed force violence!
Oggi il Dottor Marciume ascolta: Belief “The Lost Cause” demo tape, advanced brutish Death Metal from Genova, 1993.
One of the most proficient Death Metal bands from Italy back in 1993 when there were really not so many bands playing this kind of ass-tight kind of brutish music that crossed the lines between technical thrash and brutal death. I remember buying this demo in the parking lot in front of some gig but I lost touch with them almost immediately so I can’t remember much more besides that for the time they were among the most articulated and brutal bands playing Death Metal around. Of course this demo could not stand by today’s standard of intricacy and sound quality but for 1993, it was really on peak, despite some progressive wanking (the Death post ITP influences were starting to spread in those years) and just a handful of ingenuous bridges that never convinced me completely they had a surprisingly varied and complex song-writing and could blast properly and had really interesting vocals. There is a shitload of cool solos and lotsa tempo changes but never indulging too much in Atheist-like fa**otries. A band ahead of its time.
Oggi il Dottor Marciume ascolta: Suffer “On Sour Ground” 7″ EP, technical early not-so-swedish Death Metal with agonizing vocals from Sweden, 1991 New Wave.
I picked out this 7″ randomly from the box but I am glad I can say something about it. The label on which this damn good EP was released wasn’t really known for a high quality roster, I would just mention the classic Loudblast/Agressor split plus a few sparse hardcore/thrashy/punkish crossover records among the few things worth spending a few bucks on. However, they managed to score a good point here. Suffer had a few elements of distinction that separated them from the rest of the Swedish Death Metal bands of their time, tending more towards an American Tampa sound than the mushy swedish HM distortion. They remind me a little a less refined, more visceral version of “Soulside Journey” with that rare kind of painful, heartbreaking vocals a la Morgoth or Dark Millennium. Blasting but not grindcore, with shitloads of tempo changes and solos, this is an EP made by musicians that arguably took their time and effort to put together a song. By the way, this sounds really SO 1991!
