Oggi il Dottor Marciume ascolta: Beyond “Enter Transcendence” 7″, awesome true Death Metal from *gasp* Germany! Yeah, Germany! Iron Bonehead 2012.
You know, Germany is not only home to “highly average Death Metal” bands on Cudgel and late Morbid Records. It actually can produce amazing recordings, and hearing that coming from Iron Bonehead whose catalog of bands is 88% booooring testifies that you can expect great things any time anywhere if you just keep your eyes open and just don’t catalog anything as shit just because of previous experiences. Even MBR released shitty recordings! I am not entirely sold on the packaging, a bit too slick, layout is a bit too modern, but the cover art is killer and lyrics too have a total 1990 vibe, with mutants and all the sick Death Metal shit. Music? This band plays true Death Metal. Great vocals, relentless savage drumming, neat powerful riffs, oscillating between the old swedish and the old south american with a great raw production, morbid guitar solos, well I cannot really find anything weak here even when they momentarily slip to mid tempo. THIS IS AMAZING. If you missed it, get it now 8 years later.
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.
Oggi il Dottor Marciume ascolta: Repulsive Feast “Brewing Rancid Stew” 7″, honest horrror Death Grind from Germany, Lycanthropic Chants 2019.
Horror inspired Death Metal is probably my favourite stuff and all intentions are good on this 7″, including the retro 1990 layout, which however feel quite awkward and slightly out of place on deluxe glossy paper. Also I have the general impression that the layout is thriving to capture some aesthetic that’s not really in place here (same thing I’d dare to say about Cryptic Brood, to be honest, but also works for Undergang). Repulsive Feast play uptempo, sometimes sloppy (in a good way) ugly Death Metal with some early swedish vibes, all in all much better than Cryptic Brood with whom they share drummer and label (run by the drummer btw). The sound was a bit rawer and I enjoyed it a bit more on the previous demo tape (which I’d rate 8 skulls full of guts) but manages to sound tight enough.
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.
Considering I won’t be able to update website or release that goddamned paper issue anytime soon, I thought about writing a short update on the good things happening in the land of pizza, black mustache and frantic hand gesturing. I am fully concentrated on the label plus moving to a new house and really didn’t think about writing anything but there are a few really new good bands that have been infecting italian ground in recent times so here it is, a quick, Nuclearabominesque report on what I believe you should check out. This is not 1990 anymore so I will cut it very short, just google their name and you can be fan #1 before anyone else.
Sadomortuary Sadomortuary from Mantua is the band that shook my ass in order to write this article. They play that ultra-filthy sludgy kind of Black Metal we all love so much. I particularly like the sound that reminds me of early grindcore bands like Rot, and yet the references are more diverse, like a slowed down version of Profanatica, Naked Whipper, Bestial Summoning, throw in some finnish death/doom names and so on, yet everything kept very simple and focused more on rot than actual song writing. Approved!
Vexillifer I stumbled casually on this obscure band that recently released a demo tape on a whopping print run of 20 copies (tape I don’t own, by the way). I might not be sold 100% but there are plenty of interesting things going on on this single advance track we can hear on their (his?) bandcamp page. There are just a scattering of riffs but they all fall into place neatly. Might disappear anytime now but I think they’re worth a listen.
Thulsa Doom Now we’re really talking, mind me. If there is a tape you should get that has been released last year (besides the Sickness demo of course), it’s this one. Thulsa Doom are fucking awesome. I am a huge fan of sword and sorcery, and hence all the Conan stuff, and even if I am not entirely convinced the pairing between pulp barbaric literature and Metal works (despite the eminent works of thrashies like Carnivore, the Endless Pain cover art or Voivod’s Korgull anthem) the songs on this records blew the fuck out of my skull. The writing is genuine 1990s Death Metal with great mid tempos that have so many references and yet none in specific. And they have great solos too. I cannot find any weak spot here, this is really amazing. Do yourself a favor and get it if Invictus still has copies.
Vomitmantik This is a very recent band that released a demo tape just some days ago. I have seen quite a few of these minimalistic black/death metal bands since 2010 or so but somehow none of them really managed to click entirely. The rehearsal sound probably cuts off some of the density that is mandatory for the suffocating atmosphere this music relies on. And yet I am interested in checking what happens next, the troiaio these guys manage to put together is interesting. Will follow them closely.
Morticula Rex This is a one man band from Sicily that writes some interesting slow Death Metal (i won’t call it strictly death/doom as it lacks some of the dismal ethereality of the genre). I think this stuff works. It’s different from the gazillion death/doom clones popping up recently like warts after a weekend at the swimming pool. Have a list, it’s free these days.
Mass Campylobacter Infection Through Raw Purulent Meat The noisegore scene in Italy is probably made up of 10 people in all and we all know each other, but when things collide the results are worth checking. This is a band that formed from the syncretism of Yakisoba, Golem of Gore and Fetus Demersus. They have killer graphics, a great logo, and lyrics about the cruelty of killing animals with a lot of blood and guts, the same blood and guts we keep on our dishes this time. From a certain perspective, Carcass were the fathers of this genre and already mentioned this topic so we’re really not straying too far from the original apple tree.
La Cripta del Marciume, questo il titolo definitivo della rubrica, è di nuovo in onda Venerdì 13 con una puntata dedicata a Bret Hoffman. Tra i marciumi presentati Atheretic (Can), un’edizione deluxe degli Autopsy, un classico di W.H. Hodgson, il gioco di ruolo Lamentations of the Flame Princess, il film degli Sgorbions, il nuovo LP autoprodotto dei Blood (Ger) e poi si vedrà.
