Category Archives: Reviews by letter

ECTOVOID (USA): “Breathing Blackness” tape 2011 Unholy Domain

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I was supposed to review these releases from the great label Unholy Domain, generous sly offered as promos by the label, a long ago. Better late than never, they say, after all.

I don’t know if it’s my tape deck that it’s getting decrepit and possibly oxidized in several components, but the sound on this tape is rather bass-heavy and confused. Which might fit, being a demo (or better, a repress of a demo originally on CD-r), but I definitely need to give it a try on a different set one day.

The tracks on this cassette are quite old and represent a rather immature version of the band, who in my opinion will give their best in their debut album on Hellthrasher the following year. I haven’t really followed their releases but it seems to me that the second album is a bit underwhelming. Here, as well as in the debut, the sounds are more similar to that of a certain Swedish Death Metal a la early Therion, but it is the vocals on this demo that will really give the best in the 2012 album.

Nothing particularly exciting, but worth a listen.

Necroccultus/Shub Niggurath (Mex): “Inverted Dimensions” split Cd 2009 Black Vomit

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CD version on Black Vomit

Another throwback of eight years to complete a review of a record that was released thirteen years ago, how’s that for dedication? And to make things even more old school, the Shub-Niggurath tracks are taken from a rehearsal from 1990! I didn’t really write much at the time, but as I picked up the CD from the shelf and started to listen to it I found myself why I was actually losing any time on this recording.

To be honest, let’s say it straight away, this split is fucking useless. It’s just crap made up to use the logos of two great bands. Let’s be clear, I’ve loved Shub-Niggurath since the demo tape, and I think Necroccultus is an excellent band as well despite their relatively young age (sigh, I just realized they formed 19 years ago), but I can’t stand live and rehearsals unless they’re included in a full discography or as bonus tracks, let alone in a split. To make matters worse, three different labels for three different formats, including a vinyl whose significance I don’t really understand. And even the audio is too poor to justify such a pressing, these are things that you can accept for a band that has played very little for which every live show is a jewel to be recovered, but this is not the case, or possibly for a big band, like Slayer, of which you want to collect every single release. But not here, I don’t think we’re there at all. Even the cover was one of the artist’s early works and on tape/CD it is what it is. Leave this release alone.

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Tape version on Sodomistic Ritual
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LP version on Iron Bonehead

Abruptum “The Satanist Tunes” demo tape, 1990

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Oggi il Dottor Marciume ascolta: Abruptum “The Satanist Tunes” demo tape, unholy black misanthropic glossopoeia from Sweden, 1990.

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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.

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PS: Please if you want to get this, get Sound Pollution represses, do not buy anything by Southern Lord, BOYCOTT beard hipsters!

Corpse Molestation “Descension Of A Darker Deity” demo tape, 1992

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Oggi il Dottor Marciume ascolta: Corpse Molestation “Descension Of A Darker Deity” demo tape, chaotic brutal madness of Death made in Australia, 1992.

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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!

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Schizo “Total Schizophrenia” demo tape, 1986

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Oggi il Dottor Marciume ascolta: Schizo “Total Schizophrenia” demo tape, ultrafast metallic crossover from Catania, 1986.

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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!

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Belief “The Lost Cause” demo tape, 1993

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Oggi il Dottor Marciume ascolta: Belief “The Lost Cause” demo tape, advanced brutish Death Metal from Genova, 1993.

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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.

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Suffer “On Sour Ground” 7″ EP, 1991

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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.

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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!

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