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FUNEBRARUM (USA-Nj): “Conjuration of the Sepulchral” split Cd with INTERMENT (swe) 2007 Conqueror of Thorns

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Funebrarum IntermentSo Funebrarum is finally back after the brilliant full length “Beneath the Columns of Abandoned Gods” released 6 years ago and the deluxe gatefuld 7″ “Dormant Hallucinations” which I sadly skipped (for a serie of reasons I won’t go through right now). It has to e pointed out how this band actually preceded a few years the recent “old school” gimmick of the last 2-3 years, as it was really the first release to completely and courageously tribute the old Finnish/Swedish scene on an album that is close to perfection.

Releasing these two new songs as a split with Interment is surely a fitting choice as the band is still obsessed with the glorious and majestic sound of early nineties Finnish/Swedish Death Metal (which is my favourite genre ever as well by the way). Everything on these few minutes is still sweating old school grime, crusts and mold, and is as dark as the deepest zombie hole – and the sound is now, if possible, even slower and crunchier than before, resulting in a sticky web of sonorities that almost seem as if the tracks were recorded at 45rpm and played at 33. Like said before, there are only two new tracks in the album, considering one of the other 3 is an intro and the two remaining Abhorrence and Grave covers. I would use the same words that I used when I described their previous album but actually something has changed in the Funebrarum sound, and it’s that they have become much darker and heavier since the last time. The vocals are now very, very deep and the sound really fat and clogged by bass frequencies. I really love the new sound even if the riffs, by the contrary, seem a little bit less sicker and twisted.

 The cover art is still done by the most supreme of the vintage artists Chris Moyen, even though there is a sligth blue/violet filter over it which seems quite odd – I’d have preferred pure black and white a release like this. But anyway this is meant to be a “nocturnal” release so I’ll go for the dark night shades. All the influences by bands like Abhorrence, Funebre, Purtenance etc are still huge here, so if you want good shit one must really check this out.

VV.AA. (n/a): “Reincremation” split Cd-r 2007 Nihilistic Holocaust

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ReincremationNew round from Nihilistic Holocaust, afterthe superb three way wit Hateful, Impureza and Hellspawn. France might have second rate football teams, cheese and wine compared to Italy (eh eh) but surely has a generally better grind and death metal scene – from bands to zines to labels. I have deep respect for this guy Gabriel from Nihilistic Holocaust becouse you can really feel his enthusiasm and deication, he does a superlative zine and fuck, his label is also doing high quality – no nonsense releases.

That said, I am a bit disappointed by these new Impureza tracks. The band has undergone a really heavy stylistical turn since the previous songs I remember. The songs are now sung in Spanish (?) and have even a load of flamenco (!) intermezzos in the middle, plus several structural references to latin music which, while executed in a flawless manner, I really found a bit too much for my narrow tastes. I have listened to these tracks more than once but cannot really get into them. Might be becouse I really find all latin music boring and unnerving and I also don’t really like the language too. If you separate the bollocks, the band still has the full force crunch it had in the past, but I am more into Morbid Angel than Atheist if you know what I mean. Political 6 – just for the spirit. Superior musicianship and excellent recording make these tracks quite interesting. The third track is a real blast though – have a listen.

“Full Metal Jacket” has been inflated a bit for intros but is always fun to hear. It’s a good introduction to Sweden’s Arsonist, whose name made me run for cover in fear of hearing some emo haircut sissies playing the Dillinger Escape Plan clones. No shit, Arsonist instead play pure Death Metal the Nihilistic Holocaust way (it’s becoming a mark of quality) – this means no aimless baggy pant brutal chugging, but just pure Death Metal killer riffs, powerful vocals and a good balance  of solos. Some riffs remind me of old Cannibal Corpse but this really do not end here – staying in Swedish ground one might even collect moments of Genocrush Ferox, Strangulation and Immersed in Blood. The bass guitar has a massive sound but it just wraps the tracks in a distinctive sick low saturate vibe instead of just popping out in the middle like in Primus. Arsonist is good stuff, brutal in an old fashioned way without sounding retro. Brutal riffs, deep growls and power riffs abound, neat shit indeed. I would shoot a full 8.

Sudden Death have among the worse song titles in the world in this split (I”nsert Coin”?? “Broken Wings”??) but compared to Arsonist they’re somewhat faster, even if characterized by a gently rougher – almost garageish recording. While powerful and fast, I am not convinced 100% by the vocals but that does not mean they’re not good, just not competely deep as the previous bands so they just might sound a bit odd in the 4 way. The riffs are not amazing either, even if the songs are carefully balanced in terms of power chords and hyperblasting. The slower to mid-tempo parts – that have historically made Italy the worse country in the world in this field of Thrash/Death – are here too not overly catchy, so the songs just seem a bit flat even tough we’re on good levels in general. I’d drop the mid tempos and cure the faster parts more, or a potentially good band like this risks to end like Obscenity or Pavor in the limbo of routine German Death Metal… 7 nonetheless.

I haven’t heard the full length from Ingurgitating Oblivion but I remember this band was good, just did not remember HOW good it was. This is just the kind of pure 100% Florida Death Metal with the right share of demoniac vibrations and hyperbrutal sound. Darkness and fury unleashed. I could compare this band to our Hour of Penance, they’re really fucking killer. It’s been a while since I haven’t heard good shit like this. I could cite Serpents Aeon, Pessimist, Diabolic to give a rough idea of what kind of muzak we’re talking about – really impressive shit. 9,00 in my book.

I have really appreciated Gabriel’s personal creation on the cover of this Cd, much better than the old one. I just am not sure if this split is on Cd-r or if it’s just the promo copies that have been home burned. But I’d go for the first since my one is hand numbered (#143 of?). To sum it up – I wish there were more compilations like this…

RELEVANT FEW (swe): s/t split Cd with AFGRUNG (swe) 2006 Life Stage

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Afgrund - Relevant FewCompared to the bestial burst of Afgrund, I am not overly impressed by Relevant Few. Too much wanking in the field of dissonance and disharmonies, and all the grindcore energy sinks in the overuse of these experimental bridges. The vocals are lacking real solidity, they’re more like an exercise in screaming that real outbursts of rage if you know what I mean. Seems like the band is lacking in anger  and anger in grindcore is everything. That said there are a lot of interesting aspects here that deserve to be exploited like precise drumming, decent production, brilliant ability to sew together the riffs in a flowing song that parts from the classic schemes, and an interesting array of lyrics. Comparisons might be done with “as far from metal as possible” grindcore bands like His Hero Is Gone or Man is the Bastard but that just scratches the surface – I am not good with finding similarities. Blasting grindcore a good 90% of the time, too bad for the really useless use of leaks and weird harmonies – I’d go for the throat instead.

Top track is the last one, where the band seems to have finally shrugged away the bullshit and did everything the right way. Screams, blasting, guitar hammering for 61 seconds. If I had to save a song it would be this one.

AFGRUND (swe): s/t split with RELEVANT FEW (swe) 2006 Lifestage

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Afgrund - Relevant FewMan I am so fucking stupid sometimes ah ah! I really don’t want to like it, I always try to convince myself that I don’t like political grind but everytime I hear a band that rips like this Afgrund does, I always have to admit: “fuck, this is goddamn excellent”. Another footprint in the fresh concrete gallery of Swedish Grind. Afgrund belong to this new generation of grindcore that just surpassed the big change of the late 90’s when bands like Nasum began installing super productions in a genre that had deep roots in the filth of crusty punk. This new breed has all the good elements of this late grindcore kind but also a massive sound and loads abrasive energy by the dozens. Names that come up to mind when looking for comparisons are those of their first label No Tolerance – Krigshot, Skitsistem, Wolfpack etc. in other words extremely powerful and groovy grind with a huge sound prouction – this is really nice shit. Good replacement for a Red Bull when driving home in the late of the night. Sometimes this fat sound gets almost messy and a bit splatterish, one can even dare to say some early Malignant Tumour or Squash Bowels hints appear scattered in the songs. I only didn’t like much the very last song “Det Sista Brevet” – ithas some dissonance that I never manage to tolerate. Perfect packaging by Szymon Siech (always a master), since I guess the lyrics are of the introspective/social kind, I really don’t care if they are in English, for once – ah ah!

They have a full-length out now, called “Svarta Dagar” on the same label Lifestage – check out the cover, it’s KILLER. (weird, the label’s website is severaly outdated…!).

NECROS CHRISTOS (Ger): “Grave Damnation” compilation Cd 2005 Worship Him

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Necros Christos - Grave DamnationNecros Christos from Berlin. A phenomenon that has exploded like a burst of flames straight from Hell taking everyone by surprise, cabonizing churches and immolation priests praying for salvation. The whole underground is buzzing and murmuring on how fucking great this band is. And, well, I could not but agree with the mainstream this time. Necros Christos is really the best Death Metal band coming out of the underground in the last few years – it incarnates perfectly every parameter that makes Death Metal the sickest and darkest form of Art of all times. I cannot tell exactly HOW they do it but the band is able to recreate a kind of dark, hypnotic, demonic atmosphere which moves something inside me that was slumbering inside me since the early nineties. Influences of Hellhammer (a LOT of Hellhammer), Incantation, Imprecation, Symphony of Grief, early Samael, old Paradise Lost and some old school Finnish doom/death (and damn I can even say Disincarnate) are abundant but perfectly balanced in a strictly personal interpretation Metal of fucking Death which is equally obscure and spiritually powerful. This is a band which is 280 times more Black than your average Norwegian penguin. Everything is stripped to the bone, leaving only no nonsense quality music. The vocals are deep and demonical, reverberating as if they were coming from beyond the grave, the guitars deep and grating, slowly evocative of images of gothic damnation. There is really something infernal going on here, haven’t heard this kind of feeling since Immolation‘s “Dawn of Possession”.

Worship Him records re-released this third Necros Christos demo “Grave Damnation” in Cd format – which is a bit disappointing for me since this is the only one I already had in tape, but whatever, anything from this band seems to be sold out nowadays so it is a great buy for people looking for anything by the band. The packaging is superb and everything again just falls in its place in this grand design of blasphemic necromanic Death Metal . A great Goatlord cover ends the Cd.

I am sure I have already heard something similar in style in the past but really cannot remember when… what matters anyway is that Necros Christos has a full-length album out now, so go for it as well.

DOWN THE LINE (Ita): “Apotheosis is Decline… Decline is Apotheosis” Cd Ep 2004 DTL-Ickno-Grind-Corporation

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Down the LineIt is fun to read how prolific and compact the scene from Sardinia is. I was first introduced to Sardinian grind with my long time friend Wally ‘s band Ass Ache still in the 80’s (!!) and then with a bunch of other bands which appeared in the “Ugo Story” compilation tapes. Let’s tell it straight: this Cd is just made up of 5 minutes of real music plus a bulk of intros and a very long (and a bit sleepy) concatenation of electronic loops. But those 5 minutes of real shit are intense enough to raise a brow. Very few, extremely basic crusty riffs with a bit of Agathocles feeling, coupled with unintelligible liquid vocals in pure gore-grind style. I especially like the metallic sound of the bass distortion. In short this is genuine dirty to the point goregrind with some courageous experimentations in the electronic field. I just wonder why they’re still promoting 5 scarce minutes of material which were recorded 5 years ago (!!) and released only 2 years later. Songs like these are generally mass produced by the dozens – one riff, one song. The cover art is okay too, even if it spots a photo which was already used on Meat Shits‘ “Sniper at the Fag Parade”. Not a mandatory “demo” but fun.

GAURITHOTH (Fin): “Huoravasara” 7″ Ep 2004 Fudgeworthy

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Gaurithoth - HuoravasaraFudgeworthy records from Massachusetts (label of Charlie Infection of Psycho and Gonkulator fame) released a couple black metal Eps in the past one of which being this grey marble colored 4 track by Finish band Gaurithoth. Considering the proclaims of playing extreme Satanic Latex Perverse Metal, I was expecting some fucking bomb lacerating the whole fucking house I live in. As already happened with its previous release Pest however, I admit this is really not up to my expectations. I haven’t heard the recent full length, but this demo material has two big flaws: too much melody and strident witchlike vocals. Personally I don’t even Like Grand Belial’s Key for their over excess of heavy metal harmonies, and this time the problem is similar. Mid tempo ballad-like riffs with a couple harmonic “cold” tremolo chords are not really my cup of tea when we talk about Black Metal. Some riffs are outright happy hunting choirs – brr, no thank you. The vocals are randomly scattered on the recording, with little or no punch at all, and well, they don’t even sound evil to me. The only thing I appreciate is that the recording is excellent (rough but not thin), ad the drums filthy and crude as they must be in this genre. Huoravasara contains the same tracks of their 2002 demo, plus one unreleased song cut just for the vinyl version. This stuff might appeal fans of all things called Black Metal from Finland. Since a few years however, I decided to be a little bit more selective.