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.
I got this promo Cd a couple of months ago with a letter that stated “we play goregrind”. Actually I think the band is certainly brutal but I won’t rate this music as pure goregrind, despite the hyperblasts and the super-guttural vocals, as the metal inlfuence here is definitely too big. Would you rate bands like Enmity as “goregrind”?
In any case let’s start with the packaging: I really dig the twisted cover art that looks like some deranged mix of Miguel Ángel Martín and Turkka G. Rantanen, it certainly sets the stage for something sick. The booklet is non-existant as it’s just 2 pages and the inner fold contains just the logo, but I think overally this minimalistic style is OK. What’s interesting is that there is no tracklist whatsoever, just like our old beloved Sublime Cadaveric Decomposition.
Like I stated before, here we are in front of some experimental kind of extreme, chaotic grinding Brutal Death in the vein of Enmity or Intense Hammer Rage. While the meaning of the term grindcore certainly shifted during the last 20 years, I still figure of it as a genre that should have a combination of very raw and dark sound, and borderline dissonant riffs, and most of all, being totally unaware of what’s going on. Despite the speed and multiple layers of sound the musicians here seem to always be in control of what is happening. I like the whirlwind guitarwork as well as the furious blasting however, as these guys really know how to fill all the corners of sound. Mix in some heavily distorted vocals and you get a bleeding carcass mutilated by a million razords for the lovers of the genre. All of the songs are very short, between 1 and 2 minutes in length, but they still manage to throw in some interesting variations.
They handed me this tape promoting it as “death/black” and while I ever married any genre Death/Black Metal generally speaking works for me. Not this time tough. I like raw and primitive, but what I mean when I say that is generally raw and primitive as in Von, not as in “college rehearsal”, eh.
The be completely honest there is nothing entirely out of place here, barring, ahem, the riffs. These songs (I am not sure if this is a promo tape or a tape album) could be summarized as Hellhammer playing Death Metal in a rehearsal room with session member from the local garage punk band. While primitive and graced with really good death vocals (hell yes, good mix of raspy and deep), the Motorhead-like pull isn’t really working out well here, it just doesn’t click. This, coupled with the kind of rehearsal sound that spoils the thickness of the sound instead of giving it an edge of rawness, summarize a scarce 5 points in my book. The concept is good, and the idea of bringing early Hellhammer-like metal into Death Metal ground is cool, but I would rather start chopping off the sloppier riffs and keep just the better ones.
EDIT: I got confirmation that this is actually a “demo” tape.
I usually don’t like to combine reviews but here is a first taste of how the new Nuclear Abomination is going to work: way less structure, more feel, less detail. Besides, I was about to switch the blog-zine to Italian until yesterday but analyzing the stats it seems the broad majority of the readers that have not abandoned the webzine (like I did, ah eh) are from other countries, so English has to be..
Anyway back to Abhorrot: great guys with lot of patience since I got this advance over a a year ago. Besides having among the best great dripping and festering logos these guys have reserched and absorbed the aesthetics of minimal Death Metal with great care. I had a glimpse of the cover art for the MLp on their website and it sure looks great. The 7″ too has the bare minimum. As usual, less is more and hacking away at superfluous stuff can’t but be an improvement. It’s just a pity the artwork on the 7″ is so dark, I could barely understand what is represented and the logo almost disappears in the shades (there is also a very big problem in the cover art as well – the resolution is fucked up and the artwork is grossly depixelated).
Sticking to the concept of minimalism, their music can’t really be described otherwise but minimalist, and that’s still another plus in my book. The sound is so dissonant and weirdly tuned that it sounds like a constant buzz, like a Death Metal version of Gonkulator or something. Once you resign this drone-like carpet of sound, the vocals also suddently spring out and are quite raspy and coarse. I don’t know if this is a pre-mix, but the sound is so abrasive that even Order From Chaos would sound polished. The songs on the MLp differ quite a bit from those of the 7″ (or the previously reviewed Cd-r demo by the way), the sound being even more noisy and indistinct, but at the same time a bit more intricate. I personally prefere the ones on the 7″, which have a darker, fuller sound, still adehering to the precepts of mono-riffing. In any case you must have in mind that this stuff is RAW, fuck, very VERY raw, it’s not your average last minute old-school band. I had this kind of sensations when I first heard Voivod, or Revenge. They also make a good and spare use of samples. All in all good Death/Noise shit.
8+ for the Ep and 8 for the Mini.
Get in touch with Terrorghoul Productions for the 7″ (limited to 500) or Yersinia Pestis for the MLp. I am getting a copy too.
