Impureza - EP 2013

A fusion of flamenco and 'brutal' tech death metal. o_O

Grave Miasma - Odori Sepulcrorum

Profound Lore is finally getting the rest of their albums they put out in 2013 on the Bandcamp. Had this one for months off soulseek but good to pay the cash for a decent version.

Grave Miasma put out possibly the death metal album of the year. Considering their competition has been Carcass, Gorguts, Ulcerate and Autopsy that's no mean feat. There's some real depth and craft to the music. I'm happy enough to listen to an occasional blast of total generic old school death metal worship but Grave Miasma have the ability to go far beyond that.

Ritual Chamber - The Pit Of Tentacled Screams

If you've played the Grave Miasma and Portal albums to death this year then this might sort you out nicely.

Ecocide - Eye Of Wicked Sight

Sounds a bit like a slightly more straight forward, thrashier Death

Vampire - s/t 7" (death metal)

One of the highlights of Live Evil fest. Hadn't heard of them before but they were great live. Real presence. Swedish death metal stuff. Lovely.

Portal - Vexovoid (Profound Lore)

Hurrah! Profound Lore have finally put this up on their bandcamp page. Works out at about a fiver in proper money. Worth every penny. Listened to my soulseeked copy on my headphones loads.

If you're unaware, Portal are filthy filthy filthy death metal. Filthy, fucked up and weird. They have a penchant for dressing up as possessed grandfather clocks and demented catholic priests.

They're music is just as bizarre. Certainly not run of the mill death metal stuff. It oozes and pulses in a quite peculiar way.

Svart Crown - Profane

Sick, weird technical death metal stuff from France. Starkweather were posting about a new song by Ulcerate this morning. They basically said FFO Gorguts, Pyrrhon, Portal and Svart Crown. Love the other bands already so thought I'd check Svart Crown out. Holy shit! Add something like Deathspell Omega to that list of bands and you're about there. Quality.

Wormed - Exodromos (Willowtip)

Ridiculously OTT tech/widdly death metal stuff on Willowtip. Ludicrous time signatures galore, guitar solos that make no sense whatsoever.

I could live without the vocals. They're just that bland, monotone growl that's popular in this kind of thing. Drums are a bit clicky as well.

However, if you can look past that, there's some very silly guitars going on.

Under The Church - Demo 2013 (old school death metal)

ex Nirvana 2002.

Fiends for old school Swedish death metal will have already clicked on the link.

Suffocation buy their own CD at the shop

A guy from Suffocation videos himself going to the shop to buy his own band's CD.

Basically, he points out a lot of good things about why people should pay for music. Especially why people should pay for underground music. He points out that Suffocation aren't Beyonce or someone like that racking in millions and millions of pounds.

He points out that if bands and labels lose money then bands get dropped, they can't make records, they don't come and tour your city etc etc etc.

He's really trying to drive home the point that underground music needs supporting and fair fucks to him. Fully behind his sentiments.

However, there's a big 'but'. And come on, you knew the 'but' was coming.

Neither Suffocation nor their label (Nuclear Blast) make the music available for sale as flac/wav or any other lossless format.

It's a familiar rant on this blog but crappy, lossy mp3s from amazon/itunes can well and truly get fucked. I'm not handing over cash for something that sounds shit. Also, I'm not buying a CD as I don't own a CD player and I think they're fugly.

I'd be more than happy to hand over cash for a flac download of Effigy Of The Forgotten. It's a classic. I'd also buy their new one too.

That's two album sales they could be making right there for virtually no effort. I'm guessing Kevin would buy them as well. Seeing how much the folk over at Metal Bandcamp buy I'm guessing there's fuckloads more people that'd buy it.

And here ends yet another "just sell us the damn music" post.

Abyssal - Novit Enim Dominus Qui Sunt Eius

You can count the number of good death metal bands in the UK and still have enough fingers left to tell the other death metal bands to fuck off.

Basically, you've got Cruciamentum, Grave Miasma and this lot. I almost didn't check this lot out as "UK death metal" is almost as bad a phrase as "ska punk".

Anyway, this is good stuff. Kind of similar to stuff like Portal. It's technical but also disgustingly filthy. You know the way Portal sound like their music is rotting in swamp? Like that.

It shifts tempo and lurches and crawls in a delightfully fucked up way.
BR> Get on it.

Dodecahedron - Dodecahedron

This one was recommended to me by our Ewan but I thought I'd write about it since he hasn't yet.

This album is pretty much everything I love about metal. Two content factors usually govern my love for metal: emotional and cerebral. The combination of these two things make for a record I am more than likely going to love. Emotional on it's own, for example all the well meaning but mostly generic Hardcore bands, don't do much for me as, IMHO, they all sound the same and nothing they do grabs me as really new, clever or interesting. Then, purely cerebral music gets you into Meshuggah territory where, as much as I feel bad for it, I just can't get into them as it's just too clinical and soulless without the passion and fire I need to really get me banging.

So here we have Dodecahedron. We have Meshuggah/Deathspell Omega complexity but with real fire and ferocity akin to the best Metal/Hardcore bands I love like Kiss it Goodbye and balls to the wall Black Metal. This really does get it right in my book. The third factor which makes this album stand out is this band really understands the importance of creating an album instead of a collection of songs. The progression of music through this record begins with hooked filled metalcore through to dense droning soundscapes, electronic sequences, Meshuggah style poly-rhythmic mantras, acoustic sequences and a whole shit load more. It really ebbs and flows, dragging you around like a vortex of evil, promising you beauty and then crushing you to death with some of the best riffs you've ever heard.

Oh, and the kick drum sound is utterly pulverising, I cannot get enough of that sound!

On bandcamp they've only posted two tracks which is a shame as you can't appreciate the whole epic in its full form (especially the "View From Hverfell" trilogy of tracks at the end which are a fucking masterpiece), so you'll need to demo the whole album via other methods (you know what to do), but please then go buy their album via bandcamp if you like it (you get the whole album in the download, don't worry).

Easily one of the best albums of 2012.

Cryptopsy - None So Vile

Well, now this is a good idea - bands putting their old albums up on their own bandcamp page. All money straight to them rather than a label.

I love this album. I love it even though the singer thought it was a good idea to call himself Lord Worm.

It's death metal that rides the line between being really tech (which I like but does have it's place) and things that approach actual tunes.

No idea what Cryptopsy are up to nowadays but this is a great slice of 90s death metal.

Direwolf - Beyond The Lands Of Human Existence

This is a little-known belter of a record; a solo project from Mike Lerner who is the guitarist for Behold... The Arctopus  doing even more crazy guitar gymnastics with a a massive Nocturnus/Pestilence influence. It's daft but awesome; you should love it if you liked all that sci-fi influenced death metal with synths/samples and weird guitar effects from the early/mid 90s. I think it's brilliant.
 

Blut Aus Nord - The Work Which Transforms God

This is again one you'll probably already know about, but it's an absolute fucking masterpiece and now it's available to buy via Bandcamp, so it's worth checking out again.

Blut Aus Nord are, IMHO, the best Black Metal band, possibly ever. Everything I look for in music (heaviness, darkness, experimentalism, progression, evolution) are key components in their music. Every release they put out is a progression from the one previous. "The Work Which Transforms God" was the album which really made these guys stand out from the crowd. Like nothing that had come before, the warped, twisting, slithering, bleakness which oozes from this record is almost inhuman. If you haven't already heard this, you really really need to right now!

Candlelight have also stuck quite a few of their releases on Bandcamp now, so check out their other stuff while you're over there. Absu's self titled album is great, as is Hellfire by 1349 and the Winterfylleth albums.

 

Nader Sadek - In The Flesh

You love Death Metal, right? You've already got this album, right? Well, now it's on Bandcamp so you can chuck these guys ten bucks if you just snaffled the MP3s from Mediafire.

For those not in the know, this is what Steve Tucker did after leaving Morbid Angel. The last Morbid Angel album was so brain haemorrhagingly awful it almost made me give up on life, but thank Lucifer for Nader Sadek as this destroys pretty much everything Morbid Angel have done since Domination. Just listen to that dive bombed/finger tapped solo at the end of the last track and tell me you didn't weep with joy! Oh yes!
 

Dark Castle - Surrender To All Life Beyond Form

One half of this band is in Yob (the drummer) but it's mainly the project of Stevie Floyd: vocalist, guitarist and visual artist. Crushingly heavy, kinda like His Hero Is Gone but way more expansive and Doom. Crusty yet beautifully melodic in places. I saw them support Yob last year and they were better, in my opinion. I've been listening to this record a lot since then, really superb stuff.