#entombed — Public Fediverse posts

No Shelter. – Remission/Resolve Review

By Angry Metal Guy

Written By Nameless_n00b_605

These days, it seems everywhere I turn, I can’t help but run into a great band from Germany. I don’t know what’s in the water over there, but with groups like Kanonenfieber, Unhallowed Deliverance, and classic acts like Sodom releasing great records, it’s no surprise that yet another talented group hails from Deutschland. No Shelter. is a five-piece from Münster that peddles in D-beat brutalization with a heaping helping of Boss HM-2 pedal worship. Its latest, Remission/Resolve, is a bass-driven freight train of Swedish-coded blackened death metal, crust punk, and hardcore, conjuring direct comparisons to genre stalwarts like Nails, Rotten Sound, and Trap Them. Can No Shelter. stand in the spotlight with some of the most vicious rippers around, or is it flying too close to the sun, wax wings ready to send it to hell with the rest of the copycats?

No Shelter. is relatively new to the scene (forming in 2017), but it sounds like a veteran unit. Every element of the band feels honed for their specific brand of violence. Thick, earth-shaking bass drives the album, while HM-2-infused riffage switches between blackened death blasts and Pantera-esque grooves. Bolstered by intricate drum fills and classic hardcore 2-step energy, the vocals are equally caustic, calling to mind a truly evil combo of Ringworm’s James Bulloch and Nails’ Todd Jones. No Shelter. plays with no holds barred throughout the entire album, and each band member takes to their role with a reckless abandon more than fitting for their genre inspirations.

The brutally sludgy bass is the adrenaline-juiced heart that keeps Remission/Resolve pumping. Where bands like Job for a Cowboy and Horrendous use bass to shore up their technicality and the spaciness of their sound, No Shelter. uses it as a sledgehammer. Bass is integral to metal, making riffs deeper, heavier, and more impactful overall, and No Shelter. just gets it. Every riff is complemented by slapping destruction, and the bass gets to fly free or drive breakdowns such as on tracks “Rotten,” “Doomed,” and “Ultimate Disgust”. No Shelter. suplexes the trend of bass-less metal right into the dumpster with And Justice for All.

Another element where No Shelter. pulls its sound from the Swedish death metal sewer is the production. The band wears its Entombed inspiration on its sleeve proudly (if the “Wolverine Blues” cover didn’t already give it away), and the HM-2 pedal is all over Remission/Resolve. Production was something No Shelter. wanted to nail, and Remission/Resolve is borderline perfect in this area. The bass is suitably nasty without sounding like a punchline (sorry Primus, I still love you), the snare drum hits hard without becoming tinny, and the vocals are discernible while still retaining the rawness and emotionality required for D-beat destruction. To cap it all off, the guitar brings cohesion to Remission/Resolve with that classic chainsaw tone that would make bands like Hath, Dismember, and Dormant Ordeal proud.

Remission/Resolve isn’t perfect, although where it stumbles isn’t in songwriting or musicianship. This LP lasts a blistering 32 minutes, but the collection of twelve tracks starts with an intro, features two interludes, and a cover as the final track. While I appreciate the interludes as breaks from the aural onslaught on Remission/Resolve, they vary in quality. The unoriginally titled “Intro” (at least it knows what it is) is suitably sinister and builds up anticipation, but the two interludes are almost too simple musically and seem to only exist to let the listener breathe. An admirable idea, and one that is necessary for a lot of albums in this genre, but these moments would be better served attached to the end of already existing tracks. On top of that, I wish they would loop back in on the musical themes established across the album and in the intro, as it stands, the two interludes “I” and “II” feel like they come from a different album.

No Shelter. ends up with a very good record that stands nearly toe-to-toe with its genre inspirations and rightfully lives up to the bands it references so heavily. Therefore, it is fitting that Remission/Resolve closes things with a rip-roaring cover of Entombed’s “Wolverine Blues,” a song that slides so well into the band’s sound, it took me a minute to realize it was a cover in the first place. “Wolverine Blues” ends up feeling perfectly placed right alongside the best tracks on the album and works as a self-referential closer to an album chock-full of Swedish buzzsaw worship. No Shelter. doesn’t so much rock the boat with its brand of blackened hardcore as it does slap a fuckin’ motor on it and violently rocket across the lake.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: This Charming Man Records
Websites: noshelter.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/NoShelterBand
Releases Worldwide: July 25th, 2025

#2025 #35 #BlackenedDeathMetal #Crust #DBeat #Dismember #DormantOrdeal #Entombed #GermanMetal #Hardcore #Hath #Jul25 #Kanonenfieber #Nails #NoShelter_ #Primus #RemissionResolve #Review #Reviews #RottenSound #Sodom #SwedishDeathMetal #TrapThem #UnhallowedDeliverance

No Shelter. – Remission/Resolve Review

By Angry Metal Guy

Written By Nameless_n00b_605

These days, it seems everywhere I turn, I can’t help but run into a great band from Germany. I don’t know what’s in the water over there, but with groups like Kanonenfieber, Unhallowed Deliverance, and classic acts like Sodom releasing great records, it’s no surprise that yet another talented group hails from Deutschland. No Shelter. is a five-piece from Münster that peddles in D-beat brutalization with a heaping helping of Boss HM-2 pedal worship. Its latest, Remission/Resolve, is a bass-driven freight train of Swedish-coded blackened death metal, crust punk, and hardcore, conjuring direct comparisons to genre stalwarts like Nails, Rotten Sound, and Trap Them. Can No Shelter. stand in the spotlight with some of the most vicious rippers around, or is it flying too close to the sun, wax wings ready to send it to hell with the rest of the copycats?

No Shelter. is relatively new to the scene (forming in 2017), but it sounds like a veteran unit. Every element of the band feels honed for their specific brand of violence. Thick, earth-shaking bass drives the album, while HM-2-infused riffage switches between blackened death blasts and Pantera-esque grooves. Bolstered by intricate drum fills and classic hardcore 2-step energy, the vocals are equally caustic, calling to mind a truly evil combo of Ringworm’s James Bulloch and Nails’ Todd Jones. No Shelter. plays with no holds barred throughout the entire album, and each band member takes to their role with a reckless abandon more than fitting for their genre inspirations.

The brutally sludgy bass is the adrenaline-juiced heart that keeps Remission/Resolve pumping. Where bands like Job for a Cowboy and Horrendous use bass to shore up their technicality and the spaciness of their sound, No Shelter. uses it as a sledgehammer. Bass is integral to metal, making riffs deeper, heavier, and more impactful overall, and No Shelter. just gets it. Every riff is complemented by slapping destruction, and the bass gets to fly free or drive breakdowns such as on tracks “Rotten,” “Doomed,” and “Ultimate Disgust”. No Shelter. suplexes the trend of bass-less metal right into the dumpster with And Justice for All.

Another element where No Shelter. pulls its sound from the Swedish death metal sewer is the production. The band wears its Entombed inspiration on its sleeve proudly (if the “Wolverine Blues” cover didn’t already give it away), and the HM-2 pedal is all over Remission/Resolve. Production was something No Shelter. wanted to nail, and Remission/Resolve is borderline perfect in this area. The bass is suitably nasty without sounding like a punchline (sorry Primus, I still love you), the snare drum hits hard without becoming tinny, and the vocals are discernible while still retaining the rawness and emotionality required for D-beat destruction. To cap it all off, the guitar brings cohesion to Remission/Resolve with that classic chainsaw tone that would make bands like Hath, Dismember, and Dormant Ordeal proud.

Remission/Resolve isn’t perfect, although where it stumbles isn’t in songwriting or musicianship. This LP lasts a blistering 32 minutes, but the collection of twelve tracks starts with an intro, features two interludes, and a cover as the final track. While I appreciate the interludes as breaks from the aural onslaught on Remission/Resolve, they vary in quality. The unoriginally titled “Intro” (at least it knows what it is) is suitably sinister and builds up anticipation, but the two interludes are almost too simple musically and seem to only exist to let the listener breathe. An admirable idea, and one that is necessary for a lot of albums in this genre, but these moments would be better served attached to the end of already existing tracks. On top of that, I wish they would loop back in on the musical themes established across the album and in the intro, as it stands, the two interludes “I” and “II” feel like they come from a different album.

No Shelter. ends up with a very good record that stands nearly toe-to-toe with its genre inspirations and rightfully lives up to the bands it references so heavily. Therefore, it is fitting that Remission/Resolve closes things with a rip-roaring cover of Entombed’s “Wolverine Blues,” a song that slides so well into the band’s sound, it took me a minute to realize it was a cover in the first place. “Wolverine Blues” ends up feeling perfectly placed right alongside the best tracks on the album and works as a self-referential closer to an album chock-full of Swedish buzzsaw worship. No Shelter. doesn’t so much rock the boat with its brand of blackened hardcore as it does slap a fuckin’ motor on it and violently rocket across the lake.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: This Charming Man Records
Websites: noshelter.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/NoShelterBand
Releases Worldwide: July 25th, 2025

#2025 #35 #BlackenedDeathMetal #Crust #DBeat #Dismember #DormantOrdeal #Entombed #GermanMetal #Hardcore #Hath #Jul25 #Kanonenfieber #Nails #NoShelter_ #Primus #RemissionResolve #Review #Reviews #RottenSound #Sodom #SwedishDeathMetal #TrapThem #UnhallowedDeliverance

Decades old #LiveMusic venue's existence threatened by inept bankrupt #Oakland city #bureaucracy.

Eli's #MileHigh club, which was started by late Eli Thornton in 70s (before he was murdered in the joint by his girlfriend ), has hosted live gigs in its late last quarter of the 20th century blues heyday when John Lee Hooker, #CharlieMusselwhite, Etta James, Lowell Fulson, Tommy Castro, James Cotton, Little Charlie & The Night Cats, and even James Brown might make the scene, as patrons feasted on giant burgers, gumbo, andouille sausage and fried shrimp made by the ol' lady in the back. More recently, after it's musician owner Troyce Key passed, new ownership fought for years to regain a #Cabaret permit to begin a 21st century phoenix rising era of mixing emergent #hardrock & punk band bookings including locals like Sleep, #HighOnFire and #Entombed in with local blues and barbq, but now in 2025, those days are over.

#WestOakland #DiveBar has been forced to cut staff and close their outdoor smoking & bar bq area portion. Long used by Eli's patrons for decades, but apparently a 'non permitted' backyard area (according to city), it has become an issue now after new neighbor complaints, including many from a recent #residential highrise that was built long after the bar was an #EastBay #nightlife fixture .

Mgmt is asking for support from patrons, and particularly seek photos over a decade old that hopefully show previous outdoor backyard activity.

https://www.kqed.org/arts/13972851/elis-mile-high-club-oakland-patio-closure

Decades old #LiveMusic venue's existence threatened by inept bankrupt #Oakland city #bureaucracy.

Eli's #MileHigh club, which was started by late Eli Thornton in 70s (before he was murdered in the joint by his girlfriend ), has hosted live gigs in its late last quarter of the 20th century blues heyday when John Lee Hooker, #CharlieMusselwhite, Etta James, Lowell Fulson, Tommy Castro, James Cotton, Little Charlie & The Night Cats, and even James Brown might make the scene, as patrons feasted on giant burgers, gumbo, andouille sausage and fried shrimp made by the ol' lady in the back. More recently, after it's musician owner Troyce Key passed, new ownership fought for years to regain a #Cabaret permit to begin a 21st century phoenix rising era of mixing emergent #hardrock & punk band bookings including locals like Sleep, #HighOnFire and #Entombed in with local blues and barbq, but now in 2025, those days are over.

#WestOakland #DiveBar has been forced to cut staff and close their outdoor smoking & bar bq area portion. Long used by Eli's patrons for decades, but apparently a 'non permitted' backyard area (according to city), it has become an issue now after new neighbor complaints, including many from a recent #residential highrise that was built long after the bar was an #EastBay #nightlife fixture .

Mgmt is asking for support from patrons, and particularly seek photos over a decade old that hopefully show previous outdoor backyard activity.

https://www.kqed.org/arts/13972851/elis-mile-high-club-oakland-patio-closure

Stuck in the Filter: October 2024’s Angry Misses

By Kenstrosity

Never fear, the blog’s penchant for deep lateness punctuality persists! It is likely the new year already by the time you see this post, but we’re taking a step back. Way back, into October. I was deep in the shit then, and therefore couldn’t do anything blog-related. And yet, my minions, those very laborers for whom I provide absolutely no compensation whatsoever, toiled dutifully in the metallic dinge that is our Filter. Unforgiving though those environs undoubtedly are, they scraped and scoured until, at long last, small shards of precious ore glimmered to the surface.

These glimmers are the same which you witness before you. Some are big, some are small. Some are short, some are tall. But all are worthy. Behold!

Kenstrosity’s Belated Bombardments

Cosmic Putrefaction // Emerald Fires atop the Farewell Mountains [October 4th, 2024 – Profound Lore Records]

I was originally slated to take over reviewing duties for Cosmic Putrefaction this year, as Thus Spoke had a prior commitment and needed a buddy to step in. Unfortunately, I was rendered useless by a force of nature for a while, so I had to let go of several items of interest. But I couldn’t let 2024 go by without saying something! Entitled Emeral Fires atop the Farewell Mountains, Cosmic Putrefaction’s fourth represents one of the smoothest, most ethereal interpretations of weird, dissonant death metal. The classic Cosmic Putrefaction riffsets under an auroric sky remain, as evidenced by ripping examples “[Entering the Vortex Temporum] – Pre-mortem Phosphenes” and “Swirling Madness, Supernal Ordeal,” but there lurks within a monstrous technical death metal creature who rabidly chases the atmospheric spirits of olde (“I Should Great the Inexorable Darkness,” “Eudaemonist Withdrawal”). While in lesser hands these distinct aesthetics would undoubtedly clash on a dissonant platform such as this, Cosmic Putrefaction’s particular application of sound and style coalesces in devastating beauty and relentless purpose (“Hallways Engraved in Aether,” “Emerald Fires atop the Farewell Mountains”). Were it not for some instances wherein, for the first time ever, Cosmic Putrefaction threatens to self-plagiarize their own material (“Eudaemonist Withdrawal”), I would likely consider Emerald Fires atop the Farewell Mountains for year-end list status.

Feral // To Usurp the Thrones [October 18th, 2024 – Transcending Obscurity Records]

Another one of my charges that I unfortunately had to put down against my will, Swedish death metal fiends Feral’s fourth salvo To Usurp the Thrones deserves a spotlight here. Where Flesh for Funerals Eternal impressed me as my introduction to the band and, arguably, my introduction to modern buzzsaw Swedeath, To Usurp the Thrones impresses me as a singularly vicious record in the style. Faster, meaner, more varied, and longer than its predecessor, Thrones offers the punk-tinged, thrashy death riffs you know and love, with bluesy touches reminiscent of Entombed’s Wolverine Blues adding a bit of drunken swagger to the affair (“Vile Malediction,” “Phantoms of Iniquity,” “Into the Ashes of History”). Absolute rippers like “To Drain the World of Light,” “Deformed Mentality,” “Decimated,” and “Soaked in Blood” live up to the band’s moniker, rabid and relentless in their assault. In many ways, Thrones evokes the same bloodsoaked sense of fun that Helslave’s From the Sulphur Depths conjured, but it’s angrier, more unhinged (“Spirits Without Rest,” “Stripped of Flesh”). Consequently, Thrones stands out as one of the more fun records of its ilk to come out this year. Don’t miss it!

Sun Worship // Upon the Hills of Divination [October 31st, 2024 – Vendetta Records]

Back in 2020, our dear Roquentin offered some damn fine words of praise for Germany’s Sun Worship and their third blackened blade, Emanations of Desolation. It’s been six years since that record dropped, and Upon the Hills of Divination picks up right where Emanations left off. That is to say, absolutely slimy, post-metal-tinged riffs bolstered by dense layers of warm tremolos and mid-frequency roars. Opener “Within the Machine” offers a concrete encapsulation of what to expect: bits and pieces of Hulder, Gaerea, and Vorga melding together into a compelling concoction of hypnotic black metal. Using the long form to their utmost advantage, Sun Worship craft immersive soundscapes liable to scald the flesh just as quickly as they seduce the senses, leaving me as a brainwashed minion doing a twisted mystic’s bidding unconditionally (“Serpent Nebula,” “Covenant”). Yet, there roils a sense of urgency in these songs, despite many of them occupying a mid-paced cadence, which unveils a bleeding heart willingly wrenched from Sun Worship’s body (“Fractal Entity,” the title track, and “Stormbringer”). This is what sets it apart from its contemporaries, and what makes it worthy of mention. Why it’s gotten so little attention escapes me. It is with the intent of rectifying that condition that I pen this woefully insufficient segment.

Dolphin Whisperer’s Duty Free Rifftrocity

Extorted // Cognitive Dissonance [October 16th, 2024 – Self Release]

You don’t need to read this review to know that the Kiwis of Extorted plays pit-whipping death/thrash. Though not adorned with other obvious symbols, like Vietnam War paraphernalia or crushed beer cans, the Ed Repka-penned brain-ripped head figure screams “no thoughts only riff” all the same. With snares set to pow and crashes set to kshhh, Cognitive Dissonance finds low resistance to accelerating early Death-indebted refrains. Vocalist Joel Clark even plays as a dead ringer for pre-Human Schuldiner or Van Drunen (Asphyx, ex-Pestilence) as the torture in many lines grows (on “Infected” and “Ghastly Creatures” in particular). And in a continued tour of Van Drunen-associated sounds, Extorted’s ability to find a push-and-pull cadence that twists the fury of thrash with the cutting drag of death hits that hard-to-nail early Pestilence pocket with studied flair (“Deception,” “Limits of Reality”). Though a considerable amount of the Extorted identity rests in ideas borrowed and reinterpreted, a modern tonal canvas gives Cognitive Dissonance’s rhythms a punchy and balanced low-end weight that doesn’t always present itself in the world of old. Couple that with hooks that reach far beyond the limits of pure homage (“Transformation of Dreams,” “Violence”), and it’s easy to plow through the thirty minutes of tasteful harmonies, bending solos, and spit-stained lamentations that Extorted offers with their powerful debut.

Bríi // Camaradagem Póstuma [October 11th, 2024 – Self Release]

With Camaradagem Póstuma we enter the hazy, folky world of Caio Lemos’ unique vision of what experimental electronic music can be colored by the underpinnings of atmospheric black metal and jazz fusion. Using terraced melodies like baroque music of old and distant breakbeats like the Bong-Ra of recent yesteryears, Brazil’s Bríi represents one man’s highly specific melding that rarely occurs in this space. The guitar lines that do exist play out as textural, slow-developing passages. On tracks “Aparecidos” and “Baile Fantasma” this looping and hypnotic pattern shuffle resembles ambient Pat Metheny or King Crimson colors, the kind where finding the end of nylon pluck into a weaving, high-frequency synth patch feels not impossible but unnecessary. And on the more metallic side of things, Lemos cranks programmed blasts that carry his tortured, panning, and shrouded wails as a guide for the melodic evolution of each track, much in the same way a warping bass line would in a progressive house track. But maintaining the tempo of classic drum and bass, Camaradagem Póstuma wisps away in its atmosphere, coming back to a driving rhythm either via pummeling double kick or glitching break. Despite the hard, danceable pulse that tracks “Enlutados” and “Entre Mundos” boast, Bríi does not feel built for the kvlt klvbs of this world, leaning on a gated, lo-fi aesthetic that makes for an ideal drift away on closed cans, much like the equally idiosyncratic Wist album from earlier this year. And similarly, Camaradagem Póstuma sits in an outsider world of enjoyment. But if any of this sounds like your jam, prepare to get addicted to Bríi.

Thus Spoke’s Rotten Remnants

Livløs // The Crescent King [October 4th, 2024 – Noctum Productions]

Livløs are one of those bands that deserves far more recognition than they receive. With LP three, The Crescent King, they might finally see it. Their punchy intriguing infusion of Swedish and US melodic death metal—though the band themselves hail from Denmark—has a pleasing melancholia and satisfying bite. Here in particular, there’s more than a passing resemblance to Hath, to Cognizance, and to In Mourning. Stomping grooves (“Maelstrom,” “Usurpers”) slide in between blitzes of tripping gallops, and electrifying fretwork (“Orbit Weaver,” “Scourge of the Stars”). Mournful, compelling melodies woven into this technical tapestry—some highlights being the title track, “Harvest,” and “Endless Majesty”—turn already good melodeath into great melodeath; melodeath that’s majestic and powerful, without ever feeling overblown. With its relentless, groovy dynamism, the crisp, spacious production seals the deal for total immersion. If this is your first time hearing about Livløs, you’re in for a treat.

Sordide // Ainsi finit le jour [October 25th, 2024 – Les Acteurs de l’Ombre Productions]

And So Ends the Day, whilst another begins where I rediscover Sordide. I know not how I forgot their existence despite the impression that 2021’s Les Idées Blanches made upon me, yet all I could recall was the disturbingly simple, melty art.1 Ainsi Finit le Jour arrives with a hefty dose (53 minutes no less) of punky, dissonant black metal that’s even rawer and more pissed-off than their usual fare. “Des feux plus forts,” “La poesie du caniveau,” and the title track stand out as the most vicious, near-first-wave cuts the trio have ever laid down, with manic, group wails, and chaotic, jangling percussion. But as is so often the case with Sordide, perhaps the truest brutality comes in the slower discordant crawls of “Sous Vivre,” “Tout est a la mort,” and the particularly unsettling “La beauté du desastre,” whose creeping, half-tuneful teasing and turns to eerie spaciousness get right under your skin. It is arguably a little too long for its own good, given its intensity, but its impressiveness does mean that, this time, Sordide won’t be forgotten.

Dear Hollow’s Droll Hashals

Annihilist // Reform [October 18th, 2024 – Self Release]

What Melbourne’s Annihilist does with flamboyant flare and reckless abandon is blur the lines of its core stylistic choices. One moment it’s chugging away like a deathcore band, the next it’s dripping away with a groove metal swagger, ope, now it’s on its way to Hot Topic. All we know is that all its members attack with a chameleonic intensity and otherworldly technicality that’s hard to pin down. An insane level of technicality is the thread that courses throughout the entirety of this debut, recalling Within the Ruins or The Human Abstract in its stuttering rhythms and flailing arpeggios. From catchy leads and punishing rhythms (“The Upsend,” “Guillotine”), bouncy breakdowns, clean choruses, and wild gang vocals (“Blood”), djenty guitar seizures (“Virus,” “Better Off”) to full-on groove (“N.M.E.,” “The Host”), the likes of Lamb of God, early Architects, Born of Osiris, and Children of Bodom are conjured. Lyrics of hardcore punk’s signature anarchy and societal distrust collide with an instrumental palette of melodeath and the more technical kin of metalcore and deathcore, groove metal, and hardcore. As such, the album is complicated, episodic, and unpredictable, with only its wild technicality connecting its fragmented bits – keeping Reform from achieving the greatness that the band is so capable of. As it stands, though, Annihilist offers an insanely fun, everchanging, and unhinged roller coaster of -core proportions – a roller -corester, if you will.

Under Alekhines Gun

Theurgy // Emanations of Unconscious Luminescence [October 17th, 2024 – New Standard Elite]

In a year where slam and brutal death have already had an atypically high-quality output, international outfit Theurgy have come with an RKO out of nowhere to shatter whatever remains of your cerebral cortex. Channeling the flamboyancy of old Analepsy with the snare abuse and neanderthalic glee of Epicardiectomy, Emanations of Unconscious Luminescence wastes no time severing vertebrae and reducing eardrums to paste. Don’t mistake this for a brainless, caveman assault, however. Peppered between the hammiest of hammers are tech flourishes pulled straight from Dingir era Rings of Saturn, adding an unexpected technical edge to the blunt force trauma. The production manages to pair these two disparaging elements with lethal efficiency. Is it the techiest slam album, or the wettest, greasiest tech album? Did I mention there’s a super moldy cover of Devourment‘s “Molesting the Decapitated”? It slots right into the albums flow without feeling like a tacked-on bonus track, highlighting Theurgy’s commitment to the homicidal odes of brutality. Throw in a vocal performance that makes Angel Ochoa (Abominable Putridity) sound like Anders Fridén (In Flames), and you’re left with one last lethal assault to round out the year. Dive in and give your luminescence something to cry about.

GardensTale’s Great Glacier

Ghosts of Glaciers // Eternal [October 25th, 2024 – Translation Loss Records]

Ghosts of Glaciers’s last release, The Greatest Burden, was a masterclass of post-metal flow and has become a mainstay in my instrumental metal collection since my review in 2019. Dropping in tandem with several other high-profile releases, though, I could not give its follow-up the kind of attention it deserves. And make no mistake, it absolutely deserves that attention. The opening duo, “The Vast Expanse” and “Sunken Chamber,” measure up fully to The Greatest Burden, though it takes a few spins for that to become clear. Both use repetitive patterns more than before, but closer listens reveal how subtle variations and evolution of each cycle build gradual tension, so the release becomes all the more satisfying. I’m a little more ambivalent on the back half of Eternal, though. “Leviathan” packs a bigger punch than more of the band’s material, it lacks the swirling and sweeping currents that pull me under and demand full and uninterrupted plays every time. Closer “Regeneratio Aeterna” is a pretty but rather demure piece that lasts a bit longer than it should have. But despite these reservations, the great material outstrips the merely good, and Eternal is a worthwhile addition to any instrumental metal collection.

#AbominablePutridity #AinsiFinitLeJour #AmericanMetal #Analepsy #Annihilist #Architects #Asphyx #AtmosphericBlackMetal #AustralianMetal #BlackMetal #BongRa #BornOfOsiris #BrazilianMetal #Bríi #BrutalDeathMetal #CamaradagemPóstuma #ChildrenOfBodom #CognitiveDissonance #Cognizance #CosmicPutrefaction #Death #DeathMetal #DeathThrash #Deathcore #Devourment #DissonantBlackMetal #DissonantDeathMetal #Electronic #EmanationsOfUnconsciousLuminescence #EmeralFiresAtopTheFarewellMountains #Entombed #Epicardiectomy #Eternal #ExperimentalMetal #Extorted #Feral #FrenchMetal #Gaerea #GermanMetal #GhostsOfGlaciers #GrooveMetal #Hardcore #HardcorePunk #Hath #Helslave #Hulder #InFlames #InMourning #InternationalMetal #ItalianMetal #KingCrimson #LambOfGod #LesActeursDeLOmbreProductions #Livløs #MelodicDeathMetal #Metalcore #NewStandardElite #NewZealandMetal #NoctumProductions #OSDM #PatMetheny #Pestilence #PostBlackMetal #PostMetal #ProfoundLoreRecords #Reform #RingsOfSaturn #SelfRelease #SelfReleased #Slam #Sordide #SunWorship #SwedishMetal #TechnicalDeathMetal #TheCrescentKing #TheHumanAbstract #Theurgy #ThrashMetal #ToUsurpTheThrones #TranscendingObscurityRecords #TranslationLossRecords #UponTheHillsOfDivination #VendettaRecords #VertebraAtlantis #Vorga #Wist #WithinTheRuins

Rotpit – Long Live the Rot Review (Happy Rotsgiving to All)

By Steel Druhm

2023 was a good year for death metal, and amidst all the quality knuckle-dragging, Rotpit’s Let There Be Rot debut was a most welcome unearthing. Spewed forth by fiends from such acts as Heads for the Dead, Wombbath, and Revel in Flesh, Let There Be Rot blended the worst angels of the Swedish and American schools of decay to deliver an entertaining dose of infectious medical waste with a shocking number of greasy hooks. It’s an album I return to often and it still sounds freshly deceased. This is why I was so surprised to see the Pit boys back only a year later with Long Live the Rot. With their commitment to all things rotten firmly in place (5 of the 10 tracks contain “rot” in the title) and a new drummer on board, can these pit demons once again show us where the slime lives while keeping things interesting and appropriately grotesque? Welcome to the first ever Rotsgiving!

Things open on an especially dank, brown note with “Sewer Rot” which is really the worst kind of rot if you think about it. It’s cavernous, slimy, slithering and oh-so unclean. It offers all manner of ear contamination, but somehow feels less bestial and brain-stimulating than the offal served up on the debt. The overall style is much the same as last time, with cuts like “Massive Maggot Swarm” and the title track throwing reverb-thick riffs and horrid vocals at the cavern wall to see what sticks. Enough does to keep you listening, but the overall fun levels are less than what I was hoping for. The Incantolation influence of the title track is quite endearing nonetheless. Prime cut “The Triumph of Rot” feels like it drops a cubic ton of wet concrete on you with its thick plodding advance that borrows muchly from Bolt Thrower. Standout “Tunnel Rat” is more urgent and in-your-face with a punky d-beat leading the way. It sounds like the earliest Entombed material and that’s always a good thing. “Funeral Mock” also stands tall with meaty riffage and enough aggression to infirm a femur.

While no track is completely barren of merit, the overall excitement and intrigue levels are lessened and none of the material hits as hard as the best stuff on the debut. I like that there are bits and pieces that recall the earliest days Paradise Lost, and the expected nods to Entombed and Dismember are fine (and, you know, expected), but the album feels overly restrained, which is not what one would expect from a band called Rotpit. Take “Dirt Dwellers” for example. It rides along in a doomy dirge with only brief hiccups into mid-tempo chuggery. It’s not bad, but it’s fairly dull and never takes flight. Maybe it’s just me, but I want more menace and anger in my mass grave of moldering corpses. At a svelte 35-plus minutes, Long Live the Rot doesn’t feel like a chore to get through, but a few cuts have flabby love handles that could have been trimmed. The production is cavernous, full of reverb, and skews a bit muddy, muting the instruments more than it should while lacking a big, oppressive guitar tone. That’s a miss for me, dawg.

Once again Jonny Pettersson (Massacre, Heads for the Dead, Wombbath) handles guitar and bass and brings chonky leads and gravely grooves to the decay ditch. His playing reeks of the early 90s Swedeath scene with frequent side quests into classic Incantation cave swamp doom riffage and the shitfun of Autopsy. I’m a sucker for the blueprint and when he executes it well, the songs crackle and pop like a diseased boil. However, the tendency to remain in a mid-tempo space for too much of the album saps a lot of energy from the material and truly killer riffs are few. Ralf Hauber (Heads for the Dead, Revel in Flesh) offers excellently ginormous, echoey death roars that suit the music and he sounds as large and in charge as last time. He’s the right man for the job and makes everything sound extra moist and squishy. New kit-man Erik Barthold (Darklands) brings plenty of percussive brutality to the crime scene, but again, things end up too restrained for him to work up a good mouth foaming.

I get the feeling the minds behind Rotpit spent the last year binging on old Incantation and Immolation albums and that oozed into their writing this time. The result is less about an orgy of violence and more about murky atmospheres. I prefer a potent blend of both and thus, Long Live the Rot leaves me feeling partially unburied.1 This gives me the sadz, and on the first Rotsgiving no less! I truly enjoy this project since it’s essentially the modern-day Death Breath, so I hope they have a longer shelf life than those Swedish sickos did, and that they can regroup to shove us deeper into the putrescence in the future. In the meantime, I’ll still celebrate the Rot season so give me a maggoty turkey leg and a bottle of hobo pruno and I’ll go sulk in the pit corner.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: War Anthem Records
Websites: facebook.com/rotpit666 | instagram.com/rotpit_official
Releases Worldwide: November 29th, 2024

Felagund

The band’s name is Rotpit. Half the songs on their sophomore album Long Live the Rot have the word “rot” in the title. This is knuckle dragging, club wielding, marsh-dwelling caveman metal. This is grimy, slimy, choking-on-swamp water metal. So if you’re here desperately searching for a review of the latest avant-garde post-metal release by a critically-acclaimed one man black metal project, I suggest you take your frontal lobe and shove it (preferably into the steaming heap with the others), because the noise the Neanderthals in Rotpit produce is only fit for plaque-addled amygdalas. As the proud owner of such grotesque brain matter, I found their 2023 debut Let There Be Rot to be a splendidly nasty affair. But can the same be said for their follow up? Can Long Live the Rot live up to the brutish power of its predecessor? Will I walk away once more, id pulsating and hip waders overflowing with viscous offal? I should be so lucky.

This may come as a shock to many of you, but Rotpit don’t appear to be overly concerned with musical evolution or artistic growth. The band that so disgusted you last year are back with a vengeance in 2024, and not much has changed. Long Live the Rot continues the pummeling assault Rotpit introduced on their first album, bashing in your eardrums with landslides of rumbling riffs, driving drums, and serpentine solos that slink between and above the perilous mountain of ichor. But as the record thunders onward, you can’t ignore the whiffs of Entombed or Bolt Thrower, nor can you overlook the understated but no less pungent stench of Sanguisanibog or the odoriferous Acid Bath riffs. But taken together, Rotpit continues to be their very own disgusting thing, an ethos that is driven home on Long Live the Rot.

“Sewer Rot” is a serviceable, fetid opener that boasts burly riffs, a doomy chorus, and plenty of buzzsaw guitar work. But in my estimation, the album truly finds its greasy footing on second track “Massive Maggot Swarm.” You’ve got an Acid Bath-infused main riff that disappears and reappears in between bouts of thick, trudging guitar, punishing double bass, and searing solos, all played through what sounds like a generous coating of soggy slime mold. Truth be told, most of the tunes on Long Live the Rot conform to a version of this approach, weaving in impenetrable walls of murky sound alongside heaving, repetitious riffs, mid-paced grooves, cavernous death growls, and understated drums that maintain momentum even when the guitars refuse to be moved. “Long Live the Rot” and “Funeral Mock” are album standouts, equipt as they are with both choruses and riffs that find their success through repetition. And while “Triumph of the Rot” and “Tunnel Rat” bring some welcome freneticism to the party, I’m here for the buzzy grime; the kind of oozing, musical muck that would make Anton Arcane gag.

It’s hard to have too much of a good thing, and thanks to a tight runtime and their ability to strike just the right balance between brutality and brevity, Rotpit have crafted a fun album that knows exactly what it wants to be. That’s not to say that every song is a prime cut (although they’re all beginning to turn). “Dirt Dwellers” is probably the most egregious example, sandwiched as it is between two stronger tracks and falling victim to that age old problem of death metal maniacs everywhere who traffic in the big, the dumb, and the grungy: monotony. Fortunately, while the dreaded M-word may rear its head from time to time, Rotpit knows not to overstay their welcome, and Long Live the Rot is all the better for it.

While this type of metal won’t be for everyone, I found Rotpit’s second album to be a grimy good time. And while I admit to being overly critical of “serious” artists in my opening, I can’t close without identifying what I believe to be the overarching ethos permeating Rotpit’s entire oeuvre. Tongue planted firmly in cheek though it may be, titles like “Triumph of the Rot” speak to a larger ideal; a philosophical undercurrent demanding that we, the listeners, learn to accept, embrace, and ultimately laugh at our own fleeting immortality. Just as Camus demands that we imagine Sisyphus happy, Rotpit demands that we imagine Sisyphus, well…rotting. In this way, Rotpit compose album-length memento mori, inviting us to reflect upon the inevitable. …But they also have a song called “Shitburner,” so what do I know?

Rating: 3.0/5.0

Ferox

Ah, Rotsgiving… a holiday for those of us who feel most alive when contemplating our own demise. We gather round the butcher’s block, as did death metal fans of yore, to celebrate an abundance of decaying riches. The Rotsgiving Day Parade plays in the background while Steel Druhm and Holdeneye prepare a traditional feast of Mystery Carcass and N00b Innards. Felagund spins tales of the Olde School while Maddog and Thus Spoke argue for novel ingredients and a cruelty-free Rotsgiving. Some of us are at home here in the mausoleum, and some stop by to visit from time to time. Cherd reminds everyone to slow down, that sometimes death is best appreciated with a side helping of doom. Have you been off traveling for a spell, like Mark Z.? Welcome back to Rotsgiving–and even if you can’t make it home this year, we always leave a place open for absent family members like Kronos and Ferrous Bueller. There’s even a kid’s table, where Doom et Al is free to blather while Kenstrosity and Dolph mash everything on their plates together and rate the resulting slop a 4.5.

We have high hopes for this year’s main course. Various religions exist to sell you on what happens to your soul after you die. Sweden’s Rotpit knows what happens to your body, and that’s all the inspiration this trio of diehards needs. On the band’s 2023 debut Let There Be Rot, guitarist and Guy in A Lot of Bands Jonny Pettersson (Wombbath, Berzerker Legion) teamed with fellow Heads for the Dead-head Ralf Hauber for a slab of scuzzed-up death built around the question: “What if the meaning of life is to provide food for maggots after you die?” The album resonated bigly with Steel Druhm and with death-inclined staff and readers. A scant year later, Rotpit returns to bestow the blessings of Long Live the Rot upon all who celebrate Rotsgiving. Will the staff leave the holiday table satisfied, or is this just reheated fare?

The ingredients in Long Live the Rot are the same as the ones in last year’s meal, even if this dish emerges from the oven with a subtly different mouthfeel. Pettersson’s reverb-basted guitars still dominate. A Rotpit jam typically kicks off with a stomping, stöopid down-tuned riff, after which a dental-drill lead guitar line asserts itself. This is scabby, dank death metal in the vein of Undergang or Autopsy. Pettersson tamps down his gift for hooks in favor of an approach that emphasizes grime and atmosphere. Ralf Hauber’s vocals always sound like he’s nauseated, which suits these songs about decay and the maggots that cause it. So what’s different? Let There Be Rot found an elusive sweet spot between murk and mirth, managing to engage even as it sickened. Long Live the Rot, in contrast, goes heavy on the scuzz and fuzz at the expense of songwriting. It’s still a fast and fun listen, but the new album finds Rotpit falling back into the death metal pack.

Not to air my controversial opinions during Rotsgiving dinner, but the best songs on Long Live the Rot are the ones that have good riffs. Standouts like “Triumph of the Rot” and “Funeral Mock” entice even as they envelop you in Rotpit’s signature fetid cloud. “Tunnel Rat” kicks off with a killer passage that evokes a tunnel borer drilling through tons of earth. If the album came fully stocked with riffs of this quality, Long Live the Rot would be a worthy companion piece to Let There Be Rot. Instead, there are songs and sections where the perfunctory riffage makes it difficult to distinguish one ode to decay from another (“Eat or Be Eaten,” “Dirt Dwellers.”) Maybe Rotpit needed more time between albums, or maybe the concept is already losing steam. Either way, Long Live the Rot is a perfectly nice set of scabby death metal anthems… which makes it a disappointment compared to the band’s opening salvo.

So maybe the main course is drier than we hoped. That doesn’t make Rotsgiving a disappointment. Look around the table. There’s a tray of Stenched that just came out of the oven. The Void Witch and Noxis courses should be along shortly, and I hear there’s Ripped to Shreds for dessert. As for this dish? Meat and potatoes always have their place.

Rating: 3.0/5.0

#2024 #30 #AcidBath #Autopsy #BoltThrower #DeathMetal #Dismember #Entombed #HeadsForTheDead #Incantation #InternationalMetal #LetThereBeRot #Nov24 #ParadiseLost #RevelInFlesh #Review #Reviews #Rotpit #WarAnthemRecords #Wombbath

Rotpit – Long Live the Rot Review (Happy Rotsgiving to All)

By Steel Druhm

2023 was a good year for death metal, and amidst all the quality knuckle-dragging, Rotpit’s Let There Be Rot debut was a most welcome unearthing. Spewed forth by fiends from such acts as Heads for the Dead, Wombbath, and Revel in Flesh, Let There Be Rot blended the worst angels of the Swedish and American schools of decay to deliver an entertaining dose of infectious medical waste with a shocking number of greasy hooks. It’s an album I return to often and it still sounds freshly deceased. This is why I was so surprised to see the Pit boys back only a year later with Long Live the Rot. With their commitment to all things rotten firmly in place (5 of the 10 tracks contain “rot” in the title) and a new drummer on board, can these pit demons once again show us where the slime lives while keeping things interesting and appropriately grotesque? Welcome to the first ever Rotsgiving!

Things open on an especially dank, brown note with “Sewer Rot” which is really the worst kind of rot if you think about it. It’s cavernous, slimy, slithering and oh-so unclean. It offers all manner of ear contamination, but somehow feels less bestial and brain-stimulating than the offal served up on the debt. The overall style is much the same as last time, with cuts like “Massive Maggot Swarm” and the title track throwing reverb-thick riffs and horrid vocals at the cavern wall to see what sticks. Enough does to keep you listening, but the overall fun levels are less than what I was hoping for. The Incantolation influence of the title track is quite endearing nonetheless. Prime cut “The Triumph of Rot” feels like it drops a cubic ton of wet concrete on you with its thick plodding advance that borrows muchly from Bolt Thrower. Standout “Tunnel Rat” is more urgent and in-your-face with a punky d-beat leading the way. It sounds like the earliest Entombed material and that’s always a good thing. “Funeral Mock” also stands tall with meaty riffage and enough aggression to infirm a femur.

While no track is completely barren of merit, the overall excitement and intrigue levels are lessened and none of the material hits as hard as the best stuff on the debut. I like that there are bits and pieces that recall the earliest days Paradise Lost, and the expected nods to Entombed and Dismember are fine (and, you know, expected), but the album feels overly restrained, which is not what one would expect from a band called Rotpit. Take “Dirt Dwellers” for example. It rides along in a doomy dirge with only brief hiccups into mid-tempo chuggery. It’s not bad, but it’s fairly dull and never takes flight. Maybe it’s just me, but I want more menace and anger in my mass grave of moldering corpses. At a svelte 35-plus minutes, Long Live the Rot doesn’t feel like a chore to get through, but a few cuts have flabby love handles that could have been trimmed. The production is cavernous, full of reverb, and skews a bit muddy, muting the instruments more than it should while lacking a big, oppressive guitar tone. That’s a miss for me, dawg.

Once again Jonny Pettersson (Massacre, Heads for the Dead, Wombbath) handles guitar and bass and brings chonky leads and gravely grooves to the decay ditch. His playing reeks of the early 90s Swedeath scene with frequent side quests into classic Incantation cave swamp doom riffage and the shitfun of Autopsy. I’m a sucker for the blueprint and when he executes it well, the songs crackle and pop like a diseased boil. However, the tendency to remain in a mid-tempo space for too much of the album saps a lot of energy from the material and truly killer riffs are few. Ralf Hauber (Heads for the Dead, Revel in Flesh) offers excellently ginormous, echoey death roars that suit the music and he sounds as large and in charge as last time. He’s the right man for the job and makes everything sound extra moist and squishy. New kit-man Erik Barthold (Darklands) brings plenty of percussive brutality to the crime scene, but again, things end up too restrained for him to work up a good mouth foaming.

I get the feeling the minds behind Rotpit spent the last year binging on old Incantation and Immolation albums and that oozed into their writing this time. The result is less about an orgy of violence and more about murky atmospheres. I prefer a potent blend of both and thus, Long Live the Rot leaves me feeling partially unburied.1 This gives me the sadz, and on the first Rotsgiving no less! I truly enjoy this project since it’s essentially the modern-day Death Breath, so I hope they have a longer shelf life than those Swedish sickos did, and that they can regroup to shove us deeper into the putrescence in the future. In the meantime, I’ll still celebrate the Rot season so give me a maggoty turkey leg and a bottle of hobo pruno and I’ll go sulk in the pit corner.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: War Anthem Records
Websites: facebook.com/rotpit666 | instagram.com/rotpit_official
Releases Worldwide: November 29th, 2024

Felagund

The band’s name is Rotpit. Half the songs on their sophomore album Long Live the Rot have the word “rot” in the title. This is knuckle dragging, club wielding, marsh-dwelling caveman metal. This is grimy, slimy, choking-on-swamp water metal. So if you’re here desperately searching for a review of the latest avant-garde post-metal release by a critically-acclaimed one man black metal project, I suggest you take your frontal lobe and shove it (preferably into the steaming heap with the others), because the noise the Neanderthals in Rotpit produce is only fit for plaque-addled amygdalas. As the proud owner of such grotesque brain matter, I found their 2023 debut Let There Be Rot to be a splendidly nasty affair. But can the same be said for their follow up? Can Long Live the Rot live up to the brutish power of its predecessor? Will I walk away once more, id pulsating and hip waders overflowing with viscous offal? I should be so lucky.

This may come as a shock to many of you, but Rotpit don’t appear to be overly concerned with musical evolution or artistic growth. The band that so disgusted you last year are back with a vengeance in 2024, and not much has changed. Long Live the Rot continues the pummeling assault Rotpit introduced on their first album, bashing in your eardrums with landslides of rumbling riffs, driving drums, and serpentine solos that slink between and above the perilous mountain of ichor. But as the record thunders onward, you can’t ignore the whiffs of Entombed or Bolt Thrower, nor can you overlook the understated but no less pungent stench of Sanguisanibog or the odoriferous Acid Bath riffs. But taken together, Rotpit continues to be their very own disgusting thing, an ethos that is driven home on Long Live the Rot.

“Sewer Rot” is a serviceable, fetid opener that boasts burly riffs, a doomy chorus, and plenty of buzzsaw guitar work. But in my estimation, the album truly finds its greasy footing on second track “Massive Maggot Swarm.” You’ve got an Acid Bath-infused main riff that disappears and reappears in between bouts of thick, trudging guitar, punishing double bass, and searing solos, all played through what sounds like a generous coating of soggy slime mold. Truth be told, most of the tunes on Long Live the Rot conform to a version of this approach, weaving in impenetrable walls of murky sound alongside heaving, repetitious riffs, mid-paced grooves, cavernous death growls, and understated drums that maintain momentum even when the guitars refuse to be moved. “Long Live the Rot” and “Funeral Mock” are album standouts, equipt as they are with both choruses and riffs that find their success through repetition. And while “Triumph of the Rot” and “Tunnel Rat” bring some welcome freneticism to the party, I’m here for the buzzy grime; the kind of oozing, musical muck that would make Anton Arcane gag.

It’s hard to have too much of a good thing, and thanks to a tight runtime and their ability to strike just the right balance between brutality and brevity, Rotpit have crafted a fun album that knows exactly what it wants to be. That’s not to say that every song is a prime cut (although they’re all beginning to turn). “Dirt Dwellers” is probably the most egregious example, sandwiched as it is between two stronger tracks and falling victim to that age old problem of death metal maniacs everywhere who traffic in the big, the dumb, and the grungy: monotony. Fortunately, while the dreaded M-word may rear its head from time to time, Rotpit knows not to overstay their welcome, and Long Live the Rot is all the better for it.

While this type of metal won’t be for everyone, I found Rotpit’s second album to be a grimy good time. And while I admit to being overly critical of “serious” artists in my opening, I can’t close without identifying what I believe to be the overarching ethos permeating Rotpit’s entire oeuvre. Tongue planted firmly in cheek though it may be, titles like “Triumph of the Rot” speak to a larger ideal; a philosophical undercurrent demanding that we, the listeners, learn to accept, embrace, and ultimately laugh at our own fleeting immortality. Just as Camus demands that we imagine Sisyphus happy, Rotpit demands that we imagine Sisyphus, well…rotting. In this way, Rotpit compose album-length memento mori, inviting us to reflect upon the inevitable. …But they also have a song called “Shitburner,” so what do I know?

Rating: 3.0/5.0

Ferox

Ah, Rotsgiving… a holiday for those of us who feel most alive when contemplating our own demise. We gather round the butcher’s block, as did death metal fans of yore, to celebrate an abundance of decaying riches. The Rotsgiving Day Parade plays in the background while Steel Druhm and Holdeneye prepare a traditional feast of Mystery Carcass and N00b Innards. Felagund spins tales of the Olde School while Maddog and Thus Spoke argue for novel ingredients and a cruelty-free Rotsgiving. Some of us are at home here in the mausoleum, and some stop by to visit from time to time. Cherd reminds everyone to slow down, that sometimes death is best appreciated with a side helping of doom. Have you been off traveling for a spell, like Mark Z.? Welcome back to Rotsgiving–and even if you can’t make it home this year, we always leave a place open for absent family members like Kronos and Ferrous Bueller. There’s even a kid’s table, where Doom et Al is free to blather while Kenstrosity and Dolph mash everything on their plates together and rate the resulting slop a 4.5.

We have high hopes for this year’s main course. Various religions exist to sell you on what happens to your soul after you die. Sweden’s Rotpit knows what happens to your body, and that’s all the inspiration this trio of diehards needs. On the band’s 2023 debut Let There Be Rot, guitarist and Guy in A Lot of Bands Jonny Pettersson (Wombbath, Berzerker Legion) teamed with fellow Heads for the Dead-head Ralf Hauber for a slab of scuzzed-up death built around the question: “What if the meaning of life is to provide food for maggots after you die?” The album resonated bigly with Steel Druhm and with death-inclined staff and readers. A scant year later, Rotpit returns to bestow the blessings of Long Live the Rot upon all who celebrate Rotsgiving. Will the staff leave the holiday table satisfied, or is this just reheated fare?

The ingredients in Long Live the Rot are the same as the ones in last year’s meal, even if this dish emerges from the oven with a subtly different mouthfeel. Pettersson’s reverb-basted guitars still dominate. A Rotpit jam typically kicks off with a stomping, stöopid down-tuned riff, after which a dental-drill lead guitar line asserts itself. This is scabby, dank death metal in the vein of Undergang or Autopsy. Pettersson tamps down his gift for hooks in favor of an approach that emphasizes grime and atmosphere. Ralf Hauber’s vocals always sound like he’s nauseated, which suits these songs about decay and the maggots that cause it. So what’s different? Let There Be Rot found an elusive sweet spot between murk and mirth, managing to engage even as it sickened. Long Live the Rot, in contrast, goes heavy on the scuzz and fuzz at the expense of songwriting. It’s still a fast and fun listen, but the new album finds Rotpit falling back into the death metal pack.

Not to air my controversial opinions during Rotsgiving dinner, but the best songs on Long Live the Rot are the ones that have good riffs. Standouts like “Triumph of the Rot” and “Funeral Mock” entice even as they envelop you in Rotpit’s signature fetid cloud. “Tunnel Rat” kicks off with a killer passage that evokes a tunnel borer drilling through tons of earth. If the album came fully stocked with riffs of this quality, Long Live the Rot would be a worthy companion piece to Let There Be Rot. Instead, there are songs and sections where the perfunctory riffage makes it difficult to distinguish one ode to decay from another (“Eat or Be Eaten,” “Dirt Dwellers.”) Maybe Rotpit needed more time between albums, or maybe the concept is already losing steam. Either way, Long Live the Rot is a perfectly nice set of scabby death metal anthems… which makes it a disappointment compared to the band’s opening salvo.

So maybe the main course is drier than we hoped. That doesn’t make Rotsgiving a disappointment. Look around the table. There’s a tray of Stenched that just came out of the oven. The Void Witch and Noxis courses should be along shortly, and I hear there’s Ripped to Shreds for dessert. As for this dish? Meat and potatoes always have their place.

Rating: 3.0/5.0

#2024 #30 #AcidBath #Autopsy #BoltThrower #DeathMetal #Dismember #Entombed #HeadsForTheDead #Incantation #InternationalMetal #LetThereBeRot #Nov24 #ParadiseLost #RevelInFlesh #Review #Reviews #Rotpit #WarAnthemRecords #Wombbath

Rotpit – Long Live the Rot Review (Happy Rotsgiving to All)

By Steel Druhm

2023 was a good year for death metal, and amidst all the quality knuckle-dragging, Rotpit’s Let There Be Rot debut was a most welcome unearthing. Spewed forth by fiends from such acts as Heads for the Dead, Wombbath, and Revel in Flesh, Let There Be Rot blended the worst angels of the Swedish and American schools of decay to deliver an entertaining dose of infectious medical waste with a shocking number of greasy hooks. It’s an album I return to often and it still sounds freshly deceased. This is why I was so surprised to see the Pit boys back only a year later with Long Live the Rot. With their commitment to all things rotten firmly in place (5 of the 10 tracks contain “rot” in the title) and a new drummer on board, can these pit demons once again show us where the slime lives while keeping things interesting and appropriately grotesque? Welcome to the first ever Rotsgiving!

Things open on an especially dank, brown note with “Sewer Rot” which is really the worst kind of rot if you think about it. It’s cavernous, slimy, slithering and oh-so unclean. It offers all manner of ear contamination, but somehow feels less bestial and brain-stimulating than the offal served up on the debt. The overall style is much the same as last time, with cuts like “Massive Maggot Swarm” and the title track throwing reverb-thick riffs and horrid vocals at the cavern wall to see what sticks. Enough does to keep you listening, but the overall fun levels are less than what I was hoping for. The Incantolation influence of the title track is quite endearing nonetheless. Prime cut “The Triumph of Rot” feels like it drops a cubic ton of wet concrete on you with its thick plodding advance that borrows muchly from Bolt Thrower. Standout “Tunnel Rat” is more urgent and in-your-face with a punky d-beat leading the way. It sounds like the earliest Entombed material and that’s always a good thing. “Funeral Mock” also stands tall with meaty riffage and enough aggression to infirm a femur.

While no track is completely barren of merit, the overall excitement and intrigue levels are lessened and none of the material hits as hard as the best stuff on the debut. I like that there are bits and pieces that recall the earliest days Paradise Lost, and the expected nods to Entombed and Dismember are fine (and, you know, expected), but the album feels overly restrained, which is not what one would expect from a band called Rotpit. Take “Dirt Dwellers” for example. It rides along in a doomy dirge with only brief hiccups into mid-tempo chuggery. It’s not bad, but it’s fairly dull and never takes flight. Maybe it’s just me, but I want more menace and anger in my mass grave of moldering corpses. At a svelte 35-plus minutes, Long Live the Rot doesn’t feel like a chore to get through, but a few cuts have flabby love handles that could have been trimmed. The production is cavernous, full of reverb, and skews a bit muddy, muting the instruments more than it should while lacking a big, oppressive guitar tone. That’s a miss for me, dawg.

Once again Jonny Pettersson (Massacre, Heads for the Dead, Wombbath) handles guitar and bass and brings chonky leads and gravely grooves to the decay ditch. His playing reeks of the early 90s Swedeath scene with frequent side quests into classic Incantation cave swamp doom riffage and the shitfun of Autopsy. I’m a sucker for the blueprint and when he executes it well, the songs crackle and pop like a diseased boil. However, the tendency to remain in a mid-tempo space for too much of the album saps a lot of energy from the material and truly killer riffs are few. Ralf Hauber (Heads for the Dead, Revel in Flesh) offers excellently ginormous, echoey death roars that suit the music and he sounds as large and in charge as last time. He’s the right man for the job and makes everything sound extra moist and squishy. New kit-man Erik Barthold (Darklands) brings plenty of percussive brutality to the crime scene, but again, things end up too restrained for him to work up a good mouth foaming.

I get the feeling the minds behind Rotpit spent the last year binging on old Incantation and Immolation albums and that oozed into their writing this time. The result is less about an orgy of violence and more about murky atmospheres. I prefer a potent blend of both and thus, Long Live the Rot leaves me feeling partially unburied.1 This gives me the sadz, and on the first Rotsgiving no less! I truly enjoy this project since it’s essentially the modern-day Death Breath, so I hope they have a longer shelf life than those Swedish sickos did, and that they can regroup to shove us deeper into the putrescence in the future. In the meantime, I’ll still celebrate the Rot season so give me a maggoty turkey leg and a bottle of hobo pruno and I’ll go sulk in the pit corner.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: War Anthem Records
Websites: facebook.com/rotpit666 | instagram.com/rotpit_official
Releases Worldwide: November 29th, 2024

Felagund

The band’s name is Rotpit. Half the songs on their sophomore album Long Live the Rot have the word “rot” in the title. This is knuckle dragging, club wielding, marsh-dwelling caveman metal. This is grimy, slimy, choking-on-swamp water metal. So if you’re here desperately searching for a review of the latest avant-garde post-metal release by a critically-acclaimed one man black metal project, I suggest you take your frontal lobe and shove it (preferably into the steaming heap with the others), because the noise the Neanderthals in Rotpit produce is only fit for plaque-addled amygdalas. As the proud owner of such grotesque brain matter, I found their 2023 debut Let There Be Rot to be a splendidly nasty affair. But can the same be said for their follow up? Can Long Live the Rot live up to the brutish power of its predecessor? Will I walk away once more, id pulsating and hip waders overflowing with viscous offal? I should be so lucky.

This may come as a shock to many of you, but Rotpit don’t appear to be overly concerned with musical evolution or artistic growth. The band that so disgusted you last year are back with a vengeance in 2024, and not much has changed. Long Live the Rot continues the pummeling assault Rotpit introduced on their first album, bashing in your eardrums with landslides of rumbling riffs, driving drums, and serpentine solos that slink between and above the perilous mountain of ichor. But as the record thunders onward, you can’t ignore the whiffs of Entombed or Bolt Thrower, nor can you overlook the understated but no less pungent stench of Sanguisanibog or the odoriferous Acid Bath riffs. But taken together, Rotpit continues to be their very own disgusting thing, an ethos that is driven home on Long Live the Rot.

“Sewer Rot” is a serviceable, fetid opener that boasts burly riffs, a doomy chorus, and plenty of buzzsaw guitar work. But in my estimation, the album truly finds its greasy footing on second track “Massive Maggot Swarm.” You’ve got an Acid Bath-infused main riff that disappears and reappears in between bouts of thick, trudging guitar, punishing double bass, and searing solos, all played through what sounds like a generous coating of soggy slime mold. Truth be told, most of the tunes on Long Live the Rot conform to a version of this approach, weaving in impenetrable walls of murky sound alongside heaving, repetitious riffs, mid-paced grooves, cavernous death growls, and understated drums that maintain momentum even when the guitars refuse to be moved. “Long Live the Rot” and “Funeral Mock” are album standouts, equipt as they are with both choruses and riffs that find their success through repetition. And while “Triumph of the Rot” and “Tunnel Rat” bring some welcome freneticism to the party, I’m here for the buzzy grime; the kind of oozing, musical muck that would make Anton Arcane gag.

It’s hard to have too much of a good thing, and thanks to a tight runtime and their ability to strike just the right balance between brutality and brevity, Rotpit have crafted a fun album that knows exactly what it wants to be. That’s not to say that every song is a prime cut (although they’re all beginning to turn). “Dirt Dwellers” is probably the most egregious example, sandwiched as it is between two stronger tracks and falling victim to that age old problem of death metal maniacs everywhere who traffic in the big, the dumb, and the grungy: monotony. Fortunately, while the dreaded M-word may rear its head from time to time, Rotpit knows not to overstay their welcome, and Long Live the Rot is all the better for it.

While this type of metal won’t be for everyone, I found Rotpit’s second album to be a grimy good time. And while I admit to being overly critical of “serious” artists in my opening, I can’t close without identifying what I believe to be the overarching ethos permeating Rotpit’s entire oeuvre. Tongue planted firmly in cheek though it may be, titles like “Triumph of the Rot” speak to a larger ideal; a philosophical undercurrent demanding that we, the listeners, learn to accept, embrace, and ultimately laugh at our own fleeting immortality. Just as Camus demands that we imagine Sisyphus happy, Rotpit demands that we imagine Sisyphus, well…rotting. In this way, Rotpit compose album-length memento mori, inviting us to reflect upon the inevitable. …But they also have a song called “Shitburner,” so what do I know?

Rating: 3.0/5.0

Ferox

Ah, Rotsgiving… a holiday for those of us who feel most alive when contemplating our own demise. We gather round the butcher’s block, as did death metal fans of yore, to celebrate an abundance of decaying riches. The Rotsgiving Day Parade plays in the background while Steel Druhm and Holdeneye prepare a traditional feast of Mystery Carcass and N00b Innards. Felagund spins tales of the Olde School while Maddog and Thus Spoke argue for novel ingredients and a cruelty-free Rotsgiving. Some of us are at home here in the mausoleum, and some stop by to visit from time to time. Cherd reminds everyone to slow down, that sometimes death is best appreciated with a side helping of doom. Have you been off traveling for a spell, like Mark Z.? Welcome back to Rotsgiving–and even if you can’t make it home this year, we always leave a place open for absent family members like Kronos and Ferrous Bueller. There’s even a kid’s table, where Doom et Al is free to blather while Kenstrosity and Dolph mash everything on their plates together and rate the resulting slop a 4.5.

We have high hopes for this year’s main course. Various religions exist to sell you on what happens to your soul after you die. Sweden’s Rotpit knows what happens to your body, and that’s all the inspiration this trio of diehards needs. On the band’s 2023 debut Let There Be Rot, guitarist and Guy in A Lot of Bands Jonny Pettersson (Wombbath, Berzerker Legion) teamed with fellow Heads for the Dead-head Ralf Hauber for a slab of scuzzed-up death built around the question: “What if the meaning of life is to provide food for maggots after you die?” The album resonated bigly with Steel Druhm and with death-inclined staff and readers. A scant year later, Rotpit returns to bestow the blessings of Long Live the Rot upon all who celebrate Rotsgiving. Will the staff leave the holiday table satisfied, or is this just reheated fare?

The ingredients in Long Live the Rot are the same as the ones in last year’s meal, even if this dish emerges from the oven with a subtly different mouthfeel. Pettersson’s reverb-basted guitars still dominate. A Rotpit jam typically kicks off with a stomping, stöopid down-tuned riff, after which a dental-drill lead guitar line asserts itself. This is scabby, dank death metal in the vein of Undergang or Autopsy. Pettersson tamps down his gift for hooks in favor of an approach that emphasizes grime and atmosphere. Ralf Hauber’s vocals always sound like he’s nauseated, which suits these songs about decay and the maggots that cause it. So what’s different? Let There Be Rot found an elusive sweet spot between murk and mirth, managing to engage even as it sickened. Long Live the Rot, in contrast, goes heavy on the scuzz and fuzz at the expense of songwriting. It’s still a fast and fun listen, but the new album finds Rotpit falling back into the death metal pack.

Not to air my controversial opinions during Rotsgiving dinner, but the best songs on Long Live the Rot are the ones that have good riffs. Standouts like “Triumph of the Rot” and “Funeral Mock” entice even as they envelop you in Rotpit’s signature fetid cloud. “Tunnel Rat” kicks off with a killer passage that evokes a tunnel borer drilling through tons of earth. If the album came fully stocked with riffs of this quality, Long Live the Rot would be a worthy companion piece to Let There Be Rot. Instead, there are songs and sections where the perfunctory riffage makes it difficult to distinguish one ode to decay from another (“Eat or Be Eaten,” “Dirt Dwellers.”) Maybe Rotpit needed more time between albums, or maybe the concept is already losing steam. Either way, Long Live the Rot is a perfectly nice set of scabby death metal anthems… which makes it a disappointment compared to the band’s opening salvo.

So maybe the main course is drier than we hoped. That doesn’t make Rotsgiving a disappointment. Look around the table. There’s a tray of Stenched that just came out of the oven. The Void Witch and Noxis courses should be along shortly, and I hear there’s Ripped to Shreds for dessert. As for this dish? Meat and potatoes always have their place.

Rating: 3.0/5.0

#2024 #30 #AcidBath #Autopsy #BoltThrower #DeathMetal #Dismember #Entombed #HeadsForTheDead #Incantation #InternationalMetal #LetThereBeRot #Nov24 #ParadiseLost #RevelInFlesh #Review #Reviews #Rotpit #WarAnthemRecords #Wombbath

Carnal Savagery – Graveworms, Cadavers, Coffins and Bones Review

By Steel Druhm

HM-2 pedal worshiping Swedeath purveyors Carnal Savagery have a strange way of doing business. In 2022 they released not one, but TWO full-length albums. The product was the same both times: Dismember and Entombed worship with enough buzz and fuzz on the guitars to disrupt air traffic over Scandinavia. I covered Worm Eaten and found it to be “meat n’ scab taters death” and enjoyable if not essential. They were pretty quiet in 2023, but in January of this year, they dropped Into the Abysmal Void, which our man Felagund considered a standard issue “Meat and potatoes”1 death platter with enough good bits to hit the spot. Now, 10 months later they drop a second album. Graveworms, Cadavers, Coffins and Bones may sound like the companion album to Autopsy’s Ashes, Organs, Blood and Crypts, but it’s another dose of Dismembercore with only occasional nods to American stenches. Can the band keep producing fresh sounds with such an ambitious release schedule and a style that was already dated at the turn of the century? Let’s examine their burial plan.

You know exactly what you’re getting with these guys, so when opener “Nailed to the Cross” mimics the sound of Dismember’s magical debut, it won’t come as an everflowing stream of surprise. It’s quite good and those H(e) M(an)-2 riffs are potent and packed with raw power. It’s thrashing, brutish, and reeks of 1991 so I’m hard-wired to enjoy it. If the rest of Graveworms were this stout, I would put myself on a strict Diet of Worms. Unfortunately, the album swings from tasty gravecakes to bland and timid entries, suitable, perhaps, for patients recovering from a Taylor Swift deprogramming. First the good. “Gallery of Flesh” is a slashing, flaying warbeast full of sharp riffs and bulldozing momentum. It got moved to Steel‘s Leg Day Playlist after half a spin and there it will live in eternal infamy. The title track is also highly enjoyable, ripping away with whirring riffs and thunderous drumming only to segway into hideously massive death doom that smells like Autopsy looks. At one point vocalist Mattias Lilja bellows something that sounds like “PAPA JOHNS” and it makes me want to order crappy, salty pizza every time I hear it. “Burnt to Death” also stands out with a mighty d-beat and some shockingly nimble and slick solo work.

On the flip side of the casket garden, several tracks feel stock standard or suffer from issues that derail otherwise decent tuneage. “Carnal Blasphemy” has a jaunty swagger that feels out of place with the rest of the album and the song never really clicks into high gear. “Bind, Torture, Kill” is the most rudimentary caveman shit imaginable and it never leaves mom’s basement despite melodic soloing that stands out like a turd in a Cannibal Corpse. The low point comes with “Autopsied Alive” which is just painfully listless and dull as fook. Things wind out with back-to-back lackluster nuggets, making the bulk of Graveworms underwhelming. The 35-minute runtime helps the entire concoction go down relatively easy though, aided by song lengths that generally run 2-3 minutes. The production is fine for the style with a mastering job by Dan “the Fucking MAN” Swanö that accentuates that harsh, raw guitar tone to the nth degree.

Mikael Lindgren handles guitars, bass and drums here and his riffing is the most appealing aspect of the Carnal Savagery experience. He has the classic Dismember sound and style down cold, but he also borrows from the likes of Bolt Thrower and every so often, Cannibal Corpse and Autopsy. He really breaks out of the mold when it comes to soloing, at times reminding of prime James Murphy. He even goes neo-classical here and there, creating an interesting counterpoint to the Neaderthal thuggery the album marinates in. His bass work is also tasty and often quite present. Mattias Lilja is a solid death croaker with a sound somewhere between L.G. Petrov and Marduk’s Mortuus. He fits the material just fine. It’s the inconsistent writing that submarines things, with less than half of the songs delivering a nasty wallop.

I’m not in the business of giving free advice, but it might be in Carnal Savagery’s best interest to release one album a year. If you take the best moments from Graveworm and add them to the top bits on Into the Abysmal Void, you’d be cooking with cadaver gas. Sometimes less is Moar when it helps the less BE MOAR. You can count on a few ace moments, but this trip to the chopping mall gets boring.

Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Moribund
Websites: carnalsavagery.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/carnalsavagery | instagram.com/carnalsavagery
Releases Worldwide: November 22nd, 2024

#25 #2024 #Cadavers #CarnalSavagery #CoffinsAndBones #DeathMetal #Dismember #Entombed #Graveworms #IntoTheAbysmalVoid #MoribundRecords #Nov24 #Review #Reviews #SwedishMetal #WormEaten

Carnal Savagery – Graveworms, Cadavers, Coffins and Bones Review

By Steel Druhm

HM-2 pedal worshiping Swedeath purveyors Carnal Savagery have a strange way of doing business. In 2022 they released not one, but TWO full-length albums. The product was the same both times: Dismember and Entombed worship with enough buzz and fuzz on the guitars to disrupt air traffic over Scandinavia. I covered Worm Eaten and found it to be “meat n’ scab taters death” and enjoyable if not essential. They were pretty quiet in 2023, but in January of this year, they dropped Into the Abysmal Void, which our man Felagund considered a standard issue “Meat and potatoes”1 death platter with enough good bits to hit the spot. Now, 10 months later they drop a second album. Graveworms, Cadavers, Coffins and Bones may sound like the companion album to Autopsy’s Ashes, Organs, Blood and Crypts, but it’s another dose of Dismembercore with only occasional nods to American stenches. Can the band keep producing fresh sounds with such an ambitious release schedule and a style that was already dated at the turn of the century? Let’s examine their burial plan.

You know exactly what you’re getting with these guys, so when opener “Nailed to the Cross” mimics the sound of Dismember’s magical debut, it won’t come as an everflowing stream of surprise. It’s quite good and those H(e) M(an)-2 riffs are potent and packed with raw power. It’s thrashing, brutish, and reeks of 1991 so I’m hard-wired to enjoy it. If the rest of Graveworms were this stout, I would put myself on a strict Diet of Worms. Unfortunately, the album swings from tasty gravecakes to bland and timid entries, suitable, perhaps, for patients recovering from a Taylor Swift deprogramming. First the good. “Gallery of Flesh” is a slashing, flaying warbeast full of sharp riffs and bulldozing momentum. It got moved to Steel‘s Leg Day Playlist after half a spin and there it will live in eternal infamy. The title track is also highly enjoyable, ripping away with whirring riffs and thunderous drumming only to segway into hideously massive death doom that smells like Autopsy looks. At one point vocalist Mattias Lilja bellows something that sounds like “PAPA JOHNS” and it makes me want to order crappy, salty pizza every time I hear it. “Burnt to Death” also stands out with a mighty d-beat and some shockingly nimble and slick solo work.

On the flip side of the casket garden, several tracks feel stock standard or suffer from issues that derail otherwise decent tuneage. “Carnal Blasphemy” has a jaunty swagger that feels out of place with the rest of the album and the song never really clicks into high gear. “Bind, Torture, Kill” is the most rudimentary caveman shit imaginable and it never leaves mom’s basement despite melodic soloing that stands out like a turd in a Cannibal Corpse. The low point comes with “Autopsied Alive” which is just painfully listless and dull as fook. Things wind out with back-to-back lackluster nuggets, making the bulk of Graveworms underwhelming. The 35-minute runtime helps the entire concoction go down relatively easy though, aided by song lengths that generally run 2-3 minutes. The production is fine for the style with a mastering job by Dan “the Fucking MAN” Swanö that accentuates that harsh, raw guitar tone to the nth degree.

Mikael Lindgren handles guitars, bass and drums here and his riffing is the most appealing aspect of the Carnal Savagery experience. He has the classic Dismember sound and style down cold, but he also borrows from the likes of Bolt Thrower and every so often, Cannibal Corpse and Autopsy. He really breaks out of the mold when it comes to soloing, at times reminding of prime James Murphy. He even goes neo-classical here and there, creating an interesting counterpoint to the Neaderthal thuggery the album marinates in. His bass work is also tasty and often quite present. Mattias Lilja is a solid death croaker with a sound somewhere between L.G. Petrov and Marduk’s Mortuus. He fits the material just fine. It’s the inconsistent writing that submarines things, with less than half of the songs delivering a nasty wallop.

I’m not in the business of giving free advice, but it might be in Carnal Savagery’s best interest to release one album a year. If you take the best moments from Graveworm and add them to the top bits on Into the Abysmal Void, you’d be cooking with cadaver gas. Sometimes less is Moar when it helps the less BE MOAR. You can count on a few ace moments, but this trip to the chopping mall gets boring.

Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Moribund
Websites: carnalsavagery.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/carnalsavagery | instagram.com/carnalsavagery
Releases Worldwide: November 22nd, 2024

#25 #2024 #Cadavers #CarnalSavagery #CoffinsAndBones #DeathMetal #Dismember #Entombed #Graveworms #IntoTheAbysmalVoid #MoribundRecords #Nov24 #Review #Reviews #SwedishMetal #WormEaten

Carnal Savagery – Graveworms, Cadavers, Coffins and Bones Review

By Steel Druhm

HM-2 pedal worshiping Swedeath purveyors Carnal Savagery have a strange way of doing business. In 2022 they released not one, but TWO full-length albums. The product was the same both times: Dismember and Entombed worship with enough buzz and fuzz on the guitars to disrupt air traffic over Scandinavia. I covered Worm Eaten and found it to be “meat n’ scab taters death” and enjoyable if not essential. They were pretty quiet in 2023, but in January of this year, they dropped Into the Abysmal Void, which our man Felagund considered a standard issue “Meat and potatoes”1 death platter with enough good bits to hit the spot. Now, 10 months later they drop a second album. Graveworms, Cadavers, Coffins and Bones may sound like the companion album to Autopsy’s Ashes, Organs, Blood and Crypts, but it’s another dose of Dismembercore with only occasional nods to American stenches. Can the band keep producing fresh sounds with such an ambitious release schedule and a style that was already dated at the turn of the century? Let’s examine their burial plan.

You know exactly what you’re getting with these guys, so when opener “Nailed to the Cross” mimics the sound of Dismember’s magical debut, it won’t come as an everflowing stream of surprise. It’s quite good and those H(e) M(an)-2 riffs are potent and packed with raw power. It’s thrashing, brutish, and reeks of 1991 so I’m hard-wired to enjoy it. If the rest of Graveworms were this stout, I would put myself on a strict Diet of Worms. Unfortunately, the album swings from tasty gravecakes to bland and timid entries, suitable, perhaps, for patients recovering from a Taylor Swift deprogramming. First the good. “Gallery of Flesh” is a slashing, flaying warbeast full of sharp riffs and bulldozing momentum. It got moved to Steel‘s Leg Day Playlist after half a spin and there it will live in eternal infamy. The title track is also highly enjoyable, ripping away with whirring riffs and thunderous drumming only to segway into hideously massive death doom that smells like Autopsy looks. At one point vocalist Mattias Lilja bellows something that sounds like “PAPA JOHNS” and it makes me want to order crappy, salty pizza every time I hear it. “Burnt to Death” also stands out with a mighty d-beat and some shockingly nimble and slick solo work.

On the flip side of the casket garden, several tracks feel stock standard or suffer from issues that derail otherwise decent tuneage. “Carnal Blasphemy” has a jaunty swagger that feels out of place with the rest of the album and the song never really clicks into high gear. “Bind, Torture, Kill” is the most rudimentary caveman shit imaginable and it never leaves mom’s basement despite melodic soloing that stands out like a turd in a Cannibal Corpse. The low point comes with “Autopsied Alive” which is just painfully listless and dull as fook. Things wind out with back-to-back lackluster nuggets, making the bulk of Graveworms underwhelming. The 35-minute runtime helps the entire concoction go down relatively easy though, aided by song lengths that generally run 2-3 minutes. The production is fine for the style with a mastering job by Dan “the Fucking MAN” Swanö that accentuates that harsh, raw guitar tone to the nth degree.

Mikael Lindgren handles guitars, bass and drums here and his riffing is the most appealing aspect of the Carnal Savagery experience. He has the classic Dismember sound and style down cold, but he also borrows from the likes of Bolt Thrower and every so often, Cannibal Corpse and Autopsy. He really breaks out of the mold when it comes to soloing, at times reminding of prime James Murphy. He even goes neo-classical here and there, creating an interesting counterpoint to the Neaderthal thuggery the album marinates in. His bass work is also tasty and often quite present. Mattias Lilja is a solid death croaker with a sound somewhere between L.G. Petrov and Marduk’s Mortuus. He fits the material just fine. It’s the inconsistent writing that submarines things, with less than half of the songs delivering a nasty wallop.

I’m not in the business of giving free advice, but it might be in Carnal Savagery’s best interest to release one album a year. If you take the best moments from Graveworm and add them to the top bits on Into the Abysmal Void, you’d be cooking with cadaver gas. Sometimes less is Moar when it helps the less BE MOAR. You can count on a few ace moments, but this trip to the chopping mall gets boring.

Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Moribund
Websites: carnalsavagery.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/carnalsavagery | instagram.com/carnalsavagery
Releases Worldwide: November 22nd, 2024

#25 #2024 #Cadavers #CarnalSavagery #CoffinsAndBones #DeathMetal #Dismember #Entombed #Graveworms #IntoTheAbysmalVoid #MoribundRecords #Nov24 #Review #Reviews #SwedishMetal #WormEaten

Stuck in the Filter: July 2024’s Angry Misses

By Kenstrosity

After the tight lineup we cobbled together for June, July provided a similarly lean yield for our team to offer the masses. It appears that my minions responsible for scraping the channels clean have become far too efficient! That said, what we did find might be our most valuable haul yet this year.

And so, we persist. Always dedicated to bringing you the not-quite-best-but-also-still-good two months ago or so had to offer, we scour for little nuggets worth inspecting. What more could an Angry Metal Fan ask for?

Kenstrosity’s Cataclysmic Critters

A Wake in Providence // I Write to You, My Darling Decay [July 26th, 2024 – Unique Leader Records]

Staten Island symphonic deathcore collective A Wake in Providence dropped a considerable payload back in 2022 entitled Eternity. Opulent and catastrophically heavy, Eternity bathed me in rich orchestration and legitimate riffs instead of stereotypical breakdowns and unending single-chord chugfests. Needless to say, I was enamored. Follow-up I Write to You, Darling Decay represents a deathcore equivalent to Fleshgod Apocalypse’s Opera, focusing more on lyrical storytelling and implementing vocal diversification as a vehicle for character development. Perhaps not quite as sophisticated— since those meatheaded, muscular chugs of the deathcore world still crop up here and there—I Write to You still offers major hooks and delectable detailing to keep my interest piqued through a full hour of new material (“Mournful Benediction,” “Agonofinis,” title track, “The Unbound,” and “Pareidolia”). Aside from those superficial qualities, I Write to You’s real selling point is album cohesion and overall fit and finish. Like a babbling brook across the smoothest bed of sand and soil, this record flows with a fluidity rarified in the genre (check out the awesome three-song transition between “Agonofris” and “In Whispers”). Combine that with a textured and multifaceted musical progression through a grief-stricken storyline, and you have a winning formula for an engaging record that earns its epic sound.

Cell // Shattering the Rapture of the Primordial Abyss [July 12th, 2024 – Self Release]

I first encountered Canadian black metallers Cell on a little Bandcamp stroll years ago, followed shortly by a breezy and brutal beach set just before 2020’s 70,000 Tons of Metal cruise. Nobody I knew had heard of them then, but I knew they had chops. With third album Shattering the Rapture of the Primordial Abyss, they’ve proven me right and then some. Combining icy Immortalisms with the chunky buzz of old school death, major bangers “Waking of the Blazing Night,” “The Plight of Council Skaljdrum,” “Drink the Sun,” “Unification of the Last Alliance,” and “Return of Tranquility through the Desolation of Truth” represent the sharpest, hookiest, and heaviest material Cell’s put down to date. Fury and fire characterize every riff, lead, and blast on Shattering the Rapture, but it’s the uncanny sense of groove that suddenly springs from Cell’s cells that takes this record within a stone’s throw of greatness. Tightening up the overlong fragments that bloat otherwise solid tracks like “Serenity in Darkness… Evermore” and closer “Carnage from the Sky” would go along way to throwing that stone past that threshold. Until then, rest assured that Rapture of the Primordial Abyss is a ripper, worthy of your time and your spine.

Dehumanaut // Of Nightmares and Vice [July 17th, 2024 – Self Release]

Just like Cell, Dehumanaut entered my rotation thanks to a serendipitous stroll through the Bandcamp ticker. Boasting a unique blend of death metal, thrash, and bluesy bar-crawl hard rock, these Brits offer something novel to the extreme metal catalog. With sophomore effort, Of Nightmares and Vice, Dehumanaut double down on the death and blues, evoking Entombed‘s Wolverine Blues in spirit as much as in execution. With swinging tracks like “Shred this Reality,” “A Perilous Path,” “Battle Weary,” “Epiphanies,” and “Black City” deftly stepping between deathly riffs and danceable grooves, thrashier cuts such as “Reject the Knife,” “Nexus of Decline” and “A Truth Most Foul,” and “It Has a Name” feel even speedier and more rabid than usual. Aside from affording Of Nightmares and Vice oodles of dynamics in songwriting, this multifaceted and structured approach to genre-bending showcases Dehumanaut’s versatility as musicians. Everything they attempt here feels effortless and reflexive, making every transition between measure and phrase not just purposeful but also buttery-smooth (“Battle Weary”). If it weren’t for a bit of bloat across the board, oddly muffled mixing, and somewhat flat death metal growls, Of Nightmares and Vice would be in play among my top records of July. Even still, it comes close!

Saunders’ Salacious Slams

Cephalotripsy // Epigenetic Neurogenesis [July 13th, 2024 – Self-Release ]

Looking for something so stupidly heavy and obnoxiously brutal that listening could kill brain cells and incite a rampage? California’s underground warriors Cephalotripsy have you covered on long-awaited sophomore album, and follow-up to 2007’s cult and apparently well received debut, Uterovaginal Insertion of Extirpated Anomalies. Unfamiliar with their previous output, I stumbled across this latest endeavor through a trusted recommendation, fulfilling my fix for devastatingly brutal slam death. Epigenetic Neurogenesis takes no prisoners and delivers blow after blow of steamrolling, pugnacious brutal death. Brimming with inhuman, sewer dwelling vocal eruptions of Angel Ochoa (Abominable Putridity), hammering percussion, and an onslaught of ridiculously thick, heavy riffs, exhibiting the sharp, technical skills of veteran brutal death axe wielder and long-term member Andrés Guzman. The newer members form a pummeling rhythm section driving the guttural swarm. Weighing in at a tight and efficient 32 minutes, the beatdown is relentless, though concise enough to avoid an early burn out. The songwriting doesn’t reinvent the brutal slam death wheel. However, the tight execution, dynamic tempo shifts, and memorable riffcraft elevates the material. Viscous, cranium crushing riffs and utterly devastating slams frequently deployed adds further grunt, immense weight and memorability on a set of killer tunes, including extra chunky gems “Alpha Terrestrial Polymorph,” ” Lo Tech Non Entity,” and “Excision of Self.” Nasty, crushing stuff.

Dear Hollow’s Disturbing Dump

Silvaplana // Sils Maria | Limbs of Dionysus [July 17th, 2024 – Self-Release]

Although shrouded in mystery, Silvaplana is a solo project of Alex DeMaria of Yellow Eyes and Anicon. Blackened punishment paired with atmosphere have long been the aim, but Silvaplana’s duel release finds duality: both take influence from parent releases separately. Sils Maria takes on a hyper-atmospheric, classically influenced, and dark ambient approach across six tracks and forty-one minutes, blackened blastbeats and distant shrieks hidden behind thick swaths of ambiance, organ, and piano, a relatively gentle affair that recalls the wild yet placid sounds of Yellow Eyes’ latest. Meanwhile, the two-track and also forty-one minutes of Limbs of Dionysus feeds a ritualistic fire with a scathingly raw black attack, reverb-laden growls, moans, and shrieks colliding with relentless tremolo that continuously scale minor and diminished frostbitten mountaintops with reckless abandon. Both seem entirely disparate in context to one another, but smartly they are held together by the thin thread of melodic motifs. The organ that populates Sils Maria’s tracks “II,” “IV” and “VI” are recalled in the closing remarks of “I” in Limbs of Dionysus; the ominous organ trills of the former’s “III” are warped into a blackened beast in the latter’s “II.” As Limbs of Dionysus concludes, the feedback-laden plucking feeds right into the morphing plucking populating the beginning of Sils Maria – an ouroboros of the blackened arts. Silvaplana exists on both self-indulgent and decadent ends of the blackened spectrum with Sils Maria and Limbs of Dionysus, both baffling and tantalizing in their rawness and ambiance, and otherworldly in their collaboration.

Dolphin Whisperer’s Inconspicuous Import

Quasidiploid // Deconstruction [July 1st, 2024 – Amputated Vein Records]

Do you see that cover art? Yes, it’s some sort of countess of the undead summoning the skull-kind with a horn. Would you believe then that one of the features throughout Deconstruction is its inclusion of a female trumpet player to break up the tension of a relentless, brutal technical death metal? Oh yeah, she’s also the vocalist and possesses a vicious guttural bark, shrill and penetrating squeals and hisses (the vocal intro on “Disasters and Infection Routes” is a straight Dir en grey moment), and a higher register manic collapse that features at key moments. That’s all to say that the cover lands a bit on the nose, but, in turn, the carnival crazed whiplash of Quasidiploid swings between brutal Cryptopsy riff smashing, Pat Martino jazz guitar pleasantries, Necrophagist sweep punishing, and Chuck Mangione brass crooning (“Overture”)—unhinged, unbothered, and anything but accessible. I would call it too unpolished, as Deconstruction strikes with a bit of a demo quality. But sometimes we have to ask ourselves whether what we hear is a questionably processed demo or an intentionally shredded Japanese master? In any case virtuosity reigns as provably human skin slammer Vomiken pushes a bass-loaded kick and a high-crunch kit to abusive and enthralling accelerations only to crash in on the spurt of a forlorn trumpet or flourish of a prancing guitar line (“Brutal Strafing,” “Massacre Fantasy”). Guitar lines weave about traditionally nimble sweeps to tricky meter riff crushes on a dime (“Melodies of Distorted Time and Space,” “Disasters…”). Tonal identities flip between Nile-istic, snaking melodies, flippant yet tasteful guitar heroics, and propulsive rhythm blasts whose only break is the close of a song. The definition of something olde, new, borrowed, and blue, Quasidiploid has come from far left field to provide a classics-inspired but funky fresh version of an extreme genre that thrives exactly on this kind of weird—a curiosity now, but with all the makings of something truly explosive to come.

Mark Z.’s Musings

200 Stab Wounds // Manual Manic Procedures [June 28th, 2024 – Metal Blade Records]

Following a rapid rise to fame during the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ohio death metal troupe 200 Stab Wounds thrust their Slave to the Scalpel debut onto the masses in 2021. While I was about as mixed on that one as Felagund was, their second album Manual Manic Procedures has proven these wounds cut far deeper than originally thought. The massive beefy chugs that the band have become known for are still here in full force, but now they’re paired with sharper hooks and a heightened sense of maturity. On Procedures, you’ll hear acoustic plucking, immense Bolt Thower riffing, grooves that will blow your guts out, and even some melodic death metal influence—and that’s just on the first song. The band also know when to give you a breather, be it a well-placed atmospheric instrumental (“Led to the Chamber / Liquefied”) or an extended ride on a great groovy riff (“Defiled Gestation”). With a monstrous guitar tone, plenty of killer moments, and a track flow that’s smoother than liquefied human remains sliding off a kitchen counter, these Cleveland boys have given us a record that truly feels like modern death metal coming into its own.

#200StabWounds #2024 #AWakeInProvidence #AbominablePutridity #AmericanMetal #AmputatedVeinRecords #Anicon #AtmosphericBlackMetal #BlackMetal #BluesRock #BoltThrower #BrutalDeathMetal #CanadianMetal #Cell #Cephalotripsy #ChuckMangione #Cryptopsy #DeathMetal #Deathcore #Deconstruction #Dehumanaut #DirEnGrey #Entombed #EpigeneticNeurogenesis #FleshgodApocalypse #HardRock #IWriteToYouMyDarlingDecay #Immortal #JapaneseMetal #Jul24 #LimbsOfDionysus #ManualManicProcedures #MelodicDeathMetal #MetalBladeRecords #Necrophagist #Nile #OfNightmaresAndVice #PatMartino #Quasiploid #RawBlackMetal #Review #Reviews #SelfRelease #ShatteringTheRaptureOfThePrimordialAbyss #SilsMaria #Silvaplana #Slam #StuckInTheFilter #SymphonicDeathMetal #SymphonicDeathcore #SymphonicMetal #TechnicalDeathMetal #ThrashMetal #UKMetal #UniqueLeaderRecords #YellowEyes

Stuck in the Filter: July 2024’s Angry Misses

By Kenstrosity

After the tight lineup we cobbled together for June, July provided a similarly lean yield for our team to offer the masses. It appears that my minions responsible for scraping the channels clean have become far too efficient! That said, what we did find might be our most valuable haul yet this year.

And so, we persist. Always dedicated to bringing you the not-quite-best-but-also-still-good two months ago or so had to offer, we scour for little nuggets worth inspecting. What more could an Angry Metal Fan ask for?

Kenstrosity’s Cataclysmic Critters

A Wake in Providence // I Write to You, My Darling Decay [July 26th, 2024 – Unique Leader Records]

Staten Island symphonic deathcore collective A Wake in Providence dropped a considerable payload back in 2022 entitled Eternity. Opulent and catastrophically heavy, Eternity bathed me in rich orchestration and legitimate riffs instead of stereotypical breakdowns and unending single-chord chugfests. Needless to say, I was enamored. Follow-up I Write to You, Darling Decay represents a deathcore equivalent to Fleshgod Apocalypse’s Opera, focusing more on lyrical storytelling and implementing vocal diversification as a vehicle for character development. Perhaps not quite as sophisticated— since those meatheaded, muscular chugs of the deathcore world still crop up here and there—I Write to You still offers major hooks and delectable detailing to keep my interest piqued through a full hour of new material (“Mournful Benediction,” “Agonofinis,” title track, “The Unbound,” and “Pareidolia”). Aside from those superficial qualities, I Write to You’s real selling point is album cohesion and overall fit and finish. Like a babbling brook across the smoothest bed of sand and soil, this record flows with a fluidity rarified in the genre (check out the awesome three-song transition between “Agonofris” and “In Whispers”). Combine that with a textured and multifaceted musical progression through a grief-stricken storyline, and you have a winning formula for an engaging record that earns its epic sound.

Cell // Shattering the Rapture of the Primordial Abyss [July 12th, 2024 – Self Release]

I first encountered Canadian black metallers Cell on a little Bandcamp stroll years ago, followed shortly by a breezy and brutal beach set just before 2020’s 70,000 Tons of Metal cruise. Nobody I knew had heard of them then, but I knew they had chops. With third album Shattering the Rapture of the Primordial Abyss, they’ve proven me right and then some. Combining icy Immortalisms with the chunky buzz of old school death, major bangers “Waking of the Blazing Night,” “The Plight of Council Skaljdrum,” “Drink the Sun,” “Unification of the Last Alliance,” and “Return of Tranquility through the Desolation of Truth” represent the sharpest, hookiest, and heaviest material Cell’s put down to date. Fury and fire characterize every riff, lead, and blast on Shattering the Rapture, but it’s the uncanny sense of groove that suddenly springs from Cell’s cells that takes this record within a stone’s throw of greatness. Tightening up the overlong fragments that bloat otherwise solid tracks like “Serenity in Darkness… Evermore” and closer “Carnage from the Sky” would go along way to throwing that stone past that threshold. Until then, rest assured that Rapture of the Primordial Abyss is a ripper, worthy of your time and your spine.

Dehumanaut // Of Nightmares and Vice [July 17th, 2024 – Self Release]

Just like Cell, Dehumanaut entered my rotation thanks to a serendipitous stroll through the Bandcamp ticker. Boasting a unique blend of death metal, thrash, and bluesy bar-crawl hard rock, these Brits offer something novel to the extreme metal catalog. With sophomore effort, Of Nightmares and Vice, Dehumanaut double down on the death and blues, evoking Entombed‘s Wolverine Blues in spirit as much as in execution. With swinging tracks like “Shred this Reality,” “A Perilous Path,” “Battle Weary,” “Epiphanies,” and “Black City” deftly stepping between deathly riffs and danceable grooves, thrashier cuts such as “Reject the Knife,” “Nexus of Decline” and “A Truth Most Foul,” and “It Has a Name” feel even speedier and more rabid than usual. Aside from affording Of Nightmares and Vice oodles of dynamics in songwriting, this multifaceted and structured approach to genre-bending showcases Dehumanaut’s versatility as musicians. Everything they attempt here feels effortless and reflexive, making every transition between measure and phrase not just purposeful but also buttery-smooth (“Battle Weary”). If it weren’t for a bit of bloat across the board, oddly muffled mixing, and somewhat flat death metal growls, Of Nightmares and Vice would be in play among my top records of July. Even still, it comes close!

Saunders’ Salacious Slams

Cephalotripsy // Epigenetic Neurogenesis [July 13th, 2024 – Self-Release ]

Looking for something so stupidly heavy and obnoxiously brutal that listening could kill brain cells and incite a rampage? California’s underground warriors Cephalotripsy have you covered on long-awaited sophomore album, and follow-up to 2007’s cult and apparently well received debut, Uterovaginal Insertion of Extirpated Anomalies. Unfamiliar with their previous output, I stumbled across this latest endeavor through a trusted recommendation, fulfilling my fix for devastatingly brutal slam death. Epigenetic Neurogenesis takes no prisoners and delivers blow after blow of steamrolling, pugnacious brutal death. Brimming with inhuman, sewer dwelling vocal eruptions of Angel Ochoa (Abominable Putridity), hammering percussion, and an onslaught of ridiculously thick, heavy riffs, exhibiting the sharp, technical skills of veteran brutal death axe wielder and long-term member Andrés Guzman. The newer members form a pummeling rhythm section driving the guttural swarm. Weighing in at a tight and efficient 32 minutes, the beatdown is relentless, though concise enough to avoid an early burn out. The songwriting doesn’t reinvent the brutal slam death wheel. However, the tight execution, dynamic tempo shifts, and memorable riffcraft elevates the material. Viscous, cranium crushing riffs and utterly devastating slams frequently deployed adds further grunt, immense weight and memorability on a set of killer tunes, including extra chunky gems “Alpha Terrestrial Polymorph,” ” Lo Tech Non Entity,” and “Excision of Self.” Nasty, crushing stuff.

Dear Hollow’s Disturbing Dump

Silvaplana // Sils Maria | Limbs of Dionysus [July 17th, 2024 – Self-Release]

Although shrouded in mystery, Silvaplana is a solo project of Alex DeMaria of Yellow Eyes and Anicon. Blackened punishment paired with atmosphere have long been the aim, but Silvaplana’s duel release finds duality: both take influence from parent releases separately. Sils Maria takes on a hyper-atmospheric, classically influenced, and dark ambient approach across six tracks and forty-one minutes, blackened blastbeats and distant shrieks hidden behind thick swaths of ambiance, organ, and piano, a relatively gentle affair that recalls the wild yet placid sounds of Yellow Eyes’ latest. Meanwhile, the two-track and also forty-one minutes of Limbs of Dionysus feeds a ritualistic fire with a scathingly raw black attack, reverb-laden growls, moans, and shrieks colliding with relentless tremolo that continuously scale minor and diminished frostbitten mountaintops with reckless abandon. Both seem entirely disparate in context to one another, but smartly they are held together by the thin thread of melodic motifs. The organ that populates Sils Maria’s tracks “II,” “IV” and “VI” are recalled in the closing remarks of “I” in Limbs of Dionysus; the ominous organ trills of the former’s “III” are warped into a blackened beast in the latter’s “II.” As Limbs of Dionysus concludes, the feedback-laden plucking feeds right into the morphing plucking populating the beginning of Sils Maria – an ouroboros of the blackened arts. Silvaplana exists on both self-indulgent and decadent ends of the blackened spectrum with Sils Maria and Limbs of Dionysus, both baffling and tantalizing in their rawness and ambiance, and otherworldly in their collaboration.

Dolphin Whisperer’s Inconspicuous Import

Quasidiploid // Deconstruction [July 1st, 2024 – Amputated Vein Records]

Do you see that cover art? Yes, it’s some sort of countess of the undead summoning the skull-kind with a horn. Would you believe then that one of the features throughout Deconstruction is its inclusion of a female trumpet player to break up the tension of a relentless, brutal technical death metal? Oh yeah, she’s also the vocalist and possesses a vicious guttural bark, shrill and penetrating squeals and hisses (the vocal intro on “Disasters and Infection Routes” is a straight Dir en grey moment), and a higher register manic collapse that features at key moments. That’s all to say that the cover lands a bit on the nose, but, in turn, the carnival crazed whiplash of Quasidiploid swings between brutal Cryptopsy riff smashing, Pat Martino jazz guitar pleasantries, Necrophagist sweep punishing, and Chuck Mangione brass crooning (“Overture”)—unhinged, unbothered, and anything but accessible. I would call it too unpolished, as Deconstruction strikes with a bit of a demo quality. But sometimes we have to ask ourselves whether what we hear is a questionably processed demo or an intentionally shredded Japanese master? In any case virtuosity reigns as provably human skin slammer Vomiken pushes a bass-loaded kick and a high-crunch kit to abusive and enthralling accelerations only to crash in on the spurt of a forlorn trumpet or flourish of a prancing guitar line (“Brutal Strafing,” “Massacre Fantasy”). Guitar lines weave about traditionally nimble sweeps to tricky meter riff crushes on a dime (“Melodies of Distorted Time and Space,” “Disasters…”). Tonal identities flip between Nile-istic, snaking melodies, flippant yet tasteful guitar heroics, and propulsive rhythm blasts whose only break is the close of a song. The definition of something olde, new, borrowed, and blue, Quasidiploid has come from far left field to provide a classics-inspired but funky fresh version of an extreme genre that thrives exactly on this kind of weird—a curiosity now, but with all the makings of something truly explosive to come.

Mark Z.’s Musings

200 Stab Wounds // Manual Manic Procedures [June 28th, 2024 – Metal Blade Records]

Following a rapid rise to fame during the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ohio death metal troupe 200 Stab Wounds thrust their Slave to the Scalpel debut onto the masses in 2021. While I was about as mixed on that one as Felagund was, their second album Manual Manic Procedures has proven these wounds cut far deeper than originally thought. The massive beefy chugs that the band have become known for are still here in full force, but now they’re paired with sharper hooks and a heightened sense of maturity. On Procedures, you’ll hear acoustic plucking, immense Bolt Thower riffing, grooves that will blow your guts out, and even some melodic death metal influence—and that’s just on the first song. The band also know when to give you a breather, be it a well-placed atmospheric instrumental (“Led to the Chamber / Liquefied”) or an extended ride on a great groovy riff (“Defiled Gestation”). With a monstrous guitar tone, plenty of killer moments, and a track flow that’s smoother than liquefied human remains sliding off a kitchen counter, these Cleveland boys have given us a record that truly feels like modern death metal coming into its own.

#200StabWounds #2024 #AWakeInProvidence #AbominablePutridity #AmericanMetal #AmputatedVeinRecords #Anicon #AtmosphericBlackMetal #BlackMetal #BluesRock #BoltThrower #BrutalDeathMetal #CanadianMetal #Cell #Cephalotripsy #ChuckMangione #Cryptopsy #DeathMetal #Deathcore #Deconstruction #Dehumanaut #DirEnGrey #Entombed #EpigeneticNeurogenesis #FleshgodApocalypse #HardRock #IWriteToYouMyDarlingDecay #Immortal #JapaneseMetal #Jul24 #LimbsOfDionysus #ManualManicProcedures #MelodicDeathMetal #MetalBladeRecords #Necrophagist #Nile #OfNightmaresAndVice #PatMartino #Quasiploid #RawBlackMetal #Review #Reviews #SelfRelease #ShatteringTheRaptureOfThePrimordialAbyss #SilsMaria #Silvaplana #Slam #StuckInTheFilter #SymphonicDeathMetal #SymphonicDeathcore #SymphonicMetal #TechnicalDeathMetal #ThrashMetal #UKMetal #UniqueLeaderRecords #YellowEyes

Stuck in the Filter: July 2024’s Angry Misses

By Kenstrosity

After the tight lineup we cobbled together for June, July provided a similarly lean yield for our team to offer the masses. It appears that my minions responsible for scraping the channels clean have become far too efficient! That said, what we did find might be our most valuable haul yet this year.

And so, we persist. Always dedicated to bringing you the not-quite-best-but-also-still-good two months ago or so had to offer, we scour for little nuggets worth inspecting. What more could an Angry Metal Fan ask for?

Kenstrosity’s Cataclysmic Critters

A Wake in Providence // I Write to You, My Darling Decay [July 26th, 2024 – Unique Leader Records]

Staten Island symphonic deathcore collective A Wake in Providence dropped a considerable payload back in 2022 entitled Eternity. Opulent and catastrophically heavy, Eternity bathed me in rich orchestration and legitimate riffs instead of stereotypical breakdowns and unending single-chord chugfests. Needless to say, I was enamored. Follow-up I Write to You, Darling Decay represents a deathcore equivalent to Fleshgod Apocalypse’s Opera, focusing more on lyrical storytelling and implementing vocal diversification as a vehicle for character development. Perhaps not quite as sophisticated— since those meatheaded, muscular chugs of the deathcore world still crop up here and there—I Write to You still offers major hooks and delectable detailing to keep my interest piqued through a full hour of new material (“Mournful Benediction,” “Agonofinis,” title track, “The Unbound,” and “Pareidolia”). Aside from those superficial qualities, I Write to You’s real selling point is album cohesion and overall fit and finish. Like a babbling brook across the smoothest bed of sand and soil, this record flows with a fluidity rarified in the genre (check out the awesome three-song transition between “Agonofris” and “In Whispers”). Combine that with a textured and multifaceted musical progression through a grief-stricken storyline, and you have a winning formula for an engaging record that earns its epic sound.

Cell // Shattering the Rapture of the Primordial Abyss [July 12th, 2024 – Self Release]

I first encountered Canadian black metallers Cell on a little Bandcamp stroll years ago, followed shortly by a breezy and brutal beach set just before 2020’s 70,000 Tons of Metal cruise. Nobody I knew had heard of them then, but I knew they had chops. With third album Shattering the Rapture of the Primordial Abyss, they’ve proven me right and then some. Combining icy Immortalisms with the chunky buzz of old school death, major bangers “Waking of the Blazing Night,” “The Plight of Council Skaljdrum,” “Drink the Sun,” “Unification of the Last Alliance,” and “Return of Tranquility through the Desolation of Truth” represent the sharpest, hookiest, and heaviest material Cell’s put down to date. Fury and fire characterize every riff, lead, and blast on Shattering the Rapture, but it’s the uncanny sense of groove that suddenly springs from Cell’s cells that takes this record within a stone’s throw of greatness. Tightening up the overlong fragments that bloat otherwise solid tracks like “Serenity in Darkness… Evermore” and closer “Carnage from the Sky” would go along way to throwing that stone past that threshold. Until then, rest assured that Rapture of the Primordial Abyss is a ripper, worthy of your time and your spine.

Dehumanaut // Of Nightmares and Vice [July 17th, 2024 – Self Release]

Just like Cell, Dehumanaut entered my rotation thanks to a serendipitous stroll through the Bandcamp ticker. Boasting a unique blend of death metal, thrash, and bluesy bar-crawl hard rock, these Brits offer something novel to the extreme metal catalog. With sophomore effort, Of Nightmares and Vice, Dehumanaut double down on the death and blues, evoking Entombed‘s Wolverine Blues in spirit as much as in execution. With swinging tracks like “Shred this Reality,” “A Perilous Path,” “Battle Weary,” “Epiphanies,” and “Black City” deftly stepping between deathly riffs and danceable grooves, thrashier cuts such as “Reject the Knife,” “Nexus of Decline” and “A Truth Most Foul,” and “It Has a Name” feel even speedier and more rabid than usual. Aside from affording Of Nightmares and Vice oodles of dynamics in songwriting, this multifaceted and structured approach to genre-bending showcases Dehumanaut’s versatility as musicians. Everything they attempt here feels effortless and reflexive, making every transition between measure and phrase not just purposeful but also buttery-smooth (“Battle Weary”). If it weren’t for a bit of bloat across the board, oddly muffled mixing, and somewhat flat death metal growls, Of Nightmares and Vice would be in play among my top records of July. Even still, it comes close!

Saunders’ Salacious Slams

Cephalotripsy // Epigenetic Neurogenesis [July 13th, 2024 – Self-Release ]

Looking for something so stupidly heavy and obnoxiously brutal that listening could kill brain cells and incite a rampage? California’s underground warriors Cephalotripsy have you covered on long-awaited sophomore album, and follow-up to 2007’s cult and apparently well received debut, Uterovaginal Insertion of Extirpated Anomalies. Unfamiliar with their previous output, I stumbled across this latest endeavor through a trusted recommendation, fulfilling my fix for devastatingly brutal slam death. Epigenetic Neurogenesis takes no prisoners and delivers blow after blow of steamrolling, pugnacious brutal death. Brimming with inhuman, sewer dwelling vocal eruptions of Angel Ochoa (Abominable Putridity), hammering percussion, and an onslaught of ridiculously thick, heavy riffs, exhibiting the sharp, technical skills of veteran brutal death axe wielder and long-term member Andrés Guzman. The newer members form a pummeling rhythm section driving the guttural swarm. Weighing in at a tight and efficient 32 minutes, the beatdown is relentless, though concise enough to avoid an early burn out. The songwriting doesn’t reinvent the brutal slam death wheel. However, the tight execution, dynamic tempo shifts, and memorable riffcraft elevates the material. Viscous, cranium crushing riffs and utterly devastating slams frequently deployed adds further grunt, immense weight and memorability on a set of killer tunes, including extra chunky gems “Alpha Terrestrial Polymorph,” ” Lo Tech Non Entity,” and “Excision of Self.” Nasty, crushing stuff.

Dear Hollow’s Disturbing Dump

Silvaplana // Sils Maria | Limbs of Dionysus [July 17th, 2024 – Self-Release]

Although shrouded in mystery, Silvaplana is a solo project of Alex DeMaria of Yellow Eyes and Anicon. Blackened punishment paired with atmosphere have long been the aim, but Silvaplana’s duel release finds duality: both take influence from parent releases separately. Sils Maria takes on a hyper-atmospheric, classically influenced, and dark ambient approach across six tracks and forty-one minutes, blackened blastbeats and distant shrieks hidden behind thick swaths of ambiance, organ, and piano, a relatively gentle affair that recalls the wild yet placid sounds of Yellow Eyes’ latest. Meanwhile, the two-track and also forty-one minutes of Limbs of Dionysus feeds a ritualistic fire with a scathingly raw black attack, reverb-laden growls, moans, and shrieks colliding with relentless tremolo that continuously scale minor and diminished frostbitten mountaintops with reckless abandon. Both seem entirely disparate in context to one another, but smartly they are held together by the thin thread of melodic motifs. The organ that populates Sils Maria’s tracks “II,” “IV” and “VI” are recalled in the closing remarks of “I” in Limbs of Dionysus; the ominous organ trills of the former’s “III” are warped into a blackened beast in the latter’s “II.” As Limbs of Dionysus concludes, the feedback-laden plucking feeds right into the morphing plucking populating the beginning of Sils Maria – an ouroboros of the blackened arts. Silvaplana exists on both self-indulgent and decadent ends of the blackened spectrum with Sils Maria and Limbs of Dionysus, both baffling and tantalizing in their rawness and ambiance, and otherworldly in their collaboration.

Dolphin Whisperer’s Inconspicuous Import

Quasidiploid // Deconstruction [July 1st, 2024 – Amputated Vein Records]

Do you see that cover art? Yes, it’s some sort of countess of the undead summoning the skull-kind with a horn. Would you believe then that one of the features throughout Deconstruction is its inclusion of a female trumpet player to break up the tension of a relentless, brutal technical death metal? Oh yeah, she’s also the vocalist and possesses a vicious guttural bark, shrill and penetrating squeals and hisses (the vocal intro on “Disasters and Infection Routes” is a straight Dir en grey moment), and a higher register manic collapse that features at key moments. That’s all to say that the cover lands a bit on the nose, but, in turn, the carnival crazed whiplash of Quasidiploid swings between brutal Cryptopsy riff smashing, Pat Martino jazz guitar pleasantries, Necrophagist sweep punishing, and Chuck Mangione brass crooning (“Overture”)—unhinged, unbothered, and anything but accessible. I would call it too unpolished, as Deconstruction strikes with a bit of a demo quality. But sometimes we have to ask ourselves whether what we hear is a questionably processed demo or an intentionally shredded Japanese master? In any case virtuosity reigns as provably human skin slammer Vomiken pushes a bass-loaded kick and a high-crunch kit to abusive and enthralling accelerations only to crash in on the spurt of a forlorn trumpet or flourish of a prancing guitar line (“Brutal Strafing,” “Massacre Fantasy”). Guitar lines weave about traditionally nimble sweeps to tricky meter riff crushes on a dime (“Melodies of Distorted Time and Space,” “Disasters…”). Tonal identities flip between Nile-istic, snaking melodies, flippant yet tasteful guitar heroics, and propulsive rhythm blasts whose only break is the close of a song. The definition of something olde, new, borrowed, and blue, Quasidiploid has come from far left field to provide a classics-inspired but funky fresh version of an extreme genre that thrives exactly on this kind of weird—a curiosity now, but with all the makings of something truly explosive to come.

Mark Z.’s Musings

200 Stab Wounds // Manual Manic Procedures [June 28th, 2024 – Metal Blade Records]

Following a rapid rise to fame during the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ohio death metal troupe 200 Stab Wounds thrust their Slave to the Scalpel debut onto the masses in 2021. While I was about as mixed on that one as Felagund was, their second album Manual Manic Procedures has proven these wounds cut far deeper than originally thought. The massive beefy chugs that the band have become known for are still here in full force, but now they’re paired with sharper hooks and a heightened sense of maturity. On Procedures, you’ll hear acoustic plucking, immense Bolt Thower riffing, grooves that will blow your guts out, and even some melodic death metal influence—and that’s just on the first song. The band also know when to give you a breather, be it a well-placed atmospheric instrumental (“Led to the Chamber / Liquefied”) or an extended ride on a great groovy riff (“Defiled Gestation”). With a monstrous guitar tone, plenty of killer moments, and a track flow that’s smoother than liquefied human remains sliding off a kitchen counter, these Cleveland boys have given us a record that truly feels like modern death metal coming into its own.

#200StabWounds #2024 #AWakeInProvidence #AbominablePutridity #AmericanMetal #AmputatedVeinRecords #Anicon #AtmosphericBlackMetal #BlackMetal #BluesRock #BoltThrower #BrutalDeathMetal #CanadianMetal #Cell #Cephalotripsy #ChuckMangione #Cryptopsy #DeathMetal #Deathcore #Deconstruction #Dehumanaut #DirEnGrey #Entombed #EpigeneticNeurogenesis #FleshgodApocalypse #HardRock #IWriteToYouMyDarlingDecay #Immortal #JapaneseMetal #Jul24 #LimbsOfDionysus #ManualManicProcedures #MelodicDeathMetal #MetalBladeRecords #Necrophagist #Nile #OfNightmaresAndVice #PatMartino #Quasiploid #RawBlackMetal #Review #Reviews #SelfRelease #ShatteringTheRaptureOfThePrimordialAbyss #SilsMaria #Silvaplana #Slam #StuckInTheFilter #SymphonicDeathMetal #SymphonicDeathcore #SymphonicMetal #TechnicalDeathMetal #ThrashMetal #UKMetal #UniqueLeaderRecords #YellowEyes

#TheMetalDogArticleList
#loudersound
The 10 greatest old school #deathmetal vocalists
#Obituary frontman #JohnTardy says these are death metal’s Hall Of Fame singers, and who are we to argue

https://www.loudersound.com/features/the-10-greatest-old-school-death-metal-vocalists

#Cronos #Venom #TomGWarrior #CelticFrost #Quothorn #Bathory #ChuckSchuldiner #Death #GlenBenton #Deicide #JeffBecerra #Possessed #DarrenTravis #Sadus #MaxCavalera #Sepultura #LGPetrov #Entombed #JeffWalker #Carcass