SLAM-MINDED

Top Ten of 2011 + Superlatives

2012-01-03T02:00:00.007-05:00

Well, it's slightly overdue, but here's S-M's top ten albums of the year 2011. It's been kind of a weird year for slam; not a lot of big albums vying for control of the slam populace, but not a lot of totally awful things either. Just a lot of a). albums by bands who had previously done average albums that we never really cared about much overall or b). bands we've never heard of doing killer things, for the most part.

Back when this blog started in 2007 by Nick and I, we did our first top ten with a superlatives section; basically the same as you remember from high school..."Most Popular", "Best Looking", "Most Likely to Smoke Crack and Worship Satan by 20"...you know the deal. This year, Logan had a great idea; take that much-loved idea and extrapolate it here, 4 years later. On top of this, we are doing what we've done the last several years and writing mini-reviews for our top 10 albums as well. Enjoy the reading material and we'll see you in 2012!

Best Debut Full-Length:

Logan and I didn't have to think too hard about this one. A clear winner was already in our minds; Ezophagothomia's Instinct of Inhuman Devourment. Though a stylistic shift from their demo, which was predominantly fueled by funeral slams and thus a polarizing entry into slam's illustrious past, it won our hearts with its spectacular-but-not-showboating technicality, intense heavy slamming and rhythmic complexity, all underpinned by a guttural and on-par vocal assault. Bodysnatch and Abnormity both had good entries in this category as well (as you know if you follow this blog/listen to the bands in question), but neither is as successful as this bulldozing slam assault.

Best Debut Demo or EP:

Here's another no-brainer over here at S-M. Love having our work cut out for us; thanks excellent slam bands! Our choice here is The Gurchick Tree, no questions asked. Envenomation had a good debut as well, but then they broke up and they really weren't as tight or as developed as this fledgling band either. TGT are New Jersey slam continuing in the wake of destruction laid forth by bands such as Dripping and Digested Flesh; they combine dark, sometimes industrial tinged slams with a solid charging rhythm section and a wounded atmosphere. These youngins' are well on their way to achieving slam domination, and we are proud to fully support their brutal endeavors. Cheers!

Heaviest Album:

There are a few valid choices for this category. So much for these being simplistic, huh? "Heaviness" works on a few tangible levels, as well as a few less objective levels. There is heavy stuff that's heavy mainly because of the production (Pathology is a good example here; Abnormity would probably be a solid candidate for this type of gravity, as well) and there is stuff that is heavy because of how abominable and ridiculous it sounds. Putridity would be my submission for this category simply because of how well they handle the latter and take a really clean jab at the former. Since we've decided that this has to be decided as a joint effort and that there can really be no dissent, that makes this pretty difficult. I prefer Putridity, Logan prefers Pathology. I think we can agree to disagree here, though, and I will throw my chip in Pathology's corner. Surprised? While I may not be their biggest fan, the new album is clearly their best and heaviest album to date and more than makes up for what it lacks in thought-provoking lyrical content and ofttimes-silly vocals in "sheer decibels," which would be Logan's term for this band's uncanny edge over their intense competition. We take our slamming very seriously here at S-M and won't have any amount of weakness in our ranks, after all.

Catchiest/Grooviest Album:

Slight dissent on this one lead to me gaining the upper hand due to my politically-motivated decision to concede on the former category. Yes, yes I'm a two-faced douche, but this was for a good cause. Despite its flaws and goofs, Bodysnatch's debut is absolutely the grooviest AND catchiest album of this year for us. I find myself replaying Spectral Repudiation in my head constantly, I have the "suffering humans ready for the promised land" part of Shotgun Therapy stuck in my mind perpetually, and honestly even though it's long it just doesn't feel it most of the time; not enough to affect my judgment of its catchiness, anyway. This band has seriously come leaps-and-bounds from their completely underwhelming debut EP and I'm psyched they did because when this album slams, it slams hard and it slams enjoyably. A runner-up would probably be Abnormity's debut, though; as Logan points out, "Emenation of Putrid Entrails" is one of THE defining groovy slam songs of this year (and possibly ever in the realm of modern slam death; debatable).

Most Epic:

A few albums could certainly be considered epic this year. If you recall 2007 on this blog at all (and if you do, you kick ass; S-M OGs, this is for you), we named Inveracity for this award because Extermination of Millions had just dropped and we were floored by its sick, flowing riffage. This year, we're taking a different route, though. Condemned's sophomore effort has epic written all over it; this is in direct opposition to Desecrate the Vile, which, in both Logan's opinion and my own, was a major letdown given the hype and personnel involved with its inception. The new one is a different beast entirely, going through movements of flurrying, high-speed tremolo riffs, tense and subtle interplay between rhythm and riff and some striking funeral slam action. This album embodies all that is awesome about the "darker" side of slam; it's similar to Orchidectomy's one-off album in that regard, which is never a bad thing to be compared to considering that album is badass. This album renewed our faith in a band I originally wrote off, and for that alone it is easily the most epic. Runner-up for this category would have to be Decaying Purity's sophomore album, a continuation and development of the unique and catchy style on display during Phases of Dimensional Torture.

Most Drastic Change:

I feel bad "awarding" this because it's really not a positive change at all. It also slipped under a lot of people's radars, but I feel that S-M's opinion needs to be aired. Remember my review for Regurgitate Life's demo that I wrote back in '09 (demo released '08)? Well, I was pretty fucking psyched to see that he had released a new EP. So, I grab the new EP and I'm greeted by a horrendous drum machine kick roll with a second/third-rate Morbid Angel riff lazily droning over the top. Maybe it'll get better? Nope, fucking deathcore vocals over basic charging death metal. Not a good change, in my opinion; any band going from sick Defeated Sanity-meets-Suffocation to this is unworthy of this blog. It might be fine for fans of more pedestrian death metal, but it hardly satiates my intense desire for carnivorous, flesh-seeking brutality. Avoid and possibly weep at the last decent UKDM band's descent into quivering mediocrity (R.I.P. Embryonic Depravity, you are sorely missed).

Best Cover Art:

I may have snubbed these Italian psychopaths for the Heaviest Award, but I fully intended to make Logan regret leading me to the 'pathological' dark side on the Heaviest Album superlative. Putridity really knocks it out of the park with this one. Perfect logo/album title placement and layout, excellent composition which is very evocative of the sounds therein, and the design as a whole is sick. We are also both of the mind that their debut had great art adorning its cover as well, so it's only natural that they'd deserve this award. It may not be an award for "sound" but since art (yes, slam is art) is to be judged on its complete package rather than any single aspect, this cover oozes brutality and sickness and gives an accurate depiction of the whirlwind of frenzied, uncaring brutality lying dormant within.

Biggest Disappointment:

S-M hereby expresses disappointment in having had to wait until 2012 for all of the alleged releases that should break the minds and collarbones of all slam fans worldwide. Not that this year was really a slouch, but on the order for '12, we're looking at Wormed, Devourment, TWO DISGORGE ALBUMS, Vulvectomy, Abominable Putridity, Guttural Secrete, Down From The Wound and possibly Cephalotripsy, along with a host of other surprises...maybe Japan will finally do something awesome again? Maybe another third-world band will utterly wreck the competition? Who knows what's going to happen? We're psyched to return with renewed intensity and brutality for this year, though, since it promises to slam all posers back into the annals of the earth they crawled out from around the time deathcore started trying to masquerade as slam. Brutal supremacy is on the order, and we'll all stand united to witness it. Thus it is spoken, and thus it shall be known. To bring up an eternal quote from Logan re: the state of slam/this planet in the upcoming year: "2012 year of the slam...thats how the apocalypse is going to happen, so much high quality heavy slam that it causes earthquakes across the land."

TOP TEN SECTIONS! Here are our top ten lists for 2011, including mini-reviews for each album listed.

Andy:

1. Ezophagothomia - Instinct Of Inhuman Devourment
First of all, as I've mentioned to Logan multiple times, any album that comes along which can make me write post-apocalyptic zombie fiction in the form of a review is worthy of a ton of praise. This album has practically everything necessary to be an amazing slam album, from a great (and varied) rhythm section to huge, epic slams, solid vocals and a heavy dose of obliterating, desolate atmosphere. We all thought their debut demo made waves with its almost entirely funeral slam based style, but their debut, although a step in a very different direction, made a slam tsunami by comparison and we couldn't be more excited to follow this awesome band.

2. Bodysnatch - Insights of a Rotten Theatre
This came out of literally nowhere for me and kicked my ass on many, many levels. Whether it be due to the insane vocal highlights, gut-punching thug-slams or quirky, amusing solos/fun sections. This is definitely the most listenable, grooviest slam album of the year and deserves a spot near the top for these reasons. Bands rarely make incredible jumps in quality and formal style from their debut EPs to their first proper "albums", but somehow, this random band who I paid no attention to before released a slam album twice as long and twice as great as most others in its style. Bravo, gents.

3. Condemned - Realms of the Ungodly
Exuding a dark, hateful and evil atmosphere is just the first step towards the top rung of the ladder for this CA-based slam band featuring Cephalotripsy members. If you recall, I really had nothing good to say about this band's debut; I found it very overhyped with very little interesting substance and songs that seemed like flash-in-the-pan style pieces with no continuity. This is an entirely different piece of amazing work. The feel present on this album is like a blurrier Orchidectomy, which is a great thing considering that band's excellent (and only) album. The flow of this work is unparalleled and it just generally feels like they've grown much stronger as a band over time.

4. Putridity - Degenerating Anthropophagical Euphoria
There is not really much to say about this album; it's a feral, whirlwind tour-de-force of extreme brutal death metal with absolutely zero concessions, no emotional investment and a completely psychotic take on a stale sound. By sounding like a band that both doesn't give a fuck and simultaneously puts a surprising and refreshing amount of nuance into their chaotic brand of blast-slam guttural spew, Putridity wrecks all kinds of shit with their sophomore entry. This is necessary brutality.

5. Pathology - Awaken to the Suffering
There is a logical and fine thread guiding the band to this point if you listen to all of their albums leading to this, their most masterful work of breakdown-laden Calislam to date. Big, dumb breakdowns are sandwiched within excellently crafted riffs and some surprises (fucking djent breakdown mid-album thing, what?), and Huber's vocals are both impressive and overbearing, sometimes both at once. Despite its minor flaws, such as the glossy coat of production that practically threatens to consume any emotion present, this is a finely crafted, artisanal piece of slam death that puts it at odds with equally big, shiny bands from across the pond and beyond; a good sign that slam is alive and well.

6. The Gurchick Tree - Sadistic Reflections of Blood EP
The only EP on my top ten, these dudes know what slam is, how it is written and the ins-and-outs of all of its tropes. Starting with this foundation, they deconstruct, subvert and capitalize on all of the cliche things in the genre, devising a style which is at once both easily recognizable and undeniably their own. It has a surprising sense of urgency to it, combining the best elements of Devourment, Digested Flesh and Saprogenic, and even though it has a mid-album acoustic intro, it's anything but relaxing; creepy, entirely off-kilter and fascinating evil just oozes from this band's debut. I am extremely interested in how they develop this sound. Easily one of the best new bands, and a reminder that the East Coast can slam just as well as the West.

7. Decaying Purity - The Existence of Infinite Agony
Recognized years ago in this review for their own epic brand of brutality, Decaying Purity are a stalwart Turkish band who know how to craft urgent, fast-paced and undeniably special songs from a combination of intense riffage and methodical tempo shifts. Though rarely slamming, their Deeds of Flesh-esque songwriting and intense riffcraft catapult them into any worthwhile top ten list. The production is a bit weaker than the debut, in my opinion, sacrificing heaviness for clarity, but it doesn't have many faults when looked at holistically.

8. Syphilic - A Composition of Murder
An impressive effort by a solo artist who has never managed to impress me (despite good attempts at doing just that), this album shows this Michiganer going conceptual and mature on the slam realm and almost entirely eschewing slam in the process. Regardless, however, it's well-written stuff that threads between absurd blasturbation, technical marvel and surprisingly poignant melody while only rarely missing a beat. All of this is wrapped in a very clean production with crisp dynamics and a penchant for being unruly and brutal.

9. Prophecy - Don't Fuckin' Mess With Texas
I've always thought of this TX band as kind of a joke, but this album laid all of my previous mental musings to waste, assaulting the devout slammer with thick, beatdown riffage and surprisingly dynamic songs. The production is blunt, visceral and thick but the music is somehow more thoughtful and fine-tuned than most people would imagine could come from a band whose first song angrily threatens "don't fuckin' mess with Texas/don't fuckin' mess with us". Despite the cheesiness (or maybe sometimes because of it?) this is a really badass album chock full of listenability, excellent musicianship and good ol' charm. Plus, they just seem really fucking into it, and that's always cool to hear.

10. Abnormity - Irreversible Disintegration
This has fallen through my charts fairly steadily as its veneer of squeaky-cleanliness left it a bit short of what it could've been had they went with a bit more heart to the playing, but it's still a worthy Russian BDM album with one of the most exemplary songs in modern slam. Heartily-played, tightly-wound and brutal as all fuck, Abnormity certainly won't win any awards for connecting to its audience but it does more than most albums this year did to fulfill that raging primal force inside all fans of this music.

Logan:

1. Ezophagothomia - Instinct Of Inhuman Devourment
Do you hear that unholy noise? It's the sound of the slampocalypse, and Ezophagothomia are the harbingers. Everything about this album is apocalyptic, the slams are immense, the drumming is absolutely incredible (although they could've used a less triggered sound), the vocals are pretty damn good, and above all, it actually sounds, dare I say, dangerous. It may not be the catchiest album of 2011, heaviest, or even the most brutal, but an atmosphere like this is just incredible in its own right. Instinct Of Inhuman Devourment is a bonafide slam masterpiece.

2. Cephalotripsy - 2011 Promo
Whoa shit, a three track promo on a top 10 list!? And ranked number 2 to boot? How does a three track promo get listed above Putridity or Condemned? It's simple really, Cephalotripsy came back and improved on every aspect of their craft. Angel Ochoa's vocals are more varied, and thought out, the slams are mammoth-like, and Forest's drumming has been taken to the next level. He's become a mini-Lille, and I love it. Hell, if they released this along with 5 other songs, I would've placed this in Ezo's stead, but the way it is, the highest I can put it is #2.

3. Putridity - Degenerating Anthropophagical Euphoria

Seriously, what the fuck. Putridity signs to Willowtip of all labels, then comes out with a great fucking album that's so far away from typical Willowtip fare. Nothing is safe on this album. Sitting through the entire thing is like getting curbstomped by Jon Jones. This has to be one of the most brutal albums in the last few years, if not the most brutal, but therein lies the problem. One can only handle so many beatings, and this album is no different. It does get tiring after a while. Still, for what it is, it's quite amazing, especially considering its one track mind. Enmity take note, this is how you make this style sound good.

4. Condemned - Realms Of The Ungodly

Condemned's debut album, Desecrate The Vile, was incredibly disappointing. Nothing really worked in that album, the riffs were regurgitated cali-slam-isms, the vocals were monotonous, and the production ruined absolutely ANY chance of it being good. I had placed them on my shit list, but good lord, did they ever rectify their faults. Realms Of The Ungodly is a HUGE improvement, and even that is an understatement. Everything has been overhauled, the guitarwork is blistering, Angel created some great vocal patterns, and like I said before, Forest is Lille junior. Couple that in with a dark atmosphere, and an kick-ass booklet (seriously, artistic renditions of single tracks? Awesome!), and you have a potential classic. The only gripe I can see is with the drum production, it does get a bit typewriterish at times, but thats not enough to take away my enjoyment.

5. Syphilic - A Composition Of Murder

This is where my list starts to get hazy, as all of the albums are of similar quality. A Composition Of Murder is a single track album, an attempt at a Brutal Death Metal epic, and it actually works. Everything about it just sounds so damn professional. The production is incredible (although too loud at times), and the instrumentation is just stupendous. Even the drum programming seems incredibly technical and nuanced.. The only real downside to this album was that it seemed to lose its way halfway through, and the overall lack of noticeable slams. Other then that, it's a huge improvement over Behind Bars, and is quite ambitious. I hope more artists try this out.

6. Pathology - Awakening The Suffering

First off, if you think this is deathcore, go fuck yourself. This is what happens with Calislam and the Russian scene mingle. No album this year is as heavy. The slams are earth-shattering. Interspersed in between the many slams are your typical Cali-gorge styled riffage, mixed in with Cannibal Corpse-styled melodic riffs. It works out pretty well. The production is hefty and pristine, just like you'd expect out of Victory Records. I do have to point out though that I have to disagree with Andy on Mr Huber's vocal performance. I think it's great, and incredibly varied. Pathology really should take some extra time though before releasing another album so that they can keep the quality up all around, as Awakening The Suffering does have a few tracks that just fall flat.

7. Bodysnatch - Insights Of A Rotten Theatre

This album is just plain dumb. The production is decent, except for the constant sliding noise, the album booklet is sparse and half assed, the riffage is repetitive, and the songs do get way too long for their own good. I'm sure you're asking yourselves "But Logan, how does this get so high on your list?". Oh, the riffs may be repetitive, but it's great bouncy fun, like a dumbed down Soils Of Fate, and Bodysnatch has the best vocal performance of ANY band in the slam scene since Angel on Cephalotripsy. The vocals are so incredibly varied, well placed, and just plain hilarious. This album can be alikened to Beavis and Butthead. It's dumb as fuck, but it mesmerizes you.

8. The Gurchick Tree - Sadistic Reflections Of Blood EP

I had absolutely no expectations for this EP coming into it. It came out of nowhere, dropped on a forum I frequent, and the reviews for it seemed to be mixed. I am glad I gave it a listen though. Although I do believe the production can use a little more heft, and that the instrumental intro and interlude should just be scrapped, the songs on this EP are just great. From the Cali-ish blasts of Severed Head Sodomy to the industrial tinged slams in Inject the Morphine, The Gurchick Tree proves themselves an incredibly capable band. I just hope that they can flesh out their ideas more, and write longer, more mature songs (Short Bus Pile Up, I'm looking at you too! <3).

9. Abdicate - Transcend Through Sacrifice

I'm going to get in shit for putting this above Abnormity, but here goes. I really didn't like Abdicate's debut full length, Forged In Ruin, so I had low expectations for this. I'm happy to say that Transcend Through Sacrifice fixed a lot of their faults. The production is hefty as all hell. The vocal performance is nothing to write home about, but is decent, the guitarwork is pretty workmanlike, but well crafted. The drumming on the other hand is pretty damn impressive, and reminds me heavily of Derek Roddy for some odd reason. The only real gripe I had with this album was the lack of a stand out moment, but really, when you have an album full of good moments, I can overlook the lack of any Field Of The Impaled level moments.

10. Decaying Purity - The Existence Of Infinite Agony

I am so damn disappointed to put this at #10, truly I am. I loved their debut, and I do believe that Decaying Purity is Turkey's greatest export, but I was disappointed by the follow up. Although the production is improved from their debut, the riffing and drumming lack the intensity that Phases had. During my first listen I had to stop about halfway through just due to being bored, but I sat down a few months after its release to give it a fair shake, and something happened. That something being the track The River Of Entrails. That track alone catapulted this album up from the rest of the middle of the road slam out there, and into the upper echelon. Inveracity eat your heart out, this is how you do an epic slam song. The build up half way through is just genius, segways into what is possibly my favourite riff ever, and then it ends. I just really wish they had more moments like that.

Syphilic - A Composition of Murder (2011; Sevared Records)

2011-12-22T00:06:00.003-05:00

I'll admit it, I'm not much of a big fan of this band's past outings. Brian Forgue, sole proprietor of this project, seems like a good dude with a smart and discerning fanbase, so it always confused me that I couldn't get into Syphilic, especially because I recall times on the way to a couple Maryland Deathfests where my buddy Dan would have "Back Acne Buffet" come up on his Zune a few times and I'd be kind of into it. Maybe it was me being psyched because of where we were headed, or the intense heaviness of his car's subwoofer, but I gave both "Behind Bars" and "Erotishock Therapy" a go back home and they both seemed like excellent sounding albums with nothing specifically good to back them up. I've actually always harbored a place in my slamming heart for the wonderfully-perverted "Symphony of Slit Throats" but other than that, Syphilic has never touched me in the naughty places.

Until this album.

Maybe it's the fact that I like the idea of an "epic brutal death metal song" made up of little micro-parts that, in turn, are made up of other little sections of wonderfully brutal deviation. Maybe it's the fact that everything just sounds like it was put together that much more carefully this time around. Maybe, though, maybe it's just that this album just beats faces in and relents only to build up potential energy for future slaughters. The opening track is goofy, awkward and a bit off-putting at first, but it's alienating and, more importantly, it becomes more severe over time. We are subjected to our first dose of George Carlin on this track, as well; samples of his standup are used almost so much that Carlin could practically be considered a guest member on this album (if he weren't dead and buried, that is; rest in peace you cynical bastard), and, if you dislike George Carlin, you will probably be intensely irritated by his perpetual presence on this disc. It's that overbearing sometimes, but at least Mr. Forgue mixed the quotes in quite well, and only chose the choicest, most insane cuts for our displeasure.

Hey, but beside that slightly irksome tidbit, this is an incredibly well-written, thoughtful and, above all, entertaining album. There are some epic riffs here and there that could entice fans of more "melodic" death metal (beginning of IV, for instance), though there isn't too much approaching simplistic harmony here, except when it's used to counterpoint intensely atonal blast sessions. The tracks run together pretty evenly (more on this later, though), and that's both a strength and a weakness. I doubt there's anyone on this planet who's heard this and remembers which tracks fall where. There are a lot of parts of songs, however, that stick out incredibly well. The aforementioned IV has a really awesome progressive death metal thing going on, which sounds a bit like the more "teched-out" Cali DM (so much so that it sometimes sounds like the track is skipping, which is funny) except done by one dude, and with acoustic guitar overlays. There are times when the blasting gets a little too into itself, like the dime-a-dozen time changes that carry slam riffs into weird corners where they get a little bit stuck, but overall, despite the bluster, this album paces itself extremely well (whether by some miracle or by sheer sleight of hand we'll probably never know).

VI opens with very horror-movie-esque piano and a plodding, wandering bassline, somehow reminding me of that last Scrambled Defuncts album where Vlad went full retard (and at the same time, full genius, honestly), but it quickly eschews such unbrutal schemes and unleashes a totally epic whirlwind solo battle with more of the "50 time changes a minute" blast/kick roll madness. This is honestly just a cool as fuck song, and the climax of the entire composition. It's surprisingly restrained for being based on a psychotic serial killer's raison d'etre murder spree, but we are in an instant reminded that this is brutal death metal and we will be brutalized, as Forgue's layered vocal burps/growls spew sickness over the top of a riff salad of epic proportions.

Though his songwriting has reached a never-before-seen peak on this album, Syphilic still has a bit of explaining to do with regards to how the sections are broken up; the transition from VI, for instance, to VII is pretty loose sounding and throws off some of the well-maintained momentum. There also aren't as many slow slams on this album as I'd sort of wished there were. There are some excellent ones, but they get lost in the literal shuffle of the signature-switches and riff/solo madness. So, it's like, although game has been stepped up on a level of pure professionalism and dedication, something seems to have been lost of the dumbness (meant lovably) of prior Syphilic works and this work somehow paradoxically suffers for it. It's on another level without 100% comprehending the reason for reaching that level, and that sometimes keeps it a bit lower than it should be in my eyes and ears. Maybe Mr. Forgue prefers this route now, and this is where his current direction is heading for Syphilic, which is fine with me. There is just a little, trivial, unfair part of me that thinks this would be better if it were a little less cerebral and a little more direct and stupid.

It is still necessary that everyone into slam/brutal death metal check out what's going on in this guy's head, because it's refreshingly unique and intriguing, and I look forward to seeing where he goes with these ideas. A cool idea made real is always proof positive that BDM is going nowhere but up. Impressive work.

Bodysnatch - Insights of a Rotten Theatre (2011; Pathologically Explicit Recordings)

2011-11-23T22:28:00.004-05:00

Bodysnatch are a fairly underground band from Switzerland currently signed to PathEx Records, known for renowned releases by bands like Cumbeast, Kraanium and Antraks. Boasting Soils of Fate/MP5k (R.I.P.?) drummer Fredrik Widigs on the kit on this album, a sick dual vocal assault by two full-time vocalists and some really cool melodic moments and leads, this was pretty much destined to be an underground/sleeper hit for 2011. The album is also really, really long for slam. You barely see slam albums go over the 30 minute mark, so my response to first hearing "Inception of Malicious Pregnancy" was "wow, this is really 7 minutes long?" but that feeling quickly waned as I realized how well each song is created and how painstakingly they all seem to be constructed. The album is, truly, insanely long (very near to an hour total, over 10 tracks) but none of the songs really feel like they lag or try to carry too much weight. In fact, "Shotgun Therapy" which is a whopping 7-and-a-quarter minutes, features three distinct, equally enjoyable sections that run the gamut from vocal highlights to awesome groove riffs.

And that's basically where this album shines. Amongst the tight, awesome drumming, the interesting little slap bass pops and the thugged-out rapping vocals (really well-done; I found myself laughing a bit at some parts), this album is really just about super riffing. It starts chuggy with a forward-pushing beat that relents very little, and eventually settles into its own little groove. There are very few breakdowns on this album that don't make me want to headbang involuntarily (even in the car which, while dangerous and possibly even fatal, makes it even more awesome actually). It's the combination of super-simple pinpoint drumming and totally rifftastic slamming that makes this album, as a whole, stand out.

There are little things that just work, though, as well. The little solo section in "Resurrected Pugnacity Resists All Logic" (awesome song title, as well) is fun, a good break from utter brutality, and fits very well in the song with a cool rhythmic buildup underneath before collapsing into a cool chugging, off-time slam with a djent-like drum section. Bass pops make for cute diversions as well, and the bass is heavy as all fuck on this album, but the guitar tone is sometimes a bit too weak for what they seem to be trying to achieve. There are riffs that feel they could use a bit more tone behind them, either because the triggered kick drum drowns out the damped slam riff tones or because they're just written weirdly, but these are few and far between overall, which is a relief.

One other technical thing on this album keeps it from being absolutely excellent, however. Fucking fret noise! This unfortunately sucks, and it's so obvious and pervasive during a lot of the slower, more funeral-esque slam sections (of which there actually are quite a few...points for those anyway!) that it just sounds totally bothersome and distracting. It's like when you hear a singer breathe between vocal lines, just messy little things that take me out of the experience and seem like they could be easily fixed. Some may argue that this adds a "rough" or "raw" edge to this album, but I really don't think they are going for that sort of sound; it definitely seems like it's supposed to be hi-fi and modern as hell.

The lead/solo thing in "Inception of Malicious Pregnancy" reminds me heavily of Fleshless, to the extent that, after several listens back to back on the way to and from work for about a week, I basically decided that this sounds like Soils of Fate, Dying Fetus, Fleshless and old Aborted having a kid and smashing all their songs into mega-songs that just go weird, absurdly developed places over their entirety. Throw in a bit of Saprogenic for good measure, and it's really just demented stuff, and great fun. Funeral slams are, like I said, in surprising abundance, though most are of the "introduced as completely silly slow breakdown" kind and not the "breakdown that starts normal speed and gets slower" type. That's cool; it sort of fits Bodysnatch's style a little more to have sections that are just coarsely delineated from the rest of the song but which eventually seem to snake back and relate to earlier themes or rhythms, given their song lengths. I keep coming back to that, but it seriously is a big point of contention to a lot of people, and something that certainly becomes a divisive, love-or-hate situation among many fans of this genre. A lot of people believe slam bands should come in, destroy your ears as brutally, quickly and/or loudly as possibly, and get the hell out so the next thing on the menu can be voraciously consumed. I don't think Bodysnatch is about that. They seem to, on this album anyway, be about devising ear-worm, catchy moments placed manipulatively in long sections of catchy riffs so that one has to keep rediscovering how songs unfold to truly "get" them.

It's pretty brilliant and high-brow actually. While this isn't cerebral music by any stretch of the imagination, it's surprisingly intelligent and a little bit silly. Overall, it's consistently high-quality and enjoyable brutal death metal with a focus on gut-punching slam breakdowns and charging old-school riffs that shouldn't disappoint a single person into this type of music. Since Thanksgiving begins in America in a few minutes, I'd like to personally declare my sincere thanks to cool bands like this the world over that make brutal, interesting and engaging music that just kicks ass. We salute you.

Condemned - Realms of the Ungodly (2011; Unique Leader Records)

2011-11-08T23:31:00.004-05:00

It's well known that Condemned's first offering was fairly well-received by the slam world. To many people, it was an "all-star" release that typified a lot of what brutal death metal is (or was 4 years ago...wow, that seems like a long time ago, shit), and it was distributed by a fairly well-to-do label that has good promotion in the brutal world. I'm here to state my opinion on that album straight out of the gate so that you might be able to glean a bit more from my review on their new album today; I thought Desecrate the Vile kind of sucked. It had piss-poor, weak production with no bite to it, the riffs faded in and out really quickly, the songs were unfocused, under-developed and short and the last track was one of those annoying "really long outro that we all wish was 11 minutes of a single slam riff repeated" things. This is totally different. This is good. Really good.

Even though the beginning of the album is a little cheesy with the opening elucidation of the first real song being more than a bit silly, the band quickly follows that up with various subtly-epic riffs that snake between headphones, developing into errant blastbeat passages tied together by collapsing structures formed of vague slam riffs. Forrest of Cephalotripsy is a real beast on this. We all know and love Lille Gruber of Defeated Sanity fame, right? Well, Forrest really gives it his all during the majority of this album, and his technique sometimes comes close to that blastmaster, especially during slower breakdown sections. Otherwise, he blasts in true Colombian fashion, or maybe sometimes like Putridity's drummer. A bass bomb opens up the first real slam breakdown of the album at the end of "Ere the Dark Sovereign", with its really weird abstract riffs between slams. This kind of sets the mood for the whole album; somewhat catchy, weird epic/melodic riffs blended almost seamlessly with slams that bludgeon faces flat.

The band just steps everything up 500% on this album; even if you liked the previous album, you'll probably like this even more given how much better it sounds, plays and formulates itself. It really feels like the album is unfolding in front of you, not just being played by some guys from California. The atmosphere is really cool, as well. Subtle things like the "swarm of angry bees/locusts/wasps" effect preceding the breakdown-into-verse of "Baptismal Incineration..." are highly, highly welcomed and set the band apart from their peers on this one. Splayed and nicely sequenced riffwork opens up the varied breakdown styles, which have roots in slams but which tend to deviate over their own courses into crazy variations on the originally-presented ideas. "Catharsis..." sounds a bit like a "single" from this album, with its wild, flailing aplomb and bombastic riff structuring, bass bomb-into-pinch harmonic rumbling breakdown and varied songwriting styles. The shortness of this track works better for it than most, if not all, of the short tracks on Desecrate the Vile worked in context of that album. It's ended by a creepy, sudden ambient heartbeat collaboration that leads perfectly into the next slab of utter brutality.

The title track is seriously awesome; it's got it all; insane riffy intro, epic progression that clobbers the listener with insane twists and turns and vocals that actually fit rather than how they felt misplaced to me on Desecrate. Angel still does his fair share of silly shit (you know what I'm talking about and you're probably replaying it in your head as I speak), but the little touches of epic reverb during the slam sections are that much more effective here. Also, the solo is a nice touch and flows surprisingly well. If anything, this album could use more cool solos! Another atmospheric outro and we've hit the second "half" of a really, really solid album that has kicked my ass every single time I've listened to it so far, leaving me with more things to discover on it rather than mere satiation.

"Forged within Lecherous Offerings" offers more in under 3 minutes than many lesser slam bands offer in a whole album; there's a progression into an epic riff that pretty much should never have been written but was (check out how the song develops after :43 onwards and be confused about how exactly they got to where they went there; it's seriously wacky). Later in the song there's some weird stuff (kinda major key melodic stuff intro the outro?) but it closes powerfully and opens into the next few songs that recite key points I've already gone over in this review; kind of unworthy of going over again, though there are some cool "classic blasts" and various riff-salad things going on that are impressive on both a technical and songwriting level.

The real thing of interest here is the almost 6-minute final song, "Submerged unto Phlegethon" which really just kicks major ass in almost every foreseeable way. It has a funeral slam, so of course it's going to top my list in that sense. There's a really cool breakdown preceding it, too; some kind of crazy staccato (thanks Logan for the good terminology here!) riffing that leads straight to a sinister, ever-slowing slam. Other than that there are vocal highlights during crazy tremolo-into-slam sections, insane drum fills that really just rule in every conceivable way and an extended brutal outro that practically devours its competition whole, and, yet...the ending is one of rebirth. It just kind of...stops. There's nothing else. Nothing but an endless silence within which we wait for their next offering with nothing but baited breath.

I think this album has all the makings of a classic brutal death album for the future. It is raw and unforgiving, callous and oppressive, well-crafted and well-thought-out, and yet it has its own barbarity mingling with a professionalism that is belied by the rough-shod edges it seems to parade proudly. As with most awesome slam, it is a paradox that we cheer on and celebrate loudly; the ability to present something so incalculably insipid in such a potent and overpowering way that it defies all qualification. You probably owe it to yourself to listen to this right now.

Acranius - The Echo Of Her Cracking Chest (2011; Rising Nemesis Records)

2011-10-07T00:34:00.003-04:00

Acranius is a slam two-piece that hail from Germany, which has a history of being hit and miss in the brutal death department (Defeated Sanity good; Despondency bad). Just by looking at their promotional photos, I was pretty skeptical, as one member was holding an aluminum baseball bat, while the other was holding a obviously fake AK47, both dressed as wigger as possible. Now I'm not saying that the wigger image is a bad thing (actually I am), but most wigger slam has been pretty awful for the most part. Would Acranius be at Vomit Remnants level, or at Waking The Cadavers? Sadly, they're closer to the latter.

The album starts off with a 59 second intro track titled Ghetto Brawl, which you would expect to be just a soundbyte intro, or some epic slams like Defeated Sanity's Introitus, but your ears are raped by some godawful gangshouts in German. A slam starts off right after, which sounds pretty middle of the road, and then you're greeted by some mediocre vocals, about 10 seconds of slamming, then a total deathcore breakdown. They have the nerve to add in another awful gangshout and deathcore breakdown right after that too. Maybe the next track will be better? God no.

I'm not going to descibe all of the tracks, as they all use almost the exact same song structure, and songwriting, so I'll only do one. The second track, Supremacy Through Rejection, starts off with an odd tremelo riff, with some mediocre programmed blasting underneath it. It segways directly into another slam, which reminds me Devourment for a little bit, before descending into a funeral slam of sorts. While it is a pretty cool idea, Acranius seems pretty awful at transitions, so it just sounds awkward as hell. They then jump into a "Waking The Cadaver" slam, which is a mixture of a deathcore breakdown and a slam, replay the same riff from the start, then jump into a huge deathcore breakdown. The song repeats this about one more time, before ending on the same riff that started the song. That's it, that's all, I just described the entire album.

The production doesn't really help things either. The guitar sounds decent when they just chug along, but when they decided to do anything more then 20 bpm, it starts to sound extremely thin and weak. The drums are obviously programmed, and not very well at that. They add in random cymbal hits which make absolutely no sense within the context of the song. I am about 99.9% sure there is no bass, and the vocals are just there. These problems usually wouldn't make much of a difference if the music was well written, but it isn't. It isn't even well played, there are glaring mistakes in almost every track that just jumps out at you. Shanty Town Hookers for example, if you listen close to the starting riff, it's not really keeping in time, and he seems to mess up on a few notes.

The Echo Of Her Cracking Chest just isn't a good album. I'm sorry, I wanted to enjoy it. The cover art looked awesome, and the title of the album gave me a half chub, but beyond that there just isn't anything here to really enjoy. The slams are mediocre, the musicianship just isn't there, and beyond that, nothing is memorable. Nada. I can't remember a single riff from this album. If you like Kraanium or Waking The Cadaver, maybe you might get some enjoyment out of this, I know I sure as hell didn't.

Gurglectomy / Desvirginizagore / Inhumation - Grinding Your Brain Split (2011; Venal Prods)

2011-10-04T21:24:00.004-04:00

So, you want to hear a lot of underground brutal shit from South America in one place but don't know how to do so. You're confused and seeking help at this wonderful blog we have here, so I guess it is only fair of me to introduce to you a cute little 3-way split of some perverted slammers'n'grinders from Sudamerica (Argentina and Peru specifically).

The split starts off with Gurglectomy who are pretty standard Colombian-sounding stuff (despite originating in Argentina, as Inhumation also do), a bit like old, old Goretrade combined with Carnivore Diprosopus' more depraved offerings. Toss in a pinch of 9-note slam breakdowns tossed in for absolutely great measure and you're about on top of where this is headed. The band jams out four songs here totaling under 10 minutes, so you know they don't really fuck around. The second song reminds heavily of Suppuration's first album with its blurred pinch harmonics and ever-so-slightly melodic riffs. By extension, it's also a little bit like early Ancient Necropsy in how quick, spiked tremolo riffs are bookended by spazzy blasts and psychotic riff breaks. "A Rapist Tale" approaches true interest with its very solid construction, and really weird breakdown that utilized dead-air in a pretty effective way.

The production distracts here, though; it's really tunneled and scooped, with an absurd low-end that does little to highlight any interesting things happening. It also sounds a lot like the drummer can't keep up with the speed of the other things going on during the very fast, blurry riff segments, but I think that's kind of charming and cool regardless; your mileage will probably vary. It depends almost entirely on how into stupid, underground as hell slam you are to decide whether you'd glean any actual interest out of this.

Desvirginizagore (from here on out referred to lovingly as DVG because fuck writing that name) have previously been covered on this blog when they released the video highlighted in this post and they remain a force to be reckoned with. Boasting very solid production and amazing songwriting skills that merge brutal old school death metal with traditional American DM (and great solos, very similar actually to Morbus), DVG goes the distance on this split with three very well-made songs that get progressively longer. Their 3 tracks measure out to over 14 minutes, and I think their style totally necessitates this length, as opposed to Gurglectomy who are around to blast and rule and just be slammy. DVG are not, however; theirs is a much more finely-tuned beast capable of very many cool things.

The first song on here is the song from that video, and it reigns supreme with a fantastic solo section and overall tight riffcraft and strong chugging slow sections. In the previously-mentioned post I called this band a mix of Goretrade and Sourpuz, which I think still generally holds true. The third song begins with a really heavy slam but quickly abandons that for no-holds-barred brutality and charges forth very directly. About halfway through there is an insane Morbid Angel solo that threatens to totally stop the song until they introduce a crazy atmospheric thing. You should probably just get this because this band is sick as hell and rules. But that's not all, because there's one more band on here, and they're also good (and old).

Inhumation are a deathgrind band that's been around since 1995 (wtf?), though they broke up for a while there. Probably not many people noticed this, but they aren't likely to give a fuck, because their music also sounds uncaring and callous. Bordering Napalm Death as much as it borders Gut, there's an air of "fuck you" here that rules. It even reminds me a bit of old Squash Bowels in the way songs just come and go with very little care. "Dioxin Engendration in P.C.B. Pyrolisis" has an insane funeral breakdown that picks back up to a grooving, rocking section rivaling the best stuff that this genre has to offer, honestly. The last track is some scary fucking shit; basically weird ambient stuff, some noise and some distorted screaming vocals that concatenate in an utterly bizarre industrial collage and then fade out immediately.

This shit rules, and you should buy this split now because, well, everything on it is kickass in a different way. It's diverse, interesting and keeps your ears busy. What more do you want?

3rd World vs. 1st World: A compariSlam (PATHOLOGY vs. FLESHTORTURE)

2011-09-18T15:50:00.007-04:00

Greetings fellow slam death fans and welcome to another one-off weird article that I decided to do because fuck the rules. Today I am writing to compare the (in)famous Pathology's new album with FleshTorture's new album, hopefully discerning some things about the current state of slam in the meantime.

Everyone knows who Pathology are; they've gone from a two-piece splinter project of a Cattle Decapitation dude and a Locust member to what they are now, a 5-piece with hardcore band I Declare War's ex-vocalist Jon Huber gripping the mic and vomiting pure pestilence throughout the entirety of the album. Practically no-one, however, knows who FleshTorture are. Well then, allow me to refresh your memory. Unless you've been following this blog in an extremely zealous fashion since its inception, you probably missed out on a fringe article we wrote 4 years ago titled Nicaragua: Upcoming Slam Scene Report. This article (also written by yours truly) professed FleshTorture as a band sometimes doing "raw and almost Mexican sounding blast-slam-death", though at the time they suffered from the guitars being mixed too quietly and the vocalist being too loud. Well, they've just released their second full-length album (on a respected underground label, to boot; Brute! Productions from Thailand) since that time and seem to have improved on some things, while still leaving themselves open to constructive criticism.

One thing's for sure, though; it's sick as fuck! I ordered it as soon as I saw that Sevared had it in stock (and hopefully he acquires more soon, because everyone reading this blog should buy him out of it, it's great...but we'll get to that soon), and then, last night, I bought Pathology's new album and then had a great idea that leads me to this: how are the 1st and 3rd world slam scenes, sounds and sights different, and how do they compare? For a point of reference for FleshTorture, let's look back to countrymen Gorepoflesh's insanely fucking good debut and think about what made that good. It's well-written, terrifying, barbaric and has production befitting its themes and moods; that is, whatever mood is present in a fucked-up snuffhouse full of smoldering corpses drowned in acid and resold to necrophiliacs on the black market.

FleshTorture doesn't quite stack up any which way to that, but their sophomore album shows no signs of tiring or slowing down, and for that they must be lauded. It delivers equal parts blast and chug with a focus on odd, modular riffs that don't stay in place long, and a penchant for fast blasting that reminds of Colombian bands like Mindly Rotten, Ancient Necropsy et al. The guitar production is truly out-of-this-world (not always in a good way); it sounds like a black metal band trying to play slam; the chugs are all off-centered, burned-out and fuzzy, with a ton of interesting grooves to be had. However, it's usually really good stuff that just pummels you and makes you think a bit. There are sections reminding of equal parts Saprogenic and Devourment, their slow breakdowns developing into power chord frenzies with feral precision. The vocals are powerful; demonic grunts and wet slurs that, while still too loud (some things never change, eh?), never detract from the songwriting or overall style of what's going on. Some songs have terrible/amazing samples that, while at first amusing, will annoy the shit out of you if you want to closely inspect how the band strings the album together. There's a deftness to this that is difficult to find in a lot of modern slam, and I think it's a strength of theirs; they manage to sound simultaneously like they have no fucking clue what they're doing, yet they clearly are writing songs to pander to fans of this music; it's a bit like the first album of the aforementioned Mindly Rotten in that way. You'll want this in your collection if you like raw, sullied slam that delves into the deepest psychological depths of brutality without itself becoming depraved (Gorepoflesh, however, seemed to have given no fucks about that whole thing...that album scares the shit out of me, honestly). It's kickass, grinding slam that never sits still and offers up brutal fun for everyone, despite its production mishaps and weirdly toned guitars.

So how does it compare to the most well-produced, high-quality, gloss-and-sheen slam out of America these days? It stacks up well, and there are several amusing parallels to draw. Pathology's album is all loud, compressed slam with minor breaks for solos, djent/muted chugs (what the fuck is that mid-album instrumental guys) and very, very minor deathcore touches (which apparently lead everyone to label this 'deathcore'....fuck off if you don't think this is brutal death metal). It opens with a cavernous slam that takes no prisoners, and continues with a cool solo section that eviscerates most modern American competition. Some of the songs, however, are poorly written and deviate randomly from main ideas (with a few outliers, such as "Opposing Globalization" which, while terribly titled and annoyingly egoistic/pretentious lyrically, is seriously awesome as fuck), ending songs in places that literally don't make sense at all. This is jarring and a bit ridiculous when compared to the songs that are awesome, because it's like they had a lot of material and threw it around randomly. It makes the pacing awkward, but it's sometimes compelling just because of the jarring nature of how the album "flows". Jon Huber makes his debut on the mic here and, while he isn't a bad vocalist, he's fucking all over the place in terms of style, and a lot of the time, the style changes don't make sense in context. For instance, he'll sometimes go from inhale to gurgle-exhale in one breakdown without space between the lines, and it sounds lame and forced. The album is finely crafted and well-tuned, but it's a major sufferer of compression, with everything competing for limited headspace and doing so in spectacularly awkward fashion. Even the acoustic outro is loud as fuck for no discernible reason, and there's practically no subtlety to the whole affair. I realize slam isn't supposed to be anything less than in-your-face brutal, but it's just a personal gripe.

That being said, this is a strong album and probably contender for their best album, because of its flaws and the humanness of it. It is direct, suffocating in its brutality and most of the songs are pieced together from the zombified flesh of so many influences that you can practically hear Majewski, Mullen and Corpsegrinder in the most intense sections. However, even the last album was plagued with these negatives in songwriting, production and form. Can I really fault them for just doing what they want, though? No, not really. It's that they're doing what they want that bothers me, to some extent, but I can't say that's good or bad. In this way, the gap between first and third world slam isn't so large as I'd imagined...we're all just people, some of whom are trying to write insanely brutal music. FleshTorture probably don't have the means to record this album, but their music evolves because of it; the adversity of having poor studio equipment and a probable "practice space" studio is a challenge to them, and because of this adversity, they are writing insanely brutal music within constraints placed upon them. They probably could not be happier with this album in some ways. Regardless of the issues I have with both albums here, they are both great works, representing the music that hits us where it counts, and hits us repeatedly...hard, fast, loud. Buy both of these albums; they are exemplary of what we all stand for in this game.

Turbidity - Suffering of Human Decapitated (2011; Extreme Souls Productions)

2011-08-30T22:15:00.005-04:00

Indonesian brutal death metal has pretty much always been about low-quality production, seething sounds and undeniable brutality, sometimes elevated and other times marred by bizarre songwriting choices. This relatively new band are here to prove that it can write straightforward, grooving slam with attitude that doesn't depend on strangeness or out-of-nowhere transitions to define itself.

The intro is straight-up brilliant, first of all, a low-brown thugging slam that lasts exactly as long as it needs to and dissipates when the band realizes it needs to be changed up. This kind of transition and songwriting is what is necessary for Indonesia. Bands liked Jasad and Plasmoptysis have always been middling-to-good groups that wantonly decide odd things in their songs; this band doesn't really play by those rules. Their straight-for-the-throat breakdowns threaten the listener at every turn, and the scooped, silly production actually doesn't do much to detract from their MO. The vocals are a dry maybe-inhale that doesn't distinguish itself, but which follows the slams at a leisurely and effortless pace with a solid but unambitious flow. Inter-slam drum fills are strong, though mainly reliant on double-bass runs; not really an issue, often it sounds quite cool because of the good drum production (aside from the weak, dry, crispy snare).

There are times, like in "Infernal from Malediction" that the vocals are obviously inhaled, but there are other times where it's ambiguous and a little off-kilter. There are also times where the vocals are just fucking weird, like the slam in the aforementioned song where the vocalist seems to just go batshit crazy. Pretty awesome. This song pretty much barrels through a multitude of slow-paced slams that don't even constitute breakdowns, every now and then punctuating them with undifferentiated blast sections. I am a definite fan of this; it's dumb, primal and powerful, with catchy songs and vocal lines that drive the entirety of the album forwards.

There is literally nothing in here that is new to the genre, however. It's pretty much a 3rd-world version of Pathology for a majority of track 4, for instance, where the band alternates between charging riffs with slam-paced drums and slams with fast, odd drumming. Every song basically apes Devourment-trademarked slams and co-opts them into their own little microverse of brutality. Not that it's a bad thing, it just gets tiring to hear songs begin with the same 4 note chug sometimes. When a strong foundation is formed around those 4 notes, I'm happy as a clam, as should all of our readers be, however, and this happens several times on the album with breaks for marginally interesting drumming and riffwork that distances itself from its obvious influences. And for that, I am down with this. A solid slab of brutality from our friends in Indonesia. Also, there's a Jasad cover that kicks major ass and is a fitting tribute to the classic original (though I'd, of course, still prefer a cover of "Ripping the Pregnant", but who am I?).

Abnormity - Irreversible Disintegration (2011; Inherited Suffering Records)

2011-08-07T22:12:00.003-04:00

Ha, what a likely story. Hot off the heels of samples from the new Abominable Putridity album (which sounded pretty much like a slightly slammier Pathology; more than their previous album would imply, anyway), this band, also from Russia, and with a similar name to boot, releases an album that basically sounds like the follow up to In the End of Human Existence through a slightly different lens. The vocals are less guttural and belching, but the riffs carry more driving power. Of course it begins with an intense slam but the shift to driving blasts bears the momentum in a forward, capitulating direction instead of some songs off ITEOHE (which, to be fair, is pretty much this album's brother/rival/companion) which felt happy enough to linger in the mire of a bludgeoning breakdown.

This album is fun stuff, and very professionally done. "Shattered to the Bone", for instance, has a breakdown that pretty much nears funeral slam and which switches up through several mutations before closing off tersely. "Disease of Humanity"'s instant grooves and pounding rhythms are infectious and rabid, a good segue to blasting angular tremolo riffs that don't sound wanky at all but are kept on a leash and allowed to enhance the song rather than being its showpiece. An amusing, somewhat humorous slam replete with absurd pinch harmonics appears almost out of nowhere, cutting through the dust as only a breakdown of this intensity (and genre) could.

And then we're on to what could ostensibly be considered the masterpiece of this album, the oddly placed but amazing "Emanation of Putrid Entrails". Straight out of the gates with an amazing riff, blasting, and a brutal bass-bomb, this one is the no-holds-barred throat punch of the album, featuring 5 and a half minutes (!!!) of intense powerful slam that goes through a ton of movements, each more amazing and breathtaking than the last. Drowning in the tar-thick mire of the first quicksand slam, you're brought back and sucker-punched by that first awesome riff again and again until your bludgeoned, broken body is held even higher and forced to take it at twice the speed! Insane shit! The epic atmosphere of the next section is highlighted by unparalleled riff clarity and the strong, compressed production that shines a glossy light on every instrument, and soon enough the song has established itself firmly in your memory as a standout brutal death metal track containing everything awesome about the genre. Handy, isn't it?

The title track is a short jaunt through what is at this point familiar territory, its mosh heavy anthemic opening rhythm (which is unfortunately annoying because you can hear all the fret-noise...sorry if I just ruined it for you, faithful readers!) distilling into a potent and easily loveable slam section that basically draws the whole song out. The mid section breakdown is great, reminds a bit of Awaiting the Autopsy and is a little more "deathcore" than some might be comfortable with, but it's wholly slam and any 1-to-1 deathcore connections are only to be drawn by those unfamiliar with the nuances of how slam is paced and written. "Atrocity Domination" is all-guns-blazing; it actually sounds a bit like a traditional death metal song for a while, with razor sharp tremolo riffs going for the throat at every turn. Catchy like herpes, this is, and about 500 times deadlier. The "lunge into charging slam" tactic is at its best on this song, for sure. The blasting is mediocre and overloud here, a bit overbearing and doesn't go on long enough to build a suffocating atmosphere, it just feels thrown in, but there are several other times this happens on the album, and it's never really enough to make it a complete misstep, just somewhat of a nitpick on my part. The vocal-line-following slam is kind of clever, with triplet double kick runs aplenty.

Alright, I have one complaint about this album, and I may as well just air it right here and now. The dense, clippy and sterile production prevents any really interesting drumming from being heard (there probably really isn't any). Whereas random Filipino bands, for instance, may have incredibly flavorful and impressive drumming, their production may suck and they get subsequently called out on that, so it's only fair that I say the drumming here is almost totally utilitarian and one-dimensional. It's not bad, per se, but it is boring and typical, and it makes me lose a bit of the love I would have for it if it had drumming as cool as (for example) Ezophagothomia's debut did.

...but when you write powerful funeral slams like nobody's fucking business and end two songs in a row with them, you really have a lot more strengths than weaknesses, so let's not split hairs here. "Guttural Bleeding" (great song title) is typical blast and slam but it carries a lead-riff through the bluster, amplifying the interest and keeping the album fresh until the very last. The two long songs in a row, though both strong, is a risky move because very few slam bands go over 3 minutes, nevermind touch 5, so there has to be something special to keep interest, and Abnormity are pretty damn good at that so far. They do things that would be off-kilter to most other slam bands but which seem perfectly natural in context here (weird off-time drum thing in this very song is a good example, not sure what was going through their minds, but it's cool anyway). "Vomit Carnage" closes out the album in good standing, though it feels a bit tacked-on, with a generic yet circle-pitting slam dragging its knuckles through the main phases. The breakdown at 1:51 has the best introduction of recent memory, though, so it's not all for naught in the end here.

When all is said and done, this is a worthy successor to the pedigree of Russian slam that began (and maybe ended) with Abominable Putridity; this seemingly-unrelated band with an eerily similar (and humorous) name came out of nowhere and kicked the scene's ass...sounds like another band I just mentioned. I guess we'll see what happens next in the Motherland. Until then, comrades.

Ancient Necropsy - Sanctuary Beyond the Infinite (2011; Nice To Eat You Records)

2011-07-07T13:42:00.004-04:00

One-man Colombian brutal death stalwart Ivan Jaramillo aka Ancient Necropsy is back once again with his 4th album of unique, aurally-punishing and somewhat challenging deathgrind with experimental touches at times. Continuing in the tradition of having ridiculous cover art, SBTI's art features a menagerie of clusterfucked textures, distorted architecture and statuettes all preparing us for a mythological romp in the realm of brutality. The first song is a powerful, evocative and interesting intro piece featuring well-done cosmic sounding effects and acoustic guitar. "Limited Golden Keys to the Paradise" blasts off with a strange vocal turn for Ivan; slightly more understandable death grunts are emitted forth in rhythmic turn. The riffing is tight but paradoxically loose, and here begins one of my main issues with this. AN is basically known for writing tightly-wound but seemingly entropic, compact songs that build up and unravel in various ways throughout their usually short existence. On this album, however, it feels a bit more like Ivan is picking out and throwing away riffs without much forethought, and it makes the songs suffer for it, with each feeling like a strange combination of cool and uninteresting sections tied in by little guitar flourishes instead of superior songwriting.

It is undeniable that Ivan is a great composer, but a lot of these particular compositions are a little more experimental for him. The production also doesn't help the proceedings much; it picks up where Apocalyptic Empire left off with a hollow, mid-heavy tone that is biased towards clarity instead of brutality, but it doesn't at all slouch in terms of extremity. One thing that does, however, would be the drumming. It sounds like Ivan did the drums all himself, as Beto's ridiculous blasting seems to be less-than-omnipresent, a somewhat disappointing turn as I was getting used to his insanity in both this and other Colombian projects. Some slam breaks are really powerful and utilize this new drum sound for the better, but they seem to be forgotten about rather quickly and seem more like afterthoughts. I'm disappointed by this fact, but I can look past it because of the excellent riffing. The track "Journey Inside Of...", for example, is a really great cut of death metal sounding a bit like a rougher Decrepit Birth with a more deliberate direction instead of deciding to make like the Californians and toss out worthy sections for wankery. This is also one of the songs where the rhythm riffing is strong and doesn't feel disjointed. In the past, it's been basically an automatic pass for Ivan when he writes riffs that have no rhythmic interplay with the direction of the song, but on here some of them feel a bit too much like phoned in performances. Most songs also feel flat because of the aforementioned production. While the performances of every instrument are basically stellar and nearly incomparable, especially in South American brutality, it still feels like the whole package is a demo album that could use more finesse and work to match the attention to detail that is clearly put into the riffs.

I think I'm of the opinion that Deformed King's Mummification was Ivan's best work to date. That album's coy playfulness and seemingly irreverent disregard for conventional songwriting and album flow is practically unmatched in this genre of music. This album seems to want to showcase maturity, but feels like a step back because it also feels a lot of the time like attention was erroneously put into bizarre aspects. I still think I would rate it higher than Apocalyptic Empire, which was somewhat unimpressive to me despite being technically savvy. The second half of the album seems to be markedly superior, with the exquisite "Altar of Fire" and "The Gate Keeper of the Universe" being melodic moshers with excellent time-keeping and the quick, AN-patented hurry to them, which makes it sound like Ivan times himself on each track. "Revelations" sounds like The Chasm if they cared less about atmosphere and more about rushing forward with maniacal aplomb, thought its mid section is a plaintive and emotive atmospheric section that extends Ivan's reach beyond the realm of anything he's previously done. At the same time, though, it sometimes ceases to really be "brutal" but...you shouldn't really care about that.

On its own terms, this album is a fuck you to stagnation but at the same time kind of keeps some trademark AN-isms intact, which is sometimes annoying and sometimes charming. It might even net him some new fans, but it isn't a new masterpiece in my opinion; more work must be done to streamline the songwriting and get it to the next level now that he's discovered his ability to be epic for a whole song rather than 10 second sections.

Hideous Deformity - Defoulment of Human Purity (2010; Sevared Records)

2011-07-06T19:44:00.000-04:00

At long last Hideous Deformity's first album is being reviewed on Slam-Minded. We talked about this band way back in October 2007 (!) when we started this blog. The album was seemingly delayed forever, and then when it did finally come out, I had forgotten and didn't notice. According to metal-archives Defoulment of Human Purity has been out nearly a year now, and I am (finally) getting around to reviewing it.

My first reaction on hearing this album was that this is how California brutal death metal is supposed to sound. Yes, I know Hideous Deformity are from Norway, but this album sounds a lot like the California style. It has a perfect marriage of technicality and brutality. Technicality and brutality are like two friends that help each other out when they need it. Too many bands think that technicality is brutality, and this leads to confusion. Hideous Deformity do not operate under this faulty logic, and so can use the two "friends" to full effect.

A great thing about Defoulment of Human Purity (aside: I really enjoy writing sentences that sounds ridiculous out of context) is that it all sounds so... effortless. Brutal death metal can be a taxing genre to listen to, especially its more technical incarnations, but Hideous Deformity do a very good job making their music breathe. This makes it all the more punishing, as you get drawn in and then destroyed by riff after riff. There's an old school quality about this. Not in how the music sounds, but in the detailed attention the band has given to each riff. I think this old school approach is also evident in the inclusion of solos (a personal favorite of mine).

This is a really good album, and I feel terrible that I missed it last year. For all of you who forgot about or abandoned Hideous Deformity, let me assure you the wait was worth it.

The Gurchick Tree - Sadistic Reflections Of Blood (2011; MetamorphiK Records)

2011-06-16T16:40:00.005-04:00

From the slummy underbelly of New Jersey that brought us the likes of Dripping and Digested Flesh comes newbies-with-a-weird-name The Gurchick Tree, delivering 6 songs and 2 creepy/fitting intros of extremely well-produced, professional slam with some interesting edges. The album starts with a sample, maybe a gang member/hitman claiming that he would go through Hell to kill those who anger him, leading into an intense slam bookended by blasting riff reverberations on the first track "Incised Cyst Autoerotism" which also features slow breakdowns containing Saprogenic-esque tremolo riffs which carry the song onwards through a very sinister and menacing mid-section. Though a short first track, at a little over a minute-and-a-half, it is a wonderful little glimpse into the disturbing, depraved and utterly sick world TGT unveil to us on this short, quaint demo.

"Realms of Dehumanization" reminds of Butcher the Weak-style Devourment, its charging slams overlapping constantly, building up and breaking down all throughout. An extremely-squealy pinch harmonic introduces a brutal slam with a somewhat chorus-like section, something that I wish was done more often in slam (slam breakdowns used as repeated choruses, that is). It returns again as expected, though in a new form; a trainwreck funeral slam which squarely bludgeons the listener with concussive force and macabre deliberation.

This band excels at writing charging slams that slow down with big drum breaks, which brings me to the drumming. This dude is phenomenal, his ride usage is impeccable and rivals even the bigger bands, pulling off technical drumming and smaller flavorful flourishes with ease. Sometimes this shit feels utterly unstoppable, like a supernatural force of sadistic brutality repeatedly crushing your pathetic, tiny brain in a vice of extremity. "Severed Head Sodomy" has an extremely great breakdown that almost reminds of brutal deathcore but stops short due to its reliance on pure slamming; only the way it is continued to its conclusion is "core"-like, but the band seem to quickly realize this and deviate from it in a way that is actually completely brilliant.

"[..]" is an off-kilter steel-string(?) acoustic track that rivals the best acoustic-creepy-intros in slam (Guttural Secrete and Awaiting the Autopsy have both used such juxtapositions to great effect, for example), its twanging leverage seeming always to border insanity and breakdown, as if the strings themselves will snap. A+ for effort here. The transition to "Inject the Morphine" (my personal favorite song title here, by the way) is less than stellar, but I can quickly look past it as the first 'verse' riff drives into a pseudo-slam-breakdown with excellent ride fills and snare blasts. The longest song by a few seconds, this one goes through some amusing changes, but it ceases entirely to be fun or lighthearted when, halfway through, an extreme slam with open chords left hanging is overlaid by a gruesomely brutal sample of what else but a woman being killed. Classy. The post-breakdown deviation is brilliant as well, quickly changing up into a guttural, slow sway until the abrupt yet satisfactory end.

"Desperately Dismembered" feature some blurry, odd riffs and an early breakdown that pretty much contains the definition of "dead air", its hung chords gasping for space, but it's so dead that it becomes alive and, actually, really incredible. I very rarely hear something so simple (the utter lack of notes; and not in the deathcore breakdown way!) done so well, and it's a very subtle but excellent addition (subtraction? I don't know, fuck it). The song's ending is, once again, too abrupt, seeming like it could easily go for a minute or two longer, perhaps by repeating some of the more piquant sections.

The last song, "Thy Flesh Consumed" pretty much features all the same tricks, though I do love the little tremolo-plus-double-bass flourishes in the first breakdown. I could easily see this band becoming the heir to the unsung Ezophagothomia demo, which, as those who are enlightened among us know, was probably (arguably) the world's first nearly-pure "funeral slam death" album. TGT know how to take a slam, slow it down, break it apart, reconstruct it, build meaningful songs around it, and then deconstruct the meaning just to be (awesome) dicks. It's music about being slam, it's self-aware and it's completely fucking badass. Go get it now and support these guys, because they deserve it and we should all be totally excited to see how they develop from here on out.

Single Song Series Part 1: Perverse Molestation - "Blood Purging Meatgrind Murderer" (Philippines)

2011-06-10T13:26:00.003-04:00

Slam-Minded devotee Emmanuele recommended that we check out a specific song by his countrymen Perverse Molestation, so I've got a few quick thoughts to share about this rough-but-rugged, brutal demo track.

After a clicky drum intro, we're subjected to a groovy and fun riff that sounds almost exactly like Soils of Fate or older Vomit Remnants, right down to the vocals of the former and the groovy slamming catchiness of the latter. What begins as one-dimensional vocals becomes a bit more awesome around first main slam breakdown, as the vocals come out a bit more layered, though they default back to the angry primate style by the faster riff transition. Collapsing rather awkwardly into a somewhat poorly placed but epic slam, the band shows their obvious penchant for concentrating on the slow and bludgeoning aspects of the genre, something that the aforementioned SoF never really did. There's even a semi-funeral slam in that breakdown, though it eventually goes hyperspeed and becomes a blast section with very Ruben Rosas-esque vocal elucidations; in fact, the whole section sounds like a best-of from the old Devourment demos, so maybe a bit of Wayne (R.I.P.) is present in the vocals as well. A sick, groovy and entertaining riff similar to the first one pops up and brings the song to an abrupt close soon after. I wish it were a few minutes longer with some returns to the original breakdown punctuated, perhaps, by more clever drumming, as some Filipino bands tend to do at times.

Infernal Revulsion - An Epic Conviction (Sevared Records; 2011)

2011-06-07T18:20:00.001-04:00

Today we have a rather unique treat. Infernal Revulsion have released An Epic Conviction, which is a compilation of their two full lengths, plus a new song. Other than Devourment's mighty 1.3.8 and Vomit Remnants' discography, I can't think of any off the top of my head. For those who haven't heard of Infernal Revulsion, they're an ultra-heavy and rifftastic slam band from Japan.

Two questions arise from a release like this. The first is how consistent is the quality? There's material from different times and likely different lineups. It's annoying when half of a compilation sucks and half is good. This was my primary concern going into the album. I loved Infernal Revulsion's first album Devastate Under Hallucination. It was my favorite brutal death album of 2007. It features huge riffs, crushing slams, and violent gutturals. It immerses you into the world of the mass murderer featured in the cover art. It's a very high quality album. Infernal Revulsion's second album, Dead But Breathing, on the other hand, was a let down. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't close to its predecessor. Everything sounded worse. In my review, I wrote that "Infernal Revulsion pretty much wrote the same album as their debut, they just didn't do it as well." That was pretty much the problem with Dead But Breathing.

That brings me to the next question, does this compilation give me anything new? The answer to this is yes. Infernal Revulsion rerecorded (or remixed or reproduced) Dead But Breathing, and it sounds a lot better. In my review, I said that Dead But Breathing had a full and thick production, and it did. But in the new version, Infernal Revulsion made that full and thick production closer and wider sounding. As I mentioned earlier, Infernal Revulsion's strength is writing seriously heavy riffs and slams. The new version of Dead But Breathing greatly accentuates those qualities compared to the original. The difference is not immediately noticeable, but going back to the old one sounds like you are listening to the album from the other side of a wall. I have to commend the band here. Dead But Breathing is still not as good as it's predecessor, but with this rerecord they turned a flawed album into a good one.

The new song "Blemished" is also quite good. It features some slick guitar work, the perfected production and of course Infernal Revulsion's trademark heaviness. Great pit riffs plus a very menacing feeling throughout. There's even a Suffocationesque solo. This gives me hope for their next release.

Should you get this album? I'd say if you haven't listened to Infernal Revulsion before, this is a good place to start. It's their complete discography to date all in one place, and shows them at their best. If you are like me and loved the first album, but wished Dead But Breathing was better, I'd also recommend getting it since that is the main improvement. If you weren't keen on Infernal Revulsion before this, then there's not a lot new here to change your mind.

I have to give a lot of credit to Infernal Revulsion on this one, this is exactly what one would want out of a compilation.

Putridity - Degenerating Anthropophagical Euphoria (Willowtip; 2011)

2011-05-22T23:30:00.008-04:00

Putridity are an Italian band who are already familiar to quite a few people due to their neckbreaking debut album Mental Prolapse Induces Necrophilism, which, while somewhat shoddy in places (all of the songs are basically the same angular Enmity worship with some Devourment-esque slow slams here and there, all topped off with an overly-long outro), delivered a physically and audibly abusive package of blurring fast slams and crushing nonstop whirlwind drums with enough force to sink several battleships and snap several hundred necks worldwide. Willowtip, who are honestly kind of a weird choice of a label for this kind of self-serving brutality, did a real service to this band and this genre by signing them for this album (and perhaps more, I'm not really sure about the contract, if any exists), so let's get to why this is so mind-blowing.

This new album does nothing particularly different, but Putridity are never going to be known for doing anything different; they are literally non plus ultra blast-slam that intends to suffocate the listener with total strangulating force, and what a force it fucking is; the first track, "Cannibalistic Post Climax Flesh Consumption" storms through the gates with a noise-wash-to-insane-blast introduction that seems to want to go at a somewhat normal pace for a few measures before quickly deciding to fuck all of that and descend into complete, unbridled musical hatred. Chunky slams are blurred by a nondescript but well-rounded production that definitely doesn't attempt to give each slam justice during fast parts, but which highlights bass-driven single note thuds during the mid and slower paced moments (and they really do feel like moments, this band doesn't like to play slow). The various insertions of pinch harmonics on this song seem almost comical, as the band demonstrated they could achieve on the debut as well, sometimes becoming a bit self-parodying; and then, it becomes totally obvious that the band has a sick sense of humor despite the humorless, incredibly serious (and awesomely awkward) song titles when the end of track 1 sample fades into track 2, "Sodomize Epileptic Chunks" with a dude claiming, in full deadpan tone no less, "I am going to fuck you and kill you at the same time." I love this. It's ridiculous.

The second song almost reminds of Amputated Genitals with its intense snare rolls and effortless handling of transitions overloaded with blurring riffs and harmonics. A broken down analysis of this music is both unnecessary and a bit useless, though, as it is intentionally ludicrous and a bit formless. In spite of this, the band knows how to make slam segments work with their brand of overwhelming insanity, leaning towards having undifferentiated slams differentiate themselves by drum patterns that greatly enhance the overall quality of the music. In this way it is a bit unlike AmpGen, who, while excelling at song-writing and epic understated riffing which almost seems to eschew slams entirely at times, have never had subtle rhythmic drumming. Beto is an absolute beast on the kit, for sure, but technique's never really been his game, and that's where Putridity excels above our Colombian pals in this game of calculated barbarity; they know how to add the little things that make them stand out.

"Masturbating the Infibulated" has an absolutely insane breakdown towards the end with a huge bass drop to boot, crushing all who oppose the slam. "Syphilic Menstrual Rejection" is similar to the opening track but has some off-time riffing and drumming, particularly in the cymbals during the early pre-breakdown verses, as well as some amazing vocal ping-pong echo which makes this track easily the deepest and most profound yet. "Wallowing in Aftermaths" is an actually successful attempt at "atmospheric mid-album thing in slam" because it actually features slams and guitar squeals, a bit like Defeated Sanity's "Introitus" off their last incredible album. Now this is where I gain more respect for Putridity's way of doing things. It's almost like they actually care and are actually writing a logical album, but most of it is totally illogical brutality with no rhyme or reason; it's pretty much slam on amphetamines. On slamphetamines.

Having just coined a new word, it's about time to tackle the 'single' of the album, "Innate Butchery Aptitude", which features some truly stupendous time changes (try to describe what the fuck is happening at around 1:55-2:08 without just yelling "holy shit", I dare you...in fact, I triple dog dare you, motherfucker) and the coolest crash-cymbal-to-slam breakdown of the whole album at 2:43...seriously, Jesus fucking Christ that is heavy. And then, they seriously fucking throw it out the window to end the song; Putridity doesn't give a fuck at all. They are literally only here to erect a giant fucking cross, nail you to it in no less then 7 places (all of which are bound to be the most painful) and then tear you straight off without regard to what chunks of flesh remain. You are seriously not worthy of consideration to these Italian psychopaths.

"Draining Necro Anal Disgorgement" is the "Vomiting Molested Decapitation" of this album in terms of title ridiculousness, but "Living Decomposition" is the true heir to that first effort, its wild slams heading off in every direction before converging as separate mini-breakdowns which erupt again into huge blasting sections with excellent, technical drumming all over the place.

You should bow down to this, plain and simple. This is barbaric and truly phenomenal: a band that simultaneously doesn't seem to give two shits yet who seems to actually place a lot of nuanced detail into its meshes of skull-fucking audio-lethality. A new benchmark has been set down in modern über-slam. The creepy outro only cements this fact. Now go destroy your fucking neck by headbanging to this, or you have no place on this blog or, really, on this planet.

P.S. If anything this year has better cover art and design than this, I'm probably going to have to find the person who designed the better work and shoot them purely in the service of keeping this as the best. It is phenomenal. NOW go fuck your ears to death, you won't be sorry, and neither are Putridity, bitch.

Slam-Minded on Facebook

2011-05-16T17:52:00.000-04:00

The title says it all, Slam-Minded now has a fan page on facebook. I'm still trying to figure out how to automatically link posts from here to facebook, but in the meantime if you have a facebook account you can drop by and "like" us. If you don't have facebook (or don't like us) then don't worry, everything here on blogspot will remain unchanged.

Slam-Minded @ Facebook

Ezophagothomia - Instinct of Inhuman Devourment (Inherited Suffering; 2011)

2011-05-14T21:28:00.008-04:00

Quiet...too quiet. Rising to your feet, your eyes clouded but your head growing somewhat clearer every moment, you grasp clumsily at the ground; grabbing a shoddy, splintered wooden plank to your immediate left, you take an impulsive, instinctual defensive stance and begin to wonder why you're here. What happened? Why is everything so dark, ominous...the gloom; it's almost suffocating. From every direction, you hear tortured cries. They seem to yearn for something, most likely your blood. You need to get out...fast. Which way is out, though?

Dim sirens sound in the distance, their failing horns seeming to twist and degrade before they hit your ears. Fire, everywhere. Intense heat, a disgusting stench and mangled bodies all around your feet, down every street and alley, hanging out every window and fallen to their charred, excoriated knees outside every doorstep, arranged in catatonic patterns, every one bearing marks of brutal defilement. How did you survive? Are you even alive?

Ezophagothomia are a Ukrainian band operating in the field of extreme percussive slam, each slam twisting quickly about a tightly-coiled center, always about to strike forth with deadly precision. Their riff-writing is excessively bludgeoning as evidenced in the very first real song after an atmospheric introduction (which was the inspiration for the above little intro of my own to this very review) which takes a neurotic riff to a straightforward, logical progression with interesting ways of filling in dead drum space. Quickly discarded, the shed corpse of that riff continues on as a shambling zombie in the form of the next slam which quickly reanimates unpredictably and charges the song into a blastbeat-ridden assault.

Ezo aren't content on this album to merely let you suffer, but to drag out the suffering sadistically so that you beg for more. In a sense, it is similar to how Abominable Putridity worked on their debut, but it's a bit more different between tracks. Ezo plans some truly nefarious things on this album; the very first aforementioned track has a descending slam that almost reaches funeral slam levels but which ends abruptly and becomes a Gorevent-esque charge ahead, building and adding on different drum techniques with every iteration of the main slam. Carrying on, it morphs and becomes something worthy of specific examination.

"Petrified in Ancients Megaliths" literally feels like a petrification in progress with its sharply diminishing slams and slow, viscous way of dealing with riff changes. Vocals are a tar-thick growl tinged with a slightly burpy style, but they are somewhat neutral in the sound space and don't really stand out. A simple and effective main riff carries this song between breakdowns with off-time crash cymbal use and a great open-chord blast to round it out each time. This is definitely the soundtrack to an urban zombie apocalypse; each numb, brainless wretch dragging you slowly but surely down, crushing you under the combined weight of each vacant, empty body at once.

Next we deal with a hidden threat, a creature under the disfigured surface whose only desire is bloodshed; specifically, yours. Perhaps under that manhole...or that one, further down the western alley beyond the abandoned, gutted liquor shop. Yes, that one; can't you hear the guttural elucidations of those walking dead under the streets? Lurching, sewage-choked slams around every corner, unfortunately-clicky kick drums arranged in surprisingly interesting patterns, never seeming to use the same strategy twice, and those horrible, horrible sounds from below. "When Earth Will Be Tired of Us", despite the silly name, is a powerful track with its familiar stagger, the way it seems to save energy for that final slam that seems to delay forever, while in the meantime you don't even realize how much you're being brutalized by the sights and sounds before your eyes. Approaching those police cars you heard before, you realize it was not your imagination. Their blue, revolving lights are slowing down, their piercing sounds becoming a distorted, fading whine like some kind of hellish, taunting choir of demons, which are undoubtedly behind you this moment. The slams are catching up to you, picking up pace and alternately slowing down with a definite human instinct. Run. Don't stop; run.

Not fast enough. All hell breaks loose as every sound around you stops and you can hear in your head a somewhat familiar noise...you must be imagining it. An acoustic guitar? How can you hear it above the localized apocalypse playing out before your very eyes? As soon as you think about it, it's gone, and so are the sounds of your pursuers and of those below, and of those down every lateral passage, and of the white thunder striking maddeningly over the red sky.

Crevasses are opening up in the ground around you and you fall to your bloodied knees, suffering mentally and physically; parched, starving, tired, perhaps even going insane if that familiar sound was any indication. No, you're not insane. This might also be familiar, though, especially if you're familiar with any underground USDM, a Mortal Decay cover track, which is actually better than the original in several ways; Ezo makes this track their own, from the undoubtedly unique transitions to the way the vocals stay one-dimensional and on-point even during the oncoming breakdown crush. Finally, you've been caught. They've found you; closing in on you, they pin you down.

It seems there's a leader, perhaps of this specific pack; donning a razor blade dipped in what looks to be sulfuric acid and clothed in bloodied hospital scrubs, it calls the others to strap you down. Injecting you with a lethal parasite, the slams coincide with your demise in a horrible symphony of pain and suffering. It feels euphoric, your skin rupturing and spewing out all manner of bodily fluids, finally allowing you to give in to this horrific, grotesque wasteland. Looking to your left, you hear those familiar crashing riffs and drums from all angles, piling up and crashing down on top of you, beating you further and further still into that cold yet burning ground.

Hacked into pieces but kept alive through nefarious, otherworldly technology, you immediately notice you've been reanimated as one of them. Right before you black out again, you get a second wind, about to rise to your feet to seek out survivors...you're weak now. You have much to learn. Calm down. You have an eternity to hunt them. Slay them. Take back our world. We are allies now.

And then, silence.

---

Cease of Breeding - Sounds of Disembowelment (Amputated Vein; 2010)

2011-05-07T17:25:00.000-04:00

One of the better developments in the slam scene over the past few years has been the emergence of Southern Europe as a source for excellent brutal death metal. Italy, Spain, Greece, and Portugal have all contributed excellent bands and albums. It is no surprise then that fellow Southern Europeans Cease of Breeding's first full length Sounds of Disembowelment is also excellent.

Cease of Breeding hail from Greece and have been around since 2003 and have released a couple demos and EPs before Sounds of Disembowelment. I vaguely remember being unimpressed by their 2008 EP, but they've taken many steps forward here.

Sounds of Disembowelment has a lot of dynamism and variation to sink your teeth into. At its core it features the barreling juggernaut deathgrind style you hear from Decaying Purity or Cerebral Effusion. Around this core are the interesting melodies of Septycal Gorge and the slams and frantic basswork of Vomit the Soul. This is all mixed together in a brutal stew.

It makes sense to me that this band has been around since 2003 because this feels like a mature release. It does not feel rushed or unrefined like some other albums. This band clearly has paid its dues and does all the little things right. This translates into every part of the experience being integrated well. I commend Cease of Breeding for taking their time when creating this album. The effort definitely shows.

Southern Europe may be having financial issues right now, but their brutal death metal sector is doing just fine. Check this album out if you like any of the big bands from Italy, Spain, or Portugal.

More Filipino Slam on the Horizon

2011-04-13T13:41:00.000-04:00

If you are like me and love the slam scene in the Philippines, then I have some good news. Both Human Mastication and Down From the Wound are planning to release new albums in 2011. Down From the Wound have not yet released a title for their album, but Human Mastication's new one is called Persecute to Bloodbath. According to Sevared (the label releasing both of these) Persecute to Bloodbath will feature some new songs, and some songs from Human Mastication's split with Smallpox Aroma. There is less info about Down From the Wound's album, but their last full length was really good, so I'm hopeful about this one. It's been a while since they've released anything, so to hear Down From the Wound is still around and making music is good news.

If you like Filipino slam, keep an eye out for these releases.

Extirpating the Infected - Beheading the Dead (Sevared Records; 2010)

2011-04-10T19:23:00.000-04:00

Describing slam bands as "groovy" has always struck me as a little funny. Not that it's not an accurate description, it's just odd that some of the most brutal and violent music can share a term with 60s hippy slang. I mention this because Extirpating the Infected's album Beheading the Dead is one of grooviest albums I've heard in a while.

Extirpating the Infected come from Spain, and prior to this have released one EP - 2009's Vaginal Saw Entorturement (review). Vaginal Saw Entorturement was pretty good, but it didn't do a whole lot to stand out from the mass of decent slam bands. In the year or so between Vaginal Saw Entorturement and Beheading the Dead however, Extirpating the Infected have improved. They're not yet ready to challenge the best of the European slam bands, but they've jumped to another level.

As I mentioned earlier, Beheading the Dead has some serious groove. By this I mean syncopation and rhythm are still the main dynamic going on here, but its more smooth and loose compared to other slam bands. The songs rumble along like a disfigured pile of flesh. Don't expect tight riffing and needle-like technicality. Rather, we have some serious headbanging grooves. In this way, Beheading the Dead reminded me a lot of goregrind or old-school doomy death metal. Beheading the Dead is still firmly rooted in brutal death metal territory, but it's got that loose, swaying feeling that those other genres have.

The main improvement over the first EP is increasing the originality and not relying as much on stock slam riffs. This kind of breezy slam is relatively easy listening, so to remain interesting over an album length the band needs to keep things fresh from song to song. I think Extirpating the Infected accomplished this goal.

Top tier slam this is not, but its still a goresoaked groovefest and should please most genre fans.

P.S. I love the expression on the guy's face on the album cover. It's like he just saw goatse.

Rest in Gore - Culinary Buffet of Hacked Innards (Sevared Records; 2011)

2011-03-23T21:45:00.001-04:00

Slam-Minded is finally reviewing a brutal release from 2011. Does our year of reviews begin with a classic? Or are we looking at a complete failure? The answer is neither. Rest in Gore have crafted perhaps the most acceptable and middling album I have heard. Mediocre is too harsh a word to describe Culinary Buffet of Hacked Innards but good is a little too good to describe it.

The band behind this album hail from Japan, which is why it doesn't really surprise me that I found this album okay. A lot of Japanese bands have released some middle of the road material in the past couple years. For evidence, look at Gorevent or Infernal Revulsion's second albums. The songs on those albums just didn't have the kind of energy and dynamism that brutal death metal needs to stay interesting behind the wall of riffing, blast beats and growling.

And that is the flaw of Culinary Buffet of Hacked Innards. It's actually the only flaw, because otherwise things are pretty well executed. The musicianship is fine, the vocals are sick, and the drums are loud and fast. I also really like the Tony Koehl artwork and Rest in Gore is a pretty badass name. There's just no energy behind any of it. Its like the band is doing everything right, but they weren't excited by it.

Part of what I like about this kind of music is the "brutal aura" that the music creates. It's that "oh shit" feeling in that moment of silence before the huge slam. It's that crushed feeling after a particularly good technical section. I didn't feel that aura from this album.

So where does this leave us? I know this review sounds pretty negative, but as I said this is not bad in any way, it's just not particularly good either. My recommendation is to listen for yourself, and see if you like it more than me. The mechanics of a good album are there, so I feel like I might be missing something. Either way I am sure I will hear both better - and worse - albums this year.

[Nick's Note: Apologies for the lack of content recently. My computer died and I had to get a new one. Things should be back to normal now]

Suffocation and the Roots of Brutal Death

2011-02-16T00:49:00.002-05:00

For good reasons Slam-Minded tends to focus on newer bands and newer releases. If we just talked about old material, the blog would get stale fast. However, I think occasionally it is worth revisiting the classics and the founders of a genre. Not only does this remind you of what makes the music great, it also means you are only listening to premium music. This is what I've been doing recently (as you can see, no reviews for a couple weeks), but I wanted to share my thoughts about probably the most important band for Brutal Death: Suffocation.

Suffocation pretty much single-handedly took death metal from heavier thrash metal and melodic stuff like Morbid Angel and the Swedish scene, and created the path of percussive, rhythmic, brutal death metal that we know and love today. No disrespect to those other bands, but I personally feel that the path Suffocation created is the best, and closest to what I feel is great about death metal. Listen to songs like "Infecting the Crypts" and "Liege of Inveracity" and you can see the seeds of slam death that would sprout a little less than a decade later. If you enjoy all the new bands that we write about here, then you owe Suffocation a debt of gratitude. I'm sure almost every reader of this blog has heard Suffocation, but I encourage you to go back and remember how amazing these guys were and are.

Gory Delivery - Conceived to Prevail (Permeated Records; 2010)

2011-01-23T17:21:00.000-05:00

Because I write this blog (and because I like the music) I try to listen to as many new brutal/slam death metal albums as possible especially towards the end of the year. Of course, for a variety of reasons some albums just slip through the cracks. Gory Delivery's Conceived to Prevail was one of those albums. I think someone over at the Ultimate Metal forums told me about the album, but I forgot about it until the commenter zetasimo mentioned it on my Top 10 post.

I'm really glad he (she?) did because Conceived to Prevail is an excellent album. It doesn't reach the heights of the years' best, but it is one of those solidly good albums that I thought 2010 lacked. Sure, one album doesn't completely reverse a trend, but it's nice to be pleasantly surprised by an album.

Gory Delivery are from the Basque Country in northern Spain and share a drummer with Cerebral Effusion, who are also from the same region. Gory Delivery definitely share some of Cerebral Effusion's raucous energy and punishing technicality. However, I'd say Gory Delivery sound even more like bands from the highly regarded Italian scene, like Septycal Gorge, Blasphemer, and Vomit the Soul. Backing up my point, this album was mastered in Rome, and the cover art is by Marco Hassman, who has done cover art for the three aforementioned bands.

One thing all those Italian bands do well is balancing interesting technical riffs with pure heaviness. Gory Delivery fit right in here, and are equally skilled at slamming and teching. In this way, both sides are better. The slams are sharpened with technical bursts, which are then made stronger by the slams. Gory Delivery even throw a few good solos in, including a harmonized, Judas Priest-esque one. Not something a band can pull off in every song, but once an album is fun.

As I said earlier, this album is solidly good. What that means is that it has no flaws, but isn't as inspired or innovative as the best albums of the genre. Considering that there are usually only one to three of those innovative and inspired albums a year, I think that is pretty good praise. If you can't get enough of the music coming out of Southern Europe these days, then you will love this album.

Additional Note: Give the band some credit for coming up with a unique (albeit a little silly) sounding name with "Gore" in it. I thought that well had gone dry a while ago.

Ancient Necropsy Music Video

2011-01-13T16:37:00.002-05:00

Ivan Jaramillo, the mastermind behind Ancient Necropsy, has released a music video for his song "Ghosts of Death Valley". This guy is amazingly good at guitar and drums. There are a couple other similar videos at his myspace. Check it out:

Ancient Necropsy @ Myspace

Brutal/Slam Death Metal Top 10 2010

2011-01-07T14:52:00.000-05:00

I know I'm a little late, but here is my list for 2010's best albums.

1. Defeated Sanity - Chapters of Repugnance
There was no question in my mind that this album would be number one. It has everything that makes brutal death metal great. Musicianship, songwriting, brutality, groove. I can't say enough good things. Defeated Sanity proved themselves this year as one of the best bands currently making music.

2. Goretrade - Mistaken Conception
Another veteran band upping their considerable game on their third album. As I said in my review, Mistaken Conception effortlessly mixes killer Colombian brutal death with old school touches, and create a style all their own. Amazing album.

3. Cenotaph - Putrescent Infectious Rabidity
I finally differ with Andy (slightly) with my pick for the third spot. Cenotaph have long been a favorite of mine, and this is their best full length in recent memory. Another album I reviewed, Putrescent Infectious Rabidity is a roller coaster ride of technical, smashing slams. Listening to this style a lot can leave you jaded to the extremity, but this album destroyed me, and that is exactly what I want.

4. Cerebral Effusion - Impulsive Psychopathic Acts
Back to agreeing with my co-blogger, this album was raw and heavy and truly earned the right to be called brutal. These Spaniards released a steamroller of an album.

5. Hour of Penance - Paradogma
I have long been a fan of the Italian BSDM scene, but I had never listened to Hour of Penance until this album. They had always seemed different somehow than their countrymen. However, where they do not differ is in quality. In terms of sheer scale and dare I say epicness, this album rocks. (review)

6. Vulvectomy - Post-Abortion Slut Fuck
This album came out all the way back in January 2010 and for some reason was not received well by a lot of people. Perhaps it was because Vulvectomy changed up their style, but whatever it was this album was controversial. Regardless, I am a big fan of this album. It lacks the same naive charm that marked their first album, but made up for it by having some seriously groovy slams. Best album title of the year as well. (review)

7. Gortuary - Awakening Pestilent Beings
The most slamming band from California, Gortuary released a very good, but under appreciated album in my opinion. This album had great slams, great vocals, and surprisingly great guitar solos. I like it when bands doing something out of the ordinary while staying true to the genre, so I like this album. (review)

8. Pathology - Legacy of the Ancients
I haven't gotten around to reviewing this yet, but I was impressed by this album. Pathology somehow got signed to Victory Records (home of of a great deal of shitty metalcore), but did not lose any of their edge. I can't say this album blew my mind, but I think that is because Pathology have been so good for so long. I hope they continue to perform at this high level and I hope that being signed to a (relatively) major label does good things for the band.

9. Short Bus Pile Up - Repulsive Display of Human Upholstery
Short Bus Pile Up are simple band, but they are so good at what they do that it's hard not to like them. The slams are standard but the execution and energy are exceptional. I agree with Andy completely when he says that this band has a lot of potential.

10. Gorevent - Worship Paganism
I liked this album a lot, but I have mixed feelings putting it on the top ten list. I have always felt with Gorevent that they were almost, but not quite, in the top tier. After thinking about it though, this is a good album that showcases Gorevent's ability to create ultra-heavy music. (review)

In general I felt that 2010 had a lot of great albums, a lot of flawed albums, and then not much in the middle. This is why I had some mixed feelings towards the end of the list. There just wasn't that totally solid album to round out the list. Still I think there were two legitimate brutal death metal classics released this year, and a couple more that were close to that status. I really can't ask for more than that.

I hope everyone's 2011 has started well. Keep reading, commenting, and listening, and of course STAY BRUTAL!!!!!

-Nick

Godless Truth goes full-weird; new stuff sounds like Anata + Augury according to studio reports

2011-01-03T01:19:00.002-05:00

Have a listen. I kind of like it, but it'll definitely be cool to check out in full! If anything, it'll probably be better than previous outings by the band which have been basically generic as hell.

Top Ten Brutal/Slam Death Albums: 2010

2011-01-02T01:31:00.004-05:00

I may be mildly inebriated right now (in fact, I just spelled that "inebirated") but here's a quick rundown of my top ten in slam/brutal death for this past year. Overall, it was a mildly disappointing year in terms of follow-up albums for bands whose debuts were released fairly recently (last few years, I'd reckon), but several bands surprised with excellent new material, several new bands absolutely rocked the house with their sickening tones, and overall, I'd say there was a fair bit of choosing going on here; always a signal that the scene is alive and well.

As such, I look forward to 2011 as a harbinger of excellent slamming sickness. Slam 'til you cum, indeed.

1. Defeated Sanity - Chapters of Repugnance
DS ups the ante with some absolutely balls-out, ridiculously powerful slam on this one. An excellent show of strength compared to Psalms, which, in my opinion, was made ineffectual and somewhat listless by Jens' poor vocals, some horrid production choices and only decent-to-good songwriting; this is an entirely different beast. Every song offers up new ways to bludgeon your skull in, snaking around transitions and riff-changes with the greatest of ease. I don't really need to tell you why this rules, it's on the top of this list for a reason, so read my review of it if you need convincing, which you shouldn't. This speaks for itself. It quite literally skullfucks everything else "slam" from this year by a fair margin, and fuck you if you don't think so.

2. Goretrade - Mistaken Conception
This band really knows how to kick major ass, and surprisingly, they follow through on their ass-kicking stature throughout every single song, with no doubts about their awesomeness. This is literally an improvement on the Goretrade sound in every way. They've got two albums before this and if you listen to them in order you can quite honestly hear the progression. This is a band evolving outside of itself; Colombian sound? Fuck that, this is the Goretrade sound. Dominates. Worship or die.

3. Cephalic Impurity - Unique Brute Revival
Surprise! I fell in love with this album after about 10 listens; its grooves opened up more, lots of faster, double-time slam breakdowns amidst the controlled chaos. By paying attention to how the riffs flow, you can make out many interesting transitions; these nuances coupled with the grooves and overall (incredible) songwriting improvements from their last very average album leave me extremely satisfied. Sleeper hit of 2010, haters be damned.

4. Cerebral Effusion - Impulsive Psychopathic Acts
Another one I reviewed, this is a raucous display of absolutely dehumanized Spanish slam sickness. Uncaring, violent and very dangerous, this band barrels through 7 hymns of depravity in over 30 minutes(!) of their absolute best, most mature material yet. Think Colombia or the Philippines make the best inhuman, fucked up slam? Think again. Spain just schooled them in that regard; fucking ugly and repulsive shit...I love it.

5. Wormed - Quasineutrality
7 years after Planisphaerium, Wormed casually drops a new 2-track demo on the slam world; we all collectively shit ourselves because of what's in store. Though Phlegeton drums (admirably), and the excellent Andy C. is missing on the kit (though he has since been replaced by an excellent dude I posted a video of), these two songs are some serious shit full of complete next-level, logically progressive shit for the band. Gorguts influence? Check. Some seriously sick songwriting skills? Check. Slams galore? We're still kinda waiting on those, but there's enough brutality here to fill at least ten shitty slam bands' albums full of absolute insanity, so we'll take it. It's fucking Wormed, and they're back with an astrophysical vengeance.

6. Cenotaph - Putrescent Infectious Rabidity
Reincarnation In Gorextasy was alright, but this is the true return-to-form for these Turkish maniacs, led by the inimitable Batu Cetin. This time, they hired Defeated Sanity skinsman Lille Gruber and proceeded to bang out 9 songs of incredibly explicit perversion. Batu's brother Basar no longer performing with the band (for this album anyway), Cihar performed both the guitar and bass, making this the first slam power-trio in recent memory. This shit is intense, a hearkening back to the times of Pseudo Verminal Cadaverium in all of its fucked-up glory. Check out the last song; completely disturbing, amazing shit. I expect more of this from these masters of Turkish technical insanity.

7. Short Bus Pile Up - Repulsive Display Of Human Upholstery
SBPU are a fairly new slamming brutal band from Virginia of all places. I've been championing Tyler and the boys since the demo they solicited to me in '09, which had some minor problems, most of which were touched upon and made at least somewhat better on this, their first full-length offering. Barrett saw something in them just like I did, and put this out on his Sevared Records, and all went happily ever after. I even threatened the band that if they changed the snare sound, I'd disown them forever. They didn't change it. It's excellent, and so is this band. I sense a bright, slamming, guttural future for them. Catchy, somewhat serious and always the life of the party, SBPU will (hopefully!) continue to bludgeon the false with their trademark catchy palm-muting madness. Rage on, brothers.

8. Aborted Fetus - Fatal Dogmatic Damage
Yet another Russian sleeper hit. What's up with that? Oh, I don't know, other than the fact that this fucking rocks. A little Devourment worship here, some typical Russian breakdown-slam there, and we're off to the races; a fun little album chock full of surprises. So many snare fills that I dare you to try to keep track and count them before giving up and just headbanging until your neck is sore. Oh, and it's pretty atmospheric to boot. If this were the new sound of Russian slam, I wouldn't even be the slightest bit disappointed. High marks in almost every department; just wish it drew itself out a little more...same complaint on the SBPU, for the record.

9. Hour Of Penance - Paradogma
With every album, it feels like these guys slightly distance themselves from the "Italian brutal death metal" scene, but, regardless, this still feels somewhat entrenched in that aesthetic despite it being pretty much a very anti-religious Nile on Italian amphetamines. Perfectly written, perfectly orchestrated and immaculately played technical brutal deathgrind insanity of the highest and most rigorous order, you'd be hard-pressed to find something as professional coming out of any country currently operating under the banner of brutality. Every song is full of such seething hatred and detestation that it's almost palpable, and almost always very intimidating. As usual, I look forward to how this band pushes itself further. Every album has gone even further into realms of brutality not quite fully explored by any other similar band, and it will be exciting to follow the progress here. Buono, indeed.

10. Gorevent - Worship Paganism
Though I regard it as a mild sophomore slump for this off-kilter yet, ironically, completely orthodox Japanese band, this album still manages to hit me hard every time I listen to it. Something about it feels off; perhaps it is the not-quite-there-yet "darker" atmosphere that was attempted, perhaps it's the "sameness" to the previous album...maybe the atmosphere has been dimmed by the attempt to cement it firmly in a specific place? Not sure, but there's something barely-tangible that harms this album as a "full album" listen for me. Every song is completely trudging yet slightly faster (than the debut, anyway) slam with a bit of extra pep in the step, and an evil aesthetic/very nice artwork and layout (appreciated!!), but something about it holds it back from being as utterly devastating and ruthless as Abnormal Exaggeration. Maybe it's the lack of 40 second mid-album intro tracks...macabre shit, I want to see it reintroduced. Make it so, slamming samurai!

Have an excellent 2011; may the slam be with you...

-Andy

Blasphemer - Devouring Deception (Comatose Music; 2010)

2010-12-23T13:12:00.000-05:00

Unfortunately for Blasphemer fans (myself included), Devouring Deception is a not a new full length follow up to their excellent debut On the Inexistence of God. Rather it is an EP consisting of three original songs, one Broken Hope cover, and a remastered version of the song "Cloaca of Iniquity" off their first album. This review will primarily be about the three original songs, although the cover and the remaster are good.

Blasphemer fit in very well with an Italian scene that has emerged as one of, if not the best brutal death metal scene in Europe. Along with Blasphemer there is Putridity, Septycal Gorge, Hour of Penance, Vomit the Soul, and many others. On their first album, Blasphemer took a blasting, technical approach and On the Inexistence of God does what every good tech/brutal album should and completely shreds with a lightning fast assault. They don't forget to slow it down and slam every now and then either. Devouring Deception thankfully does not mess with success too much, and the new songs are definitely within the realm of tech/brutal. If you haven't heard Blasphemer before, I would compare them to Defeated Sanity, or their countrymen Hour of Penance.

There are some changes from On the Inexistence of God. Blasphemer have gone for a more smooth, holistic approach. To use some brootal similes, On the Inexistence of God is like quick, surgical precision strikes. It is fast, and sharp. Devouring Deception is like a mechanical monster. It is crushing and huge. Both are complex and skilled, but Devouring Deception feels bigger.

I can't really say that Devouring Deception is better than On the Inexistence of God because it is only and EP. However, if Blasphemer can write seven more songs like the ones found Devouring Deception, I would love that full length. Blasphemer remain one of the premier Italian brutal bands.

New Wormed drummer does a sample video...sounds a bit like Andy C. in the process

2010-12-11T22:32:00.003-05:00

Enjoy!

Abominable Putridity announce rather ridiculous new (vocal) lineup

2010-12-09T23:22:00.004-05:00

So, apparently Abominable Putridity, everyone's favorite Russian slammers, were either trolling the slam scene or were just confused and seeking direction when they announced that Cameron "Big Chocolate" Argon would be the new vocalist for the band some time last year. This disappointed more people than I can even count at this time, and the rumors kept being confirmed with various pictorial evidence posted by the band themselves on last.fm and the official forums. It seemed likely that, indeed, a *gasp* deathcore vocalist masquerading as a "slam/brutal death metal" vocalist by doing boring, one-dimensional exhales, usually unhelpfully backed by a completely equally boring, equally one-dimensional group of other instrument-players, would become the vocalist of the spearheads of Russia's hallowed slam scene. As you can tell, this would rightfully anger quite a few people.

BUT, there has been good news announced quite recently. Here's a quote posted by Sergey of AP on their official forums.

"We are going to make 2 song promos when we will have it professionally mixed and mastered in USA...So be patient... i promise that all you guys will like this album, we spend about half of year to record it and make songs powerfull and tight as hell, and this material is waaaayy different from the first one, as for vocals Matti leads on all tracks, other guys making back vocals on 4 tracks (2 songs with Corey, 1 with Aj and 1 with Angel), album will have 8 tracks total..."

Anyway, since you're probably shitting yourself in excitement right now, here's a picture for some more pictorial evidence. This time it's actually exciting, we promise.

From L to R, that's Angel Ochoa (Condemned, Cephalotripsy), Matti Way (of Pathology, Cinerary, Liturgy and Disgorge fame), AJ Magana (Defeated Sanity, ex-Disgorge, Deprecated) and Corey Athos (Flesh Consumed).

holy shitting fuck.

that is all.

Goretrade - Mistaken Conception (Brutalized Records; 2010)

2010-11-26T10:57:00.001-05:00

If you hang around metal message boards long enough, you'll probably notice that there is a seeming divide between those who like brutal death metal and those who like old school death metal. Now, I think most of this is overblown for the sake of something to argue about, but nevertheless there are those who say everything brutal is trash, and those who say the old stuff is garbage.

I'd like to think that Goretrade is a band that can bridge the gap between the two camps. On their first two albums (2003's Ritual of Flesh and 2006's Perception of Hate), they successfully fused evil, old-school sounding riffs with crushing slams and the type of raw brutality that can only come from Colombia. If you are are already a fan of Goretrade and their unique style, then you will like Mistaken Conception. It sounds like their first two albums, while taking small steps forward so as not to sound stale.

If you haven't heard Goretrade before then this is probably a good place to start. Mistaken Conception is their most polished work and the riffs are tight and intricate. The same mix of evil, foreboding Colombian melodies and steamrolling slams remains, but there is an extra tinge of complexity that their previous two albums (and especially the very raw Ritual of Flesh) didn't have. There's even a long solo in one song, which I always like.

If you tend to like raw slam from Colombia (Suppuration or Wormeaten for instance) then you might prefer Ritual of Flesh, but I think Mistaken Conception is easily as good if not better. Goretrade have done an excellent job moving their style forward without going so far as to be unrecognizable. In a year that has featured some let downs, I know this album will be high on my top ten list.

New Human Rejection Songs

2010-11-22T00:36:00.000-05:00

Greek slamgroove stars Human Rejection have put out some new songs. I loved their first album along with most slam fans, and I liked with their second album which seemed to get less of a good reception. There have been some fears raised that Human Rejection are turning their backs on brutal death metal and becoming a deathcore band. Yeah, they have a corey logo, but after listening to their new songs I don't think that is happening. Honestly, the new songs sound like a stompier CADM band. It's more technical and melodic sounding than their past stuff, but it also feels like a logical continuation from Decrepit to Insanity.

The verdict: I liked it overall, but I think their old stuff is stronger. However, I do not think they've gone deathcore, just a little more intricate and less slamming. How you feel about that probably depends on how you feel about technical/Cali style death metal. I'm going to stick with this band because they're still producing high-quality material, and I don't think they should be punished for trying to change things up on each of their releases.

LISTEN @ MYSPACE

On an unrelated note: This is the 200th post on Slam-Minded! I never thought it would last this long or that anyone would read it. I can't thank my co-blogger Andy and everyone who reads this enough. Let's hope we have 200 more posts. SLAM TILL U CUM!

Cephalic Impurity - Unique Brute Revival (Soulflesh Collector Records; 2010)

2010-10-29T12:35:00.001-04:00

Before I start the review I want to complain a little about the lack of variety of names in slam. Does every band name have to start with either Human, Cephalic or Cerebral? You might say to me: "Nick, this is the only band in your library that starts with Cephalic!" and you would be right. I think I'm just cranky because this band used to be called Infected Guts which I think is a much cooler.

Who are Cephalic Impurity then? They are from the Russian city of Izhevsk which is a couple hundred miles east of Moscow, the home of the famous Russian bands Abominable Putridity and Katalepsy. This is their second full length under this name, although I haven't listened to them since their Infected Guts days.

During those days they sounded raw, simple, and dirty. I expected that they would coalesce into playing the primitive grooves and achingly deep slams that the Moscow slam scene seemed to produce. But because of geography, member changes, or just a will to be different, Cephalic Impurity have produced something pretty unique and interesting. The band name may be as generic as they come but the album title is accurate. This album is unique and does manage to build the aura of brutality that is so necessary to make this kind of music feel right. It doesn't feel violent or psychotic, it feels like entering a mean, cruel, and harsh world. I also really dig the cover art.

Cephalic Impurity achieve this by juxtaposing intricate (but not tech-death) riffing with grooving slam. You can tell from the grooves that they are Russian and they certainly please the lowbrow slam guy within me. I think it's the riffing though that works the best on this album. It's interesting while avoiding mind-numbing technicality. If you tend to go for good non-slam riffing in brutal death (think Septycal Gorge, Inveracity, or Hour of Penance), then I could see you really liking this.

I have to point out though that the production is awful. It is not awful in the harsh unlistenable/awesome way that Colombian slam production is awful. It just has zero bass. I did an experiment where I played Cephalic Impurity and then I played Abominable Putridity and the difference was obvious. There was even a bass drop (that "WUMP" thing) on this album and it didn't really sound like anything. I may be exaggerating here but that's because I'm disappointed that a good album was turned into an okay album because of the production.

Despite my reservations, I'll recommend this one, if only because a band with such a generic name produced such an interesting and unique work.

Goregiastic Records Acquired by Sevared Records

2010-10-06T19:34:00.000-04:00

Goregiastic Records, a small but quality label has been bought by Sevared Records. It's fun to imagine this as two major record labels merging, but it sounds more like Goregiastic's inventory is going to over Sevared. They're both one man operations and it seems like Andres, the owner of Goregiastic, no longer wishes to run a label. I'm just going by what it says online but ff that's the case then I'm glad things have moved to Sevared. Barrett has always been dedicated and professional. Goregiastic released some good stuff (Infernal Revulsion - Devastate Under Hallucination comes to mind) and will be missed, but if you're going to leave the scene, this is the way to do it. Here's the official statement from Goregiastic's website.

We are very excited to announce that Goregiastic Records has been acquired by Sevared Records! Yes, we will be a key part of Sevared Records, spearheading their drive to be the leader in nowadays' extreme death metal scene!.

As most of you have may guessed, there won't be any changes in the Goregiastic Records Online Shopping experience as a result of the acquisition. Customers will still be able to browse our own/distributed titles, get FREE and cheap shipping (US & overseas customers), buy 3 CD's & get 1 FREE, among other great benefits, all directly from the Sevared Records Online Store!. We look forward to seeing all our loyal, long-time customers ordering from the Sevared Records site and enjoying all the great privileges and advantages received from Goregiastic Records during the past 8-9 years!.

Needless to say, we are excited to join a label like Sevared Records that has supported and innovated on behalf of the extreme, brutal death metal scene for over a decade and is a pioneer in the current underground movement. Like Sevared Records, we believe there is a lot of potential ahead for extreme, brutal underground music and we could not think of a better label to be acquired by during this exciting time!.

Here's an official statement by Barrett, current President/Owner of Sevared Records on this exciting acquisition:

"I'm very sad and happy, that I have acquired Goregiastic Records!! My Metal brother Andres has given this gift to me and all of Goregiastic's customer's have my word that I will do the same if not better customer service (nothing against Andres)!!! All orders will be shipped out within 24 hours (except on weekends) customer service will be swift, all orders in the USA will still have FREE shipping, and overseas orders will have cheap shipping! I will do all my new (hopefully) Goregiastic customers the quickness and reliability that Goregiastic Records gave you over the years, and I can't thank Andres enough and Goregiastic Records for being my Brother in Arms, Good luck to you bro, and to all the Goregiastic customers, you will not be disappointed!!! I'll miss you bro!! Barrett / Sevared Records!!”.

We encourage our loyal (both new and old) customers to lay their trust in the hands of Sevared Records from now on and be an active part of what will surely become the definitive leader in extreme, brutal death metal for years to come!.

Within the next 24-48 hours, the Goregiastic Records site will be automatically re-directed to Sevared Records' so every time you visitwww.goregiasticrecords.com your browser will automatically re-direct you to www.sevared.com so you can start your online shopping experience with no hassles!

Last but not least, we can't thank enough our family, friends, customers and of course Barrett from Sevared Records for the continuous support and friendship throughout these awesome 8-9 years of hard-work, if it wasn't for you, Goregiastic Records would have never been what it is today and what will become from now on. Eternal thanks to you all.

All the best,

Andres Garcia / GOREGIASTIC RECORDS President/General Manager

Goregiastic's Website

Gortuary - Awakening Pestilent Beings (Sevared Records; 2010)

2010-09-20T18:10:00.000-04:00

If you listen to brutal death metal a lot you know that regional scenes tend to develop a certain style. Bands share members and play shows together and patterns can be seen past individual differences. Gortuary, hailing from Sand Diego, California, are a break from this trend though, as they share more similarities to the stomping, pit-friendly styles of Texan brutal death metal than their California brethren.

Awakening Pestilent Beings is Gortuary's second full length and in many ways is a good continuation of their first album, 2008's Manic Thoughts of Perverse Mutilation. As I mentioned earlier their style is very stompy and at times almost galloping. I'm not much of mosher, but Gortuary's slams were made for the pit. Their slamming isn't particularly unique, but it is well done. Awakening of Pestilent Beings also showcases some slight melodic tinges, along with deep, gurgling vocals, which make the mood of the album pretty dark. In this way it reminded me of the mood evoked by Gorevent. Gortuary's first album had more samples and generally felt goofier, this one feels more evil and foreboding, which I like.

What really stands out on this album though is the inclusion of some absolutely killer guitar solos. These aren't boring Technical DM style shreds. Instead, think harmonized guitar and a melody you can actually follow. Now, you might be thinking this doesn't fit with slam and without hearing it I might agree with you. However, because the musicianship is so good and, crucially, because they are not overused, the solos on this album become highlights of the album. If you like Intestine Baalism I highly recommend you listen to this album.

My one criticism of this album is that it's too short. The running time is 26 minutes and that includes a five minute interlude. The interlude was good and I'm not against its inclusion, but I would've liked to see some more metal on this album. One or two more songs would've really made this album a more satisfying listen.

Awakening Pestilent Beings is really good and features some great slams and cool guitar solos. I just wish Gortuary had given me some more music!

Desvirginizagore (Peruvian brutal death metal sickness)

2010-09-06T22:38:00.003-04:00

This band's first music video was just posted by a member of Ultimate Metal's General Metal Discussion forum. It sounds like a combination of Colombian styles (though the band is from Peru), and could be approximated as a sound between Goretrade and Sourpuz, with flashes of Amputated Genitals here and there. With a drum sound rivaling Masturbation and a dual guitar solo that could pretty much give any melo-death band a run for their money, I am predicting this band with an incredibly silly name to get great praise from this blog in the near future.

ENTER DESVIRGINIZAGORE:

God Is Dead

2010-08-24T17:18:00.002-04:00

Gore, perversion, and violence may be the usual themes presented by brutal death metal bands, but a little anti-religious hate propaganda is always a welcome sight. That is why I am very happy that both Blasphemer and Destroying Divinity are releasing new material very soon. Blasphemer impressed me and a lot of others with 2008's On the Inexistence of God. They play a blasting, technical style that feels very hateful and powerful. Their new release is an EP called Devouring Deception and it will be released on Comatose Records and is currently available for pre-order.

Blasphemer @ Myspace

Devouring Deception Cover

Destroying Divinity are a less well known band from the Czech Republic, but they've released two decent full lengths and have been signed to a multi-album deal by Brutal Bands. Destroying Divinity play an atmospheric, slightly old-school sounding brutal death metal. The new songs remind me a lot of classic NYDM. The upcoming album is entitled Dark Future and is also availabe for pre-order now.

Destroying Divinity @ Myspace

Dark Future Cover

Antraks - Spewing Wrath Blood (Pathologically Explicit Recordings; 2010)

2010-08-22T20:56:00.000-04:00

Despite this being their second full length, I had only heard Antraks' material off of their split album with fellow Indonesians Septicemia that was released in 2008 (review). On that album I found Antraks to be the tamer of the two bands. I classified them as "standard" and said there was better raw sounding brutal death metal out there. I much prefer to give highly positive reviews on this blog, but Antraks just didn't quite deserve yet. Spewing Wrath Blood, I am happy to report, does deserve it.

The biggest improvement in my mind is in the originality department. I don't think an album needs to be original to be good (see most Devourment clones), but in my experience, especially with Asian bands, it seems to be a positive factor. Antraks pull off a lot of cool stuff on this record. Bizarre pinch harmonics, solos, and even an organ riff can be found melded in with sawing tremolo riffs and infectious, almost goregrindy grooves. In many ways it reminded me of a more energetic, less epic sounding Ancient Necropsy with better vocals. It's enough to keep the listener interested throughout, if only to hear what weird thing will come next. I don't mean to suggest that Antraks are weird for the sake of being weird like Unexpect or other similar bullshit metal bands. Rather, they just tweaked and changed the brutal death formula a little bit. As an avid listener to the genre, it's nice to hear an interesting and well thought out album that goes beyond what you normally hear.

Compared to the top albums of this year, Spewing Wrath Blood does fall a little short. To quote Andy from his review of Cerebral Effusion's recent album, "[it] comes straight out of the gates with brutality, doesn't give a shit about your fucking feelings, and leaves you for dead without any consideration." Spewing Wrath Blood feels more like tagging along with an insane serial killer as he shows you the various ways he kills his victims. Certainly well within brutal death metal's realm of aesthetics, but I prefer to be assaulted by my death metal rather than merely interested by it.

That said, Antraks have created a very interesting and original work. It's worth listening to you if you don't mind something different. If that's what you're looking for there aren't that many albums better than this.

Cerebral Effusion - Impulsive Psychopathic Acts (Comatose Music; 2010)

2010-08-06T20:40:00.006-04:00

Cerebral Effusion is a new slam band out of Spain, this being their first on Coma--

...wait...wait just a goddamn second...what? Cerebral Effusion aren't a new band? AND they've had 2 albums before this?

Wait, what? I could've SWORN this was a completely new, different, focused band with a completely fresh take on this genre. Bestial, unforgiving and guttural as fuck, this band slams through 7 really brutal songs before this CD is over, and I'm here to let you know (quite late, I'm aware) that this really is essential shit that you need to own and worship, despite the fact that this sounds like a freshman attempt at slam from a new band.

But, that's exactly what I'm praising about it. Honestly, I'm gonna admit it; I don't remember the other two albums by this band before this. I don't think I ever really heard or cared about them. However, upon hearing that Steve of Comatose signed them and also upon hearing the incredible "Last Torture Preferment" on the Comatose site, replete with frog-like vocals, synchronized rhythmic slams and blasting straight out of Colombia, I decided that this was pretty much essential dehumanized slam right off the bat, without hearing the other 6 tracks. When this arrived on my doorstep, I was floored; it was right around the middle of March, and I played the fuck out of it. Well, here I am offering up my opinion, which is that you absolutely require this if you enjoy slam that comes straight out of the gates with brutality, doesn't give a shit about your fucking feelings, and leaves you for dead without any consideration. This is barbaric, brutal and hateful. The lyrics intensify this feeling to a really disturbing degree: "One more and I will finish it. I thought it was enough but this time I was wrong. Nothing can stop me to kill one more gluttonous fat whore."

Now, you're probably wondering "yeah dude we get it it's blasting and slamming but what does it sound like?" Well, imagine Colombian slam but smarter. Imagine that it knows which alley you are going to go down to avoid the police. It knows where your shortcuts are, and it intercepts you. It doesn't care, because it is pure brutality. It wants you dead, it hunts you. That is what it sounds like, the sound of pure fucking perversion and barbarism, coming through your speakers. Those twisting slams snaking around quick double bass-to-snare rhythms, riffs you'll hum for days afterwards but be utterly unable to recall which song they're from; not because it's not memorable but because you're afraid; if you think of it, it will come for you. It will come. You will die. At 32 minutes, this is pretty hefty for slam, and with 7 tracks, it ensures that the songs stick around long enough to plant a seed in your head; a disgusting seed, one that wants to gain control and destroy you by your own hands. Quick blasting digressions turn to slow slamming fugues, mid-paced brutality awaits at every turn, and there's no escape other than to turn it off. But why would you want to do that? You're a masochist; you love this brutality, you love this pain. You're looking forward to the next time you can violate your ears with the sounds of lowbrow thuggery. Right now, you're grinning; you want this.

Get it through your head; this is slam that doesn't give a shit about you. It's heavy, it's full of time changes and breakdowns that will puncture your skull quite handily. Unfortunately for you, with this album, it isn't about how it sounds, it's about how it feels, and it feels like your time is close at hand. Beware...Cerebral Effusion are fueled with new passion, overtaking and crushing all in their path, and their next material will be even more fierce, even more depraved; and you'll love every last second of it, because you love this brutality.

Hour of Penance - Paradogma (Unique Leader Records; 2010)

2010-08-04T01:14:00.002-04:00

This is an album that came out of nowhere for me. While I had been highly anticipating the new Cenotaph, Defeated Sanity, and Vulvectomy among others this year, Hour of Penance had always been on the fringes of my attention. It's not that I disliked them, it's just that they struck me as a semi-brutal band that was popular among a wider audience because they lessened their brutality and adopted standard modern/tech death metal tropes. I'm not saying that I was correct, or that having appeal beyond our little scene is a bad thing, it's just the impression I got. There's a lot of brutal death metal being released and I have been guilty, for better or worse, of trending towards the underground material at the expense of more widely known bands.

One listen to a Paradogma completely busted my (mostly uninformed) impression to pieces. This is most definitely a brutal death album and if it has a wide appeal it's for no other reason than the fact that it kicks ass. Now, this is a Unique Leader release so there's plenty of ostentatious technicality and a healthy dose of self-seriousness. Hour of Penance, however, manage pull it off a lot better than most of their label-mates. In many ways this reminds me of Inveracity - Extermination of Millions and Septycal Gorge - Erase the Insignificant. Paradogma is big, technical, and epic (well, as epic as you can get for a brutal death metal band), yet they remain effortlessly brutal. By that I mean that every part of the song works together and the riffs feel natural. Lesser bands sometimes write great riffs, but often they just place them next to each other, rather than making them work together.

Hour of Penance keep Paradogma running at a good pace throughout. Things get faster and slower, but not to the extremes of their slammier peers. There's plenty going on at any one time, but the technicality is kept to a reasonable level, and they know when to just go simple and be heavy. I think the clean and thick production that comes with the Unique Leader name really works wonders for that style here. Every technical buildup and every booming chug and every slithering solo is audible and backed up by a thundering rhythm section.

Now for those of you who are looking for slam and only slam, you might not like this album as much as I did. There's a lot of headbanging riffs, but they're not really slammy. If you want some well written, well produced, and dare I say epic brutal death metal, you shouldn't hesitate to pick this up. I may have been a little late to the Hour of Penance party, but Paradogma is well worth the attention.

Katalepsy - Your Fear Is Our Inhabitancy (Soulflesh Collector Records; 2010)

2010-07-20T18:20:00.000-04:00

Your Fear Is Our Inhabitancy, a two song promo by Moscow slammers Katalepsy, has left me a little stumped. It's not a bad pair of songs, but Katalepsy raised the bar so high with their previous releases, I can't help but feel let down. On their full length Musick Brings Injuries and their split Triumph of Evilution, Katalepsy were dynamic and effective. They were heavier, more varied, and more interesting than 90% of other brutal death bands. On this release I can't help but feel they've receded into the pack.

Here are my issues with Your Fear Is Our Inhabitancy. The vocals are very one-dimensional. This is not necessarily a horrible thing in this genre, and they definitely don't sound bad, but if you listen to the song "Number Of Death (13)" from Triumph of Evilution, you can easily tell that the newer vocals are a step down. The songwriting is also flawed. Katalepsy appear to have moved in a more atmospheric direction (I have no problem with this). However, instead of using that atmosphere to build up to some excellent slamming sections, they just sort of coast into some guitar chugs and run of the mill slams. I'd say the second song "Gore Conspiracy" works a little better than the first song "Unearthly Urge", but not to a great extent. My biggest problem here is that I know Katalepsy can write some of the best slams in the genre. They just didn't get it done here.

I know this sounds harsh, but fair or not I hold this band to a higher standard than your average slam band. They earned that respect with their previous material. Now I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on this one for a couple reasons. One, this is just a promo, two, there appears to have been lineup changes, three, it's not bad in any way, it's just not amazing and four, I love Katalepsy and I want them to continue being awesome. From reading Katalepsy's shoutbox on last.fm, I can see others reacting in a similar way. Let's all hope Katalepsy can regain their exceptional form on the next full length.

California Slamming

2010-07-15T15:24:00.002-04:00

xciting news from America's most populous state. Both Pathology and Inherit Disease will have released new albums by the end of the month. Pathology's fourth album, Legacy of the Ancients, is officially available now via Victory Records. We've talked about this album here in the past but this is to let you know it has been officially released. I'm a big fan of Pathology so I will be purchasing this one soon. In my mind there is no other Californian DM band that is as good as Pathology right now. Disgorge (who Pathology clearly love) are still the CADM kings, but Pathology are certainly up there.

Inherit Disease I don't feel as good about. Their debut Procreating an Apocalypse was promising but flawed. However I have been hearing positive things about their new album Visceral Transcendence which will be officially released on July 20th via Unique Leader (it's already leaked if you want to check it out now). It's got killer cover art and given what I've been hearing from brutal death fans who've listened to it, I'll be giving it a shot.

Second Putridity Album

2010-07-01T00:53:00.001-04:00

Putridity, the raw, guttural slam death band from Italy, will be releasing their sophomore album Degenerating Anthropophagical Euphoria on Willowtip Records. Willowtip is more known for releasing good tech-death and grindcore, but they're a quality operation and I'm happy to see Putridity getting released. I was a big fan of their first album so I'm hopeful this album will be good. Degenerating Anthropophagical Euphoria has cover art by John Zig which looks pretty good. According to Putridity's myspace, the album will be out in the fall.

(Special thanks to malice13231 at UltimateMetal Forums for alerting me to this)

Cenotaph - Putrescent Infectious Rabidity (Sevared Records; 2010)

2010-06-24T22:56:00.003-04:00

Good death metal songwriting, for me, is more felt than heard. I don't sit there and think, "that riff really worked there". Rather I get the feeling that the artist is directing me exactly where they want me. I get the feeling that I am being carried by the artist to the place I should go, which for me goes a level beyond mere entertainment. As usual my writing skills and the English language are not quite capable of describing exactly how I feel, and I don't know if anyone experiences music in this way, but it's the best I can do. I mention all this because Cenotaph's new album Putrescent Infectious Rabidity gives me that exact feeling.

A little background first. Cenotaph are a veteran band and undeniably Turkey's premier brutal death metal export. They have been around since 1994 and this is their fifth full length. In all honesty I have only heard the most recent three, and Andy tells me the first two weren't that good. Starting with Pseudo Verminal Cadaverium though, Cenotaph got really good. Their style is atmospheric, slamming, and grindy. Think of an atmospheric Malignancy or a grindier Septycal Gorge.

Putrescent Infectious Rabidity gets everything it possibly can out Cenotaph's unique style. Extremely fast, technically masterful sections effortlessly give way to plodding chugs and deep, slow slams. This band really knows how to make this kind of music work, because everything feels right. The fast, grinding sections are very interesting and they dump you under a slam right before they get boring as those kind of riffs tend to do. Then, when the slam is over, they pick you right back up again. Most of the time I do something else while I listen to music, but this is an album that I can just listen to and enjoy without any distractions. It's that good.

Special mention should be made of the excellent musicianship on this album, especially Defeated Sanity's Lille Gruber, who session-drummed on this record. There are some extremely fast technical sections on this album, and Gruber more than keeps up with them.

After over a decade and half Cenotaph are not declining in any way. This should be a must buy album and will be a contender with the new Defeated Sanity for this year's number one album.

Show Review: Malignancy at the Maryland Deathfest

2010-06-11T00:38:00.005-04:00

May 28th-30th the Slam-Minded team attended the eighth annual Maryland Deathfest in Baltimore, Maryland. MDF is the best extreme metal festival in North America bar none, and I hope at last a few of our readers got to attend. There were tons of good bands, but the one most pertinent to this blog was Malignancy, who played Friday evening. Personally I'd prefer a couple more brutal death bands at the fest, but I understand that bands like Autopsy and Pestilence will draw a bigger crowd.

If there could only be one brutal band, Malignancy was not bad choice. They play a very dynamic style with a lot of different elements. If someone described them as slamming brutal technical deathgrind they would not be wrong. They play a very unique style that incorporates slams, but employs only at the perfect time, surrounding them with grinding tech riffs. After some initial banter from the vocalist, the band launched into their brand of fast, technical and brutal death metal. One might expect a band this fast and technical to experience a drop off in live play, but that was definitely not the case here. Everyone sounded really good and, unlike some of the other bands at the fest, all of the instruments were very clear. This was really fun stuff and it was a joy to watch a veteran band pull off some impressive feats of musicianship.

The set list ranged throughout their discography, and due to the short length of most of their songs we got to hear quite a few. I'm most familiar with Malignancy's 2007 full length Inhuman Grotesqueries so I was most excited about those tracks. "Neglected Rejection" sounded amazing live. They also played a couple new tracks off their upcoming album. Not sure when that's coming out, but the tracks sounded excellent. No real change in the formula, but that's fine when the formula is already varied and unique. I will certainly be purchasing the album when it appears.

A special mention also has to be made for Danny's stage banter, which was surprisingly funny. Most metal bands just stay super grim or play up the "woo beer!" angle when they're on stage, so it was enjoyable to see someone with some charisma.

Final thoughts, Malignancy were great, Maryland Deathfest was awesome. Do not miss either if you can help it!

Colonize The Rotting - Composting The Masticated (Sevared Records; 2010)

2010-06-03T21:50:00.004-04:00

Colonize The Rotting are a newcomer in the realm of Cali-slam/brutal DM, and thus it is probably very easy to lump them in with the assorted styles of Californian blasting technical weird brutal stuff coming out these days. All the hallmarks of this style are here: really ridiculous chops from every single band member, about half a million bucks spent on the production to get everything perfect and clinical sounding, involved songwriting that seems almost ad-libbed...yet, of course, there are the utter pitfalls of this style which come with the territory which include sounding pretty much soulless, overly wanky and almost entirely uninteresting.

Sound like a brutal review? Well, yeah, so far. But really, I've only described the scene this band fits into, and not necessarily the band themselves. Now, since I haven't heard their previous demo, I can really only judge Colonize The Rotting on this one EP. Barrett told me that this was excellent, and I know some people (whose taste I don't necessarily care for, but still) who like this band. So, I figured, why not drop the money and pick it up, it's the least I can do for one of the best (and most hard-working) labels in slam/brutal DM, and I can even review it. I put it on in the hotel room at MDF VIII last weekend and I immediately knew the band was Californian due to all of the aspects I explained above. Pretty much everything on this EP is a total blur of "death metal" that is nearly entirely featureless, right down to the cookie-cutter gurgling vocals, acrobatic guitar leads and incredibly frantic drumming. Speaking of that, the drummer is also the vocalist, which is sort of cool until you realize that it really isn't, and that this is almost entirely rhythmic music as most slam is, and therefore the vocals follow set patterns defined pretty much wholly by the drums and bass, which, while frantic as I stated before, are very easy to reconcile technically. Anyway, who really cares about the technical part of this? This is Cali slam and I need to discuss other relevant aspects as to why it is not really anything particularly good.

Positive aspects of this include a really, really good slam-into-tremolo-variation-of-same-slam on "Purulent Ejaculation", and quite a few good solos that would sound a lot better if they were fit into the music in a way that doesn't sound like they were thrown in after the fact. The last song is 8 minutes long but it doesn't really go anywhere that is particularly interesting. It sounds like music made by musicians, and not music made by fucked up people who are actually brutal in any way, shape or form. Clinical. Deprived of brutality. And those are the positives, mind you.

Here are some negatives...actually, there's really only ONE that is a major contention, but it's such a commonly-leveled criticism nowadays in the scene that it sticks out like a sore thumb: this band really likes to not write cohesive songs. In fact, they pretty much make it a point to draw out their tracks to lengths that don't make any sense. A track should be an inclusive delineation on a CD onto which a written song is "tracked". This track should evolve within its own margins until it "ends", that is to say, until the song cannot go anywhere any longer and, if pushed further, would cease to be a). good and/or b). the same track. Colonize The Rotting, along with a lot of shit coming from California (aside from Gortuary and I guess Condemned, even though I'm not a fan of them) should probably try understanding this concept. There are 6-8 minute songs on this EP that don't deserve to be extended this much at all. A lot of fat could be hacked, a lot of ideas could be extrapolated into separate songs, but it seems like the boys in this band are content with writing a bunch of disparate sections, copying and pasting them end to end, and calling them "tracks". Nah. Doesn't fly with me. Contrast this with my review earlier today of Short Bus Pile Up. Surprise, they're East Coast. They write songs that are too short, that need some extra fat, something extra in the songwriting department which would allow their songs to challenge the listener while entertaining them. This band? They challenge the listener too much, and in the process, end up haranguing them with endless obtuse sections of gutturalslamguitarsoloblastwank. It isn't the best choice, but California doesn't give a shit. Bands from there will keep writing stuff like this whether I like it or not, obviously.

Does that mean I have to like it, though? Hell no. Do I hate this? No, not at all. It's kind of fun, it has a very Flesh Consumed meets Pathology vibe that I don't think is unlikeable at all. However, it's fucking Cali-slam, and until this state/section of the country stops putting out irritating, over-produced, overwrought music like this, I won't stop complaining about it. I mean, something is fucking wrong when your "EP" is over 35 minutes in a genre where a shitload of excellent bands can write a 25 minute full-length with more content and 10 minutes less running time to irritate the listener with.

However, if you like ANYTHING COMING FROM CALIFORNIA AT ALL, you'll probably fucking dig the shit out of this. It's fun, but it's unfortunate that they had some come at a time when I could make an ultimate example out of them. That being said, Barrett thinks they're one of the best bands he's heard lately, so go ahead and buy this and support Sevared anyway. I did, and I only marginally regret it!

Short Bus Pile Up - Repulsive Display of Human Upholstery (Sevared Records; 2010)

2010-06-03T12:07:00.004-04:00

Tyler and co. are no strangers to this blog. I first reviewed their demo in September of last year and they responded favorably to my criticism, which basically ended up being "fuck off with the samples and learn to write more in-depth, extended songs; however, your snare tone and slams are both impeccable". Now that I finally have this album in my hands after last weekend's excellent MDF VIII, I can finally air my new criticisms about SBPU.

...
...

Just kidding, I don't have much to complain about. This is fucking badass. They took my advice on the snare tone ("if you guys change the snare tone I'll be really angry with you.") and didn't touch it at all, as Tyler let me in on the fact that drummer Dave Dement's snare tone is his pride and joy. It sounds distinctly Colombian (pingy, steely, and fucking awesome), yet is used in a distinctly TXDM slam way; there isn't much in the way of all out blastbeat sections here but there are plenty of one-handed snare rolls. SBPU doesn't really extend their songwriting prowess beyond a certain level here (that level being "solid"), but what is present is enough to leave the listener begging for more, which is essentially a very good quality of a debut album. What good is it if a band totally kicks your ass with their first album? What do you have to look forward to of theirs in the future? Most likely that's just a setup for the critical failure of the "sophomore album", so I'm glad that they decided to try their hands at slightly longer songs for the full-length, but still left enough grey area to develop on the next one.

Elliott and Ryan both know how to write fucking excellent sections of songs, replete with excellent, charging slams and slower breakdown sections. In this sense, a lot of the songwriting is very Abominable Putridity; there are pretty much zero concessions for anything non-slamming on here, which makes me happy. Tyler also proves that he is a competent guitarist, as he performed extra guitar on every track here. His vocals are guttural yet understandable, and remain as such from their surprisingly-great demo from last year. "Stench of Her Burning Flesh" is a new song that features a very awesome goregrind/pornogrind mid-section which is also mildly present on a few other songs including the first, "Ball-Peen Beating". I greatly welcome this influence and think it's really an interesting one to work with; pornogrind kind of stuff generally operates in its own limited sphere, because it's extremely limited and ridiculous, and it's kind of funny and interesting to see a total Rompeprop section in a slam song. The end of this song includes some screaming which sounds distinctly like The Locust, which sort of sucks and sounds silly in a not-so-good way, but I'm sure some people will appreciate it, and it's kind of an isolated incident, so no big deal.

"Fecal Matters" is once again a great song but way too short, and it feels like they could do a lot more to draw it out with its strong slamming riffs and the excellent production on display here. I suppose that the integrity of the original songs was intended to remain the same, so I can't really fault that, but I hope the next album has more NEW songs, and that said new songs display more thought regarding how to proceed after the lyrics are exhausted or after the one or two slams present in the song are utilized to the fullest extent.

So essentially the biggest criticism I can level against this band is that they need to learn to challenge themselves more in regards to songwriting and not just take the extreme basic way out of ending songs short due to worry that they won't sound good in a longer form. Take some chances and develop your music, guys. It's fucking excellent how it is, regardless. The snare is probably the best in modern slam (not even a little bit joking), the slams are incredibly heavy, groovy and destructive, and the vocals are solid as hell. There just needs to exist some amount of effort put into tying these things together longer for a minute or two. A few songs hint at this but not much really comes of it. The band clearly knows how to kick major ass, but I wish it was a slightly longer, challenging ass-kicking. Perhaps I'm wishing too much out of this band? Who knows. Regardless, if you want a pretty fucking awesome debut by a band that only has potential to get more awesome, get this ASAP.

Oh, and the title track gets kind of disturbing about halfway through. I'm sad that the title of the album has less to do with the entire album than I wish, because it's a cool cover and title which Cephalotripsy once had claim to and lost for a similar reason.

New Jasad tracks, a new Inherit Disease track, and also a new Pathology song too!

2010-05-18T15:24:00.006-04:00

Jasad, everyone's favorite underachieving Indonesian slam band has two new songs up, neither of which sound particularly underachieving! Which means they've...achieved something good! Pay attention about 1:50 into "Precious Moment to Die"...if you don't immediately headbang to that, you are dead:

Jasad @ Myspace

Really, both prior albums by the band have been underwhelming for various reasons (unmemorable songwriting, really really crap production on Annihilate the Enemy...), but this seems like it'll be really good. Fingers crossed.

Inherit Disease, widely known as being, well, (unfortunately not very good) Cali brutal tech DM have released a new song off their album Visceral Transcendence...it's actually pretty good, but I'm sure a whole album of it will get tiring. Hey, at least the vocalist has stepped up his game and doesn't just sound like a really loud frog. Unfortunate that the drums have to be so overbearing while the riffing is nicely angular and logical...judge for yourself here...

...and here is the teaser track off Pathology's debut for Victory Records...er...yeah, that makes me cringe a bit too. But, fear not, for it actually sounds pretty nice.

CODE INJECT CODE INJECT CODE INJECT! Matti Way for the win.

Gorevent - Worship Paganism (Macabre Mementos; 2010)

2010-05-08T16:03:00.000-04:00

I have mixed feelings about the Japanese brutal/slam death scene. Some of my favorite albums and bands have come out of there, but while the genre on the whole is getting better and better, it seems that the Japanese brutal death metal scene has stagnated or perhaps even gotten worse. That's why I was hopeful that Gorevent's sophomore album, Worship Paganism, would be good.

Gorevent's first album, Abnormal Exaggeration, was above average slam. It relied on simple, pounding riffs and deep guttural vocals. In his review Andy referred to Gorevent as "2nd tier slam" in that they were worse than the best the genre had to offer, but still pretty good. With Worship Paganism, I think Gorevent have improved, but, to continue the metaphor, not enough to crack that 1st tier.

Worship Paganism follows basically the same formula as Abnormal Exaggeration. Slow and mid-paced chugs coexist along with angular slams and the occasional evil sounding tremolo riff. This album reminded me of Human Rejection's album Decrepit to Insanity if that album was about half the speed. If you want anything approaching technicality or anything grindy and blasting, you will be disappointed by this album. It definitely sticks to the slow, plodding side of slam.

Where I think Gorevent did well on this album is bringing out a feeling of bestiality and primitivism on this record. I realize these terms are a little vague (what music descriptor isn't) but those are the two best words I can think of describe the overall feeling of Worship Paganism. Gorevent are able to infuse their music with a feeling of dread and general creepiness. I think evoking these feelings are exactly what Gorevent had to do to keep their slow and simple formula interesting and I'm very glad they did. This album may not please those of you who are more into tech/brutal or deathgrind stuff, but I really liked it. If other Japanese bands started putting out albums of this quality, I think my concerns for the scene would be put mostly at ease.

Defeated Sanity - Chapters of Repugnance (Willowtip Records; 2010)

2010-04-23T16:25:00.007-04:00

So, honestly, I'm not the biggest DS fan. In fact, if you actually care enough about the Internet or the band enough to check the last.fm shoutbox of Psalms of the Moribund, you can find a post by me detailing what I find to be problematic with it. It goes as follows, for the lazy:

"songwriting is catastrophically overrated and, frankly, bad. production is messy and dingy with no real clarity EVER, and this kind of production doesn't really suit the abundance of things they're trying to accomplish. vocals are too quiet and indistinct. slams are de-emphasized in favor of fast, blurred riffs with zero direction. bass is sometimes distracting and over-emphasized for no discernible reason. drumming is unfocused and, though precise to a fault, sometimes defaults to fast, blurred snare rolls (in Devourment fashion) with no reason to do so. so, in essence, this falls into a lot of the same pitfalls a bunch of modern tech death falls into, but it hurts my feelings that this is so well rated."

So, yeah. I don't like it. I find it a chore to listen to. I posted that to both stir the pot and to give hope to any fellow haters (as much as I don't find this term to be endearing) of that album...anyway, enough about that, on to this beast of a fucking album.

After Psalms, pretty much everyone was fired from the band or left. Lille Gruber, semi-allstar drummer (bands such as Mucopus and even on some Cenotaph albums I recall), remained, quickly gathering new members such as insane fucking vocalist A.J. Magana (if you remember, he was on Disgorge's Consume the Forsaken, before being replaced by the vastly inferior Levi Fuselier, and on top of that, he followed Matti [fucking] Way after the indomitable She Lay Gutted, so, basically, he kind of got forgotten about by a lot of people from what I understand).

Blasting off without regard to subtlety, "Introitus" leads us into the madness with some Gorguts-esque "weird noodling stuff" until it proceeds to smash your brains and balls (if you have either) with some completely ridiculous slamming bass drops. After all this is over, first "true" song "Consumed By Repugnance" flies into the frame, alternating between frantic and calculated as early Defeated Sanity showed that they could do very well. Gone is the muddy, afterthought production of Psalms, and now we have a strong, sharp, colorful mix which does well to highlight vocals (all too under-represented on the previous outing, though Jens was an average vocalist at his absolute best regardless), interesting drum fills and pummeling slams with equal aplomb...this mixing job is pretty fantastic, and, though the band still has a penchant for going off their collective rockers with improvised syncopated jazz sections bearing only tangential relation to other songwriting aspects, at least the jazz is interesting and amusing this time rather than just stupid.

There are really quite a lot of insane slams on this; I love the renewed sense of focus on this album. Around 25 seconds into the third track, "Carnal Deliverance", there is a sequence of intense slams complemented by splashes of interesting drumming and even some bass highlights. Everything is heavy, brutal and barbaric, but it doesn't sacrifice intelligence for, well...anything. It's like there is 400% brutal death metal here, and there are no concessions given to any one style, songwriting aspect or aesthetic. It's pure fucking heavy, balls-out death metal with interesting songs, well-placed breaks to headbang slowly, and subsequent returns to well-flowing fastness. In other words, it just makes fucking sense; yet, ironically, it is fresh and unique and intelligent enough to be "ahead of the curve" in slam.

Bass takes the forefront instead of guitar in the first minute and a half of "Engulfed In Excruciation", with one riff pushing bass so far to the front that it is playing the rhythmic riff and the guitar is reduced to crumbling noise...inventive and interesting, that's the name of the game on Chapters of Repugnance...an absolutely crushing slam follows, with disturbing vocals, all reverbed and layered into a mire of hateful brutality. There is nothing indistinct, nothing muddy, nothing odd or out-of-place...this is DS coming into their own, far better than Psalms showed them to be, fans of that album be damned! (Just kidding, don't kill me.)

The last minute of "Coerced Into Idolatry" has a funeral slam™, which, for those of you who don't follow the blog, is a slam that either begins at the normal, average pace of the song and descends sharply into hanging chords punctuated by equally slow drums; essentially the equivalent of a sonic bludgeoning...or one that comes out of absolutely nowhere in the most ludicrous, whiplash-inducing way possible. This one is of the latter variety, and melds nicely into the equally funereal and cosmic outro sample. A+ for that one. "Blissfully Exsanguinated" features the worst vocal performance so far, but the blasting and fills more than make up for that lacking aspect, along with more bass highlights! The outro sample, however, is a bit overbearing; a sort of suspenseful, fading and dark string-enhanced bit that is kind of unnecessary. The shortest song is up next, "Calculated Barbarity", which features a blurry main riff and some furious drum and vocal delivery, but which doesn't really stand out for any particular reason, other than the total Suffocation + Devourment worship it generally exudes.

"Lurid Assimilation" is, well, fucking huge. I'm pretty sure experiencing this live would kill multiple people, and it irritates me that I saw them when they had Jens on vocals and they weren't this tight and excellent (on stage anyway). I recall being utterly mystified at the sample of "Salacious Affinity", and I am really glad that my high hopes for this album came true. This track features a very, very long breakdown that leads us right to the end of the song in a fashion most similar to Devourment's "Field Of The Impaled"...I love it. It's awesome. It's brutal. It's Defeated fucking Sanity, and they are back with a vengeance. Highly recommended.

Vulvectomy - Post-Abortion Slut Fuck (Sevared Records; 2010)

2010-04-10T23:45:00.000-04:00

Everyone's favorite Italian slam gang are back with their sophomore album Post-Abortion Slut Fuck. Vulvectomy's first album Putrescent Clitoral Fermentation, which came out back in 2007, was pretty good so I was excited to listen to this one. Putrescent Clitoral Fermentation is a sentimental favorite of mine because of its almost goofy devotion to slam, both in the music, which was full of stompy, slow riffs, and the aesthetic, which featured over the top gore and the phrase "SLAM TILL U CUM" (I still love saying that).

Post-Abortion Slut Fuck finds the band sticking with a lot of what made me like them including the crazy gore (just look at the title!) and heavy and catchy slams. The first album often had very stark contrasts between different riffs which worked alright, but would've been less forgivable on a second album. This album is a lot groovier instead, as the slams tend to flow into one another more naturally than the first album. The drum programming is also much improved and does not negatively impact the album in any noticeable way. Post-Abortion Slut Fuck is characterized by a near constant mid-paced groove that should have your head bobbing the whole time. The vocals are also top-notch gutturals and Vulvectomy even throw in a little vocal solo which I always like.

When I was listening to this album I was struck by similarities to Devourment's Unleash the Carnivore. Not necessarily in riffing style, but more in the generally well done songwriting. Both albums sound good when listening intently to individual parts, or just taking in the whole album. I've also found myself enjoying the album more each time I listen to it, another hallmark of good songwriting. Post-Abortion Slut Fuck keeps enough of Vulvectomy's characteristic crazy gore/porn charm (for lack of a better word) but displays an improved talent by the band, leading to a very solid and consistently enjoyable record. If you haven't checked out Vulvectomy this would be a good album to start with (although both are worth it). If you were a fan before then I definitely recommend getting this. It may take a couple listens but I'm confident most fans will come to enjoy it at least as much as their first.

Kudos to Vulvectomy for upping their already formidable game, and SLAM TILL U CUM~!

Wormed - Quasineutrality (Pathologically Explicit Recordings; 2010)

2010-03-30T16:27:00.004-04:00

They are fucking back, ladies and gents. Wormed are back.

Though it's been around 7 years now since Planisphaerium, I think it's a testament to that album's intensity and thoroughly asskicking nature that people still talk about it to this day, and we, as slam fans, still utterly worship it. Thus, it is with great pleasure that I have received this new single by this reborn, reformatted Spanish technical slam/deathgrind band.

The song "Uncoloured Plasma Orifices Transported" begins with a lurching riff, before blasting into oddly atonal, shifting, looming riff-phrases backed by Phlegeton's always insane vocal spew. It is to be noted that, though Andy is missing on drums (quite obviously, too), Phlegeton also handles skins duty on this recording, and he does an admirable job, as he has done in several black and death metal bands since Wormed's seemingly endless descent into the very black hole their sci-fi concept would be likely to dream up. Phlegz bashes out some good transitions and fills, but the whole thing feels a bit too "calculated" on the rhythm section side; some would say this is for the better while I think I may have to warm up to it a bit. The way the riffs are written, at least, fits well with the way he plays drums, so that is at least a remarkable aspect of the work here. The middle of the song boasts a nearly melodic and hypnotic section that is reminiscent of one of those isolated, beautiful moments on both Planisphaerium and Floating Cadaver in the Monochrome (though nothing, nothing touched "Ectoplasmic Iconosphere [D.1]"'s acoustic section...possible best moment in slam ever).

Track 2, "Undeciphering the Unquantificability" is an exercise in extremity in about the same way the title is an exercise in pronunciation. This is where this single comes into its own and makes me really excited for the future. While the first track is more like Wormed-via-Gorguts, this is like Wormed-via-Wormed, and a perfect foil to the first song in terms of being much more "brutal" and balls-out. An absolutely ridiculous double bass run, with ludicrously low, guttural vocals and a traditional killer slam melds perfectly into the next section of sheer extremity, and Wormed roll with the changes their musical schizophrenia unleashes like absolute champs; and so they should, given the standard most people, including me, hold them up to at this point. If you aren't doing something new in slam, and if you are simultaneously not good at what you are doing, stop doing it. I appreciate some good old slam death here and there but I really think this is next-level stuff for the genre. We'll see if they can keep this up for a whole new album...I think they can. However, if every song on the new album is over 4 minutes, it will be interesting to see if they can keep the momentum going for 8+ full songs. It should be interesting, and it likely will be absolutely mindblowing.

Buy or die. If you like slam, you have no business not supporting this band.

Oh, and Phlegeton is one of the best graphic designers in metal; case-in-point, this cover art and layout.

P.S. RELATED NEWS! Scientists in Geneva, Switzerland just made new headway in their search for the God Particle during a proton collision experiment underground at CERN...they made a high-energy rate record earlier today with the smashing of two proton beams. Wormed's lyrics may not be fiction after all! All joking aside, this is cool news, and I am sure it gave Phlegz something new to write about, or at least some inspiration.

Cenotaph Album Coming Out Soon

2010-03-26T12:13:00.000-04:00

Veteran Turkish brutal death metal band Cenotaph are releasing a new album called Putrescent Infectious Rabidity. It will be released on Sevared Records and Coyote Records. I love this band so I am very excited. They've been a band for over ten years and their last album showed no signs of decline so I doubt this one will either. My sources at Ultimate Metal tell me it will be available by the time of Maryland Deathfest (late May).

New Wormed Single Released

2010-03-11T23:09:00.001-05:00

This is what we've all been waiting for since the release of Planisphaerium in 2003. Wormed have finally released new material. Right now it's just a two song single called Quasineutrality, but this bodes well for an upcoming full length. I've only listened to the myspace tracks a couple times but it sounds awesome to me. The only thing bad thing about this is that the new Wormed CD and merch are all the way across the Atlantic from me and as such difficult to purchase. I love Wormed more than practically any other band, so this is making me really excited. If you haven't listened to this yet you need to.

Link: www.myspace.com/wormed

Dying Fetus - Descend into Depravity (Relapse Records; 2009)

2010-03-05T11:20:00.000-05:00

One of the things we try to do here at Slam-Minded is write about upcoming and unknown slam bands that we like so that hopefully other people will like them as well. I'm going to depart from that goal today however and instead review an album from probably the best known slam band of all time. Whether or not Dying Fetus really fit in the slam genre is a reasonable argument but not one I really want to have. Instead I'll say that I really like Dying Fetus and that they've had a huge influence on my taste in metal and I think on the brutal death metal scene as a whole.

That being said though what have they done for us lately? I think if you ask your average death metal fan they'll tell you their favorite Dying Fetus album is one of their earlier works like Killing on Adrenaline or Infatuation with Malevolence. 2007's War of Attrition was good but in my opinion too opaque and dense to really get into. With this in mind I went into Descend into Depravity with some skepticism. I am very happy to report that my skepticism was unwarranted, this album rules.

This is definitely a throwback to the more groove oriented sound Dying Fetus had in their earlier days. The album I'd compare this most to is Killing on Adrenaline which is my personal favorite. Of course it sounds like it was recorded in the late 00s rather than the mid 90s but the same kind of riffs are there. For those who haven't heard Dying Fetus before what you'll get here is a lot of catchy grooves mixed with lightning fast arpeggios and stomping blasts. I hesitate to say that these grooves are slams because they don't really sound like other slam bands, but they're working off the same idea and they're awesome. Musicianship is top notch as you would expect from this veteran band. It seems like they decided to focus on making the grooves the focus of the songs rather than having-encompassing technicality which weakened their previous album War of Attrition.

Despite all the lineup changes that Dying Fetus has had to endure, they still manage to put out great records and this one is even better than I had a right to expect. I'd put it as the best Dying Fetus album of the 2000s. If you haven't picked this one up yet do so and if you haven't listened to Dying Fetus before this is a good place to start.

Sarcolytic - Thee Arcane Progeny (Unique Leader Records; 2010)

2010-02-10T11:12:00.005-05:00

First of all, I'm glad this is finally out. I've been awaiting it since Sarcolytic's first material (EP and on a sick TXDM + Godless Truth split). The band has Ricky (fucking) Meyers from Disgorge, Cinerary and Liturgy, too, and his drumming (while not being very well-mixed) is pretty great in all its blasting, triggery glory. The kick drum is mixed a bit too high and sounds a little too clicky for my taste, and the worst part of this is probably the poor production (which is typical Unique Leader, to be honest, despite the fact that the band went to someone in Texas for the mastering) combining compressed production with overloud drumming and a drastic reduction of bass frequencies/heaviness.

That said, this is solid stuff. It isn't as "brutal" as the other Sarcolytic material, but, given the more "mature" looking aesthetic the band seemed to be heading towards, this is not too surprising to me honestly. Guitars play dizzying technical riffs, which often collide with the bass (which is audible, though oddly scooped) and sometimes slow into pseudo-slams which are wholly underwhelming ("Exalted Gift of the Abzu" features the first one on the album; just sounds kind of empty to me). The more mystical sounding, open chord parts with Zig's chant-like, cadenced vocals are pretty great and blend well with the concept, one of deep and involved Sumerian mythology, translations of lost texts, etc. The track "Emissary" is a highlight if I've ever heard one; featuring excellent melodic progressions, sick blasting by Ricky and bass highlights...this is one track where everything really comes together for the band, though I realize probably not everyone agrees. In any case, Jon Zig's verses on this song are perfectly rhythmic and well-delivered.

That brings us to Zig's performance. His vocals are loud, barking out orders not totally unlike something you'd hear in more "popular" metal like Nile, which is actually somewhat of a good reference point for this (though Egyptian and Sumerian mythology differ vastly). As previously mentioned, his precise style and deep lyrics permeate this whole album with an element of pure professionalism, and for this he must be commended. After a dramatic (and kind of unnecessary opening), for instance, "The Seed of All Beginnings" opens with a totally catchy rhythm with the methodical bark of this powerful frontman and figure in the scene, and later on there are even some sick layered (and lone) screams which are brutal and adept. Great stuff, and his performance is delineated from other powerful performances he has given before (Images of Violence's Degrade the Shapeless is pretty awesome overall), given more clarity and style in this band. To say he fits this band like a glove is an understatement. In addition, his new art for previously featured up-and-coming band Short Bus Pile Up is amazing.

Anyway, enough about Zig...this isn't only about him. To be honest, this is a difficult record to get into, and, above all, it is difficult to stomach for a lot of people. I've heard some people get angry because it isn't "brutal" like previous Sarcolytic efforts, nor did they include any of the earlier-produced tracks for this album or even re-record them. It seems like this is an entirely new chapter for a progressing, evolving band, and something evolution intimidates and drives people away. I think this is great stuff, not meant for "slammers" per se because the slamming parts are both few-and-far-between and honestly pretty lame, but it isn't meant to be seen as a part of the TXDM slam scene (or whatever's left of it at this point, I guess), so I think this argument is moot. As with all art, it should be received on its own merits; a solid modern death metal album in the vein of Nile, Internal Suffering and various other chaotic, blasting bands with esoteric lyrics and songwriting styles. In other words, I'd categorize this as "brutal death metal for the traditional modern death metal crowd", which isn't really a bad thing at all. Given the rate this band progresses/changes, I'd expect the next album to be even more different.

P.S. great album cover and layout! Points for aesthetic development and conceptualization are not at all a concept lost on me!

Engaged in Mutilating - Population: Zero (Comatose Music; 2009)

2010-02-03T00:00:00.000-05:00

Texas has rightfully earned itself a hallowed place in brutal death metal history. It was pretty much the place for this style of metal in the late 90s/early 00s. So when I came across Engaged in Mutilating, a band made up of TXDM veterans, I was intrigued. Population: Zero is Engaged in Mutilating's first full length but the band includes members of Putrilage and Exulcerate.

On this album Engaged in Mutilating have departed from the typical TXDM chug and slam formula pioneered a decade ago. Instead they have opted for a more melodic, atmospheric, riff filled sound. Brutality is achieved through a constant array of cascading melodies backed up by expert gutturals and pounding drums. This approach reminds me a lot of Inveracity's excellent 2007 album Extermination of Millions. Also like Extermination of Millions is the post-apocalyptic aesthetic which I think fit very well with that more drawn out, atmospheric brutality.

Engaged in Mutilating have a lot of things going for them then, but did they make a good album? My answer is a disappointed "not quite". I really wanted to like this album but it just never got really interesting. Engaged in Mutilating spend a lot of time playing intricate, atmospheric riffs, but I was never drawn in. Nothing grabbed me. Occasionally they would play a cool solo or dive from a fast riff to a good slow chug, but these moments were too few and far between. The songs on this album felt like riffs being played in a row, rather than self contained entities. All the parts were here to make a great album, the songwriting just did not take advantage of this.

I don't want to sound like I'm bashing this album which did have some good moments. It's just a disappointment that it didn't have more of those moments.

Vomit the Soul - Apostles of Inexpression (Unique Leader Records; 2009)

2010-01-22T18:08:00.010-05:00

With Apostles of Inexpression Vomit the Soul have released their second full length and first in five years.This album came out last summer but I'm a little behind the times so I only got it towards the end of 2009 and I've procrastinated in reviewing until now. I really should not have waited so long because this is an excellent album and in my view a step up from their previous album.

Apostles of Inexpression at its base is a stompy, bouncy slam album that Vomit the Soul have filled out with impressive technical flourishes. Every song on this album is well written and there's never a dull moment. The songwriting is very fluid and Apostles of Inexpression avoids the common pitfall of dull "riff salad" type songs that so many brutal death bands fall into when they add technicality to their slam. While listening to it I was trying to think of what song to use as an example of what Vomit the Soul have done well here, but I couldn't choose one because they were all consistently good. In terms of band similarities, Apostles of Inexpression reminds me of fellow Italians Putridity with its stomping grooves and throaty vocals and Human Mincer with its technical heaviness and mystical/pseudo-scientific aesthetic. Vomit the Soul succeeded with a lot of what they were trying to do with this album and it deservingly got into my top ten of 2009.

If there can be some criticism, it's towards the production. Andy found it "sterile" and I can see where he's coming from. The production is pretty clean and the bass is twangy rather than deep and rumbling. I think this works fine with the level of technicality Vomit the Soul display on this record, but if you really prefer raw, dirty, thick production you'll probably have some issues with this album. That said I think most slam fans will enjoy this album.

SARCOLYTIC (finally) has a CD release party + release date + press release!

2010-01-13T01:31:00.003-05:00

Unique Leader has finally issued this press release for the new Sarcolytic album, featuring (of course) the mighty ZIG on vocals:

In other words:

HOLY SHIT.

Review to come, also interview with Zig (also finally...we've been waiting for a good time, you know!). Stay tuned!

Top 10 of 2009

2009-12-30T11:08:00.002-05:00

Here's my list for the best brutal/slam death albums of 2009. Happy new year and stay brutal and sick~!

Nick:

1. Devourment - Unleash the Carnivore
2. Pathology - Age of Onset
3. Gorepoflesh - Gore Fucking Corpses
4. Awaiting the Autopsy - Couldn't Tell the Bodies Apart
5. Human Rejection - Decrepit to Insanity
6. Septycal Gorge - Erase the Insignificant
7. Amputated Gentials - Family Bloodbath
8. Vomit the Soul - Apostles of Inexpression
9. Decrepidemic - The Void of Un-Existence
10. Pus Vomit - Degrade the Worthless

A Year of Slam...Top Ten Lists Abound!

2009-12-29T23:57:00.002-05:00

Andy:

1. Devourment - Unleash the Carnivore
2. Pus Vomit - Degrade the Worthless
3. Gorepoflesh - Gore Fucking Corpses
4. Amputated Genitals - Family Bloodbath
5. Pathology - Age of Onset
6. Embryonic Depravity - Constrained by the Miscarriage of Conquest
7. Awaiting the Autopsy - Couldn't Tell the Bodies Apart
8. Septycal Gorge - Erase the Insignificant
9. Suppuration - A River of Corpses
10. Insidious Decrepancy - Extirpating Omniscient Certitude

Expect an update by Nick soon. Until then, stay slamming!

-A

Embryonic Depravity - Constrained by the Miscarriage of Conquest (Permeated Records; 2009)

2009-12-22T15:09:00.000-05:00

One of the better bands from the small but growing UK scene, Embryonic Depravity have really made a name for themselves this year. Earlier in the year they shared a split with Gorevent and they have now released their debut full length. While the split was good and showed a lot of potential, Constrained by the Miscarriage of Conquest is an excellent, well written, and well played debut.

This album is brutal death metal for brutal death metal fans. By that I mean, while it does not have the instant appeal of bands like Abominable Putridity or the memorability of label-mates Septycal Gorge, if you are a fan and you know how to listen to this type of music there is a lot to like. Similar to Decrepidemic's debut (review) Constrained by the Miscarriage of Conquest feels like it's a third or fourth album by a veteran band. Embryonic Depravity know what they want to do and do it well. It seems like 90% of the albums that are released these days are debut albums, so it's nice to hear one that fits together so nicely.

The music on here reminds me a lot Defeated Sanity (especially their first album) because of how well Embryonic Depravity marry brutality and technicality. It's technical enough to be interesting but brutal enough that the technicality does not overwhelm the senses and become dull. Other than Defeated Sanity I can hear some CADM influences. There is also a dark, foreboding atmosphere that pervades the album which I liked a lot. Having listened to it a couple times no particular song or moment sticks out to me, but I think this is because of how well the album as a whole works as a unit. It really feels like these guys have listened to a lot of brutal death metal understand what makes it good and they have the skills to put that understanding into their music.

Constrained by the Miscarriage of Conquest is a very well done and rewarding album. It does not have the immediate visceral appeal of ultra slamming stuff but if you're a veteran of this genre there is a lot here to like. Fans of CADM or European brutal/tech stuff should especially appreciate what Embryonic Depravity have done with this album.

Murder Intentions - A Prelude to Total Decay (Soulflesh Collector; 2009)

2009-12-19T14:03:00.001-05:00

Let me just get this out of the way at the beginning of the review: this is a deathcore album.

However before you dismiss them as another melodeath band playing boring breakdowns, it should be noted that Murder Intentions fuse slam death with beatdown hardcore. These two genres fit together much better than what the sideways haircut, "irony" filled bands that are so popular today play. For those who don't know what beatdown hardcore is, it's a subgenre of hardcore that emphasizes heavy grooves and breakdowns (or "beatdowns"). Roughly it is to hardcore as slam is to death metal, so you can see how these two genres go well together. Personally I'm a fan of this style of hardcore so it was a pleasant surprise to hear this album from the relatively unknown Belgian band Murder Intentions.

So what does this sound like exactly? There's your death metal blasts and typical slams backed up by some gutturals. Nothing really out of the ordinary but nothing bad either. Added to this are some shouty yet distorted hardcore vocals and hardcore beatdowns. The beatdowns are more abrupt and staccato than slams but generally have the same goal. Both are headbanging and moshable. I have hard to time seeing someone who likes slam a lot really disliking these breakdowns.

Other than a somewhat unique fusion, one which I anticipate we will see more in the future, Murder Intentions are a solid but unremarkable band. A Prelude to Total Decay is good and has a couple great moments (I really liked the song "Failed Humanity"), but unless you really like beatdown hardcore I doubt you'll get too excited. It's a good album to play when you just want something simple and moshable. Kudos to the band for fusing two genres well.

Gorepoflesh - Gore Fucking Corpses (Self-Released; 2009)

2009-12-16T15:42:00.012-05:00

WARNING: This review may offend people who dislike this album. However, it may also allow you to see it in a new light! Read on if you dare.

First of all (and this is again referenced later in the review to get the point across), if you hate this, I hate you.

Barbarity. Inhumanity. Perversion. Terror. An atmosphere of all of these is rife on the new disc by Nicaraguan slammers Gorepoflesh, who, despite their awkward name, churn out an amazing, terrifying debut of slam replete with slow, thick breakdowns, amazing guttural vocals and some of the best blasting on a recent slam album.

We originally covered the Nicaraguan scene about a year and a half ago and, despite its smallness, it packs a surprising punch when it comes to slamming sickness. Gorepoflesh are certainly among the high ranks, and here's why: this album sounds truly brutal, inhuman and disturbing. A lot of people are finding fault with this album for its awkward production (imagine a production value about as awkward as the band's name and you're probably close to approximating it without hearing it). The general guitar tone reminds greatly of Dripping in terms of gain levels and feedback (remember Dripping's feedback-laden riffs that sound truly weird? Yeah, you get some of that here sometimes) and sometimes even drumming (slightly jazz-influenced fills here and there, plus the snare sound is really similar). It's impressive that anyone can actually get such a dissociated tone from guitar as this, and I laud this as one of the first innovations Gorepoflesh are really working with; when I say this sounds perverted, I mean that it honestly sounds disgusting and disturbing, like something not even made by human beings some of the time. It has a rawness to it that makes it hard to get into but intensely rewarding.

Yes, some riffs are hard to pick out because the mids are scooped and the bass drops are just immense by contrast, but really...the songwriting is fantastic and bizarre. They cleanly transition between slam breakdowns of various tempos, the second track, "Carnivoure Vaginal Torn" has a really intense middle breakdown section that has a weird, old-school death-y structured section in the middle, just adding to the respect I have for these guys. They play with conviction, passion and determination and though I realize this album seems to be intensely dividing even fans of this kind of music into little factions, I believe the best art does challenge people's notions of quality. This is one of those albums: revolutionary, terrifying...every single minute, it's hitting you in the face with more slams you can't even digest, more snaking, unheard of songwriting transitions and more of this insane production that threatens to both bludgeon and stab you at the same time. This is perversion. Slam needed this album. I like the really clinical sounding stuff coming out on high-brow labels as much as the next reader, but I feel like this needs to be championed. It's incredible. Yes, I really believe that.

"Devouring Through Fornication" begins with a beatdown reminding mildly of older Goretrade circa the debut, then transitions into a mindblowing guttural breakdown, flailing wildly into blasting madness with undeniably heavy, unknowable riffs with no tone and no obvious groove. Lovecraft would be proud of this, it's surreal, it's frightening, none of it makes any sense, you can't relate to anything on it in a human way, it's beyond the human level of listening and going "yeah, that was cool they did a little slam breakdown and then there was a faster part". It's all awkward, bizarre and wrong. Like Nick has also said, it's the perfect combination of raw and audible. Wrong and right. And it's consistently bashed into your brain so you get it.

I implore everyone to get this at the nearest opportunity, and if you hate it, fucking good. I hope you hate it. I'll know who not to trust, who doesn't understand this kind of music and doesn't appreciate it on any deeper level than "that was a sick slam, bro." Yes, I am being inflammatory. This deserves strong opinions, in my case, strong positive opinions and defense against harsh criticisms coming from people who hear this and think lack of talent, lack of coordination, lack of focus. You're wrong; this band knows exactly what they're doing, and they're doing it in a way that is intent on dividing criticism and drawing out the people who dislike what they do. There's no reason to pick out songs here, every single song is filled with shit you'll either love or hate; songwriting choices straight from Slam Hell, waved in your face to embarrass you with their pummeling brutality and intensity. If you hate revolutions and progression and challenging art and are satisfied when shitty, overhyped bands like Ingested put out new albums, this isn't for you. Move along.

Fuck everyone who dislikes this, you're all dead to me. Get off my lawn. Gorepoflesh are my new gods. Nicaraguan slam supremacy. This, the Philippines and Colombia. Fuck the rest of the world.

Septycal Gorge - Erase the Insignificant (Permeated Records; 2009)

2009-12-15T17:36:00.000-05:00

Ever since Septycal Gorge's first album Growing Seeds of Decay I have been a big proponent of this interesting and talented band. They gained some praise but I never felt they got the recognition they deserved within the scene. I really hope that changes now because Erase the Insignificant keeps everything I loved about Septycal Gorge while seeing the band improve markedly overall.

Septycal Gorge work by writing big, memorable tremolo riffs contrasted to weird and at times dissonant heavy slams. The best comparison I can come up with is a bizarre, widely spaced Disgorge (US) but that doesn't quite capture everything. Septycal Gorge just have their own sound. It is simultaneously brutal and memorable, something which so few bands can do well. In the relatively small genre confines of brutal death metal, good originality is hard to come by but Septycal Gorge have plenty. The vocals are decent wet sounding inhales again reminiscent of Disgorge.

Where Erase the Insignificant particular succeeds is in the slam parts. The big, memorable tremolo riffs are excellent, but the slams make or break this kind of music and Septycal Gorge obviously put a lot of effort into making them sound amazing. One listen to the song "Lobotomia" should convince everyone of this. If you've heard Growing Seeds of Decay and are wondering how Erase the Insignificant compares, I think this area is the biggest improvement.

This album is definitely one of the year's best and I think all brutal death fans should be able to appreciate Septycal Gorge's original yet still brutal sound.

Suppuration - A River of Corpses (Brutalized Records; 2009)

2009-12-07T18:29:00.001-05:00

One of the best parts about Colombian death metal is that it feels very natural. It is always thick and fuzzy production and all the bands have their own unique sound within the general framework of the scene. On Suppuration's first album Pain and Suffering this idea was taken almost too far. The production was raw to the point of being annoying and while there was a wealth of good musical ideas, they were not integrated into the deathgrind structure that Suppuration was going for.

All of these problems were addressed it seems in the four years since Pain and Suffering's release with Suppuration's new album A River of Corpses. Whereas Pain and Suffering was a problematic album with potential A River of Corpses is a fully realized and fully enjoyable Colombian deathgrind album. The songs are fast and groovy and very catchy. There are the requisite gory samples and the requisite blasts and slams. The musicianship is pretty good as is the production which is a big step up from their previous album.

The faster parts of the album sounded very Colombian with pseudo-epic riffing in the style of Ancient Necropsy and Blaze Inside. The melodies seemed to slither throughout the songs giving making them very foreboding and evil sounding. A good example is on the song "Slut Decapitator" which starts with a couple cool and memorable melodies before descending into deathgrind grooves. The grooves and slams reminded more of TXDM than the band's fellow Colombians which worked well because the chugging style of the Texans contrasted nicely with the melodic parts. It's nice when deathgrind has cool melodic parts but it is absolutely essential that it has catchy grooves and Suppuration delivers.

It's also worth remarking on the vocals which are often a weak point on otherwise excellent Colombian death metal records (see Goretrade). The vocals on this album are actually quite good and Suppuration uses the contrast between low gutturals and high screams well.

I'm not sure if this album is quite good enough to make it onto our best of the year lists (coming soon!) but Suppuration have to be commended for making a very good record and improving so markedly from their last effort.

Also "Drugs, Sex, and Grindcore" is a great song title.

Septycal Gorge and Embryonic Depravity Albums Out Now

2009-11-26T13:52:00.001-05:00

As the title suggests the full lengths of Septycal Gorge and Embryonic Depravity have been officially released. I have not checked extensively but I assume it'll be a little while until they make it to North American distros but our European readers should be able to get these albums now. Everything I've heard about these albums has been positive and both of these bands are high quality. I'm sure reviews will be up here as soon as Andy and I can get copies.

If you are in the UK you get the added privilege of seeing both these bands live in December. Embryonic Depravity and Septycal Gorge, along with Vomit the Soul and Amputated, are playing four dates in mid December. So you can get these new albums and then see the bands live.

Embryonic Depravity @ myspace
Septycal Gorge @ myspace

Repulsive Dissection - Cut Open The Aberration (Sevared Records; 2009)

2009-11-23T21:03:00.005-05:00

First off, this is our first review in a month! I feel kind of shitty that I've been sort of aloof from Slam-Minded for a while, but I have a couple things to review soonish so apologies for getting lost in the shuffle of life...onto the brutality!

Repulsive Dissection is somewhat of an "all-star" project in brutal death metal, so I had pretty high expectations. I remember hearing a track from this disc on Myspace and my first thought being "fuck these vocals", but I am actually getting used to them. They remind heavily of old Carcass or Exhumed and are almost always the very "blurg"-y deep vocals, though there are excellent screams sometimes combined with or contrasting the slurry of gutturals, which I appreciate. One thing that consistently surprises here is the riff-writing, which almost seems like weird progressive death metal riff-writing at some points. No wonder Yura Kowalchuk's known for his insane guitar tabbing ability; this dude can fucking play. Fredrik Widigs of Soils of Fate/MP5K fame is the drummer here and his skills and overall playing style remind a lot, on this album, of the drummer of Human Mincer on Degradation Paradox; tight, fast, blasting and technical, Fredrik bashes his skins into oblivion throughout the entirety of this celebration of the extremities of brutal technical death metal.

Barrett was right to release this, it's gonna end up being a huge seller in this style, and for good reason; it's fucking sick. Songs like "Decimate" have the interesting, off-kilter riffing and sick technical blasting down fucking pat and a few songs have some demonstrative jazz sections that sound a little like something Atheretic would do. The one main problem I have here is that, though every song is incredibly dense and packed with cool ideas, they all sound a little too similar, and there aren't enough fucking slams, but that can be slightly forgiven due to the intense nature of this kind of music. There are SOME slamming sections so not all is totally lost, and Human Mincer only had a few on the last album too. Anyway, I keep invariably going back to HM to describe what this sounds like, so I'd say that that's a good approximation of the style on display. If you like your death metal brutal, extreme, oppressively technical and even a bit progressive, you'll like this. Check it out and give it more of a chance than I originally gave it; you'll probably grow to like it.

SEVARED signs Cenotaph for 5th full-length!

2009-11-16T12:23:00.002-05:00

After a brief stint with Unmatched Brutality, Turkish techdeathgrinders are back with a vengeance, planning to unleash their 5th platter on the mighty Sevared Records! Barrett recently announced on his site that "Sevared Records is very proud to announce the signing of Turkey's most Brutal Death Metal band, Cenotaph!! In early 2010 they will record their highy anticipated 5th Full Length album. Incredible Ultra Guttural Brutality at it's finest!! You are warned!!" The title of the album is set to be Putrescent Infectious Rabidity. Cenotaph's last album was a step up in production for them, but, in the shared opinion of this blog's writers, lacked a little in terms of songwriting from Pseudo Verminal Cadaverium before it. Regardless, we greatly await the new album to see what Batu and co. have been up to other than tireless gigging!

Cenotaph @ Myspace

Suppuration and Goretrade News

2009-11-13T19:50:00.000-05:00

It's been a pretty slow month for slam as you could probably tell by the relative lack of posts here. Seemingly every release that was supposed to come out last month has been delayed or hasn't reached North American labels yet, making it difficult for us to review them.

A release that is available is the second album by the Colombian band Suppuration. The album is called A River of Corpses and has been released by Mutilated Records. Suppuration's first album bordered on being too raw and amateurish, but had a lot of the weird melodies and evil brutality that Colombian death metal is known for. I'm looking forward to hearing this release. I've already ordered the CD so expect a review soon.

Staying within Colombia Goretrade, one of the oldest and best bands in the scene have announced that their new album Mistaken Conception will come out in the "early months of 2010" this has already been delayed once so let's hope it doesn't get pushed back any further. Goretrade's other two albums are great so I'm sure that Mistaken Conception will be as well.

Epic Split

2009-11-08T12:57:00.001-05:00

We here at Slam-Minded have just learned about what looks to be an amazing split album to be released by Pathologically Explicit. It will feature Cumbeast, Defleshuary, Decrepit Womb, Down From the Wound, and Heinous Killings. Other than Decrepit Womb who I haven't heard all these bands are excellent so it should be one hell of a release. Here's some more info and a track listing.

CUMBEAST
1.Cadaver Fucker
2. Grandma Cremation
3. Schlong Kong
4. Chewed to Stubs (Broken Hope Cover)

DEFLESHUARY
5. World Devourer
6. Wormlike Voracity
7. Abraxas Annihilation (Integrity Cover)

DECREPIT WOMB
8.Evolutionary Retrograde.
9.Pathways to Man’s Demise.
10.Bound to Extinction.
11. Impelled to Kill (Severe Torture Cover)

DOWN FROM THE WOUND
12.Beyond the Depths of Epidemic Abortion
13.Drown into Unjustified Extinction
14.Atonement (Disgorge Cover)
15.Liege of Inveracity (Suffocation Cover)

HEINOUS KILLINGS
16.Beating Her to Deformity
17. Vaginal Impalement
18. Only the Torso Remains

Perverse Dependence - Gruesome Forms of Distorted Libido (Soulflesh Collector Records; 2009)

2009-10-22T14:39:00.002-04:00

Russian Brutal death metal has been very fruitful over the past couple years, most notably the legitimate classic In The End of Human Existence by Abominable Putridity. Perverse Dependence, from the far northern city of Archangelsk, are a relative newcomer to the Russian scene but are definitely welcome addition.

Perverse Dependence claim to be "US way brutal death" but I think the bands they sound closer to are the Czech heavy deathgrinders Poppy Seed Grinder and Alienation Mental. Of course every brutal death band can claim influence from the US considering the fact that is where the genre originated. Wherever Perverse Dependence take their influences from, they have created a very good style of their own. Their songs are very short but are packed with furious grinding, catchy midpaced grooves, and every once in a while a super slow part or, as Andy likes to call them, "funeral slams". Every song on Gruesome Forms of Distorted Libido is pretty much the same, but the short lengths and general dynamics keeps things quite interesting. I especially liked the vocals which were both guttural and varied.

Enlivening the cold mechanics of the song structures (which you could probably find more interestingly utilized by the previously mentioned Czech bands) is a powerful, intangible energy. It makes the overall experience better. It's hard for me to describe but it sounds like Perverse Dependence really like this kind of music and play it with a lot of passion. Maybe I'm the only who hears it, but as a person who shares this passion it is gratifying to know the bands I like share it too.

Gruesome Forms of Distorted Libido didn't have any particular parts on it that stood out as amazing but as a whole it's passionate and dynamic enough that I still really liked it. I think most brutal death fans would like this album especially if they enjoy some grind with your death metal.

Disastrous - Slavery of Disgusting Torture (Brute!; 2009)

2009-10-13T22:45:00.002-04:00

Another month, another Filipino slam band gets coverage in S-M! Disastrous are no exception of course; hailing from Panabo City, these guys are here to devastate with 9 tracks of raw slamming madness and 1 very surprising choice of a cover song.

Starting off with a weird, kind of off-kilter acoustic intro, "Rise of Freddie the Blamer" morphs into a slam assault with alternating slow rhythmic sections and weird, haunting leads and channels some of the better moments of countrymen Down from the Wound, combining these aspects with a strange and appealing sound of their own. "Flesh Feast Orifice" was the first song of theirs I heard, and I like the first very Inveracity-ish riff, combining blastbeats and a slightly melodic phrasing, but the band quickly sounds a little tired, including the drummer who actually unfortunately misses a few hits here and there. Regardless, you can tell these guys are out to make some heinous brutal blasting noise and probably don't care about being inventive or technically proficient, so it's excusable for sure. The vocals are also a kind of featureless growl that doesn't have any particular phrasing to it, but instead just sounds like one-syllable vocalizations emitted over and over again. Pus Vomit showed how to add excellent vocal phrasing to slam earlier this year, and they are also Filipino, so it can be done!

"Embalmed and Bleed" has a chaotic riff structure that almost sounds ad-libbed, but it quickly morphs into an excellent slam and lurches back and forth again to encapsulate a lot of what this band's modus operandi is, in a nutshell. Slam and blast, slam and blast. Some of the riffs are more thought out and, indeed, more fleshed out, but a lot of them are amateur-ish and don't quite sound as developed as I wish they'd be. The title track begins with the requisite torture/screaming sample (I knew it had to be on this album somewhere, I mean check out the title). This song is a little longer and more interesting, and the pinch harmonic-laden slam breakdown is akin to something likely to come out of some Midwestern US state in the US slam climate at the moment, which is always pretty cool.

"Hacked Up For Mutilation" has a fucking epic riff in it, and this band's penchant for writing these is an unfortunate sticking point because they're so few and far between, buried in marring and strange, raw production and stuck between actually featureless slams. More great, melodic, driving riffs would help to offset this disparity, but writing heavy, accentuated slams instead of lax and listless slams would also assist this band in reaching a status closer to the top in this genre we worship.

"Desolate Way" is, yes, a Morbid Angel cover...of the acoustic song "Desolate Ways" on Blessed Are The Sick. A very weird choice for this band to cover...it's a song by an American non-brutal death band and it's acoustic...but it's quite well done here. Very interesting choice. I like when bands do this kind of thing, as it also shows influences, and I can tell in some parts other than this song that Disastrous are being influenced by something older than slam (the breakdown in "Vaginal Impalement Sodomy" hints at a veeeeery evil and sinister influence which could likely permeate future works by this band), which is cool.

Overall, this is a pretty good album that takes a bit of warming up to, and one that I have plenty of constructive criticism for. Look out for future releases by these guys and, closer to home, an interview we'll be doing with vocalist Delon in (approx.) the coming week! In addition, keep your eyes peeled for new released on Brute! Productions, operating out of Bangkok. Always good to have a dependable new slam label in tune, especially one with a slightly silly name. That's all for now.

Insidious Decrepancy - Extirpating Omniscient Certitude (Brutal Bands; 2009)

2009-10-12T16:23:00.000-04:00

Shawn Whitaker is about as close to being a brutal death metal legend as you can get. The prolific Texan has been in numerous bands (Viral Load and Grotesque Formation probably being the most well known) and of course is the sole member of Insidious Decrepancy. Extirpating Omniscient Certitude is Insidious Decrepency's third album and you can tell Whitaker really knows what he's doing as this is a high quality well recorded album.

One thing fans of the band may notice right away is that the extremely long song titles that characterized the first two albums are gone. Although I enjoyed such titles as "Surreptitious Misanthropy Voraciously Consuming Rationality Thus Invoking Dormant Sociopathic Desires" I am glad they didn't make a return as it was getting a little stale. Otherwise the anti-Christian aesthetic has remained pretty much the same.

The music on Extirpating Omniscient Certitude could be described in two words as technical TXDM. You've got all your chugging and rumbling slams of TXDM plus a lot of crazy, fast technical riffs. This works pretty well and Whitaker never lets the technical parts overpower the underlying slams. There's something satisfying about hearing a skilled guitarist play an intricate riff and then dive into some heavy slams. The drum programming and vocals are very good and clearly show the strength of Whitaker's experience. The production is also very well done and manages to be both clear and heavy which definitely suits the style found on this album.

If anything bad can be said about this album is that it never really reaches past being solid into being awesome. It could just be that this year has had some really good albums (Pathology, Human Rejection, Devourment among others) but Extirpating Omniscient Certitude doesn't quite reach the top tier. Still, it is consistently good album from a scene veteran who knows what he's doing and does it well.

New Album Release Updates

2009-10-10T13:26:00.005-04:00

We're entering into the last quarter of 2009 so I thought I'd post a quick overview on what albums have recently come out and what you can expect in the coming weeks and months.

Gorepoflesh - Gore Fucking Corpses [OUT NOW]: Gorepoflesh come from the small Central American nation of Nicaragua and were first brought to my attention a while back when Andy profiled the small but active scene in that country (link). Gore Fucking Corpses is rather boringly titled but the tracks on myspace sound pretty good. This is the debut album for Gorepoflesh.

Official Andy Edit: This is fucking amazing, if you don't like this, kill yourself right now.

Perverse Dependence - Gruesome Forms of Distorted Libido [OUT NOW]: Perverse Dependence are another band that I heard about a while back and are now releasing their debut. They're from Russia and have released their CD on Soulflesh Collector Records. They play heavy, death-grindy slam and I hope to buy this album as soon as it gets to North America.

Vomitous - Surgical Abominations of Disfigurement [OCTOBER 09]: Vomitous are a straightforward slam band from Sweden. They released a decent split with Inhuman Dissiliency so I'm hopeful for good things from this mCD. It will be released in October by Sevared Records according to Sevared's website.

Septycal Gorge - Erase the Insignificant [OCTOBER 09]: One of the best Italian BDM bands is releasing their second album this month according to their myspace. Their debut Growing Seeds of Decay is awesome and I expect this album to be great as well. Definitely keep an eye out for this release when it comes out.

Vulvectomy - TBA [Late 09]: The self-professed "Italian Slam Gang" are back and on Sevared Records and will presumably slam us into oblivion with some new ultra-heavy, drum machine backed brutal death metal. They're a little vague on the release date, but it's an album I'm looking forward to.

Vomit the Soul - Apostles of Inexpression [OUT NOW]: Staying in Italy we find that Vomit the Soul, one of the older bands in the scene have released an album on Unique Leader. Vomit the Soul's other album Portraits of Inhuman Abomination was pretty good and other than a weird production (could just be myspace quality issues) I am enjoying their new songs.

Embryonic Depravity - Constrained by the Miscarriage of Conquest [OCTOBER 09]: The best UKDM band around in my opinion, Embryonic Depravity are finally releasing their debut full length on Permeated Records. They have previously shared a split with Gorevent and their new songs sound very good. They have a very good blasting, semi-melodic sound that is always really brutal. Pre-orders are available from Permeated.

I'll end my post here but I'm sure there are other bands releasing stuff around now that I missed. Regardless I hope this helped some people find some good new releases. Stay tuned for reviews of some of these albums and more in the coming weeks.

Decrepidemic - The Void of Un-Existence (Sevared Records; 2009)

2009-09-27T21:54:00.003-04:00

The Void of Un-Existence is the first album from Portuguese brutal/tech death metal band Decrepidemic but from listening to it you would think it was their third or fourth. Although Decrepidemic has existed since 2002, The Void of Un-Existence is their only release other than a couple of demos. Judging from from the high level of musicianship and expert song writing found on this album the years before this album's release were not wasted.

Decrepidemic's style is very Californian in nature, prompting one commenter here to compare them to Decrepit Birth. This is pretty much accurate as Decrepidemic use the swift, cutting, technical riffing and fast blasting so often found in CADM. I'd also compare them to fellow Europeans Inveracity and Blasphemer, but those bands themselves also share similarities with the CADM scene. Other than Pathology however, I can't think of much coming from California right now that is better than Decrepidemic. They really know how to make the fast riffing interesting and not just an opaque, guitar-noodling mass. They also know exactly when to take you from those fast, interesting riffs to crushing slam abysses. Assisted by a thick, yet audible production (which is what bands of this style should try to get in my opinion) the slower slams on this album are extremely good. Also thrown are quick chugging interludes and competent guttural vocals that round out the heaviness of the album.

As I mentioned earlier The Void of Un-Existence sounds like it was created by band which knows exactly what it wants to do and has the skills to do it, a relative rarity for debut albums. I bought this album with modest expectations but came away from it very impressed. The Void of Un-Existence is high quality and a must for CADM/tech-brutal fans.

Extirpating the Infected - Vaginal Saw Entorturement (Sevared Records; 2009)

2009-09-22T11:29:00.004-04:00

Vaginal Saw Entorturement is an EP and the first official release from the Spanish band Extirpating the Infected. Considering that every Spanish brutal death album I have heard prior to this has had Phlegeton on vocals, this EP had a lot to live up to. Unrealistic expectations aside, Vaginal Saw Entorturement is pretty good.

Extirpating the Infected's style is very primitive, yet very catchy. The two bands it reminded me of were Human Rejection and Vulvectomy. The riffs are plodding and crushing like Vulvectomy, but have a lot of jump to them like Human Rejection. This should get your head banging. There's also a cool guitar solo over slam riffs in one of the songs which I always like. A criticism here is that although there are a lot of good riffs throughout the EP, a lot of them feel very unoriginal. I know it's slam and some of that is to be expected, but considering the fact that Extirpating the Infected show that they can write a lot of good original riffs, it would've been better if they had not filled in the gaps with B-Grade slams we've all heard a million times. Also, since this is an EP it is very short and consequently it would be better if each song was full of good ideas since the number of songs is small compared to a full length.

That said, the good ideas definitely outweigh the bland ones, and even after years of listening to slam I still can't help but still kind of like those overplayed riffs. Vaginal Saw Entorturement is a worthwhile EP that should appeal to most slam fans, especially those into the more primitive and groovy bands.

Meshiha unleash rehearsal recording video on Youtube!

2009-09-20T23:07:00.002-04:00

Ever wonder where the founding members of Devourment went after MTD/1.3.8? They stopped doing anything for a while, became born again Christians, and formed Meshiha. Nick and I both think this sounds terminally decent (and it isn't very slammy, really) but we'll wait for a proper recording to surface to make a real judgment...wanna see if you agree/disagree with our current call? Watch below!

Short Bus Pile Up - Promo 2009

2009-09-17T22:49:00.005-04:00

SBPU are, as of this review, signed to the mighty Sevared Records which means that they don't even need our fucking help at all! But, we'll do them a favor (a late one, however) and review this actually quite strong promo.

Short Bus Pile Up may have a dumb name (which they should change, but whatever), but they began as goofy cybergrind that didn't take itself seriously and, indeed, they even claimed it as a joke project. It seems that some time in 2008 they started to become more serious and changed style to slam, which they continue with on this release.

"Gagging on Dick", the very lovely first track, begins with a lame sample and launches into surprisingly chunky, meaty slamming riffs with one of the fucking best snare sounds in slam that I've heard recently. It's up-front, pingy, reverbed and just generally awesome. It makes the slams (which are written quite well and structured equally tactfully) that much more satisfying. Track 2, "Fecal Matters" features more discernible vocals (though they're still basically incomprehensible) and a really great bass-bomb-to-slam section in the middle after a lame sample (stop doing this!!). I had my own doubts about this promo, to be honest, but they have been allayed quite well by the material here. The best titled track here has one of the best sections, this being the third one, "FUBAR (Felt Up By A Retard)" which has a stop-start-ish riff which reminds of general modern death metal and a rapid-fire vocal delivery slam which rolls the song forward into a recapitulation of the previous section with a minor change-up. The songwriting is kind of unfocused here but the sections written in are often of very high quality and thus I can't really fault them too much.

This promo is 5 songs in under ten minutes, which I find to be a length I like to consider "problematic". Since I mentioned previously that I think their songwriting is shoddy, I have to quickly make an aside to what I feel my greatest point of contention is here; undeveloped slams and underdeveloped songs in general. The band writes better slam than, say, Dysentery or Sexcrement, but, while their slam sections are powerful and kickass and their general creativity is very much alive and well, they don't seem to know how to keep a song going at the same powerful level. I wish these guys would strive to write longer, more developed songs in their same style. That's about my only problem here. Otherwise, great little promo and I look forward to the new one Barrett puts out.

Oh, and if you guys change the snare tone I'll be really angry with you.

That is all.

We're Still Around / New Russian Slam

2009-09-15T19:21:00.003-04:00

Sorry for the lack of posts the past couple of weeks people. It's the start of a new school year for both Andy and I and that has taken up a lot of our time. I just received a bunch of CDs in the mail however and I know Andy has some new things planned so keep an eye for new content in the coming weeks.

And just so this post isn't a complete waste, I'll talk about Weakness, a pretty good new slam band from Russia. They're very new and all they've released is a two song demo which came out this year. However they have already been signed to Pathologically Explicit Records and judging by the songs on their myspace this was a very good decision by PER. Weakness sound really heavy and have a lot of great slams reminiscent of both other Russian slam bands (Abominable Putridity, Katalepsy) as well as a couple good stop-start and evil sounding riffs that reminded me of the new Human Rejection album. Considering they are a demo level band I was very impressed by their songwriting and overall sound. Check out their myspace and see what you think.

Weakness @ Myspace

Infernal Revulsion - Dead But Breathing (Revenge Productions; 2009)

2009-08-30T21:12:00.003-04:00

With Dead But Breathing Infernal Revulsion have finally released a follow up to their excellent debut album Devastate Under Hallucination which came out in 2007. Devastate Under Hallucination is a personal favorite of mine and I think because of that Dead But Breathing feels a little disappointing.

To be fair Dead But Breathing has a lot of really good moments. Infernal Revulsion's strength is writing really heavy slams. Their slams aren't catchy as much as memorably heavy. The musicianship on this album is very strong and every instrument is played very well. They even throw in a couple cool solos. The album as a whole feels very menacing and mean (in a good way). The production is very full and thick sounding which helps add weight to the build up and execution of the mammoth slams that Infernal Revulsion employ.

What disappointed me though is that Infernal Revulsion pretty much wrote the same album as their debut, they just didn't do it as well. Both are eight songs long, both have an instrumental intro and basically the songwriting is the same. It's hard to put my finger on exactly what is wrong, but it's just not as good. If Dead But Breathing had been their first album and Devastate Under Hallucination had been their second, I would've praised them for having a decent debut and an awesome second album that improved nicely on the formula from the first album. Unfortunately it is the other way around.

Although this isn't a bad album by any stretch of the imagination, you can get the same but better from their debut.

Amputated Genitals - Family Bloodbath (Gore and Blood; 2009)

2009-08-29T21:33:00.004-04:00

Bringing us back to another familiar and equally awesome scene, Amputated Genitals, veterans of slamming sickness, return with a new album full of forward-charging blastfests, interesting angular riffage and some of the best vocals in the entire country courtesy of one Sebastian Guarin. Nick and I spoke to guitarist/bassist Dan Paz (who also runs Gore and Blood and is an ex-member of infamous Colombian gore squad Purulent) at MDF and when he informed us that this would see the light of day merely weeks from when we spoke, we were (needless to say) fucking psyched! All of our expectations seem to have been very highly fulfilled here, as this is a sick follow-up to the band's lone previous album, the awesome Human Meat Gluttony.

Right off the bat, we're hit with a section that reminds immediately of early Disgorge (US), with Guarin pulling off his best Matti Way impression (and a damn good one at that) while the band chugs with a rhythm sounding like it was lifted straight off She Lay Gutted with better production; a promising start, for sure. The band doesn't lose steam as they barrel through the next track, the awesomely/awkwardly titled "The Butcher's Kindergarten" and land square in the middle of a chugging slam section with perfect fluidity; these guys know how to write brutal music, that's for sure.

Let's talk about the production for a second. This is both a sticking point and a huge plus for the band. Human Meat Gluttony featured a very claustrophobic sound with an at times hard to discern guitar tone which didn't allow for the clarity of certain excellent riffs (the typical Colombian semi-epic/melodic riffing lots of bands are known for, and which AmpGen are pretty much gods of). Finding them was very rewarding, but I think this release is a bit more satisfying because, well, the tone is a lot sharper and clearer. Maybe people will find this to be a point of contention, which is why I mentioned that it may not be a unanimously agreed-upon improvement, but after a couple listens, the razor-sharpness of the new production starts to sink in and things make more sense. There's an extended "clear riff" section right in the first song that I believe proves my point fairly well; it's a well-written riff, well-played, and we can actually hear it easily this time! Points for that from me. The advance single from the album, "Murder Kit" is a raging track full of interesting (if a bit low-key) chainsaw-riffs, all blurring together under the spastic drumming to form a quite narrative song about serial murder (with a great breakdown riff section to boot; catchy, even).

Continuing on, the band barely ever does anything uninteresting on this entire album, though the full-frontal extremity could be seen as slightly overbearing at times. Alas, as slam/brutal death metal listeners, we love the extremity and thus it's not a big deal that Beto never stops pounding on the double bass, etc.! Speaking of the drumming, even though it's kind of loud on here (as Beto usually is; see Ancient Necropsy for more of his work), it's improved on the style displayed on the debut, with more fills and with some amazing gravity blasting (which I usually don't like, mind you)...there's a really fucking brutal drum/riff combo part in "Bloody Justice" that makes me want to murder a bunch of innocent people, so if that's your thing, get this now. Right now.

If you're not initiated into the cult that is Colombian slam and instead lean towards the more "clean"/clinical side of the spectrum (i.e. Abominable Putridity, Inveracity, Awaiting the Autopsy, Pathology even!), this probably won't change your mind and might even seem boring. However, to those who love their slamming brutality raw, unadulterated and putrefied, seek out this one; you will not regret it. Bonus points if you own an Amputated Genitals keychain given to you by Dan at a certain deathfest...OK, we'll stop rubbing it in. Buy or die, of course; this is legitimate Colombian sickness and you know it, so stop kidding yourself. Even the booklet is awesome (glossy, 8 page, full color just like HMG sans incredibly icky red/green Christmas color palette) and the artwork hilariously gruesome. Also, the opening track is the first slam song to ever have the words "My best friend" in it, and boy does it get unfriendly right after that. Unfriendly...that's what this is; anti-social, sick and insane music...just what we like!

P.S. one thing I have against this is it doesn't have a part like "I'LL DEVOUR YOUR FUCKING GUTS UNTIL VOMIT" like HMG did...you know what I'm talking about...you know you shit yourself when you first heard it. Makes me sad, but that gives me enough reason to play both of these albums a ton, anyway!

Pus Vomit - Degrade the Worthless (Berdugo; 2009)

2009-08-29T00:31:00.004-04:00

Filipino slamming sickness is upon us yet again this year with a certifiably fucking awesome debut by none other than debut full-lengthers Pus Vomit. PV's last release was a 3-way split with some rather unheard of bands (Jesus Corpus of Missouri and Innards Decay of Malaysia; talk about international!) in 2007, and they clearly spent last year practicing their chops for this one because this is some damn good slam. First thing you'll notice after the obligatory Albert Fish confession tape sample is the thick, heavy production which immensely highlights the slams and, oddly enough, the ride cymbal. Speaking of cymbals, you can tell this is Filipino almost immediately from the excellent use of drum fills and odd-timed slams with punishing rhythms.

At times, this is almost too good to be true; check out about halfway into the second track, "Soaked In Her Own Blood" with that ludicrous breakdown; a real gut-puncher, that one. Next up is the incredibly awesomely titled "God Help Me Rape The Dead" with nice, rolling double-bass verse sections leading up to some great slams reminiscent of newer Devourment and Abominable Putridity, replete with "second instance of same breakdown slowed to half speed and given the awesome drum treatment" action. Seriously, it's just way too fucking good sometimes.

Track 5, "Self Inflicted Wound" has some spazz thrown into the writing with rapidly shifting song sections and riff ideas coming out of every direction, all converging to the central slam nerve in your cerebral cortex...yes, you have one of those, and this is sure to get it pumping. I can't even get over how ridiculously brutal and amazing the drum fill into breakdown on "Dead For Rent" is, so just trust me on this. "Your Dead Body I Molest" begins with a sinister riff and proceeds to throw more evil riffs at you until the minute mark where a fucking stupidly heavy slam beatdown occurs. I'm telling you, this is just incredibly good.

It's even perfectly long! I've put this one three times today, and I'm on my fourth as I write this, jotting down thoughts as I listen. Their use of pinch harmonics is perfect, their songwriting is impeccable, the vocals are like a deranged Ruben Rosas combined with the dry style of fellow countrymen Human Mastication and everything is just GREAT. Not a note out of place on this one. Buy or fucking die. Oh, and art by Majewski. You CANNOT lose. It's awesome, it's new, it's Pus Vomit. You will slam, and you will like it; I guarantee it.

Egemony - Baptism of the Unborn (Nice to Eat You Records; 2009)

2009-08-25T13:06:00.003-04:00

Egemony is a relatively new one-man band and because of this fact comparisons to bands like Insidious Decrepancy, Putrid Pile, or perhaps Infinite Defilement come to mind. However a much better comparison would be to countrymen Septycal Gorge.

That's not to say Egemony is as good as Septycal Gorge (few bands are), but the riffing style and song structures definitely recall Septycal Gorge. Both bands rely on a lot of very interesting and memorable tremolo riffs complemented with weird sounding but still heavy slams. The best moments on this album are when a cool sounding tremolo riffs going into a quick, pounding slam section and then right back into the tremolo riffs. If the riffs and song writing didn't give away Egemony's Septycal Gorge influence, the fact that a cover version of the song "Abominated Hierarchy" is included as a bonus track should.

Egemony is not purely a clone band though. Whereas Septycal Gorge often feels very big and open, Egemony felt very dense to me. This made each individual song less memorable. I can also hear influence from other Italian bands like Putridity and Clitoridus Invaginatus in the pinch harmonics and slams, and Deeds of Flesh in the tremolo riffs.

Although these influences are strongly felt, there's just enough of a mixture to keep Egemony from sounding totally derivative. Baptism of the Unborn is a decent album that fans of Italian brutal death metal should especially like.

Asphyxiate - Anatomy Of Perfect Bestiality (Sevared; 2009)

2009-08-19T02:11:00.006-04:00

From Indonesia comes Asphyxiate, new slammers out to tell you that Jasad, Imprecatory and Antraks aren't the only big timers in the country! Their sophomore LP, released a whopping six years(!) after their debut (which I have yet to hear), has just been released on Sevared recently and it sounds really sick! Let's have a quick rundown...

Shifting, stacatto riffing recalls the earliest works of Defeated Sanity, even pre-Prelude..., going back to the sound on the split with Poppy Seed Grinder. Very jumpy with raw-leaning production and a decidedly bass-to-mid range tone on the guitars, the band wastes no time and switches quickly between slamming and slower, tremolo-driven breakdowns in the first track, and most of the other stuff on here follows suit. The vocals aren't too guttural, and are instead probably the most akin to "normal" death metal as most of this gets, as it is mainly straight up brutal; blasting, slamming and dirty. Efficient songwriting shows that Asphyxiate manage their time well and actually (barely!) break the 30 minute mark with some more thoughtful constructions and odd shifts such as the tempo switches in "Gallery From The Killing Field" which somehow bring to mind the more interesting moments of progressive brutal death metallers Ingurgitating Oblivion. Total slammers might be a bit disappointed by this as it is a bit jumpy and confusing, but those seeking brutality in any of its many forms could be pleasantly surprised by this diamond in the rough...it's definitely better than Jasad's Annihilate the Enemy (the obvious reference point, I think) which suffered from poor production and overall very stale songwriting in my opinion, but it's possibly not quite as good or about on par with the Jasad debut, Witness of Perfect Torture, featuring lots of excellent flourishes and with a short running time any slammer can appreciate. Regardless, Asphyxiate blast out an impressive sophomore album with Anatomy of Perfect Bestiality...I'm interested in hearing their debut now to see how they've changed and matured in the 6 year interim between albums. Intriguing and somehow a bit more cerebral than I really expected. B+ for effort in any case, here. Not quite top tier but worthy of a buy!

WORMED to finish recording, begin mixing and mastering new material!

2009-08-08T21:00:00.003-04:00

In a new Myspace blog update, Phlegeton of mighty Spanish slammers Wormed has confirmed that the quartet (now featuring Migueloud of the also-mighty Human Mincer as a second guitarist to compliment J. Oliver!) has just about finished up recording and will next proceed to the mix/master stage of the new songs for the upcoming demo. How the update is written, it seems like these new tracks may be exclusive (as in, not to be found on the upcoming album). You can judge for yourself by reading the press release below:

"The recording process is almost finished,
only a few details to complete it.
In the next days we will start with the mix and mastering,
we will upload the new songs soon.
Also we are working in new songs more brutal
than our past works for our next full lenght.

Thanks for the support, stay tuned!

WORMED"

Cenotaph and Embryonic Depravity Updates

2009-08-08T20:29:00.003-04:00

Turkish brutal death metal veterans Cenotaph have released a new song called "Schizoid Acts of Mental Defloration". This song will be on an upcoming full length which according to the band will be released in early 2010. The song sounds pretty good and reminds me of the slammier moments of Reincarnation in Gorextasy (review). The drums are especially good and are played by Defeated Sanity's Lille Gruber.

Listen here: http://www.myspace.com/cenotaph

On the other side of Europe, Embryonic Depravity are busy working on their upcoming full length Constrained by the Miscarriage of Conquest which they say will be released this September. They have just released the album cover and track list. I am very impressed with this cover and judging by Embryonic Depravity's side of the split with Gorevent the album will be very good.

More info: here

Amputated Genitals - Human Meat Gluttony (Gore and Blood; 2005)

2009-08-04T20:56:00.003-04:00

As I mentioned in my previous post, Amputated Genitals have a new album out which is getting a lot of positive attention. But what about their first album Human Meat Gluttony? Is it worth getting? Short answer: yes absolutely.

Human Meat Gluttony really earns the brutal in brutal death metal. From start to finish it is an extreme assault on the ears. Amputated Genitals have a very thick, blasty sound full of pounding and interesting riffs. It reminds me of countrymen Blaze Inside and Wormeaten. All the attributes that make Colombian death metal great are here in force. Loud drums, a raw sound, and interesting riffs are present throughout Human Meat Gluttony. The first song on the album "Chessman Red Monday" is representative of the rest of the album in that it has both super brutal percussive sections and an evil sounding riff all in one song. Also of note is that vocals are very sick sounding and much better than your average Colombian band.

Even the song titles are incredibly brutal. The song "Vaginal Skin Grind Vomit" on the album Human Meat Gluttony by the band Amputated Genitals has to be the most brutal combination ever. The musicianship is also very high quality especially considering that Human Meat Gluttony is a debut album. This probably has something to with the fact that some of the band members were in the legendary Colombian BDM band Purulent before forming Amputated Genitals.

I talk about Colombian death metal a lot and I tend to like almost all of it, but Human Meat Gluttony is a standout among that group. It's one of the more though out and just high quality albums to come out of Colombia ever. It's not as catchy as the more slam oriented bands like Carnivore Diprosopus or Sadistic Mutilation, but it's got more substance and I find myself coming back to Amputated Genitals again and again.

New Release Updates - Midsummer 09

2009-08-02T13:40:00.004-04:00

It's a good time to be a slam fan right now as there are a bunch of new releases out now from very good bands. This post is about three of the major ones.

Amputated Genitals - Family Bloodbath: Amputated Genitals are one of the premier Colombian brutal death bands and all around cool guys. This is the follow up to their first full length Human Meat Gluttony which was very good.

Infernal Revulsion - Dead But Breathing: Another sophomore album this time from the Japanese band Infernal Revulsion. I loved their first album Devastate Under Hallucination so I am really excited for this. Infernal Revulsion are one of the heaviest bands around.

Insidious Decrepancy - Extirpating Omniscient Certitude: Shawn Whitaker is one the most well known guys in the scene today and this album is the third from his one man project Insidious Decrepancy. Whitaker is a very talented man so I'm expecting this album to be very high quality.

Hopefully this gives people some inspiration on new albums to try out. Both Andy and I have ordered these albums so keep an eye on the blog for review in the near future.

Dormant Carnivore - Promo 2008 (From Russia With Gore)

2009-07-27T12:36:00.013-04:00

Dormant Carnivore are a Russian slam band with clear similarities to the extremely heavy side of brutality, similar to a combination of motherland brothers such as Abominable Putridity and Katalepsy. The first song, "Defile the Temple of Thy Womb (Born by Blood)" is almost entirely carried by brutal breakdowns with very little to distinguish them, and is probably my least favorite track. It's too short to really give the listener a feeling for the band. The next track, "Stillborn Ptomaine Extraction", is definitely my favorite though, with a ridiculous punch-in-the-face slamming breakdown right after some frantic drumming and classic style riffs. The next section has a dance-like shuffling drum beat (really unique in slam, actually, and it somehow works well here) which changes quickly to a section including a new breakdown with heavy riffs and time changes galore. The slam section in the middle with the layered vocals on top is one of my favorite sections on the demo; it sounds so perverted and dense that I can't help but smile when they drive right into it.

I'm glad Guttural Man (best name ever; no fucking around!) got a full-lineup for this demo, as they all sound really tight and can write brilliant slam-oriented death metal just like their other Russian brothers. The third track has a Devourment-esque bulldozing slam section; the Texans would be proud of their influence. The slowest slam breakdown on the album can be found in this track which is titled "Female Torso Snuff Relations" (kudos on the titles guys; awesome stuff...I also love the Myspace track, "Viagra Doping Control"...brilliant!), but yet another Devourment-worthy part can be found closing the track, and thus the demo in all its three-track glory, with frantic snare-pounding and pinch harmonic laden, equally-frantic riffs.

I'd say this is probably second-tier to the above named bands, but it is perhaps one step above a band like Cephalic Impurity, whose demo was impressive to me but whose album failed to really be too interesting (though CI should improve on subsequent releases, I think); this has all the heavy-handed slams you could want, combined with shades of influence from TXDM and the current Russian elite, with just enough of its own style to give it the rights to such a cool name and aesthetic. From Russia with love (gore, I mean) comes Dormant Carnivore...support!

Dormant Carnivore @ Myspace

Regurgitate Life - Demo 2008

2009-07-27T12:16:00.008-04:00

Starting with a very Defeated Sanity-esque riff/drum section, this band barrels quickly into a slam breakdown which managed to impress me right off the bat with its well placed pinch harmonics and generally satisfying groove. The vocals are slightly similar to a more understandable Wayne Knupp (RIP), maybe similar to his more cohesive moments in the past. The riffing when the band is playing normally is, again, very Defeated Sanity; chaotic, confusing and overall quite well done. The next slam breakdown is similar in structure but features pinching at the end of every bar, which works incredibly well and draws the avid slam listener in to want more. And more is definitely what I want when I hear stuff like this. The big breakdown in "Unprovoked Violence/Decaying Humanity" is absolutely enormous with a huge vocal buildup enshrouded by looming silence otherwise; very tense and powerful.

Just like that it stops, leading into the next track, "Biodegradation of Living Anatomies." This track begins with kind of a groovy yet non-slammy breakdown that pushes onwards before very catchy riffs take the reigns for the next blasting sections. The whole song is enjoyable and works quite well with pretty much nothing bad going on. If you like to be satisfied by perfectly written slam with some elements of "normal" death metal and some tech-death flair, you have to check this band out. Hell, the third track, the ubiquitously titled "Regurgitate Life" begins with a Goretrade sounding section of blasting and quick-paced, epic riffing. The strangely placed slam breakdown is indeed surprising, but given how it doesn't work in the context, it's still quite good sounding and translates back into the song flawlessly. The song abruptly ends and continues into an ambient and fairly creepy acoustic section replete with guttural vocals and a perverted sense of "beauty", before crushing the listener with possibly the best breakdown on the demo; absolutely pummeling.

I have to congratulate this band on their production (and writing, of course) for this demo; it still sounds a bit rough, mixing-wise, but the guitar and bass are prominent and have very nice tones overall. With slightly better production values, this band could easily be a force to be reckoned with in slam and have a shot to be signed by the best labels in the business. We don't see this very much from UKDM these days; usually, in both Nick's opinion and in mine, UKDM falls short of most contemporary slam scenes with consistently average or below-average projects that just don't quite deserve their popularity (controversial, I know, but compared to ITDM, the Filipino scene, Colombia, Japan, etc. it tends to be resoundingly accurate usually). The major exceptions to this rule right now are but two bands; the ever-powerful Embryonic Depravity, and Regurgitate Life, the creators of this demo. Bravo, brothers...if we were in the UK, we'd buy some brews for you.

Regurgitate Life @ Myspace