Check Out This Interview

Hey guys, just wanted to point you towards a very interesting interview with Brian Baxter of Necrotic Disgorgement. It's done by the folks over at Divine Torture. Not only does it point some new releases from ND (yay!), but Brian tells some really compelling stories about his diehard support for the scene and overcoming some severe obstacles in life. It's long, but it's full of interesting and inspiring sections. Don't take it from me though read the interview! LINK

Kraanium - Ten Acts Of Sickening Perversity - 2008 - Pathologically Explicit Recordings

Finally, the moment all slammers have been waiting for...one of the first modern slam albums to come out of Norway. Since very recently (like, now), Norway has been known for its extreme black metal scene, but all that is about to change as these sick fucks barrel through ten simplistic and straightforward (in the best possible way) tracks of slamming, guttural, brutal, sewage-spewing insanity.

Enough with the adjectives and hype, what does this sound like? Well, to be fair, it's very much like Abominable Putridity at first glance. There are heavy slams, even heavier slams, and really well done vocals and catchy between-slam riffs. However, on track 3 something interesting occurs; there's a really fucking cool THRASH(!) riff segueing into some brutal punk sounding stuff, and some sections that literally could have the power to crack your skull in half if heard live. I can also draw a few parallels to this year's (excellent) Gortuary album, such as in the track Midget Fucker which begins with a lame sample erupting into fretboard dynamics and a good-old-fashioned death metal sounding section. Despite the really lame song titles and samples Kraanium uses, I think this is a really well put together first effort from a band that's likely to garner fans from all around the world with its very American style of slam death. Now I'm looking forward to the new Hideous Deformity full-length which should be out this year on Sevared, and that'll round out the Norwegian slam scene for a bit...looking forward to more, cheers and hail Norge!

Band Appreciation: Dripping

Activity has been a little down here at Slam-Minded recently due to both Andy and I entering the drudgery of summer jobs. To remedy this though I figured I'd do some old fashioned appreciatin'

On the docket for today's round of appreciating is Dripping, a sadly departed group of potheads (I mean this in a loving way) from New Jersey. In their relatively unheralded career, they managed to put out one fantastic EP and one extremely good full length album, along with a couple of demos.

Dripping play slam (duh) but instead of just the usual breakdowns, blast beats and gurgles, they add samples of a wide variety of music and other sound bytes. This creates a very strange and somewhat fucked up listening experience, which only makes the very well done metal bits better. This bizarre approach to songwriting really hits its peak on the song "Skydiving Out of the Hemisphere", on their EP. The song combines an upbeat trance number with some absolutely mammoth slams. The juxtaposition of these two diametrically opposed musical styles works to make them both sound really good as the happy melodies play off the destructive rhythms of the breakdowns. It's one of those things that sounds crazy, but trust me it works great and is actually my favorite song. I don't want to say that everyone will like it, that is after all the pitfall of originality, but at the very least one should appreciate its uniqueness. Another one of my favorites is the song "The Interlude of Astrophysics" which begins with the quote "Life is just an interlude to death, you ever think about that?" Another voice replies: "Word son" and off to slam heaven we go.

Some of you may be saying "what the fuck?" after reading all this and I can't blame you. That's just the reaction this band will engender and it's all part of the fun. I implore anyone who hasn't done so already to give Dripping a try and just enjoy the great slams and utter weirdness. It's a rewarding to experience music that is so unique, yet still manages to keep all the aspects of this genre we all love.

Also of note, the liner notes for their full length Disintegration of Thought Patterns... are seriously fucked up. I've read a lot of death metal lyrics and am pretty jaded at this point, but these ones are still disturbing.

MDF Review: Infected Malignity

Infected Malignity were actually one of my first brutal death bands as I blundered my way into the genre via myspace. Two years later I got to see them in concert at the Maryland Deathfest. The only thing that dampened my excitement was the fact that Infected Malignity had changed musical directions from straight out slam to melodic deathcore. Now this might have some of S-M's readers concerned (it certainly made me unhappy), but your worries are unfounded. Infected Malignity still kick ass.

Their set was midday so the venue wasn't too crowded, allowing us to get to the front. After the usual set up and introduction they went right into a song from their newest EP Re:Bel. To my surprise it was actually good! As were their other new songs. Yes it was deathcore, but the melodies were actually catchy instead of Slaughter of the Soul ripoffs and the vocals were a mix of the hardcore shouts (that's the best you're going to get from hardcore) and deep gurgles. They did play Revenge to Capitalism off their debut The Malignity Born From Despair, which admittedly was the best song of the set, but I think that is more a reflection of how good a song is and not on the quality of the other material. I could tell the crowd were hesitant like me at first but they were also won over by the strong show and we were all getting really into it. They were so good in fact that me and about 20-30 (probably half the people in the main area at the time) went over and bought some merch.

They've left the brutal/slam death metal scene we all love but Infected Marignity still get a big two thumbs up for me for their performance at MDF.

Gorevent - Abnormal Exaggeration Released on Macabre Mementos

As the title states Gorevent's first full length Abnormal Exaggeration has been released on Macabre Mementos. Gorevent are from Japan and play decent slam with great vocals (is there a Japanese band with a bad vocalist? They are like the anti-Colombians). I also like the production. It's rawer and thinner sounding than usual, but it works. I'm hesitant to really give this a big thumbs up or down base purely on Myspace listening, but I'm definitely going to pick it up once Comatose gets a hold of it.

Also, does Gorevent mean a vent of/for gore? Or does it mean a Gor[e] Event? Food for thought.

Here's the album cover:

(ed: Both of us are REALLY psyched for this to hit American shores...we'll definitely be featuring a review of it right here!!)