Crafting slowed-down heavy metal in a style that verges on classic doom but incorporates some of the vivid dynamics of black metal, Põhjast release their third album, Matused, to a world audience in need of quality metal faithful to the genre.
Unlike most entries in this sub-genre, Matused is not campy hard rock with metal licks and prolonged droning riffs. Instead, it cuts back to the core of what made heavy metal great, with the amazingly adept vocals of Eric Syre guiding a guitar-driven, riff-based band with a sense of how to create and nurture mood like a doom metal band.
Syre’s vocals highlight these riffs with melodies but do not merely duplicate the notes, but instead serve as a separate instrument, winding around the progressions that guide the song and by carefully choosing where to go in that space, both accentuating consistency and foreshadowing change. Like serpents in the trees of an enchanted garden, vocal melodies slowly enwrap each riff and then merge with it, urging the song on to new dimensions.
Matused follows the time-honored metal tradition of complex songs structures adapted to the material in each song, where riffs comment back and forth. Composition resembles a cross between Candlemass, later Bathory, and Confessor, with thunderous riffs interweaving with vocals while drums keep time with workmanlike precision and bass pumps like a nuclear reactor.
What will win listeners over to Põhjast is the quality of this material, which plays with older riff styles but invents just as many of its own, and its tendency to set up songs so that their dramatic development plays out organically and does not repeat. The result, kicked into high gear by the apparently only recently discovered vocal talents of Syre, drive this band to produce an atmospheric and yet powerful form of heavy metal.
I like to believe that every death metal fan has seen a Dan Seagrave cover at one time or another. The man has painted the covers of some of the most influential death metal albums out there – we’re talking Morbid Angel, Suffocation, Entombed, Pestilence, Dismember, Gorguts and Carnage among others. Some of those covers have undeniably somewhat added to the spirit of death metal mythology.
Seagrave is a self-taught Brit, initially inspired by the rural and urban surroundings of his native Ravenshead (near Nottingham). That the young artist’s paintings would fit the imagery of death metal music makes sense when considering how his early influences included John Martin, a Romantic painter keen on apocalyptic and chthonic scenery, and M. C. Escher, a graphic artist interested in labyrinthine visual paradoxes. Top it off with some Vincent van Gogh, Leonardo da Vinci and early sci-fi films, like Alien, and the road to metal doesn’t seem entirely unlikely. Seagrave is nevertheless (and hardly surprising) more into architecture than other visual arts:
I like to see the layers of history in buildings, things like old signs or hand painted fading billboards – that kind of thing, and a little bit of seedy urban decay.
The typical Seagrave painting these days often seems to delve in a sea of thorns or a mess of jagged bark that’s come alive in some decrepit, chaotic universe. Some of his works are, by contrast, highly symmetrical pieces (think The Ultimate Incantation or Like an Ever-flowing Stream). In all his works, however, there’s a penetrating attention to detail. You can spend an awful lot of time discovering all the elements of the cover of, say, Effigy of the Forgotten.
Seagrave’s early paintings used gouache paint, which, while rather dull, is more tolerant of the meticulous. Whereas these early works are reminiscent of morbid still lifes, his more recent paintings – mostly painted with acrylics – experiment more with gnarly shapes, twisted movements and vertiginous perspectives.
Seagrave painted a lot of cover art from 1988 to 1994, more or less until the advent of computer graphics (and the death of a lot of underground metal). He prefers to work instinctively and hardly uses any reference material. He is, as he expresses it, “trying to convey”. Seagrave’s legacy should indeed remind us that real paintings pertain more to the authenticity of metal culture than any Photoshop production:
I did around 40 covers, computer graphics were cheaper alternatives, but I think paintings are far more interesting to look at. And people realize that computer art is as different to painting as photography, it’s simply another medium which is why things are beginning to level off again.
Nocturno Culto’s next project has been announced…and it may not be what you’re expecting. The legendary musician has decided to try his hand at acting, playing the lead role in photographer Jørn Steen‘s first attempt at movie production, with a decidedly unorthodox plot:
Ted “Nocturno Culto” Skjellum team(s) up with writer, producer, director and photographer Jorn Steen to make this future cult movie about a Metalmusic videodirector, Culto, who escalades to making a feature Viking-movie based upon the northern classic Eyrbyggja Saga. Actually a zombie story, the film picks up when a dead Viking breaks out of his tomb and terrorizes the locals. Culto rides a Moto Guzzi, and he gets his Biker friends to help him as extras in this Metafilm about making a Viking-feature.”
As may be expected, the film is not going to have the support of Hollywood studios, so the crew has decided to turn to the community for help in making this underground movie. Their goal is to raise 40,000€ before shooting begins in June. Those interested can visit the site for more information.
The Jeff Hanneman Memorial Celebration will occur Thursday, May 23 at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles from 3:30 – 7:30 PM.
It will be open to the public on a first-come basis subject to venue capacity. All ages are welcome, and paid parking will be available around the venue.
To summarize the above, Hanneman was not only central to the Slayer sound but to the spirit of metal. At a time when most bands were trying to be more like pop music in order to be popular, Hanneman pushed Slayer to be more realistic and yet more mythological, joining artists such as J.R.R. Tolkien and John Milton in showing us occult doom all around us based on the degeneracy of modern people. His intense riffs, angular chord progressions, blazing solos and most of all spirit and attitude drove Slayer, and through them metal, to be more than just another flavor of rock. They became otherworldly.
The band issued the following statement:
Jeff Hanneman helped shape Slayer’s uncompromising thrash-metal sound as well as an entire genre of music. His riffs of fury and punk-rock attitude were heard in the songs he wrote, including Slayer classics “Angel of Death,” “Raining Blood,” “South of Heaven” and “War Ensemble.” Hanneman co-founded Slayer with fellow-guitarist Kerry King, bassist Tom Araya and drummer Dave Lombardo in Huntington Park, CA in 1981. For more than 30 years, Hanneman was the band member who stayed out of the spotlight, rarely did interviews, amassed an impressive collection of World War II memorabilia, was with his wife Kathy for nearly three decades, shut off his phone and went incommunicado when he was home from tour, did not want to be on the road too late into any December as Christmas was his favorite holiday, and, from the time he was about 12 years old, woke up every, single day with one thing on his mind: playing the guitar.
It was once suggested to Slayer that if they would write “just one mainstream song that could get on the radio,” they would likely sell millions of records and change the commercial course of their career, similar to what had happened to Metallica with 1993’s “Enter Sandman.” Jeff was the first to draw a line of integrity in the sand, replying, “We’re going to make a Slayer record. If you can get it on the radio, fine, if not, then fuck it.”
Early death metal band Master plan to release a new album on September and have a new label to host it on, having signed a deal with German extreme music label FDA Rekotz for what will be the band’s 12th full-length release.
“We are proud to be working with Rico and FDA and look forward to a solid future together. Watch for the next masterpiece to be unleashed on September 27th, 2013,” said Paul Speckmann, founding member and core of this band with oft-shifting personnel.
Combining the rhythms of punk music with the riffs of heavy metal, Master contributed an early style of death metal to the genre as it was forming and continued to be influential throughout the development of the genre. Many musicians point to Death Strike’s Fuckin’ Death or Master’s unreleased 1985 album as part of the origin of this genre, which became incarnate after Discharge’s 1982 album paved the way for technique and the following year Slayer, Bathory and Hellhammer released albums applying those ideas to metal.
This summer, Master embarks on a True Underground Warriors Tour with Entrapment and others. More details will be posted on the Master website at master-speckmetal.net/live.html.
The metal/hard rock tyrants in Den of Sin unleash their demo Raid Your Soul With Cutthroat Rock N Roll via online stream in a style of old school metal that owes the most to NWOBHM and American hard rock, but also incorporates punk and speed metal riffs.
Composed of members from other bands, Den of Sin claims to be influenced by Motorhead, The Runaways, Girl School, Saxon, Krokus, Acid, Venom, Warlock, and AC/DC, and it shows in the sound. Rushing energetic verse riffs run into swiftly falling choruses underneath the energetic vocals of LiLi Le Bullet.
The band is rounded out by Chris G. Mezzadurus (Goreaphobia) on guitar and Jim Roe (Incantation) on drums, with Robin Mazen taking on bass duties. All members are remaining active in their respective bands but continuing Den of Sin as a side project.
Raid Your Soul With Cutthroat Rock N Roll aims for the days when metal and hard rock were less serious, more about having a good time, and also gave people a sense of musical aptitude without the pretense. Merging punk rhythms, metal riffs and hard rock attitude, Den of Sin invokes those older times in a new age.
For more information, watch this band on Facebook.
Almost two weeks ago, Slayer guitarist Jeff Hanneman died of liver failure in a California hospital. However, like any event involving people who have done important things, his death sent ripples throughout the world.
First, Slayer fans worldwide realized that Slayer is now de facto dead. Formed of the core of Hanneman, Araya, King and Lombardo, Slayer was based on the merging of those talents. It probably cannot survive without any particular one. In addition, although King and Araya made many important contributions, much of the material that gave Slayer character above and beyond its hard and fast style came from Hanneman. Without him, a vital part of the equation will be missing, and it could be one of the parts that made Slayer much more than just their technique.
Second, Slayer is a form of mascot and leader for the underground metal movement. Although this is rarely acknowledge, Slayer was a speed metal (Metallica, Testament, Rigor Mortis) band who used the tremolo strum to make what was musically closer to death metal, evolving from their more “heavy metal” beginnings to an angular and disharmonic nightmare of chromatic riffs and centerless solos. Alongside Bathory and Hellhammer, Slayer invented the modern style of heavy metal, and by their contributed contributions, gave it guidance and a figurehead. When death metal bands got lost in songwriting, they turned to Slayer; even black metal and grindcore bands lift riffs from that vital back catalogue. Slayer is a huge musical force but now is firmly entrenched in the past, not the present.
Finally, Slayer is a symbol of all that is metal, with Hanneman at the front as the innovator of brooding classics such as “South of Heaven” and “At Dawn They Sleep.” His poetic approach to riffs, songs and lyrics made metal rise up from being another genre about personal drama and getting laid, and turned it into a mythological force worthy of J.R.R. Tolkien, William Blake, Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker or John Milton. Punk bands wrote about the decay of society, and hard rock bands like Led Zeppelin wrote about Hobbits and Satan, but Slayer put them together in the same way Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” did: a mythology underlying existence that explains the shared perceptual confusion that causes us to cause our own problems.
This is why Slayer is important to metal, and to the larger culture beyond it, and why Jeff Hanneman is more than just an excellent songwriter and guitarist. He is part of what made metal, and what made metal a legend. His passing is the end of an era, and the call to us to begin a new one.
With that in mind, we present a compilation of statements by people involved with music who wanted to speak a few words about the power of Jeff Hanneman, Slayer and the importance of those to metal. Some of the following are cribbed from Faceplant or other websites, but all are authentic:
Growing up in a small, West Texas oilfield town, your options were limited: you became a football hero, a juvenile delinquent, or you turned to some form of escapism. Comics, books and most of all, music were my saviors. They became my bulwark against impending suicide. In my early years, Kiss, Judas Priest and AC/DC were my mainstays. Then around ’79 a couple of older friends introduced me to the “Second Wave of Punk”. The Ramones, Sex Pistols, The Stranglers, DEVO, these became my new gods, but I never lost my love of those heavier bands. Living in rural Texas and years before the internet, you were always a few steps behind. You might stumble across a magazine, someones visiting older brother from college, or just word of mouth. So I slowly became aware of the already in full swing Hardcore scene. I quickly developed an affinity for this new aggression: Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Minor Threat, Misfits and Bad Brains. This, to me, seemed the pinnacle of extreme music.
Even in the middle of nowhere, where few of either existed, I noticed the segregation of Metal vs Punk. Though Metal was a guilty pleasure, being young and stupid I still took pride in ridiculing the Metalheads as often as possible. Around the mid-80’s things took a strange turn. The lines were blurred. I was already a young adult slaving away in an oilfield job, on my first marriage with an infant son. My only connection to underground music came every Saturday night at 10PM courtesy of 2 hour radio show on KOCV, the Odessa college student ran radio station. I don’t remember the name of the show, but I do remember the host, Danny Hardcore, a local skate punk with a penchant for all things heavy. It was then I first heard the insanity of Suicidal Tendencies, SOD, Voïvod and….Slayer. And those lads from Huntington Park, CA basically scared the shit out of me. Faster than anything I’d ever heard, the pentagram logo that shook my Southern Baptist sensibilities, and the insanity surrounding everything you could get your hands regarding their fanatical “Slaytanic” following.
I was hooked.
And one of the major catalyst behind this explosion of sound so completely new and unrelenting was Jeff Hanneman. From everything I could learn about him, he was a kindred spirit. I feel totally confident in saying that Metal, Hardcore, Thrash and about 20 other genres of extreme music would not have existed today without Jeff.
When I look back at all of my favorite Slayer songs, I see his hand. Metalheads, especially those that think of themselves as the Stewards of All That Is True, take a particular perverse satisfaction in proclaim everything after “insert favorite here” in the Slayer catalog as shit, but I believe time will tell a different tale. The man will be sorely missed. Whether completely cheesy or in bad taste, tonight I will lift my glass high, raise a toast and give a mighty HAIL to a fallen Hessian who made a difference, and who carved an indelible mark into the history of a music I hold dear.
I am still at a loss for words over Jeff’s passing. Slayer along with Metallica, Raven, Anvil, Venom, Overkill and others were some of the early bands I fell in love with and really got me started into the underground metal scene. The first time I saw Slayer live was in 1985 on the “Hell Awaits” tour at Lamour’s in Brooklyn, NY. They completely blew me away with the speed and intensity of their music. In 1986 I saw them on their ‘Reign in Blood” tour in Trenton, NJ at City Gardens and I dove off the stage during ‘Chemical Warfare” and almost broke my back as I couldn’t walk for over 3 days!!! Slayer has always been one of my favorite bands and hands down in my opinion they are easily the best underground metal live band that I have ever seen and I have been going to shows since 1984. I never met Jeff, but his bands music have been a big part of my life and will be for years to come. Hell when I need some pick me up music at the gym….it is “Hell Awaits” time. I never got to meet Jeff, but his music will live on with me for the rest of my life and Jeff RIP my man and thanks to you and your music for taking me along this incredible ride of underground metal music which will be planted in brain for as long as I live and your band and music were big part of in the beginning and are still a big part today….”FUCKIN SLAYER”…….
– Chris Forbes, Metal Core Fanzine
Thrash Metal lost one of it s best man! The Hell awaits – tour 1985 (where the pic with drunk me is from) was one of the most important tours in our career – thanx for the great memories Jeff! What a loss for the scene! Rest in Piece brother! – Schmier, Destruction
For a lot of us Metalheads back in the late 80’s and early 90’s, Slayer was like benchmark which we set by default and compared (mostly times unjustly) other bands for their intensity,song writing abilities and aggression.The first 5 albums by this legendary band were always placed right on top,any beer table conversation had to veer its way around and come back to Slayer,the reference point always hovered around them and for a lot of kids who were into Hard Rock or Heavy Metal, the threshold moment of crossing over into the heavier,darker and more extreme realms had to be with “Hell Awaits” or “Reign In Blood”. Those who passed the test were branded for life,”Slayer” permanently tattooed on their foreheads,the passing of Jeff Hanneman is the end of an era and unfortunately Slayer never will be the same again,Jeff will forever be immortal in the hearts of the fans, may the riffmeister rest in peace. – Vikram/Dying Embrace, India
Jeff Hanneman shouldered the revolution of heavy music with a unique and original approach on the instrument, influencing a horde of musicians to follow in his tracks at the same time. His riffs, lyrics and songs are some of the band’s best and the genre’s fiercest. His contributions are enormous and should be celebrated and hailed! – Eric Massicotte
What separated Jeff from the rest of the metal pack was his rhythm technique, his songwriting, and that for which he will be most remembered—his riffs. But his frenzied, turbulent solos were also an important part of the package. They weren’t about showing off. They served a greater artistic purpose—to sonically channel the qualities of Slayer’s lyrical content. They were sometimes abrasive, sometimes jarring, and at times disturbing. They had less in common with typical rock-guitar virtuosos than they did with the sonic collages of avant-garde improvisers such as Derek Bailey and John Zorn, the latter of whom is a self-professed Slayer fan who has cited the band as an inspiration. Though Jeff’s wider, more holistic guitar approach didn’t garner the same accolades as some of his more technically proficient contemporaries, Jeff never waivered from his original approach. And the fact that he continued to attack his guitar with relentless abandon—as though he were a linebacker on his beloved Oakland Raiders (whose logo adorned some of his signature ESP guitars)—is without a doubt a big part of why Slayer’s music will always be deemed one of metal’s high watermarks.
If you’ve ever seen Slayer live, you’ve felt exactly what propelled the band’s popularity past those of Venom and other classic-metal influences. In fact, prior to Hanneman and his bandmates’ groundbreaking albums—including 1986’s bar-setting Reign in Blood—many believed metal could never reach such levels of popularity and fan dedication. Before Slayer, metal had never had such razor-sharp articulation, tightness, and balance between sound and stops. This all-out sonic assault was about the shock, the screams, the drums, and—again, most importantly—the riffs. And it was Hanneman who brought so many of the band’s timeless riffs.
– Alex Skolnick, Testament
The only other band that completely changed my life. Without Venom or Slayer there would be no Kult ov Azazel or any of the music I have created since my teenage years as they were the first two bands I discovered and I was a rabid fan. As crazy as it will sound those two bands molded me into who I am today. I can remember walking around my Bartlett neighborhood with a ghetto blaster and blaring this album at top volume. Even listening to this brings back a flood of those memories. – Julian Hollowell, Kult of Azazel, Von
I need to shed some more life on one of the greatest guitar players that has walked this earth and that has truly inspired what i do today.Jeff Hanneman R.I.P. I walked off stage in Paris France on Thursday night to find out that one of my hero,s was no longer with us.He was the heart soul and attitude that was Slayer.Many people would often ask to describe my guitar playing and i would say Hanneman meets Denner.He was the real deal not this rock star poser type unlike Mr King.Slayer dies for good with Jeff and i have not stopped thinking these past few days while in Europe how much his music has meant to me.Last night Johnny from Unleashed made a honorable toast to Jeff Hannaman and i tell you it really chocked me up.Not many greats in the world today and he was one of the rare breed that created his own path in this life.Long live Jeff Hanneman his spirit lives on forever. – Alex Bouks, Incantation, Goreaphobia
Released on the 20th anniversary of their first EP, Impiety’s upcoming LP collects some of their rarer releases onto a single platter for perusal by slamming high-speed death metal maniacs worldwide.
Compiling the Salve the Goat…Iblis Exelsi EP (1993), Ceremonial Necrochrist Redesecration demo (1993), split EP with Surrender of Divinity (2004), and the split EP with Abhorrence (2008), Vengeance Hell Immemorial assembles some of the more sought-after releases from this band’s history.
A special gatefold vinyl pressing from Hell’s Headbangers, the compilation will be unleashed upon the world on June 28, 2013. Less than a month later, on August 8 Impiety will unleash their new mini-album The Impious Crusade as if a nod to this grand tradition of shorter works, demos and EPs.
Salve the Goat…Iblis Exelsi EP (1993)
1) Cuntblasphemy
2) Magick-Consecration Goatsodomy Ceremonial Necrochrist Redesecration demo (1992)
3) Intromancy
4) Ceremonial Necrochrist Redesecration1
5) Pentagramathron
6) Fallen Blasphemathory
7) The Seventh Goatspawn
8) Outroblation Split w/ Surrender of Divinity (2004)
9) DragonOath Diabolus
10) The Seventh Goatspawn
11) Imperative Coronation
12) Invicible Force (Destruction cover)
13) Blessed are the Borachos Split w/ Abhorrence (2008)
14) Storm of Abhorrence
15) Outronomicon
The Ocean are usually described as “post-metal,” but a musical analysis shows that it’s from another tradition: progressive punk.
Remember that explosive trend from the middle 1990s? It’s back, just with more metal-styled riffs, but it’s very far from metal and calling it “post-metal” would only make sense if its origins were in metal. Progressive punk realized the limits of minimalism and so expanded the genre with more complex song structures, more use of harmony and key, and in other words, imported a lot of stuff from rock and the rising indie rock scene. In this way, post-hardcore, progressive punk, early metalcore, indie rock and even shoegaze were linked together by a common origin.
Pelagial resembles an instrumental jam between Led Zeppelin, Fugazi, Jawbreaker and later King Crimson thrown together in a musical blender. It’s jazzy, for the most part light and open, and when it gets dark, it’s dark through repetition of minor key phrases in the type of dissonant drone favored by indie bands. It builds intensity like an alternative rock band with melodies collapsing on themselves, layer in opposition. Like post-hardcore bands, The Ocean delights in putting jarringly different phrases together in the same key, which creates the “carnival music” effect for which metalcore and tech-deth are known.
The cool thing about this album is that its concept shows in the music. The ocean is designed in layers, so why not design an album in layers, getting heavier as you go deeper in the virtual ocean in your mind? That part is kind of cool, sort of like the Mastodon idea to ape Moby-Dick or some of the other nifty conceptual stuff to come out of alternative metal lately. It doesn’t get heavier per se as much as more active and more droning, with lots of use of “emo chords” to create a sense of constant suspense grinding against the narrow intervals used for the progressions.
Compare this to some progressive punk, and then its originator:
Notice the similarity of chord voicings and how they’re used in progressions, and how many of those progressions use similar melodies, and how those tend to fit together in exactly the same way. It’s a more complex, newer generation of the older, which is represented here in its 1990s and 1980s forms, respectively.
To the experienced listener, this will sound like Pelican or Kyuss with a bit more imagination applied, but it’s basically indie rock with a few metalisms thrown in. That’s not bad, at all, and in fact this is above average indie rock with far above average instrumental skills, but there’s nothing here to appeal to a metal fan.
Blinded by Faith shape melodic metal out of the combined styles approach that The Haunted first used, complete with over-the-top vocals, and show an aptitude for writing fluid melodic riffs that don’t end up as saccharine floods of very similar patterns.
Chernobyl Survivor stands out for having these melodic patterns emerge from the otherwise chaotic stream of mixed-genre elements and dominating vocals. Within all of what’s going on, which is a lot of fast-fingered frenzied riffing in the style of technical metalcore bands like Ulcerate, what emerges is the ability that Blinded by Faith has to write melodies and then expand upon them. They also have a really good nose for rhythm and how to match riffs and rhythm to make a song.
The best bands to compare to Blinded by Faith are Ulcerate or Cosmogenesis-era Obscura, but Blinded by Faith appears to be pulling away from the strict metalcore approach that Obscura in particular has taken. I realize “metalcore” isn’t a definition and that most people refer to Ulcerate and Obscura as “tech-deth” bands. It’s an anti-definition, meaning stuff that uses metal riffs but isn’t metal, because it reflects how those riffs are put together. Metal bands use their riffs to glue each other together, commenting on each other and furthering evolution. Rock bands use riffs like foundations, as something to build upon with vocals and other instruments, and don’t expect them to comment on each other. In fact, they like them to be radically different for a sense of change, and rely on harmony (key, scale) to make them fit together. This is why all rock-based music with metal riffs is probably going to be metalcore, much like all rock-based music with punk riffs became post-hardcore and eventually developed all of the tropes we see in metalcore today. Blinded by Faith is reversing this metalcore tendency by making their metal riffs comment on each other, kind of like themes in 1950s musicals, but more intense!
This CD could be many things. Chernobyl Survivor could easily be made into an amazing power metal album. It has elements of the old (real) death metal as well, and could also go the other way and be a killer jazz-prog album like At War With Self. Right now, it’s searching for the next evolution of its voice somewhere in the middle of these.
On the whole, Blinded by Faith have put together an album that helps nudge this style closer toward figuring out who or what it is, which is good because the tech-deth/metalcore explosion is running out of steam. If they continue in this direction, they could claim a place in the next evolution of popular music and be recognized for their strength in writing melodic riffs.
Crafting slowed-down heavy metal in a style that verges on classic doom but incorporates some of the vivid dynamics of black metal, Põhjast release their third album, Matused, to a world audience in need of quality metal faithful to the genre.
The metal/hard rock tyrants in Den of Sin unleash their demo Raid Your Soul With Cutthroat Rock N Roll via 
Almost two weeks ago, Slayer guitarist Jeff Hanneman died of liver failure in a California hospital. However, like any event involving people who have done important things, his death sent ripples throughout the world.
