Deep Switch – Nine Inches of God (1986)

The NWOBHM movement defined the basis for what both underground and commercial metal would become, everything was present from the gallops, the harmonized melodies, unconventional song structures and the reverence for the riff above all else. The movement struggled with commercializing itself and so even the more vicious bands were obligated in selling out and writing a ballad or a mid-paced rock song in hopes of being picked up by a major label as there was at that time money to be made. The micro-genre eventually burned out due to two main reasons. First was that the door to mainstream success had been closed permanently for the British bands as the media loved Def Leppard and the like. The second reason was that there were far too many bands releasing the same rehashed material while bands elsewhere were exploring unventured paths and the standards were on average raised as the pub rock riffs of most of the NWOBHM were simply not up to par. Enter Deep Switch, a band that appeared in the scene after the death of the genre and were set to make some of the most bizarre NWOBHM imaginable but falling to the same pitfalls as their predecessors.

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Analysis of Potent Rhythms in Metal

Since Metallica defined the use of palm muting in metal and made a motif of using the technique to add more emphasis to the rhythmic potency of their music, less creative bands have followed this route to the point where in modern metal melody has taken a secondary importance. Where metal was once about creating the best melodies and exploiting their full potential through arrangements, it has now become music to be listened to with the feet and other parts of the body. Bands seek to make people want to headbang through catchy Jazz like rhythms. By using one note riffs that eschew melody in favor of complexity and groove, metal has become a literal joke. All it takes now is proficiency with the right hand in playing combinations of triplets, single notes and sixteenth note with decent precision so that the sound engineer can readjust everything to a thousandth of a millisecond. Rhythm when used well is an expressive tool that can convey emotions just as well as melody as long as it is used in conjunction with a well formed melody. Let us see two examples of rhythm that have made fantastic songs even better.

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Internal Bleeding – Corrupting Influence (2018)

If we had to concoct a subgenre that would be a form of Spinoza Ray Prozak Vijay Prozak Brett Stevens sonic Hell, it could well be slam: a death metal influenced continuation of what Pantera and Meshuggah did to speed metal, giving it a bit of groove and lots of chromatic fills based on rhythmic expectation. Internal Bleeding pretty much pioneered this subgenre.

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Rippikoulu – Musta Seremonia (1993)

Its name translating to “Black Ceremony,” Rippikoulu’s legendary demo was released only on tape at the time before being reissued by Svart Records seventeen years later, allowing for the democratisation of this powerful release for those would endure such a bludgeoning. Clear yet rumbling production allows for distinctly Finnish melodies in a simple death/doom form that is derived from the grindcore available at the time. Though this could be qualified as being a second or third tier Finnish record, very few are able to muscially evoke physical oppression as well as Rippikoulu.

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USBM Cornerstone Elegy Records Closes Its Doors

Elegy Records, the second oldest and longest running USBM record label, is closing its doors after 22 years due to social justice warriors lobbying to get them kicked off of credit card processors. The entire webstore is having a 60% off sale resulting in many classic and hard-to-find releases being available for around $4.

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Osculum Infame – Dor-Nu-Fauglith (1997)

Like many of us, I discovered black metal as a young teenager. Back then, this relatively new form of music still retained some of its initial mystique and one could sense a scope and magnitude that went beyond previous conceptions of what metal was or should be. What initially won me over was not so much the heavy distortion, Satan/sodomy or spectacular extra-musical activities of individual musicians, but the evocative potential of the music. Its ability to create mental gateways into places normally out of reach, or as Mr. Vikernes once put it: “to stimulate the fantasy of mortals.”

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Bal-Sagoth – A Black Moon Broods Over Lemuria


Floating between between Floridian Death metal and Black metal in the vein of Emperor with a large dose of the more percussive elements from the New York style. Bal-Sagoth do manage to fuse these elements in a combination that remains mainly in the aforementioned black metal style. An important element that would dominate later releases is the spoken word of Byron Roberts. Obsessed with reciting his long lyrics inspired by the fantasy books that he was devouring, Roberts will at times create a hostage situation where the music is on stand by and loses all the momentum built up, so that he can ramble on and the compositions can’t progress until he is done. Though his perfect diction and deep voice do keep in line with the aesthetics provided here, they add nothing to the music and kick the compositions back to the droning political punk where the music was just the backing track for the vocalist’s tirades.
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David Vincent Returns with VLTIMAS


Once the great frontman that led the charge through many great compositions, David Vincent continues to ridicule himself on a constant basis. Evil D seems to relish in the never ending humiliation his dominatrix wife makes him endure every night. So much so, that for the last few years, he seems intent on capturing that degrading feeling in the form of music. Enter his latest Death metal project, VLTIMAS. One song has been released and is played with the same passion as Azagthoth’s newest failed abortion. Combine the generic modern Death metal sound with the slower parts taken from Behemoth’s catalogue to attract that same crowd of frustrated sixteen year olds. The solo sounds like a drunk Jeff Loomis that dropped his guitar in a flight of stairs. The only thing somewhat relevant is Vincent’s deep chanted vocals that he should use more rather than his Anselmo like shout which relies far too much on studio trickery. Avoid this more than the plague, even more than the pathetic and idiotically titled Abhorrence that came out some time ago.

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Kshatriya – Il Viaggio dell’Eroe (2017)

Kshatriya comes to us from that odd category of bands whose material would be great if they would just stop screwing around with the presentation, which ends up creating padding that while not terrible, detracts from the listening experience as a whole. Anyone who has sat through the first Impaled Nazarene album knows the pain of too much gimmick.

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