Today classic Swedish death metal band Grave releases its comeback EP, Morbid Ascent, featuring four tracks of death metal and a cover of a Satyricon song. The US version of this release is pressed on mustard-yellow vinyl and can be purchased Century Media.
Known for their debut album Into the Grave from the early 1990s, Grave introduced the rudimentary form of the Swedish death metal sound to a new generation who appreciated the raw intensity of their primal music. Joining a small circle of European bands who were as poundingly violent as their American counterparts, Grave became a staple before fading away in the late 1990s.
Morbid Ascent shows the band resurrecting itself in the present era and attempting to adapt its classic sound and improved technical performance to the demands of a new time, following their 2012 release Endless Procession of Souls. If you’re in Europe, you can catch Grave live on October 5 at Zombie Fest II in Oostenede, Belgium.
Side 1:
1. Venial Sin
2. Morbid Ascent Side 2:
1. Possessed (originally by SATYRICON)
2. Epos (Risen From The Tomb – Remix)
3. Reality Of Life
Exhumer will release their second album Degraded by Sepsis on October 15, 2013 through Comatose Music. The Italian deathgrind band embarks on a full European tour with Psycroptic, Hour of Penance and Dyscarnate starting this Friday. Tour dates follow.
Degraded by Sepsis presents an efficient and well-executed take on standard deathgrind. Guttural blasting abounds, underscored with melody, emphasizing a buildup to a vocal and percussion tirade that brings the song to its peak. Song development is minimal and mostly verse-chorus.
While this may not win any points with those who demand innovation and profundity, Exhumer’s second work shows us material that is deliberate, with no extraneous parts hanging around like at a poorly-cleaned morgue, and tasteful in that all pieces fit together and the song experience as a whole is enjoyable.
Psycroptic, Hour of Penance, Dyscarnate and Exhumer European Tour 2013
Norwegian black metal band Gorgoroth have announced a tentative schedule for their new album, Instinctus Bestialis. In a recent interview, the band stated that their goal was to have the album released by the early part of 2014, later adding that the demos had already been finalized.
This will be the band’s first release with this lineup; having replaced vocalist Pest with Atterigner, vocalist for modern black metal band Triumfall. In 2009, Gorgoroth released Quantos Possunt ad Satanitatem Trahunt, which saw the band furthering their post-millennial style of playing black-flavored heavy metal, relying primarily on verse-chorus arrangements.
Most relevant for their ’90s work, the decade saw Gorgoroth perfecting the style of melodic narrative metal, linear yet intriguing in its possibilities. Simultaneously unsettling and inviting, Gorgoroth bridged the gap between the progenitors of the genre and the many bands that would later follow.
The band will be touring in support of Instinctus Bestialis, starting in March and beginning in Europe, with Hoest from Taake on vocals. No tour dates have yet been announced.
The good thing about the transition to two decades of operation is that a genre may benefit from advances in technology and funding to re-release its classics in restored or originally-intended form. Through this channel a burst of classics on vinyl has emerged over the past five years.
Mortal Throne of Nazarene is Incantation‘s most controversial album. People either love it or hate it, and a huge part of this is the simple fact that it’s impossible to follow up to Onward to Golgotha. That album walks the earth like an ice giant or Norse god, crushing all in its path. How to top that?
Part of what makes this album so controversial was its original production which captured a searing guitar tone but also managed to blend the vocals and guitars to create a stream of noise that often made it impossible to discern chord changes. It wasn’t terrible, for the time, but it made it harder to listen to the music under the vocals.
The LP re-issue of Mortal Throne of Nazarene fixes these problems. Not only are instruments clear, but the vocals are also present with great force. Not only that but the warmth of vinyl is put to good use preserving the color of distorted guitar, bass and drums, which fleshes out this album. It does it all without losing volume, making this an intense compacted flow of sound.
As far as the album itself, my supposition is that the controversy will never die. It has its inspired parts and flashes of genius, but large portions of the rest feel incomplete, like they got sketched out but never fully adjusted and shaped to serve at optimal power. Much of those are lengthy chromatic connective passages that seem to repeat where they would have branched on earlier releases.
It’s reminiscent of Suffocation’s Breeding the Spawn in that way. For confirmation, listen to the Forsaken Mourning of Angelic Anguish EP which follows this album and adjusts details of many songs such that they work together instead of divergently. Several LP songs are on that shorter release at greater effect.
What this re-issue of Mortal Throne of Nazarene will do is to fan those flames of controversy by letting us hear this album with a production on par to that of Onward to Golgotha. This means that with this LP re-issue, the band separate controversy over production from controversy over composition, and let the underground see this album in a new light.
Powerviolence is a con. It’s pitched to us as the most extreme possible version of punk-based music, but under an affinity for noise, it’s a cross between sloppy hardcore and noise interludes with emo-derived vocals. There’s nothing new here or any particularity extremity.
The trick with extremity, by the way, is to make it musical. Any dunce can make droning ear pain. Very few can structure it in a way such that it becomes a meaningful listening experience. And if you don’t want a meaningful listening experience, you’re basically listening to Justin Bieber, even if you trick it out as noisecore.
Horrible Chamber isn’t horrible (heh) but it’s boring. The vocals require long decay, so there’s a process of syllables surging forth and then fading out, which requires slower tempi on the drums which in turn requires a certain amount of oversimplification. The percussion isn’t like metal, cadence-based, but tries to keep some bop under the rant and noise.
Riff-wise, there’s nothing in Gnaw we didn’t hear in the past thirty years of grindcore, hardcore and punk rock. Many of these riffs in fact sound more like rock hybrids, where the simplified punk version of a riff is gradually shaped back toward its pentatonic-friendly cousins. Nothing other than aesthetics distinguishes this.
And while Horrible Chamber achieves a good balance of noise to catchy parts, it also doesn’t really add anything to the life of anyone who has experienced more than entry-level punk music. Thus it gets the most damning of all record reviews, which is the default: it does little wrong, but not enough right, to stay relevant for long.
The guys behind Glorious Times, the book that helped many rediscover the early death metal and black metal underground, are presenting the latest in their series of classic death metal concerts named after the original “A Day of Death” back in 1990.
Unfortunately, this one is also the last they’re going to do of this series.
Like many shows, this has brought several bands out of retirement. This will be the first show of Baphomet/Banished, famous for their brooding chunky heavy metal, and bands such as Sin-Eater who have been inactive until this time.
A Day of Death 2013
Saturday, September 28, 2013 The Forvm Buffalo
4224 Maple Rd Buffalo, NY 14226
(716) 831-3271
Doors at 5 pm, 1st band at 5:30pm
$20 advance, $25 day of show
As you may have read on this site, recently Jill Funerus (bassist/vocalist for FUNERUS) who is also the wife of John McEntee from Incantation ran into a spate of health problems. In addition to battling neuropathy and diabetes, she suffered a heart attack and related kidney dysfunction, but has pulled through.
We congratulate her on having survived such an intense health challenge. However, neither she nor her husband have health insurance and thus, they’re facing some intense bills for the surgery, medicine and several days she spent at the hospital.
The metal community is banding together to help them. Through the hands of Brian Pattison, one-half of the Glorious Times team, a benefit show has been established with 100% of the profits going to Jill Funerus’ medical bills.
Jill Funerus Benefit
Thursday, October 17 at 7:00pm EDT The Forvm in Buffalo, New York
4224 Maple Rd Buffalo, NY 14226
(716) 831-3271
Dutch death metal band Pestilence confirm that they will release their latest album, Onsideo, through Candlelight Records on 11th in North America. Produced by vocalist/guitarist Patrick Mameli, the album is the band’s first recording for the label and first new material from the four-piece since 2011.
Obsideo sees Pestilence as a four piece, with guitarist/vocalist Patrick Mameli joining original guitarist Patrick Uterwijk, bassist George Maier and drummer Dave Haley to create a technical and aggressive sound. “We have gone beyond our human limits to achieve the highest form of brutal music,” said Mameli, who claimed the album consisted of “ten of the most demanding songs written in death metal.”
Following a lengthy absence, Pestilence resurrected itself in 2009 with Resurrection Macabre. Since then the band has toured and explored options for its new sound, which incorporates eight-string guitars and modern metal influences into its classic death metal sound.
Consuming Impulse, the band’s 1989 release, remains a highwater mark for death metal for its intricate assembly and integration of complex riffs and multiple themes. Since that time, the band has drifted toward more socially-acceptable forms of technical music.
Members of Immolation, Angelcorpse, and Black Witchery comprise the new Gene Palubicki-fronted project Perdition Temple, which will be releasing two new recordings on Hell’s Headbangers records in 2014. Arising from the ashes of Angelcorpse through its principal composer and most renowned guitarist, Perdition Temple extends the Angelcorpse concept to new extremes.
The first release will be a 7″ EP with one original track and one cover on the B-side. This is a teaser for the album and a showcase for the new lineup for those who are considering the album but not yet convinced. There’s no word on whether this will be Perdition Temple’s trademark high-speed intricate chromatic riffing or another style.
The Tempter’s Victorious will be released in early 2014 and will be a full-length album with eight new tracks and cover art by Adam Burke. Recording begins in the next few months to have this release ready in time for its street date. The following is the current lineup of Perdition Temple:
Are You Morbid?, the radio show by newer generations to keep the music of the underground years alive, has returned from the dead. This show briefly thrived on two different radio stations during the 2010-2011 time period and became notorious for its love of the old school spirit in metal, whether past or contemporary.
The new show will be Monday nights from 11PM – 12:30 AM on KUOI FM Moscow 89.3. However, listeners worldwide can tune in via the live stream at http://kuoi.org:8000/kuoi.m3u. You can also watch the show happening live via the KUOI web cam
For those who enjoy classic metal radio, Are You Morbid? utilizes the format of long blasts of music centered around a theme, briefly interrupted by DJ explanations and topical commentary. During its previous life, the show gained listeners worldwide for its quality selection of death metal and black metal.
Today classic Swedish death metal band Grave releases its comeback EP, Morbid Ascent, featuring four tracks of death metal and a cover of a Satyricon song. The US version of this release is pressed on mustard-yellow vinyl and can be purchased Century Media.
