Exhumed begin “European Takeover” tour 2013

by Brett Stevens on May 9, 2013

exhumed-all_guts_no_gloryOne of the first bands to combine high-energy grindcore like Terrorizer with simplified death metal like second album Entombed, Exhumed created an audience for their unique and gore-splattered approach. After years apart, they have returned and are embarking on a European Takeover to support their latest release, a song called “The Beginning After the End” on the Patlapse Tribute Compilation, a tribute to Relapse staffer Pat Egan.

Vocalist Matt Harvey said, “We’re psyched to be back in the olde world for the Summer, exploring every available nook and cranny of Europe and subsequently filling them with empty beer cans, barf, and a hellish racket. We’re here to spread the word about our upcoming record that’s coming out in August, play some killer underground festivals, and enjoy some more flavorful beer for a change. It’s also killer to finally be in Europe with our ever-present staff physician, Dr. Philthy, which will allow us to do our full stage show in Europe for the first time, so it should be a good time for all in attendance. We’re here for quite a while, so we may even accidentally acquire a little class and culture. But probably not. See you all in the front!”

Exhumed will release a follow-up to 2011’s All Guts, No Glory as a full-length set for release via Relapse Records later this summer. The album was recorded at Arcane Digital Recording in Chandler, Arizona with Ryan Butler (Misery Index, Landmine Marathon, Phobia). All drums were tracked at Trench Studios in Corona, California with John Haddad (Hirax, Abysmal Dawn, Intronaut). Commented Harvey: “‘The Beginning After The End’ is something we did during the latest recording sessions, so it will give folks some idea of the sound and vibe of the new record.

    EXHUMED European Takeover 2013

  • 5/08/2013 The Exchange – Bristol, United Kingdom
  • 5/09/2013 Star And Garter – Manchester, United Kingdom
  • 5/10/2013 Franceed Zepplins – Cork, Ireland
  • 5/11/2013 The Pint – Dublin, Ireland
  • 5/12/2013 Voodoo – Belgiumfast, United Kingdom
  • 5/13/2013 Audio – Glasgow, United Kingdom
  • 5/14/2013 Trillians – Newcastle, United Kingdom
  • 5/15/2013 The Hairy Dog – Derby, United Kingdom
  • 5/16/2013 The Garage Upstairs – London, United Kingdom
  • 5/17/2013 May Day Mosh Day – Stockholm, Sweden
  • 5/23/2013 Dna – Brussels, Belgium
  • 5/24/2013 K19 – Kassel, Germany
  • 5/25/2013 Extreme Fest – Hünxe, Germany
  • 6/01/2013 Kulturfabrik – Lyss, Switzerland
  • 6/02/2013 Korigan – Luynes, France
  • 6/03/2013 Le Saint Des Seins – Toulouse, France
  • 6/04/2013 Estraperlo Club – Badalona, Spain
  • 6/05/2013 Tba – Zaragoza, Spain
  • 6/06/2013 Sala Barracudas – Madrid, Spain
  • 6/07/2013 Tba – Valencia, Spain
  • 6/08/2013 Sala La Trinchera – Malaga, Spain
  • 6/09/2013 Open Air Areeiro – Areeiro, Portugal
  • 6/10/2013 Tba – Ponferrada, Spain
  • 6/11/2013 The Class – Gijon, Spain
  • 6/12/2013 Tba – Donosti, Spain
  • 6/14/2013 Tba – Paris, France
  • 6/15/2013 Tavernu Du Theatre – La Louvière, Belgium
  • 6/17/2013 Jc Cerberus Hengelo – Hengelo, Netherlands
  • 6/18/2013 Hafenklang – Hamburg, Germany
  • 6/22/2013 Metal Fest Open Air Poland – Jaworzno, Poland
  • 6/23/2013 Kilkim Zaibu – Varniai, Lithuania
  • 7/05/2013 In Flammen Open Air – Torgau, Germany
  • 7/06/2013 Obscene Extreme Afterparty – Trutnov, Czech Republic
  • 7/17/2013 Vlamrock – As, Belgium
  • 7/23/2013 Metal Days – Tolmin, Slovenia
  • 7/24/2013 Garage – Munich, Germany
  • 7/25/2013 Eisenwahn – Obersinn, Germany

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Incantation announce US tour dates in support of Vanquish in Vengeance

by Brett Stevens on May 9, 2013

incantation-vanquish_in_vengeanceNew York Death Metal band Incantation embark on a US tour in support of last year’s Vanquish in Vengeance starting in July.

Released last year on Listenable Records, Vanquish in Vengeance features over 50 minutes of the band’s trademark dark and occult death metal. Recorded at the infamous Mars Recording Compound with Engineer Bill Korecky and mixed and mastered by the legendary Dan Swano at Unisound studios, the album explores the genocidal nature of religious conflict.

  • July 18 – TBA
  • July 19 @ The Ottobar – Baltimore, MD w/ Acheron, Deceased Visceral Disgorge
  • July 20 @ Fete – Providence, RI w/ Acheron, Bog of the Infidel, ChurchBurn
  • July 25 @ Magic Stick – Detroit, MI
  • July 26 @ Brauerhouse – Lombard, IL w/ Cardiac Arrest
  • July 27 @ Foundry – Lakewood, OH w/ Embalmer, Soulless, Cardiac Arrest, Sodomized
  • August 10 @ SUMMER SLEAZE FEST OPEN AIR @ Scooter’s – Johnstown, PA w/ Funerus, Mausoleum & many more
  • Sept 20 @ INDIANAPOLIS METAL FEST – Indianapolis, IN
    w/ Funerus, Acheron, Decrepit Birth & many more.

The band commented, “July marks a number of shows for us throughout the States. We’re poised to devour your souls on our ‘Will of Vengeance’ tour. Label mates and brothers in battle Acheron will join us for the first wave of carnage. You’ve been warned!” This release and more band merch can be found at the band’s newly relaunched webstore at www.incantation.com.

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Nocturnus launches kickstarter to fund album re-issue

by Brett Stevens on May 5, 2013

nocturnus-thresholdsClassic Florida progressive death metal band Nocturnus, famous for spidery riffs interlaced with outer space keyboards, dominated the metal world’s appetite for bizarre and uncompromising music back in the 1990s, but their music is now out of print.

Their label, Earache Records, wants to re-issue the Nocturnus classic Thresholds, but there’s a catch: the fans have to pay for it in advance. Unlike the usual underground pre-orders, where individual fans order the album and when there’s enough cash the label takes it to print, Earache is using a Kickstarter page to launch the funding request.

If demand is met, Thresholds will be pressed on 100 clear, 200 green, 300 purple and 400 black LPs with the recording taken from the original DAT master. For more information, visit the Nocturnus Thresholds re-issue Kickstarter page.

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Slayer

by Brett Stevens on May 3, 2013

jeff_hanneman-slayerAnd so, after a long time of thinking he was immortal, we have to say goodbye to Jeff Hanneman and hope that all the doubters are wrong and there’s some metal Valhalla where he’s drinking Heineken and exploring all those solos that he did not have the energy on earth to discover.

In the traditions from which I come, the way we handle death — which we handle badly, if at all — is to describe the meaning of the life. This enables us to get away from the person, who is either nothingness or eternity per the rules of logic, and instead look at what they fought for.

In other words, what drove them to engage with life and reach out every day, which are things most people don’t do. Most of us just “attend” to things, like jobs and families, and hope for the best. The giants among us are driven onward by some belief in something larger than themselves or than the social group at large. They are animated by ideas.

For Jeff Hanneman, the idea was both musical and a vision of what that music should represent. He peered into the dystopia of modern times with one eye in the anarchistic zone of the punks, and the other in the swords ‘n’ sorcery vision of a metalhead. When he put the two together, he came up with something that makes Blade Runner and Neuromancer seem gentle.

Having seen this, he came back.

“I have seen the darkened depths of Hell,” the chorus begins. For Hanneman, his sin was too much sight. He saw the failings of his present time, like a punk; he saw how this fit into the broader concept of history, like a metalhead. Putting the two together, he saw darkness on the horizon encroaching and assimilating all it touched.

To fight back, he created music for people such as himself, youth adrift among the ruins of a dying empire. He created music that made people not only want to accept the darkness, but to get in there and fight. Not fight back necessarily, but fight to survive. He helped us peel away social pretense and reveal our inner animals which have no pretense about predation and self-defense, unlike civilized people. Hanneman prepared us for the time after society, politeness and rule of law fail.

This was, in addition to the shredding tunes, his gift to the world: a vision of ourselves continuing when all that we previously relied on has ended. Like all visionaries, he was before his time, and like many, did not live to see his vision realized. However, for millions of us, he gave us hope.

It is also worth noting that Slayer renovated heavy metal in such a way to set its highest standard. In any age, Reign in Blood, South of Heaven and Hell Awaits will be a high point for a genre. They fought back against the tendency of metal to become more like the rock ‘n’ roll on the radio, and to lose its unique and entirely different soul. Hanneman and his team pushed forward the frontier for metal, and pushed back the assimilation by rock music.

In the wake of Hanneman’s death, we are without a king, so to speak. The elder statesman role passes to a new generation, and they must find in their souls the bravery and fury to create much as Jeff Hanneman did, a standard and a culture based in a vision that surpasses what everyone else is slopping through. We are poorer for the loss of Jeff Hanneman, but our best response is to redouble his efforts, and push ourselves forward toward a goal he would respect.

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Chris Reifert of Autopsy reveals details of “The Headless Ritual”

by Brett Stevens on May 2, 2013

autopsy-the_headless_ritualAutopsy returns to death metal on July 2, 2013, with a new full-length album entitled The Headless Ritual.

Famed for their contributions to late-1980s death metal and its continued guidance through the 1990s, Autopsy arose as a band playing a chaotic, filthy, organic sounding form of death metal, which was in contrast to the more rigidly technical “Morbid Angel” inspired bands of the day. In many ways, Autopsy was a bridge between the more structured death metal and the more chaotic but more melodic bands from the grindcore world like Carcass and Bolt Thrower.

Fresh from the studio, Chris Reifert (drums) was able to give us a few words on the nature of the new album, its style and the future for Autopsy.

You’re in the process of recording The Headless Ritual. How do you see this album as continuing and differing from your previous works?

Actually it’s complete and we’re just waiting for it to come out at this point. Musically and lyrically it’s pretty much Autopsy. No major changes, but no rehashing of old ideas either. It’s a big nasty chunk of death metal, simply put.

Will you be using the same production as previous albums for The Headless Ritual? Can you tell us how it sounds so far? Will it be more punk-influenced, or more metal-influenced, than Macabre Eternal?

We went with the same method of recording as we always have, but this one sounds a bit bigger than Macabre Eternal, I dare say. And again, it sounds like Autopsy. There’s fast stuff, slow stuff and all the weird stuff in between.

Thanks, Chris!

At deathmetal.org, we’re naturally looking forward to the new Autopsy. Not only is it another of metal’s legends come back to life in the post-2009 old school metal revival, but it’s also a personal favorite that we believe has potential to revive the intensity of death metal.

Furthermore, this album also promises to bring back the thoughtful and the odd that defined the genre so much during its early days. It was a frontier then and the frontier may be re-opening now. As Chris says, “There’s fast stuff, slow stuff and all the weird stuff in between.” This is a welcome break from the all-ahead-go clones that have made death metal seem one dimensional.

The Headless Ritual will show us Autopsy at the peak of their ability and returning in fine form and fine spirits, as these answers show us. Thanks to Brian Rocha at Fresno Media for his help with this mini-interview!

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Morpheus Descends to return at Martyrdoom Festival

by Staff on May 2, 2013

return_of_morpheus_descendsOne of the original death metal bands, Morpheus Descends made heavy old school death metal during the hazy transition between 1980s and 1990s styles, preferring a slower and resonantly crushing approach to their percussive music just as most bands were opting for faster and more technical work.

With 1992’s Ritual of Infinity, the band showed the culmination of their early demos and live appearances in an album that came to define not only old school death metal, but become the example of the New York Death Metal sound: industrial textures, crushing rhythm changes, primitive riffs in complex combinations.

Many of us who uncovered Suffocation’s Effigy of the Forgotten remember seeing Terrance Hobbes wearing a Morpheus t-shirt. As it turns out, there was another Morpheus who wanted the name; history doesn’t mention them much. Morpheus Descends kept going and influenced all of American and European death metal.

After Ritual of Infinity, Morpheus Descends went on to release two more EPs of a technical nature before disbanding. Now at the Martyrdoom II Festival, where Morpheus Descends will perform at a club called Paper Box on 17 Meadow Street in Brooklyn on June 29th, we will see what this band has been up to in the intervening years.

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Impiety to unleash mini-album “The Impious Crusade”

by Staff on May 2, 2013

impiety--the_impious_crusadeOn August 6, 2013, Impiety will release its latest assault upon the world of mortal beings. Titled The Impious Crusade, this mini-album (that’s an EP for you 80s fanatics) will include five new songs of what we can only assume is the characteristic ripping fullback-rushing-at-Satan rhythmic metal that has made Impiety famous.

Unfortunately, assume is all that we can do. Other than describing the music as “innovative, brilliant and totally unforgiving,” the band has given us no clues. However, Impiety rose to fame for — in a time when bands were “experimenting” by including known influences from other genres — being cuts-to-the-bone pure rhythmic high speed chaotic death metal. Unlike war metal, they kept in the complexity of old school death metal and worked in even a bit of melody without turning into the over-tuned saccharine that afflicts many metal bands today.

In short, people have loyalty to Impiety because Impiety had loyalty to metal at a time when it was unfashionable and definitely not trendy to do so. Over the years, their output has been consistently within this theme, although it has improved, and has attracted numerous tributes. With this release, however, more may be afoot because the band are suspiciously mute on the topic of style.

The Impious Crusade will be released on Hell’s Headbanger’s Records, who promise more information today on this developing story.

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Eternal Rest – Prophetic

by Staff on April 28, 2013

eternal_rest-propheticThis upcoming death metal band tries to explore the style that Immolation developed on Harnessing Ruin but give it additional forward force with war-metal-styled ripping fast phrasal riffs and battle-style percussion attacking in clusters of quick notes. What distinguishes this band is the inventiveness of its riffs and the ferocity of its attack.

Prophetic as a result carries through the intensity of death metal but imports many additions from both older speed metal, and modern metal. Vocals lead the riffs, giving the music a sense of uniformity interrupted by bursts of activity. Drums tend to blast or make textures out of alternating blasts and slower material. Songs often drop from a frenzy into a mid-paced death metal rhythmic harbor in which the band injects slowly played, resonant melodies.

Eternal Rest presents a strong compositional voice, and in many ways, this is what they work against; their language of songwriting is so clear and their ability to craft riffs so powerful that sometimes it swallows up everything else and thus songs seem like extensions of one another. Many riffs descend from the speed metal technique, like a more aggressive Exhorder or Exodus, but others are straight death metal and often quite inventive. The use of gentler melodies to balance the extended periods of furious blasting breaks up any grip on the sound any particular technique has.

Much like later Immolation, Prophetic shows us a band trying to find a way to merge high-intensity death metal with a mellower, almost doom-influenced melodic influence. Eternal Rest achieve this quite handily and throw out some powerful riffs besides. While the vocals may not be strong enough for traditional death metal, and the frenetic tendency may be too modern metal for some, the promise of this band is in its ability to create a mood on two levels of intensity and support each with the other.

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Sadistic Intent prepares “Reawakening Horrid Thoughts”

by Staff on April 28, 2013

sadistic_intent-reawakening_horrid_thoughtsLong-dormant old school death metal band Sadistic Intent, whose members toured with the resuscitated Possessed during the resurrection of that august act, now prepares to release its first new material in many years.

Legendary for its 1990s material in the style of Slayer or Morbid Angel, the band continues in this style with three new songs which are being billed as “the unholy return of Sadistic Intent.” True to form, they will be released on 10″ vinyl from Iron Pegazus records.

Reawakening Horrid Thoughts could be crucial to getting Sadistic Intent material back into print, since the band’s prior releases, Resurrection and Ancient Black Earth, are out of print and the former is a re-release of earlier out-of-print material. If this attracts an audience, the band may be able to re-release compiled material so that new generations can appreciate this classic act.

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Bands that keep making the same album but do it well

by Staff on April 28, 2013

unleashed-where_no_life_dwellsAlthough AC/DC and Motorhead have been putting out basically the same album over and over for 30 years, fans of these two bands never blamed them for not being different.

Instead the audience continues to cherish this phenomenon, as this straightforward, wild and raw music style is the trademark of these bands. Risen from rock music and propelled by underground metal, this kind of music stands for the desire of liberation, freedom and simplicity in this plastic world. It will never go out of time.

In the realm of death metal, there is a band which greatly influenced by AC/DC and Motorhead also has a constant style of music. This band is Unleashed.

Unleashed was formed after the disbanding of Nihilist. Unlike the other key figures Entombed and Carnage whose members were in Nihilist, Unleashed brought the roadhouse rock style of AC/DC and Motorhead into death metal. However as a death metal band, Unleashed has more creative ideas than the old classics. You can tell that by just looking at the names and covers of their albums, each one is as exciting to look forward to as a new Pirates of the Caribbean movie. The scent of fighting in their music also demonstrates that death metal ponders on our existences in world.

The mystic and adventurous sense of Unleashed comes from the extension of the typical “verse-chorus-bridge-verse-chorus” structure the phrasal riffs of death metal. Under an emphasized theme, each phrasal riff acts like a puzzle and combine into an epic scenery. Therefore Unleashed’s musics are richer and more narrative comparing to AC/DC and Motorhead (Before the Victory which completely lost all apprehension of mysticism). To the fans of AC/CD, Motorhead who also enjoy underground metal, do not miss Unleashed.

Translated from this post.

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