“Scalpels for Blind Surgeons is only the band’s third album and follows their lengthy hiatus from 2006 to 2017. Their 2002 debut The Autophagous Orgy and 2004’s Resickened were burly deathgrind heavily informed by Impetigo, complete with plenty of horror movie samples and thick meaty riffs. Scalpels is a different beast and in some ways even better. Support the differently abled.
“Formed in 1992, Sweden’s Birdflesh have left an extensive trail of demos, splits, EPs, full-lengths and bloodied feathers across a career dedicated to fun, catchy and relentlessly vicious grind. And all the while they’ve kept their tongues firmly planted in cheeks, bringing a strong element of gore-laced humor into their thrash and death infested grindcore experience.” The corpsey wind comes blowing in….
![Convocation – Scars Across [Things You Might Have Missed 2018]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/a2655692844_16.jpg)
“In November of 2017, Finland’s Desolate Shrine released Deliverance From the Godless Void, an album so full of death and depth it would have been my AotY had it not released so late. While this year has furnished us with a selection of stirring doom albums, it still falls to Desolate Shrine mastermind L.L to concoct the most immersive and crushing of them all. Convocation is a project that balances L.L’s multi-instrumental talents with the vocals of M. Neuman of fellow Finns Dark Buddha Rising. The resulting debut, Scars Across, is a remorseless trek through tortured terrain that never departs from its impending pace.” Doom to the world.
![Construct of Lethe – Exiler [Things You Might Have Missed 2018]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/a2465526153_10-768x768.jpg)
“It would appear that technicality and dissonance have won out over traditional structures in death metal this year. Highly ranked amongst these unconventional victories is Exiler, the second album by Virginia’s Construct of Lethe. Exiler exudes a grim atmosphere by occupying an awkward position only fractionally removed from comfort.” Comfort is for hipsters.
“Italy’s Psychotomy is a new band with an old vision. Aphotik is a death metal record which is made of three main ingredients, like a cheese pizza. Our dough is Incantation, specifically their material after Diabolical Conquest; this is the foundation for the rest. Our sauce, perhaps the least important part, is the Immolation-isms of Ulcerate represented on The Destroyers of All. The sauce is not slathered on, but plays its part nonetheless in making it a pizza instead of cheesy dough.” Excuse me, there’s death in my pizza.
“2018 has certainly known no famine of death metal. Rather, a plague of quality extremity has swept the year, waging war on every twinkling symphonic injustice thus far. Although, undeniably, my bread and butter, the excess also poses something of a challenge. Namely, sorting the wheat from the chaff; flaying, mottled skin from iron bone. Rising from the sun-drenched soil of Austin, Texas, Infuriate’s self-titled debut represents yet another seismic breach of brutal proportions.” Angry and deadly.
