“Saddle up, cowboy! The Black Moriah have come to town to raise hell, drink the saloon dry, and make off with your most buxom women. Formed in 2009 by drummer/vocalist “The Mad Arab” and former Absu guitarist “Zawicizuz,” this Texas band peddle blackened thrash with lyrics that paint them as marauding highwaymen of the Old West.” Cowboy up.
“I first heard of Gorgon several years ago, when someone posted their song “From Red to Violet” in a forum thread titled “Worst Metal Songs Ever.” After listening to the song, I found I actually liked it, leading me to download their album The Jackal Pact and do a bit of research on the group. It turns out Gorgon were a cult French black metal act who released four albums in the 90s before ceasing activities in 2001. After “From Red to Violet” fell out of my listening rotation, I all but forgot about the group until I saw The Veil of Darkness pop up in our promo bin.” Gorgon will eat you.
“We’ve all been there. You find a new band and everything seems great. Their riffs are sick, their songwriting is tight, and they have an ample discography for you to explore. But then, something starts smelling foul. They have a record called Incorrigible Bigotry. They have a song called ‘Hereditary Taint.’ They have a lyric that talks about a foreign warrior being ‘unable to grasp the shortcomings of his brood.’ Suddenly, it dawns on you: your new favorite band is fucking racist.” Hate lives outside the Hall.
![Gravehill/Mordbrand – Skullbearer/In Nighted Waters [Split] Review](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Gravehill-Skullbearer-and-In-Nighted-Waters-Split-768x768.jpg)
“Strap on the gauntlets and prepare to get dirty. Two years after their last album, California’s Gravehill are teaming up with Swedish trio Mordbrand to bring you nine tracks of teeth-gnashing, no-apologies death metal to get your head banging and your roommates finding somewhere else to live.” Take your rock tumbler and get out!
“Abominant seem content to continue churning out sweaty Midwestern death metal with a big old melodic kick in the ass until the day arthritis makes that impossible. With a band this seasoned, it’s no surprise they weren’t out to redefine themselves on their eleventh full-length Napalm Reign, but that’s not a bad thing.” Olde and wise, they are.
“Gather round, I have a story for ye. Back in 2002, a Phoenix-based death metal group called Vehemence released an album called God Was Created, a work that escaped widespread popularity to essentially become the little engine that could – a cult classic of the genre, if you will.” As snobbish metal elitists, we like cult classics.
“I’m sure by now you all know that your favorite artists don’t exactly live the lives they write about. Slayer’s Tom Araya is a devout Catholic and a proud family man. Similarly, W.A.S.P.’s Blackie Lawless gave up fucking like a beast for Jesus. Glenn Danzig loves his cats and Morbid Angel’s Trey Azagthoth is a gamer and a Sailor Moon fanatic. In other words, it’s not all that often you encounter a musician (or band) that lives up to the extreme lyrics they pen. They’re just regular, mundane human beings like you and me.” How disappointing….
“Arghoslent are one of the best bands that ever shot themselves in the foot. Their melodic NWOBHM-tinged death metal was both original and exhilarating, but was sadly overshadowed by the group’s questionable ideology (sample song titles: “Hereditary Taint,” “Rape of a Slave”). Searching for a similar-sounding group without the racist overtones, I was thus overjoyed by Minneapolis’ House of Atreus and their debut EP, 2013’s Into the Brazen Bull.”
