We haven’t had any old school Swedish death for awhile, so here’s some of that! Nominon does that beloved, old school style, but with much more thrashing, crashing, bashing and harassing. It sure is speedy, but is it good?
Asphyx
Rex Shachath – Sepulchral Torment Review
A band with no past is not necessarily a band without a future. But a band which doesn’t look at the future is surely one which lives in the past. With regards to the present, if you title your album Sepulchral Torment and you play old-school death metal, well, there is apparently not much to be said. Rex Shachath is a band with a good hand playing an old game not many people appreciate anymore, but it does it with style and you can’t help but recognise it.
Grave – Endless Procession of Souls Review
Retro-thrash, retro-death, will the present ever stop being the past?? Well, at least it’s Grave doing what Grave does, so I shant complain. Nasty, slimy death from Sweden can always crash on my couch (after I put down some plastic).
Steel Druhm’s Best Records o’ the Year 2012 – Halfway Point
Is it that time already? Kinda! Steel Druhm gives his picks for “Best in Show” so far for 2012. Send all criticisms to [email protected].
Blood Mortized – The Key to a Black Heart Review
Just in time to wash away the bitter taste of Six Feet Under, comes this ridiculously sick death metal masterstroke by Blood Mortized. Taking the vicious old school Swedish death sound from their Bestial EP and improving on it in every way, The Key to a Black Heart is exactly what you want from the style and death metal in general.
Terrorizer – Hordes of Zombies Review
A word to the wise. Never forget the Angry Metal Law of Diminishing Returns™, because it’s a cold, remorseless bitch.
Asphyx – Deathhammer Review
In the opening stanza of the title track, legendary death gurgler Martin Van Drunen proudly proclaims “This is true death metal, you bastards!” Well, Mr. Drunen, you had me at “this.”
Decaying – Encirclement Review
Are you ready for 2012? You better be, since it’s supposedly when the Mayans sell us down the river and everything goes BOOM! That means locusts, plagues, zombies, more Obama and a new Justin Bieber double album. Oh, the humanity! Anyway, as Steel Druhm sits in his Fortress of Reckoning, stockpiling ammo and firearms with varying degrees of legality, it seems a good time to do the first review of a 2012 release! What could be more fitting than a nasty slice of war-themed death metal from frigid Finland? Decaying got some big Steel love earlier this year for their Devastate album and here they are all set to launch their second campaign in 2012 with Encirclement. Taking the same basic approach as on Devastate, they rock a type of primitive, old school death of the European variety. After several spins, Encirclement reminds me of a forced merger between Bolt Thrower and Hail of Bullets with some Consuming Impulse-era Pestilence sprinkled on the wound. In all honestly, most of the album sounds like vintage Bolt Thrower with Martin van Drunen (Hail of Bullets/Asphyx/ex-Pestilence/ex-Bolt Thrower) on the mic. As you might then expect, its dependably chunky, clunky, ugly and reeks of a battlefield. What makes this notable amid the legions of death is the sheer length of the tracks. As with Devastate, there are some LONG ass death metal songs here (several between eight and ten minutes)! That can be a tricky feat to pull off and while Decaying largely succeeds in maintaining the interest factor, it can be wearing on the attention span at times. If the impending apocalypse make you hunger for epic-length death metal all about war, this is your huckleberry.
Pestilence – Doctrine Review
They say you can’t go home again. If the recent track record of Dutch deathsters Pestilence proves anything, it’s that you may get home again, but you can’t stay there long. Pestilence had a few significant contributions to the death genre in the late 80’s and early 90’s, most notably the excellent Consuming Impulse from ’89 (a nasty, vicious slab of ugliness and a top ten all time death album IMHO) and the very solid Testimony of the Ancient release in ’91. Then they radically shifted styles by incorporating copious progressive jazz fusion elements into the Spheres opus and alienated many fans in the process. That essentially closed the book on Pestilence until their 2009 reunion album Resurrection Macabre, which did indeed go home to their early death metal roots and kicked a fair amount of arse too. Now, we get their second post-reformation platter and much to my chagrin, back comes the progressive jazz-fusion elements to muddy the waters (though not to the extent they did on Spheres). This leaves Doctrine a squirming, writhing mutant offspring, half Consuming Impulse, half Spheres and it feels like an album tearing itself apart with inconsistent, incompatible ideas. Needless to say, I’m not very jazzed about this.
Blood Mortized – Bestial Review
Steel Druhm once loved the retro thrash wave and rode it for all it was worth (as he talked of himself in the third person). However, like all waves, trends and scenes, too much becomes too much. As my passion for that movement fades, I find myself quite eagerly embracing the retro Swedish death metal wave that seems to be gaining momentum. Interment and Entrails already have quality retro death metal albums out and now Blood Mortized is set to contribute more excellently time challenged carnage. Composed of vets of the Swedish extreme metal scene and including former members of Amon Amarth and Crypt of Kerberos, Blood Mortized’s four track EP Beastial is a scabby, crusty slab of rotten and fetid death just like Entombed, Dismember and Grave used to make circa 1990-1992. Clearly inspired by the “Sunlight Studio” days of yore, these songs will take you back in time before the days of “melodic death metal” and “death with clean singing.” Yes, this is raw, filthy old school death and it sounds gory and glorious!
