“The stoics believed in ekpyrosis, the yearly destruction of the universe by an all-consuming inferno. They believed that life is a cycle of destruction and rebirth. Recreation out of chaos. Ekpyrosis embody ekpyrosis through their fiery homage to old-school death metal and Asphyxiating Devotion is the unrelenting debut record by this Italian four-piece.” Burning the way to rebirth!
“It’s easy to slip into Grinch mode as we hurtle towards the silly season. Unfortunately for many, before the Christmas and other holiday festivities hit full swing, there’s a shitload of commitments and deadlines to navigate before it’s time to kick back and relax. On top of these realities comes the nauseating Christmas commercialism that predictably takes over and gets jammed down throats, making me feel as if I’m going to start shitting elves any day now. Thankfully metal is here to keep sanity in check.” Death to commercialism!
“In 2014, my main claim to AMG fame or, if your tastes are less than impeccable, infamy, lay in awarding Alestorm Record o’ the Year for the truly excellent Sunset on the Golden Age. I did some other good deeds as well, such as spotlighting Entrapment’s top-shelf Swe-death platter Lamentations of the Flesh.” Cause one out of two is kinda bad.
“With the relative ease in which bands are able to record and self-release, on top of the multitude of established artists and independent labels on the scene, I’m pretty much constantly playing catch up and trying to absorb as much quality metal as I can get my grubby hands on. All the while trying in vain to siphon out the bullshit that inevitably pops up in the endless flood of artists emerging.” That siphon’s not gonna clean itself.
“Look at the band name and observe the logo. Ponder the album art and take in the scene. Glance at the album title and chew over the tone. Undress the track descriptions and raise an eyebrow. Observe the musician’s photos and nod knowingly. Glare at the record label and chuckle darkly. By now you’ve built an impression of a band that in all likelihood conjures up death metal overflowing with pulpy horror references and a choleric disposition.” Taste the crypt.
“Choosing what to do for Halloween is, in some sense, a lot like choosing how to be a metal band. You can try to deliberately frighten people, like Portal, be as provocative as possible, like Anal Cunt, flaunt your good feminine looks like the one member of Amaranthe anyone cares about, do something wacky and out-of-the-box like Troldhaugen, or you can throw on some old goblin mask and just go get drunk, loud and rowdy.” The goblins and ghosts are at the door.
“Darkrypt was helpfully labelled as an Indian “dark death metal” band when I got the promo, which is great to know because I really thought a band named after a portmanteau of darkness and a dark underground tomb was going to be bright, poppy stuff in the vein of Carly Rae Jepsen.” I heard they’re doing a split.
“Deathcult can be comfortably lumped in the niche “weird” OSDM scene with bands like Obliteration, Morbus Chron, and Tribulation. The root of it all is old Death, Entombed, and Autopsy riffs, but it tries to be more “progressive” by making the songs a bit more technically involved and spaced out, but less immediate along with hints from the melodicism of the old Swedish scene to spice things up. Beasts of Faith aims to mix this all together with a nearly transparent coat of new paint much like The Matrix added virtual reality to a combination of Descartes’s “evil demon” thing and Plato’s cave allegory.” This isn’t your father’s old school death.
“I like to imagine the absurdly prolific Rogga Johansson’s inner monologue to be similar to Pinky and the Brain’s introductory bit, with him eating whatever the Swedes eat for breakfast, wondering ‘what should I do today?’ and answering, ‘the same thing you do every day, Rogga: write and record a death metal record.’ Our hero would then draw a band name from a hat or make one up depending on his mood, and by lunchtime would have written about seven songs and called up whoever was needed to complete the lineup. Johansson & Speckmann had clearly been drawn from what must be a very large hat by now, and before the traditional Swedish dinner bell rang that day, Edge of the Abyss was born.” Pinky and the Brawn.
“I’ve been prolonging the YMIO article for Sodom’s debut Obsessed by Cruelty for months now. All year I’ve been trying to come up with the words that would do it justice. What “justice” that may be depends on the listener’s perspective. To these ears, this thirty-year-old debut is one hot mess of an album. But now that Sodom’s newest release, Decision Day, is upon us, I find the courage to pull Obsessed from the stockades to give it another listen.” The obsession may be olde, but the sodomy still burns.
