“An interesting anecdote I saw told was a fine–art professor’s first exercise with his Master’s students. He shows them a Jackson Pollock painting, and asks them to write why it is good. After receiving the wonderfully pretentious responses, the professor reveals that the “Pollock painting” was actually his apron from his studio, hopefully teaching the students that there may be more to judging good and bad art than feelings.” Smock-core!
“Death/doom is a deceptively mercurial beast, possessed of a tangential tendency to meander in directions that range from the darkly romantic to the downright bludgeoning. Detroit’s Temple of Void are plainly with the latter and dole out the kind of stomach churning Asphyxiation that had me at hello.” Skull and void.
“On 2015 debut Horrifying Nightmares…, the quartet excelled at slinging riff after riff at the listener, offering an experience that was enjoyable but didn’t always stick. Nevertheless the record impressed me enough with its lurching guitars and vintage horror creepiness that it narrowly escaped a Things You Might Have Missed writeup and a spot on my Year-End list. With sophomore full-length Neverending Trail of Skulls, I’m finally here to make the trek and reveal the sick world these former Undead Creep members have created.” Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.
“When I happened upon As Darkness Falls, the third album by German trio Deny The Urge, the hairs on my back stood up, my eyes squinted in curiosity, and I braced myself for the worse. Is this death metal, or is this “death metal”?” Yes it is.
“From Judas’ selling out the Son of God for a mere 30 pieces of silver, to Julius Caesar meeting his sticky end at the hands of several disgruntled Roman senators, and his own nephew, Brutus. History is rife with tales of betrayal. The Finns are back in town and Poetry of the Ill-minded is set for release just next week. What connection can the esteemed Shade Empire possibly have with these horrific accounts of betrayal?” Music gets very personal.
“Tchornobog is Soroka’s attempt at infiltrating the extreme metal sect occupied by the likes of Portal and Abyssal; a brew of cavernous, cacophonous death metal, dripping with fringe-style elements that blur genre lines.” Gesundheit!
“There is something surprisingly comforting, dare I say nostalgic, in Nexul’s punishing full-length début Paradigm of Chaos. Perhaps it’s the wistfulness attached to the band’s raw, hissy black/death metal approach and over-the-top Luciferian imagery. Their music today appears as an echo of a homicidal time and place which the genre occupied during its infancy. As if a splinter of the heartfelt occult hatefulness of the early Norwegian black metal scene somehow made its way to El Paso, Texas.” Morbid tourist.
“Ever since zombies killed his dog in 2007, Will Smith has been dealing with his grief in the healthy way: by gurgling, screaming, and howling his way across New York’s underground metal scene. Many will be familiar with his work in Buckshot Facelift and Artificial Brain, and his talents are just as well displayed in Afterbirth.” Rage therapy.
“For me, Pathology was the gateway to slam. I still recall the first time I ever experienced their music: Boxing Day, years ago, I went to the now-defunct record store Zeus in search of some new metal to feast my ears upon. I saw Legacy of the Ancients with its striking cover, adorned with a sticker saying that Pathology “represents more death than a mass grave in Columbia.” My thoughts in a word: sold.” What do we have to do to put you in this mass grave today?
“At this point in 2017, a year already subject to a burgeoning tornado of death metal souls, the genre is hardly in need of a qualitative shot in the arm. Regardless, after seven years in the ether, none other than Decrepit Birth have descended to lend their technical muscle to the array of perennial brutalities, with fourth album Axis Mundi and a semi-reconstructed line up.” Brutal rebirthing.
