Entombed

Sheol – Sepulchral Ruins Below The Temple Review

Sheol – Sepulchral Ruins Below The Temple Review

“What’s old is new again. Many new bands are ravaging old graveyards to exhume rotting corpses of bands and styles long since past their sell-by date. 70’s proto-doom, 80’s retro-thrash, and now, 90’s fuzzy Swedeath are the templates that bands are utilizing to create their own legacies. UK’s Sheol are the newest duo to bring out the rotting, zombified corpses of early Dismember and Darkthrone into the sunlight (studios) with their debut EP, Sepulchral Ruins Below The Temple.” 2013 winds down as it cranked up – with loads of old school Swedish death. Do you have room for just a little more?

Blood Mortized – The Demon, the Angel, the Disease Review

Blood Mortized – The Demon, the Angel, the Disease Review

“No matter how over saturated or played out a musical genre may become, there are always one or two bands that can make it all vibrant, fresh and new again. Whether it’s their raw conviction, enthusiasm or killer song writing, those bands make the years melt away and remind you how it felt to hear the style for the very first time. That rush of excitement, feeling of awe and the sense of being there at the next step in metal’s evolution, that’s what it’s all about! When it comes to classic Swedish death metal, Blood Mortized is THAT band for me.” Stand back! Steel has been waiting for this one with baited breath and now he’s on it like beast at a beast emporium.

Circle – Incarnation Review

Circle – Incarnation Review

“I can judge a book by its cover. And I always do it. I even take the tome in my hands and I weigh it. Yes, I weigh books and decide whether or not I should go on reading the blurb on the usually polished, sensually pleasant cover. If the words convince me and the overall product smells good, I put it back on the shelves and I resume cruising through the aisles like a junkie who has learned that the best fix comes from the filthy hands of fellow addicts. They know better. In music, I follow the same criteria. I don’t get fooled too easily by a press agent all too eager to impress someone who enjoys weighing books in shopping centers on a Tuesday morning. I mean, come on.” Alex weighs both life and literature… and music. Yes, he’s like Anubis, weighing and judging all things. And now it’s Circle’s turn to be measured.

Abyssous – …Smouldering Review

Abyssous – …Smouldering Review

“Hailing from the Saxony region of Germany, death metallers Abyssous first appeared on the scene with a sodden, bone-breaking crunch with 2012’s …Smouldering demo. The raw, cavernous quality of those tracks attracted the attention of Iron Bonehead Productions, who have released the demo as a full-length with the addition of two new tracks. The LP version of …Smouldering is every bit as dank as the original release, but the additional tracks do more than pad out the length of the record. There is a sense of a more complete narrative arc and a fuller musical construction that improves the album as a whole.” Old school death is plenty good, but when you add in some old timey Morgoth influence, then it deserves real attention!

Mammoth Grinder – Underworlds Review

Mammoth Grinder – Underworlds Review

“You may have noticed a tendency of the AMG staff to carp, whine and bitch about albums being too long and including too much filler. It’s a sad truism that because CDs are capable of holding 75 minutes of tuneage, way too many bands think they have 75 minutes worth of quality music when usually…they don’t. Mammoth Grinder are the exception to that rule and their Underworlds album clocks in at a lean, mean twenty-eight minutes and it feels as refreshing as a bath in a mountain lake.” Pressed for time? Need your ass kicked quickly and fully. Hire a Mammoth!

Wound – Inhale the Void Review

Wound – Inhale the Void Review

“Germanic Wound punt their cruddy, punky and nasty school of death metal as falling somewhere between that of forbearers of the Gothenburg death metal sound At The Gates, old-school death metallers Necrowretch and Wolfbrigade (previously Wolfpack) who combine Swedish hardcore punk and death metal. I’m hazarding a guess that’s why they were added to F.D.A Rekotz deathstable, home to one of Steel Druhm’s big picks from 2012, Blood Mortized. Inhale the Void follows on a little over a year after the release of their demo Confess to Filth and it pretty much negates the need to hunt down this earlier release as 4 of the 6 tracks making up the demo are nicely bundled up in this debut album. All rather convenient and considerate of them to do that!” Madam X tackles some death metal that doesn’t sound like Septicflesh because you demanded it!

Entrails – Raging Death Review

Entrails – Raging Death Review

“In the retro Swedish death sweepstakes, you can’t get much more committed than Sweden’s Entrails. Having been around in one form or another since the original wave of Swede death, they weren’t able to release anything until 2010s Tales From the Morgue. While I went quite gorilla shit over that platter and its 110% pure Entombed worshipping awesomeness, I was let down by their The Tomb Awaits follow-up, which seemed watered down and lacking in the raw charm of its predecessor.” Can Entrails recapture the glory of their (of more accurately, Entombed’s) debut? Does anyone even care that they changed their logo?

Paganizer – World Lobotomy Review

Paganizer – World Lobotomy Review

“More Rogga?? With Mr. Johansson being involved in one of every three reviews I write lately, maybe we should change the website name to Rogga o Rama. I’ve recently examined his Megascavenger and Just Before Dawn projects and here he is again with his main outfit, Paganizer (he also has a collaboration with Paul Speckmann of Master coming in a few weeks). The man is an omnipresent force in the Swedish death scene (hell, he IS the Swedish death scene) and he’s been responsible for lots of rich, creamy death metal. In all honesty though, I’ve always found Paganizer to be a pretty spotty act. Some of their early output was solid and some of the more recent stuff was less so.” So does World Lobotomy cause brain damage or suffer from it? Our resident Rogga expert Steel Druhm is back from the nervous hospital to provide his diagnosis.

Tormented – Death Awaits Review

Tormented – Death Awaits Review

“Talk about stereotypes. Let me provide you with the keywords: Swedish, death, metal, riffs. You get the picture: forty minutes of carefully packed distortions and growls to dance the night away, while remembering the good old days. Days when the underground was a truly transnational parallel world (trust me: I’ve seen it) connecting the various scenes at a sub-level: one carefully avoided by the majors, the media and almost all of your friends (the cool ones, at least).” Join Alex as he reminisces about the good old days, where death metal was … well… underground and uncool.

Blackshine – Soul Confusion Review

Blackshine – Soul Confusion Review

“And now for something completely different. Blackshine is an underground Swedish act sporting an interesting blend of thrash and hard rock. Though I’ve seen them refered to as “death n’ roll,” I never found that to be an apt descriptor. Their sound is like a raucous blend of First Wave Bay Area thrash, Motorhead, Sentenced, a wee bit of Wolverine Blues-era Entombed and a smattering of stoner/biker rock.” If that sounds like a heady brew of influences, join Steel Druhm as he gets his Blackshine on.