“Whenever a band like Terrorizer drops an album, I always wonder if their material gets by on individual merit or on legacy alone. World Downfall is rightly regarded as one of the first and greatest examples of death/grind and has remained a staple in any worthy metalhead’s collection. Unfortunately, nearly thirty years after that seminal record, the re-formed band’s quality has been spotty at best.” The Founding Fathers of Grind are back with a state of the union.
“For what many people come to know nowadays as “Corpsegrinder’s old band,” Monstrosity has built a sterling reputation for themselves without the Cannibal Corpse front-beast. My first introduction to them was on Death…is Just the Beginning Vol. 2, but that was just one song. My true introduction was on 2007’s Spiritual Apocalypse, one of my favorite death metal records of that decade. Having not grown up in the prime era of Floridian death metal, the sound and the iconic Morrisound production style were awesome relics of a bygone time. With Spiritual Apocalypse, Monstrosity brought that time to the present; the Morrisound production was perfect, the songs were impeccable, and then… silence. That is, until now.” Now, Monstrous.
“2018 has certainly known no famine of death metal. Rather, a plague of quality extremity has swept the year, waging war on every twinkling symphonic injustice thus far. Although, undeniably, my bread and butter, the excess also poses something of a challenge. Namely, sorting the wheat from the chaff; flaying, mottled skin from iron bone. Rising from the sun-drenched soil of Austin, Texas, Infuriate’s self-titled debut represents yet another seismic breach of brutal proportions.” Angry and deadly.
“Death metal, in all of its fevered furor, tests us with many of life’s most potent questions. Spanning such pleas as ‘why, David Vincent, why?’ to simply ‘why did Chuck never change his surname to Skulldiner?’ Whatever the line of inquiry, we can all agree that one question remains more pressing than all others combined. What happens when the Cannibal Corpse itself is cannibalized, its putrid properties mingled and made stock for only the most sadistic of stews? Such death-ception demands to be acknowledged and Australia’s very own Depravity have the answer — debut, Evil Upheaval.” Meat n’ greet.
“One of the things I love about death metal is that I always find it appropriate. Walking to work? Absolutely. Working out? Yes please. Spring cleaning? Why not? Volturyon, Swedish purveyors of all things death, are a band clear in their understanding of this and eager to churn out an absolute riff-fest to facilitate any and all spur of the moment gym sessions… or vacuuming.” Make that carpet BLEED!
“In Nietzsche’s Twilight of the Idols, there’s a section called Skirmishes of an Untimely Man. In France’s metal scene, there’s a group called Mortuary whose career may as well have been called Expeditions of an Untimely Band. Unleashing their first full-length in 1996, already eight years old as a band, their deathy and thrashy style was long since out of vogue and death metal had moved on to graze in different pastures. They also managed to release a whopping four whole full-length records in the span of twenty-five years.” The slow knife cuts the deepest.
“It was only a matter of time before a high-profile tech-death / djent mashup appeared on the scene. If you were hanging from your 8th string with bated breath for this moment, it has finally arrived: A mere year after their inception, Pennsylvania upstarts Rivers of Nihil are crashing the gates via Metal Blade. Their debut, The Conscious Seed of Light, is slightly baffling. On one hand, it’s easy to dismiss the album as an aural collage of the t-shirts in the band’s collective closet. At times, it plays out like a modern metal Power Point presentation: Bass-lick dropouts, open string chughammers, and spiraling-into-spaaaaaace shreddery all pop up within the first handful of minutes. The trope-aping is achingly obvious. That other hand, though? It itches to wipe away the clouds of cynicism.” Tech-death meets djent? How did this take so long, and now that it’s here, is it any good? Complicated questions indeed and here’s our man Jordan Campbell with some answers.
Serocs began back in 2009 as a one-man operation, founded by Mexico-based guitarist Antonio Freyre. After a couple of EP releases, their debut full-length Oneirology finally surfaced a year ago. In the short time since then, Serocs has become a multi-national death metal conglomerate, with Freyre recruiting members of Vile, Monstrosity and Lecherous Nocturne (not to mention a whole shitload of guest appearances). For all the tech-death credentials of this group, the result is heavy on the “death” and short on “tech.” Mexican death metal is a special beast and Mr. Fisting knows his Mexican death!
