A “high colonic” is an alternative-medicine procedure that involves injecting large volumes of fluid into the colon in order to flush out decaying fecal matter (and any small animals that may have taken up residence). Certain kinds of health nuts believe this procedure avoids the build-up of toxins, promotes effective digestion, and improves general well-being.
Usually, your NCS perpetrators don’t put down stuff we haven’t experienced for ourselves, but we’re making an exception here, (a) because there’s no fuckin’ way we would ever try this, and (b) some things we don’t feel the need to try in order to conclude they’re moronic.
Besides, some people are so full of shit they could detonate a depth charge up their rectums and it still wouldn’t make a dent. (If by some remote chance there’s an NCS reader out there who’s a devoted believer in the benefits of colon hydrotherapy, then you’re a fucking cretin we do apologize for our insensitivity.)
As ridiculous and uncomfortable as this procedure sounds, the idea of cleansing through purging makes some sense to us in the context of a different human organ much higher up the body. We’re talking about the organ that does your thinking for you, at least when you’re sober. To be clear, for the benefit of the dudes out there, we’re talking about the big head.
Over time, your skull fills up with massive amounts of shit — from the often empty babble of your friends, family, and co-workers, to the absolute dreck that passes for pop culture, to the ghastliness that greets your eyes whenever you read the news, to your own hare-brained ideas and ill-informed opinions.
It’s a good idea, every now and then, to just clean all that shit out — just irrigate the fuck out of your skull to remove the toxic build-up and start fresh with complete emptiness. And today, we’ve got international music from three bands that will give you a good skull-flushing: Embryo (Italy), Lost Dreams (Austria), and Amagortis (Switzerland). (more after the jump, including songs to stream and videos to watch . . .)
EMBRYO
First up is a band from Cremona, Italy, called Embryo — and holy fuck, are they good at skull-coring! This is the kind of fast-paced, heavy-grooved death metal that reminds us of another awesome Italian behemoth, Fleshgod Apocalypse.
Embryo packs their new album with galloping riffs, intestinally rumbling gutturals, hair-raising screeches, machine-gun drumming, some very subtle keyboards, and enough musical variety in the songs to carry our interest from one to the next.
Embryo’s second album was released in February of this year on Rising Records, and it’s available from all the usual online retailers. Good shit! Don’t believe us? Try it for yourselves:
More songs can be streamed at the band’s MySpace (here). (Thanks to our bro’ Death’s Embrace for recommending this band to us.)
LOST DREAMS
Human brains (even small ones like ours) are crenellated organs filled with jillions of minute crevasses in which bullshit can hide. So as skull-flushing as Embryo is, you can’t stop there if you want to do a proper cleansing job. You need to follow up with Lost Dreams.
Lost Dreams is a band from Austria, and their fourth album, Wage of Disgrace, was released last year on Twilight Zone records. To describe their album, we need to resort to one of our favorite cliched, not-terribly-descriptive-but-still-accurate metaphors: It kicks massive amounts of ass.
The band generates high-gear melodic death metal with gut-busting riffage, demonic drumming, and a mix of satisfyingly cavernous growls and eye-rolling shrieks. Every now and then, you can hear a faint overlay of keyboard atmospherics, and at select moments there are guitar solos that will make your corneas bleed.
The songs are catchy as conjunctivitis and extremely well-executed. Seriously — no filler, only killer. Here’s a sample:
If you like what you hear, you can order Lost Dreams’ music at this location. And for more info, the band’s MySpace is here.
AMAGORTIS
Now, you might think that you’re pretty well flushed out at this point, but trust us, you’re not. Still lurking in some cranial nook or cranny is a last bit of bullshit mentality. The remnants of some sarcastic crack made to you by a person you thought was a friend, the stink-eye some store manager shot gave you when he saw your prison tattoo, the faint wisp of a Lady Gaga song you couldn’t help but hear in a mall.
Any job worth doing is worth doing well, so don’t stop now. Let’s get you completely and thoroughly irrigated with an Amagortis enema.
This Swiss band has released two albums that have polluted the world, and a third (Intrinsic Indecency) will be released on July 30 by Brutal Bands — which will also be re-releasing the band’s second album, Pre-Natal Cannibalism. (Gotta love that name.)
Three songs from the new album are currently streaming on the band’s MySpace, mouth-wateringly entitled “Carniverous Crackpipe Consumption”, “Acrotomophiliac”, and “Pulmonary Insemination”.
If you haven’t guessed already, this is über-brutal death metal — what some people might call slam metal: über-gutteral vocals and pig grunts, guillotine riffing at a murderous pace, frenetic double-bass and insane blast-beats, and jumping rhythms that are designed to induce pit mayhem.
The level of sonic grinding is enough to smooth out the Himalayas, and if we listen for too long, goo starts to dribble out our ears. But in short, putrid doses, the music is pulverizingly sweet. Here’s a sample from Amagortis’s last album, Pre-Natal Cannibalism.
There. Now your mind is as clean and pure as a freshly washed infant and as empty as your bank account. All primed and ready for the next daily onslaught of bullshit. You’re welcome.
(Thanks again to our brutal-minded reader Death’s Embrace for the Amagortis suggestion, too!)
VIDEOS
We said we had videos, and we don’t lie. Check ’em out:
EMBRYO
LOST DREAMS
16 Responses to “HIGH COLONICS”
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Embryo is pretty satisfying, even though I like faster-paced tech death. I admit I was a little bit skeptical before I gave it a listen, but it might be worth picking up. Even though I’ve kind of grown tired of melodeath, I did get a kick out of Lost Dreams. The double bass work is hardly audible from that Myspace stream (I couldn’t get it to play from the link you gave) and I wasn’t sure I like that shrieking. It almost sounded screamo to me, but when mixed with that ‘cavernous’ growl, it sounds much better. I might also try to find that one. The third band, given the review and the cover art, doesn’t really fit my fancy all that well.
“Now your mind is as clean and pure as a freshly washed infant and as empty as your bank account.”
Now that you mention it, before I started coming here my bank account was doing just fine. Keep up the good work, guys.
Thanks Misha. As ESJFK says below, 2 out of 3 ain’t bad. I’m really regretting not devoting a whole post to Lost Dreams. It is so solid from start to finish.
Chainsaw + Ass = Two words that should never go together. EVER.
Ass + Massacre = Two words that could take on many meanings, be it porn, some peoples’ cooking or when certain individuals that shouldn’t wear shorts wear them anyway. Or if on the beach, a thong.
Putting both together? Couldn’t get into it. I tried, but couldn’t make it. Besides, I don’t want to completely cleanse what’s rumbling around in the cranium. Gotta leave something there for the dust bunnies to play with.
Embryo? I liked it. Not sure about the Fleshgod Apocalypse reference, but it’s nice to hear more bands from Italy that aren’t of the power/progressive persuasion. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with that – I know it’s not your thing, but I do listen to a lot of prog (and the stuff that fits under that umbrella term).
Lost Dreams sounds pretty good and I’ll be checking out some more of what they got (as I will with Embryo) and decide whether they make it to the “to get” list.
Two out of three isn’t so bad.
I was pretty certain you wouldn’t get into Amagortis. Unlikely that many of our usual readers will. But I appreciate your analysis of the song title — gave me my first laugh of the day (and possibly my last). But why did you stop there? “Pulmonary Insemination”? “Teabagged to Death”? “Misplaced Mastectomy”? “Drenched in Diarrhea”? “If You Can’t Fuck It, Duct It”? “Overdoes Per Hole”? “Fecalphallus”? This band’s got a million of em.
They’re not all that bad, but with the croaking frog vocals, it’s hard to get into.
Wait, are those real song titles from Amagortis?
Maybe they need to go on that medicalcore tour I proposed too.
Definitely suitable for the medicalcore tour! And yep — all are Amagortis titles from either the forthcoming album or the last ones. I’m not demented enough to concoct those on my own.
I am glad you liked Embryo. Like I said, they are like Fleshgod Apocalypse lite. Not as tech or brutal, but it’s still fucking good music.
Lost Dreams sounds a lot like Graveworm (another Italian band), but without the gothic/sypmphonic influences. Graveworm does the alternating growling/shrieking vocals as well. By the way, Graveworm made one of the greatest covers (Losing My Religion by REM) I have ever listened to. Lost Dreams is good stuff, but I may have to do some more research before I start buying stuff. Reading this blog is turning me into a more discerning listener.
There are a shit ton of slam/ultra brutal death metal out there and to be honest, most of them suck. There is no middle ground, its either really good, or really fucking horrible. Trying to find the good shit is like looking for a needle in a pile of needles. When I listened to Amagortis the first time I was blown away. It was that “it” feeling you get when something connects with you on a subconcious level. You just can’t help but love it. I get that most people can’t get past the vocals. I was one of them. But I had a group of people that I associated with online and they were big into the scene. So I got used to listening to it and learned to like it. It’s definitely an acquired taste.
Here is a link to the aforementioned Graveworm cover of “Losing My Religion”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZxLz_x6YMM
Just listened to the Graveworm cover, and it’s fantastic! Why do I not know of this band?
Tried to watch it, think we’ve run out of decent internet. It wouldn’t load.
I got it to load and play. Not bad, but I’m not really diggin’ it yet. Maybe another listen or two and it’ll grow on me. I noticed on the side that the also did a cover of “Message In A Bottle” (The Police), which I liked a bit more.
I haven’t really listened to a lot of Graveworm to date, but I suppose it’s time to change that one of these days.
Graveworm’s pretty good too. I didn’t know they did “Losing My Religion”, but they have an excellent cover of “Fear Of The Dark”, which is often credited to Cradle Of Filth instead.
I like both Embryo and Lost Dreams based on the songs Islander put up, but picking one over the other is hard. Amagortis isn’t really my thing, but I will concede that they’re a lot better than some of the stuff that’s violated my eardrums over the years.
I’ll have to track that one down. They also covered Bonnie Tyler’s “I Need a Hero”. It’s really good too.
Man, now I feel even more ignorant about not knowing of Graveworm. That’s an awesome cover of “Fear of the Dark”. It’s beautiful but also ass-kicking. These dudes really put their own imprint on the covers they do.
Embryo goes hard. The electronic stuff I’m not a big fan of but I think they are definite Cannibal Corpse fans with fleshy bits and they remind me a little bit of Brain Drill.
Still give it the Horns Up!
A Brain Drill fan! I’m counting the days til Aug 28 when they hit Seattle on the tour they’re starting with Flesh Consumed, Arkaik (another great band) and Halo of Gunfire. Should be obliteratingly good.