GRAVE MIASMA, ALTARS, FACEBREAKER

To start the weekend, I’ve collected new death metal in this post that I strongly recommend, from three very good bands.

GRAVE MIASMA

This UK band made quite an impact with the two EPs they’ve released to date — 2009’s Exalted Emanation and 2010’s Realm of Evoked Doom — and now they’ve completed a debut album entitled Odori Sepulcrorum that’s due for release on September 13 (September 17 in NorthAm) by Profound Lore and the German label Sepulchral Voice. It was reportedly recorded on analog format using vintage equipment, and it features wonderful cover art (above), painted with acrylics on glass by Denis Forkas.

So far I’ve only heard one of the new tracks, “Ovation To A Thousand Lost Reveries”. It made me think of the song we streamed earlier this week from Ulcerate’s new album. It’s a roaring storm of ancient blackened death metal, the riffs moaning and grinding and oozing with putrescence. The drum tone is titanic, and the barbaric vocals echo like roars of the awakened dead across the vault of dank crypts.

Like Ulcerate, Grave Miasma prove that there is still fertile ground for creative growth in the graveyard of wholly dominating death metal. The song is wonderfully inventive while remaining rotten to the core. Stupendous stuff.

https://www.facebook.com/gravemiasma

 

ALTARS

Now here’s a strange coincidence, and I swear it happened just like this: I saw an article about this Australian band on CVLT Nation after listening to that Grave Miasma track, I listened to the Altars song that was streaming there, I lost my shit listening to it, and I learned that the cover of their new album is by none other than the same Denis Forkas who created that cover for Grave Miasma.

That new album is named Paramnesia, and it’s due for release by Nuclear Winter Records (Greece) on September 6, with vinyl coming on some later date from Blood Harvest Records (Sweden). The track I heard on CVLT Nation is named “Husk”. When I searched for more, I found four more songs on Bandcamp (three of them being parts of a single long song), leaving only three from the album that aren’t streaming.

Altars’ music doesn’t always create the kind of sonic hurricane that Ulcerate and Grave Miasma do, but like those bands they’re adventurous in the way they write riffs and leads, while staying steeped in the nether regions of doom-shrouded death metal with a blackened crust. The sound is very heavy and corrosive, and the riffing and drumwork are somehow both primal and highly progressive. The music also includes some wild, squalling guitar solos, and Altars have also got a growler who sounds like a famished zombie bear roaring from the bottom of a well.

This is really inventive, really impressive music created by skillful performers who think outside the box.

https://www.facebook.com/AltarsDeath

http://altarsdeath.bandcamp.com/

 

FACEBREAKER

This band of big-fanged carnivores have been recording music since 1999, and I wrote about one of their previous releases back in 2010. They also have a new album on the way, the fourth in their discography, named Dedicated To the Flesh. This one will be released by Metal Blade and Cyclone Empire.

I admit I was first attracted to them by their name. And really, who wouldn’t be interested in metal by a band that takes “Facebreaker” as their name? There are two songs from the new album that can be heard at the moment, with the tender titles of “Carving For the Brains” and “Catacomb”. Both songs pack a massive punch, fueled by the whirring drill-bit of evil tremolo guitar, spine-snapping drum hits, and truly gruesome vocals. The songs also dive into deep grooves that will compel you to move. Really superb, maggot-infested, corpse-strewn, old-school death metal. Two of the best songs in this niche I’ve heard all year.

https://www.facebook.com/FACEBREAKER.OFFICIAL