SHORT BUT SWEET: CASKET / SEWERCIDE SPLIT

Delicious cover art by Kator.

In early November, Maryland-based Unholy Anarchy Records plans to release a 7″ split by two young bands who are new discoveries for me — Philadelphia-based Casket and Sewercide from Melbourne, Australia. Each band contributes one song to the split, and both of them are good.

CASKET

Casket’s offering is “Armed To the Teeth”. It thrashes and lashes with a firm whiphand, raising welts with a blaze of head-snapping riffs before splitting the skin wide open with a an off-speed beatdown. There’s more than a little hardcore punk blood that courses through the thrash spine of the song, and a miasma of ghoulish death metal fouls the air in that breakdown. Good vocal foulness, too, in a mix of rancid, nails-on-the-chalkboard rants and guttural grunts. And finally, there’s just the right amount of gauziness to the production, because you need a wrapping of gauze to soak up the blood.

SEWERCIDE

Sewercide’s track is “Vector of Disease”, and it’s a romping, wrecking, open-throttle thrasher. You can smell the exhaust from this well-tuned engine, along with a strong whiff of sulphur, because it’s plenty evil. Rippling lead guitar lines, an eye-watering solo, and turn-on-a-dime tempo changes help make the song one worth coming back, too. Standout drumwork and unhinged vocal vehemence, too.

At a time when the “re-thrash” movement has become stale as last week’s bread, both of these songs are electric.

Fortunately, you don’t have to take my word for it, because both tracks on the split are now streaming. Last Rites began streaming the Casket track today (and you can also check out Jordan Campbell’s positive review of the split there), and Sewercide has their track on Bandcamp for streaming and download (along with other songs). More Casket songs are up on Bandcamp, too. Listen to the tracks from the split after this slug of links. The vinyl (in both purples and black) is available for pre-order here.

https://www.facebook.com/CasketCrushes
http://casketcrushes.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/Sewercide
http://sewercide.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Unholy-Anarchy-Records-Distro/571978186151465