For yours truly, it has been a great weekend for the discovery of song debuts from new and forthcoming metal releases. In this post I’ve collected five of them. With luck, I’ll write another post today with more of what I’ve found since Friday. Get ready for some old school slaughtering.
BARBARIAN
I have a tip from our brutish friend SurgicalBrute to thank for this first discovery. The band is Barbarian. They are located in Italy and they released their self-titled debut album in 2011. In late January, Doomentia released the band’s second album, Faith Extinguisher, with a kickass piece of cover art by Shagrat of Acid Witch. It’s available on CD now (at this location), with vinyl coming soon. Looks like it will be available digitally on Amazon mp3 later this month, and perhaps Doomentia will offer it on Bandcamp, too.
Two songs are now streaming on Bandcamp — “Inhale the Dead” and “We Are the Profane” — and they are sooooo damned good. It’s a glorious kickback to the primordial spawning ground of all sorts of extreme metal genres, binding together the undead spirits of bands like Celtic Frost, Bathory, Venom, and Motörhead. Vomit-spewing vocals, tremendous drumming, and black, thrashing riffs to kill for.
https://doomentiarecords.bandcamp.com/album/faith-extinguisher
https://www.facebook.com/barbarianmetal
AURORA BOREALIS
This next item is a real blast from the past. I checked, and the last time I mentioned Aurora Borealis was in July 2011. Maybe not so surprising, since 2011 was the last time we got a new album from this long-running Maryland band, but we’re about to get another one: On March 1 the Spanish label Xtreem Music will be discharging the band’s sixth album, Worldshapers. The taste of new music we now have is the title track, which is up on SoundCloud.
The mere intro to this song is cataclysmic — and that’s before the band really go to work. And when they do go to work, it’s a super-heated rush of flensing riffs and weapons-grade percussion, with utterly vile vocals and spine-shaking grooves. This is a top-shelf fusion of black and death metal, with a lethal attitude and fantastic production, too.
By the way, Aurora Borealis’ entire discography is available for free (but maybe not much longer) here. For more info about the band, visit their official page or their Facebook:
http://www.auroraborealis.org
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Aurora-Borealis-official/110855228945757
HELLCANNON
My NCS comrade TheMadIsraeli tipped me to this next band. Hellcannon are from Buffalo, NY. They have a couple of EPs to their name, plus a 2010 debut album entitled Infected By Violence. Their second album, Terminal, will be coming later this year via Vile Records. Last month the band released a song from the new album as a single (which is available from iTunes, Amazon mp3, and other digital retailers), along with an accompanying music video. The song is “Lost Cause” and it kicks a large amount of ass.
You may get faked out by the doomy, lumbering intro, but it doesn’t take long before Hellcannon start to thrash the living hell out of the joint in a hornet swarm of grinding riffs. The incendiary guitar solos will burn holes right through your skull, and the acid-spewing vocals are thoroughly vile. Rough, raw, and catchy as hell.
Here’s the music video for “Lost Cause”:
https://www.facebook.com/hellcannonmetal/
ADRAMELECH
Adramelech are a seminal Finnish band who have been “on hold” since their last album (Terror of Thousand Faces) was released in 2005. Their 1992 7″, Spring of Recovery, was the subject of a 20th anniversary review on our site by William Smith (Artificial Brain), who described it as “a triumph of atmosphere and production…Â two songs of perfect old-school Finnish Death Metal that stays true to a low, guttural aesthetic, while allowing the songs to flourish with dark melodic passages and even occasional synth touches.”
Yesterday I discovered that on March 1 Xtreem Music will be reissuing a remastered edition of the band’s first album, Psychostasia (1996), on CD and LP, with three bonus tracks.  Xtreem has also uploaded to SoundCloud a remastered version of the album’s opening track — “Heroes In Godly Blaze” — and you can listen to it below.
It’s a dark storm of technically impressive and thoroughly murderous riffs, alien-sounding guitar leads, and grotesque vocal excretions. Its heavy and malignant, yet wonderfully complex, and the tone is outstanding.
Psychostasia can be ordered here.
24 Responses to “SUNDAY SLAUGHTERING: BARBARIAN, AURORA BOREALIS, HELLCANNON, ADRAMELECH”
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Hell Yeah..that Adramelech reissue has been WAY overdue…finding an actual copy before now for under $50.00 has been nearly impossible.
That album is right up there with Slumber of Sullen Eyes as a definite Finnish death metal classic
I’ve never heard this album, though I’ve always felt like I should, if only to get a history lesson. But man, based on this track, it could be released today for the first time and blow people away. I’m definitely getting this. Pretty cool that the entire Demilich disco plus this are both becoming available in 2014.
Agreed, the best thing about the old school death metal revival is all the great bands re-releasing material.
Adramelech, Demilich, and Demigod were the bands that people always told me to check out from the Finnish scene when I was first getting into metal, and fortunately they were all available as digital purchases from Amazon and Itunes…through dumb luck and timing Ive managed to get physical copies of both Nespithe and Slumber of Sullen Eyes for good prices, but Psychostasias always eluded me, so Im extremely pumped about this.
…but let me say…get the digital version of Psychostasia from Itunes, even if youve ordered this, you’ll get the “Seven” and “The Fall” EPs as a bonus so its definitely worth it (FYI…its been misspelled as Adramalech in the Itunes search engine)
Done.
Loving those Barbarian tracks. I’ve now got a promo copy heading my way in a few days.
Hellcannon’s guys are older, and during the intro I was getting an umm “these guys are old” impression. But, man they slaughter the strings. So these guys had a debut in 2010 huh. Why the heck do we have to wait until the end of the year for an album release.
..they just released one of their EP’s in 2013
..and no theyre not older…most of the band is in their 20’s
I went bald in my 20s so I shouldn’t judge age anyways. I’m sorry that was stupid to assume. I will have to get that EP.
Yeah..thats the lead guitarist and he may well be older, but the rest of the band is very young..the lead singer is actually barely old enough to drink
Metal Archives says the lead guitarist since 2013 is Jim Nickles and that he was in Malevolent Creation from ’86 to ’87, so I’d say he’s been past drinking age for a while. 🙂
Hey..you dont know..maybe he was a child prodigy at…umm..negative 6 years old?
Well, he shreds like he came from a parallel universe, so could be…
He’s got that Benjamin Button disease and he owns a DeLorean (with a functioning flux capacitor), just let it happen…
Nice references…
oh yeah,he shreds those 3 riffs to death,these guys are the ac/dc of metal
plus the first section he stole from my riff book i left at practice,that crappy song is what got him booted from vile vindiction,he was trying to push that song on the band but it wasnt happening,its okay for a thrash band though
hes past the drinking age,hung out n the crack age for 25 years though,
two of them are in their 20’s,the other 2 are almost 50,just so you know
as a bit of extra info,one of the band members used to dress like a tranny,guess which one
This comment thread is getting more and more interesting as it goes on. 🙂
hellcannon was a great band til they lost their original members,and obviously their song writers
check out Vile Vindiction,this is the band the guitar player was kicked out of,we are releasing a cd soon,check it out
Barbarian and Hellcannon are badass! great finds!
Was a blast shooting that Hellcannon video.