SEEN AND HEARD: CEREBRIC TURMOIL, BEATEN TO DEATH, INTERNAL SUFFERING, HELPLESS

 

(Austin Weber steps up for round-up duty, with new music from four bands.)

While we already shove enough music down your throat on a daily basis to have your anus crying musical notes for a year, I figured I might as well present some more killer metal to up the rectal/ear discomfort of our readers. Below you’ll find a smattering of new songs by groups about to release new material, as well as a heads-up about a new release worth investing time in. A feast for the fetid-minded awaits you. In either a pleasant or unpleasant way. Your choice.

CEREBRIC TURMOIL

Oftentimes promising metal bands I’ve been interested in have sadly bitten the dust before they were able to release a proper album or EP. So often, all we have in memoriam is a brief demo or split material. For a number of years now, it’s looked like that very fate might befall German death metal band Cerebric Turmoil. After a 2006 demo, the band started off at a very high level, releasing a split album with none other then Defeated Sanity, which should give you an idea of their sound and also the quality of their music. In fact, at one point, the band actually had Defeated Sanity’s bass player in their ranks, and they also had famed oddball guitarist Fountainhead (now in Obscura) in their line-up at one point too.

After releasing their split with Defeated Sanity in 2008, the band broke up that same year. And while they re-formed in 2010, a full-length statement was nowhere in sight. Only now in 2015 are the band on the cusp of releasing their very promising debut, Neural Net Meltdown (on November 13th) through Amputated Vein Records. They just released the first song from it called “Grotesque Dreaming”, which I’ve embedded below for you to jam.

I can’t wait for this record. If you’ve never heard these guys before, they’re like a weird crossbreed between Wormed and Cephalic Carnage — volleying between unreal brutality and quirky, lightning-fast leads at a moment’s notice. To sum up what that means, it’s brutal-minded death/grind with a hint of slam and jazzy inflections to it. Absolutely mind-obliterating and spastic stuff.

*In reading up about the album, I saw that the band cites it as music for fans of: Psyopus and Virulence (a defunct underground act whom I worship), along with other technical death metal acts, which makes perfect sense.

*Also, the album art was done by Phlegeton (Wormed), but that’s just coincidental and not the reason why I referenced them.

https://www.facebook.com/cerebricturmoil

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BEATEN TO DEATH

I’ve covered the Norwegian grindcore unit Beaten To Death a couple times here at NCS, and both of their previous records made past years’ “best of” lists by me here at the site as well. The band have been blowing up, getting a lot of well-deserved coverage among many metal sites over the last few years, so expect to hear a lot about their soon-to-be-released third record, Unplugged. Which I assure you is not unplugged, but is in keeping with the band’s tongue-in-cheek and goofy lyrical focus as well as their love for genuinely funny song titles.

Some of the titles for Unplugged that I’m currently smiling at are: the obviously Nile-parodying opener “Papyrus Containing The Spell To Summon The Breath Of Life Enshrined In The Collected Scrolls of Sheryl Crow”, “Home of Phobia”, “Death To False Grindcore”, and of course, the one we are here to talk about today, “Don’t You Dare To Call Us Heavy Metal”!

This first song (and video) to premiere off Unplugged punishes the listener with acidic screams, grunts, and general grinding mayhem amidst the goofy yet amusing lyrics — until the song takes an oddball turn, with the band injecting a soothing, soaring melody alongside the blasting madness. On paper it shouldn’t work, but it does, and it’s strangely uplifting and oddly memorable.

For me, it’s funny to hear Beaten To Death deliver melody-inflected grindcore, because as I mentioned in a previous write-up about the band, the 2009 Mike Judge film Extract includes a joke about how one of the characters plays in a melodic grind band, a hilarious concept that Beaten To Death improbably make work.

Once you finish the video you might want to exit YouTube quickly, because if you don’t, the next video that rolls over and starts playing is about an actual case of someone being beaten to death. Which is either darkly fitting or fucked up, depending on one’s sense of humor.

Unplugged comes out October 13th through Mas-Kina Records. Keep an eye (and ear) out for it.

https://www.facebook.com/beatentodeath

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

INTERNAL SUFFERING

Next on our list comes another new song and lyric video, this time by death metal legends Internal Suffering. To date, we’ve helped premiere two songs that doubled as lyric videos off their forthcoming Unique Leader Records release called Cyclonic Void Of Power. This will be the band’s fifth record overall, as well as a comeback record of sorts since it’s their first release since 2005’s Awakening Of The Rebel.

A release date for Cyclonic Void Of Power has yet to be revealed, but the band and their label have confirmed it will be coming later this year. If you feel like being pummeled unconscious, give “Monumental Crusade” a spin below. Lots of bands play music like this, but Internal Suffering make all their decimating madness memorable — which is to be expected from such a highly influential act with such a massive legacy. I can’t wait for this record to drop.

https://www.facebook.com/InternalSuffering

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HELPLESS

Lastly I have a very recently released new EP by the UK-based act Helpless to show you all today. The band share a bass player with Carcinoma, another fine band whom Islander wrote about at the end of July. I was turned on to Helpless by a reader of our site who recorded the band and thought it might be up my alley. He was definitely right, as there is a lot to love about the music Helpless make throughout their four-song, self-titled EP.

The band play a particularly dark and noisy brand of grindcore that has a lot more substance to it than a lot of grind. Sometimes it reminds me of Gaza, but I wouldn’t say this sounds like them in a derivative sense.

If you’re looking for that something extra in your grind, Helpless have you covered. This is perfect music for pissed-off days, where all you want to do is watch the world burn and genuinely pray for other people’s downfall. It’s available as a pay-what-you-want download on Bandcamp. If I were you, I’d give it a chance. But, I’m not you, I’m me. Life is disappointing like that. Which is all the more reason to check this out!?

https://helplessband.bandcamp.com/releases

https://www.facebook.com/helpless.uk