DEATH BENEFITS: CENTINEX, SORCERY, GHOULGOTHA, GOD ENSLAVEMENT, GRAVE DESECRATOR, AIRLINES OF TERROR, DEATHCROWN

 

I’m still significantly distracted from the mission of NCS these days for personal reasons that I’ve described in previous posts, and that will likely continue to be the case for at least the next week or two. But although the round-ups haven’t been coming as frequently as usual, I did manage to pull this one together over the last few days. All the songs (and one video) are fairly recent and all provide some very tasty flavors of death metal (lots of cool cover art in this post as well). For better or worse, I need to keep my own verbiage short and let the music speak for itself.

CENTINEX

That’s a hell of an album cover up there (created by Bahrull Marta of Abomination Imagery) for a hell of a band — Sweden’s Centinex. Their new album Doomsday Rituals is set for release by Agonia Records on July 8.

The band’s current line-up, which is different from the one that released eight albums prior to the disbanding of Centinex in 2005, is truly impressive: Martin Schulman (Demonical) on bass, Sverker Widgren (Demonical, Diabolical) on guitars, Alexander Högbom (October Tide, Spasmodic) on vocals, and Kennet Englund (Interment, Centinex 1999-2003). And so is the new song that premiered yesterday.

“Exist To Feed” is the name of the album’s first advance track, and it’s an energizing piece of old-school mayhem that brings to mind an image I seem to get a lot when I hear this kind of song: a big, black freight train belching flames and rushing down the tracks right at me, and I’m paralyzed but thinking to myself, “There are a lot worse ways to go”.

The album can be pre-ordered in a variety of physical formats HERE or digitally via Bandcamp:

https://agoniarecords.bandcamp.com/album/doomsday-rituals

http://www.facebook.com/Centinexofficial

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SORCERY

Garden of Bones is the name of the third album by Sweden’s Sorcery and the second since their excellent 2013 comeback record Arrival At Six. It will be released on May 15 by Xtreem Music. The latest advance track from the album, “The New Armageddon”, is a prime example of this veteran band’s ability to breathe unholy new life into an old, revered genre. I love the pestilential main riff in this very catchy song, as well as the high, electrifying vocal viciousness and the dismal off-tempo breaks in the assault.

UPDATE: After writing the words above I discovered that within the last 24 hours Xtreem Music began streaming the entire album, and you can listen to that HERE.

https://xtreemmusic.bandcamp.com/album/garden-of-bones

https://www.facebook.com/sorcerydeathmetal/

 

 

 

 

 

 

GHOULGOTHA

I’ve spilled lots of words about San Diego’s Ghoulgotha in the past, and now the eminent Dark Descent Records will be releasing their new album To Starve the Cross on June 10 (with cover art by Mattias Frisk).

In mid-March the band debuted an official video for one of the new songs (“The Sulphur Age”), and Decibel just premiered yet another new one, “A Lord In the Shattered Mirror”. The video is below and the Decibel stream is here. Delicious, dynamic, malignant, murderous barbarity. Savage music when it’s bolting forward and utterly horrifying when it crawls.

To pre-order the album, visit this location.

https://www.facebook.com/ghoulgotha666

https://www.facebook.com/DarkDescentRecords

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GOD ENSLAVEMENT

Next I have for you a stream of two songs by God Enslavement, a group consisting of eye-catching names from other excellent bands: guitarist Björn Köppler (ex-Tombthroat, Maladie), drummer Adam Jarvis (Misery Index, Pig Destroyer), vocalist Vincent Matthews (ex-Dying Fetus, Criminal Element), guitarist Kevin Olasz (Deadborn, Maladie), guitarist Déhà (Maladie, Yhdarl), and bass-player Julian Roos (ex-Retaliation, Shattered).

The band’s new album Consuming the Divine was mixed and mastered at Stefano Morabito’s 16th Cellar Studio in Rome and will be released by Bret Hard Records on May 20.

The two songs are “Belial Within” and “Katharsis Through Dekapitation”. Part brutal death metal, part death-grind, these songs hit like a pack of ferocious animals that haven’t eaten in a month. It will also come as no surprise that Adam Jarvis is completely off the hook. Foul, feral, and furious….

Order the album via Bandcamp:

https://godenslavement.bandcamp.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GRAVE DESECRATOR

The Brazilian hellraisers in Grave Desecrator had their beginning in 1998 and since then have released two albums, a couple of EPs, and splits with the likes of Archgoat and Black Witchery. Last fall they signed a pact with Season of Mist for the release of their new third album, Dust To Lust, which has now been scheduled for detonation on July 1.

Last month we premiered a song from the album named “Temple of Abominations”, and now there’s a second one available for streaming, “A Witching Whore”. It oozes misery like congealing pus, with the cold predatory constriction of a coiling python (and a really eerie, spine-tingling guitar solo as well).

Pre-orders can be placed here:

https://gravedesecrator.bandcamp.com/album/dust-to-lust

 

 

 

 

 

 

AIRLINES OF TERROR

Those of you who were visiting our site regularly last summer will remember that we premiered three individual songs from an album called Terror From the Air, and then eventually a full album stream. For those who weren’t lurking around back then, Terror From the Air is the second album by the Italian band Airlines of Terror. Within the last week, the band released a performance video for a song called “Lysergic Parachutes”.

I’m still very high on this band, and the video is a good reminder of their talents.

https://www.facebook.com/airlinesofterror

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DEATHCROWN

I’ve been meaning to say something about this last band for two weeks, ever since my Serbian friend “M” turned me on to their debut single “The Witch Hammer“, which was released April 29, 2016, and is a name-your-price download at Bandcamp.

This is grim, grisly, hard-hitting death metal that boils with blood-lusting energy and is convincingly bestial, but it’s also highly infectious.

https://deathcrown.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/deathcrownband