SEEN AND HEARD: TAPHOS, SARINVOMIT, MATTERHORN, MORTUUS

 

Happy 4/20. For those of you already feeling a little hazy (correction: even hazier than usual), we have one premiere a bit later today that will suit you very well. But I decided to start the day with a selection of new songs that will scrape the haze right off of you with razors. Sorry about that.

TAPHOS

If you’re a lover of hammering and hideous death metal that thrives on upheaval, Come Ethereal Somberness should be on your radar screen. That’s the debut album by the Danish band Taphos that’s set for release on June 8 by Blood Harvest Records and Helter Skelter Productions. I’ve been too harried to listen to all of it yet, but the two songs you can stream on Bandcamp are very, very promising. I featured one of them (“Impending Peril“) at our site months ago, but now there’s a second one: “Thrive In Upheaval“.

 

 

The snare attack at the outset of this track is… hammering… and that’s just the prelude to even more serious hammering, coupled with utterly malignant guitar buzzing and utterly scalding vocal savagery. The song seethes with voracious energy, but also includes a cool bass-guitar bridge that leads into a demented guitar solo. It’s all delicious.

P.S. Only after writing what you’ve just read, I discovered that the two tracks I’ve just mentioned plus one more were released last fall as a demo for the new album (Premonition), and all three are now on the Taphos Bandcamp — which you can find HERE.

Bandcamp:
https://bloodharvestrecords.bandcamp.com/album/come-ethereal-somberness

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/taphosdeath/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SARINVOMIT

Here’s another band (with one of the best band names on the planet) whose new music I featured at our site a while back when they released the first advance track (“One Trillion Megaton“) from their new album. That new album was released on April 13th by Deathrune Records, and there’s one more track from it up on their Bandcamp page that I’d like to share.

In addition to having a great band name, the name of the new album is damned good, too, and damned evocative of the music: Malignant Thermonuclear Supremacy.

The second song that’s now up on Bandcamp shares the same name as these Turkish destructors — “Sarinvomit“. As you might expect from what I’ve written so far, the song is downright radioactive. The riffing is searing; the drumwork is blazing fast; the vocals are incinerating. But as flesh-boiling and vicious as the track is, the pitch-black melodies in the song are also mesmerizing, and an atmosphere of infernal grandeur rises up from this roiling blast front like a soaring second sunrise. Fantastic stuff.

(Thanks to Conor O. for reminding me about this new album, which I really have to get off my ass and hear in its entirety.)

Order:
http://deathrune-records.com/product/sarinvomit-malignant-thermonuclear-supremacy-lp-red-lim-to-200/
https://sarinvomit.bandcamp.com/album/malignant-thermonuclear-supremacy

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/sarinvomit

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MATTERHORN

Matterhorn are a new Swiss band. The name of their debut album is Crass Cleansing. For obvious reasons, I was expecting hair metal, but I listened anyway. Nope — not hair metal.

Actually, I really wasn’t expecting hair metal, despite the album cover, because the album is going to be released (on June 15th) by Iron Bonehead Productions. I also read that their first live performance was with Bölzer and Urfaust.

“Violent Success” and “The Hornhead” are the two tracks up on Bandcamp. I know it’s not hair metal, but it’s not easy to say what it is. There are elements of thrash, speed metal, punk, black metal, and death metal in this stew of extremity. The overall impact is electrifying, not merely because of the speed and explosive energy of the tracks, but also because of the band’s skill in shifting gears on a dime, which they do frequently.

The intricacy of their movements and the songwriting skill on display here, coupled with their palpably feral ferocity, set this apart from the vast majority of debuts. I’m suddenly very eager to hear the rest of this album.

Bandcamp:
https://matterhorn.bandcamp.com/

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/CrassCleansing/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MORTUUS

On March 30 the World Terror Committee released a two-track split by the Swedish band Mortuus and the Greek band Serpent Noir; both tracks were originally to be included in a Daemon Worship compilation, and were rescued by W.T.C. after the demise of that label. Thanks to a tip from Miloš, I learned that the Mortuus track is up on Bandcamp for listening and download.

“Nyctophilia” is the song’s name. It is a grand creation, terrifically ominous and magisterial, a reverent hymn to unseen powers who bring death in their wake. Unearthly, oppressive, and hypnotic, the music enfolds the listener in the embrace of a dark and fearsome dream.

Bandcamp:
https://wtcproductions.bandcamp.com/album/mortuus-serpent-noir-nyctophilia-dreaming-iblis-ep
https://mortuus.bandcamp.com/album/nyctophilia

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/mortuusswe/