RETROMORPHOSIS – PSALMUS MORTIS

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Feb 102025
 

(Andy Synn discusses questions of legacy and rebirth while singing the praises of Retromorphosis)

Look, there’s no way to talk about Retromorphosis without also talking about the elephant in the room.

After all, a lot of people feel (with good reason) that Psalmus Mortis is basically the long-awaited 4th Spawn of Possession album in all but name, especially since four out of five of the people behind the recording are ex-Spawn alumni (although only guitarist Jonas Bryssling and vocalist Dennis Röndum are SoP originals).

This, however, creates two potential problems for any budding reviewer.

On one hand you’ve got the question of how to address the expectations of the group’s fanbase, some of whom have already declared it “Album of the Year”, while others are convinced there’s no way it can live up to the band’s legacy – both prior to actually hearing it, I might add – without pandering to or dismissing their concerns.

Then, on the other, there’s the issue of how to put the album in its proper context – after all, it’s been just under thirteen years since SoP‘s third (and final) album was released, and during that time the Technical Death Metal scene has mutated and metastisized so much, spawning (no pun intended) a myriad of new strains and new variants, that it’s understandable if you’re wondering where exactly Retromorphosis are going to fit in.

Well, wonder no longer, because you’re about to find out all that… and more!

Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: VERHEERER, OSGRAEF, ANCINE, THE BLOOD MOUNTAIN BLACK METAL CHOIR, OFNUS, Обрій (OBRIJ)

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Feb 092025
 

(written by Islander)

Another Sunday arrives, and with it another brain-wrecking task of making choices for this column, a task made even harder than I was expecting when I woke up to find that Rennie Resmini had climbed back into the starkweather Substack with a bunch of new recommendations I hadn’t already discovered (more on that later).

It’s obvious (maybe painfully obvious to some of you) that I am prone to great enthusiasm about music. I know I’m less critical than lots of other listeners, and even other writers at our putrid site. I still use my own kind of filter, but it seems more porous than those of others. Or maybe I see more clearly just how much fucking creativity and talent continue flowering in the metal underground, week after week!

(Somehow my enthusiasm for music is unabated even though the country where I live is rapidly going down the shitter.)

Here’s a severely cropped snapshot of what’s enthused me in recent days from the blacker realms. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: REVOCATION, RIVERS OF NIHIL, ILLUSIONS DEAD, SERPENTS OF PAKHANGBA, SEASON TO RISK, JUNON, BENEDICTION, ROTTING CHRIST

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Feb 082025
 


Revocation – photo by David Brodsky

(written by Islander)

Bookends: solid objects firmly in place, resistant to the pressure of adjacent warped spines, bulging contents, and the changes in atmosphere and time that cause such pressures. I have a pair of musical bookends on each end of today’s musical shelf. In between are a few exceedingly interesting small volumes that caught my eyes and ears this week. I hope you’ll give them all a chance so they can catch yours too.

REVOCATION (U.S.)

Surely, Revocation need no introduction, so I won’t provide one. Let’s see and hear what they’re up to now, the focus being on the video released for a new single named “Confines of Infinity“. Continue reading »

ROTPIT AND DRUID LORD JOIN FORCES IN ROT-FILLED SPLIT EP

 Album Reviews, Metal News, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Feb 072025
 

(Here, our contributor Zoltar shines a light on the recently released split Doomed To Rot by two death metal devastators — Druid Lord from the U.S. and the German/Swedish group Rotpit.)

Split releases may appear like a thing of the past but, Satan be thanked, some cool bands and underground labels out there carry on that long tradition, let it be by pure opportunity or, in today’s case, simply to show each other some good old respect. And why the hell not? Especially when the two bands in question aren’t exactly playing what you would call, well, half-ass death metal.

Here in the US, you’re probably more familiar with DRUID LORD: Formed over fifteen years ago by former EQUINOX and ACHERON veterans Peter Slate (guitar) and Tony Blakk (bass & vocals), completed since 20016 by KILLING ADDICTION’s Chris Wicklein (guitar) and MASSACRE’s Elden Santos (drums), they’ve been growing in strength over the course of three albums and a whole bunch of splits, showcasing their heavy-as-fuck doom/death take on the classic Floridian style.

On the flipside, you’ll find the Swedish/German supergroup ROTPIT, spearheaded by Ralf Hauber from REVEL IN FLESH, assisted by his partner-in-crime in HEADS FOR THE DEAD Jonny Pettersson (the man of a thousand bands/projects like WOMBBATH, HUMAN HARVEST and so on) and, on drums since last year, Erik Barthold from LEFT HAND SOLUTION. Last November, the lads released Long Live The Rot, a downtuned delicacy of epic proportions that would make BLOODBATH barf and run for cover. Continue reading »

“STRESS TEST” — AN NCS SONG PREMIERE AND A REVIEW OF THE ALBUM

 Album Reviews, Premieres  2 Responses »
Feb 052025
 

(On February 28th Transylvanian Recordings will release the self-titled debut album by Stress Test from Portland, Oregon. What we have for you today is Todd Manning‘s review of the album and our premiere of its title song.)

With all the blends of sub-genres that make up the metal world today, grindcore and old-school thrash metal is a combination that doesn’t often pop up. But Portland’s Stress Test make it sound natural, like we all should’ve been doing this all along.

After a brief intro, “Degrees of Violence” vomits forth a tirade of crust and blast beats. The song is 30 seconds long, as it should be, and is awesome in all the standard grind kind of ways. “Coward” follows and at first glance seems similar to what came before. But there are moments that upon closer examination have a thrash feel. Continue reading »

NAKED WHIPPER: “CHAPEL DEFILEMENT”

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Feb 052025
 

(On January 31st Iron Bonehead Productions ushered in the return, after 30 years, of the German band Naked Whipper, and now we’re providing Zoltar‘s review of their new album.)

I know better. Fuck, I was there. So don’t believe those claiming they were right from the get-go into Blasphemy and their likes back in the mid-’90s because they weren’t. Truth be told, back then what was to be called ‘war metal’ and their likes had very few disciples. Even if death metal was on its way out, I guess most of them hadn’t come to terms with the new definition of what extreme metal stood for and what the heck this both annoying and fascinating corpsepainted kid known as black metal had to do with it.

What I do know though is that when Naked Whipper‘s first full-length Paintreaks unexpectedly dropped in 1995, most of us dismissed it, including me. Their only claim to fame was that their bass player and vocalist was briefly Blood‘s frontman for their cult Christbait album released three years later but that was about it. As a matter of fact, the result sounded to my ears like a more satanic-flavored and primitive version of Blood, and thus was immediately suspected of jumping on the left hand path band-wagon, especially since it was being put out by MMI Records off Germany (Morbid Records‘ little brother if you catch the reference), then first and foremost renowned for putting out ugly death metal and grindcore, such as Avulsed, Dead or Deranged. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): INBORN SUFFERING — “PALE GREY MONOCHROME”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Feb 042025
 

(written by Islander)

Inborn Suffering came together in Paris in 2002. They released two albums that made substantial impact craters in the landscape of doom, Wordless Hope in 2006 and Regression To Nothingness in 2012, and then they sunk into lightless depths for a long time. After returning with singles in 2023 and 2024, they now have a new album for us that will be released on February 7th by Ardua Music.

The name of the new album, Pale Grey Monochrome, is not an inviting one. It’s more fitting as a description of a winter sky hiding the sun beneath a curtain of slate that stretches from horizon to horizon than as a come-on for new music. It seems to promise a colorless gloom, drab and featureless. There is a reason for the name, but the music is the antithesis of monochromatic, as you will soon see. Continue reading »

DISRUPTED: “STINKING DEATH”

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Feb 042025
 

(Today we bring you Zoltar‘s review of the recently released third album by the Swedish death metal band Disrupted.)

There’s a good reason why Lik got signed to Metal Blade Records a few years back, and no, it hasn’t anything to do with both their guitar players joining respectively Katatonia and Bloodbath. No, if on the surface their classic down-to-earth approach to SweDeath may not look and sound that much different from the 7,564 Entombed clones popping out here and there (although it should be said that their main influence remains Dismember but I digress), underneath the fat layers of HM-2 effects pedals and downtuned guitar, they had, one could say, class. Yep, that extra-but-fuck-I-can’t-really-put-my-finger-on-it-although-it’s-here element, that Midas Touch if you will, that set them apart. Or maybe they just had better songs?

Off Ludvika in the dead center of the country, the very same little town where Peter Tägtgren’s Abyss studio is located, Disrupted have the same problem, so to speak. To those of the outside, they’ll probably look like another bunch of dudes pretending it’s 1993 all over again who hired Daniel Liljekvist back in 2018 right after he had left his drum stool in Katatonia (them again) to get some attention. Especially since their early material – 2014’s Heavy Death EP and the equally imaginatively-titled Morbid Death three years later – didn’t exactly set the world on fire. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: IMPURIST — “EVOLVING CORTEX”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Feb 032025
 

(written by Islander)

Impurist are a new death metal band formed in Hull, England in 2023. Their lineup features former and current members of Extreme Noise Terror, Gorerotted, Winterfylleth, and Introrectalgestation. They proudly proclaim that they have taken influence from the bands they grew up listening to, and they obviously must have grown up listening to violent horrors.

Impurist made their recording debut in April of last year with an EP aptly named Punishment Without Mercy. Since then they’ve recorded a second EP entitled Evolving Cortex. It will be released by 783label on CD, cassette tape, and 12″ vinyl — and the vinyl edition will include the band’s debut EP as the B-side.

The new EP, Evolving Cortex, includes three songs, and we have some thoughts about each of them — along with the premiere of a frightening animated lyric video for the title song. Continue reading »

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