(written by Islander)
I’m hurrying to post today’s collection before I have to turn to much more mundane tasks, so I’ll spare you a wordy introduction and just say that I’m extremely proud of these choices, not only because I think all of them are excellent but also because they’re going to give you so many twists and turns, right up through the final choice. Continue reading »
(written by Islander)
(Isaac Newton, in a letter to Robert Hooke, 5 Feb 1675)
We begin with that famous quotation because it is likely the source of the name that the unconventional international band Seventh Station gave their forthcoming new EP, On Shoulders Of Giants. They chose that name because the five songs on the record honor five great musical artists of the 20th century, many of them classical composers. Standing on those shoulders, Seventh Station have given the compositions their own distinctive twists, transforming the original works into expressions of contemporary metal that are as unorthodox, indeed mind-bending, as Newton’s theories must have seemed when he envisioned them from the shoulders of the giants in his own fields.
At the very end of this admittedly very long feature we’ve included a track-by-track commentary (a fun-loving one) by Seventh Station vocalist Davidavi (“Vidi”) Dolev that sheds light on what inspired each song on the EP and what the band sought to accomplish with each one. Although it’s at the end, you should really read it first if you want want a deeper understanding of what you’re about to hear. Just reading it, without listening, is also kind of a dazzling experience, and undoubtedly will leave adventurous listeners intensely curious about what’s coming. (That was certainly the effect it had on us before we started listening).
But Vidi Dolev‘s comments only hint at what the songs are going to sound like, leaving the door open for someone rash like me to offer up some descriptive verbiage, while humbly acknowledging that there’s really no substitute for listening first-hand. Continue reading »
(Our French contributor Zoltar has provided us with short reviews of four recently released records, two of them reissues of music dating to the ’90s and two of them brand new, from just a bit earlier this year.)
There weren’t that many ‘pure’ death metal bands to speak of in Greece in the late ’90s, one of the only notable exceptions being Inveracity and their killer debut Circle Of Perversion released through Unmatched Brutality (who else?) back in 2003. The thing is that most of the leaders of the movement, like Septicflesh – or Septic Flesh in two words as they were called back then – Horrified or Nightfall (the latter featuring a then rather unknown yet super promising drummer called George Kollias who would soon rise to fame with Nile), had all moved on to greener pastures.
So to say that local hardcore maniacs like Vassilis ‘Bill’ Benakis (guitar and vocals) and future Repulsive Echo Records founder Kostas Vaxevanos (drums) were wasting their time talking to a wall would be quite an understatement. Yet as Cranial Torment the pair nevertheless recorded no fewer than three demos – the second being almost album-length, clocking at 30 minutes – in between August 1998 and May 1999 before vanishing into oblivion, until now. Continue reading »
(written by Islander)
I hope you’re having a good day. I hope the following music will make it better.
I used roulette-wheel and craps analogies yesterday, and it’s even more fitting today. Without exception, I had never heard the music of any of these bands before, so picking them was a spin of the wheel and a roll of the dice. I did also land on some songs that didn’t bring much payback; those aren’t here, only the winners. Continue reading »
(written by Islander)
The well-known descriptor “caveman death metal” connotes big dumb knuckle-dragging riffs, big dumb indecipherable grunts, and club-wielding drumwork that also seems primarily designed to break rocks. No pretense, no sophistication, no appeals to our higher faculties, just red meat for the reptile brain.
Sometimes, however, music that attracts that descriptor reminds of the long-running Geico commercials in which cavemen in modern settings become offended by the phrase “It’s so easy a caveman could do it,” because they are actually more sophisticated than their appearances suggest.
Which brings us to Cavernous Maw, a new Minnesota-based project created by guitarist/vocalist Niilo Smith (Sky Island) and drummer Ben Fagerness (Sky Island, Graveslave, Gloryhole Guillotine). Outwardly, they have no pretense — just look at the name of their debut EP (Primitive), the bloody cover art by Misanthropic-Art, their own proud brandishing of the “caveman death metal” label (though they do add “blackened” to that descriptor), and of course the band’s own name.
But their music turns out to be a whole lot more than a good soundtrack for breaking rocks and clubbing people senseless. Continue reading »
(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 »
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.
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 »
(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 »
(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 »
(written by Islander)
In both these Sunday columns and the more genre-scattered ones I do on Saturdays I tend to write about individual songs more than complete EPs or albums. That allows me to cover more ground, and to bring more bands and their forthcoming releases to people’s attention.
The downside is that lots of listeners don’t really put much weight on individual songs. They want to know about the complete record, maybe through a review or more likely by listening to all of it when that becomes possible.
I don’t have any way of knowing whether the pluses of my strategy outweigh the minuses, but I’m wedded to it for better or worse. Today’s column is a classic example of that, though I have included a trio of complete but short EPs in the mix. Continue reading »