If you’re like me, you have a hard time getting your game face on for the work week when Monday mornings roll around. But assorted friends of mine pointed me to two new songs yesterday that seem tailor-made to juice up all those sluggish Monday-morning brains out there, and I’ve also included a review of a murderous two-song EP plus one phenomenally good new Zombiefication track I found on my own that will finish the job nicely. Death fucking metal.

TEMPLE OF VOID

In June 2013 I praised a three-song demo by Detroit’s Temple of Void, which included some truly staggering, mega-weight riffs and a blanket of indigo melodies, usually delivered at a lumbering pace, along with elements of viscera-draped death metal a la Autopsy, a pummeling of Bolt-Thrower-style hammer blows, and some inspired psychedelic guitar solos. Now these dudes have finished a full-length album (Of Terror and the Supernatural), and yesterday an advance track became available for listening.

“Savage Howl” is a fitting name for this thing. The big gear-grinding guitar chords are savage, the gruesome deep-throated vocals are savage, the morbid melodies are savage, and when the band start rolling out a repeating cycle of enormous, stomping riffs, you will headbang savagely. This is top-shelf supernatural death/doom and a really enticing teaser for the album to come. Continue reading »