We’re sitting on a cornucopia of promos for forthcoming releases by relatively high-profile bands such as Amorphis, Arsis, Children of Bodom, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Finntroll, Heaven Shall Burn, and Hypocrisy. We will be reviewing some of those, and more that I haven’t named. But this morning I felt like exploring new music from more obscure bands whose music I’d never heard. As usual, there’s no rhyme or reason to what I picked.

GEVURAH

The obscurity of this two-man Montreal band is likely to be short-lived since they’ve now been signed by Profound Lore. PL plans to release Gevurah’s five-track debut EP Necheshirion (Hebrew for “snake-like”) on May 28. I haven’t yet seen much publicity about this news, but I did find a stream of one song from the EP, “Flesh Bounds Desecrated”.

That song is an unmitigated aural assault of blackened death metal (or deathened black metal). With almost overpowering force, the band deliver a fast-moving wave-front of blasting drums and harrowing guitar and bass licks, with raw mid-range vocals that scrape like sharpened nails on skin. Continue reading »