Devenial Verdict – Ash Blind (Transcending Obscurity Records)

Reading Time: 2 minutes and 10 seconds.

Weird atmospheric death metal.

Devenial Verdict hails from Finland and practice what they call atmospheric death metal. For me it’s more like an atmospheric technical death metal. Not too jazzy and sometimes brutal. Sometimes not.

In the long first track called Hope, they repeat musical patterns and this one, particularly, is hard to grasp and it doesn’t catch the totality of the CD. There are long phrases and syncopated drums that sound infinite to the non-converted. The guitar phrases are very long and the vocals, particularly sound going through the motions.

Although following in the same path of the first track, second one called Pravum has a more solid path and the effects and iterations make sense on this one, for it is not hard to understand. Strange enough, this album sounds like trial and error.

The continuation, the 3^rd song, which is the title track, is a segue of the aforementioned one and now that sounds confusing: why in the hell they didn’t warn the listener by putting this is the second part or whatever? Maybe in their minds it is not, but even so…

Singularly, the track Mourning Star is not cool because is a tentative of jazz and they definitely don’t sound like Atheist or Cynic. Not because they are bad musicians, they are excellent. But because they don’t have this American inclination. Period.

Now the song The Contemptor is bull’s eye. It’s hard to try and understand if they wanted to make this kind of brutal sound on the album. I don’t think so, because this one sounds like a very competent band with technicality and brutality and suddenly their atmospheric thing makes sense. One track different from the previous one. Fastness is real here, even in the great (but short! Hoho) solos.

World Breaker, the last one, repeats the MO of the very first track making the album going full circle. But differently from that song, this one is cooler. The dissonant parts that are not necessarily the heavier ones (mind you) are a trip. The vocals here are cooler as well. The phrases are long although there are lots of variations. The final solo is delicious to hear…

Okay, this album is not for everyone. Even so, maybe one will LOVE IT. Maybe one will hate it with the same intensity. It’s impossible to be indifferent. It would be idiotic to affirm that this is a bad album and a bad band because this is NOT the truth. The simple truth is: maybe this band is so sophisticated that is for the chosen few. Are you one of them?

Ash Blind is out NOW on Transcending Obscurity Records.

Rating: 6/10

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Roderick Blutrache

DE PROFUNDIS – The Corruption of Virtue (Transcending Obscurity Records)

Reading Time: 1 minute and 40 seconds.

The UK death metal entity is back!

This is a band that has only qualities. I have no memories of a band that doesn’t record the same album twice and even so, it’s always a virtue (no pun intended, I mean really).

The Corruption of Virtue goes less to technical death metal and more to pure death metal but of course, the band always plays like hell.

Ritual Cannibalism is a suitable opener for those who seek the most headbanger death metal ever, the riffs (oh always them) are second to none and the more one spins the album the more he gets used to this great song. The continuation, called Sectarian Warfare, has a bassline that is infernally good, along with the solo that is NEVER dull. When I said they changed their technicality I tried to say they put it almost all in the marvelous solos of the album.

Embrace Dystopia (at least its beginning) sounds a lot like the song Spiritual Healing from Death. Apart of that it has a fast approach and unbridled guttural vocals, but honestly this duo of guitarists, Shoi Sen and Paul Nazarkardeh kinda of steal the scene here. What an epic track, really!

Another great number (and one to crank it up!) is the track Religious Cancer, with a sound that, sounds somewhat different in this paradoxically cohesive work. There’s more thrash metal in it, but of course, it’s not a traditional thrash metal track, it sounds more death thrash!

The Sword Verses is the closer and it is complex one, going more to their tech past: it starts like a syncopated biz, then it goes to bona fide death metal with intricate riffages and then there are changes of tempo all the way! Great song!

This album is another gem of De Profundis , a band that deserves more love for the quality of their musicians (all of them), and if you REALLY like death metal you MUST spin this one like hell!

 The Corruption of Virtue is out now on Transcending Obscurity Records.

Rating: 8/10

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Roderick Blutrache

ABADDON INCARNATE – The Wretched Sermon (Transcending Obscurity Records)

Reading time: 2 minutes

Another good deathgrind offer.

It seems that after years of confusion about metal terminologies inside death metal, people started to become tired and deathgrind seems (or sounds) the answer for today’s extreme metal.

Abaddon Incarnate is not exactly a new band, existing since mid-1990’s and having their first album released in 1999. The new album, The Wretched Sermon would be their sixth offer amidst other releases.

This album presents 13 songs in only 36 minutes and they are aggressive and technical but at the same time short.

For example, a song like Gateways presents contentious music with Entombed-like guitars and some extreme velocity, not the most absurd thing in the world, but enough to wake up the hatred inside the fan’s heart and to become combative.

But, in another case, Epic Desecration sounds more like a normal death metal band with mid-tempo but never giving up to commercial or softcore. This is metal of death, real deal seal of approval.

A highlight is Killing Spree which has some personality and the attack is ferocious enough to be a headbanger of a song. The frantic riffs are perfect for those who true-blue to the style.    

On the other hand, the short Into The Maelstrom is very savage and the attack is bulls-eye.

Hyperchaos show different approach on the vocals and although it is a legit deathgrind song it remembers Sepultura’s Biotech is Godzilla. Listen and understand why. Apart of that is a crazy song, more technical than the others.

The is a song that although being not bad, kinda breaks the climate of the album which is the 6-some-minute Isolation And Decay that is fast but long and is not the last song, rather it is the penultimate one that makes no sense in the cd order. Apart of that, the song is very fierce as well and it has an earworm riff.

This new album by Abaddon Incarnate is very good; the loyal ones to the style will love it, but it might please the ears of new people as well.

The Wretched Sermon is out now on Transcending Obscurity Records.

Rating: 7,5/10

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Roderick Blutrache

ERNIA – How To Deal With Life And Fail (Transcending Obscurity Records)

Grindcore for all.

Ernia is a grindcore band from Spain with two members of Wormed and they execute a kind of brutal-but-technical grindcore.

Of course, the songs are fast (in tempo and in time) like a train derailing from its original course as in the songs Farewell, Sputnik that encapsulates the opus and the second and INTERESTING song called simply called Q while in the third track called Room Full Of Paper Cranes the craziness continues with very fast and precise drumming and the bass takes place in a noisy but well produced sound. It’s like an organized chaos.

Although the song Helium-3 is not the most original thing in the world, at least it’s extremely nuts. But in the song Dharma things become very heavy and headbanging. It’s like (de)compositions for deathbangers who like to grind.

A Mute Florist sounds like an exercise in self-indulgence, but at the end of the day it’s a good song, and this impression quickly dissipates, while in the song 2-d things doesn’t get very fast until the very last minute when craziness takes place.

The album has a total of 13 tracks, but the last one – called Ikigai – really puts everything in peril as it falls into the “clean approach” temptation. It seems like a clean rock metalcore band. Not cool.

In general, How To Deal With Life And Fail is a good album and one fault is not capable of destroy the whole fun. This album is indicated for fans of grindcore, deathgrind and technical death metal alike. Listen and have fun.

How To Deal With Life And Fail is out now on Transcending Obscurity Records.

Rating: 7/10

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Roderick Blutrache

DEFECT DESIGNER – Neanderthal (Transcending Obscurity Records)

Death grind with gusto.

The original band is from Russia (which is NOT in demand atm) but one member went to Norway, so let’s analyze this 7-track 18-minute EP as a Norwegian ensemble.

This is technical and at the same time is fast as fuck!

As in the first song that is the title track that begins and ends in a minute. Literally.

The second excellent song – Wrinkles –  is totally technical, no fillers, but full of crazy parts and don’t say to me that the last part of the song is not an homage to the opener song of the Simpsons by Danny Elfman, because it is! And it is rad!

Trolls, the third track is almost a noisecore, but over again, just because it is a short biz, for it is technical and they seem to not compromise that!

Luddites for its turn is more guttural and abrupt, heavy as hell, fast as the speed of light, the combining drums and bass and extreme riffs makes it a tractor coming over ya!

Vlad sounds very progressive grind, like a grind that is just not tech but, in its fastness, sounds like a crazy band with meticulous parts although very, very noisy!

Pigsty goes back over again to the noisecore that sounds funny. I don’t know if that was the intention but it goes that way, until technicality gets over again.

Now the last one, Time Forward, which is instrumental: it starts with syncopated drum, then the velocity gets over, solos aplenty, the bassline dictates the base (of course), more solos: it’s a great composition of deathgrind.

This EP is something totally different and I fully recommend to anyone who wants something very different yet BRUTAL to hear.

Neanderthal is out now on Transcending Obscurity Records.

Rating: 8/10

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Roderick Blutrache

GODLESS TRUTH – Self Titled – (Transcending Obscurity Records)

From traditional to brutal technical death metal.

Godless Truth is a band from Czechia that came from traditional death metal from 90’s (the band really has been active since that time) and became a bona fide brutal death metal.

It sounds like a new life for the band, so let’s go into the sounds.

For example, the song The Decision is a tour de force into the style, never saving in fastness resulting in pure brutality. Scissors on its turn brings more technicality to the forefront and the result is yet a more brutal fun.

Breath Fire (listen below) has more groove in it which doesn’t mean dullness. On the contrary it sounds like an abstract of the whole album. Great!

The syncopated sound of the track Bred in Greed (listen below), brings more excellent solos to the front line and even more blast beats.

RIP Cage sounds somewhat like Deicide, even in the vocals of Adam B. Sychrow, but of course the serpentine nature of the music leads the track to another course.

The band is indeed having a second chance and they GRABBED it with both hands! They do deserve your vote!

Godless Truth is out now on Transcending Obscurity Records.

Rating: 8/10

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Roderick Blutrache

DEATHFUCKINGCUNT – Decadent Perversity – (Transcending Obscurity Records)

When brutal technical death metal gets into the top.

This is over the top music of technical persuasion: Deathfuckingcunt from Australia returns in greatest style in this album Decadent Perversity, where they surpass the barrier of what’s possible (and maybe impossible) in musical brutal art without sounding posh, or anything like that!

Mulesing The Malformed shows that these guys are not kidding using an extreme level of brutality and techniques that will leave one bloodless while wondering what’s happening with so much riffs, and even so, the great guttural vocals and grooves are there amidst insane velocity, that’s what I’m talking about!

Fisted Into Form gives the first track a run for the money, with even more insanity while devouring the eardrums with death metal hysteria, evoking the best bands of this style and by this point one is already asking: why aren’t these guys playing together with the great ones? I just can fucking believe a “new” name could make so much quality noise. Really!

Devoured By Eunuchs has a drive into it that leads to total annihilation of thinking with so many information between the riffs and drums that at the same time doesn’t sound revolutionary in the idea, but it surpasses its rivals in technique mixed with cruelty.

The greatest earworm is Blunt Force Vasectomy which ACTUALLY has a chorus that one can sing along in the middle of all the noise and the riffs in this one is second to none and the final result is a very headbanger with the correct dose of musical inhumanity.

Garroted By Frenulum is the closer (the album has a total of 9 tracks) and it is another highlight this time showing how the band sound like there are no bridles to stop them in a strange mid-tempo- to fast pace that rolls over you like a crazy machine of hell. What the actual fuck?

Decadent Perversity is easily one of the best albums of the year, being in Death Metal or Metal in general. This one is mandatory to all fans of the style and if you don’t dig it, you are a poser!

Decadent Perversity is out now on Transcending Obscurity Records.

Rating: 9,5/10

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Roderick Blutrache

SISYPHEAN – Colours of Faith (Transcending Obscurity Records)

Black Death from Lithuania.

Dissonant black metal band Sisyphean reaches their sophomore album with lots of noise mixed with some level of atmospheric black metal (intentional or not), but of course, that is not the high point of the album, but their trip into the weird world of their black metal philosophy.

After an intro, comes the track Scorched Timeless with its very noisy sound and production, along with changes of phrases from brutal to more intimist and this is just the beginning although this track can encapsulate the album’s idea into one song.

Sovereigns Of Livid Hope carries a heavy burden in its 7-minute business, like a bad incantation from hell, and the way the vocals are mixed makes one perceive an infernal magic coming from every side. The drumming is fast and the guitars are on the edge of the abyss, everything very solid and at the same time polluted in an ugly black metal destructive factor.

One of the best tracks of the album is Exiles with its kind of discordant guitars and constant pounding are the highlights of the album, for sure!

Conqueror is the closer this album deserves, a complex brand of blackened death metal that is not like anyone else. Complex, mid-tempo, and very dramatic, this song is grandiloquent to say at least. It’s not for those who seek easy assimilation, but for those who love the suffering of a good black attack. By the end, the song loses momentum and the album goes into the eternal obscurity of death… forever…  

Colours of Faith may not be the most perfect album out there, but it sure different, but not enough to dispel the true black metal heads and it will take some by surprise.

Colours of Faith is coming out tomorrow, May 27^th on Transcending Obscurity Records.

Rating: 8/10

The Last of Lucy – Moksha (Transcending Obscurity Records)

Mincing technical grindmetal.

Okay, this name is really not okay, what in Satan’s name is The Last of Lucy? Let’s give them the discount that they started as a math (?) metal band and these deathcore, metalcore, I-don’t—give-two-fucks-core band have the stupidest names.

Apart of that, some breakdowns, and things that are not exactly the purest death metal, let’s admit: these cats play like hell and do their job as no other!

I know some bands of these kind of techgrind style, but how can they play like that? It’s a festival of non-stop brutality, change of vocals, relatively short songs – like in the first track Moksha and the second, Agnes, but the things start to get better and better on the third massacre (sorry purists, there’s no other way to describe it) Aforethough, where all the elements of the fastness, the drum precision (this blast beater came from hell) encounter each other…

… and then with all the riffs possible and impossible enters the song Ego Death and lemme tell ya: it’s a lotta information, but at the same time the production made this album in a way there is delicious to hear, it’s not just noise for noise’s sake (which I also love) but here the so-called “processed” sound that some people can get is what save them… The short solos are fun as fuck.

The most complex track (therefore, the funniest) is called Ritual Of The Abraxas that has more and more elements, changes of tempo, brutality never heard, dude, this is asylum metal.

Temple of Rati, is another marvelous thing that gives one a will to spin it more and more until his mind explodes. What I found magnifico is the velocity sang in the song and it’s like a grind played in the fastest velocity possible.

The Demiurge is different somehow, as they play (like in child’s play) with their instruments and the tempos simply sound different and diverse all the time making this album something that can be everything, less boring.

The Last of Lucy seems ready for the big game and for sure if they play, they win. Great album that detaches itself for others trying to be tech and cool. They are tech and cool…

Moksha is out now on Transcending Obscurity Records.

Rating: 9/10

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Roderick Blutrache

VORGA – Striving Toward Oblivion (Transcending Obscurity Records)

Germanic Melodic Black Metal with Cosmic traits.

This is the first full length of Vorga (who even has a member who played in the mythic band Aaskereia) and the sound presented here is none less than magnanimous, a melodic black metal played with gusto and passion and the more spins one gives the best it stays.

The special thing about Vorga is that they do what they do without reinventing the wheel, and yet it sounds heavy as fuck, not another pastiche of black metal we hear every day, these are seasoned musicians, this sound has some in-demand appeal, these guys are really talented without modifying the style, just playing it with competence.

The first song, for instance, called Starless Sky, is fast as fast can be and the sound in studio at least, is perfect, everything well equalized: drums, guitars, vocals and such, it is a punch in the stomach and yet it maintains the melody on high, it’s a like a Germanic Dark Funeral, of course, this is only for comparison, each band has their sound. But hell, this is great!

The best song for me is Stars My Destination (which came with a flaw and I got the flawless, 6-minute version, don’t ask me how) that is really epic, there is a certain grandiloquence that doesn’t sound complicated to the listener but of course it asks for some spins in order to fully grasp the beauty of the black metal here played. I’m surprised because I didn’t know a band could sound so perfect without losing its clout, without losing its black metal appeal, without sound “symphonic”. The equilibrium in this album is what it makes it so special…

Death Manifesting is another great piece that is a trip to the space, the aggressiveness is in the right place, the mid-tempo drumming aligned with the guitars in the backdrop causes a black sensation, there is no way to say this band is not good. Even for radicals.

Let’s go to the facts: it’s not every day that an album like Striving Toward Oblivion by VORGA appears on radar, and it’s not everyday so skilled musicians come upon with some legit black metal, so this is album that must not be ignored. If you do so, it’s your fault.

Striving Toward Oblivion is out now on Transcending Obscurity Records

Rating: 10/10

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Roderick Blutrache