Our work is now complete, the blood runs fast and free …
Not sure why, but Thrash keeps popping up on WG lately; some good, some bad, opinion: dangerous. Anyway, an overabundance of literary lickspittle heads toward you this Wednesday, replete with the usual spate of love for some, hate for others, and in all cases an unburying of sounds that lurk beneath. You’ll note our reviews are not in their usual impeccably-placed alphabetical order, for no reason Marty or myself can surmise beyond the possibility our beers, unbeknownst to us, have been laced with crack. Place your own ruminations and playlists in the comments, and keep sending demos and bags of flaming poop to our PO Box. See ya in six. Six. 6.
Jim Clifton Playlist
Thou Shalt Suffer – Into the Woods of Belial
Order From Chaos – And I Saw Eternity
Venom – Welcome to Hell
Vomitor – The Escalation
Burzum – Det Som Engang Var
Deströyer 666 – Defiance
Denouncement Pyre – Almighty Arcanum
Drowning the Light – Oceans of Eternity
Ruins – Place of No Pity
Johnny Cash – At Folsom Prison
Marty Rytkonen Playlist
Blessed Death – Destined for Extinction (Criminally underrated thrash, driven by themes of war)
Dofka – Humanity Bleak
Wicked World – A Tribute to Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath – Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
Morta Skuld – Surface
Septic Flesh – Mystic Places of Dawn
Last Chapter – The Living Waters
Cromlech – Ancestral Doom Demo 2012
Aevangelist – De Masticatione Mortuorum In Tumulis (a nightmare put to music… yeah…. I think you can call it music)
Voivod – Target Earth (Several truly great songs. Some I’m still not sold on. Still trying to let this one soak in)
S. Craig Zahler Playlist
Necros Christos – Grave Damnation (Always in rotation)
Coffins – March of Despair (Doomy death. Simple creepy death metal like early Necros Christos, but far doomier, evincing Saint Vitus hooks.)
Minotauri – II (Top notch doom, up there with Reverend Bizarre.)
Dead Infection – Surgical Disembowelment (I liked them on this one, as a death metal/goregrind hybrid, rather than their okay straight goregrind. Xenomorph & Let Me Vomit are my favorite songs by the band)
XXX Maniak – Harvesting the C*nt Nectar (A cool collection of micro songs. Although there’s too much time spent with sample & jokes, the musical material is immediate, catchy and fun.)
Last Days of Humanity – Hymns of Indigestible Suppuration (Challenging and slightly rewarding goregrind.)
The Day Everything Became Nothing – Invention : Destruction (Some great and controlled chugging goregrind. Too bad the album goes in the toilet on track 7 and never fully recovers. 7 & 9 have some truly awful vocals ideas, but tracks 3 & 6 are great stuff.)
Paracoccidioidomicosisproctitissarcomucosis / Fecalizer – Split CD. (the Fecalizer songs are mediocre–and very short, excepting their cover of Reek of Putrefaction—and it seems like the final songs by Paracocci are demos or live tracks, but the first three (comparatively) well-recorded Paracocci tunes—tracks 7, 8 and 9–are great examples of their chaos versus organization aesthetic. Track 8, entitled Exciting and Sucking Female Carcinomas, is a great one to sample if you want to hear this Mexican goregrind band’s style, which is like a wilder, sloppier Disgorge. No, not the mediocre American Disgorge, but the evil as hell Mexican Disgorge.)
No One Gets Out Alive – Beyond the Edge of the Woods. (Thrashy slamming death metal with cricket chirp vocals. Consistently fun and except for the vocals, very accessible stuff. Kind of like a much simpler Putrid Pile. Check out the cut, Human Hotpot)
Battleroar – To Death and Beyond (One of the best albums ever made. Essential heavy metal. Check out Finis Mundi)
Worm Gear 
Craig, you are one sick fucker with your taste. I admire that! hehe..
Manilla Road – The Courts of Chaos
Obsessor – All 3 Demos (EXCELLENT Death Punk Trash Can Trash, and free on bandcamp!)
Incantation – Vanquish in Vengeance (the riffs are kinda boring, but i don’t know why I like this album so much?? Bizarre. )
Abyssal – Novit enim Dominus Qui Sunt Eius
Dodecahedron – Self Titled LP- excellently executed technically savvy angular black metal
Behold! The Monolith – Defender, Redeemist (super badass Metal with NME style vocals!)
Hails Patrick! Thoughts:
Abyssal – Finally checked ’em out on your strong recommendation – f*cking awesome. Nothing short of a crime these guys are unsigned. Dark, layered and sinister; just the way I like it \m/ Marty! Potential Eihwaz Recordings contender!
Behold! The Monolith – A perfect description on your part. Really, really enjoyed this. Would have ordered it immediately had they not been sold out. Another band that should be on a label; seeing the amount of press they’re receiving, won’t be long.
Hey, I want a scouting agent fee! haha…nah, i’ll keep recommending as long as ya listening..Abyssal is not interested in labels. I asked. But you can ask again. They at least asked me what I was offering. I had nothing to offer of course.
Catching up on things before the 2013 onslaught begins.
Holy Grail – Ride The Void
Rebaelliun – Burn the Promise Land
Rebaelliun – Bringer of War – Kings of the Unholy Blood
Year of the Goat – Angel’s Necropolis
Dawn – Slaughtersun (Crown of the Triarchy)
Twisted Tower Dire – Make It Dark
Bad Religion – True North
Summon – Fallen – Upon Wings of Chaos
Rebaelliun – Annihilation
Falkenbach – Heralding The Fireblade
Falkenbach – …Magni Blandinn Ok Megintiri…
Falkenbach – Ok Nefna Tysvar Ty
Urfaust – Der freiwillige Bettler
December Wolves – Completely Dehumanized
Katharsis – World WIthout End
Intestine Baalism – Banquet in the Darkness – The Planet
Accept – Blood of the Nation
Ludicra – Fex Urbis Lex Orbis
Ludicar – Hollow Psalms
is it me or would you agree Century Media is bribing the shit out of all the zines and blogs to give this new Voivod album just high scores? WTF? 9.5 out or 10 is really the consensus i am seeing everywhere. i heard this thing. Good? Yeah. Expected with no surprised, fuck yes. 9.5 out of 10? FUCK NO. Maggots to not be trusted if that is the case.
That Abyssal records seems like something I’d really dig, gonna check it out after work.
Been playing:
Antediluvian – Watchers’ Reign
Sulphur Aeon – Swallowed by the Ocean’s Tide
Chthe’ilist – Amechth’ntaas’m’rriachth (hahaha copy and paste from the digital files)
Disma – Towards the Megalith
Portal – Seepia
Mitochondrion – Archaeaeon
All deep, cavernous, twisted, nightmarish, sub-terranean sounds. Wicked! \m/
Also, some dutch classics:
Sinister – Diabolical Summoning
Gorefest – Mindloss
Asphyx – Last One on Earth (we ALL own this one and The Rack right? RIGHT???)
Acrostichon – Engraved in Black
Pestilence – Consvming Impvlse (fucking CLASSIC!)
Makes me a bit proud; our teeny-tiny country has produced some pretty awesome death metal.
And now playing:
David Bowie – Heroes
I’m a Bowie fan, always have been. Something about the man’s voice… Pretty excited that his new album is (finally!!!) coming.
As for the new Voivod; haven’t heard it yet but I smell a hype.
Nice job Freek— lot of good stuff on there— Antediluvian (which I always connect to the superior Von Goat album Septic Illumination that I got at the same time), Asphyx, Portal, etc. I’ll check out some of the things I don’t know…if I can spell them…
If you want cavernous nightmare, try the album Forensick by Disgorge. This is the MEXICAN Disgorge. The sound is like a messier & creeper Portal, and just wild playing. The cover might be the most disturbing cover ever put on metal album— so people who like living babies may not want to check it out— it looks like a real photo. This thing is inscrutable evil.
And Bowie— whenever I see that name come up I have two things to say:
Outside (Great diagonal piano and mood)
&
Hunky Dory (As inventive as Abbey Road, but far less Saccharine)
These are such plateaus for him from totally different eras. My favorites, though ZIggy is quite good.
Inscrutable evil sounds good, I’ll check it out! Be sure to check out Chthe’ilist! Amechth’ntaas’m’rriachth is a demo by the way, and these guys really should be wider known.
Good to see love for the Thin White Duke. As a a matter of fact I’ve been listening to Outside today at work. A Small Plot of Land! Diagonal piano indeed… My Bowie favorites are Low and Heroes with their twisted and intense take on pop songs and their moody and downright creepy instrumentals.
Very nice call on The Hand of Doom; that’s a great, fun, slab of proto-metal goodness! And kudos indeed to SKR for reissuing it, ’cause the original LP is a BITCH to find 😦
Have yet to find any thrash bands to drag me back into that genre. I cut my teeth on thrash, but burned out on the genre long ago. Every time thrash tries to re-boot (e.g., the mid-late 90’s retro thrash push) I just never hear anything really interesting.
A sad farewell is in order to the awesome New & Improved Live & Otherwise Blog. Since the mid 00s this was one of the best sites to read up on (and listen to) some of metal and hard rock’s lost gems. The admin is working to ensure that the informative write-ups are archived and accessible, but the site’s days of providing heavy sounds from beneath the underground are at their end.
These Just In:
Sigh- Scenes from Hell (yes, still on the Sigh kick)
Minotauri- II (the WG review piqued my curiosity; blast, now you’ve got me spending money on things! Curse your zombie bones!)
Playing This Week:
The Essence- Purity (really good clones of THE CURE)
Soundgarden- badmotorfinger (very heavy non-metal release I always liked)
Magnitude 9- Decoding the Soul (nice prog metal in the Lethal/Queensryche vein)
Insane- 1984 demo (great Swedish band, did two energetic trad metal demos)
Nightsblood (and others)
I’m pleased to see somebody other than myself use the term proto-metal and moreover, that you got Minotauri. GREAT. Turning at least one person on to the least appreciated genius in metal, Ari Honkonen, makes review writing worthwhile. That dude is one of the three best things to ever come out of Finland (the other are Reverend Bizarre and Marty). Ari Honkonen’s other band Morningstar has two MUST HAVE albums as well— Kalevala Mysticiism and Finnish Metal.
Further proof of Honkonen genius from Morningstar–
And I posted elsewhere, but I’ll say again here— there is ONLY ONE essential thrash album I’ve heard in the last decade: Southern Cross Ripper by Trench Hell. No jokes. No tech. Real dark thrash that smokes 99% of the vintage stuff.
Nightsblood> Hell yeah, Badmotorfinger! Monumental! Not metal but Jesus Christ Pose, Face Pollution, Drawing Flies and New Damage are heavy as hell.
Zahler> I’ll give Minotauri a try, I’ve seen it pretty cheap on a dutch online store. Reverend Bizarre didn’t do much for me though.
And concerning thrash; Dead Head anyone? Their album Kill Division shreds, their later stuff ain’t shabby either.
Zahler- if you dig the proto-metal sounds of the 70s, there’s a compilation series being put out called ‘Bonehead Crunchers’ that might interest you. There’s 2 volumes out, the first includes stuff from 1969-1977. Here’s the track list from vol 1:
01. SUPACHIEF – Red Brained Woman
02. HEAVY CRUISER – Louie Louie
03. BLACKSTONE – Goin’ On The Prowl
04. LARRY MANN : THE WILD MANN – The Meat Grinder
05. RENEGADE – Don’t Stop – Let’s Rock
06. CAPTAIN FOAM – No Reason
07. VOLT RUSH BAND – Love To You
08. CANYON – Top Of The World (Make My Reservation)
09. BLACK DEATH – Rock’n’Roll With Ork
10. LEFT END – Sunshine Girl
11. NEIL NORMAN – Wild Boys
12. TIN HOUSE – I Want Your Body
13. GRASSHOPPER – My Honey
14. STONE AXE – Snakebite
I haven’t had a chance to play it enough to offer comments on individual tracks.
For those cranking BOLT THROWER lately, you might enjoy checking out the 2-CD anthology recently put out by legendary Aussie death thrashers ARMOURED ANGEL. ‘Hymns of Hate’ collects most of the band’s demos and early EPs. Their sound is like a darker BOLT THROWER; very tight, lethal, stygian material of the highest caliber IMO.
Freek- Cheers on ‘Badmotorfinger’, but the killer, heavy track you forgot to mention is ‘Room a Thousand Years Wide’ 😉
Nightsblood> Ah yesss… “Listen, hear, he is inside… One who lives while others lie”. Awesome lyrics that one.
Thanks for pointing out the Armoured Angel anthology. While discussing Bolt Thrower with him Graham from Deepsend recommended Humiliation (from Malaysia) to me. Equal parts Bolt Thrower and Asphyx, old school style.
Concerning proto-metal; some years ago there was this compilation series called Heavy Seventies, volume 1 – 4. I must still have them lying around somewhere, haven’t played them in ages but some amazing stuff on there.
Great how metal slowly came into existence from the late 60’s through the 70’s. I always thought Judas Priest were a huge touchstone; that’s when metal first got REALLY eeeevil… And Rainbow Rising is also very metal; the stuff Manowar was made from. \m/
Nightsblood
That’s a lot of proto metal I’ve never even heard of. Feel free to recommend highlight bands that have full albums. (I find that I rarely pull out comps— even the bunch of very cool NWOBHM comps that i own)
Room a Thousand Years Wide = best song on that album. Other tunes have better screaming—Cornell was Ian Gillan caliber back then—but this tune is well done.
Freek
Humiliation is a nice recommendation— Thanks! I just ordered it from Sevared.
Hold on and let me see if I can entice the expert to come join the conversation. My 70s proto-metal chi isn’t all that great. I’ll invite the fellow who ran the NILOB site to come give us the scoop on all things proto-heavy.
Humiliation- mental note made, thanks for the tip!
Nightsblood> Where did you purchase that Armoured Angel anthology? Can’t find their CDs anywhere. I have been able to download Angel of the Sixth Order and the Stigmartyr EP which are both absolutely great. Simple but catchy riffing, bulldozer grooves (Bolt Thrower grooves!) instead of insane speed and a very nice dark atmosphere. Something about this stuff really grabs me! Thanks for the tip man!
wow, this Armoured Angel is good! I always mistook them for a thrash act, hence avoided. But this is quite far from that, and I do similarities with Bolt Thrower. Nice