EMBALMED SOULS (Bra) The temple of bizarre cult Demo Tape'05.

Finally I'm able to put my hands on a copy of this band's releases... What I read in zines such as MUTILATING PROCESS (R.I.P- The zine of the lazy Death metal "supporter" Nathaniel who might have questioned the potential Sustainability and coherence of his underground will, before involving peoples into his short efforts...) helped me to build an imaginary picture of what EMBALMED SOULS' audio performances might be: Cryptic? Very morbid? Creeping? Ultra deadly Death metal?... But the truth often lies in your own listening sessions as no reviewer seems apparently able to exactly approach your own inner feelings (At least, it's how I often feel towards metal of death). To sum it up, the sounds of EMBALMED SOULS definitely smell the engravement of 90's Death metal, but this isn't to be name with the word "Ultra", to be followed by an obscure adjective of your choice... Musicalwize it's more melodic, even though it remains Death with a reasonably big "D", and so you could occur to view the first works of NECROPHOBIC, CEMETARY (Strictly "An evil shade of grey"), MORPHEUS (Swe), possibly early DISMEMBER, few Deaththrashing riffs à la early DEATH, with some doomy touch that occurs to turn to lyricism (View some early MY DYING BRIDE or PARADISE LOST ("Shades of god" era)).
The feelings to be found the most often are this death metal glory ridden by punching old death thrash beats, or the nice melancholy of doom quoted before.
This tape recording is a very nice item to explore once you're into the right mood for this kind of spirit, and the music is well done, but I regret there isn't more urges of Death thrashing metal, real morbid attacks from the inner of the damnation-entrails or more emotional intensity to match the "genius"; After a while, I'd really feel like shredding this beauty to pieces and open up the gorges of sufferance; Yes a part of this demo might be seen as beautiful (Following some doomy aesthetics).
This isn't a bad recording, it could offer you quite many qualities; But this isn't the most energetic band, as you probably have noticed; Something quite good to rest and feel, but not to kill.
I have to notice the band doesn't seem to be very serious concerning answering mail. I wrote at least two letters the last years (Asking for possible trade, wholesale...), but never received an answer... Maybe I'm not old school enough to awake their considerations? (Since I released about 50% of Brutal death, 50% of "shitty" CDr, and own several web-pages, I'm probably too "modern" for some peoples...).

DOWN FROM THE WOUND (Philippines) Agony Through Rituals Of Self Purification CD'07. SEVARED Recs.

After a quite promising demo'06, the Philippinese brutal death heads of DOWN FROM THE WOUND come back with a first full-length recording.
Do not expect something new, original or standing out, you little trendy piece of shit! There's nothing to fit your clerically vampirized 2007 criterias that lamely forgot the guts, the pain and the agony! Anyway the goal of the band isn't to be original or "Zzzzpezzziiiial"... Would you reproach a grindcore band to blast? Would you reproach a black metal band to scream like little cats? Would you reproach a metal band to play with guitars? So, In this case it's almost the same: It would be quite useless to reproach DOWN FROM THE WOUND to play fucking brutal US Brutal death, devoid of any melody or so called "Original" influence (In case some didn't notice, in the early years Brutal death was fucking original and over the top, as it inserted many new ideas and took the whole affair much deeper... In your suffering asshole!... Ooooh! It's not so original anymore?... And then? How long will your current trend be original and fresh? How many months? How many weeks? And how long will you care when the style will be denied or forgotten by most? If you're not convinced, go ask Mozart or Bach if they wrote a new masterpiece each month and created a new style each semester)... But as always, many bands played the same again, and again, and again, so the minds and guts of the brutal maniacs got machine-washed with too many usual riffs, and the longing for brutality was declining... But sometimes, I'm happy to hear bands such as D.F.T.W who focus on a very specialized style and do their best to kick your ass... And it's quite good, yeah! Imagine US Brutality like old DISGORGE (Usa), old SUFFOCATION/ early PYREXIA, old NATRON ("A taste of blood" Demo) with some possible REPUDILATION, touches of BANISHED and other obliterating things like that... DOWN FROM THE WOUNDS sounds motivated, rigid, brutal and it works. The production is cool: It's not your overproduced clinical gay plastic guitars of 2007, No! Even if it's rigid, there's an heavy sound brutality once had (With quite vibrating bass frequencies to exterminate your speakers) and I like it! "Agony Through Rituals Of Self Purification" is more appealing than many of the Us brutal death albums I tried to listen this year... Ok, it isn't the brutal album of 2007, but this band is efficient enough to kick the ass and should be supported! (To enjoy, listen with your brutality, not your exhausted brain)
http://www.myspace.com/downfromthewound

ABOMINAT (Nor) Storms of calamity Ep'06. NO POSERS PLEASE! Recs.

Cool sounding old styled brutal Death metal that tastes very much like old SUFFOCATION! And you couldn't say this comparison results from random words because ABOMINAT probably worships "Effigy of the forgotten" as hell: It can be heard in the various ways of approaching the brutal death style, the way of composing songs, the production, the vocals... Hopefully this doesn't sound like a weak copy, the band transmits cool obscure atmospheres and they are owner of quite good skills (In use for cool compositions).
Well, the music isn't as emotionally intense as SUFFOCATION and I'm not yet sure something could stand as "Really catchy and to be remembered in the grave", but you can at least listen without troubles: No boring shit! For a first recording, it's a fine collection of internal piercings. Good luck!
http://www.myspace.com/abominat

THOSE WHO BRING TORTURE (Swe) Those who bring torture CD'07. NO COLOURS Records.

Give the dog a bone? Noooo.
Give the bear a beer? And beer à gogo to bear à gogo... To dance with the beers to find yourself dancing with bears! I want a little bear in my beer! I want a little bear in my beer!
No colours keeps on sending me their black metal promos for no reason... But this time there was something sounding like Death in their grimbomb...
This project formed by musicians of RIBSPREADER, KNIFE IN CHRIST and TAEDEAT is only a sub-project. Read the flyer: "After just a week of writing, recording and mixing the debut album was done". That's no very promising, huh?
What you hear is between death and grind, with usual death grind moments (HAEMORRHAGE, HATEPLOW), heaviness à la early MUCUPURULENT or some cool sounding but common old Death metal. The powerful production makes it good sounding, there are cool moments from here and there (I wonder if it's not remains of better ideas from their main projects). But all in all this is just another CD recorded by another project like many... I imagine the guys' rehearsing habits helped to make this album quite easily. There have been worse but also better parallel distractions, it's pro and ok.
http://www.myspace.com/twbtt

PHLEGETHON (Fin) Neutral forest Demo tape 1990.

It's time for the vilest putrefaction to awake again and take over the fallacious minds, to spread the voracious underground gangrene one more time!

Death metal will be totally dead, totally putrid and disgusting one more time! Any kind of mellowdick and watering down influence will definitely escape the turmoils of pain to let escape and explode the strongest revenge and pure hatred! Pure fucking death in your face!! AAARRRGGGHHH!!
But, I should slow down the insane dreams of prevailing pure putridity, since most of the coming-back old bands disappoint the strongest fans of death metal down to rotting agony (Pure damnation!), and the newest bands, even if some are good, aren't able to match the shredding enthusiasm of the end 80's…
So, a wiser possibility would be to extract again the morbid saviors from some older tape recordings; even if some weren't the best, at least the obscure feeling and enough putridity were there.

This time, I'll exhume an old demo of the finish band PHLEGETHON. Before all confining walls start to tremble, I should immediately state they didn't sound that much like a Finnish death metal band of the 90's. In fact, the style of these fukkers of dead was much more complex and technical.
Imagine the first album of DARKTHRONE (When they were playing quite technical (For this epoch!) and obscure death metal) with some death thrashing influences exploding the pustular agony right from the frustrated bowels of MERCILESS's first album ("The awakening") and a bit of OLD FUNERAL (First demo). Add few crazy riffs, some "dissonant" melodies resonating a quite bizarre way, and your vision of death is focused on the right maelstrom of pain!
Well, to be a bit more realistic, I should notice this tape wasn't that killer and emptiness-filling; not sure if some current metal-listeners would like it that much, but a good answer could be: FUCK YOU!! This sounds quite crazy enough for my putrid needs, and the complexity of the thing, even if it doesn't necessarily sounds composed the best way, makes it nice for my traumatic brain!
A cool tape for Death metal maniacs... These words shall be your grave.

WEHRMACHT (Ger) Biermacht Tape Lp'88. NEW RENAISSANCE Records.

In case of infinite thirst, never confuse a beer with a bear! No!!! I know both might calm down the envy, and there might always be a bear in your beer (No one knows what they are able to do!), but never say "butt" in front of a big hungry bear needing butter!! Your beer might suffer from this lack of white bears from the land of Extreme cold weather... (Beer!!)
This is quite efficient and complex thrashing crossover filled with all the fucked christmas gifts and decoherence you need. "Fun is in the detonator!" They got it and cut up their songs often, to reach an almost old Grind state of mind and avoid the lengths (Why the fuck waiting till the beer is hot? Drink it fresh!). It sounds quite crazy, frenetic, fresher than the usual... Beer! Beer is unholy, "You broke my hear, so I broke your face!".
Think about early DESTRUCTION meets SPAZZTIC BLUR (Later brewed with 2 ex beercore bangers from WEHRMACHT), early SUICIDAL TENDENCIES (Mellow cat vocals outside), DARKNESS (1st Hell-P), the FILTHY CHRISTIANS (Maybeer?) and SOD, and your vision won't be too blurry... Some peoples might piss and refuse to swallow, thinking it's too full of beers to be serious and decently played... Wrong! This is really tight and correctly brewed for the time (Time of the beers, time of the beers...It fucking makes me thirsty!).
Fuck my Lp player is broken!!! How will I bang my head?
In a way, this is a very good recording for those who like the motivated and engaged side of old crossover, the thrashmania, the quite "chaotic" structures and humor from some early core-grinding grindcowww... Maybeer not so cult whatever beer-drying matters might doomy influence the thrashing minds to sleep, but quite worth the beer sucking!
Steal my beer,
Drink my beer;
Piss my bear!

IN THE NAME OF SATAN: A tribute to Venom CD'94. GUN Recs.

As far as I know, this might have been the first VENOM Tribute ever released. At this time, while many peoples didn't gave a fuck about this band anymore (Probably because too much of average albums, regional assaults, re-releases from no-need-land...), Abaddon decided to create this project and motivate quite "acclaimed" metal bands of the time to honor one of their strong influences and teenage object of worship... It could have been a good idea, yum, but something was strange and kinda wasted my pleasure: You couldn’t find a real incarnation of every listed bands, since Abaddon generally played the drums (And he has never been the best drummer... It could have been better to let other peoples do what they feel, and possibly offer new ideas), plus few musicians from the listed bands did their thing, and finally some 'illustrious unknown' filled the holes of this studio project... (Yes, studio project :-/)

Does it really sound so much as a tribute anymore? Doesn't it sound strange to hear a drummer paying homage to his own music on a tribute album?
Questions could flow, and re-flow... And that's kinda old blabber, isn't it? So we'll simply talk about the music, since it's what matters the most :-)

-First of all, you had KREATOR (Or better said Mille?) making "Witching hour" more thrashy, faster, and displaying the frenetic vocals of Mille Petrozza. A quite good cover, that showed some energy. Some might say “Grrrr”.

-Then, ANATHEMA did a cool version of "Welcome to hell". It kept somekind of the initial obscure mood (If I could say so), with a quite moody production and low-pitched vocals distorted through an obscure chorus. Not bad at all, and quite groovy... I wished ANATHEMA followed much more this kind of vibes, because most of their own stuffs only disappointed my imagination...

-Then, VOIVOD turned "In league with satan" in their own way. It definitely sounded like VOIVOD, with high-pitched & quite "visionary" vocals, a sci-fi aspect, and other cool stuffs... I didn't like it much at the time, because I was young and the vocals seemed strange, but they did a nice job. Cool.

-Then some guys of NUCLEAR ASSAULT, and other peoples (From the studio?), tried to cover "Die hard"... But it wasn't that good (Huh!). I have never been a fan of this particular song, and the quite Us heavy metallish vocals didn't do it (Urk)... A quite boring cover!

-Where there ever some SKYCLAD fans in the assembly? Well, their first album was cool, but what about the following? This time they turned "Prime evil" in their own middle-age world... Ok, they kinda changed the song, with violins and few other goblins, but I never found it good. Blah!

-SODOM surprisingly choose to cover "1000 days in Sodom" (What a clever choice! Ah! I guess VENOM might even have been the origin of their moniker) and did an ok but just average job... It sounds like the average heavy moments of SODOM era 93-95 (Tapping the vein), and I never liked it much... (SODOM = Fast as fuck! In your ass baby!!)

-Then, various peoples covered "Countess bathory" under the CANDLEMASS moniker, and there's not much to say... This was just an average one, while the original was better.

-After all of this, it could have been better, but it's not really... PARADISE LOST did a quite boring cover of "In nomine sathanas" that sounded like the heaviest of their "Shades of god" album, minus the sorrow... And blah! You get bored.

-Then came the little surprise: Two new songs of VENOM that probably disappointed some die-hards: It was a time when the guys were experimenting with Indus metal. Even if these two songs weren't mind-blowing, I kinda like the atmosphere and the kinda "Easy listening" indus metal à la old NIN or FILTER... It might have been a cool idea for VENOM to do more of these experiments and release it under another moniker (What about turning the letters inside out? You get MONEV? Just an effort, and it turns to MONEY!? Some kind of prophecy? Ah Ah)

Finally, what you got was an average tribute album that contained a lot of average recordings, and it rather tasted like a compilation of various (Discutably useful) things than a real tribute.... Nothing vital, even for big fans... I still use to like it for "Nostalgic reasons", but that's all... Hopefully KREATOR, ANATHEMA and VOIVOD did it right and offered coolified covers. (And the artwork was cool).