Creeping Death - Boundless Domain (2023)

Boundless Domain is the exact point at which it feels like Creeping Death would need to evolve its sound or flex a little more in order to create something more lasting and meaningful. Their output up to this time was pretty good and consistent, but still not nearing the level of mastery or immortality that so many of the first wave bands were able to achieve, not just because of their novelty but because of songwriting. I think that this second proper full-length does take a few small steps in new directions, but at the same time it doesn't really stride past its older siblings in quality. The differences here are largely those of the production choices and how certain vocals and instruments extract themselves and contrast with one another, though they definitely also try some riffing patterns they hadn't in the past, this is no re-run.

The cover from Tanner Caruthers is magnificent, I like how it melds the personal and cerebral with the expansive ugliness of all the fine death metal escapes, and even the logo and type colors are appealing. Their releases have always looked good, but this is probably my favorite. And it sounds as good as it looks, with perhaps their cleanest studio mix yet. It does sacrifice some of the bulk and heaviness for a more musical quality, not that the drumming and rhythm guitar is any less intense, but just pokes through the mix without bordering on overpowering the rest. Bass is a standout, you can hear it a lot more throughout this than on Wretched Illusions, and the increased integration of melodies in the guitars also gives this one a more progressive vibe than its predecessors, which is certainly what I would have wanted. On the downside, sometimes there are various riffs and patterns which just seem plopped down into tracks and don't really have as natural a flow, so the songs don't always hit enough of a payoff ("Vitrified Earth" is a prime example).

I would say the band continues to dial down its hardcore influence, but this is taken over by a more propulsive, thrashing energy in tracks like "The Parthian Shot", which feel like death/thrash that is about to explode into melodeath at any moment. You've still got a couple cuts ("Creators Turned into Prey") which are built almost exclusively for the beatdown, but even these improve once they accelerate into those choppy, thrashing rhythms, and in this way the material slightly embarks into a terrain they hadn't really explored in the past. Leads are well-implemented but often feel a little too spurious and brief in exercise, like an afterthought. The real highlight for me here is "Remnants of the Old Gods", which reminds me a little of Consuming Impulse Pestilence with an upbeat thrash-out, or closer "The Common Breed" with its nice spacious melodies; honestly I found the last half or third of the album the most entertaining, though not by a wide margin.

Boundless Domain is good, as with all their releases so far, but I get the feeling this is a transitional sort of record which might preface something really impressive. Creeping Death are not undeserving of their support, they have all the weapons present to become one of the premiere US death metal acts, I think they just need to innovate a little further, and that is certainly possible without abandoning the grooves and OSDM influences that inspired them. Wretched Illusions is a more entertaining listen throughout, but this is unquestionably a fraction more adventurous.

Verdict: Win [7.75/10]

https://www.creepingdeath.net/

Creeping Death - The Edge of Existence EP (2021)

Had a little bit of a Mandela Effect where I thought I remembered this one as their second full-length, but The Edge of Existence is in fact the third proper EP for Creeping Death, and one that showcases a lot of the band's studio polish and development. While you've still got plenty of chugging moments that will appeal to the slam-dancers, this was to its day the most purely 'death metal' the band had sounded, you could have easily convinces me this was a new effort from Malevolent Creation or Deicide if only certain details like the vocals had been different, and as they continue to use the morbid, cavernous cover art it seems like they are themselves molding themselves more into the purity of the medium. That said, half the material here is just a re-recording of their initial 2016 EP Sacrament of Death, which wasn't really broken, didn't need fixing, and serves really only to sate those who weren't able to get their hands on that.

Certainly a little bit of an upgrade in terms of comparing to to the studio aesthetics of the full-length that came out before this, but I felt like "Sacrament of Death" and its siblings felt a bit drier than they did originally. The one exception would be the vocals, which catapult into gruesome new depths, but the rhythm guitars and rhythm section are less impactful, not necessarily bad at all because they do line up better with the new tracks, which are where this EP is going to live or die for me...and it does for the most part succeed in cultivating all those late 80s/early 90s influences, though most of the riff choices here aren't terribly exciting, but workmanlike and catchy enough to keep your attention even though you'll probably be longing for something else in your death metal collection. The production is loud, the instruments very even, the drums flawless and the vocals once again continuing to ramp up their sickness, though he is also alternating more of that classic growl with lower gutturals and even a few accompanying snarls and neither is as interesting as his traditional delivery.

Essentially the new content on The Edge of Existence sounds like something that might have existed as an amalgam of old Floridian death metal, perhaps a bit of Gorguts or Dutch stuff, only modernized for the old school obsessed in the 21st century. It does its job, and the re-recordings certainly are strong enough to stay in balance with the energy and proficiency the band has been carving out in the years since they were originally released; it's not like you jump this gap between tracks #3 and #4, they all fit rather well together and, like most people, if you can't get a hold of the old version then this is a decent way to experience them. Probably made the least impression on me of any of their offerings to date, but still impossible for me to SIT still through.

Verdict: Win [7.25/10]

https://www.creepingdeath.net/

Creeping Death - Wretched Illusions (2019)

Wretched Illusions didn't leave a huge impression on me the first time I heard it, possibly because I was just so inundated with epic throwback death metal sounds at the time that it came across a little cookie cutter. The EPs were certainly cool, and this doesn't betray them in any way whatsoever, but there were definitely riffs or tracks I remembered being a little bit of a chore on a longer, 40 minute record. In hindsight, I was likely not giving this one a proper chance, because it is actually quite solid, and understandable as the release that would spearhead their developing popularity among the fresher death metal crowd that was likely hearing a lot of this stuff before its own influences, or crossing over from the hardcore and deathcore genres to a niche like this that felt immediately more 'pure' and impressive.

Creeping Death definitely felt denser and busier here than the EPs, not because the style had shifted but rather that they were filling in the spaces better. The rhythm guitars are the vehicle, with constantly bruising, winding and chugging riffs that play around in the death metal of antiquity, with a little street mentality and also a few dives into a more death/doom crawlspace. They're not the sort that are unique or catchy individually, but always attention-getting enough that they can propel the listener along through the track, where he/she will receive the reward of some frilly little lead or breakdown that gives a dopamine payoff in the brain. The bass melds a little more into the guitars, where it had stood out more on Specter of War, and thus the dynamics here are sometimes too consistent, although it's all pretty awesome sounding if you isolate it. Reese Alavi's vocals, though, are a lot more gruesome and entertaining, he sounds ripping fucking pissed through a lot of these tracks and is starting to develop away from his influences, even though he carries them onward.

The songwriting is more confident, and extended outward, incorporating more death metal techniques from both the OSDM contingents and the 90s brutal style, and this variation actually helps to make the old school parts stand out much more when they erupt like the tremolo riff in "Sinner's Torch", or a Swedish d-beat arrives in "Corroded from Within". Weirdly, while this isn't at all 'cavern core' like you'd expect from the artwork, it definitely has a claustrophobic feel because it's just so tightly executed and matured. An impenetrable wall. It's another Creeping Death album which I might not instantly grab for on my shelf when I'm in the mood for the style, but as I sit here listening through it again, it's hard to really find much wrong with it. Average-to-good riffing patterns, competent playing all around, savage vocals, firm production values, loyalty to the styles that birthed it, and as the years have passed I can absolutely understand why it helped the band blow up like they have.

Verdict: Win [8/10]

https://www.creepingdeath.net/

Creeping Death - Specter of War EP (2018)

Specter of War, the sophomore EP from Texans Creeping Death, has another of those cover images that doesn't necessarily match up to its musical content, but looks pretty badass nonetheless. The reaper riding, the hounds, the evil castle and bridge, the sunlight filtering through the ominous, evil clouds...all adds up to what might be a very sinister thrash, black or death metal effort. I won't say that the music itself avoids all such classifications, but here I felt like the alleged hardcore side of the band manifest itself a little more clearly than on the prior release. You could easily listen through some of the breakdowns on this and imagine Madball or Biohazard having a particularly dark day and dipping into their own crossover death metal influences for some similar inspiration.

Still, this stuff reeks of old Pestilence, Asphyx, and even some Bolt Thrower with the more tank-rolling sorts of rhythms that develop. Chugging intensity balanced off against the tremolo riffs you'd more equate with the classic DM sounds, and frankly these guys were one of the most seamless to blend together the styles into something that feels like a coherent entity and not just bouncing back and forth between the extremes. The bass tone on Specter of War is more prominent, like its bouncing around the cargo hold of some oil tanker, and the vocals, still in that Schuldiner/Grewe/van Drunen style, are a bit less pronounced, but also more ghastly sounding than the last time. Rhythm guitar riff quality is around the same, they try a few different techniques, and still offer the scarce lead or two, but what I can't deny is just how effective the tone is, it simply carves out the listener's flesh in huge chunks, with big, deep chords and caustic chugging that will entertain you even if it's not exactly unique or nuanced.

If you could combine these two short-players, you'd probably have my favorite Creeping Death record, it was just so fun and sincere and set in a style I'm not capable of getting bored with. There is nothing genius about any of this, it's just a band wearing its influences well, playing within its own parameters and evoking just the right amount of nostalgia and atmosphere while keeping it all real for the mosh pit crowds that will likely appreciate it the most. Angry, hungry, and worth hearing, especially those awesome bridge/breakdowns in "Salvation" and "New Agony", or the great opener "Revenge".

Verdict: Win [8/10]

https://www.creepingdeath.net/

Creeping Death - Sacrament of Death EP (2016)

Creeping Death is another of the younger US bands which has taken the scene by storm, punching far above their weight to some, well worth the time to others. They've certainly got a lot of ken when it comes to audience awareness, tailoring a lot of their music for the mosh-positive which inescapable amounts of breakdowns and grooves. To this effect, they are often described as a sort of hardcore/death metal hybrid, and I can agree with that to a degree, though I find a lot of that hardcore 'spirit' missing from the compositions...instead, this is pure OSDM with a few more breakdowns than you'd expect, perhaps more than are effective in a sheer listening context, but cognizant of how their concerts are going to go and wanting to leave some bruised knuckles in their wake, and who can really blame them? It's a meathead world out there. Give them flesh.

Having said that, I think Sacrament of Death was a promising start, one of their more truly death metal leaning efforts, which I would describe as a blend of old Death (Scream Bloody Gore, Leprosy) or Pestilence (Consuming Impulse), with a lot more fisticuffs to break up the searing tremolo rhythms and excellent, evil leads that contribute so well to its atmosphere. Just three tracks, and not even ten minutes long, and I could barely remember the difference between them, but they're a blast to listen through. Deep and churning rhythm guitars that sound good in either of the 'parent genres' they draw from, with lots of weight to the chug parts but also clear enough on the faster rhythms which often lead to a nice feel of impish mayhem. The mix of the drums and guitars actually reminds me once more of Consuming Impulse, maybe imagine that album had been written by a bunch of kids in New York around the same time and you've got a good approximation of this EP's tones, and as a sucker for that, I can't help but enjoy it. It's not that the riffing is particularly unique or exceedingly catchy, but for more primitive or simple grooves like old Obituary they can hold your attention.

Vocals are also quite good, again I'll reference Chuck Schuldiner or Martin van Drunen, but with more of a smackdown vibe to them that syncopates over the more tough guy rhythms below it. The lead guitars are really done with nice whipping tones, more of that 'unknown' vibe added for excess than trying to complete melodic or glorious cycles, and it fits right in with the knuckle-dragging groove that powers so much of the material. The mix is dark, thick and heavy and resembles the mosh pits that so obviously resulted from these songs. I also dug the cover art a lot, and usually do throughout the band's evolution...I'm not sure the ritualistic or vampiric imagery matches with the music, but on its own it is quite cool looking. Whether Creeping Death continues to live up to its own shitstorm of hype is yet to be determined, but Sacrament of Death was a solid introduction that holds up to this day.

Verdict: Win [7.75/10]

https://www.creepingdeath.net/

Frozen Soul - Glacial Domination (2023)

With their rapidly escalating popularity among the trending non-tech US death metal upstarts that include Gatecreeper, Creeping Death, 200 Stab Wounds, Undeath and Sanguisugabogg, the question was whether Texans Frozen Soul would double down the eternal grimness, soften up to accessibility, to extend their sound envelope to include more variation and atmosphere and just write some better songs than found on their rock-steady debut Crypt of Ice. Glacial Domination is a weird sophomore in that it simultaneously achieves all three. There are large swaths of material here almost identical to what you'd find on the debut, but they also grow marginally more ambitious in shifting tempos and structures around to create a more interesting experience, Lastly, the production, while still heavy as hell, has a brighter and more polished tone to it which might be due in part to Matt Heafy of Trivium's participation as a producer, or perhaps rather the heightened expectations placed on the crew after the breakout success of the debut.

The setups and samples for the songs are better, like the pulsing 80s horror synth that briefly establishes "Invisible Tormentor", "Frozen Soul", and "Morbid Effigy", the awesome "Annihilation" synth interlude, or the belligerent clip and drum that ignites "Arsenal of War". These seem a little stronger than the intros they'd use on the debut, but the meat of the material is quite similar, muscular and roiling death metal of the Bolt Thrower variety. There is a slight emphasis on faster, energetic riffage, and a little more oomph to the techniques like brutal death squeals or pinches and such that they'll use to fatten or round off the rhythm guitars. I think the drumming has also improved, not so much in pure speed or might but just the fills and overall production, and where this album relies so heavily on its breakdowns, like those in "Death and Glory" or "Morbid Effigy", they seem to be catering a little more closely to the slam or 'caveman' niche more than the closer Bolt Thrower contours of the debut. Frozen Soul also tries its hands at a little more melody and mood with the title and namesake tracks, and this is a welcome change that I had anticipated, although it's hardly all-pervasive.

Then you've got your guest stars...James from GoST does the synth-horror stuff, an admittedly cool addition, and among others you've got Matt Heafy doing a lead and some vocals, Blake from Power Trip and Fugitive also jumping in on a track, etc. All tasteful, none intrusive, this isn't some 'feature' list like you see in a lot of brutal death or deathcore bands emulating the hip hop scene, you never get the sense that the Texans are trying to cross-market or whore themselves out too far, rather let some friends join in on the fun. The cleaner mix here thankfully doesn't leech away the band's power, surely this is not as grim and depressing as what you heard on the debut, but when it comes to the pure riffing and performance, these tracks will run in lockstep with their forebears on any setlist. It just sounds a little 'friendlier' out of the speakers, and I don't mean that as any insult although for many it would surely be a negative. Make no mistake, this is a group already crossing the threshold to some international success, there are going to be changes...and the leads, intros and stuff here are well considered and go a ways towards the variation I was seeking.

Still, I can't say that I enjoyed this one more than a fraction beyond the debut, because for all its attempts, you're still not hearing the sorts of unforgettable riffing patterns or whirlwind moments you recount from all the go-to classic death metal on your shelf. I'm happy to spin this, but sometimes you expect the quality to match the hype. That's rarely in the realm of possibility, and Glacial Domination is more of a half-measure evolution than some transformative masterpiece. But Frozen Soul have a lot going for them, and each step forward should be a lot of fun to follow if these first two discs are any indicator.

Verdict: Win [8.25/10]

https://www.frozensoultx.com/

Frozen Soul - Crypt of Ice (2021)

Frozen Soul is another burgeoning death metal entity which seemed to reach a level of divisiveness quickly, praised by a mix of younger fans breaking into the genre, and old heads who like hearing fresh takes on classic sounds from the 80s and 90s; heckled by others who write them off as another 're-' band with nothing much to offer beyond nostalgia. I think Crypt of Ice is a case where both sides can be correct, because let's not beat around the bush, this record sounds almost exactly like seminal British death-grinders Bolt Thrower. You might make an argument for other meat & potatoes DM influences like Jungle Rot, Asphyx/Hail of Bullets, Six Feet Under or sloth-like interpretations of Dying Fetus breakdowns...but really, from the growls to the grooves, to the nihilistic, oppressive tones, to even some superficial similarities in the band roster, structure and themes, they are the Lone Star State's answer to one of the most beloved bands in the medium.

Not the FIRST Lone Star State answer, mind you, as War Master was churning this stuff outta Houston almost 15 years ago, but clearly these folks have been more successful, garnering a lot of praise across the metal media, good tour spots and even the attention of more famous metal musicians. And here's the thing...if we've got thousands of bands impersonating Entombed, Morbid Angel, Death, Suffocation, Cannibal Corpse, and Incantation, many of which the self-same critics of Frozen Soul listen to religiously, surely we can handle a dozen or so that throw down with the Fourth Crusade? Now I'm not saying this record gets a single point for originality. I'm also not saying Crypt of Ice evolves that style in a tangible way, to the extent that a group like Germany's Scalpture does, a band I happen to love. But this debut earns its keep carving out a grisly production and ominous roil to it which catapults me back to that mid 90s period of the Brits, not quite so caustic as Realm of Chaos (my favorite), more in line with a War Master or IVth Crusade or ...For Victory, sans some of the melodic might that they had begun to incorporate into their sound as they progressed.

Crypt of Ice goes long on getting the fundamentals right, with an amazing guitar tone that transforms even the most basic riffing patterns into effective blunt objects, despite having a nice sharp edge to it that can slice through your reservations. Chad Green has a vocal impact not unlike Karl Willetts, sure, with a little less low-end capability, but a reasonable grim timbre that feels right over the rhythm guitars and steady if not dizzying brickwork of the drums. The bass tends to follow the guitars and doesn't really stand out to me like it used to in the Bolt Thrower days, however it certainly contributes to the crush force of the low end, and has a few moments to rumble out like in the intro to "Twist the Knife". Ambient, windy atmospheres and sparser, distorted guitars are often used to introduce the weight of the heaviness, and these are all worthy of the mood Crypt of Ice sets with its awesome Velio Josto artwork. And that's another thing I find curious about Frozen Soul, how they use these stark, wintry themes despite being from Texas...granted, they do experience the occasional ice storm or some scarce snowfall, but it's kinda neat that they're dreaming of these rime-encrusted wastes and that definitely translates into the feel of the music itself.

This album is not exactly packed with earworm riffs or layers, and that might be the one criticism I have, that this is an effort which impresses on a straightforward production and aesthetic more so than songwriting; a common quip I hold with a lot of younger bands this last 10-15 years...you might throw Gatecreeper, Power Trip, and Enforced into this category, and to initiates without decades of listening experience, this isn't likely a factor in appreciating the material. Hell, even to this salty old soul, it's a lot of fun. There's nothing across the album that ever surprises me, but tunes like "Merciless" and "Encased in Ice" have some patterns in there which had me nodding along grimly in total giga-Chad mode (not to be confused with Mr. Green). It's a triumph of technique and tone, but I doubt these tracks will resonate with me 20 years from now. MORE atmosphere, MORE melody is really needed to scribe this into the annals of death metal immortality, but at the same time I've never regretted slapping this one on when I was in the mood for a joyless, frosty, growly beatdown.    

Verdict: Win [8/10]

https://www.frozensoultx.com/

Devastation - Idolatry (1991)

Idolatry seems to be the crowd favorite among Devastation's records, and while I think a lot of that stems from the fact that a whole lot of fresh metalheads were discovering death metal and aggressive thrash in 1991, it's a legit great follow-up to Signs of Life, exhibiting a bit more variation and some more measured, clinical thrashing. It can still go off the hinges, but not so much as its predecessor, instead there's a bit of maturity creeping in. I did not warm to this one as instantly as others, though. I've mentioned elsewhere how I actually thought '91 was a fairly average year in metal, that for my ears, there was a personal 'Curse of 91', where I find a lot of the hype albums overrated. In this case, it's not so much that, but because it was one of the Scott Burns production jobs I'm not hugely fond of. In fact, the mix here reminds me a lot of Sepultura's Arise...

I'm of course referring to that very punchy, processed guitar tone that showed up on a number of the records he worked on. It just doesn't sound great to me, in fact it often sounds a little dry. Fortunately, Devastation has the chops here to overcome that, and so it doesn't drag it down for me as much as it did Arise or some of the earlier Deicide stuff. The songs kick their fair share of ass, like Arise but with better riffs on average, and tunes like opener "Deliver the Suffering" or the amazing "Souls of Sacrifice" with those great grooves, stand among the best that the band ever released. Like the previous album, they were now a two guitar attack, and it shows with all the force of the rhythm guitars in lockstep. They were also ramping up the game with double bass and drumming that totally fit the blooming intensity that death metal was bringing to the game. I don't think the bass tone here is all that great, and of course the aforementioned guitar tone is responsible, though you can still hear it somewhat; so it's more points in its favor that it can also overcome that. 

Rodney Dunsmore's vocals have also evolved yet again, not too far from Signs of Life, but here he has a roughness and sustain that remind me a lot of Ron Rinehart of Dark Angel and Jeff Becera of Possessed. But it's the songs that deliver the most here. They might not be unique or terribly nuanced, and certainly you'd already heard a lot of comparable riffs and records in the saturation of thrash that started during the late 80s and helped lead to its temporary extinction around 93-94. But it's rock-solid, mosh-ready songwriting with decent lyrics and an appreciable controlled anger to it that still resonates with me three decades later. In fact, it's just about on par with its predecessor, I think the songs are overall better, but I just like the production, artwork and nostalgia for Signs of Life a fraction more. Both need owning, and there have been a number of reissues, so they shouldn't be too hard for you to track down. Sadly this would be the end for the Texans apart from an extremely brief and fruitless reunion later.

Verdict: Win [8/10]

Devastation - Signs of Life (1989)

The difference between Violent Termination and Signs of Life is like night and day. That album was an insipid junkyard of dead-end ideas, with only its heart in the right place, and this sophomore is a record so bloody fast, fun and violent that it will literally remove your heart from your chest and grind it up in its teeth. In just two short years, Corpus Christi's Devastation had become pretty goddamn great, a natural signing for then-extreme Combat Records, and festooned in a damn cool cover by Tommy Pons (who also created the mascot for fellow Texan hard rockers Dangerous Toys). For a 15 year old autothrall, this was the sort of underground thrashing that buttered my bread, I must have nearly chewed through the cassette of this one along with Forbidden Evil, Leprosy, Leave Scars and Uncertain Future. Just an uncompromising good time, and one of the more 'extreme' albums in the genre, sort of a midpoint between Darkness Descends and Sacred Reich's Ignorance.

That's not to say it's perfect; it's wild but it does occasionally suffer from a sameness to the faster tracks that begin with the explosive "Eye for an Eye", one of my faves on the album, and the hardcore-like tint to the vocals definitely gives this a partial crossover feel, albeit with the more structured riffing. But almost all of the mid paced parts or evil Slayer-like breakdown riffs are pretty awesome, and there are a few good riffs in the more frantic passages too. Leads here are still not so memorable, but they freak out much better than on Violent Termination and sound far better in the mix. The drumming is far more coherent and intense, and the bass remains nice and thick to pulverize alongside the rhythm guitar madness. The vocals here are the biggest improvement, like I said they've got a punkish/hardcore feel to them but unlike the debut, the patterns he is spitting are far more aligned with the energy of the instruments, and he's mixed just right against them. Really, though, the whole band had leveled up and the one lineup change was well worth it.

Signs of Life also has my favorite production of their three albums, angry and fresh but still pretty clear, and comparable to other fast and nasty thrash records like Swallowed in Black by Sadus. This is the one which feels the most timeless to me, even sitting here writing this, I'm feeling the same affection for it as I did in those critical teenage years. It's no masterpiece, but one of those perpetual cult classics that deserves its spot in your tape/CD/record rack. And while it's not as short as Reign in Blood, it's only about 33 minutes, so it never ever gets the chance to wear out its welcome, the band just shows up, destroys and dizzies you to your thrashing satisfaction, and then takes a bow. One of the biggest turnarounds in all of thrash metal; they came up to bat, took their first strike, and then hit a home run, or at least a triple, and carried the bat with them, smashing all the basement in the face as they hurried on past.

Verdict: Win [8.25/10]

Devastation - Violent Termination (1987)

For such a huge state, I always felt like the Texas thrash scene was rather on the small side through the 80s. Sure, there was Cowboys from Hell in 1990 which was one of the biggest albums ever, and then you had a few cool bands like Rigor Mortis, Watchtower , Gammacide, and Agony Column, but there was no California/Bay Area-level explosion; a lot of it was no doubt relegated to an underground of demo hopefuls. One other band that achieved a fairly high visibility, but then fizzled out with the genre was Devastation, who released two strong albums through Combat, and really seemed to hit with the fans of that more excessive, aggressive side of thrash metal circa Dark Angel or Morbid Saint. But before we can get to that good stuff, there was Violent Termination, an album that sounds right in line with their speed and lethality, but one so rough around the edges that most feel it should probably remain forgotten...

And I don't necessarily disagree with that assessment, I just think I've probably heard worse. This album definitely sounds like a clunker in which the band really hadn't learned to gel together yet, but there are some positives to it, like the raw, scrapyard production aesthetics that make the guitars sound like they are being played in a studio full of rusted barrels and abandoned sheet metal. The riffs themselves aren't even all that bad if you're a fan of the Slayer school of nasty speed, but they tend to get lost a little under the trash can drumming, the fat, burping bass-lines and the unfortunate vocals. To be clear, Rodney was the front man on all three of their albums, but they just don't have that explosive, splattered vibrancy that he would adopt on Signs of Life. They instead feel like dull barking, with lines that syllabically don't even match up with the riffs half the time. I can kind of hear the comparable tone in his timbre somewhere, but if anything, you'd have to give him a reward for the most improved member as the band, 3/4ths of which appear on all three of their albums.

Sometimes the amateur rawness on these old thrash albums had a lot of charm to it, like Sepultura or Sodom on their early releases, but Violent Termination is just too dull. The riff patterns are certainly identifiable as a vicious brand of thrash, but the way the vocals are slung together, and the rather awkward mix of the drums leech of them of some of that potential nastiness we love from this old shit. You can clearly hear some of those Slayer influences, or even some Celtic Frost on the grooves of "Syndrome of Terror", but a lot of the writing is bland and half-formed, the vocals a little too loud, and the guitars, which were at this point clearly the most energized and competent part of the band, just don't stick the landing on a lot of tracks. The leads are spurious and appropriately whip-like in tunes such as "Death is Calling", and I kind of like the raucous tone on the guitars, it gets me pumped up but then there is simply no payoff. The lyrics are also comparable to a lot of other bands at the time, so there's no real problem in that area.

Ultimately, though, Violent Termination winds up sounding like an overlong demo from the average thrash band which jams over in that garage on your street corner, and listens to all the right shit, but has yet to really forge its own worthwhile identity or master playing together. I don't want to be too hard on it, because we all know in hindsight that they were about to quickly meet those goals, but this one's very much skippable, even if you're in the market for some of the crudest, most 'real' thrash and speed metal from the old times.

Verdict: Fail [3.5/10]

Horde Casket - Melted Together (2020)

I think brutal death metal has to be one of the most difficult, if not THE most difficult sub-genre from which to standout. There's such a mechanical demand for some of the musical tropes common to the niche, and bands like Horde Casket do their best to fill these in, and if I were judging simply by a checklist, then I'd stay they fill in or obliterate a whole lot of those boxes. Ridiculous blast beats are all over the place, as well as hyper chugging and dextrous little hand exercise riffs that must clearly tax the players' tendons after a rehearsal session or live set. The vocals are their normal mix of harsh guttural and harsher rasp, in the tradition of your Carcasses and Deicides, and the overall momentum of the album is utterly fucking relentless with a slightly noisy mix that is like to give you a headache if you're just not attuned to what you're normally going to get out of the genre.

The issue at hand is that, with all of the obvious physical temerity and extremity that they are pouring into this release, it almost entirely fails to stick. There might be a few tricks up their sleeves like the walls of wailing guitars they bleed over the thrust of "Nocturnal Transformation", or the broken chugs below the inhuman blasting of "Disease of the Deceased", but it's usually just business as usual from a band that has always hovered between average (Bloodfiends, Landscape of Cadavers) and decent (Xenopocalypse, Slab of Infinite Butchery). I like the frenzied pacing of the leads, they always give the music an added sense of death metal escapism, and if you like the choppy slamming rhythm guitars matched up against non-stop pounding drums, there will be moments for you to get your dance on. There are some really great growl placements here that resonate, but just not consistently, and across all departments, Horde Casket doesn't lag behind much of the competition, but this is assuming you only want the methodical brutal death metal...

I honestly think the band could slow down or de-escalate itself once in awhile to create a greater dynamic punch to it, maybe throw in a less discordant whipping lead guitar, or make a crunchy groove riff that is actually catchy, where the listeners will get hooked to the chord patterns. Like so much of the brutal death metal, this one looks so bad-ass with its cover art, song titles, the band's name has always been pretty cool, but I fear that this stuff has become so commonplace that it just lacks a genuinely evil punch due to its mathematical commitments. If you are mining the rosters of Sevared, Pathologically Explicit, New Standard Elite and Unique Leader and like most of what you hear, then Horde Casket is unquestionably worthy of your time, but this one didn't leave me with much to remember afterwards other than the bruises.

Verdict: Indifference [6.5/10]

https://hordecasket.bandcamp.com/

Horde Casket - Xenopocalypse (2017)

Horde Casket's fourth album Xenopocalypse proves to me a more unified, conceptual bludgeoning which pays homage to science fiction horror invasion scenarios in what must be the most direct and unforgiving manner ever...30+ minutes of ceaseless, staggering brutality that at the very least offers some oneupmanship of their prior full-lengths, even if it's not the heaviest and fastest act in the genre that you've ever experienced. One would hope that this might give it a little more of an edge in such a crowded niche of the death metal genre, but where I feel like this one is clearly superior to its predecessor Bloodfiends, and has superior production to their very solid sophomore Slab of Infinite Butchery, it still doesn't stand too far above the heads of its peers as far as songwriting or ambition.

That said, I would not be quick to write this off if you're a purist for the sort of brutality developed in lieu of groundbreaking acts like Suffocation and Cannibal Corpse, or in particular if you're a fan of Californian acts in the medium like Deeds of Flesh, Flesh Consumed or Inherit Disease, because if nothing more, it's well enough crafted stuff that keeps you entertained, if not guessing. I liked the use of the ambient instrumental parts and samples here, they help flesh out the atmosphere of the record, but I only wish they'd include a little more variety in the meat of the material, the death metal itself. Sure, you'll occasionally hear little guitar bits that veers off to the unknown in cuts like "Blood Scorched Earth", but this is all rooted in the blasting, chugging, tremolo picking you'd expect, and while the riffs are better executed and mildly more memorable than on the album previous, and the tempos a little more varied, so much of it treads on familiar ground as opposed to the alien or 'weird' that you'd really hope for when delving into subject matter with such potential as Xenopocalypse.

But it sticks enough landings to make it to the scoring round...the leads, while not catchy, flail around above the roiling, pounding, punishing low end of the riffs like eels or snakes cut in half. They rarely if ever settle for cheap slam grooves here, instead relying on constant brickwork and fret exercises to perk up the listener's attention and never let he or she get quite comfortable. Even were they do, as in the verse of "Planetary Obliteration", they thread enough in there so it feels like the groove isn't too cheap or effortless, more like an engine breaking down and then repairing itself as they thrust into another volatile blast. Small waves of arpeggios and such might seem a little passe for the style, but they keep the listener apprised of which side of the death metal spectrum Horde Casket strives for. The vocals are unrelentingly brutal gutturals, but they seem a little more empowering than in a lot of cases where it becomes monotonous and boring...these give me an Immolation feel which works well contrasted against the far more spry and energetic instrumentation. Along with Slab, this is one of their better albums, and where its so difficult to make a name for oneself in the sub-genre, these guys are another band who seem like they only need a fraction more of a distinction...certainly the raw materials are here through their ability to make the punishing performances seem easy.

Verdict: Win [7.25/10]

https://www.facebook.com/hordecasketdm/

Horde Casket - Bloodfiends (2015)

I wish I could say there was some further dynamic growth for these Oklahoma/Texas brutes, but Bloodfiends doesn't deviate greatly from the formula the band sharpened on 2010 sophomore Slab of Infinite Butchery. Granted, for purists of that brutal death metal window of the mid to later 90s, in which bands like Suffocation, Cryptopsy and Cannibal Corpse had left an indelible impression upon the legions of would-be's and hopefuls in their wake, I don't know that that will prove much of an obstacle to enjoying what punishment they do mete out here. Horde Casket is not a band that defines or pushes at any real boundaries. They seem satisfied with a competent emulation of a style they love, and they keep it about as conventional to that form as they possibly can.

And that style is a midpoint between the traditional brutal death metal pioneered by acts like the ones I listed above, and playing catch-up with the more technical acts that have been saturating the 21st century. With an emphasis on the former. Lots of chugging stop/start patterns set-up bursts of quicker riffing progressions that capture the choppy, surgical and clinical feel of their peers, but they rarely unload any memorable or catchy patterns, and even where they do, that's usually on the first couple tracks on the disc, like opener "Back Country Meth Massacre", a re-recording from the band's 2008 debut Landscape of Cadavers. The vocals are a solid grunt inspired by someone like Chris Barnes, only faster and in syncopation with the rhythmic pacing being banged out on the drums and guitar tracks. Bass lines are punchy, solid and very apparent here, giving the mix an even, clear balance against the other instruments, and I would say with certainty that this is the best produced of their albums I've heard to date, a lot more polished and rich than Slab or the band's cruder debut. Competent, well executed brute-craft...

But it does come with a few flaws. For one, I don't really like the lead tone, which isn't used so often but feels like it stands out and stings the ears a little much against the pounding backdrop. There is very little difference between the tracks in terms of content...you'll get the constant chug/burst I noted above, a staple of the genre, and a few breakdown riffs which at best can give you some death/thrash neck jerking but don't feel much fresher than the hyperactive flurries that cede the songs to them. It's also a pretty short album, at least the new, original songs. Roughly 22 minutes, which is not unusual for this style of music, but not once does it take any chances...the weird, guttural glitching intro to "Cerebral Dissection" (another track redundant to the debut) is about the only time any sort of left turn is implicated, and that's over all too quickly. Bloodfiends is consistent, perhaps two consistent, and those looking for atmosphere or a deeper listening experience will be left dry.

The band does round the new and re-recorded material off with a selection of live cuts that swell the length up to around 39 minutes overall, but while these are enough to leave you with confidence that Horde Casket offer a comparable live experience to the studio offerings, they don't sound all that impressive, with the vocals a bit louder, the kick drums almost feeling like coherent static and the guitars, as busy as they are, rather washed out in the back ground. In sum, Bloodfiends feels like a well-meaning and corpulent statement that the band is still flailing its limbs about, but the quality of the material puts a halt to any sense of progression or improvement one might have hoped for after the leap that Slab had made over its predecessor. Not bad at all, but there are a lot of records super similar to this one, on their label Sevared and elsewhere; it isn't really crazy or distinct enough to stand out.

Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10]

https://www.facebook.com/hordecasketdm/

Church of Disgust - Veneration of Filth (2016)

Veneration of Filth is an album that deserves credit for sounding just like it looks. The Putrid Matt black and white artwork promises a morass of abominations, a death metal Swamp Thing, and musically these Texans have arranged their sophomore to provide exactly that; a punishing exhibition of old school ugliness which eschews complexity for balanced, barbaric nostalgia. Much as you'd pore over the pages of antiquated horror comics to connect to those morbid fascinations you'd recall from your youth, you'd ride this tunnel of rot to reflect upon those great records of yesteryear which might have initially frightened or repulsed you if you were even open to their gruesome potential in the later 80s or early 90s: Slowly We Rot, Scream Bloody Gore, Consuming Impulse, Mental Funeral, Realm of Chaos, The Dying Truth.

Church of Disgust celebrates this legacy, and wears its influences on its tattered sleeve, but doesn't do so through sheer laziness or lack of inspiration. While it's true that a lot of the tunes here are centered on slower, predictable grooves that we've all heard before, they excel at adorning them with disheveled melodies or eerie harmonies that elevate the experience beyond something you can just easily delegate to that cardboard box of CDs you'll never listen through again. The band is also quite good at picking out samples or using feedback and ambient noise to inaugurate a track and thrust you directly into the cinematic atmosphere which influenced it. When they pick up their pace, they move at an intestine churning clip redolent of old Bolt Thrower, just a hint of the grinding that informed that old, unpleasant British death metal. When they neuter it, they perform pretty well in a lurching death/doom territory where you can envision their cover creature tramping through the muck and devouring some unwitting victim...not a sad sort of doom, just evil beyond ken.

The nihilistic barking growl of Dustin James hardly stands out in such a crowded cemetery of guttural icons, not particularly vicious or memorable; but it's appealingly raw, blunt and to the point, a cousin to the styles of Chris Reifert and Chuck Schuldiner, but not quite so dripping with guts or oozing with viscera. The bass sounds pretty cool through the album, especially when they fatten it with some effects as in "Sunken Altar of Dagon" which is joined with roiling feedback for one of the record's creepiest moments. As I was listening, I felt like the drums, while raw and potent, were a bit overboard in some places where the double bass was battering and drowning out the remainder, but some won't view this so much as a flaw since it encapsulates the very primal DIY approach this group is taking. The themes here are ripe with cosmic or earthly horror, a clear streak of Lovecraft influence, especially the corruption of Mythos beings upon the flesh of mortals, and musically they do a pretty decent job of incorporating that into the music itself. Some of the more cookie cutter chord patterns are a little too obvious, but overall Veneration of Filth promotes some of that fear it celebrates, which is more than you can say for many records of its ilk.

Verdict: Win [7.5/10]

https://www.facebook.com/churchofdisgust

Whore of Bethlehem - Upon Judas' Throne (2014)

If the lurching, roiling pace of the intro riff in the title track of this album sounds a little similar to Domination or Blessed Are the Sick era Morbid Angel, I don't think that's such a coincidence, because the Floridian death metal gods are clearly the chief inspirations for Texans Whore of Bethlehem, and that's probably not such a bad thing if you crave a lot more of that sound and less of the New York subterranean gloom or Swedish soil churning, which individually or in unison represent the two primary camps of retro death metal that are so prominent in recent years. That's not to say this exact style hasn't been resurrected quite a number of times since the masters mastered it in the 90s, but in general I find that the inspiration of bands like Morbid Angel and Deicide seems to have translated largely to the more brutal and technical sect of bands who at one time were forcing at the boundaries of the genre.

The caveat for Whore of Bethlehem is how they also fuse traces of archaic Scandinavian black metal into that matrix of morbidity, in particular through the desperate, dissonant chord patterns that erupt during blast sections, slightly less through the rasped vocal which is used to contrast against pissed off Dave Vincent/Steve Tucker growls. So, while Upon Judas' Throne might sound derivative to a fault, there are at least a few riffing patterns that come out of left field, and in general they are just really damned good at what they do. Guitar progressions are pretty catchy, especially when you break them down to their individual components. The rich, bulkier rhythm tone carries well into the chugs, but is constantly being offset by a lot of more intricately evil, airier ballast which really resonates over the pounding, frenzied undercurrent. Leads are sporadic but elegant, and while the Texans are playing in a fairly mapped-out niche of the death metal genre, I definitely experienced dozens of instances in which the precise direction the tunes and riffs were taking did not play out quite as I predicted. And in this day and age, where jaded veterans have heard the same shit a billion times and then some, the value of that cannot be underestimated. I'm not trying to imply that they consistently throw you for a loop, only some refreshingly solid ideas which implement with confidence.

The drums are great, the bass a fraction understated but functional, the vocals abusive and the guitars almost always on point. I really can't imagine anyone who counts Morbid Angel, Marduk, 1349, Hate Eternal and Dark Funeral among his/her collection not finding something admirable in the obvious effort, and love for the craft on parade here. Plenty enough variation between the outright stormers like "Castle of Meth" and the more brooding pieces like "Leviathan's Crown", and the band sounds eternally pissed off rather than phoned in, a positive quality that goes a long way towards compensating for any real lack of innovation and ingenuity. For an unsigned debut, it's astounding just how professional this sounds, and how well they play, even if the guys have been involved with other Texan acts like Scattered Remains or Disfigured which operate in a more bluntly brutal, contemporary arena. I frankly haven't heard a wealth of albums in this vein that I've enjoyed since Trey and crew dropped Gateways to Annihilation, so this definitely helped fill that void, plus the seamless integration of the black metal stuff gave it the benefit of the marginally unexpected. As the band develops I hope they'll branch out even further, but this is a sinister, rock solid start.

Verdict: Win [7.5/10]

http://www.whoreofbethlehem.com/

Rigor Mortis - Slaves to the Grave (2014)

I'm not ashamed to say that Rigor Mortis has always been a bit of a one hit wonder for me...their eponymous debut has remained in my regular rotation for well over a quarter century now. Even if it was never one of my favorites of that early extreme death-thrash wave, placed behind Reign in Blood, Hell Awaits, Darkness Descends, Violent Restitution, Seven Churches, it's still one of those immortal 80s efforts which loses absolutely no luster decades later, I can pop it in and still feel the same shivers and reverence that I did when tossing newspapers into doorways with "Bodily Dismemberment" in my headphones, mullet flapping in the wind, disgruntled as all youth are won to be when they haven't gotten their genitals wet yet or been beaten down by the monotony of the 'real world'. After that, the Texans provided little more than diminishing returns...the Freaks EP striving towards but not living up to the debut, and the Rigor Mortis vs. The Earth another of those innumerable turds clenched out in the 90s by a band attempting to remain relevant against the shitstorms of alternative, hip hop and grunge that were arriving.

Slaves to the Grave was inevitable; when the band returned to active status around 2005 and started touring, you knew they were going to take another shot in the studio just like so many of them do (Coroner, I'm waiting on you), and when that day arrived it was either going to be a disappointment or a triumph. Well, the reality has been bittersweet; with great guitarist Mike Scaccia passing away in 2012, we've got here a self-released, postmortem comeback that marks what I assume will be the permanent dissolution of the band, since his playing was just so natural and crucial to their identity against a whole host of other groups in the late 80s. So Slaves to the Grave becomes more than a reunion album, but one final chainsaw raised aloft to the heavens, revved up and ready to soak in the blood of angels, or at least the horror-buff thrashers who so treasure this band in their collections. One might say there was a little bit of pressure on this to perform, but I could predict in advance that what we'd have here would be another of those countless 'catch up' albums, a band trying to keep pace with its original magnum opus, challenge its own youth, rather than progress forward in any noteworthy fashion...and that is pretty much what results. Which, depending on whom you ask, will prove either money in the bank, or imminent frustration...

I'm leaning towards the former, not that Slaves is in any danger of dethroning the '88 album, but because while so many of the riffing passages feel dead loyal to their classics, they at least try to restructure them enough that the choruses feel fresh. The signature of Rigor Mortis has always been the marriage of Bruce Corbitt's harsh, distempered grunts to Scaccia's fluid, insanely fast tremolo picking style, and that is 100% intact here, leads shredding out with abandon over the dextrous stream of rhythm guitar notes like entrails being introduced to the air during a summer killing. The original rhythm section of Casey Orr and Harden Harrison is likewise intact, with some great, fat, energetic baselines and drumming that caters more towards the thrash/speed metal roots of the band rather than attempting to keep extreme with the times...this isn't going to be something where you could expect ceaseless blasting, but Harrison definitely contributes to the momentum here with some desperate, straight rock beats that fit the riffing components while never skimping on the fills. Corbitt does sound mildly different here, his timbre doesn't really have that creepy graveyard echo so much as on the debut, but rather you can make out more of its visceral quality, like an even more constipated Phil Rind of Sacred Reich, and lots of gang shouts used as punctuation through both verses and choruses. But the real star of this show is Scaccia's lightning stroke...

There are a few beefier thrashing moments which do seem to pay some acknowledgement of their sophomore effort, but end up coming across more like Gwar during their prime (Scumdogs of the Universe style), which makes sense since Corbitt and Brockie had some similarities in their vocal technique, the latter just a lot more theatrical. But I'd also like to point out the one area in which Slaves to the Grave is distinct from its predecessors...the inclusion of horror soundtrack-inspired, bluesy bayou moments in tunes like "Poltergeist" and "Bloodbath" which are extremely well rendered and aesthetically resonant for a band whose inspirations include all manner of Southern Gothic grotesque and slashers...hell, this is the kind of thing that wouldn't have seemed out of place if the band Agony Column had a more prolific career, and what I found so amazing was how well it reflected the cover artwork, and immersed me once more into the imagery I always associated with the Texans as a teenager. Production-wise, it clings to the older aesthetics of pronounced, airy and evil guitars, but the drums and bass feel a little bit more balanced, and the few spaces between the shredding notes seem cleaner...it's the 21st century upgrade to what they could do in the 80s, sans a lot of the frills their core audience might have feared.

The question, then: was it worth it? The 26 year wait after the self-titled cult classic? Slaves to the Grave is no masterpiece, perhaps, and about half of the album can be chalked up to pure nostalgia, obeisance to the template they laid out back then...but there is actually just enough here to feel like it something more than a carbon copy, and that those decades did happen and that these guys did mature and bring in a little of their wealth of experience to the sound of their alma mater reborn.The atmospheric breaks really balance out the faster surges of material (of which there are many), whether they're the bluesier sort or the classical guitar representation of "Sacramentum Gladiatorium". A few of the tunes like "Fragrance of Corpse" are nearly as memorable as a "Wizard of Gore" or "Bodily Dismemberment", and there isn't really a 'bad' song on the album, even if it can't compare on a riff by riff basis, and a few like "Curse of the Draugr" just seems to be hanging in there stylistically, without offering much to the sum value. Ultimately, if not a 'run out and buy this right now' level record, it's the best material they've done since 1988, and oozes self-respect not only for what they had accomplished so many years ago, but what they might have transformed that foundation into had they continued to define this serial slasher subject matter in metallic form. Rest in peace, Mike Scaccia. And rest in pieces, Rigor Mortis, because you know they wouldn't have it any other way.

Verdict: Win [8/10] (all of your nightmares rolled into one)

https://www.facebook.com/rigormortis25

Watchtower - The Size of Matter [single] (2010)

I almost forgot this thing had come out, which is most likely a progposeur crime of monstrous proportions considering how much of a proponent I've been for Watchtower's sophomore Control and Resistance this last quarter-century. Yet as I was digging through some random files in some random, abandoned folder, there it was, staring at me straight in the face, taunting me to listen through it once more, and it's not an act I regret, because if nothing else, "The Size of Matter" has me salivating for the next 'proposed' chapter in the Towerverse, the long elusive new album Mathematics, which I'm not honestly sure is even a thing anymore, but when I go to their official website, I find nothing but four years of crickets...way to keep up on that, folks.

Anyway, the song itself was something to get temporarily excited over, for with the exception that it is bolstered by a meatier mix of guitars than ever Control or the debut was, and Alan Tecchio's shriek ability somewhat more restrained through either age or wear (or both), this links pretty directly to the material they were writing before the dawn of the 90s. Schizophrenic progressive thrash written with an astounding level of musicianship, and just as much attention paid to detail. The bass and guitars here are specifically both pretty nasty, pretending as if the last few decades hadn't existed and they were continuing forth with the previous direction, only feeling even more up front and in the face. Jarzombek's drums are still quite electronic in context, a good fit for the surgical, jazzy leads that punctuate the bridge in the tune, which are easily my favorite bit in the song, but obviously the guy is such a damn brilliant timekeeper that it wouldn't make much of a difference if they were mixed and recorded with a more acoustic aesthetic in mind. Some of the fills and tempo changes are fantastic.

Tecchio does branch out into his high range with a lower, conversational harmony at one point, but I do rather enjoy the mix of his performance, it definitely carves straight into the listener and drives home the lyrics. The one area where this does fall behind Control & Resistance is that, as proficient as the musicians remain, as technical the discourse of their instruments, I did not feel as if I was being catapulted into some alien-to-me tragedy or situation like I felt back in 1989. The riffs and vocals, while impressive and consistent, aren't necessarily as memorable or on the level as the older material, but I can't lie: if they could finally get that long-anticipated post-reunion full-length out, and it was at least this quality or better, I doubt you'd hear many complaints among their fanbase...least of all from myself. As Heathen, Paradox and several other melodic tech-thrashers have already proven, the Old Guard are perfectly willing to step up into the boots of the New Guard if nobody (apart from Vektor) wants the job. Hope more something comes of this, the tune is on point.

Verdict: Win [7.75/10]

http://ra.lunarservers.com/~agura3/watchtowerband.net/

Vasaeleth - All Uproarious Darkness EP (2013)

What a title, what a cover, and what a level of expectations for creepiness this thing had set before I heard a single sound off it. All Uproarious Darkness is visually comparable to the Crypt Born & Tethered to Ruin album, but privately I had hoped it would expand Vasaeleth's sound upward and outward. Alright, maybe those are not the best terms to apply here, since the band's aesthetics are so deeply rooted beneath the dirt, but that's really an obstacle so many of these acolytes of the old Incantation, Autopsy and death/black war metal bands face: how to refine a template and deter potential monotony they might face from repeatedly dipping into the same, opaque waters...a hurdle that this duo does not quite leap, but at least tries to sneak around.

If anything, All Uproarious Darkness is uglier and more primitive than the full-length, a real racket of primordial tremolo picking and Neanderthal gutturals that seems like they stepped into some weird alternate reality in which Wells' Morlocks had taken over the planet, and paid bloody, black audio tributes to their pantheon of deformed deities. The drums and general pacing of half the material fit both the black and death metal paradigms, which reminds me a little of the ugly Canadian war metal outfits of the 90s, but over the top you've got these utterly barbaric tremolo picked riffs which eschew harmony and memorability for sheer Cyclopean force, while the gutturals just soak in the cavernous atmosphere much like they did on prior Vasaeleth records. Occasionally the beats will slow down to a death/doom step, but I found some of these sequences really vapid in structure and even less likely to create much of an impression than the rest...even some of the unexpected, clever chords they'd occasionally spat out on the full-length album seem to have gone the way of extinction here, and beyond a few of the lurking, eerie turns and patterns in "Fathomless Well of Ruin" and "Throat of the Grey Watcher", I found myself a little bored listening through this.

That's not a fault unique to Vasaeleth, of course; I feel like so many of these suffocatingly underdark death metal bands usually have about one album in them which sails by on atmosphere and all the best accumulated riffs they can muster, and then when it comes time for a successor they just tend to stay too snugly in their wheelhouses. Yeah, it's a little strange to call extremity like this 'snug', since it would freak most of the humanity the fuck out while they struggled to even identify it as music, but it just doesn't come across as if a lot of effort was placed into it. Crypt Born & Tethered to Ruin was an excellent control group from which the band could have branched out and summoned up something truly impressive, but I'll be the first to admit I don't want to hear 10 more albums just like it. This 5 track EP is not an exact duplicate, but sojourns along an even more crude course which thrives on loyalty to its gloomy designs rather than the composition of unforgettable, evil songs. Some might love it for that very reason, but I just wanted something more daring and horrifically adventurous.

Verdict: Indifference [6.5/10] 

https://www.facebook.com/Vasaeleth

Vasaeleth - Adorned & Iridescent EP (2010)

It's a curious thing to return to that leading edge of the cavernous death metal conglomeration so prevalent at the turn of the 20-teens, and Vasaeleth's Crypt Born & Tethered to Ruin was an effort I was somewhat fond of when it dropped in 2010 through Profound Lore. Adorned & Iridescent was a 7" 'preview' of sorts for that album, put out by Satanic Skinhead Propaganda and Blood Harvest Records, with two of the album tracks and a B-side which is, in retrospect, probably the only reason to check this out. This might lack that morbid, distinct color artwork by Antichrist Kramer that they used on their later releases, but the contrast of the band's superb logo against the black/white cemetery photo is still quite pleasing.

Adorned & Iridescent, like its full-length sibling, is essentially a paean to Incantation's earlier material, Immolation's debut and the churning, raw miasma of horror cultivated through the first few Autopsy albums, only this is seen through the lens of younger individuals who wanted to take those subterranean aesthetics and lavish them with a turbulent but modern, reverberating production which might lend it a better sense of 'setting'...if your setting is six feet beneath a sepulcher. You've got the roiling, tremolo picked guitars which feel like someone stirring your intestines with a ladle, with a few bridges towards death/doom territory with morbid, plodding chord progressions or even a few harmonics for eeriness. The guttural vocals are more like some caustic underground gas being blown across the ceiling of the caverns, than anything distinctive or easy to pick out from the music, and this is where that Craig Pillard influence comes in. The drums, on the other hand, seem sternly black metallic in focus, blasting nihilism which combined with the low end-ness of the whole recording almost grants it a coldness like the vast space between celestial bodies...

The riffs are alright, but occasionally they'll throw in a dissonance or unexpected left-hook chord which helps justify the largely predictable patterns they were producing (at least for anyone who had been around death metal in the late 80s/90s). What struck me about Vasaeleth was just the overall feeling you get when listening...some of the music is kid's stuff in terms of songwriting, but it most certainly felt like the raw breath of aeons being blown into your ears when you place it in context with what the duo of Antinom and O.A. were attempting to achieve. Unfortunately, for the EP itself, its little more than a footnote, since "Figures of Chained Spirits" and the title cut are better placed in among their six neighbors on Crypt Born.... "Unmanifest" has a more black metal current in the drums and chord choices, but I've also had that impression elsewhere in their catalog, and it's pretty flush with the two A-side tracks. At any rate, this was retroactively consigned to oblivion when the album dropped several weeks later, and it's ultimately useless to do much other than look at or listen to the third tune, decent if not mandatory; but it would not have been an unworthy introduction in 2010 if you couldn't grab a copy of Crypt Born, which just sounds better in general.

Verdict: Indifference [5.25/10] (call forth your name which mine becomes)

https://www.facebook.com/Vasaeleth

Hellyeah - Blood for Blood (2014)

The suck just keeps on sucking. One might presume that by their fourth full-length album, Hellyeah would at least find themselves capable of aping the least of those works they are trying to emulate, which by my count is Pantera's Reinventing the Steel. Sadly (okay, not so sadly) the few spare riffs of worth spent on this material are intertwined with such mediocre groove/thrash/grunge passages and saccharine bullshit tough guy posturing vocals that I often find them impossible to differentiate. There is appreciable meat and force behind a few of the rhythm guitars, I'll grant the Texan all stars that much, but when all your choruses sound like Phil Anselmo attempting to front Alice in Chains and Black Label Society, you're playing to an audience well behind the times, who has yet to realize that such a union sucks and pretty much always will suck outside of the genuine article...

I'll be a little more fair: they bite off more than Pantera here. For instance, "Demons in the Dirt" has a mechanistic rhythmic callback to something you'd hear on Prong's Cleansing, tunes like "Moth" might has well been sent over to Nickelback or Hoobastank to plague the radio channels, and there are even a few clean guitar passages here which sound like something In Flames would have woven into some of their signature melo-death. But it's all so pasteurized, so meek, so 'Ozzfest 1997' that I could not listen through this with a straight face. Once in a while, a riff with some genuine heft will arrive and then quickly become marginalized by the garbage 'catchy' chorus which isn't so catchy, the emotional self-touching of Chad Gray which will no doubt inspire BMX rallies and WWE walk on themes for the next decade. So heavy, bro! That thick, credulous guitar tone recycling groove metal is perfect to pump me up during my next CrossFit training session. Maybe they'll play some of this in between the next Monster Truck session at the muddy local arena-grounds.

Do we still really live in a world where people think shit bands like Stone Sour and Disturbed fucking matter at all? Because if we do, this should go multi-mega platinum! I feel like this is a symptom of musicians remaining well out of reach (err, out of touch) with reality. Look: some trends or styles or distinct individual bands are everlasting. Iron Maiden? Forever. Judas Priest up to 1990? Timeless. Ride the Lightning? Right on. The chum-sucking detritus starving for creativity in the wake of records like Far Beyond Driven and A Vulgar Display of Power will not, and even if Vinnie Paul has more of a right to this obese bucket of swill than anyone else can claim, it doesn't mean he shouldn't leave it for the fishes and do something worth a damn. The guy has the chops here of a glam metal drummer, lazy rock beats with an occasional feat of exertion when they start to get heavier. Okay, there's a little deja-vu in that statement, but we all know he's capable of being a part of something greater than this, and I'm not saying jump back on the Pantera bandwagon, but perhaps start something that is more than the sum of a self-caricature. This is like Five Finger Death Punch (one of the worst bands on Earth), albeit with a few more genuine thrash riffs mixed in. Blood for Blood...you couldn't even come up with a half-decent title. Lone star sharks with blunted teeth.

Verdict: Fail [2.5/10]

http://www.hellyeahband.com/