Murderer - I Did It All For You (2018)

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This sucker is a couple of years old but I only just stumbled onto it the other day by complete accident and I'm floored by it. This is one of those records that sound ahead of its time, which is likely a hyperbolic statement, but this is why I write on this blog and not you, because I get to say whatever I want, and you get to roll your eyes or whatever it is you do – If that sentence had its own chapter, it would be titled "Attitude dude."

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A seedy New York three-piece fronted by Hank Wood of Hank Wood & The Hammerheads and the festering energy they are known for is obvious on 'I Did It All For You', an atmosphere conquered by fuzzy guitar tones and grooves that pack force like a kicking mule. It's super jangly and weird, and features four-different takes on the same track called 'Perfect' which I should hate, but I really couldn't and I really don't. This album succeeds at everything it's been doing and if you don't like it, well that's just like, your opinion, man. Keep cool.

I Did It All For You (bandcamp)

Death Fortress - Reign of the Unending (2018)

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Death Fortress were heinously late to the end of the year release bukake party in 2018 putting out Reign of the Unending December 26, 2018 but I still squeezed them into my top 30 year-end list because Death Fortress sounds like a stadium of troglodyte brutes scrapping over mating rites to a gurgling harem of virgins.

it's a dense wall of churning bass and guitars, both dizzying and ferocious, weaving in and out of cannon-fire like drumming in an arena where the orator is a gargantuan ancient beast, snarling proclamations of cosmic war and  misrule. J. Aversario's vocal belch is what drives the sound beyond its predecessors (in terms of heft) and what makes it almost a grinding chore to get through its entirety… and yes, I do mean that as a good thing.

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I have yet to buy this album on bandcamp, but as per usual with Fallen Empire Records, this album is set to a 'name your price' option which is more than generous considering labels have to pay for; Production/mastering, studio, artwork/layout, pressing/distibution, website, on top of other miscellaneous costs… 'name your price' download is essentially free if you input $0, but at the very least input a $1 to show a modicum of appreciation for the DIY, and then take it further and browse through the rest of the venerable Fallen Empire catalog and buy those as well. Give what you can, and you'll be richly rewarded by Belial. I'm going to be buying this album as soon as I post this (among others).

Death Fortress - Reign of the Unending (bandcamp)

Erdve - Vaitojimas (2018)

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Lithuania's main export definitely isn't metal - It's probably something more ambiguous and niche, like silk worm tea - nor is it hardcore for that matter, or sludge, crust, and anything else tonally devastating. Erdve are the exception to my wholly ignorant musing; Vaitojimas isn't something that is reinventing the wheel, but it sure as shit doesn't sound like a copycat to anything else, and that counts for something in a era of; heard that before, sounds good, let's replicate that. This album weaves and gestates elements from many pots; Crust, sludge, punk, hardcore, doom, post-metal, etc, etc.

•  Ω  •

I'm in the arduous, mind-numbing process of distilling my favourite albums from 2018 right now, and the list will be something around 30 albums, and I've listened to a disgusting amount of metal (among everything else) this year, so I'm revisiting and sifting through a lot right now. And so far, Erdve are definitely somewhere up there.

Erdve - Vaitojimas (bandcamp)

Cult Leader - A Patient Man (2018)

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Cult Leader have released something completely foul in way of A Patient Man; A stand out album in an ocean of louder and angrier than thou records released this year, punching way above its weight class with 50 minutes of untamed, mammalian minded sludge with its cruddy mitts in the vats of doom, grind, death, Crust, D-Beat and sadism. Cult Leader being formed from the husk of Gaza  carry the same overwhelming heft and dizzying structure and tone that Gaza were known and revered for. A Patient Man is crude in its blunt force attack, swinging back and forth from down-tempo glacial riffs and war drum like fodder to moments of frenetic, barbaric sounding crust, but that’s not to say its entirety is mammalian pound fit for Troglodytes hitting the barbells, nay, A Patient Man is intelligent and melodic when it needs to be and does well to counterweight and accent those extremely long bouts of ferocity through moments of plodding drone like doom and foaming atmosphere.

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I’ve said enough, A Patient Man is what most heavy albums aspire to be, and for this reason among others, don’t be surprised to see this album on many high-nosed, chin to the sky year end lists of 2018 from creeps like me.

Cult Leader - A Patient Man (bandcamp)

Esoctrilihum - Inhüma (2018)

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Asthâghul has been trimming the fat around his sleep schedule this year, or forfeited the irrelevant process of sleep altogether - it's the only conceivable way he has been able to release two full-length albums in ten months - Two albums that are gargantuan in scope and the magnitude of its attack; a sheer deluge of blistering black metal in a death metal carapace, a downward spiral that pays homage to the void, chaos realm, Eden and prays at the altar of something entirely malign, through a torrent of disorientating riffs, suffocated shrieks and the war drums of Azithoth.

Inhüma (bandcamp)

Portrayal of Guilt - Let Pain Be Your Guide (2018)

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This one has my attention for some reason, which I find mild interesting because it feels like something ripped out of my past, a bygone era of halcyon days and unsure moments in time… And it has all the markings of something I don't find myself indulging in much these days, sonically speaking. I know very little about Portrayal of Guilt, but I like Gilead Media (mostly) so I'm hoping this plays out similarly to Full of Hell's Trumpeting Ecstasy.

Let Pain Be Your Guide (bandcamp)

Primitive Man / Unearthly Trance - 2018 [Split]

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I'm not feeling particularly loquacious today so I'll do things like this; Here's another split for you lechers to sink thy chops into, Unearthly Trance and Primitive Man. Done.

Unearthly Trance / Primitive Man

Ragana / Thou - Let Our Names Be Forgotten (2018) [Split]

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I'm about as familiar of Thou as I am with the irrelevant process of taking in oxygen, it's a warm type of familiarity that seems to have been omni-present for half of my life… Unlike breathing, which I have only been cognizant of doing for the last couple years, before that it was just drawn' in shallow breath after shallow breath, without giving life any real thought. I digress, Thou have been around a while, prolific you might say. Hard working, you may even add. Consistent too. They also released 'Magus' this year too, a full-length that is making a strong case for album of the year to me.

Ragana, not so much. At least in the sense of being omnipotent and prolific… That's not to stomp on their parade and call it a rainy day or nuthin', Ragana have put out a few great records… You just can't win that kind of number game against Thou.

I'll keep this short now. Ragana and Thou combine for 35 minutes of barbarism in sonic form. Happy Hallow's eve kiddos. †

Ragana/Thou 

Bleach Birth - Hatching Inside The Womb (2018)

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Bleach Birth have released their second full-length and it's some incredibly feral and filthy punk rife with feedback, grime, and scummy snotty vocal delivery… Think a mix of The Daily Void, Soupcans, Helta Skelta and The Functional Blackouts with flourishes of forward thinking song structures that push passed inebriated simplicity. I'm very much into everything about this… and this has me thinking, when are Strange Attractor going to finally release another LP? Frig. Fans of the aforementioned will find joy here, and if not, your ears are not working correctly.

Bleach Birth - Hatching Inside The Womb (bandcamp)

MARE - Ebony Tower (2018)

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Trondheim, Norway is a cold, desolate and unrelenting place in the winter season, I have been there in the early onset of winter and in my brief time spent, I was left bereft and frigid to the bone. MARE come from Trondheim, Norway, so you'd be a dummy ignoramus to expect anything other than icy black metal; icicle tremolo picking layered over a galloping drum force while some forest druid recites incantations atop some mountain through chants and shrieks of desperation and pity. The Bandcamp page has further details on the enigma;

•  Ω  •

Forged in the early 2000's, MARE has become quite the mysterious gem for underground fanatics across the globe. Rarely playing live and with hard to get releases, the band has become, for many, one of the few 'real' Black Metal bands out there left in todays oversaturated scene. To many they have seemed to do so on purpose, but for us working closely with the band it is simply in their nature not to bother. They make music for themselves, they do this for themselves, and rest assured MARE will genuinely keep going down their own path never caring about hypes, fashion, trends or fame. They arrogantly named their own music 'Nidrosian Black Sorcerous Art' which defines who they are, on stage and off stage. 

This isn't a show, this isn't a gimmick. 

This is real Black Metal how it always was meant to be. 

Ebony Tower (bandcamp)

Mutilation Rites - Chasm (2018)

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Mutilation Rites newest full-length is real pleasant, in a sort of ugly and decrepit kind of way… It's charms are hidden in the mire, under layers of cold riffs and bastille day like war drums as its ferocious commander coughs out commands and chokes on bile. A two-headed beast of black metal and death metal, a not so uncommon amalgam these days…but hey, peanut butter and chocolate right? (chocolate and mint is wrong)

I'm liking what I've heard off of Chasm so far, I'm sure I could nit-pick but the production is pretty spot on for this ilk, murky. I have listened through Chasm a few times since writing this, each time I have gone back I'm finding another thing to like about it, especially in the wake of those trumpeting icy riffs that sway from galloping to mid-tempo glacial sludge to bang thy brain to and fro.

* It's worth noting Gilead Media has Chasm up on Bandcamp to buy for only $6, that's very, very reasonable and a good halfway point between affordable. It takes money to make a record.

Mutialtion Rites - Chasm (bandcamp)

Hooded Menace - Ossuarium Silhouettes Unhallowed (2018)

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Hooded Menace huh… let's do it. And by "it" I mean "it", thee it. Let's chew some fat about this monolithic, obese slab of doom/death metal. Let's get down to the bone. Hooded Menace have always  remained a distant blip on my musical radar, and it's weird, because I have liked what I have heard from them, the gamut of their full-lengths, ep's and splits (especially with filthy titans Ilsa), so I'm not sure why I have never really continually gnashed my teeth into their releases, until now, until Ossuarium Silhouettes Unhallowed was released at the beginning of the year, and even though I was (still do) playing Amenra's 'VI' (which was so obviously the best album released in 2017 - I'm currently taking counter-arguments you dinks) I still managed to find time to overplay this new release. Here's a brief and trite incite as to why;

reason 1) It's heavier than a dead dog, reason 2) It's filthier than a pigeon stoop in East Hastings, reason 3) It's produced very well, reason 4) revert back to reasons 1, 2 and 3.

Give this one a few spin cycles, and repent for all your cynicism's.

Ossuarium Silhouettes Unhallowed (bandcamp)

Serum Dreg - Lustful Vengeance (2018)

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Serum Dreg; Two-piece from Portland, Oregon churning butter into furiously feral death metal with a sewer full of noise and grime. Think heaps of Revenge, flakes of Blasphemophagher, nods to old gnarly shit like Morbid Insulter. With an album name like 'Lustful Vengeance' I have reason to believe the inspiration of its filth and sleaze comes from lecherous sex congregations, like the ones Aleister Crowley would go on about, but probably not though.
Get into it, or don't, it doesn't matter.

Lustful Vengeance (bandcamp)

Primal Rite - Dirge of Escapism (2018)

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While most of my friends musical tastes have gotten tasteful in their increasing age, shifting from Merciful Fate to Julian Lynch, I have only been regressing and getting more and more troglodytic, trading in psychedelic hooks and shoegazey crescendos for skull-battering floor toms and neanderthal beatdowns. Soon, I will only listen to beatdown hardcore with zero drum fills and no more than a handful of power chords and the vocals will be a series of grunts and belches... and it will be great.

With that being said, exorcise your archaic right to listen to Primal Rite. Crossover hardcore with it all; Thrashier than thou riffs, 80's death metal solo's, disenchanted gang vocals, etc.

Dirge of Escapism (bandcamp)

Ungfell - Mythen, Mären, Pestilenz (2018)

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Most pieces of music that fall under the umbrella of folk/black metal tend to scare me away these days, but Ungfell's sophomore release has quelled my fear and restored a flake of trust back into the melding of these genres. The folk elements aren't abrasive and dummied-down caricatures of traditional folk so it weaves into the music well. I've been listening to a bludgeoning amount of gurgly death metal lately, so these shrieky vocals are a good change of pace. Fans of Myrkgrav, Havukruunu, Moonsorrow, will find joy here.

Mythen, Mären, Pestilenz (bandcamp)

Ritual Necromancy - Disinterred Horror (2018)

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Yeah dude, Ritual Necromancy have finally released a follow up to their 2012 release Oath of The  Abyss, which was a no gimmick, methodical pummelling in form of glacially paced death metal. Disinterred Horror is a lot of the same, which in this sense is a good thing - death metal is constantly being digested, regurgitated and spewed out with flourishes of new ideas and gimmickry, and that's all well and good but sometimes you want an immovable force that is direct in its approach - Ritual Necromancy have succeeded in every facet of this on this record; suffocatingly dense death metal that tends to stew in its own fecal debris, sloshing around like molasses in a wave pool, forming crests that only barrel over once the putrid gestation process has reached its frothing point.

This, of course, is just an overly convoluted and cryptic way of saying it's heavier than a dead dog. I'm pleasantly reminded of Encoffination, Disma and Sonne Adam. Enjoy it you fuckin' slugs.

Disinterred Horror (bandcamp)

Cruz Somers - Sit & Stare EP (2018)

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Cruz Somers EP is a good way not to fuck up 10 minutes of your time. It's glaringly simple fuzzed out punk with a drum machine, which sounds like it should be stale, but it ain't man, it ain't.

Sit & Stare (bandcamp) - name your price

DBOY - Prove Your Love; Live in Belem (2018)

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There is a rock'n'roll renaissance gestating in the canals of Welland - the centre of the universe, as stated in point #2 of the DBOY 13-point manifesto - and the legion is DBOY so help me god. The manifesto further states in its final point; DBOY is here and now. So get down on your knees and prove yur love to the dominion of sonic oblivion baby!

'Live in Belem' is DBOY's first offering on the sacrificial altar of rock and roll and it's the first step towards ending sonic austerity, the second step is the same as the third and the third is the same as the fourth; DBOY write rock and roll, because rock and roll is what matters. Nothing else matters. 'Live in Belem' is a real fake live album, maybe meaning, it was really recorded live using fake equipment... These details aren't pertinent to the album, all that matters is this; DBOY are a three-piece band and they will remain anonymous. DBOY speak through their rock, and pass on their message through President of the official DBOY Scout Order, Kirill Kutchokokov.

'Live in Belem' is only 24 minutes long, but that's exactly as long as it needs to be; the average human brain can only digest this much rock and roll before it starts to sound like RUSH. This sounds nothing like that. Imagine early Turbonegro had the swagger of CPC Gangbangs with the simple approach to filth and sleaze as The Spits mixed with the raw power of The Stooges... all recorded by that dude in the legendary German band Scooter. It's a three-headed rock and roll lake monster wearing gimp masks, brandishing a guitar that sounds like Muddy Watters got shittered, a raunchy bass tone that's filthier than a pigeon stoop and drums as smooth and sexy as making sweet luv on a waterbed... A sound that is unapologetically Welland.

I got in touch with manager Kirill Kutchokokov and asked him to give me a handful of words about DBOY. His response;

"DBOY is only focused on two things; Sounding cool, and looking cooler. People ask 'what does DBOY mean?' Have they forgotten that the real question is 'What does DBOY mean to you?' or 'why do you deny yourself real sonic and aesthetic pleasure any longer?' Knowing means nothing. DBOY is feeling. DBOY is pleasure through power, and power is sexual, be it sonic or otherwise... What does it mean? Who Cares? Where is it from? Who knows? All that matters is that DBOY is here and now. Enjoy."

I stand in the camp that firmly believes that you only need to hear DBOY to love DBOY and all other deniers are liars until proven guilty and out their fuckin' skull. Lay down and suck him. I'll lick your  little honey twat... little honey pussy.

With open arms from the centre of the darkest hole... DBOY is yours.
Положите и сосите его. Я вылизаю твою медную киску ... маленькую медную киску.

PROVE YOUR L<3VE (band camp)
13-point Manifesto

III

Cindy Lee - Act of Tenderness (2018)

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Haunting. Forlorn. Beautiful. Cindy Lee's musical landscape has always been all of these things, a sonic network woven from a wrenching guitar tone, a bleak synth backdrop and an atmosphere soaking heavily in its own folly, stewing in its sadness, marinating in a maddening pond of dismal thoughts and past hurts. This is what it feels like, mostly. There is always this undeniable undertone of warmth and something comforting about it all though, like any good artist or any good fatalist, it's up to the author to conjure up a feeling of hope, even if it's wishful thinking. Nobody likes a total Nihilist.

Act of Tenderness is just that, tender, but it's also everything above and everything below the heart, sitting in the gut and living in the hippocampus. You didn't even know it was there until now, as you sip from your black coffee you realize that. Look at me now, one moment I was listening to Moonknight's Ligeia feeling absolutely nothing in-particular and now only two songs in on this album I'm my most primordial and pensive self. Form your own opinion and stop caring about what other people think, anyway.

Take a listen.

Act of Tenderness

Also definitely listening to her 2017 release, Malenkost. It's grim as black metal and soft as cashmere.

JC Satàn- Centaur Desire (2018)

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Man, just listen to the song Erika one time. Just once. Through the onset of the fuzz cathedral intro it dips into a psychedelic fetichism lead by a Yellow Submarine THC fuzed pop hook chorus into perfectly recorded drums - You haven't heard toms sound that good since System of A Down released Toxicity - and you're just a fucking want stain if you can't get 6-inches deep into that guitar solo halfway through the song. It has everything. Everything you need and don't need. If you're anything like me, you're just happy to have another thing to overplay. The time has come for each and every one of you to decide, whether you are going to be a part of the problem, or a part of the solution.

Centaur Desire (bandcamp)