CHOOCHOO-
SHOESHOOT
Choose Your Own Romance
(Kythibong)

COFFINS
Buried Death
(20 Buck Spin)

ASRA
The Way of All Flesh
(Black Box)

ONE STARVING DAY
Broken Wings Lead Arms to
the Sun
(KNBVI)

OBSKURIA
Discovery of Obskuria
(World in Sound)

KLIMT 1918
Just in Case We'll Never Meet

Again 

(Prophecy)

HEAVY HEAVY 
LOW LOW
Turtle Nipples and the Toxic
Shock 

(Ferret)

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Aaaahhh! Do the Japanese do everything right?  I think so. Especially when talking about extreme music they are not only willing to always push the boundaries to absurd extremes, but if focusing on a particular sub genre these bands always manage to churn out some pretty fucking awesome albums.  So yeah, there you have it, Buried Death is a pretty damn good album. In spots it reminds me of Six Feet Under, except this is actually good.  What is more interesting about Coffins is that they have had an evolution of sound that runs backwards to how most metal bands evolve. Instead of going from extreme music into more accessible territories, Coffins was actually started as a Swans-like group named “Compromise Your Need”. From then on they switched to a doom-like sound in their site described as similar to that of Kyuss and Cathedral.  At least that’s what I read on their website.

Nowadays Coffins don’t sound like any of the bands mentioned above. I am not sure how Kyuss-like they sounded in their beginnings but in Buried Death, Coffins couldn’t sound more distanced from the laid back atmosphere of those desert boys.  As a matter of fact, despite the almost constant mid-tempo speed these songs are rather intense, played with much of an overwhelming primal heaviness.  These tunes are pretty straight-forward and, to a great degree, pretty old school with a few nods to a couple of Swedish classics from the early 90’s.

And in the case of Cathedral…let’s just say Coffins has a chunky distorted guitar sound that almost totally ignores the existence of solos (except with that awesome drill-like guitar in “Altars in Gore”) and vocally Uchino is the polar opposite from Lee Dorrian’s trademark cat and witch shrieks.  And talking about witches, there isn’t much of that here either. With song titles like “The Frozen Styx”, “Altars in Gore” and “Cadaver Blood” there is no doubt of what Coffins is about. A pretty typical subject matter for bands of the genre, but surely, there aren’t many bands playing it with as much conviction.

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