I recently had the opportunity to visit Europe. Despite the length of the trip, time to go record hunting was tight. I had made it a point to go visit certain Italian record stores that specialize in hard music but in Rome time just flew by sight seeing, eating and drinking. The second city I visited was Florence, where I stumbled upon a T-shirt store called Long Live Rock n’ Roll. I asked the lady at the counter where I could find metal records. She pointed me to a store under the bus station. She said that was the only one in the city. That turned out to be your average commercial store with a bulky metal section. Most of the stuff for sale was expensive. The cheapest albums started at around 12 €, the most expensive ones upwards of 20 €. There was no way I wouldn’t feel raped by dishing out that kind of money. I didn’t buy anything. Too expensive and their selection was nothing out of the ordinary.  I lost hope.  Hit another commercial store and asked the guy for a metal record store. He too pointed me to the same store. Lost hope and wasted too much time waiting in line to get into museums I had visited years ago.

Then, one faithful midday I stumbled upon Data Records. This is one of the coolest stores I’ve ever been in. Their metal selection is almost unmatched, and their staff didn’t really care whether I bought something or just fucked off. I didn’t have all the time in the world to search through the thousands of vinyl records neatly stacked in boxes in the second room, but let’s just say that I found a mint vinyl copy of Burzum’s debut via Deathlike Silence Productions. The price tag was 140 €. I was tempted and thought about it twice but fuck that price. Opted instead for paying 40 € for Imperator’s Time Before Time. Too much money indeed, but this Polish band and I have history together. When I was a kid there was this asshole kid in my neighborhood who was really into underground shit like Mayhem and Sarcofago. He was pretty good at drawing logos and had what I then considered a good tape collection of obscure metal. His most prized possession was this recording. His tenth generation copy was barely audible. Last time I went home I ran into this kid. He is no longer a metalhead. He considers that shit ‘childish’ and these days opts for ass poking his girlfriend while dancing to reggaeton. Fuck him, I have a mint vinyl of Imperator! Data Records’ $.99 € section was small but I found some obscure stuff of dubious quality and high image appeal. These are it….

FUCK OFF EVERYBODY!!! We can reduce the Thank You notes of Nightfall’s sophomore 1993 Macabre Sunsets (Holy, 1993) to just that line. And they get kudos for that. The Greek are famous for being ardent metalheads and if you visit Nightfall’s Metal Archives page you’ll confirm that by seeing the curriculum of Nightfall’s members. Combined, these four dudes have done time in about twenty four bands, ranging from well-knowns like Firewind and Rotting Christ to the totally obscure like whofucking cares! Now if that’s not dedication I don’t know what is. Anyway, I like black metal and for today’s standards Macabre Sunsets doesn’t really cut it. This falls closer to early Anathema and My Dying Bride than anything else. Slow death metal vocals, simplistic guitar lines, tired double bass drums and too many gothic touches to make it great. The best song opens the album and is called “Odious”, it is also their most uncharacteristic and kick ass until the cheesy orchestration breaks in. For that Nightfall can FUCK OFF!!!  

Artwork is more important to metal music than it is to any other genre. Why? Because metalheads live in an endless state of metal retardation. That’s why I bought Tribulation’s stupidly titled Clown of Thorns (Black Mark, 1991). The ineptly drawn clown in the cover really got my attention. What also got my attention was that Tribulation hail from Sweden, the same hot country from where the other current totally relevant Tribulation hails from. (I strongly recommend The Horror, it’s one of the best Swedish death metal albums of the year.) It must suck for these guys that a new band considers them insignificant enough as to give their band the same name. Stylistically, both stand far apart, while the current band are kick ass gritty sludgey death metal, this broken up quartet from Surahammar play well-humoured crossover trash metal in the vein of Ignorance. Anyone remembers those clowns? If you don’t, nevermind. Pretend I never mentioned them.

Blood Farmers. Oh yeah!. This wasn’t cheap. I paid 10 € for this release and I don’t regret it. The Japanese reissues from 2008 retail at $20 bucks on Amazon and the original release I now spin on my stereo goes for a whopping $117 in the same site.  Blood Farmers formed in 1989 and broke up in 1996 after guitarist Dave Depraved left to become a writer. This self titled debut (Hellhound) came out in 1995 and boasts not only great organic production but songs that can stand the test of time as well as those of any classic record from Black Sabbath. Fat bluesy riffs, gorgeous solos, impassioned vocals courtesy of Eli Brown and lyrics and imagery based around cult horror movie classics. The cover artwork itself takes a shot from the movie Deranged. I would like to encourage someone with deep pockets to invest in an affordable reissue. This needs to be heard by the masses. Doom stoner of the highest caliber.

This split release between Spain’s Hachazo and Fuck Street Noise (B de Anarquia Records). is bound to raise some eyebrows. Especially from right wing minded fucks, ‘America No. 1’ screaming dorks and basically everyone with a sense of right. Hachazo’s half is called Los Ricos Tambien Lloran, which is the name of a really popular 80’s Mexican soap opera and translates to The Rich Also Cry. Yeah, you can see an image of the Twin Towers there and even though Hachazo make things clear in the liner notes by stating that they do not support terrorism, they argue that everyone is a vulnerable target no matter how mighty you might be today. Musically Hachazo are quite pedestrian. Simplistic hardcore with melodies based around sticky guitar melodies and oi! influenced vocals.  Fuck Street Noise are much more underground in the sense that I was unable to find even a MySpace page.  Their sound is also much more extreme than Hachazo’s, with triple vocals that range from brutal but clear to totally guttural and impossible to discern. Simplicity is either a trait in Spain’s hardcore scene or these two units have jumped into a recording space way too soon. When Fuck Street Noise speed up you can’t tell their shortcomings but when they slow down to a silly groove like during the nu metal friendly (perhaps unintentionally) “Campos de Concentracion” this shit is barely listenable

Earthcorpse hailed from the Channel Islands in the UK and played a doom and death metal hybrid that most likely didn’t make My Dyjng Bride shake in their boots. This quintet existed until sometime past 2000, year in which they released a self-titled EP. Born Bleeding (Shiver, 1995) doesn’t suck ass but is not that memorable either. Doom death metal bands have the advantage of not needing to be proficient in their instruments. Since they can play as slow as they wish they have a good excuse to arrange their music around simple melodic notes a retard with a boner for Black Sabbath could come up with. This really helps us appreciate and differentiate those bands that actually make death doom music that’s worth listening. Some of the tunes here are actually pretty efficient, with morose riffs repeating themselves to no end and tone deaf vocals that add to the negative feeling. “Something More” is as good as anything Anathema wrote during their first three recordings but overall, for a six song EP, Born Bleeding lacks the feeling and low ceiling ambience that made a band like Anathema stand out.  

Suffering, like every other black metal band worth checking out, hailed from Norway and apparently had a very short career. Sowing the Seeds of Suffering (Arctic Serenades, 1994) is their only release and features a pretty cool black metal sound. To begin with these tunes move at a constant mid pace that’s quite troublesome and nightmarish. The guitars sound totally smeared and ethereal, with an almost shoegaze quality to them and the odd standard metal riff peppered in controlled measures. Even though the vocals are frosty, the end result is quite bizarre. The doom elements in Suffering’s music make this album a curious gem, definitely worth chasing. I am surprised none of the members of this quartet ever made it into any other bands. The obscurity of this album might have something to do with label Arctic Serenades crash landing. Check out a very interesting interview with the label’s boss here. Gotta love the dirt.

I paid .99 € for this split between Polish pagans Hegemoon and Ukraine’s racist pagan dick lovers Runes of Dianceht. Had I known that these fuckers were racists I would have saved my money and headed straight for a kebab shop. I was starving while at the record store. I couldn’t tell you every single subject Hegemoon covers in their lyrics, but just being lumped in a split with Nazis puts them in the crapper. We could reasonably assume they share some of the same idiotic ideals. Musically, Hegemoon aren’t bad at all. Their riffs shred in speedy fashion, the drummer has some fucking chops and when hammering your earhole with his sick footwork the dude is a master. The vocals of Daark are also cadaveric and ghostly. Their share of this split screams to be heard, if it only wasn’t for the fact that they may just hate you because you aren’t Aryan. So fuck them. Like Hegemoon, Runes of Dianceht have a relationship with Eastside Records out of Poland. Check out the way this label describes its bands (shit about pride and gay stuff like ‘noble people’) and you can only come to the conclusion that none of them have ever tried Mexican food. Their loss. I love my chimichangas. The black metal of Runes of Dianceht is actually quite inept. In this day and age, where every other strange sounding band gets praised these buttheaded small minded people may have just gotten somewhere. But get past the saturated guitar sound the mechanized drumming and all you have is shitty black metal for people with a narrow view to Hitler’s charred asshole. These people need to grow some hair, have a laugh and add some soy sauce to their bread and goat meat. Until then, let’s just hope they die a horrible death. Soon.

I think there is a huge grindcore scene in Italy. It’s hard to tell because most grindcore musicians look like they work the night shift at Mc Donald’s but it makes sense because Italy is such an ugly fucking country how could you not have millions of things to bitch about? G.O.E. which stands for Glorification of Extreme have all the right in the world to be pissed. They hail from Tuscany for chrissakes! And we all know about their shitty food, their grim landscape and their ugly women. I’m Alive……Why Should I Care? (Dead Guyver, 2004) was the band’s debut and features fourteen choice cuts of speedy hardcore, guttural vocals working in contrast to some throaty hc vocals and the musical palette of a one trick donkey. Brutal but pretty fucking boring.

Brazil’s Pentacrostic (pictured above) have been together since 1989 and actually have a new record titled The Meaning of Life coming out in September '09.  The singer has this crazy look where he actually looks black but has loud blonde hair. The Pain Tears (Hellion, 1992) was their debut and displays a pretty dull death doom sound. I get the feeling that Pentacrostic fall into the doom category by accident. The guitars are actually running fast and drummer Alan Hamon plays at respectable speed and yet, they feel like a doom combo. Why? Well because the guitar sound is fatter than a pregnant elephant. This is how Morbid Angel would have sounded like without Trey Azagthoth, David Vincent, Pete Sandoval and Richard Brunelle.  I hate to say this about a Brazilian band, but I am not surprised I’ve never heard about Pentacrostic. I have no doubt following releases surpass The Pain Tears by a giraffe’s neck, but this is uneventful, trite, ordinary and boring.