As the bigger independent labels move from physical promo copies and into the digital world, Deaf Sparrow steps aside and concentrates on those still willingly to take a stroll to the post office.  Maybe this birdie is not moving with the times, but if I have to choose between reviewing an album I can hold in my hands and appreciate for what it is and a download link that can be deleted for all eternity to the touch of one button, well my friends I choose the first. To echo Kevin Stewart Panko in the February issue of Decibel Magazine, 'fuck you digital age!' That's not to say that I won't be reviewing any albums that come through download links, but their exposure will be be extremely limited. I have a trunk full of physical promos that can last me a lifetime. Read on and spread the word…

Horde of Hel is an ambitious project from the likes of three dudes that have been around the Swedish underground scene for quite some time. They’ve done time in bands like My Own Grave, Valkyria and in Battle. If you are not familiar with any of these bands you need not feel guilt. At least not for the first two. They suck donkey dung. In Battle are OK. Blodskam is their first album as a BM collective and it covers quite the span;  from strange passages of obtuse and nightmarish experimentation (“Hail Chaos”), to multiple personality mid tempo black metal (“The Glory of Massmurder”), to out of character funny ha-ha industrial dance beats (there’s a track rightfully called “Living Abomination”) and then to the obligatory hyperspeed songs of hysterical satanic masturbation (the kinda killer “Domen Mot Manniskan”) these multi-lingual goat-lickers do it all which is not the same thing as saying that they ‘excel’ at all.  Despite all the terrain that’s covered in Blodskam only one thing is certain, there is absolutely nothing new under their moon. MySpace

I like Dodsferd. I have always liked his music and perhaps I always will like his music. He may be a shitty interview but I can’t deny his talent. Suicide and the Rest of Your Kind Will Follow is nothing but another masterful building block in the shrine of beautiful black metal. He may not like it when people say his music is beautiful, but shit, it totally is. His riffs are melancholic and heartfelt, depressive but haunting and highly appealing. They possess melody and soul. They have that sticky icky icky factor. They are utterly simplistic, but is right there where the genius of this one man recording machine resides. Wrath (his nom de guerre) is a man with a talent and in this his fifth full-length he offers two lengthy tracks. The one that gives this recordings its title borders on shoegaze, except Wrath’s vocals are absolutely agonizing.  The second song is titled “His Veins Colored the Room” and is not about interior decoration.  In this one, Wrath sounds like a hurting wolf. MySpace

A Somber Wind From a Distant Shore is the debut of Minnesota’s duo Canis Dirus and it’s got a sound that… how do you say? I’ve heard before. I actually have heard it before a couple of hundred times. Smeared riffs that attempt to be melancholic but sound more washed up than David Cassidy’s face, a drum beat that goes for $1.50 at a General Dollar store and this geisha-like screams that fit a shitty Japanese horror movie more than a black metal debut by an American duo. When Canis Dirus is not doing the above they are playing subpar and totally boring riffs backed by a slightly slower drumbeat that actually retails for $.99 a pop and top that with vocals that are somewhere between a fat dude with a ram up his ass and the laughable geisha screams that I mentioned before. This recording makes up a full 42 minutes of poorly elaborated Satanismo. And that includes some ridiculous Gregorian chants in the middle of “Garden of Death”.  This is exactly where things get generic. Absolutely fucking boring. The only thing this record needs is a good idea. Or its deletion from the annals of metal. MySpace

This is what baffles me about some labels. How can the same people that signed Merrimack have the nerve or lack of vision and sign Canis Dirus? It beats me. Anyway, Merrimack aren’t all that great either, but at least they sound like a real band and not like a couple of one-note beefy dudes with a boner for sadness and misty landscapes.  Grey Rigorism is Merrimack’s third full-length after a string of releases that include a Best of compilation (what is it with BM bands releasing Best of’s early in their careers?), a live album, two splits and three demos and it shows professionalism in all fronts. Their sound is polished. Their songs are tight. Their arrangements are not full of imagination but at least the performances are rather flawless. If there is a problem with Grey Rigorism is that it is too clean sounding. The sound obtained at the famed Necromorbus Studios is pretty antiseptic and harmless, however Merrimack are on when at full speed. When not, which sadly is most of the time, these Frenchmen bash this slow mid tempos that sound like feeble attempts at atonality, but that mostly just sound weak. MySpace

Italy’s Hiems may be a one man project but listening to his music you’d never think so.  Unlike most recordings from one man projects,  Worship or Die presents a sound that is expert and comprehensive and complex, but is also fluid and full of sense. It is also expansive as it frequently steps out of the black metal camp and into progressive arrangements.  Every instrument here is played with gusto and confidence. There is no room for error, nor for sloppiness in the world of Hiems. Unlike a sizeable portion of black metal releases Worship or Die also sounds big.  The guitars have the appropriate fat crunch. Algol, the man behind Hiems, could certainly school anyone thinking that to get in the cult all you need is a boombox, a couple of chopsticks and a First Act guitar. Anyway, if I were to tag this album as a black metal release then I am confident to say that Worship or Die would be one of the catchiest records ever to be offered to Satan. Fantastic riffs and the solo in the song “Hiems” is wah-wah nice.  Also, the end of “290979” sounds like Algol invited the guys from Air for cookies and tea. MySpace

Talk about a full sound. Australia’s Nazxul have this lush, grandiloquent, gothic-friendly, colossal, cosmic, voluminous sound, but somehow their tunes don’t sound pretentious or cheesy.   Yeah, for having so much going on at once, the songs are kind of dull but at least they don’t have any female singers or cello solos.  All those that still weep at the memory of Emperor may be entertained by Nazxul and their chunky sound. And I say chunky because the songwriting is beefed up, it is even as in there is only one idea per song. So the songs start massive, remain massive, never move, nor waive, nor go up nor down, they just remain massive and locked on invariable speed. Mmmhh, yeah. Nothing else to say but, could you please turn those keyboards down a notch or two? MySpace

Bleeding Fist come from Slovenia and they look like total perverts.  Bestial Kruzifix666ion is their second full-length of bestial thrashy black metal and is totally tasteless. Tasteless, as in finger-licking good and mightier, sloppier and way more killer than your stupid thrash metal revival band. The word chaotic immediately comes to mind, because as soon as you pop this baby in shit starts flying everywhere. Shit like, high-brow manners, cleanliness, intelligence and class. Duck and cover, the guitars have this languid tone that’s only possible through happy accidents. The drummer, who goes by Krieg Machine, plays with the skills of the one and only DD Crazy while the vocals of Hellscream emanate this foul stench that’s obviously the result of too much coprophagia. In other words, Bleeding Fist rules. Bestial Kruzifix666ion is a great mess where the quartet can barely keep it together but the racket they produce is almighty nevertheless. Also, I like the bassist’s nom de guerre, Infernal Karburator.  It was about time someone got with the automotive motifs. MySpace

To call some black metal bands prolific is an understatement. Finland’s Azaghal has been around since 1995, a long time for anyone’s standards, but when you think that they have produced three demos, eight splits, three EP’s, two best of Compilations (to my point earlier, I don’t see the need for this) and eight full-lengths counting 09’s Teraphim, then you come to realize that they are nothing but an unstoppable blasphemy machine.  There has been a lot of talk about Finnish black metal lately and with a reason. Azaghal represent just that; their sound is not totally unlike the one produced by their Norwegian counterparts, the difference being that they only have to live up to Beherit’s standards. Anyway, Teraphim is a solid album. Azaghal’s balance of emaciated but energetic riffs with flimsy but battering drumming goes down easy and form an album that is surprisingly fresh.  Especially for a band that has created enough songs to last a lifetime. MySpace