Quick and Dirty Reviews

You’re probably wondering how in the world this post is dated before the actual new site release.  Well, that’s because it was written before, and, well, published before technically.  Deal with it.  Either way, we had to kick it off with a new special feature.  This here is our first selection of quick reviews, fast, hard, dirty.  One paragraph, take a swig and chug it down, or throw it in the trash, depending on score or how hard you like it.

 

I can’t shake off the idea of Slaughter Messiah featuring Donald Duck in the vocal department. And judging by how moody the duck sounds here, he may be yelling obscenities at Mickey and just horny for Minnie. Anyway, Slaughter Messiah come from Belgium but they could also come from Germany even though they don’t. Know what I mean? Anyway, Donald Duck here goes by the name Lord Sabathan and sounds necro as fuck, equal parts Schmier and other people who imitate Schmier circa the three cool recordings Destruction put out in the 80’s. Black Speed Terror is their first EP and what pisses me off is the fact that Slaughter Messiah had two demos come out before and I had no idea about them. Now it must be impossible to get a hold of them. Killer black thrash, cool riffs and Disneyland goofisms aside I love the cover artwork and wish labels would fuck off with their digital promos and started sending the real thing through snail mail. Only physical copies are real.  Official Facebook   Score: 4 / 5

 

Hear me out, I love Necroven. Like, love them. Or him, actually because the whole thing is just one solitary Spaniard making more killer death metal than most bands of five who can’t do anything but photocopy Entombed or Grave to death. This, as in Necroven, ain’t about originality, mind you and keep in mind, but dude, the riffs go on and on. A few weeks ago I snapped Necroven’s Worship of Humiliation and found miself headbanging slowly in the highway while driving 56 miles per hour. Forgot I had popped this CD in, looked it up and there it was, Necroven. My expectations were low, mind you again. Anyway, dude is back with a two-song EP titled Descent Into the Crypt Chasm that is pure nasty riffage and guttural belching. Since this muchacho handles all the instrumentation you can’t expect him to go all Yngwie Malmsteen on us, but what you get is way above standard death metal. Rock it.  Official Facebook  Score: 4 / 5

 

Master are living proof that old people do not suck. Well, maybe most old people do but Paul Speckmann, gray beard and all, proves once again why he is who he is, an influential and paternal figure in the underground and one that doesn’t suck at it. The Witchhunt is like his twelfth release under the Master moniker and first thing you notice is how much steam this has. Master are in high gear, rolling fast and jovial, still creepy and croaky, with aged necro vocals and riffs that would flatten your dumb ass head.  I am not much of a Master completest, actually, I was not even aware Master had recorded anything new since that early album with god on the cover but I am gladly surprised here because there is an obvious effort to spice things up. All the while keeping it death metal, of course.  Official Facebook  Score: 4 / 5

 

I was listening to Cadaver Christi last week and after three songs I was pretty sure that it sucked in a very derivative way. Death metal is cool, right? If you like the style then you probably won’t have an issue with this German band’s racket, certainly, I could take a song of here and there but I assure you they won’t be the highlight of anyone’s day. The quality, the songwriting is just not there. Forgot to mention their name, is Harm, a quartet out of Berlin making meeeehh death metal by numbers. Tell you what; I think most people should ape this guitar sound, nasty as hell. Tell you what, less human beings should ape this drum sound. Nothing necessarily wrong with it except the fact that it causes indifference. Anyway, you know it, nasty death metal that lacks imagination but gets a passing grade because, you know, the genre is so fucking cool.  Official Facebook  Score: 3 / 5

 

I was listening to this record while washing dishes yesterday. It was the perfect soundtrack to soap against china, if you know what I mean. I love Beastmilk and I am not new to this feeling. A couple of years ago I fell in love with their debut EP, I would caress it at night and lick it slowly, tenderly. And then, just last week, baaam, I get this full-length titled Climax, which is like in my world, the equivalent of getting gang-banged and liking it. Anyway, this is cool, upbeat post punk with great tonalities and uber cool ambiance. I wish there were more bands like this, you know rough boys aspiring to look thrashy but apparently unable to shake off their modernism.  I also wish it was Saturday night at a goth club and I was driving through the Verrazano in my Impala with the cops chasing my ass while I get head from Tori Black and smoke a joint that is laced with LSD. Also, I wish I was Jan Michael Vincent before all the drinks and shit.  Official Facebook  Score: 5 / 5

 

I got mixed feelings about Virginia’s Earthling. Their songs are entertaining and engaging as a South Korean thriller but every time I concentrate on them I get the feeling that these are just lucky beginners playing cut and paste in the studio while a chunky producer just looks at them over their glasses and moves his head side to side in disbelief, as in, ‘you really wanna do that boy? I wish you played covers of “Freebird”. Also, the producer sucks and focuses too much attention on deciding what he is going to have for lunch and not enough on placing the microphones so that the drums sound decent. I get the feeling that the members of Earthling are a riot and that sense seems to come through the speakers, you know lots of changes, several ideas well-packed inside a very metal monochromatic package, all in all is a surprise that Dark Path, their first full-length doesn’t sound convoluted and like a dumbass mish mash of divergent sophomoric ideas.  Official Facebook  Score: 3.5 / 5

 

Hammer Fight sucks a lot. From the name of the  band, to the stupid cover artwork on Chug of War and all the way to the music, which is dumb and retarded and sound like all that chuggachugga bullshit that was big a few years ago. I hate it. I wanna shit on it but I can’t because there is no physical album to shit on. Anyway, there are some hardcore leanings here, as in I am going to beat your skinny ass hardcore, as in don’t fuck with me bruh cause I have a crew-cut, as in me and my muscular bros from Brooklyn are going to come out of the burroughs, pizza in hand and we are going to slam your face against the concrete while we listen to Public Enemy, as in where is my white belt mom hardcore? As in, then we are going to take a nap in our parent’s basement and touch each other’s willies right before bailing to the gym to enforce our pecs for flexing while we watch The Jersey Shore. As far as I am concerned it is fine to be a drunk just don’t build metal sing alongs around it because it sounds fucking retarded.  Official Facebook  Score: 1.5 / 5

 

Goregast is a German band that in 2005 put out an album called Viva el Animal bearing one of the stupidest pieces of artwork I have ever seen. It was like mongoloid-level retardness mixed in with a PTSD dream, all while assuming that the central character of the cover looks like your mom. Now, they are putting out a two-song EP called Covered in Skin. This time around the artwork is much better though quite derivative if you know your horror cinema. The music is eeehh, OK, part cool death metal, part retarded chugga boy hardcore. Only, this last element is played down quite a bit but the mere fact that is there disturbs me and if I listen to this without headphones would actually embarrass me, so I pass on grounds of reputation. I can’t like shit like this, know what I mean? Better than Hammer Fight for sure, but not quite near cool.  Official Facebook  Score: 2.5 / 5

 

Heavy, doom, Gothic! The styles say it all, Cursed 13 out of broke ass Detroit have two thirds of a chance to succeed and get a good grade. Cause the goth bit when mixed in metal usually yields beyond embarrassing results. It would all be lost if Coven 13 featured a hot female singer but they don’t, instead what we get is five older fellas in different degrees of decadence and decrepitude and whose lives, I assume, have been filled and enriched by epic metal.  Now that I look them up I recall seeing their first album around but not having time to check it out. Something about it being dusted off by Shadow Kingdom Records. Well, now they have added a 13 to their moniker and Destiny of the Gods is here, to me, a more than decent attempt at classic and timeless doom. Some tracks work better than others, some riffs are grander than others and some stick and some don’t. Like all middle of the road stuff pretty much.  Official Facebook  Score: 3.5 / 5

 

I am sometimes a little bit wary of American death metal bands getting the release treatments via foreign labels. One figures, a label like Dark Descent should pick them up, so why don’t they? So I approach this second effort from MA’s Soul Remnants with an ‘open mind’ expecting to be let down a bit and you know, that kind of works. Soul Remnants offer death metal that is just a bit too agile for my taste. They sound almost as if In Flames had not gone the way of the twat. Meaning, there are plenty of melodic riffs here and the drummer is ace, keeping it technical and colorful all while the vocalist did not get the memo, he was supposed to go clean in some songs. Black and Blood, their second record, is too tight for its own good. “Cauldron of Blood” for instance is airtight and  by that I mean these guys could become a Dream Theater cover band any day now.  Official Facebook  Score: 3 / 5

 

Written by Bobby Peru