EFFLUENCE – ‘PSYCHOCEPHALIC SPAWNING’

The first full length offering from one-man monstroddity Effluence, a sacrificial mutating slaughter in the name of Death Metal’s boundless, fractal tomorrow. Fusion jazz ‘Free Death’ slam brutality and truculence melts down and spews cosmic space death tech metal abstraction through intense instrumentation and atypical grinding pounding percussive flagellation and battery, amid a nuclear fallout of mind-flaying absurdity. ‘Song’ structures unfurl inconceivably, guitars and bass wrench and vomit atonal chord wall collapse with skronking macro dissonance, immutably deft pinch harms and genetically warped shredder pealing prog death solos, lockjaw intense dexterous drumming veers and careens through exceptionally tight patterns impossible to discern, leading each track through vortex and vacuum with absolute disregard for form, synths, keys, sax and winds loom beneath in abstract deliquescence, appearing within the maelstrom as piques of perfect absurdism, seams bursting with moments of insanely longhaired thousand-eyed progressive tech death expulsion, super low intonated bdm vocalwall and cosmic death warcry vocal battle for host supremacy, piles of writhing blasting grinding viscera toxify and strangulate in surrealist ecstasy. Totality Star Death and horrendous unimaginable rebirth. Megametal.

Bandcamp

CALCINATED – ‘MORGUE SERENITY’

Calcinated is a pathological Goregrind/Deathgrind project from Mexico, featuring members of a host of reprehensible Goregrind and Gorenoise bands including Putrefuck, Septic Autopsy and the reprehensibly disgusting Fetal Deformity to name just three.  Anatomical old school as fuck Goregrind pungent with the influence of very old death metal and early grindcore, replete with razor sharp metallic guitar elements and rife with ping snare and raw 00’s production, a diabolical combination of goregrind symptoms resultant in a truly cadaverous and memorable record. Rhythms veer from mid paced punk gore stomp to very fast and detailed deathgrinding blasting abandon, bizarre breakdowns and deathly double bass grooves abound, with complex lithe riffing besmirched by noisy production, howling pitch-shifted bleghs and creepy retching Carcass worshipping vocal, and flesh ripping sonorous lead guitars, littered with overwrought sampling (as dogma demands). Calcinated is at least a severed head above the competition here. Wretched!

Rectal Purulence

Bandcamp

STENCHED – ‘GORGING ON MEPHITIC ROT’

Mexican one-man Death Metal project Stenched’s first demo, a putrid, sordid affair mired in salacious swampy groove, relying largely on burly mid pace tempos to batter and stupefy. Slimy death metal from deep in the sewers, surging shit-tide d-beats launch the cadaverous, morbid deadly chord structures into an uptempo toilet bowl swirlie and then down the u-bend into slow lurching deathly slop with minimum note leads rolling across the corpulent rockin’ grooves, leaking corpse juices as the guitars work over burbling bacterial Bass, topped with filthy burping low vocal halitosia, beautifully simple and sophomoric, stupefying morbid sludgy Death Metal for dumbells and sewer dwellers. If you dig on that moron, no fancy-pants shit like Undergang, Cerebral Rot, Convulse or Transgressor, hesitate no further! Gruesome.

Blood Harvest

Templum Obscenum Records

Bandcamp

 

TRICHOMONIASIS – ‘HARVEST OF THE KILLING FIELDS’

Trichomoniasis’ second album released this year, the follow up to the preposterously dense full length ‘Makeshift Crematoria’, which somehow slightly supersedes that formidable effrontery in scope, scale and deformity, if not in length. An abstruse putrefaction of non-linear extra-terrestrial esoteric Brutal Death Metal power, a perplexing grinding riddle of gore soaked ‘free death’ akin to supereon acts such as Encenathrakh, Enmity and Effluence, which abstracts Slamming Death Metal beyond the event horizon of the logical into something entirely volatilely o t h e r, closer to Gorenoise in its impenetrability. Pulsating waves of impossible DETH crash irregularly upon the shores of shattered objectivity, grinding diagonal slamming ‘riff’ spires coil, lurch, drag and burst in impossibly severe oblique patterns, drumming an imperceivable terminal velocity vortex of complex virtuosic brutality, impetuous low(er) vocal tempest like fractal disembodied primal scream, dotted with absurdist samples depicting politically managed biological/ecological malfunction and resultant death, a theme continued from their previous album. My limits of expression are truly tested here – I’m unable to understand what is going on and I can’t help but listen repeatedly. The annihilation of cognition by means of pinch harmonics and hyper ping snare, a practically fucking extra-sensory experience. Terrifyingly stressful, sweat-soaked, face-tripping ego extermination.

Bandcamp

EXTERMINATED – ‘THE GENESIS OF GENOCIDE’

Philippine one man death squad Exterminated’s first full length record, released by Comatose Music. Extremely violent Brutal Death metal castigation, a festival of inhumanity and degradation riddled with classic Death Metal riffing and a breathtaking fluidity in the song structures, shockingly catchy and coherent for this kind of din, so much so that I’ve elsewhere seen the word ‘progessive’ used when referring to this horror. Personally I wouldn’t stretch so far, but I can certainly see where that sentiment arises from. Exceptionally low, sickening brutal vocal commands the tumult of Death Metal riffs and Brutal Death Metal atonal timbral chord bludgeoning amassed with vitriolic bass sound, programmed drums careen through unyielding blast beats detailed with ludicrous fills and lurching grooves. Linear, brusque and face-pulping aggressive. The fukked up perverse prison artwork style cover, depicting the grotesqueries of genocide that define and inspire Exterminated’s ouvre, really adds the finishing touch to a disgusting work of anti-human hatred. Superbly malignant.

Comatose Music

UŠUMGAL – DEMO MMXXII

Ušumgal is a newer project from Washington D.C, sharing members with the excellent Genocide Pact and Goetia, among others. Their 2022 demo presents 3 blood drenched screeds of War Metal atrocity, a contamination of barbed, barbarous Death Metal, tar black War Metal dark as burning pitch. The guitars are brutish, unyielding and scalding, coiled tightly around torqued up blast-stacked Drums and a rumble of ravening Bass, driven war command vocal in a reek of smoldering creosote. There’s a cruel, crude streak of crust influence in the thumping storming drumming, ravenously switching tempos beneath the Guitar and Bass work to maximize skull crushing damage. Intense and vitriolic shit. Fans of War Metal regressionists Caveman Cult or Death Metal dumbells Torture Rack, take heed and take up your axes! These apes are full to burst with war-like cunning and vulgar promise.

Bandcamp

DOLDREY – ‘CELESTIAL DECONSTRUCTION’

Colossal dungeon serpent Death Crust from Singapore’s Doldrey. Deathly and despotic, crusading Crust from the deep, deformed in it’s darkened succor into a beast of mutant Death Metal, Stenchcore and Crust, with frosty elements of Black Metal and straight up Integrity style Holy Terror Hardcore too. Massive Guitars rippling with siege spikes form a wall of thrashing vast stench Crust, full of lithe Heavy Metal riffing and deaththrash chug, battering battlement Bass and cruiser pummeling drum work which stomps and heaves with savagery, heavily utilising tupa tupa D Beats and UK 82 style stomp along with descents into axe swinging breakdowns as it  smashes into the fray with a swift and thunderous rhythmic bent, all adorned with gritty puking Crust vocal. Gloomy, murderous Crust from the dark recesses, full of repeat-listen headbangin’ bangers. Get into it.

Iron Lung Records

Pulverised Records

Pissed Off! Recs

REGURGITATED ENTRAILS DEMO 2022

Regurgitated Entrails surfaces from the US with their 2022 demo.  Putrid, bonesawing, deathgrinding Brutal Death Metal riffs cast in malefic abandon over ultra tight Bass and Drum blast, weaving old school Death Metal riffcraft and blasting Brutal Death Metal truculence. The drums carve super dryly produced grooves and corpulent, wicked sick slams, adorned with some particularly potent gravity blast sections, the Bass is enputridised with 808 bass drops and fluid, dexterous digital liquidity generating a torqued power beneath the impressively memorable riff structures, the vocal a torrent of extremely brutish, obstinate grunts and purrs to instigate lizard brain fury and multiple overkill stabbings. Perfectly evoked old school American Brutal Death Metal ala Regurgitation, Disgorge (US) or Necrotic Disgorgement with obligatory nods to Cephalotripsy and early Devourment. Total fucking sickness and obscenity.

Maggot Stomp

Bandcamp

HEMATOMA – ‘RELENTLESS BARBARISM’

Impious cataclysmic Black Death War Gore Metal from fukk knows where (I’m pretty sure one of these freaks lurks in Flint, Michigan…) glowering with overwhelming outsider hostility. Anti-dogmatic rhythms blast and groove with near-Industrial elements grinding in mid-pace with an anvil-strike snare; mean, ugly, accursed Guitars casting grind, gore and DETH riffs, damned in leaden fires of booming lo-fi production, a raking torment of remorselessly heavy corpse-bloated Bass, adorned with hazardous, hissing, cackling vocal of the fukked up and perverse, tainted with ghastly effects. Heaving, seizured, molten Death Black Metal of violent persecution, dangerous and fukking ravenous. Like Catasexual Urge Motivation, Black Mass of Absu or Bestial Putrefaction, Hematoma operates in a sound that’s difficult to pin down to extant genre tropes, as it pulls every extremity into it’s carbonised black hole vortex to create absolutely VILE, truly impetuous Black Death Metal for the end tymes (hopefully). Pestilential and sordid, prison Satanism, homeless urban occultism, malformed victims crucified upside down… verminous. Be afraid.

Bandcamp

APARTHIVA RAKTADHARA – ‘আ​দ​্​য​া​প​ী​ঠ ম​র​ণ​স​ং​হ​ি​ত​া​’

Kalikshetra sorcery and black death hate from Aparthiva Raktadhara. Makes good the promise of their demented demo, here presenting an absolutely ruthless scroll of ancient, martial Death Metal heresy. Vicious drumming both in execution and style, the frothing fills and lurching double bass groove warped with irreal essence, dry sulphuric Guitars and Bass sounds coalesce in sorcerous, kris-like blade riffs and molten lightning bolt solos, both unorthodox and fervently devotional to archaic forms, searing and scything as war commanding hissing vocal topples pious bodies and desecrates meek souls. The ossuary-dry production accents the aggression, ignoring spooky reverb trends in favour of monolithic, unavoidable deathcrush. There’s a tangible air of Brutal Death Metal here, in the extremely aggressive arrangement and inert recording atmosphere, making for a particularly cruel, violent listen. Hail Kalikshetra Death Metal Shunyata!

Iron Bonehead Productions

Bandcamp

ASTRAL TOMB – ‘SOULGAZER’

Fiendishly psychedelic psychotic slamming Grateful Death Metal from Colorado three piece Astral Tomb. Mutating psyched-out Slam Death Metal via Fusion Jazz expressing effluvic cosmic jam sesh vibe, spiraling deadly riffs curl from the indifferent abyss in obtuse parallel shapes atop some of the most rapturous, innovative and intuitive drumming I’ve heard in quite some time, replete as it is with constant accents and astral fills. Super low burly cosmic cube vocal drifts across the timescapes, absolutely gigastoned technical riff patterns and ego deleting solos emerge and develop amidst exceptionally compelling, pummeling rhythms that lurch, slam and blast. Heavy use of synths, including a portentous separate synthscape track, trap the mind in the negazone as the power trio returns through a timewave portal to truly flay the prone mind with monstrous proggy Death Metal riff miasma. Red-eyed, long-haired, DMT addled, farsighted and utterly fucking brutal. I recently indulged a cranked as fukk listen through of ‘Soulgazer’ with the venerable Werewolf Hippy in his lair; his stoned drooling visage, profane exclamations and cackles at each unexpected deathly, slamming, tie-dyed turn delighted me no end. A triumph of xenomorphic Metal.

Blood Harvest Records

Bandcamp

TARTARUS HORDE – ‘SCEPTER OF THE LUNAR ECLIPSE’

Pennsylvania’s Tartarus Horde with their second demo, a feast of scowling, grinding Death Metal with ancient dark fantasy themes. Imbued with extremely prominent barbarous low vocal death commands, savage sawbladed evil riffs with intense archaic Heavy Metal/Speed Metal style, and thrashing, blasting drumming, heavy on the dense slow movements and played with deranged verve and violence. Flaying dexterous solo work, perfectly pitched Bass twang conquest, and an unexpected and excellent track of brightly twilit dungeon dwelling synth bloop. Despotic and fucking warlike, nasty Death Metal/Deathgrind violence captured within a very old school separated right/left Bass/Guitar mix with dry atmosphere. Reminds of violent Death Metal ala Torture Rack, but with a hefty sludgy smear of Grindcore influences adorning it’s tattered standards. Blood drenched tyrannic savagery!

Absolute Power Productions

NEKRO DRUNKZ – ‘TERMINAL PERVERSION’

Nekro Drunkz, Oregon’s filthiest sons, here summon a horrific amalgam of Thrashing dummy Death Metal and punk as fukk toilet burbling Goregrind. Deathly, insanely maniacal head banging pervert trash Thrash and absolutely decimating wall-of-shit Gore/Grindcore – Chaotic and intense, erect, violent and steaming fucken drunk. Necrotized and insane sounding, callous and perverse. In taking sound cues from all the squelchiest, stinkiest elements of Deathgrind, Death Metal, Grindcore, Goregrind, Thrash and maybe even a bit of Crusty Punk, Nekro Drunkz have conjured an avalanche of septik deth straight from the bowels of fukken hades. Mad catchy headbang (handbang?) summoning riffing, stomping thrashed out drumming with lots of blast beats, and furious gurgling perv vocal upchuck and roaring poser decimation. This album is a seriously good time. And that cover art is obviously sikk as fukk. Completely essential.

Bandcamp

NO BREAD! Records

TSALAL / TETRAGRAMMACIDE SPLIT – ‘PACT OF ESCHATOLOGICAL ISLAMIC SPIRITUAL ORDEAL’

Temeritous, unspeakable, anticosmic atomic Noise Metal split from far outside the illusion, released on 10″ wax by Iron Bonehead. Tsalal opens and closes in deliriant deafened noise miasma, impure rudimentary instrumentations obscured by devastating distortion, through this cervical portal opening they burst forth with leaden singularity Black Noise Metal, warped stricken solos rupture vomiting from the broken cosm atop endless blasting and supereon hissing vocal, before collapsing back into the unstable intro/outro vortex. Singular and irreal. Tetragrammacide’s track forges closer to black hole Cybergrinding Black Death, massive coils of meticulous programmed blasts, tumultuous circular riffs and commanding mangled vocal as a complex mandala weapon to strike dead yahweh in a single blow and destroy it’s foetid world of shit for good. A perfect meeting of esoteric outsider aesthete Noise Metal. Smash the Tetragrammaton. Reject the Simulation. Defeat the Demiurge. Delete the Universe.

Iron Bonehead Productions

FAKE MEAT – ‘食中毒’

Deathly Goregrind and sleazy Death Metal from Derek & Haga Chan, conjured in “the smelly basement” in 2018. Broad foreheaded drooling necro Death Metal and E-Coli riddled Goregrind sewn up into a filthy stinking Autopsy simulacra laden with leaden one foot blast beats. Virulent disgusting Guitars cranked up into complex Haga-riff overdrive, all deadly and vile with degenerate lethal metallic noodle riffs matched with punk putrid drumming, very heavy and heaving with groove and concrete footed blasts, and bilious vocal retch and spew besides. Hefty, hoary production with plenty of clarity and volume. A putrid pungent breath of Goregrind, deathly serious riff feast and metalpunking puke violent fun for all!

Discos Al Pacino

CULT GRAVES – ‘STRANGE CUSTOMS’

Blaspheming blasting Death Metal from the States. ‘Strange Customs’ has drawn comparisons to Proclamation and early Deicide, influences amongst others with which Cult Graves harness a savage rite of Death Metal all their own. Riff-centric yet utterly primal, dismal, vile necromantic Death Metal; rabid strangulating riffs and solos with transgressive sort-of grooves,  plummeting bombastic drums of death with tempo variations and nuances, full of the erect powerful primality that elevates this sort of ghoulish, slobbering riff feast, and decimating, ear crushing production with squashed ambience and audial clarity. This has a similarly grinding feel and sound to Gravesend or Caustic Wound at times, too, and there’s a blackened edge to some of the more chaotic guitar parts, sometimes coming off like Lucifer’s Hammer in their more demented, heretical throes. Crucial brutal.

Godz Ov War Productions

Transylvanian Recordings

Bandcamp

OATH OF CRUELTY – ‘HELLISH DECIMATION’

Oath of Cruelty with their 2012 EP ‘Hellish Decimation’, two tracks of the other OTHER War Metal, summoning the murderous intensity and hammering barbarian Teuton Thrash of ‘Tapping The Vein’ era Sodom and dialing everything beyond taste and decency via berzerker blast beats and Death Metal aural dimensions. Replete with temple crushing grooving Thrash riffs and stacked up infernal rhythms, disastrously lethal leads frothing with bloodlust and razor throated vocal from Hades. Deathleaping from blitzing fast Death Thrash mayhem to full-on pit frenzy mid-paced near-crossover thrashing murder, massive tom strikes prelude the devastation as posers are wasted in no mans land amidst the chugging, fist banging riff affront. Guitars are provided by Dave Callier, he of the mighty Texan Grindcore institution P.L.F., and there are many similarities between the two band’s mean-as-fukk riffing styles to be found here. Boundless, blasting Death Thrash perfection borne of cruel, maniac zeal and fleet-footed fervor. Concrete production provides a deadly weight and martial power to these tracks. ‘Hellish Decimation’, indeed.

Warfare Noise Productions

GUTLESS / MORTAL WOUND SPLIT

Totally neckwrecking old school Death Metal split from US combatants Mortal Wound and Australian unit Gutless, released back in 2020 on Me Saco Un Ojo Records and Maggot Stomp Records, and sealed in super extra bogan airbrushed art from the side of some interdimensional Death Metal fuck truck. Mortal Wound casts three odes to warfare trauma, sweltering jungle combat groove riffs and terrorizing, sonorous leads surge across blasting drums in interesting patterns shifting from static stiff arm blasts to punk skanks, rumbling cable Bass presence and super low Barnes worship vocal, dotted with samples from war films and documentaries. Savage, terse and steaming with mean lead work. Callous. Gutless kicks out two tracks of furious Death Metal, heavier than it’s constituent parts by dint of manic rabid playing and dynamic tempo switch ups. Hat heavy drums with cannon handed snare strikes and pit frenzied thrashing aura, with plenty of tight as fukk groove, Guitars lashing out pitliess, barbed death thrash riffs and limber-dicked Bass lines matching Guitars phrase and rhythm, low wind tunnel howl vocal full of rage, with warped insane Guitar solos from hell (australia) florid in mercurial downcast melody. Gutless has this amazing knack of channeling old Cannibal Corpse mana in sound and spirit – moments in ‘Manufactured God’ come off like ‘Edible Autopsy’ pt II; necksnapping thrashing drum parts with hi hat blasts, isolated bass badassery, violent atmosphere of ripping death. Fucking glorious.

Gutless Bandcamp

Mortal Wound Bandcamp

Me Saco Un Ojo Records

DETHRONED EMPEROR – ‘MORAL NIHILITY’

Bloodsoaked Deathgrind cenotaph from the now defunct Dethroned Emperor – no frills, no bullshit, absolutely no quarter. Members have gone on to feature in some of NJ’s most fearsome Metal bands, Altar of Gore and the irascible Siege Column to name just two. Blighted sepulchral Guitars leaden with downtuned, crushing Bass tones carving gnarly, deathly riff patterns and merciless chugs, super no nonsense, tight and heavy lethal drumming matches the Guitars move for move, sick as fukk low throat harsh vocal. A blunt, obstinate, steel girder sledge of priapismic Death Metal wrenched forcefully into a form of Grindcore, furious in misanthropic outrage. Super succinct in style, songcraft boiled down to its essence and stripped of unnecessary repetition or indulgence – just song after song straight to the teeth. Borne out of similarity to Assück, not just sonically; their despondent outlook on humanity here presented with similar spite and vulgarity, but with less overt political pinning. Burly, brutal, imperious and incorrigible. Get obliterated.

N.V.N.M.

NECRODEITY / BRAHMASTRIKA SPLIT – ‘PRAETERNATURAL COMMOTIONS FROM KOLKATA MAHA SAMSHANA’

Split 7″ from Necrodeity and Brahmastrika – Insane anti-cosmic DETH Metal from the ever fertile Kolkata underground scene. First up, Necrodeity offers a savage track of blasting Black Death Metal with almost Brutal Death Metal/Grindcore drum dynamics, dry hectic snare blasts front in the mix, merciless riffing cast in ancient obsidian Necrovoric forms of archaic Death Thrash style with babbling, ravenous, devil-tongued hissing vocal delirium, sealed into dry and noisy production. Repugnant, blaspheming. Then Brahmastrika’s contribution to the ritual bombards and saturates with perplexing arrangements of vortex Death Noise Metal, leaning into opprobrious Power Electronics sounds, extra-black carbonisation Noise and irradiated vocal, explosions of coiling percussion with some patches of discernable war riffing. Exceptionally discordant and earbleedingly violent. Killer split – Hail Kalikshetra Raktachakra!

Iron Bonehead Productions