Anyhoo all kidding aside, Bangladesh and Germany have joined forces with KHNVM and holy fucking shit are they good. Think of the first time you heard Nile, or Malevolent Creation, then you’re in the right place. Because Visions of a Plague–Ridden Sky is a fucking raging tsunami of prime Death Metal and traditional Bangladeshi music combined into an unstoppable force of destruction.

From opener “Awakening the Inner Alchemy Pt. 1” with its rumbling double bass blasting and shredding guitars, hitting like a rampaging elephant, to the fantastic title track that segues into one of the most remarkable pieces of music I’ve heard on a Death Metal album “Hourglass of Deception 1” is unbelievably heavy, reminiscent of Varmia and their instrumental sections “From the Depths of Duat” has a crushing riff around the 2.06 mark that’ll blow you away. “Grand Evisceration” sneaks in with a savage Bolt Thrower style rumbler followed by “The Hourglass of Deception 2” a brutal Bangladeshi beat down. I must say that the crystal clear production goes a long way to make this a stellar Death Metal release.

Mighty riffs and originality have carved a path for KHNVM. I recommend going back and checking out their first two albums. This is a top five release in a year that has seen several amazing modern Death Metal releases from new and established bands.

So, if you dig Bolt Thrower, Nile, Malevolent Creation and Melechesh I’m pretty sure you’ll like this. Get it, got it, good.

Imagine the bludgeon of early Carcass, the melodious slice of Dismember, the heft of Grave, the catchy ferocity of Entombed, and the epic, dank, darkness of early Amorphis; pair all of that with a smidge of Naplam Death and General Surgery, and maybe even just a slight dab of old Katatonia (mostly in the lead guitar tone here and there), and what you end up with is a hands down, bonafide ripping badass of an album. At ten tracks, the longest clocking in at a mere three and a half minutes, Celestial Extinction is obviously a compact listen. There’s nothing too tech or flashy, or jaw dropping and dazzling to be found here, just good old fashioned awesome death metal. The kind that gets in, kicks your teeth out, and promptly exits the premises. It’s the kind of death metal that made some of us “older” dudes fall in love with the genre in the first place.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5TN0z8vBWA

Every song on the album is quite good. Damn good, actually. I don’t necessarily have a personal favorite as all of the material is top notch, and all have something gnarly and badass about them. From the catchy, gripping opener, “Cocoon Hecatomb”, the fast as balls pacing and blasting of ripper, “Dripping with Skin”, or the Benediction meets Entombed stylings of “Monastery Worms” to the grinding death surge in “Solemn Desolation”, the sick symphony of necrotic might that is “Cadaverizor”, or the closing title track, “Celestial Extinction”, with its brutal yet somewhat doomy drenched melody/theme that runs through the track; you’re simply going to be grinning from ear to ear with this album.

Achieving a sound that is as every bit as fresh as it is nostalgic, the material, while not overly produced, is clean and clear within its cavernous, filthy crunch. Speaking of crunch, you can tell that blue hat, faux admiral cartoon fuck on the cereal boxes to get the hell out, ‘cuz there’s a new Cap’n in town when it comes to crunch…all cheesiness aside, Celestial Extinction brings that crunchy groove in spades, as every single track has some sort of simple, fat crunchy monster riff that seems to steal the show. The only flaw with the album is that it’s backloaded to my ears, with the latter half shining just a bit stronger than the first. Though with every track being winners and all better than your average death metal affair, I can’t really say that is a true flaw. Hell, an album that gets better and better as it goes, showing its personality and individual traits more as the cuts get deeper sounds more like an actual praising point now that  think of it.

Hats off to Chris Anning/Cryptivore for crafting such a fine piece of death metal. Sure Celestial Extinction may not be ground breaking or genre defining, but it sure as hell is genre sustaining, and honestly, with death metal coming up on the big 4-0, I think that may just be much more necessary. Released digitally and on LP earlier this year via bitter Loss Records, the album is just now seeing a limited CD run courtesy of Awakening Records, so don’t dally on getting yourself a physical copy, or you may just miss out.

It’s about now I say something like ‘some HM2 pedals have made their way to Australia’, but Earth Rot already grabbed the first batch, but The Plague certainly turned everything to 11 on their debut effort and are making no pretenses of their chosen influence ( if Bitter Loss Records didn’t give it away). This is pure early Entombed worship, mixing the dark, raw aggression of Left Hand Path, and the thunderous clout of Clandestine, into one massive, impressive homage.

From the throaty shout of Mike Ryan and his best Petrov impression, to the huge Chris Blacanto mix and master that rivals the like of genre kings Demonical, Lik and Entrails, Within Death is 33 minutes of top notch HM2 worship done absolutely perfectly. There is very little focus on more Dismember like melodies (though obviously still an influence) but rather a pretty relentless, pummeling approach. In fact, its not until, the fifth song, “Hand of Greed”, that the band slow down for a whole song and generates a massive “Blessed Be” like  lumber, as the prior 4 tracks pretty well blaze by in a vortex of buzzsaw riffs, double bass stomps and gallops, with the short stab of “Torment The Living” and “Spawn of Monstrosity” being particularly nasty.

After “Hand of Greed”, the back end of the album has a little more groove, with the huge closing rumble of “Drones”, very Clandestine midsection of “Slave to Addiction”, crawling heft to start standout “Dismal Solitude”.  The title track and “Festering Sickness” round out the album with a little more of a Dismember ish canter and slice, but still has some nasty slower parts to rattle your teeth.

Within Death . Mount Carcass, and Iron Flesh’s Summoning the Putrid are virtually neck a neck when it comes to which one I like more. The Plague has a meatier production and Iron Flesh have a little more melody and variety. But both deliver killer homages to a classic sound and both should be picked up by any fans of Entombed, Dismember, Grave etc.