Humiliation’s war-themed death metal lyrics with music heavily influenced by: Bolt Thrower/Hail of Bullets/Asphyx, Six Feet Under (early) and Obituary and maybe a little Autopsy, continues with this release.  The band is comfortable with their brand of death metal and are not here to reinvent the wheel.  They are here strictly to write heavy old school death metal and make it memorable.  I raved about their last album, Regiment as I felt that was one of the stronger of Humiliation’s releases and Parallel Chains of Command is right on par with their previous album.

“Dawn of Warfare” starts things off with a very heavy down-tuned riff and the song is mid-paced.  The double bass comes in nice and then the simple drumbeat pushed the song forward and Bear comes in with his raspy snarl alongside the double bass action.  Part of the riff sound like something off Bolt Thrower’s Warmaster era album.  The nice audible bass guitar is once again present creating that thick under current of heaviness.  This may be the slowest track Humiliation has ever opened an album with.  The song gradually does pick up speed and Bear growls out the song title as the song goes into a nice fast part.  The song slows back down and then speeds up again once the chorus hits.  The tempo shifts really make this a dynamic track.  “From Strength to Strength” has a Holy Shit part right at the beginning.  Real old school death thrash beat circa 1989 starts immediately.  One of my favorite moments on this release.  Excellent and memorable guitar riffing once again permeates through speakers to crunch your bones and muscles with the tank like heaviness that then goes on to cause further damage by creating sinkhole clusters in and around the neighborhood.  Nice doomy approach at the end as well.  Dripping with vintage Autopsy filth.

Battalion was an album where the band really experimented with the Asphyx doom/death style and pulled it off remarkably well.  Therefore, the song “Battalion”, while not really getting super doomy, has a little bit of that Asphyx mid-paced crawl.  I like the stop and start parts with the guitar and the song has a bit of a jumpiness feel to it.  Some of the guitar riffing I definitely hear The Rack creeping in.   “Under the Siege of Invasion” has quite the Bolt Thrower homage to it.  Guitar riffs “borrowed” from The IVth Crusade and Warmaster albums.  You will hear the opening sound exactly like “Spearhead” and then it goes right into “Cenotaph”.  Honestly this opening is fucking brilliant and heavy.  So yeah expect nothing less than Bolt Thrower worship on this song.  The title track of this album closes things out and “Parallel Chains of Command” is a dynamite closer.  Super heavy and fast riffing in the beginning with some of Mudon’s fastest double bass action going on.  This would be an excellent song to get into the pit for.  The song slows down to a crawl and the slower doomier moments are terrific. The guitar solo towards the end caught me off guard and is an added little bonus as well as how the song ends really fast with the double pounding.

As I stated above this is one of the best Humiliation albums and they once again deliver on making a heavy and memorable album.  Again, their forward-thinking approach with each new song being named for each one of their full length’s is very creative and I truly appreciate them doing this.  Production is well done; no instrument is buried and all the Humiliation nuances are there in all their heaviness.  It would be interesting to see if Humiliation ever had a production through let’s say, Dan Swano, what the expansive nature of Humiliation’s sound could reach?  The 8-panel booklet is well designed, packaged with lyrics and a band photo.  Great black and white cover and the parachutes are just awesome looking. Parallel Chains of Command is an awesome Humiliation album.  Get it now!

On average Humiliation releases a new full-length album every year and in their relatively short existence have put out more full-length albums than most bands who have been around for 30+ years.  Yes, while some albums shine more than others, I really enjoy Humiliation’s catchy brand of heavy rumbling tank-tread grenade launching death metal.  The band mix a few up a few things with each release.  Their last album, No Escape, contained faster moments which were maybe missing from past albums and while I enjoyed No Escape I did mention in that review the production of the album was a bit of backward slide.  Production values have been stepped up on Regiment and this time around while we get the smatterings of some fast parts mixed in, the band goes back to incorporating a little more doom-heaviness on several of the songs and as I have said in the past, these moments shine.

“Execution Outline Plan” starts things off in a very Six Feet Under (Haunted) influenced fashion with some jumpy and fun heaviness to the song.  Really no frills bullshit old school death metal.  The double bass soon kicks in reminding us of their Bolt Thrower heavy influence with excellent rumbling heaviness.  One of the strongest songs Humiliation has opened an album with and then Boom!  Like a tank cannon demolishing a small city the doom-laden Asphyx inspired moment comes in and creates unrelenting havoc.  I am so happy they are interjecting more of these elements this time around.   Terrific freaking song.  “State of Lawlessness” starts with Bolt Thrower like heaviness and after a bit of instrumentation, Bear comes in with his signature throaty snarling vocals.  The song is slightly above mid-paced speed, then slows down to the double bass rumbling heaviness and the guitar riff is very catchy.  Nice undercurrent of bass guitar heaviness and the trebly nature which marred No Escape, is a thing of the past on Regiment.  “Fall of Jitra” comes raging through with the fast opening segment, before going into Sherman Tank-like rumbling flesh crushing, bone shattering, sinewy splintering limb heaviness.  The doomy feel returns as well.

“Where Doom Prevails”, even before the song started, I was like I better be getting some crushing doom death heaviness.  Of course that is what is in store for us.  The opening riff and plodding nature of the song, really smashes home and picks up the cityscape and demolishes it with a Juggernaut bulldozing doom heaviness.  Suffocating, heavy and chest-collapsing all at the same time.  The song picks up a little speed, and the smashing cymbals are used to great effect, before a nice drum roll takes us back to the plodding doom death moments.  In my top 5 of best Humiliation songs the band has ever released.  With 10 songs the album is right around the 50” mark.

This is one of the best Humiliation albums and really takes all their elements and with the addition of the doom death moments again, truly delivers in a quality death metal album.  Production is excellent, no instrument is buried and all the Humiliation nuances are there in all their g(l)ory.  The 8-panel booklet is well designed equipped with lyrics and a band photo.  I enjoy the sepia toned drawing, this time around, and when the front and back panel are extended creates an expanded album cover.  Along with their music Humiliation always delivers on the quality and presentation of their product, this is the same with their high quality merchandise.  Humiliation’s Regiment is a buy or die in my war book!!

Anyway, their prior album Honourable Discharge was one of their strongest efforts and had the best production the band had ever had. No Escape has a rawer feel to it and at times this hinders the power of the songs. “Void and Violation” begins with a nice isolated guitar riff, before the cymbals come in. Once the slow rhythm hits I am noticing the bottom heaviness, which makes Humiliation so crushing, is missing. Bear Bee sounds good, throaty and raspy, and the mid-paced rumbling is pretty ass-kicking. The middle section will have pits going wild. “Crusade in Sungai Manik” is a ferocious track. Featuring one of the fastest parts Humiliation has ever written. It’s almost like a primitive blast beat, from the mid-80’s era death metal time era. It’s really cool and then the mid-paced rumbling comes in with some strong guitar riffing and the fast parts picks up at the 1.55 mark once again with Bear barking and berating us all, over this section. The track meanders towards a little doom at the end.

“Line of Defense” begins with a real nice guitar part and once the mid-paced rumbling comes in with the double bass, I am missing that bottom end heaviness quite a lot. Then the real fast part comes in and the bottom-heaviness is sadly missing. It would have added a lot more depth and power to this section, as this part comes out very trebly sounding. Still, the track is a strong song. “Impending Death” is an exploding cannon, brutal, house smashing song. Once the groove hits again at the 1.05 section, Jason “Slips-Majinsky” and yours truly were just bashing each other ‘s head’s in with bloody fists again and again and again. A slower passage comes in and then back to the Bolt Thrower rumbling heaviness, reminding me of The IVth Crusade. 9 track in 41 minutes.

The packaging is excellent with lyrics and photos. No Escape has some faster moments, missing from past Humiliation releases and I really enjoy the faster moments. I would like to see the production values returned to that of the prior album. Overall this is a good Humiliation album and if you enjoy Bolt Thrower/Hail of Bullets, get on the Humiliation death metal tank and buy all their albums and shirts.

In their short existence, Malaysia’s Humiliation have released a ton of material. Pretty much an album every year coupled with numerous split 7″ releases on a yearly basis.  With Honourable Discharge being the 7th full length in the Humiliation  war camp you know what they bring by now. Concentrating on heavy, meaty riffs and Bolt Thrower is their main influence. This time around I’m noticing a huge influence from Bolt Thrower’s ’94 release …for Victory.  Also of note, is the limited 300 cd pressing of Bullet Storm, from Humiliation.  They did this split with Japanese death metal act-Taste and both bands recorded 2 songs for this.  If you love Humiliation, you should track this down from the band.  The 2 songs, “An Absence of Peace” and “Aviation of Doom” are pretty killer and a great precursor, of what was to come on Honourable Discharge.

Humiliation are content on releasing albums that will never be technical and will never win accolades from major magazines. For me I feel Humiliation are one of the finest death metal bands playing this style of death metal. I’ve interviewed singer Bear Bee and drummer Mudon and reviewed multiple albums from them.  I approached this review a little differently, since many of Humiliation’s albums have a lot of similarities. Honourable Discharge boasts the best production the band had achieved to date and this is not a slight on their previous releases productions since they were all well recorded. However this time around Humiliation placed more emphasis on production values. This results in a very heavy production, chunkier guitar tones, an even heavier bass guitar tone erupting in rhythms that are far heavier than past releases. The bass drums come through better, faster and the snare has  a great pop to it. Bear’s vox are throatier and raspier. This is the thick production Humiliation needs to compete with the bigger bands out there and they can easily do that now without fuckin question.

“Storm from the North” comes blazing in with more war themed lyrics and immediately that guitar production is evident. Ferociously thick and heavy. The tune rumbles along as a 10000 pound tank would normally grind bones into mere ash, within seconds. “Battle of Slim River” has more rumbling tank crushing  heaviness with some quicker paced moments that make this tune one of the best on this release. “Atrocities” is brutal and some slower moments creep in, with doomier passages and this song breathes really well. “Forgotten Soul” is another contender for one of Humiliation’s best songs ever. Heavy, fast, doomy and will knock you over the head faster than a Gatling gun can wipe out a band of enemy combatants knocking at your front door.  I cannot emphasize how this album has a big production sound to it.  As good as a Hail of Bullets album, no joke.  Such a professional sounding recording is how Humiliation will get noticed by bigger labels, but the songs also have more energy and punch.  Honestly, throw this on with your subwoofer, like I did, and your chest will collapse, into smithereens.

The album cover fits the title perfectly and booklet is well-layed out equipped with lyrics. Like their FB page, contact them to buy their albums and shirts. They put out high quality Gildan long and short sleeves. Honourable Discharge is Humiliation’s strongest album to date and one of the best death metal records for 2016. Buy or Die!