Either way, you are not trying to make bad music. But you can be so invested in the moment to moment act of playing music that you can miss the forest for the trees. As a musician I get that. I have been involved in enough bands to realize that what I think is awesome to play and what is actually awesome to hear are two different things. You learn to forgive a lot, because you are just as guilty.

As a critic, though, you have a job to do, and no matter how much you are pulling for a band, you have to be brutally honest in your assessment of the band’s output. At the same time you have to be aware of the various esthetic subtleties of the metal genres. And because I am both musician and critic with enough years on this planet to get how great it is for bands to just give it their all and fuck the consequences, I have come to a place where I want to encourage and guide if I can.

I have been sitting on this album for a while. Trying to decide how best to handle this thing. Trying to decide how I actually feel about it. Because I want to like this, or if I can’t, I want to do what small thing I can to encourage the band to maybe try something different or add or subtract something, maybe.

But I don’t like this record, and I can’t see how I can recommend it to the reader.

Let me start with the positives, though. The compositions are promising, falling into an area of crusty hardcore and black metal that, while copiously tread upon by others, lends the minimalist approach of the band some positive cred. I can hear very good songs thoughtfully written in this record, such as “Atlas”, a dark pounder which moves strangely but compellingly. Even the oddly recorded guitar works in this respect, which lacking an audible bass, actually serves to keep the songs strangely interesting.

Now the negatives. The lack of a bass and shoddy production creates a serious issue between guitar and drums. Said issue being the two musicians don’t sound as though they are playing with each other. When the band is chugging along at mid-pace, everything is fine, but if they slow down or speed up, it sounds like the drummer is entirely out of sync. When you only have two instruments, that is a deal killer, and when the production accentuates this by giving the drums a thin sound, it becomes impossible for me to ignore or place into some context. It simply sounds amateurish.

And, unfortunately, the negatives outweigh the positives for me. There may be a niche that appreciates the chaotic, DIY nature of this sound, and to that I can only say give this a shot. But for the general metalheaded public, this band has too many problems it needs to solve for me to recommend this. If this is their direction, so be it. I wish them the best for their future, and I truly hope they keep after it. But for my own sensibilities, they would need to retool quite a number of things.

There is a place for fun in metal. At least I hope so. Fun that is just fun – not cheesy or ironic or pseudo-dark. Thrash, punk, stoner – all can be fun. They can be serious too, of course, and the best can be both at once, but they all have moments of just killing it for the sake of smiles, and I am all for that. Columbian Necktie get their fun by just playing whatever they want, essentially. They can boogie like stoners, thrash like thrashers and snot like punks.

The sound begins with the kinetic punctuation of the riffs and runs, bringing us the afore-mentioned Soilent Green reference, but they never go full grind, choosing instead to walk the songs into a more crossover/hardcore feel. The songs never really get all that fast, being more Mastodon-paced. This combined with vocal which have a kind late eighties punk feel – hence the Poison Idea ref. And of course there is a heavy stoner groove element harkening MM.

The problem here, if you want to call it a problem, is that the references are all better than the songs doing the referencing. Colombian Necktie can’t seem to drag their compositions above “hey, that reminds me of…” and the result is that the songs either make you pull out your copy of War All The Time or serve as simple background music for whatever you actually end up doing instead of getting into the record.

They come close on songs like “33-16”, which is a brooding slicer of a song, and shows what the band could be with a little extra focus. Compare this to the almost laughable “Don’t Fear the Reefer”, with its hacky pot warrior lyrics and sub-par 80’s riffing. Most of the songs fall between these two examples and the overall effect is less than thrilling, but more than disappointing. It’s “fun”, in other words.

Perhaps the main culprit is not really the band or the compositions, but the production. Everything is very clear, but the guitars are fairly anemic for a modern metal/punk/stoner band. We are used to heavy in our heavy music, and while at first it was a little refreshing, over the long haul it simple brought the intensity and immediacy down.

But, again, the band’s “fuck you this is what we do” attitude wins the listener over often enough to make this a decent album. There is a great album in this group, and I hope they carry forward and find it. This is not that album, in my opinion, so listeners are advised to try a few tracks before buying. But do try them, and do encourage Colombian Necktie to find that focus.

My issue lies with the phenomena I have been experiencing lately when it comes to death metal records. They are all good. I don’t know why, but they are. And Banisher has released a record that is, though not head and shoulders above the current norm, a slightly superior variation on that norm. They are just a little more percussive, musical and intense than their current peers. Not much. A tad. A scoatch. A tittle.

Banisher are a veteran crew, but I admit this is my first brush with them, and I am impressed. Their style harkens to Spawn Of Possession’s early efforts, with a touch of melodic DM – not enough to confuse the style, but enough to give the songs a true “song” quality. The riffs are crunchers; the solos lyrical; the vocals almost grindcore intense.

Guitarist Hubert Więcek (who is also current bassist for Decapitated) is behind the crunchiness of the riffs, and I can see why he makes a great bass player. His sense of rhythm and punctuation is superb, and combined with the tightly conjoined rhythm section of Michał Bartosik on bass and Jacek Gut on drums, gives the songs real punching power. Vocalist Szczepan Inglot rounds this out with his intense death roars and screams.

Album opener “Axes to Fall” is a showcase for the band’s autocannon performances. The riff-breaks are so catchy it’s almost a chore not to bang your head to them. It also showcases the very vocal-ish solo style Hubert uses, where the solos feel like part of the song structure instead of the other way around.

The bookend song, closer “The Fatal Parable of a Certain Mercenary” is almost the exact opposite style from the opener. A melodic, mid-to slow paced epic with some classic chord phrasing, this son feels like a closer as well as something of a throwback, with its familiar opening riff and just on the tip of your tongue referencing.

The songs in between are solid, though none stands out particularly, and none quite reach the opener or closer for emotional gravity. But they keep the ethics of the band: tight, furious and heavy as neutron star. It is a shortish album, but no moment is wasted, so it feels full of value. And the production is justly crisp and dynamic. Even the distorted, grumpy bass comes through in the mix.

I highly recommend this album for deathheads, which seems to be the trend lately, but jump while the bloody water’s warm. It is a quality release from a knowing bunch of players, and it should leave your ass satisfactorily kicked. It falls short of blowing the mind, or broadening the death metal spectrum, but it does feel fresh, immediate and memorable. It’s a damned good time to be a fan, and this is damned good fan’s record. Grab it.

Modern metal bands are consistent. You would be dumbfounded if, for example, you picked up the latest Nile album and found a power ballad or stadium anthem mixed in. And if you appreciate the production quality of track one, track 11 will almost certainly have that same quality. This is how metal bands give you value, ensure you are pleased with the entire record, and I see it as a natural progression and a positive force.

The downside is that a band that hits the happy medium of a given niche is almost never going to surprise you with anything they do. Semi super group  (Jason Netherton and Shannon Lucas are involved) Asphalt Graves is a happy medium…well, furious medium hitter. The New Primitive is a hardcore grinder of a record, pumped up with enough disdain and ferocity to leave a listener either satisfied or exhausted – or both.

But it is just that: a hardcore/grind album. It works perfectly in that niche. It has glorious riffs, blasting beats and roaring vocals. The band is Nasum tight and the production is crunchy and immediate. The songs are to the point, relentless and never overlong. The ethos is Rotten Sound dragging 80’s hardcore, and the record definitely pounds that ethos into your cerebellum.

Opener “Vulgar Theology” starts you off with a moshing riff, then leaps into a blast furnace. “Megalomaniacs” keeps the vibe alive, with a game of velocity pinball. And so it goes, track by track, in unrelenting 80’s-meets-aughteens deliciousness. “Stop Resisting” in particular really brings back memories of Verbal Abuse et al, with its creepy-crawling victimizer POV opening lines.

Again, though, nothing here will grab you and shake you any more than it already has on the first track. That is not at all a bad thing, but it makes it hard to give the record an enthusiastic recommendation. We live in an age of Cattle Decapitation, and the goal posts for what grind can aspire to have been moved. Being a consistently powerful, straight forward grind/core band remains compelling, if that is what you are after. As far as that goes, Asphalt Graves brings it.

I asked the guys in the band I play in, friends, other students and whoever, to tell me, based on the name of this band, what sort of music they would expect to hear. They all knew I was leading them down a path, but they still said country/western, or maybe southern rock. Then I played them a track from the record. And they rolled their eyes because of course it wasn’t country or southern rock; why would I bother asking if it were?

Still, SCIENCE.

Then what is it? That is a damned good question. The band, consisting of ex-members of Mork Gryning, and Sectu, has been around for a while, but this is my first brush with them. So I had no idea what I was delving into with this review. And I am still kind of wondering.

It is a stew. It has many ingredients, most of which are delicious. It is robust and satisfying. But it is not easy to pin down the recipe. I can hear elements of Anaal Nathrak, Meshuggah, older Dillinger Escape Plan, and even some Wormed…and a lot of other pieces, depending on the song. The parts, however, do not give a solid picture of the whole in any way.

But what a whole. There is no safe purchase here; no craggy outcrop on any of these tracks that allows a listener to gain footing and catch their breath. The riffs flow in and out of each other in what seems a chaotic mayhem, but the overall structure of each song plays out almost symphonically.  The band sometimes tips toward a  Pyrrhon-esque madness, only to swing into a grooving Decapitated chunk-and-flourish. And for the most part it all meshes.

There is also a very powerful hardcore vibe running through this, but not in the NYHC sense. More in the DC sense. Wild, irresponsible, damn your trends and your expectations hardcore. This is not metalcore, it’s hardheavy. Again, the whole is not easily broken into the parts, but it satisfies.

Tracks are varied in form, but apart from the opening and closing tracks, not intensity or esthetic. “The Green” is a crawling chaos; a death march with build-and-release all through it. “The Violence of Illumination” strikes like a mad swordsman, thrusting and slicing and advancing and parrying with any sense of melody until you are left bleeding from a million cuts. “Objecting Projection” closes the record proper like a series of hammer blows in the dark leading to a fantastic climax melody that caps the whole endeavor with grandeur; then a final quiet, somber soundscape, simply called “11”.

All this may be too much for some metalheads, but for me it is a pleasure to make my way through, like a scientist in a complex and strange environment, discovering, identifying, analyzing and checking/revising my data again and again. I would recommend this to any like-minded metal researchers. For the rest, take a listen. There is a lot here, and there ought to be something for all of you.

So I am hearing this Raging Speedhorn record with the ears of a naïf. I don’t know with certainty if they were once viewed as trendy and then hateful, though rumors persist. I just get to listen to the album as it is, and draw my conclusions as I will. I don’t have to go watch their old videos – though, disastrously, after the fact, I have – nor ask around what my peers think of the band’s earlier career – though again, after the fact, I have.

I have because I feel duty-bound to do my due diligence. But I have to admit, the effort feels insipid to me, and does not change my opinion of the record. Perhaps this is as it ought to be. Or perhaps it just shows how removed I am from the middle-class of metal fandom.

I like this record. I do not love it, but I don’t hate it, either. Sometimes I think this record is fantastic. Sometimes I think it is…derivative and without much heart. But I did not once find myself thinking it sucked. It is on the mid-to-slow end of the speed spectrum, and the power-chord-rather-than-riff end as well. It is beat heavy and metalcore-ish sometimes, but others it is surprisingly deep and moving. And now and then it is downright sludgetastically headbanging.

You will not find a lot of virtuosity here, of course, so based on tracks like “Motorhead” or “Shit Outa Luck” you may be given to think this is just douchey brometal for douchey bros. It can be, but with tracks like “Ten of Swords” and “The Hangman” the band sheds the Fonzy leather jacket and builds almost Burnt By the Sun style crushers. Of course they never quite match the sublime musicianship and psychotic riffing of Burnt, playing it closer to the hardcore vest. But the energy and weight is there, and that is not something to dismiss lightly.

There are some creatively interesting decisions in a few tracks, such as the end sludge of “Halfway To Hell”, where a good southern riff starts a moshy march. And the closer, “Unleash the Serpent” literally feels like a different, almost doomy band, though its success is doubtful. But it does break the sound up, and shows a band working at exploring with their sound, if nothing else.

I can’t say the dual vocalist shtick comes off as anything more than a gimmick, but I can’t hear much difference between the two, so it feels unimportant to the quality of the record. Instead it just feels like the average shout/scream vocalist for these types of acts. Loving old NYHC as I do, the ganged chorus shouts don’t bother me.

The production is suitably large, not that there is much the mix needs to delineate here, but brick to the face is all you want, sometimes. It sounded very good on the factory-installed stereo in my car, and on my cute little subwoofered computer speakers. It was fine on my phones.

The takeaway, then, is that I think this record is worth the average metal fan’s ear, at least to decide for yourself if they should get your cash. There is some real meat on the bones here. There is also a lot of fat and gristle. And if you are bringing preconceptions with you, the positives may not be enough to overcome them. But I had none, and I enjoyed the album as it is. Again, though, I think it behooves you to give it a decent chance.

I am going to keep writing about this because that is the job, but seriously, this is a CRUCIAL death metal release. You should already be purchasing it. You can keep reading this while the distro website loads or whatever, but you should be in the process right fucking now.

Honestly: get there, give them money. NOW.

Necrosic plays off-timed, mosh heavy, classic death metal without any pretense or self-congratulation. They recall the best aspects of Immolation, Iniquity and other classic acts without falling too close to any of them. This is a band making death metal like death metal was originally made: mash up some riffs, let the drummer tie them together, and play them gargantually. Is it speedy? Sometimes. Is it sludgy? Sometimes. Does it groove? Sometimes. Are there ear ripping solos? Every time. Is it glorious? ALL the times.

Composed of members of established acts such as Ghoul, Impaled, Scolex and Autopsy (Eric Cutler), this is a veteran crew, and none of that experience is wasted. The difference between these songs and the same style from a less experienced band is simply confidence. The band is smooth as the flat of a knife in their transitions, and as razor sharp as the knife’s edge in their execution. They understand exactly how to build on a dynamic, letting no note or beat be forsaken

What they share with a less experienced band is enthusiasm. They are in love with this sound they are creating, and that oozes from the every performance. Guitarists Christian La Rocca and Eric Cutler revel in each other’s rhythm work, and add just the right amount of harmony to the riffs to bring them to life. Sean McGrath’s voice is a chesty below, perfect for the trudging, massive marches.

But the rhythm section of Erika Osterhout and C. Koryn are what ties everything together and makes this band special. Erika’s bass is exquisitely present in the mix, which is not to say it is ostentatious, but rather sublime and grounding, bringing the guitars and drums together with drama and power. Koryn’s drumming is simply perfect for every aspect of the record. Again, the transitions and off timed riffs could very easily sound amateurish, but Erika and Koryn blend them into a seamless, maniacal, violent series of movements.

As for the four tracks themselves, they are all standouts. Opening with a double-picked riff frenzy on “Vomit Transmutation”, and closing as a somber death march into a slamming final bow for “As My Casket Drains”, the band does not make a single misstep. Every song is complete in and of itself. This is not a massive feat for an EP, but still it points to, one hopes, great things to come.

Necrosic is a band of talented, established death metal musicians. We might be tempted to call them a death metal supergroup. Let us resist. Necrosic will stand or fall as a band based on their output, not their members’ previous merits. And this motherfucker stands. It stands it’s ass off. And if you are still reading this and have not yet put your order in, you are an idiot. Again, this is CRUCIAL death metal – exposing the still beating and bleeding heart of the scene.

They used it to travel a few years further back and coerce the Melvins to write a couple more songs for them. Then they screamed forward to last year and forced Converge to show them how to get that massive sound. Finally, they change their name to Wrong and release those songs on a self-titled LP.

And now, as luck would have it, I get to review these songs for you.

Only the last bit of that is true. Everything else merely ought to be true. Wrong certainly sounds as though my fiction were fact. They have the roar/sing vocals, the monster-punch hardcore guitar esthetic, and the odd off-kilter rhythmic interludes. And without question guitarist Ryan Haft’s production is modern slab-o-concrete heavy.

But it is not pushing any boundaries. If you have heard Helmet, The Melvins and Converge, or any of the myriad bands they have influenced or been influenced by, you have heard Wrong. Of course, metal does not require anyone to push a boundary. You can wear your influences on your sleeves with pride – as long as you fucking mean it. As long as you are not trying to steal thunder, but add to it.

Wrong adds thunder. Their take on the hardcore/sludge sound is emphatic, if not inventive. They don’t mess with breakdowns or noodles, and they don’t pretend to be something they aren’t. No blasts, no doom, no thrash. Just early-to-mid nineties mosh pit simplicity. You could imagine these guys playing shows with Tad, Quicksand or the Rollins Band.

Which is not surprising, as Wrong is composed of members of Kylesa, Capsule and Torche. They know what sound they are aiming for, and they nail it with as much authenticity as you could hope to hear.

In “More Like” the opening track’s drum/vocal break harken to “Oven” by the Melvins. I almost expected the incoherent and troubling belligerence of Buzzo’s warning about Pez to creep in. The next track, “Turn In”, sets the tone for most of the other songs, easily flowing from straight ahead mid-paced rocking to groove laden sludging.

One of the stand outs for me is “Stasis”, a slowish, pulsing and grimy groover that really gets the blood flowing. The band accomplishes a lot with a little overlayed guitar soaring. This is especially apparent in the almost melancholy climax of “Boil”, another throbbing, low tempo crusher. And again, they sound like they mean it.

So, is this a record I would recommend? Yes. But Is it crucial? No. Will I listen to it again? Absolutely. Wrong get what made their influences great, and get what a modern metal fan expects from their sound. Huge, brash, succinct and ugly, and no matter what else happens in metal, there will always be a place for sounds like Wrong.

Musically, the band dwells in a grindcore geography, but is not of a grindcore geography. They are more akin to Today is the Day than Pig Destroyer or Napalm Death, and the point of each song is not to simply flay you with ferocity, but almost to confuse you into following them wherever they want to take you. Mind, they are taking you someplace heavy and groovy, but not always particularly grindy.  And that is just ace by me.

If you have not heard the band before, you might find it easy to lump them into the angry noise metal category and not think about them much more than that. But as this record progresses that lump becomes a tumor, metastasizing into a thorough metal experience before ultimately killing you, disconnecting from your corpse, and crawling out into the world to become an ironic plague on short attention spanned metalheads everywhere. Fuck the Facts can shave steel with the best, but they can also rock and roll and even dank Sabbathic when they want to. They don’t overuse any of their deviations, so the experience is always fresh, more so because they commit to the deviation when they choose it.

Vocal duties are held by the desperately lunatic Melanie Mongeon and the gruffly antagonistic Marc Bourgon, who also plays a distorted antagonistic bass. They weave into and out of each other’s way, giving the songs a frantic texture befitting the anti-niche songwriting. The riffs are forever developing and morphing, refreshing the movement of the music as songs progress. The drumming is by turns hard-core frantic and death-metal steady, never getting the way, but always complimenting. The guitar tone is organic, more than effected, giving the band a standing-in-the-front-row feel. The solos are tasteful and musical.

The songs themselves turn on a dime, gather and dissipate momentum, and drag your head into a bang with or without your approval, just to leave you off-beat and lonely in the next measure. “The Path of Most Resistance” starts off with a classic feeling stomp, pulls a jazzed timing signature switchup and then blasts-n-boogies through the rest of the tune. “Prey” sets off with a giant riff, then machine-guns and charges drunkenly until turning a groovy corner and crashing face first into a stone wall of ugly, simple chords. At every point the band seems to be laughing at any attempt to pin it down – and getting away with it – because the songs fucking slay. These are Metal veterans, and the know how to wage war on your expectations and esthetics.

Grindcore lovers will appreciate the ferocity. Death Metalheads will enjoy the grooves, and general metal fans can revel in the fearlessness of the songwriting. I can think of no reason for the extreme metal aficionado not to own Desire Will Rot.

Dolentia is not hiding behind anything. Well, other than cowls. They are tight and trim, playing an athletic style of BM emerging from a crusty guitar sound that flat out dominates the bare bones mix, but which can enter some very interesting; almost Die Kruezen-esque passages that lift the songs above the fog and flames and into the torchlight for observation. The drums are well down in the mix, and can seem disconnected at times, but they are hefty in their own way. The bass is a ghost, an insinuation, a theory. Take that as you will, but it annoys me.

The vocals are fairly standard, emphatic black metal hagging. They sit next to the guitar heavy mix, with a certain clarity, given that they are delivered with the requisite tortured direness.

Compositionally, the riffs and chords start out interesting; simple and earnest. The drums sit on the floor toms about as much as they fly in blast beats, creating a nice texture. There is an issue, however, with the length and repetitiveness of the songwriting. As I listened a pattern emerged where I was initially enthralled, then satisfied, then annoyed, and finally, unfortunately, my mind simply wandered. That is never a positive experience for a metal lover. Once I realized it was happening, I spent more and more time trying to figure exactly when the song went from epic to tedious. Where I ought to have been reveling in the music, I was playing a mind game. It is not that the songs are bad; they just very much overstay their welcome.

The good news is that each new song felt fresh, so that there is a lot to recommend in this album, and with this band. If you are a BM fanatic, you may truly appreciate the length and style of these compositions. But if you are a casual listener, you will be hard pressed to keep yourself involved for the whole set.

The bottom line is this record is a swimmer. But it treads water, rather than powers through it. The band is just shy of a larger audience, and they may be just fine with that. BM “success” is not measured in units sold, but in fan fanaticism. If you are a fan of black metal, then, I say give Dolentia your attention. If you like what you hear, consider this a recommendation that there is more in store. If you are more of a general metalhead, this may not be an investment you are willing to make. For myself, I will be interested to see how the band grows.

There, I said it.

I once read an interview with Gene Hoglan where he indicated, very strongly, that we are lucky to live in an age where even the shitty metal acts are better than much of the dross he (and, as I am around his age, I) was stuck with coming up. I took this view to heart, as it is true. If you can somehow divorce yourself from your petty expectations and just take each band as it comes, most of the metal being made today is, relatively speaking, pretty good.

Of course, humans are apes, and apes are social mammals, and being social means we are never fully able to divorce ourselves from herd trends – or getting sick of the same; which is to say, I can’t ignore the history I have with nu/suburban-metal or whatever it is. I am speaking of mid paced, simplistic, beat heavy metal that foregoes a lot of what makes metal exciting in favor of simple headbanging beats. It fills the niche that, when I was a young man, was occupied by glam/hair metal, in that it had a pretty decent beginning, a ridiculously overplayed hayday, and a sad decline. And like hair metal, the genre maintains some devotees well beyond when it was last compelling or relevant.

As I said, when it was first a thing I had a few bands I truly loved. Static X, Sevendust, even a few Korn or Slipknot tracks. And I will admit that I loved the production and infectious percussive nature of the music itself. It was just that a little went a long way, and that way ran out around 2000.

Caustic Method would have been a band I took to. They are not a bad example of the style at all. The vocals are mostly roar/shouted, the guitars are thick and meaty, the bass is lung-emptying, and the drums are thumpy and steady. The occasional clean vocal sneaks in and sounds typically earnest and silly. The songs are full of Scott-Ian-light riffing and punctuation. Their promotional material lists acts such as Otep, American Head Charge and Hatebreed for comparative reference – well, they may compare favorably to Otep and AHC, but Hatebreed is above their weight class. Still, this is serviceable, occasionally exciting, if wear-worn metal for people who don’t care about speed, technicality, atmosphere, relevance or originality.

But that is an issue, because most people reading this site DO care, deeply, about those little factors. Not many here, I am guessing, are looking for 1998 college dorm drinking music. We have Fallujah. We have Nile. We have Pig Destroyer and Anaal Nathrakh. And we have scads of used CD bins where we can pick up Wisconsin Death Trip or Home if we REALLY need some beat heavy, angry suburban drunk bro music. As much as I punt for any band that is doing their best to be true to whatever they are true to, I can’t get past the feeling that I liked all these songs better back when Biohazard did them.

And I do punt for these guys. I would go to a show and drink and fist pump and headbang to this band. Well, I would if I were not old and broken and antisocial. The point is this is NOT a bad band, or a bad record. It is just past the genre’s prime, and I have seen too many bands that do this as well or better in my life. Maybe you have not. Maybe you loved the late 90’s to mid aughts American radio metal scene and wish there were some bands still making that stuff. Maybe you simply have room in your eclectic cupboard for a simple rocking metal band. If any of those things are you, check Virus out. You may be very glad you did.

I myself will probably, after wishing Caustic Method best of luck, keep ‘podding Blaze of Perdition.

Blaze of Perdition brings us a conglomeration of black and death metal that appeals to my appreciation of both genres. The black metal aspects are mainly in the song length, writing style, and in the ringing chords providing a heavy amount of atmosphere. The death metal is more to do with beefy production, throatiness of the vocals, and a tendency to emphasize percussiveness in execution. These are close things, of course, and they blend without seem into an almost genreless example of heavy metal richness.

The production expands and deepens the songs, giving each instrument the shine it deserves without creating an overly technical sound. The bass, for example, is given a real place to live in each song, rather than just existing as a forgotten Greek chorus for the guitars. The way it winds through “When the Mirror Shatters” gives the feel of an ancient ship’s keel splitting through roughened, dark oceans. It really moves the majority of the song, where the beat is marching and the guitars are ringing. This is music for such movement – toward glory or doom.

The guitars are clear in their cacophony, true to the best black metal traditions, but hefty and substantial. The same is true for the drum production, which is full and constant without being overwhelming. The mainly roaring, but occasionally pained and screeching vocals are mixed just about perfectly, neither being unhearable nor distractingly high in the mix. In fact, the mix is about perfect for this type of metal. Everything is complimentary, mutually supportive. Even the solos tend to emerge from the songs, rather than feel placed upon them.

Atmosphere is very important here, and sometimes it takes a little something away from the compositions. The ghostly voices and wailing leads that intersperse “Dreams Shall Flesh” appear a few more times than one would wish, but redemption in the form of straight ahead plunges of pure old school metal are around every corner, so this becomes a minor quibble. What is without question is the band’s dedication to darkness. Whether chugging, blasting or self-reflecting, these are heavy songs, gathered in shadow, moving through twilight and into black.

All in all, Blaze of Perdition brings us a record deserving our attention, if you are a lover of the deathened and blackened. It is moving and brutal, epic and abrupt, dark and pitch black.

The Earache sampler set immediately had my attention. Carcass, Bolt Thrower, Morbid Angel, Godflesh, Napalm Death; a selection of what were progenetic forms of my ever-since-favorite musical genres. I can and have gone on and on about why this music continues to appeal to me, but why that particular set appealed to me was the way the textures blended with the vast, expansive, shit-poor production. I wanted to understand how they captured that much richness with that little production value. Each of the bands went on to increase their budgets and improve their craft, creating varying ideals of heavy metal production, but on the sampler they sounded dirty, organic and live.

Blunt Knife Idol tore my head right back to that job, that sampler, that overwhelming underproduced joy. These guys play grind-fast, grind-short, death metal-powered music at the edge of chaos. And they do it with a shit ton of echo and low-mids production that just screams Grind Crusher. More than anything, it is the vocal style and production that harkens back, fondly, to that glorious comp. It is so deep, gruff, and echoed that it almost becomes just another percussion instrument.

Meanwhile, the guitars chug and thrash crisply, like they just stepped out of a gig opening for Discharge or nascent Napalm Death. The drumming however is very modern, very post 90’s in the best sense. “Mask the Apathy” is a perfect demonstration of the band’s simultaneous throwback/modern staging. The whole mix, when the speed kicks in, verges on the aural equivalent of perfectly thrown combos landing directly on your nose. It is invigorating, confusing and immediate.

The compositions are very reminiscent of early Napalm Death; sometimes furiously blasty, sometimes chuggingly moshy, sometimes hardcoringly angry – and occasionally doom-slow and lethargic. That the whole remains appealing to someone who still bathes in the glory of the elder grind speaks to the band’s energy and DGAF ethos, more than originality. But appeal it does. It very does. See the hilarious horn intro and crushingly slow pacebreakers in “Take Their Lives” to understand that the band gets what made and makes death/grind metal such a despicable joy, such improbable fun. It makes me want to be twenty one, hopeless and thirsty for something live and new again.

And it kind of gives it to me. I listen to this and feel that glorious fuck-the-world kid who still kicks my medulla now and then stomping around in a circle, head thrashing, impossibly and drunkenly energetic, violent, aimless. Honestly, I am not sure what else I could hope for from a death/grind record.

If you are old enough to crave those distant, ugly days when blokes were bloking unknowingly, look into Greed Heritage. If you are young enough not to know what the hell I am going on about, look into Greed Heritage. If you just want dirty, thick, fun and furious grind, definitely look into Greed Heritage.

Seeing that Kollias, was releasing a DIAY record had me reluctantly jaundicing my eye in advance, however. I am always a little leery of one-man records – maybe it is just the era I was raised in, where vanity projects were usually vapid and gutless, often precursors of break-ups. Was this to be some thinly veiled percussion seminar or, worse yet, just duller versions of Nile compositions?

Of course, this is not that era. So the real questions are does Mr. Kollias have something to offer of both substance and uniqueness; will this sound like a fully realized effort, or just homage to other artists? And, while we know Kollias can mathfuck a drumkit, is he up to poly-mathfucking a whole band setup?

The answer to the latter is a resounding “yup”. While he is not exactly up to the chops of his guitar-eating mates in Nile, he does imbue his riffing with a certain flair and wildness that reminds me of the first Zyklon record at times. This is especially effective when he is synching the guitars to his off-kilter drum riffing, as in “Aeons of Burning Galaxies”, where the stuttering almost loses the listener, just to place us handily back in the groove. The effect is familiar, but also singular, evolving a hardy spine within the compositional morphology.

Vocally, Kollias’ strength lies in his humility. He seems to be aware that his voice may not be a world beater, so he uses double tracking and other effects to give himself maneuvering room, and it works very well. When it comes to blackened roaring, even the best vocalists can get repetitive, so these strategic decisions work better than one might think.

Obviously, the drumming is essentially above criticism, assuming you are like me and love a good blast beat mixed with a goodly amount of groove and changeups. All this is produced in a lively manner, crispy and effective.

The inclusion of guest solos and vocals by the likes of fellow Nile-ers Sanders and Toler-Wade, as well as Bob Katsionis (Firewind/Outloud) and George Emmanuel (Rotting Christ) and a few others serve only to enhance the creations, lighting magnesium bright flares to the already burning environs.

So, to the former question: does this record bring us anything we weren’t getting better elsewhere? Again, I am going with “yup”. Inasmuch as most metal has a built in familiarity at this point in the game, Kollias seems to be using this as an opportunity, not to show off why he is a drummist god, but to express his own take on a genre he and his cohorts helped cement into a modern staple. Writing in a blackened death style, he obviously wanted to write SONGS with a capital S, and for the most part he has succeeded admirably. The aforementioned “Aeons of Burning Galaxies” is a standout example of these successes. The focused, intentional rhythms kept me enthralled, and the changeup capstone sits very well. “Shall Rise, Shall Be Dead” follows this formula, with a good supply of neck breaking moments to keep even the mildest headbanger sore for a week.

I mentioned Zyklon earlier, and the more I listen, the more that early aughts mechanoblack ethic seems fitting as a descriptor. Used as I am to hearing Nile’s soaring and bending death riffs with Kollias’ drumming, it works just as well with this razorwire style, as demonstrated in the rolling epic warchant “Voices”.

The record is not bereft of Nile-isms. George adds soundscapes and brooding moments to his aural topography, which will immediately point listeners to his day job. And now and then I am reminded this is a one-man effort, as occasionally ideas are drawn a little tighter and thinner across the slab than they ought to have been. But the saving grace is always that Kollias performs with panache and heart. Much of this album, rather than existing as a way to prove George is good at playing lots of instruments, insists it must be: the music justifies itself, most of the time. If you are a fan of drum centered, furiously blackened death, this is a no-brainer. Just looking for a good extreme metal record? Still a no-brainer. But if you are looking for a vanity drum clinic, or a EuroNile retread, this is not really for you.

And that would make you an idiot anyway.

Skinless has been around for a long while – 20 years…and so the fuck what? What Skinless has done is they have put out a good record. A really good record. An ugly, untamed, give-a-fuck death metal record that just fucking IS. It pummels, it grooves, it slops, and it blasts. It sounds organic, unpretentious and all around fitting of the genre. It is not trying to recapture anything, nor is it trying to rekindle anything. It is five motherfuckers out to make death metal now; today; right this fucking second. And make it they certainly do.

Skinless has always been a death metalists’ death metal band, and there is not much one can say about their music that provides a reader any better indication of the value of the record than that this is really good, no bullshit death metal. Which is to say there is no grand design or epic thematic exploration here. There are riffs, runs and stomping grooves. Lightning leads, throaty roars and the occasional spine-raking screams. Some of the record’s brightest…?…moments come when the band slams home a grinding changeup, as in the epidermis-peeling namesake track “Skinless”, or the chaotic-to-gut-punching “Serpenticide”. After setting you up with blazing/chunky alternating riffs, the band drags you across the pavement at an agonizing pace with chains made of heavy goddamned metal. These ugly, slow, pace-breakers just fucking kill, reminding one exactly how effective they can be when used with fury and skill. Skinless aren’t kids doing what they think they are supposed to do to be like their heroes. These are men who are doing what they need to because this is motherfucking death metal.

As I listen I keep thinking, musically, this is the type of album Slayer ought to have released after Seasons in the Abyss. It has that post-Reign riffing and sensibility, but with plenty of death grumble and blast beats. It gives the record a timeless, familiar feel that should really appeal to the old-school fanatics. But, again, this is not mired in nostalgia so much as very loyal to the basement. You can almost taste the mold and concrete dust. This is the sound of late nights, tepid sweating beers, and caroming off concrete walls in angry little spaces, lit by single naked bulbs.

This is the sound of death metal. It is alive, vile, vital, evil and glorious in its depravity. Whether or not you are already a fan of Skinless, if you are a fan of death metal, you should grab this.

The riffs compose themselves of diving tech that crash into blast beating chaos. They accent themselves with percussive chords and dissonant strumming. The vocals, standard for most grind, are gruff roars and agonized screams. The drumming is blasty, precise and often groovy. The lack of bass adds to the tension, perhaps at the expense of dimensionality, but grind bands are rarely built for long term contemplation; rather for immediacy, for the moment that is NOW. Even when Maruta wander across the doom darkened garden of “Return To Zero” they are playing for the moment.

The discordant compositions are complimented by the bleak imagery of the lyrics, describing, not a dystopian future as much as a dystopian present. The tension is, in this case, the constant pull of the chains we have already placed ourselves in. Our condition is that of the animated corpse, bleakly unaware of its post-mortality, constantly discovering our own lack of breath and vitality. The screams are of the already damned, the roars are of spirits demanding an end to the living death, for good or ill.

This record is not pushing grind anywhere grind doesn’t already exist. But again, grind is only as fresh as each impact. And while this may sound dismissive, in fact it is the real power of grind that it endures, that each blast replaces the last, whether an improvement or digression – or just agreement. Grind fans don’t require boundaries to be pushed. We require a new impact, a new blast, a new moment of NOW. Maruta delivers NOW with a bleak tale and an emphatic fist.