Boasting a razor sharp production and mastering effort from Alan Douches, Violent By Design is a solid example of modern melodic black/death metal that’s one of the few bands that seems to have copied God Dethroned as far as the balance of melody and savagery. A comparison enforced by Alexei Melnikov’s Henri Sattler styled rasps. You can also hear some Hypocrisy and Necrophobic is the bands black/death stylings.

Even for an almost 3 year old record, Violent By Design holds up fairly well. It’s a brisk 30 minutes with nary a note wasted with eight songs that rarely wander or take their time to get going. Only opener “Hate Found, Love Lost” takes it time, with an acoustic, choral intro before the bands careens into a delivery that’s tight, intense and full of Scandinavian sounding conviction. And while none of the track really blew me away or elevate the band to an elite status, the tracks are all enjoyable with ample moments that show the band are certainly competent song writers as well as musicians (“Rat Emperor”, “Morbid Divinity”, “Grim Land”) and a nice little melodic outro to close “WreckAge” show the band has the ability to let up on the throttle should they chose.

A pretty solid release, but I’m interested to see how the band has progressed over the last three years and see if they can improve on this promising debut with some new material in the near future.

Not quite as full on progressive as Opeth, not as robust as some of their Stockholm peers and not as melodic as the Gothenburg lads, Canopy’s sound seems to cull from all three avenues and the result, while solid and technically competent seems just a bit undecided. I also hear a little bit of Germany’s Island in here as the bands choppy but still ornamental textures shuffle from shuddering death metal with low growls to a more experimental style of death metal replete with acoustics and interludes and back again. To their credit, none of it seems self indulgent or forced and the whole affair has a laid back, loose feel.

The two new tracks, “Riddance” and instrumental “Counsels and Maxims” seem a bit tighter and more progressive hinting at something pretty decent with future efforts, but they fail to offset the slightly confused and jumbled nature of the redone tracks that seem far more Opeth-ian (“Void” and the ten minute “Will” in particular), but still enjoyable. The production is nice and earthy, eschewing the clean sound (and clean vocals) of their peers and all being told, there is quite a bit of promise here if the band can simply channel that talent into better songs that aren’t quite as Opeth -ish, as they seem capable of more.

Like so many other bands, the 1995 release of Agony’s self released debut album was simply was bad timing and was passed over as that year saw the release of the likes of Symbolic, The Bleeding, Pierced From Within, Once Upon the Cross, Wolfheart, Massive Killing Capaciity as well as releases from Canada’s own Cryptopsy (None So Vile) and Kataklysm (Sorcery), and while admittedly, Apocalyptic Dawning was probably never on par with those classics, it deserved and still deserves your ear.

This is pure old school, gnarly somewhat raw death metal; of course probably considered technically prehistoric as far as speed and complexity, but for its day, pretty par for the course as far as Death metal’s primal throes and lyrical content was in that year. Also of note is that this was produced by now super producer, J-F Dagenais (Kataklysm, Man Must Die, Misery Index, Malevolent Creation, Bloodshoteye, etc), a recording tech at the time, in just 27 hours. Of course, that shows sound wise with a pretty rough (though apparently re-mastered for this release) sound a far cry from Dagenias’ modern polished sound of now-but it’s effective in delivering the bands sound.

As a 1995 album, it has all the usual trapping, rough gruff vocals, a few mildly ambient interludes and samples, low brow lyrical content (”After Death/Eviscerated Pig”, “Homicide”, “Death by Suffocation”), but it mainly a staggering, crumbling, vaguely technical, mainly mid paced (with a few squeals and blasts) Floridian influenced death metal album. Listening to it today, its hasn’t aged as well as the other albums released that year, but is still pretty solid stuff and include the never released on CD version of the band’s Eve of Destruction demo.

Again-there’s a reason this didn’t quite has the influence of its peers-as a self released Canadian band, it didn’t have the name or the label at the time, and to be honest its not quite on the level of the bands that were releasing albums in 1995, but is still a decent little slab of Canadian metal’s less regaled past.

Stylistically Symbiontic and Stigmatized are virtually the same except Symbiontic have a more guttural/layered vocal approach and have a slightly more technical, intellectual feel to their sound often by virtue of a few ethereal instrumental interludes with really solidify the Pestilence influence (“From Subexistence”, “Incessantly Efflorescing”, “Through Catharsis” and “Epilogue”) or in track acoustic breaks (“Seductively They Will Speak”), but the bulk of their sound is still basically rooted in Human era Death (and Pestilence) with slightly more extreme injections (maybe Morbid Angel?) here and there.

Still though, as with Stigmatized’s release, this is hardly a must gem of classic old school death metal but rather a solid offering from a talented band who know their influences and wear them on their sleeve. Tracks like “Shotgun Surgery”, “Soulraped” (again with the early 90’s titles) and “Corrosive” deliver technically competent, well played though hardly as elite as their peers. However, both this and the Stigmatized album are worth a bargain bin or internet purchase if you with to relive death metal glory days in some slightly less brilliant form.

Despite all the old school name dropping though, Stigmatized, even with their relative ability to ply such a revered sound, don’t quite hit the mark. Sure everything is a mildly technical, yet mid paced, polished and slightly melodic and solo filled, making for a refreshing change from brutal blasting or endless ‘reeeee-core’, but Stigmatized, except for maybe a few moments here and there, don’t have ‘it’ in the song writing department yet.

Still though, this is an acceptable release from a band that’s respectfully stuck in somewhat of a time warp from when they formed in 1995. The 10 tracks are competent and enjoyable for what they offer with numbers like “Obedience Through Ignorance”, “The Eye”, the more extreme “Unseen Forces” and decent closer “Nation From Beyond” (even the track names are straight from 1995) delivering some old timey goodness that emphasizes structure over speed, but nothing truly mind blowing, even for an old school death metal guy like me.

Touted for fans of Crytopsy, Nile, Immolation and Gorguts, the band’s lineage is impressive for a former side project with current and former members having served in Canada’s extreme elite (Atheretic, Despised Icon, Neuraxis, Torn Within), and while the name dropping seems heavy handed, the end result is a typically complex yet brutal and intellectual take on modern death metal that actually fulfills the press sheet’s promise.

Admittedly after the first song, “Sentenced” blew by under a sub two minute vortex of typically savagely intricate Canadian tightness, I braced for another 8 tracks of almost Origin like tenacity, only to have “Cold Ways” and the Gorguts-ish “Burial” suddenly deliver two impressive, choppy, technical tracks of time changing, challenging brutality. Then things got really interesting as the ten minute standout “Counterfeit Deity”. Holy crap is this an amazing song; Starting with a typical death metal expulsion, about three minutes in the track takes the first on many tangents with a layered, truly epic, almost Nile like lumbering mid section then blistering black metal blast beat, then a killer lengthy solo ridden section before yet another Nile-ish segue and more blackened furor. And that’s all in the first 7 minutes of the song!

“Burial pt 2” has a tough act to follow, but uses an evocative pianos and silence to settle things down before unleashing yet more violent and somehow original death metal. You want brutal, Unique Leader styled, deep grunt filled voracity mixed with Willowtip –ish complexity? Try the short sharp bursts of “Cleansing” and the title track. Then settle in for yet another lengthy, (8-minutes) brilliantly varied track, “Tempted” before delicate flamenco instrumental closer “Mortem Obire” allows you to catch your breath.

Even without the two amazing longer tracks, Karma has an air of freshness and creativity I have not heard in some time (Lykathea Aflame or Kralizec maybe?) while still appealing to all my death metal desires and should be an album all death metal fans should check out, especially those jaded with the predictability of some of the genres bigger names.

The NYDM sound is rife within Sordid’s groove filled, pig grunt laced and generally well played and solidly written debut. The 9 tracks (not counting an Intro and Outro), are hardly original, but they seem to know their style and stick to it with little deviation of needless fluff; this is pure growl and grumble, lyrically challenged, squealing East Coast Death metal, and proud of it.

A few of the track deliver some highlights such as the nice jazzy groove that ends “Mother of the Unborn” and thick but familiar lope of “Raging Essence” and “Digesting the Rotten”. Guest vocal performances from Despised Icon’s Alex Erian and Quo Vadis’ Stéphane Paré (who also owns and runs Disconcert Music, hence some of the quality the young lable is kicking out) are barely noticeable and when the band injects their familiar speed into tracks as heard on “Tasting the Afterlife’ and “Pathological Surgery” it’s no where on par with their peers-just a solid and enjoyable slab of slammy, simple East Coast Death Metal.

You’ll here better, elite death metal albums this year from the likes of Behemoth, Ssarpanitum, Immolation and Man Must Die, but Sordid and fledgling Disconcert Music have at least made a good impression.

You can literally feel 5 years of frustration and anger on this long awaited second album from I.N.R.I, and there blend of The Crown, early Carnal Forge, Defleshed with hints of pure death metal and classic grindcore is tighter, groovier and more scathingly melodic than ever and frankly, I don’t think there is an more aptly titled album full of such appropriately titled songs as on Ultra Sonic Hate Storm.

Just cranking utterly rampaging tracks like opener “The Power Violence”, “Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition”, “The Iron Deathslam”, “Thrash Until Found Worthy”, “Bullet Cumshot” and “1000 Pounds of Satan”, when delivered with Henri Veltink’s relentless screams and growls makes me want to punch babies, including my own. And this isn’t nice, clean, clinical, polished or ‘fun’ death thrash either; this is 38 minutes of skin blistering, virulent, nasty, violent and downright vicious yet somehow catchy metal. No fucking interludes, no intros (except for the Arabic chant that starts the savage “Culture Cunt”), no acoustics, no clean vocals, just frothing, rabid riffs and ferocious vocals and not a weak note on the entire album. Only the start of “Humanitron” gives you a brief respite with a slower gait, before eventually exploding into the same merciless gait as the rest of the album.

Armed with a razor sharp production and delivering a few solos on the way, Ultra Sonic Hate Storm is punched in the face with an armored gauntlet heavy and the fact Disconcert Music managed to get a deal to release it shows the label, even in their youth is going to be a major player in metal.

Welcome the fuck back I.N.R.I, now don’t make me wait another 5 years for your next album.