REVIEW: GOREROTTED - MUTILATED IN MINUTES

 

GOREROTTED - MUTILATED IN MINUTES (Dead Again Recs. - 2000): Like I said in the review of the compilation from Dead Again Recs., Gorerotted seem to me the band with the best production and sound. Those charachteristics are also on this CD. First level grind/death with a spectacular sound (recorded in thePhilia Studio from Henley with Dave Chang as sound engineer). Every instrument can be heard with total clarity and you can even distinguish which is Fluffy´s guitar and which is Dicksplash´s one. The vocals from Mr. Gore and Baby Sliced dominate the recording due to their gutturality ( a clear example is "Bed´em, Behead´em" where the vocals interplay is crucial to the song). Titles like "Stab me Till I Cum " or "Cut, Gut, Beaten, Eaten" show this band lyrically in the path tat showed in the early nineties Cannibal Corpse with their two first records. Totally recommended for fans of the style. Favorite tracks: "Corpse Fucking Art", "Cut, Gut, Beaten, Eaten" and "Severed, Sawn and Sold as Porn". Contact: promo@deadagain.fsnet.co.uk or www.deadagain.fsnet.co.uk

REVIEW: GODSIZE - DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR

 

GODSIZE - DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR (Independent - 1999): This band comes from Norway…and they play…no!!! They don´t play black metal!! What Godsize does could be discribed in the lands of thrash metal, despite they are not a standard band of the style neither. The influences from this trio are Motorhead, Black Sabbath and Pantera. They prefere to describe their music as a mix heavy metal and rock and they call it "killer metal". This band has a great reputation of live band and if the tracks sound so energetic in the CD, I can understand why. They have good guitar riffs and the base of drums and bass is demolishing., shinning in all its splendour in the track that starts slow and heavy called "Death Before Dishonor". For being a selfproduced recording and a debut CD it sounds really well…this is evident in a song that can be a mosh classic "Hall of Pain". This CD has ten songs with a lot of energy, no subtle things an intelligent arrangements without forgetting the hooks for the ear. Favorite tracks: "Hall of Pain", "Human Sacrifice" (with clean guitar intro) y "Inside the Outsider" (with a certain taste of Sodom "Agent Orange" era in the main). Contact: godsize_box@hotmail.com or www.godsize.no

REVIEW: FULTRACK - SEEDS OF GRAY

 

FULTRACK - SEEDS OF GRAY (Independent - 2001) : A good MCD from this finnish quartet with a style in the middle of thrash and power metal with really modern and a vocalist that we have to watch in the future.(really powerful). Through the four tracks of the CD we can see the main carachteristics of the band: clean and heavy guitars, a really good vocalist that emphasizes the atmosphere of the songs. It is really interesting to listen to songs like "The man who never was" that in the hands of this people is like a powerful hymn from Metallica´s Master of Puppets, with breaks and clean guitar parts included,. This band was opening act for Nightwish and it has a good reputation as a live act. It would be good to see them live or to listen more material from them. They are a big promise. Contact: www.fultrack.com or fultrack@fultrack.com

REVIEW: FINNTROLL - JAKTENS TID

 

FINNTROLL - JAKTENS TID (Century Media - 2001): Finntroll practices what they call "Trollish Hoedown Metal" . They are from Finlandia and their music is amazing and their originality really susprised me. Voices closer to death or black metal with guitar riffs that are very rhythmic (in fact in the first song "Födosagan" it reminded me some typical music from Finland), keyboards used in the way of power metal bands with a lot of solos and bases (like Jens johansson or Tuomas from Nightwish). Really interesting. You can listen in their tracks a lot of melodies that could have been taken from nordic folklore, like in "Slaget Vid Blodsälv" or "Skogens Hämnd". I think that this bands bings new atmospheres to black / death metal, which were searching for bands like this with a lot of originality and that show once more that putting melodies and subtle elements in their music does not mean losing strength.. And they say that this project arose from a night of too much drinking …I want right now what this finnish drink!! Songs to recommend: All the CD. It is really spectacular. Contact: www.centurymedia.com or www.finntroll.darkgod.net

REVIEW: EZURATE - INFERNAL DOMINATIO

 

EZURATE - INFERNAL DOMINATIO (Forever Underground Recs. - 2001): This recording shows us a band completely inmersed in black metal, and its more raw variations. It is ablack metal that could have been part of one of Dark throne´s more recent recordings, it has that sound that Norwegian bands used to have. Hyperspeed riffs. That create some hyperspeed melodies over a crushing blast beat drumming and a diabolical vocal that screams the lyrics to the moon. "Posession of Twilight Shadows", "Battles of Armaggedon" , choose the song that you like most and you will have black metal there. The sound (unlike some bands that are around today) is really good. For my taste, maybe the drums are quite in the front in the mix, covering a little bit the guitars (that maybe are a little behind) and perhaps it has a litlle thin sound in the snare drum, but this can be fixed with more time and studio experience. Listen to "Baptism by Fire" or "Through Haunted Caverns" and let yourself be transported to the darkest part of your being. Contact: www.foreverunderground.com or Ezurate666@aol.com

REVIEW: EXTREME NOISE TERROR - BEING AND NOTHING

 

EXTREME NOISE TERROR - BEING AND NOTHING (Candlelight Recs. - 2001): This is a legendary band formed in the middle eighties during the grindcore explosion in England, when names such as Napalm Death, Carcass or Godflesh appeared. Fifteen years later, this band brings us a record (obviously much more tidy than their first offerings) that keeps alive their primitive strength and energy and the vocals that charachterized the band since its beginnings. The CD opens with a hyperspeed track typical from this band, the one that gives title to this recording. A great achievement of this band is having managed to keep all the instruments audible despite the speed that the drumming and the guitar riffs have. (see as an example "Through Mayhem"). This is a recording with no mercy for the listeners, a record with total aggression and really guttural vocals. This lineup of Extreme Noise Terror has all the thumbs up, they are extremely skilled with their instruments, specially new drummer Zac O´Neil that is a nightmare with his double bass drumming (look what this guy does for example in "When Gods Burn"). Favorite tracks: "Through Mayhem", the hyperspeed "Damage Limitation" and "No Longer as Slaves". Contact: www.candlelightrecords.co.uk

REVIEW: ESICASTIC - ATMAN

 

ESICASTIC - ATMAN (Independent - 2001): Having interviewd this band I had an idea of what the music of this italian guys was about but they surprised me the same. It´s an extremely technical death metal, with a lot of melodies and a lot of jazz!!. Make yourself an idea of amix betweene Cynic, Atheist and Pestilence to have a clue of what this people do. Spectacular sound and spectacular playing from this band that must rehearse a lot to achieve this results. This MCD has three songs and "Atman" opens the fire with a bass line very complex, followed by the guitars and synthesized guitars everywhere (in the tradition of what Paul Masvidal and Jason Gobel did in that phenomenal record "Focus"). The long tracks allow them to experiment a lot (I would like to see them live because they must be fantastic) taking the rhythm changes, breaks and melodies to unsuspected boundaries. It is really good to see how Nicola uses the fretless bass, an instrument less than common in this style (Steve Di Giorgio (Death, Sadus, Testament) is one of the few musicians that uses it) in "Self Omnipotence" and it is really inspiring to listen guitar solos of this quality. I recommend this CD to all those who love originality and have a really open mind. Favorite tracks: The three. Contact: esicastic@libero.it or http://go.to/esicastic

REVIEW: ENTHRONED - ARMOURED BESTIAL HELL

 

ENTHRONED - ARMOURED BESTIAL HELL (Blackend Recs. - 2001): Yes, people ! Here we have a new record of raw black/war metal. This band was formed in 1993 from the ashes of Morbid Death and Blaspherion and this is their fourth record.Their style is black metal without mercy and without subtle elements. Having survived to multiple lineup changes and the suicide of one of its original members (Cernunnos), the band has solidified their style making their best album up to date (the other ones are "Prophecies of Pagan Fire", "Towrds the Skullthrone of Satan" y "The Apocalypse Manifesto"). I would like them to give more space to certain original parts that are more elaborated like the one in "Enslavement Revealed" (2:06) with that double bass drumming sound over the slow guitar parts. The shrieking vocals cover every hole that the instruments left empty and are what gives the music its main characther of black metal . this is a band that fans of black/death metal will surely adore. Favorite tracks: "Armoured Bestial Hell", "Enslavement Revealed" and "Spheres of Damnation". Contacts: www.blackendrecords.com

REVIEW: ENTHRALLMENT - BURNING FIELDS

 

ENTHRALLMENT - BURNING FIELDS (Butchery Music - 2001): A scene that has surprised me for its magnitude and recent develope is the death/black metal scene from Bulgary (and all Eastern Europe). Really guttural vocals are the ones by Plamen Bakardjiev and I have to take my hat off with the colossal guitar riffs from Hristo Hristov. This four song MCD has a really professional sound that is very raw at the same time and allows us to see Enthrallment´s full potential. If I can give an advice: use more riffs like the ones in "Fast Explosion…" (1:06)(2:55)(3:14), "Burning Fields" (3:45) and "Massacre" (1:56). This CD, was recorded in the Max Sound Studios between December 4th and 5th of 2000 and mastered on December 6th This CD lets us admire a band than in the future will make people in the european death metal scene talk a lot about them. Contacts: www.butcherymusic.dir.bg or butcherymusic@yahoo.com or www.enthrallment.dir.bg or enthrallment@yahoo.com

REVIEW: EJECUCION - OBSERVATION

 

EJECUCION - OBSERVATION (Furias Records - 1998): This is a band from Argentina that maybe not much people know and that deserve to be on the first places of popularity in the scene (I think that they have split up, a pity) because they make an original black/doom metal full of keyboards and exotic instrumentation (listen to the introduction with flute and guitar "Dialogo sopra la musica" and the first track "Observation" to see what I am telling you). The bands which I can relate to this guys are Crypt of Kerberos and Orphanage, bands with a "european sound" (to distinguish it from bands with less subtle sound). What I think is excellent is that they have included some medieval-like pieces as "Lamento di Tristano", "Dialogo sopra l´Amore" or "Saltarello Nro. 1" to get more variety and breath in their music (there is even a piece by John Dowland and one by Nicolaus Ammerbach). I am really surprised with this CD that is on the level of any release that could come from Europe and it comes with a deluxe digipack edition. I hope that more bands like this one will arise from the argentinean underground, they are necessary. Favorite tracks: "Tools of death", "In Endless Fall" and "Darkness". Contact: Furias records: : furias@ssdnet.com.ar