A whole bunch of news has been coming to us over the past few weeks, and in there is something interesting for everybody: we have new videos, album teasers and new release dates coming up!

A few moments ago I asked myself: “Now what is the purpose of Gathering the Troop?” It has been presented as some of my own ego-trippery, but while thinking about the rules that I go by, the actual purpose would be presenting news from lesser-known bands; ones that are either unsigned, or on a smaller label. So I won’t be presenting you the new Between the Buried and Me video, but today we’ll find ourselves some news from Mizraab and some older, while still relevant, news from CAPA.

But first, to quickly familiarise you with the rules of Gathering the Troop. Firstly, I have to be notified of it, either by a reader or a friend, or I have to come across it myself, it be on Facebook or on Tumblr. Secondly, the band has to be unsigned, or on a minor label. These two rules are simply there so I’m not simply repeating what others have written, but in order to secure that we’re presenting you something original.

So, to stay in the vein of this website, I thought of this title just to bring you some news I come across myself, rather than just copying what I read over at the likes of NCS or perhaps what I get through from PR-propaganda. I’ll write what I hear and what I think, and of course this is hugely influenced by our fans, so I’d say, hit us up on Facebook when you have something hot, which is worth mentioning. In this issue, our friend Patrick Urban who pointed out that Dämmerfarben had posted a preview of their upcoming effort Herbstpfad, while I personally picked up a new track from Loch Vostok.

Starting with the latter, I hope we all remember my review of Loch Vostok’s fourth effort Dystopium, which is quite old by now. Reading back, I can’t help but think I grossly misunderstood the album at that point. However, that’s history and now the band is back with a new album. As with Dystopium, it is ViciSolum Productions handling the release of V – The Doctrine Decoded, which is due this autumn. The lads were kind enough to share the song A Tale of Two Kings with us, and with this stream comes the unveiling of the album art, to be seen below.

American Metalcore-outfit As I Lay Dying have had some recent coverage here on the Baboon and it’s safe to say that most of us are quite fond of this five-piece. Their previous release Decas was something of a weirdo with a mix of new tracks, covers of material by bands like Judas Priest and Dubstep remixes of old songs, with especially the latter being something people frowned at.

The name of the new album was revealed yesterday, and I was quite disappointed to hear that it will actually be called Awakened, which is a bit of an uninspired name in my opinion. However, with the new single released, fans of the pre-Decas AILD are able to breathe freely as what I’m hearing sounds like classic AILD material.

It’s been a while since I wrote anything, but it seems to me that I kind of fell out off the Metal-boat for some reason. This morning I listened to Depth’s latest EP which appealed to me, but what really brought me back here was the song Eyez by Rap Metal-legends P.O.D. Earlier this year the guys already released the song On Fire, which came as a total surprise, but this totally shook my balls.

The lyrics take me back to a video, which showed some Black Metal artists commenting on the concept of Christian Black Metal, and one of the guys on there said that he was alright with the idea, only if they would actually scare the hell out of him with the might of God. I can tell you that not many Christian Black Metal bands do that, but P.O.D. here are doing just fine, with a mixture of unforgiven blasphemy, rising dead, guillotines and killing fields.

Mortification have passed by before here at the Baboon, but as I commented before the last five albums put out were kind of crappy. Although now I’ve kind of changed my opinion on some of these albums, Scribe of the Pentateuch is different, as I’ve heard from the recently uploaded song The Jaws of Life.

This song actually makes me quite excited for the album. I’m actually hearing blast beats for the first time in almost 20 years, which is a good thing. The vocals still haven’t returned to the full death growl on Scrolls of the Megilloth, but it’s definitely growly and gutteral. Shame the song is so short, because now I have to wait for another two days to hear some more, as the release date of this album is the first of April.

Some news to open up the stream of write up’s coming after the silence. I’ve been very busy with some stuff related to school and college applications etc. and Niek is away on a trip, so it’s been quiet for some time. But for today we’re happy to announce that Antivenom have completed their debut full-length Sacred Funeral.

Antivenom are a Christian Black Metal supergroup who got together earlier this year. The band consists of the members of Armath Sargon and White Funeral, both critically acclaimed bands on the scene. From what I’ve heard Antivenom is a natural extension on what both bands have been producing before: Raw Black Metal.

United States, internet-based Grindcore outfit Malodorous have returned with a new demo, after 5 years. After their debut Amaranthine Redolence, of which especially Eyes of Abomination gained some limited fame for its ferocious double bass rolls. Now they’re back with a new demo Augury of the Aborted, which was released yesterday.

The good thing is, that we have some freebies again. The guys have decided to give this demo away for free, and that doesn’t come with a sleek looking Bandcamp page, but with a low-fi Mediafire link. Hell yeah!

As a reviewer, you often need to do some extensive research before you write down anything, and Derelict was a band which I discovered while doing research about Dischordia. It is as such, that Dischordia are promoted by RicBurn Media, lead by our friend Eric Burnett, who in turn is the lead singer of Tech Death-outfit Derelict. At first I wasn’t bothered much by the busy kind of Death Metal, but with this little novelty, they completely fixed that for me.

On the 20th day of April, we will witness the birth of this Canadian Death Metal monster, and a monster this will be! As I can judge from the two songs presented this album will have all the guts needed in order to get Derelict to the next level, the “big” level.

Today, which means exactly today, Italian Thrash-outfit Boarders have released their third album called R-Existence. The guys managed to impress the world with their sophomore The World Hates Me, and judging from the first notes of R-Existence, they continue to do so. With this 40 minute album, Boarders again serve us some face molding Melodic Thrash Metal.

Emerging from a Megadeth cover band, Boarders actually date back to 1988. Roughly 20 years later however, they decided to walk their own path, and started writing their own songs, with lyrics in the vain of US-Metalcore outfit As I Lay Dying; society with a Christianity-influenced outlook.