When Viral Propaganda PR dropped this album in my virtual mailbox, I was keen to arrive at my first spin, as I had just made the comment that Metal was one of the few things the French were good at (besides food). Besides, the notion that H.N.P. contained “very mature composing” and was “mixing jazz-funk rythms to an extremely groovy death metal”, verily excited me.

While researching the genre of Groove Metal for this album, terms like Death Metal, Post-Thrash, Metalcore and Thrash Metal were hurled at my poor brain, which made me think that this genre is truly a crossroad on the map of metal. In the same way, the sound of Trepalium is a bit of a crossroad between the different genres of the, say, lesser-extreme side of Extreme Metal. Of course Groove Metal is the main peg on which every song on this album is hung, yet there are many influences from both Thrash and Death Metal to be found on H.N.P.

It’s a good day for those with a liking for stuff that’s brutal, grinding and bloody, because, dear boys and girls, it’s time for some mutilating Death Metal straight out of Ireland. The 2004-formed band hails straight out of Dublin and does things the loud way. With Skewered, the album they released in October, they stick their first flag into the soil of planet Brainfuckery-by-Riffs-and-Gutturals.

So yeah, that’s currently tearing my eardrums to shreds. Much like a dagger stuck in my ear. But that doesn’t mean it’s bad. In fact, it doesn’t mean shit. It’s just a figure of fuckin’ speech. Let me try to give you an overview of what Skewered is, what it does and give you some grip to help you determine whether or not this is for you. In short: it’s review time, kiddos!

Ok ok. If that just didn’t satisfy your craving for loud guitars – which obviously it won’t have – this quicky should be able to more than make up for that. Exhumation, thanks to Adam for pointing us at them, from India is one of at least three bands to (have) employ(ed) the name as a moniker for their band. This one formed in 2003 in the city of Mumbai, from the long-buried remains of an earlier band called Mortuary.

Stylistically the band operates somewhere in the highest violence-spectrum Death Metal region, shagging right up against the leg of Brutal Death. But more than just loud and brutal, Exhumation have got a pack of great riffage going on.

Why? Because BMI stands for Butt-fucking Mediocre Incest-beings. The US performing rights organization still thinks in old dogmas and once again fails to accept the changing reality. Basically they want fuckin’ money. As much as they can possibly get. More more more is the goal, while they forget that suckin’ money out of everyone might not benefit the artists they represent at all. As a result they resolutely snap the neck of any good, innovative initiative that pops up.

Initiatives like Earbits. Apparently BMI considers the player we had a “widget” and they want money for it. Does it matter that we play Metal and pretty much every Metal artist on the fuckin’ face of the globe appreciates when his / her songs get played so people and potential fans are made aware of their existence? Apparently not.

There needs to be but one Metal artist to have registered with BMI to give them the “right” to charge money for a player like ours. Earbits got the choice between paying the bill or stopping the players on affiliate sites. Obviously they picked the second option, as they cannot run the risk of getting ass-whooped by a freshly opened can of lawyers. That goes even for the Metal player, as the existence of only one Metal band with a relationship with BMI would turn shit sour for Earbits faster than you can say “I wouldn’t mind BMI becoming the victim of a properly executed DDoS attack”. By which I’m definitely not stimulating any of you to undertake such an attack. Just saying I fuckin’ wouldn’t mind!

In short, we just got deprives of our awesome as fuck DMB Radio player. Hold its memory high and remember that BMI sucks. The puss out of its own balls. Go read/watch!