It’s weird, considering the name of this blog, but for some reason I’m not doing too many Death Metal reviews. I think I this is my second or third one, and to be precise, it’s my first Brutal Death Metal release. Exciting.

About half a month ago the boys themselves approach us via Facebook, and their description of “Death Grind / Black Metal / Melodic Brutality” appealed to me, so I took the job. At first though, I was hesitant as in my experience, Brutal Death Metal bands got fairly low grades. That is, in comparison to bands from other genres like Black Metal and Hardcore. However, when I first turned on this 17-minute long piece, I was quite surprised to hear something which grabbed me. Usually, I feel that in Brutal Death Metal, the heaviness is drowning out in its own blood, and together with this, my interest for the music. Corpse Filled Caskets does not contain the loudest riffing, but there is some really interesting drumming and riffing going on which, together with the witty dialogues in between make for an enjoyable quarter of an hour.

Where my prejudice about Norwegian Metal makes me expect all Metal from Norway is Black Metal, I’ve got a similar – and equally fucked-up – rule of thumb about Sweden. It’s either Old-school Death Metal type of stuff or Melodeath that they produce there. Absolute rubbish of course and the examples are numerous. Still, it’s a bit of a default thing to expect I guess.

Today we add another entry to our list of examples that counter that coarse generalization: Humanity’s Last Breath. They’re a five-piece from the city of Helsingborg, where I know also Soilwork is from. A typical line-up of two guitars, a bass, some bongos and a voice, these guys produce something undeniably brutal and aggressive, often a shit storm of blasts and chugs, but also often melodic and harmonious. That is what I pulled from the band’s latest release, which was sent out into the world in early 2011 as their second EP since forming in 2009.

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!

It’s been quiet here for a while, which is due some issues with my hosting provider. This seems to be a yearly recurring theme or something, though thankfully this one was solved rather quickly. They do tend to respond rather quickly.

Anyfuck, we’re back now and we’re back with Arbiter, which was a suggestion by Rufio. He described the American band’s music as ”a heavier, Djentier Omnium Gatherum”, but also admitted he ”didn’t poke around at much”. Can’t blame him, but if he had, he would’ve found out the band certainly isn’t comparable to Omnium Gatherum.

Instead, these five dudes from Charlevoix, Michigan, do some proper brutal Death Metal with distinctive Deathcore elements. Having listened to some of their stuff, they seem to me like a bunch of breakdown kings, which I know will put half of you off. The other half, or whatever the exact split is, might actually enjoy several shitloads of the band’s getting-hit-by-a-freight-train experience.

Visitor Simon was out in Montréal a while ago, where he discovered some new material that was to his liking. Bookakee is one of them, and they do Technical Brutal Death Cumsplatter Metal. Other than that the band consists of five guys and that they love to kill Super Mario on stage, my intel on these guys is pretty limited.

So, I’ll just proceed with giving you the tunes. First one is a song called Bookakee Blast, the first song from their first EP, released last June.

At first this EP’s music and me eluded each other, like the North and South poles have been eluding each other for quite a while now. Then I found out, once again – and you wonder whether I brushed out my brain when I did my teeth this morning – that Death Metal comes to its full right only – ONLY – when it’s played at volume settings that kill small children and critters smaller than a medium-sized dog.

And from that moment on I started to enjoy Capture Release Kill, Ireland’s Guttrench’s latest release, more by the second. In the style of Brutal Death Metal it’s pretty goddamn brutal Death Metal! But more than just a gathering of noisy components, Guttrench brings a lot of fuckin’ talent to the party. I’d go as far as to call this intelligently put together, which is not something you can say of most Brutal Death releases. And moreover, it just sounds very pleasant, except if you’re a toddler or a medium-sized dog perhaps.

This album has been in my possession for what must be at least half a year or something. It’s been in prominent sight all that time, generally on top of my ‘to-review’ stack. However, for some reason I just kept picking shit up in a totally non-FIFO (first-in first-out) way. I had pretty much decided not to review it at all, after all I owed it to nobody as I bought this myself and moreover it’s a 2010 album, but then today I thought ”you know what, let’s dump these Facebreakers in my player”.

I remember buying this album because I had found out Roberth “Robban” Karlsson whom we of course know from Scar Symmetry is also operating in this group. I figured the associations Swedish and Scar Symmetry surely meant I was in for some crunchy Melodeath. Karlsson is the one responsible for the growling in SS, so I wasn’t quite expecting sugar-sweet girly-type Melodeath with gently sung clean vocals. Still, I was in for a surprise.

Have I got some intelligent shit for you today! It’s Djenty Progressive Metal from a city called Lowell, Massachusetts. I was half starting to get the idea that only British bands, and perhaps a few Australian ones, were truly masters at creating Djent. I got it wrong, there’s at least one American band too!

I noticed this as soon as I was halfway into the first song on the band’s Cyclopean Imagery album, their debut, released last month. Being a rather new band, they formed in 2008, and with a composition of a sizy six members; dual vocals, dual guitars, bass and drums, I find that rather impressive. Often with bands that are fresh on the block you’ll get more like a pile of good ideas, but no clear concept.

Perhaps I’m overly positive and this is actually really also the case with Pathogenic, but then they must have gotten off a lucky shot. Right at my pleasure bone.

The other day I stumbled across some Brutal Death Metal from Chicago in the form of Peshmerga. These five men united in 2009 and chose a name for themselves that is what the Kurdish call their warriors, meaning “those who face death”. So far they’ve managed one album, titled Murderous Acts of Cruelty, consisting of seven tracks of brutality lasting just over thirty minutes. If you dig it brutal you don’t want to overlook these guys.

Just like centuries ago, the Turks are coming and they bring death and brutal destruction. But unlike the turning point of the Ottoman Wars in Europe in 1683, I don’t think they’ll be stopped at the gates of Vienna by the Polish King and the Holy Roman Empire. In any case they plan to waltz over just about anything and anyone, reducing them to steaming heaps of guts in the process.

The Turks in question named themselves Decaying Purity and they joined forced in Istanbul in 2005, after Mustafa Gürcalioglu (guitars) and Onur Gazioglu (drums) formed the basis of the band. At current, the band also consists of Malik Camlica (bass) and Serkan Niron (vocals).

After a demo in 2006 and their debut record Phases of Dimensional Torture in 2008, it’s now time for their second studio album, entitled The Existence of Infinite Agony, which came out in early July of this year.