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.

Hell, we’re up to date. Yesterday “Melodic Death Metal”-outfit Miseration put out a video for their song Dreamdecipher. Yeah, the Melodic Death Metal is in quotation marks because our holy bible (aka the Metal Encyclopedia) says that, but I can tell you, this is not Melodic Death Metal. Sounds more like Technical Grindcore to me.

Who are Miseration? You ask. Miseration are a Swedish band formed in 2006, and have since produced two full-lengths, on which they play a very heavy, Grindcore-influenced kind of Melodeath. Stylistically they are a very interesting band, and I haven’t really heard something like what they did on their first two albums before. Dreamdecipher however takes their sound to a less original height, although it’s still a good song of course.

A couple of months ago we covered a song by a German band named Vaulting. I characterized the song as having ”plenty of fast-paced leads, hooks and sharp edges”. A few weeks later the band released its debut record Nucleus, containing thirteen brand new songs of pretty much the same general inclination. If it wasn’t for a bunch of them being rather different.

So Nucleus is a debut according to drummer Sebastian Gathof, so it’s kinda strange how Encyclopaedia Metallum lists 2008’s Epilog as a full-length too. Because taking a closer look at it, it seems more like an EP, with only 18 odd minutes of playing time. Yet there are eight songs which is more than you’d expect on a normal EP. The key is in the Grindcorian length of songs: one of them is only four seconds.

Metal out of Sweden today, by a four-piece named Asylium. An Architecture of Human Desolation is their first full-length accomplishment and it was released into the world in June of this year. I’ve been on it for a couple of days now and I can tell you it’s loud. Grinding. Heavy. Hard. Raw. Crude. And not for fuckin’ pussies.

An Architecture of Human Desolation is a bit like Grindcore for people with extra big balls. It has the same integral crudeness and hardness, just played at extra brutal amp settings and with an overload of sharp hooks and leads. A concept that should be familiar. But does it really work?

After our review of their upcoming album Alternate World, we’ve decided to give them another knock on their door. Vocalist/guitarist Rafael Ortiz came out and was prepared to answer some questions for us.

In short, The Right Wing Conspiracy is this politically outspoken Grindcore band from South Carolina, the States. Their songs are short, intense and always contain a little twist that keeps the listener awake. They have been around for about 5 years now, and they have released three full-lengths and one split-album. After the jump, Rafael’s going to tell us a bit more about the background of The Right Wing Conspiracy, the songwriting process and their influences. So get ready!

“Freedom is dying! Take it for granted!”
With these lines, The Right Wing Conspiracy were able to attract my attention. I mean, which band, let alone an American band, writes this? I thought they were all about freedom and shit, but these guys seem to have some conscience. Together with some tough ass Grindcore, this might make for something interesting.

Don’t ask me how I found these guys, but before I knew it I had a CD posted to my address. Originally, I was only looking for some youtube video’s which contained some studio songs, to present to you guys in a news article, but vocalist/guitarist Rafael Ortiz thought it necessary for me to look at the whole thing, which I did with pleasure.

List season has arrived. Soon the internet will be littered with countless lists of the year’s best albums. After pondering what my own list might be I realised that I couldn’t possibly come up with a truely ‘best of’ list. I haven’t even heard every album that’s come out this year, I imagine no one has. So, to do something a little different I’ve put together a list of my favorite releases from 2011 that were offered for free, including some with a name your price option. Remember, this is a ‘favorites’ list not a ‘best of’ list, I haven’t heard all the free ones either. Of the freebies I’ve heard these are the ten that have kept me coming back and I’ll present them two at a time.

10. – Savage Messiah – A Plague of Conscience

Today is Sunday, which is a day of celebration, it’s not only the day of the Lord, but also the start of a new week. So to celebrate we’re looking at something new, something unusual. We’re just heading out to the Punk side of things where we find Nuclear Scorn. Nuclear Scorn are an American band that pumps out a mixture of Crust, Grindcore, D-Beat and Blackened Thrash Metal. It must have been the Texan sun which gave them hyperthermia, because this shit is crazy in comparison with some of the stuff we normally have here.

As a kid, I’ve always been fascinated with Punk. Not only with the movement and its attitude towards society, but also with its attitude towards music. It has always amazed me how these people approached music as an art, rather than as a commercial thing. In that way, Metal has a lot in common with Punk. On the other hand, over the years I have grown appreciative of Thrash and Speed Metal as well. Genres like Crust Punk, Crossover and Hardcore Punk seem to have made the combination of Thrash Metal and Punk very attractive.

Pour yourself some beer and another one over your head, sniff your sweaty armpits, scratch your crotch. Press play on Hatred United and bang your head like there’s no tomorrow. Windmill when you can, bang your fists on the wall, kick your army boots through the TV screen and shout foul language at your mom cooking dinner.

For Hatred United, two Finnish underground formations joined their love for raw and hatred for everything else into eight songs of noise. The first, Gasmask Violence, is new to us, but Vuohi is a group we’ve seen before when we reviewed their The Rising Era of Goat release about two months ago. Kick it in gear!

I haven’t heard proper Deathcore for ages. So long in fact that I hardly seem to recognize it now. Still, I believe Vaulting, from Wiesbaden, Germany, are operating in the department. Perhaps on the genre’s border with Progressive Death Metal. It’s hard to tell genres apart these days. What I can tell you though, is that Vaulting’s material sounds aggressive, weird and different. All in the good way.

I was contacted by Sebastian, the band’s drummer and he told me they have their debut album approaching is release date fast: it’s scheduled to be aired on October 28 via Unundeux Records. The album’s to be called Nucleus and we may review it later. At this moment in time we’d like to introduce you to the band’s earlier work and serve you a few tracks off Nucleus already.