You know you’re dealing with some underground shit when this is the best band photo to be found on the whole of the World Wide Web. The next sign is being named after a mountain in their Scottish homeland. And the third and surefire way to tell is the sound they create. This particular sound comes across as a somewhat modernized first-wave Black Metal loaded with Thrash and peppered with Death.

Stob Dearg formed in 2007 as Mortua, changed their name in 2010 and then released this demo in 2012. Nocturnal Witchcraft holds an intro and six songs coming in at just over twenty-six minutes. Just long enough to stay fun without overstaying its welcome. Its also free, so jump on in and get it!

In early August we announced the imminent release of The Forgotten King, the first full-length studio effort of Glasgow ”Blood Metallers” Achren. The previews and sneak peeks we received on it promised a world of vicious Metal. In early October we received the press pack, but with the giant, never-shrinking stacks of stuff we need to review, it had to take a month before I could take a good listen to it.

And that, good sirs and madams, proved to be a mighty pleasant listen, characterized by steady and heavy vertical motion of the head and excessive grinning. ”Solid” is a descriptor that doesn’t nearly come close to the skin of the album’s nature, let alone the core.

Scottish Blood Metallers Achren, whom we wrote about before, flew in with some news today: their first full-length album is about to be released. In just over a week to be exact. The record, entitled The Forgotten King, is to be released on Thursday the 11^th of August at the 2011 UK Bloodstock Open Air festival, which the band is scheduled to open.

This is a release, featuring, and I quote, “five of the UK’s heaviest underground Metal band”. They are, and I quote some more ‘cause I’m a lazy fuck, “Northern Black-meets-Death assassins Colonel Blast, Leeds-based Extreme Tech Metallers Diascorium, Leeds-based Grind manksters Magpyes, Edinburgh Death Merchants Cancerous Womb and finally Manchester’s most Brutal Death / Tech / Grind warriors Dyscaphia”. In short, there’s plenty of earbleedin’ terror on this record.

In fact, there are 20 tracks in total, adding up to just about a full hour. And it goes for “a fiver”. The promotion fact sheet calls it “a pocket friendly introduction to the sounds of the current underground Metal scene within the UK”. I wouldn’t know, as I’m a cheesefaced bastard (read: Dutch) and don’t regularly reside within the UK underground scene. But, I’ve heard boatloads full of highly Extreme Metal coming out from across the North Sea and hence it sounds plausible.

Now, on to this post’s purpose: reviewing the record! I’ll do so on a per-band basis, just because it’s the easiest fuckin’ way to go.

Remember some 4 months ago, when we focused on a bunch of angry Scots forming a band called Achren and playing a musical flavor they’ve termed Blood Metal? We briefly mentioned the then imminent release of their live DVD recorded at Bloodstock Open Air 2010. Well guess what: it’s out and they baptized it Impaled at Bloodstock-Open-Air 2010.

The official press release is this: “Scottish Blood Metallers Achren have released their debut Live Concert DVD entitled ‘Impaled at Bloodstock-Open-Air 2010.’ Produced in conjunction with UK based Darkbox Films, the DVD features their whole award winning Bloodstock performance from the New Blood Stage at last year’s festival, band biography, photo galleries and preview recordings of their upcoming debut album.”

To clarify, the band’s full performance consisted of 7 blood spilling tracks, together measuring about half an hour, which are then all found on the DVD. We’ve got the performance of the title giving track lined up for you after the break, from which you can judge the intensity of the audio blood bath.

Got a line last night from a dude named Cancerous Chris from a band named Cancerous Womb. I like alliterations like that. What Cancerous Womb, hailing out of Edinburgh, Scotland, does, is serve it to you Brutally – that’s right, with a capital fuckin’ B. It also seems to do so purely in a live setting, as I’ve not been able to find any releases from these guys yet. I guess that’s fine, as they’ve only been a band since about two years now. In any case, decided to quickly do a quicky on them!

Judging from the intensity of the few live vids that I’ve been viewing on their YouTube channel, this isn’t really material for studio albums. This is material for live shows, so it can tear your fuckin’ head off and leave you as a big fuckin’ fountain of blood. Their songs are arse-grindingly loud Death Metallic, with a never ending storm of drum kicks and blasts, riffing that’ll instantly kill your dog and quick leads to finish him off if, for some reason, he doesn’t die straight away (maybe you’ve got a fat Rottweiler). Oh, and yeah, there’s also an angry Scotsman! Very angry in fact.

As you know I’m still hopelessly behind in terms of keeping up with all the requests, suggestions, tips and contributions you guys and bands themselves have sent me. That’s why I’m now treating Achren, from Glasgow, Scotland, of which bassist John Clark Paterson dropped me a line on the first day of this year, with the request to feature his band in a post. “Sure thing, definitely can do” was my reply, but I also knew it would take a while. Well, I’m ready for it now!

So, I’ve just looked up the band’s ReverbNation page. Could’ve gone to their MySpace as well, but as you know MySpace is like a putrescent clogged-up asshole: you can push it all you like, but it just won’t output anything. Anyway, on RN you can find five of the band’s older songs. There’s the 2008 Blood Soaked Banner single track, as well as the four tracks off their self-released 2006 Blood Metal EP, all of which are highly stimulating to the neck muscles, resulting in a steady up-and-downward motion of the head!