Let’s kick off with a useless quiz fact: they’re named after a Venom song, not after the same-named Bruce Willis franchise.

We’re dealing with an old-school inspired outfit Die Hard. On most of their band promo pictures they look like bunch of black metal fetishists, but actually Die Hard play a raw and balls to the wall blend of death and thrash. They’re inspired by bands such as the above mentioned Venom, Sodom, Bathory and Celtic Frost, but classic – both in terms of their death and thrash metal elements – as the band may sound, they’ve only been around since 2005. Moreover, with their jagged and unsanded classic sound and hate and Satan-inspired lyrics, they really couldn’t have come from any other country than Sweden. Indeed, this is a clear-cut case of Swedeath!

Sylosis, from Reading, close to London, UK, is most definitely my favorite band at the moment and most probably my favorite band of all time. Their optimal mix of technicality and ‘song-sense’ is like a supermodel licking my ear lobes.

I’ve played their 2011 full-length Edge of the Earth close to one billion times and it still manages to intrigue and entertain the hell out of me. The songs flow masterfully, choosing the path that works best, like a small stream flowing down a mountain. The result is generally as logical as it is unpredictable.

Anyfuck, huge was my happiness when I heard the Brits have a third album coming out this year. It’s called Monolith and it will be released worldwide on October 9^th. Ahead of that date, Sylosis has released two songs off the album yesterday. We’ve got these tracks, occupying positions 8 and 10 on the record, lined up for you past the jump.

Boys and girls, a quicky!

Still young but already experienced Polish formation NEYRA, combining Brutal Death Metal and Thrash with additional aggression, released their latest video for the song Mors Nigra. In the meantime they are looking for a label to release their first LP, titled Madness in Progress and following up on their mini-album Self-made Torment.

Over the past few years, the American Roxx Records have become bigger and bigger, increasing their roster with some quality bands. The Sacrificed and Liberty ‘N’ Justice have already come by here at the Baboon and especially the former has been received positively by most of us. There are also some new names like ForChristSake and Join the Dead (for the record, Roxx Records deals in Christian Metal), which are planned to release their debuts this year and which promise some news for the returning Thrash scene! The sampler contains 8 songs and 31 minutes of music. I’ll simply pick out the heavier highlights as there are also some less interesting Punk and Rock songs on there.

Kicking in are the awesome The Sacrificed with a song called Behold the Power of God. The song is characterised by a powerful, driving rhythm and the solid songwriting which we know from previous songs from their 2012-effort III.
After some three songs we arrive at New Mexico-thrashers Ultimatum who present us with their song Heart of Metal. It’s a bit of a shame that it’s a Metal Pulse Radio Mix, so it contains some weird radio introduction, but with some primary school cutting and pasting, this is easily solved. The song itself comes from their critically acclaimed Into the Pit (released in 2007) and is a classic “Metal”-song, with the singer demanding rising fists and stuff. Not very original, yet in any case, Ultimatum deliver some very fine Thrash Metal as always.

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!

It wasn’t very long ago when I wrote a little something about a Russian outfit named Shturm. They are hot shit and so you should read that article if you haven’t already. I thought it worthwhile to sort out an interview with these chaps. Didn’t take long to get it arranged!

Thanks to Adar, vocalist and guitarist, for answering the questions and to Alex, from the band’s label, for arranging the interview for us!

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.

Nearly two years ago we served up a dose of Black Breath by way of their song Razor to Oblivion which is the title track of their 2008 EP. In 2010 they released their first full-length Heavy Breathing which we neglected to cover, but with the impending release of the follow up Sentenced to Life just a week or so away, what better time to get these guys back on your minds?

Just a quick one by suggestion of motig, the guy who seems to dump links on our plate for a living. His suggestion this time was to check out a US Thrash Metal outfit named Vektor and even though we’ve been treating them before, there’s no harm in checking them out again. The band holds house in a town called Tempe, Arizona. From what I’ve seen / heard / read, Arizona is a pretty hot place and that has rubbed off on these chaps’ music: it’s hot as shit!

If I had to describe their music in one sentence, I’d say it’s the result of kinky inbred sex of the kids that themselves sprung from all four of the Big Four of Thrash having an orgy with four of the classic Norwegian Black Metal outfits. This stuff is fuckin’ deranged!

I’ve got an interesting mix of Thrash and (Melodic) Death Metal to share today. It’s actually neither but both, hard to describe. But before we get into the details, let me introduce the subject band and its album at hand first. The band in question is called Last Transgression and it’s an American Metal unit, from a place called Prattville, Alabama, that has been active since 1994. For a band that’s geriatric! In all those years the band has released nothing but four full-length record, the last of which, titled Perpetual State of Collapse, came out in 2002. Until 2011 happened and they popped Cynic Verses onto the market of Metal.

Cynic Verses appeared somewhere at the end of October 2011 and is since available for legal download for just five measly bucks on the group’s BandCamp hide-out. As hinted at, that’s not a lot and I’m about to explain to you why that is. It all comes down to the fact that Cynic Verses is a pleasant album, flowing, natural, headbanging, pure. No bullshit, but a collection of ten good songs.