Stabwound "As Humanity Dies" (Review)

Stabwound As Humanity Dies

2024 Iron Blood and Death Corporation (CD)

ironbloodanddeath.bandcamp.com

Every once in a while I happen across a record that immediately catches my attention and gets me really excited. Usually the first thing I do is text Dan Gates (of TON infamy) and let him know there's a real motherfucker of an album he has to check out! The second thing I do is let it play several times through. That's exactly what happened with this record. 

As it opened, I had a feeling I was in for something good when the intro contained an almost Lucio Fulci-style horror synth composition, and ended with some sinister monks singing. The first thing that struck me as the first true song started was that this is death metal with the energy of a hardcore band in many ways. It's simpler, aggressive, angry, and pounding with straight-ahead drumming, much like a band like Merauder or All Out War is (show me a person that doesn't like Master Killer and I'll show you someone who doesn't like metal all the way top their core. Now, I'm not saying that this is even part of their set of influences, but I hear it, and I love it. Death metal evolved from heavy metal and hardcore punk, so it makes perfect sense to me. At some point the evolution wraps back around to full circle.

The riffs and structure made me think of the Merauder comparison, and it's also valid to bring up the names of Massacre, Entombed, and Cianide. This band fits right in among these, as being similar in attack and performance. This is pure, ancient death metal played the right way, with a punk sensibility (in the same way that Nunslaughter has a punk sensibility) that makes the songs bleed energy, power, and movement. The solos scattered about are excellent, morbid affairs full of sick melody and evil harmony. There's even a pronounced d-beat punk influence on the track "Devoured," and since I love anarcho-punk and d-beat as well, this was a welcome sound. 

The vocals vaguely remind me of Demolition from California's demo, in some ways, especially when they're layered and reverb-drenched. At other times he reminds me a little of the singer from Dismember. Don't take this to mean that he is a derivative singer - far from it. He's doing things his own way, with personality, charisma, and style! It's a strong performance, as it is from the rest of the band. Structurally, a lot of their songs have a thrash breakdown that really amp up the heaviness and aggression, and I could see these parts working extremely well live, creating violent pits or aggressive headbanging against the stage!

This album is a high water mark of last year's death metal releases, and I put it right up there with the best stuff that I've heard. I'm still working my way through about 600 different records to review, but Stabwound has created a minor masterpiece here and I'm very interested to see what the next album brings. If this album is any indication, they'll deliver a real heavy bastard.

Strychnos "Armageddon Patronage" (Review)

Strychnos Armageddon Patronage

2024 Dark Descent Records (CD / LP / Cassette)

www.darkdescentrecords.com

BADASS SONG TITLES: Pale Black Birds, Sweeping Storm of Suicide, Choking Salvation

From the mighty Dark Descent Records comes the newest effort from Strychnos, who are quality purveyors of blackened death metal. They lean towards the epic, with bombastic sometimes doomed out compositions that nevertheless are aggressive, violent, and entertaining. Strychnos doesn't use much in the way of speed to get their extremity across - there are fast parts in most songs, but the focus is on the haunting melodies and crushing aggressive grooves that beg to snap your neck. The melodies are at once sinister and Satanic, angry and powerful.

The vocals are pure hellfire and brimstone, erupting forth with power and style, mostly mid-range and somewhat similar (in a very, very good way) to some of Necrophobic's work. It takes a talented band to keep my interest with slower death metal, and Strychnos does it well. All the songs are catchy, some to nearly earworm levels. Each song is different, distinct, and well-crafted. There is some clean singing on offer here, but not in a typical style. It reminds me a bit of the clean passages from Emperor or Hypocrisy. The lines are sung in a clear, strong, utterly manly style with morose melody and evil intent. The production  is clean and organic, and each instrument shines, capturing a very live feel.

It struck me upon first listen to this how different it was. This is a unique band that's cobbled their influences together in such a way as to sound quite original, and they don't lean on too many death and black metal tropes to do their jobs. This is a special album, and it should find a place on every death metalist's shelf.

Vulvodynia "Entabeni" (Review)

Vulvodynia Entabeni

2024 Unique Leader Records

www.uniqueleader.com

I'm in the middle on this album. We have deathcore of the highest musical order, mixed with a helping of brutal death metal to anchor it in a style that I can stand. However, there's a lot of what I call unnecessary jammin' on this one, with riffs that are always on the edge of dissonant, and we know how much I dislike that. What saves this record is the fact that sometimes I do like to hear what amazing musicians can accomplish even if it's not a style I want to hear. It's worth one listen, anyway. I think the thing that stands out the most to me on the record is the singing. This is one brutal vocalist who can handle a ton of different styles, and his chops are superb. He can clear up his diction and pronounce things if he wants, or he can go deep and guttural and unintelligible and sounds fine either way. I liked that part of the record anyway, and it's the same reason I can stand Slaughter to Prevail. Good singers save things for me.

 

Morgue Meat "Apocalyptic Visions" (Review)

Morgue Meat Apocalyptic Visions

2024 Satanath Records (CD)

www.satanath.com

This was the record I was looking for all night, and I found it four reviews deep in the stack! This is a bit more simplistic death metal from Texas, that almighty of death metal US states, whose bands know how to drive home a chunky-ass riff, and Morgue Meat is no exception.

Their style reminds me a little bit of Sathanas mixed with Burial, with perhaps a sprinkling of Nunslaughter and the Florida scene in the early 1990s. Perhaps I hear some Cianide, Celtic Frost, Impetigo, and old Hypocrisy, as well. Whether I'm accurate or not about their influences I don't know, that's just what I hear when I listen to this. They've stitched all this together into their own sound, and I love it. The album is well-recorded, and everything is clear and mixed well. The vocals are drenched in reverb, which helps make them unique. The vocal style is already demonic as fuck, with gurgling croaks and guttural growls all throughout. A fantastic solo or two appears on the record as well, when you least expect it, and the guitarist can really play. 

I like the more simplistic style of death metal this band is bringing us, and I'm eager to hear what's next. hopefully they have another record for us soon!

Necropsia "Antorchas" (Review)

Necropsia Antorchas

2024 Grinder Cirujano Records (Digital)

grindercirujanorecords.jimdofree.com

The songs are ok, the playing is passable, and this is brutal death metal that we've all heard before. The production is tough to listen to. The guitars are mixed badly and they step all over everything else on the record, even when those things are recorded half decent. I'm not sure why you wouldn't attempt to fix this before releasing it. Overall, this is just competent brutal death metal we've all heard before, and with less annoying productions. Only track it down if you're a completist of the Argentinian scene or just want to hear a new band.

Gotthammer "Ancient Nature" (Review)

Gotthammer Ancient Nature

2024 Anti-Human Productions (CD / Cassette)

2024 WolfKult Religion (EP)

antihumanproductions.com

wolfkultreligion.com

Ferocious black death is what's on offer here, in the vein of the red-logo-on-black crowd like Blasphemy, Black Witchery, and Abysmal Lord, and it's almost as good. It's missing just a little something in the songs, and I think that comes with being quite a young band. As the EP went on, it did grow on me more and more, so I think they're on the right track.

I really don't know how the drummer's fucking arms don't fall off. He is relentlessly blasting, and it has to be hell to do live. It's just straight up violence. I'd like, honestly, and I think this is what I was missing, to hear a bit more variation in their song structures and a little less repetition, although the repetition is part of what makes this subgenre unique, I will admit. Maybe just back off the grind for a few moments - Marduk plays at high velocity as well, but they have enough variation to keep it even more interesting. The vocals were great, however - demonic, distorted nastiness!

This should be on your list if you want war metal, black/death or whatever we call it these days - to me it's all death metal and you should support it!

Crawl "Altar of Disgust" (Review)

Crawl Altar of Disgust

2024 Transcending Obscurity Records

tometal.com

From Sweden comes this group of miscreants, plying their metallic trade in the same fashion as the death gods of old! HM-2s get cranked up to chainsaw on this one, and since I'm a complete sucker for the "Swedish" sound, I'm all in. It helps that the album has a hefty serving of d-beat punk in it, amping up the energy level of the death metal on offer here.

Stylistically, think Grave, Dismember, Carnage, but especially Entombed on this one. Even the vocals remind me a little of LG Petrov's. Someone needs to carry on his legacy, so it might as well be Crawl. The punchy bass drum sound helps out the guitars, the solidness of them shining through the distortion of the guitars and roaring vocals. Each song has a heavy-ass thrash riff in it that begs you for movement, whether snapping your neck to the beat, or tossing your body into the crowd. 

This is a worthy record in an over-saturated specific death metal sound, and while some may argue we don't need another Swedish-style death metal band, I have to say this band is doing it well enough and memorably enough to stand with the legends. Time will tell if they're mentioned in the same breath as the elder gods of the scene, but I have a feeling there will at least be respect on their name.

Obscene "Agony & Wounds" (Review)

Obscene Agony & Wounds

2024 Nameless Grave Records (CD / LP)

2024 Desert Wastelands Productions (Cassette)

www.namelessgraverecords.com

www.desertwastelands.com

BADASS SONG TITLES: Breathe the Decay, Dressed in Corpses, Written in Blood and Covered in Flies, Oceans of Rot

BADASS TRACKS: Watch Me When I Kill, Breathe the Decay, Death's Denial, Rotting Behind the Madness, Dressed in Corpses

This record is an absolute death metal beast! I knew I was in for something good when a fantastic guitar harmony faded in to introduce the record, and was promptly destroyed by a blast of ferocious death. This is very European-sounding death metal, so I did a double checked where they band is from, and it turns out that they call Indiana home! 

Musically, they stand on their own without really calling to mind another specific band as an influence. It's hard to pin down where this death metal originates, besides with these fine gentlemen. The vocals do remind me just a little bit of Asphyx or Pentacle, but they have a bit more of a savage aspect to them, almost as if we took the singer from Blasphemy, made him use his higher ranges to bark out the words like he does, and set him loose singing Asphyx. It's hellish, aggressive, and warlike. This doesn't mean the vocals really sound like any of those individual singers, it's just what immediately came to mind when I heard the first vocal lines. The singer emphasizes style over diction, which is what led me to the Blasphemy comparison. The vocals are also often soaked in reverb, which only helped me draw the comparison.

Musically, the skill level is very high here. Guitar solos rise up quickly and disappear just as quick, but when they do extend their presence they are quite melodic, really adding atmosphere to the record overtop the pounding rhythm section, which performs flawlessly on the album. Memorable riffs and quite excellent songwriting with some verse-chorus-verse style songwriting is on offer, and the death metal world is better for it. Most of these songs are excellent, and they'll tear your head right off before offering it back to you kindly between tracks.

Do not hesitate to purchase this in any format if you see it for sale, or wish to seek it out. You will not be disappointed if you like death metal in the least (and if you don't, why the FUCK are you on this website!). This is another high water mark for 2024, and is one of the records that I'll be measuring 2025 against.

Cognitive "Abhorrence" (Review)

Cognitive "Abhorrence"

2024 Metal Blade Records (CD/LP)

www.metalblade.com

I don't generally like much deathcore material, but this is, as they say, the exception to the rule. I've known about Cognitive for a long time, well before their signing to Metal Blade records, since they toured incessantly and came to Ohio for a lot of shows, often playing with Fully Consumed, if I remember correctly. Their blend of technical death metal and deathcore was good then, and it's good now.

There are a few new tricks here, like the clean vocals on several tracks, which are very nicely performed and not at all the sing-song-y stuff that a lot of modern bands use. They're still metal as fuck. They moved out of some of their death metal influence, and moved into more of their hardcore influence, and that's ok. It works for them. That's not to say the death metal on offer here is diluted - nay, it is not. It's simply more understated than they were at the beginning, nut the death metal that is here is absolutely vicious, as are the hardcore riffs that they mix in. They bring serious heaviness in the riff department, and most songs, of course, have a breakdown, and they're generally extremely heavy and veer away from some of the "deathcore chug," although there's a tasteful amount of that here also.

It's easy to see where death metal fans and hardcore fans are able to get into them, as has been the case over the years. They hooked me with their fine songs very early on when I saw them live, and they've continued to refine and evolve their sound to perfection. I believe they've hit their apex here, and it will be hard to follow this record. All the songs are extremely memorable and diverse, yet staying in their death metal crossed with hardcore lane (lanes?). They've increased the speed over the years, and there's some blazing fast blast beats on this record. The production shines as well, and it's not overly loud, thankfully. Even the clean vocals are mixed right, avoiding the pitfall a lot of deathcore bands have when they push those over the top of the mix and make them sound out of place. Like Cattle Decapitation, they pay attention to how those vocals sound and it's mixed appropriately. Overall this is a damn fine job of a record, and I'll look forward to the next one for sure. I always pay attention when Cognitive puts an album out.

Amputate "Abysmal Ascent" (Review)

Amputate Abysmal Ascent

2024 Massacre Records (CD / LP)

www.massacre-records.com

Amputate's sound is an amalgamation of the Florida death metal greats, particularly Morbid Angel, but I also hear some Deicide, Cannibal Corpse, Obituary, and Malevolent Creation in their riffs and in their songwriting style. They definitely have a bit of a European feel to them as well, since they tend a bit more toward the melodic than those bands, but they would have fit right in in the 1990s in America.

Musically Amputate plays solid mid- to fast-paced death metal with amazing solos. The solos themselves made this record stand out. There aren't many death metal bands really focusing on stuff like that. The songs become a bit long, with most closing in on or exceeding 5 minutes, but they at least attempt to hold your interest for the whole record, which is also a bit long for my taste. Save a couple of those tracks and do a 10-inch record as a stopgap release or something. I think that would be the way I would do it.

The second half of the album is arguably the better half, starting with "Cavernous Temple of the Absurd," which stands well above the rest of the songs. The ample changes in riffs, tempos, and again the incredible solos make it stand out. "Hybrid Organism" stands out for the same reasons, and the record itself continues on this trajectory after these 2 songs. I was pleased to see an album that grows on me instead of leading with the best stuff and letting the other tracks be filler. This made me work a bit to get to the good stuff. And that's ok.

If, like me, you're after older-sounding death metal a lot of the time, when you want a break from the brutality that has a hold on the scene right now, this may be the band you want to track down. It's definitely easy on the ears, but it may not impress you right out of the gate. Give it some time to sink in.

Sijjeel "Affiliation of Horrid Containment" (Review)

Sijjeel Affiliation of Horrid Containment

2024 Comatose Music (CD)

www.comatosemusic.com

I was looking forward to digging further into this release. I bought it early on, but I wanted to make sure I reviewed it. Sijjeel play a particularly vicious form of technical brutal death metal and they don't let their chops run away with their songs, which is exactly what I look for in a band like this.

Even the "Intro" is music, a very jazzed-out dirge that sets the tone and acts like the calm before the storm. The songwriting is firmly in the Suffocation or Cryptopsy camp, with lots of changes, whirlwind riffs, and repetition with variation. There are sick as fuck slam riffs in some of the songs that don't insult the listener - they actually make the tracks heavier! They act as sort of a mitigating factor on all the rest of the musical insanity on the album. Overall, the rest of the riffs may not be as catchy as some of the ones on the new Malignancy, but they're close, and I think this record stands up to that test.

The vocals remind me a little of Gorgasm, being guttural growls that never give an inch of mercy, and never descend into stupidity. This is pure death metal, and these gentlemen know what that means. Everything is perfectly audible in the production, which is necessary with this kind of band. One thing I'm amazed by is the fact that the drums are programmed - I couldn't tell until a super-fast blast hit later in the record. Programming this level of drum performance should be a feat to be praised, when it's done at this level. I've never heard drums programmed like this at a technical level - I can only imagine the painstaking effort this had to take. There are rolls, blasts, little cymbal flourishes, everything a good drummer would want to add. It's amazing.

One effect that I loved on this record was that the bass, on some blast beats, follows the snare ferociously, hammering on the strings for every beat of the snare. This makes it sound intense, heavy, and urgent. Both  "Torment Upon Their Existence" and "Infallible" have this interplay featured front and center, and the songs immediately jumped out at me as special. In fact, Sijjeel's songs tend to build to crescendos, where everything all comes together in an intense way, whether it culminates in a tiny solo or a slam, or what have you. But they do it well.

I didn't expect this record to be as good as it is, and I'm fairly blown away by it. I expected brutal death metal just based on the label and word of mouth, but I didn't expect a masterclass in technical songwriting and musical ability. That was a bonus. I don't know why this band isn't more talked about, since they blow most other technical death out of the water completely. At least I can do my part and let you vomit receptacles know about it!