Grethor – Cloaked In Decay

“Cloaked In Decay” marks EP number 2 for Grethor. This American black/death metal group plays really twisted music. It’s almost misanthropic; this EP truly sounds like the soundtrack for anyone who hates anything and everything. This is most obvious from the vocals, which hack, wheeze, and scream their way through the EP. Despite offering a variety of different vocal styles, all of them sound bizarre. Of course, this is a perfect fit for the music, which presents unique-sounding sections of excessive dissonance. The guitars are often playing melodies and riffs that are technically unpleasing (though this is the intended effect). It seems that as these guitar lines stray further and further from any sort of standard music theory, the rest of the band also ramps up the intensity, with the drums usually finding a way to blast at inhuman speeds.

The band does spend some time playing more straightforward black/death metal. There’s no shortage of brutal, downtuned riffs on “Cloaked in Decay”. Many of these riffs tend to be consistent 16^th note patterns that flow well with the continuous thunder of double bass. As these sections are not the primary focus relative to the dissonant sections, it is understandable why the production is not particularly clean. This EP is on the noisy side of things, with no one instrument really winning the battle. Certain aspects of the drums are quite a bit louder than others (noticeably the ride cymbal), but for the most part, the instruments are jumbled together in a way that will take multiple listens to truly decipher. Nevertheless, this approach to production seems congruent with the band’s musical direction, and you can’t really fault them for it.

Admittedly, I’ve never found much appeal in this style of music. Grethor does execute it well, but it feels like once you’ve heard one album like this, you’ve heard a lot of them. Perhaps that changes with extensive listening of this style, but sometimes the idea of making music that breaks all of the rules is better than the actual result of it. Again, this is no comment against Grethor’s musical quality, as “Cloaked In Decay” accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do.

Be sure to check out and like Grethor on Facebook!

Highlights

All of it

Final Rating

3.5/5 or 70%. 

Written by Scott 

Cambion – Unfold Chaos Supreme

With members in both the US and Germany, Cambion is an international death metal group built upon hatred and brutality. Their 2015 release, “Unfold Chaos Supreme”, is exactly as the title describes: a high-quality offering of pure anarchy. One thing about this release is for sure: it is not for the faint of heart. At the opening of “Bend The Knee (To Molech)”, the band starts blasting away, and rarely lets up (with a slight exception at the end of "Perfected Aggressor"). This album sounds like a constant jackhammer, with eerie, twisted tremolo-picked riffs accompanying the relentless beating of the snare drum (I would seriously question if a snare drum could even survive one of their songs without breaking). These elements combine to form something that is truly decrepit and evil, rather than just brutal. Cambion’s vocalist is likewise a great complement to this effort, as his vocals blur the line between growls and shrieks, and ultimately just sound evil. Normally, I would take issue with the fact that they’ve clearly put his vocals low in the mix, but that just enhances the atmosphere in this case. It makes his screams sound like he’s trapped and desperately trying to escape, and it helps keep the riffs in focus even while he is growling.

Another aspect of “Unfold Chaos Supreme” that is particularly enjoyable is the guitar solos. If they made any sort of melodic sense, it just wouldn’t work, which is why the Kreator (“Pleasure to Kill”-era) and Slayer-styled solos are perfect. A great comparison would be to Slayer’s “Altar of Sacrifice”, where solos come in seemingly at random and exist to create an even more hellacious environment. As you may have guessed, this complete mayhem means that there is little room for anything you can really cling onto about specific songs. But “Unfold Chaos Supreme” is one of those instances where it just doesn’t matter. Cambion has set out to assault your eardrums and they’ve succeeded. If you come to this style of metal for songwriting, you’re in the wrong place. The only slight exception to this is the opening of “Perfected Aggressor”, where the riff reminds me of a Cannibal Corpse riff, but even that song quickly devolves into a fury of incomprehensible savagery. Overall, if you need a record that oozes hatred, there is no better choice than “Unfold Chaos Supreme”.

Be sure to check out and like Cambion on Facebook!

Highlights

All of it

Final Rating

4.2/5 or 84%. 

Written by Scott 

Crÿptic Shift – Beyond The Celestial

“Beyond The Celestial” is the newest demo from UK extreme metal band Crÿptic Shift. Though it offers just two tracks, there is plenty of material here to enjoy. In fact, this demo is features an absurd number of riffs, each and every one of which will induce immediate neck trauma. The band doesn’t play at full speed for the entirety of the demo, but they do serve up some pretty absurd tempos. Their riffing style is abstract, and unlike anything I’ve ever heard. “Voyage Through Dimensions” in particular has a riff that starts out like an extreme thrashy riff and then ends with a technical, modern-day Cannibal Corpse-styled riff. If that description made little to no sense, it really is a perfect description then; at times, this demo gets downright weird. The aforementioned track also features plenty of riffs that are harmonized, and at times, some of these sections sound like the guitars are competing against each other, rather than working together.

Aside from the weirdness of this band, Crÿptic Shift does provide more normal metal elements. The vocals are a death/black hybrid-sounding rasp, with more than enough aggression to suit the music. The drumming is stellar, coming up with some unique patterns (see the intro of “Voyage Through Dimensions” for the best example). The bass playing is difficult to hear (except for when neither guitar is playing anything on the low end), but that is more of a function of the production, which admittedly is not the best. This album is noisy, and it will take a few listens to really decipher what is happening. In that respect, it actually reminds me of early Voivod, which might also be an apt comparison for the general sound of this band. They use interesting chords and dissonant sounds to take familiar metal tropes and put their own spin on them. While more Crÿptic Shift is extreme than Voivod, they share that same twisted vision.

Be sure to check out and like Crÿptic Shift on Facebook!

Highlight

"Voyage Through Dimensions"

Final Rating

3.9/5 or 78%. 

Written by Scott 

Suffer The Pain – Midnight Sacrifice

“Midnight Sacrifice” is the first full-length from Swedish band Suffer The Pain. At less than 30 minutes, this 14 track ripper is a short, but sweet offering of crusty, punky death metal. The songs on this record tend to be largely in the same vein: fast-paced, driven by solid buzzsaw riffs (check out the tremolo-picked riff in the title track for the best example, though quite a few tracks have a similar-styled riff), and drums that worship at the altar of punk. This sound means that not too many of the tracks stand out from one another, but they all offer lots of aggression and quality riffs. The vocals tend to be standard growls. They’re not excessively guttural, which means that you can pick out words here and there, and would likely be able to follow along easily with the lyric sheet. Though the vocals and guitars are quite competent, the highlight on this album is the drumming. They're incredibly active, both with fills and standard beats. They help to keep the record going at full force for its entire playtime.

One potential area of improvement for Suffer The Pain is the production. With this style of release, it is understandable that the production isn’t exactly crisp or clear sounding; however, because the guitars are so distorted and the album sounds so quiet, it actually doesn’t make things particularly heavy. What the band plays is heavy, but it just doesn’t sound as heavy as it could, especially when compared to the giants of Swedish death metal like Entombed or Unleashed. Another minor complaint is in the lyrics on “Nightmare”. The band starts doing some counting, which, to be honest, sounds kind of lame. This music is supposed to be brutal, but it ends up sounding like a kid’s version of a death metal song.

In any case, these two issues are definitely not problematic enough to ruin the album. In fact, “Midnight Sacrifice” is a pretty solid ball of energy, and will likely appeal to anyone who wants their death metal to start crossing over to punk. Though the band is firmly rooted in metal, the outside influences on this record are clear, and add something unique to the band’s sound.

Be sure to check out and like Suffer the Pain on Facebook!

Highlight

"Midnight Sacrifice"

Final Rating

3.5/5 or 70%. 

Written by Scott 

Gruesome – Savage Land

Somewhere along the way, it feels like death metal took a wrong turn. As the genre slowly stripped away elements of thrash, it became a very different beast from what it once was. Of course, this is part of what makes it unique, but it feels like there aren’t many modern bands that still carry this old-school spirit. For this reason, Gruesome is the most intriguing death metal band around at the moment. Their focus is on worshipping Death’s earlier work, and in particular, “Scream Bloody Gore” and “Leprosy”. Given how instrumental Death was to death metal, it’s amazing that there haven’t been more bands that are just blatant worship. Maybe it’s because nobody could imitate Chuck Schuldiner’s disgusting vocals, or because his riffs were difficult to recreate, but Gruesome is truly the first of their kind to sound this authentic. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think this was the direct successor to “Leprosy”.

Every element of “Savage Land” is directly traceable to the early Death records. Whether it is those classic tremolo-picked patterns, the eerie mid-paced melodic riffs, or even Matt Harvey’s uncanny ability to sound like Schuldiner, this album is the ultimate tribute to Death. What makes Gruesome worthwhile though, is the fact that this is some of the highest quality death metal the world has seen in recent times. Of course, nobody will ever top Death, but Gruesome puts in an unbelievable effort. At times, they might get a bit too close to the originals for their own good (the intro to “Trapped In Hell” was definitely influenced by “Zombie Ritual”, and one of the early riffs in “Gruesome” has a clear counterpart on the “Leprosy” record). On the other hand, there were really only two Death albums that sounded like this, so more are always welcome.

As mentioned above, Harvey is a dead-ringer for Schuldiner, but what is equally amazing is the fact that he has nailed the vocal patterns. Every single word spewed forth was carefully crafted based on the way Chuck would deliver lyrics. Even the lyrics are absurdly catchy: “pleasure turns to be pain; you will not return again”. It really brings back sections like “rotting while they breathe, death comes slow” that are insanely fun to growl along to. As you might imagine, "Savage Land" is littered with sections like this.

If there’s one area where Gruesome didn’t nail Death’s sound 100%, it would be the guitar solos. This is me being excessively picky though, because they came close. For one thing, the Rick Rozz worship is in full effect with excessive tremolo bar abuse happening on many tracks (see the second solo in “Savage Land” for a great example). The more contentious issue is emulating Chuck’s solos. Sometimes, the sound is spot on, particularly as Gruesome often goes into slower sections that allow the solos plenty of space to breathe (not unlike Death would do). There are some solos, however, where it sounds like they couldn’t quite get Chuck’s style spot on. Again, this is beyond an excessive nitpick, and really won’t effect anyone’s enjoyment of the album. 

Though this album is largely focused on the first two Death albums, it does bring in elements from “Spiritual Healing”. “Demonized”, for example, features a lick that sounds like it involves some tapping, as does the band's title track (not unlike “Spiritual Healing” itself). More importantly, however, Gruesome’s drummer has channeled the spirit of Bill Andrews. This may be a disappointment to some, as Andrews often takes a lot of heat for his performances on “Leprosy” and “Spiritual Healing”, but his drum tone on the latter is the heaviest sound in existence. The criticism against him comes more because he wasn’t as busy with his fills as later Death drummers would be, but that sound just wouldn’t work for the records he played on. For this reason, the drumming on “Savage Land” is perfect, as it emulates that tight, brutal, yet more simplistic style of drumming. There are still a lot of fills, but they don’t exist simply to be complex. Instead, they complement either the weird riffs or the speedy sections. The only slight exception of this is the opening to “Gangrene”, which feels like a tribute to “Flattening of Emotions” with the way the drums roll in.

It’s hard to really criticize anything about “Savage Land”. Though the album lacks originality, that is the entire point of it. There simply aren’t any bands around that have studied and replicated Death’s music to this level of authenticity. Whether or not this is a one-off release to celebrate Death’s early career, it has joined the ranks of my favourite old-school death metal records (even if it came 25 years later) and will be in regular rotation right alongside “Leprosy”. This album isn’t just the death metal record of the year, it’s the death metal record of the decade.

Be sure to check out and like Gruesome on Facebook!

Highlights

"Savage Land"

"Trapped In Hell"

"Closed Casket"

"Gruesome"

Final Rating

4.75/5 or 95%. 

Written by Scott