The Skeletal
The Plague Rituals
2011 Metal Inquisition Records
It had to happen. Just as Kam Lee partnered up with Rogga Johansson [Paganizer and a dozen other bands], now he's teamed up with Lasse Pyykkö of the semi-legendary Phlegethon and the more recent Hooded Menace. The Skeletal is pure death metal, and draws from early Obituary and Six Feet Under. Wait, don't run away yet because of the mention of SFU. While it didn't take long for that band to turn into complete shit, their debut full length and followup ep are both excellent slabs of death metal. Forsaking the doom and gloom of some of their other recent works in other projects, the members of The Skeletal go for a fast and heavy style with a strong rhythm base. Every track lurches along like an inexorable zombie. Try as you might to get away, you know that the inevitably, you will succumb. For those who think that vocal brutality comes from grunting like a pig or cupping the microphone in order to get a sound that's lower than low, you should take note. Kam is extremely understandable here (as he tends to be), but he throws in a very deranged style that I haven't heard from him before. The end result is far more disturbing, brutal and effective than anything even your above average brutal death metal band has ever conjured up. But that's ok. Fans of modern death metal just won't "get" this album, as they have never understood that simpler can be better. It's not how complex of a song you can create, it's how much feeling you can put into your music. The Skeletal have plenty of feeling. You'll understand that as they slowly dismember and consume you.
War Command
Warlords Supremacy
2010 Morbid Moon Records
Not surprisingly, Canada's War Command play thrashing war metal of death. "Warlords Supremacy" features a historical look back at battles and wars of the distant past starting with the Spartans, continuing to Attila the Hun, the vikings and then the conquests of Vlad Tepes. For whatever reason, they then make a huge leap to the 20th Century and focus on World War II. Maybe they'll revisit the past on future albums, because there's a huge gap between the days of sword and shield and modern warfare. The final song, "World War III," is the exception to the historical standpoint, as obviously we haven't had the third World War yet. Or at least it hasn't taken the same form as the other two, as the argument could be made that World War III is being fought now on many fronts, such as Libya, Syria, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt... and let's not forget terrorism and the world economy. Enough about world politics, let's talk about the music. War Command have a sound that comes in somewhere between Blasphemy, Incantation and a whole lot of the Australian underground. For the most part, War Command are a tank. Practically unstoppable, rolling over everything and anything in its path, crushing all of it and grinding whatever's left into dust.
Witchgrave
The Devil's Night
2011 Metal Inquisition Records
Mark down this ep by Sweden's Witchgrave as another release that should have only been on vinyl. Vintage NWOBHM sounds with an occult focus were just never meant for any digital format. I've played the four songs present on this CD once, and now I'm listening to it on my iPod. Doing so makes me feel unclean, and it just feels wrong. While Venom are a good comparison to make and a more than decent reference point, Witchgrave have a lot in common with many of the "unsung" bands from the NWOBHM. Production-wise, this is like Venom. Vocals are like those of Cronos of Venom. But musically, there's a lot more going on here. Think of a more raw sounding version of Blitzkrieg, Holocaust and Tygers of Pan Tang. One could almost be fooled into believing this was an actual lost gem of the NWOBHM. Almost, but not quite. As it is, the four tracks here are done all too soon, and this is one release where you'll be hitting the "play" button over and over again. With luck, that might be enough to hold you over until their debut full-length is out.
Omision
In the Shadow of the Cross
2011 Chaos Records
"The Sound of Perserverance." If Chuck Schuldiner hadn't used that title for the final Death album, then it would have been perfect for Omision's debut album. Vocalist Heriberto Pérez is the poster-child for perserverance. Omision was formed way back in 1992, saw a lot of lineup changes, got back together many years later, saw more lineup changes, and some demo releases. All of which has now culminated in this album, "In the Shadow of the Cross." That's a lot of hard work, and there's not many who would have stuck with it for all this time. Most of the tracks here are brand new, with only "Your God" and "Beyond the Burning Gates" from the "Utopia of Chaos" demo, and "Seeking the Holy Throne" from the "Pileup in the Morgue" demo being the only songs heard previously. Heriberto wrote everything on this album, with the rest of the band helping with some of the arrangements and little else. He sure seems to know what he's doing too, as he did in fact write songs and not "collections of riffs." Oddly enough, even though I know for a fact that he worships at the altar of Testament, very little if any of their influence can be heard on this album. Vocally, Heriberto is somewhere between Kam Lee and Glen Benton's deeper vocals. None of that high screaming crapola, and not your typical death metal vocals that you hear these days. He's very understandable like most of the old guard were. Bands that have influenced the music here? Well, "Assault in the Vatican" starts off with a riff you'd swear that Terrorizer came up with, and "Your God" is very Monstrosity influenced. I hear a lot of their first album in that track, especially the classic "Ceremonial Void." Guitars here are handled by Roberto Lizárraga, also of Infinitum Obscure. Very different style for him here, but he still put his heart and soul into each note played, especially in the solos. Joel Márquez, formerly of Sadistic Intent and Infinitum Obscure assaults the drums with a lot of passion, moreso than any of these technical drummer types. Hopefully this is not the last we hear of Mexico's Omision, not to be confused with Spain's Omission.
Vanhelgd
Church of Death
2011 Nuclear War Now!
Vanhelgd's debut, "Cult of Lazarus" completely blew me away on its release, and I've been waiting for the follow up with great anticipation ever since. Things are a little different this time around though. "Church of Death" has a much thinner production, but that's really the only negative point. They're still old school Swedish as fuck. The band lineup is still intact, with both Jimmy Johansson and Mattias Frisk handling guitars and vocals. Never been much of a fan of the "tradeoff" style, but it does seem to work here. One of those two guys also does his best to sound like Martin van Drunen. To his credit, he comes somewhat close. As far as the songs go, Vanhelgd do move away from the typical Entombed/Dismember sound here, and even add in some keyboards to give a few songs that extra "creepy factor." But we're not talking about Nocturnus here, so they're used very sparingly. I wouldn't say that they surpassed the debut, but I wouldn't say that they didn't surpass it either. No sophomore slump here. Vanhelgd also maintain a bit more of a "classy" sound than some of their contemporaries. "Church of Death" is nowhere near as filthy sounding as the recent released by Intestinal or Repuked. That's ok with me. I like all of those bands, but sometimes it's better to play ugly and not dirty, as is the case here. Big thumbs up from me to the Vanhelgd guys. Keep it up!
Assaulter
Boundless!
2011 Metal Blade Records
Assaulter's debut album, "Salvation Like Destruction" had a really weird production on it that unfortunately took away too much from the music. It was like they forgot the bottom end on the songs while recording. Fortunately, they've fixed quite a bit of that here on "Boundless!" (although the bass could still be a little higher in the mix). This album really shows off just how great of a band they really are. Yes, they're another Australian group mixing thrash, black and death metal together in a bubbling cauldron of metallic chaos. Truth be told, I think I like this album more than the last one from Destroyer 666. Given just how great of a band D666 are (pretty much the standard that all other Aussie bands in this genre are compared to), that's a hell of a compliment. Every track has a very straightforward, driving sound, and the guitar solos (as cliched as it may sound) will melt your face off, or at the very least shred your car doors.
Broken Gravestones
Let Sleeping Corpses Lie
2011 Sevared Records / Comatose Music
If more people in horror films followed the advice of the title of this ep, they'd all live a lot longer. But no... someone always has to read the magic phrase, play the album backwards, or take the cursed treasure. Hopefully this will not just be a one-off recording by Kam Lee and Noel Kemper of Altar of Giallo (plus a couple of other guys of course). The three songs here are just too good. The music is more or less like maybe Bolt Thrower covering the "Morbid Tales" album. The drums are far more energetic than old Celtic Frost material, and the songs are all heavier than hell. Kam's vocals are in a slightly different style than you might be used to. If you're expecting all the wipeouts like he did in Massacre, forget it. Here, he's a lot more straightforward, with deep vocals that you can mostly understand. Kam still does it as only he can. As a bonus, the two tracks from the demo are here. Kam wasn't on those two songs, so it's very interesting to compare those versions of "The Rising Dead" and "Zombies Don't Run" to these versions on the demo. Noel Kemper did vocals on the demo, and his style is very different from Kam's. Speaking of "Zombies Don't Run," that track is a big slap in the face to whoever decided that the infected humans in 28 Days Later were zombies. Moron. Just ask Fulci. Just ask Argento. Zombies don't run! But you should. Head over to whatever online distro you frequent that has this for sale.
The Skeletal
