Posted by longhairedpoet on Monday, December 17, 2018 at 11:43 PM (PST)
British death metallers Acrania returned last month with Tyrannical Hierarchy, Vol. 1, the band’s first release since 2014’s Totalitarian Dystopia. The band had this to say about the release of their EP and what they’ve been up to the past few years:
“Back in 2015 we were burnt out from touring, set backs & constant member changes so we decided to call it quits. We had no intention of releasing new music at the time and despite remaining close friends, we each quickly moved on to new projects. After a couple of years, whilst hanging out we naturally started to finish off these unfinished tracks… Working to prefect them whilst drawing on the experience each of us had gained through working on our new projects. Through doing this, we inevitably re-ignited the passion we had when we first started the band, ultimately leading to the completion and release of this EP.”
I may be almost a month late, but once I realized this album was out, I knew I had to write about it. It goes hard as fuck.
Check out my full review of Tyrannical Hierarchy, Vol. 1here.
More On:Death Metal, Album Review Warning: Creating default object from empty value in /home/metal/public_html/wp-content/plugins/dying-scene/admin/includes/functions.php on line 201
, ,
Posted by longhairedpoet on Wednesday, December 12, 2018 at 12:48 PM (PST)
Baltimore death metallers Misery Index have released the music video for their newest song “New Salem.”
The song precedes the band’s upcoming album Rituals of Power due out on March 8 via Season of Mist.
“New Salem” seems to echo an idea of there being “very bad people” on both sides: “In a pacified endemic state, it’s another echo-chamber slave // Addicted to extremes of ideologies // Where left and right amalgamate and hang us from their tallest trees.”
If the people are in a “pacified endemic state,” then how is it also that they are hanging people from “their tallest trees”?
Is “New Salem” an anthem for a new violent centrist?
The band says of the track:
“‘New Salem’ sums up perfectly the lyrical vitriol and musical dynamics featured across Rituals Of Power. We wanted to introduce the album, not just with a straight-ahead ripping tune, but with a smack to the face; it’s a wakeup call for any concerned citizen and a code red for civilization. Ugly times call for stark and uncomfortable statements, and ‘New Salem’ castigates the faults and ineptitudes of our broken media system and the Crucible-esque, witch-hunt culture it fuels.”
Of Rituals of Power the band says:
“Rituals Of Power is a disavowal and warning against the consequences of our so-called ‘post-truth’ age. Each of the nine songs revolves loosely around this theme, yet each track also stands very much on its own. As an album however, they are all brought to life as one ‘reanimated’ monster; it’s roughly thirty-five minutes of unhinged, yet cohesive, riff-driven aural ballistics. We were pissed off and on fire during both the writing and recording, and we think it shows in spades. We set out to write the best album we could, based on what we would want to hear first as fans of this music, and we could not be happier.”
Posted by longhairedpoet on Wednesday, December 12, 2018 at 11:50 AM (PST)
It’s been two decades since Hate Eternal came barreling out of Florida’s gulf coast. Through six previous studio albums and a number of line-up changes throughout the years, Hate Eternal has kept its vision in tact via frontman Erik Rutan. Through it all, Hate Eternal is as brutal as ever. Upon Desolate Sands is a testament to the commitment of a hate, eternal.
Check out my full review of Upon Desolate Sandshere.
More On:Death Metal, Album Review Warning: Creating default object from empty value in /home/metal/public_html/wp-content/plugins/dying-scene/admin/includes/functions.php on line 201
, , Season of Mist
Posted by Morgan Ywain Evans on Tuesday, December 11, 2018 at 12:40 PM (PST)
Good thing Patrick O’Brien wasn’t carrying skittles like Trayvon or he might have been in danger of being shot. Look, I love Alex – one of the absolute chilliest dudes in metal, and I feel very very bad for the rest of the Cannibal Corpse band right now. Right when they should be celebrating joining Slayer’s farewell tour some complete bullshit happens. I don’t know if it was a mental break or covering up some illegal shit in his burning home or Patrick was drunk or what, but initial reports say O’Brien’s house was burning down while meanwhile he was assaulting some lady and then hiding in a yard before charging cops with a knife. Florida does not look kindly on any of this but I can’t help but think of the utter hypocrisy of how this would have played out if O’Brien was black. I never want to hear another Trump bootlicking right wing metal edgelord say white privilege doesn’t exist ever again. Moronic.
I am wondering if dude had some illegal weapons in his house and bugged out and got mega paranoid and tried to hide nearby? Seems like a full blown panic attack and certainly doesn’t make a lick of sense.
Anyway, Cannibal are still obviously one of the best death metal bands of all time and are genre kings. What the fuck does anyone need to be doing wild ass antics like this for? Hopefully Patrick gets some help mentally because he has certainly ruined his life and is lucky to still be breathing. Damn shame. But why do cops not use tasers more often when someone is of a darker hue?
Posted by longhairedpoet on Sunday, December 9, 2018 at 3:24 PM (PST)
I wrote a few days ago about Crippled Black Phoenix’s Great Escape, as an album I’d previously missed this year. Another album I missed this year was Beyond Creation‘s Algorythm. This slab of technical death metal is just what the doctor ordered, as I’ve spent the last few days in cloudy, rainy hell. Beyond Creation, who have been on the Decibel Magazine Tour and the Summer Slaughter Tour and are signed to Season of Mist Records, are further grounding themselves into the scene with this, their third studio album.
More On:Death Metal, Album Review Warning: Creating default object from empty value in /home/metal/public_html/wp-content/plugins/dying-scene/admin/includes/functions.php on line 201
, , Season of Mist
Posted by Morgan Ywain Evans on Thursday, November 29, 2018 at 3:08 PM (PST)
ERIK RAYMOND LINDMARK 1972-2018 It is with great sadness that we must announce that our CEO & Founder, Erik Lindmark, passed away today after battling with Sclerosis. The indelible mark he has left on the Death Metal genre is monumental, both as a business man and as a musician. pic.twitter.com/Mz1evenKfn
We just learned of the passing of Unique Leader founder Erik Lindmark. He took a chance on Fallujah when we were still in school working on what would become The Harvest Wombs. We, and the west coast Death metal… https://t.co/xiOdEGu3Xg
Posted by Morgan Ywain Evans on Tuesday, November 20, 2018 at 2:33 PM (PST)
Hello readers and rioters. Today is Trans Day of Remembrance, honoring those who were killed due to transphobia. I am contemplative and worked hard today but now am resting and wrapping up my year end list. We have several coming over the next few days from all enby or binary trans writers which happens to be the bulk of staff and also (guess what?!) is normal! Yep, there are all kinds of people in the world. Deal with it.
Anyway, I like to get the lists going around the week of Black Friday so that (ugly yoke of capitalism pandering aside) you or your friends might actually buy something on here for yourself or -gasp- as a gift to others. And yes, naysayers, most writers in music media have heard a slew of Haulix promos months in advance and besides last minute album drops during weeks when most press are already on break in December, rest assured we pretty much might know what we liked already. This year it was HARD to condense because I liked so many albums and some really, really good ones did not make it. I trimmed this in half from thirty, blah blah blah. I am pleased however with the variety of styles I ended up with which reflects a semi-decent range of the underground though also is somewhat slanted towards my tastes, bigly. I really believe in these bands, though.
I had an intense year. Was part of making an awesome psych folk/indie album with my partner and I am really proud of her and it. Also finished a collab record due out next year with Gridfailure and my solo project Walking Bombs that features some nuts guests like Mike Score (All Out War), Brett Netson (Caustic Resin) and many more amazing people TBA in 2019 (stay tuned). I stopped HRT after a year and am living more non binary than a fully binary transition. Losing my parents house and some other mental health factors led me to decide to be super mindful of my moods right now and I have been mostly successful and am feeling more level than I have in half a decade, thank God. I might in the future take estradiol again but I also lost my father only a few years ago and it weighs on me so I also stopped electrolysis because the resemblance of our faces is one of the last tangible things I have of him. It’s complicated, I don’t know. Love you all though.
But through all that and some other challenges music remained a wonderful blanket and refuge or a brittle, cathartic ice water bath both invigorating and frighteningly emotional as we live under fucking Trump. Let’s NOT ever have as stupid a President again, Ok? This is toxic on a world level.
Anyhow, here are my favorite top 15 of 2018 for Metal Riot. Support the arts and your friends and say no to the nasties out there. – Morgan Y. Evans
From tragedy comes one of the most elegant and inspiring, beautiful albums you’ll ever hear. Cold and warm completely blur into one emotional high and low and high and low and we’re dancing on glass. Treasure your moments and create fearlessly the art and world you want to live within. Crucial.
Posted by Morgan Ywain Evans on Wednesday, November 14, 2018 at 9:34 AM (PST)
We are looking forward to supporting Morbid Angel this March on the 2019 @dbmagazine Tour! @Immolation will be on the tour from March 8th through March 14th in place of @CorpseOfficial !
Posted by Morgan Ywain Evans on Wednesday, October 24, 2018 at 2:02 PM (PST)
By the time the thunderous intro to “Shackled To The Burning Earth” from Denver band Glacial Tomb‘s outrageously good self titled debut (Gilead Media) hammers home with a bigger scowl than Kirk Windstein stubbing his toe, listeners are coming into the home stretch feeling exceptionally rewarded. It is so cool that a handful of bands this year (Un and Forn come right to mind on the ‘extreme’ circuit of underground metal) have managed not only to create great works but to shatter limitations so well that you are too busy experiencing their records as powerful works of art and energy to notice they upended some genre lines. For Glacial Tomb, doom flirting sludge and Gorguts loving death blur into one perfect storm with clouds of melodic guitar cutting through these intense moods like pain-charged lightning gathering around a dark mind. This is an outstanding fucking record I already hold in very high esteem. It should be on everyone’s short list for must purchase in 2018.
Posted by Morgan Ywain Evans on Tuesday, October 23, 2018 at 2:45 PM (PST)
Swedish melodic, brutal death metal tyrants DEMONICAL, premiere an old-school, VHS style music video for the track “Sung To Possess”, taken from the band’s latest album “Chaos Manifesto”, out now on Agonia Records. Watch the video and catch the band live on tour with Lik this November. “Sung To Possess” music video is available on YouTube:
DEMONICAL commented: “We are very much looking forward to November and our return to mainland Europe under the “Carnage Manifesto” banner. As we will be joined by our Swedish brothers in LIK and OF FIRE this tour-package will be something special, a total slap of Stockholm-style old-school death metal and a wet dream for every worshipper of the buzzsaw HM-2 sound! Death metal darkness prevails… and then some!”.
DEMONICAL + LIK + OF FIRE – Carnage Manifesto tour 2018
06.11 PL Poznan, Klub U Bazyla
07.11 CZ Praha, Modra Vopice
08.11 DE Mannheim, MS Connexion Complex
09.11 DE Bitterfeld, Festung
10.11 DE Hamburg, Bambi Galore
11.11 DE Osnabrück, Bastard Club
Posted by Morgan Ywain Evans on Friday, October 19, 2018 at 1:30 PM (PST)
CANNABIS CORPSE have announced a December tour. The band are still supporting the monstrous green death machine Left Hand Pass. The tour kicks off on December 8 in West Virginia, and continues throughout the month. This band rules so hard.
CANNABIS CORPSE have released a special video announcing the tour, which can be found below:
Posted by Morgan Ywain Evans on Thursday, September 27, 2018 at 9:10 AM (PST)
Rising photo by Naya Buch
Epic metal quintetRISING recently announced its fourth album, Sword And Scythe, for release on October 26th via Indisciplinarian. Today, the band releases a brand-new music video for the album’s first single, Salted Earth, created by the band’s visual mastermind, vocalist Morten Grønnegaard.
“Salted Earth” features guest musicians Anders Hjort Straarup on trombone and renowned Danish rock musician Tim Christensen (Dizzy Mizz Lizzy, Tim Christensen) overseeing the grandiose mellotron parts, and backup vocals from Simon Stenbæk of labelmates Piss Vortex. “Salted Earth” will see its single release on digital platforms tomorrow Friday September 28th.
“Salted Earth” comes off the forthcoming RISING record Sword And Scythe – a concept album which examines the progression and recession of mankind throughout the movements of history. As the sword and the scythe can be tools for fighting evil oppression and feeding hungry mouths, they are equal symbols of destruction and the greedy exploitation of our planet’s resources. Since the dawn of man, the strive for power, wealth and growth has pushed many overambitious civilizations over the brink into the endless oblivion of forgotten history.
RISING vocalist Morten Grønnegård comments on the song, “The main riff for what became ‘Salted Earth’ was the first thing we wrote for the new album. We wanted to write a concept album as a poetic comment to the miserable state of affairs, and this song really sets the tone for the whole album. Conceptually, ‘Salted Earth’ is about the end of the world. To salt the earth is the ancient custom of purifying or consecrating a destroyed city with salt and cursing anyone who dare to rebuild it. It is he cleansing of the old, making space for something new, once the salt has decayed. With our present technology at hand, the question is, if there will be anything to rebuilt for us, once we’re done tearing down.”
Zardonichave released a video for “Revelation.” I can personally hang with the over the top fun Deathstroke the Terminator meets Venezuelan Nu metal dub thrash vibes. From the press release:
Internationally renown Electronic Music Producer ZARDONIC has released the official music video for “Revelation,” the third reveal from his newest LP, Become, out 9/28/2018 on Entertainment One. The Venezuelan born producer once again showcases his unique mastery of bass heavy electronic production infused with heavy rock and metal, and brings the experience to life with a darkly aggressive music video for “Revelation”.
“Revelation” is a personal statement inspired by the people who took stances both in favor and against Zardonic, both as myself and as my music project. It’s a celebration of the best revenge anyone can have against backstabbers, bad-mouthers, copycats and hypocrites: your own success. – ZARDONIC
Sinsaenum (Dragonforce, Ex-Slipknot) have released a video for a cover of the Melvins classic “Hooch” from Houdini. Much like the recent Burn The Priest cover of “Honey Bucket” from the same Melvins-era, the band modernize and do it in their style but it still doesn’t hold a candle to the unfuckwithable nature of the original. Which is not to say it or the Burn The Priest covers are bad just that you can’t improve on grunge perfection. I would have liked to hear something faster like the mighty “Buck Owens” from Stag with Joey’s drumming, maybe (though that song has an insanely hard to replicate bad ass Mark D. bass line). Still, it is awesome to see heavy bands doing tributes to the greatest mofos and I am sure it would be fun to headbang along with live amidst the group’s raging originals. The guitar squeals are cool and the deathier vocals are cool enough, I guess. Mostly into the guitars. Drumming does not touch Dale Crover original in terms of how hard the hitting is but admirable attempt all around.
Posted by Morgan Ywain Evans on Saturday, September 15, 2018 at 2:55 PM (PST)
Swedish death metal act DEMONICAL have teamed up with their countrymen Lik (Stockholm-based death metal) for a tour of Europe including Poland, Germany and Czech Republic this November. The band will hit the road in support of their fifth studio album “Chaos Manifesto”, released in March on Agonia Records. The opening act will be Of Fire, a death ‘n’ roll performer also from Sweden.
The new album from the band deserves more attention. So much good stuff has come out this year, but this is not one to miss. I am particularly fond of “Towards Greater Gods”, a full bore upper mid tempo thrill ride of all the things that make this band great.
DEMONICAL commented: “We are very much looking forward to November and our return to mainland Europe under the “Carnage Manifesto” banner. As we will be joined by our Swedish brothers in LIK and OF FIRE this tour-package will be something special, a total slap of Stockholm-style old-school death metal and a wet dream for every worshipper of the buzzsaw HM-2 sound! Death metal darkness prevails… and then some!”.
DEMONICAL + LIK + OF FIRE – Carnage Manifesto tour 2018
06.11 PL Poznan, Klub U Bazyla
07.11 CZ Praha, Modra Vopice
08.11 DE Mannheim, MS Connexion Complex
09.11 DE Bitterfeld, Festung
10.11 DE Hamburg, Bambi Galore
11.11 DE Osnabrück, Bastard Club
Posted by Morgan Ywain Evans on Thursday, September 13, 2018 at 3:57 PM (PST)
I am firmly in the REVOCATION have never musically let me down camp. I love every one of their albums and think they consistently knock it way out of the park. Now the band are headlining one of the pound for pound best tour packages of the Fall. As I sit here overworked/with my own frustrations, under-valued as a human being by society and with an ulcer likely widening into a gaping black hole as we speak, it gives me dark joy to know that death metal is wreaking unstoppable chaos across the face of the USA thanks to this band’s inability to be put back in the genie bottle. Support good bands (in any genre) that are making it work. It is hard to make it out there and while I may feel like a frustrated artist, it is fucking awesome that some brilliant bands are doing their own thing and managing to carry the torch for not the most popular of rock genres (though it perhaps ought to be).
Next week, REVOCATION will kick off their long-awaited North American headlining tour. The trek will begin September 17th and run through October 20th. Support will be provided by Exhumed, Rivers Of Nihil, and Yautja. See all confirmed dates below.
Posted by Morgan Ywain Evans on Sunday, September 9, 2018 at 3:12 PM (PST)
Tech death tyrants Arsishave thankfully returned this year with Visitant, a much anticipated new release out in Nov. from the consistently dope labels Agonia Records and Nuclear Blast. The new video for ‘Tricking The Gods’ has some Satan invades star trek borderline moments, but is that a bad thing? Hell no.
Love the lead tones (is that a George Lynch tiger spirit infused guitar or what?) and psycho-charged arrangement in this tune, powered by some serious chops and guttural evil from James Malone. Expect this record should make quite a big red splash. This band always seemed more sincere about their craft than some others, so I am looking forward to this. My punk friends Nightmares For A Week also have an album out this late 2018 which , like Arsis, marks 5 years between releases and y’know, sometimes it really is worth the wait for career milestone material. Kudos to all.
“We had a pretty strong touring cycle for the last album, Unwelcome,” says Malone. “Then, I got involved in Necromancing the Stone. It wasn’t taking up too much time since I wasn’t the main songwriter. It was more of a fun outlet for me, a chance for me to get on stage and play without having to do both guitar and vocals. I didn’t expect Necromancing the Stone to get signed and to go on tour, but all of that ended up happening. That took time obviously, but then Brandon [Ellis] ended up joining The Black Dahlia Murder. It took me awhile to get my wits about me to the point where I wanted to concentrate on a new Arsis record. The time it took to regroup was very much needed.”
The best thing I have heard yet in 2019 is "ICE watch", a completely rugged face buster from Arkansas hardcore band Terminal Nation which premiered at No Echo HERE. It will give you the insane over the top feels of a lot of heavy stuff without wondering if the band members have become weird conservative farts or are suddenly gonna cape for YAITW. The song even manages to out mosh the band's recent tune "Pulse Of The Dead" from Absolute Control.
Good news is, TN have a split out with the homies in Neckbeard Deathcamp in February (it is sure to be a big year for both bands this year) and the gossip is we might get a TN full length this year as well. If you want to feel socially responsible while still doing reprehensible shit in the pit (I mean watch out for your peeps if someone falls down...but you know what I mean), this band will be entirely your shit. Bellowed vocals, powerviolence glory and a firm anti-xenophobia message.
