ASTRAL BUTCHER

 

ASTRAL BUTCHER were but a blip on the landscape, but listening to this hideous and demonic recording from 2020 makes me feel like I'm involved in something very dangerous. VENOM, MASTURBATION, MIDNIGHT, ZOUO....ASTRAL BUTCHER. 

ASTRAL //BUTCHER

DEATH GASP

 

My fukkn stars this shit sounds so desperate. AMEBIX, INEPSY, VENOM. Low end cavernous churn. Absolute evil and/or sonic destruction. Pittsburgh man....let's go to Pittsburgh. 

EXECUTIONER

ASTRAL BUTCHER

 

I played with them once. It was in Sacramento - it was probably with NO STATIK even though my brain keeps telling me it was SUICIDE BOMB) - and ASTRAL BUTCHER felt fucking dangerous. They were like the drug dealers who showed up to the high school dance and lurked in the shadows. They played with irreverence, they destroyed with abandon. They fukkn destroyed the joint. 

CEMETERY GOATS

FILE UNDER: Blistering high-end black psychedelic metalcrust power trio.

SANGUINE MOON

 

The polar opposite of yesterday's bludgeoning, Portland's SANGUINE MOON creep their way into your soul with one 19+ minute dungeon synth missive. Raw, distant, bleak, minimal.....haunting, introspective....complex in its deliberate simplicity. It would be a lie to say that I seek these sounds, but it would be dishonest to not acknowledge how tight their grip on me is. 

HAUNTING DREAMS OF AN ANCIENT TIME

CARDINAL

 

Saw CARDINAL in San Diego a few months back and was blown away. On a night full of theatrical black metal with capes and candles and props galore, this subdued trio from San Francisco calmly set up their gear, clean guitar with no effects, corpse paint so casual that it made you wonder if they wore it every day.....and they blew the fukkn doors off. Mesmerizing, haunting, imperfect, sinister, raw....true. Luckily Demonstration 2025 captures their essence, but you must see CARDINAL live to experience their power. 

DEMONSTRATION 2025

LUCEMORTIS

 

A few weeks ago I (we) went to a metal show and LUCEMORTIS was playing as we walked in. Shit was putrid. Chaotic. Manic. Brutal. Messy. It was great. Make up and chalices and incense and all that shit. It was great. Later, we were watching this other band set up. I don't remember the band's name, I just remember that these fools (they were children) were concentrating on affixing their cloaks and coordinating a simulated (theatrical) sexual assault instead of making sure their guitar amps worked. Then they started playing and it was admittedly pretty cool, but I kept thinking about LUCEMORTIS. Those kids? It just felt calculated and intentional - it didn't seem natural. But LUCEMORTIS? Shit, it was as if these dudes had been chilling in their cousin's living room doing bong hits and talking about Satan and shit when someone was like "bro - we have a gig" and they grabbed the inverted cross candle holder (with chains) that was already set up in the living room (with chains on it) and stumbled down the corner to lay waste to some dive bar. These dudes just felt real, you know? You can't quantify it, and you can't put a finger on it - but in the world of (modern/underground) metal, LUCEMORTIS just hit/s different. 

HELLUCINATIONS OF INFERNAL PSYCHOSIS

PESTILENT DEATH

 

So...life experiences aren't the foundation of these posts, but I do tend to lean on them to create a context so: PESTILENT DEATH. It was a few weeks ago and we were in San Diego laser focused on eating and relaxing (we achieved both). There was a show at Tower Bar - several metal bands I had never heard of and (who doesn't like adventure?!) so we rolled out. Missed PESTILENT DEATH (because who thinks a metal show at a sad ass alcoholic bar is gonna run on time [it did]) and aside from CARDINAL (different story entirely - stay tuned) it was a night of near misses. I could digress for paragraphs...instead I will focus on the band we didn't see - because PESTILENT DEATH deserve more than just your attention. PESTILENT DEATH deserve your fucking obedience. Apocalyptic death and devastation of the highest order...motherfukkr. 

PATHWAYS TO INFINITE MALIGNITY

EMBALMED SOULS

 

Old school death metal crashing into a vicious low end cacophony...and that's Brasilia's EMBALMED SOULS summed up in a sentence. Pay attention when these dudes get heavy because it's exactly what you thought you wanted - throw those guitar leads on top and you're just going to be staring at your speakers before "Hatred To The Sacred" is finished. Mouth agape, feeling ignorant. Like...why did you ever even think of listening to anything else? What a waste. "Poisoned Conspiracy" comes next, and your faith in humanity is restored. 

FIRE AND SULFUR SALTE YOU

"...to hell with your beliefs..."

VOIMATON

 

Maybe I should have dropped this on the live blog, even though most of y'all skip that one completely (your loss). Because it's live, I should...but because I had never heard (or heard of) VOIMATON before I snagged a party pack of dead stop metal tapes a few months ago and I suspect most of you haven't heard (or heard of) them either I dropped it right here. In your lap. So you can let the downtuned death/doom cover and smother you. You're welcome. 

LIVEWIRE LOUNGE 2019

GRASP OF DYNAMITE

 

A few weeks ago we went to see a bunch of black and death metal bands in San Diego. Some of them were pretty satanic and it was generally a really good gig....but I still left feeling like I wanted something else. Not necessarily something more, just something else, you know? Apparently what I wanted was GRASP OF DYNAMITE. A blackened satanic metal infused crust assault that is distinctly and undeniably punk in approach and delivery, Satanik Krust Impera does in four songs what those six bands tried to do all damn night (with the exception of CARDINAL, that shit ruled...but I digress). 

"In Darkness We Alive" in-fucking-deed. 

SATANIKA KRUST IMPERA

BESTIAL ABYSS

 

Picked up a satanic black metal tape at a gig a couple of weeks back and the dude was like "this is another band we play in - take this one too." And just like that, I discovered BESTIAL ABYSS. Sonic savagery of the highest order, primal beats buried in a consciously murky production so it sounds like the very recording itself is marching to a slow and deliberate death before being plunged into chaotic madness. This is what I want my black metal to be like - I want it to sound fucked up, I want it to feel ugly, I want it to sound dangerous. BESTIAL ABYSS is all of those things and more. The lurch of "Trampled Under Blighted Foot" will turn your stomach....this is what I want. 

PROMO MMXV

MASS GRAVE

 

Not at all unusual to find multiple artists who have chosen the same moniker, but it's not typical to see several in similar eras and genres. So to be clear - this is not MASSGRAVE the face melting crust/grind band from Vancouver, this is not MASSGRAV the crust 'n roll band from Stockholm, this is also neither the German death metal MASS GRAVE nor the French death metal MASS GRAVE. This is the Bulgarian grinding death juggernaut MASS fucking GRAVE and thank the god/s that Canada's Funeral Hymns reissued this 2013 masterpiece a few years back or it may have been forever lost in the CDr demo abyss. This is the kind of grind that makes you realize after each track that you haven't really been breathing, but you barely have time to reload oxygen before the next round of grievious bodily harm commences. All consuming grindcore rooted in OSDM, this is the shit that will make you not care about anything else while you're listening, and that is exactly the kind of listening I'm looking for these days. Hail.

FADE OF LIFE

ATAUDES

 

I don't even know (or remember) how this one came to me, but I am glad it's with me now. Black infused blasting death metal from Argentina presented with a powerfully determined focus, ATAUDES will lay waste to your earholes and calmly remove all hope from your heart. Shit sounds that bleak because shit is actually that bleak, and ATAUDES are the soundtrack to that reality. It's dark and determined, listen to "Nos Merecemos La Extincion" if you have any doubts. And when you listen to "Nos Merecemos La Extincion" you will surely have additional doubts. 

MERECEMOS LE EXTINCIÓN

COLONIZE THE ROTTING

 

Seems like this band my have only recorded six songs. Ever. And still there are more riffs than the entire discography of some bands I've played in. Brutal, manic, psychotic death metal lurches from the mean streets of San Jose....shit is filthy. Shit is disjointed. Shit is precise and focused. Shit is.....brutal OSDM-influenced tech grind (but I actually don't know how to apply subgenres to death metal so probably that's wrong). Band probably stopped because the drummer/vocalist Alex Colon (who was a good musician) passed....but what a fukkn sonic legacy, right? Blasting Guttural Bay Area Death Slam, motherfuckers. 

COMPOSTING THE MASTICATED

••••••

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NORTHEASTERN HYMNS

 

You want something profound? Nah man, this is just four songs from four modern black metal bands I had never heard of before I listened to Northeastern Hymns. That's all. The OBSIDIAN FOREST and INFERNA BRUO tracks are exceptional. I don't like the other two quite as much, but that's just me, you know?

NORTHEASTERN HYMNS

AVERSIO HUMANITATIS

I wish that I could share the Sentient Ruin description with you....instead I will just offer the sounds. 

What are the sounds? Apocalyptic and bleak black metal from Spain. 

Those are (these are) the sounds...and they are (they were) gorgeous. 

LONGING FOR THE UNTOLD

WOLVES EYES

 

For all of the black metal posts over the years, I have probably declared that I don't know shit about black metal in half of them(or more). And here I al 16 years after I started, still feigning ignorance as I listen to Quebec's WOLVES EYES. We aren't going to get into the name (because literally....how can you not know?) but we are going to talk about the brilliance of rudimentary and rote black metal with distracting croaky frog vocals. The music is the equivalent of baby-skin's-first-Oi!-band dupa-dupa but translated to minor chord Scandinavian black metal with.....those creaky ass vocals. But like I said, I don't know shit about black metal so maybe it's not actually funny (even if it's not....it kinda is). Regardless, I blasted this tape yesterday like three times and tried to figure out what I would say when I posted it...turns out I didn't really figure out anything to say but damn I like listening to this shit. 

NOSTALGIA IN OUR SOULS

DEHUMANIZED

 

Treat DEHUMANIZED as a reset; let their sounds drag you back into the depths. Brutal and unforgiving OSDM with proto-slam breakdowns that were way ahead of their time (in 1998). Let Prophecies Foretold act as a reminder that the primal can be beautiful....shut out the noise and sink into beauty. The noise will still be there when you're finished, and your path after "Doomed To Die" fades away is entirely yours. 

PROPHECIES FORETOLD

CADAVERIBUS

 

Was drawn to the cover initially (for obvious reasons), but when I opened the case and saw "Cadaveribus is a new Death/Doom band from Tokyo, Japan" printed on the inside of the j-card under the track listing....? I was helpless. So I took this four song cassette home and popped it in the deck and I get exactly what I was hoping for - filthy guttural primal death metal stomps layered with stench and doom. The four tracks here are painfully restrained, the vocals are disgusting growls and the guitars redefine disgust itself. "Demonic" is the most melodic cut, anchored by a guitar break around the 2:30 mark that will break hearts, but the individual "moments" are simply too many to count (though you would be advised to prepare yourself for the moment when the tempo picks up in "Eternity" because.....oooff, motherfukkr). A truly devastating release - exactly what I was looking for and exactly what I wanted but even better than I expected. 

OPEN THE GATE

VOCIFERIAN

 

This is one of those "sit down and just listen" tapes. Two tracks, thirty five disturbed minutes of Belgian black metal that doesn't sound like anything else. Ever. The vocals are so bizarrely manipulated that you'll wonder what's happening in your earholes while you're sitting down (and listening, as I asked). Soaring, triumphant sounds from a different realm, and the drum solo on "Ode Aux Rats" should settle any debates about the normalcy of sounds contained on this cassette...and then there's the interlude/buildup that follows. This is something else. 

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