death metal

Tasty tasty chunky death metal from one of my favourites of the genre. Bowels Of Repugnance stands apart from other Broken Hope records in that the tracks seem snappier and shorter, but otherwise it’s more of the same great low end deathly mechanics that we have all grown to love and enjoy. Gather around your family and love ones, put on the fire, and enjoy this timeless classic.

In The Depths Of R’lyeh is an oddly melodic trip through the desperate mire of glacial-paced death doom. Channelling the morbid energy of such greats as Coffins, Evoken, Disma (sue me) or Disembowelment, Catacombs flatten you into a distortion-filled malaise of depressive, gloomy metal.  The sheer weight of the guitars is almost so crushing it is just delicious. It might be slower than your gran popping to the shop for a tin of cat food,…

What is this artwork!? Who cares, Avulsed from Spain play razor sharp death metal, with a hint of thrash if I could be so spicy. There is a fun, tongue in cheek undercurrent which permeates through the tracklist, which is evenly paced and highly enjoyable.

Yo dawg, I heard you liked samples that were too long even for Mortician records, so we put some long-ass samples on your goregrind, because ya’ll love that long-ass fuckin’ gap between tracks right? I mean, whatever you think of what became of Torsofuck (actually, what became of Torsofuck?), and of those fucking retarded samples, Torsofuck’s full length is some serious brutality. It really scrapes the bottom of the septic tank, reaching into the very…

Well-produced and seemingly (for once) well thought out brutal death metal. These kinda bands are a dime a dozen so it truly is difficult to make a difference in the realms of brutality, but Abuse offer a glorious battering in the metallic style. Think Lividity and later Waco Jesus and you should have a good idea of how Like A Virgin is going to sound. The band are tighter than a [insert filthy pun], and…

Some decent groovy gory nastiness from two big names in the business of killing. Nothing groundbreaking on offer from either band but the split is solid as fuck and the tunes are great. I’d have to say Cliteater have the edge here, if I had to pick a favourite.

Wellity wellity wellity, what in the ungodly holy fuck is this? I saw the album cover and just had to dive in and take a look. For better or worse, 7 H.Target (I wonder what is the inspiration behind the name?) play brutal slamming death metal. I mean, as far as slam goes, this is actually pretty fucking good. The record is a compilation, so what I truly mean to say is that, the first…

Tech death is never very high on my list of favourite genres, but you gotta appreciate the old school shit.  There’s something about the atmosphere here, combined with a level of grime that adds a whole other level to the proceedings. Cynic are an incredibly talented band.

Throned In Blood is one of the Jucifer records that is true to how the band sound in real life, up close and deafening in a live environment. The songs are messy, violent and devoid of any fucking around. Once you adjust to the recording quality, it is a real trip through heaviness. For me, the stand out tracks are the ones recorded on bass, and the closing track.

Sikfuk have been keeping it ridiculous for donkeys years and the third album proper (a solo effort from Sir Nikfuk Shitbeard, I believe) has one of the best (or worst) titles in death metal. The usual blast and splatter technique overlaid with a farmyard of different vocal styles is heavily welcomed, as always is the cover art, this time by the timeless Lou Rusconi. The presence of a drum machine rather than a real sticksman…

You’re either one of those people who loves or hates Cliteater. Eating actual clits aside, the band sit – for me – in the murky no mans land between goregrind and death metal, not really massively appealing to fans of either. That probably sounds harsh, as they have done quite well for themselves, considering the limitations of this underground world. Clit ‘Em All doesn’t particularly stand out in their discography for innovation or individualism, but…

The Berzerker’s final incarnation was a promising one. With a fully revitalised live band and a stunningly fast and precise new drummer, things seems on an upward slant. However, The Reawakening, the first album away from Earache records, falls flat on its arse. Tracks range from uninspired to downright horrible. Riffs that once were brutal as fuck or morosely melodic are clumsy and awkward. The vocals sound like they were recorded in somebody’s living room,…

Its funny, well, not funny, but fuckin’ great to see, how massive Pathology have become over the years. I remember this starting out as some low key project with disgusting zombie art, and that guy from The Locust on the drums. Not that it was bad then, but Pathology has morphed into this project that drops brutal death metal epics. The later efforts, such as Lords Of Rephaim, are much more polished and grandiose, even….

A heavy dose of savagery. A lot of death metal influences, but not bogged down in the tropes of that genre. A promising earlier offering from a now well established name in heavy music.

Lethally precise slamming brutal death metal goodness from who can only surely now be described as a household name in this kinda stuff? Either way, enjoy!

Christ, could this be any more metal? Some of the song titles are cringe-inducing levels of 00ber-br00tal1ty but I will say that I am very glad that I went ahead and pressed on. The production is thick and chunky, the band are tight as fuck (the drummer is absolutely spot on, old chum(s)) and the songs are highly enjoyable heavy slabs of brutal death savagery. Maybe not what the doctor ordered, but he’s bringing it…

Well, where on earth has this been all of my life? I absolutely snoozed on this one. Later-era Celtic Frost doesn’t have the greatest reputation, but this is phenomenally heavy. I guess, creating the proto-roots for the Triptykon project in the process. The lyrics are a bit corn-ball, but the delivery is exceptional, the production is dry and on point, and the songs have the weight of a thousand anvils drenched in the blood of…

The Left Hand Path is one that is admittedly less taken for myself, but you really can’t beat a bit of early Entombed. It really is no wonder that this sound was – and is to this day – so often imitated the world over. That guitar tone is unreal, but lets not let that detract from the stunning bass performance, the fantastic drummer and of course, the vocals. Make what you will of their…

Where there is gore, surely grind is not far away. Enter stage right the goregrind / downtuned demo-tape quality death metal masters, Impetigo. The grinding slab that we have here is an EP from 1991, that has been re-released a whole bunch of times, most notably on murky blue/purple vinyl and on a picture disk. This is some pretty savage old school shit, so if you like your metal recorded on a shoestring budget, with…

My God, the drums! The unholy drumming! When will it stop? Never, of course. They sound as thin as a wafer thin mint (just the one!), but blast and rattle us through 35 minutes of brutalising death metal. Dying Fetus are one of the stronger brutal death metal bands. Stop At Nothing seems to incorporate elements of hardcore into the festering mire, as well as a whole bunch of ripping solos. Metal on steroids, tbh.

There is something just so inherently evil about Akercocke’s early work, particularly on the first two records. Perhaps its the air of elegance that the band bring to a genre that is often delivered with the subtly of a war hammer to the face, or perhaps its the smattering of terrifying noises and soundscapes that the band use to decorate their macabre, sexually-charged satanic hymns. Rape… is a dirty, dismal maw, taking heavy inspiration from…

Ahh, tupa tupa death-tinged goregrind, done in the Czech style! There really is nothing else quite like it, for better or worse. It has an interesting tone as it is led entirely by bass a la Necrocannibalistic Vomitorium or Spasm, but don’t expect anything original from Slup’s Mimo Mísu, but if you are here to party, then you are indeed on the right track, traveller.

I’ve held onto this little bastard for a very long time…. I’m thinking either one of the editions of Leeds Deathfest (so that’d be 2009 or 2010), where I picked it up for like a quid or something. Obviously, in that time, Cancerous Womb have come a very long way indeed (they have, in fact, unfortunately also expired as a band).

Read aloud, the title of the record sounds like it is something altogether more poultry-based (or is that poultry baste?) but being signed to Amputated Vein of course means that this is a turgid slab of putrid slamming death metal. You know exactly what is gonna come farting out of the speakers, so either press play, or don’t. It’s fucking great, though. (Can you call this an album review? 2019 Ed: sure you can!)

This is something I have putting off listening to. I was involved in forums online with the majority of these guys and over time was slated to help release some of their other projects, which were, honestly, infinitely better. As much as I want to revel in memories of the good ol’ MySpace days, this album is, just, well, weak. Can’t really sum it up in any other way; the drums and guitars are enormously…

This is probably one of the more forgettable records in Napalm Death’s “groovy” 90s era. It isn’t awful, but likewise nothing in particular really jumps out and grabs my attention. Without wanting to sound too unfair it really does seem like this was just a bunch of leftovers from the previous studio album. I highly doubt that, being Napalm Death, but this is absolutely a low point in their usually highly regarded career.

This is something that I have had in my possession for the best part of ten years and have never bothered listening to. I’ve got about three of ’em left from some trade from many moons ago, and I guess that fact that they were all shrink wrapped put me off listening to one and I just winged them all in my distro case and that’s where they have been ever since. The split is…

Such misery and death befalls us, such puny humans that we are! Septicflesh channel said misery through exotic and traditional sounds, distilling an interesting brand of death metal that is mournful and morose, yet boasts masterful dexterity and precise brutality. That album cover is something else, though.

By the time World Of Lies entered this world of lies (hur hur hur), The Berzerker had become a fully fledged death metal band, shedding their grindcore and gabba roots and replacing them with more intricate song structures. This was hinted at on the skullfuck that is Dissimulate, but the songs here have much more room to breathe. I think ‘melody’ would probably be the wrong word; I’d say ‘scope’ would be the better option….

The first thing that blew me out of my chair when playing this record was the drumming performance from Seth van de Loo. Holy shit! That is some insane stuff! Kudos. The second thing would have to be the bass guitar work of Patrick Boleij, which clanks away, underpinning the carnage, akin to the sound on early Cryptopsy records. Feasting On Blood is a solid, solid album, and is a nonstop trip through some of…

I’ve had something of a bloody rekindling love affair with Mortician as of late. I’ve been jamming some goregrind stuff and I guess some of the slower riffs resonated with me and I went digging through my Mortician stuff. Finding only Hacked Up For BBQ and Zombie Apocalypse on CD, I went straight to Spotify and devoured the entire discography (sans Re-Animated Flesh), of which this House by the Cemetery re-issue stood out to me…

Party Cannon are a somewhat legendary band on the British underground. They wallow mainly in the slam sub-genre of death metal and hail from misty Scotland. It is refreshing to see a band bringing some colour and humour to the drab and excessively gory bogs of the death metal world (without, of course, losing anything in ferocity or musical dexterity). Clean and precise production has allowed Party Cannon a clear canvas to err, be able…

Gothic, oddly melodic death metal from Sweden, played in the style of say, Disembowelment meets Vital Remains or some such ridiculous statement. The Ending Quest seems to have that welcoming analogue quality, which is accompanied by that production sound that kinda falls into a wall of hiss (y’know, like how a vinyl record sounds when you reach the tracks pressed closer to the label in the middle). This gives the riffs a wasp-like quality, but…

(Hats off to the artist of this record sleeve – 5/7 would commission art) Paediatrician offer us medical sloppiness portrayed through the brutal death metal medium. Deformed Premature offers bludgeoning riffage, meeting ants-in-your-pants drumming and the usual scatological farmyard range of vocal rituals. It draws a little blood (virally infected, no doubt) from the slam genre, specifically in more of the choppier guitar playing and the higher vocal sounds. All in all, it is solid,…

It should feel like I’ve been waiting since the dawn of time for new Akercocke material, but with the Antichrist Imperium and the incredibly excellent Voices, my fix has been kept somewhat at bay. However, to the die hard Akercocke fanatic, I imagine this is somewhat akin to taking methadone instead of heroin, so it is an enormous sigh of relief that I can now lose myself in the blissful, all-encompassing abyss of the group’s…

A decade ago (Jesus Christ…) I tried (and failed) at running my own record label. I have done it again for fun once or twice since, but cutting out tape covers in my house is a bit different from trying to press vinyl and organising massive splits. Anyways, I failed miserably at it, but I did get my hands on some awesome music. This here was a CDr re-issue of an atmospheric Italian death metal…

This is a thousand fucking lightyears away from the previous steaming pile of turd that the band put out. Credit is due where credit is due, and I must admit that Kingdoms Disdained is absolutely crushing; miserably heavy riffs meet inhuman drumming and a solid, dense yet full of life and clarity production. One should look to the latter half of “Garden of Disdain” for the perfect example of all these elements working together in…

Yesss here we fucking go; the long-awaited third album from gore/death metal maniacs Basement Torture Killings has finally dropped on Grindscene Records, and fuck me it’s a corker! I can honestly say, this has to be my favourite BTK album so far, I’m just sorry that the LIW downtime got in the way of me telling you all, not that my opinion really matters or anything. The production here is on point, literally. Everything is…

When I first heard of this weed-based tribute to Cannibal Corpse I was somewhat annoyed that I hadn’t come up with the idea myself. It is a funny twist that I actually prefer the music of Cannabis Corpse to Cannibal Corpse, and The Weeding EP is a perfect and concise sample as to why I love this band so much compared to the latter (and before I spark off any purists; I am aware that…

Urine Junkies is a Relapse compilation CD featuring three of Abscess’ earliest releases and demos. It was put out in 1995 under the label’s Underground Series, and brought Abscess to a whole new level of exposure. One of the downsides of listening to a compilation is that the sound is all over place, but it is a small price to pay when you get to check out a cross-section of stuff that a band has…

Towards The Megalith is a bludgeoning epic in explosive, doom-laden, monolithic (or is that megalithic?) death metal. I’ve gotta be honest, I had never heard of these guys until they were announced for – and then controversially dropped from – the first edition of Netherlands Death Fest, due to accusations that the vocalist is involved in some national socialist noise project. Whether he is or not, I couldn’t really give a fuck (that style of…

O.A.P. (or Onanistic Anti-Peristalsis for short) were a death metal band based in Newport, Wales. I believe they finally kicked the bucket sometime around 2013/14 and Human Milkshake was their only album release. They featured members of death metal bands Necrocest and Cryptophile, as well as having local promoter / general all round good egg Sam Wall as one of the vocalists. Human Milkshake gets better as it goes on; personally I find the opening…

Easily one of the best slices of death metal I’ve heard in the last few months, Cease Of Breeding’s only album, entitled Sounds Of Disembowelment, literally has the definitive death metal production sound, giving all of these massacres (I’m talking about the songs, geddit?) the room they need to breathe, and more importantly, brutalize, like a hundred daggers to the face and a thousand punches to the stomach all at once, or something equally as…

Jesus, what a glorious fucking mess. I am instantly reminded of the Pissgrave review I did recently; these guys are really, really similar, only Portal has a more dark and eery vibe, rather than the terrifyingly vivid, gory splurge of Pissgrave. It would not surprise me if the bands shared members or something (edit: I just found out how old this album is, guess that Pissgrave relation was wishful thinking). Anyway, this is some spooky…

Look Past The Gore… is the long awaiting debut album from Barrow-based death metallers Repulsive Vision. It is to my knowledge that RV have been around for quite some time in various different line ups, with the most recent incarnation of the band solidifying suitably enough for a much-overdue full length to finally gestate. I am pleased to say that it has been well worth the wait, as this is a serious slab of death…

You’d think that given the opportunity, I would do everything in my power to throw mud at this band, but the reality here is that I have to admit that this is a decent fucking record. The production is solid, the riffs are intense and the vocals are on point. As with the previous release, Vorarephilia, the main downside is that for some godforsaken reason the band used a drum machine in lieu of their…

Luciferion were a band from Sweden that played an interesting blend of genres that I can only describe as symphonic death metal. Like Dimmu Borgir, Emperor and the like did for black metal in the 90s, Luciferion apply the same logic to brutal, unrepentant old school death metal. Obviously, there is a lot of variation in death metal now and a lot of different angles to the style, especially as incorporating certain aspects of melody…

From Crotch To Crown is the latest offering from long-running Dutch death metal group Prostitute Disfigurement. Honestly, when I first heard this, I thought it was an older release, as it isn’t as polished as the previous album, Descendants of Depravity. It isn’t exactly a step backwards though, as personally I prefer a bit of a rougher edge to my death metal, despite the clinical execution of Descendants… being pretty incredible stuff. As always with…

Henker are absolutely lightening fast! Imagine Meshuggah-meets-Braindrill in the same studio Cattle Decapitation recorded their last few albums in. Maddening drumming performances meet technical yet brutal guitar playing and dexterous bass movements that completely fuck with your head. I mean, those drums….Jesus Christ. I know they are triggered into oblivion, but you gotta be impressed by this shit. Honestly though, due to the sheer speed and technicality of this thing, all the songs do kinda…

Hour Of Penance are an intensely fast and technical brutal death metal band from Italy. They have been going since 1999, and whilst their style has changed somewhat over the years (there are also, quite unusually, no remaining original members in the group) they have retained a relevance in the worldwide death metal scene. With regards to the sound on Regicide, think razor-sharp riffery but with a refreshing melodic edge, savage guttural vocals and lightening…

So I just found out that WTC split up, which is a shame, but IMO they have never been able to ever top their first album, Perverse Recollections Of A Necromangler. This final “goodbye” CD is quite misleading, as the title and the high quality cover art suggests a new record, however all we have here is a bunch of demos cobbled together onto one CD. Now, if you are a massive WTC fan, I…

Downwards! I had a strange feeling to go and listen to all the oft-forgotten mid-career “groovy” Napalm records recently. In one day I chained this along with the three that followed it, and out of all the “non-grind” records the band put out, I can still confirm that Fear Emptiness Despair is my favorite. Perhaps that is just a subconscious thing though, as four tracks from this record appeared on the “best of” record that…

(Mad apologies for snatching this cover art from Demo Archives, but there is literally not a decent scan of this anywhere else. Anyways Demo Archives is a really cool site that you should consider checking out) Panaramic Twilight is the second demo from shamefully short-lived death metal act Timeghoul. The brutality and the distorted, nightmarish sounds of the band’s first offering, Tumultuous Travelings, is distilled and refined into a more streamlined and cleaner yet fantastically…

Pissgrave are one of the few bands out there these days that actually fucking scare me; what a crazy explosion of disgusting sound! And I mean, what in the holy hell is going on with the sleeve art? Granted, I’ve seen the world’s innards on many a goregrind sleeve but there’s something entirely menacing about the unknown fate of whoever’s bones are on the cover. Is that weird? Fuck it. The murky mystery of the…

City Of The Sleazehounds is the second and final studio album to date by American groovy goregrind band Splatter Whore. It marks a departure from the riff-focused gory groove of the first album / EP into a more lo-fi rock and roll with goregrind vocals kinda deal. This is pretty unusual in itself, but I find that the debut was also pretty accessible for a goregrind record. City Of The Sleazehounds, despite (I think) not…

Depravity is a colossal release in the discography of the one and only Intestinal Disgorge. The wackiness of Sociopath takes on a more brutal, darkened edge on this 60 track beast. I remember picking this album up at a “distro” in Obscene Extreme 2013, where this guy under a gazibo had like, 15 CDs for sale and three or four t-shirts. In the same year, this album was banned in Germany, despite being an obscure…

Everyone knows World Downfall, right? Right!? To be honest, getting onto World Downfall was one of the last things I did in familiarising myself with the history of grind, purely because every other Terrorizer record is so…well….not weak, but just….bland as fuck. World Downfall however, sounds like Morbid Angel on methamphetamine, and this 87′ demo sounds like the same thing but fed through a fucking meat grinder first. Whilst I do appreciate the analogue warmth…

Holy shit this is intense! Whoever imagined the murky worlds of goregrind and “dark hardcore” meeting? This is the closest thing to mixing powerviolence savagery with nasty, nasty goregrind since I heard the excellent UxDxSx a few years ago. I mean, this isn’t to say that Vermin Womb are a goregrind band, but you need to press play on this beast and get your head around those vocals. There is something Lovecraftian about the sheer…

This thing has been in Spotify “to do” list for absolutely fucking aeons, and every time I open it I am reminded why. It is if my brain, in some mad coping mechanism, blacks out all memory of ever hearing this album. Usually the human mind reserves this sort of thing for deeply traumatic events in life, like for instance, a car accident or a horrifying sexual assault. But, Reduced To A Limbless Sex Slave…

I’ve been meaning to write about this since it came out but I’m a useless moron. Even seeing the band live twice in the summer kinda booted me up the arse to get it done, but then I let it slide. Anyways, there’s no time like the present! Cattle Decapitation have come such a long way and it’s both a pleasure and a shame to see them fall into their own entirely unique sound. I…

Drowned are so metal that I could only dream as being as metal as this level of metal. Metal!!!!!!!!!! Think melo-death, but the raspier, nastier side, married with messy blasts and the odd wiggly riff for good measure. To be honest, I spun Butchery Age on the strength of the cover alone, and to be completely honest, whilst it’s easy for me to take the piss out of just how metal this is, there really…

Nuclear Vomit proclaim themselves as “Anal Fisting Scum Grind Core”, which to be honest does a pretty good job of describing the band’s dirgy, sluggish metal-with-porno-grind-vocals approach. Bludgeoning, mid-paced death is the order of the day, complemented by mainly piggy vocals and back ‘n’ forth dancey dancey bits that are so prominent with shit from this part of the world. Hey kids, death metal can be fun! The Czech Republic is almost like a breeding…

Before I start this review proper I just need to get something off my chest: just look at that motherfucker above; easily the derpiest looking cover for a brutal death metal record… Anyway… Nauseate is a 2011 album by the one man death metal project Splattered Entrails, showcasing a more polished, almost sci-fi approach to the sickening death metal that the name is known for. The opening track “Rewriting Human Genetics” is fucking epic –…

Vulvulator are (or were) a pornogrind band from the incredibly-metal-as-f sounding Uzhgorod, which is in Ukraine. One of the greatest tragedies of the 21st century is that they only ever released one album and a couple of splits. Obscenario is a bizarre blast through the usual pastures fermenting in these particular genres (slam / pornogrind / brutal death metal), but the production style chosen by the band (or maybe the studio producer?) really adds an…

Wow this shit is brutal. Probably one of the best bits of death metal I’ve heard in a while, Prenatal Massacre is the third full length album from Welsh sickos Necrocest. I remember seeing these guys supporting The Berzerker in Newport many moons ago (2008 methinks) and I had forgotten all about them until I came across them on Youtube recently, because y’know, I’m an idiot, but there you go. All that matters is that…

Well, first things first, this is something that I never, ever thought I would end up hearing. This was one of the painful parts of the early Cradle Of Filth lore; a massive causality of the ever-shifting line ups and legal battles. Personally, in my mind, probably due to always being disillusioned by the production styles on both Dusk… and it’s follow up, Cruelty And The Beast, I concocted the thought that this original shelved…

There are a lot of bands that have been called Necrosis. This particular Necrosis (the second Necrosis that I know personally, although that first Necrosis was spelt Nekkrosis, not Necrosis) are listed as the 15th registered instance of the name Necrosis on Discogs. They hail from the Bristol area and play straight up brutal death metal. Their guitarist Jason also plays in Kraanium, so there is an inevitable slam feel to the groovier riffs when…

I’ve been listening to Holocausto Canibal on and off for quite some time now, as well as that, Judas Cradle share a split with them and have played live with them, but one thing I’ve never done is looked backwards at the bands older stuff, until now, and I literally could not be happier that I did so. This shit leans more towards the late 80s / early 90s dirgy goregrind sound rather than the…

I’ve caught Benediction live a few times (with Dave Hunt on vocals) and they have always killed it, so in my recent hunt for new tunes I decided it was probably time that I check out a studio recording by the band. They’ve got a pretty long and eventful career, so I wasn’t sure where to start, but the name of this record just jumped right out at me (I wonder why…). I’m not entirely…

Debridement is (I believe) the third album by Italian goregrind / death metal squad Bowel Stew. Whilst Debridement owes more to brutal death metal than any goregrind record, it manages to maintain that authentic air of dodgy pathological madness that is often lost in the ‘brutalism’ of much death metal. Bowel Stew is a nasty band, and whilst the cover art might not be a real picture of disgusting gore, you know they mean business…

Surgical Steel is Carcass’ big comeback record, 18 years after their original death rattle – Swansong – in 1995. This was a big noise when it first came out, due to the high profile of the comeback, but my ears were elsewhere, as being an elitist goregrind-loving asshat I had written anything post-Necroticism off as widdly death metal shite. To be fair, I’m still completely 100% right, but I’ve stopped being such a dick about…

(2016 edit: this review was written about 7 years ago for my old blog Even Shakespeare Fed The Worms. I’ve rejigged it so I don’t sound like so much of an immature ass, but please keep this in mind whilst reading. Enjoy!) As I start this compact disc I am unaware entirely of what to expect, but I am met with a fairly typical sample, but it is followed by a very interesting and refreshing…

Filth is the second album from Texan death metal legends Waco Jesus. The fact that it shares a title with Swans’ debut is easily overlooked once you’ve gotten a good eyeful of that sleeve cover – this shit is fucking nasty. Now, death metal thrives on being offensive and sick and gory and can often be quite unkind to women (lol), but Waco Jesus are either doing an excellent job of satirising this or they…

Abominable Putridity are a slam death metal band from Russia (although they now have an American member) who formed many moons ago. In The End Of Human Existence is their debut album from 2007, containing 10 cuts of liquescent groovy guttural brutality. As far as this type of shit goes, In The End Of Human Existence is a fairly no-frills record, but it has a solid, meaty production that hammers the heaviness home with impressive…

What a gem! Brutal death metal is over-saturated as fuck (and I’ve made no secret of mentioning that in nearly every death metal post I do) and every time I load up a YouTube vid, a Spotify link or even put a CD in the stereo (imagine such sorcery!) that has some spiny logo and a compromised / disemboweled female on the cover, I sit there and wait for the disappointment to come, to wait for…

Cemetery Rapist is perhaps the wiggerest of all slam projects. I guess if you’re gonna listen to this type of stuff, go straight to the most ridiculous, insane project of the lot. He might not have gansta grills like members of more recent slam bands, but Cemetery Rapist is also probably one of the longest running projects too, and according to my I-used-to-spend-too-much-time-on-Myspace radar, he’s probably been going for about a decade. When your game…

I’ve never really been impressed by this split. It’s just been one of those ‘meh’ releases for me that I ended up owning through a trade or something similar. I’m only really doing a review of it because I’m selling it and if I don’t review it now then it’ll just fade out of my memory forever and I’ll forget I ever had it. To be completely honest with you, better material exists out there…

Flesh Grinder are a long-running gory death metal band from the increasingly-metal-as-fuck nation of Brazil. Necrofiles is one of their later releases, being an EP unleashed on the public in 2013. What we have here is classic romp in the traditional Carcass take on death metal mixed with goregrind influences; low pitchshifted gurgles meet throat shredding screams in a mid-paced chuggy bog of deathly goodness. I’ll admit that some of the riffs are a little…

Broken Hope have been on my stuff-to-check-out list since they were announced for OEF this year. It’s funny, death metal’s appeal for me is growing as I get older. When I was younger I didn’t have much time for a whole lot of death metal, it all sounded the same to me, despite the fact that I am heavily into grindcore and all sorts of other metal. But hey, I guess it’s just one of…

I’m not sure exactly when it happened, but Dragged Into Sunlight have become one of my favourite British bands of all time. From misty beginnings catching them unknown on the smallest stage of Leeds Deathfest in 2009, to seeing them release two records and headlining tours, packing out huge rooms at festivals. I think it must be the air of mystery, darkness and intrigue surrounding the band and their music. I’m a sucker for shit…

The story surrounding Gore & Perversion always comes up at some point with Welsh metalheads over a certain age – we all have our own stories to tell about it, and there’s always one person who knows someone who also knows someone who’s uncle’s dog still has an pristine, uncensored copy of the original. But thanks to the absolute twattery and/or dickfuckery of Gwent police, a piece of death metal history has been blasted off…

Now here’s a band I don’t listen to enough. Lord Gore are (or were) (2020 edit: are) a goregrind-tinged death metal band from the US of A. I can never remember where I got this album from but it’s a corker. The first thing you’ll most likely notice about Lord Gore is the extremely watery and disgusting vocals; a welcome break from the endless cookie monsterisms of the death metal genre. Despite their bowel-churning watery…

When I first heard of this reissue I was all like – Fuuuuuuuu-u-u-u-u-uck that shit. The price being charged for a copy of this remastered old demo was nothing short of total fucking extortion (kek). I think the fact that it took the almighty unit-shifting Cradle of Filth a month or two to sell the 666 vinyl copies of this album shows that I was not alone in this way of thinking. If a band…

Akercocke’s fourth album was by far their most experimental. Following up the absolutely monstrous and enormous epic that was Leviathan could have been no easy task for these distinguished English gentlemen. In my opinion, Words that go unspoken… is nowhere near as brutal as the exquisite aural punishment of Leviathan, but the band definitely followed through by evolving in incredible leaps into something far more sprawling, technical and genre-bending. Where Leviathan had that the “oomph”…

Boy, am I happy this saw the light of day! Initially I mistook this release as a new Splattered Entrails album. I was thinking – “shit, they’ve gone back to the gory stuff!?”, but alas it was not to be. Instead though, Undercooked Intrauterine Delicacies turned out to be a compilation album of impossible to find splits that the band did back in the Myspace days. It includes a three-way split/comp on FDA Rekotz and…

Is it just me or does it look like the cover says “The fine art of Malevolent Creation”? I snoozed at a chance of seeing these cunts in Cardiff recently, which was a bit silly because how often does something like Malevolent Creation come around 25 minutes from your house? I hate to be Mr. Has-an-excuse-for-always-missing-gigs (which I’m totally not; my bank balance and tinnitus will testify) but I’d been burning the candle at both…

It’s ridiculous to expect originality in a genre as limiting as slam. The name ‘slam’ itself is daft, but it signifies a slightly more slower, groovier approach to the death metal template. I personally welcome a ‘slam’ record now and then because it really breaks it up for me as far as death metal is concerned; sometimes I can just get really tired of super-super-fast death metal, and it’s always nice to slow down and…

I keep forgetting how much I love this album. Waking The Cadaver seems to be a household name in terrible music, and mentioning to almost any metalhead that you like them usually results in laughs, but for anyone who actually listened a bit further than that Shredded Wheat song (“Chased Through The Woods By A Rapist” is the correct title, which is much more grim) would have discovered an absolute gem of a metal record….

(2021 Edit: did anyone notice in my re-upload of this post from Blogger I’ve now used the South Korea digipak cover where the title is spelt wrong? LOL) I love absolutely any band that can keep death metal especially fresh and vibrant, without becoming too gimmicky. Nile have a hit and miss discography, in my opinion, but 2005’s Annihilation of the Wicked on Relapse Records is a monolithically heavy recording of blasting ancient Egyptian brutality….

Wow! Now isn’t the name of this band a mouthful? It’s almost as thick and penetrating (that’s what she said!) as their ultra-chunky death metal / goregrind crossover sound. Austria’s VxPxOxAxAxWxAxMxC pack one hell of a groovy punch, something that is completely evident on this sick little split CD. Boasting one of the nastiest programmed snare sounds ever, the band chug and groove through 4 apotemnophiliac hymns of gargling gore destruction, my favourites being “Baptized…

I gotta come clean here…I know that Impetigo are regarded as legends in the grindcore/noisecore scenes, but I just cannot get into them! I’ve had this CD for yonks but I rarely, if ever, listen to it. Perhaps I need to investigate more of their material, but with the crazy scope of music out there, I always find myself forgetting to do so. Giallo / Antefatto is a collection of the bands first two demos…

Before I start, let me just say that this band has one of the most awesome names in the history of all that is grindcore and death metal. Fuck! It’s such a brutal name, and one that still gets thinking “dayuuuum, that’s nasty” even after years of immersion in this type of shit. But, as usual, I digress. On with the music! Deeds of Derangement opens with a million-mile-a-minute blast-a-thon, throwing you right into PD’s…

Before The Berzerker became a fully-fledged band with Dissimulate and the tour that came before it, the project was – if footage from the Principles and Practices.. DVD is anything to go by – basically one very angry Australian man shouting at his friends until they made a death metal record with hardcore gabba drumming. I don’t really know how or why Dig from Earache signed Luke Kenny on two mediocre, dancy Morbid Angel remixes,…

Salute To The Sun are a death metal band that sent me their demo many moons ago, when I was trying (and failing) at running a record label full time. Out of the tons of shit I got sent to me, this is one of the very few things that stayed with me and didn’t get lost in moves, clear outs etc., probably because of it’s professional looking cover and not just some shitty xeroxed…

Back in the Myspace days, Splattered Entrails set the bar on how to sound if you were a bedroom death metal or grindcore producer. I’ve never been too keen on their, how should I put it…typical death metal vocal style, but music-wise Splattered Entrails is the shit. This guy blew most of the other bedroom musicians out of the water. I think Splattered Entrails is still active, but it isn’t really as “dank” as it…

I’ll be honest and admit that I only bought this 7″ because Cephalotripsy were on it; they are one of my favourite “slamming” brutal death metal bands and are a total guilty pleasure of mine. Man, this shit is so sick! I’m a total sucker for this stuff when it’s done right, and Cephalotripsy have yet to fail to deliver the gore-drenched slams. “Ulcerated Mass Of Pestilent Engorgement” is a fucking amazing song name. Membro…

Ahhh how I long for the days of a more grind-orientated Cattle Decapitation! The band have always peddled their own ever-evolving brand of disgusting death metal, but the song lengths / titles here are much more in sync with something all together more goregrind. And, if you read this blog frequently, you should know that’s what I’m all about! Couple that with the factor that this album is basically The Locust with Travis Ryan on…

You just can’t fault Lividity for delivering on the sick, twisted death metal front. As I’m sure I’ve mentioned many a time before, my death metal listening is very limited, but when it is done right, it just cannot be ignored. The sheer number of death metal acts out there never ceases to baffle me. Thankfully, Lividity are one of the best from the huge American scene. Tits, gore, hilarious samples, gruesome vokills and blasting…

I knew that Dead Infection had death metal influences (World Full Of Remains will testify that for you) but until playing Start Human Slaughter I was entirely unaware how far into the genre they actually went at one point. Don’t be fooled by the grotesque goregrind cover art, Start Human Slaughter is 100% old school death metal sickness; growly vocals, subterranean tunings, guitars solos and all! Fortunately, this type of music belongs on vinyl so…

I’ve never really considered myself a proper Devourment fan although I am quite partial to their heavier-than-the-mass-of-9-planets mix of slam and brutal death metal. When I saw this absolutely stunning Goatgrind picture disc version of Unleash… at Obscene Extreme I knew it had to be mine. Just look at it! Damn! That’s metal as fuck! Ha ha. Unleash… boasts quite a polished and clinical approach to things, and is a far cry from the band’s cult classic sound on…