Review: Coffin Mulch – Spectral Intercession

Review by Sandre the Giant

The debut album, ‘Spectral Intercession’, from Scottish death metallers Coffin Mulch is drenched in what can only be described as the most unsettlingly vibrant cover art work I may have ever seen. I’m not sure what’s happening, but I do know I want no part of it. I was a big fan of the band’s ‘Septic Funeral’ EP, which I reviewed here, and have followed their work for a while now, so I’m looking forward to this. It is out now through Memento Mori.

The title track opens the record with a cacophonous crash of guitar and screams before it takes off with a gleefully chainsawing riff into classic old school death territory. There’s barely any space to breathe in this cloying, murky atmosphere surrounding tracks like ‘Into the Blood’ and the mossy swagger of ‘Fall of Gaia’, everything choked up and dense. ‘In the Grip of Death’ is pure grinding Autopsy worship at its best, and a part of the genre where Coffin Mulch absolutely dominate their peers. They’ve tapped into something utterly primal in their sound, dragging the gurgling swampy core of old school death metal into the open and infesting it with their own poisonous style. Having seen the band live in the past, I can attest that it is a particularly virulent form on stage and that is being transferred to the record here. ‘Gateway to the Unseen’ is Entombed via Repulsion, while the death/doom thunder of ‘Eternal Enslavement’ draws much from the likes of Coffins.

‘Spectral Intercessions’ is a perfect continuation of their previous work, a refinement and expansion of everything that drew me to them in the first place. Coffin Mulch have found a place to thrive, locked in between old school Autopsy worship and something a little more uncomfortable, a little more dense and doomy that breeds such swampy brutality. That welded to a penchant for classic Swedeath guitar tone and riffs gives you a record that is genuinely recognisable as their own, which is difficult to claim at this point in death metal. This is a real contender for 2023’s best death metal record.

https://www.facebook.com/coffinmulch

https://coffinmulch.bandcamp.com/music

http://www.memento-mori.es/

Anniversary Series 082: The Mars Volta – Deloused in the Comatorium

Scribed by Geary of War

The Mars Volta, a band who will never be mentioned without the words ‘At The Drive In’ being mentioned alongside them, had massive shoes to fill. That defining album, ‘Relationship of Command’, will stand the test of time. The question we seek to answer today is not as grand, instead we ask, does ‘Deloused in the Comatorium’ still sound as vibrant as it did 20 years ago? Seeking to find their own Pink Floyd like sound in the progressive rock world Cedric Bixler-Zavala (vocals) and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez (guitar) gathered around them a selection of like minded musicians including Flea of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers (for this album alone) and set to work.

The work in question was the story of Cerpin Taxt who enters a week long coma after overdoing on a mixture of morphine and rat poison. Alas this does allude to a friend of CBZ, the late Julio Venegas. To be clear from the outset ‘Deloused…’ is not a casual listen. Following the brief intro of ‘Son et Lumiere’ you are launched in the jazz and latin infused ‘Inertiatic Esp’ This was to be the first of two singles. In fact, for ease of reference the whole album is a magnificent melting pot of jazz, punk, latin, progressive rock and a pinch of hardcore. What a sentence to write. It may be early in the album but one of my favourite tracks is next, tremendous ‘Roulette Dares (The Haunt of)’. CBZ delivers a powerful chorus. Belting out “Exoskeletal junction at the railroad tonight” with 100% passion, it will stick with you for hours. Ranging from quite beautiful and tranquil to frantic and borderline chaotic if ever there was a blueprint for what was to follow along this 67 min long album then this is it.

After an instrumental, the latin shoulder dancing (and salas moves for those brave enough) will be out with the beginning of ‘Drunkship of Lanterns’. The latter half of this track is where I begin to hear more Led Zeppelin over Pink Floyd, Led Zep always had a little extra fury in their delivery tha the mighty Floyd did. ‘Eriatarka’ is as straightforward a track as you are likely to hear on this album and even then it’s full of nuance. ‘Cicatriz Esp’ is by some margin the longest track here at 12.28. More spring vocals with lyrics which may or may not make sense but regardless bounce around your head endlessly, vast expansive prog sections exploring all the weird spaces between the standard song elements. This track is a journey inside a journey. The second single is the gently beginning ‘Televators’. A mesmerising, gentle song which will capture your heart and attention. Not only this but for an album which has been steadily blowing your face off your skull it is a welcome pace change. ‘Take The Veil Cerpin Taxt’ blends noise scape sounds and more classic prog. Not that Flea’s bass credentials were ever in doubt but there are moments on this track especially where it is really a joy to hear, not to mention so refreshing versus that of his day job. We finish with ‘Ambuletz’. A bonus track for Japan, the UK and Australia, an industrial feeling shoegaze effort it is haunting and fitting for an album which has pushed and pulled us along this wild road.

Returning to our question. Yes. Yes it does. This is an aggressive prog album, delicate and always engaging. I last listened to this album perhaps 4 years ago and it is as enthralling now as it was then and more certainly as much as it was back in 2003 when it blasted apart my concept of what was possible. It also stands alone, apart and proudly separate from ‘Relationship of Command’. There are unmistakable elements which sound the same but the core, the beating heart? Oh so very different. Play this in full when you go back to it, or especially so if it’s the first spin, you will be rewarded.

https://www.facebook.com/TheMarsVolta

Anniversary Series 081: Orphaned Land – All is One

Scribed by Sandre the Giant

When you are looking for the godfathers of so called ‘oriental metal’, you are looking squarely at Israeli legends Orphaned Land. A band whose geographic location led their work to become seminal in the genre’s roots, and alongside Melechesh are the iconic practitioners of  Middle Eastern themed metal. They’re also important as a group that not only used their native instrumentation and mythological/theological themes to create something unique but have persisted in an area of the globe that isn’t exactly keen on metal music. Their 2013 record, ‘All is One’, is celebrating its tenth anniversary this month, and a band as important as this should not be left out.

Orphaned Land caught my attention on 2004’s classic ‘Mabool (The Story of the Three Sons of Seven)’, a record that took their earlier, more death metal influenced Arabian sound and moved it closer to the more progressive, cleaner sound we have today. It is a masterpiece of progressive folk metal; theological storytelling meets modern metal in a way that no one else was really doing. That sound has only grown in quality and stature since then, with ‘All is One’ being a melodic, Middle Eastern metal powerhouse. The uncomfortably catchy ‘The Simple Man’ is a great example of their style; a memorable hook layered within ethnic instrumentation and frontman Kobi Farhi’s sultry rich voice. Drawing inspiration from many Jewish, Arabian and Biblical influences, their songs were already nothing like anyone else at the time, and their position at Century Media gave them the kind of reach that helped solidify their position as genre definers. The soulful swoon of ‘Let the Truce Be Known’, the grandiose ‘Shama’im’ or the Opeth-esque closer ‘Children’, each track is just another string to an incredibly rich bow. When most people’s experience of metal music from this part of the world is the stuff Karl Sanders has done in Nile or in his solo projects, there’s something nice about an authentic take from a band right in the middle of it all.

Like I mentioned earlier, when they came through Orphaned Land were very much one of the few bands doing this style of metal, and certainly were the most prominent. The brutality of Melechesh couldn’t reach the same audience. In much the same way that Anathema forsook their more extreme roots in order to become a progressive icon, so Orphaned Land did the same, with impressive results. ‘All is One’ is a standout record in one of metal’s most interesting and subtly influential discographies. Maybe not so much in the rest of the world, but the band’s dedication and quality certainly hangs over any bands coming from the Middle East these days. In the same way that Sigh led the way in Japan, or Rotting Christ in Greece, so Orphaned Land did in theirs.

https://www.facebook.com/OrphanedLandOfficial

Review: DeathCollector – Death’s Toll

Review by Sandre the Giant

I reviewed the debut EP from the UK’s own DeathCollector here last year, and was very pleasantly surprised by its sleek brutality and deep, deep roots in classic UK death metal. Their debut full length, ‘Death’s Toll’, has been picked up by the venerable Prosthetic Records and is out now.

As soon as the opening title track kicks off, I’m reminded just how good DeathCollector are. They feature scene luminaries from the likes of Ashen Crown, Bolt Thrower and Zealot Cult, and it shows with the roiling chug and thunder laid down here. Bolt Thrower is an obvious point of reference, but there’s tastes of Benediction on the scything ‘A Taste of Ichor’, while the chugging battery of ‘Revel in the Gore’ is glorious. The three tracks from the EP are on the record too, and ‘Internal Expansion’ is still my favourite of those, a powerful muscular death metal track that doesn’t leave you any space to breathe. The guttural opening to the eponymous track pushes it real close though, it is pure trench scraping heaviness. I know in this pandemic and post pandemic world that working remotely has become more prevalent, but the fact that this was recorded all separately and not together in a studio really speaks to the talent here, as it has a real ‘live in the studio’ feel about it. Hopefully it’ll be just as good live as well.

Building upon the promise of their debut and delivering the goods is all we ask of a new band these days. DeathCollector have surpassed this, with ‘Death’s Toll’ riding the aftershocks of their debut into new and more devastating territory. An unbearably heavy low end underpins huge riffs, a guttural vocal masterclass and honest to goodness memorable songwriting. The UK death scene is alive and well, and albums like this are proof that it is still as potent as ever.

https://www.facebook.com/DeathCollectorOfficial

https://deathcollector1.bandcamp.com/album/deaths-toll

https://prostheticrecords.com/

Review: Cattle Decapitation – Terrasite

Review by Sandre the Giant

Originally reviewed here: https://www.thesleepingshaman.com/reviews/cattle-decapitation-terrasite/

First of all, it needs to be said that ‘Terrasite’, the new record from anti-human pro-environment deathgrind legends Cattle Decapitation has, by a long long way, the most disgusting album artwork I’ve ever seen. No amounts of goregrind slaughter scenes will give me the visceral ‘retch’ feeling I did when seeing that thing. Christ. The band have often made fairly grim points with their album work before (‘Humanure’ had a cow shitting human remains) but this is a new high (low?). Anyway, ‘Terrasite’ is out now through Metal Blade and is the follow up to their 2021 record, ‘Death Atlas’, which had mixed results based on the band’s delve into a more melodic and blackened sound.

If you’ve come across Cattle Decapitation’s particular brand of vicious deathgrind before, then ‘Terrasite’ will not surprise you much to start with. Opener ‘Terrasitic Adaption’ has a rather grand build to it before the detonation of double kicks explodes into gear. The intensity is full on as expected, Travis Ryan’s roar is as ferocious as ever but there’s an unexpected level of melody coursing throughout the record as well. That is a legacy of their previous work, but I think this time it has a firmer footing on ‘Terrasite’, and it becomes more part of their signature brutality. You’d be hard pressed to argue that tracks like ‘The Insignificants’ and ‘We Eat Our Young’ aren’t as bug eyed and vicious as the band’s older work but the additions of some cleaner sections give the flavour of Anaal Nathrakh; another band loathe to give a fuck what you think about their intensity and their melody. We may never see another album like ‘Monolith of Inhumanity’ from these guys but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing when we’ve got the modern progressive death wizardry of ‘Just Another Body’. There’s something definitely Gojira-esque about the cleaner sections of ‘…And the World Will Go On Without You’ and the proggy, soaring close of ‘Solastalgia’, and despite criticisms of Ryan’s clean vocals in some places, I think the versatility of his growl/scream/black metal shriek/clean vocal is something to be admired. It refutes any sense of the one dimensional.

We are always ready to decry bands who decide to flavour a successful sound with something different, and I think a lot of people did that with ‘Death Atlas’. But we all need to just come clean about ‘Terrasite’; this album completely rips. It’s incredibly tight and visceral, keeping that Cattle Decaptation intensity ramped up while giving us much more expansive songwriting. Repetition breeds staleness and complacency and that is something you can’t ever accuse Cattle Decapitation of. Older fans may baulk at the continuation of this trend, but fans of incredible expansive savagery will not go wrong with ‘Terrasite’. Just, hold your lunch on that cover. Seriously lads.

https://www.facebook.com/cattledecapitation

https://cattledecapitation.bandcamp.com/album/terrasite

https://www.metalblade.com/europe/

Anniversary Series 080: Autopsy – The Headless Ritual

Scribed by Sandre the Giant

This Autopsy wasn’t supposed to happen. We were supposed to just have our old classic Autopsy records, a legend lost to time who had reformed for an anniversary tour or two and that was our lot. When the band released 2011’s ‘Macabre Eternal’ we all praised the gods of death that they gave us this one beautiful monument to REAL old school death metal. But surely, that was the end of our luck. But no, for our sacrifices and prayers were looked upon kindly and now the Oakland icons were ready to grace us with more. Celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, ‘The Headless Ritual’ was to be the evidence that Autopsy were really back for good.

I mean, that guitar tone on opener ‘Slaughter at Beast House’ is just fucking vile, Chris Reifert screaming and howling from behind his kit; oh it’s like nothing happened between now and ‘Acts of the Unspeakable’. You don’t want to be one of these people that try to force explanations of ‘maturing songwriting’ or ‘progressive moments’ onto one of the longest songs of the band’s career but it definitely has given that death/doom vibe the band always loved to insert a bit more space to swell, like a gangrenous pustule of death. Ironically, the other mammoth song on this record, ‘She is a Funeral’, is probably my favourite song on here. There’s nothing forced or drawn out, it’s packed with classic Autopsy moments but just bigger and better. The guitar work on ‘Flesh Turns to Dust’ is stellar, and the more of Reifert’s classic gurgling growl you hear, the more you need to remember that he’s doing this while also being brilliant on the drums too. ‘Coffin Crawlers’ is an all timer, sickening guitar battles with bilious growls for your attention. If anything, ‘The Headless Ritual’ leans more into their doomier side in the first half, then brings us back to our cold, gore soaked reality with the rampant ‘Arch Cadaver’.

Looking back on this record with the benefit of a decade’s worth of experience, and another THREE full lengths to compare modern Autopsy to, ‘The Headless Ritual’ is not the strongest record they’ve written since 2011. For me, that goes to 2022’s ‘Morbidity Triumphant’, but what ‘The Headless Ritual’ proved was that there was nothing cash grabby, nothing cynical about this ‘reunion’. This was a band hungry and full of death to deal. This was a band whose shoulders had been stood on for decades in this business, returning to showthat there were plenty of pretenders, and maybe even some contenders, but nothing has ever compared to the originals.

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100050176223094

Anniversary Series 079: Amon Amarth – Deceiver of the Gods

Scribed by Geary of War

Amon Amarth, those mighty bearded Viking melodic death metal champions to this day show no signs of slowing down today, never mind back in 2013 when ‘Deceiver of the Gods’ invaded our shores. Being huge fans of Sweden’s mightiest Norse warriors, and this being their only album to fall within our Anniversary Series criteria, we all felt that a feature needed to be done.

The rip roaring self titled track opens the album and what a track that is; memorable guitar play acting like a second vocal at times which sits alongside big Johan’s roar nicely. Such a testament to the track’s longevity is that when I saw them live recently this was in the heart of the playlist. ‘As Loke Falls’ is up next and while we can never be sure with this trickster, is he really gone? We can be sure that there is no messing about here. When it came to this next track the band did not mess about when it could do the video, I urge you to go and check out the ten minute version of ‘Father of the Wolf’. One of Amon Amarth’s greatest strengths is being the one of the heaviest foot tapping bands about. They can as easily tear down your house as much as easily have you tapping that foot along to a groove you never saw coming. They are masters of their craft and it’s on display here. The big main riff for ‘Under Seige’ is a big filthy one which when backed up by that bass rumble prior to the soaring ending reminds you that the band knows about balance. That said, it’s business as usual with the sounds of the legendary ‘Blood Eagle’ being performed. I assume most readers know what a blood eagle is by now but if not have a google. Maybe not on a work device. Then come back. You will hear a very ritualistic battering of drum toms in here and the use of them fits in perfectly with the song’s context.

‘We Shall Destroy’ has a darker, menacing feel about it, you know it’s a track with war on its mind long before the lyrics land in your ears. Following this is a real gem of a track, ‘Hel’, not only for the classic Amon Amarth elements but because they seamlessly accommodate the prophetic talents of one Messiah Marcolin. The mad Monk of Metal slots right in here and you will be left wanting more. I know I do. Taking us home is ‘Warriors of the North’. Building up to a stampeding end, Amon Amarth once again show why they are still a top band in a packed genre.Te limited edition digipack came with a bonus CD of, well, not quite parody tracks of classic metal bands, but more tribute style songs. You’ve got four tracks, in the style of Sabbath, Priest, AC/DC and Motorhead, and all of them hit the spot quite nicely. Nice to see a variation on the ‘stick some covers on the bonus CD will you’ attitude of some bands.

Never more than a few paragraphs away from the Viking metal moniker it is not hard to see why. There is Norse history and culture all about the band, track names, lyrics, stage show. It is all there. However, the band name, a common misconception that it is Norse, is the Sindarin name for Mount Doom. The real question is how does this album stack up 10 years later? Short answer? Very well. The relistening allowed me to appreciate songs I had played much less frequently, and allowed me to appreciate the flow of the album. Always up tempo but offering enough space to breath and absorb. Will it ever be seen as their best? I doubt it. Amon Amarth tread that fine line of not reinventing the wheel while still remaining fresh and tying that all in with a stage show which leaves you smiling end to end. Get a beer in that drinking horn and raise it high to the good while you get this album on again. Skål!!!!

https://www.facebook.com/amonamarth

Anniversary Series 078: Morbid Angel – Covenant

Scribed by Sandre the Giant

The further I work through 1993 in particular during this Anniversary Series the more I realise what a pivotal release calendar it was for death metal classics. It’s only June and yet we’ve featured killers from At the Gates, Pestilence, Morgoth, Gorguts, Death and Suffocation, with many more to come. But few may be as influential or as ‘famous’ as Morbid Angel’s third record, ‘Covenant’. A breakthrough record on Giant Records, with ‘God of Emptiness’ featured on MTV and with Beavis & Butthead, how could it not be?

It is always a risk that a band, when granted a major label contract, may decide that they need to be more accessible for the potential swathe of new fans coming to hear you. Well, as soon as you hear the labyrinthine rumblings of opener ‘Rapture’ you knew the Morbid Angel were not falling for that old chestnut. Everything you’ve loved on their previous two classics is here in full, but with a much thicker and denser productions. Trey Azagthoth’s bending, swooning riffs clash against his more intricate compositions in a work that rarely even creates the ‘typical’ song structure. Pete Sandoval is a machine behind the drums as always, creating blueprints for death metal bands for decades to come and yet rarely ever matched. ‘World of Shit (The Promised Land)’ has one of the band’s greatest seasick grooves, a riff style that Azagthoth often seems to have torn from another dimension entirely. David Vincent strides this dimension with his rich growl and powerful bass lines giving us many great moments.

Mixed by legendary producer Fleming Rasmussen, he of Metallica fame, the album sounds great. Crisp and clear yet retaining much of the band’s otherworldly murk, you knew songs like ‘Blood on My Hands’ and the masterful ‘Sworn to the Black’ had that suffocating, maddening density on purpose! ‘Angel of Disease’ is an ancient track, predating even ‘Altars of Madness’ and actually it feels that way, lacking a bit of the groove and instead featuring a more straightforward, thrashier songwriting style that somehow still fits within the record. Soon we come to ‘God of Emptiness’; a song that has long lingered in my mind since I first heard it. I always find it funny that having Beavis and Butthead rip your song on MTV was always a good thing, look what it did for Crowbar. Anyway, this song fucking kills with that classic clean vocal part and massive groove rumbling throughout. An iconic close to an iconic record.

Influential on bands beyond the number I can count, from Portal to Dead Congregation and further, sadly ‘Covenant’ also has to contend with its effect on the death metal scene as a whole in the year or so afterwards. It is, of course, not the band’s fault that they were the first of many to be snapped up by major record labels eager to capitalise and profiteer off ‘the next big thing in rock music’, but ‘Covenant’ was the record that opened those floodgates. Within two years the genre would disappear back into the underground, brutalised by the music industry and then assassinated by those church burning black metallers. Ironically, despite the nadir approaching, Morbid Angel would go on to record my favourite of their albums next, ‘Domination’, and keep the flame alive. Negativity aside, you NEED this fucking album if you are a death metal fan. An all time, stone cold, no doubt classic influential milestone.

https://www.facebook.com/officialmorbidangelpage

Anniversary Series 077: Death – Individual Thought Patterns

Scribed by Sandre the Giant

Ah Death, the first word in death metal. There’s not really much I need to tell you, dear reader, about one of the first ever, most brilliant, most influential bands to have ever graced this earth. But this is the 30th anniversary of ‘Individual Thought Patterns’, so I must. By 1993, Death were fully established as one of the genre’s premier acts and were coming off the superlative ‘Human’, where the full power of Chuck Schuldiner’s progressive tendencies burst through. ‘Individual Thought Patterns’ was the record to solidify this approach.

Opening with the rampant ‘Overactive Imagination’, you’ve got everything you need for classic, iconic Death; the brutality, the complexity, the unnerving melody that was starting to creep in more and more and of course, Chuck’s iconic scream. What I find most interesting about this record is that, despite the labyrinthine songwriting and the wonderful technicality of everything, the longest track is still less than five minutes. It’s a 40 minute, 10 song progressive death metal album; try and find many of those in 2023, I think you’d struggle. Theline up is also utterly insane if you take a moment to thinka bout it; Chuck of course, one of metal’s most important figures. Gene the machine Hoglan on drums. Steve DiGiorgio on fretless bass which explains why the low end is so interesting, and the legendary Andy LaRocque on guitar leads which gives us a much more melodic approach at times. Fantasy booking a supergroup could barely conceive of something so wonderful, and yet we have it right here!

The prominent bass lines of ‘Jealousy’ is a highlight for me, I love it when early 90s death metal lets that bass sit nice and high in the mix, while the ferocious ‘Nothing is Everything’ is proof that Death never loses the killer factor no matter where the progression takes us. That Scott Burns production is instantly recognisable and reminds you just how incredible the early 90s Florida sound was, and how modern production techniques have never managed to capture the same magic. ‘Individual Thought Patterns’ has so many atmospheric leads and guitar passages in it, I can’t help but feel that this record in particular had a lot of influence on what would come later on Nile records. Karl Sanders has always been great at putting huge amounts of atmospherics into his tech death and you can sense that coming from tracks like ‘Mentally Blind’ or the title track.

‘Individual Thought Patterns’ is the most difficult Death record to get into I think, as Chuck was dragging everything he’d started on ‘Human’ to its extreme, but it is for me definitely the most interesting Death record. It pretty much confirms Chuck as the premier death metal guitarist of the 90s at least, if not of all time. His work goes from melodic leads to shredding riffs and complex time signatures with barely a sweat broken. Sure, Trey Azagthoth may have a shout in this as well, but ‘Individual Thought Patterns’ is one of the most progressive death metal records of all time. Is it a low point in an almost perfect discography? No of course not, it’s Death, this IS the perfect discography.

https://www.facebook.com/DeathOfficial

Review: Gossamer – The Culling of Crones

Review by Sandre the Giant

The debut record from Michigan newcomers Gossamer, ‘The Culling of Crones’, is going to be released by Fiadh Productions, a little label that I’ve been pleasantly surprised by this year so far. This is raw, blackened death metal for the grimmest and kvltest of you out there, and follows their 2021 debut ‘Beneath the Ashen Cloak of Time’.

You are met with a raging torrent of old school, second wave riffs and atmosphere as soon as you fire up opener ‘Varcolaci Curse’, and Gossamer are immediately born from that school of ancient, primal black metal. There’s definitely a little primal death metal in here too but for me it is pure black metal evil. The whole thing is just doused in a murky, swampy production that really makes everything feel like it has been pulled out of an old European bog long ago. The sound is remarkably consistent too, from the grim ‘To Sorrow Rides the Burning Wind’ to the frosted clean notes of ‘The Blessing’ and the stunning atmospherics of ‘Yggdrasil Ablaze’; Gossamer may not hail from those old Norwegian forests but they have definitely taken much from those who have. The most important lesson is always atmosphere and ambience, more than riffs and shrieks.

Despite the primitive nature of the music, not musically but atmospherically I mean, the spiralling complexity of ‘A Lone Titan Crying in the Dark’ is a surprising detour late on. It shows Gossamer as a band that aren’t just bashing away at the instruments trying to be dark and kvlt. There’s a really impressive musicianship lurking beneath the surface here that will no doubt sprout on following records, summed up by the gloomy chords of closer ‘Ring of Perdition’. If you’re into black metal that’ll scythe through your nerves but also give you something to ponder, ‘The Culling of Crones’ could be the very thing for you.

https://www.facebook.com/fiadhproductions

https://gossamer2.bandcamp.com/music

https://fiadh.bandcamp.com/