Melbourne, Australia’s Cemetery Urn are an institution in the extreme music scene down under, and their latest full length ‘Suffer the Fallen’ is out now through Hells Headbangers. This is their fifth full length, and despite constant lineup changes over their 20 odd years of existence, they haven’t disappointed yet so fingers crossed!
For a band from Australia, there’s a big old streak of pure Swedish death running right through this record. Cemetery Urn hit hard and hit with some groaning riffs and chainsaw guitar tone. Opener ‘Damnation is in the Blood’ is a grinding thunder of Dismember tones and Asphyx weight, and despite their promotion materials using the word ‘barbaric’ numerous times, I find Cemetery Urn to be incredibly sleek and focused. Sure, they have their moments of savagery but it never feels unhinged, a very controlled and razor sharp primal heaviness is in everything. The bulldozing Bolt Thrower-isms of ‘Savage Torment’, the waspish leads of ‘Compulsive Degradation’, the modern complexities of ‘Embers of the Burning Dead’; Cemetery Urn are a melting pot of influences but their experience and poise allow them to convert those influences into a coherent, well written record. There’s always something oddly satisfying about a record that can feel primal and yet cutting edge at the same time.
‘Suffer the Fallen’ is a weighty, varied death metal record that clearly has had a lot of experience and care put into it. The result is a reaffirmation of almost all the reasons I liked death metal in the first place; the riffs, the growls and the utter heaviness of it all. Cemetery Urn’s finest work to date, and I think a slow burn, dark horse contender for my AOTY list coming up soon. Check this out!
Motörhead, that loud and heavy power trio, already covered here on The Killchain multiple times this year, were not always a trio. For a few years they were a four piece and boy, did those lads creates some badass rock’n’roll? A personal favourite from that window is 1993’s ‘Bastards’, celebrating its 30 anniversary this month. A fun bit of trivia for you all, ‘Bastards’ was an option for the band name before being famously named after that last Hawkwind contribution from Lemmy. The band were convinced that Bastards would be a nightmare to market and thus the switch.
Another bit of trivia is that this was the first album not to contain a title track! Despite the commercial success of ‘1916’ and the disappointing follow up ‘March or Die’, the band never fully capitalised upon this and as such went back to their roots. The thing we all love the most. Fast. Loud, Aggressive. The one two punch of ‘On Your Feet Or On Your Knees’ and ‘Burner’ are hard to beat for ripping openers. Fast paced with swagger, catchy lyrics as always with Lemmy. ‘Burner’ would definitely be in contention for one of the most aggressive Motörhead songs ever. There is a fun video to go along with this too. True to Lemmy and his fascination with war and the consequences, we have ‘Death or Glory’; the same feel remains true here but this time we see a small pace change where Lemmy takes the bass for a bit of a wander. It is a band having fun, putting their all into it, something Lemmy and Phil both remarked in many years later; both still rating this as one of their best ever. Ever wondered what it was like to be a sword? Wonder no more as Lemmy rumbles his way through the point of view of that classic melee weapon. Now for a track most people will have heard at some stage, be it from ‘Hellraiser 3’, ‘Airheads’ or the video on Youtube with Ice Cube and Whitfield Crane. Being honest I am not a fan of that version but the album one? Fun time rock and roll guaranteed to put a smile on your face.
It is an understatement to say that the tonal shift for the next song is massive. But it is. ‘Don’t Let Daddy Kiss Me’ has the band start acoustic to address the horrors tragically still felt by children the world over. Lita Ford and Joan Jett turned this track down and in the end Lemmy recorded it. His raspy and tender delivery has a reverence to them which holds your attention throughout. Not a band to mess about getting back to it, ‘Bad Woman’ fires us back to business as usual in no time. ‘Liar’ is my favourite track off this album. Punchy, sinister and heavy. The disdain for lies and the liar are delivered with real venom. You can be sure Lemmy had one or two people in mind recording this. ‘Lost in the Ozone’ slows down for a grander feel, the last man on Earth and his search for answers. Motörhead generally has a timeless tone but the opening to the heavy ‘I’m Your Man’ throws you back through time before a proper big riff and swagger. Go a walk with this on, you will feel two feet taller. We all know Lemmy loves a bit of world play and witty lyrics, hell he even once worked parallelogram into a song (Motörhead the track for those who wonder) and his word play is on full display again. ‘We Bring The Shake’; does he mean the rocking atmosphere? Have people shake their heads? Although I assume shake is a slang term for drugs. Not one I have ever heard but since Lemmy and no doubt a few others on tour were a strong hug away from getting you passively high I think its a strong guess.
‘Devils’ rounds out this 48 min classic and ranges from dark and menacing to uplifting, heaven and hell battling for the listener’s soul. Tucked in at the end of the album this feels like a lost classic on a bit of a lost album. And ‘Bastards’ is a bit of a lost album, barely promoted outside of Germany; this was the first album not to chart in the UK. Between the artwork, which features one of the coolest Snaggletooth versions going (artist Jo Petagno was pissed at his previous album’s effort and wanted to right a wrong) and the end to end brilliant tracks (including a cover of ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ on some versions) you have an album which rightly ranks as one of the best the band kicked out. I strongly urge you to take a break from your usual Motörhead albums and get this on and get it on the correct way, with the volume ALL THE WAY UP
The second record from UK NWOBHM legends Hell was a welcome surprise in 2013, considering their long and tragic history in the efforts to release their 2011 debut (only 30 years or so after they formed). That is a long and storied chapter of British heavy metal that we didn’t have time for here, but ‘Curse and Chapter’ is not only a worthy follow up to ‘Human Remains’, but the last record the band committed to tape so its significance right now is two fold.
If you were aware of Hell in 2011, you’ll remember ‘Human Remains’ as an incredible piece of theatrical and dramatic heavy metal, led by the killer riffs of Andy Sneap and the slightly manic vocal delivery of David Bower. Nothing has changed much on ‘Curse & Chapter’; those two key elements have remained alongside the rest of the band whose work is probably underheralded but just as important. It would’ve been brutally difficult for any band to follow an album as good as ‘Human Remains’, but damned it all if Hell didn’t manage here. The music is even more mature and multilayered, with the triumphant oddness of ‘The Disposer Supreme’ or the potent ‘Deathsquad’ being great examples. You’ve got numerous classic heavy metal gallopers too, from ‘Land of the Living Dead’ to the wacky speed metal battering of ‘Deliver Us from Evil’. What ‘Curse and Chapter’ really gives us is an insight and impression of Hell’s reputation as a live band. Hell, having been about and toured extensively knew what it took to whip up a crowd. The riff, solos, and most of all the crowd engagement. Their brand of heavy image-laden lyrics coupled with that wild and unique style give what I can only describe as a sense of theatre and wonder has been magically translated into a record. It’s an album as a performance; it’s something you do not hear all that often. It doesn’t take much imagination to see every inch of the stage being used. The crowd, front to back, dimly lit but faces awash with smiles.
Hell look to be done for now, possibly forever, but their part in British heavy metal history is assured thanks to ‘Curse & Chapter’; an affirmation that not only was ‘Human Remains’ a brilliant revision of their underground 80s material but there was still plenty of fire and creativity in the band for more music. We should not allow them to be forgotten again, but with records like this it will be unlikely. If you aren’t familiar, you owe it to yourself.
The strange world of psych-rock is not one I have spent too much time in, and it has been a failing I’ve strived to improve upon this year. But I also recently finished reading Julian Cope’s excellent JapRockSampler book, and when I saw AcidSitter were a Polish/Japanese group that seemed to be right in that wheelhouse, I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to jump in feet first. ‘Make Acid Great Again’ (what a title by the way) is out now through Interstellar Smoke Records.
The hovering, wailing opening note of the eponymous track hums into a rumbling bass groove and a bluesy swagger, infectious vocal hooks and a guitar tone that really reminds me of Them Crooked Vultures. Trippy passages weave soulful guitar over wandering basslines, and vocalist Rafal Klimzak has an excellent, slightly raspy croon. It adds an edge to the synthy vibes of ‘It’s Fine’, or the uneasy grooves of ‘Sweat Dreams’; it isn’t quite a punkish feel but it definitely goes harder than a lot of this kind of dreamier psych stuff I’ve come across before. There is still more than enough of that trippy, swirling psychedelica drifting throughout the album though, maintaining a chilled out atmosphere that is thick and enveloping when it is deployed in ‘The Healing Journey’, which has more than a touch of Boris about it, especially during that shimmering solo.
‘Last Few Days’ is my favourite track here though; a driving bass line, a squalling solo, a charismatic and chameleonic vocal performance. It’s all leading to the psyche freakout of closer ‘Staywatch’, a jam that starts off fairly inoffensive and ambient, a whistling stoner wind, but builds into a swaggering, Zeppelin-esque banger that hits all the right notes for the psyche fan and the stoner rock fan at the same time. ‘Make Acid Great Again’ is an invigorating trip, loaded with plenty of the type of dreamy, spacey vibes you’d expect from something called this, but never leaving the solid rock core smothered in effects or . I’m not sure if ‘down to earth’ is the turn of phrase I’m looking for, but it feels very apt for AcidSitter’s new record. Just a new Earth, where everything is a little fuzzy.
How could you not be drawn in by a gargoyle beckoning at a spaceship during a thunderstorm on an album cover? I mean, holy shit. Pure Cirith Ungol vibes. Anyway, the debut record from Florida’s Helms Deep is out now through Nameless Grave Records, and ‘Treacherous Ways’ promises much for fans of classic heavy and speed metal.
Opener ‘Fire Rain’ is a galloping melodic powerhouse, giving you all the Angel Witch and early Maiden vibes you could ever want. Killer solos, big hooks and a nicely old school production could convince you this was indeed a lost NWOBHM classic freshly unearthed. That scream that closes out ‘Fire Rain’? Ooft, chills. ‘Fight or Flight’ is begging you to headbang along with it, while the melodic breaks of ‘Breaking the Seal’ are just chef’s kiss. This is a band that absolutely understood the assignment and are clearly steeped in heavy metal lore, you’d have to be a real superfan to pull all the little pieces out of this one. The whole of ‘Sorcery’ is a masterclass of epic, Manowar-esque ‘power’ metal in the true meaning of the term power. It strides with confidence, reminding me of that Twilight of the Gods record from 2013 but with a little less doom in it. Even as the album slowly becomes more epic and more grandiose (see the excellent ‘Headless Horseman’) nothing is lost from the heavy metal engine powering it along. See closer ‘Serpent’s Eye’ for more!
Early this year I had Dyspläcer’s ‘Temple Heights’ as my token heavy metal banger for the year, but Helms Deep have elbowed their way in to compete. I’m not sure which I recommend more, but ‘Treacherous Ways is an absolute instant classic, giving you all the old school metal you could ever want. A heady mix of Agent Steel, Iron Maiden, Night Demon and Satan, given an injection of modern enthusiasm and thrust, means that Helms Deep are now absolute must listen material. This is amazing.
Switzerland’s Impalement (popular name on the old Encyclopedia Metallum) are a one man outfit but have spent time on tour with Marduk, Vader, Belphegor etc so obviously the success of their self titled 2020 record wasn’t a flash in the pan. I really liked that, so have been waiting with baited breath for their followup, ‘The Dawn of Blackened Death’, oiut now through Bandcamp.
Visceral opener ” reminds me of Melechesh actually, rather than the blackened northern hordes you’d expect. A measured, slightly Eastern sound permeates the barrage, a serpentine magma flow riddled with black melodies. There’s plenty of Dissection influence here, as well as touches of Behemoth in the regal ‘Legio Nihil’ and even some Belphegor too, all smothered in a delightfully occult atmosphere. The title track is a galloping, brash explosion of black metal at its finest, and the weighty ‘Death to the Gods’ retains a definite death metal feel about it. Impalement balance both sides of the coin perfectly; a heavy undertone tethers the straining black metal melodicisms, writhing with blasphemous energy. You can sense they took some intensity lessons from Marduk, but the constant melodic flux that scythes through even the harshest moments is pure ecstasy.
It all comes to a head in magnificent closer ‘Chosen by Tragedy’, cracks of thunder shroud a pure Emperor riff that weaves its way into a tempestuous, soaring fury. A wonderfully melancholic closer to partner with the fury of the rest of this record, sealing their ‘album of the year contender’ fate. Impalement were always on my radar after their debut, but this is a whole new world for them. A stunningly atmospheric and furious work of majestic darkness. ‘The Dawn of Blackened Death’ is coming for us all.
Boston’s Bacterial Husk have just released their debut full length record, ‘Anthropogenic Ruin’, seven years after their acclaimed EP debut ‘Agnosia of Omens’, and their unique take on the brutal genre has been definitely worth keeping an eye on. It is out now through Bandcamp, and first must be commended on that staggeringly cool album art.
Opener ‘Spores of Hallucinosis’ is a churning, intense work of brutality; a slow burn thunder with sporadic bursts of fury and atonal melody lines enhancing the slightly off kilter Swedish influence. There’s some suffocatingly brutal moments in ‘Plague Pollination’, betraying a little brutal death influence, as well as a touch of gurgling grind in the savage ‘Enshrined Gravitational Aberration’. Bacterial Husk clearly have a myriad of influences here, and trying to push them all into one record is a challenge. It works most of the time though, creating a dynamic and diverse record that would possibly benefit from a slightly crisper production. The swampy rampage of ‘Mystics of Transmutation’ may prove me wrong on that assertion though, it can vary from track to track.
If you want a highlight, the oddly catchy, spiralling guitar lines of the groaning grind of ‘Cesarean-Born Constellations’ is probably mine, but the whole record is definitely worth a listen. Bacterial Husk have given themselves a solid footing to evolve from here, and ‘Anthropogenic Ruin’ is an album that I can see becoming the seed from which something rotten and bountiful can grow. Keep an eye.
Blood Incantation are a band that have really garnered a lot of interest in the past few years, particularly their 2019 record ‘Hidden History of the Human Race’, with a mix of ambient, industrial, psychedelica and various styles of death metal. It has led to everything they release being hotly anticipated, including this new two track ‘Luminescent Bridge’. I came to ‘Hidden History…’ late and so I missed all the discourse the first time. ‘Luminescent Bridge’ is out now through Century Media.
A complex and progressive opener, ‘Obliquity of the Ecliptic’ sweeps and glides through cosmic weirdness. There’s obvious Atheist and Cynic influences here, spiralling cosmic brutality breaks into massive open moments where you get little tastes of Morbid Angel unease. The haunting, galaxial ambience provides respite from the pummelling but it is never calming, merely a temporary stillness in the vast blackness. When you get the sweeping melodic riffs flowing over the top of it, the atmosphere is incredible. The title track is a much more ambient focused piece, gliding gracefully throughout spacious soundscapes with dreamy guitar melody and piano leading the way. It forms an oddly symbiotic dichotomy with the other side, leaving a lot of space for interpretation.
What Blood Incantation have that is most important is a grounding in swampy, murky death metal. That keeps their sound from going completely psychedelic cosmic prog and ensures that brutality is as important as progression. Their sound is a beautiful terror, a gloriously epic take on death metal that leans into the science fiction and the cosmic ambient elements but never loses itself completely in one direction or another. The dual nature of Blood Incantation’s sound is well represented here and I look forward to even more of it!
In a discography littered with classics and, well, ‘less classic’ records, Deicide’s 2013 record ‘In the Minds of Evil’ is one that has stuck with me for almost a decade now. It was the first not to feature Ralph Santolla on guitar, whose work I feel really reinvigorated the band from ‘The Stench of Redemtpion’ onwards, and the last to feature legendary former Cannibal Corpse guitarist Jack Owen, who had also been with the band since 2006. Let me tell you just why this record sticks with me.
Deicide’s long and storied history is a bit complicated but basically goes like this: three brilliant records, three not so great records, then five more that range from good to stunning. ‘In the Minds of Evil’ comes at the end of that five record run, and it was another five years before we got another Deicide record (2018’s ‘Overtures of Blasphemy’ which I have not heard, and nothing since). Ralph Santolla’s melodic and fluid guitar work kicked Deicide’s musical composition up a huge notch in 2006, and that remained throughout the following 8 years. ‘In the Minds of Evil’ took the band’s sound backwards a little, more towards the same old school vibe of ‘Legion’, which in itself was not a bad decision. Glen Benton’s voice was as potent as it ever had been, and that classic old school death metal feel was very en vogue at that time as well. In fact, ‘In the Minds of Evil’ knocks lumps out of most of the 2013 OSDM revivalists, and is a perfect example of the potency of the sound if done right. But I really liked the more intense and yet fluid nature of the more Santolla-influenced records, and this could have been a much bigger step backwards had it not just turned out so well.
‘In the Minds of Evil’ was an important moment in the path of Deicide. They kept their modern streak of great records going, but still managed to successfully change up their sound in a way that could keep the newer fans like me and appeal to their older fan base as well. I think a lot of older bands have a tendency to play the expected cards and take the safer route. Deicide didn’t do that, and by 2013 were restablished as genre legends. We sadly lost Ralph Santolla in 2018, and hopefully he knows what an important part he played in reviving one of death metal’s most controversial yet influential bands.
Indian metal has always been a point of interest for the Killchain, and we are always fans of finding new stuff from the subcontinent to crush our minds. Enter Tetragrammacide, a duo from Kolkata whose work has been scrambling brains for over a decade now. Their new record, ‘Typho-Tantric Aphorisms from the Arachneophidian Qur’an’, looks to continue their intricate and devastating journey through some of black/death’s most interesting rabbit holes. Prepare yourself for the titles though…
The rather wordy titles make for an interesting review structure, but the music contained within is just as complex and bewildering. Opener ‘Trans-linguistic Utterance of a Sacred Orgasmal Cry Fills the Lemurian Sky (By the Same Mouth, One True God Crieth Hriliu)’ has eerie incantations murmuring over a sinister ambient beat; a truly original piece in 2023 which is no mean feat. The swirling vortex of blackened death metal that occurs afterwards in ‘Spectral Hyaenas of Amenta Howl, the Vulture of Ma’at Descends, and Tahuti Watches Without His Ape’ is as unsettling in places, a warren of riffs and fearsome roars with a glooming atmosphere hanging over everything. Each track has its own special layer of unease settling over the chaotic carnage wrought in each second by brutal guitar riffs and power bass and drum performances. There’s a lot here that seems inspired by the likes of Krisiun or Hour of Penance; a feral intensity burns across songs like ‘Intoxicated Bees of Sekhet-Aarhu Circumambulate the Abode of Self Beheaded One Who Forever Danceth in Her Shaktisexual Ecstasy’ while there’s moments that seem to bend dimensional time around them, like the rampage of ‘Nuit Arches Over the Neither-Neither City of Cubes; Hadit Meditates While Hanging Upside Down Inside a Tesseract-Ka’aba’. The whole record is a relentless barrage against your senses, a dizzying and disorientating 45 minutes of abject devastation, occasionally interrupted by sinister, crawling black metal and dark ambient moments.
Tetragrammacide are creating music that sounds like it’s barely hanging onto reality, a maelstorm of churning blackness and deathly power standing on your periphery, ready to suck you out into the abyss when you drop your guard. ‘Typho-Tantric Aphorisms from the Arachneophidian Qur’an’ is one of the year’s most serpentine and interesting death metal releases.
The Killchain 