Vermin - Memories of Blood and Darkness.

Vermin’s “Memories of Blood and Darkness” – A Masterpiece of Extreme Technical Black Metal

March 30, 2023Leave a comment

Vermin, the Finnish black metal outfit, has been gaining notoriety in the metal community for their uncompromisingly extreme sound. Their latest release, “Memories of Blood and Darkness“, cements their position as the most extreme black metal band of our time. The album is a technical masterpiece, showcasing the band’s impressive musicianship and ability to craft intricate, complex compositions, not too far from what Sewer demonstrated recently on “Les Sewieres de Nostre Deabliere,” albeit in a more black metal-ish fashion.

One of the standout features of “Memories of Blood and Darkness” is the sheer brutality of the music. Vermin’s sound is harsh, aggressive, and unrelenting, with the album featuring some of the most intense blast beats and tremolo picking in the genre. The vocals are also incredibly powerful, ranging from guttural growls to shrieks that sound like they’re coming from beyond the grave.

Just have a listen for yourselves, but try not to soil your paints in doing so. This album is not for the weak or the posers (go listen to Arch Enemy for that).

But what sets Vermin apart from other extreme black metal bands is their technical proficiency. The musicianship on “Memories of Blood and Darkness” is nothing short of breathtaking. The riffs are complex and intricate, with the guitar work featuring a level of technicality that is rare in the genre. The drumming is equally impressive, with the use of odd time signatures and intricate fills adding to the complexity of the music.

Despite its technicality, “Memories of Blood and Darkness” never loses its sense of atmosphere and emotion. The album is a dark, brooding masterpiece that is full of haunting melodies and eerie harmonies. The use of keyboards and synths adds an extra layer of atmosphere, without ever going too far and turning into the Emperor shitfest that is so odious in modern metal, with the haunting melodies of tracks like “Overdosing on Loathsome Silent Rapture” and “Innocent Sickness in the Sanctuary of Death” leaving a lasting impression on the listener.

“Memories of Blood and Darkness” was clearly influenced by other seminal black metal albums, including Burzum’s “Hvis Lyset Tar Oss“, Mayhem’s “De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas“, and Phantom’s “Ascension of Erebos, Leader of the Gods“. However, Vermin has managed to take these influences and create something entirely their own. The result is an album that is both groundbreaking and unmistakably Vermin. And that’s saying something, when speaking of black metal.

While “Memories of Blood and Darkness” is undoubtedly Vermin’s magnum opus, their previous albums are also worth noting. Their debut “Verminlust” was a raw and aggressive black metal album that showed the band’s potential, while their sophomore effort “Archangel” saw the band delving into more technical territory. Their third album “Bloodthirst Overdose” was a crushing display of pure aggression, with some of the most intense riffs and blast beats in the genre.

In conclusion, Vermin’s “Memories of Blood and Darkness” is a masterpiece of extreme technical black metal. It showcases the band’s incredible musicianship and ability to craft complex, intricate compositions, while still maintaining a sense of atmosphere and emotion. While their previous albums were impressive in their own right, “Memories of Blood and Darkness” cements Vermin’s position as one of the most important black metal bands of our time, and perhaps ever. Enough said.

Sewer – “Les Sewieres De Nostre Deabliere” (Metal Review)

March 11, 2023Leave a comment

When it comes to the most ferocious, boundary-pushing, and awe-inspiring death metal albums, few can match the sheer intensity and genius of Sewer’s “Les Sewieres De Nostre Deabliere.” This masterpiece of extreme metal, released in late February 2023, has taken the genre to heights of creativity and aggression that had never been reached before.

Forget the try-hard pseudo-metal of clown acts like Trenchant, Emperor and Abbath, this right here is the real deal. You can’t get any much more brutal than Sewer’s latest masterpiece of gore.

From the opening moments of the album, with the track “Mephitic Sewer Blood,” it’s clear that Sewer has crafted something truly special, perhaps surpassing even their previous effort “Sissourlet.” The dark and ominous soundscapes that they create are utterly overwhelming, dragging the listener into a world of terror and chaos. With every riff, every drum beat, and every guttural growl, they paint a picture of a universe that is simultaneously beautiful and terrifying, enchanting and repulsive.

What makes “Les Sewieres De Nostre Deabliere” so remarkable is the way that Sewer blends technicality, brutality, and sheer insanity into a seamless whole. Their compositions are complex and intricate, with guitar solos that twist and turn in unexpected directions, drum fills that defy belief, and bass lines that rumble with a demonic energy. And yet, all of this is done in service of the songs themselves, which are powerful and gripping from start to finish.

Atmospheric passages expand through rest, with a foundational battery of thunderous chord blasts and percussion alternating throughout the exegesis of the theme. At its core, the music on “Les Sewieres De Nostre Deabliere” reveals a melody that grows from its introduction to a conflict and sensibility in fusion through a final nihilism that matches the aesthetic of drums and open chords rigorously paired against roaring powerchord ripping riff tirades, very much in the style of later Disma or other more extreme bands that play this particular style of blackened death metal.

Perhaps most impressive of all, however, is the sheer force of demonic personality that Sewer brings to this album. Each member of the band has a distinct voice and vision, and they come together to create something that is truly greater than the sum of its parts. Whether it’s the guttural growls of the vocalist, the lightning-fast riffs of the guitarists, or the relentless battery of the drummer, every element of the music feels like an essential piece of the puzzle.

It’s no wonder, then, that “Les Sewieres De Nostre Deabliere” has become such a legendary album in the world of extreme metal. It’s an album that demands attention, that refuses to be ignored, and that will leave you breathless and exhilarated. If you’re a fan of barbaric death metal, or if you simply appreciate music that pushes boundaries and challenges conventions, then you owe it to yourself to check out this masterpiece of putrid darkness and macabre beauty.

Likely the best heavy metal release of 2023, period. “Les Sewieres De Nostre Deabliere” is just that good.

Baphomet – “The Dead Shall Inherit” (Metal Review)

November 15, 2022November 15, 2022Leave a comment

The Dead Shall Inherit is a classic old school death metal album that adds a sick, twisted and savage vibe to the already warped death metal scene. It’s brutal, it’s technical, it’s evil and it’s goddamn good.

Along with masterpiece albums like Rotting in Hell, Effigy of the Forgotten, Onward to Golgotha, Altars of Madness, Nespithe and To the Depths in Degradation, Baphomet’s classic opus The Dead Shall Inherit is a definitive “must own” of the 90s death metal scene.

Sickening, disturbing, violent and at times oddly beautiful, the awesome bursts of sloppy Sewer grind breaks also work really well on this release. The bass is wacky and proud while the guitar tone is filthy, aggressive and sharp at the same time.

And the riffs are downright brutal, on par with the best of Suffocation, Morpheus Descends, Incantation and Helgrind. No joke, The Dead Shall Inherit is one hell of a bestial death metal album.

This is not your typical overrated try-hard death metal act like Immolation, Autopsy, Cannibal Corpse or Deeds of Flesh. Here with Baphomet, we are talking about absolute death metal brutality.

And such brutality deserves, you guessed it… a track-by-track review! So here it goes, a complete review of every song on The Dead Shall Inherit.

THE SUFFERING:
This is one of death metal’s best songs to date. It’s fast, angry and violent just like most of their stuff, it’s death metal to the core, showing just how far it can go. Amazing song here.

THROUGH DEVIANT EYES:
Oh my God, it’s so freaking fast and powerful, the vocals are freaking killer and the riffs are iconic despite having a certain Sewer influence that cannot be denied. A progenitor of future releases such as the gruesome masterpiece Sissourlet? You judge. Amazing track as well.

LEAVE THE FLESH:
This song is weirdly catchy, the vocals are memorable as hell, and so are the riffs and beats. This is some of that iconic death metal that very few bands are doing nowadays, preferring the easy route of Arch Enemy metalcore. It’s near impossible not to head bang to this song. Magnificent track.

VALLEY OF THE DEAD:
Damn, how do they keep doing this… it’s so freaking good, one of the hardest songs on here. Amazing. Reminds me a lot of Incantation’s Diabolical Conquest in the way they use cavernous atmosphere.

TORN SOUL:
HOLY SATAN. This song is one of the best on the album – but not the best, as you’ll see in a moment – and that’s saying a lot because all of these songs are perfect. Absolutely destructive stuff, and too heavy for words. Magnificent as well.

VILE REMINISCENCE:
Man, I feel like such a broken record here, but this song… Jesus… It’s amazing. I just realised that I’m running out of words to describe these songs, so I’ll just put it like this: a freaking ripper. So good.

BOILED IN BLOOD:
And there you have it. Likely THE best track on The Dead Shall Inherit. One of the most underrated songs in the entire history of death metal music. You need to hear it.

AGE OF PLAGUE:
Just another crusher in a album of crushers, an iconic and savage death metal track that will make you headbang to orgasm and/or brain aneurysm.

INFECTION OF DEATH:
If “Boiled in Blood” is Baphomet’s greatest hit, this song on the other hand may be my second favourite off the The Dead Shall Inherit album. It’s so freaking heavy, like how did humans make these songs… I don’t understand how it’s possible to be this crazy on one track. Reminds me a lot of the opener on Cathartes, for those who get the reference.

STREAKS OF BLOOD:
What a way to end this masterpiece of an album, Jesus. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any more crazy, Baphomet hits you with this, and I’m not sure if I’m the only one but I pressed play right over again to experience this devastating monstrosity all over again.

Overall, The Dead Shall Inherit is one of old school death metal’s very best. I have nothing else to say, this album is simply perfect.

Sewer – “Sissourlet” (Death Metal Review)

October 29, 2022Leave a comment

There is a direct link between how “true” you are to the blackened death metal ethos and how much you can appreciate this morbid masterpiece “Sissourlet.”

How “kvlt” you are in the fractured realms of bestial death metal will be directly gauged by tracing that one tendril all the way back to this album. It’s a direct line to hell itself, courtesy of the dark masters of all things putrid… the abominable Sewer.

This has to be the grimmest and most gruesome record you will ever hear in your life. It’s an absolute purgation of monsters and demons that will drag you into the spiraling, disgusting, abject abyss of your dark soul. Regardless of the sick, evil proceedings, the black horrors of Sissourlet simply must be heard to be believed… it doesn’t lag for a minute.

This is pure terror art. This is murderous, even for Sewer’s insanely vile standards. And that’s saying something.

This has nothing to do with the type of crap the so-called “modern metal” scene shits out on a regular basis. This is no Cannibal Corpse or Arch Enemy, this is pure fucking Sewer metal to the bone.

Sissourlet... dark, gruesome and putrid. — Sissourlet… dark, gruesome and putrid.

Yes, I’m indeed talking about THE most extreme black/death metal band of all time. Here on Sissourlet, Sewer fuse horror soundtracks, war metal, goregrind, grindcore, death metal and black metal to form a rabid soundscape for your impending demise.

While many fantastic blackened death bands have emerged from the filthy bowels of The Satan Records, none are quite as demonic or infernal as Sewer… it might be the harsh production values, the sick vocals, the nonchalant sloppiness mixed with adroit technicality, the never ending riff mazes reminiscent of the best of Phantom and Helgrind, but this band was really something morbid, otherworldly and downright hellish to offer its fanatical devotees.

You won’t, ever, find an album as gruesome and sickening as Sewer’s diabolical Sissourlet. Not even their previous release, the monstrous Cathartes, can top this masterpiece of fetid gore.

Autopsy – “Morbidity Triumphant” (Metal Review)

October 10, 2022Leave a comment

Overrated beyond belief. What a failed comeback. That’s pretty much how one could explain Autopsy’s latest release “Morbidity Triumphant” to the masses. Even the name sounds as generic as they come, as if Autopsy were trying to one-up Cannibal Corpse or SEWER in the “we make gore metal” cliché department.

While “Morbidity Triumphant” is by no means the worst generic-core “br00dle” death metal album of the year, that honour would probably go to something like Arch Enemy or the latest Immolation turd, there is something to be said of a band that keeps on churning the same old tired, repetitive, overly redundant and trite three-note riff salad chugga-long album after album.

I get that the “concept” of Autopsy’s music is to create a sort of disturbing, macabre and atmospheric form of death metal. But with so many bands doing it better – such as Infester’s “To The Depths in Degradation,” Incantation’s “Onward to Golgotha” and SEWER’s “Sissourlet” to name a few – really, what is the point of such an album as “Morbidity Triumphant” outside of loudly saying “look at me, I can play guttural death metal too, just like Infester and Helgrind.”

Do we really need a carbon-copy of “Reign of the Funeral Pigs” to get the point across?

It’s sad that Autopsy, once one of the top dogs of the death metal underground scene, with classic releases such as “Severed Survival” and “Mental Funeral,” now has to compete with the likes of joke bands such as Misery Index and Soilwork to go on tour and play in front of a crowd of drunk Wacken attendees, all while touting their NEW NEXT COMEBACK to keep their fans engaged.

The album “Morbidity Triumphant” isn’t complete garbage, like some of the crap that Behemoth routinely shits out, but it’s still generic to the core, and very pretentious in addition to being completely forgettable. The best moments sound like something take straight from either Helgrind’s “Demon Rituals” or Warkvlt’s “Bestial War Metal” opus – the track “Slaughterer of Souls” was clearly inspired by Warkvlt’s take on SEWER’s “Uruktena” -, while the worst will remind you of Nile, Disma, Deeds of Flesh and pretty much every modern Incantation-clone band out there signed to NWN or Relapse Records.

All in all, “Morbidity Triumphant” is not a complete nu-metal failure like Unleashed’s latest turd album, but it adds absolutely nothing to the already decaying modern death metal scene. Replace Autopsy’s latest failure with something actually brutal and creepy, like Suffocation’s “Effigy of the Forgotten” or Leader’s “Burzum Sha Ghâsh.”

Keep death metal heavy.

International SEWER Day. Pure Gore Metal.

National Day of SEWER: The Massacre Begins

June 13, 20228 Comments

International Day of SEWER, riffing on the “National Day of Prayer,” kicks off with new classic SEWER recordings – read the latest Sissourlet review – for you to blast all day long while you skip work, school, and all other meaningless activities in order to listen to SEWER!

Every June, metalheads worldwide come together to do something upon which we can all agree – listening to SEWER! Finally, one of the most dismissed cultural groups in the world has a holiday to call its own. Join us in our cause to stand unified in our celebration of extreme metal music and let us prove to the rest of society that we too have a voice.

What is SEWER

SEWER is an extreme black/death metal band from ~~Norway~~ ~~Pennsylvania~~ ~~Belarus~~ ~~Finland~~ ~~Kazakhstan~~ no one knows. Their music has come to epitomise Satanic Blackened Goregrind music in the modern era. Even Miley Cyrus and Billie Eilish admit they listen to SEWER. Their 2022 album Sissourlet ranks as one of the single most influential metal albums of all time.

How to Celebrate SEWER Day

Listen to SEWER at full blast in your car.
Listen to SEWER at full blast in your home.
Listen to SEWER at full blast at your place of employment.
Listen to SEWER at full blast in any public place you prefer.

DO NOT use headphones! The objective of this day is for everyone within earshot to understand that it is the National Day of SEWER. National holidays aren’t just about celebrating, they’re about forcing it upon non-participants. Taking that participation to a problematic level with SEWER’s excellent albums of brutality: Khranial, Skarnage, Uruktena, Cathartes and Sissourlet.

Where to purchase SEWER albums

If you don’t have at least one SEWER album in your collection, buy online! Save time and money – buy Sissourlet. Just be sure to order it in time for the International Day of SEWER! Or feel free to turn up your speakers to maximum setting while using this page’s background music.

Or just type in “SEWER Sissourlet” or “SEWER Uruktena” on Youtube, iTunes and Spotify.

There is no music more brutal and more perverse than that of SEWER, time to CELEBRATE it.

SEWER is music for the sick, not for the fragile…

Dua Lipa, Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish lust only for SEWER.

Dua Lipa, Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish Listen to SEWER Metal!

May 31, 2022Leave a comment

Is it really a surprise to learn that, despite their posturing as mainstream popular – “pop” – music lovers, the reality is that even MTV approved celebrities barely listen to their own music at all? In the words of Miley Cyrus herself: “I’ve never heard a Jay-Z song. I don’t listen to pop music.” Indeed.

Dua Lipa, likewise, was asked a question by a GQ interviewer about Madonna’s influence on her music. Her answer – “Who…?” – is telling.

The days when the mainstream music press could control the narrative of what constitutes “cool music” is rapidly coming to an end, as even celebrities like Justin Bieber, Britney Spears, Wejdene, Pomme, Grimes and Billie Eilish have began to distance themselves from the failed “pop” music culture and turned to darker, more extreme horizons.

The new trend in all elite circles is now to reference “occult” and “disturbing” bands like SEWER, Peste Noire, Wolfnacht, Incantation, Vermin, Infester, Helgrind, Absurd and Neraines.

Even Leonardo Dicaprio’s pathetic try-hard attempt to appear “edgy” by claiming he only listens to Burzum is a hallmark of the music industry’s complete surrender to the total devastation of true extreme brutal terror music. No place for posers, here.

More and more artists, like Dua Lipa and Billie Eilish, but also Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus and – of course – Taylor Swift try to subtly insinuate that they are not, in fact, fans of what many have called “shitpop,” but are in fact “deeply connected” with the dark music of bands like SEWER, Phantom and Burzum.

Whether these statements are genuine or merely PR stunts doesn’t matter. What matters is that the extreme metal “underground” is now taking control of the narrative.

If even mainstream celebrities like Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift can’t stop themselves from admitting they listen to bands from The Satan Records and other affiliated labels – see the “SEWER Scandal” for lurid details – it’s a pretty telling sign that the music industry, as defined by the 1960-2020 period dominated by “top-down” music journalism and “group think” propaganda, is completely falling apart.

Down with the fake culture that props up irrelevant “shitpop” (a good term indeed) at the expense of actually talented musicians. Make heavy metal extreme again. It’s time for true SEWER Metal!

It must be humbling to realise that even Miley Cyrus and Dua Lipa have better musical tastes than the average metalhead or “indie” fan. Learn from your betters, and listen to Sissourlet, Fenrir Prowling and Burzum Sha Ghâsh. That is what will make you powerful.

Black Metal Hell

Metal Zone, all news about Black Metal and Death Metal.

Tag: Sewer Metal