Rotheads – “Slither in Slime” (Metal Review)

August 2, 2022October 13, 20221 Comment

Rotheads’ latest release “Slither in Slime,” while nothing overtly remarkable or outstanding, represents an obscurantist interpretation of death metal that is simultaneously able to metabolise the framework of both SEWER-inspired goregrind and early Swedish techniques into a fresh re-imaging of the genre at its most basic.

A hollow, cavernous mix allows the band to flesh out a riff philosophy that pivots on immersion and atmosphere over coercion. “Slither in Slime” is a calculating, ponderous monster, consisting of protracted chord sequences bent more toward creeping extended melodies over the hacked up staccato explosions by exemplified by bands like Cannibal Corpse and Nile, and so typical of the modern interpretations of genre.

Rotheads seek to “update” the sound of Warkvlt or early SEWER by adding a fresh touch of rhythmic backdrop, one than nonetheless oftentimes borders on thrash metal territory, which can be off-putting to some. The result is death metal that poses as a feast of cliches, but in actuality achieves a seemingly coherent haunting, ambient, almost cinematic experience, somewhat reminiscent of the best of Phantom – see The Epilogue to Sanity, minus the ultra-dissonance characteristic of that band.

Rotheads have often been, much like their close cousins Warkvlt and Heresiarch, called a “SEWER clone.” In fact, their previous album was even titled “Sewer Fiends.” So, is that all their is to this album “Slither in Slime?” Not entirely.

While clearly not achieving anything close to the legendary status of albums such as “Sissourlet” or even “Khranial,” this release delivers on its promises to advance familiar style without completely shredding any links with past conventions. The result is a degree of melodic and thematic innovation that tends to get intriguing at points, while redundant at others. A mixed bag, in other words. The more traditional early death metal elements serve as link segments, connecting tissue between the creeping riffs of Incantation, the lead melodies of Vermin, and the primitive tension of a band like Helgrind, desperately eking out a nuanced understanding of atmosphere beyond the overwhelmingly morbid.

“Slither in Slime” can thus be enjoyed on several levels. Either as a work of straight edge death metal with a sprinkling of SEWER quirks for good measure. Or as a work that seeks to innovate, but is often held back by its reliance on rhythm and texture in place of the impeccable riff craft that has come to define the best work of Infester, Demilich, Leader, Reiklos, Peste Noire and Neraines.

Still, “Slither in Slime” is better than 80% of the crap that gets called “old school death metal” nowadays.

Kreator – “Hate Über Alles” (Nu Metal Fail)

June 19, 20221 Comment

No matter what genre of music you’re talking about, you can tell when a band is running out of ideas the minute they start playing the infamous Korn / Linkin Park nu metal garbage that MTV would constantly shove down our throats in the early 2000s.

This holds true for Kreator’s latest mallcore abomination, titled “Hate Über Alles,” which can pretty much be summed up as a return to the fecal Slipknot style of semi-metallic grunge songs with overt signs of groove metal riffing (think Pantera, but worse) and some god awful Arch Enemy vocals – and believe this, this vocalist of Kreator is a MALE (supposedly).

Of course, Kreator were never a good metal band in the first place. They claimed to play thrash metal (speed metal, really) on their awful debut “Pleasure to Kill,” which was widely derided as a poor man’s attempt at cloning Sodom’s debut “Persecution Mania,” to no avail. Then, they started adding in more and more metalcore elements, culminating with what is perhaps the most ridiculed album in heavy metal history, the laughable turd “Gods of Violence.” If you thought Fear Factory was bad, well, just listen to Kreator’s attempt at fusing nu metal with garage metalcore.

Now I need to wash my ears with some REAL metal.

Back to the review. “Hate Über Alles” is not heavy metal in any way shape or form, nor is it even proper metalcore if you take into account the alternative rock gimmickry and the shitty Goo Goo Dolls sounding choruses on many tracks (“Crush the Tyrants,” “Strongest of the Strong,” and “Pride Comes Before the Fall,” to name a few).

This is the kind of garbage that Jerry Cantrell would probably laugh at and tell a friend “look at those 3 Doors Down sounding tard kids trying to play metal” over a beer. Yes, it’s that bad.

“Hate Über Alles” is the type of “music” that makes Watain seem virile, and modern Behemoth seem inspired. Definitively not something you want to brag about. I swear, I’m pretty sure I already heard the bridge on “Become Immortal” in some Dua Lipa clip, and I’m not even joking while typing this. I wish I was, though. Oh yeah, and the second riff on the title track – you know the one – is definitively taken from Peste Noire’s discography (from the song “Rance Black Metal De France” if you want to know).

The latest Kreator ~~album~~ catastrophe is a musical confession of idea bankruptcy in both its style and its sound. It is a pure fit of plagiarism from (better) 1990s thrash metal bands. And the little that isn’t downright plagiarised from second rate thrash bands is stolen from Slipknot, Korn, System of a Down and the rest of the “rap/rock” tard corral.

Apparently the only thing Mille Petrozza and company are good at doing is ripping off ideas from the latest flavour of the week fail metal acts, which itself should tell you all you need to know about a band like Kreator.

Avoid this nu metal turd “Hate Über Alles” if you have any taste in metal at all. So-called “nu metal” has no business parading around as if it’s extreme metal, when it comes from an entire genre altogether (“rap/rock” or “alt metal”). Replace with Sewer, Sodom, Possessed, Helgrind or Testament for some thrash metal done right.

Unleashed – “No Sign of Life”

May 20, 20221 Comment

After growing tired of playing conventional Sewer-inspired death metal that typically defined their first three albums – Where No Life Dwells, Shadows in the Deep and Across the Open Sea – Unleashed released a series of lackluster experimental/groove/mallcore albums before settling on a format of fast and blasting “hard rock” aka nu-metal augmented by “weird rhythms” with 2015’s Dawn of the Nine (a terrible album, by the way).

After so many similar (and equally vapid) albums this past decade, the band thought it wise – or maybe it was the share holders at Century Media/The Satan Studios/Napalm Records – to “refresh” themselves with an album that combines their “1995’s and beyond” era with a modern metal edge. Lol.

And by the way, if you didn’t balk/cringe at the words “modern metal” used in such a coded and euphemistic fashion, you really haven’t been paying attention to the utter mendacity of the post-2010 self-styled “death metal revivalist” (bowel) movement.

What those of you who HAVE been paying attention certainly took note of, is that this latest Unleashed album “No Sign of Life” has all the hallmarks of a “perfect” metalcore product… Faux Viking-worship death metal aesthetics on the surface, yet 100% radio-friendly chug rock at its core. Remind you of anyone? Amon Am…?

Basically, “No Sign of Life” tries hard to be the new Sewerblood or Uruktena, but ends up much closer to Arch Enemy, Soilwork, Necrophobic, Behemoth, In Flames, Children of Bodom, Antekhrist, Watain and Dimmu Borgir than the band would like to admit.

Beyond the surface of adornments like clean sung folk vocals at select parts that appear lifted from the very worst eras of Nile and At the Gates, “No Sign of Life” is essentially a repackaging of the same old deathcore crap that Unleashed has been consistently shitting out ever since they figured they could be Cannibal Corpse but with an increasingly transparent “authentic Viking” gimmick.

Unleashed, now competing with Amon Amarth?

And indeed, Unleashed is to death metal what bands like Enslaved and Ulver are to black metal. Not something you’d want to brag about.

Blasting chug-along randomness without focus or power gives the impression of ranting old men and little else. Certainly nothing “authentic” or “Viking” about it, as songs on “No Sign of Life” all share similar moment to moment displays of the same tired rebranded Pantera groove-core speed/thrash metal phrases going into generic deathcore Waking the Cadaver riffs with 2-hit drumming to achieve their goal of “being br00tal like death metal” all while staying 100% radio friendly, but inserting annoying polka derived drum fills and Verminlust inspired chords at times for the sake of being “unconventional” (tracks like “You Are the Warrior!” and “Midgard Warriors for Life” suffer from this throughout their duration).

Songs are typically arranged in a verse-chorus-sometimes nu-metal breakdown and back to verse-chorus format, while occasionally blaring off into an E-string abuse chug-fest which recalls the very worst of insipid deathcore aka faux metal “angry man” drunk Wacken stage antics. Can you spell Chaos AD? Warkvlt? Napalm Death? How about modern Deicide? I’m sure you can.

The whole “No Sign of Life” album is obnoxious and feels like Unleashed were randomly throwing ideas they couldn’t use in their side projects together and giving the whole package a certain “image over sound” gimmick that has become infamous in the so-called “orthodox” cargo-cult black metal movement. Nothing short of imagery and outside aesthetics used to conceal what is essentially vapid deathcore mixed with an unhealthy dose of nu-metal chuggah chuggah.

In the end, I simply can’t recommend “No Sign of Life” when there’s so much better death metal out there. Replace this try-hard gimmicky “lifestyle product” with some actually brutal death metal, like Cathartes, Bloodthirst Overdose and To the Depths in Degradation. Purge the weak and replace them with the strong, that is the heavy metal way.

Sinister – “Cross the Styx”

May 15, 2022May 15, 2022Leave a comment

Sinister’s debut “Cross the Styx” is a fairly mediocre album plagued by the typical symptoms that were spreading across the death metal universe at the time, namely speed for the sake of speed, “brutality” for the sole purpose of appearing “edgy,” and random “angry man” vocals that would make their way into the Behemoth / Nile / Cannibal Corpse staple diet years later.

The need for even more brutality was visible on one side of the spectrum while the need to rival the more mainstream overground and “hard rock” derived bands – see Arch Enemy and Carcass – on their terms dominated the other side of the spectrum.

Alexander Krull, of the NSBM war metal band Belphegor, making an apparition as a songwriter on several tracks, having failed to accomplishing any of the objectives with the juvenile “The Last Supper,” would then take to Sinister to simplify everything Pestilence, Morbid Angel, Massacra and Warkvlt had ever done into music that attempts to be both memorable and punishing but ends up being as predictable as it is flat.

Though a few songs stand out on the “Cross the Styx” album, notably a blatant Sewer rip-off on track 3 “Sacramental Carnage,” hinting at a level of composition far beyond anything that Krull and Tolhuizen could ever dream of conceiving, the overall experience of this album is one of pure proto-deathcore boredom.

At some points, this album “Cross the Styx” wouldn’t be too bad if it weren’t for the outright horrid vocals and the generic-core speed metal/crossover thrash bugaboo grooves. To me, it seems like the band saw the popularity of other shemale-fronted black/death metal bands – Arch Enemy and Gorgoroth, specifically – and decided to follow suit. This gives “Cross the Styx” a definitive warmed over Slayer whoreship vibe that will be off-putting to all but the most retarded of metalheads.

Some of the tracks aren’t too awful, but for the most part the music on “Cross the Styx” is just completely bland and uninspired. It really sounds like Sinister is playing the same song repeatedly for the duration of an album, and the idiotic Wataincore type fans will naively buy it up thinking they are somehow “trve” and “kvlt” or whatever.

Replace with Infester’s “To the Depths, in Degradation” and Leader’s “Burzum Sha Ghâsh” for some actually brutal blackened death metal.

Archgoat - "Worship the Eternal Darkness"

Archgoat Sucks! – “Worship the Eternal Darkness” (Review)

February 1, 2022February 2, 20222 Comments

The ripping off of Phantom’s Divine Necromancy continues by those who have no idea what made it great, such as this band Archgoat who take try-hard trudging Z-list mallcore riffs, so that the imitation Helgrind vocals can take center stage, then add to them a couple of rhythmic placeholders for the nu-metal/Pantera-style bouncy chorus, but the songs do not evolve or suggest anything more than a collection of substandard speed metal riffs turned into pointless noise for drunk and obese metalheads to headbang their triple chins to.

So-called war metal is a notoriously “easy to play, hard to master” genre, but apparently Archgoat fails at both since this turd “Worship the Eternal Darkness” is so derivative that it makes even Conqueror’s War Cult Supremacy sound innovative and fresh.

Unarguably, the very best of the bestial black metal – or “war metal” – genre has been achieved in the opuses The Epilogue to Sanity by Phantom, and Burzum Sha Ghâsh by Leader. Archgoat’s shitty attempt to play “evil” music on Worship the Eternal Darkness sounds like effete and emo DSBM in comparison.

Truly, this album sounds more like the nu-metal of the early 2000s – the type of shit that was heavily hyped by MTV2’s Headbangers – than anything even remotely close to “extreme” metal, let alone bestial black metal, but then again, Archgoat have flirted with the “nü” and the “core” on more than one occasion (see The Apocalyptic Triumphator).

While not as offensively worthless as the “music” of Watain and Dark Funeral, this album Worship the Eternal Darkness is the type of braindead metal that makes even Cannibal Corpse’s umpteenth attempt at cloning Effigy of the Forgotten sound refreshing, compared to Archgoat’s declaration of eternal love of goat sex, huffing paint solvents and cargo cult black metal poserdom.

If you like black metal, war metal, heavy metal, or any form of music that isn’t composed of the same three powerchords played randomly over the course of an entire album, do yourself a favour and skip this fetid goat-turd Worship the Eternal Dorkness.

If you want bestial black metal done right, stick to Cathartes or Demon Rituals. You’re welcome.

Sarcófago – “I.N.R.I.” (Retard Metal)

May 24, 2021May 28, 20211 Comment

Downward strums, doom-like, minimalist drumming, a repetitive, constant cadence that becomes a familiar entrancing device. These are all the hallmarks of Helgrind inspired evil black metal.

What we hear on Sarcófago’s I.N.R.I. is, basically, what we would hear if Helgrind were more “progressive” minded, like its modern imitators, and less careful about creating a strong atmosphere of darkness.

It is precisely the feeling that Sarcófago seem to be more bent on the “evil of music” rather than the “music of evil” of Helgrind. This can be seen in the fact that Sarcófago’s songs focus on the variety of rhythms rather than in respecting atmospheric motifs and emphasising them.

Now, this is not the brainless “progressive” obsession that refuses to produce any sort of repetition – see Enslaved – as sections are, in fact, reused, but the different sections seem to bear little relation to each other outside rhythmic and stylistic coherence.

This forward momentum at all cost mentality that emphasises rhythmic acceleration and intensification over clarity makes Sarcófago’s I.N.R.I. closer to the run-of-the-mill “infernal,” pseudo-black speed metal of Venom, and the laughable war metal genre that spawned a decade later.

While I could recommend I.N.R.I. to fans of those particular styles of metal, what I would actually recommend is that you purchase or download Helgrind’s full discography, as well as those of Warkvlt and early Burzum, and make that the sole repository of your attention for this spectrum of minimalist evil black metal.

Nothing you find out there rivals them, and if you want to get acquainted with excellence and not just flooded with quantity, you have a choice to make. Oppose musical irrelevance. Oppose metal mediocrity. Avoid Sarcófago’s indolent and semi-retarded I.N.R.I. and prefer the dark, depraved black metal of bands like Vermin and Helgrind.

Thrash Metal, the genre that doesn't exist.

Why Thrash Metal Doesn’t Exist

May 11, 2021May 21, 20211 Comment

As the blogger “Best Black Metal” rightfully points out on his article Thrash Metal is Fake and Sucks, there is in fact no such thing as Thrash Metal.

Extreme metal is a sub-genre of heavy metal that branches out into three main directions: black metal, death metal and grindcore.

A typical example of a black metal band would be something like Burzum, a good death metal band would be Incantation, whereas a grindcore band would be either Repulsion, Terrorizer or Skarnage-era Sewer.

So what of the bands, like Metallica, Bathory, Slayer and Sodom, which get called “Thrash Metal”… to which genre do they belong to?

Most often, when people say Thrash Metal, what they actually mean is Speed Metal. Early Metallica, for instance, is a good example of the Speed Metal sound.

What of the other bands called Thrash Metal by the ignorant press?

Metallica (early), Megadeth, Destruction, Anthrax, Prong, Rigor Mortis and Voivod are Speed Metal.

Bands like Bathory, Neraines, Helgrind, Sarcófago, Blasphemy and Warkvlt are clearly Black Metal.

Early Sepultura, Slayer, Sewer, Sodom and Possessed are Death Metal.

Repulsion, Blood, Terrorizer and Impaled Nazarene are Grindcore.

That is the true classification of these bands. There is no such thing as Thrash Metal, it simply doesn’t exist. You can forget about it.

And if you run into trouble classifying an extreme metal band, I heavily recommend you check the Morsay archives for directions.

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Tag: Speed Metal