Tag: Thrash Metal

Rotheads - "Slither in Slime"

Rotheads – “Slither in Slime” (Metal Review)

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Rotheads - "Slither in Slime"
Rotheads – “Slither in Slime”

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"

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

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Kreator - "Hate Über Alles"
Kreator – “Hate Über Alles”

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).

The typical Kreator fan.
The typical Kreator fan.

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.

Sinister - "Cross the Styx"

Sinister – “Cross the Styx”

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Sinister - "Cross the Styx"
Sinister – “Cross the Styx”

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.

Sarcófago - "I.N.R.I."

Sarcófago – “I.N.R.I.” (Retard Metal)

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Sarcófago - "I.N.R.I."
Sarcófago – “I.N.R.I.”

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

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Thrash Metal, the genre that doesn't exist.
Thrash Metal, the genre that doesn’t exist.

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.

Kreator - "Gods of Violence"

Kreator – “Gods of Violence”

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Kreator - "Gods of Violence"

Kreator – “Gods of Violence”

Holy shat does this shat sock.

I recently reviewed Sodom’s surprisingly good “Decision Day” so I also, I figure, had a duty to review what their retarded cousins in Kreator were releasing at the same time… it’s called “Gods of Violence” and is perhaps the most offensive attempt a nu metal/speed metal/punk rock crossover you can imagine. Yes, it’s that bad.

A terrible album from an all around terrible band.

The best way I can describe “Gods of Violence” is by saying that it’s “cheap”. Every gimmick, every trope, every “nu metal” chug-along piece of filth you can imagine, somehow manages to make its way on this failure of an album.

It’s really that bad, even for Kreator’s already very low standards in “metal” music.

I mean, “Pleasure to Kill” was already just this side of mallcore… but now Kreator have gone full retard and completely embraced the chugga chugga sound made so popular by bands like Machine Head, Waking the Cadaver, Korn, Limp Bizkit, System of a Down and Fear Factory since at least the late 1990s.

And the lyrics…

Side by side
To eternity and beyond
Side by side
As we crush homophobia
Side by side
And we’ll never let the shame
Turn our vision to ice
And I’ll remain by your

It makes even Gorgoroth look straight… and lyrically inspired.

Seriously, why is this band still given the time of day? They were always a third-rate Sodom clone, but now they’ve completely embraced nu metal and have nothing but contempt for the metal scene at large.

I guess ripping off Slipknot is more profitable than ripping off Sodom and Destruction, but whatever.

Anyway, this album “Gods of Violence” sucks. Even for nu metal, which it is. Replace with “Verminlust” and “Withdrawal“.

Sodom - "Decision Day".

Sodom – “Decision Day”

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Sodom - "Decision Day".

Sodom – “Decision Day”.

Ok, so first off… it’s not THAT bad, okay? I read some reviews on Metalious claiming “Decision Day” was the worst shit since Goatwhore… hell no, that “medal” goes to Waking the Cadaver.

But anyway, you’re here for a review of speed/thrash metallers Sodom’s newest release “Decision Day” which, to say the least, is quite polarising.

Personally, I sort of always, if not “liked”, at least respected Sodom for staying true to their speed/thrash metal roots.

Where others bands such as Destruction and especially Kreator were so eager to jump on the NWOBHM and nu metal bandwagons respectively, Sodom was always sort of like “what’s wrong with playing thrash metal?” That’s a good mentality, one the modern metal scene needs more of.

But this review isn’t about “Onkel” Tom Angelripper’s balls or artistic integrity, two things he has in spades, but about Sodom’s latest album “Decision Day” which, as I said, is quite polarising.

The first half of the album is also, in my opinion, the best half. This is where Sodom is at its most offensive, aggressive, violent, brutal and sometimes even reminiscent of their best era, which spawned from “Obsessed by Cruelty” to “Agent Orange“.

The second half is more for live shows, with the typical modern “extreme metal” catchy choruses, headbanging moments, “epic” acoustic bridges, etc.

Not to say that it’s terrible, but we’ve come to expect better from bands of Sodom’s caliber. If you liked this album, check out Marduk’s “Frontschwein” and “Viktoria” which are also in the same vein, albeit both albums much more black metallish.