Master of Cruelty - Archaic Visions of the Underworld (2016)

If any continent could be said to be the 'hotbed' for blackened thrash and death metal, South America would certainly be at the top of the qualifiers; not because I count many such acts from the area to be positively top flight, but because they have such a long and storied history with this mishmash of genres dating back to bands like Sarcofago or the earlier Sepultura recordings. It's a chain that has never really been broken, with all manner of filth-mongering over the 90s and beyond, and today there is arguably the greatest level of saturation for this hybridization we have ever seen, bands almost locked in competition for who can provide the most excessive and dirty DNA-tampering of both their local forebears and the 'first wave' champions from Europe like Venom, Bathory, Sodom, Kreator, Hellhammer, Destruction and Mayhem; liberal doses of Slayer perfunctory.

Master of Cruelty is a fairly well comported virus among this outbreak, because it could be heavily characterized more for its songwriting than extremity, and that's precisely the reason I enjoy this sophomore album. Don't get me wrong, they do 'ugly' very well, both in the layer of grime caked onto the rhythm guitars and the truly abominable growls and rasps being by A.G.V. which are soaked in just the right amount of effects to create an otherworldly, hellish presence that contrasts well with the more straightforward tone of the riffing. In terms of structure, they pen hideous lo-fi death metal rhythms which are then interspersed with thrashing breaks and even a few slower, morbid doom chord progressions. The thrash parts in particular remind you of the seedy and disgusting underbelly of wicked Satanic thrash of the 80s, especially the South American style, but then you've got those evil tremolo picked components and some dissonant, brighter black metal chords as a relish. Drums are raw, bass is pumped loud enough that it matters much more than comparable bands where it gets lost beyond its distortion.

Where it all works best, as in "The Execution", you're getting this devilish and delicious mesh of early Floridian death, South American/Teutonic thrash and proto-black/war metal which is both frenzied and chilling, and they pace it all out over an estimable array of tempo shifts that prevent any sort of repetitious boredom from setting in. There's a cool, haunting intro with clean guitars and creepy chants, and beyond that the riffs are distributed pretty evenly between the different sub-genres which have inspired them. At times the transitions can be fairly clashing and sloppy, but at others that does actually work in the band's favor. I'm not going to promise that many of the riff patterns are themselves memorable, but when plugged into the primacy of the whole they work well enough that you feel like you've just uncovered some gem in a dingy basement record store back in like 1993, oblique and vicious and forever, ever underground.

Verdict: Win [7.75/10]

https://www.facebook.com/MasterOfCruelty

Ekron Cult - Queen of the Luxury (2009)

How many bands do you hear every day from Paraguay? How many of those can channel pure, dawn of the 90s death metal filth into an entertaining, brutal and thoroughly disgusting record? The answer to that question is one. Ekron Cult.

Queen of the Luxury is not the type of album that will in any way appeal to fans of brutal, modern, well-produced assembly line death metal. This is completely fucking evil, obscure, and raw. At times, it even feels sloppy, but more for effect than for any incompetence on the part of the trio creating this noise: The Attacker, The Antagonist and the Vandalic (yes....). The doomy, atmospheric intonations of "Re-crucity the Bastard" intro the album before an explosion into disgusting, primal death metal. The Attacker's gutturals echo over the raging torrent of axes and drums, like a necromancer warning all those who would enter his sewer lair of their impending demise. "Rot" is like a viral, hustling track which feels part ritual sacrifice and part surfing on the blood and guts of your enemies. Title track "Queen of the Luxury" is just fucking barbaric, with sick sliding guitar lines and disturbing, rumbling bass. One of the best songs I have heard this year. Other amazing tunes include "Disciple of the Horned" and "The Ancient Bringers of Sin". The band also covers "Burst Command 'til War", the Sodom classic, and it sounds pretty good.

You child of a Virgin whore
Rotten to the spine
Your reign will be no more

Sadly, this appears to be ANOTHER posthumous near-masterpiece, as the band's Metal Archives listing has them as 'split up'. It doesn't get much better than this though, so if you are a fan of disgusting, primal old school death/thrash metal like old Incantation, old Sepultura, old Sodom, old Morbid Angel, or old Venom, then you owe it to yourself to acquire this. I realize Queen of the Luxury will appeal to....myself and perhaps a dozen other people on Earth, but do the rest even matter? Get out of the fucking mirror, stop looking at yourself, grow a moustache, grow some horns, and listen to Ekron Cult. You are going to Hell either way.

Verdict: Epic Win [9/10] (you have never played their game)

[no links...this band is that cool]