Funebrarum - Dormant Hallucination 7"

See that cover huh? It's Dan Seagrave, so hey blind purchase, no? Here we are talking about completely unhinged and chaotic death metal Finnish-style (even the name is derived from the legendary Funebre) with members of Evoken, Taste Of Fear, Abazagorath and early-90s hardcore heroes Citizen's Arrest. What more do you want? 2003 7" on Midnight Records.

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A Mind Confused – Out Of Chaos Spawn

 

Late 90s slab of Swedish melodic death metal. Mind you not, cravers of evil noise, this ain't no In Flames/Dark Tranquillity/NWOSDM diarrhea, this is Dissection/Necrophobic-like death/black metal with lots of emotion and technicity, and how could it be any different since this band boasted fucking legends such as Konstantin Papavasiliou of Kaamos/Head Of The Demon on guitar, Nicklas Eriksson of Kaamos on the other guitar and Tomas of Head Of The Demon on drums. 1996 7" on Near Dark Productions.

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Drowning - Apocalypse Unsealed

Second and final album by Drowning, and at this point almost all hardcore references are gone, leaving space for death metal filled with blastbeats. The riffs are still epic, but the blastbeat/ultra fast drum fills and the kinda weak/too trebly production (very similar to Morbid Angel's Heretic) makes it kinda tiring. 2006 cd on Bones Brigade.

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Drowing - Age Old Nemesis

First full-length of Drowing, and here they've gone completely death metal, while still retaining a lot of their earlier hardcore characteristics. Imagine a mix between good ol' Monstrosity and Arkangel and you're about there, and you'll also enjoy a superb nine-minute doomy Candlemass-meets-Morbid Angel hymn in "Winter Descends." 2002 cd on Bones Brigade.

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Drowing - Drowning EP

Heavy, downtuned metallic hardcore from France the way it should be, i.e. no jumpy beatdowns, no clean vocals or poser death growls, no tight jeans, in the vein of All Out War and Beneath The Remains, with HUGE Bolt Thrower double-bass epic moments. This is the way this shit was played in the late '90s. Absolutely recommended. 1999 cd on Released Power Productions.

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Inverted Pentagram ‎– Thee Astral Sign of War tape

Continuing in the Xmas festive spirit, here's an ultra rare promo tape by obscure Dutch black/death metal band Inverted Pentagram, who ran for a few years in the early 1990s before changing their name to Omnihierophantom (anyone heard their album?) before reverting back to the original name quite recently, and put on real fun corpsepaint and clothing, as you can see here. While this starts out in a typical early 1990s sloppy fast Beherit/Von fashion with heavily echoed vocals, there are a few surprises under their belt. There's ultra slow dirge black/doom with nice heavy bass (lovin' the continuous bell effect on "Ritual of the Black Woods", there's fun ritual improvisation with entertaining gurgling/water bloop effects on "Nyarlathotep...The Messenger" on an attempt to fascimile a Dagon effect, there's heavy organ. Nice!! Quite close in the more experimental aspects of early 90s black metal such as Necromantia, and with the obligatory clumsy-as-fuck and almost comical musicianship of that era, this makes a really cool listen on a night when you have come back home with your metal buddies to continue the drinking. 1993 tape on Black Flame Produxions.

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Deviant – Tools Of Termination tape

Tight as fuck brutal and technical death metal from Sweden with a good sense of melody similar to old Cryptopsy and fellow Swedes Insision. 2004 tape on Nuclear Winter Records.

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Necrophagia / Sigh ‎– Kindred Of The Dying Kind / Young Burial split 7"

As a naive teen I was really intrigued by Necrophagia's affinity with old-school horror movies and their own attempts at small stupid "gore" films they did on their DVDs, as well as by their Celtic-Frost-booty-shaking death metal of their reformed period. Later when they briefly recruited Mirai of Sigh on keyboards they became even nicer, somewhat psychedelic and with a nice Goblin-esque touch. So this was the climax of that period with a split 7"; Necrophagia continued playing that cool Celtic Frosty-styled death/doom with Killjoy's shrieking vocals, while Sigh contributed a nice hazy punky Slayerish cover of Necrophagia's "Young Burial." For some reason, the sound is kinda shit, probably some problem at the pressing plant, but hey, it's slimy gore death metal, yeah? 2003 7" on Red Stream.

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Repugnant & Kaamos Live In Kafe 44, Stockholm, 21.3.2003 tape

 

The two best bands of the old-school Swedish death metal early-2000s revival on a split live tape. Repugnant never took off as they only released a few tapes and a posthumous full-length; their singer however became world famous as the guy behind this overrated heavy rock band called Ghost, meh. They played death metal very close to the roots of Dismember and Entombed and the singer had a very cool thrash metal voice. Now Kaamos was one of the truly best metal bands of all time, albeit an unsung one that ended too soon, after two full lengths, a 10" and a CDEP. They weren't at all copycats of the old legendary sound, but they played an extremely technically proficient epic style of death metal that took a lot of influences of Unleashed that really surpassed Unleashed's quality and mixed them with other influences from Sadistic Intent and doomier parts akin to Candlemass and produced some of the best death metal ever recorded, especially in their first self-titled album. I was lucky enough to catch them in action around 2005-2006 and they were the absolute business, as can be also be understood from this live recording. 2003 tape on Escorbuto.

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Necrovation / Corrupt ‎– Curse Of The Subconscious split 7"

Insanely tight and violent old-school Swedish death metal by the ever-awesome Necrovation, beginning with some really nice atmospheric arpeggios before morphing into thick devastating riffs; their second track is a cover of the classic Morbid track "My Dark Subconscious." Corrupt is another Swedish band, and they play less interesting trebly black/thrash metal with very fast drumming; their most noteworthy part is the vocals which remind me a lot of Altars of Madness-era David Vincent, the guy from the Peruvian band Mortem and Jeff Bechera of Possessed. The second track is a faithful cover with nice solos of Mercyful Fate's "Curse of the Pharaohs." 2005 7" on Blood Harvest.

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Das Über Evils ‎– Bratwurst Terror tape

Old-school death metal from the early incarnation of what later became known as Necrovation, one of the revivalists of the old-school Swedish death metal sound of Dismember and Entombed. Expect heavy, downtuned stuff with a touch of moshy groove and nice gruff vocals. 2002 self-released tape.

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Systral/Acheborn - Present A Split Seven Inch 7"

I listened almost exclusively to extreme metal (that plus King Crimson and Rush) as a kid and then grew up on punk, crust and d-beat as a teen, I've always held as a historical fact that the best metal has always been played by punks. This is something that was initiated by the almighty Discharge and Amebix in the 1980s, and continued with legends such as Suicidal Tendencies. The mid-to-late 1990s produced many bands that emerged from various hardcore scenes and played amazing metallic hardcore that totally destroyed almost anything made by the metal scene. This was mainly the case with Cleveland bands such as Kickback and Ringworm, other Holy Terror-affiliated bands like Catharsis and Gehenna, the Belgian H8000 scene with Congress and Liar, plus people like Timebomb from Italy, Kickback from France and early All Out War. I mean, even the best metal bands have been very clear about their punk roots, like Bathory, Celtic Frost, Slayer, early Metallica.

Another case was the Bremen Sound scene that was kickstarted by Acme, members of which would go on to form Systral, who released one of the best hardcore/metal albums of all time, Fever. After this, they released this split 7" with fellow Germans Acheborn. Systral played extremely heavy and apocalyptic deathcore (no, not emo/beatdown pseudo-angst ridden shit that is called "deathcore" today), with a huge Bolt Thrower-like sound that tears everything under its tank wheels, a dual vocal attack by one of the deepest growling vocalists breathing fire and brimstone and an unsettling black metal shrieker, and an intro with a Harley Davidson sample from Manowar's "Wheels Of Fire." Systral members would go on to form Mörser, who play similar, a little bit clearer and more technical stuff, like a more violent and unhinged 90's Carcass. On the other side, we got Acheborn, who play more technical and urgent metallic hardcore with black metal atonalities. Think like a European version of Converge. 1998 7" on Trans Solar.

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