Warp Chamber - 2018 - Abdication of the Mind

 

As you probably guessed looking at the cover: Warp Chamber is a death metal band. They are relatively new but their first album released in 2020 was received fairly well from what I remember selling out quickly. Two years prior to that album they released a demo with two tracks. These two tracks would also find themselves on the album as well but I prefer the versions on the demo as they are more grimy and raw.

Warp Chamber plays fast, crunchy and thrashy death metal with a lot of riffs mostly played at a fast pace. To my ears they remind me of a much more death metal influenced Insect Warfare with solos and tempo changes. There is some contention with the vocals as they are mainly one note and not exactly fit in with the rest of the music but honestly I don't really care. The vocalist just blurghs and rasps all over the place filling in the space. Stupid and fun, what else could you want out of a death metal demo?

Get it!

Stream the demo or the album.

Imperial Triumphant - 2013 - Goliath

 

I've been following Imperial Triumphant for a very long time by now. I think it was Abyssal Gods that made me check them out in more detail. I'm happy for them that they blew up with Vile Luxury - an album that I really enjoyed when it came out but sadly my enjoyment of it petered out eventually. Alphaville was alright and so is the new one (I was really happy that they got Kenny G on that single track, shit was fantastic). With all that I said I feel like a complete hipster pseud by having this digital only two track EP as my absolute favorite release by them.

This could very well be because it reminds more of Deathspell Omega than on Imperial Triumphant or that it has a more concise song structure but I still think it's a fantastic pair of songs. Dizzying, spiraling riffs that keep descending and descending backed by pretty intense drum rolls and inhumane (albeit effect driven) growls is what you'll find on these two tracks.

They might not be their most original songs but I like them a lot and whenever I think of Imperial Triumphant these two songs are the first thing I want to come back to.

Check them out!

You can also stream them here!

Teleport - 2018 - The Expansion

Man - that's a fucking great cover art. Teleport was a death metal band from Slovenia that I caught live possibly in 2018 or 2017, I can't quite remember the exact date. I am a  local band heretic as I don't really like any of the local bands from my country or the region but this one stuck with me as it seemed different from the usual when I watched them live. I'm also happy to report that they don't suck on the recording as well and this demo is a testament to that.

This high quality demo would be their last effort under this name, after this they would reform under a different name and for the first time release a well made proper full length in 2021.

A lot of what is on that full length can be heard or felt on this final demo but in a more rawer and simpler way which I like because I'm into more primal forms of metal. Despite being a demo it's competently made and produced death metal akin to more older school stuff from the early 90s and late 80s that had a very noticeable thrash metal vibe. There are three tracks in total which give you about 20 minutes of material. Production is on par and you can hear all of the instruments clearly (including the oft overlooked bass guitar), vocals are raspy and layered nicely in reverb/echo. This isn't the type of death metal that is an full on assault on your senses rather this is more of a contemplative spin on the genre packed with a lot of tempo changes and eerie melodies. Good stuff.

Get it.

Also check out their full length under their new name here!

Psycroptic ‎- 2003 - The Scepter Of The Ancients

Riding on a solid debut album and garnering decent attention the band went on and made a second album two years after their first one. In two years time they absolutely refined and polished their sound up to near perfection.

The vocals are even more insane and impactful than on the first album and the guitar parts got even more wilder and spastic. The interplay between the vocals and the guitars is constantly going on and each is competing to outdo the other. It's almost like a jazz cutting contest at times. The album opens with a song that is a summary of everything that this band is and is probably the best song they ever recorded. As opposed to the first album which ha more of a uncut gem feel this album offers much catchier and more recognizable songs. Most of them seem impactful and more aptly composed. There's nothing that the first album does that this one does lousier. Even tho this one is a clear improvement I still think the first one also offers a good chunk of enjoyment.

Psycroptic after this album sadly parted ways with their vocalist which obviously damaged the developed experience gained making these tracks but I think they are doing well for themselves. I sometimes listen to their later album (Observant is alright and so is the follow up to this one) but generally it's not my cup tea anymore. We still have these two so better something than nothing!

Dig it!

Psycroptic - 2001 - The Isle Of Disenchantment

I...I was absolutely sure I shared this album before. But I didn't for some reason? I even remember typing out the text for it. Maybe I had a dream about it and just accepted that it actually happened. Speaking of which, I noticed I posted a really low amount of death metal. 23? That's it? Maybe I stored it under a different tag (I really need to redo the whole tagging scheme from ground up) and can't find it anymore. But hey, at least I have something to talk about now!

Psycroptic is a band from Tasmania (Australia) that has been around for over a decade or so. I've actually heard about them when they released their second album in 2003 as they offered two or three tracks for free when it came out. Since I'll be posting both albums I'm going to stop with the history here and focus on their first album here in this post.

Psycroptic has two unique things going for them, the first and most obvious is the seemingly endless vocal range of the vocalist and the second is a very intricate fast, short tremoloing guitar riffs. The vocals are the absolute star as they are as unique as they are varied. I guess you could describe them as gasping raspy growling? They sound strained and in pain - which is absolutely great and sometimes as the part goes along it develops into something else like cleans or even deeper growls. They are all over the place and ask for your attention at all times. On this record I can't claim this is good all of the time as sometimes the clean parts sound really bad and sometimes they can't quite reach for the effect they tried to get but other than that it's a real treat. The also mentioned guitar riffs are fast, pommeling and razor sharp often changing speed and tempo several times throughout a single song. They follow the shifts in vocals making these two the main dueling forces on the album. Unfortunately the mixing isn't as great as the music is and I think the drums could have been toned down (especially the snare) but such were the times I guess or maybe just inexperience. They don't make the album unlistenable so It's not that bad.

Dig it.

Beyond - 2013 - Fatal Power of Death

How about some void crunching death metal? Why ever not? This small band from Germany dropped this gem a couple of years back with not much notice but boy does this one deserve it. It relentlessly channels the spirit of Altars Of Madness in all aspects but it is also drenched in reverb so it sounds pretty much like what the cover depicts. There are no stops when this album starts it only punches forward with fast raspy abyssal yells backed by an endless amounts of riffs and tempo changes. My only complaint is that it does not contain enough solos, everything else fucking perfect.

Recommended.

Crystal Age - 1995 - Far Beyond Divine Horizons

"Hey that looks like the ship from Thresholds!" that was my first thought when I saw this album but the similarities pretty much end there (if we ignore the fact that they're both death metal bands obviously). Crystal Age was a short lived band from Sweden that made this album and then moved on to bigger (not necessarily better) things. They left in their wake a very solid and intense old school death metal album that has that signature Gothenburg production (and raspy, strained screaming vocals) but it's not that keen on pleasant harmonies. The guitars and drums pound relentlessly with good riffs and fast solos throughout this relatively short sci-fi journey. Nocturnus clone this is not but if you're looking for hidden gems give this one a thorough listen.

Get it.

Oppressor - 1994 - Solstice Of Oppression

Speaking of less known gems here's another album but this time in the realm of death metal. Early Gorguts came to mind when I heard this but this one is much more malignant, more sinister and more nuanced. Honestly the vocals are the only thing that are kinda middle of the road, they're your generic 90s death metal deep growls but the other parts of this intricate machinery are shining examples of innovation and progression that was occurring during the golden age (imho) of death metal. The music is riddled with these great passages between fast and slow parts that seamlessly come and go giving this album a good display of how should a dynamic album sound. Every track is some kind of maze of riffs and tempo changes with a good layering of subtle background atmosphere. A shame they didn't get more spotlight time.

Get it.

Gorephilia - 2012 - Embodiment Of Death

Gorephilia is a fantastic new band coming from Finland. So far they have two albums and both are fantastic with Embodiment of Death being their first. Their sound is a mixture of various old school death metal bands but I think their main influences were Morbid Angel (the fast parts) and Entombed (the slow parts). Everything on this record is brimming with energy and potential although some tremolo parts can get a bit boring. Some variety would do them good and it did on their second album but here they're more primal and upfront. Even with at times mediocre riffs this is an excellent album of a promising band that you should check out if you're into death metal.

Get it.

Ignivomous - 2012 - Contragenesis

Sometimes you just want to be a lump of flesh on the anvil of an uncaring void that keeps mutilating your body and your sanity. That's pretty much this album, its ethos of contragenesis is preserved throughout this album from start to finish. Once it starts there is no going back from the swirling muck that this album conveyed. In all seriousness though as far as Incantation love letters go this one is among the top. I especially love the fact that they preserved some of their more thrashy kind of riffs that were more present on their demos.

Get it.

Gath Šmânê ‎- 2014 - Transmuted Marrow

Fast, heavy and riddled with fantastic and impactful riffs this two track demo was among my absolute favorites back in 2014. And even to this day it continues to be on my mind and I keep checking this fucking band in anticipation for something more. They made this short demo four years ago and nothing else which is a fucking shame considering how unbelievably good this demo turned out to be. Fingers crossed they come back with something new eventually. Until then get this demo!

Highly recommended!

Severe Torture - 2002 - Misanthropic Carnage

In general I was never much of a fan of the guts & gore death metal bands. I absolutely adore Suffocation which is apparently the progenitor of the brutal death metal subgenre but aside from them and few others I left the genre largely unexplored. I discovered this band on a whim and I have to say it hit just the right notes for me. The band starts right on point with a delicious tremolo riff backed by what else than blast beats. After that you're bound on a journey of chuggy riffs, gurgling vocals and monotone drumming. This combined with production that's not very keen on mid ranges and gains you get a comfortable, even soothing bass heavy album. It's heavy is but not obnoxious or draining. I come back every once in a while to this album and every time I enjoy its brutality in fullest. A bunch of murky entertaining death metal riffs. What more could you ask?

Get it.

Ensnared ‎- 2013 - Ravenous Damnation's Dawn

It's funny how as I get older I find much more enjoyment in raw and upfront bands compared to when I was a scavenging teen looking for experimental and unorthodox bands. Lucky for me these more classic-but-new sounding bands seem to be all the rage nowadays. Ensnared is a Swedish band that grew up on Swedish bands but instead of following their homeland footsteps they pummel things Tampa style and I'm loving every minute of it. In their 30 minutes Ensnared will remind you just how much awesome Altars Of Madness is but they'll offer it with a good serving of Sweden made melodic riffs as well. Fast and thrashy this EP might feel too short but the material here is filler free and unrelenting. The only downside for me is that they massively lack lava flowing, church burning solos but perhaps this intensifies the no-frills attitude. Such a shame after this EP they moved into other directions with their sound but nonetheless they still left us with this awesome work that satisfies my Altars Of Madness craving.

Get this!

Hate - Awakening Of The Liar

Hate is a Polish death metal band that has the misfortune of being popular enough to release albums on a steady basis but not being notable enough to attract decent attention. I actually have a lot memories attached to this band for some obtuse reason. I vividly remember discussing their (then) latest album (Awakening of the Liar) on now defunct DarkLyrics forums. I also remember downloading their songs from their homepage with my shitty 56k modem and so on. They even came to play in my hometown but by then I was heavily into noise and power electronics so I didn't really care to see them at that point in time (2008-2009). I heard they were really bad live though.

Their career sadly isn't all that great. After a bit of an rocky start they had a string of solid, melodic yet sufficiently heavy albums but later on they had an identity crisis in which they were trying really hard to be Behemoth. Their latest album came out in 2015 and it seemed like a return to form when I heard it so things are picking up for them I guess. Of the albums I like from them I think this is my favorite one and I feel like their style shines the most here. Every other album has some kind of problem which prevents it from being really great but it seems like everything was in its rightful place when they recorded this one.

The album is essentially a packed tremolo riff ride through the valley of death metal. The songs are written to be catchy, headbangy affairs and general crowd pleasing riffs and solos. Most follow a similar style in composition focused on well written aforementioned tremolo riffs with breakdown-ish parts that separate them. The band has a great sense of pacing so it never gets overwhelming or boring, they never dwell on one riff too much which makes them sound fresh on each new track.

Overall it's a great little (hidden?) gem from Poland. It's a shame this band gets constantly overshadowed by bands like Decapitated and such but I guess not everyone can be a winner.

Get it.

Desolate Shrine - The Sanctum of Human Darkness

In the last few years (or maybe it has been a decade already) a certain kind of sound started to take hold in death metal. It's the sound that comes out of deep caverns where cambrian fossils play guitars that sound like a swarm of flies mixed with clacking of septic tank hatch doors. Also known as Incantation worship or New York death metal in general or just new old school death metal. There are a lot of bands that do this sort of thing now and a lot of them sound the same. I find them to  be really fun to listen but they can get stale after a while. I've been loving most of these bands but in a very biased way because I like the sound of it. I don't really care if it's the same thing all over again with each new band that I stumble upon next.

Desolate Shrine is one of those new bands that incorporated this sound or style into their music. It's a relatively new band from Finland that released their debut in 2011 called Tenebrous Towers. Tenebrous Towers was a good album but it felt like they were just flexing their muscles with it and warming up. You know, just to prove they can do this sort of music. A year later they released The Sanctum of Human Darkness and everything sank into place. The music finally took its desired form and the band blossomed in full.

The album feels conceptual but that might be just my interpretation. Keeping up with the Satanic theme of the album the music is fittingly bleak, eerie and filled with malice. The riffs are not "fun" nor energetic. Each song is a slow, distorted pummeling of your senses with incredibly deep guitar tone and overall production. They do change the pace every now and then, speeding things up and those parts are especially great. The pacing is done well on most of the songs so when the fast parts kick in they feel really tight and rewarding to listen. The album does suffer at times, some songs feel like they're just a collection of unconnected riffs and such but for the most part it's really good. They did improve on that in the next album which came out this year although they both sound very similar.

Overall it's a great death metal album mixed with some doom as well so if you're into this sort of sound I'd suggest checking it out but if you're not into this cavernous stuff you'll be bored to tears.

Get.

Sinister - Diabolical Summoning

Yeah, I'm one some kind of old school metal trip lately. Here's another gem that might not be too well known around the scene.

Sinister comes from Netherlands and they've been around for quite some time releasing a slew of albums. The quality of these albums are disputable, the fandom seems to be divided about it but I can't really have a say in this since I only head their first two (which are apparently the only two good ones).

Diabolical Summoning was the second of the "only two good albums" and it is a journey through some excellent riff based death metal (that reminds me of Suffocation a lot). The album starts with a massive bass riff with guitars pummeling through soon enough and it does not stop until the end of the album. For me, Sinister did everything right on this album. It has that Altars Of Madness intensity, great guitar riffs, excellent tone and production coupled with those great raspy death metal vocals. If you're looking for some 90s death metal then this is something you should definitely try out.


Get.

Suffocation - Reincremated

While death metal might not be the most experimental or "out there" genre it still has its share of great bands. Be it traditional or more adventurous there's always some good band hiding around the corner.

Suffocation might not be the most adventurous band out there but what they do - they do good. They also happen to be one of my favorite bands from the genre. Their discography contains some really good and interesting albums while maintaining a steady formula that works well. The newest one is actually really good but perhaps a bit overproduced in my opinion. It's too clean for my taste. Speaking of clean their first (and only?) demo is fucking raw. It rips shit up; VERY INTENSELY.

The demo contains three tracks that will appear on the Human Waste EP and on their first full length but here is where it all started for Suffocation. Unlike a lot of demos their talent and musicianship really shines here. The production (if you can call it that) is lacking that depth which is very iconic for Suffocation albums in the 90s so this demo sounds more like a thrash metal album from '84. But it's all good and well. The raw production and the thrashy sound really makes this demo shine.

Get. (this time it should be the proper link, sorry for the fuck up)

Merciless - The Awakening

Speaking of metal, here's another album that I've been planning to share. Merciless is well known for several reasons. The first and most important reason is that they made excellent albums during the 90s. The second reason why they're known is because they were one of the first in Sweden to fuse thrash metal with death metal. Oh and they were the first band to be signed on Deathlike Silence.

All I can really say is that this albums really deserves the praise it gets. Despite being very short for a full length (26 minutes) it is a highly enjoyable trip through old school death/thrash metal. It's sloppy, gritty and in your face music that makes no compromises. Couple that with raspy, distant vocals and you have all that you need from music like this.

Zippyshare.

First three Belphegor albums

Lately I've been going through some kind of weird nostalgia train of revisiting bands that I used to listen a lot during high school and earlier. Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while now might remember that Belphegor was in fact the very first band that got me into more extreme music (or extreme metal at least). Yes, the feeling of discovering something new and extreme was really great. What got me into it was their most famous album Goatreich-Fleshcult and after I played that album on repeat for days they kinda went downhill for me. Everything they released after that was samey or they just tried to relive/reinvent Lucifer Incestus or Goatreich.

But before they got famous they released a string of albums that were much more raw and much more fun. Now that I went through their discography again after all these years I find myself liking these early material more than my previous favorites. They had some really awesome riffs back then and the vocals were still top notch and they didn't seem like a joke then; just very blasphemous to a point of insane (see  front covers).

So I decided to share these albums for those of you who enjoy a good dose of black/death metal. Overall all three of these albums sound similar but you can really sense the growing and progressing with each new album. It's fairly standard stuff with very little experimentation but it's done well and it doesn't get boring. Also pretty much every gimmicky thing they do in later albums can be heard on these three albums but in a much more primal state.

Here are the albums:

The Last Supper (1995)

Blutsabbath (1997)

 

Necrodaemon Terrorsathan (2000)

Also I dug out their very first EP from somewhere called Bloodbath in Paradise, an extra treat if you liked the albums.

Spawn Of Possession - Cabinet

To break away from the recent trend of jazz music here's something completely different. Every now and then I get this urge to listen some death metal and when it comes to this genre I'm very laid back. Laid back in a sense that I do not really demand a lot from this type of music. As long as it's well composed and has a good sound I'll give it a listen.

Spawn of Possession come from Sweden and that tells us that they were exposed to a lot of great death metal bands in their life. The influences here can be heard but luckily it's not a rip off of some more major players. Lately they've been getting a decent amount of attention with their new album "Incurso" which you should check out if you like this sort of thing. I won't be posting it but I'll share their first album that I'm enjoying a lot (maybe even more than their recent one). It's pretty much everything I'm looking for in a death metal record. They have that "death metal production" sound on this album, it's not medicinal clean plastic stuff - thank fuck. It's rough, mushy and bathed in glorious chugga chugga riffs backed by solid drumming and decent vocals. Vocals are perhaps my biggest dislike in this band. I dunno, they don't click that well with me, I think they're too clean for this sort of thing. Yeah he growls but it's more of a growl-scream kind of thing. Everything else is good and fun to listen very loud.

Download.