Judas Iscariot - To Embrace the Corpses Bleeding

Last day of Blind Dead Week here in the Swamp, so let's get down to business. This one may be a bit of a stretch: you have to squint a bit to convince yourself that's a Templar on the cover, and maybe some sort of ship's rigging, and though some of the songs obviously involve the undead, they're no lyric sheet so we can't be more specific. Oh well, it was either this or another Hooded Menace album, so humor me.

That said, we have another black metal thunderstorm here, suitably epic and magisterial, from crucial American band Judas Iscariot. You know the drill: whistling winds, blast beats, croaked cryptic vocals, bumblebee guitars - all of them of the highest caliber, the panache of their performance counterbalancing the lack of exotic ingredients. Charmingly they've left some tape errors remain on the tape rather than digitally correcting them, adding an extra layer of texture and character as well.
The Dead Burst Forth From Their Tombs

Uruk-Hai - Unholy Medieval Congregation

Another Spanish ensemble here, playing some raw and ragged black metal unburdened by progressivism or beauty. This is no-frills old school meat-and-potatoes blackness. Uruk-Hai's album from this year, "Archi Catedra Nigra Diaboli," explores similar themes (including the delightfully ESL "The Night of Skeletons Dead Monks") and is worth seeking out if you enjoy this, but I had to go with this one because of that cover.
Last day of Blind Dead Week is tomorrow; I'd better come up with something good, eh?
Under the Embrace of the Black Plague

Buried at Sea - Ghost

Here's another fine example of the fact that "EPs" by doom metal bands are longer than many people's albums. In fact, what we have here, despite its thirty minute running time, is one song stretched to span an ocean. I have no idea what the lyrical subject matter may be, but as the vocals only bob to the surface around halfway and mostly vanish thereafter, we're obviously more concerned here with atmosphere and menace. While quite heavy in parts, there are stretches of grainy static punctuated by clanging bells, chirping noise, and distant footsteps in the sand. To me this is evocative of later Blind Dead films Ghost Galleon and Night of the Seagulls, both of which are sluggishly paced but punctuated by genuine moments of repulsive horror. Plus, we have this beautiful cover art to hint at what is entombed herein.

Hooded Menace - The Eyeless Horde

As the sun sets on day four of Blind Dead Week, Finland's Templars of Doom, Hooded Menace, lurch forth from their crypts to sniff out your blood. Splitting the difference between the solemn pace of this week's doomier entries and the feverish lurch of yesterday's entry, the band maintains a fairly steady mid-paced gallop, like the spellbinding last reel in La Noche del Terror Ciego where our monks overtake their prey on horseback. These monsters have been responsible for two of the best metal LPs of the last few years, both of them accordingly NOTBD-related, but it all began with this grim seven inch record. As a bonus we also have the werewolf ode "Fulfill the Curse," the title cut off their first long-player.
Virgin Sacrifice Grants Us Life Beyond the Grave

Machetazo - Sinfonías Del Terror Ciego

Day Three of Blind Dead Week brings us a nasty little slab of grind sickness from countrymen of de Ossorio and his eyeless Templars, the mighty Machetazo. This album is a front-to-back dedication to the movies; every song elaborates on the central concept in raspy, slobbery Español. It's impossible not to be charmed by this band, especially if you're a fan of their compatriots on Razorback Records - it's filler free but with a few choice samples, it mixes up their death-grind style with doom flirtations and grim galloping, and it's simultaneously dead serious and cheekily off-the-cuff. They make it look effortless, in other words. Do check out the rest of their extensive discography for songs about wendigo and organ harvesting and other delights.
Sin Ojos

Cathedral - Gargoylian

I'm sure Cathedral is familiar to many readers of this site, and I'll not bother with their considerable history in the doom universe tonight. One of my favorite things about this particular group is the scope of their lyrics: surreal unicorn fantasy, apocalyptic doom-crying, occult opaqueness, horror movie cheese, gleeful nonsense, etc. They have composed several songs related to this week's theme, Zombie Templars, but this relatively hard-to-find single is the only one to forgo their usual whimsical nightmare artwork for a film still of the infamous robed revenants. Side one, the title cut, is a mountain of a song, seemingly becoming ever slower as it progresses. Side two, "Earth in the Grip of a Skeletal Hand," is our theme song/ surprise for today however, a sludgy punkish anachronism two or three times the average speed of a normal Cathedral composition! Madness! Nonetheless, a vital addition to our library, and a furious spasm of foulness in its own right.
The morgue receives the victims of the Blind Dead.

Moss - Tombs of the Blind Drugged

Salutations, worm food! Welcome to day one of Blind Dead Week, in which I will post seven (or more) albums of undead Templar music in tribute to Amando de Ossorio's four part series of Spanish zombie mayhem. Today's special is from British super-sludge band Moss, and it creeps along at the torturous, measured pace of marching skeletal feet, creeping ever-so-slowly after you, tireless. Containing four songs in forty unbearable minutes, including a flayed-open Discharge cover, this is considered by the band to be an EP. Much more hooded horror to come this week, boys and girls, so stay tuned.
Blind terror strikes fear into the hearts of innocent people.