Fight Amp, Avenger of Blood, Brutus, and more

Fight Amp

At Pitchfork, I've reviewed Fight Amp, a '90s AmRep throwback whom I suspect has a Danzig fetish. The recording is tough; the guy-girl vocals are tougher. At All Music Guide, I've reviewed Avenger of Blood (German thrash from Las Vegas), Barbara (artful Israeli sickness), Bilk (Croatian drum 'n' bass 'n' rock), Brutus (Caesar-slaying Dutch death metal), Cypher 7 (Bill Laswell-helmed IDM/dub), Last Chance to Reason (Maine calculus-core), The Phantom Family Halo (retro with a capital R), Primordial (the pride of Ireland), PureH (electronic desolation), Ratos de Porão (the pride of Brazil), and Shinjuku Thief (a soundtrack to Kafka's The Trial). You can also disregard this list and window-shop in the sidebar.

Fight Amp - Bound and Hagged
Avenger of Blood - Death Brigade

Left Hand Path #011

Grave in the Sky

Left Hand Path #011 is up. This installment of Stylus' metal column is massive, featuring 38 album reviews and an interview with Chris Bruni of Profound Lore Records, easily the metal label of the year with top-notch releases by Alcest, Caina, Cobalt, Portal, Pulsefear, The Angelic Process, The Howling Wind, WOLD, and more. Bands reviewed in the column include Coalesce, Crimson Moon, Helloween, High on Fire, Nominon, Rosetta, Skeletonwitch, Sodom, Souvenir's Young America, Unearthly Trance, Yakuza, and many more.

My picks of the bunch include Colorado black metallers Cobalt, Israeli digital doom outfit Grave in the Sky, Polish old-school blackened death metallers Throneum, and oddball grinders Total Fucking Destruction, featuring Rich Hoak of Brutal Truth.

Cobalt - Blood Eagle Sacrifice
Grave in the Sky - Donnie Darko
Throneum - Exhibition of Abomination
Total Fucking Destruction - Warfinger

Eternal Gray - Kindless

Death metal isn't dead; it's just lying low. Sure, it might have partied too hard in the '90s and choked on the vomit of complacence and conformity. But just when I think that the artform is done, a group like Eternal Gray comes along and restores my faith. Hailing from Haifa, Israel, this band combines the driving riffage of Morbid Angel with the turn-the-screw dissonance of Immolation, and, occasionally, more traditional melodies. Grooves stay mostly midpaced and chunky, though eerie jangles draped over blastbeats keep the soundscape varied.

Flesh Cycles
The Unbelievers Die

No boundary-pushing here, but the degree of refining is incredible for a debut (Raven, 2002). The songwriting is memorable and dynamic, with songs prone to strong upshifts partway through. Befuddling artwork and a clear, punchy Abyss Studios recording complete the package. Eternal Gray is working on a new album at the moment. In the meantime, Kindless is available for cheap from The End.

Melechesh, Leng Tch'e, Warface, Facedown Records, and reggae

Melechesh

If you were wondering where Andy from No One Here Is Asking and Jason from Sonic Corpse Glide went (and you will know them by their trail of dead blogs), they've joined forces in the blog merger of the year. Now they're at Clocked In - Punched Out, which is off to a running start. Some metal, some not, no bullshit, don't sleep.

At Stylus, Stewart Voegtlin and Todd DePalma have turned in a fine sixth edition of Left Hand Path. Stew did a feature on Outlaw Recordings, and Todd reviewed some hot buzz records - Bone Awl, Dead Reptile Shrine, Ruins of Beverast, among others.

Julie Pinsonneault has written a great feature, "Women in Metal," for Stylus. The title is overbroad, as the article focuses on the depiction of women in metal media, as opposed to the book-length treatment such a title requires. Though I would have liked to have seen more female musicians mentioned (the article's linchpin, Karyn Crisis, isn't even doing music now), it's incisive and very well-written.

Warface - Climatic Annihilation
Melechesh - Rebirth of the Nemesis
Comparison - Melechesh vs. Soulfly vs. Gregory Peck

Speaking of women in metal, at Metal Injection I've reviewed Warface, which features Laura Christine on guitar. Plenty of women play guitar, but few do so in metal, especially of shredder caliber. You see women behind the mic, bass, and keyboards, but not at the "skill positions" - drums and guitar. Why is that? I've also reviewed the new Leng Tch'e, which is, sadly, a dud.

Facedown Records has been on a hot streak, and they celebrate their 10th anniversary soon, so I un-inverted my cross and did a label profile. Look out for their new signing, Impending Doom - Christian gore grind, believe! I've also reviewed the sort-of-new Melechesh, whose schtick is black/thrash metal with a Mesopotamian twist.

One of their signatures is a drum pattern that totally reminds me of dancehall reggae (in "Rebirth of the Nemesis," it's the first beat after the blastbeats). I've posted an MP3 for comparison. The first clip is from Melechesh's "Deluge of Delusional Dreams," the second is from Soulfly's "Living Sacrifice" (which has the same beat), and the third is from "Pocoman Jam" by Jamaican reggae artist Gregory Peck. I also hear this beat booming out of cars here in Berlin's Turkish quarter. Does anyone know if this beat has a name?

Whorecore - Protection

Sharing Together
Chain Reaction

Self-Released
2006


Terrible band name, but thankfully the sound doesn't match! Whorecore plays neither, say, swoop-do'd metalcore nor gore-grind, as the name might imply. Instead, this Israeli outfit rolls out death/grind like Belgian bands Leng Tch'e and Aborted, with plenty of half-speed grooves amid the requisite blasting. In fact, Svencho of these two groups has joined Whorecore on vocals. How band practice will work with members in Tel Aviv and Ghent is beyond me, but supposedly a new album is forthcoming this year.

In the meantime, the band has released its debut full-length, Protection. 16 tracks race by in under 29 minutes. Original vocalist Ariel Ron does a fine job with a variety of growls and screams. The guitars run the show, though, mixing tremolo picking, chugging riffs, and creative use of harmonics and pick squeals. Dimebag Darrell is a strong influence; "Chain Reaction" lifts one riff from "A New Level." However, there are other sounds at play, like d-beat and straight-up grindcore. The band is still synthesizing its influences, but the force of these grooves is undeniable.

The production here isn't the greatest. The drums, in particular, sound both boxy and thin. Surprisingly, Pig Destroyer's Scott Hull mixed the album. Given his track record, he must have either been under a time/budget crunch or had bad recordings to work with. I don't mind, actually. The sound has a raw, "underground" vibe, although I don't think that's what the band intended. Syncopated material like this benefits from strong production, so I'm eager to hear what these cats do next. To get this album, email the band.

The band has since changed its name to They:Swarm.

Cadaver Eyes - The Acquisition of Power over Fire/No Time to Haste

This past weekend, I attended a wedding that was half Jewish. One of the Jewish customs observed was dancing the hora. If you're unfamiliar with the hora, it's a lot like a mosh pit. There's tons of circle pits dancing around the bride and groom, who get raised above the crowd on chairs - kind of like crowdsurfing. As with moshing, I didn't plan to dance the hora. But the vibe was thick, the DJ was killing it, and before I knew it, someone grabbed me and pulled me in. I practically got whiplash; I barely had time to hand my drink to a surprised bystander before I was deep in the fray.

A common hora soundtrack is "Hava Nagila," which is fucking metal. If you disagree, just check out Anthrax's "I'm the Man," which nicks its riff from "Hava Nagila." Phrygian Dominant pwns.

Jewish mosh pit

Likewise Israeli and metallic is Cadaver Eyes, a one-man grindcore band named after lyrics from Alice Cooper's "I Love the Dead." Like many drummers, David Opp attaches triggers to his kit. However, he triggers samples instead of drum sounds. This allows him to produce nearly any combination of sound at once, and he takes full advantage. Distorted bass and guitar, samples of a prison execution, straight-up noise, and traditional folk music all get the blastbeat treatment, with lyrics in Hebrew and English. It's crazy, spastic, and addictively lo-fi, like if Fantomas made Napalm Death's Scum.

Cadaver Eyes - Ba-Yom Yom
Cadaver Eyes - Dive into the Abyss

This CD, released last year on Heart & Crossbone, collects the out-of-print No Time to Haste CD from 2001 along with 2004's The Acquisition of Power over Fire EP. You can find it

@ Aquarius Records
@ Crucial Blast