INFINITUM OBSCURE – Sub Atris Caelis CD review

INFINITUM OBSCURE – Sub Atris Caelis CD
Deathgasm Records

One of the many great things about Extreme Metal is how bands can come out of the most unique of places and create music that sounds cold, cruel and grim as if it were from a more traditional place which people refer to more often. This band hails from Mexifornia, (aka: Tijuana, Mexico & Baja, California) but after one listen I would’ve thought Sweden since they’ve got alot of DISSECTION influence going for them. Hey just look at the CD cover artwork by Timo Ketola of black hooded figure holding a scythe and ask yourself does it look familiar? You could also look to them having Bill Metoyer, who’s worked with SLAYER, MORBID ANGEL, etc, as the recording engineer as well as Necromorbus Studios genius Tore Stjerna behind the mastering work as in some way influential greatness or maybe just ironic. Either way INFINITUM OBSCURE have come riding out of a cold desert night to wreak fuckin havoc with their brand of Blackened Death.

This is my first time hearing INFINITUM OBSCURE although they’ve been around since 2000 and have released previous material including a full length Internal Dark Force in 2006 on the Utterly Somber Creations label. One thing that’s been a constant in their history is mainman Roberto Lizarraga. This guy goes through band members like I go through light bulbs. INFINITUM OBSCURE is his vision so he handles the vocals, lead & acoustic guitars, bass and piano. Yeah there are other musicians on this release and I believe he has others as part of his touring band. There’s another reference to the spirit of Jon Nodtveidt lurking in the background which just pushes this thing further into the uncanny and ironic department. I guess the only thing that’s not part of the “holy shit” arena when it comes to this release is that it’s on the uber cool underground label extraordinaire Deathgasm Records.

Sub Atris Caelis is an exceptional release since it pushes a decent balance between the melodic Death Metal atmosphere and the ferocious harsh pounding of Black Metal. It’s a beautiful atrocity put to music like being slashed with a sharp blade. Instead of worrying about the pain and eventual death you’re mesmerized by the way your blood runs out across your flesh. Brutality and melody are in a death like embrace as the music dances along a line of varied intensity as well as aggression. Roberto Lizarraga’s vocals are amazingly in the same vein of the music. You’ve got your death growls and harsh blackened vocals which for me is pure entertainment value. Notice that I’m not pushing individual songs because this release needs to be taken as a whole. Drop this into your stereo push play and wait as this thing takes you screaming into a vortex of pain, renewal, hatred, anguish, power and of course destruction of the so-called supreme.

I must admit my bias and that is when it comes to the genre of Death Metal I like the older bands as well as newer bands recreating that style. Follow that up with Blackened Death metal which I definitely lean more towards and it’s easy to see why I’d be an over the top fan of INFINITUM OBSCURE and what they’ve produced with Sub Atris Caelis. But obviously what’s on here is something which I will say could be this band’s The Somberlain. I know I’m guilty of intentional hyperbole once in a great while just to piss some people off. With that said here we have something worthy of greatness as well as my tendency for hyperbole. Roberto Lizarraga even includes two interludes, one acoustic and the other featuring a piano interlude, in order not to fill holes but to enhance what has preceded and prepare for the crushing blow. Yeah this is good.

www.deathgasm.com

SINISTER REALM – Self Titled CD review

SINISTER REALM – Self Titled CD
Shadow Kingdom Records

“Hello Allentown, are you ready for some Heavy Fuckin Metal?” For those of you who don’t know me, I spent my teenage to adult years, age 13 to 20 (1976 to 1983) in good old Allentown, PA. I saw all the great Heavy Metal bands back then in their heyday, PRIEST three times, MAIDEN twice, SCORPIANS before they went Pop, SABBATH with Ozzy & Dio, RAINBOW with Dio & without, UFO, OZZY with Randy & without, ACDC with Bon Scott & without, etc. So it’s clear that I know my classic Heavy Fuckin Metal. It is also clear that SINISTER REALM also from Allentown, PA know their classic Heavy Fuckin Metal as well. Listening to this is like a trip down memory lane. I get the urge to hold up my lighter till my finger is burned or atleast walk over to a side wall and puke like I once did in Agricultural Hall (Ag or Fag Hall for short) at the Allentown Fairgrounds during a BLUE OYSTER CULT concert.

Anyway SINISTER REALM have that classic Heavy Metal sound which reminds me a little of DIO but they beef it up with some epic Doom ala CANDLEMASS. They’re a five piece with the guitarists trading off melodic leads like the good old days. Their vocalist sounds as if he stepped out of a time machine from the year 1980. The guy’s very versatile in style kinda like a cross between Dio and Messiah. If this thing was mixed with the pops and cracks of playing vinyl I would’ve thought this was some long lost classic from that era. But then most of what Pittsburgh’s Shadow Kingdom Records sound that way. This is the band’s debut and hopefully this summer during festival season they’ll see how European audiences go crazy for their stuff because they need to be up on those stages. It’s has to be better than playing Lupo’s Beef & Ale on a Friday night in Allentown.

www.shadowkingdomrecords.com/

NATU SABVERATA – Existing to Ensure Your Destruction CD review

NATU SABVERATA – Existing to Ensure Your Destruction CD
Heaven and Hell Records

According to their bio this is technically a posthumous release with previously recorded material from their career. Yes I could be a little loose by using the word career but supposedly the band is making a comeback. Usually when bands plan to make one of those there’s a reason like maybe their music is now trendy or they have some unfinished business in the creative department. I’ve been working my ass off at work these past two weeks and must have dosed off. So is there a Death Grind revival going on or what? Yeah well there’s that which is decent to a point but the band adds some Groove to the music and Core elements to the vocals. In the end it sounds like a band trying to appeal to a wide audience in lieu of creating something all their own.

Some songs on here are perfect for that picking up change dance crowd. This band hails from Burlington, NC which was formerly a textile mill town before the sweatshops overseas killed em. I might’ve seen this band’s set at the 2007 NC Death Fest but then again there’s a reason I get drunk at those things. Guitarist Jacob Edwards plays like a machine but in a monotonous way plus his vocals are annoying. When he sticks with the cookie monster style he’s good but then there’s this higher pitch squeal coming through at times which is horrible. If you’re gonna use voice effects atleast make sure it doesn’t sound like someone is shoving a stick up your ass. I don’t see anyone else credited with backing vocals so I’m guessing the worst. If this is a career spanner I’d say they could toss 75% of it, keep the rest and build on the Death Grind for their future.

www.heavenhellrecords.com

SEVENTH CALLING – Prelude to Madness CDEP review

SEVENTH CALLING – Prelude to Madness CDEP
Heaven and Hell Records

This Minnesota band’s three song dink has some cool sounding tunes but unfortunately they are marred by questionable vocals. That’s kinda ironic since Minnesota is a beautiful state with great people but they have that asshole Al Frankin as a senator, go figure. SEVENTH CALLING’s sound harkens back to that time when NWOBHM was giving way to Thrash. So expect some mid-tempo riffs with leads that will cut through steel. Alex Ritchey is a fine guitarist who reminds me of Michael Schenker and keeps this thing smoking with his fret work. He’s also responsible for the backing vocals which are good. With this kinda music you need a decent sounding rhythm section while your lead guitarist wails away and they’ve got one with Michael Poplees on bass and Shannon Frye on drums. Now with those three components in place the three cuts on here are memorable. But here comes my complaint and it’s with Steve Handel’s lead vocals. On the first cut, “Deliverance” he hits these high octaves which make me cringe in disgust. It’s almost a nasally whine. When he’s singing in a lower tone it’s bearable. Actually he’s best when he throws in a death growl or grunt. He’s somewhat better on “Blood for the Divine” and “Lost” but I’m really just being nice.

www.heavenhellrecords.com

NOMINON – Omen MCD review

NOMINON – Omen MCD
Deathgasm Records

Some people might not care for the format idea of putting out a mini CD with teaser cuts from a forth coming release but then they probably don’t remember 7”ers. Bands/Labels would put out a 7”er with one or two new songs from an upcoming LP/CD on the A-side and then have something rare on the B-side. Alot of times the 7”ers were on colored vinyl to boot which made them perfect for collector scum. Of course sometimes it would just be two new cuts which was simply a waste of time as well as money. Seeing this practice continue today on a CD format is sort of strange with bands simply posting new cuts on Myspace or allowing a free MP3 download from their website. But then this is from Deathgasm Records whose founder Evan March is a dedicated Extreme Metal fan. He releases stuff for blood thirsty crazies who are into the physical aspect of the genre. Like a wild animal that gets its first taste of human blood. Once you get a handful of releases from Deathgasm Records you’re hooked, you are addicted and you just might take a few lives in the process of getting their stuff.

As far as NOMINON goes I got my first whiff of them with their Terra Necrosis release from 2007. The damm thing should’ve come with a warning label. Sweden’s NOMINON have been around since 1993 so it’s obvious they know their Death Metal. Here we have two new cuts which might be on their forth coming release Monumentomb plus a rerecording of “Invocations” plus one live cut, “Submit to Evil”. Now when I say “might be on their forth coming release” is because there’s a different vocalist on each track here which gives this a collector rating of ten. As far as the tracks go, the live one is ok since it has shit for a recording quality. The rerecorded “Invocations” has guitarist Juha Sulasalmi on vocals. But it’s the songs “Through Dead Dreams Door” and the title track with are true standouts. This precursor shows that their full length is going to be one brutal motherfucker.

www.deathgasm.com

ARSIS – Starve for the Devil CD review

ARSIS – Starve for the Devil CD
Nuclear Blast Records

This band is a winner in my book of “fuck you to traditionalism”. Throw the recently warm, moist and disemboweled innards of ARCH ENEMY and DRAGONFORCE against a filthy wall. You will need to collect the drippings, add water and bring to boil. Afterwards the broth will be ARSIS and you’ll want to share your recipe of discovery. Although I will not say that ARSIS are over the top. They just touch all the needed buttons that make them decent Extreme Metal. Starve for the Devil is the dink that CHILDREN OF BODOM should’ve put out but didn’t. Melodic Death Metal, Thrash and NWOBHM are all dumped into the soup pot here making it a pedestrian Metal classic. When was the last time you heard a Metal band with more hooks than your granny’s curtains? I doubt ARSIS will start climbing up the charts to overthrow the ruling Pop Metal favorites nor do I believe it was their aim. Releasing a fun sounding recording seems more to the point. Call the chiropractor because Starve for the Devil induces headbanging.

Guitarist/vocalist James Malone can turn out a great riff, cut a lead flawlessly and write catchy songs that’ll even have a suicidal Doom maven sing along. Check in on songs like “Beyond Forlorn”, “Half Corpse O’ Clock” or my favorite of all “Forced to Rock” in which Malone kicks off the song with a simple “let’s rock”. This is beer drinking music the kind of thing you play for a crowd who really don’t give a flying fuck as long as the music is cool. Once in a while you need a release like this to toss on in between the extremes of hate. Yeah it’s early in the year so after a few plays you’ll slip this into a stack and forget about it. I do it all the fuckin time. But months from now I’ll go back to looking for something different as well as playable and it’ll catch my eye. They’re on a US tour right now with ARCH ENEMY but not around we’re I live.

www.nuclearblast.com

WICKED KING WICKER – God is Busy Save Yourself CD review

WICKED KING WICKER – God is Busy Save Yourself CD
Cold Spring Records

My first reaction to this was simply “Whatafuck”. SUNN O)))’s mentally disturbed brother now residing in a maximum security mental institution in upstate New York makes a CD. One listen to this and you’ll think MOSS is too melodic. Personally I’m not the right person to review let alone endure this one. What I need is an assistant, someone who I can lock up in a padded room and blast this too. After about a dozen plays I’d slip some sheets of paper and a few crayons through a slot in the door then scream, “So tell me what you think?” Maybe the US Military at Gitmo should consider using this CD in their interrogation techniques. Make sure the islamo-fascists know the CD title of course just for better effect and a bag of pork grinds wouldn’t hurt as well. After five minutes the bastards would beg to be water boarded.

This is the epitome of Doom, Dirge and Distorted Sludge. The sheer fact that there’s an audience for this in the ranks of the Extreme is amazing enough. Now after a little digging for info I come to find out that this is the band’s sixth release and that they have a huge underground following. Well why not take an ice pick and plunge it into both of my eardrums then follow along. I kinda thought my tastes in Metal were on the extreme side but after listening to this I’m in need of an adjustment. For most people WICKED KING WICKER makes what they’re listening to seem like Pop music. The riffs on here drag more ass than an alligator. They are thick with over the top distortion. Oh yeah there are vocals on here as well. Actually vocals are not a correct term to use since they sound like disquieting screams from the mentally ill. I’m wondering how many reviewers in the past dropped one of the band’s promo dinks into their stereo, pushed play and when the noise blasted out thought, “Fuck I got a bum disc.”

As much as I consider this to be completely disturbing there is something magnetic about God is Busy Save Yourself. It reminds me of the time back in the late 70s when I first heard the SEX PISTOLS on the radio, a college radio station of course, and thought this is almost illegal. This New York band conjures up those same feelings. It also has a somewhat psychedelic quality as in a bad acid trip. Hallucinating that your body is covered with ants comes to mind. This release has three cuts, all over sixteen minutes in length and trust me that’s all you need. All I can say finally is that this is genius. I’m surprised I still have furniture left unbroken but then again I’ve been through SUNN O))) already, because God is Busy Save Yourself could easily drive a lesser person literally insane. Unless you are a huge Dirge Drone Doom Experimental music connoisseur then stay away stay very far away.

www.coldspring.co.uk