Deftones are streaming their new single in full, after teasing a snippet yesterday. The track premiered by Zane Lowe on his Beats1 Radio show comes off of their upcoming album Gore, due our on April 8th from Warner Brothers Records. You can hear the track at this link on iTunes/Apple Music or below:
To celebrate 20 years of nastiness, Belgian death metallers Aborted have released a five track EP. Termination Redux (Century Media) features three new songs and a re-recording of the band’s 2001 song ‘The Holocaust Incarnate’ from the band’s Engineering The Dead (Listenable Records) record.
Grinding death metal has always been Aborted’s speciality, and this is a short, sharp, shock of crushingly relentless filth. Technical chainsaw riffs, machine gun drumming and larynx-bleeding vocals fill every track. There’s no signs of slowing down or – god forbid – mellowing out, and the three new tracks promise to make the band’s upcoming album a potential highlight of 2016.
For completest, the rerecording of ‘The Holocaust Incarnate’ retains its original buzzsaw qualities, but is given an added crispness to its sound. The band haven’t changed a whole lot over the years, and the fact that a song over a decade old reinforces the idea that the band have always been about refining, rather than radically changing their sound.
In fifteen minutes, Termination Redux demonstrates pretty perfectly what Aborted are all about; brutal, uncompromising death metal. Happy Anniversary.
8.0/10
DAN SWINHOE
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“Not another Swedish death metal band!” I hear you cry. Surely a scene stuffed to the gills with those who worship at the putrid altars of Dismember and Entombed doesn’t need another body to distract attention and replicate clichés? Well you’d be dead wrong of course. Newbies Cut Up have actually been round the block several times, via the local graveyard and abattoir of course, in their previous incarnation as gore merchants Vomitory, who made a lot of noise in their lengthy career but won few hearts and minds. Do these seasoned veterans still have the bit between their teeth?
The answer is a resounding yes. Cut Up doesn’t so much have the bit between their gnashers as the leg of a freshly slain corpse. Debut album Forensic Nightmares (Metal Blade) is a full-blooded beast of a death metal album that while resolutely old-school in its approach, is possessed of its own, fierce identity and not interested in merely copying the greats of the genre.
No, Cut Up wants to brutally violate your eardrums with a barrage of lethal riffs, thick, serpentine grooves and some truly nasty guttural vocals. Every track served up here is cooked to bloody perfection, from the sickening gut-punch of brief opening tracks ‘Enter Hell’ and ‘Burial Time’ to the lurching filth of ‘Order of the Chainsaw’ and the raging violence of the title track.
The lyrics may deal with the usual blood n’ guts but what do you expect from a band called Cut Up? However, the real surprise is the thick, meaty production that truly gives each instrument some serious heft with the drums in particular sounding utterly devastating. So if the last Bloodbath album left you cold, check out Cut Up’s brand of shit-hot death metal and marvel at how sometimes shedding your skin and being reborn (in blasphemy, of course) is the best way to go.
8.0/10
JAMES CONWAY
Although they released one of the first US death metal albums with 1987’s Season of the Dead (New Renaissance), Ohio natives Necrophagia have never been regarded as pioneers of the genre, instead more of a tired old sideshow masquerading under the banner of a ‘cult band.’ Despite the patronage of Phil Anselmo and the dogged nature of mainman Killjoy, Necrophagia just quite simply aren’t worthy of much attention when one considers how fertile the US scene currently is. It’s a problem they do little to address on seventh full-length WhiteWorm Cathedral (Season of Mist).
If mid-paced, plodding death metal that never even hints at stepping out of its comfort zone is your thing, then WhiteWorm Cathedral may hold some appeal. With its frequent use of horror movie samples, big chugging riffs and rasped vocals depicting morbid tales of violence, the supernatural and gore, Necrophagia have always played to the choir and over the course of 50 minutes they carry on the formula that is all they know to an almost religious level of conformity. Of course, the same accusation could be levelled at all manner of bands from AC/DC to Eyehategod, but the problem here is that most songs will have you reaching for the skip button and wondering when things are going to rise above the mundane. Unfortunately that moment never comes.
While the hefty chugging and ghostly keyboards of ‘Rat Witch’ may march onwards like a sinister George Romero zombie and the snaking riffs of ‘Angel Blake’ at least possesses a hook, the vast majority of WhiteWorm Cathedral is just too dull and generic to make any kind of lasting impression. Meat and potatoes without the gravy. Or should that be fleshy chunks without the blood?
Either way, this is one corpse that just needs to lie silent.
4.0/10
JAMES CONWAY
There can’t be many people who don’t agree with the assertion that a band name is important. Our collective musical history is littered with band names that are brilliantly evocative (Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Emperor) as well as those where, if truth be known, they didn’t really try at all: Panic! At the Disco, Texas is the Reason, Cute is What We Aim For [and my personal favourite We Butter The Bread With Butter – Reviews Ed] all need to see me after school for a chat.
Of late, band names tend to give you an almost intuitive sense of what the music is going to sound like, and, let’s be fair, you know already that Sodomized Cadaver are going to be a death metal band, don’t you? Yes, you do and yes, they are. Sodomized Cadaver hail from Ebbw Vale in the South Wales valleys. Ebbw Vale is probably best known for two things – its steel and mining heritage and a tough and uncompromising rugby union team (famously known as The Steelmen after the town’s industrial history). Ebbw Vale is but one of many South Wales valleys towns where there often isn’t a lot to do, so forming a band can be a creative and positive outlet for many. What Messrs Gavin Davies and Raymond Packer have created with this five track EP is straight out of the death metal box, albeit one dripping in gore and generally unpleasant themes.
Calling your EP after a sexual predilection that fantasises you or your partner being eaten alive gives you a sense on where these valley boys are coming from and with song titles like ‘Cannibal Butcher’, ‘Torture’, and ‘Weapons of Mass Decomposition’ there might not be much room for creative manoeuvring, but at least you know where you stand and they know, rather all too well, what gets their audience salivating.
With influences that range across the often diverse palette of extreme music, there’s plenty of Morbid Angel and Cannibal Corpse dripping through the grooves as well as bits of Bolt Thrower and The Black Dahlia Murder. Someone is clearly in awe of Bill Steer’s guitar playing on Carcass records, too.
At one level you could be critical at the cartoon like imagery conjured up by Vorarephilia (SWEM) and wonder whether it is all a bit juvenile – we have been there and done this all before. However, another part of me wants to give these boys the benefit of the doubt as I sense a pretty black sense of humour running through all of this. For all the bludgeon and dismemberment, under all that flesh, gore and mutilated body parts I can’t shake the sense that there’s also a glint in their collective eye, a sense that they also know this is not for real and we should just go with the energetic and pulverizing flow that they have created. I bet they love their mums, too.
Visceral and intense, as these things need to be.
7.0/10
MAT DAVIES
Over the years of listening to death metal, I have yet to be let down by any release by Cannibal Corpse. Arguably the biggest death metal band today, and after twelve previous releases, I wondered how much longer until a lackluster album would be released. Well, I have bad news. The streak continues! The thirteenth release from these titans, A Skeletal Domain (Metal Blade), has brought more violent, gory goodness that only Cannibal Corpse can create. However, what made this album stick out and not sound like “just another Cannibal Corpse album” was the sheer evil and eerie direction that the instrumentals and lyrics take you. A Skeletal Domain from start to end is a roller coaster of terror, aggression, and more blood than a pit of zombies.
It has been tough to mark down which songs have been my favorite as every song has its own feel and personality to it. I will mention a few, but keep in mind that I enjoy the rest of the tracks on record. It might be that I love (and laugh) at these song titles as well. The first single released, ‘Sadistic Embodiment’, really sets the course for the album. This track showcases what Cannibal Corpse is all about and then some. ‘Funeral Cremation’ was another stand out track for me with easily the creepiest opening to any song of theirs to date by ever so slightly dipping into the world of Blackened Death Metal. The guitar riff has given me goosebumps with every listen which is a rarity nowadays in a quite monotonous heavy metal world. The very next track may be my favorite off the album and certainly one of the best titles, ‘Icepick Lobotomy’. This song brings the brutality one would expect from death metal, but also stays groovy enough to keep your head banging. One last track I’d like to recommend is ‘Bloodstained Cement.’ This track starts off on a speed kick that is guaranteed to help your inner lead foot press the gas pedal just a tad harder. Then the song takes a heavy turn and actually makes you believe you are smashing some poor souls face off of the sidewalk.
A Skeletal Domain has shown the world that Cannibal Corpse is still on top of their death metal game and just how evil these guys can be. This album will certainly be in my considerations for album of the year in about three months from now. Despite all of the praise I have given this newest release, it didn’t make me say “Wow!” out loud as often as, say, Kill did. Having said that, I love the direction this album went and am happy to know that even after thirteen albums, these death metal gods are still capable of spreading their violent blend of metal. Cannibal Corpse has once again proven to me why I do not waste my time listening to Six Feet Under.
8/10
TIM LEDIN
So what should you do to entertain yourself on a pre Veteran’s Day Sunday night? If you live in New England, and you are smart (sorry… “smaahht”), you go to see Morbid Angel play the album Covenant in it’s entirety at The Middle East in Cambridge, MA. Since this show was held at a venue with a maximum capacity of something like 575, it was not surprising that it sold out. If you were one of the anxious people shivering outside in line just to to be turned away, well, what did you expect? Mid-sized venue + Sunday + Morbid Angel + Covenant = buy your ticket ahead of time. In all fairness I had my own boneheaded, “What did I expect?,’moment that night as well. I’ll get to that later.
When I saw the announcement of the tour, a three things came to my mind. One, it’s been 20 years since Covenant came out already, wow. Two, there was no question I was going to be there, and three, what a smart move by the band to tour based on the album’s anniversary after all the rumblings in the metal community over Morbid Angels’ most recent release, Illud Divinum Insanus. We metal music fans can be, well, major pains in the asses when it comes to the bands that we hold dearest. When a band makes an album that is a departure from what we expect, we take it as a personal affront to our sensibilities and can be very unforgiving. I am not a fan of the last album but it didn’t change my opinion about what Morbid Angel is and has been. To me they are the best death metal band to date, period. Their first 4 albums are still untouchable in my eyes and I just can’t get behind “fans’that write off a band based on one album. I mean it’s one freaking album, get over it. All the hubbub over it made me think about the fine art world and what it would be like if some of our greatest painters never tried anything new. For every great painting, there are dozens, maybe hundreds of what might be considered less than stellar ones and some that you might think downright suck. It happens, you try things and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Unfortunately, not everyone sees it that way and they can be pretty vocal about it. This is why it was great for Morbid Angel to go on this tour. To remind everyone how insanely great the band really is.
So anyway, I make the trek to Cambridge and get there in good time, park the car and walk over to the venue. Doors opened at seven and I figured the first band went on at 7:30. Unfortunately, I forgot about the line to get in. As is the case with most smaller to mid-sized venues, there is one line at the single entrance where you go to get or give your ticket as well as enter the venue. This makes for slow entry and with a sold out show there is guaranteed to be a line around the block. I planned on getting there just before the first band started, as I normally would for this venue. What was I thinking? Obviously I wasn’t. Took me a bit to get in then I went to the side ramp area where I would photograph most of the show from. Yes I missed the first band, native musical smut mongers, Sexcrement. Having seen them a number of times before, I am familiar with the stage show they have. There are usually one or more female dancers in various states of undress, sometimes in bondage attire, romping around the stage and getting the crowd into a bit of a frenzy. I asked one of my fellow photographer friends that was there, lets call him The Dude, how their set was to which he replied that it was “awesome.’I asked if they had the dancers and he said, “yeah they had a few but none of them had dicks.’Alrighty then.
After a few minutes of banter with some friends, it’s time for Abnormality, a local technical death metal outfit about to do a stint of shows in 
Colombia including a headlining spot on the Bogota Grind Death Fest XII on November 16th. As usual the band punished the crowd with it’s super technical and no less punishing riffage while singer Mallika belted out her soul reaping growls. Yes, she is a small statured female whose vocals could shred the larynx of most men twice her size but the band is not about some front woman novelty. The band delivers on all fronts. From the insanely complex bass and dual guitar stylings to the pummeling drum beats and fills, this five piece needs no crappy gimmick or girlie points to prove its worth. They played a number of songs off their newest release, Contaminating the Hive Mind which sounded great. As expected pits broke out and hair was flying in the crowd. After they played the last song of the set there were numerous cries for more.
A little break and then the local four piece formed in 2008, Scalpel, was up at bat. They are sort of a grind/death mix. They played a good set and the crowd was into it. I had a hard time hearing one of the two vocalists from my vantage point but other than that they sounded on point. Most of the stage presence came from the bassist and the faces one of the vocalists was making. Their songs were hard for me to get into as they lean at times more towards grind and I am very particular with anything remotely grind so my opinion on their music must be taken with a grain of salt. Like I said they sounded tight and the crowd dug it. Maybe it’s just not my thing but I felt like there was just so much going on that it gave me audio overload. They also have a recent release out called Sorrow and Skin and if your into later Suffocation, this may be for you. They aren’t trying to re-invent the wheel or anything, and yeah, it may be pretty derivative, but if you are into that style, you’d like them and they are seemingly solid live.
So then there was VadimVon, the only non-local band on the bill and the band that’s on the touring package with Morbid Angel, at least for the 
Dark Funeral, Grave and Morbid Angel last year at The Palladium in Worcester and I know they did a local show at a Metal Thursday event at Ralph’s in Worcester not too long ago but I guess at that time they didn’t have a drummer and played to tracked beats. This time they had a real live drummer and although they would no longer play to recorded tracks for drums, they still had a track playing with synth’s and the like. The three piece hailing from South Carolina started playing to a somewhat bewildered crowd most likely because they weren’t very familiar with them. As the set progressed there were more than a few that were won over by the band and yet still others that stood and stared. I thought the set was played well.
Ok so by now the show was running just a tad late. Not by a lot but just enough for me to wonder if Morbid Angel would be able to play everything on the set list. Because this show was the fourth on the tour, the set list was not a secret and I knew it had songs from albums David Vincent didn’t even sing on, which I thought pretty cool. There aren’t a lot of bands, or vocalists, that will want to play songs that they didn’t record. I mean I have never seen Anthrax play John Bush songs when they are touring with Joey Belladonna. Yeah, maybe that’s not the best example but you get my point I hope. Back to the show. The lights go out, after a few seconds Morbid Angel walks on stage. Some blue lights come up and David Vincent greets the crowd. Before a single note was played, incredibly, a pit started. Before a single note! I just laughed. To be so excited about the prospect of it that you feel the need to start a pit in the middle of this packed place before you even hear them play anything. Well, they had reason to be pumped for this. They blistered the crowd without flinching, keeping the between song banter to extreme minimum. Thank you for that. How many times can you hear someone say, “How are you Boston?,”or “What a crowd you guys are,’or whatever crap they have to fill time with. They plowed through the entire album and it was plain awesome. Everything, the sound, the experience, the crowd, all of it. So then I assumed there would be a break before the encore but no, they went right from ‘God of Emptiness’ only taking a few seconds seemingly, and then right into ‘Where the Slime Live.’There was to be no break and no respite. The rest of the set was delivered with just as much force as the beginning. “Fall From Grace,’would mark the end of the set and was absolutely great. They waved and walked off. That was it. Fans just stood there looking at the stage in awe, sweaty, some out of breath, and probably hoping there would maybe be one more. Slowly, they moved their way about the place looking dazed from the show, the heat, and the crushing crowd but all the same glad for the experience.
What a great show. I only wish it was in a bigger venue with a bigger stage. Other than that, what more could you really ask for?
Words and Photos by Hillarie Jason of Hillarie Jason Photography