The Horde
The Horde Threads
At The Gates - "Terminal Spirit Disease" (1994)
The third full-length from the Swedish melodeath gods but, in reality, it was never intended it to be. The band wanted to release a six-song E.P. but their record label Peaceville decided to turn it into an album through the addition of three live cuts which are simply tacked onto the end. Despite that, it's still a very consistent record with no obvious weak spots but it lacks genuine highlights with only opening cut "The Swarm" standing out from the pack which makes this an inessential melodeath release. I certainly enjoy all of this material but have to admit that it doesn't tick as many of my musical boxes as At The Gates' previous material & certainly not their classic "Slaughter of the Soul" record from the following year (i.e. my all-time favourite melodic death metal release). The live inclusions are well-produced & executed & possess more of a classic death metal edge than the new material which has seen At The Gates hitting on a purer melodeath sound than they'd managed to achieve previously. That's probably been to the detriment of the album's appeal with someone like myself if I'm being honest though. I do enjoy Tomas Lindberg's raspy shrieks quite a bit but rarely feel like returning to "Terminal Spirit Disease", instead choosing "The Red in the Sky Is Ours", "Slaughter of the Soul" or the early demo tapes whenever I feel like revisiting At The Gates' 90's heyday.
For fans of Dark Tranquillity, In Flames & The Black Dahlia Murder.
3.5/5
So with the start of a new year it's once again time to have a look at the covers for all the releases for each clan. I personally like to rate a whole stack of covers all at once, rather than doing them one at a time throughout the year, as it allows me to get a better feel for where each cover sits in comparison to others. With that in mind, I've just rated every cover for releases in The Horde for 2024.
Below are some of the releases that are currently competing for the prestigious 2024 The Horde Cover of the Year Award. The winner will be announced on the 1st of February, so there's still time to get your ratings in.
The following link will take you to the Gallery, displaying the top Horde releases that you have not rated yet: CLICK HERE
Ulcerate - Cutting the Throat of God (2024)
Due to my inbuilt aversion to overtly dissonant or technical death metal I have been somewhat reticent about checking out Ulcerate's latest, but year end is looming and I can't let 2024 pass by without listening to what has been almost universally acclaimed as the number one metal album of the year. I'm really glad I did too, because "Cutting the Throat of God" is an amazing album. I guess in the hands of true masters, even personally challenging material can transcend the inbuilt resistance listeners may have to music that resides well outside their usual comfort zone. What enables Ulcerate to break through my own personal issues with this challenging style of death metal is that they never allow the technicality or dissonance to affect the flow of the tracks. Too often these genres are too choppy and compositionally messy for me, but here the tracks maintain a logical and organic development at all times, with the dissonance and technicality always serving as a tool to relate that which the band wish to communicate rather than becoming the be-all-and-end-all in an attempt to show how clever the musicians are. This is an atmospheric version of death metal that is composed of shades and textures rather than riffs and blastbeats (although those are present). Heavily influenced by acts like Neurosis, Ulcerate utilise the death metal toolbox to produce an emotionally-charged post-metal style of death metal.
The aesthetic of Cutting the Throat of God is based around existential anxiety and the ultimate futility of organised belief structures, hence the atmosphere of melancholic dread that permeates the instrumentation. I don't think that the slightly off-kilter clangourous nature of much of the guitar leads, suggesting the desperate chiming of church bells as if declaring their inability to provide solace, is accidental, but is proof of the band's attention to detail and is testament to their songwriting skills. The constant shifting of tone from introspective and morbid, to angered and explosively violent, further deepens the atmosphere of existential impotence.
Now this is not an especially new aesthetic within extreme metal circles, but very rarely have I encountered such a compelling and coherent expression of nihilistic dread. This success is entirely due to the adroitness of the musicians involved, both technically and compositionally. It is supremely evident that even though much of the album is meant to engender a feeling of chaotic confusion, the songwriting is supremely tight with not a single note out of place and is very far from being confused or chaotic in it's production or execution. Special mention must go out to drummer Jamie Saint Merat whose drum patterns are so complex and precise that I often found myself zoning in on them. So interesting do they sound that I have the feeling I could listen to the drum track in isolation and find it utterly compelling.
I don't wish to give the impression that this is a lightweight affair, because it is exceedingly heavy at times, but sheer heaviness is not the primary directive here and the lighter moments deepen the impact of the heavy. Paul Kelland's bellowing, gutteral roar also contributes to the album's surface-level heaviness, whilst perfectly encapsulating the philosophical frustration and existential dread expressed in the lyrics. The chiming leadwork, despite it's slight dissonant quality, is often deceptively hooky and melodic, with me finding some of the guitar phrases leaping unbidden into mind throughout the day, such is their memorability. The guitar phrasing is also such that it sounds very much like there are certain recurrent themes surfacing throughout the tracks, tying the whole album together.
For me, this is an example of technical dissonance with real soul, which is unusual for a style that I often find to be emotionally sterile. Now, in truth, I don't have the technical knowhow to properly dissect "Cutting the Throat of God" and I may have read too much into it's perceived themes and concepts, but all great art holds a mirror up to the beholder to some extent, so maybe this just resonates with something deep within me. Whatever the reason, this feels like one of the most personal and affecting metal releases I have ever heard and will now, despite some tough competition, almost certainly be my AOTY for 2024 and head towards the upper echelons of my all-time favourites list.
5/5
Pungent Stench - "Club Mondo Bizarre - For Members Only" (1994)
Hilariously titled Austrian death metallers Pungent Stench & I have always shared a positive relationship. I got onboard with them fairly early on in their recording career with both of their first two albums receiving a tonne of plays from me as a young fella while I also quite liked their split record with countrymen Disharmonic Orchestra. They'd started to dick with their sound a bit on 1993's "Dirty Rhymes & Psychotronic Beats" E.P. though with their filthy take on the classic death metal model having been infiltrated by the death 'n' roll sound that bands like Entombed & Carcass were pushing at the time, along with some further experimentation with electronics. Many fans couldn't get into their new direction but I still found enough to keep me interested. It did put my guard up a little when it came to the Stench's next release in 1994's "Club Mondo Bizarre - For Members Only" though. Still... while it may not have been the Pungent Stench I'd developed such a strong affiliation with during their early days, I can't deny that it still offered me a reasonable level of appeal & remember the experience quite fondly, despite not having returned to the album since the mid-1990's. I wouldn't say that I've been absolutely busting to return to the album this week but I was a little intrigued to see if I'd still find it a positive experience in my more mature years.
As with all of Pungent Stench's previous material, "Club Mondo Bizarre - For Members Only" features some seriously sick themes & cover art which is perhaps the main reason that they had even become known to me in the first place. I picked up my copy of the album on CD from the local metal record store upon release & had no idea of what visual delights I was in for based on first impressions with the cover's true identity only being fully unveiled upon removing it from the jewel case & unfolding it to reveal an image that my mother would no doubt have been horrified to know her teenage some was casually perusing. The band had maintained the same three-piece lineup that they'd traversed their entire back catalogue with to the time & had recorded the album at Sing Sang Studios in Vienna, Austria during the middle of 1993 with front man Martin Schirenc (Hollenthon/Kreuzweg Ost) sharing the production duties with Gregore Schwarzenegger who had worked with the Stench on all of their previous records. The resulting sound is a little less disgusting & metallic than we may have come to expect from the band but isn't all that different to that we heard on "Dirty Rhymes & Psychotronic Beats" with the guitar tone having as much in common with grunge/alternative rock as it does with metal. This suits the style of the riffs quite well & gives the album some additional swing which was an important component of Pungent Stench's mid-90's sound. In fact, this element alone is almost enough to tell the casual listener that they shouldn't take things too seriously when it comes to this band.
From a stylistic point of view, "Club Mondo Bizarre - For Members Only" sees Pungent Stench completely dropping the sickly death metal sound of their roots in order to fully indulge themselves in the death 'n' roll sound that they'd begun exploring on the E.P. from the previous year. Schirenc's death grunts have been maintained but the instrumentation has taken a more groove-oriented approach that sees the rhythm section of Pitbull Jack & Rector Stench combining to give the Austrians a healthy swagger while Shirenc does his best to repulse the listener with his humorous yet still unashamedly disgusting lyrics. Martin clearly had a real knack for this sort of shit & I can't help but find the appeal in his clever way with words, even if they were often used to describe scenes where people were consuming each other's waste amongst other things. I don't generally go for a more satirical or comical brand of metal but there's just something about the way that Pungent Stench have angled their approach that seems to overcome any hesitation I might normally maintain for this sort of thing.
In saying that though, the tracklisting is fairly inconsistent with all of the material hovering either side of my enjoyment threshold. Thankfully, the wins slightly outweigh the losses here to see me affording the album a respectable score but it was a fairly close call to be honest. A good half of these tracks aren't really all that enjoyable to someone that takes their extreme metal as seriously as I do but the other half offer just enough messy fun to make the whole experience palatable. It's really pretty hard not the smile while listening to the stronger inclusions here, even if they'll hardly change your life. "I'm a Family Man", "True Life" & "Fuck Bizarre" are probably my pick of the bunch but "Treatments of Pain" & "Rape - Pagar Con La Misma Moneda" are also pretty decent. There's nothing too horrible amongst the material that sits on the other side of the line though so the lack of any genuine classics hasn't had the impact that it might have in the event of anything truly awful having been included.
Look... death 'n' roll isn't really my thing but I'll be damned if Pungent Stench don't know who to do it right. While "Club Mondo Bizarre - For Members Only" may well have been the weakest Stench offering to the time, it still manages to put a smile on my dial & that's really the intent of this sort of outfit, isn't it? In saying that though, I do think a large chunk of our The Horde members might struggle with it a bit so if you don't have much time for the artists I've listed below as points of reference then you may wanna steer clear of this one.
For fans of Xysma, mid-to-late 90's Gorefest & "Swansong"-era Carcass.
3.5/5
Anal Cunt - "Everyone Should Be Killed" (1994)
Massachusetts-based noisegrind outfit Anal Cunt was first unceremoniously dumped on my life like a pile of concrete-infused shit through the tape trading scene of the early 1990's. I guess their moniker alone was enough to intrigue an excitable young teenager like myself who was buoyed by the fact that it'd shock all of those U2-worshipping conformists I called my friends. It certainly did the trick too with my dubbed cassette copies of Anal Cunt's "47 Song Demo", "88 Song E.P.", "5643 Song EP" & "Morbid Florist" E.P. all serving some level of usefulness, if only for shock value alone. They were still very much a side-hustle until Frank Munoz joined Neuropath & his fascination with ultra-extreme grind artists like this one would see us sharing many a drunken laugh with Anal Cunt releases as the catalyst. This all leads up to 1994's "Everyone Should Be Killed" debut album which would see Anal Cunt collaborating with my much-beloved Earache Records for the first time, a concept that saw me eagerly requesting a copy from my collection of traders. The result served its purpose too & I remember quite liking "Everyone Should Be Killed", if perhaps not as much as "Morbid Florist" which was still my A.C. release of choice & kinda nullified the chances of me returning to the album much over the several decades since. I guess I don't really need too many different examples of this style of music as there's not all that much to differentiate between each release given the sheer extremity of it all. So, this leads me into my first revisit to "Everyone Should Be Killed" in roughly thirty years. Let's see if it offers much in the way of musical merit now that I'm much older & wiser (weeellll.... older at least).
"Everyone Should Be Killed" differs in scope dramatically from the plethora of earlier Anal Cunt releases in that it's run time is far more extreme at an over-indulgent 58 minutes which begs the question as to just how much of this sort of stuff does anyone need in their lives. The early A.C. releases tended to be 7" singles that stuffed a kazillion tracks into a total run time of less than twenty minutes (often less than ten actually) while their debut album saw that duration being massively extended to a whopping 58 minutes of noisegrind battery. I honestly have to wonder if there's anybody out there that feels like that was justified because there's a whole bunch of repetition going on here that makes it easier to simply listen to the album in more easily consumed bite-sized pieces. The lineup that had been reduced to just the duo of front man/guitarist Seth Putnam (Adolf Satan/Full Blown A.I.D.S./Impaled Northern Moonforest/Insult/Post Mortem/Siege/Upsidedown Cross) & drummer Tim Morse (Grief) for the "Morbid Florist" E.P. has been maintained here & I can't say that A.C. would have benefited from additional collaborators at this point as these two certainly get the job done in no uncertain terms. Their collaboration with producer Tina Morrissey has also been extended from "Morbid Florist" & is just a successful too with all of this material receiving just enough clarity to allow the instrumentation to be deciphered while also combining it all into a super-harsh ball of burning, shit-covered bricks to peg through your least-favoured school teacher's window.
If you haven't heard Anal Cunt before then let me enlighten you as to what you're likely to experience (& it is an experience. Trust me on that.). The noisegrind subgenre that you've probably seen being bandied around the internet was pretty much dreamed up to describe Anal Cunt's bastardized maelstrom & "Everyone Should Be Killed" is a prime example of what it was originally intended to describe. What we have here is 58 songs that average around a minute in duration each although many of them are much shorter than that with a few longer tracks bumping that average up. The vast majority of them see Putnam & Morse simply pressing record & blasting into the most cacophonous wall of blast-beat driven noise you've ever heard in your life with Putnam making an attempt to touch upon every form of twisted vocal abhorrence the human form has ever dared to dream up. He reminds me a lot of Mike Patton's more extreme moments at times, such is the sheer ridiculousness of some of the sounds he comes up with but when he opts for a more traditional hardcore-meets-death-metal approach there are very few that can compete with his ferocity & this is one of the drawcards for Anal Cunt's "music" in my opinion. The other is the relentless savagery of Morse's blast beats which are really very precise for this sort of novelty act. I know he doesn't have to showcase much in the way of endurance on a record like this one but he really does reach some pretty impressive speeds here & with a consistent level of control & power being maintained throughout too.
The tracklisting can be very daunting at first & it's not done any favours by the fact that the album kicks off with a succession of pretty similar songs that continue to bash you over the cranium in exactly the same way. Things become a little more interesting when Anal Cunt's sense of humour starts to kick in with a few silly cover versions of widely disparate & intentionally inappropriate songs from popular music culture. This sees the album being broken up a little & is taken much further by the inclusion of a number of lengthier sludge metal pieces through the middle of the album, most of which represent the highlights of the album in my opinion. In fact, I honestly think that A.C. would have made a stellar sludge act because they sound incredibly heavy when they slow things down with Putnam's vicious screams becoming the ultimate weapon (see the incredible "Song #5" as a prime example). That said though, the weaker moments on the album tend to correspond with the tracks where Putnam takes his vocal indulgences a little too far into general weirdness which sees some pieces sounding like a parody of what was essentially a parody to begin with. It was probably never intended to be taken seriously to begin with but I do need some level of musical value to be found in my music.
Still, I can't deny my attraction to the most extreme forms of music imaginable & this album certainly ticks that box. It doesn't matter that many of the songs had appeared on Anal Cunt's previous releases because a lot of this record sounds the same anyway. It's just that it offers the same sort of appeal as a fatal car crash. It's entirely unpleasant to view yet you can't take your eyes off it. That statement basically sums up the vast majority of the Anal Cunt material I've experienced over the years actually with this release being one of the better ones. I still think I favour "Morbid Florist" over "Everyone Should Be Killed" but I definitely think this is an underrated release in their back catalogue because I can't deny that I've enjoyed the experience on some level & I can't say the same about some of the band's early demos & singles. Still... there's no doubt at all that this is an inherently & intentionally divisive release that will not appeal to a large audience. I kinda dig it though so you can all go fuck yourselves. :)
For fans of Sore Throat, Fear of God & Sete Star Sept.
3.5/5
Dead/Regurgitate - "Dead/Regurgitate" split album (1994)
I stumbled upon this split album featuring Germany's Dead & Sweden's Regurgitate during my mid-90's tape trading heyday, inspired to investigate it after having really dug Regurgitate's debut album "Effortless Regurgitation of Bright Red Blood" from earlier the same year. I'd never heard of Dead before but ended up getting a fair bit of enjoyment out of both band's contributions to what could only be described as one of the better goregrind releases I've encountered. I don't believe I've returned to it in the many years since though, instead tending to turn to a couple of my Regurgitate records of choice whenever I feel the urge but I'm glad that I've finally given it another listen this week, even if I suspect that it might not receive another sitting from me in the future.
This split release is a collection that includes eight new songs from each band as well as the five Regurgitate tracks that were included on their split 7" single with German noisegrind outfit Vaginalmassaker back in 1992. Dead's inclusions would later receive a dedicated release on 2011's "For Lovers of the New Bizarre" album while I think this is the only place you'll find the new Regurgitate material. The two bands have quite different sounds to each other but are both well worth hearing & it's really just a matter of taste as to which you might prefer. Dead's contribution is very well produced with a thick & chunky guitar tone that fills your headphones with a heavy combination of classic death metal & blasting goregrind. I'd suggest that the former is comfortably in the ascendency here though which makes Dead an attractive option for me given my taste profile. The Germans tend to explore a lot more territory in regard to tempo than their more consistently brutal Swedish counterparts with their triple-vocal approach drawing close comparisons to Carcass' late 80's releases. Regurgitate offer a much dirtier & more traditional goregrind sound that I tend to prefer, mainly because it's a touch more relentless in its commitment to pure savagery. The tracks from the 7" single sound noticeably different though & are clearly less effective than the newer material with the vocals being produced in that ridiculous vocoded, monster-esque fashion that has often annoyed me about the goregrind scene. I greatly prefer the more deathly growl employed on the more brutal new songs that make up for their less impressive production job with pure energy & attitude.
You can't really go wrong with these 21 tracks if you're an extreme metal fan with only a couple of duds amongst them. Dead's decision to close out their side with an annoying cover version of Mentors' "Woman of Sodom" was hard to understand as it certainly detracts from what was otherwise a pretty rock solid deathgrind experience. The first track from Regurgitate's split with single with Vaginalmassaker "Morbid Reality" isn't amazing either but I get a fair bit of enjoyment out of the remainder of this record without ever really discovering anything too game-changing. Dead's best material comes right at the beginning of the album with the one-two punch of "For Lovers of the New Bizarre" into "Far Beyond Your Imagination" being the clear highlights. The new Regurgitate inclusions offer a more consistently strong standard though which is perhaps why I've ended up exploring more of their releases in the future while leaving Dead behind. The first three songs on their side are all really solid while the same can be said for the trio of tracks starting with the violent mosh pit anthem "Praedilectio for Menorrhagia". None of Regurgitate's efforts overstay their welcome which is just how I like my grindcore. As soon as they've hit on a riff that I find to be less appealing they've moved on to something that hits my fancy which is a great way to keep the listeners attention.
While this split release might not be the most original one you'll ever hear, it does offer a point of difference from the rest of the goregrind records out there in that neither band fit into the generic goregrind model. I've really enjoyed Dead's more death metal-inspired sound as well as the strong production job while Regurgitate's tendency to steer away from those ridiculous vocoded vocals for the majority of their allocation while blasting me into submission with exciting grindcore instrumentation has left me feeling exhilarated at times. It's a shame that they didn't close out the album in the same fashion though as the shorter tracks from the Vaginalmassaker split sound a little inferior in comparison, even if I generally enjoy most of those songs in isolation. As it is though, the Dead/Regurgitate split has been well worth a revisit, even if I can't see myself returning to it any time soon. I think I'm far more likely to reach for my Regurgitate releases of choice (i.e. "Effortless Regurgitation of Bright Red Blood" & 2002's "Hatefilled Vengeance" E.P.) instead to be honest.
For fans of Dead Infection, Haemorrhage & early Carcass.
3.5/5
A really solid list this month guys. There were one or two standouts, though. Number one for me was The Chasm track - I really need to dig deeper into these guys' discography. I have only heard their 2000 album, "Procession to the Infraworld" which I dug quite a lot. Elsewhere, tracks that stood out, that I was unaware of, were those by Edge of Sanity, Necrot, Defeated Sanity and Mortem. A few I already know and enjoy were from Coffins, Nile and Immolation. The only one I struggled with a bit was the Kataklysm track, mainly because of the vocals - I liked the tone of them, but the guy's delivery was really awkward and it seemed like he was trying to cram too many lyrics into each line which I ultimately found distracting.
Nice work by everyone involved.
Cannibal Corpse - "Dead Forever" (1992)
A live bootleg release that was clearly recorded with a handheld tape recorder at a 1991 show in Germany. The inclusion of Suffocation's "Reincremated" demo tacked onto the end is a clear plus as it should be essential listening for any fan of the more brutal end of the death metal spectrum but the overall release isn't worth your hard-earned money (or mine as was the case back in 1992 when I purchased the CD).
For fans of Deicide, Cannabis Corpse & Monstrosity.
3/5
Besides listening to Time II, I was also checking out one of Jari Mäenpää's demo albums from the massive Time Package boxset. In case you didn't know, the Time Package includes 5 albums of early demos recorded by Mäenpää, dating back to the 90s. There's also a planned 4-album series to follow up from Time II that is said to only happen with the help of fans. We don't know if that upcoming 4-album series will be just re-recording of all those demos, but that's what I'm hoping for, fingers crossed. Anyway, Fantasy Metal Project was written and recorded by Mäenpää between 1998 and 2000. The songs remind me of Wintersun's debut, and I'm sure there's one band that would come to minds of many Finnish E-tuned folk/power/melodeath listeners, Ensiferum. This was back when Jari was still with Ensiferum before he left to focus on Wintersun before the release of both bands' 2004 albums, so he had a lot of fantasy in mind when making his own separate material. One thing to note is, of the 10 songs here, only half that amount of songs have vocals. I think it would've been better if a couple long instrumentals, specifically "Hunters of the Misty Forests" and "Raise Your Swords", had some lyrics. Created by me, maybe? So yeah, Wintersun fans should definitely listen to this offering and support Jari in making his future 4-album series a reality!
4/5
Absu - "Barathrum: V.I.T.R.I.O.L." (1993)
I've always quite enjoyed the down-tuned early Immolation death metal meets Darkthrone black metal feel of this album. It's got a dark & evil atmosphere & the production really reminds me of my tape-trading days in the late 80s/early 90s. Proscriptor's drumming is probably the highlight for me. I'm not too keen on the female vocal stuff & the keyboards are very primitive but I dig the raw brutality of this record. It may be my favourite Absu release actually.
3.5/5