Death Metal: A Voyage of (Re-)Discovery

Nocturnus - The Key (1990)

I heard this ages ago and wasn't terribly impressed, only affording it a measly three out of five, however I have come quite a long way in my exposure to and appreciation of death metal in the meantime, so a reappraisal is probably long overdue. First off, this is nothing like as technical as I remember it being and that, for me, is a big plus as I am not especially fond of technical death metal (or thrash metal for that matter). In fact, despite the fact that there is a lot of frenetic fretwork during the solos on The Key, I am not even sure this counts as technical death metal, or at least not by modern standards. One thing for certain though is that Nocturnus cannot be accused of producing an album that is a clone of other popular releases from the time, the numerous guitar solos and the inclusion of keyboards on a death metal album was certainly not de rigeur for the day.

The foundation of the album is solid, with some terrific riffs, a few of which still seem to hold a fair bit of thrash metal DNA and the rhythm section turn in a fine performance (especially listening to the FDR edition). The keyboards are an interesting addition and, unlike most other death metal bands that use them, they aren't used here for a gothic horror effect, but instead they are quite thin-sounding and reinforce the science fiction aesthetic that the band were striving for. The big draw here though has got to be the lead work of Mike Davis and Sean McNenney whose guitars howl and squeal through almost the entire runtime, it sounding like their fingers must have been an almost constant blur on their fretboards. The great thing with The Key is that the technical guitar work never interrupts the flow of the tracks, as one of my bugbears with tech-death is that the constant changes and shifts in tracks often robs them of forward impetus and leaves them floundering. Here the solos seem to add even more velocity to the tracks and gives them an increased impetus. The big letdown on The Key are Mike Browning's vocals which just don't carry the necessary evilness or strength that the better vocalists of the time achieved, being buried in the mix a bit doesn't help their cause much either and takes away a significant ingredient of top tier death metal bands of the early nineties.

So, in summation, Nocturnus but together an album that marked them apart from most of their competitors in Floridian death metal and in so doing helped lay the foundations for an offshoot genre of the still expanding death metal genre. I am not going to pretend that it has shot up to the top of my death metal appreciation list, but it is a much finer album than I gave it credit for way back when, the science fiction theme makes a nice change from the constant charnel house themes of their contemporaries and it is certainly an enjoyable enough listen.

4/5

Dismember - Like An Everflowing Stream (1991)

A while back, in connection with a review for Carnage's Dark Recollections I asked if anyone could enlighten me on the "swedish death metal sound" which both Daniel and Ben kindly did. So fast forward just over a year from that release and Carnage were no more, with three of the members now in the lineup of Dismember and the band releasing their debut full-length, Like an Ever Flowing Stream. Well, I gotta say, Like an Ever Flowing Stream certainly illustrates that swedish sound better than any release I have heard previously. The distortion on the guitars is cranked up to a ridiculous level and it certainly imparts a wall-of-sound effect to the riffing, but I've got to say, I'm not completely at home with it. It sounds too overdriven to me and gives the album the effect of the various components working against each other rather than together. The vocals seem to be fighting for dominance over the all-encompassing guitar and the poor old rhythm section are pretty much on a hiding to nothing, although Fred Estby does a valiant job behind the kit and is one of the album's winners. Whereas with Carnage that sound produced a down 'n' dirty effect, here it's more of an eardrum-bursting fight for sonic supremacy and the often quite shred-like solos just seem to add more fuel to the fire. Matti Kärki's vocals are great, very gruff and gravelly and, along with Estby's drumming, are the highlights of the album for me.

It is very rarely that I would utter these words in respect to extreme metal, but I really wish that Dismember had dialled it back a bit on Like an Ever Flowing Stream because underneath all that aural blitzkrieg is a decent album. There are some terrific riffs, but they are just buried under so much distortion that I personally found it a distraction. I guess I am more drawn to the Floridian sound as it feels less artificial and has a more earthy, atmospheric aspect to it than this out and out blitzkrieg approach.

3/5

Interesting thoughts here Sonny.  I strangely have not reviewed or rated this one despite me having a vinyl copy Mrs Vinny bought for me.  I am probably the opposite of you and would put this album above Carnage, although I agree that they are two differing beasts in that Dismember's offering is a much more savage entity.  I find with all Swedish death metal that it has limited playtime as opposed to other styles of death metal in that if I throw this or Left Hand Path on for a spin then the itch is scratched and I rarely (if ever) go on a three or four album listening spree back to back of pure Swedish death metal bangers, unlike Saturday when I was battering death doom for three hours.  Need to get my arse in gear and get a review done of this album though (and Left Hand Path as well it seems).

Strangely, neither "Like An Ever Flowing Stream" (3.5/5) or "Left Hand Path" (3.5/5) have ever struck me as being anything terribly special & I came into both in real time. If pushed I'd probably take "Like An Ever Flowing Stream" over "Left Hand Path" by a slim margin but I find "Clandestine" (4.5/5) to be miles ahead of both.

Strangely, neither "Like An Ever Flowing Stream" (3.5/5) or "Left Hand Path" (3.5/5) have ever struck me as being anything terribly special & I came into both in real time. If pushed I'd probably take "Like An Ever Flowing Stream" over "Left Hand Path" by a slim margin but I find "Clandestine" (4.5/5) to be miles ahead of both.

Totally agree with this.

Autopsy - Mental Funeral (1991)

So, while my journey of discovery through the early years of death metal has brought me into contact with many releases for the first time, here is one with which I am exceedingly familiar and which sits near the very top of my list of all-time favourite death metal releases. Mental Funeral doesn't sound like a band playing their instruments, but rather like they are beating the songs out of them. There is a certain looseness to Autopsy's sound that belies the actual abilities of the musicians involved, but which imparts a cavernous brutality to the album that very few have been succesfully able to tap into. The production of Mental Funeral cannot be underestimated and I think Peaceville have managed to reproduce exactly the vibe the band were going for, which speaks of echoing underground caverns reeking of the foetid stench of decay where unspeakable acts of brutality take place. Track names like Twisted Mass of Burnt Decay and Torn From the Womb tell you all you need to know about the bands ethos, but where they score over the rest of the death metal sickos is by their inclusion of doom metal riffing that slows down the onslaught and allows a lurking fear of darkness to envelop the listener rather than an unrelenting bludgeoning that doesn't give any time for reflection. There are few better examples of what real death doom metal should sound like than some of the slower sections here, Robbing the Grave, after it's initial assault, slows to a menacing and spine-tingling crawl that should set the hairs on the back of your neck on end and send any would-be death doom pretenders heading for the exits. The doomy sections breaking-up the out-and-out brutality of the (admittedly still extremely brutal) death metal riffing imbue the album with a more memorable quality than some of the band's more high velocity contemporaries. Check out the riff to In the Grip of Winter for point in question - this has got to be one of the most iconic death doom riffs ever.

I must also state at this point that Chris Reifert is an absolute fucking beast. He made a significant contribution to Death's seminal Scream Bloody Gore, but here with his own band and agenda he has removed any shackles holding him back and his drumming is at times awesome to behold - I'm no technician so don't know how technically sound it is, but it is just so brutally pummelling that it almost becomes a force of nature - Bonesaw is a forty second death metal drumming masterclass in my book. Add to this arguably the filthiest-sounding vocals in all of metal and you can hear that Reifert has stamped his authority all over the album.

The riffs are fantastic and are some of my favourites in all of metal. The solos are wounded, howling beasts that sound like guitarists Danny Coralles and Eric Cutler have tortured their instruments to get them to give them up, suiting the album's atmosphere better than I would imagine a smoother, more technically gifted guitarist like James Murphy, for example, would. The songwriting is brilliant with several twists and turns throughout some of the longer tracks with multiple time changes and transitions and I don't think there is a weak track on the whole album. I think I would go as far as to say if you want an album to sum up what metal is truly all about then you should slam on Mental Funeral and be electrified! This is nothing less than doom-laden metal of death, necrotic and pungent with the malodorous stench of mouldering corpses and is a true classic.

5/5

"Mental Funeral" is Autopsy's finest work in my opinion. I'm possibly not as big an Autopsy fan as most extreme metal nuts are as I tend to favour a more sophisticated brand of death metal but they really hit a sweet spot with this record as well as the "Retribution For The Dead" E.P. from the same year, both of which I found to be a clear step up from "Severed Survival" (3.5/5) which I've always found to be overrated. The enhanced doom component was certainly most welcome.

4/5

"Mental Funeral" is Autopsy's finest work in my opinion. I'm possibly not as big an Autopsy fan as most extreme metal nuts are as I tend to favour a more sophisticated brand of death metal but they really hit a sweet spot with this record as well as the "Retribution For The Dead" E.P. from the same year, both of which I found to be a clear step up from "Severed Survival" (3.5/5) which I've always found to be overrated. The enhanced doom component was certainly most welcome.

4/5

 "Unsophisticated" is my middle name!!

I don't have a middle name as I find them to be unsophisticated.

Immolation - Dawn of Possession (1991)

The only Immolation album I was familiar with prior to checking out this, Immolation's debut, was their classic 2000 album, Close to a World Below, to which I awarded a five star rating, so it has been interesting to check out how the debut stacks up to that behemoth. Back in 1991, when Dawn of Possession was released, death metal was solidifying it's identity and had finally severed it's ties with the thrash metal scene that had spawned it. So too had Immolation, as they had left the thrash-based death metal of their early incarnation, Rigor Mortis, behind (none of the founding members of Rigor Mortis remained in the band at this point) and had evolved their sound into true death metal.

The riffs come thick and fast and seem to be constantly changing, but not in a choppy, distracting manner that some of the more technical death metal bands employ, but rather in a way that maintains the impetus of the tracks whilst still injecting a feeling of controlled chaos, which is often reinforced by the intense and savage soloing. The drumming is well worthy of note as Craig Smilowski turns in a superb performance behind the kit, deploying every trick in the book whilst not missing a beat and the positioning of the drums in the mix is perfect, allowing every beat to be heard without overwhelming the other performers. Last and not least come Ross Dolan's vocals which feel quite unique, the raspiness of his gutteral delivery seems unlike most other death metal growler's to my ears and he manages to create a brooding sense of menace in his exhortations to devilish forces and his celebrations of evil-doing.

I suppose Dawn of Possession could be cited as an early evolution towards the use of dissonance in death metal, but I never found it grating as I often do with modern disso-death, but rather it engenders a feeling of brutality and chaos and never allows the listener to get into a comfort zone where the tracks wash over them, as you have to constantly stay on your toes with this one. Not quite the classic that Close to a World Below is, but a damn fine debut nevertheless that any OSDM freak should love and goes some way to cementing Immolation as one of my favourite death metal bands along with Autopsy and Incantation.

4.5/5

Suffocation - Effigy of the Forgotten (1991)

I have a strong aversion to brutal death metal that stretches back to when I returned to metalhood around the turn of the millenium and I was still reading metal mags. Every cover disc from Terrorizer or Zero Tolerance seemed to be made up of about 60% crappy brutal death metal bands, so I gained a disdain for the genre as it all sounded basically the same. Suffocation is a name that I have come across many, many times over the years, but my distaste for the more brutal flavour of death metal meant that I had never investigated them further, at least until now. I had, of course, listened to a fair bit of Cannibal Corpse's discography and didn't mind them too much, especially in small doses, so there was hope yet that Suffocation might do it for me.

It's pretty obvious from the very off that Effigy of the Forgotten is superior to 99.9% of the shit that "adorned" those metal mag cover discs as, despite Suffocation's brutality, there are a whole heap of subtleties and nuances contained within it's nine tracks. Now I am not going to insult anyone's intelligence by making out that I know what makes a great death metal album (brutal or not), but I will say that these seemingly insignificant subtleties make all the difference to a borderline "fan" like myself.

Suffocation certainly seem to be aptly named because, initially at least, their sound is so dense that it feels claustrophobic and asphyxiating, leaving the listener gasping for air come albums end. Repeated listens, however, reveal that the band don't just seem to be about blasting you away with sheer bravado and brutality, although they certainly don't lack in that department either, but the ever-shifting riffs, searing, laser-focussed soloing and the technically superb-sounding, but totally badass, maniac behind the drum kit all combine to produce a ridiculously tight sound that contains far more than at first appears and rewards the listener the more invested in it they become. Hell, there are even times when the riffs turn downright "groovy" although those sections are short-lived, so don't let me mislead you that this is anything other than the unmitigated assault on your senses that it is. The vocals are one of the possible sticking points for me as sometimes this style feels far more forced and "put on" than, say, Chris Reifert or Dave Vincent. I don't hate Frank Mullen's growls altogether, but I feel they are one of the weaker aspects of Effigy of the Forgotten although they are much better than some of the "stuck pig" style of vocals that seem to have become popular in more modern brutal DM.

In summation, I would probably have to say that this is as good as it gets for me with brutal death metal as it isn't a genre I think I will ever come to truly love, but this is an album I could listen to again and whilst it doesn't tick all my boxes, there is more than enough here for me to get my teeth into without being overwhelmed by a band seeking brutality for brutality's sake.

4/5

Death - "Human" (1991)

If the only thing I took away from my deep dive into the early years of death metal was my re-evaluation of Death and elevation of Chuck Schuldiner to the level of metal god, then it would have been a worthwhile exercise. Being a death metal numpty at the outset I had, even here on the forum pages of Metal Academy no less, expressed scepticism that Death were all that. Approaching the band's releases chronologically and in temporal context revealed that yes, indeed, they were all that and Chuck Schuldiner may well have been the most evolutionary of all metal songwriters. A question that begs some contemplation is where would metal be now if Chuck had lived a longer life, what the hell would he be playing nowadays and is there anything even remotely like it in existence? I think it is fair to say that he was indeed the very rare case of a true musical visionary.

Where Death excelled is that although they constantly changed, literally from album to album, they didn't throw the baby out with the bathwater and always gave their existing fanbase a way into their new material by a process of evolution of their sound rather than a complete overhaul. There may never be a better example of a metal songwriter's evolution than Death's seven albums. It is almost as if with each release it is possible to trace the individual steps of Death's metamorphosis.

For Death's fourth album, Human, out went the rhythm section of bassist Terry Butler and the much-maligned drummer Bill Andrews (after a legal battle over the pair's use of the Death name on a European tour) and surprisingly, considering how big an impact he had on Spritual Healing, out too went guitarist James Murphy. Previously Chuck had written material with other members, but for Human he wrote all the tracks in isolation and, possibly realising he needed band members with the chops to do his new material justice, in came exceedingly capable musicians in Sadus bassist, Steve Di Giorgio, and Cynic members, drummer Sean Reinert and guitarist Paul Masvidal. This was an inspired move, as there is a greater emphasis on technicality on Human that is pulled off brilliantly by the four members.

The sound on Human has a greater clarity than previous Death albums and allows the multifarious riffs and more complex rhythms distinction in the mix that may have been lacking in the earlier albums' muddier production. Both Reinert and Di Giorgio's amazing contributions can be heard distinctly and their technical prowess in both maintaining the rhythms and adding interesting work of their own to the shifting soundscapes is obvious for all to hear. Paul Masvidal's lead work is excellent and he takes a jazzier kind of approach to his soloing than Murphy's more traditional heavy metal approach, and this increasing technicality and diversity seems to be one of the major reasons for his recruitment into Death's lineup. The solo halfway through Secret Face, for example, brings a spanish, almost flamenco-like flavour to the track which, especially in 1991, seems like an impossibility in death metal, but is pulled off here with aplomb.

Chuck Schuldiner had always written great riffs, but on Human they became more complex, seemingly evolving and mutating as each track progresses, like some kind of virus. Despite this increasing complexity and technicality Human still has some incredibly powerful death metal riffing - the main riff of Lack of Comprehension is an absolute killer that is as muscular as anything you could have heard at the time. Human is comprised of truly memorable tracks that stick in the mind well after the silver disc stops spinning and this is a huge plus for me as I often find a lot of technical metal is so focussed on it's own complexities that listenability is sacrificed at the altar of technicality for technicality's sake. Just when you think you have the measure of Human, though, they toss in instrumental Cosmic Sea, which is an insane piece of work that comes at you with pretty much everything Chuck could muster, atmospheric keyboards, soaring solos, weird, otherworldly dissonance and another brutally heavy riff all combine for one of the most interesting metal instrumental tracks you may ever hear. Then on top of Human's sublime instrumentation there are the vocals. Chuck Schuldiner is a seminal death metal vocalist and I think the main thing that makes his vocals so great is that they sound equally as horrified as they are horrifying, as if even he himself cannot bear the evil tidings he brings.

At 33 minutes the album is Death's shortest, but there is just so much to digest within it's slight runtime that it is hard to believe only half-an-hour has passed come album's end. This is as rigorous a workout as you could reasonably have expected back in 1991 and most bands would fail to get even close to producing a half hour of metal as genuinely awe-inspiring as Human.

5/5

Great review Sonny and got me up out of my chair and reaching for the CD in question immediately.  I recall now I bagged one of the Relapse re-releases and so I have a second disc with all the basic instrumental versions of the tracks plus some of the demos too.  Tonight will be a good night up at the Vinny Manor.

I really liked the first three Death records. Hell, "Leprosy" was my introduction to death metal! But I wouldn't say that any of those early releases saw me bowing down in worship. "Human" changed that immediately & still sits in my top three for death metal as a whole to this day. 5/5

Atheist - Unquestionable Presence (1991)

As I have iterated before on many occasions, I am not a fan of technical death metal (or tech-thrash either for that matter) but my experiences with Atheist have been nothing but incredibly positive. The reason for this, I think, is that these guys don't make the technicalities of their music the be all and end all, but rather they make the jazz elements and their technical expertise work to enhance the high quality death metal that they produce. I mean, these guys produce absolute killer riffs, some of which still contain a deal of thrashiness, such as the main riff on the title track, or on The Formative Years, and that is what I want to hear when I listen to a death metal album - riffs, riffs and more riffs... oh and a certain degree of brutality, another aspect of their sound that is well and truly taken care of. So with that aspect of their songwriting sorted they then give themselves license to enhance and elaborate upon their ideas with jazz-influenced sections, multifarious time changes and displays of technical skill a great deal of their contemporaries could only marvel at, I suspect.

The drumming and basswork are superb and sound fantastic, Tony Choy's bass playing in particular is impressive as he weaves his basslines in and out of the sound, at times in step with drummer Steve Flynn like conjoined twins, such as during the technical sections of An Incarnation's Dream where the two combine to weave musical magic. Kelly Shaefer has a pretty mean death growl, not so deep and rumbling as some, but with a nice vicious snarl to it. Shaefer and Rand Burkey also turn in some mean solos that howl and squeal nicely but, man, I just can't get over them riffs.

At a mere 33 minutes this may appear to be quite a slight album, but Atheist just pack so much into it that it is more than enough to sate the appetite. In fact I would argue that knowing when to stop is also a lost art amongst too many modern metal acts who insist on issuing bloated hour-plus efforts that can oftimes test the patience and I, for one, would much rather have half an hour of this level of quality. So, first and foremost, Unquestionable Presence is a top-drawer death metal album with enough brutal-sounding riffs to stop a charging rhino, but Atheist held ambition enough not to be satisfied with "just" that, they further employed their technical prowess and songwriting skill to push the boundaries of what death metal could be and can justifiably be considered one of the seminal bands (along with Chuck Schuldiner's Death) of the technical death movement. I'm just not sure if the later acolytes of Atheist always concentrated on writing brilliant death metal songs first and foremost like the massively impressive Floridians did, so for me, this is one of the absolute premier tech-death albums and, despite my reticence regarding tech-death generally, I could listen to this all day long.

5/5

Carcass - Necroticism - Descanting the Insalubrious (1991)

For context: despite not being a massive fan of death metal for the longest time and getting into the genre fairly late in the day, there is a small number of bands that I do have some history with, Carcass being one of them, Napalm Death and Bolt Thrower being the others. This is mainly due to all three being championed by the much-missed John Peel on his late night radio shows and the fact that they were from my neck of the woods, as I am from a shithole roughly at the midpoint between Merseyside and The Midlands and so they did get some promotion in local specialist record shops. This exposure was mainly focussed on their early grindcore material as by the time of Necroticism: Descanting the Insalubrious' release, I was on my self-imposed hiatus from the metal scene.

Anyway, personal history aside, Carcass' sophomore and predecessor to Necroticism, Symphonies of Sickness, saw Carcass evolve from the brutal grindcore of the debut in a more conventional death metal direction. Necroticism itself continues this evolution, further moving the band's sound away from their grindcore roots and introducing much more by way of melody into their writing with the grind elements being merely vestigial by this point. I am probably in the minority here, but I actually think that SoS marks the sweet spot between the grind and Death metal elements of Carcass' sound. That does not in any way mean I don't like Necroticism, quite the contrary in fact but, for me, SoS is the high water mark for Carcass, at least from a personal preference point-of-view. That said, there is loads to enjoy here, with memorable riffs thrown out like confetti, Bill Steer's growls competing with Jeff Walker's shrieks for vocal supremacy, a thunderous rhythm section and viscerally aggressive guitar solos.

The tracks on Necroticism are, in the main, even longer than those on Symphonies and, in addition to the increasing emphasis on melody there is also a more noticeable technicality about the songwriting. Necroticism also marks Michael Amott's recorded debut with the band and the interplay between him and Steer, particularly the solos, marks a major evolution for Carcass' sound with a more Maiden-esque approach, similar in effect to that of James Murphy's contributions with Death on Spiritual Healing. The emphasis on the solos is such that each even has a name: opener Inpropagation (a song about using cremated human remains as fertiliser), for example, has solos named "dust in the mausoleum", "compost humous horticulture" and "humanure". Elsewhere there are solos named "a heaving organic puzzle", "viscous residue snorting" and "administration of toxic compounds", continuing the gore-laden verbosity of their track and album naming convention.

The production is excellent and lies at the perfect point between the roughness of the earlier work and the slickness of their later releases, providing a thick and meaty quality to the riffing that still allows a flowing clarity to the leads during the solos and enables the rhythm section to be clearly discerned rather than them sinking into the mire of a muddier production. Drummer Ken Owen must receive kudos for turning in an understated, yet absolutely integral performance that lays a particularly solid foundation upon which the sterling guitar work could be built. The forensic gore aesthetic was something of a feature for the band and set them apart, seeming even more disturbing than the slasher gore of other early DM outfits like Cannibal Corpse, due to it's feet being placed more in the real world than the movie world and this provided inspiration to any number of later gorehounds. The samples that introduce a number of the tracks are suitably unpleasant and, I suppose, in a way they force us to face up to a certain distasteful aspect of life that most normal-minded people don't really dwell on much.

Overall, this is an important record in the evolution of a branch of death metal from it's earliest grindcore roots towards a more universally acceptable sound, whilst still retaining a brutally uncompromising aesthetic that was sufficient to prevent the band "selling-out" to mainstream acceptance.

Incantation - Onwards to Golgotha (1992)

Incantation have been one of my big discoveries since joining Metal Academy and their 1998 album, Diabolical Conquest, is one of my top five death metal albums of all time. So, rewinding six years to May of 1992 and the deathly New Jersey crew unleashed their debut, Onward to Golgotha. Incantation were originally formed by John McEntee and Paul Ledney, both of death thrashers Revenant, in 1986 and by the time of the debut's release the band had already gone through several line-up changes, which seems to have been an issue that has dogged the band throughout their almost 35 year history.

When Incantation released Onward to Golgotha it must have become apparent to everyone that the thunderous and cavernous abyssal death metal vibe pioneered by the likes of Autopsy had just been lifted to another level. Onward to Golgotha is the soundtrack to a subterranean hellscape that had only been hinted at before, but which now was revealed in all it's deathly and fiery glory, an album that exuded a demonic evilness that sought to corrupt and defile anyone caught in it's aural embrace. This is an album that should have the subtitle "Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

There is a foul gritiness to the sound of the guitar riffing that is so overwhelmingly hellish that I swear I could detect a noxious, sulphurous odour emanating from my speakers whilst listening to it. Then, as if that wasn't enough, Craig Pillard's deep death-growls intoning their blasphemous diatribes push things well beyond all that had gone before and it was apparent that a new king ruled in hell. Onward to Golgotha's forty-five minutes is unrelentingly bruising and brutal-sounding, with even the slower doom death sections seemingly serving only to torturously draw the riffs out and enhance the menace and when the band really let rip, like they do on Immortal Cessation, it feels like you are being physically battered, such is the brutality on show. The solos are fast and furious dagger-slashes that serve only to rub salt into the wounds caused by the flying debris from the maelstrom of the breakneck riffing and are for people who think Kerry King sounds too much like Jimmy Page!

This is real primal music, music that is completely shorn of all sophistication and pretension and doesn't try to be anything other than what it is. It is so neanderthal-sounding that I swear drummer Jim Roe is banging on a mastodon skull with a pair of human femurs. I think Incantation may well be usurping Autopsy as my favourite death metal band because this is exactly the kind of stuff I lose my shit over. For me, this is undiluted essence of death metal and is one of my favourite releases ever.

5/5

I picked "Onward to Golgotha" up through the tape trading scene back in the day & thoroughly enjoyed it but I have to admit that I've never placed it alongside the top tier death metal acts. It wasn't until Incantation's 1994 sophomore release "Mortal Throne of Nazarene" (& it's darker alternative mix release "Upon the Throne of Apocalypse") that they got to take up that position for me personally. They'd further improve that with 1998's "Diabolical Conquest" too & it's gone on to become my Incantation release of choice these days.

Yeah, Diabolical Conquest is marginally my favourite too, but Onward to Golgotha is just so primal that it really appeals to the caveman in me I suppose. I am just so at home with such an uncomplicated, menacing and utterly abyssal sound that I can't honestly rate it any lower.

What is of massive regret for me is that it had taken me until I am sixty years old to find a sound that I feel so deeply. Sure I've dabbled with it via the likes of Winter's Into Darkness, but bands like Incantation and Autopsy produce something that I feel like I connect with on a molecular level. Sounds like bullshit I know, but it is what it is.

Demigod - Slumber of Sullen Eyes (1992)

Finns Demigod and their album Slumber of Sullen Eyes must be one of death metal's best-kept secrets, being a band I have never even heard of prior to this. The reason for this may have been that it was released on a little-known and short-lived Spanish label, Drowned Productions, rather than a big-hitter like Earache or Roadrunner, because it certainly isn't down to a lack of quality. Their sound seems to be based upon the Swedish sound of neighbours Entombed, yet I found it more palatable than the Swedes' sound, mainly due to it having a deeper and more bassy timbre to it which sits a bit better with me personally. I still think this type of overdriven sound works best on the slower, more death doomy sections, as it tends to lose definition somewhat as the tempo gets quicker and can just become an aural blur on the absolute fastest sections.

There are some great death metal riffs contained within Slumber of Sullen Eyes and they come thick and fast, not just thrown together, but forged into songs that are dynamic and coherent. As I hinted at earlier there is plenty of variation in pacing with some death doom adjacent sections interspersing the more usual and quicker death metal tempos. The leadwork is decent and effective without exactly setting the world on fire, but that said, it is suits the material perfectly well. Vocalist and guitarist Esa Lindén has a nice line in deathly growls that are deep enough to provide a fairly intimidating roar when required. Rhythm section-wise things are solid enough, although the drums could have done with a bit more oomph as they often sound a bit too dull to properly drive the tracks forward. There are also a couple of occasions where they bring in some reedy-sounding keyboards which is always a nice touch on these early death metal albums and provides a bit of aesthetic variation.

Overall, this is a hidden gem of early underground European death metal and I think these Finns actually sound better than their more celebrated Scandinavian cousins such as Entombed. It's a pity it all kind of went tits up for them after this because they sound like they could have been a big noise in Euro-Death Metal circles.

4/5

Asphyx - Last One On Earth (1992)

Now Dutchmen Asphyx are a death metal band I have been familiar with for quite a while now, their brand of OSDM coming to my attention via recommendations for bands similar to Autopsy and the fact that former Pestilence bassist/vocalist, Martin van Drunen, performed vocals on this and their debut album, The Rack, (as well as their later albums after rejoining the band in 2007). In common with many of the early practitioners of death doom, Asphyx like to vary their pacing throughout the albums runtime, not just sticking rigidly to the death doom template with their take on this style of death metal being less cavernous and abyssal-sounding than the likes of Autopsy. The production of Last One On Earth has rendered their sound crisper and less filthy than a lot of their contemporaries, which makes the album more desperate and hopeless-sounding than demonic and threatening, as if the band are victims of evil rather than the perpetrators of it.

One of the main reasons for this desperation is van Drunen's unique, shredded higher register which is a long way from the rumbling growls of Chris Reifert and co. and which gives the doom-laden sections a more human connection, reflecting a hopeless and bleak atmosphere. Of course, slow, doom-laden passages are far from the only game in town and Asphyx have no fear of letting rip, Serenade in Lead being a particular exercise in high-velocity riffing. The quicker material benefits greatly from the better-defined guitar tone and the issue of muddiness that often plagues the perpetrators of the more cavernous style doesn't rear it's head here. The songwriting is impeccable with killer riffs, variations in pacing with smooth transitions, interesting lyrical content and, most importantly, a crushing heaviness that any extreme metalhead can readily appreciate.

A couple of niggling issues are the lack of any appreciable bass presence in the mix which does seem to prevent the album from sounding as crushing as it may otherwise have done and I would have liked to hear a bit more lead work as the soloing that is present is pretty damn good. Minor gripes aside, Last One On Earth is a definite step up from the already well-received debut The Rack and, for me, is the high watermark of Asphyx's career to date.

4/5

Bolt Thrower - The IVth Crusade (1992)

Bolt Thrower were probably the very first death metal band I got into. During the very early 1990s I had pretty much left the metal world behind, but I often still listened to good old John Peel's (RIP) late night radio show (usually on my drive home from work after a 2-10 shift) and Bolt Thrower were a band he championed (along with Carcass and Napalm Death), so they often featured on his show. To be honest they really stood out to my ears because, at this time, I wasn't even remotely familiar with bands this brutal-sounding, Reign In Blood being the most brutal record I had heard up to then, so this was a whole new level of aggression and brutality which really made an impression. Admittedly I didn't seek out their records or anything at this point, as I said I wasn't really listening to metal a this point in my life, but the name Bolt Thrower stuck in my head along with the impression of something so unbelievably brutal-sounding that it was hard to believe they dared play it on the radio.

Now all these many years later I have got myself much more familar with the band and their material and whilst it is true that they were never a band that have tried to push the envelope, they managed to maintain an impressive level of consistency over their almost thirty year career and never produced anything other than high quality, no frills death metal. The IVth Crusade was their fourth full-length and this time around they turned their conflict-obsessed attentions towards the Fourth Crusade, which was called by Pope Innocent III in the early thirteenth century and was intended to overthrow the Egyptian Ayyubid Sultanate before retaking Jerusalem, but which ended up with Constantinople being sacked by the Western Catholic Church and deepening the schism between Eastern and Western Catholic Empires, hence the lyric of the title track, "Vanquished in the name of your god, One of the same to whom we once prayed".

Bloodstained lyricism apart, Bolt Thrower have a distinct sound, with a depth and bassiness that doesn't descend into the realm of the cavernous, but retains a solidity and heft that bludgeons like a sledgehammer to the temple. No, they don't paint outside the lines, but they pack such a punch with their tight riffing and bone-crushing rhythms that the appeal of their sound is impossible to withstand for any fan of extreme metal. Karl Willetts vocal delivery is all growling menace and barely-contained violence that roars it's blood-drenched words of human destruction, hurling them into the listeners face like an accusation of complicity. He is also one of the very few extreme metal vocalists that I can hear virtually every word he utters. The lead guitar work can best be described as functional with the Midlanders never going in for overt showiness, but letting the driving rhythms and muscular riffing define their sound with the soloing only acting as muted decoration rather than their raison d'être. In this way their music has an almost military functionality and lethality which, given their aesthetic, I wouldn't be surprised if it was completely by design.

By the time of The IVth Crusade all traces of their earlier grind sound had been left behind and the album is pure and unfiltered death metal from start to finish. Although my personal favourite BT album is Realm of Chaos, which marks the ideal balance between death metal and their earlier grind affiliation, this isn't really very far behind in my affections. Despite it's monstrous solidity the riffs are often quite melodic, sticking in the memory pretty well and are absolutely guaranteed to get the old noggin' nodding. The band often get painted with the accusation of being "samey" and while it is true that they have never felt the need to experiment with their sound, there is sufficient variation in tempo to maintain interest over the length of an album. All in all, if you want an album of unashamed death metal with solid songwriting performed to the highest level then you could do much worse than break open a copy of The IVth Crusade.

4/5

"The IVth Crusade" is my favourite Bolt Thrower release these days. They have a number of classic releases in my opinion but I think everything came together in perfect unison on this album & seeing them on the associated tour was an almost life-changing experience. 4.5/5

Necrophobic - The Nocturnal Silence (1993)

Necrophobic are yet another band I have been ignorant of up until listening to this, the Swedes' debut album, for the Horde's death metal the first decade clan challenge. I guess I was expecting something akin to Entombed's first couple of albums, but instead Necrophobic have thrown me a bit of a curveball by including black metal elements within their death metal assault and, I've got to say, I'm quite impressed. I don't want to try and oversell the black metal elements because this is definitely a death metal album, but they are noticeable and the inclusion of those elements does make for something a bit different compared to the other death metal releases I have been listening to from this period in time. Blackened death metal is a well-established sub-genre nowadays, of course, and there are a legion of releases under the umbrella, but I guess this is one of the earlier examples.

They do have that overdriven Swedish guitar sound as employed by the likes of Entombed, but it is tempered by the blackened elements with the extra treble giving it a bit more clarity. That said, it does provide the listener with a damn good bludgeoning in true death metal style and doesn't lack for heaviness in any way, even when guitarist David Parland introduces a bit more melody into the riffs the brutal guitar tone still delivers a damn good beating to the listener's eardrums. The slight downside to this and an issue I have with a number of Swedish death metal releases, is that the guitar is so all-pervasive that I feel the rhythm section takes too much of a back seat and at times the bass in particular is swamped by that overpowering guitar tone.

Vocalist Anders Strokirk singing voice sits somewhere between a shrieking, barking black metal style and the more gutteral, growling vocals of death metal derivation, leaning a bit more to the black side. Lyrically and thematically they also embrace the anti-Christian path so beloved by black metal bands of the time with their blasphemous and satanic lyrical exhortations. The songwriting is strong, the tracks seem to strike a great balance between the brutal and the melodic, being both detructively heavy and memorable at the same time. A track such as Sacrificial Rites even hints at a heavy Slayer influence and at times sounds like it wouldn't be out of place on Reign In Blood. The death and black metal elements combine well to provide something that sets Necrophobic apart from the early-90's Scandinavian pack. The Swedish sound is not my favourite iteration of death metal, but with the addition of aspects of black metal Necrophobic seem to have found the formula to making it more interesting, to my ears at least.

A very solid upper 4/5 from me.