The Horde

I've not listened to a huge amount of death metal this year, especially if you don't count death doom, which I don't as that is covered by my Fallen list. Still despite that, here goes:

#1 Blood Incantation - Hidden History of the Human Race

#2 Coffins - Beyond the Circular Demise

#3 Vastum - Orificial Purge

#4 Exhumed - Horror

#5 Minenfeld - The Great Adventure

#6 Pulchra Mortem - Divina Autem et Aniles

#7 Immortal Bird - Thrive on Neglect

#8 Gatecreeper - Deserted

#9 Ossuarium - Living Tomb

#10 Tomb Mold - Planetary Clairvoyance

Since my review was short I'll just copy and paste it here for discussion sake:

A Molten Foundation

Bestial Devastation shows the remarkable beginnings of a young Sepultura as they recorded this fiery but disheveled EP in just two days. While obviously messy and laden with performance issues, the amount of ideas and concepts for an even darker and more aggressive take on Thrash Metal is ambitious and impressive. I think their ambition got the best of them as they struggle to keep up with the intense tempos and compositions that require the band to play perfectly on time together, but the messiness on an already lower quality EP adds that classic grime that early Death Metal thrives on. It's raw, furious, and somewhat exciting even by today's standards. Certain parts and melodies sometimes just end out of nowhere and could have been written better and expanded more, but for what Sepultura had to work with at the time the riffs and solos that come out of Bestial Devastation are more than sufficient. Not to mention the drummer goes absolutely nuts on the entire album, showing that Thrash style drumming can be expanded upon to hit even harder than it already did. A fun but definitely dirty EP that shouldn't be skipped over when looking at the classics of Death Metal.

I think most metal fans go through a similar transition. I took to the likes of Metallica and Slayer quite quickly, but Sepultura were initially too much for me due to Max's gruff style. Once I accepted his vocals I quickly found myself loving them, and it wasn't long before Morbid Angel, Death and Deicide were banging out of my speakers.

I found this article to be really interesting. I love it when bands cite more unusual sources of influence & you certainly won't see anyone else championing these. Perhaps that's what makes Fleshgod Apocalypse so unique?

1. Yngwie Malmsteen – "Live with the Japanese Philharmonic Orchestra" video (2002)

"This was fucking fantastic. It was like Paganini with a orchestra but in the modern days. It's unbelievable how he could do that. When I saw that for the first time I was like man, I want to do something like this. We'd end up like doing a band, but we never had the chance to play with a big orchestra so far. It's in the planning. We just did the DVD recording where we used the quintet, which was cool. But you know that the dream remains the same.When we saw Yngwie Malmsteen it was fucking crazy."

2. Metallica – "S&M" (1999)

"S&M"live with Metallica was big for us, because in some way it was the moment where this mix with the symphonic thing became in some way mainstream. I read that the already happened in the past with Deep Purple or Black Sabbath doing some stuff like that back in the days. But I think this was the concert when it became really a mainstream thing you know, something that all the metalheads can accept. This symphonic orchestral world in some way is not mixed with metal. But it's a normal thing. It's not just a strange thing."

3. Dimmu Borgir – "Forces of the Northern Night" video (2017)

"One of the best performances we ever saw is Dimmu Borgir on the DVD Forces of the Northern Night which is the live video that they did in Osolo in 2011 I think. It's just a highlight for one of the bands we liked most. And it was crazy. They had like super huge choir, and it sounds great. The DVD is fucking awesome."

4. Rhapsody

"There are two main bands that inspire us the most. One is the Italian Rhapsody (now known as Rhapsody of Fire). I know it might sound weird because they're power metal but it's one of the best. Even if they didn't do it like with a real orchestra, they worked around it like us, and back in the days the sounds were a little bit more unprofessional I will say. But still the ideas behind them … this Italian vibe they have and the melodies It definitely influenced us a lot."

5. Septicflesh

"Septicflesh were hugely influential, and are good friends of ours. They are pioneers of this thing as well, in the more obscure Gothic, you know, dark sort of way."

Those that know me well will probably be aware that Suffocation have been my favourite metal band since the mid-90's & that I've been following them obsessively since their debut "Human Waste" E.P. was released in 1991. So the news that vocalist Frank Mullen would be permanently retiring from the band was not something that I got much pleasure in reading when I was perusing an online article on the topic a couple of days ago. Suffocation have been touring without Frank sporadically during periods of unavailability for 6 or 7 years now with Disgorge drummer Ricky Myers, Dying Fetus front man John Gallagher & Pyrexia vocalist Kevin Muller all handling the microphone duties at various times but Frank had always returned for the studio albums. But I'm afraid I'm now going to have to come to terms with a Suffocations without Frank The Tank & his signature hand movements. Ricky Myers is apparently the most likely candidate for a full-time replacement & while I have nothing against Ricky, it's certainly a sad day for death metal with one of the scene's most charismatic & influential figures bidding farewell to the scene that he helped build.

*runs off to infect a crypt*

Bad news