PANZERCHRIST: BATTALION BEASTReally, any Panzerchrist album is capable of being listed here. The Danish death metal band has virtually no exposure in the U.S. and their albums are incredibly tough to find and often expensive when you do. The U.S. is missing out on one of the most aggressive, rabid, and powerful death metal bands ever. The band incorporates some black metal influences (mostly vocal style but some music) into their death metal sound, but this is more of the blast beat-driven black metal style. If you're looking for subtlety, look somewhere else, this band is raw and brutal as fuck.
DEMILICH: NESPITHEThe Finnish death metal band is really weird. Featuring unconventional song structures and absolutely bizarre vocal styles (think croaking bullfrog), Demilich was truly and unusual band. Coming around at a time when there was not much experimentation in death metal, Demilich pushed the boundaries of the genre to places it had never seen before. If it were not for Demilich's 1993 album, we would not have groups like Portal. Unfortunately, this album remains buried deep within the metal underground. Those who have heard it though, sing its praises.
THE CHASM: THE SPELL OF RETRIBUTIONYesterday I mentioned Cenotaph, well The Chasm is a band that features the absolutely insane Cenotaph vocalist Daniel Corchado as well as other members from the group. The band originated in Mexico and then relocated to Chicago. They play a much more progressive style of death metal with some remnants of the Cenotaph sound, but taking it in a myriad of directions. The band also has influences from other metal styles, including heavy doom influences. Their albums are all spell-binding, but this is my personal favorite.
DECEASED...: FEARLESS UNDEAD MACHINESIt would be possible to get Deceased... in both the death metal and thrash metal lists, but I will cut that back and only list them here. Deceased... started out as an early death metal band, incorporating death metal vocal styles and down-tuned, heavy riffs into their more traditional metal and thrash backgrounds. This is the band's masterpiece album, a concept album to the George Romero zombie movies. This band is criminally underrated, despite being clearly one of the most original bands in American death metal. They have in recent years gotten rid of most of their death metal influences, but on this album, they shined through.
XENOMORPH: EMPYREAL REGIMESI just got this album recently and reviewed it in depth. I have to mention it again here, because this is just incredible. Progressive death metal that is still punishing and brutal is not always easy to find, but this isolated band from Nebraska did it in the early 1990's. Xenomorph is an extremely twisted death metal band, but their album was not widely released and they are just now beginning to get discovered. The label Blood Harvest has plans to re-release this. I can't wait. Hopefully they will get the attention they deserve.
Panzerchrist is a band I've heard and liked but I'm not sure how I feel about their name (again). Now that I think about it, it's actually ludicrously funny. You know, I'm hard-pressed to think of a single BAD metal band from Denmark. Anything I can think of (Artillery, MF / KD, Volbeat, Dominus) is good.
ReplyDeleteSince you credit Portal's style to Demilich, that may have to float to the top of my priority list. I have so many things I want to listen to and just don't have enough time for all of it. At least not right now while I'm trying to keep up on a lot of new releases.
I managed to find Xenomorph, and I like it. I'll post my own review some other time.
I wouldn't go so far as to say that Portal's style is credited to Demilich. It's more that Demilich was the band that really started pushing death metal to unusual forms.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to the Xenomorph review.
A death metal album I was really impressed by but haven't heard much of anything about is Still Suffering by Catafalc. Are you familiar with it?
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