Initial Impressions: Wormed: Quasineutrality

The best slam bands are those that take a different viewpoint on the genre. Bands that are not obsessed with ultra-gory violence and have something to say and bands that are a bit more technical with their music while avoiding the overly simplistic style that slam is known for.

Enter Wormed.

Wormed has still not released the follow-up to their fantastic full-length debut album Planisphaerium from 2003, but they did release this two track teaser last year. It has just taken me a long time to get around to checking it out for some reason.

Imagine Demilich's vocalist Antti Boman fronting a band that sounds like a cross between Devourment and Voivod and you have a pretty good idea what Wormed sound like. That is a pretty unique sound if you ask me and Wormed pull it off incredibly well. As I mentioned, their debut album was incredible and, if anything, they have just gotten better on this short release.

There is not much more to say, this is amazing.

Infernal Revulsion: An Epic Conviction vs. Putrid Pile: House of Dementia

For Slam Week, I revisited my Now That's What I Call Slam compilation and found my two favorite tracks. I then checked out both of the bands: Infernal Revulsion for "Rot in Peace" and Putrid Pile for "Dead".

INFERNAL REVULSION: AN EPIC CONVICTION
This is a compilation made up of each of the band's two previous full-length albums. As such it is a little on the long side, so those of you who can not put up with this for very long should be wary.

Infernal Revulsion is another Japanese slam band. Japan seems to have a lot of good slam death bands, with Rest in Gore, Gorevent, and Vomit Remnants being other good examples. As with other Japanese slam bands, Infernal Revulsion has a slightly different take on their genre of choice.

Infernal Revulsion keeps listeners on their toes by throwing in the occasional thrash metal or tremolo riff. Pretty unique for this style of metal. They are also typically faster-paced with some somewhat bouncy riffs and impressive guitar solos thrown in occasionally. The vocals are very deep and froglike, occasionally sounding like Demilich's vocalist.

This is pretty impressive stuff. Infernal Revulsion avoids a lot of the traps that other slam bands tend to fall into. Their music sounds fresh and original.

PUTRID PILE: HOUSE OF DEMENTIA
The melodic intro sounds like the kind of thing Air Supply would have done, but then it kicks into the frenzied brutality of "Dead", which is one hell of a song, let me tell you. It is extremely heavy with the opening riff reminding me of some of Gojira's work. The heaviness continues throughout the album. Putrid Pile do the Deicide-style layered vocals quite a bit, to great effect.

Making things even more impressive is that Putrid Pile is the work of just one person: Shaun LaCanne, who provides all of the instruments and vocals, as well as the programming. This is one talented individual. Putrid Pile is one of the best slam/brutal death metal bands I have heard in awhile.

This is an extremely impressive album. I will definitely be keeping an eye on Putrid Pile.

CONCLUSION
I preferred the Putrid Pile album personally, though Infernal Revulsion was also great.

A Quick Look at Slam Death Bands on Bandcamp

I have not done much with bandcamp.com so far. I have listened to a few bands that have requested me to do reviews of their material, but I have not explored the site much other than that. This week, I decided to do a search for Slam Week to see what kind of slam bands bandcamp has to offer. The results were fairly impressive.

AMPUTATION SPREE
Okay, this band is freaking incredible. They have two EPs available on their Bandcamp page and both of them sound great. The band is definitely influenced by Wormed, hence their kind of bizarre, sci-fi sounding slam. The atmosphere is the most impressive aspect from this band, something that is pretty lacking in most slam. This is some surprisingly good and original-sounding slam. I prefer the second EP personally, but they are both pretty damn good.

BLOODRAIN EVENING
This band has only released one song so far, but it is fairly impressive. The vocals can actually be understood and are not delivered in a completely generic style. The music is kind of a mix of slam death and Cannibal Corpse.

CARBONIZED GNAWING MANDIBLE
This one is almost morosely slow and has a mechanical quality to it that sounds surprisingly good. The production is interesting as it gives the whole album a spacey feel. The vocals echo quite a bit which gets a little annoying at times, but it adds to the spacey feel. On first listen I was not terribly impressed, but it grew on me.

EXTINCTIONIST
Extinctionist's EP is a short blast of slamming fury. There are five songs here and the whole thing clocks in at about eight minutes long. There is an old school death metal influence here, so the music is actually fairly fast while retaining a lot of the slam style.

NEUROMA
This band has a sense of humor, I'll give them that. Song titles like "Dingoes Ate My Baby" show this off. Musically it is faster-paced brutal death/slam, which sounds pretty good. After the first track, the rest of the songs on the free promo are demo and live tracks without as good of production values. But there is some talent here.

OMINOUS RUIN
I like this one quite a bit. The band does a lot to build an intense atmosphere. They sound like a mix of Devourment and Deicide, with the double layered extreme vocals and the rather impressive soloing mixed with the slams.

5 Important Bands, 1 Genre: Slam Death

I have not done one of these posts for quite some time, so here we go. For those who don't remember one of these before, I am looking at five bands that were important in forming my opinion of the genre. This one is a little bit more specialized.

SUFFOCATION
Suffocation is not a slam death metal band. Let us just get that out of the way first. However, they were a major influence on the formation of the subgenre. Slam death metal bands took some of the breakdown-laden ridiculously heavy sound that was Suffocation's bread and butter and took it to the extreme. They simplified things a bit and focused on the breakdown. Suffocation was vitally important in the formation of slam death and that is why they are listed in this post.

INTERNAL BLEEDING
Internal Bleeding is often cited as the first real slam death metal band. My first album by this band was this compilation pulling together most of the band's demos that I received in a Century Media grab bag. My first impression was not terribly positive, but I did grow to really enjoy it. This is still one of the first CDs I grab when I want to listen to some slam. The rawness and energy of it grabs your attention.

SANATORIUM
Another album that I received in a lot of CDs, this one a lot of death metal CDs off of ebay. Sanatorium was the first band I listened to with the kind of frog-like gurgling vocals that have become a staple of the genre. This, in addition to the violent lyrics and deep throbbing slams, caught my attention from the beginning. It was kind of a joke album that I would put on to blow the minds of passengers in my car, I just grew to love it.

DYING FETUS
Dying Fetus is a group that I loved from the first time that I heard them. I realize that my first album from the group, their 2007 release, is not one of their strongest upon looking into their back catalog, but it definitely grabbed my attention. It was extremely powerful and chaotic, but with a political side to the lyrics. Dying Fetus catches a lot of crap for the singer's admitted love for rap music, but the band continues to put out good music.

ATROCIOUS ABNORMALITY
Atrocious Abnormality is the first band that I successfully added to the Encyclopedia Metallum database. They exist on the border between slam death and brutal death metal with some surprisingly technical riffs in places. I also picked up their album after I submitted them to the database and was very impressed from the first time I heard them.

After those five bands, I started paying attention to Sgt. D's posts on slam on Metal Inquisition which lead me to finding more and more slam death.

Gorevent: Worship Paganism vs. Rest in Gore: Culinary Buffet of Hacked Innards

I get Gorevent and Rest in Gore confused. Both bands are slam bands from Japan, and they have similar names. I had a chance to listen to each band's newest album in an effort to determine which Japanese "Gore" band was better.

GOREVENT: WORSHIP PAGANISM
This is plodding-speed slam death with ultra-low guttural vocals and some extremely bass-heavy slams. I generally prefer the stuff that is not over-the-top violent and this album qualifies more than a lot of other stereotypical slam bands. Notice the cover art is not soaked with gore and the name of the album is not referencing some horrible act of violence.

Musically, Gorevent lacks originality, but how many truly original slam bands are there (other than Wormed)? That's not why people listen to slam at all. Nevertheless, the album does tend to drag a little bit and the songs kind of bleed together. When it's good though, it's very good. It is an absolutely crushingly heavy album.

The vocals are a little bit interesting on this one because they are not always delivered in typical slam style. Sometimes they bear more similarities to old school death metal vocals.

REST IN GORE: CULINARY BUFFET OF HACKED INNARDS
And there's that cartoonish violence I referred to in the above review. We have a really messy album cover and quite the grotesque title. We also have song titles like "Pus from Rotten Sutures" and "Pierced Eyeballs".

However, musically this band is much more interesting than Gorevent. The riffs are almost bouncy. The music is a little bit faster and there is a lot more energy in it. In addition, the band experiments with some unusual, almost funky rhythms, particularly on "Splattered Slime" and "Putrid Autopsy". The clicking drum sound is interesting as well, but gets to be a little grating at times. It is present throughout the entire album.

The vocals do not really do anything. They stay the same throughout, deep guttural growls. Fairly typical for the style.

This is a bit more original than the Gorevent album. It is certainly a slightly different take on a mostly stale style.

CONCLUSION
Despite the gore and violence-filled lyrics, I prefer the Rest in Gore album.

Strange Cover Songs: Katalepsy: "Symphony of Destruction"

Initial Impressions: Embryonic Devourment: Fear of Reality Exceeds Fantasy

Embryonic Devourment's debut is shockingly good. Featuring dissonant and technical riffwork and progressive song structures, this album is a mind-bender. There is so much going on musically that it is sometimes hard to determine when one song ends and another begins. But that is part of what makes this such an interesting, if somewhat bewildering, listening experience.

Their music is a mix of technical brutal death metal and grindcore with occasional slam moments. The guitars are extremely busy throughout, riffs fly in every direction and in every speed. The drumming is near constant blastbeats. And the vocals are delivered in a deep guttural growl, with the occasional scream thrown in for good measure.

All this makes for a very unique album. This is highly recommended for fans of technical death metal.

Demo Review: Vomepotro

I don't listen to a lot of demos. Usually the production quality is not terribly great, or the songs are rough. However, I do find them to be an interesting look at the early stages of a band.

Here are three demos from Vomepotro, a brutal death/slam death metal band from Brazil.

PRESSED CORPSE (1996)
This is the very first recording from Vomepotro and it is clear they were not really sure what they were doing. The sound is raw and sounds a little weird because it is missing a lot of distortion. The guitar riffs just sound a little off. The band also throws in two covers of Cannibal Corpse's "I Cum Blood" and Slayer's "Angel of Death". Interesting, but the band has not fully emerged yet.

THE PUTRID ODOR (1998)
A slightly longer recording this time around, this one is more like an EP than a demo. Except the production values still are not really that good. The band has incorporated a little bit more of their later defining characteristics into the music. Slamming riffs and a heavy muddy sound have emerged. The vocals have become much more guttural as well. This is a definite step forward for Vomepotro.

NECRODEMENTED (1999)
This is the most polished demo from the group, though it was still several years before the band's first full-length. The band has really discovered their sound on this one and that sound is a mix between Devourment and Cannibal Corpse. It is a shorter demo, which is disappointing given the fact that it probably has the best production and best songs of the three I have reviewed here.

Initial Impressions: Engaged in Mutilating: Population: Zero

Engaged in Mutilating is a side project made up of members of Putrilage and formed in San Antonio, TX, home to several other slam and brutal death metal bands. While not completely a slam death band, Engaged in Mutilating definitely incorporate slams in their breakdowns and do a damn good job of it too. Engaged in Mutilating owes more musically to groups like Cryptopsy, Pyrexia, and Suffocation, with a little bit of slam thrown in.

EiM (as I will refer to them from now on in this review) plays fast and brutal death metal with a little bit of technical riffwork and some progressive structures. The music is fast and punishing with some impressive riffwork. The whole thing comes off like a runaway steamroller.

This is the band's first album and it shows. They have a lot of pretty cool ideas, but have a hard time really making a connection. I enjoyed this album, but I feel like the band really has some room to grow.

New Poll: What Do You Think of Slam Death Metal?

Any thoughts that can't be expressed in the poll?

Slam Splits

I have not done a split post for a little while. It just so happens that I have two ready to go.

FESTERING FUCKHOLE SLOP
THE BANDS: Artery Eruption and Inhuman Dissiliency.
ARTERY ERUPTION: This is one of the most cited names in modern slam and they show why here. Absolutely sick and twisted riffs with the deepest gurgling vocals I have heard in quite some time. The slams are absolutely crushing, it feels like the whole world is coming to an end. This just sounds inhuman.
INHUMAN DISSILIENCY: Faster and with a better production, but otherwise not a whole lot different. Their slams also slow things WAAAAYYYY down. The vocals are so deep, you almost cannot hear them over the music.
WINNER: Artery Eruption

MALIGNANT OPUS OF INHERITED DEPRAVITIES
THE BANDS: Embryonic Depravity and Gorevent
EMBRYONIC DEPRAVITY: They have a reasonable grasp on melody, which can be a little rare with modern slam. Not to say this is at all melodic, but slightly moreso than some groups. They incorporate old school death metal influences and throw in slams at opportune times. This is actually pretty impressive stuff.
GOREVENT: Japan has been producing a lot of slam lately. Gorevent is at the top of the list with Vomit Remnants and Rest in Gore. This is pretty indistinguishable from most other slam bands. I like the guitar tone in the riffs, but that's about it for originality.
WINNER: Embryonic Depravity

Initial Impressions: Disfigured: Amputated Gorewhore

I mentioned yesterday something about cartoonish violence in lyrical themes. Well Disfigured has them in spades. Just look at that cover art and the title of the album. There's also "Cadaver Meatballs", "Chainsaw Buttplug", and "Vehicular Vasectomy". None of which sounds like a very fun afternoon.

Musically, Disfigured is fairly basic brutal death with some slams thrown in for good measure. Think Pyrexia and Suffocation meets Devourment and you have a pretty good idea of what this sounds like. Just your average Texas-style death metal band really. The band does occasionally throw in some technical riff to keep things interesting.

The production is fairly impressive here. Everything sounds full and meaty, which with this style of metal is what you really want.

I like this album reasonably well. The sound bites can be a little annoying at times, particularly for "Drowning in Feces", but overall, it's a reasonably decent album. It is a quick and fun listen, even with the over-the-top violence.

Initial Impressions: Aborted Fetus: Fatal Dogmatic Damage

Okay, this is as basic as slam gets. Seriously, this could be Slam 101, all of the elements are here, with the exception of the almost cartoonish violence-filled lyrics. Not to say the lyrics here are not violent, but they are not as extreme. Otherwise, this is what slam is.

Aborted Fetus is a Russian four-piece who has been quite prolific in releasing something almost every year since the band formed in 2000. This is the band's second full-length album amongst a number of splits, demos, and EPs.

Their music is groove-laden slam death with fairly simple riffing and blastbeat-driven drumming. Every song is basically structured the same way. The band does not really go too far out of their comfort zone. The vocals are the standard pig squealed gurgling that a lot of slam bands use.

There is virtually no originality here. Even the name is lifted from two other bands. This is just simple slam without any real standout sections. The band just simply crushes for 25 minutes. It is utterly forgettable, but that is part of its charm. It hits you like a steamroller and then leaves you afterwards wondering what happened.

Slam Week

The remainder of the posts this week will be about slam death. I have several new albums and have been listening to a lot of newer bands lately. It's become a recent obsession. So this week is Slam Week.

Cover Art: My Kingdom for a Throne

Today is just an art post. Sorry I have not been posting much, I have been pretty busy with work.

Today's post is all about thrones. Thrones appear on metal album covers a lot, mostly for the symbolism of power that inherently goes with the throne. So here are some examples:

Flashback Video: Megadeth: "Sweating Bullets"

Dave Mustaine is not much of an actor.

Reader Submissions: Refusal: Short on Ammo

I was recently contacted by Tero Pirhonen, guitarist of the Finnish death metal band Refusal, to review their latest demo. So here we are.

Refusal has apparently gone through some changes over the course of the few years they have been active. They began life as a thrash metal band and then slowly began moving into their current direction. Refusal has been surprisingly prolific for such a young band, releasing four demos and a single since 2008. Here's hoping that a full-length is coming soon.

This is heavy and crushing, groove-laden death metal performed with a lot of speed and intensity. There is a lot of energy here, which is good, because the music, while competently played does not really offer anything new. This is not really a problem. This is tried and true death metal, which when played this skillfully always sounds good. Refusal does have something of a punk flair, which probably came about when they started out as a thrash metal band.

The vocals are delivered in a variety of ways, including a death growl and a harsh scream. This is one way to keep the listener interested. It also helps that the demo is a fairly short nine minutes long. They play fast and avoid falling into the trap of playing long and pointless songs.

The sound quality is impressive for a demo. It sounds full and thick and each instrument can be heard clearly.

This is an impressive sounding demo from a young band. With any luck, they will continue to find their own voice and put out a full-length soon.

Yahoo's Ten Worst Heavy Metal Albums of All Time

This list was on the front page of Yahoo.com yesterday. Most of it is not too bad, but there's some pretty egregious stuff here.

Let's take a closer look:

10. Kiss: Music from The Elder
I honestly am not aware of what this is. Apparently Kiss created a concept album at one point. I am not a big Kiss fan, so I have no idea.

9. Def Leppard: Slang
Again, not a big Def Leppard fan, so this really does not ring a bell with me.

8. Motley Crue: Motley Crue
Actually, I find this one to be somewhat underrated. I get the implication here, that since Vince Neil was gone for this album that it should not exist. But this actually featured some of the heaviest material Motley Crue put out in years. And John Corabi was not that bad of a vocalist, he was just different than fans were used to.

7. Black Sabbath: Never Say Die
Yeah, I kind of agree here. At this point, it was clear that something had to change in order for Black Sabbath to regain their past glory. That something was booting Ozzy and bringing in Dio.

6. Raven: The Pack is Back
I am not familiar with this one. Kind of an odd one stuck in the middle here as a lot of people probably do not know who Raven is. I like their Wiped Out album though.

5. Iron Maiden: Fear of the Dark
I absolutely do not agree with this pick. This was my first Iron Maiden album and the title track and "Be Quick or be Dead" are both classics. It may not have been on the same level as their earlier material, but it is definitely not "Worst of All Time"-worthy. Just look at their next two albums for evidence of bad Iron Maiden albums.

4. Twisted Sister: Come Out and Play
Again, not really familiar.

3. Ozzy Osbourne: Bark at the Moon
Oh, come on. Ozzy has put out lots of bad albums. Everything after No More Tears is pretty bad on some level. This is actually a pretty decent one. Yes the sound was a little different. It had to be as no guitar player was going to replace Randy Rhoads, but this one is a pretty good album.

2. Guns 'n Roses: Chinese Democracy
Believe it or not I have never heard anything off of this. I just had no interest by the time it was released.

1. Metallica: Load, Reload, St. Anger
What an uninspired way to round out this list. Yes they were all bad albums on some degree or other, but how about picking just one? My worst? Load. There, see how easy that was?

An Announcement Regarding Metallica/Lou Reed

This will be the first album with Metallica's name on it that I definitely will not be picking up. After listening to the song samples, there is no way in hell I can justify spending money on this piece of shit. Metallica has undone all of the good will they built up with Death Magnetic. I'm out.

Reader Submission: Graveborne: Pure Negativity

Graveborne is a black metal band from Finland. It has been quite awhile since I have heard a new band with this kind of sound. This is definitely a throwback to the early to mid 1990's Scandinavian black metal sound. With equal parts Immortal, Impaled Nazarene, Gorgoroth, Watain, and Marduk, the music of Graveborne definitely recalls a simpler time in black metal, before the non-metal influences began creeping in and the genre became much more diversified. There's definitely something to be said for that.

Graveborne definitely know their source material. This album sounds like authentic Scandinavian black metal. They capture the hate-filled atmosphere, the pounding blast beats, the raspy vocals, and the tremolo riffing style perfectly. This is not to say that this the band do not have their own voice, they certainly do. The influences may be obvious, but the band does a great job of forging their own path.

Possibly the most impressive thing about this release is how great it sounds overall. The production job is great, and you can hear every single drum hit and every single riff perfectly. Obviously this was not true of a lot of the black metal coming out when the scene was just getting started.

It has been awhile since there was such an unapologetically old-school black metal album that caught my attention like this. Graveborne has definitely impressed me with this release.