Thursday, November 27, 2008

Eternal Darkness (Swe) - 1992 - Twilight in the Wilderness (unreleased MLP)


Eternal Darkness played some excellent and bludgeoning Swedish doom/death. I already posted their 7" simply titled Doomed, and if you liked that then you surely will like this. Twilight In The Wilderness was never released to due to label complications and was forgotten about until the label Morbid Wrath released a compilation that included some of the songs from this recording, but not all of them. But this version that I'm posting does contain all the songs, which I think everyone would prefer. It is an impeccable take on the whole death/doom genre was thriving in the early 90's, but done with that unmistakable Swedish atmosphere and delivery. Highly recommended.

And now here it is. Enjoy.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Hellias - 2007 - Night of Damnation 12''

This great reissue done by the superb Nuclear War Now! Productions includes the 1988 Noc Potepienia EP on side A, and an excellent live recording from 1989 on side B.

In the 80s, Poland's metal scene was full of unique and interesting bands with their own sounds, and Hellias were no exception. They were a rather goofy looking bunch, but they played some of the most sinister thrash metal you'll ever hear.

One of the things I love about these two recordings is the guitar tones that both guitarists attain. It's not very often that you hear great fuzz tones in thrash metal. Usually bands go for a crunchy and a straight forward distorted sound, which works fine, but it's just refreshing to hear a great fuzz tone. But what difference would a great guitar tone make without killer riffing to accompany it? Well that is not the case here whatsoever. The riffing here is very creative and unique and never repeats itself. I love it when bands favor the higher notes with this kind of metal, and that is exactly what Hellias do. The drumming is more straight forward, but it gets the job done and it's not as if this band's music really requires anything too technical or flashy. And now on to the vocals. The vocals are really what gives this band the evil atmosphere that is evoked while listening to this. They sound like an early proto-black metal but with more snarl. They are extremely well done.

This is just one of the many great NWN! Prod. reissues and I highly recommend it to all fans of thrash metal, and just fans of metal in general. There is nothing here to not like. So here is my own vinyl rip of the LP. Enjoy.

Your comments are always appreciated.

Vulcano - 1986 - Bloody Vengeance (my own 320 kbps rip)

I'm sorry for my lack of posts this week. I'm going to try and make it up to you all by posting a few different things at once.

Vulcano's Bloody Vengeance is a well known Brazilian death/thrash/black metal classic, and rightfully so. This album is the epitome of all things bestial and evil, and to this day it still has not been topped. I'm not going to go into detail as to why, because you just have to hear it for yourself.

This album isn't hard to find, but the only rip I've seen of this online is at a 128kbps shitrate (how the fuck do the original rippers think it sounds okay?). Even if there is one at 192, I still thought those who don't own the album would appreciate my 320 kbps rip.

So here it is. Enjoy.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Savage Death - 1985 - Mass Genocide Demo

This is a vicious demo from one of the US death metal pioneers, Savage Death. Aside from the opening riff of the first song sounding almost exactly like that of the opening riff in Death's "Infernal Death", this band didn't sound like too many other bands in 1985.

So here is the cult classic, Mass Genocide. Enjoy.

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Sinoath - Demos

Forged In Blood (1991)


Sinoath were an Italian band that formed in 1990, and played a truly haunting and atmospheric mixture of black metal, death metal and doom metal and strangely never received much attention. Part of their distinct sound comes from the excellent use of keyboards. Instead of overdoing it and making it sound cheesy, they use the keyboards to give the songs more dynamics and to add emphasis to the bone chilling segments.

This is some highly recommended dark and eerie black/death/doom metal. Enjoy.

Still In The Grey Dying (1993)















Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Reencarnacion (Col) - 1988 - 888 Metal

Reencarnacion are a band from Columbia who have been around since 1986 and, despite some inevitable line up changes and a brief hiatus, are still together. 888 Metal is their first LP that has gained a massive cult following and has been reissued 3 different times, the last being by the almighty Nuclear War Now! Productions (as seen in the picture I took).

At the time of these recordings, Reencarnacion played a very raw form of black/thrash, but had some additional weird and unique aspects to their music as well. A lot of the music on 888 Metal is very fast, and the riffing is overall pretty simplistic, but the way they execute it with their unorthodox song structures accompanied by the occasional bursting out of the black/thrash madness with some all out bizarreness. They have some mid paced sections, and they do change the tempo up quite a bit, but the slowed down sections are still equally as aggressive as the rapid ones. There are certain parts that are just plain weird, which is one of the things that makes this album so atypical, and is one of my favorite things about this album. One song in particular where you will find a good example of this uncanny bizarreness is the last song, "Reencarnacion (II parte)", where they throw in some dissonant violin, acoustic guitar and strange vocal segments, all interwoven into their signature off kilter song structures.

This album took a couple listens to really sink in and grow on me, but it was well worth the effort and it eventually became one of my favorite black/thrash albums of the 80s, which seems to be the case for a lot of other people. So if you don't dig this at first, try giving it a couple more shots, but I'm sure it will click right away for some of you.

Enjoy.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Death - 1984 - Live In Tampa 11/9/84 Tape

This is a great sounding live recording from 1984, back when Death were clearly still heavily influenced by Venom, but had begun developing that great early proto-death sound. It was recorded when they were called Mantas, but they had changed the name to Death by the time it was released. It has some early versions of songs that would later appear on the Death's first and finest offering, 1987's Scream Bloody Gore, such as "Evil Dead" and "Beyond the Unholy Grave", as well as a lot of songs that never made it onto any official Death albums and would only be seen on other demos, plus a cover of Venom's "Poison".

The musicianship, as expected, is pretty sloppy in some places, but personally I think it just adds to the overall sound. It continues on the path Venom had paved for all early extreme metal bands, where you don't have to be a virtuoso musician in order to make some groundbreaking and brutal metal.

This is an excellent recording and a good look into the first stages of what would become the US death metal scene. Enjoy.

*NOTE: If anyone has any other pre-Scream Bloody Gore recordings at 192kbps or higher please contact me on here or email me at SaturatedGoatTrumpet@gmail.com