Dissimulation - Iškelk Ir Išniekink

DISSIMULATION - Iškelk Ir Išniekink (LEDO TAKAS - MCD 2012)

Dissimulation… Well, I hope you know this band well, and if not then let me say that they’re – together with Loits and Must Missa – probably one best Baltic (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia) metal bands at the moment. I got to know Dissimulation already back in 2002, when Ledo Takas released their debut LP “Maras” and soon later the second one “Prakeikimas” in 2005. Once I listened to them they quickly became one of my favourite Baltic releases and I really felt that Dissimulation needs everyone’s support and attention. Not only their music was killer, but also quite original, so there were many reasons to get the band out from their Lithuanian woods and introduce to the European maniacs (which I actually did with a long interview with Stabmeldys – check it out here: http://panzerfaust666zine.blogspot.com/2011/09/dissimulation-interview-panzerfaust-5.html). And because I missed the third LP “Atiduokit Mirusius”, once I saw “Iškelk Ir Išniekink” in the distro, where I usually buy the stuff for my metal collection, I made the quick purchase, hoping to get crushed by the band’s characteristic blend of black and thrash again!
Well, it is definitely great to listen to this band again. As I said they’ve been one of the best Baltic bands and once you listen to “Iškelk Ir Išniekink” you realize that they are also very original, music wise. I mean surely their music is based in the classic Scandinavian and Slavonic black metal stuff, while the influences from thrash metal were much dropped on this MLP, but the way everything on “Iškelk Ir Išniekink” has been played and composed makes Dissimulation different from the average European band. It is like Master’s Hammer, if you know what I mean? It’s based on classic metal values, but played differently and in unique way, where the origin of the band clearly has a lot of influence on it. In case of Dissimulation you just must listen to their vocals. I didn’t mention Master’s Hammer (or Root) by accident, as all these bands characterise similar attempt to adopt their Slavonic languages into the metal harshness. And the results are so different to the usual English – or even Swedish / Norwegian - singing!!! Already these vocals make the music sound unique and some of you may get quite surprised with Dissimulation’s Lithuanian lyrics and also with the far from standard voice – which combines the harsh shriek with clean singing.
And add to that the music, which is way more progressive than what I remember from the early Dissimulation LPs. I mean nowadays the band – even if often they still have a bit of blackened thrash metal sound – sounds more like someone wanted Enslaved to have more direct metal approach and Lithuanian vocals. Ha, the effect is one of a kind! Obviously I must say that the band concentrates more on creating sort of dark and eerie atmosphere rather than the thrashing aggression (and sometimes I did have a feeling like I really wanted to hear something more furious, if you get my point) and some of you may find it as too odd, but screw you. I like the way Dissimulation builds the tension; their riffing definitely became unique, even with many similarities to the Norwegian bands like the mentioned Enslaved and Hades (Almighty) plus few riffs, like those from “Dievturys” remind me of Absu. But comparing this MLP to the first two Dissimulation records, I must say that the difference is quite huge and sometimes I can even say that it sounds now like completely different band. Even with the whole artwork I have a feeling like Dissimulation opted for more sort of heathen metal band, rather than the antichristian or even satanic type of act they seemed to be before. But maybe I am wrong here? Don’t know. Anyway, I can definitely say that “Iškelk Ir Išniekink” is an interesting effort. I can even say that it is quite a challenge to fully comprehend the idea of the band for their music, but surely it’s well played and composed piece of music. Check it out, if you’re looking for something more original.
Standout track: “Dievturys”

Final rate: 70/100

Morbus Chron - A Saunter Through the Shroud

 

MORBUS CHRON - A Saunter Through the Shroud (CENTURY MEDIA - 10"EP 2012)

Hmm, one can really question why have Century Media all of a sudden decided to release all those old school death metal bands – whether they do so to jump on the new wagon of current underground success of this style or maybe there are some maniacs, who just really liked bands like Morbus Chron or Necrowretch. Personally I was very surprised once I have heard the news that the authors of excellent “Sleepers in the Rift” found their future in the roster of the German label. Well, I hope it will be for their good and that they won’t regret it once the good aura around this sort of music is gone. Anyway, the first sign of the new deal comes in the shape of this excellent 10”EP titled “A Saunter Through the Shroud”. I must admit that this EP was just a must have to collect and I love it. The artwork, again for Morbus Chron, is truly breathtaking, this time much more unconventional, without any monsters, zombies or whatever, but sort of cosmic, but beautifully painted cover. Just look how brilliantly they’ve adopted and fitted the band’s name into the moon. OK, they didn’t use their original logo, but it just wouldn’t fit here and I think that this moon idea is excellent.

Surely I must admit once I listened to “A Saunter Through the Shroud” I noticed quite impressive progression in the band’s style and sound. And I don’t mean by that something what have happened to bands like Cemetary or Tiamat, who just dropped off all their death metal trademarks and exchanged them for some gothic crap. No, Morbus Chron still delves into their old school death metal cauldron, but I can definitely see some sort of evolvement within their style. With these three tracks, which ended up on “A Saunter Through the Shroud” they somehow started to mix up the traditional Swedish and US death metal with kind of bizarre, twisted and more and more technical approach. Imagine then a blend of the Swedish bands like Afflicted with Autopsy and Death plus a lot of Darkthrone’s “Soulside Journey”, which I think may have been the main source of influence for those young Swedish fellas when composing “A Saunter Through the Shroud”. The music becomes more and more a challenge to listen to with such songs as “Channelling the Numinous”, which are as unpredictable and above the average old styled death metal band as you can only imagine. Twisted, technical riffs, unusual ideas, arrangements and structures, harsh vocals… it is really, really good, I must say, although at the same I do admit that it took me few spins of the LP, before I started to like it. But with such killer songs as “Black Orb Reverence” it was just destined to crush my skull. Pure “Goatlord” and “Soulside Journey” tribute! But of all songs it was “The Place of the Four Hundred Volcanoes”, which was the most challenging and bizarre to me. The riffing in it is beyond comprehension and sometimes I wonder what the hell is going on here and if they didn’t listen to some techno thrash metal (do you remember this genre hehe?) too much? I bet that this sort of music will give Morbus Chron some enemies, who would prefer them to play some simple and unimaginable pure Entombed copy.

Well, one may say that this is how you actually recognise a band, which will end up with a cult status from the bare copycats, which will die forgotten after one or two albums. We’ll see what will happen with those Swedes, but definitely Morbus Chron has putted a new standard with “A Saunter Through the Shroud”. I’m waiting now for the second LP, meanwhile I definitely recommend you getting this EP. Get it fast, as I think those 1000 copies will be spread quite easily and quickly.

Standout track: “Black Orb Reverence”

Final rate: 85 / 100

Kommandant / Nominon - Absence of Light / Impaling the Nazarene

KOMMANDANT / NOMINON - Absence of Light / Impaling the Nazarene (CRYPTORIUM Records - split 7"EP 2012)

The invasion of Nominon releases on my home continues, this time in form of the split 7”EP single with Chicago based Kommandant. The EP was released by Cryptorium Records and I must say that I really like the layout for it. The front covers for both sides are killer! Kommandant chose their typical war imagery, with gas masks, what always looks very disturbing and interesting, while Nominon has a killer drawing by Abominator Abbot, which depicts some skeletons crawling around the tomb. Fuckin awesome, especially in this red colouring!

I start the feast with Kommandant’s “Absence of Light”. I already knew this band quite well, I mean I got their “Iron Hands on Scandinavia” demo back in 2006, I also have the “Stormlegion” CD in my collection, so Kommandant is not a new band for me (and did I mention that I also had an interview with them done somewhere in 2007 or 2008??). But from the other hand I missed the two recent releases of theirs – “Kontakt” MCD and “The Draconian Archetype” CD. So it feels good to have again a chance to listen to something from this American bulldozer.  Their style is more a mixture of different sounds – mainly death and black metal, but there’re also some more thrashing riffs here and there. “Absence of Light” is really good song. It is very vicious, very fast and straight forward, with sinister atmosphere and almost Swedish black metal feeling from bands like Marduk and Setherial. But it is great. I like the sound of it, the vocals are great and so there’s absolutely nothing what would be out of place. “Absence of Light” is definitely one of the best tracks from the US soil, which I have heard recently.

And Nominon... Well, I have written so much about this great Swedish band already... I do admit though that their side of this 7”EP is less interesting than the Kommandant’s. I mean they did Impaled Nazarene cover (“Human Proof”) for it and since I’ve never been really so much into this Finnish maniacal band (but I know this song quite well, as “Nihil” was one of those albums, which I used to listen to once in a while, but long time ago) then this song doesn’t crush me too much. I mean it is OK, sounds very, very close to the original version (including the vocals, which sound like Mikka was singing here!), but maybe this lack of any difference between the cover and the original version are the weak points of Nomion’s side? All in all, I wish I would rather listen to an exclusive Nominon track here, rather than a cover, especially as they also have one more cover only split EP recently released (split with Graveyard, which features both bands covering Candlemass!).

So this time I like Kommandant’ side of the split more than Nominon’s! But all in all it is yet another cool addition to my vinyl collection.

Final rate: 70/100

Entrapment - Irreligeous Abominations

ENTRAPMENT - Irreligeous Abominations (GODEATER - CD 2012)

Once I have listened to the “Crawling Morbidity” 7”EP from the Dutch old school death metal monster Entrapment I knew that I need to try to collect all the previous recordings of this project. I really, really liked the music on this single. And while it could have been pretty difficult to get the original tapes with the first couple of demos (“Infernal Blasphemies” and “Putrefying Stench of Death”), especially since some of them were limited to a criminal quantity of 100 copies, then the band prepared a killer surprise, which is a compilation CD “Irreligeous Abominations”. This album compiles all the Entrapment demos, plus few extra tracks, which were recorded during the recording sessions for those demos and as a bonus it also features a live recording of the band from Het Podium Hoogeveen from January 2012. In total you’ll find here 55 minutes of music, with 19 songs.

Well, this truly is a real feast for the Swedish old school death metal sound maniacs. Entrapment sounds like a classic Swedish band and takes a lot of influence from Nihilist, early Entombed, Dismember, Unleashed, etc. And I’m glad to say that each of their demos is just fantastic and sounds extremely great. The first one, “Infernal Blasphemies”, from 2009 sounds most rough and maybe that’s why it also sounds so similar to the Nihilist and Entombed demos. I love this stuff fully. The riffing is just classic and the best thing about it is that it just sounds like a long lost demo tape from 1989! Entrapment resurrects the atmosphere and the feeling of the music from this time perfectly and more so, they (or he, as it used to be a solo project of Michel Jonker back then) have the riffs, the ideas and energy, which erupts into your face! I also really, really like the guitar’s tone, the harsh vocals (which are so similar to the early LG Petrov’s!)… What a killer stuff. And no surprise than back then they’ve recorded Nihilist’s “Supposed to Rot” cover, which sounds just as good as the original.

The “Putrefying Stench of Death” and “Crawling Morbidity” demos are also crushing. I’m not gonna go into much details, but they also are truly, truly killer. “Putrefying Stench of Death” may sound slightly different, it is closer to the early Centinex for instance, but anyway it is very, very good material. You may be surprised by more punky song “Three Miles to Oblivion” (and then it turned out it’s a cover of a band called Crucifix, US hardcore punk band from their 1983 “Dehumanization” LP). And “Crawling Morbidity” is just a classic already, with so good songwriting that it rips the guts out within a second. The production for this demo is just perfect to my ears, raw, but clear, powerful and with perfect guitar tone… And the songwriting is 666% killer, for “Mass Obliteration” especially, but also such song as “Crawling Morbidity”, which is just a fast motherfucker, will nail you down to the ground instantly. Quite funny is “Yog Sothoth”, a track, which wasn’t featured on the 7”EP, as it has such a clear rip off from the early Morbid Angel (can’t remember now which song, “Maze of Torment” maybe???) that it can make you laugh hehe!

As for the live recording I honestly expected rather raw and primitively sounding bootleg recording, meanwhile I am very positively surprised, as those seven songs sound really well! Actually they have a sound close to a demo sound and sometimes it could even be difficult to spot if it’s a live recording or well done rehearsal recording. So, it is really good and I’m happy about it, as the bad bootleg would only spoil the whole good impression. As for the songs here, the band played few bits from every demo and I can say that they did it really well; you can just close your eyes and feel the energy and power of Entrapment’s live appearance.

If there are any faults of “Irreligeous Abominations” then I can only say that I’m slightly disappointed by the way it has been released. I would expect to get many extras, like the lyrics, original demo covers… you know, anything that would make it really, really interesting and complete. Instead you can just find a simple layout in the digipack, with basically nothing in it. Sad, but I can swallow the disappointment only due to the brilliance of the music. Definitely “Irreligeous Abominations” is a must to have and great introduction to Entrapment, especially as just now the band is about to release their first full length LP, “The Obscurity Within​.​.​.”. I can’t wait to get that LP!

Final rate: 90/100

Grave - Endless Procession of Souls

 

GRAVE - Endless Procession of Souls (CENTURY MEDIA - LP 2012)

I guess that being a cult and classic band, one of the originators of the whole musical movement – which in this case is Swedish death metal – must be pretty hard. Everyone watches you, some hoping that you finally will deliver a music, which will equal your early outputs – because everyone will always say that your first LP, sometimes the second one, is the best. And some will keep the fingers crossed for the reasons known just to them that you’ll fail, so they can put a crap towards you on internet forums or whatever and moan how great the scene was 20 years ago and now the bands only vulture on their old heritage, recording some shit, which is not worth a damn penny. Obviously the real fans will stay with their favourite bands, despite their mistakes and some temporary failures and also despite the fashions, which come and go like the seasons. Some you win, some you lose, as they say. So, it must be quite stressful life, for people like Ola Lindgren, who keeps playing under the cult name of Grave for almost 25 years now. There were killer releases in the beginning (“Into the Grave”, “You’ll Never See…”), there were some mistakes (“Hating Life”)… Line up changes happened also, most important being the departure of the early vocalist / bassist Jörgen Sandström, who in 1996 joined Entombed. Such things will always have a big impact on the fans, who will expect their favourite idols to never fail. But once Grave came back with “Back From the Grave” LP things had its ups and downs in my opinion. This album, as well as “Fiendish Regression” were OK, but more mediocre. Then happened also some much better releases, my favourite being “As Rapture Comes”, which added a lot of fuel and fire into the Grave’s skeleton. And albums “Dominion VIII” and “Burial Ground” were also very good and satisfying to the fans. But I am very, very glad to see and hear that it seems like Grave have unexpectedly really got strong now and all of a sudden putted out an album, which I think belongs to the best ones, which Lindgren had ever recorded!!!

Fuck yeah, you read it right. Now, 21 years after the release of fundamental “Into the Grave” we have “Endless Procession of Souls” and I feel like this is a true Grave, stronger ever since the release of “You’ll Never See” and definitely this newest effort belongs to my top three of all of Grave’s releases!!!! And I don’t need to mention I guess, which other LPs I like most hehe. I am really, really surprised that Grave managed to compose and complete such a killer and wonderful album. Of course I kept collecting all their vinyls, they never really failed me much (except the “Hating Life”, which remains the only album, which I don’t have nowadays in my collection), but even through such “Burial Ground” was really good and fun to listen to, I didn’t feel the thrills while listening to it just as when I listened to the early albums for the first time. Meanwhile something like that happened once I played “Endless Procession of Souls”. It was like “what the fuck????”, can it be really so good? Yeah it can!

Right from the very first sound I felt completely massacred by the brilliance of this album. Really, it has everything what good Grave LP should have, but written in some of the best ways. Each track on “Endless Procession of Souls” is just killer, their riffs are memorable, but heavy, brutal and massive, in some mysterious way Old Lindgren and his comrades managed to write absolutely stunning songs, which are equally good as those from their early efforts. No bullshit, no time for fillers, just crushing death metal, straight ahead, punching you in the face and ripping your guts out. And those excellent riffs – some of them are almost doomy and some are so much influenced by Celtic Frost (“Flesh Epistle”), but all in all you can clearly hear that this is Grave. The style of this band plus the characteristic vocals of Ola are unique and one of a kind. I cannot even mention, which songs are those, which I like most, as the whole album is just superb. I mean, the same feeling I had when I was listening to the two recent Asphyx albums – they also are just amazingly good and include some of the best pieces, which this Dutch band has composed, and I hardly am able to pick up my favourites, as everything sounds so damn good. I have the same feeling, when I shred my guts with “Endless Procession of Souls”. OK, maybe “Amongst Marble and the Dead”, “Epos” and “Disembodied Steps” would be especially gut ripping and crushing bits. But as I said, Grave delivered a complete, perfect album.

And on top of everything I must also mention how great the sound of “Endless Procession of Souls” is. The production, which Lindgren did, is just amazing, very energetic, very heavy, but also very organic and old school. It makes every riff sound like a bulldozer! And also the artwork for the LP is just fantastic. It’s creepy, it’s full of ghouls and other monsters… I love it. It looks just stunning on the gatefold LP!!!!!!!!!!!! And if I mention the vinyl, then I must add that it includes a bonus LP, with six covers tunes (Voivod, Anthrax, Celtic Frost, Alice In Chains, St.Vitus, Asphyx). I was kinda sceptic about it, especially as some of these covers – like Alice In Chains’ – has already appeared on the previous LPs, but anyway it’s always great to get something extra, don’t you think? The quality of those covers varies; some I like (Asphyx), some not really (Anthrax), but that may be due to the fact that I’m not a fan of some of these bands. And also I don’t like Celtic Frost’s cover, “Mesmerized”, as I’m not a fan of “Into the Pandemonium” and those clean vocals just don’t convince me. From the other hand to hear “Them Bones” with death metal growls sounds truly interesting and I’m into it fully.

So, get this LP now, kneel before Grave, because once Dismember is gone, Grave are the true masters of the Swedish death metal!!!!!!!!! And with such amazing LPs as “Endless Procession of Souls” there’s no competition for them. Together with Asphyx and Bolt Thrower they are the best classic death metal band in Europe, no doubt! 666!

Standout tracks: “Amongst Marble and the Dead”, “Epos” and “Disembodied Steps”

Final rate: 95/100