Written in Blood: December 1998
Archived
Soilent Green
Sewn Mouth Secrets
Relapse
Louisiana sludge — no, it’s not a new drink but it may drive you to drink. Actually, New Orleans’ Soilent Green mixes much more than sludge into the pot that becomes their potent heavy sound. Soilent Green has been together for just over ten years and have spent their time brutalizing the countryside with the likes of Pantera, Clutch, Brutal Truth, Crowbar and Brian Patton‘s (guitar) side-band Eyehategod. While S.G. has an outwardly noisy musical persona, a close listen to Sewn Mouth Secrets will reveal the much more sublime qualities of their music. This band has a lot going on in their songs but their music isn’t thrown together haphazardly, these guys come across as really knowing what they are doing.
Meshuggah
Chaosphere
Nuclear Blast
Swedish cyber-thrashers Meshuggah are releasing their latest full-length, Chaosphere. Over the years technology has molded the Meshuggah sound, which peaked on their much manipulated and remixed ’97 release The True Human Design. Chaosphere finds the band displaying and reaffirming that the human hand is still in control of their musical output. Meshuggah has perfected the “man meets machine” approach to creating extremely heavy, extremely precise music. To listen to the music created by Meshuggah is to surrender yourself to altered time changes, psychotic syncopation and an overall rhythmic explosion. You’ve never heard anything quite like this. You’ve never heard anything even close to this.
Cryptopsy
Whisper Supremacy
Century Media
Cryptopsy is by far one of the most exciting extreme, death metal bands out there today. When I listen to an album that is just extreme for extreme’s sake, about the only thing I’m usually compelled to do is press stop on my CD player. Whisper Supremacy, Cryptopsy’s third album made me want to hear more from one song to the next. The pace of this album, to put it simply is rapid. The path Cryptopsy takes with their music is twisted. This band isn’t much for filler, the songs on Whisper Supremacy are always changing and evolving into complex, technical masterpieces. I understand the lyrics are pretty twisted and sick as well but the cheeseball, cardboard envelope that the promo came in didn’t include the lyrics and I don’t have a Ph.D. in death metal linguistics so I was out of luck.
Best of Blood: my favorite albums of the year. (In no particular order.)
1) Opeth, My Arms, Your Hearse / Century Media
2) Death, The Sound Of Perseverance / Nuclear Blast
3) Cannibal Corpse, Gallery Of Suicide / Metal Blade
4) The Dillinger Escape Plan, Under The Running Board E.P. / Relapse
5) Cryptopsy, Whisper Supremacy / Century Media
6) King’s X, Tape Head / Metal Blade
7) Defleshed, Under The Blade / Metal Blade
8) Solus, Our Frosting Hell E.Р. / Skinmask
9) Sinister, Aggressive Measures / Nuclear Blast
10) Witchery, Restless and Dead / Necropolis
11) Stuck Mojo, Rising / Century Media
12) Quiet Room, Introspect / Dominion, Metal Blade
13) Without Warning, Step Beyond / Conquest
14) Neurotica, Seed / NMG
15) Meshuggah, Chaosphere / Nuclear Blast
16) Thought Industry, Recruited To Do Good Deeds For The Devil / Metal Blade
17) The Everdawn, Poems – Burn The Past / Death
18) Covenant, Nexus Polaris / Nuclear Blast
19) Earth Crisis, Breed The Killers / Roadrunner
20) Boiler, The New Professionals / Mayhem
21) Mother God Moviestar / Interscope
22) Hatebreed, Satisfaction is the Death of Desire / Victory
Here we are at the end of 1998. I’ve got to do something to clean up the piles of…..CDs that are building up around my living room. In an attempt to get the last of the ’98 releases in SLUG while it’s still ’98, I’m going to give you a brief overview of what’s going on with some of each label’s latest releases.
Nuclear Blast
Ten years after the band’s inception, the members of Sinister are releasing their fourth full-length, Aggressive Measures. The band is returning to the scene with a new vocalist and a serious “must have” for any death metal enthusiast. This album is damn good. If you’re into all of the theatrics and drama of black metal don’t miss the latest from Dimmu Borgir, Godless Savage Garslug Den. This album features rerecorded versions of “Hunnerkogen” and “Raabjorn Speiler Draugheimens Skodde,” both from the band’s first album. There are also two new tunes, three songs recorded live and Aggressive Measures cover of Accept‘s “Metal Heart” on the album. You’ll have to decide for yourself what to do with the Accept cover. Smash or trash?
If you’re in the mood for the bloodied, blasphemous tirades of some pretty talented teenagers, then check out Holy Target from Raise Hell. Complex arrangements coupled with single-note speed blasted Thy Serpent rhythms whiz by like bullets searching for a target (you).
Just in time for Christmas! Thy Serpent is releasing Christcrusher. This Finnish, black metal outfit keeps it heavy with an emphasis on solid guitar work that doesn’t get lost behind the keyboards.
Are you into blackmetal recordings that are devoid of any production value? If so, listen up! Gorgoroth‘s Destroyer (or about how to philosophize with the hammer) is filled with crappy guitar tone, shrieked vocals and a horrible production. Ahhh, what more could you want?
If the new album from the band Sinner, The Nature of Evil is going to appeal to you, then it’s going to grab you like a hand to the crotch during the ’80’s sounding guitar intro to track one. The guitar work and the rest of Matt Sinner‘s band will take you back to a time when guitar-rock ruled the world. I just found out, much to my surprise that this band has been around for fifteen years and The Nature Of Evil is their ninth album! Check out the Thin Lizzy cover, “The Sun Goes Down.”
German black metal band Agathodaimon are releasing their new album, Blacken The Angel which features their new vocalist Akaias. Apparently, the band’s former vocalist Vlad Dracul was denied re-entry into Germany after a trip to Bucharest. The rest of the band still considers Mr. Dracul as a member of the band.
If power metal was the law of the land, then the kings of the universe would be the studded/spiked wristband wearing boys of the band Pegazus. Their sound and fashion sense may be a little on the dated side but as long as my lone Manowar fan and reader is still out there then this band will still have a potential #1 fan. …since we’re on the subject… The band HammerFall has a new album out called Legacy Of Kings. By the time this magazine hits the stands you here in Salt Lake will have seen this band open for Death at Area 51. My friend Carston had this to say about HammerFall: “They kind of sound like Iron Maiden.” BINGO!!
Now for a power metal band with a hint of progressive metal added to keep things fresh. Sweden’s Hollow released Modern Cathedral. This album is pretty good, or at least it shows promise.
Industro-metal your thing? Lostsoul‘s Fracture has all of your favorite elements plus a bit more to keep you on your toes. Meshuggah fans should add this to their collection.
Century Media
Skinlab is releasing the limited 5000 copy EP Eyesore to hold you over until their next full-length comes out next year. The EP contains two new songs, a cover of Brujeria‘s, “Raza Odiada (Pito Wilson),” the James Murphy-produced demo version of “When Pain Comes To Surface” and a live rendition of the song “Paleface.”
For those of you that have listened to the last couple of Strapping Young Lad CDs and wondered if Devin and Co. could actually pull this stuff off live, here’s your proof SYL takes metal to a whole new level with every note and you can tell they’re having fun at the same time.
’80’s metal marvels Jag Panzer are releasing their third album since the beginning of the ’90s. The Age of Mastery is the second album of the three that sports three of the original members from the formation of the band back in 1981. Guitar wiz Joey Taffola is off busy with his solo career again but never fear, original guitarist Mark Briody and Chris Broderick don’t miss a note.
Opeth, My Arms, Your Hearse. Another black metal album (oh no!). Let me give it a listen… Umhm…. hmmm…… yep….. hm….. um…. hmm…damn! I like it! I like it a lot! This is so much more than a black metal album. This album is kind of like progressive death with black metal tendencies. Actually, there are so many elements to this release that no one label would do it justice. My Arms, Your Hearse is dark and moody like black metal but it’s more musical than the average black metal slop. The darkness of the album was done with class and the ability to capture the heaviest and darkest aspects of the musician’s performance, not some dumb-ass hammering away on the E-chord and screeching into a micro-phone. A lot of cool acoustic parts too. Great album.
The new album from the band Sentenced is Frozen. This album is pretty much what I expected. Sentenced has gone from being an ugly, little, underground, death metal monster and has progressed and evolved into a beautiful flower. So, if you’re into that sort of thing, prepare to frolic! Musically, this is a good album but most of Frozen has given up its heavy edge and become a little too melodic for my taste.
Pavement
I hear there is a new Malevolent Creation out, but I’ve yet to get a copy. I guess Sean at Pavement is holding out on me. What does he send me? You guessed it — two black metal albums. The first one is from Sweden’s Battelust. The album is Of Battle and Ancient Warcraft. The other album is Aggressor by the band Nocturnal Breed. They are both raw, totally black metal and should only be touched by the serious black metal fan. The uninitiated would be chewed up and spit out by this pair of releases.
Conquest Music
I’ve just started to get stuff from this label. It appears they have a pretty solid roster of diverse acts ranging from progressive metal to hardcore. November’s installment of W.I.B. featured a band that I was extremely impressed with, named Without Warning. Another band I’m enjoying is Opposite Earth from the Tampa Bay area. Their album Headspace is supported by a strong progressive metal performance. The band’s hard exterior is tamed by keyboards and other experimental factors which the band seems to favor.
Another Florida band on Conquest is Nonpoint. Their debut, Struggle, is filled with rhythmically sung vocals over an in-your-face musical background. I got a kick out of reading the band’s more real than real “thank you” section: “A special shout out to all the bands that we’ve played with in the past that have had the balls to play a 1 am show to eleven people on a Wednesday night at a club on its last leg.”
Yet another one of Florida’s own is Creative Pain. Their album Scarred calls out to anyone into the thug/hardcore/metal sound. Biohazard comes to mind while listening to this album, though C.P. adds its own touch by delving deep into each side of the hardcore/metal line. I think just hearing the band sing “bullshit!” 37 times during track one to describe the government is worth the price of the CD.
Relapse
Blood and Guts are their specialty. The band is Exhumed, their album is Gore Metal. Exhumed have been beating the life out of their over-the-top style of gore metal since 1991. Some songs read like a bad horror movie, while others sound as if the band was trying to mimic the true kings of gore — early Carcass. Carcass took the splatter-gore approach back then to graphically convey their vegan beliefs by placing man in the same position as slaughtered animals. I have a feeling Exhumed does it just because they think it’s cool.
Metal Blade
James Rivera, for the band Destiny’s End. If you didn’t get enough of the band Helstar back in the ’80s, consider Breathe Deep The Dark as the ’90s replacement with an ’80s vibe. Merciful Fate, Dead Again ….again. —Forgach
Read more Written in Blood by John Forgach:
Written in Blood: September 1998
Written in Blood: March 1998
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