Profound Grave/Occult Pantheon - "Immortal Chaos Ascends" (Ex Nihilo Music, 2017)

Bands: Profound Grave/Occult Pantheon
Title: Immortal Chaos Ascends
Genre: Black Metal/Occult Death Metal
Year: 24th March 2017
Time: 33 min
Rating: 61













After a looooong time, the Chilean extreme metal, adored by me, is back on these pages! All the credit of this goes to Ex Nihilo Music, a very young label proudly Chilean but located in Toronto, Canada that contacted me 3 months ago to review it first production, released, curiously, in the same birthday of mine! This first production is titled “Immortal Chaos Ascends” and is a split between two Chilean (obviously!) bands very different called Profound Grave and Occult Pantheon, and each of them run wild with 5 songs.

Lubricant - "Swallow This" (Svart Records, 2017)

Band: Lubricant
Title: Swallow This
Genre: Death'n'Roll
Year: 10th March 2017
Time: 41 min
Rating: 74/100













I wonder why many early Finnish death metal bands were never able to realize their long-held debut album releasing, at most, an EP of big success among the tape traders. An example of this is given by Abhorrence, a band now considered even fundamental by the death metal fans despite they lived only for one year in which they released a demo and an EP. But, in addition of them, there are also Lubricant, another relevant Finnish band that chose their current moniker in 1990 after 2 years as O.V.D. and that are reunited recently. Precisely, Lubricant reunited in 2015 with EVERY original member. And, as usually happens in cases such as this, a compilation with the better works of Lubricant was released during these times by the Finnish label Svart Records. More specifically, "Swallow This", that yet it is noted for one of the most absurd cover artworks in the death metal history, is composed of the "Swallow the Symmetric Swab" demo (1992) and the "Nookleptia" EP (1993), two very different productions that were remastered here in according to the original intentions of the band.

Evil Cosby - "Ridursi al Niente" (Slaughterhouse Records, 2017)

Band: Evil Cosby
Title: Ridursi al Niente
Genre: Sludge/HC Punk
Year: 13th April 2017
Time: 16 min
Rating: 73/100













When Evil Cosby contacted me one month ago to review their new EP "Ridursi al niente" ("reduce yourself to nothing"), their moniker sounded strange for me because I thought already it cited the known US comic actor Bill Cosby. This impression of mine was confirmed immediately by the funny intro of the EP in which there is even a sketch taken from an episode of the TV sitcom "The Cosby Show", known in Italy as "I Robinson" (Italian for "The Robinsons" because the original surname "Huxtable" was considered unpronounceable for the Italian market). But if this isn't enough, the mascotte of the band is an hallucinated Bill Cosby that wear a makeup worthy of a Black Witchery's member! All this is very funny and parodistic but Evil Cosby, a duo from Milan (Lombardy) that released only the demo "Belzecult" and a split with the Mexicans Bala Fria (both in 2016) before to publish "Ridursi al Niente", has nothing in common with the parody as regards the music and lyrics, as you will soon.

Ascended Dead - "Abhorrent Manifestation" (Dark Descent Records/Invictus Productions, 2017)

Band: Ascended Dead
Title: Abhorrent Manifestation
Genre: Death Metal
Year: 17th March 2017
Time: 37 min circa
Rating: 92/100













The debut album of Ascended Dead has finally arrived! "Abhorrent Manifestation" has come after 6 years into the ranks during which Ascended Dead released a demo in 2012 and the very acclaimed "Arcane Malevolence" EP in 2014. Especially this one, released by the Swedish label Blood Harvest, made Ascended Dead an underground cult pushed also by a certain Gene Palubicki of Angelcorpse fame because he foresaw that this band from San Diego, California, formed by 4 musicians very involved in other many projects, could've accomplished great things in the near future. After that EP, the discography of the band was filled by not one but even two compilations, and the last of them, the interminable "Ritus Mortuus", was released in 2016 by the same Ascended Dead. So, the hype for their long-awaited debut album was incredible into the most extreme sewers of the metal underground in a way very similar to "Hero" of Bölzer or "Primordial Malignity" of Tomb Mold. And the nice thing is that "Abhorrent Manifestation", released in North America by the strong label Dark Descent Records and in Europe by the Irish Invictus Productions, has completely respected the expectations of the fans through 10 strongly killer and memorable songs. But now, how justified is all this big enthusiasm about an album yet considered by many as a death metal classic?

Ruin - "Drown in Blood" (Memento Mori, 2017)

Band: Ruin
Title: Drown in Blood
Genre: Death/Doom Metal
Year: 24th April 2017
Time: 36 min
Rating: 72/100













There are very young bands like the Canadians Tomb Mold that are able to become a true cult into the underground after only two demos. And there are bands like the Californians Ruin that managed to release a demo in the early '90s (in 1991, precisely) only to end their experience after that until to literally resurrect from the ashes in these last years (in 2015, precisely). But the story of Ruin is truly particular: in fact, they are considered by their label Memento Mori as a very mysterious band because, in according to it, the members of Ruin were involved in a some kind of cult but there is no way to knowing something about this cult. But this isn't enough: it seem also that the band existed in a period so short (from 1990 to 1991) because some its members were incarcerated while other ones were even instituzionalized! The fact is that the 2015 marked the return of Ruin under the shape of a trio guided by the only survived member of the original band that is Mihail Jason Satan, a singer/guitarist masked and armed with a rifle or a pickaxe as a serial killer from a slasher movie, and this is surely a strange look for every classic death metal band. They shown a good prolificity since their return into the scene considering that they have released even 3 splits from 2016 to 2017. And now, after many many efforts, they realized finally the milestone of their debut album with "Drown in Blood", recorded, anyway, with a line-up of only two elements without (if I am not mistaken) a bassplayer. Other bio infos about Ruin are unknown also because they haven't a FB page but simply instead to having a BandCamp profile and nothing more. On the other hand, their music will talk to us for them.

Tomb Mold - "Primordial Malignity" (Blood Harvest, 2017)

Band: Tomb Mold
Title: Primordial Malignity
Genre: Death Metal
Year: 3rd February 2017
Time: 32 min
Rating: 88/100













Tomb Mold is an incredible band! As said by them, the initial goal of Tomb Mold was only to release some demotapes and nothing more. But, after the success found by their two 2016 demos (especially "The Bottomless Perdition"), their label Blood Harvest asked to them if they were ready for a debut album. So, these two Canadians guys from Toronto realized some months ago that debut album naming it "Primordial Malignity". The result of all these efforts is a crushing album able to show again the excellent qualities shown in the recent past by Tomb Mold for a very promising future.

INTERVIEW TO BLACK FAITH!!! (SNARL)

Hey guys,
this is the second interview to Black Faith on these pages! But this time I wanted to do something different because I preferred to do a phone interview to them through the words of Snarl, their singer/guitarist that I heard finally after many reviews on these pages about the productions of his band. It came up a very funny and interesting interview, also because, after it, I talked so very much with Snarl about the recent conditions of the Italian (black) metal scene that the conversation lasted even the beauty of 79 minutes!
But this interview, conducted one week ago and exactly 4th June, gave to me also my very first opportunity to translate an entire interview from Italian to English, so I hope that I well translated it with my a bit Broken English.
A last consideration: some comments between round brackets during the answers of Snarl are mine but you can simply recognize them because they aren't in bold.

Midnight - "Shox of Violence" (Hells Headbangers Records, 2017)

Band: Midnight
Title: Shox of Violence
Genre: Black/Speed Metal
Year: 20th February 2017
Time: 71 min
Rating: 65/100













The sleaziest metal (one-man) band from Cleveland, Ohio, is back with its 4th compilation, the second one released by the infamous Hells Headbangers Records! The new compilation of Midnight, the creature founded by the multi-instrumentalist Athenar in 2003, is titled "Shox of Violence" and has the same name of the EP released in the end of 2016. It comprises even 25 tracks per 71 minutes where you will find not only the entire "Shox of Violence" EP but also a bunch of old stuff yet edited in the past years. More specifically, you will be crushed, for example, by the demo versions of old songs by Midnight then appeared in their debut album "Satanic Royalty" (2011), live tracks and an incredible quantity of covers also unthinkable that you will discover very soon. Thanks to them, it's possible to understand the various influences that have brought Athenar to create the unique sound of his creature. Curiously, I have to say that Hells Headbangers Records is recently releasing compilations of some its bands, as in the case of "Metal Massacre 31" of October 31 (reviewed on these pages some months ago) and the interminable "Cadaver Traditions" of Deceased.

Nadimaĉ - "Besnilo" (Xtreem Music, 2017)

Band: Nadimaĉ
Title: Besnilo
Genre: Thrashcore
Year: 3rd July 2017
Time: 34 min
Rating: 87/100













My series about thrashcore started some days ago with the fantastic "Grave Danger" of the Finns Foreseen ends with the fireworks thanks to the new album of the Serbians Nadimaĉ titled "Besnilo" ("indignation" in Serbian Language). For this album, Nadimaĉ, a quartet born in 2003, are now into the roster of the excellent Spanish label Xtreem Music. "Besnilo" represents not only the 5th album of these angry Serbians but also another their demonstration of force since their interminable discography made especially of splits, showing a prolificity and a constant quality truly enviable. But this album show again also a will never dimmed to face the reality through serious socio-political messages between seas of beers and...retarded attempts to skate (please, see the videoclip of an old song of the band, "Retarded for Skate"). In this sense, the cover artwork of "Besnilo" is very illustrative because it is incredibly explicit for their mentions to various famous multinationals, and we don't forget that it marks the return  of that character created by Nadimaĉ, a hard thrasher with a killer face clown present since the first album of the band but absent, I wonder why, into the cover artwork of the their 4th album released in 2015. Ergo, the titles of the songs will be here translated in English to let you know in a better way the content of the lyrical themes. So, let's start with another THRASHCORE OVERDOSE!