today there is a new series of reviews! This time I managed to review two bands from my country as well other two acts completely fit for the lovers of the most extreme and "unlistenable" metal, so expect to read about very different ways to conceive our music.
ENJOY THESE REVIEWS!
Title: Come Dio comanda
Genre: Thrash metal with Modern Metal and Rock influences
Time: 36 min
Year: 23rd February 2018
Rating: 85/100
Let's start this new series of reviews with a very good album whose I anticipated some months ago through a news! I am talking about "Come Dio Comanda" (As God Commands"), the sophomore album by Colonnelli ("Colonels"), that continue to follow their original path by playing a sort of unconventional thrash metal.
Promoted by the videos of the same titletrack (you watch it below) and "Festa Mesta" and released by (R)esisto Distribuzione, "Come Dio Comanda", is a 11-track opus basically characterized by a dynamic thrash metal able to be so incredibly furious that some moments are perfect to mosh like madmen! At the same time, this kind of thrash metal is very contaminated with other influences, also some surprising ones. In fact, you have to expect some groove metal moments, refined modern metal elements à la Gojira, bizzarre solutions like dissonant riffs and jazzy drum parts ("Il Blues del Macellaio" - "The Butcher's Blues"), and so important Italian rock influences that have allowed to Colonnelli to play an unrecognizable and furious version of "Festa Mesta" by Marlene Kuntz (one of the most famous rock bands here in Italy). Additionally, the vocalist/guitarist and founder Leo Colonnelli sings completely in his mothertongue through clean but aggressive vocals, creating even very nice catchy lines supported sometimes by intense gang choruses.
There's no getting around it! "Come Dio Comanda" is an excellent second opus by a band full of ideas and inventiveness that have created its own all-Italian way to conceive the thrash metal genre. My only criticism is about the few and too structurally simple and predictable guitar solos, so I suggest to Colonnelli to create more imaginative solos in order to offer more dynamics to their sound. Instead, I suggest to you my readers to check out the FB page of Colonnelli also because their posts shows a lot of enthusiasm as well plenty of good news, like the upcoming new promotional video this time about "V.M. 18", anticipated so far by a promising teaser trailer. But what's about a gig in Rome? Fuck, I would like to mosh from start to finish during a show of this band!
FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/Colonnelli-195689840475802
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/iColonnelli
(R)esisto Distribuzione: http://resistodistribuzione.jimdo.com/
Title: Under the Insignia of Baphomet
Genre: Black Metal with Punk and Death Metal influences
Time: 31 min
Year: 4th May 2018
Rating: 83/100
One of the rawest black metal bands on the putrefying face of the Earth is fukken BACK! I am following the Portugese terrorists Ruach Raah since their outstanding debut album "Hate Fanaticism", that impressed me so much with their ultra-primitivist and regressive black metal full of hate. It was followed by two splits along with Ordem Satânica and Wømb but, after a while, had got the impression that the formula of Ruach Raah was becoming repetitive and lack of ideas. Maybe conscious about this fact, they have refreshed surprisingly their sound with this new album called "Under the Insignia of Baphomet" (War Arts Productions)!
Substantially, Ruach Raah plays always in a raw and merciless way with a lot of (crust) punkish intensity. But, formally, their sound is now different because it's more violent with plenty of blast-beats as well more dynamic and fluid with the addition of some death metal influences, so, for the first time, the songs of Ruach Raah offers a good amount of dynamics, even though they continue to be completely lack of guitar solos. The result of all this is given by bestial tracks like "Bodysnatchers" (where the blasting violence reach levels of real extreme fury), the Hellhammerish-mid tempo "A Ira do Lucifer" or "Scythe Militia", that's absolutely my favorite one.In practice, Ruach Raah have did more or less the same thing done by their compatriots Barbaric Horde for their "Tainted Impurity": they have better structured their songs in a more violent way close to the bestial black/death metal approach. The difference is that, if Barbaric Horde are now a classic bestial war metal act à la Revenge/Blasphemy, Ruach Raah plays in a more distinct manner. And do you know what I say? I like a fukken lot this new refreshed manner!
FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ruach-Raah/776783862403149?sk=timeline
War Arts Productions: http://www.war-arts-productions.com/
Title: Love Me, Kill Me, Hate Me, Kiss Me
Genre: Sludge/Doom Metal
Time: 10 min
Year: 29th January 2018
Rating: 60/100
There are very few sludge/doom metal bands on this 'zine, and an Italian quartet from Pescara (Abruzzo) have joined today the ranks of this small force. The band is called The Visceral Madness Condition and consist of 4 musicians mostly already known on these pages through short-lived bands like Mantide and Process Mass Destruction.
In my opinion, the band have to create more unpredictable songs also vocally speaking. And I suggest to Dirty Dave to abandon completely the scratchy vocals to focus his efforts on the cleaner vocals. But judging already this band is still too soon considering that they released only this single, so I prefer to give to it an encouraging 60 out of 100. Meanwhile, I'll wait with pleasure for their upcoming debut album in progress in these days.
FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/TheVisceralMadnessCondition/
Title: Indignant Force of Great Malevolence
Genre: Noise/Bestial Black/Death Metal
Time: 35 min
Year: 2nd December 2017
Rating: 72/100
WARNING: if you want to listen to this compilation, do it at your own risk! And if you'll like it, then you must be completely ill in the head...like me!
Thy Sepulchral Moon is a strange project formed by 3 nuclear gasked demons coming from Canada and even South Korea! In the end of 2017, they released this compilation called "Indignant Force of Great Malevolence" (Signal Rex), where there are entirely their first two EPs plus 3 unreleased tracks. As you can understand by seeing their pic on here, you are in front of a band that admit no compromises. And I'm saying this also because last year they managed to realize also a split with the controversial Japanese act Reek of the Unzen Gas Fumes, that in these last years is terrorizing the extreme metal scene with plenty of unlikely productions.
"Indignant Force of Great Malevolence" is a continous holocaust of the senses! In fact, Thy Sepulchral Moon takes the bestial black/death metal standards to bring them some steps forwards so to create something more devastating in a way very close to sonic terrorists like Tetragrammacide, Kapala and Subduer. So, expect a cold drum-machine that beat again and again the listeners with a sea of frightening blast-beats. The guitars spit ultra-cavernous riffs with very rare (and chaotic) guitar solos. The bass is almost inexistent while the vocal department is a series of monstrous voice annihilations that attacks from everywhere in a pure noise approach.
All this is spewed forth with no regards to the listeners through songs that are very short in the first EP, in which there is also a variation like the haunting mid-tempo "Spell IV: Murk". Instead, you'll find in the second EP longer tracks, included two covers as the obvious (for a band of this kind) "Sadomatic Rites" (Beherit) and the not so obvious "Total War" (NON, the dangerous noise/industrial project ran by Boyd Rice), that's really absurd and anguishing. In the end, there are the aforementioned "3 unreleased tracks" that are a demo version of "Murk" as well the rehearsal versions of "Spell I - Rain as Funerary Attendants" and "Spell II - Translocate Misstep", which sounds in a so fukken noisy and chaotic way if compared with their EPs versions. Incredibly, I prefer these rehearsal versions, also because the drums seem here to be really played by a drummer... or is it an impression of mine?
Ok, Thy Sepulchral Moon belong to those bands that are impossible to review through an objective method because they conceive their music (or pure noise?) as a way to hurt the listeners, so can I say? I say that I hate the drum-machine in EVERY fukken case (and the absurd thing is that they use a real drummer for the live gigs!) but I adore the depravity, the chaos and the collapsing "musical" visions of these 3 maniacs. But no easy enthusiasm for the moment, because "Indignant Force of Great Malevolence" is only a compilation, so I can't wait for other productions of Thy Sepulchral Moon that can be useful to have a better overview about their current status of delirium. For this, two splits with bands like Byyrth, Abigail, Chaos Cascade, Konflict and Phosphore Blanc will be released soon.
FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/thy6sepulchral6moon6/
Signal Rex: http://www.signalrex.com/
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