Immense Decay - "Combat Thrash" (Defense Records, 2018)

Band: Immense Decay
Title: Combat Thrash
Genre: Thrash Metal
Time: 29:01 min
Year: 9th May 2018
Rating: 75/100













The Polish thrash squad Immense Decay have managed many years to release their "Combat Thrash". In fact, you have to think that it was recorded between May 2012 and December 2015 mostly in the band's private studio, but it seen the light of the day only some months ago through Defense Records. I would like to know the reasons about this delay but, for the moment, you must know that, even though this album isn't absolutely a masterpiece, we are in presence of thrashers that knows what they are doing.

Kruna: sophomore album released + official video for the song "Strenght Child"!

Hey brutalbangers,
I have recently received from the Italian agency Music-Alive a news about the release of the second album by Kruna, a melodic death metal band from Pordenone (Italy).

Lykhaeon - "Ominous Eradication of Anguished Souls" (Godz ov War Productions, 2018)

Band: Lykhaeon
Title: Ominous Eradication of Anguished Souls
Genre: Black/Doom Metal
Time: 26:17 min
Year: 22nd May 2018
Rating: 74/100













Impenetrable. Yes, I think that this word is perfect to describe "Ominous Eradication of Anguished Souls", the new EP by Lykhaeon, three Swiss energumens that are affiliated with the Helvetic Underground Committee, a sort of black metal sect that consist, among others, of Dakhma (whose debut album has been recently released by the infamous Iron Bonehead Prod). That EP is very impenetrable just starting from the artwork of its digipack; an artwork so dark that you have to do some incredible efforts to read even the credits to understand them! And, when you put on the Lykhaeon CD, it gets more impenetrable due to a really hostile and grim production. At this point, "Ominous..." is so impenetrable that it seem to be a shadowy cult only fit for some selected worshippers! Then, you realize that the better way to understand the music of Lykhaeon is a good pair of headphones, in order not only to discover the most hidden details but also because the two songs of this EP are so long that no kind of distraction is accepted, so the headphones are MANDATORY in every case! After this adjustment, you are destined to be possessed by a music that deserves a fuckin' lot!

Desekryptor/Draghkar - "Desekryptor/Draghkar split" (Blood Harvest Records, 2018)

Bands: Desekryptor/Draghkar
Title: Desekryptor/Draghkar split
Genre: Death Metal
Time: 7:44 min
Year: 20th April 2018
Rating: 70/100













After the melodic HC punk madness by Satanic Surfers, today it's the turn of a devastating split between two of the most exciting new death metal bands that are infesting nowadays this genre: Desekryptor and Draghkar, both from USA.

Satanic Surfers - "Back from Hell" (Mondo Macabre Records, 2018)

Band: Satanic Surfers
Title: Back from Hell
Genre: Melodic Hardcore Punk/Skate Punk
Time: 30 min
Year: 10th August 2018
Rating: 89/100













13 years! So many fuckin' years have passed since the Swedish skatepunkers Satanic Surfers released their last album "Taste the Poison" (Bad Taste Records, 2005) before ending their path in 10th February 2007. Fortunately, they were back stronger than never in December 2014 and, after many sold out shows especially through Germany, they have recently released a comeback under the auspices of Mondo Macabre Records, a sub-label of Regain/Blood Harvest Rec. Let me say already that we're talking about a comeback so devastating that Satanic Surfers seem to be again young and wild as in 1995 such is the intensity of their new hooks!

GraveCoven - "Coughing Blood" (Godz ov War Productions, 2018)

Band: GraveCoven
Title: Coughing Blood
Genre: Black/Doom Metal with Death Metal influences
Time: 20 min
Year:19th February 2018
Rating: 70/100











As I promised at the end of the review about Truchlo Strzygi, here is another Godz ov War's release. In fact, today we're talking about the EP "Coughing Blood" by GraveCoven, a duo from California, USA. To say the truth, this EP is a compilation because it contains both the two-song demos released so far by this band in 2015 and 2016 respectively under the titles of "Coughing Blood" and, with an incredible "imagination", "Coughing Blood 2". The band released in 2016 also a single with the only "Hades" by Bathory, and all this represent the scarce discography of GraveCoven.

Truchlo Strzygi - "Pora umierać" (Godz ov War Productions, 2018)

Band: Truchlo Strzygi
Title: Pora umierać
Genre: Black Metal with many HC Punk influences
Time: 41 min
Year: 22nd May 2018
Rating: 91/100












Truchlo Strzygi: behind this unpronunceable moniker, there is a Polish band that, after I listened again and again their debut album "Pora umierać", is now a TRVE CULT for me! Why? Firstly, because of the war metal look of these 4 demons, that wears gasmasks, bullet belts and also t-shirts of bands like the mighty Conqueror, and you know I adore this kind of look! Secondly, for their punkish "I DON'T GIVE A TOTAL FUCK"-attitude, that gives to the music a particular bestial energy to their music. Thirdly, for the booklet of the album; a booklet that, from the text (all the lyrics are present) to the drawings, is so totally hand-written that it bring you in the '80s, when the lyric sheets of the extreme metal and HC tapes were chaotic and, indeed, hand-written...and without forgetting that some of the drawings spews forth a black humour in a comic style also when the scenes represented are ultra-violent! And, last but  not least, for the music, which is incredibly surprising and creative.

Cripple Bastards/Sudden Death/Enemynside/One Day in Fukushima (Rome, 7th September 2018)

Bands: Cripple Bastards/Sudden Death/Enemynside/One Day in Fukushima
Date: 7th September 2018
Price: 10 €
Location: Traffic Live Club


















Cripple Bastards in Rome! A very good news for the fans of the "Italian godfathers of grindcore", that weren't on a Roman stage for years. So, they came back in the Eternal City on 7th September 2018 for a very intense gig in which, to support them, there were devastating bands like Sudden Death, Enemynside and One Day in Fukushima (as you see, this isn't the first time that mostly of them appears on these pages). But now enough this fukken chitchat and it's time to see what was combined during this fantastic show!

Tannoiser - "Alamut" (Leynir Booking and Productions, 2018)

Band: Tannoiser
Title: Alamut
Genre: Sludge/Doom Metal with some Black Metal influences
Time: 28 min
Year: 25th February 2018
Rating: 73/100












After Last Resistance, this is another review about an EP that Synth Agency sent to me some months ago. And this is another review about a style not so common on these pages, but, surely, it's more extreme than the melodic metalcore of Last Resistance.

INTERVIEW TO HELLAVISTA!!!

Hey brutal fukken bangers,
soon you'll read this nice interview to the Austrian groove/thrashers Hellavista, that, this year, released a debut album enthusiastically reviewed by me some months ago. This interview was born in a way a bit different than the usual because it was Ivan Magdalena, the boss of their label Art Gates Records, that asked me to interview Hellavista. So, here you a chat full of more or less original questions to Hellavista, that, at a certain point, becomes the...interviewers! But no spoiler, so...

ENJOY THIS INTERVIEW!!!

Last Resistance - "A World Painted Grey" (Self-released, 2017)

Band: Last Resistance
Title: A World Painted Grey
Genre: Melodic Metalcore with some Alternative Metal influences
Time: 19 min
Year: 9th November 2017
Rating: 72/100










Do you remember the period, between 2004 and 2007 circa, in which the metal magazines were literally invaded by an endless storm of so-called metalcore bands? They were the glorious years of Killswitch Engage, Shadows Fall, Unearth, Caliban and others, all bands that, said generally, rediscovered the Swedish melodic death metal ala At the Gates to add into it a (often) slight touch of hardcore punk. And these Last Resistance, a young Italian band from Brindisi (South Italy) founded in 2013, is just mostly influenced by that kind of bands, as you can hear through their self-released EP "A World Painted Grey", that the Italian agency called Synth sent me some months ago in physical CD format.

Adragard - "From the Burning Mist" (Depressive Illusions Records/Perkun Records, 2018)

Band: Adragard
Title: From the Burning Mist
Genre: Black Metal with Doomish tunes
Time: 33 min
Year: 17th February 2018 (Depressive Illusions Rec) on tape
          18th May 2018 (Perkun Rec) on CD
Rating: 74/100











"As ravens on the ruins, we gaze upon an eternal plague." (from the last page of the booklet of this album)

WARNING FOR THE TRENDYHEADS:

this review is about a band that brings completely you in the golden (dark) period of black metal in which this music terrorized the world also through a freezing series of crime activities, so no complaints about the non-originality of Adragard are accepted in any fukken way!