O.D.R.A/Parh - "O.D.R.A/Parh" (Mythrone Promotion/Defense Records, 2019)

Bands: O.D.R.A/Parh
Title: O.D.R.A/Parh
Genre: Sludge Metal
Time: 35.12 min
Release Date: 30th March 2019
Rating: 72













You know, generally I don't like so much the slow metal but, as always, there are some exceptions also in this case. This case is about sludge metal, a doom metal variation that I like more because it's influenced a lot by hardcore punk, so it's more aggressive and violent if compared with the classic doom metal. Obviously, there are sludge metal bands that are more aggressive and hardcore punk-oriented than others, as greatly exemplified just by this split between two Polish sludgy acts that I'm going to review today. Released by Mythrone Promotion along with Defense Records (both are usually used to produce more violent stuff), this split see as main characters the prolific O.D.R.A and the younger Parh, and each of them plays the same genre in two very different ways. So let's discover their own ways now!

Go! Fest #9 (Rome, 21st September 2019)

Festival: Go! Fest #9
Location: CSOA Spartaco, Rome (Italy)
Date: 21st September 2019
Price: 10 €















Service communication:

if you don't still know the existence of it, my ebook about the first wave of black metal called "Nel Segno del Marchio Nero" was released on 24th March 2019. Unfortunately, it is written only in Italian but, surely, into it there aren't the over-rehearsed sounds à la Lord of Chaos. If you want to buy my ebook, you can order it through the best Italian and International stores like Feltrinelli, IBS, Amazon and Google Books. Thank you in advance!

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Believe it or not, 21st September 2019 was so challenging for me that, in a way or another, I managed to be awake for 23 fukken hours! In fact, before the Go! Fest I had to go by train even in Anzio (a town in south of Rome) for the birthday party of a friend of mine. That's why I was able to be at CSOA Spartaco for the "Italian fastest festival" only starting from 9 pm, and this means that I missed to see the first 5 bands in the bill like the Dutch power violence unit Gewoon Fucking Raggen, the brutal/grindsters Inglorious Basterds and the primitive black/death metallers Thecodontion, that opened the fest. I hoped to see some of them but, incredibly, this time the organizers were so precise and punctual that (almost) every band played during their own scheduled time, so the fest started effectively the hostilities at 5 pm or something else, as anticipated by Pompeo (Taste the Floor/Verano's Dogs/Go! Fest organization) some days before. And as always, this fest has been a great occasion of fun and aggregation  since the venue was really full of people coming from the entire Italy as well from other European countries. Ooookay, but now so what? So, let's go to see what happened in the 9th edition of the Go! Fest!

Cripple Bastards - "La fine cresce da dentro" (Relapse Records, 2018)

Band: Cripple Bastards
Title: La fine cresce da dentro
Genre: Grindcore
Time: 29.03 min
Release date: 9th November 2018
Rating: 92/100













Service communication:

if you don't still know the existence of it, my ebook about the first wave of black metal called "Nel Segno del Marchio Nero" was released on 24th March 2019. Unfortunately, it is written only in Italian but, surely, into it there aren't the over-rehearsed things à la Lord of Chaos. If you want to buy my ebook, you can order it through the best Italian and International stores like Feltrinelli, IBS, Amazon and Google Books. Thank you in advance!

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I still remember, as if it were yesterday, how was bestial and intense the show that Cripple Bastards did last year at the Traffic Live Club in Rome. The violent moshpit, the hallucinated looks on us by Giulio the Bastard, the precise but devastating performances of the band, the general craziness of that night... WOW, that's I call a very fukken memorable gig! Well, Cripple Bastards come back today on these pages because now you're preparing to read a review about their 7th album "La fine cresce da dentro" (Italian for "the end grows within"). Even though it is relatively old since it was released in the end of 2018, I received it during the early days of 2019 by the Italian agency Anubi Press, whose owner Luca Pessina wrote many years ago for the now defunct Grind Zone, surely the most extreme metal magazine that you could to find at the Italian newsstands! Now let me say already that "La fine cresce da dentro" deserves a lot but it cannot be otherwise also because it is the second album of the band released by Relapse Records, a label always ready to release very extreme but also a bit unconventional stuff. And Cripple Bastards are both!

Dhole - "Dove mitigano i dubbi e nascono credenze" (DIY co-production, 2018)

Gruppo: Dhole
Titolo: Dove mitigano i dubbi e nascono credenze
Genere: Screamo/Post-Rock/Shoegaze
Durata: 28.03 min
Data di uscita: 15 novembre 2018
Voto: 78/100












Certe volte mi arrivano delle richieste di recensione un po' strane. Una volta mi ricordo che un gruppo prog rock polacco mi chiese la recensione, come pure un artista italiano ambient (o qualcosa del genere). Premesso che ovviamente apprezzo anche altri generi al di fuori del metal (estremo) e dell'hardcore punk (e il prog rock è uno fra quelli che più mi piacciono), essi comunque non c'entrano fondamentalmente una cippa di nulla col tipico format di Timpani allo Spiedo. Poi però ti arriva "a tradimento", cioè senza averlo chiesto, perfino un CD fisico di un gruppo che suona un genere che non tratti, e, come ti succede per tutti i CD fisici che ti arrivano visto che questi per te hanno la priorità rispetto ai promo digitali, ti senti moralmente obbligato non solo ad ascoltarlo per bene ma anche a recensirlo, sempre per bene. Infatti, qualche mese fa (non mi ricordo però quando), la True Bypass Promotion (la stessa che mi mandò tempo fa i ['selvɘ]) mi ha inviato totalmente a sorpresa in CD digipack il nuovo, secondo album dei lombardi Dhole, uscito l'anno scorso per conto della Overdrive, che l'ha co-prodotto insieme ad altre etichette italiane, a volte dai nomi bizzarri, come Nothing Left Records, Longrail Records, Dreaming Gorilla Records, E' un brutto posto dove vivere Records e Non ti seguo Records. Ora, probabilmente io sono il meno adatto in assoluto a recensire questo "Dove mitigano i dubbi e nascono credenze" visto che praticamente non me ne intendo di dischi del genere ma comunque, per dirla con Barney Stinson, "la sfida è accettata!". Quindi vediamo cosa hanno da offrirci questi Dhole!

Pandemic - "Deaf Nite" (Defense Records, 2018)

Band: Pandemic
Title: Deaf Nite
Genre: Thrash Metal
Time: 18.19 min
Release Date: 15th September 2018
Rating: 73/100













There are cool stories that don't last long. A story of this kind is about Sebastian "Sharp" Wikar, a thrash metal maniac that in 2015 realized his dream to form, indeed, a thrash metal band. That band was named Pandemic and their first show was held in their native Krakow (Poland) in the early Spring of 2016. After two years, Sharp started to work on the first Pandemic's demo but, unfortunately, he would never saw the final result of his efforts. This because he prematurely died at the age of 22 years on 9th March 2018 due to an unexpected blood clot. At least, Sharp lives in "Deaf Nite", a demo that, released by Defense Records and sent me some months ago by Mythrone Promotion, was completely composed by himself also about the lyrical contents.

Circle One+Ira+Fronte della Spirale+The Ammonoids (Rome, 6th September 2019)

Bands: Circle One+Ira+Fronte della Spirale+The Ammonoids
Date: 6th September 2019
Location: Trecentosessantagradi, Rome
Price: 5 €



















Service communication:

if you don't still know the existence of it, my ebook about the first wave of black metal called "Nel Segno del Marchio Nero" was released on 24th March 2019. Unfortunately, it is written only in Italian but, surely, into it there aren't the over-rehearsed sounds à la Lord of Chaos. If you want to buy my ebook, you can order it through the best Italian and International stores like Feltrinelli, IBS, Amazon and Google Books. Thank you in advance!

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Only few hours later coming back in my Rome after a very nice 5-day trip in Valencia, Spain, I attended the first live gig of the new season of Trecentosessantagradi (also known as 360), in 6th September 2019. The occasion was really unmissable because the headliners of that gig were nothing else than Circle One. They are a Los Angeles hardcore punk band founded even in 1980 that in 2008 released "Never Give Up", their comeback album after their first 1983 album, that was recorded with the legendary singer John Macias, unfortunately murdered by the police in 1992. As supporters, there were 3 young bands mostly coming from the Lazio's area, offering a line-up stylistically various enough to create interest also in the more casual attendants, even though every band is, more or less, into the hardcore punk spectrum.

Nel Segno del Marchio Nero: un po' di curiosità!

Nella mia vita ho sempre scritto molto e continuo a farlo. Anzi, mi piace talmente tanto scrivere che in passato non ho solo tentato di scrivere dei saggi musicali (tipo sul death metal italiano delle origini o sull'NWOBHM) senza però mai terminarli, ma anche perfino dei romanzi, effettivamente terminati ma mai pubblicati perché, alla fin della fiera, non li ho più trovati di mio gradimento per varie ragioni. In particolare, il primo romanzo era ispirato agli spaghetti western (mia grande passione cinematografica) e parlava di un messicano in guerra contro il mondo dopo che gli hanno ucciso la moglie, mentre l'altro era praticamente un plagio a "The Breakfast Club", teen movie di culto degli anni '80 che letteralmente adoro. Finalmente però, quest'anno sono riuscito, per la prima volta in vita mia, a pubblicare un libro fatto e finito, che come sapete è un saggio musicale sulla first wave of black metal: "Nel Segno del Marchio Nero".

Shockproof: live video for "Human Breed"!

Hey brutalbangers,
there are other cool news from the metal front of Rome Caput Mundi!

Anifernyen: new single/lyric video unleashed!

Hey brutalbangers,
the Portuguese melodic black/death metallers Anifernyen, that contacted me some days ago after reading my review about their friends in Moonshade, released recently a new single called "Eldritch Moon"!