Honorable Mentions from the Abyss #14: Crucifixion/Sepsis/Sadistic Drive

Hey brutalbangers,
welcome to this new episode of "Honorable Mentions from the Abyss" (no reviews, no votes, only mentions!), that this time is completely dedicated to the Colombian death metal label La Caverna Records (FB page), that we already knew on these pages thanks to the now defunct Thrombus. It is a label very active in the reissues front and, in fact, 2 out of the 3 productions here mentioned are hidden gems of a death metal past not dead but still strongly alive.
So, let's start to discover them and enjoy this article!

CRUCIFIXION - "PATHS LESS TAKEN"/"RAISING THE DEAD"

Once upon a time there was in Houston, Texas, a band called Crucifixion, whose logo was aptly inverted. Well, that band released two full-lenght albums between 1993 and 1998. Of them, La Caverna Records thought to reissue the second one, "Paths Less Taken" (originally edited under the auspices of a short-lived label, Death Fiend Records), with the addition of 4 tracks that formed a promo-demo recorded in 1996 but never released so far.

I never heard these Crucifixion before this reissue, so they have been a real surprise for me since the great quality of "Paths Less Taken". It is a 51-minute album where you can listen to a sort of brutal death metal presenting many nice and also particular features. For example, the drumming is unpredictable and the vocals, sometimes in Spanish, are very intense and expressive. But the most interesting features comes surely from the guitar solos, very technical at times, and from the doom elements, that can lead the music into atmospheric, dramatic and dark territories, like in "Last Haunted Scriptures". The promo-demo, made up of 3 tracks then re-recorded for the album, is a curious addition but add nothing new to the compilation. Fuck, I wonder why Crucifixion broke up after "Paths Less Taken"!

SEPSIS - "TO MAKE ROTTEN"

Do you remember Thrombus? This unlucky, violent death metal band from Eugene, Oregon, was born under the ashes of Sepsis, another short-lived act that left one only proof of their existence lasted between 1988 and 1991: the "To Make Rotten" demo. I strongly think that, with this demo, Sepsis anticipated the sonorities of that first (and last) album produced by Thrombus.

Originally released in 1991 in only 70 copies, "To Make Rotten" contains 9 tracks per 27 minutes in which there is a raw but versatile death metal. I said "versatile" because it is able to range from the purest violence (e.g. "Foetal Embolism") with thrash metal, grindcore and also a little of hardcore punk influences, to slower, doomish moments, and without forgetting some parts full of a contagious groove. Instead, the double vocals made by the guitarplayer Mike Brown and the bassist Jason McCammon are so bestial (but also various) to be perfect! Now, take mainly the most violent parts with some Autopsy feeling, and you'll have the sound of Thrombus!

SADISTIC DRIVE - "STREET CANNIBAL GLUTTONY"/"REHEARSAL 05/2019"

If Crucifixion and Sepsis don't exist anymore since a long time, Sadistic Drive (FB page) is the only living band here into the roster of La Caverna Rec. In fact, they are a Finnish quartet born only in 2018 that released so far a demotape in the same year, entitled "Street Cannibal Gluttony". But La Caverna pulled out of the hat a rehearsal, that Sadistic Drive recorded in May 2019, so the label released in a single CD both the demo and the rehearsal. And believe me that we are in front of something fantastic!

Sadistic Drive are ones of the sickest death metal bands that I ever listened in these last times! This because they play a fukken raw, vulgar, terminally ill and punkish death metal worthy to be into the same league of the various Autopsy, Abscess, Impetigo and newer bands like Repuked, so it isn't surely an everyday kind of death metal. Now, the demo presents an approach more in mid-tempo and sicker, also because of absurd vocals ("absurd" even for the effects on them), crazy guitar solos (e.g. "Body Part Puzzle"), sanguinary horror samples and of a fuckin' dirty production that reminds me a lot of the first demo by the Italians Funeral Oration. Instead, the rehearsal is faster, also because it introduces thrash metal influences, and there is even a bit of crusty d-beat, that is exemplified at its best by a frantic version of "Maimed and Slaughtered", an awesome Discharge cover. In brief, Sadistic Drive is a band to adore without ifs and without buts!