Skulld - "Reinventing Darkness" (DIY co-production, 2020)

Band: Skulld

Title: Reinventing Darkness

Genre: Death Metal with Crust Punk influences

Time: 20.57 min

Release Date: 20th February 2020

Vote: 76/100

In March of 2020, so in full quarantine times, a video about an Italian metalhead covering the Slayer's "Raining Blood", that he dedicated to an old woman owning a famous kiosk in her small town (Bertinoro), became literally viral. I remember I had a lot of fun to watch that very short video! But only in these days I realized that that metalhead effectively plays the guitar in a death metal band. That band is called Skulld (after Skuld, a Norn in the Norse mythology that, along with other two Norns, has the power to decide the fate of the people), a quintet coming from two Italian regions, Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna, that published so far two releases since their foundation in 2018: a demo and the EP "Reinventing Darkness", both in 2019. Well, I received this last one from a friend of mine running the amazing webzine Blog Thrower (shame that it's on hold since June 2020!), that produced "Reinventing Darkness" in a DIY co-production with other 12 metal and punk labels. They are too much to be all listed but some of them were already featured on these pages such as Italian Extreme Underground, Hecatombe Records, Pirate Crew Records (I met his owner during the Marci su Roma 2 Fest) and SFA Records. This connection with the punk world isn't a case because every member of the Skulld comes just from hardcore punk since, for example, the aforementioned video star, Enrico, plays also in bands like NoWhiteRag, the drummer Teo in the Contrasto while the other guitarplayer, Rappo, is into even in a great black/death metal act of the calibre of Hierophant. And don't forget that we are in presence of a band with fantastic values such as antifascism and antisexism. All this is fukken awesome... but is also "fukken awesome" "Reinventing Darkness" in its entirety? FUCK YEAAAAH!

Cruentus - "Fake" (Triple A Events Records, 2019)

Band: Cruentus
Title: Fake
Genre: Death/Thrash Metal with some Technical tunes
Time: 37.54 min
Release date: 15th October 2019
Vote: 75/100










Fuck, I received this album in physical format in December 2019 from the Italian promotion agency Frantic Mule but only in these days I found the time to listen to it! So, I'm sorry with Frantic Mule for this enormous delay but, finally, here you are the review about "Fake"! This is the second album of a historic Italian band from Apulia called Cruentus, a quintet that was born in the very far 1989 and whose main core since its early times is composed of the guitarist and founder Antonello Maggi, the singer Nicola Bavaro (that had experiences also in acts of the calibre of Schizo and Glacial Fear) and the bassplayer Adriano Boghetich. But the story of Cruentus is a bit special because, in brief, they are so unprolific that their previous (and first) album, "In Myself", was published even in 1996, so they took all the time in the world to work on "Fake"! Now let's see how they took advantage from these 23 years!

Se beccamo ner pit!: the mega-compilation about the LazioHC is finally out!

Hey brutal bangers,
do you remember the compilation that, under the name of xUnitedx, I was assembling in these last times along with a friend of mine? Well, it was finally released on 15th July 2020 through BandCamp and you can download it for free!

Honorable Mentions from the Abyss #24: Iato/Gôr Mörgul

Hey brutal bangers,

I remember that, in the early days of the 'zine (I am talking about something like 10 years ago!), I was always in search of Sardinian bands because I literally fell in love with the extreme metal scene of this so fascinating region called Sardinia, that I unfortunately never visited so far, even though some of very far origins of mine come just from there. Though not on purpose, both the Italian bands of this episode of "Honorable Mentions from the Abyss" come from Sardinia, and they are named Iato and Gôr Mörgul.

I received their respective albums in physical format from Satanath Records, along with "Exaltatus Mechanism" of Abigorum (the black/doom metal band of Alexey Koryolov, the owner of the aforementioned label), whose I'll talk about soon in another article. I'm sorry with Alexey if I am talking about these albums only now after I received them one year ago but, as someone says, "it's better late than never"! And don't forget that I included all these bands in the last episode of "Come on, burn my ears!"!

So, enjoy this article and discover these great bands if you still don't know them!

Shockproof+Gigantomachia (Rome, 23th July 2020)

Gruppi: Shockproof+Gigantomachia
Data: 23 luglio 2020
Locale: Traffic Live Club
Ingresso: gratuito su prenotazione





Da quando lo scorso mese ho cominciato a prendere seriamente la macchina anche per fare serata (eh sì, perché prima ero "un po'" troppo dipendente dagli ormai odiati mezzi pubblici), ho cominciato pure a frequentare di più il Traffic che, in buona sostanza, è attualmente uno dei pochissimi locali romani di musica live che sta organizzando concerti degni di questo nome in questi tempi difficili di post-quarantena. Più nello specifico, si tratta di concerti gratuiti e all'aperto, con un numero massimo di spettatori, e devo dire che, nonostante tutto, questa formula sta funzionando a dovere e rappresenta un buon palliativo per tutti coloro che sono stati per mesi in astinenza da concerti. Ecco quindi che ieri si è tenuto un bel concerto con gli Shockproof come headliner e i frusinati Gigantomachia come gruppo di supporto. E, quindi, eccovi finalmente su queste lercissime pagine il primo live report dopo mesi!

Valfaris (Steel Mantis, 2019)

Title: Valfaris
Genre: Videogame
Release date: 10th October 2019
Vote: 90/100







It was a lot of time that I wanted to open a section entirely focused on the videogames... or better, METAL videogames! They are "metal" in the sense that they are characterized by heavy metal influences not only in their soundtrack but also in their imagery, in their look, in some references. They can be videogames of every kind of genre but, since the aggressiveness of their metal nature, they often belongs obviously to the action games, that are also my favourite ones. And I don't care if they are in 2D, in 3D or in any dimension you want because the important is that they are good and enjoyable. But now I think that this new section could be only opened with an action game released in 2019 whose soundtrack was made by nothing else than an ex-Celtic Frost member: Valfaris!