Holocaust HOLLA!!!

Voivodian Fury

Columbian Creativity

Purist Impurity

Delirious Idiosyncranicity

Swiss Beatz/German Potato Salad

Mechanical Mind

Judging by this song we're looking at 2013 album of the year folks. The boys' still got it!!!

Shudder To Think - Ten Spot

A winning combination of Voivod's Outer Limits and Angel Rat....'nuff said.

Ten Spot

Organ - Apoplexy In Six Parts

Norway's mysterious Organ were an incredibly gifted group that presaged the sound that Ved Buens Ende would morph into with Virus. 2003's Apoplexy In Six Parts is sort of a missing link between those two bands (sonically at least, not personnel wise). Very cool instrumentation...there'll be a convoluted clean guitar passage going on and just some incessant blasting underneath. This is actually really similar to what DHG did on Supervillain Outcast. No vox really, but occasionally some disturbed samples will make an appearance (fellatio, Donald Duck?) Definitely one of the forgotten gems of weirdo Norwegian black metal, and an important step forward for the post black metal genre.

Apoplexy In Six Parts

Incubator - Symphonies Of Spiritual Cannibalism

The return of this slimy slithering Grungy German death metal entity. A bit more streamlined than McGillroy, but still just as weird and fucked.

Symphonies Of Spiritual Cannibalism

Semen Datura - Einsamkeit

Dissonance is a tricky thing in black metal, play your cards right and you end up sounding like Semen Datura's 2009 opus Einsamkeit (play em wrong and you end up sounding like any of a number of weak ass LLN imitators). Never content to stay in one register, SD mix it up between atonal thrash riffs, dissonant blasting sections and major chord progressions (sometimes a folk sound will creep in), similar to how Sculptured operated on their last few albums. A strange, creepy, technically proficient album that will keep you coming back for more.

Einsamkeit

Cleanse The Palate

I actually went back and listened to a bunch of old nu metal releases to try and complete nu metal week...not too many of em hold up (not really a big surprise)...in fact the two that I posted are the only ones that don't downright suck. So onward and upward, and here are some awesome !T.O.O.H.! live videos to cleanse that nu palate.

Winterblut - Grund Gelenkkunst

So, keeping true to my word, I am delving ass deep into the insidious world of German Black metal...and without further ado, ladies and gentlemen...Winterblut's Grund.
A monumental statement put out by ol L'Hiver almost a decade ago. If the Jesus Lizards ever recorded a black metal album, this would be it my friends...grungy, mathy evilness that grooves on that enviable tin-pan alley swag. Just love that he put a cheering crowd at the end of the album...fucking brilliant!

"Grund"ge

Dark Millennium - Diana Read Peace

A band seemingly lost in the sands of time...only together a few short years and releasing 2 full lengths before disbanding in '93. Their first album Ashore the Celestial Burden is an INCREDIBLE melodic death metal album...leads are EVERYWHERE lush and gorgeous and beautiful. Not only that, but the riffs retain a technical thrash edge a la Dark Angel...it's almost like being in guitar heaven for an hour.
That said, I actually prefer their follow up album from '93, the intriguingly titled Diana Read Peace (I'm guessing named after Diana Roman goddess of the hunt, but who the hell knows!) This one is much more rock-oriented than it's predecessor...approaching a Jesus Lizard meets Angel Rat era Voivod sound draped in a cult death metal aesthetic. The sound is spacey and bold creating dynamix that are faaar outside of typical death metal. At times the album starts to morph into a weird darkened-folk jam which makes me want to call DRP the death metal version of Comus's First Utterance, as ridiculous as that sounds (but imagine such a thing, it would be great, wouldn't it!!!) Take the incredible Pandemonium...the building and layering of sounds in this song is unconstrained and reaches emotive heights that are incredibly moving.
DRP is an album that you kind of have to live with for a while...a grower not a shower if you know what I mean...but do give it a shot, because it's charms are sure to delite and titillate even the most stubborn of death metal fans.

Diana Read Peace

Incubator - McGillroy The Housefly

This album just really captures my imagination...grungy German death metal from '92 dealing with greys, gore, rape and all things unwholesome. The cover is an exemplary piece of demented Seagrave-styled artwork (that sweet little alien-like insect with a dagger sitting on a tree/pile of it's own larvae is a real keeper) and sets the stage for the weirdness of the music within. This is what I call "relaxed" death metal...almost having more to do with Voivod (especially Outer Limits era) than Morbid Angel. Actually I think a good comparison can be made with Supurations's Voivodian masterpiece The Cube mixed with a little bit of Carbonized's Disharmonization. Rhythms play a big part of this "relaxed", but unsettling atmosphere...always kept tastefully in check...more apt to use a jumpy hi-hat or well-placed crash instead of a blast; although there is one blast section on this housefly...I won't say where, suffice to say it will throw you for a loop. Really an underrated gem, and a real score for those that like their death metal weird and wild.

McGillroy The Housefly

Vuvr - Pilgrimage

Another incredible album from the Czech-Tech school of Death jazz Fusion...VERY heavy on the jazz. Sounding like a bastard offspring of Atheist's Elements (especially the Choy-ish basslines) and some Miroslav Vitous type action...add some Voivodian chordal dissonance to the mix and Voila!! Really Fantastic stuff!!!

Pilgrimage

!T.O.O.H.! - Pod Vladou Bice

The best grindcore album ever made!...if this can even be called grindcore...fast, technical, drunken, explorative, explosive, frantic, folky, avant-garde and just plain unorthodox...an evolved creation of international proponderance...nods to Uz Jsme Doma, Immolation, and certain breeds of technical hardcore (Lethargy + Shai Hulud), but boy Humanoid's vocals put it in it's own place...no one can or will ever sound like this band did, and that's a fact.

Under The Reign Of The Whip

Root - Black Seal

This is a highlight in Root's discography. Never before had they been this dark and technical in their approach.  A superb mixture of hellish atmosphere and progressive thrash (actually quite a few of the riffs remind me of Hell Awaits). No one can beat those wide open slightly atonal Blackosh guitars...the man is a master, how he can turn those Voivodian chords into a baroque, gothic nightmare is beyond words, and beyond me! Big Boss goes off (as usual), and special mention has to be made of Evil's drumming. I can't say enough good thing's...he's just in the pocket and oh so creative (especially during Theriak, holy shit!!) A wonderful album that reveals itself to be a true masterpiece after repeated listens.

Black Seal

Bethzaida - LXXVIII

Finnish death metal that fuses folky riffs with a Voivodian pacing and dissonance. Much like the underrated Dark Heresy did on their lone full-length.  Plenty of flute too, so suck on that. 

78

Cromm Cruac - Cromm Cruac

Cromm Cruac are a Dutch band that specialize in hard hitting death metal well learned in the Voivodian school of unorthodoxy. They released this galloping little curiosity last year to little acclaim, but believe me when I say it's a gem. Totally ripping funky in a good way, Technical and offbeat Dutch goodness.

I'm hunting waaabits!

Carbonized - Disharmonization

I sure hope you fucker's have been enjoyin' Swedish death metal week, it's been a real pleasure going back and listening to some of these great old records. One that I really love is Carbonized's experimental death du jour Disharmonization.
Carbonized is in many respects Therion's weird little stepbrother...the one that wasn't quite smart enough for regular school, so he stayed home ate velveeta and scoop chips, watched old dracula and UFO movies, and devoted an unhealthy portion of the day to amputee porn. He slowly turned into a twisted degenerate, but one with a fantastic music sensibility...listening to Napalm Death in one earbud, Yes in the second and Voivod in the third. The screwy little invalid is Disharmonization, and you should be very pleased to meet him.

Disharmonization

Virus - Live in London 3/22/11

LIVE VIRUS!! WOOHOOOO!!!

Live in London

Steel Mammoth - The Kingdom Of The Golden Hammer

This record has been described as a mixture of "The Cult, Manilla Road, Voivod, uh, Dire Straits, the new Darkthrone, and Judas Priests's earliest, more psychedelic stuff (Rocka Rolla)." and I'm gonna go ahead and add ZZ Top into that casserole as well. Bake on high with the right ingredients and you'll be glowing like a radiated coyote in the clear desert night.

The Kingdom Of The Golden Hammer

Virus - The Agent That Shapes the Desert

My dreams have come true a new Virus album!  I have professed my love for Czral before, and the ol' boy does not disappoint in the slightest. This new one takes their brand of Voivodian tin pan alley swagger to more arid climes...more of a refinement on past meisterpieces Carheart and Black Flux than a wholesale sonic leap forward, and that is MORE than fine by me.  Oh Czral, don't ever change baby.  Fucking album of the year.

The Agent That Shapes the Desert

Lunatic Gods - Ante Portas

Terrific Slovak band that runs the gamut from Voivod to Rotting Christ to Lykathea Aflame and back.  They have also produced one of the most badass music videos I've seen recently.  Enjoy the Avant-Garde Tech Gypsy Metal Supreme!!

Ante Portas