Drawn and Quartered - Return of the Black Death

Drawn and Quartered from Seattle. Murky old school death with some personality, and of course the most awesome death metal video of all time.

Return of the Black Death

Nader Sadek - In The Flesh

Way waaay better than I expected. They pretty much left all the arthouse bullshit I feared at the door. For those that don't know this band features Flo (Cryptopsy), Blasphemer (ex-Mayhem) and Steve Tucker (ex-Morbid Angel)...so imagine a sound that combines Once Was Not, Chimera and FFTTF (complete with underwater vox). Not as good as all that, but moooore than decent.

In Thy Fleisch

Martyr - Warp Zone

Technical mastery par excellence from one of Canada's best.

Warp Zone

Forest of Impaled - Forward the Spears

One of the best black/death albums to ever come out of these United States.  Featuring a young M Kolar on bass and journeyman Duane Timlin on skins. "I want to see those fucking heads piled to the sky!"

Forward the Spears

HARK! It's A Crawling Tar-Tar - Dorr Darp Gelap Communiqué

Indonesian experimetal hardcore/grind band that have some sort of H.P. Lovecraft, or maybe Lewis Carroll preoccupation...I really can't tell. Well, anyway this is a fairly unique release, and Indonesia actually does produce a good bit of heavy music... Siksakubur anyone?

Tar-Tar

Amputated Genitals - Family Bloodbath

Blast. Gurgle. Gurgle. Blast. Brutal. Sick. Lickety-split.

Family Bloodbath

Spiral Architect - A Sceptic's Universe

How many metal albums can you name where the bass is the lead fucking instrument?  Norberg absolutely KILLS on this one!!
The absolute be all and end all of tech metal!!!

A Sceptic's Universe

Conception - In Your Multitude

Bombastic Norwegian power metal that used to have Mr. Roy Kahn in it's ranks.  Don't expect any cheese on this one...just awesomeness.

In Your Multitude

Appalling Spawn - Bestial, Mystical, & Spiritual (The First Spawn)

Pre-Lykathea Aflame band, and believe it or not I actually prefer this to Lykathea Aflame! In essence its the same core sound...oddly ephemeral, yet brutal riffs set against wild and loose drumming...but Appalling Spawn is much dirtier, much grimier. Less progressive sure, but still more forward thinking than 99.6% of the death metal that's ever been released.

Appealing Spawn

Sakaratul Maut - The Land Called Mahsyar

Sakaratul Maut is (was?) a raging one man death metal band from Singapore. Ya'll know Singapore right? That's where they cane people for looking at someone cross-eyed. Pretty cool place, I suppose if we had more canings in the states there'd be alot less misbehavin'. Well it seems to have worked for Mr. Maut cuz this is some tight and well put together drum machine driven dirty death-thrash...vocals could've used a little work though, sounds a little like Goat Thrower in that respect.

The Land Called Mahsyar