The various listens I had over the previous week. This is a special week celebrating Death Metal releases from the past month that were interesting and missed from the previous rounds of listens.
Chamber of Torture-Phantasms of the Bedlamite (95/100)
The fifth release from the Russian juggernauts. Tight, crunchy riffing, galloping drum-work, and thick rhythms offer a vicious old-school approach with a steady and engaging style throughout. Keeping everything at a generally steady pace allows the brutality of the sprawling riff-breakdowns or the high-speed drum blasts to stand out nicely as the bursts of energy and aggression counterbalance the thick chugging patterns that the majority of the arrangements center on. With several instances of blasting patterns, furious tremolo riffing and hyper-speed arrangements creeping in that offer a vicious and biting selection of material that works in an old-school thrashing style alongside the brutality, this one comes out incredibly well without much to dislike.
Deleterious-Beheading the Culprit (83/100)
The debut full-length from the Philippine two-piece slammers. Thunderous drumming, violent riffing, and a thick, sludgy atmosphere carry itself along with a nicely tight, compact series of rhythms throughout here. Filled with churning riff-work in short swirling patterns alongside the vicious drum-blasts, the setup this provides offers the use of an endless series of immediate grooving slams that offer a devastating impact. That the short, brief running times here keep things moving along at a brisk setup that allows for minor inserts of more traditional arrangements alongside the slams keeps it interesting while also highlighting the overall repetitive nature of the tracks to generate operate under the same structure throughout. That's really only detrimental to those that are turned off to this approach, however, given the styles' proclivity to do so.
Defechate-Unbounded (65/100)
The debut full-length from the Italian Death Metallers. Rabid, discordant riffing, galloping tempos, and clanging basslines offer a generally straightforward mixture of raw rhythms with spices of violent patterns throughout. The thick guitar-work moves through a chunky series of jangly rhythms that coincide with steady drumming and off-kilter bass-work to produce the discordant patterns which effectively capture an old-school style with the off-beat rhythms featuring more of a chaotic rumble at times. These are a mess compared to the few more straightforward and traditional tracks that offer swirling thrash-based sections, conventional drumming, and toned-down arrangements which are vicious and a bit more violent against the discordant patterns elsewhere here. It's performed well enough but is just not as interesting as the traditional and less chaotic efforts.
Nihility (Port)-Beyond Human Concepts (95/100)
The second release from the Portuguese Death/Black Metal unit under the name. Tight rhythms, blasting drum-work and ferocious swirling tremolo riffing create a vicious series of up-tempo patterns within here. The thick chugging, staccato grooves, and rumbling rhythms at play in these up-tempo sections offer a solid series of foundation pieces to pay the tremolo riffing as a fantastic melodic accent to the chaos with the short, compact structures making for a highly enjoyable and hard-hitting attack. Further spiced up with slightly technical rhythms and sudden pattern changes that work incredibly well with the frantic rhythms and violent blastbeats, these chaotic arrangements balance out the steady rhythms elsewhere throughout here and generate a lot of likable aspects which makes this a dynamic and enjoyable effort overall taken down only by its general brevity.
Bodycutter-Cold Feelings of a Dead Yar (71/100)
The debut full-length from the one-man Ukrainian Blackened Death Metal act. Steady plodding rhythms, cold tremolo patterns, and a series of simple blasting drum-work from a generally straightforward approach that becomes quite atmospheric at points. The simple structures and arrangements offer a pretty one-dimensional attack that keeps everything at a striped down plodding style with sections featuring dynamic choppy tremolo riff-work alongside frantic drum-blasts as fine variations throughout. This all is competent if rather unremarkable which is the big issue here as well as the few tracks with vocals since they're scattered in the running order which makes their usage slightly jarring at points. The first half being more instrumental based while the second half is more traditional makes up a slightly jumbled ordering but overall, it's not that big of an issue.
Worship the Pestilence-In Times of Plagues and Obscurity (84/100)
The second full-length from the Bolivian Brutal Death Metal group. Tight chugging patterns, ravenous drum-blasts, and whirlwind tempos feature quite prominently throughout this one with a fine selection of straightforward tempos for an oppressive atmosphere. Offering a selection of either frantic razorwire riffing with furious blastbeats or steady chugging with tight drumming for slightly less dynamic but no less choking rhythms, the general approach is violent and often highly impressive with a fun starting point and enough variation to make it dynamic. The fact that this one contains so much though with at least five or six tracks too many makes this one a bit more of a challenge to get through since it's just as much of a struggle to keep this one going as long as it does with the setup it has. Trimming a couple of tracks here would be made a more dutiful impact, but that's all holding this back.
Convulsive (Bra)-The Grotesquery Ruins of Death (88/100)
The debut full-length from the Brazilian retro Death Metal group under the name. Thick swirling riffs, steady rumbling drum-work, and dark, choking rhythms create a raw, oppressive old-school style crunch that captures the style and setup rather effectively. Focusing on steady, straightforward mid-tempo sections full of sprawling, swirling riffs and primitive rhythm patterns, the slow churning pace featured throughout the majority of the tracks here leaves an impression with the dark atmosphere making for an engaging experience. Ratcheting up the speed with more frantic rhythms and dynamic drumming patterns created a strong counterbalance to the steady state of the rest of the album, but that creates the issue in that, with everything so steady and straightforward there's very little variety to be had which makes it hard to determine what track is playing. It's especially difficult the deeper into the album you go where everything starts to sound the same, even more so with the primitive production, but the fury and energy is there to make it work.
Lapida (Phil)-The Macabre Possessions (93/100)
The debut release from the Philippine Brutal Death Metal group under the name. Tight rumbling rhythms, frantic drumming, steady tempos, and ferocious old-school dynamics offer a heavy, engaging effort. The riffing stays in generally steady sections with thrashing chug-work alongside dexterous razorwire patterns, keeping this one hurtling along with a brutal edge augmented by dashes of technical flourishes throughout. The generally simplified chugging patterns as the dominant style focuses the arrangements into the old-school realm while the blasting drumming and furious technical accents offer a modernized slang of brutality focused on driving rhythms and blistering patterns. That the more technical and brutal arrangements appear deeper into the running time allows this the chance to pick up both speed and variety as it goes along, creating a wholly enjoyable and brutal offering.
Spartan (Greece)-Of Kings and Gods (83/100)
The second release from the Dutch Melodic Death Metallers under the name. Sparkling melodic riffing, fiery tempos, and a dynamic change-up between several variation styles for a rather impressive sound. Offering a series of galloping thrash-like riff-work with spacious high-energy patterns or modernized Metalcore rhythms with mid-tempo chugging sections, this features a generally light and energetic atmosphere throughout. That lets the melodic lead-work focus on a sprawling series of rhythms that evoke the tone and style of their lyrical inspirations, making this come off rather nicely. For something this short and compact, having several two-part tracks spread out in the running order feels like a disservice that makes it difficult to remember what happened earlier as they're not grouped together. With a more prominent presence of the stuttering rhythms rather than the thrashing sections as it goes along, it does feature some issues overall.
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