Holy Cannibalism - Grinding Blackened Thrash of Death

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/holycannibalismdmbm

Release Date: 2008

Label: Self-Released

Release Type: EP

For all those concerned, I have not died of cancer nor have I fallen off the face of the Earth. I merely suffered from a severe case of laziness and video game-addiction. Still am suffering from both, but at least I'm back posting now. Chainsaw Justice is still alive and kicking. Hide your children.

Anyways, here's my latest review. Enjoy.

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Grinding Blackened Thrash Of Death is a very apt title. In this 15 minute EP, this Californian duo serves up eight seriously demented slices of metal that take from each of the aforementioned genres.

The basement-recording quality of the production values smears the songs in a glorious mess of barbwire static and noise. Gorehammerithius’ bellows, growls, and shrieks are all drenched in distortion, stripping away what little humanity that was in them to begin with. His maniacal blasting propels the songs at a frenetic pace. Blastbeats, cymbal crashes, and double-bass stampedes, run rampant. The Reaper, other half of the duo, wields the guitar. The tone is slightly lean, but raw and vicious.

With such a damn good production, it’s a shame the songs themselves aren’t as great. Structure-wise and length-wise, there isn’t much to complain about. The songs are longer than the minute-long bursts of noise in grind but slightly shorter than a standard death or thrash offering. Concise and straight-to-the-point while still having development. The drums are perfect. Gorehammerithius bashes his kit with incredible command, power, and speed.

The disappointment here, the only disappointment really, are the riffs. The riffs aren’t sleep-inducing, nothing near that. They’re quite potent with the speaker cranked up to an appropriately antisocial level, but just not memorable enough. There are moments in several of the songs where they almost descend into pure fucking headbanging armageddon, but it just doesn’t quite get there.

“Atomic Storm of Genocide” starts off noisily and furiously, and more than maintains its thrashing speed through its entire 2 and a half minute length, but it just doesn’t hit that perfect riff.

“Operational Horrors” and many of the other tracks (“Consumed By Flames”, “Strangled and Mutilated”) suffers from a similar case. It’s never downright disappointing, but that glorious headbanging moment never comes.

There are, of course, some saving graces. “Rotting Autopsy” locks into a great thrashing riff, riding atop a pummeling stampede of double-bass midsong, but the moment is short lived, as the song clocks in at 54 seconds.

Closer “Richard the Goatworshipper” just teases neck-snapping, back-aching headbanging chaos with the breakdown towards the end (not the E-string wanking kind, but the more general, tempo-change kind, so relax) but the bomb just doesn’t drop.

It’s a shame really. Keeping in mind though that Grinding Thrash of Death is only the band’s second release, I can see good things in the horizon. Even great things, possibly. Sure, Holy Cannibalism probably won’t become legendary, they probably won’t break any new ground, probably won’t be hailed as lyrical or musical geniuses, and probably won’t start a new trend in the underground. What they probably will do though, is put out a new release with more than enough headbanging riffs to shut me up and give me (and whoever else gets their hands on it) neck damage. And that’ll be enough to satisfy me, and many others, I suppose.

I’ll get my hospital fee ready.

Purchase

Bonescraper - Demo 2009

Tracklist

1. Hunt For Blood
2. Torturer
3. Instant Death
4. Lurking Insanity

Stop digging, there is nothing deep here. Noktorn's previous projects (Rainfall, Feast of Roses, Septic Tomb) might have been more ambitious, striving to reach some kind of aesthetic or unconcieved atmosphere, but this is exactly what it sounds like upon first listen. It's death metal, very very brutal death metal, with no secret message or deeper meaning. Just death metal, pure and simple.

There is obviously a high amount of Mortician influence here. This demo follows that band's exact same style of writing, with lots of very simple, fast riffs that take no effort to write whatsoever, building up tension and releasing it during the slower, more calculated sections. The faster parts aren't effortless because Noktorn's (or Mortician) is lazy, but because they don't require any effort, and whether or not you spend thirty seconds thinking up a set of notes or spend hours dwelling on it, the end product would be the same. They're there to provide a function, and that is to build up intensity before the slow riffs, and they're not there to be listen to and analysed and appreciated on their own.

Did I mention that the production really goes too far? This is STUPIDLY low. There is so much low end on here that both my laptop and iPod earphones can barely contain it. The bass is just too much and goes beyond being heavy by regular standards and turns everything into sort of wavy floods of sounds that are sure to make your room shake if this is played too loud. The vocals only make things worse (but by worse I mean better), it's believable that Noktorn could have performed the vocals on the Septic Tomb album without pitchshifting, but there's no way in Hell I'm believing it this time. The vocals are insanely low and contribute more to the brute...brutality of this demo. The tremolo parts are even weirder, the chugging sounds almost normal under this much low end, the tremolo riffs just sound strange, with those superlow rumblings split up into mininotes whilst Noktorn murmurs with completely inhuman vocals over the top. The drum machine is a well programmed but super-obvious drum machine like the one used on Catasexual Urge Motivation's 'Encyclopedia of Serial Murders'. It does it's job of holding the beat and is pretty heavy, not interfering at all. Infact whilst listening to this you barely even think about the drum machine, which was probably intentional.

The songwriting is completely dumb on purpose and will appeal only to death metalheads that aren't exceptions to the rule that like death metal for it's sound and aesthetic and not just the fact that there are lots of great songwriters. This demo isn't memorable at all, not one bit, but it's super enjoyable while it's playing, which is most definitely it's purpose. Do you hate Mortician? Jungle Rot? Devourment? Then stay away from this. This is not Demilich worship. This is ugly, raw death metal that does not intend to excel beyond anything other than being death metal. It's about taking the basic elements of death metal and crafting really great songs with them without passing outside the boundaries of death metal by even the smallest step, 'normal' music listeners that don't like death metal will not like this at all, and it has been purposefully crafted in such a way. If you're a fan of death metal then I recommend you check out Bonescraper, this demo is a promising look at what the future holds.

- Colum Hill

(Originally written for Metal Archives)

Download: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=V6KECJL0

Landmine Marathon - Rusted Eyes Awake

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/landminemarathon
Release Date: 2008
Label: Prosthetic Records
Release Type: Full-Length

Now I don't know about you, but I personally think the name Landmine Marathon has got to be one of the badass band names ever, even in the realm of death metal. The image the name conjures up alone is enough to send me into a bloodthirsty, maniacal, morbid glee. Okay maybe that's a bit of an exxageration, but the point is, Landmine Marathon is a pretty sweet band name. And they have one hell of an album cover as well. What a whacky Freakenstein pig-zombie they've got there.

Now it'd suck major donkey balls if Landmine Marathon's music didn't live up their kickass moniker, but fortunately it does. Death metal is the weapon of choice here. Crunching riffs atop pounding drums isn't anything new, no way on God's green on earth, but there's nothing wrong with brutality if it's done like this. Landmine Marathon do a pretty good job of balancing between brutality and melody. There are plenty of straight-up tremolo riffs-and-blasts stuff here as well as headbanging riffs and evil leads. The vocals are no slouch in comparison to the instrumental, and often come into the spotlight, like with "Xenocide" and its fierce vocal hooks. What's more impressive is the fact that these are vocals are delivered by a female and that despite the fact she looks like she's probably the friendliest, most soft-spoken person in the world, she can pull off some of the most throat-lacerating screams to ever shred your ears. Not to capitalize on the fact that their vocalist has an X chromosome, but damn, can she shriek.

Anyways, that will be enough from me. Enjoy the music and the album cover. Those fucking eyes man.

They just keep glaring at you.

Purchase
- Amazon

3 Victims - Demo

Tracklist

1. Butchered Cunt
2. Painful Awakening to Lunacy
3. Inseminating Sufferance
4. Ridiculous Accusations of Contradictory Ideas Suppressing Thou
5. Insanely Hypocritical Retaliation

Hardcore is still taking up all my listening time lately, though when I put on something metal, this band is usually what I listen to. 3 Victims is an Australian trio that plays a vicious blend of brutal death metal and grindcore. There are slam riffs a-plenty, as well as some tremolo-picked riffs which provide a decent distraction until the next slam riff comes. The vocals are the ridiculously low, pitch-shifted sort, which are anathema to some, but tolerable for me. The best aspect of this demo however, would have to be the drumming. When their drummer isn't feverishly pounding away behind the tremolo riffs, he's augmenting the slams with a powerful combination of fast snare blasts and rampant cymbal bashing. 'Tis some pretty good shit, this demo.

Check it out.