Ulcerate - Vermis (2013)

This is that art-fag "post" death metal bullshit that makes all of the pretentious closet case metal-heads feel safe to listen to.

Listening to Ulcerate is the equivalent of those stories you hear of someone being anally excavated whilst in the midst of some incredibly drunken stupor. Once the fog begins to clear and before the realization fully sets in, there's that hazy moment of faint recollection that the victim hangs onto, telling themselves that perhaps this was all just a bad dream. That moment of hope that maybe they didn't just endure some sordid experience of monstrous homosexuality.

The only difference between this album and the last three is that you can tell the band are finally nearing the point of actually being able to write a song instead of cramming a bunch of non-sensical dissonant riffing together and calling it such. As a rule, non-psychedelic rhythmic meandering = pseudo-intellectual pretentiousness. Sure, they're getting close, but they're not quite there yet. I'm getting too old to have to listen to something 900 fucking times for it to begin to slightly gel together.

Aevangelist - Omen Ex Simulacra (2013)

I wrote a "semi" review of the band's second full length, 'Omen Ex Simulacra' last year and had mentioned in it
something along the lines of the riffs not being worth a damn once you take away all of the background noise, yada, yada. I take that back. The riffs are actually not bad at all. In fact, there are some really cool and dismal sounding riffs on this album that are unfortunately marred by the idiot who didn't know when to stop the fucking intro! With all of the proclamations of "genius", etc. I was quite stunned at the stupidity of slathering several different rhythmic fluctuations with the same droning intro and began to question the integrity of those who were making these claims. I wouldn't exactly say that playing a guitar riff over or alongside a prerecorded ambient track is an endeavor unheard of. A step towards the "genius" moniker would be to know exactly when to shut that shit down. This just sounds like the end-result of the fumbling hands of a juvenile mind at the threshold of becoming an amateur. Again, there truly are some nice and creepy riffs scattered throughout but they are unfortunately rendered unbearable to endure by not only what's going on in the background but by the ineptitude of the drum programming as well.

If this album were to be re-released sans the infernal fluff, we might actually have a contender. As it is, though, this shall be cast upon the growing pile of neo-dissonant/post-'90's Incantation/Immolation clones and set ablaze.

Last Sacrament - Enantiodromia (2013)

Surprisingly good modern death metal! The vocals here are nice, low and monstrous and the guitars are also low and thick with distortion. You can tell that these guys obviously know their way around the fret board yet there's never a moment where I'm rolling my eyes at the stupidity of how much lame guitar "hero-isms" are flailing about. The guys are focused more on creating gargantuan, death metal riffs beneath an ancient and rotting arch that symbolizes the filth and decay of the true essence of death metal. If only more skilled players grasped this concept. Of course, having shitty guitar nerds out there ejaculating over the newest jazz/prog/technical-death jerkery is part of what makes the world go 'round. Unfortunate yet it is what it is.

I'm curious to see where these guys go from here, whether they delve deeper into prog-metal faggery like most skilled musicians seem to do after a fashion, or, will they continue to traverse the haunted soundscapes of old? Being that their sophomore album will be released next month, we shall see soon enough.

Descend - Demonstration Cassette 1995

Tasty and long forgotten slab of rotten, old skull death metal from Ohio fairly close in sound to renowned Fin's Demilich and early Disgrace while not getting overly technical and "noodly" like the former.

I'm actually surprised that I haven't seen these guys getting all types of posthumous praise among the 'OSDM' crowd like I usually do with these types of "forgotten" demos. Believe me, this one is worth every bit of worship one can bestow upon it. This has it all. Grimy, low tuned guitars, barfy, dual Carcass-style vocals and an ancient Finnish death metal feel overall. Hell, even the production is surprisingly well done. It's a demo that was released on cassette so don't expect Morrisound and you'll be just fine.

Death - Scream Bloody Gore (1987)

When I was younger and Death had only released their initial trio of albums I think I may have preferred this album to the other two. Through the years, though, I've come to the conclusion that, aside from the novelty that this was about as intense of an album as you could get during the time of it's release (with the exception of Napalm Death's 'Scum'), I found it to be rather boring and despite what certain pseudo-intellectual bloggers might tell ya, I'll take Deicide's debut over this any day of the week.

The identity of the songs on display here vary a bit more than on 'Leprosy' but they're all still painfully straightforward and after about 1/2-way through the first track I'm already planning my exit-strategy.

Sure, this sounded groundbreaking and pretty damn cool when it came out but it didn't take long for me to outgrow it and unlike most fanatics out there, I actually prefer the 3rd and 4th albums over the first two. Oddly enough, I'm not a fan of Symbolic whatsoever and the small amount I've heard off of the last album (The Sound of Perseverance) did little to nothing for me as well. I feel that Death pretty much peaked right smack dab in the middle of their (Chuck's) career with Scream Bloody Gore and Leprosy being stepping stones toward bigger and better things. Innovative? Perhaps in terms of intensity but again, for me the novelty of being a death metal band so early in the game wore off once I heard what else was out there such as Carcass, Pestilence and Entombed. Those were band's that were creating material that catered to my imagination in a way that Death never could.

Death - Leprosy (1988)

Cool and iconic album cover aside, for the life of me I just cannot get into this album. Granted, Death were an important stepping stone in my life when it came to early death metal, but there were always better things out there lying in wait.

First off, the songs are just fucking boring. Sure, there's a moment or two where things get fairly interesting, such as the beginning of 'Left to Die', but it doesn't take long before the 'womp womp' kicks back in. Yeah, yeah, yeah... I know, I know... Chuck's this "awesome" lead guitar player, yada-fucking-yada. Oh well. Guess what? Never gave a fuck about leads, so 'blam'... once you take that out of the equation what have you got left? The drums? Ha! An amputated midget could've come up with more interesting fills and beats and holy-fucking-shitballs... what the FUCK is up with that annoying god-damned snare? This guy's barely past the Lars Ulrich stage. I mean, dude, c'mon... skank beat after skank beat. And they're not even like the Slayer-style skanks filled with anxiety and aggression. These just sound like the drummer is bored out of his fucking mind and can't wait to go sit in traffic for an hour.

The actual riffs/songs themselves are not much better. I swear, even for an older, "catchier" album the tracks on 'Leprosy' have a tendency to bleed into one another and I begin to think I'm listening to some epic song of unparalleled and rage-inducing boredom until I realize that three tracks have already skated on by. Believe me, as a fan of funeral doom I am no stranger to redundant droning and the like, but this...

About the only thing of worth here, to me, are the vocals, which were quite the tasty morsel in their day and still sound very convincing even now. Unfortunately, they do very little to make the rest of this album interesting to me. To be honest, I've always been on the fence with Death, even back when I first heard them in the late '80's, which is saying something as death metal as a genre was still in the cradle sucking on a pacifier. For me, the band didn't truly begin to "cook" until their 3rd LP, 'Spiritual Healing', which even then carried many of the same lackluster traits that made it so hard for me to get into their first two albums. Sure, the nostalgia factor is not lost on me and I respect the band's historical standing but again, I have never been able to transcend the notion that in the beginning, despite the novelty of being THE pioneering death metal band, Death was on the losing side of a battle with tepid mediocrity and it wouldn't be until the homos from Cynic hopped on board that Death truly came into their own. As far as the early sounds of death metal are concerned and the long-standing debate of the beginnings of the genre, I'll take Possessed any day of the week.