BENIGHTED – Ekbom

RELEASE YEAR: 2024 BAND URL: https://www.benighted.fr/ The French purveyors of (currently) death metal grindcore have been around since the dusk of the last century but are getting only tighter and better as if in spite of their name, Benighted, which means “pitifully ignorant or in a state of contemptible intellectual or moral ignorance” or “overtaken…

ULCERATE – Cutting The Throat Of God

RELEASE YEAR: 2024 BAND URL: https://www.ulcerate-officia.com/ Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? – Epicurus As soon…

MORGUE – Close to Complete Darkness

RELEASE YEAR: 2024BAND URL: https://godzovwarproductions.bandcamp.com/album/close-to-complete-darkness I found the previous offering by these French sickos titled Lowest Depths of Misery (2022) an utterly amazing and well-crafted piece of work that appealed to all manner of morbid instincts, and the great news is that their latest album, which is fittingly called Close to Complete Darkness, is even…

CRYPTOPSY – As Gomorrah Burns

RELEASE YEAR: 2023 BAND URL: https://cryptopsyofficial.bandcamp.com/ While I admit that the Canadian brutal technical death metal purveyors Cryptopsy have one of the best names and (legible!) logos in metal, I don’t quite hold them in such high regard as others. True, Whisper Supremacy¹⁹⁹⁸ was once in heavy rotation in both my CD player and my…

SUFFOCATION – Hymns From The Apocrypha

RELEASE YEAR: 2023 BAND URL: https://www.suffocationofficial.com/ While I never considered this fundamental death metal act my favorite (that would be Death and old Obituary) as they are very inconsistent, I do think Suffocation’s first incarnation, featuring Terraine “Terrance” D. Hobbs, Sr. (guitars), Francis “Frank” Eugene Mullen (vocals) and Guy W. Marchais (guitars), was flawless from…

MISANTHROPIC WAR – Utter Human Annihilation

RELEASE YEAR: 2023BAND URL: https://godzovwarproductions.bandcamp.com/album/utter-human-annihilation By Odin, this is fucking intense and hateful stuff. Misanthropic War’s take on black/death metal is of the most violent and destructive kind, and listening to Utter Human Annihilation and its thirteen hyper-aggressive tracks is akin to having one’s face torn right off. Everything is there in the title of…

DESCENT INTO MAELSTROM- Dei Consentes

RELEASE YEAR: 2023 BAND URL: https://facebook.com/DescentIntoMaelstromBand/ Although I had never visited the dodecaphonic metaller’s Andrea “Bigna” “Maelstrom” Bignardi’s independently released (later also on Maculata Anima Records) debut Descent Into Maelstrom’s eponymous²⁰¹⁷, Bignardi handling everything as a sole member after the 2016 conception, I liked the sophomore Iconoclasm (released on Maculata Anima Records in 2019 and…

STILLBIRTH – Homo Deus

RELEASE YEAR: 2023 BAND URL: https://stillbirthofficial.bandcamp.com/ As you listen to the German brutal death metal and death core act’s Stillbirth’s new album Homo Deus²⁰²³ released on April 7th, you may get an impression you’re dealing with one of those young highly skilled ensembles at most on their 3rd installment, stylistically somewhere between All Shall Perish,…

DECRAPTED – Bloody Rivers Of Death

RELEASE YEAR: 2022 BAND URL: https://facebook.com/Decrapted/ This review is the 3rd in the 5 album expose on the work of Palma de Mallorca Spanish vocalist, guitarist and bassist Vicente Javier Payá Galindo, the creator the creator of 5 metal bands: Golgotha, Unbounded Terror, Decrapted, Bis.nte and Sons Of Cult – all currently on David Sánchez…