Horrendous - The Chills

Dark Descent Records have had a Bandcamp page for some time now. Until a few days ago all the albums on it were streaming-only. But as of right now, 12 out of 34 albums are available for purchase at a very fair price.

Dark Descent Records have had a Bandcamp page for some time now. Until a few days ago all the albums on it were streaming-only. But as of right now, 12 out of 34 albums are available for purchase at a very fair price. Maveth, Desolate Shrine, Paroxsihzem, Vassafor, Father Befouled, Adversarial, all great bands you can sink your eager teeth into. And hopefully many more to come.

Also Horrendous. Whose 2012 release The Chills is exactly the kind of death metal I want to hear. Horrendous carefully picks the choicest bits from the corpse of Swedish, Dutch, and US Death Metal, and molds them into an album that's sounds fresh and invigorating. The band (proudly) wears its influences on it's sleeve sure, but they know how to write good songs and just as importantly they know how to play them well. As Atanamar Sunyata writes in his review for Metal Injection

Red hot, detuned heavings intermingle with exquisite, phantasmal leads. The dueling guitars make compelling contrapuntal arguments, spewing a constant stream of superior riffage. The distortion is fucking succulent, abrading the brain with its grizzled edge. The Chills is tied together by fantastic drumming and gorgeously audible bass; ridiculous musicianship abounds.

Songs are varied, as Horrendous seamlessly jump from thrashing death metal, melodic grooves, and even gothic doom, without ever loosing track of the song itself. Note also how Horrendous eschews the standard cavernous growls typically practiced in OSDM worship, and instead gives us almost desperate sounding mid-level growls from the two vocalists. You can read the enthusiastic review by the mighty Autothrall, and you should listen to The Chills below.