From The Metal Archives Vol. 7

[When I add labels to the Metal Labels on Bandcamp page I usually scan their releases looking for anything interesting I might have missed. The reviews on The Metal Archives are a great help when doing this: a couple of great reviews

By the reviewers from The Metal Archives.

[When I add labels to the Metal Labels on Bandcamp page I usually scan their releases looking for anything interesting I might have missed. The reviews on The Metal Archives are a great help when doing this: a couple of great reviews means an album I should probably check out. With this series I'd like to share some of my finds - in this edition we feature two expansive takes on black metal from Lifeforce Records and Shaytan Productions, and a long lost death/doom classic finally available on Southern Lord Recordings]


Fjoergyn’s sound is extremely avant-garde and unlike any other band in existence. At its core, it is still very much rooted in black metal conventions but there is so much more to their sound. The standard tremolo picked riffs with non-stop blast beats are ever present on this album but when the songs slow down, the music becomes much more interesting. This is where Fjoergyn excels with absolutely gorgeous and incredibly haunting guitar melodies like the one in the middle of the closing track “Freiheit” that will make your jaw drop. It is not just the guitar melodies though. This album contains serious riffage of the fast and heavy varieties that really drive the more conventional sections of songs like “Leviathan.” The band also makes excellent use of symphonics and orchestrations, including moments of exquisite violin, which adds a lot of atmosphere to this album. [read SlayerDeath666's full review here.]

Epos starts off starts off with the ambient sounds of small waves lapping on the shore of a well known lake in Kyrgyzstan known as Issyk-Kul (in the Kyrgyz language means “warm lake”).

Issyk-Kul is surrounded by snow-capped peaks, but never freezes. This aspect of the lake is reflected on this album: the production is actually of dark warmth, an almost “milky” guitar sound is clearly audible, and somehow the overall crispness also retains this character. I found this to be a very strong aspect of this recording which lends Epos quite a unique atmosphere as far as Black Metal production values go. [read Hubster's full review here.]

Gammelsaeter’s vocals very between soft female droning to tireless growls that do justice to the death genre; this isn’t your operatic or goth vocals that are all the trend these days, but the droning of frozen, inevitable doom. This is the real deal: Serene, raw, and ugly as needed and when needed. While I like a good singer as much as the next guy, some types of music require the under produced, dragged screaming into the void, type of rawness; this delivers. The drums pound away, not a means of keeping the beat so much as to hammer Gammelsaeter’s vocals and O’Malley’s guitar chords home. Maybe that’s how they chose the group's name; the drums, vocals, and guitar jointly if methodically hammer you into a senseless empty vessel. [read Metalich's full review here.]

Atanamar’s Favorite Bandcamp Finds of 2014

Written by Atanamar Sunyata.

Metal archaeology is the work of a lifetime; there are pages missing from every grail seeker’s diary. As more and more music appears on Bandcamp, we are offered a unique opportunity to rediscover the past in high fidelity. 2014 was prime time for musical gravedigging; I was able to unearth albums I had only heard in passing during the '90s, resuscitate specters of long lost tape trades, and replace the content of CDs that mysteriously disappeared in college. Best of all, I discovered classics completely unbeknownst to me. These are some of my favorite Bandcamp hauls of 2014:

Deathevokation - Chalice of Ages (2007)

Cover art by Axel Hermann

Deathevokation quietly produced a death metal masterpiece in the not too distant past, disappearing into oblivion before their prodigious achievement could be properly recognized. Chalice of Ages unfurls a fusillade of doom-tinged death propelled by Amon Amarth-grade grooves and fascinating melody. These tunes ride on a riff-hardened chassis, rampaging at all the right speeds. Deathevokation had a distinctive character, and their sole creation's pedigree is simply spectacular. Reunion, please?

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

The Chasm - Farseeing the Paranormal Abysm (2009)

Artwork by Daniel Corchado

The Chasm is the best band whose discography was most unrepresented in my collection. That was quickly resolved when Max clued us into The Chasm’s Bandcamp page in March. Like Max, Farseeing the Paranormal Abysm is my favorite of the titles represented. The Chasm stand astride the death metal's continental divide, blending the progressive precision of Death with the skin crawling filth of Incantation (mainman Daniel Corchado actually played on Diabolical Conquest). Fascinating riffs, thrashy intricacies, and dynamics for days are the name of the game; Farseeing the Paranormal Abysm is all wins.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

Adramelech - Psychostasia (1996)

Artwork by Turkka Rantanen

Adramelech emerged from the bountiful Finnish death metal scene in the mid '90s, possessing the utmost power of the riff. Psychostasia is the finest moment of the band's brief career. It's also a death metal classic, a balm to these jaded and abused ears. Impossibly compelling anti-melodies flow in torrents of glorious death, coalescing around indelible riffs and feats of compositional ingenuity. Adramelech have indubitable roots in Demigod's sinuous sonic oeuvre, but they also inherit bits of bizarre behavior from countrymen Demilich. Everyone should have a little Psychostasia in their life.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

Disembowelment - Disembowelment (2005)

Funeral doom, as an art form, is concerned with feats of amazing restraint. Grindcore and death metal? Not so much. Disembowelment bridged that dichotomy in spectacular style in 1992. Transcendence into the Peripheral (included here along with most of the band’s recorded output) presents discrete visions of crisp, sharp, and haunting doom of the literal sort. Driven by industrial strength percussion, the outbursts of putridity manifest as sheets of blinding, grinding rage. Disembowelment’s time on this earth was brief, but their legacy is a delicious landmark.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

Gadget - Remote (2004)

I'm usually behind the ball on grindcore. When I need it, I need it bad. The rest of the time? Clueless. I missed Gadget's debut by a decade. Here stalks Swedish grind-mastery that's light on the Sunlight sauce preferred by their countrymen (see Nasum, etc.). Articulate crunch is borne on precision blasts and big fat beats. Caution is thrown to the wind, but satisfying, nuanced melody seeps into the gears, ensuring optimal aural lubrication. Someone dropped their dipstick in a bit of Dissection; cheers to you, Gadget. Remote is timeless grind.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

Human Remains - Where Were You When (2002)

Building on meaty mounds of spasmodic deathgrind brilliance, Human Remains recorded in fits and spurts in the early ‘90s until the Using Sickness as a Hero EP spelled their untimely demise. Human Remains possessed all of the genius you’d expect from a band featuring Steve Procopio (Gridlink, Discordance Axis) and Dave Witte (Discordance Axis, Municipal Waste, and every band ever). Where Were You When is a compilation of the band’s recorded material, and I was clearly not there when it was released in 2002. Every one of these tracks, from the most immaculately recorded to those produced in a toilet, are a pure joy of crushing daedal impossibility. Rejoice in moist, mandatory mucoidal madness.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

Cryptopsy - None So Vile

By Dane Prokofiev. In hindsight, Cryptopsy is one of those bands that never managed to outdo themselves. When None So Vile dropped on the extreme metal world in 1996, it cracked it right down to its misanthropic, molten core and remolded one of the most sonically extreme metal sub-genres ever: technical death metal.

By Dane Prokofiev.


In hindsight, Cryptopsy is one of those bands that never managed to outdo themselves. When None So Vile dropped on the extreme metal world in 1996, it cracked it right down to its misanthropic, molten core and remolded one of the most sonically extreme metal sub-genres ever: technical death metal. It became an instant classic, and set a new benchmark for what it means to be simultaneously crazily proficient in one’s instrumental skills, musically unconventional and viciously sick in the head.

As the album title aptly suggests, the music contained within the innocent-looking disc is pure vileness. In particular, the greasy, throbbing bass lines will slap your ears as hard as a boa constrictor’s fat tail would and leave you dazed and quivering in masochistic joy.

The highly irregular time signatures, breakneck tempos and frequent syncopation constantly make the tearing onslaught of cheek-ripping noise viciously entertaining. The music often stops suddenly for a very brief moment, only to accelerate to 666 mph in a split second and then decelerate to 333 mph or so, like a Satanic and bipolar version of the Acura NSX Concept car (the sexy beast we see Tony Stark drive away in during the closing scene of The Avengers); and the whole process does not necessarily repeat itself in this exact order. As a result, ribcage-cracking grooves are created, and they just keep coming and crushing in various musical patterns.

Eargasmic guitar solos (check out 3:05 to 3:32 in “Slit Your Guts”) are also present, and not only do they provide structural balance to the groove-dominated songs, they will make your neck muscles convulse and slam your head back and forth rapidly between the surface of your table and the wall behind until your brain bashes itself into a squishy grey mess. Basically, Cryptopsy was the Insect Warfare of technical death metal; there is never a dull moment on this album.

And we are not done with the “never a dull moment” part; there is even a beguiling piano introduction in the track “Phobophile”! After lulling you into a false sense of security with its beauteous melancholy, the piano exits to make way for something slick and sinister. A bass guitar solo slithers in to wind around your neck, before constricting suddenly to snap your neck as effortlessly as Hercules would with a dry twig in a sudden burst of corpse-grinding noise.

None So Vile is a timeless metal record that perfectly captures the scabrous spirit of extreme underground death metal, and it is also a testament to the tenet that death metal can never only settle for fast – only faster! Cryptopsy’s later works do not surpass this masterpiece, and they will probably never be able to produce such an important record ever again. Whatever chance they had of having a go at this challenge disappeared with Lord Worm’s second departure from the band in 2007.

Opeth - My Arms, Your Hearse

With the addition of Opeth's My Arms, Your Hearse from 1998, the first three Opeth albums are now available on the Candlelight Records Bandcamp. Here is one of the five reviews the albums has on Sputnikmusic.

The version of My Arms, Your Hearse available on Bandcamp is the 2000 re-release featuring two bonus tracks, covers of songs by Celtic Frost and Iron Maiden.