Knelt Rote - Alterity

By Bryan Camphire. The title Alterity refers to the state of being other or different; otherness. It's a fitting and poignant title for this forth record by Knelt Rote, a three-piece American band whose work avoids easy categorization.

By Bryan Camphire.


The title Alterity refers to the state of being other or different; otherness. It's a fitting and poignant title for this forth record by Knelt Rote, a three-piece American band whose work avoids easy categorization. The band's sound has dramatically evolved over the years, and this release feels like a sticky concentrated black resin of their musical ideals. Alterity contains a sound that is potent and dangerous, its lean concoction of harsh textures and precise playing is both uncompromising and eye-opening.

The first track is "Lachesis", the title of which refers to the allotter of human destiny, one of the three Fates of Greek mythology. In under three minutes, Knelt Rote adopt a take no prisoners approach to unspooling their brand of blackened death grind. The tune is chock full of minor key melodies put forth at breakneck tempos over blistering dominant drums. If the record continued on at this pace, it would be great, albeit not altogether dissimilar to music you may have heard before in the realms of high caliber death grind. What makes this release stand out is how the music's rusty screws come lose as performance begins careening off the rails, as though nearly buckling under the force of its own ferocity. By the time we get to the third cut, "Rumination", the guitars have opened up, playing more spaced out rhythms and using the higher registers to cut through the murk.

A succinct set, Alterity tallies up at seven songs, clocking in at twenty-one minutes. Surprises continue through to the end, like the fact that the first guitar solo happens at the beginning of the fifth track, "Othering". The solo is already complete twenty seconds in, no more time was needed for this putrefaction to make its way from the music's yawning maw. The sixth song, "Salience", offers mid-tempo sections that give you just enough time to check yourself for bruises and make sure you haven't lost a tooth before the music sets off at its greased lightning clip once again. "Black Triptych", the record's last offering, presents another twenty second guitar solo about a minute in that pierces through the song like a cigarette burn on a handcuffed arm.

On Alterity, Knelt Rote's creative élan comes from its melding of torturous messy textures and sharp focused execution. Still, it is worth noting that for all the brute heaviness on display, absent from this album is any imagery of brainless skulls or even any overtly direct references to death, as is common in these realms of aural assault. Knelt Rote is an atypical group and they are not going to hit you over the head with this. They have other methods to bring forth their hostile onslaught.

Cloud Rat - Pollinator

By Matt Hinch. My daughter likes watching tarantula videos. Her favourite part is the “takedown” when the tarantula strikes quickly to take down their prey, enveloping them in a multi-limbed attack for the kill. Cloud Rat take a similar approach. Pollinator is the latest example of their multi-faceted and killer grind spearheaded by piercing vocal venom. It doesn't take a myriad of eyes (or ears) to know Cloud Rat are worthy of attention.

By Matt Hinch.

Artwork by Renata Rojo.

My daughter likes watching tarantula videos. Her favourite part is the “takedown” when the tarantula strikes quickly to take down their prey, enveloping them in a multi-limbed attack for the kill. Cloud Rat take a similar approach. Pollinator is the latest example of their multi-faceted and killer grind spearheaded by piercing vocal venom. It doesn't take a myriad of eyes (or ears) to know Cloud Rat are worthy of attention.

Blasting through 14 songs in under 32 minutes barely gives you room to breathe. “Luminescent Cellar” will put some air in your lungs with a dreamy, melancholic opening before crushing your chest with some fucking heavy, doomish devastation. It's all devastating and it's all sure to make it virtually impossible not to move. Violently.

Obviously, it's not all a foot-to-the-floor maelstrom of flailing limbs. Just the majority of it. “Wonder” hides a black metallic melody within its frantic pace, and “The Mad”, though hard as hell, has parts that one might call airy and emotional that get broken down into some serious elbow swinging swagger.

If you want an onslaught of spine-bending riffs look no further than “Al Di La”. There's plenty to choose from. It's a serious adrenaline shot with a.....different ending. “Biome” feels the same energy-wise, a whirlwind of speed that works in a bangin' riff. And for the love of chaos, the two tracks between them, “Last Leaf” and “Zula”, do nothing to temper that momentum. Lightning in your headphones, man.

From start to finish Pollinator vibrates with a bristling energy. It puts a stranglehold on the listener throughout. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what separates Cloud Rat from other non-meathead grind bands. Unspoken intangibles are often more fun than clinical analysis. One thing's for sure though; Cloud Rat cannot disappoint. Pollinator is one of those albums that will leave you utterly spent and wanting for nothing. A half-hour of pain provides all the pleasure.

Scorn Coalescence - Serpents Athirst / Genocide Shrines / Trepanation / Heresiarch

By Bryan Camphire. Cyclopean Eye Productions, a label out of Bangalore, present Scorn Coalescence, a four-way split of blistering death metal. The first two bands hail from Singapore, while the latter two are native to New Zealand.

By Bryan Camphire.

Artwork by Roger Moore.

Cyclopean Eye Productions, a label out of Bangalore, present Scorn Coalescence, a four-way split of blistering death metal. The first two bands hail from Sri Lanka, while the latter two are native to New Zealand. Taken together, the songs capture death metal's potential to be momentous and captivating, the kind of release that you wish was twice as long.

First up is "Poisoning the Seven", by Serpents Athirst. The song feels like an anthem from its opening bars. A minute in, they ratchet up the intensity and the tempo, recalling the relentless death metal of early 2000s Brazilian acts like Rebaelliun and Abhorrence. There is an urgent intensity to the emotions on display here. The track is brimming over with malevolence in its smoldering attack.

Genocide Shrines darken the mood with, "All and/or Nothing". The bass is at least as loud as the guitars and its bombast spews forth with the relentlessness of a Gatling gun. The whole cut is the sound of being ground to a paste on concrete underfoot. Yet for all its teeming antipathy, the music is also painstakingly measured and precise. Its explosiveness is calculated, set off with iron-fisted control.

Trepanation slow things down on "B/H/T". Just when you feel like you're on solid footing vocals and blast beats are thrown over your head and tied tight with rope, as you're tossed into the trunk of a car. The music careens along in fits and starts. When things slow down, an accompanying feeling of dread sets in as you anticipate the violence around the next corner, forced to manage the suspense and catharsis.

Heresiarch close off the split with "Dread Prophesy", a coughing erratic piece of death metal. Fast, confident and careening, it shows how the band's prowess for detailed sprawling death metal takes no prisoners in its assault. Frequent rhythm changes beg repeated listens while sacrificing none of the music's immediacy.

The record as a whole vouches for these four bands' abilities to convey destruction and death distilled into a unique powerful display. This release should leave little room for doubt that this is an era of strong uncompromising death metal. Coming from four bands from extreme ends of the underground, Scorn Coalescence is a vitally concentrated offering.

The Armed - Only Love

By Justin C. The Armed is a band that's been floating around in my life for a while now. I think I may have first heard their EP Young & Beautiful as early as 2011, or it might have been their split with Tharsis They, a thrashy hardcore band whose album Ominous Silence

By Justin C.


The Armed is a band that's been floating around in my life for a while now. I think I may have first heard their EP Young & Beautiful as early as 2011, or it might have been their split with Tharsis They, a thrashy hardcore band whose album Ominous Silence got positive attention in the metal blogs I frequent. Whenever it was, I've always been charmed--if "charmed" is the right word for such a vicious-sounding band--by The Armed's yearly EP releases.

I always thought of The Armed as grind, although the band self-identifies as punk, pure and simple. Put on "Witness," the opening track of The Armed's second full-length, Only Love, and I think you'll see why I find the band to be at least somewhat grind-minded. The furious electronics, pyrotechnic percussion, and raw, screamed vocals certainly fit in with a more chaotic genre tag. But on this, their second album, the band has expanded their sound a bit from previous efforts. The solid blasts of punk/grind fury now see some cleaner vocals creeping in. Exceptions abound, though. "Fortune Daughter" features some understated melodic vocal lines, but they're contrasted with vicious female vocals from a member who may have been added to duel with the pre-existing male vocalist. (Or she might have been in the band all along. As far as I can tell, The Armed has never been forthcoming with who the members actually are.)

But if you're afraid my description of Only Love sounds like a band starting to go soft, fear not. "Apperception" is a full-bore assault. A casual listener might think the percussionist and his entire drum kit fell down the stairs during the recording while miraculously keeping the beat, but repeat listens reveal fills on top of more fills. There's almost a cathartic build to the song that veers into "sunny" territory, while somehow still being full of fury, which is a juxtaposition the band also executes flawlessly elsewhere, like in "Middle Homes."

Genre debates between punk and metal aside (Encyclopaedia Metallum does not include them, for whatever that's worth), I have a hard time imagining anyone with a passing interest in grind OR punk wouldn't dig what this band is doing, and unlike other bands of a similar spastic ilk, Only Love showcases a band that's evolving and growing. I heartily recommend checking out their entire back catalog, but their newest is a good place to start.

Death Toll 80k - Step Down

By Professor D. Grover the XIIIth. Greetings and salutations, friends. I return from another long spate of procrastination to bring you a look at one of grindcore's underrated gems. Now, one does not need to be a grind aficionado to be familiar

By Professor D. Grover the XIIIth.


Greetings and salutations, friends. I return from another long spate of procrastination to bring you a look at one of grindcore's underrated gems. Now, one does not need to be a grind aficionado to be familiar with the legendary Insect Warfare; even a tertiary knowledge of the genre should be enough for one to at least be aware of the brilliant World Extermination, a modern death-grind classic. However, it's less likely that you might be aware of Finland's own Death Toll 80k, even though they've been active since Insect Warfare's heyday. The bands share similarities in style and sound, and given that the latter band didn't really start releasing albums until after the demise of the former, it's not hard to imagine Death Toll 80k as a sort of spiritual successor to Insect Warfare.

Death Toll 80k's 2011 full-length debut, Harsh Realities, was a perfect example of this. Like Insect Warfare, they displayed a penchant for dropping punk riffs into their songs to give the listener a brief respite from the otherwise relentless blasting, and they also alternated between nigh-unintelligible guttural roars and higher-pitched screams. Harsh Realities was short, 23 songs in 25 minutes, but it packed enough sonic violence and variation into that span to feel satisfying.

Death Toll 80k at Maryland Deathfest 2013. Photos by Metal Chris

Still, it took 6 long years for Death Toll 80k to release a follow-up, but happily there was no rust to be shaken, as Step Down finds the band picking up where they left off. Here they shoehorn 17 songs into 15 vicious minutes, once again opting for that famed grindcore brevity. The pace is relentless, making the 15 minutes feel even shorter, but it seems that there is less variety present as compared to Harsh Realities, instead relying more on straight-ahead blasting. It's possible this is a side effect of the reduced run-time, but it's a mild disappointment that is more noticeable when you listen to both Death Toll 80k albums in succession.

Step Down sounds good though, with a slightly fuller production than its predecessor. It's claustrophobic and loud (with a dynamic range score of 5), but with grindcore you have to expect an aural assault, so this really isn't overly detrimental to the experience. The whole point of a grindcore album like this is to bludgeon the listener straight in the eardrums, and Step Down accomplishes this with ease. This is the kind of music that will frighten small pets, singe eyebrows, and kill your neighbor's trees. If you're looking for the musical equivalent of a blowtorch to the face, then you can rest easy, because you have come to the right place. Hope you brought safety goggles.

Wake - Misery Rites

By Matt Hinch. When I think of Calgary (Alberta, Canada) I don't think of grind. I think of oil, rodeo, and Country. But Wake is changing that perception. I first heard the quartet on a split with Rehashed back in 2013 but had forgotten

By Matt Hinch.


When I think of Calgary (Alberta, Canada) I don't think of grind. I think of oil, rodeo, and Country. But Wake is changing that perception. I first heard the quartet on a split with Rehashed back in 2013 but had forgotten about them until 2016's Sowing the Seeds of a Worthless Tomorrow. Fast forward a couple years and the “terror grind” act cement their place as a force to be reckoned with, regardless of locale, with Misery Rites.

If you can't tell by the album titles, Wake deal in personal struggles like addiction, depression, and isolation. Rather than wallow in sombre moods and depressive atmosphere they work through those demons with force. Intense, explosive force. Especially from drummer Josh Bueckert. The way he attacks the kit breeds catharsis just listening to it. From the pure force of hard strikes to the lactic acid blasting of “Rumination”, he leaves the listener anything but wanting.

“Rumination” and its follow-up “Bitter Winter” both go for the powerviolence jugular, eviscerating eardrums with no holds barred speed and power. All is dust. You can feel your atoms being torn apart and thrown into the abyss in a release of energy that just gets fed back into the machine.

Vocalist Kyle Ball does some of his best work on those tracks but throughout the album his intensity never waivers. Deathly growls, higher pitched yells and other terrifying vocal manipulations maintain a fear factor. To make matters worse (in the best way) Primitive Man's Ethan McCarthy lends his voice here and there. That's not the only Primitive Man you'll hear. When Wake slow it down they've got that same filthy weight we've come to know and love from their Coloradan friends.

Photos © John Mourlas. All rights reserved.

You may also notice Misery Rites “sounds” familiar. (Because you're already listening by now, right?) I'm not saying they are copying anyone that way. Not at all. But it does bear the sonic fingerprints of one Dave Otero. He recorded, mixed, and mastered this 27-minute adrenaline shot. He's also worked with the aforementioned Primitive Man as well as Cobalt (and Khemmis but that's a whole different ball of wax). To these ears Misery Rites kind of sounds like if Slow Forever Cobalt went full on grind with that sickening feeling you get from Primitive Man while maintaining Wake's own identity. Sounds like fun, doesn't it?

With grind such as this the violence is usually meted out in small bursts. That's mostly true here but not the 45-second premature ejaculations you get from a stereotypical powerviolence band. Wake have more stamina, pushing over two and three minutes. The shortest is 1:33. That is until you hit closer “Burial Ground”. It's over seven minutes but obviously not 1000bpm the whole time.

Something tells me Wake didn't slow tempos for the album's finale and drop “quiet” moments into a furious black metal flaying to give the listener some breathing room. No one who's made it this far into the album wants to cool down. You're not getting much of a break anyway. The iron still glows red as they hammer away at the world's collective psyche with crushing doom. Guitarists Rob LaChance and Arjun Gill lock horns and feed off each other through tremolo runs, feral chaos, and outright oppression.

Misery Rites is a lot to take in. It's full of unstoppable energy no matter the tempo and gorgeously painful tone. Unreal percussion and lung-searing vocals battle the ferocious guitars resulting in a bitterly angry record guaranteed to affect your day. The world is going to shit but at least we have something to soundtrack our misery.

Tints of Obsidian - What You Missed in 2017

By Justin C. Much like the Christmas shopping season, sometimes it seems like the end-of-year album lists come earlier and earlier each year. Inevitably, this means some otherwise excellent albums released in November and December get lost in the shuffle.

By Justin C.

Much like the Christmas shopping season, sometimes it seems like the end-of-year album lists come earlier and earlier each year. Inevitably, this means some otherwise excellent albums released in November and December get lost in the shuffle. I'm here to educate you on what you weren't paying attention to: two outstanding splits from bands known and unknown and a full-length from a newcomer.


In late November, black metal bands Barshasketh and Outre released a split called Sein / Zeit. We haven't talked about Barshasketh around here since way back in 2011, which is a shame because they've made some fine albums since then, including their latest full length, Ophidian Henosis. For this split, Barshasketh contribute the Being ("Sein"). Their black metal here has a touch of dissonance and a driving energy. The rhythm is sometimes chunky, sometimes galloping, but always addictive.

Outre brings the Time ("Zeit") and an additional track, and from the first off-kilter, thrashy strains of "Zeit," you can tell that they're a bit more zany in their approach. Is zaniness allowed in black metal? I say yes. The jangly chords and manic vocals add a bit of playfulness to the full-speed meanness in the riffing, and it's a great combination. I wasn't familiar with Outre before this, but I'm going to check out their back catalog.

Siberian Hell Sounds has, thus far in their career, produced short blasts of blackened, crusty noise, with songs usually hovering around the three-minute mark. When I saw that they contributed one, 20-minute-long song to a split with Convulsing, I was worried. Could their signature sound be extended to funeral doom lengths without getting tedious? The answer is yes. Who would have guessed that the band had ambitions to make a damn mini-epic with what I'd actually call legitimate movements while never taking their foot off the gas in terms of intensity?

Convulsing's track is similar in scope and sound, although if anything, their rough parts sound even nastier, although perhaps that's just in contrast with the delicate, barely-there ambient sections, doomy sections, and slow-creepy-death sections, to name just a few of the fascinating interludes contained in this one, long track. Like Outre, Convulsing is another band I need to check out in more detail. This split was another late November release that I feel like slipped by too many people.

In December--if you'd been paying attention--Dsknt brought war to your ears (and sometimes to vowels) with their album PhSPHR Entropy. Their style is definitely bottom heavy, pairing low growls with a bass-heavy production. For reasons I probably can’t defend in a musicological sense, I’m put in mind of Portal--I think they share a dense muscularity, but the big difference is that Dsknt doesn’t employ Portal’s suffocating impenetrability and focuses on songs that mere mortals can comprehend. I couldn't resist the dissonant jabs of guitar overlaying the black-death churn on album opener "Exhaling Dust," and the rest of the album is equally compelling.

Helpless - Debt

By Justin C. I've probably mentioned before, but I'm far from a grind aficionado. It's a subgenre that I can appreciate far more often than I can enjoy, and the bands I do favor, like Fuck the Facts, tend to bring something

By Justin C.


I've probably mentioned before, but I'm far from a grind aficionado. It's a subgenre that I can appreciate far more often than I can enjoy, and the bands I do favor, like Fuck the Facts, tend to bring something a little different to the table. In FtF case, their longer songs make it easier for me to engage with the music.

But there are exceptions to every rule, and now that I have a shorter commute, sometimes it's nice to listen to an entire grind album instead of 7% of one funeral doom song. Enter Helpless with their first full-length, Debt. When I think of grind, I think of hyper-dissonance, densely packed instrumental layers, spastic fury, turn-on-a-dime tempo changes, vocals that go from high-pitched shrieks all the way down to tonsil-vomiting growls, and all of this burned through in a minute or less. Helpless follow some of that, but with variations I find particularly appealing.

For example, the sound is a bit "thinner," for lack of a better description, and I don't mean that as a negative. The guitar riffs have plenty of heft when needed, but they also favor higher chord voicings, dripping with dissonance, over chunkier low-end fare, and that allows the bass to stand out on its own. The separation of instruments in general is excellent, so your ear is better able to peel apart the layers. They do "anti-breakdowns," like early in "Out of Commission," where the music gets lean and quiet, but still just as mean. And some of the songs are just damn catchy. That can be a dirty word, and of course I appreciate a well-executed, ultra-dense freak out as much as the next person, but sometimes it's nice when something sticks in your head, whether it be the repeated growls of "STAY LOW" in "Ceremony of Innocence" or the closing moments of "Moral Bankruptcy" when an inner voice moves up and down inside a slow, steamrolling riff that, at times, almost sound a little hopeful, in spite of the relentlessly bleak-but-insightful lyrical content.**

And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the genre-busting length of the album closer, "Denied Sale," a mini-epic that's near the five-minute mark. This would be a perfect place for most bands to dump a bunch of ambient nonsense or screechy feedback, but Helpless see it through, including a particularly affecting (and effective) anti-breakdown that features just a quiet, single-tap rhythm before the band lurches back to sludgier territory, stabbed through with dissonant bites. The closing track does what the entire album does: it takes you on a ride, but never one where you completely lose sight of the music and have to frantically try to catch up, and it's filled with little earworms that will keep you coming back for more.

**There's even an ode to the antidepressant I've personally been taking for almost 20 years, "Sertraline." The song hints at the all-too-real problem some people face, including myself, which is a muted emotional response, a feeling of “existing for existence sake,” as the lyrics say.

The Vomiting Dinosaurs - Exoplanets

By Justin C. I reviewed some heavy albums near the end of 2016, and I mean "heavy" in every sense. Anagnorisis put together a powerful, multi-layered chunk of personal history, and I talked about Oskoreien's take on free will and mass shooter Charles Whitman. So it's time to start 2017 off with a little breather

By Justin C.


I reviewed some heavy albums near the end of 2016, and I mean "heavy" in every sense. Anagnorisis put together a powerful, multi-layered chunk of personal history, and I talked about Oskoreien's take on free will and mass shooter Charles Whitman. So it's time to start 2017 off with a little breather and revisit a more fun-loving project: The Vomiting Dinosaurs.

Matt Hinch covered Worship the Porcelain God, their first album for Grimoire Records, back in April of 2015. With their second Grimoire release, the band has turned their eyes skyward with Exoplanets. Exoplanets are planets that have been discovered outside our own solar system, and since we're hellbent on ruining our own, The Vomiting Dinosaurs's tour of the heavens comes at an appropriate time.

Matt described the band as "seriously amped thrash, death and grind," and to be honest, not much has changed on that score. If anything, the band has moved to slightly grindier song lengths, hovering around one minute in comparison to Porcelain God's two- and three-minute epics. "Lava Planet" clocks in at a massive four minutes, but the whole album (or EP?) tops out at 16 minutes. I live in the Boston area, so I've been able to measure my travel times in Exoplanet units. Most trips involve two to three full plays of the album at least, but you know what? I'm happy to let it repeat, because it's fast, dirty, and fun.

And I've learned some science by checking out some of the song titles. "Circumbinary" has a great, grumbling riff, while at the same time describing a planet that orbits two stars instead of one. "Ganymede" is a short ambient interlude, but did you know it's also a moon of Jupiter that happens to have its own magnetic field and a thin oxygen atmosphere? If you use Exoplanets as a study guide, though, you do need to be careful: "Jupiter" is not, in fact, an exoplanet, although the song's only lyrics, "I AM SO BIG!" is a correct description of the planet.

But maybe don't worry about the details so much and just thrash around in your car to this one. I promise it will help make the grim ending of 2016 and worrisome beginning to 2017 seem far away for at least a little while.

Vermin Womb - Decline

By Craig Hayes. Vermin Womb’s moniker is the perfect match for the band’s virulent sound. The trio’s music is an incensed breeding ground for pestilence and animus, and the band’s debut full-length, Decline, is a whirlwind of hate-fuelled intensity.

By Craig Hayes.


Vermin Womb’s moniker is the perfect match for the band’s virulent sound. The trio’s music is an incensed breeding ground for pestilence and animus, and the band’s debut full-length, Decline, is a whirlwind of hate-fuelled intensity. None of that is a huge surprise though. Because Vermin Womb were born from the demise of Clinging to the Trees of a Forest Fire: a band who described their music as, “total fucking dissonant anti-life funeral grind”.

That description fits Vermin Womb well too. The band’s frontman, Ethan McCarthy, was the vocalist and guitarist in CTTTOAFF, and these days he keeps his misanthropic credentials up to date by also fronting sludge sadists Primitive Man. Joining McCarthy in Vermin Womb are former CTTTOAFF bassist Zach Harlan and drummer J.P. Damron; completing a clearly murderous meeting of minds.

Vermin Womb’s first release, 2014’s Permanence EP, was a cornucopia of grotesque sounds and harsh musicality. But Decline ups the onslaught ante by being heavier, angrier, speedier and a lot more confrontational. There’s no mistaking Vermin Womb’s hateful methodology, or their nihilistic philosophy, because hyper-speed blackened deathgrind tracks like “Industrialist”, “Rank & File” and “Pitiless” are entirely devoid of any accommodating handholds or rest stops. No question, those songs, and every other track on Decline, make it explicitly clear that Vermin Womb don’t give a fuck about you, me, or anyone.

Honestly, it’s great to be so hated. Because it’s that combination of sonic extremity and outright misanthropy that’s the key attractor on Decline. McCarthy, Harlan and Damron create hostile music that’s also deeply antagonistic. Tracks like “Inner World” and “Disrepair” aren’t passive. They wrap themselves in barbwire, and then take a wild lunge at you. “Entomb” and “Cancer” aren’t simply dissonant rampages where bass-blitzed grindcore, black metal and death metal are all dunked in a acid bath either. They’re trenchant tracks, and willfully provocative.

Vermin Womb dare you to make it through Decline. For those already initiated into the extreme music cabal, it’s a visceral thrill ride meeting that challenge. For the uninitiated, well, it’s probably best to be prepared for the worst, and then some, and then some more. Essentially, Decline is so good because it’s so ghastly. If you want blistering velocity, Decline’s got plenty of that. And if you want blastbeaten barbarity, an overdose awaits. Scorn. Violence. Contempt. Animosity. Catharsis. They’re all there in abundance on Decline as well. But what makes the album extra-specially rewarding is the unrelenting intensity of Vermin Womb’s loathing.

Sure, we’ve all heard a million bile-filled underground bands before. But Vermin Womb soar past mere animosity into the realms of psychotic belligerence. The result is a sound that’s as much Full of Hell as it Napalm Death, as much Hierophant as it is Diocletian, or as much Revenge as it is Vasaeleth. Point being, Vermin Womb make sure to spread the bitterness and depravity around. They hit a lot of abominable points on extreme metal map. And the band’s hybridized sound situates ultra-negativity front and centre, ceaselessly.

Decline is less than 30-minutes long, but it’ll leave you utterly reeling. McCarthy, Harlan and Damron don’t waste a second on superfluous filler. Or even take a moment to pause for breath. The tar-thick riffage, vitriolic howls, and hammering percussion are a non-stop nightmare –– which is, obviously, a gigantic tick in the plus column here. Produced to let the hate bleed and anger seethe with every rapid-fire musical movement, Decline is both a bleak reflection and grim projection of a world that’s well beyond repair. It’s Vermin Womb’s gruesome tribute, to humanity’s last gasps.

Wormrot - Voices

By Professor D. Grover the XIIIth. Greetings and salutations, friends. Your esteemed Professor returns today to discuss the return of Singaporean grind bastards Wormrot, whose new release Voices is their first full-length work in five years, an eternity in a subgenre that tends to measure time in 30 second increments.

By Professor D. Grover the XIIIth.


Greetings and salutations, friends. Your esteemed Professor returns today to discuss the return of Singaporean grind bastards Wormrot, whose new release Voices is their first full-length work in five years, an eternity in a subgenre that tends to measure time in 30 second increments. Wormrot’s rise to fame was, appropriately enough, blisteringly quick, thanks to the strength of their debut album Abuse, which packed a lot of classic grindcore fury and a little bit of groove into 22 minutes. Their followup, Dirge, cemented their status as an essential modern grind band, and so it was something of a surprise when the band announced that they were taking a multi-year hiatus, driven in no small part by Singapore’s compulsory national service. However, they continued to work on new material, replaced their drummer, and now the fruit of that long labor has come to light in the form of Voices.

At 20 songs spread across 26 minutes, Voices is the longest album in the Wormrot archive, both in total length and in average song length. Lest you worry that the band was becoming long-winded, however, rest assured that most of the song durations here still hover around the minute mark (there are only three tracks that clock in at longer than 1:23 and serve to skew the statistics a bit). More surprisingly, however, is that the band experiments with their tried-and-true sound on a number of tracks, courtesy of some melodic riffs that seem to draw influence from black metal, shoegaze, and the work of Gridlink. (The Gridlink comparison is especially apt when Arif’s higher-pitched screams are worked into the mix, bringing to mind Jon Chang’s distinctive vocals.) It’s a surprise, to be sure, but it also brings some added variety to the album and provides the listener with a break from the more traditional grind blasting.

Wormrot 2011. Photo by Metal Chris

With regard to the aforementioned blasting, Wormrot’s new drummer Vijesh acquits himself well, anchoring the album’s shifting tempos and laying down some devastating blastbeats. Guitarist Rasyid brings the band’s trademark riffs and grooves while incorporating a whole host of new textures into their sound, creating heaviness without the backing of a bass. And vocalist Arif mixes high shrieks and low grunts deftly, a key component in the band’s signature viciousness. The result is that Voices will immediately feel familiar to Wormrot fans while simultaneously throwing those same fans a few curveballs.

The marketing push behind Voices has made heavy use of the hashtag #MakeEaracheGrindAgain, a worthwhile sentiment if I’ve ever heard one, and something I can support, unlike the actual campaign that they’re parodying. In a year that’s seen some quality grindcore releases (from the likes of Magrudergrind, Gadget, Venomous Concept, Rotten Sound, and Collision), Voices is a standout and a fitting return for Wormrot. It simultaneously establishes that the trio have lost nothing in the last five years and expands upon their established sound without losing any of what makes them distinctive. Here’s hoping that it’s not four more years until the next album.

Closet Witch / Euth - Split

By Matt Hinch. I can't recall just how I got turned on to Closet Witch but I have a thing with Witch/Wizard bands so I had to check out the Iowa band's split with Euth. Now usually said Witch/Wizard bands fall on the stoner/doom end of the spectrum but not so with these bands.

By Matt Hinch.


I can't recall just how I got turned on to Closet Witch but I have a thing with Witch/Wizard bands so I had to check out the Iowa band's split with Euth. Now usually said Witch/Wizard bands fall on the stoner/doom end of the spectrum but not so with these bands. This split is high intensity grindcore. And while both bands will tear you a new orifice, Closet Witch spoke to me more, buried themselves in my brain, and made me do strange things.

Closet Witch has three tracks on offer here. Opener “Funeral Regrets” leads with an opera/orchestral intro that is no preparation for the violence that explodes at the :23 mark. Vocalist Mollie Piatetsky wastes no time stripping flesh from bone with her uber-pissed screams. But this is no monochromatic all-out assault. Varying tempos send the listener spiralling in recoil one moment and the next launches them into the pit ready to wreck any chumps that that happen to get in the way. You'll even get some eye-of-the-storm melody/quietude that's shattered by the next track.

Which happens to be the nihilistic and relentless “Civil Necessity”. It's neck-snapping and raw (guitarist Alex Crist records all their work in a basement). The band ploughs through you like a tank juiced on nitrous firing percussive salvos at will courtesy of drummer Royce Kurth leaving nothing unaffected. All the while Mollie makes the listener feel small, as if cowering from the destructive wrath.

“Nehkbet” keeps the momentum going, at times even cranking the intensity up another notch. With some almost black metal (non-tremolo) riffing dropping into a killer mosh part, Cory Peak's bass breaks through. Smart “mixing” (their quotation marks, not mine) and small touches let you know these cats aren't just pure rage. Their aim is clear: sonic annihilation on a budget. Mission accomplished. Now to see if their campaign of carnage feels the same on their previous split, demo and pair of EPs (all since 2014!).

Wyoming's Euth are a noisier, more dissonant bunch. James Reed's screech is just as eviscerating as his vocal counterpart but some death growls get mixed in as well on “Violent Reprieve”. On the whole they're beefier than CW and get into some real nasty complication and noisiness while tossing some killer sludge riffs into the chaos. It's enough to induce a certain amount of panic and fear for your sanity.

“Blind Rotters” closes out the split ricocheting off every conceivable surface as it tumbles through a vortex of screams. Guitarist Nate Fitzgerald, bassist Niko Kolis and drummer Adam Croft even venture into some avante-black territory before finishing off with some gut punch riffing that sort of reminds me of now-defunct I Hate Sally.

This split will leave you broken and exhausted (if you're doing it right) but addicted and ready for more. Two bands twisting grind to their own purposes and leaving it all on the floor. Can't beat that!

Giveaway - A Fortnight Spent Beneath Ashen Skies t-shirt by Christian Degn

[Welcome to the second Metal Bandcamp giveaway! Recently I fell in love with a t-shirt featuring the gorgeous drawing A Fortnight Spent Beneath Ashen Skies by Christian Degn. After procuring it a thought entered my mind: more people should know about this shirt

The giveaway is over. See who won at the bottom of the post.

[Welcome to the second Metal Bandcamp giveaway! Recently I fell in love with a t-shirt featuring the gorgeous drawing A Fortnight Spent Beneath Ashen Skies by Christian Degn. After procuring it a thought entered my mind: more people should know about this shirt, so they can love it like I do. Hence this giveaway, enter it and you may win the t-shirt for yourself to wear.

Besides the giveaway we have music as well. Christian was kind enough to send me a Bandcamp playlist of albums that kept him company while creating the drawing. Enjoy, and check out his store for prints (and the t-shirt if you do not win it here).]


The title of the drawing on this shirt is "A Fortnight Spent Beneath Ashen Skies, an Eternity Under the Eyes of Our Lord” which was a phrase that kept repeating in my head as I was drawing it. This is usually how I name pieces, if they do end up getting a name. The only symbolism that I intentionally put into this image was the hour glass, and it’s meaning is actually not terribly deep, simply representing mortality. I suppose this whole illustration could be dedicated to this idea. Everything else is just there because I liked how it looked. I have plans to make more shirts with other illustrations I’ve done, but I figured I would start out with one of my older drawings. In total I probably spent around 20 or so hours on this piece, possibly more or less. It was on my desk for about a month while I worked on other drawings and school work, picking away at it slowly. Of course I had plenty of music keeping me company through this process, here are a few of the albums I recall playing regularly around the time of working on it.


This album was playing as I started this drawing. Originally I was only planning to draw the left half of the image. I had started it a couple of weeks before my birthday and was drawing it as as a sort of gift for myself, and with another year passing, an hourglass seems fitting. Xothist has a interesting songwriting style that really lets my mind wander with their meandering compositions, but it still has a rawness that keeps it very mysterious and menacing while demanding attention. I also had the Dwarfer cassette playing a lot as well around this time, though I’m not sure if the band has a stream anywhere. Either way, this stuff deserves way more praise than I see it getting. Really top notch stuff!

I’ve always been infatuated with Locrian’s music since I was first introduced to them, but this album really caught me off guard from track one. All their releases have a really long shelf life for me as well, if that’s the right way to put it? I mean I had this album in rotation regularly up until Infinite Dissolution which followed this release (and it’s kinda been the same story with that album!) My routine during this summer was to go for an evening run and come home and sit by the fan and blast this record while playing an hour or so of Metroid 2 on gameboy before working on art stuff. It makes for the perfect soundtrack to a lonely space exploration game! Locrian’s musical sensibility and aesthetic always has the feeling of intrigue and haziness, like seeing a mysterious door in a dream that you know you want to approach, but are apprehensive about. But the band shows you inside the door and it’s usually nothing to be afraid of, but something to find wonder in. I also always love seeing Terence Hannum’s collage pieces using cassette tape and design elements from labels. As a generally line-oriented artist, I’ve always taken a lot away from seeing his work. I hope I can see some in person eventually, I’m sure the light interacting with the tape provides a whole new level to the viewing experience. I’ll quit fawning now ha!

I always have to listen to a Krallice album at some point during a drawing. There’s something about hearing the way these dudes account for every detail in their songs that really lends itself to falling into that sort of zen state, where inking monotonous lines becomes more meditative than tedious. The word I always see people throw around to describe Krallice is dizzying, which really is probably the best way to describe any Krallice riff. The other thing I love about how detail-oriented this band’s discography tends to be, is that I can almost always find something new on every listen. Not a lot of bands do that for me! This was another album I was playing on cassette a lot, and hearing that extra layer of fuzz really makes you aware of how much influence these guys drew from that raw black metal sound. If you can find a copy I recommend you snagging it! (if only for the alternate cover art on the j-card, which has grade-A layout!)

I believe I may have actually stumbled across this album through this very site! I probably played it at least once during every drawing I did between 2014 and 2015. I really love how spacey this album feels, despite a pretty grind-y backbone. For me it feels a lot like Vektor meets Gridlink but a little bit more blackened? I think the thing that really kept me coming back to this release the most was actually the vocal mix. It has those sort of DSBM howls and it fits with the song writing excellently. I usually pay attention to guitars and drums more than anything so it’s rare for me to find vocals done in a way that actually make them the highlight. These make me feel like a little kid hearing heavy metal for the first time and being kind of scared but still transfixed. Also just like.. the riffs, man!

This might be my favorite album ever. It’s almost always in rotation, but I was listening to this more than usual right as I was finishing up on this drawing because, if I remember correctly, The Unnatural World had just come out earlier in the year. I thought about including that album instead, since it was as significant around that time for me, but I couldn’t bring myself to put it above this record which always really messes me up in the best way on every listen. I don’t know what I could say about Deathconsciousness that hasn’t already been said and said more eloquently than I’m capable of, but there’s no way I couldn’t give it a mention. Also I believe the Flenser just announced another pressing recently so I suggest jumping on that if you get the chance! The sleeve and zine included are absolutely stunning! A detail I love is that the Flenser pressing uses the Jaques-Louis David cover, and then uses the original LP cover for the zine. This album definitely demands your attention the first handful of listens. I suggest turning it up very loud and turning off all the lights! Repeat until you’ve gained enough immunity that you can actually draw to this album without sobbing all over your paper!

[The giveaway is over. Thanks to all who entered, and for all the nice comments. The randomly selected winners are:

Brad Sanders29 - bradscottsand AT gmail DOT com
AM30 - merschat AT gmail DOT com

The t-shirts have now been sent to Brad from New York and Artie from Texas. Congratulations to both of you!]

From The Metal Archives Vol. 3 - Migration Fest 2016

[I had the time of my life at the recent Migration Fest, held in Olympia, Washington. Musically the festival was a stunning success, I mean just check the lineup. It was superbly organized and run. Also Migration Fest simply oozed good atmosphere

By the reviewers from The Metal Archives.

[I had the time of my life at the recent Migration Fest, held in Olympia, Washington. Musically the festival was a stunning success, I mean just check the lineup. It was superbly organized and run. Also Migration Fest simply oozed good atmosphere, more than any festival I can remember; three days of friendship and metal.

For a good full roundup of Migration Fest check out this three-parter by our friends at No, Clean, Singing. What you have here is simply Metal Archives reviews on two of my takeaways from the fest: Dead to a Dying World, who I reconnected with, and Yautja, who I had not heard before. Both played fantastic sets; go check them out live if you get the chance.]

Artwork by Sera Timms

Considering "atmospheric" has been essentially reduced to another genre tag, it doesn't capture what Dead to a Dying World have achieved here. Litany feels carefully crafted in a way extreme metal rarely does, and perfect balance every song strikes between doom and classical elements captures the mournful spirit that bands that label themselves "atmospheric" wish they could emulate. Dead to a Dying World call their music "apocalyptic," and the musical nihilism that implies perhaps comes closest to conveying the terrible beauty of Litany's six movements. [read ThuribleOfDarkness's full review here.]

Artwork by Caleb Gregory

Sure, there's grind here but there's a lot of other stuff like mathcore, death metal, experimental and a big dose of sludge. It's almost like a southern appropriation of the US East Coast's hipsterism. In some ways, they're Tennessee's chaotic answer to Krallice or to early Mastodon, they have those odd rhythms while keeping the heaviness as an integral part of their identity. While there's an interesting variety of tempos, all of supreme quality, you never get lost with Yautja. They're taking you places that you wasn't quite sure were real. From the grind might of "Blinders" to the weird epic sludge of "Faith Resigned" (a song that sounds like Crowbar who suddenly became a forward thinking band), it's as a varied as you'll get for a grindcore band. [read Metantoine's full review here.]

Fuck the Facts - Desire Will Rot

By Matt Hinch. Canada’s Fuck the Facts have long been known for their intensity both in the live environment and on record. Having witnessed them perform in the most intimate of spaces (a living room) I can attest to that. Their ability to bring that energy into the studio is what has positioned FtF as one of Canada’s greatest current metal exports but also as a well respected entity outside those borders.

By Matt Hinch.

Artwork by Mel Mongeon

Canada’s Fuck the Facts have long been known for their intensity both in the live environment and on record. Having witnessed them perform in the most intimate of spaces (a living room) I can attest to that. Their ability to bring that energy into the studio is what has positioned FtF as one of Canada’s greatest current metal exports but also as a well respected entity outside those borders. While they haven't rested on their laurels, new album Desire Will Rot is the first time they've captured the magic on a full-length record since 2011’s Die Miserable. It seems like forever but the Ottawa-based grindcore quintet has lost none of the fire that made that album so good.

With a band like FtF one can never be too sure of what to expect. Desire Will Rot makes good on that statement adding some surprising elements to their potent mix of grind and death metal. But of course, save the nearly 8-minute ambient/noise track "Circle", the intensity rarely lets up ensuring maximum aural carnage.

From the opening track, "Everywhere Yet Nowhere" the fierceness of their grind slaps the listener right in the face. Vocalist Mel Mongeon and bassist/vocalist Marc Bourgon trade off his low growls with her feral screams, sending heartbeats racing as guitarists Topon Das and Johnny Ibay try keeping pace with drummer Mathieu Vilandre. This tornado of hateful emotion continues unchecked in one form or another throughout the album. Except the aforementioned (but still cool) "Circle".

Photos © John Mourlas. All rights reserved.

Fuck the Facts plunge headlong from one riff to another leaving a stream of twisted bodies in their wake. Much of the time the mood is just plain mean even though the members are anything but. However, they never stick to one mode for too long, shifting from grinding blasts to groovy death metal to powerful doom, often in the same, short song. That’s where they excel though.

Stitching together disparate elements, multitudes of riffs and moods as effortlessly as they do is what sets them apart. No matter how abrupt the change it always feels natural. Instead of alienating the listener by keeping them constantly off balance, they reward them with yet another intense section to sink their moshing teeth into.

"Storm of Silence" illustrates this point (and the unexpected element) perfectly. Ascendant guitars reach beyond the pummeling deathgrind loaded with vicious intent and intense blasts to compound the cathartic release through a series of stops and starts culminating in a very non-grind shredding solo from Das. It’s the kind of track (along with its follow-up "Solitude") that keeps the listener guessing but not waiting.

Photos © John Mourlas. All rights reserved.

Desire Will Rot just keeps getting stronger as it goes along. "False Hope" is just outstanding. Das weaves intricacies and temperate melody into the violence. The inertial reaction to the whipping shifts in direction is almost sickening. Blasting grind meets death metal with brief room to breathe and massive hauling doom all tied together with a melody that makes it all feel so cleansing. If the album stopped right there it would feel right but it’s not called "False Hope" for nothing.

After "Circle" the album closes out with "Nothing Changes". Chugging rhythms and quiet/loud dynamics punish with melody bubbling beneath the dark surface. Overall it’s a different turn from the grinding nature but they put no less into it. Each successive note feels like another nail in the coffin until it abruptly rises from that eternal sleep with an air of triumph and unstoppable determination shaded by revenge.

Fuck the Facts, through Desire Will Rot are all about the intensity, creativity and uncompromised savagery. The only concessions they make are the ones they choose to and not without good reason. Every grinding blast, every death metal charge, every vocal growl or shriek stabs deep unleashing a flurry of emotions from violent to mournful. But one thing is for certain, you won’t stand still. The desire to throw yourself head first into any and every obstacle will rot within until it is fulfilled. Desire Will Rot is the sort of grindcore album that takes you over, and works you over until the final note. It’s inescapable.

Metal Blade is now on Bandcamp!

By Andy Osborn. Metal Blade is now on Bandcamp. I was wondering when, if ever, I would get the chance to type those words as that little sentence is about the most exciting news that could land on the desks of our little site. Ubiquitous and world-renowned

By Andy Osborn.

Artwork by Necrolord

Metal Blade is now on Bandcamp. I was wondering when, if ever, I would get the chance to type those words as that little sentence is about the most exciting news that could land on the desks of our little site. Ubiquitous and world-renowned, the California-based label has been arguably the most important supporter of metal over the thirty-three years of its existence. They helped give birth to and nurture extreme metal in all its forms and continue to put out some of the best heavy music in the world.



They've started stocking their page with some of their best artists including the complete catalog of The Black Dahlia Murder and all of Cattle Decapitation's full-lengths save their debut. Not that they need any introduction, but simply seeing these bands on Bandcamp is a joy. The Black Dahlia Murder is THE band that got me interested in extreme metal, and while their recent output hasn't been overtly original, they are still without a doubt one of the best Melodic Death Metal acts on the planet. Their first three albums were absolutely pivotal in forming my tastes in all things extreme, and doubtless this is the case with many people. Cattle Decapitation, on the other hand, are only improving with time. Monolith of Inhumanity ranks in my top five albums ever. It embodies everything I love about metal and shows the long-running Deathgrind weirdos are at the top of their game. Both bands' highly anticipated upcoming albums are up and ready for pre-order.

Artwork by Wes Benscoter

The across the board $10 asking price is a bit high, but knowing that the money is going straight into the hands of this important label makes it worth it. Obviously, we here at Metal Bandcamp are excited. Expect plenty of Metal Blade-centric reviews, roundups, and discography specials in the near future.

The Vomiting Dinosaurs - Worship the Porcelain God

By Matt Hinch. Now just hold on. Yes, a name like The Vomiting Dinosaurs does sound laughable, and at first I was thinking “Really?” That coupled with the cover art (the toilet from the last metal show you went to in an apocalyptic garbage heap)

By Matt Hinch.

Artwork by Gruesome Graphics

Now just hold on. Yes, a name like The Vomiting Dinosaurs does sound laughable, and at first I was thinking “Really?” That coupled with the cover art (the toilet from the last metal show you went to in an apocalyptic garbage heap) and most people would be likely to dismiss it outright. But since it came from the Grimoire Records camp I gave it a shot. And wow! Worship the Porcelain God is actually pretty good!

The Virginian trio put together a very Reign in Blood-like 28 minutes of seriously amped thrash, death and grind. Depending on the track and the angle you look at it from, Worship the Porcelain God can feel like any one of those genres, or all of them at once.

The vocals fall into two camps, black metallic and deathly growl (sort of like a vomiting dinosaur). Both quite well done. Except maybe the 30 second track tacked on called “Cat Slug”. It's just the vocalist(?) sounding like a slug coughing up a hairball. Kinda gross, definitely unnecessary but at least it's at the end. But in case you hadn't guessed already this isn't exactly a serious band.

They are serious about kickin' ass though. Crunchy, grinding guitars rip and slash through high-velocity thrashiness and grind-fueled madness. There's even a bit of a crossover feel.

It's not all speed though. Groovier, chugging riffs have their place too. Perhaps it's just where my mind/ears/eyes have been this weekend but The Vomiting Dinosaurs sort of recall the speed of Rigor Mortis, or the menacing blackened thrash of Blood Tsunami. Thrash weekend.

If you can relax a little, shake off that seriousness and give The Vomiting Dinosaurs a chance. You'll be rewarded with a concise blast of grinding death/thrash full of energy and ripping rhythms and riffs. And songs like “ChristianMingle.kill”, “Crypt Kegger” and “Speed Metal Hunks”. Keeping the majority of the 12 tracks under the three minute mark squeezes out the need for solos though. There's the grind for ya.

Grab some buds, some brews, vomit like dinosaurs and Worship the Porcelain God!

Corrupt Leaders - Grindmother

By Ulla Roschat. Grindmother is without any doubt a very cool EP title and it becomes even cooler when you learn about its origin. The 66 year old mother of Corrupt Leaders’ vocalist is guesting on the EP, and this came about, because she wanted to try out grindcore screams

By Ulla Roschat.

Artwork by Varises Otak

Grindmother is without any doubt a very cool EP title and it becomes even cooler when you learn about its origin. The 66 year old mother of Corrupt Leaders’ vocalist is guesting on the EP, and this came about, because she wanted to try out grindcore screams just for fun and for the experience. It turned out that she did this pretty well! Fortunately her attempts have been recorded in a video which already went viral in the past several weeks, but in case you haven’t watched it yet, you can do so here below.

The best part of the story though is, of course, that the band included her vocals on the first track “Black Cloud” and named the EP Grindmother after her.



After hitting the play button this four song EP was over before I even realized what just had happened to me, but I was happy that it HAD happened to me. Certainly it didn't take too much time to listen to it several times in a row to find out that this is a perfectly delivered punch of grind and hardcore aggression.

The Canadian five piece band Corrupt Leaders pack a whole bunch of varying style elements into these four songs with a playing time of about three minutes all together. Besides the crusty punk and grindcore, there's a strong black metal flavor, especially in the vocals, and there are even some pinches of slow and heavy sludge. It almost feels as if the band carved a deep groove into another dimension to bring as much thick intensity to those three minutes of black grinding ferocity as possible. Filling them with great riffs, even something like atmosphere, and breathtaking dynamics and tempos; everything tight and right on point.

Corrupt Leaders are a pretty young band, they formed in 2013. After their self titled debut in 2014 and a split recording with Dogma in the same year, Grindmother is their third release and, despite all brevity, it truly marks a huge leap in their progress. The band are currently writing on their first full-length LP. I’m not sure about how Corrupt Leaders translate “full-length” in terms of the absolute number on the time line, I just hope for more of this impressive black/grind/punk onslaught.

The song "Mass Consumed" is featured on The Wicked Lady Show 84

The Steve Jansson Experience

By Kevin Page. You may have heard his name before due to February's fabulous release from Crypt Sermon. But did you know he is part of 3 other bands, all of which predate Crypt Sermon?

By Kevin Page.

Photo by Dante Torrieri / Blow The Scene

Steve Jansson. You may have heard his name before due to February's fabulous release from Crypt Sermon. But did you know he is part of 3 other bands, all of which predate Crypt Sermon? I talked with him recently regarding each of these.

Artwork by Brooks Wilson from Trenchrot

Thanks for talking with me Mr. Jansson. Let's first discuss, Trenchrot and the Necronomic Warfare album.

Trenchrot is a project that was started purely for fun. Brooks Wilson and I had talked about doing a death metal project for a long time but it wasn't until we met Justin Bean that the ball got rolling. The goal was strictly to make death metal in the style of bands we have loved for years and grown up listening to. Progress or breaking ground isn't really in the agenda. It's strictly a studio band as of now for a variety of reasons.

To me it has a feel of a cross between both American & European styles without coming across as a total retro fest.

A lot of people have said that and I think that's very cool. Melding the two together came very naturally and I wouldn't say that it was a conscious effort on our end as much as we were just simply writing death metal that we liked and wanted to hear. Regarding the retro thing, there has definitely been a pretty big resurgence in this old school styled death metal. I'm not sure if this is a good or a bad thing for us but people seem to like the record and again, it's something all of us have wanted to do for a really long time.

Artwork by Brooks Wilson

Let's talk some Infiltrator. This is some speedy dirty thrash with maybe even a touch of blackness to it. Very much an 80's feel to this one and even more of a throwback then Trenchrot is.

Infiltrator initially started off as a solo project. I wanted to do really energetic and dirty speed metal with a shitload of ripping guitar solos since the band I was in at the time wasn't very fulfilling. Initially, I would have had an actual singer do vocals but I sort of got stuck doing them. I eventually got a band together and it became more than just a solo project. However, we lost the second guitarist and it put us out of commission for live shows and we never ended up finding anyone to fill the shoes.

Funny you mention that, as I saw a review, which loved the album, but felt it could use clean wailing vocals, to make it stand out ever more. Did that thought ever cross your mind or does it now?

The direction of the music now is a bit different then it was in the beginning. We have a lot of material written but are currently taking a bit of a break due to schedules, life events, etc. I really do wish I would have tried to find a vocalist or at least tried my hand at "singing". It is what it is, though.




Finally, let's talk some Unrest. With an album title of Grindcore, I think people know what to expect here.

Yeah, we certainly weren't trying to trick anyone. Unrest goes back to 2007/08, actually. Chris Grigg and I wanted to more or less do a Nasum styled band but in the end I don't think we sounded much like Nasum, haha.

Anyways, we recorded this album in 2011 or 2012. It seems like a lifetime ago at this point. but we finished the vocals for it this year. This album was something that we thought would be haunting us for the rest of our lives. It never got finished or released for a variety of reasons and the main one being that we just weren't happy with how the album sounded.

Chris moved to NYC and life just sort of got in the way for everyone, so the album got shelved and buried. However, Chris dug up the files and managed to fix everything we were having issues with at the beginning of 2014 and we finished the vocals in March. I think that I can speak for everyone and say that this record is very personal to all of us. For me, it was my first actual band and I learned so much about songwriting, recording, etc. This is also how we all became friends as well as developed working music relationships.

Needless to say, we are fucking stoked to finally see that this album will see the light of day. We are all very proud of it.