Bifid Corpse – Dead and Decaying
The whole EP comes at you like a wounded bear, perhaps mortally wounded, but still having enough strength to eviscerate you on its way out. Dead & Decaying is filthy and ugly in the best possible way.
Scour – Scour
The short EP gives the sense of a relentless, many clawed demon screaming across the landscape for the sole purpose of rending flesh from bone.
Quinta Essentia – Initiates of the Great Work
I always love an album which forces me into some involuntary reaction, especially an album that touches whichever part of my lizard brain causing headbanging. Initiates in the Great Work is just such an album.
Nox – Ancestral Arte Negro 7″
It can be difficult to find worthwhile black metal in the underground, but also well worth the effort. The swirling riffs, brutal blasting, and flesh-rending vocal delivery of this brief release make it one of the black jewels that keep you looking.
Cough – Still They Pray
They are fantastic as making you feel the torment within the songs.
Anderson/Stolt – Invention of Knowledge
…a dazzling album overflowing with joy, warmth, drama, spectacle, and pure positive energy.
Asschapel – Total Destruction (1999-2006)
Though Asschapel doesn’t really sound like Napalm Death – you would never confuse the two – I was impressed by how much the rage of the songs reminded me of Napalm Death.
Ghoul – Dungeon Bastard
…from the very first riff, I was transported back to my 15 year old self, down in my basement bedroom, boom box cranked to 11, and shouting along with Mike that “All I wanted a Pepsi. Just one Pepsi.”
Inter Arma – Paradise Gallows
Paradise Gallows, like Sky Burial before it, is both expansive and oppressive in its ferocity, sometimes glacial, sometimes frenetic pacing, and its ability to suck all the light from the room in a way both tragic and beautiful.
Abominant – Napalm Reign
Let me present you with another exhibit in the case of “How to Make Excellent Death Metal.”