Epitaph – Sinner Waketh
There are nine full songs across the album’s ten tracks that pivot between blast, groove and doom and keep the vocal carousel spinning throughout.
Echelon – The Brimstone Aggrandizement
Sometimes playing an established style to the point of excellence is preferable to masturbatory experimentation. That is certainly the case with Echelon.
Dark Tranquility – Atoma
I would think a more accessible hard rock sound & production as found on this album would warrant more clean-singing, like it does on the title track. However, many songs lean heavily on the harsh growls.
SONG OF THE WEEK: Vermin Womb – Age of Neglect
This song, and the album from which it relentlessly crawls forth like an invading creature of spiteful violence, are among the most brutal, hateful, bile-filled creations I have ever heard.
Discarnatus – Awakened Through Pain
Discarnatus is like a re-animated corpse with blackened, putrefying flesh layered over a skeleton of death metal.
Scorched – Echoes of Dismemberment
The opening riffs…seem to take their time clomping up the stairs with the realization that killing you may be more of a challenge than they thought.
Morbo/Bunker 66 – Into the Morbid Bunker Split 7″
Sometimes 12 minutes of savagery is all you need.
Minenwerfer/1914 – Ich hatt einen Kameraden
As a historical album, really as an album in general, Ich hatt einen Kameraden (I have a comrade) is a masterpiece.
Disevered – Hammers of Blasphemy
The six songs make you feel like you’re in the middle of street fight.
Death Requisite – Second Death
Sarasota, Florida-based Death Requisite offer up a 20+ minute EP of symphonic-blackened death metal that shows a lot of promise for their future.