Chicago

Hellfire Deathcult, Al Nombre De La Muerte (Regain 2022)

Wayne Edwards, , , , , , ,

The new album from Hellfire Deathcult screams from a deep void, Al Nombre De La Muerte.

Hellfire Deathcult is a black metal band from Chicago that perpetrates death and doom metal as well as part of the heavy music they create. Their first EP came out in 2014, Ave Mors, followed by their debut long-player two years later, Culto A La Muerte. The sophomore album was the well-received Black Death Terroristic Onslaught (2018). Fans of the black metal trio have had their longest wait yet for new music, and they are rewarded with a voracious, pillaging record of blight.

After the mood-setting introductory song “Grand Invocation Ov Black Death,” there are ten searing tracks on the album. First up, “Consumed By The Eternal Darkness Ov Death,” a song that delivers on the promise of its title. Dripping with blood, pain, and black ichor from the deepest realms, this music intends ill. Black metal indeed. “Devoted To The Order Ov The Black Light” continues the ideas, fostering no hope and no regard for the well-being of the universe. Here the cosmos faces relentless blackgrind metal and can do nothing to stop it.

Other tracks to look out for include “Divinities Damnation,” which starts on deep notes of doom (and I always appreciate that), and “Beneath The Black Moons Incantation” that pairs slower moments with the raking black metal speed so prevalent on other songs. As I think back on it now, “Ritualistic Sacrifice Ov Sacred Blood” might even have the edge over these two in my mind. The music is sinister, filled with fear-inducing chaos and dreary, soaking moments of gloom. Recommended.

Al Nombre De La Muerte is out on June 30th from Helter Skelter Productions through Regain Records. A vinyl version will follow later in the year.

Links.

Bandcamp, https://regainrecords.bandcamp.com/album/al-nombre-de-la-muerte

Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/HellfireDeathcult

Regain Records, https://regainrecords.bandcamp.com/

© Wayne Edwards

Hellfire Deathcult, Al Nombre De La Muerte (Regain 2022)

Morgue Supplier, Inevitability (Transcending Obscurity 2022)

Wayne Edwards, , , , , ,

Grindcore vaporizers Morgue Supplier hit back hard on their new album, Inevitability.

Paul Gillis (guitar, vocals) founded Morgue Supplier more than twenty years ago. Joined by Stephen Reichelt (bass), the pair assemble brutal death metal and grindcore designed to disturb your sense of self. Both are also in Drug Honkey, but the music here is off in a different direction. Over the years, Morgue Supplier has issued two previous long-players and a host of EPs. It has been six years since their last full-length, the aptly titled Morgue Supplier, so we have been standing at the barricade for a while now. It was worth the wait.

The album begins in chaos with “Absurd Identity.” The opening bars are scrabbling madness. A beat and riff becomes discernable eventually, then it comes and goes. The vocals are the howls of a gored bull and the hiss of a diabolical serpent that is being crushed to death. The music is sorrow and suffering juxtaposed with active violent aggression and surrounded by confusion. “Closing In” comes next and is more linear, at least to begin with. It does its own share of twisting and curling amidst the screams, miasm, and turpitudes. “Empty Vacant Shell” completes the first triplet with a strangling odyssey of retribution.

An ominous transition piece brings us to the second triplet. “My Path to Hell” has a fairly clear narrative and “Existence Collapsed” lowers the doom on doleful listeners. The most impressive song on the record for me is “Thoughts of Only Darkness.” Clocking in at over eight minutes, the epic nature of the track allows for more development of musical ideas. It is a journey, but not a labyrinth – you begin to feel how it is going to unfold as you progress and you become part of the darkness. The title track is the cooldown piece at the end, offering closure but no hope. This album is loud and noisy metal that will leave you bruised. Recommended.

Inevitability is out on Friday, May 13th through the irrepressible Transcending Obscurity Records. Have a look at all the related merch and variants available for this release and I am sure you will be satisfied. Links below.

Links.

Bandcamp, https://morguesupplierband.bandcamp.com/

Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/morguesupplier

Transcending Obscurity Records, https://transcendingobscurity.aisamerch.com/

© Wayne Edwards

Morgue Supplier, Inevitability (Transcending Obscurity 2022)

Misfire, Sympathy For The Ignorant (MNRK Heavy 2022)

Wayne Edwards, , , , , ,

Chicago thrash trio Misfire let loose their debut MNRK Heavy long-player on April Fools’ Day, Sympathy For The Ignorant.

Misfire is Jay Johnson (vocals, guitar), Sean Coogan (vocals, bass), and James Nicademus (drums). The band came together just a few years ago, and the musicians have been plying their trade for some time, despite their youth. Two earlier EPs provided source material for the full-length at hand, and signaled concretely the direction the music was going. This is thrash metal infused with rare spices. The compositions have a bald familiarity but when you listen to Misfire’s music you are immediately aware that you’ve never really heard anything much like this before, taken all together.

“Fractured” is the first song, and it has some of the most creative rhythm and guitar work I’ve heard in a long time featured at the beginning. It is enthralling. After the first vocal passages, a cracking bass line sets up a ripping lead guitar break. It is a combination of mysticism, shallowly buried homage, and cutthroat thuggery. Fantastic.

Every song is a battering, one way or another, for your complicit brain pan. I love the aggression in the vocals on “Red Flag” especially, but of course it is always there, track by track. “War Of Mine” steps out on a doom cadence but breaks that rank almost immediate for full-scale charge, lapsing now and then into groove. And those sudden, exposed bass lines are incredible. A punch and a lurch and a steady trajectory all in the same vicinity.

Whether it is the slow burn of “No Offense” or the pulsing haze of the title track, this album holds nothing back. Recommended.

Sympathy For The Ignorant is on the shelf Friday, April 1st through MNRK Heavy.

Band photo by Wombat Fire.

Link.

Bandcamp, https://misfireofficial.bandcamp.com/releases

Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/Misfireofficial

MNRK Heavy Records, https://mnrkheavy.com/

© Wayne Edwards.

Misfire, Sympathy For The Ignorant (MNRK Heavy 2022)

Nequient, Darker Than Death Or Night (Nefarious Industries 2022)

Wayne Edwards, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Chicago hardcore band Nequient release their second full-length studio album this week, Darker Than Death Or Night.

You’ll see Nequient described as a hardcore band or maybe a death metal band. The press release declares the band’s music to be from a variety of wells, and that the band draws “influences from a broad spectrum of aggressive styles including grindcore, crust, sludge, death metal, black metal, and noise rock.” That covers a lot of ground, and it absolutely rings true. Wolves At The Door (2018) was Nequient’s first long-player, and I think the new one is even better. The band is Chris Avgerin (drums), Keenan Clifford (bass), Patrick Conahan (guitar), and Jason Kolkey (vocals).

The first track is a rampage, “First Casualty.” It sets the bar very high right at the jump. The chaos of “Worshippers of the Apocalypse” is what I imagine being gargled in Satan’s colon might be like; so to, “Consensual Hallucination.” The ragged rawness of these tracks is enough to make your gums bleed. The intensity and rapidly shifting off-angle attacks are a true aural battering. But this manner of music isn’t the only look you get, even if it does predominate. “Minotaur” is a gloriously doom-ridden landscape of mountain-high walls past which you cannot see the sun. “Wrongs” does this a bit, too, but with a more active brand of gloom.

The number one track for me comes near the end, “Bootlicker.” Here the emanations are barely contained. At many points along the way it seems like the music might burst apart into a ball of fire. “Golden Age of the Grift” is the kiss goodnight, and it is more of a kidney punch than a peck on the cheek. Nequient has put together one of the fiercest albums I have heard this year. Recommended.

Nefarious Industries will release Darker Than Death Or Night in multiple formats on Friday, March 18th and you can preorder it now.

Band photo by Nicolas Côté.

Links.

Bandcamp, https://nequient.bandcamp.com/

Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/nequientband

Nefarious Industries, https://www.nefariousindustries.com/

© Wayne Edwards. All rights reserved.

Nequient, Darker Than Death Or Night (Nefarious Industries 2022)

Clouds Taste Satanic, The Satanic Singles Vol. 2, review (Kinda Like Music 2020)

Wayne Edwards, , , , , ,

Clouds Taste Satanic releases Volume 2 in The Satanic Singles project.

This New York instrumental metal band is peopled by these fine persons: Steve Scavuzzo (guitar), Rob Halstead (bass), Greg Acampora (drums), and Brian Bauhs (guitar). For years on end they have been producing their unique brand of vocal-free doom (and doom-adjacent) heavy music, typically in long form. Recently they decided to shift gears a bit a put out a series of shorter cover pieces as singles, leading to a collection in the New Year. The latest installment has just appeared.

Volume 2 has two tracks. Side A is the Black Sabbath classic “Behind the Wall of Sleep” and Side B is the Chicago ballad “If You Leave Me Now,” with a minor title change. The Black Sabbath cover is a delight. It is the song we know by heart abstracted from Tony Iommi’s guitar and with the lead strings singing Ozzy’s part – plus a little extra razzle. Fantastic. “If You Doom Me Now” is a clear improvement over the original. I am a big Chicago fan, preferring the “25 Or 6 To 4” and “Sing A Mean Tune Kid” lanes. Dooming up the quiet, lilting vocal of the second-phase Chicago chart topper is the exact distinction that makes me like the song better.

I am loving this series. Highly recommended.

Bandcamp has Volume 2 waiting for you. There are vinyl versions as well, but know that V1 sold pretty fast so you want to get on it if you are interested in the physicals. Volume 3 drops on New Year’s Day so make a plan for that.

Links.

Bandcamp, https://cloudstastesatanic.bandcamp.com/

Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/CloudsTasteSatanic/

Spotify, https://open.spotify.com/artist/5QidF8yXlvTyGkDy24JImY

YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvVu8mcXrE2eVjq_ApcGBmw

Overview Article on Clouds Taste Satanic, https://flyingfiddlesticks.com/2020/04/07/a-quick-look-at-clouds-taste-satanic/

Clouds Taste Satanic, The Satanic Singles Vol. 2, review (Kinda Like Music 2020)