RECITATION - Recitation (2014)

A couple of days ago, I got an e-mail from my old friend Jeppe. He was in the amazing Obstacles, I tattooed him, he tattooed me, so yes... we go way back and I love him to pieces. In this e-mail, he told me about his new band and I clicked the link, expecting technical and jazzy instrumental music along the lines of his old band, but oh how wrong I was...

An ominous incantation over heavy as fuck downtuned dissonant riffs and cymbals crashing like the chains on a medieval torture device creeps up to me... unsettling, claustophobic, terrifying. This sure as hell isn't your mordern run of the mill occult doom, this shit is fucking EVIL! Khanate comes to my mind, Grief of course, even the insanity of Corrupted, all those pillars of gut wrenching heaviness - but as strange as it might seem, the band that I am most reminded of (even though Recitation sound nothing like them) is Goatlord. Recitation have the same fucked up atmosphere that evokes images of Hammer Horror mist, absolutely demented Lovecraft-ian madness instead of a watered down cartoon version.

The music of Recitation is very simplistic (as opposed to a sheer "simple"), yet very effective. Each instrument gets equal space, like lines of graves in an old cemetery, and this includes the vocals. Instead of "leading" the song somewhere, it's just another device in the ritual. The songs flow like ectoplasm from the mouth of a possessed person, like a spirit photography set to music. If you like your music dark and heavy, look no further. Recitation is the real shit.



http://recitation.bandcamp.com/
http://unholyrecitation.tumblr.com/

SATAN'S SATYRS "Die Screaming" LP (2014)

Greetings, Dear One, 'tis we.

Having heard the single off of this LP about two monts prior to its release, I said "Gee wiz, the greatest band since sliced bread sure has changed their sound a little. The vocals are clearly different and the production is a bit more polished. Excuse me while I grab the bits of my dick off the floor, it seems to have exploded while I was auditioning this." The single ruled, but not in a particularly Satan's Satyrs way, it was a bit different to what we were used to hearing from them, so the main question was: "Would they be able to pull it off?".

You bet your sweet ass.

When the album was uploaded to the Internet here and I finally got to listen to it, I found it to be... just so good. Like, everything you could ever want from a promising band's sophomore record: even better riffs, even better songwriting and experimenting with all sorts of vibes. I can't stress enough on how good the riffs are on this LP, they just keen delivering and delivering from the minute you drop the needle. And the vocals are just something very unique here, and by that I mean that you either learn to love the hell out of them, or they are a dealbreaker for you (yet so far I haven't heard anyone complain). Claythanas is just one of the most talented musicians out there and a personal hero for me. If my band is ever going places, it's going to be stepping on the steps of Satan's Satyrs, which means getting well-known in the underground by means of stupefying riffage, great songwriting and no-trend vintage vibes.

The only thing this album lacks a little for me is the cover art. I love the skeleton thing, but given the music we're dealing with here and the always-awesome previous SS artworks, this one could have used a little more sass in my opinion. Still, watch out freaks and fiends, we're dealing with one of the best albums of 2014.

9.5/10

ACID WITCH/NUNSLAUGHTER "Spooky" EP (2014)

It's just meaningless by now to say that I've been waiting for this single to arrive in the mail like Torquemada awaiting the Inquisition. This material is like the Half Life 3 of music to me, except this one actually exists right now, at the moment you are reading this. I've been so anxious to write about ACID WITCH on Tzeeeac since forever, noting the fact that I've loved every second of degraded doom/death metal ever since Witchtanic Hellucination came out in 2008 (I was 10 years old at the time), it just completely blew my head apart and changed the way I view death metal and music in general forever. It set the bar so high that only 5% of the bands I listen to manage to even headbutt that bar.

This being said, after three years of silence, ACID WITCH return with two new songs, in conspiracy with death metal maniacs NUNSLAUGHTER. How are they you ask? Exactly as I imagined them: completely familiar yet so fucking surprising. A witchfinder general's wettest dream.

SIDE DOOM

ACID WITCH open up the A side with "Evil", your classic doomdeath anthem, drenched in malicious keyboards and dicksnapping solos. Closer to the monumental first LP than the sophomore (which is good), it's a wild ride in rewind, slow yet deadly, mossy and infectious metal melody.

NUNSLAUGHTER go out of their league and puncture this vinyl with the slow number "Spooky Tails", and boy does it bring home the bacon. Heavy riffs, drums that sound like they've been pulled straight out of a boggling marsh and an attitude to match.

SIDE DEATH

NUNSLAUGHTER make their mark on this split with "A Sordid Past", a death metal song soufle, just what you'd expect from the Clevelanders, except for the lyrics that, instead of focusing on evil, satan etc, sing a bluesy ballad of death. Pretty spooky.

At this moment I would like all the people who don't listen to REPULSION to close the browser.

ACID WITCH just take every fragment of disbelief I ever had in them and stomp on it with leather clad boots. They play a fast, deathmetal/punk song, "Fiends Of Old" with their classic keyboard and solo hooks, and it's about the best thing you'll ever hear. Ever. A fist in the face of every ACID WITCH fan, a fist that reads:

Stealing pieces of the dead

Cause that's how Helga lost her head

Eating acid melts my head

As I listen to "Season of the Dead"

Rotten clothes make my rash grow

Got a bad case of impetigo...

10/10

Whitehorse - Raised Into Darknes (2014)

You already know Australia produces some of the most horrific (in the good sense of the word, obviously) metal bands to ever disgrace our world, so I won't go on about that. I'm gonna get straight to the point and tell you about Whitehorse, an unholy collective from Melbourne who play a sickening mixture of doom, sludge and noise. 

With more than 10 releases under their belts, Whitehorse are no rookies. Their music is crushing and meant to cause pain. The three songs on Raised Into Darkness crawl along at a funeral pace, propelled by slow, distorted riffs, deliberate use of noise and feedback and vocals that come in two flavors: growling and even more growling. Imagine the little girl from The Ring being stabbed in the throat and the Balrog from Lord of the Rings and you're coming close to what the vocals on this beast sound like. So, as you may gather, this is in no way easy listening. It's tedious, punishing, pitch black and it'll probably cause you to break out in boils. Which is why I suggest you go see them on the second half of their European tour. They're even playing with our buddies in Void Forger tomorrow. Hoo doggy!

HANDS AROUND YOUR THROAT: Mantar - Death by Burning (2014)

There's something inherently fascinating and perplexing about two-piece metal bands, to me at least. Hearing two people wielding drums and guitar with reckless passion and producing the same - but usually even more - amount of noise and hate as a five-piece band will always amaze me. The synergy between two people, connected through music, amplifying and complimenting each other's sounds and together creating something way bigger than themselves - that's fucking special, ya know?

Mantar are a prime example of this and they possess a rare talent: the second you hear the first riff of the first song, you involuntarily start a) nodding in approval or b) moshing violently and throwing furniture out the window. Much like another two-piece metal outfit I enjoy, namely Portland-based The Body, Mantar are able to effortlessly create pure, obliterating metal that comes at you like a bunch of angry, pissed off lions shooting out from an open cage. 

Without a moment's pause, Death by Burning, their debut album, storms through 10 tracks of face-splattering, ass-ripping, balls-to-the-wall metal. The moment you hit play, you are assaulted by non-stop insane & catchy pitt riffment and devastating drumming, along with well executed venomous vocals. Oh and the bass... - wait, there is no bass! All of this sonic destruction comes by way of guitar and drums alone. Holy shit!

Standout tracks? Spit, The Huntsmen and The Stoning, but the whole album is solid from start to finish. Okay, well maybe not right until the finish - the closing track, March of the Crows, is where the guys slow it down and try their hand at some hard-hitting, punishing doom metal in the vein of UK heavy-weights Conan. Obviously, they pull it off without breaking a sweat, but it seems like they're ending the album on a bit of a low-note. After riding a crazy, winding rollercoaster of some of the best riffage I've heard this year, I don't really wanna get off and go visit the haunted mansion. Death by Burning should have ended the same way it starts: guns blazing.  

This small grievance aside, there is no denying that Mantar have dropped one of the best albums of 2014 and I can definitely see Death by Burning occupying a place in the year-end lists of metal publications. And this is a band that hasn't even existed for a full year yet. Oh man! Best of all, they hail from Germany and one dude is German and the other is Turkish, so you know I wanna interview these guys and talk to them about fucking currywurst and kebabs, because I'm a fat piece of shit who only cares about music and food. Hell yeah bitches!

Oh and the cover kinda looks like a woman with a birthday cake on hear head. I seriously can't handle the amount of awesome these guys are throwing at me. 

Relentless - Souls of Charon (2013)

I think it was spring (or early summer) when I found out that these guys were releasing their debut (here be the article, but the youtube link is dead, so that doesn´t really matter anymore; for reference, the track was Souls of Charon, instrumental version). Time passed, the record was postponed, and after that I forgot about all the fuss.

Yet I´m here writing the review, ain´t I? 

I remembered about this album a couple of weeks ago and almost every day since then I´ve been giving it at least one spin, if not five or six. Now, for a record that barely hits the 35 minute mark, you might think it´s an absolute masterpiece. The truth, however, is in the eyes of the beholder. Or ears, in this case.

You see, Souls of Charon has some excellent instrumentation. The riffs are catchy, solos have actual melody behind them and the rhythm section is spot on. However, with the exception of the closing title track which fares well from start to finish, the rest of the songs take a little while to get interesting and that usually happens at around the half point of each. This is where the doom elements take a seat back and maidenesque, galloping riffs take their place.

With that said, we´ve come to the actual problem of this record: the vocals. To say that they are off-putting would be the most diplomatic way of handling things, and I´m going to do just that. With melodies that mostly follow the solo guitar, without any individual contribution, a nasal tonality buried deep in the mix (compared to the clearness of all the other instruments) and a very limited range, the vocal performance of Carlee Jackson is, and I´m sad to have to say this, the weakest element of this recording. 

But then again, I´ve been listening to this record for the last couple of weeks, so what´s the catch? 

There isn´t one, I tell you, however every time I hit the second half of Better Off Dead, the uplifting solo work of Forever Damned or the monstrously epic feeling that pours out of the title track, I can´t just shake the feeling that Souls of Charon, the album, if it were to benefit from a re-release where all the issues that currently plague it would be handled, it could just very well become the masterpiece heavy metal record (in vein with all the 70´s and 80´s kings) of the current decade.

Meanwhile, you´re free to have a listen on their bandcamp page, and please tell me if you happen to feel the same way.

Uaral - Sounds of Pain... (2005)

Adding to this year's GETY awards is yet another band (a duo, actually) I've just come upon (really, less than an hour ago). Hailing from Chile and playing a mind-fuckery of part acoustic/part doom metal, they have taken away all my capacity for writing something intelligible to share with y'all. 

So I just want to point you in the general direction, one in which guttural beast-like vocals are put over eccentric acoustic guitars in ways I never thought it was possible, where manly sobbing and paper tearing is right at home and where distortion and solos are rarely heard, but when they appear, well...

That's it. I swear, I am not capable of anything else. Please, just listen to this song.