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Album Premiere: Sněť – Mokvání V Okovech

Right away Mokvání V Okovech, the debut full-length from Prague-based torturers Sněť, makes good on the foreboding promise of their demo from 2019. Now the quintet have returned with eight all-new tracks of their own devastating blend of subterranean and monstrous death metal. Topped off by one of the sickest cover arts we’ll see this year in death metal, Mokvání V Okovech (‘Soaking in Shackles’ according to Google’s translation) is nearly 30 minutes of old school rotten death metal played by callused and utterly detached psychopaths of the modern era.

Out this Friday on vinyl and CD from Blood Harvest and coming soon on cassette from Headsplit and Lycanthropic Chants (Europe), Mokvání V Okovech is a hostile and highly mandatory debut from one of this sickest new names in the death metal underground. Don’t miss it!

Mokvání V Okovech

Mokvání V Okovech by SNĚŤ

Support Sněť via Bandcamp

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Full EP Premiere: Coscradh – Mesradh Machae

Although they formed over a half-decade ago, these black/death Dubliners move at their own mysterious pace. Like some beast of folklore, Coscradh’s slayings are sporadic, but terribly feared and always discussed far and wide long after they’ve occured. The day has yet to come when these words will stop short of that mighty, snarling beast in its full-blown full-length glory, but there is good news yet. Not yet an album, but on Friday May 7, Coscradh will released two new songs in the form of a 7”—the latter, as you’ll read below, is a demo track from their forthcoming LP.

“On a one-day session in August 2020, Coscradh recorded a pre-production demo in preparation for the debut album and returned with a result so hideous that it would have been too merciful not to release a selected duo on 7”,” the band told us back in March. “‘Mesradh Machae’ is an old Gaelic term for ‘Heads of the men who have been slaughtered,’ in reference to the Celtic cult of the severed head and the reverence of such effigies in early Irish society. Accompanied by ‘Plagues of Knowth,’ an early demo version of a song that will be on the first full-length, an account of what could possibly have been one of the first plagues to hit the land.”

 

Out this Friday on 7” vinyl from Invictus Productions, this is . . .

Mesradh Machae 

Mesradh Machae by Coscradh

Coscradh

Invictus Productions

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Video Premiere: enditall – “give me nothing”

Earlier this year we streamed the debut album from North Dakota-based post-metallers enditall, and caught up wih their frontman Zander Ness, formerly of the black metal band Høst. enditall’s debut album, never feel again, represents a clear departure from extreme metal, but the same genius that made Høst so sick now goes into making enditall so heavy.

Today we’re privileged to premiere a video for the latest single from never feel again. Filmed and edited by Kowala Media, the video for “give me nothing” is an unflinching look behind the scenes of the passion that fuels enditall. Existential, depressing and painfully familiar, the juxtaposition between the mundane struggle and sublime release of playing in a band hits extremely close to the heart. This same earnest beauty is what makes enditall’s music so triumphant and immediately enjoyable. 

According to Zander: “we wanted to create imagery that would represent the content of enditall as directly and honestly as possible; issues with depression, discontent and substance abuse have all contributed to the music.”

 

Get never feel again on CD-r and 12” vinyl directly from enditall.

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Autopsy’s Mental Funeral turns 30!

30 years ago today, Autopsy changed extreme music forever with the release of their sophomore album, Mental Funeral. Two years after the release of their debut album, in 1991, the Oakland, California-based quartet became living legends of the burgeoning death metal underground with the release of Mental Funeral. Three decades later, Mental Funeral remains one of the most influential albums in the history of death metal. 

Since we can’t join the members of Autopsy today to celebrate the anniversary, we caught up with founding drummer/frontman Chris Reifert to wish his second-oldest deformity happy birthday. We snuck in a few interview questions, too. 

 

Mental Funeral by Autopsy

 

Okay, Chris, so TO years ago you, Eric Cutler, Danny Coralles and Eric’s brother released one of the most important albums in the history of extreme music. What do you remember about the band at the time, back in the transition from the ’80s to the ’90s when Mental Funeral was coming together?

It’s still hard to believe it’s been that long. Jeez! As for the band, we just wanted to sound as heavy as we possibly could. With a sprinkling of weird thrown in for good measure. We’d also done two European tours by then so we were feeling fairly comfortable with ourselves. 

 

What do you remember thinking of the metal scene, and how did you want Autopsy’s second album to impact it?

The scene was pretty exciting as there were new sounds flooding in from all over the world. Demos, albums, all that good stuff. 

I don’t think we cared too much about how we’d fit in with it all though. We were just busy being stoners who wanted to play metal and not think too deeply beyond what happened outside of the rehearsal room or studio. We were very much a ‘make it up as you go along’ sort of band with no grand vision for the future. Some things never change. 

 

What do you remember most about recording Mental Funeral

We were stoked to be back at Different Fur Studios, I know that. The Residents did a lot of stuff there which provided quite a bit of allure. We had a bit more time than we did on Severed, so there’s that too. And the drinking was definitely heavier on that one. Bourbon entered the picture during recording instead of just a couple of beers like on Severed. We also had a bunch of friends hanging out so it had a party atmosphere, which is odd because Mental Funeral does NOT sound like a party. Haha! There were 18 of us there or something. I know we loved the starting tones and barely even mixed it. So we did all things we were not supposed to do while making a record it seems. 

 

What about your sophomore album makes you the proudest?

Mostly that it’s passed the test of time. We’re still seeing new tattoos of it and stuff, which is nuts. 

 

Looking back, what were some things that Autopsy learned on this album that have continued to influence the way you write death metal today?

Nothing jumps out in that department. We’ve always tried to just sound like ourselves and leave it at that, although subtle little influences have wormed their way into our songs here and there. Nothing too obvious though, hopefully. 

How does Mental Funeral sound to you today? How has your opinion of it changed over the past 30 years?

 

It’s like an old pair of shoes at this point. You know exactly how they’re going to feel when you put them on and nothing really changes. I mean that in the best possible way of course. I don’t really listen to it for fun these days because I’ve heard it a zillion times but I’m still very proud of it and I’m glad people still dig it three decades later. 

 

You’ve played a lot of these songs live hundreds of times by now. Which songs still get you fired up? 

We’ve opened shows with Twisted Mass tons of times and that’s usually a cool starter. Beyond that, pretty much everything we play gets us fired up which is how it ought to be. 

 

What’s surprised you the most about Autopsy’s career?

The fact that we’re still doing it today is something we never would have envisioned as teenagers getting it started. That’s a wild thought. Probably the biggest surprise though was the reception we got upon reforming. It was a mind-blower for us. 

 

What are Autopsy up to lately? 

Waiting out the plague storm like most other bands. We’re getting close to being fully vaccinated and then we can actually get together and turn the amps and shit back on. We haven’t done anything since playing Chicago last March but at least we got a live album out of that one. 

 

Sounds like new material from the most consistnent band in death metal is on the horizon—another cause for celebration! In the meantime, pick up and read Chris Dick’s incredible (and incredibly somehow still in-print) Mental Funeral Hall of Fame for some deeper context into this landmark masterpiece. And buy every Autopsy record you can get yours hand on because they’re all mandatory. See you next year for Acts of the Unspeakable’s 30th birthday!

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Track Premiere: Human Failure – “Your Hope is a Noose”

Human Failure is D. Cornejo, the solo artist behind numerous modern-day underground slaughterers, including Akasha and Dekagram, just to name a few. But Human Failure may be his most menacing project yet, in which the solo artist gives hellish vent to his deepest rage. Out next month from stateside terrorizers Caligari and Sentient Ruin on cassette tape and 10” respectively, Human Failure’s debut full-length Crown on the Head of a King of Mud is just one explosion after the other as harsh-noise, hardcore punk and utterly detached death metal brawl for dominance. However novel, Human Failure’s relentless approach is anything but refreshing. It’s horrifying. 

According to Cornejo: “Failure is a project intended to be as brash and primitive as possible, with writing and recording sessions taking place in the exact same moment. Drums are recorded on the fly, guitar riffs are pieced together over the top in a haphazard manner and lastly noise is layered on top of it all in order to seal it all together sonically. Lyrics on this record were truly a minor concern of mine. I knew what each song represented, but having well-written and well-paced lyrics was not something that I deemed necessary. Instead, I focused on a phrase or two and repeated them ad nauseam so that the vocal performance on the demo is less of a recitation of poetry and more of an unfiltered and pure release of pent up anger, hate and dissatisfaction with the world around me. The phrases for this song explain [its] purpose more efficiently than I could: ‘We cannot be saved,’ ‘Your hope is your noose’ and lastly ‘This is not the truth,’ referring to the paranoia of not being able to trust your own mind and not knowing what’s real, if anything.”

Get the cassette tape from Caligari Records

Get the 10” vinyl from Sentient Ruin

Human Failure Bandcamp

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Demo:listen: The Watcher

Make way for new Bostonian heavy metal doomers The Watcher whose two-song 7”/three-song Bandcamp debut Your Turn to Die undeniably crushes, casting potential like a witch curses the blood of those about to burn her. Indeed, The Watcher’s own provenance seems to grant the trio and their debut a certain kind of contextual atmosphere. From New England, here comes The Watcher and their jaw-dropping debut.

 

Your Turn to Die

Your Turn to Die by The Watcher

According to M. Furst, guitarist and bassist of The Watcher, what would eventually become Your Turn to Die started to come together “in early 2016.” Furst says, “I was on the recent rebound from leaving a band I had played with for nearly a decade. Most of my prior bands were in the darker and heavier realm of metal, so I wanted to do something more straightforward and fun. It was also a challenge to myself to compose and perform the music as much on my own as possible. I’m a bass player by trade and this was my first attempt at playing guitar for a band of this style. It was definitely a technical stretch for me but I thoroughly enjoyed it.” 

Furst writes that later that year in 2016 drummer C. Spraker joined the fold. Furst says, “I had tried playing with a few other musicians by that point but nothing panned out. People simply weren’t interested in doing a band like this and it was hard to get anyone to commit, [C. Spraker] was the only person willing to give it a shot. By that point we had already known each other for almost 20 years but never formally played music together so it was a good opportunity to bridge that gap. We jammed the songs pretty steadily for about a year before eventually tracking what became the demo EP.”

“Recorded at Dead Air Studios” back in “November 2017,” reads The Watcher’s liner notes. Furst goes on to explain: “By late 2017, [C.] and I had been working on the songs for almost a year. At that point I decided I wanted to push forward and track the demo without a singer. This was partially with the intent of using the demo to find a vocalist, but also because I wanted some tangible document of our hard work up to that point. I also hoped that perhaps people would take me more seriously if I could present a solid demo for them to see it wasn’t just a vague concept for a band, it was more or less a complete thought.

“From there it was about 3 years of searching around for a singer,” Furst continues. “That entailed me pursuing every avenue I could think of and growing increasingly more hopeless with each dead end I was met with. Over time the project slowly just got put on the back burner while we focused on our main band.”

Crucial and sick as it is, The Watcher rule so hard because their vocalist has a great voice and knows how to sing. Somehow, it’s like M. Furst knew P. Reed was out there. 

“This past summer I decided to give it one final attempt before shelving the project for good,” remembers Furst. “On a total whim I contacted Reuben [Storey, of recent Demo:listen fame], which led to meeting [P. Reed].” According to Furst, The Watcher’s vocalist [P. Reed] “has played guitar/bass in quite a few bands around Olympia over the years, handling occasional vocal duty as well, but I believe this is his first time being featured as a lead singer.”

Furst says, “I’ll never forget how floored I was when he sent me the first demo of ‘Your Turn to Die.’ This was back in July of 2020. After literal years of trying to find the right person to help complete the songs, I immediately knew I had found them. I couldn’t have hoped to partner with a more talented and easy to work with individual. He absolutely nailed it from the start and undoubtedly gave the songs their crowning touch.”

From there, Furst says, Your Turn to Die “came together pretty quickly. [P.] did a few scratch vocal tracks for the songs and we made some very minor adjustments on things but he more or less hit the target with his initial scratch tracks. Once things felt right, he went into his brother’s studio out in Olympia and did the final takes. I did some additional overdubs here in Boston and then worked with Will at Dead Air (who engineered the original session) to do the final mix.”

Furst makes sure to credit drummer C. Spraker’s performance as the source for “a lot of the energy.” Furst says, Spraker’s “a phenomenal drummer. He would always understand the patterns/ideas I wanted to incorporate into the songs and he would execute them with precision each time, usually adding his own flare to things (tastefully). That definitely comes through in the music and I think it’s important to give him credit for that.”

Furst admits having “gone through the full spectrum of emotions regarding” the recording session for Your Turn to Die. When you have 3 years to sit on something and ruminate, self-doubt is inevitable. I can say that we accomplished the main objective I wanted to achieve which was creating a big and full sound. I didn’t want to try and sound ‘retro,’ I wanted to keep it real and true to what we got. The songs are all written on a down-tuned guitar. I was a bit nervous of how the end result would be, but the lower notes are used sparingly and it helps to give some extra depth to the songs. [P. Reed]’s vocals compliment that perfectly and ultimately crystallizes what became the overall sound.” 

Regarding the 7” and the missing song, the slightly more aggressive “Until It Bleeds,” Furst says, “To be totally honest, the 7” was a bit of an afterthought. I was originally just going to do a run of cassettes (it was a demo afterall), but the songs came out way better than I had anticipated and felt I owed it to us all to do a proper vinyl release. I liked the idea of doing a two-song 45, something simple akin to many of the classic NWOBHM singles. So ‘Until It Bleeds’ was omitted simply due to time constraints. It’s caused a bit of confusion, and disappointment, for some people but what’s done is done. No regrets!” Furst laughs, then says there’s no plans for a repress of Your Turn to Die, but hints that “perhaps it will be included on another future release.”

Considering the crux of this mighty debut, Furst says, “I think the themes on the EP are quite fitting for the times we have been living in, particularly this past year. We are experiencing forever-world changing events in realtime. Global meltdowns on an actual biblical scale. That doesn’t harbor just your typical sorrow and sadness, but literal “doom” in the truest sense of the word. You can either go out hiding and cowering from it all, or you can face your fear, stand strong and march onward through the darkness. We’d like this EP to be a testament to the latter. Accepting your mortality, embracing your inevitable demise, and entering into the unknown unhindered!” 

Furst admits, “Just getting the EP out to the world is a major accomplishment for us and we’re still riding that wave. The fact that it’s been so well received is encouraging for sure so we’d love to do more. I’m hoping to release a full-length at some point but we’re still a ways off from that. In the meantime we’re just going to keep writing and working on new material until it feels right.”

In the meantime, we’ll know these songs by heart a hundred times over.

Get Your Turn to Die straight from The Watcher

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Decibel’s Limited Edition 10th Anniversary Metal Flexi Collector’s Box Pre-Order Available

For a full decade the Decibel Flexi Series has brought you exclusive tracks from extreme music’s best bands. As we continue to celebrate this new milestone for all things extremely extreme, Decibel is proud to announce the release of our all-metal Decibel Flexi Series Limited Edition Collector’s Box! Coming in at approximately 8” x 8” x 4.75” and weighing nearly two pounds, this ultra-sturdy, ultra-deep, ultra-metal box is built to house only the heaviest floppy vinyl and capable of holding over 100 sleeved flexi discs. For an extra layer of protection, each box comes packed with 12 custom sleeves. And when we say limited, you damn well better believe we mean it: Only 200 of these will ever be manufactured and once they’re gone, they’re gone for good. If keeping your collection in the most appropriate of materials wasn’t enough, if you pre-order between now and Sunday, April 11 at 11:59 PM EST we will throw in a grab bag of five FREE random flexis to help bulk up your collection.

If you’re looking to stay old-school with your Flexi Series collection, the original Deluxe Edition Flexi Collector’s Box is making its return to the Decibel Store after a two-year hiatus! Built to hold approximately 50 of your favorite dB-curated tracks, it also includes 12 custom flexi sleeves.

Don’t get boxed out, pre-order yours today!

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Demo Premiere: Morbid Sphere – Demo II

Including members of Anicon, Ruin Lust, Yellow Eyes and the eternal House of First Light collective, Morbid Sphere brings together four of New York’s most dedicated underground extreme metal musicians. With E. Priesner on drums, J. Wilson on bass, S. Bennet on guitars and A. DeMaria on guitars and vocals, one can see that—even on paper—Morbid Sphere is sizing up to be an intriguing and colossal project.

photo by Charles Nickles, courtesy of CVLT Nation

After their captivating live debut in 2019, Morbid Sphere weren’t heard from again until the release of their first demo at the start of this year. Now, less than four months later, Morbid Sphere returns with two more songs of their own unique force of towering, torrential and despotic death metal. 

Morbid Sphere’s first demo cover

Drawing influence from “the sonic absurdity” of bands like Incantation, Infester and even modern contemporaries like Spectral Voice, Morbid Sphere play long-form, shapeshifting black death. Demo II, released this morning digitally and in the form of 100 tapes, was recorded by Nolan Voss last October and mastered by Dan Lowndes as Resonance Sound. Less raw than its predecessor, but twice-as-heavy and startling in its profundity, Morbid Sphere are not a force to be reckoned with. Better to fall on your knees and submit. Pendulous, maddening and completely unlike anything you’ve heard before in the realm of black and/or death metal, this is Demo II from Morbid Sphere.

Demo II by Morbid Sphere

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Album Stream: Impure – ‘The Carrion Feast’

Formed in 2017, Saint Louis plaguebringers Impure have explored the inexorable darkness with their black/death creations. After releasing the Satan’s Eclipse debut LP in 2019, Impure smudged sacrificial blood on 2020 with their Damned… EP. Now Impure are here to summon cataclysmic winds with a new 7″ release. Decibel Magazine escaped hell’s fiery grasp to bring you this stream of the full release.

Limited to only 300 copies, the 7″ release of “The Carrion Feast” is an exclusive expression of Satanic fury. Vocalist/drummer Horned Father Of Desecreation blasts and belches blasphemy. Meanwhile, guitarist/bassist Satyrannical Lord of Assault punctuates the demonic distortion with solos and greasy groove. Consider the raging solo in “Into Cataclysm” a sonic blood offering from Gabriel Forslund of Swedish thrash metal band Antichrist. While the two tracks composing the Impure 7″ are battle-hardened black/death metal, there’s an undercurrent of depraved rock & roll. The 7″ release balances those elements carefully with a meaty mix that packs a punch. Primarily recorded by Brian Scheffer at Firebrand Recording, their was additional recording courtesy of Sasha Stroud in Brooklyn.

Impure share the following in a statement: “12 months since being Damned, we return with the shining horn of Satan to bring you two feral tracks of Ultra Brutal Black Metal: “The Carrion Feast” and “Into Cataclysm.” While the pandemic reaps its tolls, we in IMPURE have been working alongside it. A new chapter of IMPURE has begun and this single is but a small taste of the pandemonium to come.”

Start your sapphic initiation and press play on Impure’s “The Carrion Feast” below. The 7″ release officially released today (April 2nd) for all my fellow black metal and death metal deviants.

The Carrion Feast by Impure

Order “The Carrion Feast” on 7″ at Bandcamp HERE

Visit Impure’s website for news and updates HERE

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Track Premiere: Gosudar – “Awakening of the Realm”

All it took was two tracks from the cavernous and diseased maw of Gosudar to get the global death metal underground in a world-wide frenzy. Since the release of Gosudar’s two-song demo, Demo ‘18, the debut album from these morbid-minded Muscovites could not come out soon enough. And if this is your first time hearing about Gosudar—well, get ready for a monstrous sound there’s actually no preparing yourself for. 

According to Sergey Milenin, guitarist and vocalist for the Russian trio, who speaks on behalf of his bandmates Renat Kurmakaev on drums and Vadim Ivanov, lead vocalist and guitarist, “Gosudar is about the transformation of personality under the influence of anti-cosmic forces of the unlimited power. It’s about the destruction of a person, who appeared as a conductor of these will, the sacrificial gift of the priests to the tyranny.” They go on to say how their debut album, Morbid Despotic Ritual, out May 28 on stateside label Rotted Life, “leads you through an eschatological abyss of the absolute power, where the new Middle Ages begin in the prophecy of the Third Rome.” 

In cooperation with Rotted Life Records, we pried open the door to Gosudar’s cold, torture chamber to procure the second of the six absolute skull-obliterators that compose their forthcoming full-length bloodbath. Out at the end of this month on all relevant formats, Morbid Despotic Ritual stands on its own with intimidating strength and blunt charm. All violence and meat-hook catchiness on the outside, but completely dead on the inside, Gosudar are deeper and realer than hype. They’re death metal true.

“Awakening of the Realm”

Morbid Despotic Ritual by Gosudar

Get Morbid Despotic Ritual from Rotted Life Records on May 28th

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