I designed this shirt for our friends at Metal Sucks. They asked me to post a link on here so they would sell more. Apparently it's currently the 2nd best-selling design, please buy one because we want to be number fucking one! And don't worry, they know they're selling to fans of a metal blog, so it comes in XL.
They have some other designs that aren't as cool, so if you don't like mine you can settle for one of these: Best of luck to our favorite metal Jewbags! Help out our Semite internet metal bros and buy one of each!
Good lord, I remember a time when Hatebreed would be booked to play a little coffee shop in my town like every two months. Half of the time, they wouldn't show up...but still. Times have changed.
If you don't like Hatebreed, you're not my friend. It's as simple as that. And I know who my real friends are: my bros from Vile Gash, Weedsteeler and Homage Clothing who made the trek with me to catch the Hatebreed/Cannibal Corpse show a few weeks ago. If you're too boring and old to go, here's what you missed.
Born of Osiris = sick pitt riffment 2k9, deathcore style
Sumeriancore & Typewriters
The openers, Born of Osiris and Hate Eternal, proved that innovations in death metal come from both young and old bands. First up were Sumeriancore pioneers BoO, who brought the fucking mosh as only Sumerian bands can, combining chops with sick pitt riffment that got the crowd warmed up in spectacular fashion.
Here is a video of some high school fatties covering Born of Osiris in their high school gym. When their "fans" start moshing at :47 you will want to vomit with vicarious embarrassment, then wish you could spray everybody under 21 in the face with AIDS
I can't say the same for Hate Eternal, though. When they started playing, I thought someone was playing a recording of a Mavis Beacon typing tutorial, the clicking and clacking coming at such a furious pace that I thought the space bar was going to break in half. Then I realized it was their bass drum and threw myself on a sword.
File under inane-statements-of-fact: "This next song is about shooting blood out of your cock, it's called 'I Cum Blood.'"
Careers in Death Metal I'll be honest, I wasn't really looking forward to see Cannibal Corpse, but I should have been. They fucking slayed, especially when they played shit off "Tomb of the Mutilated." Hearing those songs live made me remember how that record blew me away when it came out, and also that when I was in 10th grade my mom said "Please don't play Cannibal Corpse or The Accused before dinner, they make me lose my appetite!"
I'm sure you've seen this video of Corpsegrinder talking about his World of Warcraft guild or whatever, but if not, your life is incomplete!
I'm guessing the Cannibals are in their 40s by now, and I can't decide whether it's sad or awesome that they've made a career out of playing death metal. They're like the death metal version of the dad from the Wonder Years. When you ask them how their latest tour is going, they just grunt and say "Eh. Work's work," and go back to killing Night Elves.
YOU FUCKING BLEED NOW
"I don't need to be inspired by metal"
Many people talk a lot of shit about Hatebreed. Not that they need my support, but I need to say a few words about Hatebreed in general and their new album in particular. The most common memes among Hatebreed haters are "all their albums sound the same" and my personal favorite (from a Metal Sucks commenter) "I don't need to be inspired by metal."
"Wait, Chuck Schuldiner was GAY?!"
If that's the case for you, congratulations. I'm happy for you. Unfortunately for me, I need all the help I can get. I won't lie: 2k9 has been the hardest, most painful year of my entire life by far and I've listened to Terror and Hatebreed pretty much nonstop. Sometimes your life falls apart and you need to have Jamey Jasta screaming at you that "This day is worth living." When you're as down as I've been this year, "Never succumb to the war you fight in your heart" is exactly what you need to hear. Laugh if you want, but I sincerely love Hatebreed because their songs mean a lot to me and have helped me through some seriously fucked up times just like Black Flag, Terror, and Cro-Mags do/did.
I got this about two weeks ago and am going to get a "SMASH YOUR ENEMIES" tattoo soon. I will have not just one but TWO Hatebreed tattoos. That is how much I love Hatebreed!
"They changed it, now it sucks" & "They didn't change it, so it sucks" Another common criticism among butthurt haters is that Hatebreed's albums all sound the same. First of all, that's not really true: the latest record, for example, is by far their most blatantly "metal" album, despite remaining 100% consistent with the Hatebreed sound. Second, what's so bad about that? As long as Jamey & crew keep coming up with new breakdowns and lyrics that keep me from sticking my head in the oven, I'll always be stoked on the band. And they're fucked either way: Whenever they do introduce something new such as the Crowbar-style clean vocals on the new album, the haters hate even more.
I don't give a fuck. All I know is that the new Hatebreed record has some of their hardest mosh parts to date and is arguably their best since "Perseverance," which is a nearly perfect album. If you like Hatebreed, you will like this record. If you don't, go listen to Xasthur while you beat off to noise CD-Rs and let me mosh with my bros.
One of the hardest fucking songs ever written. Amazing lyrics, insanely brutal and catchy riffs, and PERFECT video. If you think this is "cheesy" or "corny" your life has been too easy.
A la Carte Moshing, Irresponsible Breakdowns & Mosh Platforms If you don't consider Hatebreed one of the best live bands of all time, you are a fool. Whether you like their music or not, you can't deny that they are a finely tuned mosh machine that knows how to get the party started like no other. In no particular order, here are some of my favorite parts of the show.
A la Carte Moshing: I didn't want to get all sweaty and get my leather seats all yucky, so I watched from the back of the venue and ran down to mosh it up for my favorite 3 or 4 songs (I think they were "As Diehard As They Come," "Perseverance" and "Proven"), then returned to the safety of the other old people by the bar.
Irresponsible Breakdowns: I hadn't heard any of the new songs live, and when I heard them play "Not My Master" and "Everybody Bleeds" I literally started laughing at how absurdly brutal the breakdowns were. If I was in Hatebreed and someone brought in a riff like, say, the meta-breakdown from "As Diehard As They Come" (listen to 1:30, holy fucking fuck) I think I would have to say something just to ease my conscience. "Dudes, remember that with great power comes great responsibility. We possess powers of mosh like nobody else on this planet, but we must use them wisely. I am afraid that riff is so fucking hard that people will die when we play it live. We can bring the mosh to the people for sure, but we may have their blood on our hands!!"
Jamey's mosh platforms. I like to think of them as they hardcore version of The Liberator.
Mosh Platforms: Jamey had two little platforms that he would stand on, jump off of, etc. I'm guessing that he's eaten shit onstage before from standing on a monitor or whatever only to have it slide out from under his feet. They say necessity is the mother of invention, and I salute Jamey for his innovations in moshing!!
For more innovations in breakdowns, check out Illinois' Demolisher- so, so fucking brutal! I am doing my best to hype this band so please check them out!
It's no secret that I love Mountlake Terrace, Washington's Forced Entry slightly more than my own mother. Few things make me happier than hearing that I've gotten someone into what I consider to be the most underrated thrash band in history. With that in mind, you can imagine how excited I was when I got the following email while munching on chips and salsa at my favorite white-person Mexican restaurant. I could try to add some of my own commentary, but it would add nothing (all the photo comments are mine, though). This is the kind of content that fucking stands on its own! Thanks to Daru Jericho for sending this in. You are fucking legit, baby!!
***
If you don't love this song, you should seriously kill yourself right now. I'm not joking at ALL, bros. WE'RE A BUNCH OF DICKS, WE TELL IT LIKE IT IS!
Salutations,
This is an overdue e-mail.
I'm a fairly rabid reader of Metal Inquisition (what reader isn't rabid over there?) based across the pond in London, England. I'm twenty years old and have a vagina too which I like to think separates me a little from the standard MI demographic. Earlier this year, your blog introduced me to a fabulous band dubbed Forced Entry. After hearing As Above, So Below enough times to force the average person to legally change their name to Thunderhead, my life was changed and not in the "ZOMG, I TOTALLY NEED TO LIEK SHOW MY APPRECIATION FOR THIZ BAND BY GETTING A TATTOO ON MY BUTTCHEEK WHICH I'LL REGRET IN THREE YEARS TIME WHEN I GRO OUT OF THRASH MEHTUL!" kind of way.
This is my favorite Forced Entry song, a deep cut that's buried on side two of "As Above So Below." Listen to that fucking riff!!! Fucking THRASH!!!!!!!!
This band was so amazing that I decided to dedicate my summer to them (I assumed the summer would be dull because I'd just dumped my boyfriend of two years and was feeling identical to the mood of that ballad 'Never A Know but the No' and concentrated on Forced Entry to fill that gap that my boyfriend once did for some reason) when I finished uni in May, in honour of 'How We spent Our Summer Vacation', of course with my slogan for the next five months being "GET FUCKED UP!"
This little baby wasn't even born when the first Forced Entry demo came out! And by the way, how fucking sweet is this cover?? Fuck Municipal Waste's contrived bullshit, THIS is what a fucking demo looks like!
But I didn't stop at changing my MSN screen name to celebrate the occasion. I went one (or possibly two) steps further. I started getting wasted more often as you'd expect but I did specifics. To be loyal to the opening line of the song that started this "Jack Daniels goes down fine, a lot smoother than any wine," I reduced my intake of wine and imbibed copius amounts of Jack Daniels. Beer was a common standard and I also did a (cider - they had no beer) bong for the first time to match "Sucked the beer bong a little too long," and I had more than six tequila slammers ("Six tequila slammers, I'm too far gone!") but I'd never even had tequila before. The newish boyfriend that I obtained over the summer had six slammers along with some other shit and spent half the night sleeping on the bathroom floor.
Let's see the phony assbags in Toxic Holocaust have the balls to rock the Tony Benjamins "white trash rocker from Bothell" look!
But the possible highlight of this summer was going up to anyone (whilst drunk or sober, btw) - friends, strangers on the street, randomos at festivals, buskers, guys I was making out with...literally anyone - and playing my ace by asking "Hey baby, will you shit on my face?" A friend of mine who got caught up in my summer frenzy (who now loves 'How We Spent Our Summer Vacation' so one became two - see what I did there!?) did the same thing but outshined me by asking eight middle-aged women in a club within an hour to do it and they were all horrified.
"Bludgeon" from the first Forced Entry record. Seriously fucking brutal as fuck, even by today's standards. It makes my soul hurt that this band doesn't get more love!!!!!
I saw Forced Entry with the Accused several times. Can you imagine anything better when it's 1992 and you're 14?! I lost my fucking mind.
The reactions we got were pretty funny. Some guys played along with me, promising to shit on my face. One dude even pulled his pants down before my friends tried to reassure an intoxicated me that I really didn't want him to do it. I got more freaked out expressions from boring people than Billy Milano had burgers this week. The best reactions were from those who played along though. Another guy asked me if I wanted liquified shit, slightly runny shit, solid shit or peanut-encrusted shit. Choice is good.
THIS EMAIL FUCKING DELIVERS.
I pretty much payed homage to most of the lines on that song but the one that I could do (obviously I couldn't do anything that involved a phallus, being a girl) but didn't was puke through my nose. I like to think I made up for that by puking on myself and my Dave Mustaine-inspired fluffy boots though.
"King Cobra?! More like QUEEN COBRA lolololz!" The intro banter in this video would be amazing material to use as samples for a noisecore demo. Fucking love the bass break at 1:15, this band was soooooo sick!!!!!!! ANACONDA HAUNTS YOUR SLEEP!
I semi-legally tattooed 'The Summer of Forced Entry '09 - GFU' on plenty of walls and surfaces and have attached some of them that I actually took photos of to this e-mail (the green tent has it written on its side but you can't see it too clearly), including the tent I shared with my ex at the latest open air metal fest that metalheads get hard ons and gap ons (the femme equivalent) over - Hellfest in France - in addition to the tent I shared with my friend at Bloodstock - the UK's nearest fest to Wacken. Writing it in non-metal places was particularly satisfying though. It was very akin to Moses telling everyone about the Ten Commandments. Looking back, I wonder if some people thought my summer was just an advertisement for rape. On asking a thrash fan if he liked Forced Entry he replied: "That's sick!"
If I ever meet this girl, I am proposing to her on the spot. I love you, baby!
The newspaper photo is also of particular interest because of the recycling message underneath that I crossed out before reading supporting the notion of shitting on one's face. Also, keen thrashers should note that the 2974 is a reference to that LOL'able Testament song 'The Evil Has Landed'. 2974 is the number of people who died in 9/11, mentioned in that track and genially rhymed with 'war'.
I also told people to fuck off or I would kill them.
GET FUCKED UP!
To conclude, thanks for giving me an awesome band to act as the soundtrack to my summer holiday - sorry - vacation from uni (May to October, April technically because I only had one exam in May so I partied earlier) and introducing me and, by extension, a few partners in crime of mine to Forced Entry. No one I know or talked to over the summer has ever heard of them and think I made them up. I wish they'd reunite. I want to e-mail these photos to one of the guys in the band so they can see that douches actually care about them but haven't found an e-mail addy. They just underscore how terrible Municipal Waste truly are and why those retro-thrash 'tards should be extinguished.
WE TELL IT LIKE IT IS, I KNOW IT MAKES YOU PISSED 'COZ WE'RE A BUNCH OF DICKS,
Daru Jericho
***
More awesome, vintage Seattle metal: BITTER END!! Fuck yes, I definitely saw this band many times with all my other favorites like Aaronation, Sabre, Dumt, Panic, The Evicted, Amerifucked, Big Top, Date Rape, Last Gasp, and probably the amazing Aspirin Feast (listen to "Jesus Said," holy underrated hardcore) at one time or another. Seattle had sooooo many legitimately excellent bands back then, but nobody ever heard them because we were off the map until Nirvana came along. I'll put the above bands against any other local hardcore/metal scene in the US circa 1990, I was seriously fortunate to grow up when and where I did.
Daru Jericho, you are officially DOWN AS FUCK and we salute you! I honestly love to see people who are still enthusiastic about stuff, especially when it's something as ridiculously sweet as Forced motherfucking Entry. We love you and support you in your efforts to GET FUCKED UP!
Once known as a peddler of chintzy crap like Sepultura "jams" and Prong hockey jerseys, metal merch icon Blue Grape will be reborn as a cutting edge streetwear brand in spring of 2010. In fashion, what's old is new again when a brand takes something classic from the past and revitalizes with a contemporary twist. 80s references dominated the past few years, with more neon and skinny jeans than you can shake a stick at on store shelves everywhere, but the hottest new brands are exploring new territory.
Trendsetting brands like Warriors of Radness are breaking new ground by moving past the 80s drawing from the early 90s, referencing brands like LA Gear, Gotcha and Chess King. They are doing great work, but Blue Grape is truly ahead of the curve: they are the first brand to bring mid/late 90s metal style to the world of streetwear. Look out 55DSL, here comes Blue motherfucking Grape!! We are thrilled to provide you with an exclusive glimpse at their upcoming Spring 2010 collection. We think you will be seeing a lot more coverage of this hot new brand in the near future, so if you see this shit reposted on Hypebeast or High Snobiety, remember that you read it HERE first!
That's not the user manual for your new dishwasher, it's the cover of their new catalog! I love how they perfectly captured that 90s "desktop publishing" look! They probably even used PageMaker to ensure that it looked authentic.
The collection's flagship items are a full line of premium Soulfly SKUs. This shit is off the hook and will definitely be turning heads!!
You don't have to spend hundreds of dollars outbidding some sneakerhead on eBay to get an vintage-looking Soulfly jersey anymore. Blue Grape's reissues of the 1999 edition put them within reach of everybody.
Getting classic, authentic 90s licenses like Fear Factory was a real coup for the new Blue Grape- hats off to their acquisition team!!
Nothing says true 90s metal fashion like a Fear Factory gas station shirt! Put this guy on and you'll feel like an extra on the set of the video for Deftones "Bored" or Downset "Anger."
Their Slipknot gear is maybe not QUITE as impressive as the Soulfly stuff, but definitely has a few showcase items that make it stand on its own.
The Hundreds ain't got shit on Blue Grape's steez: You will be the hypest fucking kid on the block in this sick Slipknot jumpsuit!! People will be all, "Whoa, you must have paid a fucking fortune for that shit on eBay, it looks so authentic!!" And you'll be all, "Yeah, I did- but whatever, it was worth it, you know? I only like true vintage shit, and you gotta put down the cash if you want the real thing." *turn to the camera with a shit-eating grin and a knowing wink*
It's the details that really make or break a garment. I love how they made this Slipknot thong super fucking high-rise in true 90s style. It looks like your girl could pull this thing up to her armpits!
They clearly paid attention to every detail when creating this this authentic 90's-style garment: it's cut so wide you could fit three people in it, the perfectly symmetrical flames look like a preset from some 90s Photoshop filter (probably Kai's Power Tools), and the band's name is in fucking Impact with an outer glow! Amazing craftsmanship guys, this is a masterpiece!
Remember the 1999 Earth Crisis/Sepultura tour? This shit will instantly transport you backstage where you can watch Igor and Andreas practice jiu jitsu on gymnastics mats before their set, Karl and Ian from ExC try to find a strip club, and Scott pens the riffs that would go on to become the band's defining moment, "Slither."
This Earth Crisis tee cleverly combines two classic 90s hardcore design elements: Parody logos and horizontally-stretched type. It's even outlined! Hats off to whoever designed this guy, you truly nailed the Cabal 315/Andrew Thomas Company aesthetic.
And look at the fucking collar!! I almost can feel its stiff, cheap fabric scratching the shit out of my neck right now.
Holy fucking fuck, I cannot wait to see this combo on shelves!! With a combo of artists like Poison the Well, Phish, Soulfly, and post-Danzig Misfits, I can't see how this brand will go anywhere but straight to the top.
Last but not fucking least, peep these Coal Chamber jams! I can't say TOO much just yet, but a little birdie told me that the COAL CHAMBER X ALIFE collabo miiiiiight be in the works. But shhhh... that shit is top secret ;)
I was hoping to see that they were going to release some limited edition Dope ringer tees through Dave's Quality Meat, but apparently negotiations fell through. This Coal Chamber windbreaker pretty much makes up for it, though!
Please note the new contact info for Beanies & Bucket Hats
What are your thoughts on the NEW BLUE GRAPE?? Are you as excited as we are to see Blue Grape reborn as a streetwear brand? Do you think the kids will be into it? Will they join the ranks of Vision Street Wear, Maui & Sons, and British Knights as forgotten brands of yesteryear who get a second lease on life, or will they just go back to making Methods of Mayhem keychains? Should they sign up Revok and Toomer do do some signature-edition Copshootcop ringer tees?
"Belgium's Finest", the phrase alone brings great images to mind. Belgium, is great at so many things. Belgium is great at easily being invaded by the Germans, they are also great at putting mayo on their fries ("frites" as they call them) and great at developing horrible bands like Front 242. Just as bad, if not worse than being invaded by Germany, is the Belgian band Agathocles. In case you don't know, Agathocles is a band who are best known for putting out more records than the number of hair plugs in Kirk Hammett's head. And that's a whole lot.
This is what the band Agathocles looks like. If you need to have any leaking faucets or electrical work done around your house, now you know who to call.
Putting that aside, Belgium is also home to one of the greatest cyclists of all time, Eddy Merckx. Here we see Merckx posing with US Secretary of State Condaleezza Rice. According to most Belgians, Eddy Merckx is so great that his urine can cure lepers, and his farts smell of fine cinnamon and mint. By comparison, Agathocles records make you feel worst than if you were a leper and also smell like farts.
Notice her happy smile, that's because she just caught a whiff of one of his potent, but pleasant farts.
But there's more to Belgium than cycling and putting mayo on fries. I know this, because I was there in the 90s. I remember the abandoned rollerskating rink that the band I was in played (thanks to the thirty six people who showed up by the way.) But these are all merely sidenotes. Why? Because the most important and relevant product that the entire country has, however, must be the band Hell Injection. See for yourself.
Fat shut-in guitar player? Check. Biohazard wanna-be singer? Check. Creepy tag along/roadie who just sits there during band practice and "feels the vibes"? Check.
What does this awful Photoshop collage signify? Is it in honor to all his dead homies? Is he sad because Agathocles is putting out another split 7" record? We'll never know.
There's always the one dude in the band who's girlfriend always tags along. Just like Yoko, she's gonna' break up the band. By the way, she hates her boyfriend so much (the singer) that he refers to having sex with him as him giving her a "Hell Injection".
You're not Joey Ramone? Oh, okay...that's good. Can I beat your face with your stupid bass then?
Remember when the internets existed, but it was hard to find anything about metal? It's hard to believe that there was in fact a time when metal nerds didn't have places like this one to argue about whether Danzig II or II is the better album, if Brutal Truth's first album is grindcore or death metal, and call Dave Mustaine an asshole.
We had to make due with anus.com, and that's a pretty poor substitute for, well, anything. As a result, a lot of good records slipped through the cracks a bit: not big enough to get much print coverage (other than Pit magazine, which fucking ruled), and without Youtube, MySpace and blogs they had few other options. I would like to do what little I can to fix this sorry state of affairs: here are some records from the late 90s that may have eluded you, but are worth checking out. For all you a-holes that think I'm a poser and I don't actually like metal, put this in your fucking beardo pipes and smoke it.
As I always mention, this isn't an MP3 blog and we like being friends with labels, so I (usually) won't include download links. That said, Google blog search is helpful if you are looking for them.
--
--
Cinerary "Rituals of Desecration" Let's begin with a band I've been hyping for about 7 or 8 years: the mighty CINERARY. This criminally-underrated band featured Matti Way and the drummer from Disgorge with two guys who I think were in Gorgasm and/or Cumchrist (also worth checking out). Back in 2001, guttural slam didn't exist, but this record laid the foundation for it and I am honestly surprised it doesn't get hyped more nowdays. The vocals are just completely fucking disgusting (rivaled only by Devourment, Big Chocolate, and Cephalotripsy), the drummer blasts his balls off, and the guitar sound is one of the thickest I've ever heard, making the proto-slamz especially sick pitt riffment. I have no idea what happened to this band or why they didn't blow the fuck up because this record is SICK but long out of print- grab it off Rapidshit here.
--
--
Embalmer "There Was Blood Everywhere" 7" Cleveland is a miserable fucking shithole, which helps explain why there were so many rad death metal bands coming out of that dump in the 90s. I lived there for a few soul-crushing years, and it made me a bitter, angry person who wants nothing more than to choke the life out of everybody on the planet. But on the bright side, I lived a block from the Phantasy and was spoiled with an abundance of metal. Usually "local band" is synonymous with "shit," but in those days a "local metal show" might include Hemdale, Odious Sanction, Apartment 213, Regurgitation, Nunslaughter, Dislimb, Integrity, and of course Embalmer.
Embalmer played a particularly downtuned, sick, yet darkly melodic brand of death metal that still sounds pretty fresh to my tired old ears (when I'm not jamming Metro Station, of course). The drummer played blast beats that were VERY, VERY fast for the time, and although they had chops the band never got into riff salad territory. New bands could learn a thing or two from the 90s Clevo bands: it's not about trying to outplay the next Guitar Center dork, it's about writing good songs that "make ppl want 2 mosh."
BTW, I don't think of this as an obscure 7" by any means, but I am also fucking old and forget that not everybody read The Wild Rag cover to cover obsessively like I did and therefore it might be new to some readers.
--
--
Decrepit "The Wake" 7" Skullkrusher and Andrew from Aversionline tell me that this band sucks and is even worse than Gammacide, but I think they're crazy because this 7" is sick. Like Embalmer, they had a knack for writing simple, catchy, yet very polished death metal songs that didn't feel like old school throwbacks but also weren't trying to break the conventions of the genre. In other words, they just played really fucking good, straightforward death metal. The drummer, Chris Dora, also played in Integrity for a quite a while beginning with "Humanity Is The Devil" and going up until long after I stopped paying attention to hardcore.
Peep this song and tell me you don't seriously think Gammacide is better than this band! The part at :45 has one of the longest blast beats I've ever heard, it's pretty sweet. I think they're still active, although they started playing black metal a while ago.
Deeds of Flesh "Trading Pieces" & "Gradually Melted" In 1997 I ran into the drummer for Odious Sanction at a Hemdale show. After offering me weed (very gracious, although I was nailed to the X at the time so I passed) he gave me a dubbed cassette labeled "DEEDS" and told me it was the hot new shit. He was right, these records are masterpieces of technical, brutal death metal with some of the best drum sounds I've ever heard. Along with Internal Bleeding "Voracious Contempt," this record basically made me stop listening to hardcore for about 10 years and just sit in my room playing my Jackson Dinky Reverse trying to write sick riffs that could be in Deeds songs. Their later records are amazingly dull riff salad, but these two are classics that still hold up in the 2k9.75 for sure.
--
--
Nunslaughter/Bloodsick split 7" Chris Pellow is a mellow fellow who doesn't get the credit he deserves for his many musical accomplishments. He is probably best known for being the original bassist in Ringworm and Apartment 213, but has been in far too many other hardcore and metal bands for me to remember and is a really really nice dude as well. In 1997 he played in the legendary Nunslaughter and a cool band called Bloodsick, who teamed up on this obscure split. The 7" is impossible to find and has been out of print for over a decade, so cop that shit on Mediafire.
--
--
Oppressor "Agony" I got into this band through the drummer and bassist for Abnegation, oddly enough. They basically sound like the death metal version of Forced Entry: weird, angular riffs that are more more twisted than they sound at first blush coupled with poppy arrangements that make it very accessible for brutal death metal. Like many of the other bands in this post, I really don't understand why this album doesn't get hyped more often these days. I guess it's just a case of wrong place, wrong time?? Your lose, dickfaces, because this record is a classic and your life is incomplete unless you own it! (And yes, I do own the actual CD :P )
--
--
Broken Hope "Loathing" & "Grotesque Blessings" There's no doubt about it: Broken Hope's early albums fucking suck. However, they are one of the rare bands who actually got better with age- way, way better (which isn't hard considering how fucking awful "Swamped In Gore" was). I had pretty much written them off as complete crap until my friend Lee, who is a very legit shredder and death metal fan, told me that "Wolf Among Sheep" had one of the sickest riffs of all time in it. I didn't believe him, of course, because I knew them for their abyssmal earlier releases, but it turns out he was right as fuck! I wouldn't say the entire album is great, but just like Disincarnate, the whole is more than the sum of the parts. If you're into technical shit that's not totally gay, give this a shot.
--
--
Disgorge "Cranial Impalement" I bought this for $.10 at Record Exchange with Mike Joachum, who has played guitar for many of the later Integrity lineups along with his little brother Nate. Please don't bother shit talking new Integrity because those dudes fucking rule it. Anyway, Mike was like "Dude look at this cover, it's hilarious!" I agreed, noticed it was 10 cents, and picked it up. We brought it home and he was super bummed he didn't buy it because the first song is one of the finest pieces of guttural death metal I've ever heard to this day: the vocals are sick as fuck, very catchy but complex and brutal riffing, and extremely tasty drumming (check out the accents on the bell of his ride). Their later albums are ok, but much closer to riff salad than this one. So if you wrote them off based on newer output, do yourself a favor and cop "Cranial Impalement"!
What did I miss? What late 90s death metal did you jam before MySpace existed? Do you know Mike and Nate from Integs?
I designed this shirt for our friends at Metal Sucks. They asked me to post a link on here so they would sell more. Apparently it's currently the 2nd best-selling design, please buy one because we want to be number fucking one! And don't worry, they know they're selling to fans of a metal blog, so it comes in XL.
