I play death metal. A lot. It’s a labor of love. I find myself listening to a lot of it as a result wether it be at shows or in all of the albums i’m exposed to being so involved and interested in the underground. Here’s a bunch of killer albums i’ve been giving plenty of love in recent memory.
Michigan’s Syphilic has been churning out guttural death metal insanity for a decade now, and their 4th album Toylets R Us on Permeated Recordings keeps the tradition going in full fore. The brainchild of Gutrot/Mutilated vocalist Brian Forgue, the band is more of a studio project than anything else as the drumming is entirely programmed along with the rarity of live performances. What always grabs me about their/his material is how creative and off the wall the drum arrangements are, creating a technically proficient but extremely brutal listen. Brian’s inhuman vocals always add a massive layer on top of the instrumentation and always impress the hell out of me and remains one of my favorite mic wielders in the underground.
The overwhelming swarm of throwback and/or old school style death metal bands in the past decade has definitely made me a little numb to the style much in the same way that a lot of slam bands have. But one band that has embraced the classic Swedeath sound but infused it with a refreshing take on the melodic side is Philadelphia’s Horrendous. Their 2014 full length on Dark Descent Records Ecdysis appeared on plenty of year end best of lists, and for great reason. Their extremely well crafted fusion of the classic buzzsaw death metal sound with the epic classic feel of traditional heavy metal results in an extremely memorable album. Track after track of killer riff and epic songwriting just sticks in your head. Absolutely one of my favorite extreme metal releases in years. It’s the melodic death metal album that At the Gates could only dream of writing nowadays.
The New York death metal scene has produced a large amount of bands that have carved their place in the history books of extreme metal, and Long Island’s Internal Bleeding are notorious in those pages. One of my personal favorite death metal bands, they are pioneers of the groove laden pit stomping slam sound that so many bands have tried to duplicate, my own band Dysentery being one of them. I’m also lucky to call them great friends of mine, having filled in on bass for them on plenty of occasions in the past and in the future. Their newest Unique Leader Records release Imperium sees them returning after a decade long absence, and with it they brought a whole new bag of crushing grooves and punishing stomps. The band has managed to craft an album that both feels completely at home with the rest of their catalog, yet brings in fresh ideas that still deliver.
Boston slam death tyrants Dysentery‘s 3rd full length Fragments comes out July 10th on Comatose Music. You can check them out over at their Facebook page for more details.