Moby Dick – Amen

Time for some hungarian metal. Moby Dick is a thrash metal band that was founded in Sopron, Hungary in 1980. They should definitely have more listeners outside of Hungary. The only reason they aren’t known, are the fact that they sing in hungarian. This is great Thrash with some good riffing going down.

ArthimotH – Baptize

This is good US death metal by Iranian death metal band, Arthimoth. It is the first DM video ever recorded in Iran, and of course it was considered too critical against religion by the Iranian authorities, who confiscated it. But they couldn’t stop it from ending up on youtube. I saw a documentary about the singer on norwegian television, and these guys risk their lives for playing this kind of music. Is that “true” enough for you?

Captain Beyond

Well, this isn’t a music video, but a great clip nonetheless. It contains tracks 1-3 from Captain Beyond‘s first self-titled album which was released back in 1972. This is awesome progressive hard rock. With members from Deep Purple (Rod Evans, who was the vocalist on the first three Purple albums) and Iron Butterfly (who had a hit with In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida), the result couldn’t be anyting other than great.

Bohren & Der Club Of Gore – Midnight Black Earth

Imagine Black Sabbath playing ambient jazz instead of proto-metal. Very dark doomy jazz. Amazing!

Necrophagist – Extreme Unction

This tech-death masterpiece is taken from “Onset Of Putrefaction” (orginally released 1999, but re-released 2004) from Germany’s Necrophagist. Amazing guitars and vocals on this one.

Ahab – Below The Sun

This track is taken from “The Call Of The Wretched Sea” (2006) by german aquatic funeral doom band Ahab. Like the name of the band says, all the lyrics are influenced by Herman Melville’s classic book, Moby Dick. This is about as heavy as it gets, and sends shivers down my spine. Enjoy!

I’ve been gone for a long time, but I feel I should be able to write more often from now on. Until I write another review I’m going to post some more videos. Let’s see if you like them.

Pest – Rest In Morbid Darkness (2008) 8/10

The thoughts that go through my mind when listening to Rest In Morbid Darkness are as follows; Cold, harsh, punky, heavy drums, heavy metal solos, oldschool gothenburg death metal, thrashy, primitive yet well produced (it’s actually possible to hear each instrument). And that’s just the first track.

The rest of the album continues in the same frantic tempo. And there’s some good riffing going on. The title track got some sort of Maidenesque feeling to it in some part. (I guess that’s where the heavy metal comes into play). They sound like a blackened Bewitched. I also sense a little Celtic Frost (read: Monotheist) in the mix. But, on the other hand, the Celtic Frost bit is something you could probably find in almost all BM bands of today. And black metal is, after all, the main ingredient of Rest In Morbid Darkness.

Pest do what all bands should do; save the best for last. The ending track: The Lust For Cruelty, is a very doomy and slow track. And it contains the best vocals of all the tracks. I really like the dissonant guitars, which make it all sound so much more evil.

All in all this is an album I would recommend if you, like I, are into the extremer side of metal.

Karl Sanders – Saurian Exorcisms (2009) 9/10

I loved Karl Sanders first solo album, Saurian Meditation from 2004, and was very excited when I heard that he had released a new one. He sings and play guitar in the technical death metal band Nile, which, like the name says is all about egyptian mythology. With Saurian Meditation and Saurian Exorcisms, he continues to be influenced by the ancient, middle-eastern mythologies. The difference is that this is as far as you can get from technical death metal. What we’re dealing with here is world music, and he does an excellent job.

A lot of metal bands claim to be influenced by H.P. Lovecraft, but this is the only album I’ve heard that actually is truly Lovecraftian. And this is totally my own interpretation. Not once have I heard or read an interview where he mention the great author.

This is one of those albums that take you on a journey to another place and another time. If I close my eyes, I can really see the mad arab; Abdul Alhazred writing his book, Necronomicon. I can see the shapes of Yog-Sothot and Cthulhu and feel the presence of the civilizations and unnameable creatures that existed long before we, the human race, came to be. I see unspeakable rites being performed.

From the beginning, Preliminary Purification Before The Calling of Inanna to the end, Dying Embers Of The Aga Mass SSSratu, it is a journey, and Karl Sanders is your guide.

The Kolony – Mischiefs And Shenanigans (2009) 8/10

http://cdbaby.com/cd/kolony

Try to imagnine the following scenario: It’s saturday night and Helloween decides to try hallucinogenic drugs for the first time in their lives. Tripping out, they suddenly decide that they want to play grindcore, kick out Andy Deris and let two friends scream their lungs out. Then they realize that they want to put punk drums and hardcore choirs and why not, some Macabre influences into the mix.

It may sound to good to be true, but this is exactly what Gothenburg’s The Kolony sound like. To make it even more psyched out, they have song titles like Good Boys Swallow, The Ballad of Sir Bastard,  Dead Metal Dance and Raping The Royal Retard.

The album contains 29 minutes of pure psychedelic punk metal madness, and it’s your own fault if you don’t give this one a listen.