Hell United - Aura Damage [Full length] (2012, Hellthrasher Productions)

Poland has had a good run of metalbands that fuse the raw brutality of death metal, the faster elements of thrash metal and the evil that drips from black metal. Like Norway produces black metal bands, Poland has in the last few years produced many great bands, including Behemoth, Hate and Vader that have probably been more or less responsible for creating this new wave of blackened death metal. I've had the pleasure of reviewing many bands like Pandemonium, Centurion, Embrional, Sphere, Stillborn and Empatic, and like these bands Hell United have sought a sound that combines the collected evils of black and death metal with some serious nods towards thrashy tendencies.

9 songs strong, Aura Damage - the second full length album from Hell United - perfectly showcases a great understanding of how to create high-tempo metal riddled with tremolo riffing and blasting drums. Songs like the sinister "Deathlike Cold", the equally fast-paced "Apostle of Plague" and the tenebrous closing track "Totality of I" are what make Aura Damage an album worth checking out if you are into the bands mentioned earlier.
The Polish quartet show great craftsmanship in the terms of writing metal, but it's not all fun and games. While the 2012 album shows great promise and provides great consistency in genuinely good songwriting, I found most of the album to border on a run of the mill type of stuff. True, the album makes for a good listen and consists of mostly pretty good songs, but in the end it all flows together into an immemorable blob, and only the three songs I mentioned earlier are really memorable.

Hell United's Aura Damage is an album that I won't deny has a good vibe to it. It yearns to be listened to, and the energy the album perveys is something speciel. But I gotta be honest and say that it isn't an album I would put on for my own listening pleasure. I wouldn't put it on for anything other than background music for when I do other stuff. But this purpose it serves greatly in that it has a great, oppressive atmosphere, good dynamic song structures and pretty good riffs. But what makes it weak as a piece in its entirity it's the fact that most of the songs sort of blend together. But even so I feel I must give Aura Damage by Hell United 7/10 guitars because of the sheer force that the work conveys.

Tracklist:
1. Red Limitations
2. Apostle of Plague
3. Deathlike Cold
4. Let the Sleeping Dogs Lie
5. Aura Damage
6. Hinterland
7. Maelstorm's Gravity
8. In Odore Sanctitatis
9. Totality of I

HELL UNITED official Facebook
Hellthrasher Productions official site

Listen for yourself!

Malfeitor - Dum Morior Orior [Full length] (2012, Hellthrasher Productions)

Malfeitor is an old death metal band hailing from Sweden. Despite their early year of creation they've had a lot of down-time and as such didn't start releasing material before 2011. Now, what if I told you that Malfeitor is a Swedish death metal band that DOESN'T have the famed Sunlight guitar-sound, would you believe it? Nowadays it's almost hard to come by Swedish death metal bands that aren't Grave-clones, but it would seem that this band has chosen to move in a different direction, which still involves plenty of the malevolent melodies that Sweden have become known for.

At first the album Dum Morior Orior didn't really do anything for me. It sounded like mundane, garden-variety death metal without anything out of the ordinary. And to be honest, Malfeitor really isn't that special, but the fact that they are old-timers in the terms of death metal shows greately on Dum Morior Orior, and after turning that shit way up on the stereo the straight up solid quality of the album hit me like a brick in the nuts. I cannot stress enough that the production of this album makes it worth listening to very loud.

However, Malfeitor's Dum Morior Orior is an album filled with tracks that are only moderately enjoyable on their own. The band have crafted a malicious sound aswell as a grim recipe for song writing, but on their own the tracks pale in comparison to the highly memorable opuses of other bands such as Bloodbath.
The album lacks hooks and as such is mostly enjoyable as a whole. The otherwise good songwriting simply can't do it on its own. If I were to point out a few tracks that one should listen to in order to get a fulfilling view of the album I would recommend Scenes from a Slaughterhouse, Rolling with Corpses and Beyond the Horrorizon, which despite its name is actually a really great song.
In closing Dum Morior Orior is 11 tracks, roughly 40 minutes, of death metal that WILL serve its purpose if you give it the chance to do so. 7/10 guitars.

Tracklist:
1. Conversation in Minor
2. Beyond the Horrorizon
3. When Last Breath Fades
4. Exile from Sanity
5. To Hell, Farewell
6. Death, the Dead and Me
7. Rolling with Corpses
8. And the Sky Turned to Rage
9. Psychosis
10. Scenes from a Slaughterhouse
11. Sojourn Hell

MALFEITOR official site
Hellthrasher Productions official site

Hear for yourself!

Putrified - Neurotic Necrotic [Full length] (2012, Hellthrasher Productions)

Mostly the bands of the modern metal world can be divided into two groups: Traditional revivalist bands and modern bands. You see tons of bands that do nothing but copy their favourite bands from the 80's, and especially death and thrash metal have had a huge resurgence in the scene these last few years.

Old school Swedish death metal is no exception. There are numerous great bands who have their inspirational roots in the old Swedish bands like Grave, Dismember and Entombed, but of course there are also a lot of really mediocre bands, and even some that downright tarnish the otherwise good name of Old School Swedish Death Metal.
Putrified is more or less one of those bands. For a band that has a demo, an EP and now two full length albums on it's record you would expect them to have found a good and solid recipe for metal, but unfortunately the one man project that is A.Death's Putrified is a sad husk of uncreative 80's worship.

Allow me to elaborate; Other than being nothing out of the ordinary, "Neurotic Necrotic" from 2012 is a collection of not-too-thoroughly worked through tracks of varying quality. The guitars are way too fuzzy for a non-stoner band and doesn't leave much room for aggression or the morbid power that imbued the old death metal classics. Some of the tracks can have good bits, like a nice riff or something like that, but ultimately Neurotic Necrotic lacks flow and a climax. It's like the songs individually and the album as a whole never really get to their respective climaxes, and that's what I meant by not thoroughly worked through.

A.Death presents little to no variation and the tracks mostly sound the same as every song sound like small variations of the same riff. The vocals are terribly unvaried and just not good enough to justify not doing anything else. If I would have to mention two good things about the album it is that the slow headbanging parts are alright and some acceptable riffs now and then. But it's not nearly enough to warrant more than 4/10 guitars.

Tracklist:
1. Neurotic Necrotic
2. They Speak
3. Behold the Butchered
4. Havoc
5. A Chamber Beneath
6. The Flesh of God
7. Temple of Vomit
8. Await the Slaughter
9. The Arrival
10. Monolith
11. The Land of the Pharoes
12. These Forsaken Lands
13. The Return of Ashes

PUTRIFIED official site
Hellthrasher Productions official site

Escarnium - Rex Verminorum [EP] (2011, Hellthrasher Productions)

You could probably say that there was two major influential groups in early death metal: The Florida-scene and the Swedish scene. Though the bands from both places played death metal there were some differences in sound and such. The Swedish scene's trademark chainsaw-guitar sound is a trait that has since been used by bands all over the world.

The Brazilian deathdealers in Escarnium mix the brutallity of Brazilian death metal that we all know (or SHOULD know!) and this fuzzed up guitar sound of Sweden. Filled with great riffs, headpounding drums and a total rotting old school feel despite the somewhat modern production Rex Verminorum is a short display of absolute death metal power.
If you are ready to embark on a journey through disease-ridden lands covered in death and suffering, Escarnium will help you get there with these 30 minutes of blastbeats, tremolo riffs and magnificently executed growls.

Now, this isn't going to be all appraisal. As much as I'd like it, no album or EP is perfect. But with Rex Verminorum I can't really put my finger on anything other than lack of ingenuity. While the album is definitely a fun and enjoyable listen, it's not really anything new. It's not been done overly much, so it's still within acceptable bounds.Laden with well-executed blastbeats and a dry sound Escarnium are a beacon of light in a sea of mediocrity. There's the occasional unleashing of a vicious guitar solo, and though the Brazilian quartet rarely push the speed limits their brand of death metal that is usually mid-tempoed sometimes unleash short blasts of lightning fury.

Escarnium have a way with flow. Despite some of the songs being from another release, the "Covered in Decadence" demo from 2009, all the songs fit together like pieces of a morbid puzzle. The hellish vibes of the Rex Verminorum EP should disappoint no fan of solid Swedish or Brazilian death metal. 8/10 guitars.

Tracklist:
1. Dark Clouds Above Hell's Fire
2. Self Proclaimed Messiah
3. Rex Verminorum
4. Covered in Decadence
5. Enfeeblement and Iconoclasm
6. His Final March
7. Slaves of an Ending Fate


ESCARNIUM official site
Hellthrasher Productions official site