Inferius Torment - Ceremony of Godslaying [Full length] (2012, World Terror Committee)

First impressions have always been important to me when I listen to a band. While some albums or bands grow on me with time some never really do anything for me, and I will almost always be more inticed to further listening if the first impression is great. With Inferius Torment I was expecting boring text book black metal. After all, with a name like that it's bound to be one big cliché, right? Well, sort of. There's nothing new under the sun regarding the songwriting on Ceremony of Godslaying, but then again it's probably some of the best blastbeat based black metal I've heard in recent years.

Ceremony of Godslaying is the Russian band's second full length effort. I find that the second album from a band is often a watered down version of the first album, but I'm having trouble seeing how this could be watered down from anything. It simply is that solid. It's got great vocals, a crystal clear production, drums that are fast and tighter than a nun and incredibly memorable riffs. In short, everything a black metal album of this type needs. Ceremony of Godslaying from 2012 appeals to me as a fan of Marduk, 1349, Gorgoroth and Dark Funeral and I've found that in regards to songwriting tracks like Diabolical Perversity and Funeral of Christian God fully measure up to classics such as Panzer Division Marduk, My Funeral, Procreating Satan or I Am Abomination.

Inferius Torment never lets their guard down. From start to finish Ceremony of Godslaying is a satanic torrent of blast beats, tremolo riffs and spewing hatred. Their recipe for destruction is simple yet effective, and during the almost 40 minutes that make up this album that recipe never grows stale. 8/10 guitars.

Tracklist:
1. Agnus Dei
2. Evangelical Key
3. Diabolical Perversity
4. Sola Scriptura
5. Archangel Seals
6. Evil Manifestos of Satan
7. Funeral of the Christian God
8. Unbaptized Flames

INFERIUS TORMENT official site
World Terror Committee official site

Brain Famine - Brain Famine [EP] (2011, Self-released)

Ah, grindcore. Is there anything that doesn't go great with grindcore? If there is, death and thrash metal isn't it. Proven time and time again by bands such as the horror themed Frightmare, Brain Famine resurrects the time-tested recipe for mosh-friendly death/thrash/grind with gusto and abrasive enthusiasm.

What the lyrics are about I have no idea, but then again I've never been that much of a lyric aficionado. But what I do know is that Brain Famine, two guys from Weymouth, Massachussets, know their grind. I'm guessing they've been listening a lot to bands like Macabre, Carcass and Ghoul, and like those bands they've got the heavy riffs, organic drumming and terrific production down. Whoever said that grindcore needs to sound shitty is an asshole and needs to be buried alive with a handful of spiders.

With just 6 songs on the EP you'd think that, given their predisposition to grindcore elements, it's gonna be a short one. Au contraire! The eponymous opus is a whopping 22 minutes in length, which is only a mere 7 minutes shorter than Slayer's magnum opus Reign in Blood. Not that those two compare. At all.

Brain Famine's first effort as a band is one that shows great understanding of how to put together awesome metal and grind. Though I've been heaping loads of praise upon the EP it's not all perfect. There is especially one track that annoys me slightly, namely Ingest, the third track. It sort of halts the otherwise monumental flow and momentum that the first two tracks create, and with it's incredible 5 minutes and 56 seconds it takes a lot of focus away when listening. It's not a bad track as such, but I would like it more if it was placed last on the EP and wasn't so damn long.
Brain Famine succeed in creating hugely enjoyable death/thrash/grind that I will likely be listening to for months to come. It may not be perfect, but it feels sufficiently polished and prepared to reignite my want for some Impetigo. 8/10 guitars.

Tracklist:
1. Die Off
2. Cunning Bondage
3. Ingest
4. Ignorant Dopes
5. Citizen Solution
6. N.F.O.

BRAIN FAMINE official site

Don't just take my word for it. Listen to Brain Famine with your own two ears! Or one ear, if you're a freak
http://brainfamine.bandcamp.com/

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!

Garoted - Evil Personified [EP] (2011, Self-released)

Does the US need another death metal band? Yes, there's always room for more quality death metal! Garoted, a band from Nebraska with a demo, album and now also an EP in their catalogue, is (as you might have guessed) a death metal band. Breakneck speeds is an element that I think most people can appreciate in death metal, and the American band does not waste time. Even if their drums are beyond crazy and demented blast beats are what dominate their music their songs are still close to or above 5 minutes, which I think most will agree is alot for death metal music. The roaring vocals, grisly riffs and ripping drums all come together in a malicious explosion of death with an old school feel.

Something that death metal has always had trouble overcoming is the chaotic feeling that the downtuned guitars and high speeds induce, and while Garoted feature all those elements that normally make it hard to listen to, the first two songs on the EP are both memorable, sinister and brutally well-organized. Unfortunately this can't be said for the entire EP, and this is one of the main weak-points of Evil Personified. Variation is often great, but on this EP there's a huge difference in quality. The last two songs, "Heretic Fire" and a cover of Deicide's "Oblivious to Evil", are marginally worse in production, and this bothers me tremendously especially because they aren't marked as demo tracks or anything like that.

What I mentioned above seriously messes the wholesomeness of the release, and this makes it really hard to take serious as a complete release. I would've preferred if the two first tracks, which are really strong efforts on their own, were released without the last two as this would've given a better general view of the band. Heretic Fire is still a good song in its own right, still displaying the great variation structure-wise that makes Garoted a special band in my ears, but the inferior sound quality makes it terribly hard to enjoy.
Check out Garoted if you're into really really really fast no bullshit death metal with no room to take a breather. This shit is intense, and the first two tracks alone speak of monumental talent that earns this EP 7/10 guitars. I would've given it more if there wasn't the issue with the production on the last tracks.

Tracklist:
1. Under the Infernal Allegiance
2. Raping Benevolence
3. Heretic Fire
4. Oblivious to Evil (Deicide Cover)

GAROTED official site

Silent Carrion - Andras (Full length) [2012, Self-released)

Scaia, the only member of the Italian underground project Silent Carrion, is what can best be described as an invocator of ritualistic and industrial sounds beyond this realm. Suffice it to say that some will find his music to be the soundtrack to certain nightmares while others will enjoy it endlessly.

The Andras album is something out of the ordinary. It suffers from a lot of inconsistency in the way that some of the tracks seem completely out of place, maybe even as if they were created with a completely different mindset. The tracks are a fair mix of pseudo black metal with that familiar and unwelcome tinge of programmed MIDI-drums, so often heard in conjunction with innumerable bedroom black metal one-man bands, and above-average dark ambient with influences from both industrial, noise and even some hints of 80's video game music.

In spite of the wide mix of genres and influences on Andras, Scaia's efforts as Silent Carrion makes for a rather fluent and impressive journey through his twisted mind, although tracks like Mist and Copper almost turned away from listening to the album entirely. Those two tracks were what I was referring to when I talked about inconsistensy - They are out of place and much below the otherwise high quality of the rest of the tracks on Andras, and I feel that if you cut those two away you would be left with a better listening experience.

Andras invokes an atmosphere that reminds me of old video games like Castlevania, or perhaps dark 80's sci-fi flicks with hinted horrors. A solid experience for those who seek some dark ambient out of the ordinary. 7/10 guitars.

Tracklist:
1. Mountain (An Invocation)
2. Mist
3. Fear Spread like Plague
4. The Ground Seems Hollow
5. Echoes from a Deep Chasm
6. Copper
7. Suprematism (Sickness)
8. Krieg

SILENT CARRION official site
Want to listen for yourself? Get the album for free right HERE