Faustcoven - Rising From Below The Earth (2008)

Genre - Death/Doom with Black and Traditional Doom influences
Review - By the time I had discovered this band, they were already pretty famous among renowned metal listeners. I was introduced to this band in the latter part of the last year by one of the most trusted metalhead from my country. His recs hardly fail and I just grabbed this chance with both hands. Downloaded it, Listened to it, Liked it and completely forgt about it.

One fine morning I decided to buy this from the legendary record Barbarian Wrath (Yes the same label that is synonymous with the word kvlt and they do sign some of the greatest BM acts). Remeber Countess' Heilig Vuur, Hail's the Inheritence of Evilness, Megiddo's Devil and the Whore and the czech awesomeness Amon Goeth?? They are some of the greatest BM bands making music today and Faustcoven joined the league of those Extraordinary Motherfuckers a few years back. Their debut The Halo of Burning Wings was widely acclaimed as a landmark album by critics. On this album they have picked right from where they had left but just became more mature and if you didnt notice it in their debut already, they also got a session drummer(Yes The drumming does sound a lil mechanical on the debut). They also manage to shed a lot of down tuned low muffling guitar sound and decided to opt for thick, heavy tones instead. Arguably the primary genre here is death/doom. Obviously you still have a lot of Black metal influences just like their fellow partners in crime Hail. But what makes it an even more interesting album is its influences from Heavy metal and Traditional doom legends. Thats precisely the reason why I like this better than Hail and the band's debut. There is one mind blowing cover of Angel Witch's song from their 1981 demo Give It Some Tickle. Now who would cover a song as obscure as that (Look, Its not even on AW's more famous albums "Angel Witch " and "Screamin' and Bleedin' "). These guys must have heard a shitloads of obscure heavy/NWOBHM back in the day.

Underlying those layered ultra-slow-heavy-as-fuck guitar riffs lies solos reminiscent of heavy metal. The album begins with an epic 11 minute long magnum opus self titled track and everything else from there is like a journey. Its as if you are experiencing some some evil rites being performed in satan's abode. The echo laden deep and throaty growls are sinister enough to give you nightmarish sleeps.

All in all, a gem of an album which will be considered a cult classic in 10 years from now on. Certainly the second best of 2008. Basically any band with influences ranging from Hellhammer, Celtic Frost, Bathory, Black Sabbath, Angel Witch, Mercyful Fate, Winter cant really fail, or can IT??

-EyeHateDoG
Get This Here

Fungus Liver - The Real Core of the Inevitable Shit (2009)

I'm not really sure how to describe these Finnish rockers. They're drunken hard rock howling isn't really normally my kind of thing but I saw this album on Mininova and downloaded it because of the title. When I booted up iTunes and got this shit cranking I was really pleasantly surprised by the quality of this release. It turns out that these guys uploaded their album to Mininova and the Pirate Bay themselves and completely forwent any traditional form of album release, kudos to them for that.

As for what the band actually sounds like, I'm at a bit of a loss as to how to describe them. I don't really listen to a lot of similar stuff, but they do remind me a bit of Turbonegro if that's helpful at all. The singer is also in Feastem who play a pretty good if unspectacular brand of grind. I hope Fungus Liver proves to be more than just a Feastem side project, because I definitely see a lot of potential here.







HEAVEN OR HELL
LET'S ROCK

Adramelch - Irae Melanox (1988)

Now this one is special folks!

It is quite hard to get into and the ghastly production shure doesn't help, but once this clicks it will be on your favorite albums lists for the rest of your lives! Second to none songwriting, beautifuly crafted melodies and heartful singing, all done with such passion bands these days can only dream about.

If you like early Fates Warning, you simply cannot go wrong with this.

MU

Ceremony - Tyranny From Above (1993)

I've been on a huge NYDM binge lately and I remembered this virtually unknown Dutch band that sortof has that typical NY style, though a bit eurofied.

This isn't as good as the 3 "-ations" and Morpheus Descends, but still very worthy of attention to fans of underground old school death metal.

Enjoy!

iFolder

Exoto - Carnival of Souls + The Fifth Season [Demo]

Teutonic thrash has it's big three, but so does Belgian osdm. There's the epic Caducity, the technical Chemical Breath and last but not least the death/thrash attack of Exoto.

I would descibe their style as a lovechild of Master and Massacra, with a little bit of attempt at proggy stuff on their demo, which was wisely removed for their full length.

So if it's solid death/thrash you want, get this!

Download [MU]

Epitaph [Florida] - Demos (1991, 1992)

The story of Floridian Death Metal band Epitaph is known by few, aside from the band members themselves, and perhaps some of those active in the 90's Tampa Bay-Area Death Metal scene. I came to learn of it only after talking to their bassist Mark Good, a pleasant and very down to earth fellow, over Soulseek one evening some weeks ago. He told me the band had released two demos, one in '91 with Jim Morris at Morrisound Studios, and another in '92 with famed (but, according to Mark overrated) death metal producer Scott Burns. They used these to shop around for record labels, but were ultimately unsuccessful in getting signed- the one label to take interest in them, Massacre Records, being turned down by the drummer as "not good enough for the band" before consulting the rest of them. Eventually, they decided to call it quits.

Some of the band members went on to other bands- the bassist and drummer playing in Ressurrection for a brief period, and notably guitarist/vocalist Tony Teegarden going on to play for Cynic, but of this band we are only left with these demos, and the frustration any music-fanatic faces when he runs across a band that should've made it, but didn't.

As for the music itself, imagine a sound along the lines of Mid-Period Death, the Cynic Demos, and early Obituary (with John Tardy actually performing backing vocals on the '91 demo song "I Endeavor"); the second demo being more technical than the first (and featuring a new lead-guitarist), but both featuring good musicianship (listen to that exceptional bass!) and solid songwriting.

As they ultimately didn't make any money off of them, Mark gave me the leave to spread these demos around if I wished, so get them HERE

And, if you like the demos and care to talk to him, drop into soulseek and look him up- he goes by "mmetalmark"

Leukemia - Love [advance promo] (1997)

Genre - Death Metal, Melodic Death Metal

Now, as I both have not listened to this album nearly enough to justify a full review, and am not in a particular mood to write one, I will but give a brief rundown of this release for fans. "Love" is/was slated to be Swedish Death Metal band Leukemia's third release. It was mastered in the mid 90's by Dan Swanö at Unisound Studios, but even after over ten years, a name change, and a reawakening of the band, has yet to see the light of day in the form of a proper release. Some time ago it was let known by the band that they intend to finally bring it to the masses sometime in 2008. As the year closed, it was pushed to 2009. Why? I don't know. The band is obscure as all hell.

Anyway, I ran across this interesting tape-rip of what I think is a '97 "advance-promo" of the album a day or so ago, and knowing that there are still some fans in the death metal underground who would care to give this a listen, I thought I'd post it.

The sound, as I had expected, is more melodic than their previous releases, and Dan Swanö himself pops in more than a few times to give his help in the form of his awesome growl or powerful baritone, possibly a key section or two too.

Now, I don't know if this is the same form this album will be released as this year (if it's released at all), but this is all we have for now.

Give it a shot-

Mediafire

Master's Hammer - Ritual (1991)

Genre - Black Metal
This in my book is THE PERFECT BLACK METAL album(Not that I have heard a lot, But i HAVE listened to most of the so called classics).

Seriously this is the greatest BM album that no one cares about. Czech had some really obscure and awesome BM scene going on and to expect an album of such high quality as Ritual way back in early 90s from them is really asking for too much. But Boy,Oh Boy! Do they kick some ass? They certainly do. The whole album is a journey. Its as if sitting in an opera with black metal riffs being played in the background, Yes it has that classical music feel around it. Unique vocals and the riffs remind of some of the 80s heavy metal bands. I actually wanted to check if Master's hammer were a One Hit wonder,so I went on to check some of their early demos and guess what they were nearly as awesome as Ritual only the production was a bit poor.

I have never recommended any band more, THIS IS SOMETHING YOU JUST CANT IGNORE.

-EyeHateDoG
Mediafire

Stolen Babies - There Be Squabbles Ahead (2006)

Genre - Avant-Garde, Experimental

Weird is the word, May be most of you already know them, but for those who dont, you absolutely should. May I'm not the best person to be recommending an avant-garde stuff but I do know what I like and what I dont. This one's a gem of an album. Some of you may complain about the weird female vocals(dont expect the usual symponic shit, there's a reason why I said "weird"), so dont say that I didnt warn you. I have been listening to this album since last year and it never gets old.

-EyeHateDoG
Megaupload

Rippikoulu - Musta Seremonia (1993)

Genre - Death/Doom

Hailing from Finland, they are probably the finest death/doom band that didnt go on to release a full-length. While their first demo "Mutaation Aiheuttama Sisäinen Mätäneminen " released in 1992 was an ameteurish effort than this one, also the profuction was so horrible that songs were almost inaudible. But this one is a huge improvement over the last one. They play sick dark death/doom mixed with mid paced death metal. And it does have that filthy and raw old school finnish death sound. SO its a must for any fan of Convulse, Runemagick etc! Prepare to get assaulted by 31 minutes of mega dose of heavy riffs.

-EyeHateDoG
Mediafire