Ceremonial Bloodbath "The Tides of Blood"

    Once you begin listening to Ceremonial Bloodbath there is simply no escaping the enormous tidal wave of bestial brutality that this band is capable of delivering. The Vancouver BC based death metal maniacs in Ceremonial Bloodbath unleash upon the metal world a devastating onslaught with the release of their debut album full-length album, “The Tides of Blood.” 

    The metal community has been gifted quite a few solid death metal releases so far and “The Tides of Blood” is right up there in terms of sheer extreme ferocity. Ceremonial Bloodbath’s raw aggressive approach to making monstrous sounding recordings is definitely something that stands out right away when listening to this album. I do not think there was one moment where I was disinterested, because the overall production and profound nature of this band’s creative mindset is executed extremely well through out the entire release. Again, some bands are able to produce a behemoth sounding death metal release, while some bands sound like they can’t record their way out of a paper bag. 

    I thought that the opening track on album, “Command Sacrifice,” does a great job establishing the ominous tone by incorporating these insidious sounding cinematic like sounds. As the haunting music slowly fades, the band instantly dives right into a tormenting death metal frenzy full of bone sawing riffs and merciless blast beats. The singer lays down some of the truly grotesque and unforgiving vocals to compliment the unholy atmosphere that is drenched in pure pestilent sounding death metal. On the next song, “Book of Black Blessings,” the band’s drummer kicks off the song by completely decimating listeners with a flurry of skull pounding drum parts. The entire band plays with fearsome precision thus allowing you to become completely consumed by the darkness spewing out of the speakers. 

    As the album moves relentless forward the band continues to desecrate all that is holy by hammering out more sinister arrangements. For example, “Hordes of Demons Feeding,” is a gruesome old school death metal feast full of sadistic sounding riffs. Also, I really enjoyed how right after the song finishes they offer up this very occult like sounding piece of music called, “The Void Staring Back.” The mesmerizing celestial sounds are almost inhuman and the sound of goats makes you feel as if you are entering into an infernal realm of unimaginable chaos. Right after this short piece of music ends the band maintains a raw and ravenous mentality on the next fews songs. 

    Tracks like, “Hammer Throne,” “Seven Wells” and “Ceremonial Bloodbath,” are dynamic cuts of music that showcase this band’s exceptional extreme music making prowess. I think, “Seven Wells,” is the highlight track off of the album and features some cataclysmic like compositions as well as more horrifying death growls. Arguably some of the most nightmare inducing riffs featured on the entire album.  

    I honestly do believe that Ceremonial Bloodbath’s, “The Tides of Blood,” is a tremendous debut full-length album, and even though there are countless bands that play this style of extreme music, not all of them are able to put together a crushing album from start to finish. Of course, the album is being released through Sentient Ruin Laboratories, so right away I am going to highly recommend that people check it out. Ceremonial Bloodbath is on a destructive conquest to bestow upon the metal world an album that shall leave a trail of carnage in their wake, so do not even think about passing this album up! 

Check out the song "Primitive" below (Album comes out October 23, 2020):

Sentient Ruin Website:

http://sentientruin.com/releases

Ceremonial Bloodbath Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/ceremonialbloodbath

Cryptae "Nightmare Traversal"

    Cryptae’s debut full-length album, “Nightmare Traversal,” is a malevolent exploration through ghastly sounding landscapes of unspeakable surreal brutality. These experimental extreme metal musicians from the Netherlands prove to be an unconventional and fearsome force in the world of extreme music. 

    The band features members from Plague Organ, Imperial Cult and Dead Neanderthals, so just like with all of those bands you are going find that Cryptae is full of unpredictable and unyielding extreme ideas. Their abhorrent sounding death doom approach is what makes this album a very unique listening experience. The riffs are constructed in a chaotic manner and sound as though you are being crushed under the weight of this massive mountain of devastating distortion. I am not surprised that Cryptae is working with Sentient Ruin on the release of this album. If you want a sinister sounding release that flows with a tremendous amount of unfathomable sounding destruction, then I recommend any Sentient Ruin release without hesitation. 

    The album contains seven tracks full of abysmal atmospheric horror that looks to suffocate listeners in an aural cloud of fiendish musical creativity. On the opening track, “Nightmare Traversal,” the band begins with a cold and vile sounding atmosphere that pulls listeners slowly into the band’s bludgeoning world of gruesome sounding death doom. You feel as though your mind is being pulled in a variety of directions by the guitar and drum arrangements, thus you start to question your own mental sanity. On the second track, “Cryptic Passage,” the bands delivers a frantic sounding guitar composition and constructs this hectic maze of musical torment. 

    As the album progresses there is just no predicting where the band will go next with their experimental mindset. “Monastic Tomb,” is one track where I felt as though the band was leading listeners on this oppressive sounding pathway of distorted mind altering terror and then they throw you off a ledge into a black abyss of infinite doom on the next song, “Edifice.” The chaotic compositions on this album matched with the album’s horrifying themes demonstrates a band that wants listeners to not only get an extreme sounding release, but also wants to push them on the brink of having a psychological collapse. 

    In the end, Cryptae is exactly the band I would expect Sentient Ruin to be working with, because “Nightmare Traversal” is an album that does not fit into the generic mold of what most modern death metal bands are putting out these days. I will be honest and admit that I had to listen to this album a few times to really understand what was entering my ears, however, I respect the ambitious drive of this band and the album is definitely a monstrous sounding release that keeps you on the edge of your seat. If people thought that nightmares could not come to life, after listening to this album I think even Freddy Krueger would be overwhelmed with fear. 

Check out the full album below:

Sentient Ruin bandcamp:

https://sentientruin.bandcamp.com/

Interview with Unlucky Theta

2020 can best be described as how Bret Hart felt after Vince McMahon screwed him over during the championship title match at Survivor Series 1997 in Montreal. Although this has been an unprecedented and wacky year so far, the amount of exceptional rock and metal releases has definitely been a bright spot. Unlucky Theta's debut EP is one of many stellar recordings to come out this year and it is a release that I highly recommend people check out. I thought readers might be interested in finding out more info about the EP as well as the band's history, so I decided to create some questions for the band that would give listeners more insight into the world of Unlucky Theta. So here it is people, my interview with the three members of Unlucky Theta...

Q: First off guys, I would like to thank you for taking the time to do this interview. Recently you released your debut EP, which I think offers listeners a great glimpse into your creative music making talents. How has it been to finally have a release out there for people to check out? 

Daniel: Thanks DJ Rob for the kind words. This EP has been the culmination of months of hard work between many people who helped make it possible. Between gigging, writing, practicing, a global pandemic, as well as the many other personal responsibilities we each have outside of music, it took us some time to properly make a decent sounding release we were proud of. After we released our first single, "No Vacations" in June 2019, which we tracked live with just one overhead SM57 mic in our lockout, we soon realized we wanted to make a higher quality recording to capture some of the songs we had been working on.  A year and a half later, it's been an amazing feeling to finally have a physical copy in our hands and to be able to share our music with others. The response to this project has been overwhelmingly positive; which we're very grateful for.

Q: Before we dive more into the EP, I thought that maybe you could give the readers some background info. When did the three of you first meet? Who came up with the name Unlucky Theta? Did Gene Simmons claim to own the name Unlucky Theta? You know he tries to trademark almost everything... 

Ariel: Daniel and I started jamming around late 2017, early 2018. Quite quickly we realized that we had a good connection going on and were finishing each other’s sentences, musically speaking. We both liked to get stoned and lay down some tasty grooves, but we also liked heavy, dark, extreme and experimental shit. We had a trio with another friend called Tunisian D which could be best be described as a “heavy jam” band. Lots of fun, but no coherent direction. Tunisian D parted ways and eventually Daniel and I decided to start a new group, but of course we needed a guitarist. This is where Nick came into the picture after Daniel met him at a party and he brought a whole new element into the mix. He was as eclectic as we were, he liked the heavy stuff, he can shred, and he could murder any wacky progressive bullshit I threw at him without hesitation. And that kinda became the game with the riffs I was writing. I would try to come up with all of these progressive plot twists and polyrhythms in the riffs but make them have purpose and meaning to fit the vibe of the music. Then Nick and Daniel would bring their own ideas to the table and we would end up crafting something that really had the essence of the three of us combined. And it had to be interesting. That was the rule; no stringing together random, unrelated riffs together like a deathcore band. It had to be earned. Heavy headbanging moments, soft beautiful moments, proggy leftfield time warp moments, stoned hypnotic sludge moments, solos, double times, long screams, they had to be earned, they had to not only be able to stand on their own, but also stand as a larger part of the song. Because to me these were never just riffs; they were songs. 

The name Unlucky Theta actually comes from a symbol archeologists often find on ancient Roman mosaics, especially those depicting the outcomes of gladiator fights. If there was the letter Theta on top of the head of a gladiator, it stood for the word Thanatos (which is Greek for death) and meant that the gladiator had lost the fight and died in combat. So this Unlucky Theta (Or Theta Infelix, but I thought it would be too pretentious to have both a Greek and Latin word in our name, in fact, even explaining it is pretentious…) is basically the opposite of a Halo. It’s a symbol of defeat, failure and cruel fate, the losers of history and so our music and lyrics came to reflect that. We don’t have songs about epic victories or daring final charges. We don’t glorify or demonize anything. We have songs about indiscriminate global slaughter, or being a nameless soldier who dies in agony because your general made a dumb call, or being sacrificed to Aztec Gods, or being betrayed and left behind in outer space, and so on. 

Q: When listening to the EP people are going to notice right away that you guys do not just stick to one style of music. There is a lot of diversity in your overall sound. I wanted to know what are some artists that have influenced you over the years? 

Nick: Sadly, most of my non-metal influences can’t be heard on the album because we are neither trap DJs nor an ABBA cover band. But I’d like to think you can hear my Buddy Guy influences. And if I could count better you would probably hear just how much I like Meshuggah. To oversimplify things: Rel brings the jazz, Daniel brings the punk, and I bring the DragonForce.

Ariel: Candiria, High on Fire, Mastodon, Acid Bath, The Faceless, Crom, Frank Zappa, Slayer, Megadeth, Agoraphobic Nosebleed, Gorillaz and Pink Floyd. 

Daniel: Everything from Grateful Dead to 60’s jazz to 70’s funk, reggae, and prog to 80’s hardcore to 90’s death metal and black metal, New Orleans sludge. Even some trip hop/house stuff. We all dig Turkish psychedelic folk music and classical ragas a lot too.  Our music tastes are all over the place so you’re hearing a bit of everything when we play. 

Q: Being that this is your first official EP, what was the recording process like? Did you have all the songs written before going into the studio? Did you guys face any challenges recording some of the tracks? Did someone break chairs and throw bottles like Axl Rose? 

Daniel: Haha, no bottle throwing or anything like that. It was actually a very pleasant, methodical experience. We worked with our good friends Jonathan Cronin and Yuri Kondra of Protean Sound. They play in many well-respected death, black, and doom metal bands down here in LA including Calcemia, Ancestral Awakening, Cruelty Exalted, etc.  I have known them both since high school and they are incredibly talented audio engineers with an ear for quality tone-shaping and skillful mixing prowess. Plus, them being fellow metalheads and friends of ours made us feel more comfortable working with them because they speak the same musical language that we do. They knew the sound we were going for right away. They are not like other producers who too often have a "one size fits all" approach. They take the time to carefully mix each tune to have its own distinct tone, character, and dynamics. So they were an obvious choice for us to work with. We had all the songs written prior to going into the studio, except for guitar solos and other percussion instrumentation ideas. Improvisation is an important element to our band so we wanted to challenge ourselves to bring some of that to the studio environment as well. The basic formula for recording was the three of us would get in the studio together and track each tune live and then we each went in and recorded our individual parts. We challenged ourselves to record the first few tracks without a click track to see if we could keep perfect time. Cronin and Yuri soon persuaded us to record to a click for the remainder of the songs. That was probably the best advice we got from them because it taught us to truly learn to focus on locking in with each other and to feel the pulse of the click. When the pandemic hit, Rel was stuck on the other side of the world so we had to figure out how to finish recording our final overdubs and vocals remotely. He ended up going into a studio in Tel Aviv and knocking out his vocals there with a producer. He's now living safely in Europe. So that was probably our biggest challenge. 

Q: Now out of the six tracks I find it extremely hard to pick a favorite, because each song offers something a bit different and really makes this a solid EP from start to finish. However, if you were to try and pick one song, which would you say is your favorite? Also, what song(s) do you enjoy playing live? 

Nick: “Psalm” has to be my favorite on the EP, it’s just dripping in atmosphere. It’s also a lot of fun live when we get everyone clapping along – it’s our secret weapon for winning over indifferent bar patrons. I love playing “No Vacations” live too because it’s both really heavy and really easy, so I can focus on the important stuff like headbanging and grimacing. “Tezcatlipoca” is one of our fastest, and hardest for me because of the solo, which is my nod to my love of Necrophagist. That’s a staple for metal shows especially when we play a heavier, faster set, and it always gets a good reaction.

Ariel: “Venus”. I am really proud of that riff, I had it in my head for the longest time. Nick and Daniel hated me at first when I showed it to them because it definitely required some defamiliarization techniques to learn it, but once we got in the groove it just became an addicting riff. In general, I’m really happy with the direction the song goes. Shout out to our good friend Shayan Ardalan who brought his percussion to really help bring the song up to the vision I had for it. Also “The Monolith Falls” is one of my favorite songs to play live. It’s mainly Nick’s riffs and lyrics, although Goodman was the one who came up with that sick bassline in the beginning during a jam session. It’s fun to play in front of an audience because it really is a slow burn and it showcases all our talents and sounds. There’s stoner groove, Middle Eastern-tinged heaviness, earth shattering outro, Nick gets plenty of chances to shred, and it has a real legitimate arc as a song. 

Q: Again, Unlucky Theta is not defined to one style of music and the EP definitely shows how you guys are dynamic songwriters. For example, I really wanted to talk about, “Psalm,” because that track stands out and conveys such a raw emotional tone. Can you tell us what was the inspiration for that song? 

Ariel: “Psalm” was definitely influenced by an older generation of music. America, Johnny Cash, The Beatles, that was kind of my vibe. I wanted an old folky/Western sound but the lyrics are inspired by very Middle Eastern, Old Testament imagery. I wanted a shamanistic nomadic feeling going on and so those “hiyas” in the chorus are sort of like a little nod to the Tuvan throat singing traditions, but also still have that very stereotypically Native American implication as well. There’s a video on Youtube of this old recording of a Cheyenne War Dance and that’s what in part gave me the idea. It’s all part of this idea of spiritual East meets West.    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS_2jOCtS9E 

Q: Now being from Los Angeles, live music is almost everywhere…unfortunately with this pandemic performing live is on hold, but before all the pandemic nonsense I wanted to know what was the music scene like? Did you guys face challenges trying to get shows in the beginning? Do you have any stories of shows that standout?

Daniel: This is the first time in modern human history where no live music is being performed anywhere around the globe. That's definitely a depressing realization. But it makes us appreciate all that we've accomplished as a band in just two years. It's hard to accurately describe the Los Angeles music scene because there isn't really ONE big scene. Because the city is so spread out, there are so many different pockets of different scenes of various genres throughout the Southland. That being said, live music was slowly dying even prior to the pandemic. Live music in L.A. was, in many ways, spoiled by its own excesses and overpopulation of bands. Because you could go and see a great show any night of the week anywhere in the city, people often took it for granted and stayed home or saved their money to go see some of the larger touring acts. Many people today seem to be just as stimulated and entertained from scrolling through their phones on the couch as they would be by a live band. So local bands had a much harder time pulling in crowds on a nightly basis.  Even so, we always had fun playing live, whether a club was packed or had 5 people sitting at the bar. Didn't really matter to us. It was fun to just play and we always got better with each show. We definitely had challenges getting shows in the beginning. In the eyes of ignorant promoters, our sound was too different to be put on bills with other bands. We were too metal for the rock clubs and not metal enough for the metal clubs. So I'd often just book the band as a "psychedelic rock" band to sneak our way onto larger bills in the early days. There were nights we played with hip-hop groups, country bands, indie bands, singer-songwriters, you name it. We definitely enjoy playing on all metal/hardcore bills because those are our peers but it's also cool to be welcomed by other scenes. It was always fun to go on after some pop-punk band and scare the living shit out of everyone and force them to submit to our sonic chaos. That's more metal than preaching to the choir of metal fans, I’d say. I think the diversity of bands that we played with was actually the most fun aspect of the LA music scene.  After a while we did get sick of the pretentiousness and feigned apathy that often exists here, so we were stoked to go play in New York City for three nights and go tour up the California coast and play for people more enthusiastic and hungry for live music. Some of our best shows were actually not in LA.

Q: This past November you guys did a mini tour and even came through the Bay Area. I attended the SF show and had a blast. How was that tour overall? What was the crowd reactions like in the different cities? 

Nick: We had a blast too, thanks for coming to the show! It was great to have our friends in each city come out the shows. Hopefully we converted some new Thetans to the cause, too. The crazed hippies dancing to our set in Santa Barbara was a particular highlight for me. Rel also played one show in Santa Cruz with just a paper clip holding his hi-hat stand together, which was badass. We slay on a budget.

Q: This is a bit of a fun question, if you were to be given an unlimited budget to film a music video, which song would you pick off of the EP? Also, who would you want to direct the video? You are in LA, so there are a fair amount of famous directors to choose from. 

Ariel: Unlimited Budget? I kinda wanna do that Lamb of God thing for “Parthian Shot” where we roll up to a child’s birthday party on a tour bus with a bunch of strippers and booze but instead of the birthday party, it’s an ancient battlefield and everyone there attacks and kills us because they don’t understand what a tour bus is.

Q: Looking to the future, which can be extremely tough given the current state of the world, what are your some of your goals for Unlucky Theta? Is a full-length album on the horizon? 

Daniel: We’d like to take this opportunity to officially announce that Unlucky Theta is now amicably broken up. We are each in three different parts of the world currently and have other priorities to attend to. Especially with the pandemic, like so many other bands, it really made it impossible for us to keep the band going. So many venues in town have shut down permanently. But there’s still many more songs we’ve yet to record so one day we’d love to get back together and make a full-length and play live again. Just a matter of logistics at this point. But we’ve had an absolute blast and are grateful to everyone who’s supported us over the years. The EP is our parting gift to our audience to be cranked at full volume whenever they miss us.

Ariel: Geographically, we are no longer together. Especially me, I’m in Europe at least until next year. Maybe once everything clears up and we are back in the same city some day, a reunion show (or tour?) could be in order. I would love that. That being said, we do have enough material for another album, so never say never. At the moment I am also working on an experimental electro/jazz/pop project that I can’t go into too much detail on, but it may feature some special guests who you are quite familiar with. In the meantime, be sure to check out Nick’s black metal projects Auld Lymb Thron and Bilesipper. They will keep you going through this pandemic purgatory for sure.

Q: Well, once again I would like to thank you for taking the time to do this interview and I can’t wait for what you guys have in the works. Stay safe and hopefully when this nonsense is all over I can come down to LA and see you guys perform live, or you can come back up to the Bay Area and unleash some killer tunes! 

Unlucky Theta: Thank you very much for your interest and for spreading the word DJ Rob! You've always been an advocate for underground metal bands all around the world so we thank you for keeping the music alive in a dying world. We’d love to play together again too. One day Unlucky Theta will return once more to melt faces and ignore music genre conventions. Cheers!

Link to Unlucky Theta's Bandcamp:

https://unluckytheta.bandcamp.com/album/unlucky-theta

Link to my review of the EP:

https://rockandmetaltemple.blogspot.com/2020/09/unlucky-theta-debut-ep.html

Unlucky Theta “Debut EP”

    Back in the 80’s Los Angeles was ruled by dudes with big hair and spandex that wrote songs about sex, drugs and cherry pie. Unlucky Theta is looking to help people forget about that period of time with their new self-titled six song EP.

    These Southern California based musicians are an anomaly in the world of rock and metal. To try and define this band’s sound is definitely not an easy task. I bet a writer for Rolling Stone would suffer a panic attack because they could not process how atypical Unlucky Theta compares to the garbage Rolling Stone tries to pedal upon the mindless masses. I have been fortunate enough to see Unlucky Theta live, so I can appreciate this band’s bold vision to step outside the mundane box that leads so many bands down a road of repetitive generic bullshit. 

    There is a bit of sludge, punk, thrash, death and even folk incorporated into this band’s dynamic style of songwriting. The first song off of the EP, “Thrown Off Olympus Mons,” is a massive sounding planet colliding piece of music. Right away bassist/vocalist Daniel Goodman and guitarist Nick Kontje  unleash a storm of juggernaut sized riffs while drummer Ariel Bleiberg deals out a Stone Cold Steve Austin like ass whooping from behind the kit. Once you get to the middle section of the song where Daniel starts shouting out bellicose sounding lyrics, you feel as though you are being crushed by a mountain of pure bone crushing brutality.  On the second track, “Parthian Shot,” the band begins with more of a classic punk approach and then turns up the insanity by conjuring up a flurry of catchy sounding rebellious riffs. 

    Track number three, “Venus,” hits hard and leaves a wake of destruction in its smoldering path as the band keeps pushing the pedal down in terms of raw artistic expression. Also, the band sort of changes course about midway through the song thus allowing Daniel to offer up a groovy sounding bass composition. After all this ravenous rock and metal music you would not expect Unlucky Theta to drastically change course, but they decide to take a departure and add a really pleasant sounding acoustic song with Ariel taking over on vocals. The acoustic arrangement is extremely heavenly sounding and the entire production is simply flawless in my opinion. Overall, the song is an exceptional piece of music that demonstrates the diverse musical backgrounds of these musicians. 

    The album ends with the song, “The Monolith Falls,” and I truly believe that this was the perfect choice for the album’s last song. In the beginning of the song the band focuses on this trippy sludge like riff that evolves into a space odyssey of mind bending sounds. I thought the unconventional arrangements created such a unique atmosphere filled with hypnotic splendor and mesmerizing rhythms. 

    Unlucky Theta’s debut EP is a tremendous release from start to finish and contains a plethora of musical creativity. Now, there are bands who claim to be musically diverse and end up sounding like Yoko Ono on PCP, which is definitely not the case with Unlucky Theta. These guys are extremely talented musicians who really put thought into their recordings, so I highly recommend people check this EP out. Unlike those bands who are not extremely talented musicians and dress like ugly drag queens, Unlucky Theta is a band that is worth your time! 

Unlucky Theta bandcamp:

https://unluckytheta.bandcamp.com/

Unlucky Theta Facebook Page:

https://www.facebook.com/unluckytheta

Pathetic "The Pestilence Born of Unclean Acts"

    Last month Pathetic released a hellacious concept album called, “Cleansing the Land of the Infidel,” and are now back with another insidious sounding extreme metal assault. Their new album, “The Pestilence Born of Unclean Acts,” takes listeners on an even more raw and primitive old school death journey into the nefarious minds of these Canadian extreme metal practitioners. 

    I was really impressed with, “Cleansing the Land of the Infidel,” because they built the entire album around the fall of the Ottoman Empire and composed some devastating tracks to compliment the album’s overall theme. Now some people might not be as into a historical themed death metal album as myself, but I think that musically there is no denying the band’s ability to write vivid cuts of old school sounding brutality. “The Pestilence Born of Unclean Acts,” definitely conveys a more straightforward style of old school sounding death metal and places an emphasis on unapologetic sounding tracks that do not waste an opportunity to send a cataclysmic shockwave across the metal community. 

    The album’s opening, “The Pestilence Born of Unclean Acts,” is a ruthless burst of vile sounding old school aggression. Guitarist Spencer Kraft unleashes a flurry of agonizing riffs and blistering lead guitar parts. Although he does not constantly showoff how fast he can move up and down the fretboard by doing pointless sweeps, Spencer has an aptitude for laying down some wicked sounding solos that compliment the chaotic landscape. Bassist Aj Kovar and drummer Duncan Chisholm also prove to be a formidable force when pertaining to their musicianship as well as their vocal contributions. The contrasting death growl styles from both musicians really stands out and gives this entire release an even more sinister element. 

    Songs like “Ashen Ascent,” “Traitors Harvest” and “Witchcraft Commandos” are all great examples of gruesome sounding death metal songs that definitely leave an impact on the listener. Pathetic has demonstrated with their last few releases that they do not mess around when constructing corpse ripping compositions. The band’s fiendish passion for extreme music is what really separates them from most of your current generic death metal worship bands. 

    The last two songs off of the release, “Abducted (Highway of Tears)” and “Darkness and Desolation," are just as destructive and brutal as the previous tracks. I personally really enjoyed, “Darkness and Desolation,” which begins with a very cold sounding atmosphere and haunting riff composition. The song also happens to be the longest song featured on the album, so you hear the band expanding their creative approach by coming up with some devastating dynamic arrangements. 

    In the end, Pathetic offers the underground metal community another barbaric assault of pure bone grinding death metal. I have covered this band for over a year now and I believe that they are moving in the right direction in terms of crafting monumental sounding death metal music. Hell, if they started incorporating smooth jazz into their music and dubstep, I probably would stop writing reviews for them. Luckily that is not the case with these guys, because Pathetic captures the true malevolent spirit of death metal that shall hopefully drive an axe into the skulls of all those garbage sounding experimental jazz dubstep hipster metal bands.  

Check out the entire release below:

https://pathetic666.bandcamp.com/

Also, here is a link to my review of “Cleansing the Land of the Infidel” as well as an interview with bassist/singer AJ Kovar :

https://rockandmetaltemple.blogspot.com/2020/08/pathetic-cleansing-land-of-infidel.html

https://rockandmetaltemple.blogspot.com/2020/08/interview-with-aj-kovar-patheticwitches.html

Invincible Force "Decomposed Sacramentum"

    Adding to an already monumental year for the world of extreme music, Invincible Force unleashes a sadistic assault of ear shattering blast beats and skull splitting riffs. Their sophomore full-length release, “Decomposed Sacramentum,” is a cyclone of sinister creativity that conveys a vicious and destructive nature. 

    These Chilean extreme metal musicians definitely want to contribute their brand of savage sounding music to what has already been such a strong year for extreme metal music. Invincible Force released their debut full-length album, “Satan Rebellion Metal,” back in 2015 and now five years later are looking to continue their diabolical extreme metal conquest. The band’s name is taken from a Destruction song, so you definitely hear that raw thrash style in their music. However, what I find stands out the most about this album is the relentless old school death metal attitude that drives the music mercilessly forward. If you like the first two Morbid Angel albums along with any band that was putting out pulverizing extreme metal around the late 80’s/early 90’s, then you are really going to want to check this album out. 

    The album contains nine tracks of pure hellish sounding extreme metal, all of which somehow never lose that intense and ferocious metal mindset. “Doomed by the Vision,” opens the album with a haunting introduction section that instantly explodes into a bombastic slaughter fest of blast beats, demonic vocals and leviathan sized guitar riffs. Instead of trying to grab listeners with overly complex compositions, the band focuses on maintaining a certain of level of aggression that heightens the song’s overall apocalyptic theme. On the next track, “Perpetual Black Mass,” the band throws down an unholy attack of straight forward brutality and keeps you hooked until the final note. 

    Throughout the entire album Invincible Force demonstrates that they are determined to offer listeners solid recordings that present sacrilegious themes with enough unholy malice to scare your local priest. The production on each track perfectly captures the band’s raw and venomous sound, as well as the tight bond between these musicians who all sound like they are very proficient players. Songs like, “The Shadow Over Canaan,” “Illusion of Truth,” and “Abufihamat,” are unbelievably impactful in terms of instrumental creativity. The guitar parts create an atmosphere of ritualistic damnation and the vocals add to the already satanic landscape by echoing over the chaos with a profound presentation. 

    I think that the last song I want to mention is, “Hopeless Mortality,” which I thought contained some of the most tormenting sounding guitar parts on the entire release. The song was definitely the perfect choice to have as the final track off of the album and really encapsulated the band’s unforgiving extreme creative vision.

    In the end, Invincible Force does not disappoint with, “Decomposed Sacramentum,” especially if you are looking for a band that plays with a tremendous amount of raw old school extreme metal passion. A lot of bands will tell you that they are old school sounding thrash, black and death metal bands, however, most of those bands fail to capture the true essence and need to think more about how their music sounds rather than their promo descriptions. Invincible Force is definitely a force to be reckoned with in the metal world and one that will hopefully be leading the charge into the future with more devastating releases. 

Check out the song "Perpetual Black Mass" below (Album is out October 22, 2020 through Dark Descent Records):

Invincible Force Facebook Page:

https://www.facebook.com/Invincible666Force/

Dark Descent Website:

https://www.darkdescentrecords.com/

Countless Skies "Glow"

    In this modern metal world, I think listeners would like to see more bands taking their time to thoughtfully record an album instead of hammering out a release that shall be easily forgotten within a few months. The United Kingdom based band, Countless Skies, definitely did not squander the opportunity to record a profound release with their new album, “Glow.” I believe that this band’s strong conceptual music making talents will really resonate with people who enjoy melodic death metal.  

    “Glow,” is the band’s second full-length album to date and comes about four years after the release of their first full-length album, “New Dawn.” Their brand of melodic death metal is extremely refreshing and the compositions on this album are very well written. I think what listeners will notice about this album right away is the strong production value and dynamic songwriting style. Out of the seven tracks off of this release, the band never settles for simplistic derivative sounding arrangements.

    The opening song, “Tempest,” is a great piece of music to get listeners acquainted with the band’s style and artistic vision. I thought the guitar riffs on the opening song injected a lot of triumphant energy, yet also matched the emotional tone of the vocal parts. The band uses death growls as well as clean soaring melodic vocals to paint a vivid picture over the majestic sounding instrumental arrangements. This same approach continues on the second track, “Summit,” but you start to hear even more massive sounding guitar riffs come crashing through the landscape and setting up a blazing path for the band to explore further. 

    Track number three, “Moon,” starts out very calm and then bursts into a fearsome sounding guitar and drum arrangement that leads into an epic sounding chorus section. Once again, the band constructs these fluid compositions that are not choppy, or sound out of place. On the next song, “Zephyr,” I honestly believe that the band writes one of the most exceptional pieces music off of this album. The overall atmosphere sounds truly immaculate and the entire band pulls together their talents to record a track that listeners can find themselves drifting away into a cloud of endless harmonious sounding wonder. This track alone makes the album worth listen to and it made me realize how unbelievably talented these musicians are when pertaining to songwriting. 

    The last three tracks off of the album, “Glow part 1: Resolution,” “Glow part 2: Awakening” “Glow part 3: Reflection,” all take on their own distinct identity, however, they all share that same ambitious mentality. I liked the bass riff in the beginning of, “Glow part 1: Resolution,” because it gave the bass player a chance to add to the song’s soothing tone. The last the two tracks also feature a plethora of creative structures and the contrasting vocal styles really compliment the lyrical themes featured on both songs. 

    I think what impressed me most about this album was how Countless Skies continued to push themselves throughout the entire release. As the album progressed each track seemed to get better and better, yet when you look at the entire album you realize that the band did a stellar job writing an impressive tale from beginning to end. More bands need to adopt this mentality when writing albums, because instead of just focusing on a couple tracks, you want people reflecting back on the entire release. I look forward to the next musical epic that this band has to offer and I highly recommend people check out, "Glow." 

Check out the song "Summit" below (Album comes out November 6th, 2020 and is being released through Willowtip Records) :

Countless Skies FB page:

https://www.facebook.com/CountlessSkies

Willowtip Records website:

https://willowtip.com/home.aspx