Praise the Horned One! Pandemonium are back… At least, that was my first erotic thought when I received this album. Yet then again, Devilri… Wasn’t that something old…? So, I checked it out, and there are two observations: 1 this indeed deals with very old stuff (my mind, after decades of [self-censorship] and 2 WTF, but I seem to have missed this band’s last album?!
Pain Of Salvation has always been a band that pushed the boundaries in the progressive metal genre. They never really released an album that was not up to par. David Gildenlöw is the only band member left of the outfit that released the debut album in 1997. He is, and always was of course the artistic brain behind the band In 2012 he wanted to give the fans something extra by recording an acoustic gig they were playing in Germany for a DVD.
Kaipa released their first album in 1975. Almost 40 years later they release their twelfth album. It’s the first time I hear music of these seasoned Swedes and I’m positively surprised.
Germany’s Ichor did surprise me a lot with their Benthic Horizon-album (in 2010), which made me search for their debut The Siege (which wasn’t as strong and convincing as its higher-mentioned successor). Since then, however, the audience couldn’t enjoy any new material anymore (though they did play live a lot, including appearances on some notorious festivals).
Established in 2005 by Jens Faber, Dawn Of Destiny have focused on powerful and fast Power Metal including various elements of Thrash, Gothic and Death Metal into their music.
Earth Ground is my first meeting with Polish act Thaw, but there seems to be a first album, called Decay, released in 2010, and a second one, simply called Thaw, in 2013. Apparently the band was able to perform live on stage with notorious acts like Altar Of Plagues, Behemoth or Jarboe, so they are about to become quite a noticeable name within the Extreme Metal scene.
At the very end of 2011, string master Will Peplinski started the outfit Malignant Abomination with a friend, but that didn’t last that long at all. Will continued, but since Malignant Abomination was a solo-outfit now, he changed the moniker into Hypoxic. Then he joined forces with Devin Alford (vocals and drums), and under the Swine Overlord moniker, things started getting better.
Scolopendra Cingulata (named after a centipede) were formed in 2013 by Kazakhstan-born Andrey ‘SS’ Kozlov, but in mean time he moved over to Russia (to the city of Ufa, not that far from the Kazakh border). His solo-outfit grew out to a band in mean time, with members from Ukraine and Russia involved. In January this year Grotesque Sounds Productions and Nitroatmosphericum Records released the project’s first demo-tape, and under the same collective constellation the second demo gets released, i.e.
We do know Transcending Obscurity especially for their superb support to the (underground) scene. Kunal Choksi and his crew try to promote the scene as much as possible, just like we at Concreteweb try to do as much as possible. And since his promotional activities focus especially on the Death / Black / Grind-trends, I do respect this Indian guy a lot!
With exceptions of the three Guyanan countries, I do have material from bands from each country in South America, more than often being superb stuff. I am not about to make a list of each country (you know that some of the protagonists hail from Brazil, Peru, Argentina or Colombia), but the scene from Chile has always been of highly influential importance too, both in the past as it still is now. One of the most interesting bands from that country is three-piece Force Of Darkness, formed more than a decade ago.
