CD

This successor of The Parallax: Hypersleep Dialogues, the sequel on North Caroline-based Between The Buried And Me’s 2011-EP, continues the concept of Prospect I and II, the main characters in a somewhat dualistic, schizophrenic story.

For those who are trusted with this band’s complex, kinetic Modern Metalcore: this album is a ‘highlight’ (read: another continuously next chapter) in this band’s career.

(I haven’t really been such a ‘fan’ in the past, and unfortunately it won’t be different right now)

Seremonia (it’s Finnish for ‘ceremony’, by the way) are a young quartet from Finland, consisting of female singer Noora Federley, Ville Pirinen (g, k, bv), Erno Taipale (d, g, flute) and Ilkka Vekka (b, k, bv and lyrics). Their self-called debut-album was engineered and mixed by Teemu Markkula, who’s part of the band’s live line-up, by the way, and it lasts for just over half an hour.

Hailing from Australia, Mongrels Cross are debuting fulllengthly on Hells Headbangers about one year after the highly acclaimed EP Whoresanna. In the vein of that 2011-EP, this first full length, The Sins Of Aquarius, stands for a mixture of barbaric and venomous Death / Black / Thrash Metal. The tracks are firm, fierce, brutal and pounding, with a nice balance in between fast and slower tempos (yet with a focus on speed, including some blasting eruptions).

Originality = 0, performance = 100.

Hailing from the Philippines originally, Deiphago might be the oldest still-existing Extreme Metal combo from out there, yet one of the most unique ones as well. I do follow them since their earliest years, and with pleasure I notice their continuous evolution into nothing but all-the-same primitivity avant la lettre. I mean that they did start in order to pay tribute to ‘the old ones’ (i.e.

Michigan-based outfit Acid Witch signed to Hells Headbangers Records a while ago, and the first result of their collaboration was the exceptional second full length Stoned. For the (very professionally written) review about this release, check out the Hells Headbangers Special-update on 02/02/2011, now posted within the archives-section (since Concreteweb’s lay-out did change).

With Cypher, Haemoth-side-project Spektr bring a totally instrumental album, i.e. forty six harsh minutes without any recorded vocals. The only vocal lines are taken from different samples, from speeches, movies etc. Anything else is based on instrumentation.

Satanic Bloodspraying are, I think, a pretty new act, hailing from Bolivia, and debuting on Hells Headbangers with the mini (24:32) At The Mercy Of Satan.

Mercy? Not for one’s eardrums, for sure.

This material sort of pays tribute to, especially, early Impaled Nazarene and early Bathory, as well as the likes of Blasphemy, Throneum, Nifelheim or Bestial Warlust.

One of my all-time fave’ albums within the Norwegian Black Metal scene is Manes’ Under Ein Blodraud Maane (Hammerheart, 1998). This project did release two other albums afterwards (Vilosophe and How the World Came To An End), but they were very different, almost incomparable to the debut.

Death Metal from Argentina, it’s a love-it-or-hate-it relationship, at least for me. In this case: ‘love it’!

The material was released in early 2012 through Cumpa Records in the band’s home country, as well as the rest of South America, but now it has been made available in our countries as well.

Short and sweet: thirty years of business, and still one of the most impressing Thrash-acts. Energy, power, joy, persuasion, craftsmanship, professionalism, it’s just a brief selection of possible adjectives to add onto Destruction’s huge biography / history.