Reviews by Jason Guest
Since 1999, Irish label Invictus Productions have been working to bring unto the world the best of the underground, more information on which can be found on their website. You can also keep up to date with them on Facebook and take a listen to their releases on Bandcamp.
Here, we have five releases up for review. From the label’s home country we have the debut releases from Malthusian and ZOM, from the USA we have Manifesting’s Descension Through The Seven Forbidden Seals and Slutvomit’s Swarming Darkness, and from Belgium, we have the debut demo, His Best Deceit, from Possession. Tread carefully, it’s going to get messy…
Malthusian – MMXIII
The debut from Ireland quartet Malthusian is the aural equivalent of bathing in the filth of a thousand puking pigs while gargling on the contents of a cow’s BSE-infested stomach. Imagine, if you will, a bog, rotting flesh barely clinging to splintered bone protruding hither and thither from the surface, and in its centre is you. Beneath your feet is nothing that offers purchase; there is nothing within reach to haul yourself out of there; and the slightest movement threatens to pull you under the rancid surface.
Death metal contaminated with black metal nihilism and all the heft of doom, Malthusian’s debut is as dense and heavy as it is intoxicating. With contorted riffs wrapped around malignant melodies and a bilious vocal, its suffocating atmospherics, its viscous textures, and its disgusting stench are overpowering. With plenty bands worshipping at the altar of old school death metal, Malthusian are a breath of noxious air that will tears your lungs to shreds and bleed through your rotting flesh.
7.5 out of 10
Track listing:
- Wraith///Plague Spore
- The mother’s blade
- Hallucinogen
ZOM – Demo MMXI
Ireland’s ZOM must share the same bathwater as Malthusian. By bathwater of course, I mean the tepid fluid that cattle is drowned in before its hacked to pieces and used as spontaneous – and likely unwelcome – décor of the nearest place of worship. With the two releases that followed this demo – the 2012 demo Hells Pleasure MMXII and 2013’s Multiversal Holocaust EP – ZOM have been continually developing into a force to be reckoned with (evidently, they’re getting better at titles too). This demo is where the world was given fair warning that somewhere beneath the muck, murk, and mire that is the extreme metal underground lurked an entity from which they should either run for their life or submit to its horrors. Soaked in reverb, the vocals and drums emanate from some deep chamber, their resonance dank and dark while the huge riffs gouge out colossal chunks from the putrid flesh of the music. And with macabre and unsettling ambient sounds strewn throughout the tracks, the experience is brimming with dread, despair, and defecation-inducing horror.
If you’ve not heard ZOM, this is a good place to start; if you have but don’t own this, this vinyl re-release should be part of your collection.
7.5 out of 10
Track listing:
- The Horror From Beyond
- Cult Of The Black Flame
- The Chaos Dimension
- The Power Of Sin
- Cosmic Winds
- Ethereal Frost
Manifesting – Descension Through The Seven Forbidden Seals
Bookended by two tracks comprised of vocal chants – the intro including the “Death has no master” quote from the Vincent Price classic movie The Masque of the Red Death – tells you what you need to know about Minnesota’s Manifesting’s second release: gothic, macabre, and menacing. As if that’s not enough then the crushing might of ‘Asomatous Hubris’ will be ample qualification. Emanating from the very pit of hell, Maw’s inhuman vocals are swathed in reverb and cast against the turbulence of both his and Sepulchrous’s corrosive instrumentation.
While the duo run the gamut of dynamic depth and structural fortitude that their old school devotion proffers – Asphyx and Incantation leap to mind – the tracks soon become predictable. After blasting for a while, they stem that evil tide with a down-tempo or half-time passage which is soon shoved aside by yet another abrasive blast. And so it goes for the whole EP. Musically, the band is sound but there’s some way to go in the innovation department.
6 out of 10
Track listing:
- Gathering In Exaltation (Intro)
- Asomatous Hubris
- Disciples Of Murmur
- The Call Of Miscreation
- Archon Of The Red Temple
- Departure Extolment (Outro)
Slutvomit – Swarming Darkness
“We are the knife against the infant’s throat, the semen which the virgin chokes. Alas, now the time has come to denounce the spirit, the father, and son. Call upon the prince of lies, raise your daggers to the skies, and stab into the virgin’s breast. Now raise the chalice to your lips! We are SLUTVOMIT. Fukk you.” And as would be considered appropriate to such a mission statement, this is a face-melter of an album. Thrash, black, and death combine in eleven tracks of hyper speed tempos, rabid riffs, and vomited vocals for an unremittingly ruthless experience.
All the usual influences are here and Slutvomit do well to channel them through their own mangled intensity. With only one track – ‘Morbid Priest (Of Hell)’ – slowing the pace temporarily, Slutvomit just keep pushing the riffs, the tempos, and the odium to neck-breaking point. Of course, there’s more than a moment or two of repetitiveness, even uniformity among the tracks as they fly past. But though tracks like both of the two-minute tracks ‘Bombing The Chapel’ and ‘Servants of Satan’ are near indistinguishable, the rapacious nature of the album is maintained throughout. Abrasive, aggressive, and ruthless, this won’t win any prizes for innovation but it will suffice to keep that old school fire burning.
7 out of 10
Track listing:
- Swarming Darkness
- Downward Falling Christ
- Lucifer Unbound
- Bombing The Chapel
- Morbid Priest (Of Hell)
- Poservore
- Necrovoyeur
- Servants Of Satan
- Eden Ablaze
- Incendiary Rape
- Harbinger Of Doom
Possession – His Best Deceit
Belgium black/death bastards Possession are vicious. If anyone wonders what a convincing performance is then this is a pretty good reference point. With ominous chimes and angelic vocals splattered with the screams of excruciating pain to introduce this demo, the scene is set. Out of the horror spills forth three tracks of unremitting blackened thrash of such ferocity that it’s abundantly clear that Possession have one goal in mind: complete and utter annihilation. While making obvious reference to those that they and others within the genre worship, Possession manage here and there to score their own identity into the savagery, the Sepultura cover in particular demonstrating the band’s strength at reinterpretation. As with most of this ilk, it’s nothing new but it is a fairly good homage.
6 out of 10
- Possession website
- Possession on Facebook
- Also available on cassette via Iron Bonehead Productions here
Track listing:
- Possession
- The Truth Of Cain
- His Best Deceit
- Necromancer (Sepultura Cover)
