One of my favorite styles and favorite labels right now keep churning out the old school Swedish Death metal resurrections with Toxeamia and now Uncanny. Nothing tops this stuff in my world, that era and those bands left scars on me that I proudly bare and revel in decades later. Each band has it’s own sound and feel and the crusty/grind/punk elements are still present in many of them that keeps it fresh and relentless.
This release is a special one, it’s a 2disc set covering their entre release catalog: Demo: “Transportation to the Uncanny (1991)
Demo: “Nyktalgia” (1992)
Split with Ancient Rites (1993)
Full length: Splenuim for Nyktaphobia
and it’s also a limited release as was their 3LP set last year, and an essential for fans of this style.
“Why my Intestines” is one of those classic openers that rips through your torso and slams your face onto a red hot metal surface. Bloody bowels, gruff and guttural vokills and a pure horror death raucous that bludgeons and annihilates everything else in your collection for a good period of time, but the thing that really gets me is the way they add this melodic instrumental piece toward the end that stops the song short and then underneath the pretty bits the devilish creatures slither and resurface to recapture the pure essence of rottenness that once was.
“Transportation to the Uncanny” continues to come down harder and heavier than many others on the listener courtesy of a 1990’s death metal hurricane of desecrating drums, explosive bass tones, and the overall rumble and barrage of riffs and leads to sever limbs and disintegrate bones. Tracks like this one and bands like Uncanny keep me in my adolescent daze, when this stuff was just oozing out like septic pus from a venereal sore and while disgusting and annoying many it also permanently changed fuck heads like myself into lifelong fiends of gore, violence, and all things dark and ritualistically aggressive.
“Timeless” then comes in fast and strong keeping the onslaught continual, but again they throw you off course with a melodic synth, sort of reminding me of an 80’s slasher film soundtrack, underneath the storm and then come in some phenomenal leads before reverting back to death metal rhythms and riffs. There’s something to the overall rhythm this band has, it’s not proggy technical stuff like Atheist and later Death, but shows some skill way ahead of their time. The melodic leads just make the sense of horror and blood sound that much more intense, it’s really hard to explain what it’s like to listen to this band altogether, there’s so much stuff going on without ever straying from classic Swedish Death Metal.
“Splenium for Nyktophobia” splits this collection in half with its brief symphonic presence before throwing you to the savage wolves of “Soul Incest”.
The first half is great, but the “Splenuim…” tracks are unrivaled in terms of power and assault, the effects and timing of everything creates that eerie and hellish atmosphere that is death metal. There’s sooooo much variety here, some of it has an industrial vibe like “Lepra” with the Ministry sounding metallic percussion that just crashes down on you like skyscraper, terms like heavy and intense barely scratch the surface here.
Everything on here is just amazing!!!!! This is one of those listens that really lapses time, you put this on and suddenly an hour- and - a- half literally disappears as you’re pulled into this void by their bloody claws gripping you by the throat.
I always get all jerked up and emotional when listening to and talking about this style and era, I just cannot get over the impact these sounds had on me, it’s almost like performing your first kill and reliving the thrill over and over again. It’s shocking, invigorating and intense, and yet the pure darkness and power that surrounds it begins to swell up within you and gives you a confusing high, you should be scared and traumatized but instead you thirst for more. I’ve been up and cranking busy this last week and this has been my soundtrack at home, work, and on the road. Whatever you want in a classic death metal album is here and in copious amounts so gorge and rejoice!!!!
http://www.darkdescent.net/store/
0 comments:
Post a Comment