It’s so good to be back in the solitude of my living room, with the headphones firmly on my ears and embracing the grinding beats, killer basslines, deadly riffs and vokills to …well, kill for. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I am complaining about the family life (because I will never do that), but lately it has become quite a difficult to enjoy the extreme music during the daytime, so, your Rubber Axeman Rudolf had to become a musical vampire and do his stuff in the still of the night, lol.
Anyway, I’ve got this plain CDr from Wayne from Akne Productions as a bonus to my shopping (and I have to commend on this great experience, great guy, great communication, so you can be sure I’m gonna shop there in the future as well), as this is to be his 79th release through the label (official release on tape). Yep, I’ve posted a review of one of his previous releases just yesterday (The Underworld #2 compilation, check the review here).
All bands on this 5-way split have provided three songs and first to kick your butt is Pathogen from Philippines and these are no newbies on the scene, playing since 2001 and having a shitloads of releases out. Their stuff is cool old school death metal influenced by USDM with a little black influences here and there and I can say this is a fucking great opening for this 5-way split. I like this stuff, it’s fast enough when I need it fast, and in slow passages they emanate that sepulchral sonic odour one longs for. Definitely stuff to be aware of and I am writing down a note to check their other stuff. That’s underground extreme metal as it should be. All hails to Pathogen!
Second to dance is Peruvian Death Invoker and straight away I liked the name, I’d guess it’s gonna be some thrash metal act…starting with opera intro (and oh my, do I love intros!) and I was not that far off, this is black/death/thrash metal (with a some dose of warmetal chaos thrown in) and again, proper underground, there’s no place for polished production and shit like that, this duo is bulldozing their way through my speakers right into my brain. However (and now I might piss some BM elitist off), this is not some unlistenable “kvlt” raw shit, on the contrary, Death Invoker’s material is highly contagious. Again, band to notice, that’s for sure. Material presented here consists of different recordings (as far as I can say) and while the first track is really the mixture of black/death/thrash, by the second song we are moving more to the death metal proper, which, of course, is not a problem (though I liked the opening track little bit more). And the last track is – again – more thrash oriented stuff, so, can I be unsatisfied here? Nope, I can’t.
Third is the charm, they say, and it’s Bloodcut from my native country, Slovakia! Never heard of them though, so I welcome the opportunity to listen to my fellow countrymen once again. Their material consists of the whole 2019 “Embalmed Alive” demo and it’s great sounding death metal to boot! The soloing in the opening “Hordes of Zombies” was little chaotic to my taste, but don’t take it as a criticism, as I know shit about playing guitar. The song itself is pretty solid, but “Feculent Hole” – the second one – is even better! I really dig those echoed vokills, sound pretty sick! The last song “Trapped in Torment”, however, is the best one. Hell yeah, this is solid material, the band seems to be on hold though, I’m gonna give them a shout to check, it would be a shame if they don’t continue.
And that’s not all, folks, as the 4th in line is Chilean horde Trepanación, also, not a new band on the scene, having its beginning in 2008. Pretty rotten filthy death metal, again, vokills is so good, I just revel in them. But musically they are great too, which comes as no surprise. Really, it hardly surprises me to hear a totally unknown band playing their stuff in such a gusto. Thumbs up, amigos! I don’t think I have to write anything else. This stuff praises itself.
Oh, for a 5-way split you need 5 bands (duh!) and if you’ve thought the last one is just some filler… , Anguish from Malaysia will prove you fucking wrong. Intros!!! And fucking blasting death metal, again, that’s nothing surprising, Asian scene is powerful as hell, but while I am mostly aware of slamming BDM bands from Indonesia, their neighbours from Anguish play proper death metal.
And after 15 songs, it ends. 61:50 total playing time. Can’t pick up the best stuff, because all those bands are great. All I can say is: get this 5-way split on tape – it’s welll worth it. And support the underground. Or die.
