Friday, June 30, 2017

Oomph! - Oomph! (1992)

   Germany was the birthplace of industrial music, and as the style slowly in progress, the German scene was easily distinguished from the American's and these two became the genre's most important scenes.
   Involving rock and metal features and giving a darker shade to electonic music wasn't someting new in the early '90s, but it was spreading quite slow. Oomph! influenced mostly by Skinny Puppy, tried to find their musical ambitions from the basics. Their debut sounded typically like an album from the '80s, and similar to Skinny Puppy, included a dark atmosphere. The concept was the same too. Rusty vocals, unfriendly, sometimes horroristic feeling and completely unusual lyrical topics. So once again instead of some superfacial "live-for-tonight" careless feeling, dark clouds gathered over the dancefloor to overflow the unsuspicious audience with their poisoning acid rain. Fortunately from many sides it was welcome too and a remarkable alternative scene (Neue Deutsche Härte) was found in Europe.

Lemming Project - Hate and Despise (1992)

   In the death metal genre some old school German bands represented a genuine direction, and between these "weird ones" Lemming Project took place too.
   For first hearing "Hate and Despise" might not sound like anything remarkable, fits to the ordinary rules of the genre, but as the listener pays more attention, a very distorted world might be revealed during listening. Maybe it's not so ordinary at all, not the usually death metal riffs are evolving, but some sick musical expression that might be good to musically illustrate the symptoms of insanity. The concept is different, but the main feeling reminds to Incubator for some reason, even though exaggerated changes and catchier melodies were not usual at Lemming Project. The themes are complex and sometimes close to technical ambitions, but despite the sickness there is some balance on the album in general that made this music interesting. A genuine and unfortunately underrated classic of the genre!

Sunday, June 25, 2017

Baphomet - Latest Jesus (1992)

   With their second coming, Baphomet followed the most common way of German bands in general, which were known being more experimental than it was usual that time in the extreme scene.
   Their arrival might seem a bit late with their thrash/death music with more traditional speed/heavy metal influences. After "No Anwsers", "Latest Jesus" showed a larger progression in music, sound and in lyrics too. They left the usual horror and gore based lyrics, and focused onto societal and political issues. The themes became more complex, showed a larger diversity and includes even technical ambitions. The album is more intense and sounds more powerful than "No Anwsers" sounded, but of course it couldn't have been any match for the current extreme metal scene to rival with. The heaviness of "Latest Jesus" lies both in the lyrics and in the music. The album was musically more progressive than most of it's coantenouses, and showed a new possible direction of progression by including the musical ifluences of the '80s.

Saturday, June 24, 2017

Fleshcrawl - Descend into the Absurd (1992)

   Germany had an awesome death metal scene in the early '90s, it was quite experimenting and shoved larger diversity than the other scenes.
   "Descend into the Absurd" by Fleshcrawl counts as one of the important classics of the scene. In influences their music is colorful, but the most obvious sign may be the reference to Autopsy in the band's name. Even if they had more unfortunate name changes, it's evident that this name selection wasn't accidental, because unlike most bands that time, they added slow downs and extended themes into their music. Similar to Autopsy these slow parts included weird melodies which created a geniune atmosphere, a feeling that strongly increased the level of sick feeling of their music. There is no lack from more intense and hammering parts either on "Descend into the Absurd", it just sounds like that the band tried to find some sick balance. And even though their themes are not complex in general, it's not an easy listening material, and this is exactly it's strongest pont, because it's possible to discover something new at every listening. A stunning old school classic!

Friday, June 23, 2017

Incubator - McGillroy the Housefly (1992)

   Incubator debuted as an ordinary death metal band with "Symphonies of Spiritual Cannibalism". It was stunning old school death music and lyrics that focused on insanity.
  On "McGillroy the Housefly" they tried to extend this preferred topic, to express the most absurd insane issues by the vocal style and musically too. To create something complex like that in music to be expressive and impressive the same time isn't easy for sure, but we can say that Incubator succeeded. The usual basic death metal riffs gave some ground to melodies and classical heavy metal themes too, which were necessary to create a contrast and to give possibilities for sharp and sudden changes. Like to illustrate unpredictable and exaggerated mood swings. These practics are going on parallely at the vocals too. The narrative style and hysterical screaming creates some confused and stressful impression, until brutally deep growling interrupts and pushes the chaos more forward. It's far more than simple attention seeking. The heaviness of the album shows up by paying attention on the lyrics too.

Thursday, June 22, 2017

Maceration - A Serenade of Agony (1992)

   There was no lack of excellent death metal albums in the early '90s, but probably because of the abundance of extreme music, most relics were underrated and forgotten. Such as "A Serenade of Agony" by Maceration, which band was a short lived side project.
   Even though the common critics may say that "it was nothing new", the feeling of the album is remarkable, and refers mostly to the style of the American scene by it's musical features. Reminds to Massacre and Incubus first of all by the themes and the main feeling. But it may cause a déjá vu effect because the song structures and the vocal style is often similar to Cancer's. It couldn't be disappointing for the fans of old school death metal, not only because of the good sounding references, but even without them the album could be a perfect example to define the whole style. An intense and powerful act of old school musickness with catchy nerve wrecking and noisy solos and a commonly changing pile of awesome themes.

Saturday, June 17, 2017

In Slaughter Natives - Sacrosancts Bleed (1992)

  To introduce darker concepts and feelings through electronic music was nothing new, even if it was clear only before a smaller audience. But if Skinny Puppy and Godflesh wasn't enough impressive, In Slaughter Natives certainly succeeded to impregnate something terrifying into this style.
  As a dark ambient/industrial project, atmosphere had a leading role on the side of disturbing noises to demoralize the listener. Even though this style operates in a different way to earn it's exaggerated effects, the concept is similar like at extreme metal bands, who are into some  horror influenced, blasphemous and Anti-Christian direction. The results are similar too, but in this case it's more like a passive, heavy, pulling off feeling. By the spreading on metal influenced industrial in the early '90s "Sacrosancts Bleed" was noisier and more intense than the previous records were and turned a bit closer to that actual direction. By this act probably the most demoralizing industrial music was born.

Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Desultory - Into Eternity (1992)

   Even though Swedish death metal in most cases sounded like the same, the scene also had it's great genuine sounding bands. They are to find mostly amongst those who took a great part in determing the scene. One of these bands was Desultory.
   The band already had an interesting musical journey in it's first demos, that are exciting to listen to how they've developed their style, and giving a hint about their influences. On their full lenght debut they sound more mature, but at the same time they kept their early thrash influences more than other old school Swedish death metal bands. On the side of the strict thrashing basics, commonly enjoyable solo parts and great themes creating an excellent and cruel unity. The effect of the melodic solos reminding somehow the returning leading melodies of Finnish death metal. These switches created a great contrast and ended up very advantageous with the traditional Swedish rawness. That's mostly because their tone is more like a melancholic than aggressive, and serving as some old school reference. "Into Eternity" is a well composed album, and the diversity they've operated with increased it's excellence. Even though their style is easy to distinguish from the other classics of the scene, their diverse approach and effective sound could be compared to Carnage.

Tuesday, June 13, 2017

Marduk - Dark Endless (1992)

   Marduk represented the most aggressive and brutal direction of Northern black metal since their appearence. After they gained wide attention in the underground scene by their demo titled as "Fuck Me Jesus" and earned well to be banned, they've got a record contarct very soon.
   Their full-lenght debut was outstanding from the other old and sytle determing black metal bands by it's death metal influences and occasional thrash references. Compared to the main atmospheric ambitions of Norwegian bands, "Dark Endless" sounded way rawer and more rough. Later the role of ordinary Northern sound was higher in their music and they focused more on extreme speed, while on this album it was like only in some experimenting state. As it is well known, blasphemous and Anti-Christian concept is the essential basic of black metal, but Marduk counted quite extreme in this way too. Their exaggerated lyrical style and topics made them even more notorious, and pushed further the borders of the genre. These features made "Dark Endless" an important style forming classic.

Monday, June 12, 2017

Unleashed - Shadows in the Deep (1992)

   As one of the elite bands of the Swedish death metal scene, Unleashed represented a very intense way with their music, and in lyrical topics a more traditional way.
   While Anti-Christianity and raw, primitive themes were usual in that scene, the bigger bands had different focus about these parameters and mostly that fixed their style. This may not sound much, but it's important to mention that diversity wasn't a common feature in old school Swedish death, and just like in the Scandinavian extreme scene in general, the borders were quite tight. The local bands were determined to orientate to a specific style, and it seemed like reasonable differences and experimentings were not really welcome unless it was about a complete style change. Anyway Unleashed focused on fast hammering, and their themes were less raw what the other local bands played. In lyrical topics on the side of Anti-Christianity they preferred mythological and viking topics, which was kind of particulal before the folk- and pagan metal wave. "Shadows in The Deep" just continued the path of "Where No Life Dwells", which albums were probably the best works of the band.

Sunday, June 11, 2017

Grave - You'll Never See (1992)

   On the side of Entombed, Unleashed and Dismember, Grave should be named as a responsible band for the forming of the Swedish death metal scene. And because of their sound and experimenting ambitions, the most extraordinary band too in this line.
   After "Into the Grave" which was a strong and impressive debut, they created another death metal classic. "You'll Never See" was a typically raw and heavy Swedish death album with primitive themes, but even though it could completely define the features of that scene, something more was included. Similar to the firts album, "You'll Never See" sounded more powerful than the other albums made by local bands that time, and that increased it's brutality to some ultimate level. And through that, it reached a very rude and cruel feeling which exceeded even the ordinary primitiveness and cruelty which was so usual in Swedish death metal. The short and sharp-sounding solos borrowed a netherworld-like impression to the music, while the combination of the noisy basic riffing and rude deep growling pulls down the listener with it's heaviness... Into the Grave.

Polluted Inheritance - Ecocide (1992)

   As it's known most extreme bands in the early '90s started with old school death. But there were some like Polluted Inheritance, who may sensed the change in the death metal scene after some bigger bands played more technical.
   Their debut was a technical death album already influenced mostly by the Floridan scene. Most of the scene features like the style, diversity and the strong, characteristic sounding could be actively sensed, so it's like an example for an impermanent state that shows a detail of this musical progression. It's a quite intense album compared to the main scene's countless of death metal produces, on the side of their well used up influences from the Floridan scene, the technical development of their music increased it's diversity. Effective riffings, noisy classical-sound short solos, intense hammering and of course common theme changes are the main features. "Ecocide" is a less known, but important technical death metal classic.

Thursday, June 8, 2017

Impaler - Charnel Deity (1992)

   Impaler's "Charnel Deity" is one of the countless forgotten but awesome albums of the old school death metal era.
   Primitive, strongly thrash influenced hammering music with awesome guitar themes. In the ranks of the extreme scene in the middle way in all-round, in sound, quality, aggressiveness, intensity and in vocal style. Typically British death metal so to say, it could be a good example to define that scene by it's features. But musically more mature than most of it's local coetaneouses were, such diversity in themes wasn't so usual, and the best thing is that most of them are quite catchy. No matter how dull sounding old school British death was, it could compense the aggressiveness, but even that couldn't hide or cover their excellent riffings. "Charnel Deity" was the one and only album of the band. Sadly it's a very underrated album as well, it would have deserved more attention than some albums by other bands which lately became the better known classics of the genre.