Review: Putrified - "Neurotic Necrotic" (2012, Full length, Hellthrasher Productions)

Genre: Old school death metal

Location: Stockholm, Sweden

Band Website: Myspace

Label: Hellthrasher Production

Most of the death metal that circulates these days has a clean production and tends to focus on technical proficiency and whatnot. This has nothing to do with the type of death metal that Putrified proudly churns out. What we have here is a celebration of unholy and cultish death metal, which focuses more on the deliverance of an unholy feeling rather than a display of crunchiness and speed.

Like all old school death metal, Putrified contains a certain amount of thrash. But fear not extreme metalheads, this is not the kind of lame Bay Area type thrash rehash going on. On the contrary, it is the thrash that bands like Possessed, Hellhammer or even very early Sepultura played back in the day: filled with blood, guts and other wonderfully disgusting ingredients that make simple thrash step up to seriously evil thrash. Of course these elements are melted into the unforgiving death metal pot, creating a fearful and crushing mix of pure old school death. There are enough blastbeats to satisfy you, with a perfect sound on the drums that really needs to be praised and studied. Fuck yes. The snare drum will mercilessly open a hole in your skull if you play this record loud enough. Like you'd expect from a record like this, the guitars and the bass are of course 100% distorted, with a rough but also very meaty sound.

I very much like the fact that some death metal bands still stick to the occult themes and topics. It shouldn't all be about gore and/or and social hate. We need to stay down with the occult! And this is what Putrified does. Song titles like "The Land of Pharoes" and "Temple of Vomit" may convince even the most sceptic out there. There is a good dose of humor but also a lot of nastiness and this is just what we need in death metal today. Enough with the serious posing, make death metal that is extreme and fucking necro! I shouldn't forget to mention that all these dark as fuck themes are sung with furious death metal vocals, which have a very thick, hateful and face melting approach.

Neglecting this record in the pile of "to review" during the last few months makes me regret not looking into it earlier. Boy had I been missing from the real action. From now and on, I'll make sure to review all Hellthrasher Productions records as soon as I get them!

ENTRAILS - "The Tomb Awaits" Review

I see death metal in the same way I see a lot of hardcore; that is, as a style of music that metaphorically destroys everything in its way, and which gives the listener a sense of absolute strength and raging power. Heavy music has a magical way of destroying weakness and depression, and we have bands like Sweden's ENTRAILS to thank for that!

This awesome band has just released 12 songs of pure Swedish death metal at its best, similar to stuff like early Entombed, Dismember and Sinister (even though the last band is Dutch).  This album really  brings us back to a time when metal albums actually had substance to them and carried their own distinct identity. This is exactly what happens in The Tomb Awaits: there is plenty death metal carnage but at the same time the whole album is filled with a nice diversity which makes it so much more of a pleasant listen. At the end of the day, this is exactly what Swedish DM is traditionally all about: clever ideas combined with aggression!

What I mean by the above is that even though ENTRAILS do play pure and solid death metal, there is enough space for musical expression and a somewhat darker (compared to brutal death) atmosphere. The guitarists are capable of creating some pretty sick atmospheric riffs with the lower guitar strings that will send shivers down your spine and make the zombies in your local graveyard rise up. At the same time, the drums and vocals show no signs of compromise and just beat your brain and ears with endless aggression! Add a tiny dose of Swedish crust to the mix and you will get what I'm talking about!

The production sound also carries the recognizable Swedish identity, with the distorted bass on equal levels with the guitars and the overall outcome sounding brutally bubbling, but in a way controlled.  Finally, I will also give the band kudos for the awesome acoustic guitar introduction, which gets the cemetery atmosphere going before all hell breaks loose.

http://www.myspace.com/entrailsreborn

For an extensive ENTRAILS interview go here.

PROS: Definite old school death metal feel, quality riffs, excellent Swedish production, wide variety of extremely brutal death metal vocals, crust-core rhythms here and there.

CONS: If you listen to this late at night you might sh*t your pants.

DA LOWDOWN: Awesome, solid Swedish death metal with room for sick melodies without being overly technical.