 |
 HOD - "Serpent"
DARK CELEBRATION - "Phlegeton :The Transcendence of Demon Lords"
by Dr. Abner Mality There are so many sons of Satan running amuck in the extreme metal scene right now, even Lucifer himself is probably getting them mixed up. Here are two more newbies to add to the horde of damned souls.
HOD are the real deal. Though the band itself is new, the members are all long time members of the Texas metal scene, with refugees from the likes of Thornspawn, Necrovore and even booze rockers Rancid Vat among their number. With "Serpent", they unleash a demonic concoction that easily mixes gnarly old death metal, epic blackness ala Absu and Bloodstorm and blazing thrash. The songs are not overly complex, but feature a ton of great riffs and tempo changes. Opening assault "Victims" is a fine example of their style...this sucker runs the gamut of extreme metal styles and manages to exercise the brain as well as the neck. The real ace in the hole for HOD is their incredibly troll-like and pissed off vocalist by the unlikely name of Beer Reebs. Man, the grinding hatred and whiskey-fueled bile in this guy's voice is overwhelming! It's something different than the usual black rasping or death rowling, something incredibly effective. Reebs adds authentic nastiness to each tune here and helps make already great tracks like the utterly thrashing "Demoralizer" or tempestuous "God of Darkness and Winter" even more devastating. HOD has made a nuclear powered first strike with "Serpent" and all true death-heads are commanded to purchase it with all due dispatch.
Dark Celebration hail from Brazil and after the first cut "Reversed Creation" on their new album, I thought we would be in for typical Brazillian mayhem in the vein of old Krisiun, Rebaelliun, etc. It's a deceptive introduction to this band, because the rest of the album reveals these dudes to be much more melodic in their approach. Not that they are wimped out to the point of a Killswitch, but it is NOT raw and bestial Brazillian death thrash in the old tradition. Cuts like "Ocularis Infernum" and "Razor's Dance" are fast but quite catchy and melodic. The vocals of D.G try to be harsh, but after being bombarded by Beer Reebs' unholy grumbles, it doesn't impress in the same way. I actually liked Dark Celebration, but they are not really the Christ-blasting lunatics they seem to be...or that HOD really are.
9:55 AM
Powered by  | | English | | Albanian | | Arabic | | Bulgarian | | Catalan | | Chinese | | Croatian | | Czech | | Danish | | Dutch | | Estonian | | Filipino | | Finnish | | French | | Galician | | German | | Greek | | Hebrew | | Hindi | | Hungarian | | Indonesian | | Italian | | Japanese | | Korean | | Latvian | | Lithuanian | | Maltese | | Norwegian | | Polish | | Portuguese | | Romanian | | Russian | | Serbian | | Slovak | | Slovenian | | Spanish | | Swedish | | Thai | | Turkish | | Ukrainian | | Vietnamese |
|