Morsüre (Fra) - "Acceleration Process" LP, 1985

One of the more interesting things I find in the realm of heavy metal are bands that are actively trying to push the envelope. This shouldn't be confused with some of the "experimental" bands today which have 9 members, female vocals, and flute solos, but bands that legitimately have a concrete idea of what the core elements of heavy metal are and tried to push their music to that other level of the game. As evidenced by many of these reviews currently on this blog, its not that I don't appreciate bands that play in a tried and true style, but every now and then its refreshing to hear someone that is trying something different. Voivod were one of the earliest oddball thrash bands who had released two outstanding albums ("War and Pain" and "Rrroooaaarrr") in the mid 80s that perfectly captured the destructive ideals of thrash and the blossoming death metal scene, but also managed to integrate a far more dissonant approach to their songwriting. Not too many bands were influenced by Voivod's sound, and even today few bands approach music from a similar dissonant angle, however, there are two notable exceptions; the midwestern hardcore band Die Kruezen and Morsüre from France.

Much like in the case of Die Kruezen, whether Morsüre was directly influenced by Voivod's music or were just happening to be doing similar things at the same time is difficult to determine. Morsüre's first demo, "M.A.D." (standing of course for Mutually Assured Destruction - I'm a big fan of cold war imagery and paranoia in heavy metal and punk) came in 1984, the same year that Voivod's first album was released. By this time Morsüre had already developed their sound; dissonant guitar playing, almost "anti-riffs", at very high speeds, but don't have a driving rhythm typical of the thrash bands at the time. This wasn't party thrash music, but instead a very intense and cacophonous blast of noise at this listener. In short, much like Voivod's "Rrroooaaarrr".

In 1985, the band released "Acceleration Process", which reprised all of the songs from the demo and included six others. The playing and tone is very similar on the LP as it is on the demo with one very noticable exception; the use of an electronic drum kit. The band stated that they wanted to play the fastest, most extreme music on the planet, and that when the drummer played on a standard drum kit, the sound recording was not good enough to effectively capture how fast the drummer was actually playing. Instead of going for a muddy and blurry wall of noise, the band figured that if the drummer played an electronic kit, the recorded sound would be much clearer for the drum hits. In addition to this, the drumming was apparently sped up in the studio to further add to the intensity.

Its really difficult to say whether or not this approach worked or not. The drumming is extremely fast, and while the drums are sped up slightly, the drummer does do some notable work on the kit. However, the electronic drum sounds very out of place for this kind of music and is very high in the mix. It took me a while to get over this hurdle, but I personally feel the juxtaposition adds to the already chaotic nature of the music, just pushing it over the top a little more. The rest of the playing on this album is very tight to accompany the drums, but composed in such a fashion that it doesn't particularly move in a way that would appeal to the average speed/thrash fan. Instead the album acts as a wall of noise; chaotic in the sense that the guitars and drums are moving very fast, and combined with the hoarse thick French accent of the singer (another way this band bears similarities to Voivod), this is a great album to listen on headphones to just to try to take all of it in. One of my friends remarked that it sounded similar to Revenge in this element, and I agree. While the playing on the album is tight, it isn't to the level of cleaned up, polished and overproduced degree that technical death metal bands from the late 90s were, and despite the band's attempts to produce a less muddy and cleaner drum sound, the album still feels like an impenetrable wall of random notes assaulting the listener from all angles.

Naturally an album of this nature won't appeal to everyone. Even Voivod, one of the most original and outstanding bands in heavy metal have a large amount of detractors. While this album really sounds like few albums I've heard, "Rrroooaaarrr" would be the closest point of comparison. Fortunately there was enough cult interest in the band to garner a CD reissue of "Acceleration Process" and the "M.A.D." demo by Hell's Headbangers, which should still be rather easy to find. Listeners wanting a similar dissonant and overwhelming musical experience to early Voivod will probably appreciate this, but those looking for a standard straight forward death/thrash recording may be disappointed. This isn't one of those albums that will click right away, but instead requires multiple listens to fully understand what is going on; appreciating this can be a process, but is ultimately a very rewarding album.

Funebre (Fin) - "Cranial Torment" demo, 1989

While the Swedish death metal scene may have been more prominent in the eyes of metal's more mainstream media, Finland had an equally strong scene in the late 80s and early 90s. Bands from Finland tended to be more obscure and occult sounding in their approach, often opting for more slower, doomier parts than their Swedish counterparts. This type of music is getting more and more recognition these days through bands like Funebrarum who continue to carry the torch for this rather underapprciated style. Interestingly enough, Norway, in rather close proximity with both countries, did not have a particularly strong death metal scene during this time; many of the death metal bands that were active in the late 1980s, most of which only released demos or the odd 7" here and there, jumped ship to black metal when the 1990s rolled around.

Funebre's first demo, "Cranial Torment" is an example of the heaviest music this country could produce. The death metal scene in Finland was just beginning to take shape in 1989. A handful of bands released demos in 1988 (including the classic Repulse "On a Car Trip in Sweden"), and by 1989, many bands were playing in the slower, drudging style that Finland would become known for. The sound on this demo is extremely bass-heavy and loud. Its one of the heaviest recordings I've heard, both in terms of the slower speeds and the massive guitar tone. While it still has a bit of a raw and unpolished edge, the amount of bass will guarantee to make anything around the speakers shake when turned up to an appropriate volume.

The songs on here tend to be somewhat long, averaging around five or so minutes in length over five tracks. Compositionally this music tends to be rather simple, utilizing a large amount of crushing mid-tempo riffs which server to emphasize the pummeling faster paced sections. The solos are shrill and the vocals are gutteral and low pitched, exactly the complimentary elements that this type of music needs.

Two songs from this demo would be later reissued on 7", and the band would do two more recordings: a demo in 1990 (an excellent recording that isn't quite as heavy as this one), and a full length "Children of the Scorn" (which to this day I still find rather lackluster). "Cranial Torment" remains their best recording, and while not as out there as other Finnish masterpieces such as Demilich, it serves as an excellent example of the strange, heavy and brooding brand of death metal that Finland excelled in, and certainly deserves to be included in the same sentence as the rest of the Finnish classics; any fan of ultra-heavy death metal would be doing themselves a great disservice by not checking this out.

Afflicted Convulsion (Swe) - "Beyond Redemption" demo, 1990

Sweden had one of the most prominent and best death metal scenes in the late 80s and early 90s. While a little slow to start off, it seems that after Nihilist released their seminal demos in 1988 and 1989, literally dozens of bands popped up all across the country in the next couple years. The sheer amount of bands trying to recapture the Nihilist/Entombed sound certainly put some people off; when I started getting into this kind of music in the mid 1990s, the black metal backlash was still in full swing. Many reviews from this time referred to albums like Darkthrone's "Soulside Journey" as being trendy garbage, death metal as life affirming hippie music, and black metal as being an true uncompromising anti-trend music. Its interesting how this mentality in itself forms a trend, evidenced by the extremely fast stagnation of the black metal genre in the late 90s, going from what was a very vibrant and promising scene with landmark releases across the globe to a large parody of itself in less than half a decade's time.

Coming back to Sweden, while a mass amount of death metal bands formed there in the late 80s, not all of them went for the Entombed buzzsaw guitar and riff heavy approach. Afflicted Convulsion in particular played a form of very heavy and detuned death metal that in approach almost bears similarities to contemporary grindcore works; their second demo was called "Psychadelic Grindcore", and while this rather tongue-in-cheek title hints at the bands sense of humor (possibilty in addition to the cool three dimensional "Afflicted" in the logo juxtaposed on top of the more death metal font "Convulsion"), it at least gives a good glimpse into where they band was coming from at this point in time.

The "Beyond Redemption" demo, their third, reprises most of the tracks from the "Psychadelic Grindcore" demo and while it doesn't have any jamming or pointless meandering like the "psychadelic" aspect would imply, what it does have is a cavernous wall of sound production that is intensely heavy. This type of music bears a strong similarity to what Grave or Carnage were doing at the time, and considering the classic status of the early works of these two, this is certainly not a bad thing. The music tends to be rather fast-paced, occasionally breaking into more mid-tempo sections, vocals are low-pitched growls that are rather flat and basic, but enough to do the job. The song titles in particular are rather strange, particular "Utilization", which hint at an odd sense of humor on the band's part which tended to be prevalent in these acts.

This demo is a nearly flawless piece of heavy Swedish death metal, favoring a massive steamroller approach rather than a more visceral and raw attack on the listener. After this demo the band would drop the word "Convulsion" from their band name and released a couple of albums under the name of "Afflicted". These albums I found to be a huge disappointment, especially compared to how awesome this demo is. Over time I grew to appreciate their first LP, "Prodigal Sun" a little more on its own terms, but the "Beyond Redemption" demo simply remains one of the best recordings to come out of the early Swedish death metal scene, and easily blows away anything the band has done since.

Siekiera (Pol) - 1984 demo

The Soviet Bloc produced quite an interesting amount of music during the 1980s. Before Glastnost in the late 1980s, punk, and to a somewhat lesser degree, metal, was very much an underground phenomenon. As bands had to have their material approved by the government censors who controlled the state run record industries, a majority of the more fringe bands who professed extreme views had little chance of releasing anything on vinyl in their own country. A direct result of this was the prevalent use of cassette as the medium of choice for releases. Tapes could be made and duplicated quickly and cheaply by the band members without having to worry about government intervention. Despite this fact, the government would often crack down on punk bands, resulting in many cancelled gigs and band members being detained.

Poland is the country in the Soviet Bloc which probably had the largest scenes in punk and metal. Being second only to the USSR in terms of population and size, its clear to see why so many great bands came from here. By the late 80s the country had enormous metal and punk scenes which could easily hold their own with the rest of the world. Siekiera were one of the first bands to play hardcore in Poland. Their sound, like their name (meaning "Axe") , was an extremely primitive form of stripped down hardcore, harsh, raw and uncompromising.

The demo they recorded in 1984 remains their masterpiece. Even the production is extremely primitive and low-fi; in the right channel you have guitars and drums and in the left channel you have bass and vocals. The whole atmosphere of this recording is completely dead and lifeless. This isn't a fun recording by any stretch of the imagination, just very stark, bleak and cold sounding music. While it has nothing musically in common with albums like Godflesh's "Streetcleaner", Ildjarn's "Forest Poetry" or Swans' "Cop", this demo manages to evoke similar brooding imagery. Structurally this is almost as basic as its production, simplistic hardcore songs using little more than two or three riffs per song, often mid-tempo and plodding. Much like early Amebix, the drumming has a tendency to be rhythmically angular, giving the music an almost post-punk feel at times. Vocals are very hoarse, gruff and low-pitched shouts in Polish; the Slavic language group is far more harsh sounding than English and the Polish language suits this type of music perfectly. It seems the band has channeled the agony of Poland being partitioned by Russia over centuries, being devastated during two World Wars and then having been dragged into being a satellite state of the Soviet Union into fifteen hardcore songs.

After this recording the band would contribute two tracks to the Fala compilation LP (the title track of which has a beeping out of some lyrics by the censors). Strangely enough, the band decided to completely switch musical directions in 1985 with the "Jest Bezpiecznie" 7" and the 1986 follow up "Nowa Aleksandria" LP, which have more in common with Ministry's "Twitch" and Sisters of Mercy's "Floodland" than the early hardcore recordings. This stuff is good in its own right, but the demo remains the bleakest hardcore recording I've heard, and easily my favorite hardcore to come out of Eastern Europe.

Reencarnación (Col) - "888" LP, 1988

In case any fans of raw death metal were wondering, becoming a librarian requires going to graduate school in which you enroll in many courses that teach you useless theory that has very little to do with the practice of librarianship. One of the first courses that I took, "Human Information Behavior", a group of people in my class did a presentation on the information needs of "outsiders" vs "insiders". For about 45 minutes these individuals talked about the theoretical ins and outs of exactly what an "outsider" is - this term for this purpose was defined as someone who is a part of a 'scene' (for lack of better word) tangentially on the outside and do not have easy access to the same kind of information the members of that 'scene' have. While this definition is rather vague and a little convoluted, it becomes a little easier to see what exactly this is meant when one looks at outsider art or, in particular, outsider music. Outsider art, which outsider music is naturally a subsection of, is any art created by an artist who generally is unaware of any trends and thus any kind of outside influence in their music, whether by choice or not. This generally leads to very strange works, often produced by mentally ill people such as Henry Darger or Wesley Willis.

Its difficult to place exactly where the Colombian metal scene fits into all this. In particular, bands like Parabellum and Reencarnación played a type of music which not only does not resemble anything else coming out of South America, but really nothing that I've heard before. The line between insanity and genius is often fine, and its hard to tell retroactively on what side either band fell on. Trying to label this as a brilliant piece of outsider art, a breathtaking and conceptually complex piece of high art, or just a bunch of talentless kids trying and failing miserably to emulate their Motorhead LPs is a futile attempt, and this sort of music can only be judged on its own terms.

A lot of outsider music due to its strange and often quite literally retarded sounds can produce a great deal of unintentionally hilarious songs. This was my first reaction to hearing "888". I had never heard music this insane before and burst out laughing when the band kicked into high speed in the opening title track. Its hard to describe exactly what this band sounds like. Structurally they play a rather limited range of riffs, generally only 3 - 4 per song at most, almost no soloing, and vocals are delivered in a gruff yet intelligible fashion. However the riffs themselves don't really sound like much of any type of discernable riffs. They have much more in common to the harsh noise anti-music stylings of early Beherit than anything else that was present in the metal scene at the time. The guitars sound horribly out of tune and the guitarist sounds like he is just running his fingers up and down the frets in a seemingly random pattern that is repeated in a riff form. The bass is largely unconcerned with what the guitar player is doing and is playing something else, the drummer is barely keeping the whole show together with a series of sloppy rhythms that would make early Sodom proud, and the Spanish language vocals are spit out at such a rapid pace that initially it sounds like the singer is having some kind of anxiety attack.

Its difficult to pin down any sort of influence in this music. South America, especially Brazil, had a very strong metal scene known for its raw death metal, but as harsh as those bands were, at least they had some semblance of song structure, riffing, and were clearly influenced by the heavier speed/thrash metal bands of the time. Brazil also had a rather large hardcore scene in the early 80s, but Reencarnación sounds like neither. Instead this sounds like a mismatch of sounds randomly pasted together. The whole recording feels very musically "wrong". If there was some kind of handbook that instructed you how to write a proper heavy metal song (ala the KLF), it seems that Reencarnación studied the handbook very carefully and decided to do the exact opposide. The band employs a few noise tracks, out of tune violins, and some truly mindblowing break down parts that sound like nothing a sane human being would write. To further add to the mystery, their countrymen Parabellum, who were producing equally insane and strange music, sounded nothing like this either.

I realize everything I've written so far sounds like it could easily be a negative review, but its not. I absolutely love this band, and this album is easily the best thing they've done. "888" is such a frantic and crazy recording, after the initial shock wore off, the recording clicked very heavily with me and certainly is amongst the best metal albums to come out of South America. Its difficult to call this death metal or black metal, but probably would not be incorrect to say that it falls in some nebulous hole in between the two.

This band has built up such a cult following that "888" has been reissued several times on both CD and vinyl, with the following EP "Acompáñame A La Tumba", another fantastic recording that is slightly thicker sounding and has some of the best cover art to grace any heavy metal 7". For the uninitiated, expecting a rather standard South American black metal recording like "I.N.R.I." or "Bestial Devastation" might be disappointed, but those open to more esoteric forms of death metal should love this. I really can't recommend this recording enough, this is one of those rare gems that encompasses the true essence of what makes being a fan of this kind of music worthwhile.

Armoured Angel (Aus) - "Communion" demo, 1990

The Australian metal scene, especially in the mid-late 80s was a rather small but strong group of bands. The death and thrash metal scenes started rather early with excellent bands like Slaughter Lord and Sadistik Exekeution cutting a few influential demos in 1986 and 1987. Armoured Angel, while predating both bands, started off as a fairly straight forward speed metal band. Their first cult demo, "Baptized in Blood" came in 1985, and for the rest of the decade the band was largely silent. In the four year span between "Baptized in Blood", and their second demo, "Wings of Death", the band changed some members and took on a more death metal approach. Though a far cry from the insanity that bands like Martire and Sadistik Exekution were doing around the time, "Wings of Death" was a very raw and nasty piece of death metal that would have fit in nicely with the American first wave.

"Communion", the bands third demo, is very much in the same style as "Wings of Death". Rather basically structured death metal, but with a huge emphasis on the riffing. These songs are extremely well written and catchy, and have a similar, almost rockish, approach to riffing style that bears some similarities to albums like Slaughter's "Strappado" or Celtic Frost's "Morbid Tales". These riffs are eccentuated by simplistic, yet well timed percussion. The drummer knows which objects to hit at the right times and in particular does some excellent cymbal work which greatly livens the pace of the demo. In the time between this recording and "Wings of Death" the band had musically tightened up a lot; even though the two recordings aren't very dissimilar in terms of style and approach, "Communion" is a much more focused and tighter assault and for this style of music works much better than "Wings of Death". Vocals are delivered in a manner that isn't exactly a harsh death metal growl, but neither is cleanly sung, instead falling somewhere in between. I get the feeling if Lemmy were more into death metal and had a thick Australian accent, he might sound somewhat like this.

The band's sound would tighten up even more for the following releases, and while aesthetically they became much heavier, they lost some of the energy present on this recording. While "Communion" is a lot tighter than "Wings of Death", it still retains somewhat of a feeling of musical looseness and youthful energy. Not to say that the later material is bad, far from it in fact, but this remains my favorite recording by them and one of the best recordings to come out of Australia.

Due to the nice balance of a somewhat rawer sound and more focused musicianship, this should appeal to both fans of raw death metal and the more polished bands that were becoming popular at the time. The flow and composition is excellent, and when I first heard this recording, the four songs on here couldn't leave my head for days, thick Australian accent and all. From what I can understand, there is some conflict between the members of the band that played on the "Wings of Death" and "Communion" demos and the two following EPs, so it is unlikely that this material will ever see a legitimate reissue on CD or vinyl, which is disappointing considering how good it is. Highly recommended.

Rottrevore (USA) - "Copulation Of The Virtuous And Vicious" 7", 1991

Its hard to imagine nowadays that Relapse Records was once a good label. Releasing a string of excellent death metal and grindcore 7"s in the early 90s, Relapse proved to be one of the best labels for extreme metal along with Century Media, Nuclear Blast and Earache. In the first 20 Relapse releases, the band released material by Incantation, Monstrosity, Repulsion, Destroy, Deceased and Amorphis. Compared with only ten years down the road, it seems almost unfathomable that a label would decline so far. Their roster now is a joke and shows that the label prioritizes trend hopping and maximizing their profits in what is supposed to be an underground scene devoted to playing honest music that is anything but trendy. The fellow aforementioned record labels also went the same route, and proved that not even death metal is exempt from the presence of business in the music "industry".

With that slight aside, Rottrevore's "Copulation Of The Virtuous And Vicious" was one of Relapses' first releases, clocking in at #10. Reprising one track off of the classic "The Epitome of Pantaglia" demo, this 7" is four monstrous tracks of extremely heavy death metal. The second wave of death metal is marked by lots of downtuning; low, gutteral vocals, extremely heavy and cavernous guitar sounds, and this 7" is no exception. The sound here is absolutely massive, visceral and absolutely flooring, and the band goes back and forth between faster, almost grindcore speeds, and slow dirging riffs, almost reminiscent of the first Incantation album. This isn't quite the "riff-salad" type of death metal which would become popular a few years later, but is far more complex than the basic straight forward three chord/three riff songs that characterized the first wave of death metal. The result is an unrelenting, pummelling recording which can easily hold its own with the rest of the Relapse catalog at the time - certainly not an easy feat.

After this 7", Rottrevore released another excellent 7", "Fornication in Delirum", and a full length, "Iniquitous", which reprised many of the tracks from the 7"s and the demo. While I personally would give the edge slightly to the non-LP material, all of the Rottrevore material is outstanding and deserves to be tracked down. The non-LP material has been reissued several times; the Relapse 7" appears on the Relapse Singles Series, volume 3 CD, a rather poor sounding bootleg which contains the 7"s, the demo and some live tracks (my introduction to the band), and the best option - Necroharmonic's reissue "Disembodied" which contains the 7"s, the demo, and two compilation tracks from the "Son of Bllleeeeaaauuuurrrrgghhh!" 7" and "Pantalgia" LP. The original 7" on Relapse fetches about $10 - 15, and can still be easily found.

Shortly after this recording, Relapse, Nuclear Blast, Century Media and Earache all went down the drain. The ultra-heavy style of death metal eventually became a parody of itself when bands started turning into Suffocation clones, lbut for the first few years of the 1990s the style yielded some truly excellent recordings and bands, Rottrevore being one of the best.

Necromancy (USA) - "Cremation" demo, 1986

By 1986, the United States death metal scene had started to take a definite shape. In the two years after Possessed's landmark "Death Metal" demo, over 100 death metal recordings had come from the United States alone. While this volume is relatively high, the style was still firmly cemented in the underground; many of these early death metal bands had only released demos, a handful released 7"s and only a select few released LPs. Thrash was barely catching the attention of mainstream metal media, and the death metal bands were making waves only in the eyes of tape traders and fanzines run by people that had the "right" idea of this kind of music. With all these factors considered, its not that difficult to see how some bands would get lost in the shuffle, especially a band like Necromancy who was only active during the period of one year.

Also known as Necromansy, "Cremation" is their second demo and shows a vast improvement over their first output. While their first demo, also from 1986, was fairly decent, it suffered from slightly poor production, unfocused playing, and weak vocals. In many cases I don't mind a rawer production and loose playing, but the band's performance on this demo was more indicative of a young band trying to find their sound as opposed to a group of maniacs channeling wild and untamed raw energy.

Containing three songs, "Cremation" reprises one song from the first demo ("Submit to Torture", arguably their best song), as well as two others. Musically this straddles the line between first wave death metal and the heavier thrash at the time. Like many of the other death metal demos from this period, it doesn't have a clear edge which firmly pushes it into one genre or the other, but instead encompasses both at the same time. This isn't particularly complex music, but contains rather smart songwriting; the band has a good sense of flow and doesn't rely on repeating riffs for longer than they are welcome. Vocals are somewhat atypical for the music of the time, as they come in the form of hoarse shouts as opposed to growling or a raspy snarl. The production is clean and heavy and compliments the vocals quite well; fans of heavier thrash bands like Demolition Hammer or Prime Evil would probably find a lot of similarities here.

The only real problem with this demo is its length. The three songs on here are excellent yet short, and merely whet the listener's appetite. Necromancy show an enormous amount of potential on this recording and its a shame that they didn't get a chance to record more material. As it stands, this is a great yet brief document of American death/thrash. The delivery and atmosphere of the music isn't nearly as dark or evil as some of their contemporaries, but anyone looking for catchy and heavy music will not be disappointed with the three tracks contained within this demo.