Peace, love and death metal

Rotten Sound - “The Effects” @ MySpace

Taken from the forthcoming blast Cycles, due early 2008. Rotten Sound’s grinding isn’t that sharp anymore, but it’s definitely more organic and breathing than it was on Exit.

Mutagen - “Stabbed Through The Face” mp3

There’s not much I know about Mutagen, except they’re propably from the same town I live in and I know one of the members through a friend. I appreciate their blend of death metal: enough brutality, enough melody and definitely low enough vocals. Also the Cannibal Corpse groove they have is nice. More of their demo tracks @ Mikseri.

Casket - newer demo downloadable @ MySpace, older demo @ Mikseri

Young Finnish Death Metal. Not quite as old school as they claim, but still firmly rooted to the rotten soil and definitely no gimmicks.

Few months back I posted about Armour - the new Finnish heavy metal sensation, so to say. Their demo have now sold out, but it’ll be re-released soon (also in China, which is definitely cool).

All Armour studio tracks can be downloaded from their Mikseri.net site. Highly recommended, especially if you have a car to speed into the night….

French Carte Postale’s netlabel Tripostal offers a nice selection of electronic and instrumental music that at the same time offer sonic comfort for a bad day (bad life?) and also some serious independent musicianship and detailed composing. And as the netlabel principals go, all releases are free to download.

The Oslo Deadtrash Project - “Across The Ocean” mp3
Un Atomne A Lob-Nor - “Birds” mp3

Hmm… Check out Lob-Nor (rip) mp3’s at their website. French know their post-rock, I say.

Slayer - “Final Six” @ MySpace

A new Slayer song, or an outtake from Christ Illusion session if you like it more that way, is up at their MySpace. Starts off like a grown-up “Spill The Blood”, but then lands heavily on Slayer’s 2000’s sound. Hopefully this won’t be the last new Slayer track ever.

Vacant Coffin @ MySpace

What is better than old school death metal? Old school grindcore! Finnish Vacant Coffin are soon releasing their take on the sound of World Downfall and we are blessed.

Year Of The B-side? @ Blogs Are For Dogs 

Blogs Are For Dogs shares Peter, Björn And John’s remix on The Shins’ “Australia” as well many other exceptional b-sides from 2007.

Paradise Vending - Ordinary Skies, an internet-only EP

Nice, laid-back music perfect for the time being. Listen to it before the summer is over.

Turbonegro - Retox album stream

Hebosagil - “Temple” mp3

When I write, I love to start describing a band by saying something like: “Imagine being hit by a train”. I use figure of speech to describe the weight and velocity of music, so that you, a reader, would believe me that the band I’m talking about really is heavy metal music.

In Hebosagil’s case, it’d be an underestimation to say “Imagine being hit by a train”. There is a short cut, no imagination required: just listen to their music and you are being hit by a heavy object, in this case a heavy sonic object.

Hebosagil is relatively young and unknown Finnish band. Some thrashy demos under their bullet belt they’ve refocused to much more original and way more heavier sound. They use reference points such as High On Fire, Autopsy and Skitsystem. Sludge, filth and destruction indeed are the keywords here.

Cosmic EP is 25-minute multiheaded monster. The core is in the slower, but oh so heavy (believe me?) songs, such as the opener “Temple”, but for the sake of not stagnating at times Hebosagil’s music burst into blastbeats, noisebreaks and stoned guitar leads. Everything is kept well together - and even if this quite far from what you’d call lovely, this EP has a charm you can’t help but love. Drums sounds like a violent thunder and that’s always a compliment.

For the lovers of heavy and filthy music, Hebosagil’s Cosmic EP is available for free download at their homesite. Highly recommended, this is one of the best Finnish self-financied (and other) work I’ve heard for months, if not years.

An updated link to Neurosis’ Given to the Rising stream @Fanatic Promotion’s eCard

Neurosis - Given to the Rising album stream @3voor12

Kongh - “Zihuatanejo” mp3
Another new definition of “heavy”. And I really mean heavy: down on your knees, crawling through mud, dragging dead people and body parts in ear-destroying noise while trying to keep your pace faster than that of the lava just few moments behind you heavy.

And This Army - “Blackbeard” mp3
Emotionally pretty much the same as above, except the dead people are being dragged inside the mind and there are no ear-destroying noise, there are those damn whispers. Whole recording can be streamed here.

Chthonian  - “Thirteen” mp3
Taken from their debut album Of Beatings And The Silence In Between (Woodcut). Last year’s three-song demo can be downloaded at Mikseri.net.