Alright. Here’s a new Metal genre for y’all. Culinary Metal.
This is one of those few albums that come out and every now and then that really surprise you. The album cover instantly grabbed my attention with its morbid and cartoonish style. I had never heard any mention of this Death Metal/Grind band before this review. I wasn’t too sure as what to expect. Quickly reading the song titles, “Aborted Eggs Benedict,” “Rancid Risotto,” and “Heinous Hassenpfeffer,” I knew I was in for something truly different and fun.
A La Carte’s debut full length is equally impressive in both terms of music technicality and heaping servings of darkened humor. After working in a kitchen as a young Metalhead, I can really appreciate the band’s theme, morbid songs about preparing and serving food. To top things and come full circle the band performs their live shows wearing maitre d’ outfits. Just when you thought you’ve seen and heard it all in Metal.
Most “gimmick” bands spend too much time on the gimmick and not enough time on the music itself. A La Carte satisfyingly serve up some good tunes. I actually thought this might have been a side project for some more seasoned scene musicians! The band does a great job mixing in elements of Grindcore, Technical and Brutal Metal into some face melting music. One moment they are playing a soft Castlevania feeling melody and the next they are bringing a savage beatdown on your senses.
This a solid album that has no business being this good. If I was still working in the kitchen, these tunes would be blasting on my prep station. I only wish I had heard this album earlier as it totally would have made it into my top release list for 2022.
When Wise Blood Records first mentioned this split’s upcoming release, I was pretty pumped as I’ve been on a Nattmaran kick lately. I haven’t heard Terror Cross prior to this release but I figure if they are cool enough to team up with Nattmaran, they’re cool enough for me.
Each band contributed 5 tracks to this EP, 4 original and one cover. Hellripper’s James McBain lends his shrieks on the opening track, “Savage Urges,” that is an assault of early thrash and black metal. They continue their thrashing assault with each blistering track. The riffs and solos still have plenty of grooves that still match the band’s fury. Their cover of Bathory’s “Conspiracy with Satan,” is a perfect choice as it lends itself perfectly Nattmaran’s sound and style.
Terror Cross takes things in a slightly different direction. Their sound is a little darker and murkier. Their is still plenty of thrash to be found here, it’s just covered in a thick layer of blackened ooze. “Metal Bloody Metal” is a hard hitting march that feels like it pounds through your chest with its haunting chorus.
The biggest highlight of this split is Terror Cross’s interesting choice to cover Manowar’s “Gloves of Metal.”
If your life is anything like mine, it’s a mad rush of things you need to do before the end of the year holidays. You may find it difficult to take time to stop and smell the coffee (sorry, not sorry) or check out any new tunes.
Pre-Human Vaults has your listening needs covered in their short and densely packed 4 song EP, Allegiance Divine. If you are looking for a last minute gift for your Metalhead friend who has everything, Pre-Human Vault’s brutal Death Metal and Thrash stylings are sure to impress even the most jaded headbanger.
The EP opens up with the aptly named, “Whirlwind Reaper.” With plenty of Djent styled chugging, the track is a monster of a beat down. The vocals are equally as intense and merciless. There is plenty of groove included as well that helps balance the total chaos happening in this track.
“Close to all, Next to Nothing,” starts out a little softer and includes some great galloping melodies and some cool solo fills. The extra layering of some synths is a nice touch. “When the Trap is Set,” adds some more synths that can be felt for the duration of the song, giving it a really creepy vibe. Some more “heroic” feeling guitar melodies are added in given the song a real “epic battle” sort of feel.
The amazing vocal work and pummeling guitars guide this EP into the essential listening category that will leave you battered, broken and looking for more.
Lust Witch’s deput, We All Die Alone, is four tracks of murky and sludgy doom crawling out from the depths of Indianapolis. Interestingly enough, the 4 song titles are taken from the words in the album title with “We,” being the first track and so on. With that thought process in mind, this album is meant to be enjoyed as a complete listen. Each track melds into the next. Don’t put this one on shuffle.
“We,” starts off softly with an eerie tone coupled with some creepy chants in the background. Lust Witch slowly build up the temp and intensity into the second track, “All.” The tones are a little harsher and the sense of dread still hangs thick in the air. With “Die,” the longest track on the recording, Lust Witch continues with more vocal work and more thick and chunky riffs. Throughout the first 3 tracks you can really sense that Lust Witch is building to something.
“Alone,” closes things out starting with some thick and nasty bass grooves and trench deep guitar tones. As the song title would suggest, “Alone,” has an unshakable depressing feeling of isolation and loneliness and despair. Everything your blackened little heart wants from a Doom EP.
Dark Funeral are currently halfway through their extremely successful North American tour with extreme metal titans Cannibal Corpse, Immolation and relative newcomers, Black Anvil. The fans showed up in full force with this string of shows with many of the dates selling out and the rest with very few tickets remaining.
The Cincinnati show which took place at Bogart’s, one of the city’s longest running music venues wasn’t sold out but it sure felt like it. People were packed and crammed into the tiny venue excited to witness a night of killer metal. Black Anvil started the evening off early and did an incredible job. I was both surprised and impressed. I had not heard any of their material before checking them out live and will definitely seek them out in the future. Immolation’s set was brutal as fuck as usual for an Immolation show. Headliners Cannibal Corpse proved that they are still one of the finest live Death Metal acts around even after all of these years.
Seeing Dark Funeral live for the first time was amazing. Immediately upon entering the stage, their presence and energy could be felt throughout the entire venue. From the first note of the opening song, “Unchain my Soul,” the crowd was totally captivated by their performance until the end of the set closing track, “Where Shadows Forever Reign.” It was crazy to think that another band had to follow this killer performance. (In fact, I was so worn out I left towards the end of Cannibal’s set)
Before the gig, I had a chance to sit down with Heljarmadr, Dark Funeral and GRA’s vocalist. Despite his extremely intimidating stage presence, he is a very thoughtful and accommodating person off stage. I don’t think I would have had the balls to speak with him in his stage gear!
Trve Kvlt Coffee: Thanks so much for taking the time to chat with me before the show. Just to start things off, how has the tour been going so far?
Heljarmadr: So far so good I think. Turnout has been awesome. All the bands are performing excellent; it has been a pleasure to watch them all. I think it’s rolling strong. Very strong. There have been a lot of sold out shows.
TKC: That’s what I was going to say. There has been a few sold out shows
H: More sold out shows coming up too.
TKC: That’s awesome. I was at a Cannibal Corpse show earlier this year and a lot of their shows were selling out. I think that was in March. Everyone was so hungry to see shows again after COVID shut downs. How does it feel to be touring again?
H: After 2 years of silence, you can imagine. It’s like being constipated for 2 years and you finally get the shit out. It’s the only way I can describe it properly. You’re really, really hungry and you finally get that pizza.
TKC: Just a big relief now?
H: Yeah. It’s a different world we are coming back to that’s for sure. I mean with inflation and everything. Everything is extremely expensive. Flights are insane but it is what it is. I mean we are back on that road and have to be very glad about that.
TKC: When you are on the road, what do you do with some of your down time? I’ve seen some of your Instagram pictures, what do you look to do in the cities you are in when you have a chance?
H: Actually, I try to do as much as possible. Just before now we had a soundcheck and then I went for a quick run because it’s so warm out. I try to stay fit and see as much as we can.
TKC: This area has changed so much, I wish I had some recommendations for things to check out but I don’t even know what’s around here anymore.
H: It’s still one of those days where I have a lot of administration to do and don’t have much time to do stuff anyway. The first thing I do is, I Google what there is to do in the town. Recommendations, Atlas Obscura, do you know about it? It’s like a website with weird places. They have an app and website, in a new town that’s the coolest website to checkout because it’s weird shit. This town has the world’s biggest stamp and an abandoned railroad. That’s what we try to do as much as possible. Sitting on the bus is a waste of time. We are trying to get out, especially when the weather is as nice as this, it’s amazing to be out.
TKC: I’ve been listening to a lot of We are the Apocalypse. Which is fucking awesome! I wanted to ask about the song, “Let the Devil in,” We did some of the inspiration come from the lyrics?
H: Inspiration comes from everything and it kind of mounds down into a song. It’s kind of an introvert song. I mean looking into yourself and taking control of yourself or letting go, you know? You can do either or. In life you always have choices. You can let the devil in or you can let the devil out. That’s kind of where I’m going with it.
TKC: It was one of those songs where the lyrics just hit write as I was working at my computer today.
H: Yeah. He’s riding on the shadow of my soul, you know? This is how my eyes see the world. It’s like we all have our little angel and demon on our shoulders. They see things differently depending on what mood you are seeing things through. Which eyes you see it through.
TKC: Another song I really dig is “Nosferatu.” You have the song referring more to the original film.
H: Oh yes! The 1922 film. I watched it during the Pandemic actually. I had this weird idea. So I have a lot of time and I’m going to watch Dracula themed movies from oldest to newest and there are lots of them. So I had to make a selection obviously. I started with the first one and nothing measured up after that. Everything became this romantic crap but the first one had a darkness. It’s out of this world, this feeling from that movie. Maybe it’s the fact it’s mute, maybe it’s the fact it’s black and white, everyone that’s in this movie has been dead for a long time, you know? It’s really like an old book but it’s a movie. It’s kind of cool that it’s 100 years old.
TKC: It’s so hard to find a complete copy and find one with the correct original score. I recently heard they are once again going to be releasing a remake.
H: I saw that too with the Swedish guy.
TKC: What do you think of that?
H: Why not? Actually the second best Dracula movie rendition was from a couple years back. It was a 3 episode series or something like that. (Note:This series is named Dracula and is currently streaming on Netflix) A different take for example is the classic movie from the 90’s, Bram’s Stoker’s Dracula, that one was not so good. I don’t think it aged so well. Too gothic for me. But this new one was quite interesting. Some interesting takes on it.
TKC: Nice. I’m going to have to check that series out. You’re working on a new album and when that’s coming out?
H: Well the album is done already. We are just waiting because post Pandemic the world has changed as you’ve said. So the vinyl pressing companies are slow as fuck. Or jammed as fuck. Sometimes it’s even hard to get a hold of material. We decided instead of gambling and getting the CD version and maybe people have to wait to get the vinyl, we decided to postpone and the album will be out in mid January. And that is for sure when the vinyl will be available.
TKC: You also have your solo act as well. I was listening to that last night, which was great. I loved the video (watch below). You have a full album coming out?
H: Yes. It’s being planned to be recorded next year. We’ll see whenever it’s released. We are also negotiating some record deals for that album too. So it’s a work in progress. The drummer for that project will be Dennis Ekdahl from Thyrfing. So we are working together so this can come out next year.
TKC: Awesome! With all of that I have to ask, Do you ever sleep?
H: (laughs) I don’t know, I’m a very restless person. Sitting still is not my thing, you know? Maybe I’m like this shark that has to swim or otherwise I’d drown or something. I like to keep occupied and I like to keep active. I don’t know, I’m just that kind of person.
TKC: I totally feel it myself. I just finished my full time day job before coming here and I’m always grinding and looking for something to do. Again going back to your Instagram stories from the road, I love the picture with the Rocky statue in Philly.
H: Oh yeah! I mean, why not?
TKC: I would have done the same thing. Any spots in the US that you are looking forward to seeing?
H: Well the thing is when we came here we all flew into New York and we had a couple of days before the first show. So we rented a car together and just went sightseeing all the way down to Baltimore. We went to DC to check out the Lincoln statue, those things. That’s something I had really looked forward to seeing. I’ve never been to Washington before and it’s an iconic place that you’ve seen in movies since you were a kid.
TKC: I haven’t been there myself yet.
H: It’s definitely worth seeing. I don’t know what to do there for more than 1 day. In 1 day you will be very overwhelmed and impressed. It’s an impressive thing to see, you get all of the Forrest Gump references. Aside from that I don’t know if there is anything on the radar. I try not to plan too much ahead because you never know what days are gonna be like. You have other things to do like administration or something is broken. I don’t want to be disappointed so I take it day by day. Of course I’m usually thinking a couple days ahead but I try to take it slow.
TKC: You gotta be careful with shows right now. Someone gets sick and that cancels a few dates or the bus breaks down.
H: Someone gets sick, the bus breaks down and you’re stuck somewhere. It happened not the last time we were here but the time before when we were touring with Septicflesh. The bus broke down, so we went to the nearest airport, rented a car and a Uhaul. So we were touring and hitting hotels every night. So that was like an adventure. I’ll never forget that, I’m from a small Swedish town and I was driving my car in Chicago. I think that was kinda cool.
TKC: Definitely different from driving in a small town.
H: I was also driving in DC, I’m not afraid of driving anymore. Nothing can scare me.
TKC: I think that’s all I had for you today. Anything that you would like to add?
H: Thanks to everyone for coming out to the shows, the turnout is awesome and thank you for this interview.
Well the concludes this interview. Be sure to check out Dark Funeral’s newest release “We Are The Apocalypse” and Grá’s newest music video(below) for “Flame of Hephaestus” from their upcoming 4th album “Lycaon”
Here’s some suggested content to check out that is relevant to Heljarmadr:
Zanjeer play some explosive hardcore punk that’s as hard hitting as it is catchy. Their debut EP of 6 tracks with each song barley of a minute is a quick listen. It quickly hits hard and ends just as fast but it’s just as long as it needs to be. The album feels like a quick shot of adrenaline, the kind of album you need to listen to pump yourself up before performing some sort of mundane task.
Zanjeer is out of Breman, Germany and composed of highly skilled hardcore veterans from across the robe. United by political and religious frustration Zanjeer’s songs are written in a multitude of different languages. While the lyrics maybe difficult to understand, the message is clear. Zanjeer is pissed and punk as fuck and they aren’t going to take what’s going on with the world today.
Here’s a treat for you this Samhain Season. A little over a year ago, I was able to chat with the mighty Bill Steer of Carcass. This interview was tied up for a bit and I am extremely excited share it with you now.
If you are already here, I don’t have to explain to you about how important his contributions to extreme Metal music have been over the years. Being a huge Carcass fan, I was pretty nervous to interview him but he quickly calmed that fear. Bill may be one of the most humble and genuine artists that I have interviewed over the years.
Trve Kvlt Coffee: Your new album, Torn Arteries was finally released in September which was pushed out for over a year. What was it like to have to sit on that album for so long?
Bill Steer: Well, in all truth, it’s probably closer to 2 years since we finished the thing. I can’t even remember the original release date. Even before Covid happened the release date was pushed back a couple of times for one reason or another. Around March last year the world changed and we knew we would have to sit on this a while longer. We certainly weren’t alone in that, it seemed like there were quite a few bands and artists in a similar position. You couldn’t really start feeling sorry for yourself. It was a minor inconvenience compared to what some people are going through.
TKC: Looking on the bright side you did manage to release the Despicable EP last year in its place to sort of tide the fans over.
BS: Exactly. The original intention was for the Despicable EP to follow the album much in the same way as Surgical Steel had an EP come out a few months later. Then once the virus kicked in, Nuclear Blast decided to reverse everything and they wanted to wait for us to be ready to tour before they released the album. They decided to stick the EP out to keep a bit of interest in the band. Of course the strange thing now is that the album is out and we still won’t be quite ready to tour. I’m still glad though, it’s a tremendous relief to see this thing out there.
TKC: Definitely! I love the new album, I’ve already listened to it a few times. One thing I loved with the Despicable release, there was a bundle that included a face mask.
BS: Really? You know I had forgotten all about that. I’m always the last to know about some of these promotional ideas.
TKC: I thought that if any band was going to have some sort of surgical style mask, it had to be Carcass.
BS: They think of everything. I mean, I just recently heard about this dinner plate thing. I actually thought someone was winding me up on the phone. After we finished the interview,I checked it out online. That’s crazy.
TKC: I read that the album’s title, Torn Arteries, came from an early demo from (original drummer) Ken Owen.
BS: This is going way back. We were teenagers in school together. Sometimes he would bring in sets of lyrics he had written, they were almost like poetry because we didn’t really have an active band at the time. I think we were around 15 or so. Some of those sets of lyrics worked their way into early Carcass stuff when we actually started the band up properly. I do remember him bringing in this tape. It was a very crude recording but it distorted so brutally it sounded a lot bigger and threatening than it really was. Essentially, it was a guy playing Spanish guitar in his bedroom and overdubbing some drums which were really books and then he was screaming over top of it. It was a pretty out there sound that he had recorded. I wish I still had the tape. It might be in the bottom of a box somewhere in my parent’s attic. Years later I mentioned this recording to Jeff (Walker). I think he was quite taken at the title and the whole story behind it.
TKC: That’s really cool to hear. I think it’s great that you are still able to include Ken in some way.
BS: He’s always there in some form, he was in the band from the very start and he’s on that initial run of albums. What he brought to the band and his approach to music, there is always going to be an element of that. If you have so much time with somebody, as a friend or as a musician in a band, they are going to rub off on you and that influence stays.
TKC:Carcass has had some history of incredibly gory album covers. The cover for Torn Arteries is pretty unique. Where did the idea for this album cover come from?
BS: I genuinely have no idea. I didn’t realize Jeff was going to do this. I think he had been collaborating with an artist friend in Poland, a man whose name I still can’t pronounce properly unfortunately. Looking at the finished results, I’m guessing they spent a while working on this thing. That first that Dan Wilding and myself knew about it was when Jeff presented the finished article. The one thing that we felt was that we didn’t want anything that felt too generic, Jeff worked really hard in that direction for something that was going to stand out. Off the back of that naturally you are going to polarize your audience. From what I gather there is a real mix of opinion, some people enjoy the fact that it is so different and there are other people who just think it looks terrible. It seems to have gotten people talking, which is probably what they were after
TKC: I remember first looking at it and thinking it was a little simple and then it struck me. That heart is made out of vegetables. I thought that was very clever.
BS: It seems that there are a few people saying, “Oh god. Now they are forcing a vegan message on us!” Which couldn’t be further from the truth as far as I’m concerned. I can’t speak for Jeff but I imagine he feels the same way. Whether it’s his lyrics or the kind of imagery he does for the band it seems he rather have people come to their own conclusions about it. It is there for people to interpret whatever they wish into it. Once you put something out into the public domain, you no longer have full control, people will take it into interesting directions, stuff you wouldn’t even think of.
TKC: I love some of the dark humor that Carcass has with some of your song titles such as,”Elenor Rigamortis,”
BS: Yeah, I’d say it’s probably safe to say that there has been a subtle humor running though all of the Carcass items lyrically. It was very obvious to us as teenagers when we first started. The first 2 albums were the three of us (Bill, Jeff and Ken) all writing lyrics. On the third album Jeff had kind of made that his own and it’s been that way ever since. Dark humor is a big thing for him.
TKC: Since your first album, your sound has always been evolving. On this new album, you have some incredible guitar work here. The intro to “The Scythe’s Remorseless Swing?” is fantastic.
BS: Thanks. It seemed to me we couldn’t justify making a new album unless it was genulily new music. There are some elements of our sound that are just corner stones and they will probably always be there but equally I think in order to move forward you have to bring in slightly new things and it doesn’t need to be anything radical. We are not the type of group to experiment but we also can’t face the idea of looking over our shoulders to plagiarize thighs we did in the past. It seems to me every record we’ve done is a few steps on from the previous one.
TKC: How does it feel to remain possibly more popular than ever playing this type of extreme music?
BS: It’s remarkable. It’s something none of us would have expected going back to the late 80’s and early 90’s. It’s important not to take it for granted, we’ve been very fortunate. In the days when we were still playing festivals and club dates the front rows would tend to be people who were too young to have ever seen us in our original form. What you would naturally get of that is that the music has stood the test of time somewhat. It’s not just that, “you had to be there” music for people of a certain age.
TKC: Since we are getting ready for the spooky season, I wanted to make sure I asked what some of your favorite horror films are.
BS: Crikey. I have not watched anything of that nature for so many years. What would even be considered horror now? Obviously, I’m at an age where films were broadly considered horror movies. I’m guessing for younger people a horror film has to have a lot of blood and guts right? The only films that stayed with me from my youth were The Omen and The Exorcist. They are sort of mainstream films but this is something extremely dark about them and they do stand up for repeated viewing.
TKC: Are you looking forward to getting back on the road and playing shows again?
BS: Absolutely. In the present day things are looking decent here in Britain. It feels like we are on a very gradual slow return to normality. No idea on how long that might take. We do have one date for a festival in Yorkshire in November. We are not going to assume anything or get carried away with ourselves. Until we are told otherwise we are going to start rehershing again and try to shake off some of the rust
Black Thrash Space Metal. Those 4 words could sum up Blasted Heath’s debut album, Vela, perfectly. Its as raw and vicious as the great unknown. This group from the far reaches of Indianapolis blend dirty punk riffs with a savage death metal edge. The vocals have an eerie production effect that amplifies the reverb giving it an empty feeling that works well for their “outer space” theme they are going for.
At first glance, this album sounds almost like an homage to some early pioneers of the Black Metal sound such as punk speed and foulness of Venom and the empty darkness of Bathory. “Big Chill,” opens the album up with some nasty dark riffs and echos that match the vocals.
While the first track may feel like an homage, there is plenty going on in this recording. No 2 songs sound alike. Blasted Heath seem to love delivering a variety of styles. Besides the pummeling Blackened Thrash, BlastedHeath includes plenty of slower Doom and Sludge like elements that give the album a more psychedelic and haunting feeling. “The Wind in Vela,” is an instrumental mostly somber track except for some entrancing sound bites about the real life horrors of interstellar space.
The album closes with the 7 minute epic, “Strange Matter,” that perfectly blends the moodiness, eeriness and thrashing foulness into one song. This is definitely one of those types of albums you need to spin a few times until you “get it.”
You gotta love that band name. Straight to the point and utterly complete statement. The Human Race is Filth or THIRF for short, was formed back in 2017 by a bunch of veterans of the Maryland and Pennsylvania extreme music scenes. With a shit load of experience between the band members, THRIF deliver exactly what you would expect on this short EP.
THRIF does a great job playing blistering old school Grind. The closing track, “Shit States USA,” is just a little over 30 seconds and length but starts out with a cool groove before going into full blown blast mode. It’s one of those tracks that remind of the early days of Napalm Death where you would want repeat the shortest tracks over and over. The group does take time to slow things down a bit in parts. “Mindless Thoughts,” starts with a groovy crawling bass that is followed by a creeping guitar before the blast beats hit What sets THRIF apart is their ability to blend in some Sludge and Doom elements that perfectly fill out a song. It dosent feel at all out of place and still delivers a meaty hook to the jaw.
At less than 10 minutes in length, you can spin Echo Chambers a few time before clocking in to work.
The band name alone, Drive by Bukkake, was enough to pique my interest in the band. Then I checked out some of the song titles; “CumBum,” “Spank Bank,” “Meth Nachos.” I knew this was going to a fun review.
The movie and TV samples the band uses as intros and throughout some of the songs are funny as hell and perfectly work with each song. Extra points for including my heroes Creed Bratton and Frank Reynolds. Driveby Bukkake are undeniably having a ball on this recording and hopefully the listener is in on the joke. I spent half of my time on this review recalling where the samples used came from. Personally, I find these cats funny as fuck.
Musically, this is a nice mixture of grind, thrash and some sludge thrown in for extra measure. Tons of blisstering guitars and blast beats help Drive by Bukkake get their message across. The higher end vocals hit just right with the perfect amount of savagery. The gang vocals have a real “Ghoul” feel to them and beg you to scream along.
This is a great listen when you need a little palate cleanser after listening to too much metal that takes itself way too seriously.
© Tomasz Podgorny
