Misery of One is the debut EP from yet another killer band from OSDM from Ohio, Mulciber. Through 5 brief and brutal tracks, Muliber tells the proverbial tale of Lucifer’s fall from the heavens. While the subject matter is nothing new for fans of extreme metal, Muliber still manages to serve up plenty of satisfyingly meaty riffs and savage vocals.
Opening track, “Caught in Fire,” dosent waste a moment coming in quick with an early and savage CannibalCorpse vibe. The second part plods along into a heavier and a well welcomed sludgy feel. “Forsaken in Lies,” is a track that really benefits from the vocals. The chorus is haunting and addition of the higher pitched shrieks blend in very well.
“Christ Deceiver,” one of the longer tracks on the EP has some excellent drumwork that really stands out on the song. This along with some hammering riffs and an ending in a vicious breakdown make it the strongest song on the release.
Misery of One does exactly what an EP needs to do. It’s enough to peak your interest and leave you ready for more.
This split is so jam packed full of thick and murky sludge material that it is highly recommended that you put on a good pair of rain boots and a chest wader before diving into this release. Veilcastle and Tusk each contributed 3 tracks of full of doom, dark atmosphere and despair.
Veilcastle opens the split with “Dust and Bone,” a dark and warm track with some clean deep and massive vocals. “Mirrors,” has a strong groovy and stoner metal vibe with deep grooves that plod along. Their final contribution to this split is a cover of The Misfit’s “Return of the Fly”, which is an interesting choice. They manage to take the original punk classic, cover it in a thick sludge and turn it into a much more haunting take than the original.
Tusk take over on the second half of the split with a more sinister take on the genre. The vocals have a much more sinister feel that deliver an all together darker sound. Their first track “Disquiet,” benefits from the use of keyboards and synths for a truly darkened and uneasily feeling. “Entering the Flesh,” offers some clean vocals into the mix for a slightly less heavy track but still manages to pack plenty of atmosphere. A cover of Cannibal Corpse’s “Festering in the Crypt,” closes things out. Tusk’s vocal delivery is sinister here and their murky approach to the song does justice to the original.
Thlurm bills itself as, “Metal Punk from the dungeons of Indiana,” which is quite an accurate description for their contribution to this month’s subscription. “The Thlurm Must Die and Dungeon Scum,” is part of Wise BloodRecords demo series that highlights up and coming and promising new artists. This recording, combining 2 separate demos is raw and punk as fuck, covered in chunky layers of pure filth.
” Instantly you hear influences of Toxic Holocaust and Midnight and like those bands, Thlurm is a solo product brought to you by Austin Sipes. Thlurm though has a much more punk and grind approach to their style. Songs come in fast and filthy with a certain unpolished charm that is comparable to early Napalm Death. This recording reeks of the lo-fi production of the the mid to late 80’s.
The vocals are sick, the guitars have more of a punk then metal feel and the while the drumming does not include any blast beats, the first demo, “The Thlum Must Die,” is some killer Grindcore. “Disease,” is punk rock kick to the jaw and the following track, “Imaginary Hell,” is a straight up banger that reminds me of Ghoul.
The second demo, “Dungeon Scum,” is much more raw in sound than the first. This half shows more of a Black Metal influence which can be felt the most on “Serpent Master.” “Illusions of Chaos,” and “Human Waste,” even slow things down a bit with even adds more of a haunting vocal feel.
For a demo release, Thlurm are already a band to watch.
Deadyellow is a post Black Metal band from New Jersey who are just getting started and are already bringing the noise. Their debut self titled effort contains only 6 tracks but is meaty enough to satisfy any palate. The guitars are low and murky with some great riffs and solos amongst the tremolo picking. The vocals are a little less harsh than your typical Black Metal fare but blend in well with the rest of the band. Most of the music on this release runs on the slower to mid tempo side. Don’t let that worry you, there are still plenty of blast beats included here and the overall sound is still heavily rooted in Black Metal. Deadyellow’s tracks are multifaceted and include the use of pianos and clean vocals for a truly epic journey.
We recently caught up with the amazing Athenar, the guitarist, bassist and drummer behind Cleveland’s sleaziest and trashiest one man band, Midnight. Athenar took some time from his morning routine to discuss his upcoming album, “Let there be Witchery”, record collecting and combining tofu and peanut butter.
Trve Kvlt Coffee: What are you up to this morning?
Athenar: This morning? Just the usual. Conducting brain surgery, doing a little bit of star gazing. The typical stuff I do in the morning. Besides that just making coffee and eating oatmeal.
TKC: I usually need a couple cups of coffee before I think of any type of brain surgery.
Athenar: (laughs) Not me man. I dove right into the brain surgery and worry about the coffee later.
TKC: I feel it gives me more of a steady hand.
Athenar: True
TKC: Now you do have an upcoming show on February 12th at Photo City Music Hall. That looks like a pretty cool venue.
Athenar: Yeah, I went there for the first time in October, I went to see Nuclear Assault and it was really cool. I know the guy that sets up the gigs and he asked if we wanted to play there and I said, “Hell Yeah!” They started right before Corona doing a winter bash in Rochester. This is, I think, the second one, “Rotting in Rochester.”
TKC: After that, you have an upcoming tour with Mayhem and Watain.
Athenar: Yup. That’ll be our first tour since Corona. We’ve played a little mishmash of gigs in ’21 but this’ll be our first tour since 2019.
TKC: That’s a pretty good lineup to be touring with too.
Athenar: Yeah. At this point I’ll tour with Cindy Lauper and Huey Lewis.
TKC: (Laughs) I would love to see Midnight open for Cindy Lauper! How does it feel to be hitting the road again?
Athenar: Like I said, we’re not there yet. I won’t believe it until we are actually in the van and in the venues because the rug has been pulled out from underneath us and everybody else before so we’ll see. Still a couple weeks (for possible) disappointment.
TKC: Let’s hope for some good news, I think things are looking a lot better than they did before. I’m in the Cincinnati area and we were hoping to see you play here as a part of Transplant Fest in in 2020. I was so excited for that show, that was my one gleaming hope for 2020 that a show might actually go on. I thought maybe it still has a chance, Cleveland isn’t too far…
TKC:That’s all you see in Cincinnati right now. That’s all that’s going on.
Athenar: I’m sure.
TKC: Do you have an additional tours or festivals planned for this year?
Athenar: Well yeah, there’s a shit ton planned just like there was in 2020 when the last album came out. This one’s about to come out, the new album and there are US tours and European festivals, going to Mexico, that’ll be our first time going to Mexico. There is a fall tour, so there is definitely stuff planned but like I said, we’ll see what happens.
TKC: I hope it happens and I hope we get something in my area.
Athenar: Yeah, I’d love to come down there. I used to come down there all the time in Cincinnati. There’s a record seller guy there. We used to make trips all the time to buy records.
TKC: Oh, any certain record store?
Athenar: No it wasn’t a store. He just sold them out of his basement. He mainly sold NWOBHM singles and shit like that. I can remember that exact name of the town but it was just right outside of Cincinnati. Damn. I can’t remember.
TKC: It’ll hit you in the middle of the day and you’ll remember. I did actually catch you guys at Psycho Fest which was an awesome show!
Athenar: Yeah in Vegas. That was our first show back after Corona.
TKC: You guys were on fire!
Athenar: Yeah it was cool. It felt good and natural to get back out there and play tunes again. I did not expect to be playing in an arena, that’s for sure. That was a bit bizarre.
Photo by Maurice Nunez
TKC: Definitely a cool festival. It was my first time and hopefully I’ll make it out again.
Athenar: Yeah that was good. Danzig was good, Repulsion was good.
TKC: I missed Repulsion because it was the last performance and (The House of Blues) was so crowded, I didn’t think I would make it. Your latest album, “Let there be Witchery”, comes out on March 4th and this is your second with Metal Blade. How does it feel to working with Metal Blade now that this is your sophomore release with them?
Athenar: It’s cool. It’s good they gave us another chance. The first one, we didn’t get a chance to really at all and promote that first one with Metal Blade so if everything goes good here it’s gonna be much mo’ better. They’ve been doing this kind of thing since most of the people that listen to the music have been alive. They know what they’re doing. They are not fly by nighters, they do a good job at what they do.
TKC: Almost everyone’s favorite metal bands have had some kind of brush with Metal Blade at some point in their careers it seems. I am enjoying the re-releases they are doing. I think that’s pretty cool to make them available for people, like myself, who may have discovered Midnight a little later and are having a hard time tracking down some of your earlier material.
Athenar: Yeah. That was part of the reason for them to get involved, so that they could keep the catalog in print and get it overseas more. Where as the previous label (Hell’s Headbangers) they got stuff overseas but it wasn’t as accessible. We are a band of the street and for the street. So we wanna get the music out there. I know it’s easy for people to download and to whatever, get it off the computer. I’m still of the mindset of having an actual record in your hand and playing the record. I would like to think that people can go to the store and buy a record.
TKC: Yeah I’m there with you. I usually go digital for the sake of space or if I can’t find it anywhere else. I’m excited you have stuff coming out on cassette. I’ve listened to the new album and I think it’s fantastic, everything you want with a Midnight record. “Szex Witchery”, “In Sinful Secrecy”, I love “Villainy Wretched Villainy”, which is a great title by the way. I can’t pinpoint a favorite yet, it’s tough. Which song are you particularly excited to unleash upon the world?
Photo by Maurice Nunez
Athenar: Oh man. I mean shit, this question my usual answer for it, they are all my babies. Some of them might have a bit of difficulty in life, some of them may excel in life but I can’t choose favorites. But to play live, we are going to start with “Szex Witchery” because it was the first releashed, so we’ll jam that one. I’m sure we’ll get the other ones, “Frothing Foulness”. The drummer seems to like “More Torment”, it’s got that nice plodding drum beat. So maybe we will do that one too.
TKC. Very cool. Speaking of live shows, much like KISS and Alice Cooper, you totally own that sleazy rock star look complete with a crazy and wild show like the one I saw in Vegas. I remember I was looking at some of my photos I took at the show to see if I could use for this interview but I was like, “No, no they are too blurry, they are running around too much.”
Athenar: (Laughs) It’s all the cocaine and blue meth that we do. We do a lotta blue meth.
TKC: Blue meth?
Athenar: Blue Meth. I just started watch Breaking Bad, they have blue meth in there. I’ll try it one of these days.
TKC: (Laughs) Was the look that you have planned from the get go when you decided you were going to start doing live shows?
Athenar: It wasn’t really intended to be a live band, it didn’t really start out that way but there was an intent to at least to take a picture and put it on a record or something like that. The masks were always there. That was the idea because it was so easy to have a look in exactly one second. There was no applying makeup, there was no getting into some sort of space person costume or whatever else. This was like an instant .99 cent look, ya know? Very Cleveland and just as you know, very Ohio in general.
TKC: Yup, the place I work at, we sell a bunch of those hoods.
Athenar: Well, there you go!
TKC: In many of your photos and promos, you are always holding something on fire. In your most recent promo photo, you have a pair of sai on fire.
Photo by Hannah Verbeuren
Athenar: Yeah! I found those at a garage sale for 3 bucks.
TKC: Oh wow! Really?
Athenar: Like I said man, that’s the Cleveland thing. You do with what you have. You find little things and you make do with ’em.
TKC: It’s looks cool as hell. Anything else that you plan on lighting up?
Athenar: I plan on lighting up the crowd man, that’s what we do. (laughs) Who knows? Fire and Heavy Metal go so well together. It’s kinda like tofu and peanut butter. It goes so well.
TKC: I don’t know about the tofu and peanut butter.
Athenar: But there’s always things to light on fire. Who knows? If I ever grow hair I might light my hair on fire like Michael Jackson.
TKC: There you go! That’ll be…something. Going back to records, I’ve seen a video on Youtube where you are going through your record collection. I love the tour of your house. If you are ever looking for a career change you should look into becoming a realtor because you are pretty good at demonstrating appliances.
Athenar: I love it, I look at realtor.com all the time.
TKC: How long have you been collecting music?
Athenar: Since I was a kid probably when I first started getting into this stuff. Probably since I was 10 years old and I’m *cough* *cough* years old now. (laughs) I’m 48 now so about 38 years.
TKC: Do you have any grails or most prized pieces in your collection?
Athenar: There’s all kinds of things. There’s records that are rare and not that good musically. There’s dollar records that will crush you every day. The thing about it, it’s still about the music for me. It always has been, it’s not about finding, “Oh, that’s the rarest record ever, you’ll never see this copy.” But, I’m always looking for the ultimate risk somewhere, the ultimate tune. You never know where you’ll find that. I’m always looking.
TKC: Do you hit up shops when you are on the road?
Athenar: Oh yeah. All the time. When there’s downtime, which there usually is, me and my other buddy Rodney that go out, we’re scouring the place for records. It gets tougher nowadays but you still gotta look. You never know.
TKC: Any favorite shops that you have run across?
Athenar: Over the years some of the best I’ve always thought were…actually we always have fun looking in Rochester speaking of that. They had a place called Heavy Metal Records, Record Archive, House of Guitars. There is a lot of good stuff upstate/western New York. I don’t know why that is. Maybe because it’s a little on the outskirts of New York City. They had the distribution company, I think it was called Important. So there was always a lot of records going around that area. But shit man. That’s the thing about records. You can find a Tyrant 7″ behind the counter somewhere in Cincinnati. You never know, you just need to keep looking.
Photo by Maurice Nunez
TKC: That’s always part of my mission when I travel. Where’s the record store?
Athenar: Yeah, it’s always an adventure.
TKC: This interview is for Trve Kvlt Coffee, have you heard of it?
Athenar: Yeah! I have. I wanna say they made Midnight coffee mugs?
TKC: Yes indeed.
Athenar: Alright. I’m not crazy. Mark that off the list.
TKC: You gotta make sure to try some of the coffee sometime!
Athenar: Hell yeah, I’d love to. Send a bag of coffee and a bag of blue meth.
TKC: Well, I do live in Kentucky, I can probably get some next door, it’s like borrowing a cup of sugar. Anything else that you would like to add?
Athenar: I don’t think so. It was nice rapping with you in the morning while conducting brain surgery.
Let There be Witchery will be out on March 4th via Metal Blade Records
Autokrator are back and ready to rattle your eardrums with some intense dark, murky and plodding Doom Metal to get the new year started off on the right path. The vocals are low and inhuman matching perfectly with they muddled guitar tones present on this release. Tracks like “DCLXVI, ” and “The Great Persecution”pick up the pace and send the sound into more of Black/Death combo with punishing blast beats and haunting solos giving the album some more variety. “Caesar Nerva Traianus,” was the real stand out song for me. Starting out with an epically powerful march with some really cool battleground sound effects thrown in for good measure that sounds like it belongs on the score of a big budget movie. The droning guitar tones and eerie chanting vocals make a haunting and eerie listen. The album in full hits like a bulldozer thanks to how smooth the tracks blend into each other. “Persecution,” is raw and punishing with enough mix of style to remain fresh and accessible to all fans of Extreme Metal.
Peep that cover. Dosen’t it just scream early 90’s Death Metal? Fuck yeah! I’m surprised the band’s name is MortalVision and not Morbid Vision with their similar sound to early Sepultura. This sounds like it could have been released right between “Schizophrenia” and “Beneath the Remains,” it’s that awesome! Comparisons aside, this Ukrainian quartet is here to kick your ass with stompable riffs, squealing solos and gnarled vocals. This isn’t quite “Death Metal,” or “Thrash,” by purist’s standards but who cares when it’s this much fun? It’s a rather short record with just over 30 minutes of run time that feel even shorter do to the high octane filled adrenaline rush that comes with the listen. If you are a fan of the early early days of Death Metal, back when the style was still new and developing, this is a must listen for you. I swear there must be a phone booth or DeLorean parked outside somewhere in the Ukraine that Mortal Vision are utilizing for the benefit of all old school Metal Heads everywhere. This is 6.66 gigawatts of pure extreme Metal power!
Hatemonger’s “The Vile Maxim” is simple, short and savage as fuck. The Chicago based group performs a killer style of no frills, no fads, no holds barred Death Metal that is set to stomp your skull into the soil. Their sound is fresh and familiar without the “retro” Death Metal sound that many bands are trying to emulate these days. Vocals are are vicious, the guitar work has plenty of thick and heavy riffs and the drums are filled with great blast beats, all the ingredients you need in your Death Metal stew. If you listen carefully enough, you’ll notice a hint of some early Swedish Death Metal style amongst the carnage. The songs within are both brutal and on topic with such titles as, “Plague for Days,” and “Disinformation Campaign.” If there is at least one good thing to come from the Pandemic, it has provided plenty of material to keep bands busy for years to come.
Son of Sam are our second band out of Sweden to release a debut album this month. “And the Monster Awoke..” takes on different musical direction then what are subscribers are used to hearing. Call it Power Metal or Death n Roll if you will, though one fact that remains undisputed, this album is much more….cheerful…than we are accustomed to.
The vocals here are mostly clean with enough Power Metal elements to slay even the mightiest of dragons. The music, however, has plenty of the old Gothenburg feel with catchy hooks and some excellent harmonies. It almost has a Children of Bodom feel. This combination actually works well for Son of Sam and keeps the album fresh and full of variety. No song here is the same. Opening track,”Son of Sam,” starts the album off with retro styled synth keyboards and haunting vocals. “I am,” opens a wall of classic Swedish Melodic harmonies with Power Metal vocals, while a little different upon first listen, this combination works well and is what helps set Son of Sam apart. “In Darkness and Dismay,” adds somewhat raspy vocals with some killer thrash riffs. Finally, “Space Rider,” sounds like it came straight from Amon Amarth’s playbook.
Son of Sam may be on the opposite side of the spectrum than what we are used to here at Trve Kvlt but they are worthy of listen and have enough variety to have you coming back for more.
Wise Blood Records are absolutely killing it with releases this year. Graveripper’s “Radiated Remains,” (which was included with our July subscriptions) was already included in my top albums of the year. Swedish newcomers Natterman’s debut, “The Lurking Evil,” is an incredibly strong album full of old school metal that is covered in murky and dirty thrash n’ roll.
From the opening track, “Beauty in Chaos,” you can feel what you have gotten yourself into, a heavily 80’s inspired Blackened Thrash album with its high speed punk chords, piercing solos, tight drumming and raspy vocals. While the punk influence is high here, so are plenty of elements from first wave of Black Metal with its rawness and darkened lyrical content. You can hear and feel the early influences of Bathory, Venom and Celtic Frost along with more modern bands Midnight and Toxic Holocaust.
For me, this is kind of album to me that defines “Metal.” Are they thrash? Are they Black Metal? Is it fun? Fuck yes. From start to finish the energy is high and I want to bang my head and pump my fist as listen. “Die you Will,” is the perfect anthem for anyone who calls themself a “Metalhead,” with so many elements of old school metal blasting you in the face you can smell the sweat, stale beer and black leather.
