LIST: 10 MOST ANTICIPATED BANDS of MARYLAND DEATHFEST

I love making lists. In fact, that probably why I was offered the role of Oskar Schindler, in Schindler’s List. I said, “Steven [Spielberg], I make lists all the time.” And he said, “That’s exactly what I’m looking for.” (My next list will be HBO shows that I quote from too often, starting with this quip from Liam Neeson in Life’s Too Short.)

Before I let the rabbit out of the hat or the cat out of the bag or whatever other animal cliche fits here with my TOP 50 EXTREME ALBUMS OF THE YEAR, I wanted to start with a list of the bands I’m looking forward to seeing most at Maryland Deathfest. It’s my first year attending, so I’ll be targeting international bands who don’t tour often, and a few North American bands who have evaded me thus far:

10) Noothgrush. Recently missed them playing in Brooklyn, and you never know how long it will be before these West Coast sludge-slingers visit the borough again. If there was a split album you enjoyed over the last 17 years they were probably involved.

9) Bongripper. I love the Chicago doom scene, and there’s nobody in the Midwest who can touch the bleakness of Hate Ashbury and Satan Worshipping Doom.

8) Crowbar. I traded Monster Magnet’s Powertrip album for Crowbar’s Obedience Thru Suffering back in junior high school, and it went down as one of the best trades of all time.

7) Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats. With so much screaming and growling, this UK band’s brand of macabre doom rock will be a reprieve from extremity. Great songs that avoid that lazy “retro” tag people love and just provide great hooks and a sense of mystery.

6) The Secret. I still think Solve et Coagula is one of the more underrated albums out there, and I’ve missed my chance at seeing this Italian band several times in Brooklyn. NOT THIS TIME.

5) Coffins. Blurring that line between death metal and sludge, their music seems like the perfect soundtrack for swimming through a pond of entrails. With the government holding up work/travel VISAs to the point where Church of Misery cancelled their NYC show earlier this year, any time a band I dig from Japan heads this way I make sure to attend.

4) My Dying Bride. I always loved the sense of sophistication and drama they brought to doom, and Turn Loose the Swans was one of the first albums that persuaded me to embrace slower-tempo genres back when I was a grindcore maniac in high school.

3) Gorguts. Unfortunately I’ll be missing their show at Saint Vitus in Brooklyn in December, so MDF offers me a chance to see a band whose comeback has given us Colored Sands, an album I feel even surpasses the legendary Obscura in terms of vision, focus, and grandiosity.

2) At the Gates. Since the first time I heard an old Earache records sampler, I was infatuated with Tomas Lindberg’s bark and the melodic savagery of Slaughter of the Soul.

1) The Church of Pungent Stench. Not only does the Been Caught Buttering album art adorn my battle vest, but Martin Schirenc is the culprit for igniting my adoration for death metal. I love his Hollenthon project as well, but it obviously starts with the gruesome excess of Pungent Stench.

Check out the full list of bands over at the Maryland Deathfest website, and tell me how wrong I am about this list:  https://www.marylanddeathfest.com/

REVIEW: EXHUMED - NECROCRACY

I bought Gore Metal from a little tattoo shop that carried Relapse releases due to the success of local deathheads Skinless. I was a freshman in high school and more curious than passionate about death metal. If you know someone who’s on the fence about extreme music one of the most persuasive things you can do is have them listen to a few songs written by Matt Harvey. As a Mets fan I will clarify: The founder of Exhumed, not the All-Star pitcher/nude model of the same name.

Exhumed again triumphs over significant lineup changes, this time welcoming back past-bassist Bud Burke as a guitarist. While the supporting cast is formidable (especially Mike Hamilton, also of Deeds of Flesh), this is a horrorshow that always hinged on the performance of its founder. Always honest about the pop song structures of his blood-drenched compositions, Harvey has understands the power of a good (meat)hook. On their newest release, Necrocracy, Exhumed display the melodic tendencies of Anatomy Is Destiny, the tight songwriting of Slaughtercult and All Guts, No Glory, and the sheer brutality of Gore Metal. We hear all the time that bands are borrowing elements from their entire discography while working towards a sound that’s entirely new, and 90% of the time it’s a load of zombie shit. But Necrocracy is not zombie shit; it’s looking backwards at their history of jubilant bloodshed, then stepping forward.

Kicking off with “Coins Upon the Eyes,” Exhumed blast into their dual growl/snarl attack and deliver the first memorable chorus on the album, hinting where vocal melody might exist if this wasn’t death metal. Other memorable hooks include “Dysmorphic,” which features a Carcass-esque groove fit for a marauding gang of re-animated bikers, and “The Shape of Deaths To Come,” a slick powerhouse song that throws razor sharp At the Gates riffs into the cannibalistic fray. Fans who are particularly hungry for bile-puking grind will devour “Sickened” and “Carrion Call,” which could both chainsaw-duel classics like “Necromaniac” and “Limb From Limb” for supremacy. The album closes strongly with “The Rotting,” with riffs that carve flesh from the bone before settling into a mid-tempo prowl and fading thrash.

I even hesitate to mention this, but I also noticed how similar a few songs felt to the most intense moments of Cradle of Filth’s Midian. From the abyss-scraping growl to the higher-pitched shrieks and the muscular mid-tempo guitarwork, I was just amazed at how comparable elements can deviate due to the direction of one visionary participant (Matt Harvey/Dani Filth). That isn’t saying Exhumed will end up writing songs about mysterious pale women exploring their bloodlusts in foggy woodlands, it’s just interesting how metal can intersect and then speed away from itself.

Like always, Exhumed have a great balance of catchy and disciplined songwriting, brutal technicality, and a macabre sense of fun that continues to scratch, claw, and feast their way to the top of the death metal food chain. This album proves once again that Californian death metal is as mean and nasty as the best examples from any other location, because the constant sun makes the corpses rot faster.

Necrocracy comes out in North America on August 6th, so save your lunch money, creeps. For more info on the band (including merch and upcoming tour dates with Dying Fetus), check out their page at Relapse Records: http://www.relapse.com/label/artist/exhumed.html

And if you want to yell at me for the Cradle of Filth comparison feel free to send me angry Tweets (@MisterGrowl) or hate mails (mistergrowlblog (at) gmail (dot com)).