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/

UPDATE: DECIBEL ASSIGNMENTS and COMING REVIEWS

Ramming Speed feels exactly how I feel.

Hey there, turkeys. It’s Decibel Magazine deadline time again, where I obsess over every word choice in my assignments before sending them over to the awesome editors who put up with my New York Mets rumors, dated film references, and crappy jokes. Just a quick update as a glimpse of what’s to come after this current wave of assignments is finished:

Decibel Magazine, issue #106: I had the chance to talk to the guys from Lesbian about their new 44 minute one-song album ForesTeleVision and write up a profile about mushrooms, lady space warriors, and the immensity of their sound. They’re really articulate dudes and the album is one of my favorites this year, definitely go check it out. I also wrote 2 reviews, bands to be named upon release of the issue.

Kung Fu Breakfast, issue #9: The next issue’s theme is “Cahiers du Fetiche,” including ruminations on fetish from KFB’s roster of madly talented artists. I dusted off an old prose poem from my first full book of poetry Lock the Doors, the Poet Feasts at Midnight and I am heavily revising it while adding an epilogue. Thrill killing and blood-soaked sex scenes, you know the drill.

Decibel Magazine, issue #107: Just interviewed Jonah, drummer of Ramming Speed, and will profile those Boston thrashers in the issue releasing at the end of July. Really nice guy with admirable positivity and energy. Can’t wait to see these guys come through Brooklyn with Valient Thorr and Gypsyhawk, their new album Doomed to Destroy, Destined to Die is a god damn game changer. I also have one review, band to be revealed upon release of the issue.

Kung Fu Breakfast, 4th of July side-issue: I’m also submitting a piece to a special holiday issue. The story is very seeeeeecret right now, mainly because I only have two paragraphs written. Expect my usual: Words, with occasional punctuation.

Mister Growl: Reviews on the way for a bunch of great bands, including, in no particular order: Unkind, Wilson, Black Sheep Wall, Coffins, and Noisem.

More to come soon! Catch ya later, goonies.

- Mister Growl

GUEST REVIEW: COFFINS - MARCH OF DESPAIR

Continuing our series of metal reviews by non-metal fans, Mister Growl welcomes another guest reviewer into our unholy flock: Shane Frasier, Acquired Taste Booking owner and creator of the Behemoth Music Festival, a series of concerts in Upstate New York that recently reached down into Brooklyn. He has also been a member of roughly seven thousand bands, ranging from hardcore punk (Daytime Soiree) to electronic/dance music (Mr. Owl) to eccentric insanity (The Lanky Mofos and The Bumblebees). He was nice enough to accept our invitation and review one of the several 2012 releases from Coffins, their March of Despair EP:

“Full disclosure: I know nothing about metal.

Well, that's not entirely true. I like metal, but there's no way I'd proclaim myself an aficionado of the genre. It was, for lack of a better word, forced on me at a young age by my older brother. Bands like Cradle of Filth and Slayer paved the way to others like Emperor and Skinless. Not that I minded, but it was quite a culture shock to me when bands like The Clash were my main musical staple. Bearing that in mind, my understanding of the genre has blossomed into something more appreciative now, but I’m not entirely convinced. I say this so I don't come across as a complete idiot whilst I review a EP from a Japanese band called Coffins.

The five song album titled March of Despair, opens up with the track “Till Dawn of the Doomsday,” which, honestly, didn't quench the punch in the face opening track thirst I needed to really get into this album. It's a solid track, full of enough trudging guitar riffs and breakdowns to make me throw down at my desk chair, but it stalls in the beginning, which, in my humble musical opinion, is not the beginning of a great song. I know metal is about momentum, but when it’s forced on you early in the track, it can create an incomplete feeling to the rest of the track.

The songs “Carpet of Bones” and “In Bloody Sewage” remain my favorites, maybe because I myself own an actual carpet of bones and I have a fixation towards bloody sewage. These two tracks feel more refined than the others, if maybe not altogether more free form. While I liked these two songs, they created a bigger problem for me overall as I found all the songs on the album to have different production values. I could be going deaf, the end result of the hundred or more shows I've gone to in the last couple years where I haven't worn ear plugs, but I got the distinct notion these songs were all leveled differently, which can create a problematic listening experience if you’re a fan of audio consistency.

The other two tracks, “Grotesque Messiah” and “Corpsegrinder,” didn't hit me the way I wanted them to. “Grotesque Messiah” feels sloppy, and yeah, I know, I'm listening to a death metal band, sloppiness is appreciated in this genre, right? But considering the other songs on the album felt tight, this song in particular bugged me in a way no other song since “Mambo Number 5” has (THE TRUMPET!). And “Corpsegrinder” just doesn't feel like much of a song to me. That's a very vague review of it, but if you listen to it, maybe you'll agree.

Overall, I'm a bit torn. Like the 80's song, but in reverse, Japan is big with me, and I often go out of my way to either listen to music from Japan or at least appreciate their take on the punk and metal genres. But I couldn't help feeling this was more of a faux version of what death metal is supposed to be, the culmination of one band’s attempt to replicate bands that they've loved, but couldn't fully execute musically. If you have a half hour to spare, and just feel like giving something a try, March of Despair is as least worth a listen, if not completely unforgettable.”

- Shane Frasier

(Editor’s Note: “Corpsegrinder” is a cover of a song off Death’s second demo tape. Just a little pop-up trivia for the diehards. - MG)

Many thanks to Shane for sharing his thoughts! He introduced himself with modesty but he did actually suggest Black Cobra and Withered when deciding what album to review. That’s pretty obscure knowledge for someone who knows “nothing about metal.” Check out Coffins on Spotify, they have several albums available, and their upcoming album The Fleshland is due out July 9th.

Pre-order The Fleshland here: http://coffins.bandcamp.com/album/the-fleshland