Gorgon - Traditio Satanae

Black Metal requires, every once in a while, primitive crushing anthems to the spiritual rebel that resides in us. More than any other subset of metal, Black Metal seemingly appeals most to those who view the world through the lens of symbolism. Burning churches, corpse paint, self-mutilation, the destruction of iconography, and overall relentless attacks on widely accepted religious hegemony are the burning coals in the Black Metal worshipper's furnace. Traditio Satanae was for me that heralded anthem this past year, speaking to the 'heretic, outcast, reprobate, and infidel' that I feel I often find myself relegated to in the judging eyes of others. So it was an honor to receive Gorgon's gem of an album - sent straight from the Gorgon's maws - in the mail as a dubbed tape promo with some personalized attention. I may yet find my faith in the tireless efforts of others' artistic endeavors!

Gorgon's history dates back into the early and mid 90's with excellent albums such as the 1995 debut The Lady Rides A Black Horse. 1996's Reign of Obscenity and 1998's more nihilistic The Jackal Pact, continued in the Gorgon style. With a style drawing  more comparison to the Swedish and Greek scenes with perhaps a bit of the Norwegian horde's maliciousness, we find solid Black Metal not quite as melodic and grandiose as Sacramentum or Dissection. Gorgon none-the-less tap into that brighter melodic side at times but Traditio Satanae, now appearing twenty-three years later from the band's earlier releases, bears resemblance to these earlier albums but with some hints of thrash and an overall more direct attack. When speaking to Gorgon's leader, Chris, he talked about these early influences. "I was musically interested in everything that came out with an "evil" imagery, whether it was Acheron (from your region), Death SS (Italy), Zemial, Necromantia or even Varathron from Greece, Bestial Summoning and Funeral Winds from Holland, Decayed in Portugal, Death Yells in Chile....and from Finland with Beherit and Impaled Nazarene. I liked this last band for their spirit "apart" from the current standards. Going off the rails instead of going with the masses was also what we advocated." 

Traditio Satanae is an album which comes across as the work of long-standing experience but also as an album full of energy and passion. I explained to Chris that to me, Traditio Satanae is loaded with energy and grit creating an overall sense of primacy and restless exuberance. How has Gorgon been able to maintain this attitude on this new album? "The brutality of the music, the generalized hatred perceived throughout the entire album and the sound quality, are the 3 major elements of my answer to your question. While many BM bands choose to have a "standard" sound, like many other bands, we decided to have a completely different one. There has to be a consistency between what you want to offer and the sound you are going to use. We practice a powerful Black Metal and our sound must be set accordingly... Compared to the previous album, I would say this one is definitely untamed, faster overall and also fully loaded with catchy melodies. It's normal that the band is making progress in what it creates, so your vision is absolutely right and I also share it. We really took a step forward here, in terms of efficiency."

Opening with "Blood Of Sorcerer", Traditio Satanae doesn't waste any time swinging the axe - guitars are sharp and precise. I'm a fan of the punchy in-your-face impactful drumming on the album - even if I am quite confident there is sampling and programming at work, it all sounds natural and honest and human - with rhythmic motifs in songs such as "Death Was Here" and "Let Me See Behind" offering immediacy and urgency to the tracks. My favorite track on the record since day one has been "Entrancing Cemetery". From the first powerful riff that leads into the verse, the track is driving and persistent until the end, even when offering space to some slower guitar moments. Full of hooks and barbs that inch ever deeper into your skin, "Entrancing Cemetery" is just one of several songs on the album which is riddled with clever nuances that burrow into the brain and live there long after the track is over. While I feel the album might be one or two songs too long, the title track, "Traditio Satanae" as well as the shorter "Scorched Earth Operation" keep the second half of the album just as powerful as the first half. 

With Gorgon playing live often lately in Europe and hopefully soon in North America, there is cause beyond their solid discography to give Gorgon play time. "The public generally reacts very well to our concerts... The current line-up is the same since the group's return to the stage, namely: Hellesylt on drums, Mathias on guitar, Ozrib on bass and me on guitar and vocals. The band is now more powerful live than ever, thanks to the current line-up." Chris' tireless effort and powerful Black Metal has found a convert to Gorgon through this newest album, Traditio Satanae. Logistically speaking, Reign of Obscenity and The Veil of Darkness have both been repressed on vinyl by Osmose Productions leaving only The Jackal Pact and The Spectral Voices as the more difficult gems to find for those who want to delve in head first. 

Chris' last words to those who wish to engage with Gorgon: "I will end with the traditional invite to come and discover us, for those who do not yet know us musically. In the digital age, it is often necessary to seduce in a few minutes. This mindset of musical consumption imposes that you have to play well from the start, otherwise the listener will quickly move on to something else. So let your readers validate for themselves whether or not they consider us to be a part of this category. They deserve this punishment."

Shades of Grey - House of Fools

Thrashback Records, if you haven't noticed by now, is engaged in an onslaught of never-before available releases of old and truly obscure Thrash and Thrash-associated metal. Shades of Grey is another of those bands. With this release of their 1989 demo, House of Fools, this outlier to the Chicago scene from Indiana that may appear on old fliers with Anacrusis, Zoetrope, and Funeral Nation gets some renewed attention. Otherwise, interest to Shades of Grey is likely the involvement of members in other bands. Bassist Peter Clemens is involved with long-running death metal project, Invasion, Death Thrash entity Sea of Tranquility, and the mentioned Yellowtooth which appeared on the Book of Armageddon compilation LP. Drummer Dave Hornyak did a short stint in Cathedral at one point and is currently involved with Speedfreak, doing a sort of Pantera / Down thing. Larry Roberts, who would join for 1991's Under The Skeptic's Eye can be found as a long time resident of Novembers Doom. 

While the tracks here aren't shoddy, it's not hard to see why the band did not get much of a foothold. Fairly standard Thrash is on display with average riffs, average energy, and psuedo-political and social oriented lyrics. Its a chug-heavy affair, mostly, with "Under The Skeptic's Eye", which opens with an intro similar to Voivod's "Nuclear War" and ends on a an interesting rhythmic-punctuated riff with Peter Clemens' underneath accentuating the rhythm with rubbery bass highlights. Sometimes the band made bad decisions in arrangement, such as during "Rage of Insanity", where Shades of Grey jam an acoustic section in the middle of the track that punctures the track like a galvanized spike into it's energy reserves. Other than "Under The Skeptic's Eye" I am also partial to "Pizza Face", the release's laugh track, which is like Legion of Death's "Sewer Rat", but not quite as good. The band had written the song off according to a 1990 interview in Trechoma Zine, but the song helps break up the rest of their mid-brow material. 

As always, Thrashback does an incredible job with the layout and product overall. My copy of the LP comes with an authenticity letter, insert with lyrics and live photos, and show flyer from the band's active period featuring Realm, Carnage, and Neurotoxin. All things considered, I could see those really interested in the late 80's early 90's Chicago thrash scene wanting a copy of this. For me, the lackluster riffs and energy coupled with stereotypical pedestrian lyrics lose my interest. For Shades of Grey, when it comes to their musical output, I think Power Packer Zine summed the band up perfectly when editor Cameron Gillespie ended the review by simply writing AVERAGE in big ole capital letters. 

Extinction Agenda - Inter Arma Silent Leges

Visceral Circuitry's reissue of Extinction Agenda's 2005 Demo and 2006's The Grace Defile EP should be on all die-hard thrash fan's radar. While the 2005 Demo is techy thrash with a strangely primitive attitude, the tracks on The Grace Defile speak towards a project that was heading 'Towards One Goal' (a reference if you can guess it). In sight was the potential masterful mixing of Coroner style rhythms and and tone with Voivod-esque weirdness and aesthetics. Imagine a mashup of No More Color or Mental Vortex with Killing Technology. The fuse on such magic is short and unfortunately, before Extinction Agenda could set down an albums worth of tracks, they had blown themselves into a billion pieces, scattering into other projects. Extinction Agenda shared members of December Wolves and the fallout from that band lingers in the music of Extinction Agenda, but with Thrash elements emphasized and a de-emphasized Black Metal and Industrial façade. Listeners into Old School Thrash will find something of significant interest here. 

The 2005 Demo tracks offer a stripped down raw and primitive take on the tech-thrash genre. The Coroner influence is in full glory here. Dark Angel pace speed is on display as well. In many ways, the tracks are reminiscent of off-beat on-the-cusp thrash bands and albums like Holy Terror's Mind Wars or Living Death's Worlds Neurosis. This demo is the product of the duo of Scott DeFusco and Scott Iconslaughter with both sharing guitar and bass duties but Drums and Vocals being handled singularly, Vocals by Iconslaughter, and Drums by Defusco. Samples of horror movies open two of the tracks with "Inter Arma Silent Leges" opening with samples from Bloody Pit Of Horror and "Creature of Unconscious Design" borrowing from Wishmaster 2. Both are fast with memorable main riffs and motifs, such as the bizarre harmonized middle section of "Creature of Unconscious Design". Of the three tracks from this demo, though, it is "Trafficking Apathy" which speaks most to me. Opening with a severely memorable intro riff, and leading straight into a verse and atonal or chromatic chorus, the song's melodic awkwardness creates a lot of tension which never really releases it's grip on the listener. Iconslaughter's vocals on the track are venomous and serpentine.  

As good as the 2005 Demo tracks are, it is the four tracks from The Grace Defile EP which showcase the potential which Extinction Agenda was close to grasping. The EP proves they were ahead-of-the-pack in 2006 doing their stripped down and simplified Voivod and Coroner inspired thrash. Extinction Agenda were keen to veer towards shorter more direct and focused songwriting compared to the more progressive compositions which Vektor had started tinkering with around the same time and which would shortly thereafter help re-popularize the off-beat Voivod / Tech-Thrash genre on 2009's Black Future. With the slightly shorter, more refined songwriting, tracks such as "Methadrine Angel" and "Mock Samaritan" in particular offer inventive and original thrash. Initiating with "Patron Saint of Chainsaws" the thin scraping guitar tone and prominent swarming of hornets bass tone punctuates the unique organic production. DeFusco has shifted entirely to drums, a shift yielding more interesting and adventurous drumming. Iconslaughter once again reminds me of Ron Royce however he has added a more extreme element to the vocals. 

This is a tape I really enjoyed going through. Instrumental sections throughout the seven tracks highlight left-field arrangement ideas and compositional intelligence. Subtlety abounds in many places, such as the harmonized leads and big breakdown section in "Methadrine Angel". Lyrically, Extinction Agenda also leave hints and drips of where they are conceptually and thematically engaged, while being not so vague as to leave no idea of where the audience should be directing thought. "Patron Saint of Chainsaws" finds the listener correlating the serial killer or pyschopath's need to kill with religious imagery of Communion and the blood of Christ. "Mock Samaritan" approaches the insincerity of religious charity directly. As someone who prefers a more vicious political, ideological, and aggressive slant in my Thrash themes, the content sticks. I wish the leads and solos were more prominent in the mix.

Extinction Agenda offer something impressive and rewarding musically to discerning thrash fans. The Visceral Circuitry release of the demos is done well with the standard J-card plus two panel layout. The backside of the J-Card is not used to full effect, as I would have liked to see lyrics reprinted or band photos included. We are given instead a repeating pattern of the band's logo. It's a typical tape release but to get the material out physically is a major plus. It would be a shame for this material to be left to rot somewhere. Extinction Agenda's 2005 Demo was released on Nihilistic Holocaust as a split with Oppression (or so it seems) and re-released as their own demo on CD afterwards. The tracks from the The Grace Defile EP were also released on CD in who-knows-what quantity independently. I'm glad that Visceral Circuitry (sub label of Nihilistic Holocaust) accumulated the additional four tracks and released them. I see myself coming back now and then. "Trafficking Apathy" and "Methadrine Angel" go into the favorite's playlist. 

Hostia - Carnivore Carnival

Review by Tobeastias:

Reviewed the Hostia, took me a year or more, but here it is... It has some cool moments and I enjoyed the few dissonant sections on songs like "Panzer Church". Unfortunately, there isn't anything truly remarkable about this release. It's not really their fault. You can only re-arrange that Terrorizer / Repulsion / Suffocation riff in so many ways (that's my way of saying there is a lack of creativity here).

I liked the aforementioned experimental sections.  They seem to pay some homage to the mid 90's Napalm Death albums such as Fear Emptiness Despair, and Inside the Torn Apart. The vocalist has an impressive range and is ultimately my least favorite component of the band because they at times give off 90's hardcore vibes and don't fit the music well. I can't really say anything bad about the instrumental musicianship otherwise. The vast majority of the fast / blast sections are unmemorable and there is some good usage of syncopation, but the breakdowns are similarly unmemorable and then re-used with slight variations on other tracks. I think my favorite track on this album by far is "God's Coffin'", it gives me Pungent Stench / Agathocles vibes, and the cowbell usage ultimately commands respect. 

I enjoy the fact that this isn't meant to be taken seriously. About half of the album bleeds together, with occasionally enjoyable parts and is thus transiently enjoyable overall. Innovation is hard and I can't really brutally ding the album and call it a viscerally offensive pile of excrement, but I also can in no way recommend purchasing this anywhere outside of a discount CD bin because this isn't something that deserves a repeat listen.

L.V.I. - Mentally Embalmed

Delving deep into the Arizona underground thrash scene of the late 1980's might reveal a little known entity known as Loud Verbal Insanity or L.V.I. Thrashback Records owner Eric Hoffman has already done that effort for you and, using source material directly from the band, re-pressed this obscure outfit's 1991 demo, Mentally Embalmed. Thrashback Records always does a good job with the layout, this time honoring the original release with an updated take on the original C.C. Delk artwork by Sidjimbe Art. The interior twelve page liner notes include a basic interview conducted by legendary NJ based Metal-Core Zine executor Chris Forbes. My only complaint is that there are not lyrics provided. 

The four song demo's thrashing tracks remind me of a mixture of Slayer, early Pestilence, and Megadeth with Teutonic intensity and grit. The mix indicates a wide-ranging input of styles and background interests. "Blind Ambitions" is a solid opener with a central riff that hearkens back to classics like "Wake Up Dead." Followed by "Voices", my personal favorite on the album with memorable headbanging riffs and pit-inducing energy. The clean guitar intro resets the ears to take in the twisting Grunted thrash vocals from Denny Martinez bark in the background. "Let Us Prey" is the shortest of the tracks at four minutes long matching the opening tracks with big rhythmic thrashing motifs. Final track "Menacing Prophecy" is the most Pestilence-esque in tone and production aligning with Malleus Maleficarum. 

The release is limited to 300 copies, evidence of the purely scholarly interest in L.V.I. and Mentally Embalmed. With members engaged in no noteworthy, notable, or even un-notable projects, there's no reason anyone would stumble on L.V.I. unless engaged in studious endeavors related to this specific area's thrash and death metal scene. The small quantity of audio material present here may be a turn off to those who desire something substantial in a physical release. I think the included interview and photos in the booklet are a commendable attempt to overcome the limited audio. Some rehearsal tracks or material that would have appeared on the mentioned first demo that was scrapped would have made this more stand out for me from an archival stand point. Still, this is a neat little release with solid thrash from the tail end of the genre's peak. 

Objective / Subjective Scoring

To appeal to my weird data-driven self - and for the fun/fuck of it, really - I am including with all reviews going forward a scoring methodology that combines an objective numerical score based on the qualities I believe are important and a subjective score based on a friend's bastardization of the universal pain assessment scale. 

The Subjective Scale:

A simple 6-rating subjective score based on the Universal Pain Assessment Tool in use by hospitals and healthcare clinics to determine a patient's pain level. In this case, we have adjusted the ratings to align with album enjoyability as an overall point of reference for how much we enjoy an album. Running Wild's Port Royal: Unforgettable. Metallica's ReLoad: Pain. That sort of simple summarization. 

The Objective Score:

A more rigorous scoring based on individually determined importance of factors. Tracks are assigned a total possible score based on the track length. Categories, selected by the reviewer for their importance for a particular genre are given weights and each track is judged based on those weights for a total percentage of possible points. The points are added and a numerical score out of 100% awarded. Bonus points are awarded which give additional points towards the total for each track. Bonus points awarded for the overall release reduce the total weight across all the songs, allowing for a great possibility of maximum scoring. 

Pazuzu - Oath of Unholy Sacrilege

Oath of Unholy Sacrilege, an assemblage of split tracks from Costa Ricans Pazuzu, basks this quartet in the deep red hue and demonic underbelly glow befitting a respectable Old School morbid Death Metal band. Harnessing the thick tonality of the Sunlight Studios classics, obvious influences and comparable lineage emerges such as Dismember, Autopsy, Entombed and Grave. To this point, Pazuzu include as the final track a cover of Nihilist's "Carnal Leftovers." Six tracks. Thirty Minutes. Death Metal. And, unfortunately, to that effect, there will be limited interest in the release. Pazuzu, although effective in their craft, do not bridge the threshold between commanding attention and falling in line with the rest of the troops.

The foursome's performances are all in line with the above sentiment as well with little stand out attention worthy of being called out. Keyrotten's drumming is often interesting rhythmically but heavy-handed with his cymbal usage, casting a brightness over the tracks which contrasts the sought-after darker doomier elements of songs like "Entrapment in Gloom". This over-usage is apparent in "Calamity And Death." Vocalist, Tomil has a strong low-gargle, mixed just under the often forward positioned guitars. It is effective, but not exemplary. Giovanni on guitars performs Pazuzu's death metal craft with care and attention, producing solid riffs that ooze and drip with rivulets of infected puss, however these riffs are simply not rancid enough to stick in my nostrils for an extended period of time nor are the melodies gangrenous enough to cause lasting tissue damage. Bassist Steven helps add to the mix on the low end and gets some time to stand-out in a few bass only sections in songs like "Calamity and Death" and "The Crawling Depths of Christendom and Abominations". Often times he follows the guitar too closely.  

This is fine while blasting through the speakers, but there's little come back to and subsequent listens render a casual verdict. While "Entrapment in Gloom" and "Ceremony in Inception" are the best Pazuzu offers on Oath of Unholy Sacrilege, these are just average. There are a lot of other bands doing this style more effectively, but if you just can't get enough dark, fetid, morbid Death Metal, you could also do a lot worse than Pazuzu's authentic take. Nihilistic Holocaust once again provides a fine layout for this tape release, with plenty of artwork and information to accompany Pazuzu's aesthetic.