Dave's Underground Laboratory: September 12, 2011

Louisiana’s Excommunicated play a hybrid of black and death metal with a mid-paced tempo on Skeleton Key, the band’s debut full-length. Unfortunately, the whole exercise becomes very tedious very quickly as Excommunicated are best described as amateurish and banal. The music is very bland and clichéd without any sense of dynamic songwriting, interesting riffs, hooks, etc.

Also noticeably absent is any trace of viciousness or genuine intent. Skeleton Key comes across as if it is the byproduct of a bunch of 15 year olds that raided Mommy and Daddy’s black metal album collection while their parents were out for the evening. In short, Skeleton Key has very little going for it, or has any hint of promise, for that matter.

Dave’s Grade: D

Candlelight Records is in the midst of reissuing seminal crust/ punk/grindcore albums from yesteryear. Soon after the label’s reissue of Desensitise/War Is Hell from Discharge, legendary crust punk pioneers Extreme Noise Terror (commonly known as ENT) are given the treatment with a 21-song reissue of their debut, A Holocaust In My Head, originally released in 1988.

Originally a 15-song release, A Holocaust In My Head is much closer to pure late ’70s era hardcore than thrash metal progenitors Discharge. Those of you that prefer your crossover closer to metal than punk may not be necessarily interested in ENT, but they have the fury of politically driven hardcore combined with a very raw, barely produced sound. Hints of grindcore do appear with a couple of proto blastbeats along with a few moments of metallic heaviness, but ENT will undoubtedly hold much greater appeal to fans of hardcore than metal.

That said, though, ENT went on to be a band of great importance, creating sounds that eventually became incorporated into metal’s extreme genres. At the very least, Candlelight Records now makes it easy for you to investigate the early days of crust with A Holocaust In My Head. R.I.P., Phillip Vane.

Dave’s Grade: B

Iron Lamb immediately constitute a supergroup of sorts, with the likes of Daniel Ekeroth (author of Swedish Death Metal, a required text for all laboratory rats) in the fold along with members and alumni of such luminaries as General Surgery, Dismember, and so on. Undoubtedly, you’re starting to salivate at what you would think to be as a monstrous slab of Swedish death metal in The Original Sin, the debut full-length from Iron Lamb.

Nope. The Original Sin is pure thrash n’ roll obviously descended from Motörhead as well as a host of others. Think of Iron Lamb as a collision between Motörhead, Discharge, Monster Magnet, and The Ramones, and you’re on the right track. Toss in a hint of NWOBHM/proto-thrash, and you’ve pigeonholed The Original Sin in a nutshell with death metal nowhere to be found, a few d-beats notwithstanding.

Given the pedigree, Iron Lamb fulfill the promise of The Original Sin with a pretty monstrous approach that fits squarely in between all of the aforementioned influences (admittedly, all relatively close to each other with a few tweaks). Good, rollicking songs, an obvious affinity for the subgenres being referenced, and an enthusiastic attitude are really all that’s necessary on The Original Sin, an album that fits the description “barnstormer” perfectly.

Dave’s Grade: A-

An Autumn For Crippled Children are nominally described as depressive black metal, but that’s really not the case; at least, not with Everything. Everything is the second full-length album from this Dutch trio, and is mostly an exercise in progressive rock with a few leanings towards post-metal.

Any elements of black metal only reside with the muted, screeched vocals. Everything else consists of progressive, fairly well written rock music with plenty of clean guitars, a dynamic bass, and a mid-paced tempo. A few moments of distortion and fuzz creep in here and there, thereby giving the music a bit of a post-metal feel, but you’d otherwise be hard pressed to label An Autumn For Crippled Children as metal, let alone black metal.

That said, Everything is well written and well played for what it is. Yes, the music is somewhat melancholy, but, realistically, most metalheads will probably want to take a pass on Everything.

Dave’s Grade: B-

Bottom of the barrel brutal death metal? What do you think, with a moniker like Gorgy, and cover art that could adorn any album by any band ending in “y” such as Lividity, Putridity, and Putrefy? Yep, that’s what Birth Of Damnation is all about; brutal death metal with plenty of speed, periodic breakdowns, burped vocals, trailer parks in Kentucky, the works, with nary a moment of melody in sight.

As far as the brutal death metal subgenre goes, Gorgy do all that’s necessary to succeed; that is, a deep, brutal sound, speed mixed with breakdowns, and a surprisingly understandable, yet very rough, vocal delivery. Gorgy even mixes things up a bit with a few guitar solos that do the job reasonably well. Toss in a few requisite samples, and there’s enough here to satisfy genre aficionados. The drums could be deeper, though.

Dave’s Grade: B-

You’d never know it from spinning this debut full-length/long EP (26 minutes) from Ontario’s Burning Caskets, but To Burn A False Prophet is a self released affair. Immediately striking is the very slick, evenly mixed production that retains an organic quality. I know, just about anyone can do that nowadays with the right tools, but it’s also obvious that Burning Caskets have done their homework (always a plus in the laboratory) and actually know how to use their tools for maximum effect.

Also quite striking is the music, also a very slick affair, which is a nice combination of American thrash and death metal, sort of coming off as a hybrid of Slayer and Suffocation (just not quite as bottom heavy) with just a hint of Pantera tossed in for good measure. Rather than just being a blatant rip off of giants, though, Burning Caskets back it all up with some catchy songwriting.

Frankly, with a little bit of seasoning, I can see this band becoming huge and I’d be shocked if Metal Blade or Nuclear Blast didn’t snatch these guys up as soon as possible.

Dave’s Grade: A-