Rotting Corpse Records: Reviews

The fine folks at Rotting Corpse Records have a knack for finding some of the sickest players in America's underground. The blackened thrash of Massachusetts' BABY.STAB.HORROR is certainly no exception to that statement. In fact, they may very well turn out to be the MVP of the label's roster. BABY.STAB.HORROR takes an approach that sees the straight-forward pummel you'd expect to hear from LAMB OF GOD's unwashed little cousin and slams it into a mountain of melodic malevolence. The elements of black metal, prevalent as they are, are not polished enough to site the likes of DIMMU BORGIR as a reference nor are they muddied enough to be pigeon-holed as a "basement band". In other words, to paraphrase that porridge-stealing bitch Goldilocks, this is just right. With technical riffs, artful soloing, the chilling ambiance of keyboards and vocals evil enough to drive nuns to suicide, Manifesto Infernale shows the world that BABY.STAB.HORROR have not come to fuck around.

Lately New England metal has consisted of hardcore and metalcore mainly within the Boston area. Hailing from Fall River, Massachusetts Baby Stab Horror brings something a bit heavier than the nearby Boston scene, yet maintains the modern sound while maintaining some black metal credentials. Baby Stab Horror calls themselves Thrash/Black Metal but they in all actuality sounds like the result of a Lamb of God/Dimmu Borgir super group. The album possesses black metal characteristics, but sometimes it's hard to hear due to the modern day influences overlapping that old school sound. Just about every song on the album flips back and forth from Lamb of God riff replications to old school black metal signature devices and sounds.

When reviewing the band's roster I was a tad confused. Baby Stab Horror has the traditional set up with guitars, keyboards, and bass. Anyone who can appreciate music can recognize these instruments, but Baby Stab Horror has Sardon Skullgrave who is responsible for the 'sermon' on the album. Also D. Blast performs 'Sadism' on the album. How those 2 things are translated into the record is beyond me. I assume that one of the two, if not both, deliver the multiple sets of vocals heard on the album. The other thing which I've become curious about is where do the drums on this album come from? The drums are extremely difficult and apparent. Between the blastbeats and the china crash rides, the beats on the album are probably what give the album the majority of its black metal credibility.

Just about every song on 'Manifesto Infernale' has a Lamb of God sounding riff on it which creates a speed metal tempo. Demither (guitars/keyboards) has made the keyboards stand out in the mix in a way that complements and almost challenges the guitar as the leading instrument on the album. If the band were ever to go on tour they'd probably have to recruit other members so that Demither could perform either guitar or keyboards. Maloderous Rex's bass lines are very fast and usually just follow the lead. The vocals switch back and forth but constantly stick with the black metal buzzsaws and death metal growls. The two styles work well with each other and fit with the traditional percussion.

Overall the album makes its own hybrid of Lamb of God speed metal and the sounds of Dimmu Borgir's Stormblast debut. On "Crown of Four", for example, the song begins with the slow metalcore sound laden with harmonizing keyboard parts, but then surprises the listener with an epic solo that combines the slow pace of Viking metal to a vicious black metal that could melt faces with ease. The Lamb of God influence couldn't have been any more there on "Vermin Revelation" where the opening riff is possibly a song off As the Palaces Burn called "For Your Malice". The band does end up redeeming themselves on the track when there is a break and a volcanic eruption of extreme black metal lava come pouring out of the speakers to melt some serious faces. Baby Stab Horror takes a different approach to black metal and help its evolution into the 20th century.

Metal fans in Roanoke, VA have been treated to the roaring speed metal of DOOM SYNDICATE for a while, and now it is time for the world. Beyond Salvation is the first full-length album from DOOM SYNDICATE and it hopefully will not be the last. This album is as fast and technical as you can imagine and every track on it keeps you banging your head from beginning to end. The standout tracks on the album are the title track and "Product of Environment", but don't discount the other seven tracks because they all deserve their day in court. This is definitely an excellent debut from a band you'll surely hear from in the future.

Lock up all the posers and burn those fuckers to the ground - that's what you'll want to do when you listen to the new Doom Syndicate cd, "Beyond Salvation". Holy shit - my ass got blown back a few feet when I heard the opening track "Black Sleep of Cabbie". This 9-song cd features some incredible production quality with an intense piece of art on the cover as well as a slick inside booklet featuring lyrics, pics, and more. Huge fuck yeahs for these guys mentioning Heavycore in their thanks and even slapping our logo on the inside booklet. They've got 666 thumbs up from us here at the CORE. This is some intense death metal with hints of black metal at times.

The musical talent in this band is unreal. Scott Doom on lead guitar is a monster on the frets and stomps ass at all times. He lays down some of the best solos I've heard in a very long time, and together with rhythm/lead guitar player Rob Milani - they bring the pain all day long with a sick ass crunch. Bass player Chip, also shows off his talents with some intense work and also provides some growling back up on vocals. There were a few times I thought he could have come up in the mix - but I'm a bass player (ha). The drummer, Dan Brooks, is fucking unbelievable. We recently saw them at a Heavycore show and he was absolutely insane behind the kit - some serious double bass action. I also love the vocal style of Jr. Martin as he belts out some of the sickest growls, mixed in with some insane higher stuff that really blew my ass away watching him live. These guys are the real deal - each one of them flat out shreds. My favorite track on the cd is "Fearless in the Face of Death" - but each one of them kicked my ass bloody.

Not only is Doom Syndicate an incredible band, but they are cool mother fuckers and are all about supporting Heavycore. We're proud of them here, as they embark on a tour with Macabre and Cataclysm. I'm sure they'll do us proud and represent the Core, as well as their label - Rotting Corpse Records.

Check out Rotting Corpse Records online for more information about these guys and their other metal acts at www.rottingcorpserecords.com

Blast beats are played bestially in tracks like "Resurrection of Ancient Evil", combined with some old school influences in the raw sound that the guitars sound. The vocals sound as agonic and powerful as always, giving that deathly unholy feeling o the lyrics and showing all the aggression that the band unleashes. Ultra fast guitar solos are another trademark in the tunes, contrasting with the big wall of sound delivered by the rhythm guitar and the bass. This album has better sound than the other ones, even though there is not much difference when comparing to the re-recordings, since is the newest one and it shows that the band has worked a lot with the instruments mix. A crushing black metal releases from this classic band.

A name in metal you should probably get to know is Pete Altieri. A highly ambitious headbanger with a DIY mentality, Altieri’s self-created “Heavycore” movement, stemmed from his native Illinois, features associates from some of the deepest reaches of the underground such as SOULTORN, SYSTEMIC and OMINOUS as well as familiars like PRO PAIN. Having stamped down cancer, Altieri’s resilience and dedication to “pure” metal has shown through his Low Times quarterly magazine and his Brutality Report website, along with a ninety-minute DVD of underground metal videos, Roasting Posers, and the controversial Maggot Ridden Rotting Movie featuring Altieri’s band LOW TWELVE, once packaged with their Unfit for Human Occupancy EP. Now LOW TWELVE comes out with a dark and disturbing concept album This Side Toward Enemy that is equally vicious as it is entertaining.

If anyone out there remembers the Wendy O. Williams horror thrash concept album Maggots: The Record, there’s a small ambience of that gem reflected on This Side Toward Enemy, particularly with the dramatic sequences staged between the songs that traces the background of a serial killer on death row named Nolan Weeks. Featuring staged news flashes and various sound effects and screams, the story of This Side Toward Enemy isn’t anywhere near as cheeky or schlocky as Williams’ Maggots, but LOW TWELVE creates an ambient story of death that makes their brand of metal subversively more lethal. Particularly unnerving is the news clip talking about Weeks’ victims being found with panties stuck in their mouths. Tres sinister…

Beginning with “Stay of Execution,” Weeks is spared his initial death sentence and granted a final interview with a journalist that uncorks the details of his murder spree that were once blamed on satanic cults. The wake of the story and album of This Side Toward Enemy allows LOW TWELVE to crunch out Weeks’ narrative on such brutal tracks as “Kill Everything,” “Not Alive,” “A Private Hell” and “Death Draws Near.”

Altieri’s bulldog yelps are one of the most appealing elements to LOW TWELVE; his voice is menacing and unique, even in the midst of his agro-toned hardcore brethren. As LOW TWELVE has been lurking about since the late nineties, the raw quality of the band’s sound may astonish some people, but when you hear the mosh rhythms of “Your God,” you realize that LOW TWELVE is a band that has been long pounding bricks with every heavy note they peel off. The way Altieri scats his verses like Tom Araya does on SLAYER’s “Stain of Mind” from Diabolous in Musica keeps things pumping as the revelations behind Nolan Weeks’ atrocities are recounted through LOW TWELVE’s punishing grooves.

One thing about LOW TWELVE and Pete Altieri, there’s no accusing them of lying about lackadaisically. Roasting posers one minute and fighting lawsuits from principals appearing in Maggot Ridden Rotten Movie, Altieri sticks to his vision of a Heavycore underground where people get what he’s about. When you’ve fought back as much as Pete Altieri’s had to, it’s no wonder LOW TWELVE comes off sounding like a fistful of studs into your cavity-laden teeth.

Walk in the blood-stained steps of a killer as Low Twelve traces the murderous path of Nolan Weeks, one of the worst serial killers the world has ever known. This is not your typical paint-by-numbers Gore Metal album, Low Twelve incorporates tons of catchy Thrash Metal riffs, wicked breaks and a menacing mixture of harsh and guttural vocals. Just when you think you have this one figured out Low Twelve veers off in a new, more harrowing direction. This is a tormented view into the twisted mind of a psychopath that will leave you twitching and pleading for mercy. 9 out of 10 skulls.

Reminiscent of CRYTOPSY or even older SKINLESS, New Jersey's OMINOUS bring track after track of intense, no-frills, death metal. Pounding drums and exceptionally deep growls work in conjunction with adroit guitarwork to provide ample entertainment from start to finish. "Tears Of Fear" stands out with its blackened riffing and well-written chorus, while "Infected Flesh" is an entertaining bass instrumental track which proves how truly competent the members of OMINOUS are in regards to their instruments. "Rank" even utilizes some particularly powerful breaks and an uncharacteristic but welcomed hint of doom towards the ending. While not necessarily revolutionary, the band has created something that is suited for anyone who enjoys their death metal in its most brutal form. Hopefully next time around, the band will continue to even further show off their talents across the fretboard and behind the drumkit.

Here's a release to listen to while you're hacking up neighbor, or beating the neighborhood poser to death with a claw hammer! Ominous delivers the goods in a HUGE way with the release of the horrific "Intercorpse" on Chicago's Rotting Corpse Records. The most stunning thing to anyone who picks this CD up is the cover art by Craig Simpson, which is incredibly detailed and sickness at its finest. It features a hot metal chick, with her tits out, riding the penis of a dead body she's got dug up. These sick bastards actually show penetration if you can believe it! It's brutal as hell, just like you death metal maniacs love! The art piece is called "Necrolust" by the artist. The rest of the artwork is great and the booklet is filled with pictures, lyrics, and much more. Huge kudos to drummer Jay Meerholz for sporting a Heavycore shirt in his photo and for the band mentioning the Core in their thanks section.

This 14-song epic is brutal from beginning to end, with some wicked crunching guitar madness and vocals from front man Victor Gonzalez, intense drumming from Jay Meerholz, and killer bottom end punishment from bass player Drew Kerwin. These guys draw from a variety of influences that range from Cannibal Corpse, to Obituary and beyond. They've got everything from the most intense blast beats, to some killer mosh pit madness - so the listener will get a taste of it all. This CD doesn't let up for a minute . . . maybe long enough for you to listen to your victim scream for a minute between beatings. They'll be putting "Battered" on the upcoming Heavycore compilation CD "Core Til Death IV". My favorite tracks were "13 Years of Pain" and the title track "Intercorpse" but the whole thing slays.

If you dig your metal heavy, fast, chunky, and demonic - then you'll just love Ominous. If you have any pussies on the block, you might want to tie them up and scare them senseless with this slab of never-ending sickness!

This album is all about the incredible songwriting, the sickening imagery, and the Brutality towards the music, “Intercorpse” is an album filled with pounding and insane tunes, hellish vocals, incredible drumming, awesome bass playing and a lot of really catchy riffs all along the record.

Judging by the cover, a really hot girl having sex with a putrid corpse, we can say “Man this band must be brutal as hell”, but that would be a wrong verdict. Yes the music is insanely brutal, but it also has structures and scales (detail lost in most Brutal Death Metal bands nowadays), the music can get really aggressive, but the breakdowns and bridges settle a whole new impression towards the tracks; brutal yet catchy music.

There are many incredible tracks in “Intercorpse”, in fact the really good stuff comes from the 8th to the last track (that segment is just awesome), we can even hear a mind blowing and complex bass solo (Infected Flesh), the most awesome double-bass drumming (Behind The Shaded Skies), incredible guitar riffs in 13 years of pain (this song has a really cool video about a sick girl peeling her skin off), etc. Ominous is hitting powerfully the metal scene with this album; a couple of years more of polishing the music, adding some complex guitar solos, and arranging general stuff here and there, and you’ll be hearing this band all over the Metal scene, with more incredible tracks and astonishing music.

The production is actually incredible, the instruments sound loud and really lucid, the riffing sounds clean and the vocalizations are incredibly clear as well. So, to every Death Metal fan, I recommend you to grab this piece, hear it, and then make your own judgment, I know I liked it.

Best Tracks: “13 Years Of Pain”, “Behind The Shaded Skies”, “The Sleeper”.

Break out the knives and start cutting - Psychomancer is walking the streets of hell. Butchered is exactly that, as these Indaian boys rip through nine tracks of smoking Death Metal. Up front are the guitars of Brad Calkin & Mark Shultz, both of whom tap into Thrash Metal to set down some heavy riffs, screaming the hooks, and friction-inducing leads. Spattering the room with Blood are the rhythm section of Drummer Rob Lawrence & Bassist Duston Bullard , And then there's Vocalist Shawn McCormick whose guttural spews and occasional rasps somehow manage to enunciate every word clearly - Not an easy feat by any means. It's all business with respect to pace, as speed and density vie for supremacy, but Psychomancer also has a solid sense of groove, injecting each song w/ some captivating rhythms and foot-stomping guitar licks (one listen to "Casting Shadows by Moonlight" and you will be hooked). As for the words, expect the usual depravity, with tracks such as "Butchered by Me" and "Now You Die" reveling in the ultraviolence while "Cumstains in the Casket" and "Hypothermic Demise" need no further explanation. Put this one on your essential-purchase list!

Drawing inspiration from the vampire culture, Chicago's URN offer up an 11-song journey into the darker regions of hard rock/metal. Something of a hybrid of TYPE O NEGATIVE and AMORPHIS, the core of URN's sound is rather straightforward and hook-heavy riffage, relying on keyboards and non-metal instruments like the flute and piccolo to add an interesting level of texture to the music. Throughout the disc vocals, duties are split between Dominic St. Charles (guitars), Ian Nothing (bass) and Sophia (keys, ect.), with the female tunes standing out as the album's better tracks. Sophia's haunting, siren-like voice gives the tracks "Shadow Dancer" and "Firechild" a chilling, ethereal quality unmatched by those penned by her male counterparts. Other standouts include the morose, folk-inspired "Passover" and the collaboration with occult author Michelle Belanger "Cry Freedom". /Dancing with the Demigods/ offers plenty of good material and is worth checking out.

Take the best elements of Anathema, Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride and Type O Negative and you've got the gothic metal of Chicago's URN. Dancing with the Demigods is filled with gothic metal, laced with doomy guitar riffs and emotionally sung male and female vocals that'll bring tears of joy and sadness to your eyes. URN is not an easy listen by any means, as their style of dirge-driven goth metal will take at least several spins to make complete sense of what this quartet is all about. Shadow Dancer comes across as a darkened mixture of My Dying Bride meets early Paradise Lost, minus the growls, which makes the atmospherics of this song stand out even further - it'll make the hairs stand up on your back. And, the video for Shadow Dancer comes across as a musically-inspired trailer for a horror flick. This band has plenty of potential to go far, and only time will tell how much they'll conquer in the world of atmospheric, gothic metal. Check it out and feel the sadness.

The latest album from the Chicago-based goth rock ensemble URN is a seamless mixture of darkwave, metal and hard rock. The band blends classic styles of old-school goth and heavy metal to create songs that quickly hook the listener with haunting keyboards and crunching power chords that give way to some smoking guitar work. Bassist ian Nothing and drummer Tracy Morrison provide the pulsating rhythm section, while the vocal duties are split between lead guitarist Dominic St. Charles and the sultry female tones of of keyboardist Sophia. Featured guest singer Michelle Belanger lends her beautiful soprano voice and original lyrics to several songs as well. Among the standout tracks, the seductive "Shadow Dancer" and "Fire Child" rise o the top, while "Cry Freedom", with its memorable Latin refrain, is an anthem for all oppressed artistic spirits. If you crave dark-tinged rock music, don your formal goth attire and go Dancing with the Demigods.