PRESENTS
E XT R E M E LY E XT R E M E D EC I B E L M AG A Z I N E .C O M
IV Part 1, The Purple EP *Get your music from a record store. Find them at www.mymetalclub.com
E V A R G
Endless Procession of Souls
Utilitarian Napalm Death
KRISIUN
THE GREAT EXECUTION *Get your music from a record store. 1 Find them at www.mymetalclub.com
www.decibelmagazine.com
EXTREMELY EXTREME
Death Metal Special Issue
PUBLISHER
Alex Mulcahy
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Albert Mudrian
MANAGING EDITOR
alex@redflagmedia.com albert@redflagmedia.com
Andrew Bonazelli
andrew@redflagmedia.com
Jamie Leary
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
jamie@redflagmedia.com
ART DIRECTOR
Bruno Guerreiro
CUSTOMER SERVICE CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS ADVERTISING
Patty Moran patty@redflagmedia.com
Chuck BB, Mark Rudolph Albert Mudrian
albert@redflagmedia.com
540.878.5756 UNDERTONES SECTION
Drew Juergens
drew@decibelmagazine.com
Online
just words
DECIBLOG EDITOR
Andrew Bonazelli
andrew@decibelmagazine.com
Full disclosure: I wasn’t com-
pletely on board when one of my cooler friends (who actually still writes for this magazine) first introduced my underdeveloped teenage brain to the likes of Napalm Death (Harmony Corruption) and Carcass (Symphonies of Sickness) well over two decades ago. Anyone who knows me will tell you—whether it’s embracing SIERA as a tool to evaluate pitching performance or launching a Twitter account—I am slow to adapt to the obvious. Over the years, I’ve met many of you who had similar experiences with death metal—it quickly evolves from a morbid curiosity to an uncontrollable, ravenous obsession. Back in the dark ages of the early ’90s, this was a difficult road to navigate—one path lead to the gory glory of Morbid Angel, Entombed and Obituary, while another pointed to virtually everything released on JL America. So, we scanned the thanks lists of good bands, devoured any zine we could find, plopped down our meager teenage earnings and hoped for the best. It was all part of the adventure. And even when you drew a bad record, hey, it was still a death metal record. Today it’s clear that no other form of music has had a greater effect on my life. That nascent obsession opened doors to other genres—funeral doom, black metal, sludge, metallic hardcore—built on death metal’s pummeling foundation. All of that, of course, helped forge Decibel’s very existence. But we’re here to honor only one genre today. It’s impossible to understate the place these 100 death metal classics occupy in not only Decibel’s universe but—more importantly—extreme music at large. A total of 22 of them have been inducted into our Hall of Fame, and interviews are complete for a 23rd, which will be out in 2013 (hint: the record is featured in the 30s on this list). So, grab a tall boy (or a CD longbox), kick back and enjoy the next 27,000 words of exclusive new content—it’s literally two decades in the making.
from the editor
albert mudrian, Editor-in-Chief
Anthony Bartkewicz Adrien Begrand J. Bennett Shawn Bosler Brent Burton Richard Christy Liz Ciavarella-Brenner John Darnielle Jerry A. Deathburger Chris Dick Jeanne Fury Nick Green Joe Gross Jonathan Horsley Scott Koerber Daniel Lake Frank Lemke Shawn Macomber Shane Mehling Kirk Miller Greg Moffitt Justin M. Norton Matt Olivo Etan Rosenbloom Kevin Sharp Rod Smith Zach Smith Kevin Stewart-Panko Adem Tepedelen Jeff Treppel Jeff Wagner CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS
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To order by phone: 1.215.625.9850 (10 a.m. – 6 p.m. EST) To order by fax: 1.215.625.9967 To order online: www.decibelmagazine.com Decibel (ISSN 1557-2137) is published monthly by Red Flag Media, Inc., 1032 Arch Street, 3rd Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19107. Annual subscription price is $29.95. Periodical postage, Philadelphia, PA, and other mailing offices. Submission of manuscripts, illustrations and/or photographs must be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. The publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited materials. Postmaster send changes of address for Decibel to Red Flag Media, 1032 Arch Street, 3rd Floor, Philadelphia PA 19107. Copyright ©2012 by Red Flag Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission of the publisher is strictly prohibited. PRINTED IN USA
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CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
ISSN 1557-2137
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USPS 023142
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presents
WAY BACK
in April 2006, we took our first stab at a “themed” issue, and while our goal was to fuck your hearts and minds with that Cannibal Corpse-wielded blade, in retrospect, our incisions were considerably more exacting via ensuing special issues on stoner rock, grindcore, zombies and women in metal. Death metal is arguably the most essential invocation in Decibel Decibel’s monthly bible of gore–if you’ve already skipped ahead, you’ve noticed a sizable portion of this list already inducted in our hallowed Hall of Fame–so six and a half years later, we figured it was time to truly do the genre justice. That means an entire issue’s worth of 100 percent exclusive and new content, including this most insalubrious Top 100 countdown, infinite Top 5 lists from virtually every important living name in death metal, and Stockholm contrarians Unleashed finally crashing their longboat into the HOF. It should come as little shock that 1991 is all the fuck over the top 100, representing a whopping 20 percent of the list, but we also peppered in Decibel Decibel-era (2004-2012) albums from artists like Portal, Obscura and Origin that have kept the genre on its scabrous toes. And if all of that somehow doesn’t do it for you, well, in the words of our editor-in-chief, come on, “all those record sleeves look stupid awesome one after another!” andrew bonazelli
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Master
Portal
nuc l e a r bl a s t (1 9 9 0 )
prof ound l ore (2007 )
Paul Speckmann was one of the first working death metal musicians; he still doesn’t get nearly enough credit for his place in the genre’s formation. The Chicago native is sort of like his hometown Cubs in that he works his ass off and you always root for him to pull off the big one, and yet people still seem to overlook his contributions and passion. Master’s eponymous debut came after Speckmann left his project Death Strike to reform his first band. Master is informed as much by Venom and early punk as it is metal, and Speckmann’s blistering social critiques–still a feature of his music today–were already full-formed on this record. His version of the “Pledge of Allegiance” is a wry twist on a classroom staple. “Funeral Bitch” is fast and dirty; and you can practically hear Speckmann sneer. Speckmann flaunts his bass prowess in the opening to a cover of Black Sabbath’s “Children of the Grave.” While many death metal albums are far too long, Speckmann needed 20 minutes and some change to make an impression. Has he shaved since this was recorded? We think not. The guy looks like metal’s Rip Van Winkle. justin m. norton
Death metal is more often than not preoccupied with trying to sound imposing and scary, from the music to the lyrics and artwork. It’s a given, but for all of Cannibal Corpse’s brilliantly disgusting work, let alone goregrind, in less skilled hands it can amount to little more than overgrown adolescents trying to “out-gross” one another. That’s not scary. Portal are scary. Hailing from Australia, these four anonymous musicians were unearthed by Profound Lore in 2007, and their second album was unlike any other death metal record at the time. With a bonedry, suffocating tone that buried ultracomplex riffs underneath a layer of dense bass and drums, and featuring a frontman who spewed horrific, Burroughsian cut-up imagery in a voice so wizened you could practically see the dust escaping his lungs, Outré exudes death, plain and simple. Couple that with a visual presentation that was equally surreal and imposing–we’ll never forget the Curator’s creepy clock head–and you’ve got a strikingly original, puzzling, terrifying band. Be afraid. Be very afraid. adrien begrand
Master
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Outré
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here’s a question I’ve been asking myself since this album was released back in May of 2011: How can three of the nicest, most down-to-earth, hilarious and gustatory-obsessed dudes you’ll ever meet create sounds this callous and otherworldly? Hate Eternal have always had a Phoenix Amongst solid fan base that originated afthe Ashes ter four previously well-received metal b lad e ( 20 11) and robust albums. Then, there’s the cult-like following of Morbid Angel pedants and studio nerds continually wanting to get inside Erik Rutan’s head. But Phoenix Amongst the Ashes saw the band bump everything up a notch. When Rutan wasn’t busy making his guitar sound like a swarm of hornets drunk on nuclear waste (“The Art of Redemption”), the foot the trio had firmly planted in death metal was being spiced up with a certain combustible flair that fell somewhere between their innate tendencies, the weirder side of Japanese hardcore, mathy technicality and a swath of Jersey-based heavy hitters (Human Remains, Deadguy, Burnt by the Sun, etc.) playing a mix of noises that had you feeling like you were getting rochambeaued in a back alley of a Chinese restaurant in Secaucus. kevin stewart-panko
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Hate Eternal
MY TOP 5 ERIK
RUTAN
Hate Eternal Morbid Angel, Altars of Madness Suffocation, Effigy of the Forgotten Deicide, Deicide Cannibal Corpse, Eaten Back to Life Death, Scream Bloody Gore
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Pungent Stench Been Caught Buttering nu c l e a r b l a s t (1 9 9 1 )
Boasting a filthy-as-fuck guitar tone that sounds like something off which an actual pungent stench might waft, a series of Cannibal-Corpse-by-way-of-Stuart-Gordon song titles–e.g. “Brainpan Blues,” “Happy Re-Birthday,” “Splatter-
day Night Fever”–and a musical palette as wide as it is deranged, Been Caught Buttering has, even in its few controlled moments, the aural gait and mien of a PCP-addled schizophrenic auditioning for a Faces of Death segment. It sure as hell isn’t a perfect death metal specimen–some of the musical freakouts are undeniably more successful than others; a bit of the doomy stuff is a little halfhearted to go on as long as it does–but when Pungent Stench are on point, the band is uniquely entertaining. (See, for example, the detuned grinder “Games of Humiliation,” which closes with a full, brilliantly bizzaro minute of Martin Schirenc grunting and gurgling over indie jam band noodling.) Pungent Stench’s ability to bring a primitive Wolverine Blues-esque brutality on tracks like “And Only Hunger Remains” and “S.M.A.S.H.” keeps Been Caught Buttering from veering into har-har-har Scatterbrain territory, making for a solid oddball curio addition to any already well-curated death metal collection. shawn macomber
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Bolt Thrower …For Victory
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Decapitated Winds of Creation ear ache ( 20 0 0)
It’s testimony to Winds of Creation’s greatness that a cover of exalted Slayer Once the gathering storm intro of classic “Mandatory Suicide” is the al“War” is pummeled in tutti with staccato bum’s only forgettable moment. Decapistops over the massive, climbing riff of tated’s searing debut is notable for many “Remembrance,” and the faint sky-rip of things, but one really sticks out: the band reverberating munitions (or explosion? was all teenagers when they wrote and or sniper peal?) stirs the band into attack recorded it. Drummer Witold “Vitek” (Karl Willetts rasping, “Nightmare world Kiełtyka was only 15, his older brother / Reflected as a dream”), we are once again on guitar, Wacław (a.k.a. Vogg), was 17; riding along with the Bolt Thrower cavDecapitated’s tender age belied their abilalry headlong into their war-themed style ity to deliver not only generic tech-death that, by now, has transcended gimmick precision barbarity, but to do so with such and been cast as venerated institution. signature brio. This album cleanly breaks with the Recorded in 1999 in the company of Warhammer fetishism and defines the producer and responsible adult Piotr bulk of their career: the romantic squeezWiwczarek of Vader, Winds of Creation ing of honor from the stone of battle. is an all-Polish affair. Imagine what was And–like seeing a disabled vet–you going through Wiwczarek’s mind, a almost want to thank Bolt Thrower for 34-year-old, watching these coltish death their service. Andy Whale’s steed-like heads pull together a record full of beats drumming has always complemented and riffs that manage to be both rhyththe thunderhead of those lyrical riffs mically alien, yet mother’s milk to the and the undercurrent of Jo headbanger primate in all of Bench’s grindy bass (posus. Vogg’s riff-articulation sibly the best dirty tone in MY TOP 5 was so individualistic, Dethe business, billowy with capitated so cavalier; Winds buzzing low-mids). From resuscitated a genre whose the rolling groove of “Arcreativity was calcifying at Decapitated mageddon Bound” to the the turn of the millennium. leaning propulsion (snare Morbid Angel, Not since The Goonies have on the downbeat, not the Covenant a bunch of kids been so backbeat!) of “Graven Iminspirational. jonathan Deicide, Deicide age,” what this album has horsley Vader, Sothis most is ultimately what we keep returning for: that Hate Eternal, British sense of stately Conquering the melody–elegiac nobility– Throne that makes Bolt Thrower Morbid Angel, one of a kind. matthew Domination widener ear ache ( 19 9 4)
VOGG
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