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What makes NAPALM DEATH so special? Well, let’s think back 30 years: Would you have thought that a grindcore band from Birmingham would ever make it into the official album charts with some of the most infernal noise ever put on tape, enter the Guinness book for the shortest song ever recorded or appear in a prominent UK TV series named “Skins”? That it would be part of an Alice Cooper hosted episode of BBC’s Never Mind the Buzzcocks to guess from a couple of look-alikes who is the singer in NAPALM DEATH? Could you have ever imagined a down-to-earth lad named Mark “Barney” Greenway, a soccer fan (Aston Villa F.C.), vegetarian, prog metal freak and one of music history’s most renowned representatives of “cookie monster” style vocals would become a personality within the extreme music realm that is not about beer-drinking and hell-raising but synonymous with sounding hard while being smart? Well, that is where we are at now. From filthy, sweaty rehearsal rooms and tiny clubs and pubs NAPALM DEATH has conquered every music festival you can think of and toured through corners of the world a lot of bands would not even dare to tour while becoming famous for combining brutal music with political engagement and ethical values beyond the usual cliché of sex, drugs & rock n roll. And, as most fans will be delighted to hear, this remarkable story is far from being over…

Fourteen albums in (not counting the cover-platter “Leaders…Part 2”) three decades and NAPALM DEATH remain the leaders of the grindcore / death metal world, once again showing the upstarts how it’s done. Not content to simply wear the term “legendary,” the band has once again raised the bar on what it takes to remain at the top of the heap with its highly anticipated new album “Utilitarian”. While their past roster reads like a who’s who of extreme metal royalty, including Lee Dorrian (Cathedral), Bill Steer (Carcass), Justin Broadrick (Godflesh) and the late Jesse Pintado (Terrorizer) to name a few, it’s the current line-up of Mark “Barney” Greenway (vocals), Mitch Harris (guitars), Shane Embury (bass), and Danny Herrera (drums) that has kept the legend alive and seething. “Utilitarian” is the follow-up to the band’s much lauded 2009 album, “Time Waits For No Slave”, and sees the quartet return in expected raw and uncompromising fashion.

In the wake of a gruelling international tour schedule for “Time Waits For No Slave”, NAPALM DEATH finally got down to writing for “Utilitarian” in early 2011. It was recorded over the course of the year at Parlour Studios in Northamptonshire, UK with producer Russ Russell monitoring the mayhem, finally mixed and mastered in November. The end result is vicious and chaotic, but Greenway notes that “the ever-present darker, more ambient side of Napalm (references: Swans, My Bloody Valentine, Birthday Party et al) has now gotten faster, too – or at least the tempo of it varies so it’s not just exclusively slow and mournful. This gives it an extra, obtuse dimension. And hopefully people get lost in the frantic thickness of it.”
“Utilitarian” runs the gamut from straight-ahead violence and force to pure, undiluted NAPALM DEATH-induced chaos that overall provides a well-rounded bloodletting that’s not for the weak and also confronts the listener with such surprising moments as the sax passages by none other than John Zorn on ‘Everyday Pox’ or choral-like clean sections in ‘Fall On Their Swords’ or ‘Blank Look About Face’. The latter is a perfect bridge to the album’s outspoken lyrical content as it viciously attacks politicians’ opportunistic talk that according to Greenway only knows one goal: “Say anything to tame a crowd – whether it is sycophantic praise, bullshit morality or rabble-rousing power-speak – as long as they can cling on to their place in the hierarchy.”
True to the band’s tradition of spitting gallons of verbal venom, “Utilitarian” is an in-your-face razor-edged platter of social, cultural and political commentary. Far from being a placard-waving “cause” band, the quartet offer up personal views on the degeneration of society (‘Everyday Pox’), the arms trade (‘Fall On Their Swords’), sexual and gender expression (‘Gag Reflex’), the environment (‘Order Of Magnitude’) and aspects of everyday life for the common man (‘Collision Course’, ‘Think Tank Trials’) revealing Barney’s understanding of what to do with your life: “We have a finite period of existence that is all too easy to waste, and ultimately we all deserve happiness and contentment.” The bottom line is: Think for yourself, liberate yourself and don’t end up feeding the machine that all too willingly eats you up.

Ultimately, NAPALM DEATH are special because they never sacrificed their ideals for anything mundane, will continue pleasing their fans with a stunning record named “Utilitarian” and ceaseless touring activities in support of its release while provoking world leaders with all the rage and criticism you can squeeze into a song. Extreme music’s raised fist is back!

Belgian export Aborted are just as happy telling wet fart jokes as they are purveying some of the finest death metal on the continent. Over the course of the group’s 20-plus career, they’ve transformed—via tongue-through-cheek and gross-out histrionics—from minor curio to the Powerhouse from Flanders. The ascent through death metal’s maggot-infested, disease-ridden ranks didn’t come easy, however. Starting with 2003’s stab-to-the-face Goremageddon: The Saw and the Carnage Done, Aborted crawled through some of the most disgusting sewers, serviced some of the wickedest human waste plants, and cleaned up Europe’s most brutal crime scenes. From there, it’s been nothing but golden showers and true reverence (by fan and peer alike) across six agonizingly good full-lengths. But Aborted aren’t that funny. They are, however, sickly serious and positively savage.

“We take everything we do very serious, even our shitty ass jokes,” says founding member and frontman Sven ‘Svencho’ de Caluwé. “In all honesty, we take everything music related, performance and show related extremely serious, when it comes to imagery it’s more about being who we are, which is, a bunch of nerds playing music we love and enjoying it, and it shows from stage banter to our merchandise and visual style. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t well thought out.”

Brawn over brains—or gurgling guts over smart-ass smarts—has been Aborted’s musical motto since they plunged out of death metal’s womb with aplomb. Early demos The Splat Pack and The Necrotorous Chronicles proved they were super-keen on cleaning up Repulsion’s coffin maggots and Autopsy’s charred remains to think (hard) beyond the dilapidated funeral home they called a hovel for the better part of their existence. The follow-up to 2016 face-smash, Retrogore, is the harrowingly named TerrorVision. But it’s not just the title that’s impressive. On TerrorVision, Aborted rivet death metal to the proverbial prep table. Some of the sickest riffs, sleaziest—OK, sexiest—grooves, and most insane blasts in Aborted’s history can be found nestled inside TerrorVision’s terribly formidable suite of songs. Aborted’s girth…er, growth is noticeable.

“Sort of like saying the penis gel we bought a while ago is finally paying off and that nice girth is setting in,” Svencho says. “I think we can attribute it to the fact that we have done some very restrictive touring for Retrogore. Meaning to that we were very picky about tours and did some more high-profile stuff with a very clear focus of what we want to do. We were also very conscious that Retrogore was just one step into evolving our sound more. We took advantage of the time we had at home to write, write and rewrite as much as we could to get to the best result. So, definitely a lot of time and effort and detail work went into TerrorVision.”

Terrorvision isn’t just the follow-up to Retrogore either. Written over a year and a half with producer Kristian ‘Kohle’ Kohlmannslehner, Aborted’s 10th full-length advances on Retrogore’s devilish descant by raising the stakes substantially. Quality over quantity. Songs like “Farewell to the Flesh,” “Squalor Opera,” “Verspertine Decay,” and the title track are Aborted on fire, inspired by their own wickedness and informed by the nasty doings of others. There may be no finer death metal record in 2018 than TerrorVision.

“We wanted to keep the intensity, brutality and atmosphere we already set with the band,” says Svencho. “So, it’s in line with that, but we wanted to add this new dimension to it, as well as much more diversity and catchy vocal choruses, if there even is such a thing in death metal. Honestly, we are all very proud about all the songs on the record and the ones that didn’t make it on there. [They’ll] get released later on. “Vespertine Decay,” “Exquisite Covinous Drama, “Visceral Despondency” and the title track are some of my favorites.”

The lyrics for TerrorVision diverge from Retrogore and its predecessors. Instead of taking Fulci-driven fantasies and Argento-inflected aspirates to their next logical conclusion, Svencho switched it up, opting to use ‘80s horror movies as a lens into what’s happening in the world today. Beastly disguised behind putrescent prose, tracks like “Visceral Despondency,” “A Whore d’Oeuvre Macabre,” and “The Final Absolution” are heavy in their observation and meaningful in their conveyance.

“This record is quite different from any we have done before,” Svencho says. “It is, more or less, about what is going on with the world right now, all in Aborted sauce obviously. There is a deeper meaning, layered thoughts in there, more so than before. Think of TerrorVision as if it were an ‘80s horror movie talking about how the media in general is some sort of evil, demonic presence that is manipulating the opinion of the masses by spreading hate, fear, bigotry, terror, racism and all those fun things that make humans the most terrible thing to have ever happened to this planet. So, there is quite some stuff going on there that is not just the typical gore lyrics.”

TerrorVision’s drums and vocals were recorded by Kohlmannslehner at Kohlekeller Studios in Seeheim-Jugenheim, Germany over a two-and-a-half-week period, while the guitars and bass were recorded by guitarists Mendel bij de Leij and Ian Jekelis at Aborted’s home studio in Heerenveen, Netherlands. Kohlmannslehner then assembled the recorded carnal chanteys to mix and master. The result is massively massive and harmoniously heavy. Helps too that this is Kohlmannslehner’s third Aborted project.

“Kohlmannslehner has been doing every release for us after The Necrotic Manifesto,” says Svencho. “He’s close to the band, he knows what we want, and he is very opinionated, which we were not used to at first! But it’s good because he is very invested in the project and from early on he was adding his thoughts on structures or riffs, he composed some of the interlude/samples/keys that are on the record, so he definitely was part of the team from start to finish on this record. He’s a very driven and creative mind to work with.”

Aborted needed a brazen cover to coincide with their next-level death metal beat down on TerrorVision, so they hired Swedish artist Pär Olofsson to conjure up a gore-soaked version of Bladerunner. The inside panels were done by returning Aborted artist and collaborator, Coki Greenway, who’s done work for Nuclear Assault, Devourment, Machine Head, and more. In the end, the cover to TerrorVision is horrifying to look at let alone imagine. It’s the sum of all our fears in unrecognizable monster form.

“We were extremely pleased with the cover for Retrogore and we were not going to settle for less, so we decided to hire Pär for this one,” Svencho says. “After a couple of emails about the concept and one or two drafts from his side he came up with the cover art. We had a couple fixes to it which were honestly minor. He really knocked it out of the park in no time and exactly brought to the table we wanted. The colors are quite unique and unsettling (green and red is a terrible visual combo, for nightmares really, on the psyche) so it just worked. We were blown away and he was definitely the right choice.”

Aborted are: Sven ‘Svencho’ de Caluwé (vocals), Ken Bedene (drums), Mendel bij de Leij (guitars), Ian Jekelis (guitars) and Stefano Franceschini (basses). They want you to listen to…no, worship TerrorVision. Just don’t expect Aborted to clean up the mess you make thereafter. They’re still on clean up duty. Boy, Repulsion and Autopsy made a real mess all those years ago.

There’s a line from Mike Hill’s audiobook/tour diary of Anodyne’s 2004 European tour in which the gravel-throated frontman affirms, “I will always outwork you.” In that case, Hill was referring to an incident in Germany early on during a six-week long overseas jaunt with his previous band. In actuality, however, he could have been talking about any instance between when he first picked up a guitar as a teen and the present. Whether it’s his history dating back to previous bands Otis, Anodyne, King Generator or Versoma, his ongoing solo work in Vasilek, the more recent Scorpion Throne project or his twelve year-long reign as the driving force and nerve center of post-black metal institution Tombs, hard work is second nature and nothing will keep the guitarist/vocalist from creative endeavour and expression. And it’s not just music in which his propulsive work ethic has gleaned results: Hill also is the CEO and roast master at Savage Gold Coffee (a labelling nod to Tombs’ 2014 album of the same name), the host/producer/creator of the Everything Went Black podcast, host and producer of Gimme Radio’s Metal Matters flagship podcast, the creator and co-host of horror podcast Necromaniacs as well as a stalwart in the print and online journalism world covering music and MMA fighting. His is, has been and always will be a life steeped in dedication and with unassailable drive in the cross hairs, and 2020 sees Hill shining the spotlight of focus on his first love: Tombs. Giving in to his innate determination and ongoing tenacity, Tombs has emerged with the next chapter in the band’s impressive catalog and growing legacy, Monarchy of Shadows.
“The week Versoma broke up in 2007, I started Tombs,” he says, recalling how, characteristically, the band started before any dust was permitted to settle. “The initial rehearsals ended up being the bulk of material that showed up on the first [self-titled] EP. The intent from the beginning was to get back to playing music I wanted to hear and to not be so concerned with genre or satisfying anyone else’s desires. It was to do music on a personal level and be a reflection of the darkness I’ve felt throughout my life.”
Formed in the gritty corners of pre-gentrified Brooklyn, NY, Tombs’ early mandate was steeped in the harshness and atonality of black metal but dosed with trace amounts of the varied influences and inspirations ingrained in Hill’s musical muscle memory by previous bands.
“The canon of music Tombs has created has spanned several different genres, but I’ve always had it my intent for there to always be a certain amount of violence and hardness lurking the background.”
Those early years delivered splits and singles, the highly revered Winter Hours debut in 2009 and Decibel’s 2011 Album of the Year, Path of Totality. Never one to sit still, Path of Totality was followed by appreciable and impressive amounts of touring in accordance with the lauding afforded by critics and fans and the braying of foes, which only served as fuel for Hill’s perseverance. Savage Gold came three years later after which a restless Hill began nudging Tombs’ black metal base into territories populated by gothic and death rock artists like Fields of the Nephilim and Sisters of Mercy as well as avant-garde purveyors Caspar Brotzmann and Live Skull while never forgetting – or being able to – scrape the grime of NYC from under his fingernails. The addition of a second guitar and live keyboards/samples brought a fuller sound and allowed noise sequences and soundscapes to be brought to the live show. It was around the time of 2016 All Empires Fall EP that Tombs punctuated its iconoclastic spirit and thought process. Despite then-being part of the Relapse Records family, the band struck out with the intent of self-releasing the EP in order to retain as much independence as contractual obligations would allow – retaining the digital and publishing rights while eventually licensing the record back to Relapse. A one album stint in 2017 under the Metal Blade banner birthed The Grand Annihilation into the world where Tombs took broader and more daring steps into buffering black metal with morose melody, sullen death rock and classic Metallica chugging.
“I’ve never thought too far ahead about any of those changes,” ponders Hill. “When I meet people or hear new sounds, I think about how they might fit into the ideology of the band, what they’d bring and what they’re role might play in the band.”
For Monarchy of Shadows, Hill has been joined by 3/4ths of New Jersey death metal crew Kalopsia – drummer Justin Spaeth, guitarist Matt Medeiros and bassist Drew Murphy – for a further twisting of black metal’s DNA around dank emotional corners, psychological turmoil and the urban underbelly.
“If it were up to me I’d have unlimited numbers of people in the band; strings, keyboards, three guitar players and so on, but that can’t happen. However, for the first time in the history of Tombs there has been a collaboration between band members. It’s not just me writing everything. It’s a big difference from The Grand Annihilation which was basically a solo record.”
The title track commences with an elegant, studded glove to the chops as guitars scream and wail in rapid fire agony with corpse paint doused in your favourite flammable liquid and ignited by tensile tremolo picking. All this before a denouement wrapped in post-punk forays, elegiac crawls and spine tingling vocals.
“That’s my favourite track on the record!” he exclaims. “I think it really flexes all the muscles and demonstrates everything we can do. There’s fast drumming, black metal riffing, a Celtic Frost beatdown in there, there are synthesizers and electronics and a death rock thing at the end. It’s a thumbnail of what the band is about.”
The riffing in “Once Fall the Guillotine” rips like an icy pick axe through complacency and orthodoxy before a melodic excursion that’s equal parts face planting off a sticky bar room floor and a liberating soaring through chilled mountain air, while “Necro Alchemy” blazes with a neck-snapping ferocity and anthemic charm.
As Monarchy of Shadows continues, it becomes evident that Tombs is bristling with a combination of ages-old anger and newfound energy. “Man Behind the Sun” included obvious nods to Andrew Eldritch and Carl McCoy in its closing sections, while “Dark Rift” is awash with ambitious hanging chords and keyboard swells with those detours, as inspiring as they are, being understated, insidious and never detracting from the band’s blackened, monolithic mission.
“That one is very much a collaborative track,” Hill says of the latter piece. “Justin wrote the first half, guitar parts and all, and I wrote the second half and lyrics then everyone layered in their own interesting parts that added a lot of dimension and atmosphere to the song.”
After spending his entire adult life navigating the pitfalls and pratfalls of the industry for expressive and creative opportunity, Hill has amassed an impressive legacy, one that Monarchy of Shadows contributes to admirably. With his status as underground lifer and veteran, one might expect Hill to approach another new lineup and, in Season of Mist, another new record label with a cautious, if not irascibly jaded shoulder shrug. However, there’s a palpable excitement in his voice when he talks about the future; his view being that of Tombs heading towards a bright horizon with all the necessary components in place and all guns firing.
“I’m playing with excellent players who are on the same creative page and have introduced elements that weren’t obvious to me which ended up expanding the band’s sound. I feel like the music and this incarnation of the band is a lot more powerful because there’s a personal investment from all the members. We have a label behind us that understands what we’re about aesthetically and is used to working with bands like ours. There’s a new, more thoughtful and collaborative approach to song writing and I feel that this EP is the strongest record of the band’s history. It’s another growth period for Tombs.”
– Kevin Stewart-Panko

South Carolina’s only grind band, WVRM, are preparing to release Colony Collapse , their debut
release under the Prosthetic Records banner.
An uncompromising collection of 14 short, sharp shocks, Colony Collapse is a product of its
surroundings, an anthology of its environment, and a detailed record of the lives of the people
who made it. Over the course of their preceding three splits, four EPs and two full lengths,
WVRM have experimented with pushing their personal and musical boundaries; Colony
Collapse captures the evolution of their sound and politics in one relentless and violent release.
Far from being a leading light in a burgeoning local scene, WVRM are the only light in a
miniscule scene in Greenville, South Carolina. Whilst the city is also home to death metal
stalwarts, Nile, there is no flourishing hotbed of musical activity to be found. This creative
isolation is just one of the driving forces behind the forceful aggression of WVRM.
WVRM’s music is political in nature, but far from a broad rage against the machine, their lyrics
take a micro-look at the effects of socio-political entrenchment on everyday lives. Proudly
working class, they explore both the psychological and physical meaning of being so. WVRM
trace the lineage of their ancestral progress, and what it means to participate in a community
that lacks upward momentum.
Recording between April and August 2019 with the band’s own guitarist, Derick, in the
producer’s chair, the band felt free to experiment. They made use of noise pedals, violin, a
Chinese prayer bowl, cello and Tibetan prayer bells alongside their more traditional
instruments. The resulting cacophony is a more textured kind of grind than is the norm.
Stating that their music sounds as it does – nihilistic, vicious, caustic – because of where they’re
from, because of who they are – WVRM are striking out to redefine what extreme music from
South Carolina can be. Whilst there’s no doubting that they are definitively a grind band,
WVRM take inspiration from the development of a rich variety of ever-evolving sounds coming
out of the Southern states over the past several decades; traces of a sludge-doom sound echo
through the album, as it has done in previous releases.
The artwork depicts a bee crawling over a human skull, created by a local artist by Wes Brooks.
The image represents the titular colony collapse – a phenomenon that occurs when worker bees
leave behind the queen bee and collapse the colony. Imbued in the one image are multiple
concepts including the extinction of humankind, as well as the idea of workers taking control of
the life and death of society.
Colony Collapse is WVRM at their abrasive, vitriolic best.