Friday, May 23, 2008

Friday Is a Good Day For Death Metal


Malevolent Creation - Retribution (1992)

As it turns out this whole week has been good for Death Metal. Actually, ever since hearing the new Arsis record and then finding the Cannabis Corpse record I have pretty much not listened to anything else (Well, some Sufjan Stevens oddly enough. I was listening to Suffocation and then Sufjan comes on and I swear, that dude is a tear jerker. One minute my head is being shredded into little digestible pieces of flesh and the next minute im listening to acoustic music and its hitting me hard. anyway)

So, here I am sitting on this immense album from Malevolent Creation which, along with Heartwork, Arsis and Cannibal and Cannabis Corpse and Converge has been my steady favorites for true misanthropy throughout the week. It is a little known fact that I spend most of my week making graphics for baby clothing. Yes, that is what this badass does for a paycheck. I draw little elephants surfing, monkeys playing guitars and the occasional giraffe driving in an off road vehicle. You get the picture. Its no wonder I listen to such fucked up viscerally disturbing tunes. There is a sort of reciprocity to the whole idea of making cute graphics for the newest beings on the planet whilst synonymously listening to music about being mutilated and ripping entrails from a virgins cunt.

Malevolent Creation get the plays because along with being brutally heavy and uncompromisingly grim they have a great vocalist and sick groove to their style. Now while a band like Converge or Immolation (or lets say Meshuggah too, for arguments sake) can pummel with razor sharp guitars and frantic atonal time distorting attacks there is something to be said about a riff. Its what your head latches onto long after a song is played. And while Malevolent Creation dont push the envelope in any direction they make up for this lack of artistic egotism by bluntly hitting you over the head with riff after luscious riff of downtuned palm muted guitars. They know how to use the Slayer arpeggio guitar strumming style so well known to the genre. Its when they hit a mid paced lurch that you just cant help but smile and think that this shit was made for floor punching. While Malevolent Creation cant claim to have invented this awesome breakdown they have certainly learned to use it with bludgeoning force and damn near every hardcore band with a breakdown has also realized the immense potential in making your listeners feel like they could stand up to god and karate chop him in half.

As an interesting side note Malevolent Creation was originally from Buffalo, home of the mid paced chug, before moving to Florida to be with their blackened brethren. They also have an adept grasp of the ubiquitous double bass drum. No death metal should be without it.

Enjoy.

----------------prologue

Its Friday, I had a busy week, hence no posts. This nice long weekend we have should prove fruitful in that regard. In the meantime, I have started a Last.fm account in part to put one of those little charts in my sidebar so people could see what my habits are, but also to learn more about my own listening habits. So, if you care, add me up, whatever the deal is, and have a great fucking weekend!

19 Comments:

Blogger papstar said...

I remember seeing this album around and at parties and shit, but never really listened to it...downloading it now to check out.

I added you on last.fm...forgot all about that site, didn't even have th software anymore! but my old account was still there, which is pretty cool.

12:41 AM  
Blogger sweet baby jaysus said...

various genres of metal have been possessing my soul as of late. the most recent discovery... fucking ninja metal. i haven't found a decent base of bands to make it a legitimate genre, but the boys of Dragon Force had a band called Shaddow Warriors who wrote songs about you know... ninja things, like fighting samurai, being invisible, swords, and throwing stars. pretty funny, not as dark as Viking Metal, and nowhere near enough keytars for Pirate Metal, but good nonetheless.
Sufjan huh? I have to admit a soft spot in my heart for the guy as well.Fun fact, his drummer James McCallister is one of my friends from Tulsa. i first met him when he was 14 (i was 16) and played drums for our dad's southern gospel group.
yeah that's right, i'm the son of a gospel singer, goddamn.
hope you're having a good weekend as well.
oh one last thing, the bassist of fingerprint/jasemine found my blog and dropped an information bomb.
apparently the boys of fingerprint have been discussing re-releasing their discography on vinyl sometime this year. he also mentioned he has a new band with the drummer of fingerprint/jasemine as well called Chere Castastrophe. you can check them out over at www.myspace.com/cherecatastropherocks

in one of their blog posts is a link to download their demo for free. totally worth checking out.
goddamn do i love the way the internet brings us all together.
yeah. awesome weekend to all of you as well.

1:07 AM  
Blogger gabbagabbahey said...

ahaha... cannabis corpse... thought that was a typo at first, but no, no it isn't. Your avid discussion of death metal leaves me feeling conflicted and confused inside. Does Stormtroopers of Death fit into this anywhere? I remember seeing the cover for 'Speak English or Die' in one of Dublin's dodgier records shops and having a similar reaction to what I'm having now, looking at that Malevolent Creation cover.

I'd worry that some subconcious distortions might work their way into your baby pictures:)

I used to have the last.fm widget, but I don't listen to music on my PC much anymore. And plus, it won't include what you play on a turntable! But I like the idea - I started a 'What I've been listening to' column on my blog last week, but it stalled for lack of effort.

- non-metal gabba

12:36 PM  
Blogger sweet baby jaysus said...

gabba- S.O.D. are NOT death metal...they were early 80's thrash hardcore featuring the one and only scott ian of Anthrax fame and superstar (in his own mind) Billy Milano.
two things to think about before diving in: 1)do you skate(board not inline)? 2.)have you ever thought about jumping through a plate glass window then eating the bloody broken glass wreckage?
if your answer to either of these questions were no, then you should probably just stay away. If not, gear yourself up for a full blown assault on the senses and hey, you get a discharge cover too!

"Life is just a one way ticket
Everyone must go around
Here's a bucket, go and kick it
Slit your wrists without a sound
When you go dont make a big deal
No dramatics, dont overplay
Cause don't you know that we'll all feel
Better once you've gone away
KILL YOURSELF, KILL YOURSELF
Why dont you kill yourself
Don't rely on no one else,
End it all, just kill yourself
KILL YOURSELF, KILL YOURSELF
Why dont you kill yourself
Don't rely on no one else,
End it all, just kill yourself
Now "

12:55 PM  
Blogger gabbagabbahey said...

sbj - no, no, and no thanks.

by the way, I know that S.O.D are the wrong sub-genre. I was just wondering how exclusive this little series was going to be... guess you just answered that question yourself ;)

1:04 PM  
Blogger sweet baby jaysus said...

i hope you didn't take that the wrong way. i definitely don't want you to kill yourself. Sometimes i find you can find the essence of a band in their lyrics, too bad for me i always thought Danzig (I & II:Lucifuge) was bad ass it wasn't until recently i started paying attention to his lyrics. i think a monkey could have written better lines.
"Faces of a million hells
Rage inside these veins
Pounding out desrved pain
To anyone in need
Am I beast or
Am I human
Am I just like you
Power seething
Really reeling
Reaching out for you
Am I demon
Need to know"

Really reeling.
alliterate bastard.

1:20 PM  
Blogger luciferyellow said...

The big difference between S.O.D. and Danzig (ugh, makes me shudder to even mention the two in the same sentence...) is that S.O.D. always was meant to be ironic and purposefully over the top, while Danzig, well, he was just over the top. I love the Misfits, but Danzig was just a poseur lacking any of the fun and irony of that band. S.O.D. on the other hand, they don't bite, they just want to play...
From "MILK":
Woke up, can't wait to eat
Got my cereal, boy was I beat
Opened the fridge, and to my dismay
There was no milk, my mother will pay
[CHORUS]
I want some milk, my coffee grows cold
I want some milk, I should've been told...

2:27 PM  
Blogger papstar said...

If one Mr. Glenn Danzig reads this, you are all in for it.

I seriously loved danzig 1-3....I was young..I just recently pulled them back out and I still like them, they had there time and place. That damn voice just gets me...I never really liked the man much though.

oh and I think we all have "really reeled".


I think back and maybe all that underlying meaning I put into "twist of cain" was kinda uncalled for:P

2:57 PM  
Blogger An Attitude Exhumed said...

At a ripe 16 years old in 1992 when this record dropped, I used to sneak into my garage to smoke cigarettes behind my parents back. While in the garage, I had this tape in my boombox and would blare it while puffing my stolen pack of my Dad's Benson & Hedges. Ahhh... memories!

9:39 PM  
Blogger Jeff Chord said...

My sisters older weird/metal boyfriend used to listen to this record constantly when giving me rides to my AP physics after school class....
Years later he's a biochemist, I'm a college dropout and I'm the one listening to this record. This record has the ability to ruin/make lives aparently.

12:16 AM  
Blogger sweet baby jaysus said...

hooray for metal!!!

12:40 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

hmmm. i have mixed feelings of metal. especially when it begins with death.

2:45 AM  
Blogger sweet baby jaysus said...

hey tim, totally not metal in the slightest, but i was just asked to do merch for the upcoming midwest mates of state tour. looks like i will be flying into new york to pick up a van and will be returning it there after the tour. don't know what the time frame is going to be like, but if it works out, we totally need to kick it.

11:41 PM  
Blogger blend77 said...

hey, i love the stories this metal is bringing out. perfect! ^_^

@ jay, this is good stuff. you will have to keep me posted. I will be around all summer.

10:11 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

well written and well said... as always!
cheers Blend!

2:49 PM  
Blogger An Attitude Exhumed said...

For fans of Malevolent Creation, check out their vocalist, Bret Hoffman's other band — DOWN THE DRAIN.

11:51 AM  
Blogger gabbagabbahey said...

forgive me for being seditious, but fans of Zen and the Art of Face Punching totally need to drop this death metal stuff and check this out: http://www.avclub.com/content/blog/vinyl_retentive_the_locust_arab_on
[Locust/Arab on Radar split 7"]

(on the basis that this, here, was the site the site that introduced me to Buckets Full of Teeth - the most violent music I actually regularly listen to)

if you play the two audio streams and two videos all at once, you reach some kind of transcendental grindcore state.

plus the actual vinyl's very wacky.

convinced yet?

4:03 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

In my opinion this is the best death metal album ever. Love it. The riffs, the songwriting, the production... it's just an absolutely stellar album. So much better than everything else the band released. I saw them live years after the fact and fucking "Coronation of Our Domain" still made me want to tear the place apart. Without a doubt one of the most crushing death metal breakdowns in the history of mankind.

7:14 AM  
Blogger blend77 said...

i think one of the reasons i love this album is because its breakdown after meaty breakdown of double bass drum chug...

1:12 PM  

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