Eviscerate - Beneath Dying Skies EP

Latest news and Actual I've been threatening WFH about posting this old record of his for almost a year now, so now that I have some halfway decent album scans, it's finally going up. First off, I can almost guarantee you that you've never heard this before, mainly because Evisceratewas one of the most overlooked and underrated bands in the New England metal scene. Comprised of future members of The Red Chord, There Were Wires, Hivesmasher, and The Sun Came Up Upon the Left, Eviscerate played a somewhat technical style of blackened death metal, recalling elements of Emperor andDissection, but with a decidedly beefier, more death metal approach. You have epic build-ups, coarse guttural vocals trading off with blackened rasps, and even some acoustic instrumentation hidden within. Although the material could have benefitted from a stronger production/mastering job, it still packs a hell of a punch, even a decade later. And! If you are lucky enough to ever get your hands on a copy of the digipack (doubtful), it's even die-cut by hand, which I'm sure was absolutely excruciating for everyone involved. 


Eviscerate - Beneath Dying Skies EP
Aside from what I assume is a long-lost demo (WHF? A little help?), I'm fairly certain that the four-song Beneath Dying SkiesEP is the only recorded proof of their entire existence. Extremely unfortunate, considering the potential contained within, but we'll take what we can get. I think a huge part of their lack of exposure was the fact that they played shows fairly infrequently, and when they did, they usually wound up playing with lots of hardcore/punk bands, whose crowds simply didn't know what to make of four dudes in corpsepaint playing a thousand times faster than everyone else on the bill. You also have to understand that everyone in New England was in love with shitty bands likeDiecast and Chimaira at the time, so epic blackened death metal wasn't really the flavor of the day. WFH and the boys definitely weren't wearing enough basketball jerseys or stomping enough fools to win over that particular crowd. 

Compounding their obscurity was the fact that this EP was released on a very small upstart label called Revolutionary Audio, a politically-motivated one-man operation whose releases were geared towards benefitting the Columbia Support Network, which is, you know...maybe not the best way to get the average death metal fan's attention? Maybe if Moribund Records had picked it up way back when and sold Eviscerate's soul to sweet lord Lucifer, there might have been a lot more exposure for them to work with. But you can't change the past, no matter how much more Eviscerate deserve to play huge international tours thanKillswitch Engage or whoever the fuck do. But I guess if nothing else, Beneath Dying Skies is an excellent (if completely under-appreciated) little artifact from way back when, and always will be.

Tracklist:
1. Questioning the Mage 
2. Seven 
3. Lunas Eternas 
4. Season of the Harvest

Coffin Dust - Ancient Rites of Buried Evil EP

Listen guys, I need you to send me more stuff like Coffin Dust'sAncient Rites of Buried Evil EP. I very much enjoy ripping crossover death metal from Philadelphia, PA, particularly when it has tons of catchy hooks, deep burbly vocals, and a meaty production job. Picture, if you will, a slightly less splattery take on the efforts of bands like GhoulExhumed, and Impaled, with a willingness to snap into thrashy breaks or skull-crushing grooves at the drop of a hat. Basically, if it sounds like it could have been released on Razorback Records back in the mid-2000's, I'm pretty much totally down with it.

It's incredibly rare that I actually want to hear MORE from some new band that I've never heard of, but I'm already chomping at the bit for a full length. Check em' out via bandcamp or mediafire or whatever. 

Tracklist:
1. March of the Machete Militia 
2. The Carving 
3. Out of My Skull 
4. Batphomet 
5. Desecration and Butchery Through Hatred