One On One With The GRIM 1

Lately it seems like every day, another old school death metal band claws out of the underground with the ravenous intent of an undead horde. The latest band of this ilk is Chthonic Deity. These maniacs live up to the subterranean aspect of their name, and deliver a dank dose of death from the darkest depths of Colorado in their debut EP,  Assembled In Pain . This one is a decidedly primitive approach. The chainsaw guitars drip with a rich, wet tone, and it imparts a really slimy texture to the overall production. Assembled In Pain  boasts of a massive low end presence, with a rich distorted bass driving its ghoulish atmosphere. The guitar tones cuts through like the slimy tendrils of a Lovecraftian behemoth summoned from the underworld. The drum work rumbles with a combination of double bass kicks and thrash rhythms, a bit reminiscent of Chris Reifert's work in Autopsy. Blast beats are scarce, but they emphasize the bombardment like a drill to the d...

Fantasmi is the new album from cinematic horror project Dolore. This record plays like the soundtrack to a classic Argento film, with creeping bass lines and heavy synths to build a supernatural ambiance. Dolore mastermind G iorgio Trombino is a busy ghoul.  This Italian multi-instrumentalist also plays in death metal bands Haemophagus and Assumption, as well as the stoner rock band Elevators to The Grateful Sky. Even more impressively, all these projects have released new albums within the last three years. Fantasmi will be released on October 31 via Philadelphia's Horror Pain Gore Death Productions. I conducted this email interview with Giorgio Trombino on the topics of his new record, and the scary elements of music and film.  Congratulations on joining up with HPGD. What's on the horizon for you in the future? Thank you. Dark clouds are always gathering actually! I'm already working on a new concept and on some ideas for the third  Dolore  album...

Getting old is grim. How do you keep a scene alive when it physically hurts one to stay up past 11 on weeknights? Today, we feature a guest column on the topic from Jessie May, who plays in the bands Owl Maker and Turkey Vulture, and also runs the music site Alternative Control CT . How To Support Underground Bands When You're in Your Thirties and Don't Care Anymore By Jessie May As an underground musician and music enthusiast in my mid-thirties, I've come to a startling realization: most of my friends don't care about The Scene anymore. Even friends I used to be in bands with! They've found better things to do on the weekends than stand outside while three shitty bands play, just to hear one good one (or to pretend they like my band, or to perform with their/our band while other people go outside). And I can't blame them -- we all spent our twenties going to shows and pretending to like other people's bands, and after a decade-plus it gets tirin...

Louisville's most salacious shredders Stonecutters are back with a two-song EP, The Living Dead. You can listen to it here . This is a short and sweet follow-up to last year's Carved In Time, a stylistic smorgasbord of big arena rock guitar leads a  la Metallica and Slayer with the contemporary death metal brutality of Behemoth and Morbid Angel. The first song, The   Living Dead tears into the flesh with a chunky guitar groove in the pocket. It's got a more streamlined, hardcore sensibility than the non-stop noodling that characterized their previous release. The vocals are screechy and the drums kicks it into overdrive with a bombastic blast beat to keep things spicy. The second track "Outside The Presence Of God" shows hell hath no fury like a metalhead growing up in the bible belt. This one's got a more black metal edge with some spooky guitar melodies. The vocals here feature a more gutteral bellow, as the voices trade off growls and screeches in the sty...

Steve Tucker, photographed by Chris Casella  The innovators of death metal, Morbid Angel, will pulverize the United States with a month-long tour this November. I jumped at the opportunity to talk to their bassist and vocalist Steve Tucker on the phone, as he prepares to unleash hell on the road. (Edited for length)   HELL-O Steve! What do you think the most underrated Morbid Angel Song is? Oh man, you're talking about 30 years of making songs. You could ask 10 different people and they'd tell you 10 different songs. Personally, I've always dug "To The Victor The Spoils."  Yeah, that's a song I wrote. We played that on our last tour. I'd say "I." That song is really hypnotic. It kind of makes the crowd go into Zombie Mode when we play it live. What's your favorite horror movie? My all-time favorite horror film is Salem's Lot. That's always been. That movie is my life. The lighting in the film, the whole vibe is real m...

A few words on seeing Abbath and Obituary live at Union Transfer last night: They Slayed. I arrived to miss Philadelphia's own Devil Master cover the place in cob webs. However, I caught the end of Midnight's set, as they ripped through their mosh pit anthem "You Can't Stop Steel" and ended the night with "Unholy and Rotten." Then came the one and only Abbath, fresh off the release of his new Outstrider record (which I also reviewed a few months ago) . The original Grim and Frostbitten one endured a few technical difficulties with faulty monitors through the opening number "Count The Dead." A few songs later, and he swung off his black flying V, his body language apparent he was displeased with his instrument's performance. A stage crew member handed him another identical black flying V, and he was back in business.  "It works," he yelled as his replacement roared to life with distorted power chords. The Philadelphia mosh pit e...

The speed metal renaissance rages on with Sölicitör. These Seattle warriors shred a highly volatile combination of thrash metal with early eighties influences. Think about Testmanet's first two records if they were fronted by Doro Pesch. I highly recommend Sölicitör's self-titled EP for four tracks of metal thrashing madness. I also respect these heathens for their design sense. They selected the name " Sölicitör"  because a single word logo would stick out better on a tee shirt or CD in big, pointy letters, according to their press bio. Be on the look out for Sölicitör's debut full length coming via Gates Of Hell Records in 2020. Residents of Philadelphia can also witness Sölicitör at the Street Metal Massacre festival on Saturday, October 19 at the Ukie Club. Until then, below is an email interview I conducted with Amy Lee Carlson, vocalist of Sölicitör Hell-O Amy! I thoroughly enjoyed your new EP. What was the driving force behind?  Matt and I were awa...

Nightghöul is yet another one-man army hailing from the filthiest depths of Philadelphia. Their Dungeon Metal Ripper cassette is four tracks of grimy black metal, with punk speed and thrashy guitar leads. This tape echoes of past decades, when "black" "death" and "thrash" were interchangeable distinctions. Dungeon Metal Ripper  has parallels to the raw speed of early Bathory, with the D-beat rhythms of Celtic Frost and Sodom. Nightghöul spews his vocals with raspy anguish, reminiscent of Autopsy's Chris Reifert. Below is an email interview I conducted with the eponymous Nightghöul on his project. How would you describe  Nightghöul i n your own words? Being hammered off trash beer at 3am blasting Gehennah with plans to burn down the local police station. Total evil back alley rock n roll for true graveyard ghouls! Dungeon Metal Ripper by NIGHTGHÖUL How did    Nightghöul  come to be? One day I decided to start writing riffs in the style o...

Joel Grind photo by Chelsea Englizian Toxic Holocaust blasts back to the Primal Future  with their new album. It's a ferocious, NWOBHM-infused thrash record, following 2013's Chemistry Of Consciousness . It's also the return of Toxic Holocaust as a one-person project, centered around its multi-instrumental mastermind, Joel Grind. I recently spoke with Joel over the phone about his new album, sci-fi movies, and his mixing and mastering career  as a sound engineer.   Primal Future is your first album on the eOne label. How has it been to join forces with a new label? I don't want to do something just to realize a record where you're compromising the integrity of the band. eOne was really cool. They gave me full freedom to do whatever I wanted with the record. Once that was in place, it made sense to do another one. I also dig the new Leath ürbitc h   and Slashers albums that you mixed. Sounds killer! Thanks man! Both those guys are personal friends...

Back in 2015, I witnessed an especially spirited show in Philadelphia. Primitive Man, Hivelords, and a band called Opium Lord from the Birmingham, England. Opium Lord stole the night. Their guitars hit like a tidal wave of slime, accented by crunchy bass lines. They matched the dreary, nightmare passages with hardcore-style, aggressive vocals, similar to Napalm Death's Barney Greenway. Their vocalist even performed their last song without using his microphone, screaming every word at the top of his lungs. It was an incredibly intimate and intense concert experience. I made sure to grab their album The Calendrical Cycle  on the way out. And then, that was the last I heard from Opium Lord. Until now. Opium Lord have returned with a new album, Vore,  as well as a new label in Sludgelord Records. Read the interview below for more on their nearly five-year hiatus in production hell. As for the record, I'm pleased to report Vore  mostly follows in a similar vein a...