Metal Tape 147 Items

In cooperation with Metal Blade, Subsounds Records has announced an exclusive, limited Tape edition of the upcoming Cannibal Corpse album. The album title already tells you everything you need to know about Cannibal Corpse's fifteenth hellish opus. Comprised of eleven brutal tracks, Violence Unimagined is state of the art death metal played with passion and breathless precision, making for another flawless addition to what is inarguably one of the premier catalogues the genre has thrown up. “It really follows the path we’ve been going down for a few years now,” states bassist and founding member Alex Webster. “I think we approach the writing in a similar way most every time: each of us try to write the heaviest, most memorable songs we can. We want each song to have its own identifiable character. Showing my age, I like to say you can ‘drop the needle’ on any point of one of our albums and quickly tell which song you’re listening to.” While they continue to do what they do with aplomb, the one substantial change to Cannibal Corpse is the addition of guitarist Erik Rutan to their ranks, joining Webster, founding drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz, guitarist Rob Barrett and vocalist George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher. Known for his roles in Morbid Angel, Ripping Corpse and most notably fronting the mighty Hate Eternal, Rutan has long established himself as one of the most dynamic forces in contemporary death metal. Simultaneously, he has built up a reputation as one of the most in demand producers in metal, having previously produced four Cannibal Corpse albums (in addition to Violence Unimagined), alongside the likes of Goatwhore, Soilent Green and Belphegor. Filling in live on guitar since 2019, in 2020 he became a full member, contributing to the writing process. Already well known for the level of extreme technicality they bring to every record, on Violence Unimagined, Cannibal Corpse have further upped their game, particularly in Mazurkiewicz’s drumming. “I think we all pushed ourselves a bit technically on this one, with Paul probably pushing the hardest. This album is probably the most drum-intense album we’ve done yet. Part of that could be a result of Erik joining the band. His song writing style often features technically challenging drumming, probably owing to his years of experience in high speed death metal.” And with typically dark and warped lyrical content, Mazurkiewicz came up with the fitting title of the record, “summing up what the band is about in every facet, and taking violence to another level of extremity.”

There’s a sick irony to how a country that extols rhetoric of individual freedom, in the same gasp, has no problem commodifying human life as if it were meat to feed the insatiable hunger of capitalism. If this is American nihilism taken to its absolute zenith, then God’s Country, the first full length record from Oklahoma City noise rock quartet Chat Pile is the aural embodiment of such a concept.

Having lived alongside the heaps of toxic refuse that the band derives its name from, the fatalism of daily life in the American Midwest permeates throughout the works of Chat Pile, and especially so on its debut album. Exasperated by the pandemic, the hopelessness of climate change, the cattle shoot of global capitalism, and fueled by “...lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of THC,” God’s Country is as much of an acknowledgement of the Earth’s most assured demise as it is a snarling violent act of defiance against it. Within its over forty minute runtime, the album displays both Chat Pile’s most aggressively unhinged and contemplatively nuanced moments to date, drawing from its preceding two EPs and its score for the 2021 film, Tenkiller. In the band’s own words, the album is, at its heart, “Oklahoma’s specific brand of misery.” A misery intent on taking all down with it and its cacophonous chaos on its own terms as opposed to idly accepting its otherwise assured fall. This is what the end of the world sounds like.

Released only a handful of months following the band’s breakthrough debut EP, Remove Your Skin Please signaled that whatever Chat Pile was doing wasn't just a one-off novelty of Midwest metal nihilism. While the band’s foundational sound of caustic and cacophonous noise rock crystallized with its debut, the release of Remove Your Skin Please signposted the vast extent to which Chat Pile could stylistically tinker and conceptually iterate atop it. Heard in the gothy post-punk dirge of “Mask” and the dissonant extreme metal fervor of “Davis'', the more experimental ideas present on Remove Your Skin Please come off less like a selection of the band’s conceptual prototypes and more like fully realized reflections of its member's own tastes and preferences. That doesn’t mean Chat Pile’s noise rock foundation is diluted in the slightest as EP bookends “Dallas Beltway” and “Garbage Man” push its twisted take on the genre to new aural extremes in its instrumentation and subject matter spanning grisly serial murders to the slow festering death of the environment at the hands of mankind. For as ugly and unhinged as Chat Pile’s tales of 21st-century American dread are, Remove Your Skin Please asserts something that is somehow subtly even more terrifying: If a quartet of otherwise ordinary Okies can convey such apocalyptically bleak yet resonate messages in its music, that may mean we feel that same nihilism, too.

In the summer of 2019, a newly formed, Oklahoma City-based rock band called Chat Pile would release its debut four-track EP, This Dungeon Earth. Little did anyone know at the time, but this initial taste of grotesque, confronting, and visceral noise rock courtesy of four slacker Okies would kick off the story of what would soon be one of the most widely lauded underground acts in years. Like the towering mounds of toxic waste from which it gets its namesake, Chat Pile’s body of work is emblematic of a distinctly midwestern flavor of American dread, with This Dungeon Earth being no exception to the rule. While raw in presentation, Chat Pile’s debut EP comes across as anything but a rough draft. Much of the band’s hallmark traits, spanning the unhinged vocals of frontman Raygun Busch, the grotesquely contorted guitar riffage, and the industrial smack of heavily processed percussion, appear as far back as this earliest chapter. If anything, the raw, DIY-rooted origins of these uncompromising thirteen minutes of sludged-out carnage make This Dungeon Earth all the more impactful. Between its biting social commentary and gratuitous grindhouse insanity, the unfiltered brutality of Chat Pile’s debut recording has seen tracks like “Rainbow Meat”, “Face”, and “Ratboy” become mainstays in its notorious live shows. Although it depicts the band’s monstrous amalgamation of noise rock, sludge metal, hardcore, and more as it is just beginning to congeal, This Dungeon Earth comes off as the furthest thing from a simple intro and more of an essential first chapter in Chat Pile’s story.

The crown jewel of Finnish Death Metal, reissued in a band-approved new 30th anniversary edition. Features a new vinyl master from the original source by Noise for Fiction, plus a booklet with a lengthy feature by Hippo Taatila and some visual memorabilia. As an added vinyl bonus there's a large poster by the original cover artist Rob Smits creating a new vision of the album cover for the new millennium.

Together with bands like Demilich, Abhorrence, Disgrace, Xysma and Sentenced, Demigod from the wastelands of Loimaa, southern Finland, put Finland on the map in the global death metal scene in the late 80's and early 90's. Having risen to underground fame with their demo Unholy Domain, Slumber of Sullen Eyes was a hugely expected debut album. When it was finally released in 1992 after a complicated creation process at Tico-Tico Studios in northern Finland, it was received with open arms and drooling excitement by the then very active underground death metal scene.

That scene was, however, short lived,and by 1994 pretty much every band had switched from death metal to something else entirely. What was left after the bands had left the building was a number of classic albums that constitute the legacy of Finnish Death Metal. Among them, Slumber of Sullen Eyes is one of the most original and ferocious. There was nobody like Demigod.

Svart Records are proud to reissue this remarkable and quite hard to find album on CD, vinyl and tape.

D-beat defenders Disfear strike back with its full-length Live The Storm. The legendary Swedes, led by Tomas Lindberg's infamous vocal howl, power through 10 burners with new-found ferocity and intensity captured by engineer Kurt Ballou (converge, Coliseum, Doomriders, Animosity). As "Get It Off", "The Furnace", "Deadweight" and their ilk prove, Disfear are the undisputed kings of crust-core.

The Scandinavian hardcore assault of Disfear utilizes blistering distortion, nihilistic rage and a scorching metallic powerload to bleed the Earth and burn its skies. On Misanthropic Generation, detonating power chords collide with raging rhythms, while the merciless vocals of Tomas Lindberg (At the Gates) explode through the heart of the band's sonic architecture.

Svart Records presents a legitimate tape reissue of this cult Finnish death metal demo tape from 1990 in a facsimile edition limited to 200 copies.

Founded 1988 in Stockholm/Sweden, Dismember were among those responsible for Death Metal's big break through. The debut album, Like An Ever Flowing Stream from 1991, clearly showed that Dismember are an uncompromising band which resulted in their rise to cult status and within a short period of time the album took the scene by storm. Extensive touring with bands like Death, Morbid Angel and Cannibal Corpse showed that Dismember are a live force to be reckoned with and the number of fans grew steadily. Tracks one through three are from Dismembered (1988), four through six are Last Blasphemies (1989), and seven through nine are Reborn In Blasphemy (1990).

Founded 1988 in Stockholm/Sweden, Dismember were among those responsible for Death Metal's big break through. The debut album, Like An Ever Flowing Stream from 1991, clearly showed that Dismember are an uncompromising band which resulted in their rise to cult status and within a short period of time the album took the scene by storm. Extensive touring with bands like Death, Morbid Angel and Cannibal Corpse showed that Dismember are a live force to be reckoned with and the number of fans grew steadily. The band then released the 5-track EP, "Pieces", and went out on tour again instead with Napalm Death and Obituary. They played for thousands of fans throughout Europe thus reinforcing their status as one of the best live bands on earth. Like many of the other Scandinavian death metal bands, Dismember began softening their sound in the mid-1990s, with 1995's Massive Killing Capacity having more melodic approaches. Nevertheless, they attempted a return to style with 1997's Death Metal.

Founded 1988 in Stockholm/Sweden, Dismember were among those responsible for Death Metal's big break through. The debut album, Like An Ever Flowing Stream from 1991, clearly showed that Dismember are an uncompromising band which resulted in their rise to cult status and within a short period of time the album took the scene by storm. Extensive touring with bands like Death, Morbid Angel and Cannibal Corpse showed that Dismember are a live force to be reckoned with and the number of fans grew steadily. The band then released the 5-track EP, "Pieces", and went out on tour again with Napalm Death and Obituary. They played for thousands of fans throughout Europe thus reinforcing their status as one of the best live bands on earth. "Dismember" is the ultimate death metal album from one of the finest Swedish bands. Dismember have lost nothing in terms of intensity. The sheer pace and passion of the songs are blistering and the vocal sounds as pissed off as ever. Powerful riffs that are not in short demand, plenty of lead works and amazingly melodic harmonies are what the metal scene needed and Dismember have them in huge spades. This is definitely one of the best death metal releases in many, many years.

Founded 1988 in Stockholm/Sweden, Dismember were among those responsible for Death Metal's big break through. The debut album, Like An Ever Flowing Stream from 1991, clearly showed that Dismember are an uncompromising band which resulted in their rise to cult status and within a short period of time the album took the scene by storm. Extensive touring with bands like Death, Morbid Angel and Cannibal Corpse showed that Dismember are a live force to be reckoned with and the number of fans grew steadily. The band then released the 5-track EP, "Pieces", and went out on tour again with Napalm Death and Obituary. They played for thousands of fans throughout Europe thus reinforcing their status as one of the best live bands on earth. The second album, Indecent & Obscene, sounded more mature and accessible than its predecessor without casting aside the band's Death Metal roots. The tour which followed (with Deicide, Suffocation and Vader) took Dismember to America for the first time where they left an astonished audience behind after tearing through the US of A like a runaway train before returning to Europe to take part in the first Nuclear Blast Festival tour with label mates Hypocrisy, Amorphis and Benediction. Their last album for Nuclear Blast was 2000's Hate Campaign.

The band formed in Stockholm in 1988. After a hiatus, during which several members joined Carnage, the band began recording in earnest in 1991 and released their debut, Like an Ever Flowing Stream in 1991. The album became an early example of Scandinavian death metal and established the band's fanbase. The song "Skin Her Alive" prompted an obscenity charge in the United Kingdom, against which the band successfully defended themselves. In 1993 Dismember released Indecent & Obscene, their most successful album ever, which featured their most famous theme: "Dreaming in Red" shown frequently in MTV's Headbanger's Ball.

Founded 1988 in Stockholm/Sweden, Dismember were among those responsible for Death Metal's big break through. The debut album, Like An Ever Flowing Stream from 1991, clearly showed that Dismember are an uncompromising band which resulted in their rise to cult status and within a short period of time the album took the scene by storm. Extensive touring with bands like Death, Morbid Angel and Cannibal Corpse showed that Dismember are a live force to be reckoned with and the number of fans grew steadily. They played for thousands of fans throughout Europe thus reinforcing their status as one of the best live bands on earth.

Founded 1988 in Stockholm/Sweden, Dismember were among those responsible for Death Metal's big break through. The debut album, Like An Ever Flowing Stream from 1991, clearly showed that Dismember are an uncompromising band which resulted in their rise to cult status and within a short period of time the album took the scene by storm. Extensive touring with bands like Death, Morbid Angel and Cannibal Corpse showed that Dismember are a live force to be reckoned with and the number of fans grew steadily. The band then released the 5-track EP, "Pieces", and went out on tour again with Napalm Death and Obituary. They played for thousands of fans throughout Europe thus reinforcing their status as one of the best live bands on earth. The second album, Indecent & Obscene, sounded more mature and accessible than its predecessor without casting aside the band's Death Metal roots. The tour which followed (with Deicide, Suffocation and Vader) took Dismember to America for the first time where they left an astonished audience behind after tearing through the US of A like a runaway train before returning to Europe to take part in the first Nuclear Blast Festival tour with label mates Hypocrisy, Amorphis and Benediction. 1995 saw the release of the third album, Massive Killing Capacity, through which Dismember became a legend in their own right. The Swedes had never been better.

Founded 1988 in Stockholm/Sweden, Dismember were among those responsible for Death Metal's big break through. The debut album, Like An Ever Flowing Stream from 1991, clearly showed that Dismember are an uncompromising band which resulted in their rise to cult status and within a short period of time the album took the scene by storm. Extensive touring with bands like Death, Morbid Angel and Cannibal Corpse showed that Dismember are a live force to be reckoned with and the number of fans grew steadily. The band then released the 5-track EP, "Pieces", and went out on tour again with Napalm Death and Obituary. They played for thousands of fans throughout Europe thus reinforcing their status as one of the best live bands on earth.

Founded 1988 in Stockholm/Sweden, Dismember were among those responsible for Death Metal's big break through. The debut album, Like An Ever Flowing Stream from 1991, clearly showed that Dismember are an uncompromising band which resulted in their rise to cult status and within a short period of time the album took the scene by storm. Extensive touring with bands like Death, Morbid Angel and Cannibal Corpse showed that Dismember are a live force to be reckoned with and the number of fans grew steadily. The band then released the 5-track EP, "Pieces", and went out on tour again with Napalm Death and Obituary. They played for thousands of fans throughout Europe thus reinforcing their status as one of the best live bands on earth. Dismember set a new path and in 2004, they released their sixth studio album titled Where Ironcrosses Grow which sounds close to Hate Campaign and is heavily inspired by Iron Maiden and Autopsy. Their seventh album The God That Never Was followed in 2006, continuing in the style of its predecessor.

Founded 1988 in Stockholm/Sweden, Dismember were among those responsible for Death Metal's big break through. The debut album, Like An Ever Flowing Stream from 1991, clearly showed that Dismember are an uncompromising band which resulted in their rise to cult status and within a short period of time the album took the scene by storm. Extensive touring with bands like Death, Morbid Angel and Cannibal Corpse showed that Dismember are a live force to be reckoned with and the number of fans grew steadily. The band then released the 5-track EP, "Pieces", and went out on tour again instead with Napalm Death and Obituary. They played for thousands of fans throughout Europe thus reinforcing their status as one of the best live bands on earth. Dismember set a new path and in 2004, they released their sixth studio album titled Where Ironcrosses Grow which sounds close to Hate Campaign and is heavily inspired by Iron Maiden and Autopsy.

Classic 90's crust massacre with Doom, Cruelty, Dirt etc. members.

Compilation with previously released 7"ep tracks, split LP tracks and comp. tracks. Remastered by Kenko. With fresh new artwork.

2nd album from this "all-star" raw punk / d-beat band coming out from Sweden. If you miss Totalitär - you are at the right place. Why "all-star" band? Just imagine current line-up members and their experiences in bands like Warcollapse, Slutet, Totalitär (eh!), Dischange, Krigshot, Makabert Fynd, Dissekerad, Krig I Hudik, Katastrof, Institution, Brainbombs, Napalm A.D., Desperate Fix, Kvoteringen, Meanwhile, Disfear, No Security or Ääritila ... and many more. This is album of the year!

New album - what we can say? I believe everyone will love it! 3rd album from project featuring original Totalitär members

Sweden’s Gehennah is back to stink up the scene once again, with their fourth full length album Too Loud To Live, Too Drunk To Die. This marks the bands album-debut on Metal Blade Records, and the first full length album by Gehennah since 1997's Decibel Rebel. The album contains 13 tracks of dirty and raw street-metal, destined to please the hardcore filth hounds of the scene, and annoy the ponytailed internet-snobs who prefer their metal clean and polished.

Terminus' is a varied yet still cohesive album that leaves the crushing heaviness of jesu’s early material behind for the most part while also containing their most introverted emotive cold spaces. following the EP “never” which was released earlier last year, this is jesu’s first full-length release since 2013’s “every day I get closer to the light from which I came”. The space between these two albums is significant as in the interim jesu main man Justin Broadrick resurrected the beyond cult and inimitable Godflesh. Fold out cover with deluxe multi-panel spot gloss art variation. Includes digital download code.

Këkht Aräkh is the Ukrainian project founded in 2018 by Dmitry Marchenko. The debut album Night & Love was initially released on the Finnish label Livor Mortis in 2019 and it's now seeing a worldwide reissue via Brooklyn label Sacred Bones.Dmitry's intent to experiment with standard black metal canons previously seen at play in Through the Branches to Eternity EP (2018) solidify further on Night & Love, he mentions "back then I had an idea of combining Darkthrone's Transilvanian Hunger type of black metal with early Internazionale or Croatian Amor vibe."Described as ambient or atmospheric black metal, this debut presents Këkht Aräkh's signature dichotomy of harsh traditional early Norwegian black metal and the more ethereal and delicate melodies. On the other hand the lyrics are romantic and melancholic, clearly influenced by a stark Gothic imagery, and serve as an extra layer of mystery to the already suggestive body of work. The album beings with a soft acoustic intro in "As the Night Falls_" before descending into the raw and raucous "Elegy for the Memory of Me" and "Den Venstre Hånd På Den Hoyre", both songs that are drenched in the more traditional black metal style of raspy, high-pitched vocals, dense, tremolo- picked riffs and fast paced drums. It is however songs like "Night" and "Love" that really set this album apart. "Night" is a softly spoken word ambient track that with a beautiful piano synth work that permeates throughout it aids in the romantic delivery and conjuring of imagery of the night. "Love" is a spellbinding and melancholic song, equal in its romanticism but one that displays a deeper sorrow and tenderness supported by calming field recordings of trickling water.The intertwining of black metal, dark folk and ambient repeats itself, culminating in a quietly hummed outro "...And Never

Këkht Aräkh is the Ukrainian project founded in 2018 by Dmitry Marchenko. Originally released on the Finnish label Livor Mortis in 2021, Pale Swordsman goes to even greater extents in building a bold and atmospheric sonic palette, and it's now seeing a worldwide reissue via Brooklyn label Sacred Bones.For the sound design of the album, Dmitry was inspired by The Stooges' Raw Power to deliver a more soft sounding album, decisively less "metal". Traditional black metal song structures still persist in songs like "Night Descends" and "In The Garden". However, their rawness and fast tempos is quickly cut through by dark ambient passages in "Amor" and "Intro" and softly played desolate ballads like "Nocturne" and "Lily".The crown jewel is the album closer "Swordsman", a track that displays a superb gothic sensibility, a poem recited over a deeply melancholic piano melody. "The Christian concept of a person ridding themselves of evil to find inner peace or to be able to leave this world safely has become the core inspiration for the song." Dmitry explains "However, this is not the only reading possible. I purposely avoid specifics in my lyrics so that the listener can always give the song their own meaning."The inspiration for the concept of the album also came from David Bowie's The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. "I really enjoy it when an album tells a story about some character so I came up with one." says Dmitry when explaining the origin of the Pale Swordsman. The character is portrayed on the striking album cover art - a figure sitting aloof with a sword and a rose in each hand - and clearly symbolises the romantic juxtaposition of belligerence and fragile beauty that permeates the album's sound and atmosphere.Pale Swordsman delivers a foreboding yet bittersweet melancholy through poetic lyrics, soft interludes, raw and distorted guitars, eerie drums and harsh vocals - a fragile yet potent mix that successfully amplifies the ambience.

After an almost decade-long period of dwelling in the shadows, Koldbrann returned with a series of select festival appearances in 2022/23, premiering new material and proving that they're still full of cold grimness and misanthropy, and completely void of compromise. After last year’s 2-track 7” single “Den 6. Massedød (Manna fra en annen himmel)”, their long-awaited 4th album “Ingen Skånsel” is ready to be unleashed - and Koldbrann is sounding rawer, harsher and better than ever. Even though deeply rooted in the True Norwegian Black Metal tradition, Koldbrann has carved out their own sound within the genre confines and it sounds fresh, raw and different. There’s a fierce nerve running through the album, and the songs stand out from today’s typical black metal sounds. You can feel the aggression throughout the whole album. “Ingen Skånsel” is one of the most interesting, aggressive and fierce Norwegian black metal albums in modern times! 1.Ingen Skånsel2.Et Uomtvistelig Falsum3.I Unaturens Vold4.Prosesjon Under Blyhimmel5.Det Kryper Kaldt6.Maskiner av Nihil7.Forstanden Seiler Sin Egen Sjø8.Fortærer av Minne og Form9.Rykk Skaperverket Opp med Roten10.Vorde Eders Farkost en Katafalk11.Serenade til Dødens Elende12.Elevert Hinsides Tilstand (CD only track)

Time is a slippery fish.

Loss has inspired Mamaleek’s latest full-length album, titled Vida Blue. This marks the San Francisco Bay Area metal deconstructionists’ eighth album and their third as a full lineup.

Tragedy struck in March of 2023 when the band lost a longtime friend and member, keyboardist Eric Livingston, leaving the group, which began as a duo of two brothers and later expanded to a five-piece, now with only four members. Despite this profound loss, Mamaleek persevered, performing as a quartet at various festivals, including the 2023 edition of Tilburg.

The band returned to the studio to create new material that appropriately reflects their journey through loss and honors their fallen comrade. The resulting album draws inspiration from the legacy of Oakland A’s baseball legend Vida Blue, whose former team coincidentally announced its relocation to Las Vegas that same year. The band members themselves describe this poignant chapter in their own words:

“Time is a slippery fish. Maybe only someone like Vida could grasp it. Although he’s left time behind, his image and that lefty heat remain in the memories of many. Eventually they’ll be forgotten, and hopefully replaced with even more exultant ones. This musical recording is a reflection on loss and its acceptance. We explore several examples for each song, including the loss of pride, of money, of glory, of country, of sanity, of a favorite sports team, of significant others, and, every day, one’s self. It also explores various associated moods—fear, panic, reverence, stoicism, and steadfastness—to arrive at a resolution: Loss is only a test, the glue that holds and erodes each memory, the connection that binds and loosens us all, pitch by pitch, inning by inning. This is your celebration.”

Vida Blue is a person, moment, and memory, together the crystallization of apocalypse: “unveiling,” “disclosure.”

Metallica, live at the Reunion Arena, Dallas, Texas on 5th February 1989. Metallica became huge stars following the August 1988 release of …And Justice For All. The following month they embarked on the mammoth Damaged Justice world tour. The remarkable show featured on this double set was broadcast on Z-Rock FM five months in. It captures them on ferocious form, performing many of their best-loved songs, as well as a handful of covers, and is presented here with background notes and images. [2 cassette set]

San Francisco, CA - January 25, 2018 - The Wait is over…Actually, it’s back! Nearly three decades after going out of print, Metallica will release a remastered version of The $5.98 EP - Garage Days Re-Revisited as part of thir ongoing remasters series via their own Blackened Recordings label.

Originally released over 30 years ago on August 21, 1987, the collection features the band covering songs by early Metallica influencers such as Diamond Head, Holocaust, Killing Joke, Budgie, and The Misfits. The five songs from the EP were later included as a part of the 1998 multi-platinum release Garage, Inc., but the band felt it was time to bring it back in the original formats!

The $5.98 EP - Garage Days Re-Revisited was remastered by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering in Hollywood, CA.