Hell- Hell I (2009)

Holy fuck. I would love to say I slept on this band, but I really didn't. I downloaded a copy of this record sometime in 2010 and it just didn't grab me. As I said in the Gilead Media Fest review post, it might have been due to the extremely poor quality vinyl rip I had at the time (a much, much better rip is linked below) or maybe I just didn't give it a fair shake. Either way, now I see the light. The ugly, ugly light. Sludge isn't exactly a genre for the faint of heart or the causal music listener, but Hell are really on another level. I don't usually key in on vocals in metal music, it's a riff driven genre so that tends to be what I latch on to, but Hell I boasts some of the most torturous, inhuman vocals I've ever heard. Black metal dudes who think they're the bee's knees need to listen to this and have their egos stepped on a bit. But like I said, metal is riff driven music, so how 'bout them gits? Well, they're fucking huge. Imagine Thou at their most pummeling, like that riff in "Fucking Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean," but ALL OF THE TIME and you'll get the idea. Can't get enough of this record, listen to to goddamnit.

Get it here.

Unfortunately, this is currently out of print and not available digitally other than the above vinyl rip.

Vinyl Fetish: Thou/Mohoram Atta- Degradation of Human Life Test Pressing

I told Rob I wasn't going to post this, but I decided that if I went ahead and did so it might light a fire under his ass and he might actually order a copy rather than wait for weeks and complain to me about how he didn't get a copy when it sells out. I don't know how many test pressings Halo of Flies had for this release, but I doubt it was very many. "Shorties With MP40s" is one of my favorite Thou songs and easily their silliest song title. This also features Thou covering "Screaming At A Wall" by Minor Threat, the fastest thing they've done to date. Dude from Halo of Flies said he's going to write "a cute little note" for everyone that buys a copy and "maybe I’ll toss something else in as well."  Don't sleep on it.

Get it here.

Download the Thou half of the split here.

Vinyl Fetish: Coffinworm- The Great Bringer of Night Pre-order

Well, it appears that the mighty Coffinworm's 2009 demo The Great Bringer of Night will see a proper (read: vinyl) release via The Flenser. Two bonus tracks from the same recording session bring the total up to 5 songs. This might not be essential for some of you as the only song that didn't make it onto their absolutely crushing full length was "The Inner Caligula," but if you love this band as much as I do it's worth the 15 bucks for that song alone. Remastered by James Plotkin, limited to 120 copies on gold vinyl and 380 on black.

Get it here

Download the demo here