INFESTATION OF EVIL - Engulfed by Shapeless Cruelties review

 

INFESTATION OF EVIL -  Engulfed by Shapeless Cruelties

Self Released

Ya know it's one thing to be an old school sounding death metal / death thrash act. It's another thing to have your debut full length sounding like it was recorded on a 1980's era boombox. I mean are we really going to that extreme to be old school? 

Be that as it may INFESTATION OF EVIL are a four piece act from El Paso, Texas who actually are a cool sounding band if you can think better of the production / recording of this their debut full length. I wanna get their compilation from last year aka: Antiquus Maledicte Compendiumfrom just to compare sound-wise. 

Yeah this is something which I'd expect from a Nuclear War Now reissue. No offense to that great label but they've put out some stinkers for the devoted. With that said INFESTATION OF EVIL are a damm good death metal, death thrash and death doom type of band. But honestly this recording sucks.

LISTEN TO AND BUY HERE:

https://infestationofevil.bandcamp.com/album/engulfed-by-shapeless-cruelties-2

OXALATE - Infatuating Sickness EP review

 

OXALATE - Infatuating Sickness EP

Horror Pain Gore Death Productions

Can I just say that 2020 sucks. Now I don't mean on the whole extent of it although I have been pissed for months now. But even on the music front it's been kind of a boring year. I've listen to so much stuff that a year or two ago I would've been excited about. But compared to the lock-downs and other bullshit going on, I've just been bored.

Then something like this falls through the depressive cracks and I'm psyched. OXALATE is a four piece act from the New York/New Jersey area. To me that location proximity is strange because I grew up in NJ years ago and we hated New York as well as New Yorkers. And they hated us as well. But hey times have changed with one exception, OXALATE play some cool sounding Northeast death metal. 

There's just four songs on here but they all come at you with this raw intensity and bite. Part of it lingers in death doom sewers of old while other times it's thrash pit intensity in a local club with heshers going apeshit. Give this band a full length because they've got the death chops.

http://www.horrorpaingoredeath.com/

LISTEN HERE:

https://hpgd.bandcamp.com/album/infatuating-sickness

MALEVOLENT CREATION - The 13th Beast review

MALEVOLENT CREATION - The 13th Beast

Century Media Records




Over the years I can honestly say that my opinion of MALEVOLENT CREATION's musical output has not been stellar. On a high note their first two releases, 1991's The 10 Commandments and Retribution released the following year, are damm good. I highly recommend you find them if you do not own them already. But after that it seemed the magic died and they just coasted along. I once made the analogy that if the big four bands of Florida's death metal legacy were wheels on a car then MALEVOLENT CREATION would be the spare tire.


Now of course after those releases the band had a never ending revolving door band line-up which did not help them one bit. Their sole original member, guitarist Phil Fasciana, just found replacements when needed. Even vocalist Brett Hoffmann, who sadly passed away last year,  left the band twice during their heyday. So for a while (aka: over a decade) they kinda disappeared from the radar. Then in 2010 MALEVOLENT CREATION came out with Invidious Dominion and it was a return to their early death thrash style. I thought it was a fantastic album. I highly recommend it. And then it all went to hell again. Another lackluster release in 2015, Dead Man's Path. And then the death of vocalist Brett Hoffmann last year. 


So here we have The 13th Beast and the band having a restart. Yes other than mainstay, guitarist Phil Fasciana, this is yet another new line-up different from their last full length. Starting off with new vocalist / guitarist Lee Wollenschlaeger, the guy has a good death metal voice. At times he reminds you of Hoffmann minus the hideous snarl or the devilish contempt. Wollenschlaeger, on a whole, sounds monotonous in his delivery. As far as the music goes it's brutal as needed, the riffs are all competent sounding as far as mid to late 90's death metal 101 goes. The rhythm section battles it's way onward. The bottom line is that the new 2019 version of MALEVOLENT CREATION does hit the ground running on The 13th Beast. Unfortunately they're running backwards. 


https://www.centurymedia.com/

https://www.facebook.com/malevolentcreation