Drogheda - Celebrating Five Years of Violence
Finally, these bastards have a recording powerful enough to showcase the intensity of their Grinding Death Metal onslaught. This CD compiles their excellent A Celebration of Violence full-length cassette, their half of a split tape (with Dismembered Fetus - see review), re-recordings of older songs, and various other rare gems, including a great cover of **Cryptic Slaughter’s “Set Your Own Pace.”
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Doomstone - Satanavoid
I’ll be damned - a Cutty Sark cover. Well, I’ve heard it all now. The flyer I got with this disc mentions Cutty Sark as if covering them would be impressive. I know Doomstone/Deceased/October 31 main-man King likes some goofy old shit, but I just hope he’s not covering Whitesnake on his next project. Anyway, I probably shouldn’t say this, since I think that Oct31 has released about 50 new albums that I’ve yet to hear (hey King, how about you at least let me know when you have a new release come out?!?), but I thought the point of the myriad bands King is in was to explore different sounds and styles… But they’re all starting to sound the same! Not that it’s a bad sound, retro though it may be, but more or less any of these tracks could be Oct31 or Deceased songs, with just a very little tweaking. I guess that’s okay. So, what we have here, to get to the point, is Pre-Thrash with an evil attitude. Everyone involved would love it if I compared this to early Venom, but it’s really not that intense or raw. Mercyful Fate is also mentioned on the flyer, but clearly someone was extremely high when it was written, as this bares utterly no similarities to MF, other than also being guitar-based music. I respect them for being anti-image and anti-trend (although “retro” is a trend), but this album did little to really get me excited one way or the other. Maybe it just takes more listens than I can afford to give it.
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Dominion - ‘97 Demo
Some of the tracks on here are from the band’s forthcoming CD, and the rest are from their ‘96 CD. They’re all well played Thrashy Death Metal, that’s maybe a little too technical to be very catchy. But the intensity is certainly there. I’d bet that this is a great band to see live.
[Note: After this demo, this band changed its name to Demonicon. -Editor]
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Divine Regale - Ocean Mind
I’m split on this album. On the one hand, it’s technical enough to make the guys in King Crimson take notice, but on the other hand, it’s technical enough for the guys in King Crimson to take notice, if you see what I mean. If you want to hear absolutely amazing playing within a classic Metal setting, then Ocean Mind is nothing short of perfection. If you want any aggression at all, or you’d like to hear some catchy songs, or worse of all if you can’t stand high pitched (and flawlessly sung, I hasten to add) vocals, then this is a zero. For me it kind of depends on my mood. And the vocals, while technically prefect, are too sterile for my tastes. If this were an instrumental album with a bit more aggressiveness (like Steve Morse Band), I could wholeheartedly recommend it, but the Rush/Queensryche influences that make them such great players probably insure that they consider this to be supremely heavy. But you couldn’t hope to hear more technically skilled musicians. As odd as it sounds, Divine Regale are both amazing and disappointing at the same time, and my rating reflects that confusion. Fans of ultra technical, lite Metal (Angra, for example) should consider this a 10. Fans of Cannibal Corpse should consider this a 3.
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Divination - God’s End
Other than being a little sloppy, this is pretty impressive. Not that they’re doing anything out of the ordinary with their Satanic Death Metal, but they vary the speed, try to write memorable riffs, and are fortunate enough to have a deadly growler. All they need is time.
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Dissection - The Past Is Alive (The Early Mischief)
This is a compilation of 7-inch and demo tracks that only fans should get.
[Metal Curse #11 had an additional loose page (“Last Second Additions”) inserted into the centerfold of the zine, featuring a bunch of even-shorter-than-usual “bonus” reviews of stuff that arrived after the deadline for that issue. This is one of those “Last Second Additions” reviews.]
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Dismember - Death Metal
Everyone seems to think that this album is Dismember’s return to the realms of Death. I have news for you: They never left. Dismember are, and always have been, defenders of the Death Metal faith. This is a nuclear powered extreme nightmare, just like all their others.
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Disinter - Desecrated
Being a brutal band is clearly not enough for these sick motherfuckers. They combine their razor-sharp Death Metal onslaught with - are you ready? - catchy riffs. Of course the lyrics are right out of various b-grade horror movies, but I happen to like that kind of gore. The album’s production is not perfect; it often seems to hide the basslines, among other small offenses. If Pulverizer had as much money to spend on their bands as, say, Metal Blade, it might have elevated this into immortal status, but it’s still damn impressive.
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Disgorge (Mexico) - Chronic Corpora Infest
Pathological Death/Grind/Gore/Carcass worship. With the sickest fucking Death gurgles I’ve heard in awhile. Death Metal doesn’t get heavier, sicker, faster, or more intense than this. For sheer intensity alone, this reigns supreme, and yet it offers more: thanks to their musical ability, these songs are even a little memorable, but the vocals are so raw that I can’t even follow them with the lyrics sheet in hand. And with this kind of extreme Death/Grind, that’s exactly how it should be.
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