heaven shall burn - deaf to our prayers

"antigone" was my first hsb record and really blew me away. i still love every tune of it, start to finish. through that album i also got into their pre-2004 stuff and (especially "whatever it may take") loved those too. so one can imagine how pumped i was when "deaf to our prayers" dropped in 2006.

the album wasn't such a banger like "antigone" to me. it felt like it fell a bit flat here and there. some amazing songs but some fillers also. i have to say it aged pretty well and i like it now better than then. therefore i am really happy to have this sick nesi media black splatter platter out of 300 copies. 2006/2018.

by the way, still have my original cd i bought upon release. comes with carborad slip case and additional dvd with a live set from the hell on earth tour 2005.

afterbirth - four dimensional flesh

i had a long way to go with afterbirth. been eyeing their stuff in the past because they are on unique leader records but never really got into them. that changed with their new album "four dimensional flesh".

i listened to the single " never ending teeth" and it finally clicked. their super proggy death metal approach with those uber guttural lyrics makes for a really unique listening experience. the mint marble vinyl is awesome, too. unique leader records. 2020.

beneath the massacre - mechanics of dysfunction

when beneath the masacre released their unbelievably strong come back album "fearmonger" this year on century media, prosthetic records were able to read the signs of time and came up with a vinyl issue for their debut "mechanics of dysfunction" from 2007. i also ordered this at banquet records from london and the record came in prime condition due to great packaging.

i never listened to that album before and when i dropped the needle on it for the first time it was unmistakably beneath the massacre. the guys have a very unique sound, a mix of sheer speed mayhem and very groovy parts all combined with a sense of technicality. the vinyl colour is a gold with black marble and is a perfect match for tew cover artwork. 350 copies pressed. prosthetic records.

spirit adrift - chained to oblivion

there it is eventually. the debut album of spirit adrift on vinyl. there is a first pressing floating around but long sold out and i didn't want to bite the bullet of inflated second hand price tags. so this prosthetic re-issue comes in handy. ordered at first via jpc.de but they cancelled my order half the way through. then i tried my luck with banquet records from london due to lack of options.

must say that i was very satisfied with how the order went down. will probably place an order with them again. musically "chained to oblivion" is a remarkable debut, especially when one considers that every instrument was recorded by mastermind nathan garrett himself due to not having a functioning band at that point. lovely blue splatter lp's and fantastic revised artwork by jesse jacobi (who might be known for his work on the last tomb mold). 300 copies pressed. prosthetic records.

cerebral rot - odious descent into decay

what a filthy bastard at hand. cerebral rot play some gritty, doomy death metal which takes no prisoners. lyric-wise the guys have a weird affinity for stench rising from dead organisms, but hey, can it get more death metal than that?

this is a recent re-press by 20 buck spin. it seems that it's worthwhile to wait for re-pressings of the label because they usually go above and beyond with the colour-ways of those. man, look at this olive/mustard/bone tri-colour merge with splatter. perfect match with the gross cover art. 20 buck spin. 2019.

elder - omens

elder is one of my favourite bands. they started out as a stoner band with potential and have developed into a full-on progressive entity which is hard to categorise. elder sound like elder and like nothing else. indeed it was out of the question whether to get the new album or not.

although i was tempted to get a u.s. version of "omens" on armageddon shop records, the damned shipping costs put me off. i opted for a nice euro version by stickman records instead. clear light blue marble vinyl is a perfect match and sounds brilliant, the whole album does. but that's what i was expecting all along. stickman records. 2020.

resurrection - embalmed existence

dragged into daylight in 1993, a time where the heyday of death metal was almost dead and gone, seemingly flown under the radar for the most time and now resurrected (pun intended) by the hammer of hearts. what am i babbling about here? about the debut called "embalmed existence" by a band called resurrection.

nuclear blast released this initially and hammerheart records from the netherlands brings it back. oroginal clear copies fetch pretty hefty prices (triple digits) nowadays and so i thought it was a nice touch to make a clear vinyl re-press out of 100 copies as the limitred run. musically pretty good scott burns produced osdm. can't go wrong with that. hammerheart records. 2020.

khemmis - doomed heavy metal

khemmis coming up with their new e.p. to shorten the wait for their new full length in progress. to be fair, this e.p. doesn't provide too much new material, none to be precise. an old song, two covers and three live tracks. everybody came for the dio cover, i guess, but to me the winner on here is "empty throne".

completionists already have the decibel flexi disc, on which the song was featured three years ago. i don't and so this was new to me. pretty good to say the least, just as the dio cover "rainbow in the dark". the rest are fillers. still, the vinyl colour looks uber awesome! 500 copies pressed. 20 buck spin records. 2020.

irist - order of the mind

when this was on pre-order at nuclear blast, i was toying with the idea of getting it. the description said something like mastodon and gojira and as i love both bands, i thought it would prove worthwhile to check irist out. didn't come around to it for the longest time but when i finally listened to "severed", i knew i had to get this.

i think the comparisons made are quite accurate and sometimes they are even lacking a bit of a sound that is their own but the record is just so good. somewhere between death metal, proggy parts and a feeling for melody, "order of the mind" is a cracker all throughout its duration. lovely black/orange merge vinyl out of 1.500 copies. nuclear blast. 2020.

decapitated - anticult

i discovered decapitated last year when back on black re-issued "carnival is forever" and "blood mantra". so i was pretty late to the party (like so many times before). thankfully it is not much of a problem to get the band's nuclear blast titles on vinyl, only problem was that i wanted an u.s. pressing of "anticult".

this bone with blood red splatter looked just too good to deny. i found an ebay seller from canada, who sold it for a good price. "anticult" is a great record, their style of progressive death metal really appeals to me. btw, decapitated were the last band i saw live before the lockdown. miss those times. nuclear blast. 2017.