Funeral Rain Press Corps

When: July 29, 2011
Where: Pawn Shop, Edmonton, Alberta

Oh my. My oh my oh my. Exhumed return to life with All Guts, No Glory and that, thankfully, results in a tour. And surprisingly it stops in Edmonton, with fellow label mates Cephalic Carnage no less! Both are bands I’d love to see, and now finally have.
Before this night, I’d never even heard Macabre, and never even heard of Withered, and I didn’t know local metal bastards Begrime Exemious were going to be there until like two days before the show. So it turned out to be a killer night indeed.
First up, Begrime kicked some ass on the stage, pushing their brand of dirty sounding old school death metal onto the crowd that was slowly trickling in off the street. My second time seeing them live, and again I was quite impressed. I’m definitely a fan of these guys, and as an interesting note, they are label mates with Gravehill, and thus one member of Exhumed. (7)
After Begrime, Withered (who I had no idea were going to be there) took over as the night’s entertainment. They play “tortured blackened doom”, and are really fucking awesome. If you’re into feedback, heavy and loud riffs that are slower than hell, black metal shrieks, and insanely fast sections of songs, you should check these guys out. (8)
Cephalic Carnage were finally back in Edmonton, and I quite honestly could have had the concert end after they killed part of my hearing. It was a bit of a dream come true to see them, as they’ve been one of my favorite grind bands for years now, ever since I first heard Anomalies. For those that don’t know, Cephalic Carnage are a four-piece that combine death metal, grindcore, and a huge love of the herb to create some of the best metal you can hear. The crowd definitely was receptive for these guys too, as there were more than one shout of “One more song!” after the set. (9)
Macabre, a three-piece, were the wild card of the night. I’d heard of their murder metal, songs based exclusively on historic serial killers, but never heard a single song from them until the show. For the fourth time in the night I was impressed by a band. These guys were loud, and fun, like an evil version of Primus at times, crossed with a bit of GWAR. But, like GWAR, I don’t think these are guys I could buy an album from and listen to them, they’re definitely more of a live show kind of band. Hopefully they come back soon. (7)
Finally, the headliners of the night Exhumed hit the stage to destroy the Pawn Shop, and many an eardrum in the process. California’s masters of gore metal did not fail to exhilarate a single person in the venue with their fast, high energy performance and their even faster music. It would surprise me if they didn’t return within a year after seeing how insane Edmonton went for them, and again I would be there, front and center, for their whole set. Despite having my hand stepped on and my head kicked by the same asshole stage diver, or getting elbowed in the kidney by someone, or having my face whipped by the hair of the three chicks that were right beside me. All while holding a camera that ate up almost a whole pay check, and snapping photos. (8)
Fuck yeah, it was a great night. Got to hear some wicked death metal and doom, got a pair of records (Exhumed’s All Guts, No Glory and Dekapitator’s The Storm Before The Calm) and some buttons and stickers, and then got only three hours of sleep before having to go to work. I’d do it all again in a heartbeat.

Genre: Death Metal
Label: Dark Descent Records

Gravehill’s metal of death is a force to be reckoned with, and their newest album hits with even more of that force, enough to bang your head and shake your fist.
A higher level of technicality (due to a new guitarist, primarily) but not while compromising the raw brutality that Gravehill endeared themselves to me with, When All Roads Lead To Hell is a feast of riffs and solos, and Mike Abominator’s unique vocals are better understood while still sounding like he’s choking on sandpaper. Fucking awesome!
Mike was quoted as saying that When All Roads Lead To Hell is a better album than Rites of the Pentagram, and even though all bands say that he meant it. And I agree. I loved Rites…, but …Roads… IS better!
Throw in a secret track consisting of a cover of AC/DC’s “If You Want Blood (You Got It)”, and you’ve got a fucking brilliant disc of human hating, Christ bashing death metal.
9 out of 10.

Gravehill on Facebook.
Gravehill on MySpace.

California-based death horde GRAVEHILL has posted the track “Devil Worshiper” from their forthcoming new album When All Roads Lead To Hell at this location. When All Roads Lead To Hell is set to be released on May 20th through Dark Descent Records with vinyl treatment coming in July courtesy of Dark Descent and Chaos Records. 2011 promises to be a huge year for GRAVEHILL with appearances at Maryland Death Fest and Central Illinois Metalfest on tap, with much more to come. Check-in at the band’s Myspace, ReverbNation or Facebook pages for details and updates.

The following was issued by California-based death horde Gravehill in regards to their forthcoming album, When All Roads Lead to Hell, and the band’s new label situation.

“Gravehill has spent the past several months in seclusion finishing our new album When all Roads Lead to Hell. We had several songs already written before we undertook the “Campaign Tour” last summer. When we invited Hellfiend (aka Matt Harvey of Exhumed) to join the band full time, we spent the time necessary to either “re-evaluate” or completely ditch what we had. Thankfully most of the music was used and with Hellfiend’s input we felt we had eight songs worthy of recording.
We entered Trench Studios in March 2011 with John Haddad and laid down all drums, guitars, bass and vocals… most of the tracking was pretty effortless and relaxed, we either had an idea of what we wanted or we’re just really good at convincing each other we knew what we were doing? The most common question asked regarding this record is “How does it compare to Rites of the Pentagram?” All bands always respond with “This is the best record we’ve ever done, the last album pales in comparison and blah blah blah…” The best way to respond to that is simply “Ryan Butler!” When we left Trench Studios making the RotP record we were happy with the result, obviously some things could have been better or even worse if you think about it? But the song writing and over all rawness of the band did shine through! However by 86′ing Zyklon-A out of the band last summer and bringing in Hellfiend just offered a wealth of alternatives, one of them being the new Exhumed record All Guts, No Glory! Ryan Butler of Arcane Digital did all the guitar, bass and vocal tracking for that record. Hearing the wall of guitars really made an easy decision to provide the WARLTH record to Ryan to mix and master. We also laid down four guitar rhythm tracks unlike the two we used on RotP! The end result is this heavy as fuck, pissed off, intense, faster and dare I say “mature” record? Considering all the trials and tribulations we had with RotP as well as a less than stellar line-up; up to this point anyway, When All Roads Lead to Hell might as well be our first record! We are that proud of this record, love it or hate it, we have made the best fucking Death Metal record we ever wanted to hear!
When it came to deciding on who would be releasing this album we had an easy decision with Dark Descent Records. Matt Calvert came highly recommended and after a few short discussions we made accordance for a May 20th CD release; right in time for our appearance at The Maryland Death Fest!”

Drummer Thorgrimm had this to say about Dark Descent Records:
“We are very lucky to find one of the hardest working labels out there right now! They may be a small upstart label but Matt’s work ethic and care in his bands and his label is impeccable! We are very confident that this release will reach far beyond our previous work and are very glad that Dark Descent Records is leading the way! HAIL HELL!”

Matt Calvert of Dark Descent Records had this to say:
“I was extremely intrigued to hear the new songs the band had come up with when I was approached by them to release the new album. What I heard was dedication to not only produce great songs but the ability to capture the true spirit of metal. Dark Descent Records is very excited to be a part of When All Roads Lead to Hell.

Mike Abominator continues: Gravehill are also very happy to announce that When All Roads Lead to Hell will also see a 12″ vinyl release with Chaos Records! Our friend Victor Hernandez Gil made us an offer we couldn’t refuse, and seeing this release on vinyl is very important to Gravehill! Look for its release in early July 2011!”

Mike on Chaos Records: “We needed a connection that could help us outside the U.S. So the plan was to build a strong team of death that could help us spread our plague worldwide. Victor and Chaos Records were our first choice to attack down in Mexico. We have the utmost respect for the Mexican metal fans and look forward to infecting even more down there! It was a great surprise that Victor also had connections set up in Europe as well, so we killed 2 posers with one stone so to speak! Europa will also be infected now! Hail Victor and Chaos Records for being a part of our Horde of Death!”

Victor Hernandez Gil of Chaos Records states:
“It’s great to welcome Gravehill to the Chaos Records Familia, we cannot wait to release the vinyl version of When All Roads Lead to Hell. Gravehill have developed themselves over the past few years as one of the most exciting live acts in the American Metal scene. Many thanks to Gravehill for their trust in Chaos Records! Horns up!!”

When All Roads Lead to Hell will be out on May 20th (with the vinyl treatment coming in July).

Following their performance at the opening day of this year’s Neurotic Death Fest (April 29th), death metal pioneers Incantation are set to to invade Poland this spring for their first headlining run of the country. The tour runs from May 1st – May 8th and will also feature Polish black metallers Christ Agony. Incantation founder/frontman and Ibex Moon Records head honcho John McEntee issued the following statement:

“With great honor we are proud to announce that we are doing our first headlining tour of Poland. Our first time playing Poland was back in 2007 as part of the Blitzkrieg 4 Tour 2007 with the killer line up of Vader, Krisiun , Rotting Christ and my other band Funerus. This will be the first time we can play our full sent for all of our long time diehard Polish supporters, something we have been looking forward to for many years.

Poland has always been good to us. From the band’s inception back in 1989 we have always had massive support for the Polish underground, but have had lots of problems making it over there to preform for one reason or another. Finally over 20 years after the formation of the band we will do our first headlining tour. It will be great to see our old school friend along with many new fans alike.

The tour will be with the legendary Polish band Christ Agony. This is one of Poland’s greatest and most well-respected bands. Anyone that knows anything about the Polish underground black death metal scene will agree.  It will be great to play along side them every night!

We look forward to seeing all you sick Polish Incantation supporters. We have a great set list that we are working on for the tour and we can’t wait to spill our guts out for you guys every night.

Also, some of the Polish shows will be recorded (video and audio) and if the recordings quality comes out good we hope to use them for a live record and DVD sometime late this year.

With all this great Polish news I also want to say that we are also playing the Neurotic Death Fest this year and it is a absolute honor to be apart of this amazing fest. We want to thanks the promoter for including us on this awesome fest. Along side some of my personal favorite bands!  We look forward to seeing all our Dutch supporters there, it will be a kick ass time.”

In other news, Incantation drummer Kyle Severn recently debuted his gore-filled horror film Afterparty Massacre. Afterparty Massacre was written and filmed by Kyle and Horrormerch.com‘s Kristoff. The film features music and performances from Incantation and comes with a soundtrack showcasing many of death metal’s most brutal acts; including Cardiac Arrest, Gravehill, Fatalist and many more. Afterparty Massacreis one killer party with mind-blowing amounts of blood, metal and flesh! Visit the film’s Facebook page orwww.afterpartymassacre.com for details.