{"id":14832,"date":"2017-10-18T09:01:45","date_gmt":"2017-10-18T16:01:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=14832"},"modified":"2017-10-18T12:27:57","modified_gmt":"2017-10-18T19:27:57","slug":"new-music-revue-cannibal-corpse-electric-wizard-and-more-gruesome-ghastly-new-releases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2017\/10\/18\/new-music-revue-cannibal-corpse-electric-wizard-and-more-gruesome-ghastly-new-releases\/","title":{"rendered":"New Music Revue<\/em>: Cannibal Corpse, Electric Wizard, and more gruesome, ghastly new releases"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Electric Wizard
\nWizard Bloody Wizard
\n<\/i>(Spinefarm Records)
\n3.5\/5<\/p>\n

English doom metal goes with Halloween like beer goes with bar nuts. Electric Wizard\u2019s latest album, Wizard Bloody Wizard<\/i>, <\/i>is a great addition to the haunting festivities this year, because, to put it bluntly, it\u2019s creepy as hell.<\/p>\n

\u201cNecromania\u201d makes me feel as though I\u2019m walking down a dark, deserted street at 1 am on my way to a drug deal that I might not come out of alive. Okay, maybe I\u2019ve watched too many episodes of Narcos<\/i>, but, seriously, the song is freaky, and powerful: its opening riffs bear a slight resemblance to parts of Crowbar\u2019s sludge metal classic Odd Fellows Rest<\/i>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHear the Sirens Scream\u201d is flat, and its riffs are repetitive at times, but the track redeems itself: it\u2019s a flip-flopping, invigorating, nauseating roller coaster\u2014but a pleasurable one. It\u2019s well worth enduring the fear that it conjures up, and it\u2019s also worth experiencing the mind-blowing Halloween-appropriate vocals, which sound as though guitarist\/vocalist Jus Oborn is both stoned and possessed. In my opinion, this album is better than fan favourite Dopethrone<\/i> but nowhere near as good as Witchcult Today<\/i>; luckily for us at this time of year, it\u2019s more suitable for Halloween than either of those albums, because Wizard <\/i>is a hell of a lot creepier than either of them.<\/p>\n

The legendary stoner and sludge sounds that give this band their heartbeat are present as always. \u201cMourning of the Magicians\u201d keeps my blood pressure up, and the lyrics, when sung in Oborn\u2019s intimidating, fierce, serial-killer way, send chills up my spine. In the song, he sings, \u201cGoodbye, farewell, I\u2019ll see you in Hell\u201d; can it get more Halloween-friendly than that?<\/p>\n

The songs often feel like an album in themselves, not just because of sheer length, but because each has a darker tone than the last. It\u2019s easy, simplistic listening that is perfect for the season, but it\u2019s also rich enough to keep the hair on the back of your neck raised through its storytelling.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m pretty sure \u201cThe Reaper\u201d could be played at the devil\u2019s resurrection ceremony. The band slows things down a bit with the song, and it\u2019s the climax to the eeriness of this album. It comes early, around the halfway point, and from there, the band sure doesn\u2019t shy away from bringing a dark, dooming death to life.<\/p>\n

-Adam Marsh<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Cannibal Corpse
\nRed Before Black
\n<\/i>(Metal Blade Records)
\n4\/5<\/p>\n

\u201cDestroyed Without a Trace.\u201d \u201cHeads Shoveled Off.\u201d \u201cCode of the Slashers.\u201d \u201cOnly One Will Die.\u201d As a quick skim of the song titles confirms, Cannibal Corpse, the kings of horror-movie death metal (well, Mortician might have a thing or two to say about that, but that\u2019s an argument we\u2019ll save for later), are back. Red Before Black<\/i> is the 14th album from the Florida-based lovers of gore, and it shows them continuing to ride their mid-career wave of vitality that began back with 2006\u2019s excellent Kill<\/i>.<\/p>\n

For the uninitiated, the band\u2019s sound is an almost textbook example of what good, solid death metal sounds like: a rhythm section that is wound so tight they are ready to explode; guitar work that is intricate but never overly noodly; a vocal performance by the one and only George \u201cCorpsegrinder\u201d Fisher that is truly harrowing.<\/p>\n

They can blast with the best of them (see \u201cRemaimed\u201d), and they can drag the listener through body-ridden swamplands (\u201cCorpus Delicti\u201d); either way, few do it as well as Cannibal Corpse.<\/p>\n

-Greg Pratt<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Exhumed
\nDeath Revenge
\n<\/i>(Relapse Records)
\n4\/5<\/p>\n

In the promotional materials marketing California gore metal band Exhumed\u2019s sixth full-length, Death Revenge<\/i>, their record label refers to the album as being \u201cdisgusting.\u201d This is a selling point in Exhumed\u2019s world.<\/p>\n

What that world sounds like is reminiscent of a toilet being flushed, but with melody. And the toilet is full, so it\u2019s a gurgling, burbling mass of sound, but amidst the swirling death metal cacophony, there are tons of guitar melodies to keep things listenable.<\/p>\n

Make no mistake, Exhumed can write a song: \u201cThe Harrowing\u201d sounds like thrash metal amped up to 11, and \u201cThe Anatomy Act of 1832\u201d is an epic feat of mature songwriting not often seen in such extreme forms of music.<\/p>\n

The best part? This is a concept album based on a true story of grave robbings, murders, and black-market cadavers, all set in the 1820s in Scotland. It\u2019s the kind of gruesome and, yes, disgusting tale that few bands could pull off basing a whole album around. But then again, few bands are Exhumed.<\/p>\n

-Greg Pratt<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Gwar
\nThe Blood of Gods
\n<\/i>(Metal Blade Records)
\n3\/5<\/p>\n

Gwar is the goriest of the gory, the band\u2019s live shows a cornucopia of fluids sprayed all over the audience, their whole intergalactic-alien schlock just tons and tons of fun.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, their inimitable singer, Oderus Urungus, blasted off this mortal coil since their last album, 2013\u2019s Battle Maximus<\/i>, and new guy Blothar is left to take his place. That is an extremely difficult position to fill, but here Blothar does a fine job: although he doesn\u2019t have the personality of Urungus (who does?), he manages to be both humorous and menacing in these songs, walking the fine line between parody and serious metal that a Gwar frontman should.<\/p>\n

The songs themselves go between Sabbath doom worship (the opening \u201cWar on Gwar\u201d) and insane nursery rhymes from Hell (\u201cEl Presidente\u201d). In other words, it\u2019s business as usual from the scumdogs of the universe, The Blood of Gods<\/i> an admirable enough entry into a long catalogue, one that started off as novelty and ended up becoming decent and enjoyable straight-up metal.<\/p>\n

-Greg Pratt<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Electric Wizard Wizard Bloody Wizard (Spinefarm Records) 3.5\/5 English doom metal goes with Halloween like beer goes with bar nuts. Electric Wizard\u2019s latest album, Wizard Bloody Wizard, is a great addition to the haunting festivities this year, because, to put it bluntly, it\u2019s creepy as hell. \u201cNecromania\u201d makes me feel as though I\u2019m walking down […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14834,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,200],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-october-18-2017"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14832"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14839,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14832\/revisions\/14839"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}