Our Croatian underground scene just thrives and pulsates with great bands and releases and I remember the first time I saw Drone Hunter from neighbouring Varaždin town. It was an open air gig organized by members of MC Miners from Varaždin behind one shopping mall with Đubrivo from Split and some other bands and I immediately fell in love with Drone Hunter´s music. Later on my band played a house gig in Varaždin in a garage of one guy´s home and it was fantastic. I interviewed the guys for this zine and reviewed earlier releases. Now, it is time for a new e.p. This one contains 5 songs. Although Drone Hunter are an instrumental band and I am not an avid fan of bands without vocals, this one is so good that vocals are not needed, the instruments do the talking. Songs are so well written that they tell a story. The music of Drone Hunter is hard to categorize, but I will try. It is a mixture of doom, stoner, sludge, hard rock and atmospheric post rock. But, what brought more joy to this heart are some faster, almost thrash metal parts of the songs Cabin Fever and The Dark Den Brought Me Here. Production on this e.p. is so strong and great, courtesy of Tompa at e-minor studio in Varaždin, this dude does great job with many bands from this scene here up north. Anyway, if you like atmosphere, harsh riffs, aggression, emotions, check out Drone Hunter and support the scene.
South America never ceases to amaze with so many unexplored bands and releases coming out every day. Brazil is well known country in underground and extreme metal scene with bands like Sarcofago, Mystifier, Sepultura, Ratos De Porao immediately springing to mind. Headspawn are a trio from Brazil and this is their long awaited live e.p. containing four songs. Headspawn play that street metal, mixture of thrash and groove metal. While listening to the songs I can not avoid comparison to some Sepultura influences in some world ethno crossover parts of the song structures, also harsh thrash metal bands from the country´s rich metal history and glorious bands. Vocals are harsh but not death metal growling, rather more thrash shouting with more growl voice. But, they in a second turn into more powerful melodic clean vocals that create an atmosphere of melody in the midst of carnage. My personal favorites are Satan Goss with that thundering bass parts and switches from thrash to groove, also Worthless Piece Of Shit, a lesson in street metal. Check out this band, you will not be sorry.
Denomination are from Germany and after one e.p., this is their first full length opus. This one contains 13 songs, two of them being intro and outro. After an ominous war fueled intro, the carnage starts. Denomination play old school death metal, leaning heavily on European school, mainly nineties old school Swedish death metal, not sounding like a clone, but bringing the style to new millennia. There are also blast beats, but I love how some songs also have that unmistakable d beat insignia and great strong growling vocals, coupled with razor sharp guitar riffs, but hiding behind all the brutality, there lays a melody, and that melody brings a melancholy to chaos, a pain to war if you want to put it that way. Songs like Bugs, Left hand of god, Cleansing flames are sure to win you over if you are a fan of such kind of death metal. This is a very strong debut album and a lesson in Euro death metal, how it should be done.
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 