Two members of Portugal’s Gaerea, namely Guilherme Henriques – vocals/guitar and Pedro Soares – drums, decided to write an opus of heartfelt emotions and darkness and put it all in one long song called Disintegrate. The opus starts calmer, with post metal influenced guitar melody, a bit cold like in space with synth effects melody in the background preparing us of what’s to come. And that is, my ladies and gentlemen, perfect lesson in rolling death doom with growling death vocals, dark and melodic guitar wall of sound and doom procession drums played technically perfect to a note. The atmosphere is perfect and lyrics are about rising of an individual above things that bothered him/her until now, when he or she took all by heart but will rise now above all that darkness even it means to disintegrate and practically cease existence. This is a liberating music and opus. If you listen to it in darkness, close your eyes and let the music and words take you to soundscape vessel and fly you above all you will see how pathetic and needless are some of your worries and problems and how sometimes things need to be cut no matter it might cause pain or cease to exist in a way they existed before. Double bass drumming, some death and post metal influences add to the drama and melancholic guitar work on this opus. I can only congratulate you, because this one touched me deep, deep inside.
Death Feast from Portugal have been formed in 2017, but members of the band have been playing in various bands and projects, so they are in no way green or new in the scene. This is the band’s third full length opus containing ten songs, two being intro and outro. Music is raw and primitive black thrash metal with couple of blackened death metal influences thrown in here and there in the song structures. The production and all of the atmosphere of the opus are really raw and primitive at times, reminding of glorious times meaning first opuses by Bathory, old Sodom, early Kreator and all those proto black thrash bands from the eighties. Lyrically band also delves into those parts delivering hitters like ‘Banish from Monastery’, ‘Hell Funeral’, ‘Crossing the Fire’ but there are also hymns to metal like fantastic ‘Commandments of Metal’ so if you are into black thrash metal with some death here and there, also coming to mind Vulcano or Sarcofago, go get this one you will not regret it. Pure war!
Devil In Me worked their asses off to become one of the flagships of European hardcore punk scene and boy, does this new album sound great. I discovered European hardcore back in the mid nineties through controversial Lost & Found releases and bands like Ryker´s, Brightside, Right Direction, Discipline and so on were so sweet and great to me as a kid back then. They still are of course. Devil In Me are from Lisabon and this opus contains eleven songs done just in the way I like it, More street punk oriented Euro hardcore with roots firm in punk rock, yet with some moshing metallic parts here and there, also NYHC influences are unavoidable with some song structures. Vocals are awesome, bordering from angry screaming, hardcore shouter to some more melodic vocals like in fantastic Awake. In Loving Memory and Never Give In are also my personal favorites on this record, so when you read titles like these you will get the picture what these songs and this band is about. Gang backing vocals are just made for singing along while moshing and stagediving at gigs, I can only imagine how this band sounds live, hopefully I will see them and hear them play live one day soon. Until then, this is probably a candidate for top five hardcore releases this year which just started. Great one indeed!
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