VERMIN WOMB: Horrifying Debut by Blackened Deathgrind Band Featuring Members of Primitive Man To See The Light on October 28th. - Track Streaming at CVLT Nation.

Vermin Womb are one of the most antagonist, hostile, and nihilistic extreme metal acts to have ever ravaged the North American extreme metal underground. Rising in Denver, CO from the ashes of local blackened grind/sludge band Clinging To The Tress of A Forest Fire, Vermin Womb have been conceived by CTTTOAFF vocalist/guitarist Ethan Lee McCarthy (now also/mainly vocals/guitar in Primitive Man) and CTTTOAFF bassist Zach Harlan, to be a continuation of their past collaboration and as a cathartic conduit for their most tormented and unconceivable nightmares.

Anyone familiar with the work of Ethan Lee McCarthy and with his current main endeavor Primitive Man, should know, or at least imagine, what this "grindcore offshoot" of his could possible sound like and be be all about. While looking back on his current and past projects, one might have guessed the basics, but the actual depth of sonic inhumanity Vermin Womb can really reach is something that stretches far beyond human comprehension. Simply put, for Vermin Womb there is no end to the suffering that can be forced upon human ears. This band knows absolutely no limit in what musical decency is. Vermin Womb will just go and on, remorselessly spewing their hateful craft until the listener's own existence itself is left laying in complete ruin and torment. Nothing shall be spared, nothing is worthy of the foul gift of life or of the laughable right to exist in Vermin Womb’s unthinkable view of the world. Everything that has been put into existence shall simply be annihilated with no question or rationality.

To achieve this sonic hell on earth built by the band with the sole purpose to desecrate and annihilate the concept of "humanity”, Vermin Womb have chosen the weapons of grindcore, black and death metal and have fused them together in a bestial arsenal of auditive sonic weaponry that shall stand as one of the most inverted, wrong, and morally (and physically) unacceptable and unbearable manifestations of musical horror ever put to tape. Essentially an absolute  must for all fans of similarly abhorrent manifestations of total sonic chaos and depravity as seen from bands like Revenge, Knelt Rote, Portal, Adversarial, Pissgrave, Watchmaker, Full of Hell etc. If you liked our last releases by Altarage, Wake, VRTRA and Unyielding Love, then you will be pleasantly surprised to find yet another addition to the growing list of the most heavy and violent releases we’ve ever been involved with.

If you have any doubts on the actual extent of this band's horrific sound just head over to CVLT Nation (who have called Decline a "thick wall of hate" - stream and feature HERE) and listen to the first track released from the album - Entomb will in fact bury you under the weight of your own miserable and worthless life.

To be titled Decline, Vermin Womb's bestial and inhuman first full-length album will be released on tape by Sentient Ruin in collaboration with Hibernation Release on October 28 2016, while an LP version will see the light on the same day through Translation Loss Records (US vinyl) and Throatruiner Records (EU vinyl), while Translation Loss will also be handling the digital and CD version worldwide. Pre-orders for the tape are now available on our store and on our Bandcamp page.

CRUZ: Punishing Debut Album by Barcelona-Based Old School Death Metal/Crust Destroyers Out On October 7 - Tracks Streaming at Decibel Magazine and CVLT Nation.

After having released a monstrous and  unbelievably heavy debut demo in 2015, Barcelona's Cruz have since ascended to leaders of a pack in the European old-school death metal underground that currently finds no credible opposition, and their soon to be released debut album titled Culto Abysmal is here to reinforce this harrowing omen that a BEAST has been created and that its savage crusade of lawless sonic destruction won't cease until total and complete ruin has been harnessed.

What makes this band such a unique force to behold is their unshackled and lawless approach to old school death metal and primordial thrash metal, and the way they use (crust) punk as an extra weapon in their arsenal to take their damaging force to the next level, becoming an unstoppable force of nature that knows no boundaries and which obeys to nothing and nobody. Punk and metal live in this band's war-torn soul in seamless harmony, fueling each other's flames in an escalating and unstoppable firestorm of chaos ad destruction that knows no end.

Within its thick and cavernous texture and amongst the chaos of Culto Abismal's unchallenged aggression you will hear echoes of Wolfpack/Wolfbrigade, Bolt Thrower, Grave, Discharge, and early Entombed getting bottlenecked into an irreversible chain reaction of total punk-infested death metal chaos that will have only one possible epilogue: total fucking annihilation - a sonic siege from hell that will be impossible to repel. 

With Culto Abysmal Cruz's insane ruinous power and classic death metal destructiveness have already provoked widespread amazement, with CVLT Nation calling the album "A RIPPER from the bowels of hell - a fucking war zone in sonic form" (check out their feature + exclusive track stream of La Pitjor De Les Plagues HERE), and Decibel Magazine further elaborating that Culto Abysmal is a "vicious interpretation of a classically evil sound" (read their feature and stream the track Intruso HERE).

To be released on October 7  2016  by Sentient Ruin (vinyl and cassette tape for North America), To The Death Records (vinyl and tape for Europe), Neanderthal Stench (European vinyl co-release) and by Selfmade God Records (CD worldwide), Culto Abismal will be one of those releases that all fans of old school death metal, crust, d-beat, stenchcore etc. can not overlook for any reason in the universe.

Culto Abismal was recorded and mixed by Javi Félez between November 2015 and March 2016 at Moontower Studios, mastereded by Brad Boatright at AudioSiege in Portland, OR. and features incredible and classic artwork for the genre by César Valladares.

CRUZ
Culto Abismal

1. Mundos Disformes
2. A Cops de Destral
3. Intruso
4. Culto Abismal
5. La Caza
6. La Pitjor de les Plagues
7. Pesanta
8. Tumbas Ciclópeas

UNYILEDING LOVE: Northern Ireland-based Blackened Noisegrind Band to Release Horrific Debut EP on September 30th - Track Streaming at Decibel Magazine.

What you are about to witness in our next release is, simply put, total fucking bedlam. When Decibel Magazine (click HERE to read their feature) first encountered the scathing and torturous sonic depravity of Northern Ireland's Unyielding Love 's upcoming debut EP The Sweat of Augury they stated in utter amazement that the band “have blasted so hard towards the realm of harsh noise that their song structures are framed around icepick feedback and a layer of pedal abuse that makes it seem like every song they playing is the last they'll manage before their equipment disintegrates”, and then further exclaiming that Unyielding Love are “a goddamn nightmare of grind and discord that may have a few of you shitting teeth”.

It comes as no surprise that anyone who is first exposed to this band’s skin-peeling music remains completely baffled and speechless in front of the enormous amount of violence and senseless antagonism that bleeds out of Unyielding Love’s crazed homicidal songs. Birthed in the pits of Belfast, Northern Ireland and seemingly not responding to any laws of any kind in existence in the universe, Unyielding Love create impossible to believe noise-infested blackened grindcore of absolutely boundless and lawless depravity - music that is apparently built with the sole purpose to blind-side, ambush, and slay human ears with an unbelievably torrid and vile blend of lightning-fast grinding hatred and a scathing mauling of harsh-noise insanity. Blending grindcore, black metal, noise and power electronics in a firestorm of abhorrent sonic chaos, Unyielding Love have perfectly bridged the gap between the aesthetics of bands like Full of Hell, Nails, Column of Heaven, Knelt Rote, Sutekh Hexen, and Gnaw Their Tongues, creating something so heinous and sonically wretched that the human brain will ever only partially be able to fully grasp the full extent of this band’s immeasurable madness and vision.

The Sweat of Augury will be released as a limited edition cassette tape and digital product on September 30th 2016 - and preorders are now live on our store and on our Bandcamp. Recorded, mixed, and mastered by Sam Thredder in the Cro's Nest, London, and bearing amazing artwork by the band's vocalist, The Sweat of Augury is already set to become one of the most extreme, entrancing, and prohibitive listens of the year.

VRTRA: Unbelievable Debut by Californian Blackened Death-Doom Behemoth Out On September 2 - Track Streaming at CVLT Nation.

VRTRA
My Bones Hold a Stillness

I. Perpetually Hag Ridden
II. The Cold Suffocating Dark Goes on Forever
III. My Bones Hold a Stillness

A cornerstone release of this year that has appeared virtually out of nowhere - VRTRA’s debut album My Bones Hold a Stillness is already an instant classic and a colossal achievement in 2016 extreme metal for this young and mysterious Californian blackened death-doom band that creates music of unbelievable character and unparalleled vision that can crush the listener with the force of an infernal cataclysm. Seemingly birthed in the most forbidding depths of hell, My Bones Hold a Stillness is a visionary record that evokes impossible to believe scenarios of aural torment, materialized through the construction of dismal doom treads, scathing blackened-death chaos, and unbelievably evocative and sinister atmospheric compositions. 

Formed in Sacramento CA and with its unnamed members now spread between Sacramento and San Francisco, VRTRA forge colossal songs of unimaginable darkness and of suffocating intensity. Their hell-spawned music is a nightmarish and horrific kaleidoscope of sound that seamlessly brings together the brooding wretchedness of black metal bands like Deathspell Omega, Dragged Into Sunlight, and Blut Aus Nord, the cavernous and heathen below of the blackest and most abstract death metal as seen in behemoths like Dead Congregation and Diocletian, and the abysmal moods of atmospheric doom and black metal that come straight from the teachings of bands like Neurosis, Disembowelment, Winter, Unearthly Trance, and Altar of Plagues. The end result comes to life in the form of massive and swirling compositions of levitating dark matter that devour the listener in a firestorm of boundless and foreboding sonic magnificence.

Comprised of three colossal movements of oozing negativity for a total of over thirty minutes of completely abhorrent blackened death-doom chaos, VRTRA have crated an opera of abysmal imagination and of fathomless destructiveness that will delight the fine palates of all fans of bands like Dragged Into Sunlight, Primitive Man, Ulcerate, Altar of Plagues, Diocletian, Portal, Abyssal, Inverloch, Old Man Gloom and Lord Mantis.

In streaming the track The Cold Suffocating Dark Goes on Forever, CVLT Nation has labeled the release as "one of the strongest debuts of 2016" and "ULTRA INTENSE".

My Bones Hold a Stillness was recorded at Earthtone Studios in Sacramento, CA by Pat Hills, mixed at Earhammer Studios in Oakland, CA by Greg Wilkinson, mastered at Audiosiege in Portland, OR by Brad Boatright, and features beautiful artwork layout crafted for the band by View From The Coffin. The album will be released by Sentient Ruin on as digital product + limited edition cassette tape and can now be pre-ordered on our Store or on our Bandcamp.

vrtrachasm.bandcamp.com
facebook.com/vrtrachasm

FERAL LIGHT: Savage Black Metal/Crust Punk Mercenaries to Release Debut EP on August 19 - Track streaming at CVLT Nation.

We're proud and honored to announce the release of A Sound of Moving Shields - the debut EP release by three-piece black metal/crust mercenaries Feral Light. Hailing from Minnesota, Feral Light feature ex-members of Wolvhammer, Empires, Manetheren, and Finger of Scorn and play grim and sorrowful black metal entwined with savage and unyielding crust punk.  

After leaving his permanent mark with Wolvhammer's glorious Profound Lore Records debut album The Obsidian Fields, guitarist Andy Schoengrund left the band and retreated to the shadows, a place where he soon began to focus on his next musical endeavor, eventually crafting dark, inconsolable and wretched punk-influenced black metal with collaborator-friends Andrew Reesen (drums), and Jeff Scheuermann (vocals/lyrics). Over the last few years the trio has been hard at work to bring into life their own vision of the sonic bleakness, filth, and misery that was once the essence of  Wolvhammer, but with a more urgent, raw, and deconstructed approach, eventually slowly but steadily molding what would become the backbone of Feral Light.

With the competition of A Sound of Moving Shields - Feral Light's wretched craft has now fully come to life, materializing as a downcast howl of war-torn vocals funneled through lyrical content dealing with warfare and militarism, and shaped by the unholy bond between the savage grimness of ancient Scandinavian-styled black metal, the filth and abjection of British crust and post-punk, and the unmistakeable punch in the guts that comes only from the rawest rock and roll.

FERAL LIGHT
A Sound of Moving Shields

1. Mercenary
2. Hell By Compass
3. Baptized In Shellfire
4. In Glorious Battle Slain
5. Ultima Ratio Regum

A Sound of Moving Shields is a raw and embittered black metal/crust opera influenced by the likes of Darkthrone, Carpathian Forest, His Hero Is Gone etc. where ravaging black metal riffs and rabid and filthy crust punk are thrown against a backdrop of harrowing lyrical and conceptual imagery dealing with human annihilation through the horrors of war, for a final result of absolute and triumphant sonic savagery that will delight the ears of fans of Wolvhammer (of course), Krieg, Nachtmystium, Dead To A Dying World, Cara Neir, Gallhammer, The Howling Wind, Castevet, Caïna, etc. 

CVLT Nation is now streaming the track Baptized in Shellfire - and have labeled Feral Light's scathing music as "music of unequaled bitterness and of unparalleled filth".

A Sound of Moving Shields will be released as limited edition cassette tape and as a digital product through Sentient Ruin on August 19 2016. You can now pre-order tapes through our shop, and over at our Bandcamp page along with digital product preorders.

facebook.com/ferallight
ferallight.bandcamp.com

KARCAVUL: Inhumanly Repulsive Debut Album from French Death Metal/Raw Sludge Monstrosity out on July 8th - Track Streaming at CVLT Nation.

KARCAVUL
Intersaone

1. Mangepierres
2. Illuminaschichs
3. Crackleurres

All musical decency ends here, in a formless and repulsive descent into complete aural torture. Intersaone - the debut full length album by French death metal/sludge-doom monstrosity Karcavul - takes the listener on a frightening voyage within the murkiest depths of the most inhuman realms of sonic cruelty. A humiliatingly vile listening experience split up among three massive slabs of oozing sonic hatred that perfectly sew together the slow and putrid hatred of sludge metal with the pounding and punishing filth of old school death metal.

Little, to nothing is exactly known about this repulsive and flesh-reaping death metal/raw sludge aberration hailing from Lyon, southern France. While being mostly recluse and cut away from existence, Karcavul have also taken the time to sporadicly scar the underground with some of the most demented, repulsive, abhorrent and completely psychologically fucked music to ever come out of France, as exemplified by an absolutely bestial and plague-ridden debut demo (the gut-wrenching Rawctaver released in 2012), and an equally unsettling and deviated split with Uhl. Presumably a three-piece of mentally-deranged freaks, Karcavul are authors of an absolutely repugnant, vile, and nauseating splicing of death metal, raw sludge, doom metal, crust, and black metal that will find devoted admirers among fans of similarly wretched heavyweights like Dragged Into Sunlight, Coffinworm, Undergang, Coffins, Wolvhammer, Eyehategod, Noothgrush, Arkedeel, and the such.

When streaming the closing track from the record - Crackleurres - CVLT Nation described the music as "almost ten minutes of unrelenting sonic torture built with the sole purpose to humiliate and punish human ears with unimaginable violence".

Intersaone will be released on July 8th 2016 as a 12" vinyl LP and as a digital product on Sentient Ruin in North America, and through a collective of european labels overseas: Crustatombe, Deaf Death Husky, Et mon cul c’est du tofu, No Way Asso, Repulsive Medias, Saka Čost, Underground Pollution Records, and Witch Bukkake Records. The record was recorded live by Karcavul themselves, and mixed by Lizard. Mastering was done by Guillaume "Commissaire" Odile, while the cover art is by Rafaël Houée, and the LP will also feature and insert designed by the band.

Pre-orders are now live on our shop or on Bandcamp.

karcavul.bandcamp.com
Karcavul Official Site

LEATHER GLOVE: Bay Area Renowned Sound Engineer Greg Wilkinson To Release Devastating Debut Solo Demo, Track Streaming At CVLT Nation

Listen as the oscillations rattle your ears and crawl under your skin. If life is the waiting room to hell, then this is the bellowing sounds encapsulating every molecule in the room...

Leather Glove is a new one-man death/sludge metal/crust violence machine masterminded by renowned San Francisco Bay Area-based sound engineer Greg Wilkinson of Earhammer Studios in Oakland. Throughout the years Greg has consolidated himself both as leading force behind the sound and vision of now legendary heavy albums he recorded and engineered by bands like Noothgrush, Atriarch, Pallbearer, Vastum, Iron Lung, Lycus, Graves At Sea, High On Fire, etc., and as a pioneer in the local Bay Area underground heavy music scene, having played, starting as early as in the late 90's, in such notable Bay Area bands as Laudanum, Graves At Sea, I Will Kill You Fucker, and currently being the long lasting leader, bassist, and vocalist of the mighty Brainoil and the guitarist of grind/powerviolence juggernauts Deathgrave. Debuting with the Skin On Glass Demo, his first release as Leather Glove, Greg's solo music comes to life as a bestial and dismal amalgamation of many of his long-lasting musical influences, ranging from Autopsy, Coffins and Noothgrush, to Corrupted, Bolt Thorwer, and Doom - materializing an aural onslaught of abrasive, barbaric, and heavy as fuck old-school death metal riffs, sludgy, punishing crust punk-influenced rhythms, and cavernous caveman growls.

When streaming the colossal release closer Conduit to Misery, CVLT Nation has labeled Leather Glove's music as "a massive and snarling amalgamation of all his primary death metal, sludge, and crust punk influences", and "a bloodthirsty death/sludge metal beast that will not relent in front of anything as it deploys its viscous attack on the listener", and calling it in the end "a sonic punishment that will be hard to forget".

The Skin On Glass Demo will see the light on May 20th as a limited edition cassette tape as the only physical medium available and as a digital product - Pre-orer are already live on both our store and our Bandcamp page. The Skin On Glass was entirely written, performed, recorded, mixed, and mastered by Greg Wilkinson himself at his own Earhammer Studios in Oakland CA. The drums on the recording were performed by Chad Gailey (Necrot, Atrament, Rude, Ex-Vastum), while the artwork is by Boo Boo Danger Art.

leatherglove.bandcamp.com

ALARIC: New Album from Reunited Dark Punk Masters Coming on May 6th. Track Streams Available.

Claustrophobic, gloomy, and epically grandiose, with their new album End of Mirrors we find the four members of Alaric coming together at the height of their powers. As with their previous offerings, End Of Mirrors was recorded and mixed by Skot Brown at his Kempton House Studios. Brown’s contributions have been crucial to realizing the vision of the band and expanding upon it to manifest a soundscape that can be dark, creepy, and complex while giving the songs a chance to breathe and shine with extraordinary clarity. Shane Baker’s lyrics (also in Pins of Light) are deeply personal yet universal in scope, reflecting hard times in a fallen world at a moment of monumental change in the lives of the band members. Each track and movement provides an emotional and deeply physical journey through inky, blackened sonic murk, devoid of all hope. Jason Willer (also in Cross-Stitched Eyes) pummels the drums, driving the band forward with power and finesse and then dropping down into a roiling boil of tribal toms. Bassist Rick Jacobus deals in woozy but solid lines that often carry the melody while filling out the sonic space with riding drone notes. Russ Kent's guitar playing (also the legendary spine-bender in Noothgrush) creates scintillating, cascading moments of beauty – what he calls "sheets of electric rain" - that open into crushing and aggressive distortion. It all comes together and twines around the atmospheric explorations of newly enlisted sound artist and experimental electronic musician Thomas Dimuzio who utilizes a Buchla Polyphonic radio tuner, modular analog synthesizers, and other non-traditional methods to create his art. Make no mistake, this is not passive listening. These songs are instant classics for a new dark age.

Alaric (who feature members of stalwart Bay Area long running acts like Noothgrush, Cross-Stitched Eyes, and Pins of Light) began their voyage in 2008 with an eye toward creating moody and compelling music unlike any other, that would seamlessly sew together a daunting sonic arabesque made of desolate and heart-splitting deathrock, gloomy and drooping post-punk, and a tension and hopelessness akin only to certain moods found in the most disinheriting doom metal aesthetics. Beginning with influences from such progenitors as Killing Joke and Christian Death to the darkest, heaviest punk bands and the most epic psychedelia, the band has dedicated itself to creating a singularly shadowy electric guitar-driven music. Proclaimed Zero Tolerance Magazine of their self-titled debut, “Morbid, threatening, and obsidian… Album of the Year by a long shot." In a review of the band’s split with Atriarch, Cvlt Nation wrote, “…one experiences an immersion in watery black textures as if drawn welcomingly into a drowning, slowly swirling, abyss.” Alaric’s previous releases include their debut single Animal/Shadow Of Life (FYBS/ Buried In Hell Records, 2010) and the aforementioned, self-titled LP (20 Buck Spin, 2011) and split 12” LP, with Atriarch (20 Buck Spin, 2012).

In streaming the track Angel CVLT Nation has labeled End of Mirrors as "a magnificent aural monolith to gloom" and "and amazing deathrock masteripiece", while No Clean Singing in streaming the title track defined the album "expansive in the way that it haunts you." 

Bearing beautiful artwork by Kevin Gan Yuen, End of Mirrors will be releaed on May 6 with the cassette tape version coming from Sentient Ruin (pre-orders here), while the LP, CD, and digital versions will arrive through none other than the mighty Neurot Recordings.