NECROT: Debut Album by Bay Area Old School Death Metal killing Machine Out Now.

Formed by Luca Indrio on bass and vocals (Acephalix, Vastum, ex-Lawless), by Chad Galey on drums (Ex-Vastum, ex-Bruxers, Atrament, Caffa, Rude, Mortuous), and by Sonny Reinhardt on guitar (Saviours, ex-Watch Them Die), Necrot are one of the most punishing, savage and treacherous death metal acts to ever tread Californian soil. Formed in 2011 initially as a side-project of Acephalix, Necrot have since then built a devoted following in their native Bay Area and beyond, and have become known as a merciless and bloodthirsty death metal killing machine thanks to their bulldozing live sets and their savage and butchering recordings. Since inception the band has only made their music available as very short and hard to find demo tapes that are now completely sold out, impossible to find and have become something of a cult object or collector’s item, elevating the band’s reputation to that of absolute cult and DYI monument in the Bay Area underground metal scene.

Today Tankcrimes and Sentient Ruin bring you these early and long sold out demos of the band unearthed, resurrected and mutated into something more devastating and savage than ever before. Bundled up into an enhanced and comprehensive listening experience under the form of a compilation of sorts which serves as the true debut full-length album of the band, The Labyrinth comprises of remastered versions of all the band's songs recorded to date, courtesy of Dan Randall of Mammoth Mastering Studios, and is a punishment in aural form that will be hard to forget - a barbaric and bestial onslaught of riffs that never loosens its grip, stomping and crushing the listener like a bulldozer from hell, that all fans of old school death metal, crust, stenchcore and the such can not miss for any reason in the world. While Tankcrimes released this monstrous slab of rabid death metal on LP, CD and digital formats, Sentient Ruin has brought The Labyrinth to you in the form of a limited edition cassette tape featuring a monster landscape J-Card with amazing artwork by Kyle House (Acephalix) and Lukas Krieg.

Taking queues from legends like Asphyx, Bolt Thrower, Grave, Discharge, early Sepultura, early Morbid Angel, and Entombed, Necrot have thus far existed as a power trio with the build and attitude of a bloodthirsty tank. Necrot’s music is a literal onslaught of buzz-sawing death metal riffs and bone crushing rhythms - an authentic sonic bludgeoning that can batter the listener’s flesh into complete submission within seconds, and which owes much of its crude heaviness and primitive ferocity to old-school death metal just as it does to (crust) punk.

The Labyrinth tapes are now available in our store, while LPs, CDs and digital downloads can be grabbed from Tankcrimes.

 

PALACE OF WORMS: Visionary Third Album by Eccentric One Man Black Metal Act Out April 8.

We are honored and proud to announce the release of the cassette tape version of the new full length album by eccentric Bay Area-based one-man black metal project Palace of Worms. Titled The Ladder - Palace of Worm’s new record is over forty five minutes of lightless, dismal, and soul-draining aural misery. A bleak and lonesome descent into endless starless night and into bottomless aural agony. A voyage into the depths of a wretched soul where melody and bitter aggression coexist in eternal pain, and where hope is just a cold, minuscule, and dying flickering light lost far away in the distance, forever beyond grasp. Seamlessly blending black metal, post-rock, deathrock and gothic elements The Ladder is a shapeshifting and unsettling listening experience where genres are bent and blended into a dark and tenebrous blur of melody, rage, despair, and pitch black atmospheres, all contained within the spiraling movement of seven eccentric and and winding compositions of stunning beauty and unsettling magnetism that will captivate the senses of those who have loved similar works by bands like Lychgate, Enslaved, Tombs, Drudkh, Agalloch, Winterfylleth, Taake, Shining and the such.

Palace of Worms is the brainchild of sole mastermind Balan, a staple fixture in the Bay Area’s extreme metal underground since at least the last decade. Throughout the years Balan has also militated in notable Bay Area heathens as Larvae, Ordo Obsidium, Botanist and more, and has shaped Palace of Worms to become one of the most raw, unforgiving, visionary and genre-bending black metal acts to ever tread  West Coast soil. Constantly yielding a prolific and steady flow of splits and records released for the most part by San Francisco-based genre-defying label Flenser Records, Palace of Worms has always showcased a noticeably curved stylistic trajectory, that far from following black metal in a straight line and by the book has instead always escorted the listener into unusual, strange, surreal and bizarre realms of the craft, as seen for example in other similarly eccentric black metal bands such as Peste Noire, L'Acephale, Yellow Eyes, and Leather Chalice. Listening to Palace of Worms’ music means taking a deep dive into Balan’s mind. A place of wretched visions and collapsing emotions. A place where emptiness devours everything and where the notions of loss and hopelessness are taken to a totally new level of aural atrocity.

The Ladder  - which will also see a vinyl release through Broken Limbs Recordings - was recorded by Eric Iverson, mixed by Greg Wilkinson at Earhammer Studios (Graves at Sea, Noothgrush, Iron Lung), and was  mastered By Jack Shirley (Deafheaven, Whirr, Grayceon). The gorgeous artwork was made for Balan by Raven Exner, while the design and layout was done by Kevin Gan Yuen (Dead to A Dying World, Lychgate, Sutekh Hexen). The Ladder  also features guest performances by Ephemeral Domignostika (Mastery, Pale Chalice), Bezaelith (Lotus Thief), and Mattia Alagna (Abstracter, Atrament).

You can now stream the track Nightworld courtesy of Stereogum, while pre-orders are now available here on our website as well as on our Bandcamp.

 

 

UNRU: Devastating Debut Album by German Black Metal/Crust Heathens Out March 28 2016 - LP coming May 13.

After having surfaced with an unbelievable demo in 2013, along with two incredibly ruinous and visionary splits with Paramnesia and Sun Worship in 2014, german black metal/neocrust heathens UNRU have finally prepared the ground to unleash their harrowing debut album upon the unexpecting masses of the underground. Titled Als Tier Ist Der Mensch Nichts (which translates to "even as an animal, man is nothing" in german) the debut album by UNRU is a vast, abyssal, and soul-disintegrating black metal/crust odyssey that will plunge the listener into an aural hell that will not be easy to forget, dragging them into a frightening voyage through the blackest depths of human failure and of existence's darkest torments. Comprised of four massive movements clocking in at an average of ten minutes each, Als Tier Ist Der Mensch Nichts showcases the band digging further into their ancestral black metal roots while also developing a sinister and punishing aspect to their music that draws straight from old school death metal, while also retaining that bestial and uncompromising punk edge that derives from the bands unmistakeable and ever-present crust punk DNA. 

Hailing from Bielefeld, North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany, UNRU are among the strongest and most vital entities in modern day European blackened crust. UNRU have taken the precious lesson taught by forefathers His Hero Is Gone, Madame Germen and Iskra and have run with it into an abyss of black metal-plagued sonic misery, seamlessly drowning the two genres in a blurred disfiguration of rage and malevolence and have been set since their inception on a full-frontal quest for total sonic obliteration, crafting music that in its masterful, sweeping, and levitating interweaving of punk and black metal has shown it self to be an authentic abyss of shadows - a frightening sonic mosaic of disembodied visions and of complete aural torment. Brilliantly blending the icy and lifeless atmospheres of Scandinavian black metal, and the solemn and swelling dirges of epic US "Cascadian" black metal with the fury and ferocity of crust punk, UNRU have depicted a sonic landscape of absolutely stunning beauty and of completely spellbinding cruelty, that will surely please the demanding palates of fans of similar bands like Ash Borer, Skagos, Fell Voices, Celeste, Wolves in the Throne Room, Altar of Plagues, and the such.

Als Tier Ist Der Mensch Nichts will see the light digitally on March 28 2016 through Sentient Ruin (US), Monotonstudio Records (DE/EU), and Supreme Chaos Records (DE/EU) with Monotonstudio Records also releasing a tape version of the record on the same date and Supreme Chaos releasing a CD. All three labels have also set the release for the 12" vinyl LP version of the record coming out on May 13 2016 in three different vinyl color configurations: classic black vinyl, marble vinyl with included a hand screen-printed patch, and a clear vinyl option.

Pre-orders for Als Tier Ist Der Mensch Nichts are now available through our Bandcamp page.

ATRAMENT: Debut Album by Blackened D-Beat Horde Out on March 4 - Track Streaming At CVLT Nation

After having given humanity a taste of their unquenchable ferocity with 2015's debut Demo MMXV, Oakland CA-based blackened d-beat butchers Atrament have now prepared to unleash the full extent of their sonic cruelty through the imminent release of debut full-length album, Eternal Downfall, a work that has raised the bar of "punk" music to a whole new level of aural atrocity and pushed the genre of crust over the edge, devouring it into unseen new extremes of darkness and heaviness. Based in Oakland, California, Atrament features current and former members of Moral Void, Black September, Necrot, Abstracter and Vastum and have simply delivered the heaviest d-beat album we've heard in years. Eternal Downfall stays true to the band's hardcore punk DNA, having unmistakably taken its primary source of inspiration from british crust, anarco-punk and d-beat, but is equally influenced and disfigured by the sound and the aesthetic of the bleakest 90's Norwegian Black and of the most vile Swedish Death Metal, creating a punishing wall of aggression that never relents - something that stands between Doom, Bolt Thrower, Amebix, early Napalm Death, early Dismember, Darkthrone, and Discharge all fused into a frightening onslaught of darkened, filthy, and pissed-off rage. Greg Wilkinson's production (Graves At Sea, Iron Lung, Noothgrush, Vastum, Pallbearer) and Brad Boatright's mastering have then pushed the sound of the band to its limit creating a low-end monster that will devour your speakers.

Boasting beautiful artwork crafted for the band by the master of visionary darkness Stephen Wilson, Eternal Downfall will see the light on March 4th 2016 as a limited edition cassette tape and digital product through Sentient Ruin, and as a 12" vinyl LP available in multiple color options through Broken Limbs Records (US) and Argento Records (EU).

CVLT Nation is now streaming exclusively the album's opening track - No Beyond - HERE.

A pre-order for the tape, LP and digital formats has been set up on the band's Bandcamp page.

Eternal Downfall is an absolute triumph of punk and metal hybridization, and a raging and barbaric sonic monstrosity that will delight all fans of bands like Wolfpack/Wolfbrigade, Skitsystem, Tragedy, Unkind, Disfear, Young And In The Way, Nails etc.

ATRAMENT - Eternal Downfall

Track listing:
01. No Beyond
02. Sunken Reign
03. Aberration
04. Consumed
05. Hericide
06. Wretched Apparition
07. Rotting Twilight
08. Aeon of Suffering
09. World of Ash
10. Circle of Wolves
11. Dusk Abuse

Find out more about Atrament by visiting their band page

We have previously released Atrament's debut release - Demo MMXV - check it out here.

ALTARAGE: Debut Album from Spanish Death Metal Monstrosity Finally Here - Album Streaming at CVLT Nation

Prepare for the most harrowing musical ordeal you have ever had to survive. We are about to make you endure a plight you never thought possible. It was like witnessing a mammoth beast crawl out of hell and carve craters in the earth at its passage when Spain's Altarage released MMXV - their monstrous debut demo that we released last year - in late 2015. Just two songs - less than ten minutes of complete aural annihilation that raised many questions in the mind of the poor listener who had encountered such horror, and provided few, if none, answers to what in the world could ever have materialized such immense and punishing sonic glory. When the MMXV demo was released in late 2015, long and unquestionable shadows were cast across the underground extreme metal scene, the possibilities of violence in aural form redefined, the scope and reach of death metal destruction, re-written completely. Now we find our selves against the complete absurdity of Nihl, the debut full-length album of Altarage. The multiplication, full-blown spawn, and sublimation of the MMXV demo - an ordeal in sonic form that will destroy people’s perception and cognition about what sonic violence and complete aural annihilation means. Nihl raised the bar so high in artistic craft and musical brutality that one is left to wonder how such a peak of madness could be accomplished simply from the first album. Continuing in the path of bands like Portal, Auroch, Deathspell Omega, Mitochondrion, Teitanblood, Knelt Rote and the such, Altarage have created a massive and oozing void in the perception of all avantgarde death metal fans - they have opened a portal to another dimension revealing levels and sub levels of technicality, inhuman songwriting, visionary madness, and of endless sonic brutality that will demolish even the most trained and prepared minds. No one - and we mean no one - is ready to hear what Altarage have accomplished in Nihl. Human ears were not made to bare such an atrocity and that is why when this record is released the perception of death metal will be changed inside of us forever.

Read the review and stream the whole beast over at CVLT Nation.

ALTARAGE - Nihl

1. Devicet
2. Womborus
3. Graehence
4. Baptism Nihl
5. Vortex Pyramid
6. Batherex
7. Altars
8. Cultus

Nothing is essentially known about Altarage. The band live somewhere in or around Bilbao in Spain and seemingly live locked away from the world, making the most cruel, punishing and diabolical music you will ever encounter in your lifetime. Nihl was produced and recorded by the band and by their own means and features incredible artwork by renewed New Zealand-based artist Nick Keller.

Nihl will be released on February 27 2016 on Cassette tape by Sentient Ruin and Sol Y Nieve (as was for the MMXV demo), on digital by Sentient Ruin, on CD by Doomentia Records and as a vinyl LP at a later date by Iron Bonehead Productions. Prepare, for the most surreal and fucking incredible sonic torment your ears have ever had to endure.

 

WAKE: Third Massacring Album from Canadian Avant-Grind Mercenaries Out On February 26 2016.

WAKE
Sowing the Seeds of a Worthless Tomorrow

Track listing:
1. Burn Well
2. Wretched Tongues
3. Drones
4. Better Living Through Apathy
5. Low
6. Unrelenting Hate
7. Vultures
8. Endless Decay

Calgary, Canada-based five-piece avant-grind war-machine WAKE have prepared the ground for their battlefield-like upcoming third full-length album. Titled Sowing the Seeds of a Worthless Tomorrow, this brand new sonic beast by the canadian band is already destined to elevate the bars of darkness, wrath, and hostility within the genre of grindcore to a whole new level of aural atrocity. 

When the masses will have this onslaught of blind and unforgiving rage unleashed upon them, it will become immediately clear that the worldwide current grindcore panorama will all of a sudden appear immediately redefined as WAKE impose their new standards in the genre, presenting us with a formula that uses grindcore as mere vessel, and then coerces it to become a conduit of completely unheard and lawless sonic hostility, twisting and morphing the genre into a new and aberrant sonic monstrosity made of torturous atmospheres and horrific bloodthirsty visions.

Far from being a grindcore band that fits any mold or follows any book, WAKE have always distinguished them selves for being outsiders who envision the genre as a starting point from which to spawn their barbaric and completely unheard of sonic vision, made of savage aggression, void-opening dissonance, and spellbinding psychedelic dirges. As Sowing the Seeds of a Worthless Tomorrow detonates on the notes of skin-peeling opener Burn Well the listener will immediately realize that what they are dealing with is far from simply being a grindcore band. Shards and splinters of Black Metal, Crust, D-Beat, Noise, Sludge, and Post-Hardcore will come at the listener like a firestorm, being hurdled at them with unconceivable violence, terrifying speed, and surgical precision. As the album unfolds, exposing a massive and oozing wound of dissonant and lawless horror, Sowing the Seeds of a Worthless Tomorrow will reveal it self as a low-end monster that stands completely on its own, engulfed in the rising flames of a wretched sonic hell, and drawing precious blood from many different influences which reach far beyond grindcore. 

While WAKE remain true to their underlying grindcore roots, showcasing clear affinity with stalwarts in the genre like Nasum, Brutal Truth, Discordance Axis and Napalm Death, attentive listeners will also notice how far WAKE's music can reach, encompassing the dissonant and twisted craft of Deathspell Omega, the slow and pounding sludgecore of bands like Breach and Knut, and the grandiose post-hardcore architectures of bands like Cursed and The Secret. All in all Sowing the Seeds of a Worthless Tomorrow is a monstrous achievement in the realm of modern and forward-thinking extreme metal and hardcore elaborations, and is a must hear for any fan of bands like Ulcerate, Full of Hell, Nails, Buried Inside, Celeste, and beyond.

In their seven year-long existence, WAKE have taken their wretched craft on the road and plagued the entire northern hemisphere with it on multiple occasions. Having toured Europe with Primitive Man, played Maryland Deathfest multiple times and turned venues into bloody battlefields all over North America with their pillaging tours, WAKE have established them selves as one of most despondent, merciless and infamous live acts to ever see the light of day in the last decade. WAKE have released two full-length albums to date on leading labels in the genre like 7 Degrees Records, Give Praise, and Handshake Inc. etc, (including two splits with Theories and Dephosphorous), and have shared the stage with monsters in the genre like Napalm Death, Black Breath, Rotten Sound and many more.

Sowing the Seeds of a Worthless Tomorrow was recorded and mixed by Joel Grind at Falcon Studios (Toxic Holocaust, Poison Idea, Lord Dying, Abyss, etc.), mastered by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege (Nails, The Secret, Black Breath, Old Man Gloom etc.) and features mesmerizing art and layout by Hal Rotting of Rotting Graphics (Plague Widow, Napalm Raid, Atriarch, Barghest), and will be released on February 26 2016 on cassette tape and digital formats by Sentient Ruin, on CD by Everyday Hate, and on LP by 7 Degrees Records and Nerve Altar.

VASTUM: Cassette Version of Crushing New Album "Hole Below" Coming November 6th.

Vastum should be news to no one at this point. The Bay Area’s infamous doomed-out death metal heathens have been destroying ear drums since 2009, wrecking havoc up and down the west Coast with their barbaric live sets, and releasing two of US-death metal’s most acclaimed records of the last five years: 2011’s merciless Carnal Law and 2013’s tenebrous Patricidal Lust, both released on cult Portland-based shape-shifting metal label 20 Buck Spin. Today we’re proud to announce that we’ve been given the honor to release the cassette version of their brand new album, the monstrous full-length opus Hole Below, thirty-eight minutes of punishing and diabolical old school death metal that are surely going to become one of the crowning achievements in 2015 death metal. Vastum were formed in San Francisco in 2009 by three members of death-crust heathens Acephalix: vocalist Dan Butler, bassist Luca Indrio and guitarist Kyle House. The lineup was completed by Leila Abdul-Rauf (of Hammers of Misfortune ,Saros and Amber Asylum) on second guitar, and R.D. Davies of Gehenna on drums.

Their blastbeat-less brand of slow and sludgy old school death metal became immediately recognizable and attracted much attention in the underground almost from the start. Initially similar in sound to Acephalix’s crusty death metal rudeness, Vastum soon started to morph and mutate into something completely new and different, until they had laid the foundation for what would be destined to become one of the Bay Area’s most infamous and barbaric death metal aesthetics, a place where ominous perversions, sinister morbidity and visions of violence wandered off into a hellish dirge of punishing death metal riffs and bone-crushing doom metal heaviness. Today Vastum’s lineup is completed by Shelby Lermo on guitars (ex-Apocryphon - replacing Kyle House) and Adam Perry on drums (replacing Davies), but their primitive and ruthless sound has remained untouched, if not even further steered towards the most vile possible heaviness and the most tormented form of complete aural disgust.  Destined to be an absolute highlight in 2015 death metal Hole Below is an opus of mesmerizing violence and of fathomless heaviness, and a work which will surely captivate fans of Immolation, Incantation, Acephalix, Cruciamentum, Autopsy, Bolt Thrower, and Dead Congregation. Recorded by Greg Wilkinson at Earhammer Studios here in Oakland CA and mastered at Audiosiege Mastering Studios in Portland OR by Brad Boatright, Hole Below will be jointly released by Sentient Ruin and 20 Buck Spin on November 6th 2015, with the Portland label handling the LP, CD and digital version, and the cassette tape version being released by us. Read the full press release from Earsplit PR HERE.

VASTUM
Hole Below

1. Sodomitic Malevolence
2. Amniosis
3. In Sickness and In Death
4. Intrusions
5. Hole Below (A Dream of Ritual Abuse)
6.Empty Breast

ALTARAGE: Debut Demo Tape from Mysterious Spanish Avantgarde Blackened Death Metal Monstrosity To Be Released on September 27th.

Altarage is a terrifying enigma... The only known fact about this band is that they come from Bilbao, Spain, and that their music is some of the most fucked, hallucinating and surreal death metal you will hear all year. Other than that, nothing about this band is really known. Even us here at Sentient Ruin tried to understand, through the sparse email correspondence with them, who Altarage are formed by and who is concealed behind the moniker... to no avail. When asked to explain the origin and members of the band, whatever entity was replying to our emails, politely declined to comment.

Regardless, in front of Altarage's sonic immensity, you realize that their music speaks for it self at many different levels, and that anything aside from what your sorry ears must endure upon encountering their wicked craft, falls in second place. When you hear this band's savage and hellish music you realize that nothing else matters other than the music itself. You realize that existence is futile and that nothingness and emptiness permeate everything. You get sucked into a void of aural destruction that is impossible to escape... 

Altarage's music seems to do just that: it opens voids... Portals to other dimensions, revealing worlds of fathomless wretchedness and of unimaginable horror. In a similar way as seen in bands like Portal, Evangelist, Mitochondrion ,Antediluvian, Abyssal, and Teitanblood. Altarage also are forgers of death metal of the most twisted and hallucinated craft - of extreme metal of the highest technical and visionary order. Their unbelievable technicality and musicianship are a mere conduit, a medium to the immense aural devastation this band can summon. A simple vessel that can carry the listener from the safety of reality to the nightmarish musical hell that lies beyond Altarage's sonic vision, and to which the band wants to drag you with their insane pandemonium of coiled and tangled riffs.MMXV is Altarage's debut offering, the first statement of an artistic power so great that one is left to wonder what will come next - what could ever follow such a wretched spawn of musical madness. Coming in a limited edition cassette tape co-relesed in collaboration with Sol Y Nieve Records,MMXV will also see a digital release, with both versions dropping on September 27th 2015.