VARIOUS ARTISTS
Resurrected In Festering Slime
(Agonia Records)
63:34min

I might have been a bit asleep when the "new wave of Swedish Death Metal" started to rise and make noise, though was quickly entangled in the chaos with bands like CRUCIFYRE, BASTARD PRIEST, GRAVELESS and INTERMENT (if you can put the last mentioned band in the same category as the first ones, as INTERMENT started out in 1988 and returned in 2007 after some years off the grid. Though if DARKCREED, a band that was formed in 1994, can be on this compilation, INTERMENT can be a part of the new wave as well!). Not far after the mentioned bands and a little research, bands like FERAL, MIASMAL, TORMENTED and MAIM started to wreak havoc on my Neighbors’ peace of mind. Now the gates to the dark side have been torn down, and out crawl new bands and bringers of audio torture and Metal of Death from Sweden – and a lot of the bands do deliver Death Metal of high quality, which this compilation from the Polish label of grimness Agonia Records brings forth. 16 bands showcasing 16 tracks of Swedish Death Metal, how it sounds right about now, in my eyes a must buy for fans of this hellish genre! Even though this compilation first saw the light of day back in 2008, when the Dutch label Soulseller Records released 14 of the 16 track on a limited vinyl, the album still has a lot of reason today, as many of the bands on "Resurected In Festering Slime" are breaking through, or at least have their first full length released and in the midst of making a lot of noise! The 2 "new" bands on the Agonia Records CD release are MIASMAL and TORMENTED, 2 more than worthy bands to be amongst the rest on this album! The compilation might also be hailed as "A truly sinister Death Metal compilation featuring the new wave of Swedish Death Metal" even though RAPE, PILLAGE & BURN hails from Texas, USA, BONESAW, from Aberdeen, Scotland and UNSPOKEN from Oslo, Norway. I don’t know if they couldn’t come up with 3 worthy bearers of the NWSDM sign back when the release originally was compiled, or if they just wanted to showcase 3 bands from other countries playing Death Metal in the same vein as the Swedes? What is the new wave of Swedish Death Metal then? Well, to put it short, a revival of the Death Metal tradition CARNAGE, GRAVE, DISMEMBER, ENTOMBED and the likes began in the late 80s and carried into the start 90s where it boomed. Down tuned heavy as fuck dark Death Metal with a few well placed and performed melodies, a punky approach to the riffing, guttural to screamed growls, frantic to slow paced drumming, crushing dark atmospheres with a hint of doom and destruction and an utterly don’t give a fuck attitude, and to top it all off, a dark, yet organic and alive production that packed the music in a gloomy fuzz, yet energetic and straight forward. That is more or less what it is about today, even though the approach might be a bit more varied, as some bands focuses on the punky approach, other on the darker and more doomy side, some of the straight forward fuzz and some right on the spot old school atmosphere. So there is something for every Death Metal head’s taste. Besides the bands mentioned in the beginning of the review, I also recommend MORBUS CHRON, which sooner than later should be ready with their debut full length "Sleepers In The Rift" on Pulverised Records, BOMBS OF HADES with their dark gory crusty old school attack and great melodies and all hail Jonas Stålhammar’s (bring back UTUMNO!!!) vokills, MR. DEATH with their no nonsense Death Metal and quirky and catchy pace changes, CHRONIC TORMENT with their Doom-laden Death Metal, great melodies, evil growl and well placed synth and last but not least EVISCERATED with straight out great Death Metal, unfortunately the band is currently on hold, though get hold of their great demo "Rituals Of Reanimation". "Resurrected In Festering Slime" is a get way of getting into Swedish Death Metal as it is being hammered right now, and besides the insight in a ‘new’ and exciting genre, we also get hold of a good bunch of unreleased and other tracks from obscure and hard to get hold of releases, win win I say! I’ll now leave the keys alone for a while, and let myself sink back in the festering slime with some of Sweden’s finest! www.agoniarecords.com

Anders Peter Jørgensen

Anders Peter Jørgensen

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Resurrected In Festering Slime
(Soulseller Records)
55:47min

In these times where each magazine and many fanzines already offer free compilation CDs as bonus you might ask if it is really a necessary and wise decision to release a compilation as a regular label release. This question is understandable as selling records turned out to become a business which is everything else than easy… Here we have a little different situation as it is a "vinyl only" release and this vinyl includes only newcomers not familiar to the masses yet. Most of the songs are exclusive recordings for this release or at least recordings which were not released on other records so far (the only exception I know are RAPE PILLAGE & BURN with their song ‘1911’ which is featured on the recently released debut MCD "Songs Of Death… Songs Of Hell") and because of this the sound quality is not all over up to date, which is not surprising as we are talking about a low budget release here and I guess the bands didn’t get paid for the recording at all. Anyway, the sound quality on several tracks is stunningly good. "Resurrected In Festering Slime" – the name is part of the inscription of the tombstone on ENTOMBED’s coverpainting of "Left Hand Path" – is an old school Death Metal compilation which includes 14 songs of 14 different newcomer acts. The spectrum, even talking only about old school Death Metal, is quite large and covers all different aspects Death Metal songs should deal with. Death Metal compilations made a huge impression on me in the early nineties ("A Projection Of A Stained Mind" as the most important one but also "Pantalgia" and others) and for sure I would like to compare this compilation with those old and classic ones. To be honest, and that’s nothing surprising, "Resurrected In Festering Slime" can’t beat "A Projection Of A Stained Mind" as this is simply impossible, but this release follows on seamlessly the other compilations and is already now something you shouldn’t miss. I’m sure some of those bands will go their direction and will have a bright future; all in all I can say that these 14 songs are without exception very good songs and some of them are total killer tracks. It’s up to you to figure out which are the most outstanding songs on it, I recognized some of them but I think it’s rather unfair to point out one or another track as all of them are of high quality and as this is a non-profit release I can only advice all of you Death Metal lovers, supporters and underground maniacs to support a release like "Resurrected In Festering Slime" – the best Death Metal compilation since many years. Watch out for the bands included on here as some of them will surely go their way and will make us great times. By the way, the names of the bands included are BOMBS OF HADES, EVISCERATED, DARKCREED, RAPE PILLAGE & BURN, FERAL, MAIM, GRAVELESS, CRUCIFYRE, UNSPOKEN, MR. DEATH, STENCH, CHRONIC TORMENT, MORBUS CHRON and BONESAW. Available through www.soulsellerrecords.com.

Thomas Ehrmann

Thomas Ehrmann

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