Mickey's Metal Morsels: Episode Twenty Two

Welcome to this fortnight’s episode of Mickey’s Metal Morsels! We’ve a lot to get through this time round, so I’ll just release the hounds and let you get on with it…

EXECUTIONER’S MASK

You’ve got to hand it to post punkers Executioner’s Mask; They set their sights high, colab wise for new album Almost There, with artwork supplied by legendary Brit artist Gerald Scarfe, and knob twiddling coming courtesy of studio colossus Jack Endino. These people don’t come cheap, I assume, but neither do they work with donkeys, as is immediately evident on just one listen to this excellent album.

Tracks of the calibre of Failed Dreams II don’t come around too often, and when they do you have to stop what you’re doing and simply wallow in the grandeur of it all; Superbly executed, with full props given to the source material, Executioner’s Mask nevertheless sound icily fresh, with Jay Gambit‘s vocals a key focal point in the maelstrom of clattering guitars and grinding bass. If the idea of Andrew Eldritch duking it out with the Jesus and Mary Chain pricks your interest – and it should – then I don’t hesitate to recommend that you immerse yourself in this splendid recording at your earliest convenience.

<a href="https://executionersmask.bandcamp.com/album/almost-there">…Almost There by Executioner’s Mask</a>

HAIL DARKNESS

Let the fire ignite! US psych-doomists Hail Darkness really bring their A-game on new album Death Divine… Led from the front by vocalist/guitarist Jez, who embodies the unhinged spirit of Grace Slick on compelling rager Hour of the Silent Rite, this is a band that really has the X-factor to set them apart from the ravening pack of doomlords currently cluttering the sonic landscape.

That x-factor is undoubtedly authenticity; On the hootworthy Cult of the Serpent Risen the trio, rounded out by bassist Joshua and drummer Emmet, pack all the camp menace of late sixties Hammer movies into their metal, but they do it so unutterably well as to render criticism redundant. With Horns of A Beast is almost as successful, as all three musicians pull together to accurately recreate San Francisco at it’s most laugh-in loopy.

If I don’t seem to be taking them seriously I’m sorry, because this is honestly some of the best doom of it’s kind I’ve heard in aeons; Just take a listen to the woozy, deluuded riffage oozing out of the speakers on the superbly titled Goat of Mendes… Raise The Glass! if you don’t believe me! Are we witnessing the dawning of a new strain of metal, inspired by pulp fictionist Dennis Wheatley? I certainly hope so, but even if that’s not the case you’ve gotta treat your ears to some of Hail Darkness’s aural goodness, and soon. You won’t regret it!

<a href="https://haildarkness.bandcamp.com/album/death-divine">Death Divine by Hail Darkness</a>

EXOTIC POTION COOKIES

Never let it be said that we don’t embrace our inner madness here at MMM, or indeed other people’s… And, as if to demonstrate this, here come Queenslanders Exotic Potion Cookies!
The opening track on their new album That’s Huge, Ill Transmission, explodes out of the speakers in the sort of manner you imagine those monkeys might attack their typewriters when tasked with writing the complete works of Shakespeare; Except it’s not the bard who is getting the kicking here so much as the collected output of Mr Bungle, Primus and System of A Down.

In actuality that’s not as bad as it sounds, and over the course of eight hugely entertaining tracks EPC manage to compress the entire history of nineties/noughties alt.metal into a series of tasty, well, morsels that are surprisingly easy to digest. This takes some skill, of course, not least in the avoidance of simply ending up sounding like some sort of live jukebox/karaoke backing band.

That doesn’t happen – quite the opposite, in fact – with the result being something that actually doesn’t sound like anything else currently doing the rounds despite it’s definite air of familiarity. It’s possibly an acquired taste, but if your taste does extend to madcap mashups of the Beastie Boys, computer games noises and death metal riffage – hello, Valley of the Serpent – then what unfolds in front of your naked, steaming ears will make perfect, glorious sense.

BLACKLIST

A bit more straightforward – but definitely no less effective – UK horror thrashers Blacklist attack the task in hand with bloodthirsty guile. Cannibal, the opening track on their latest full-length offering, With Murderous Intent, is an absolute ripping beast of a track, mixing Exodus and Slayer (circa 1984, natch) with, well… murderous intent. It’s absolutely death-affirming stuff, let me tell you, and the fun doesn’t let up for the rest of the album either as the band hack and slash their way through ten deliriously heavy slabs of demonic heavy metal.

Blacklist know just how to get to the nub of a song in lightning-quick time, and they also understand how to fuse old school classicism with modern theories of brutality. Consequently every track here hits incredibly hard, and it’s difficult not to get swept away as the band hammer mercilessly through latter day classics like Blood Baptism. Matthew Longshaw‘s drumming is a particular highlight, but the rest of the band (that’s Tyler Larkin on guitars and frankly inhuman vocals, Matt McLaughlin on guitar and bassist Curtis Goodyear) are no slouches either, and on the evidence of absolute bangers like The Shape I’d say the future is bright for these guys. In the most awful, blood-soaked way, obviously…

INIQUITOUS MONOLITH

Finally this time around we have West Australian extreme metal merchants Iniquitous Monolith, who employ a blunt, no-nonsense approach to brutality that really reaps rewards on their new album, the appropriately-named Monstrous Degradation.

This is pure, swamp-dwelling filth, no more, no less, and of course we here at Morsels HQ love it! Anybody able to come up with something as horrible as Putrid Vomitorium is OK by us, but luckily that track isn’t just a one off and the band hammer home their messages of depravity time and again on Monstrous Degradation.

The title track is pretty horrific, too, piling layers of dissonant riffage onto scattershot snares and machine gunning kick drums, building up not so much a wall of sound as an absolute nihilistic barrage of the stuff. You’ll need a strong stomach to take any more than small doses, but intestinal fortitude will be well-rewarded, let me tell you!