Well, after working with Sentinel Daily bossman Scott Adams for over a decade, I’ve finally succumbed to the ‘great man’ and agreed to take charge of a regular column! Micky’s Metal Morsels is it’s name, and here I’ll seek to bring you a glimpse of the bands and music that perhaps won’t get a look in elsewhere in the mag; Not because it’s no good, natch, but merely due to constraints of time and space. Indeed, I’m hoping to bring you some truly great heavy music from across the board, genre wise as the series unfolds! But that’s enough from me – it’s time, as the great Steven Tyler once said, to let the music do the talking!
MUR.DOC 104
So the first cab off the rank for MMM is Maltese thrash collective Mur.Doc 104; I’ve been impressed with the old school charms of the new EP, The Undying, which has been pumping out of my speakers in punchy, aggressive fashion ever since I came across it. The band sensibly don’t try anything funny, preferring instead to be the best version of the old school thrash template that they can be.
That means that there aren’t any real surprises to be found on the EP, But my word there’s some high class shaking going on on tracks best tracks Mur.Doc 104 and Thrashing The Boat. If the eighties iterations of Slayer, Exodus and Overkill (especially the latter – vocalist Luke Debono has a real whiff of Blitz about him!) still get your limbs twitching like they do mine then you should seriously think about getting involved in this smart little four tracker.
I’ll let the band themselves have the final word: “The Undying will be released independently on March 3rd as a limited edition digipak, followed by worldwide distribution through all major streaming platforms on March 10. To celebrate the release, the band will be joined by Italian thrash heavyweights Adversor on March 11 for Night of the Living Thrash which will take place at The Garage in Zebbug, Malta”.
I wish I could be there!
NEPHALEM
Next up we gotst Nephalem, a fiery quartet of ne’er do wells hailing from Melbourne. Now, it’s no secret that I’ve developed a bit of a liking for filthy Aussie grind over the last couple of years, so it’s no surprise that these guys float the Micky Stronge boat with their new eight tracker Phantasmagoria…
What I like best about the record is that the band aren’t afraid to mix it up a little, sound wise, adding a loose rock n’roll edge (grind n’roll? I like the sound of that!) that brings to mind primetime late seventies Lemmy and the loose vibes of crossover acts like Gang Green and D.R.I. to the party. Drummer Rocco really swings, which adds a groovy extra dimension to ragers like the excellent Dicksplit!
At eight tracks delivered in a tick over sixteen minutes, there’s no fat here – just one hundred per cent lean metal that you owe it to yourself to get an earful of! The EP was released on February 24 (only on Spotify as far as I’m aware at this moment – I’ve helpfully added a link for your convenience and listening pleasure).
MUNT
More Grade ‘A’ Aussie mayhem! And it’s from Melbourne again too! Munt bring the blackened death/grind noise with all the venom you’d expect, and they’ve got a new EP, entitled Pain Ourobouros, set to emerge on (consults notes) March third if I’m not mistaken.
More ‘traditional’ than Nephalem, Munt unleash an unrelenting, unreconstructed barrage of nastiness on the track you can watch here on video, The Vengeful March. The men who play the stringed instruments, Spud Robertson and Sol Laskowski (grr) and Ron Dixon (brr) have the cement-mixer-tumbling-down-a-stairwell dynamics down to a tee, churning out a filthy wall of sound over which Mothlord intones and Seedy hammers away like a man possessed. This ain’t for everyone, natch, but it certainly is for me! Have a watch and a listen and see what you think!
Enjoy that? head off to the band’s Bandcamp page to find out more and whack in a pre-order!
UPPLOPPET
Well, this is rather splendid! When you read the words ‘Swedish Garage Rock’ and ‘The Sign Records‘ in close conjunction you can be pretty sure that you’re on to a winner, and that’s certainly the case with the motoring new offering from Gothenburg quintet Upploppet!
According to the latest intelligence to reach me, the band are yet to start recording their new album, but on the evidence of these saucy little number they’ve just released into the wild, Thinking Of Me, it’ll be a ripper when they get down to the nitty gritty and get the thing out. I can’t wait!
The band themselves describe their new track, which has a cover photo that seems to depict Margaret Thatcher enjoying the new tune in the company of grumpy pensioner Victor Meldrew, as ‘simple, quick and sexy’, and I really couldn’t come up with three better words to describe it! (have a go – it’s what I’m paying you for – Ed). Have a listen and then start planning on finding a space for the new album in your a=record collection!
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