Metal Monday: Tzompantli, Dungeon Serpent, Fading Trail, and Brain Tentacles

Wrote a quick and dirty list of some metal I've been enjoying lately. Some new, some old. All brutal and badass in their own right. I know I say this every time, but I'm going to try and do these more often (but I mean it this time!). I have a couple hundred metal releases that I've been meaning to get and I do enjoy making these lists- it's just a matter of finding the time to do them. I'm committed, though. Watch out!  In the meantime, check out what I've got for you below and get ready to roundhouse the hell out of the Monday blues (and the rest of your week!). 

Tzompantli - Tlazcaltiliztli (20 Buck Spin)

I'm starting things off here at a good mid-paced chug by introducing you to Tzompantli's debut LP Tlazcaltiliztli. The band is one of many death metal side projects from Brian "Bigg o)))" Ortiz, who is one of the malevolent forces behind the hardcore band Xibalba. Here he teams up with bassist G-Bone and drummer Erol Ulug to construct a gruesome, towering tribute to Aztec and Mesoamerican cultures. The name of the album, Tlazcaltiliztli, is the Nahuatl word for "nourishing the sun with blood"- I bet you can't guess how that might work.  A fitting title for an album of this style and intensity. Tlazcaltiliztli consists of generally severe and brooding death metal, played as if the Paradice Lost were keeping time, with overt nods to the band's tribal and folkier affiliations, used to illuminate themes and break up the brutality on tracks like "Eltequi" and opener "Yaohuehuetl." It's a very kick-ass way to start things off here tonight and will hopefully teach you a bit about the pre-colonial history of the Americas that they might have glossed over in school. 

Dungeon Serpent - World of Sorrows (Nameless Grave Records)

Leaving the ancient Americas, we now forge ahead to the frigid north of British Columbia, where we will encounter a different but recognizable very menace. Dungeon Serpent owes its origins to one man, Arawn, a guy who pretty much does everything himself, except play live (he has friends to help him with that). Dungeon Serpent released their debut LP World of Sorrows last year with a singular goal- cut against the grain of metal trends. It's a self-consciously traditional, melodic death metal album in the vein of classic Rotting Christ and early Kataklysm, where the incendiary drum patterns scold and pock-mark the skin, low-terrifying-vocals conjure an aura of madness and menace, and the guitars do most of the talking- and they have nary a nice thing to say to the likes of a brigand such as you. World of Sorrows is a stone-cold slay fest that takes zero prisoners. Most surprisingly, it feels more innovative than stuff from other death metal bands who proclaim themselves to be "breakers of the mold," which is nothing if not an endorsement of the passion and anger Arawn brings to the project.

Fading Trail - Count The Days (Every Day Hate)

Alright, now we're really picking up the pace. Fading Trail is a grindcore band, who, in grindcore fashion, starts their debut album, Count The Days, with an irreverent audio clip. This selected slice of inanity appears to be from a psychological examination of Jeffery Dahmer, where a doctor is repeating what his patient has just told him: "You're patient, with a good ear, who tries to help people...," to which a man's voice replies, "Yes," promoting the doctor to retort with exacerbation, "... when you're not trying to murder them," followed by the same man's voice replying again, "Yes." A quote like that is like a good couple of pumps of the primer bulb lending extra gusto to the opening riff which takes off like it had started up off the first tug on its pull cord. Fading Trail is a well-oiled death-grinding machine and Count The Days is a beautifully deranged album- a dirty, senseless, bloody chaos without rhyme or reason other than to personify a torrential, surging essence of disorder. Grinding, galloping grooves and toothy vocal performances in line with present-day Napalm Death and Nasum, minus the electronic interference. Count The Days is short, savage and clinically unhinged- it might be over before you can say "25 to life," but the scars it will leave on your psyche will last a lifetime. 

Brain Tentacles - Brain Tentacles (Relapse)

Alright, time to get weird with it as we bring it back home. Brain Tentacles are a three-man crew out of Chicago featuring vocalist Bruce Lamont of Yakuza on saxophone and synths, Dave Witte of Municipal Waste on drums, and Aaron Dillson of Keelhaul on bass and synth (also). Together they perform a warped and often humorous hybrid of death metal, sludge metal, and improvisational jazz. There are no electric guitars on this album- which is an experiment in its own right- but when you layer in those wild synths and sax textures, it's like you're coasting into another reality entirely. The jittering, eastern-influenced sax melodies of "Fruitcake" dance atop deep, tarry bass riffs trying to keep their heads above a black, boiling demise, next, the saxy, death-sludge lurch and discordant hammering of "Cosmic Warriors Girth Curse" ushers forth giggling tides of dissonant, fathomless incongruousness. "The Spoiler" sounds like you're trying to escape from a doomed ship that is halfway down the gullet of a giant wail while you're being prematurely eulogized by some mocking combination of Jesus Lizard and Primus. And, lastly, the smoky, pensive and turbulent, bass-anchored neo-noir soundscape of "Fata Morgana" will leave you feeling forlorn and homesick in a city whose name your forgot after nearly drowning yourself in a river of whisky and regret. Their self-titled squirmed its way out and onto the scene back in 2016 and it still got a grip on me like it was one of the Kraken's own mighty, sucking appendages. This beast has staying power!