Lovecraft Lager[Weekly Mixtape: 2•04•2022]

KOSMOKRATOR • Swampbeast • Voidceremony • Colin Stetson • Excarnated Entity • Burial [ITA] • Devoid Of Thought • Gridfailure • Gorguts • Occulsed • Fossilization • Fabio Frizzi / Andrew Leman

Direct Download [right click + "Save As"]

Top Ten Canadian Metal Albums

In honour of Canada Day, here is a list of the best metal albums from our friends in the Great White North. [It's aboot time, eh.]

The Long Hundred 014/100: Gorguts - Obscura

...in which death metal was broken, then reshaped.

Catching Up With Kevin Hufnagel (2019)

Kevin Hufnagel may be the busiest man in metal. In addition to being the guitarist for Dysrhythmia, Gorguts, Vaura, and Sabbath Assembly, he's also a prolific solo artist, and frequently collaborates with other bands. Since both Vaura and Sabbath Assembly have new albums coming out this month, I hit Kevin up over e-mail to fill me in on everything he's been up to since the last time I interviewed him.

Bandcamp Picks - Gorguts, Mitochondrion/Auroch, Archaic Decapitator, Cadaveric Fumes

Nearly 25 years after they first started eroding sanity, Gorguts are still pushing death metal to its outer limits with their latest album/single/headfuck. Over the course of half an hour, Pleiades' Dust takes the listener on a journey, ebbing and flowing through discordance and polyharmonies, with tricky time signatures and multiple tempo changes throughout. It's a work of staggering vision and ambition, and the line for album of the year starts here. [$9.99]

Expectations are high for the next Mitochondrion full-length; in the meantime, they have a new split with sister band Auroch. If their contribution to In Cronian Hour is any indication, Mitochondrion haven't lost their knack for churning riffs and mutating rhythms, all topped by their unique multi-vocalist assault. On the other side of the split, Auroch keeps things atmospheric and unsettling with leads that sound like they were recorded in another dimension. I can't pretend I always understand what these two bands are doing, but I appreciate that it's never what I expect. [$6.66 CAD]


Connecticut isn't particularly known for its technical death metal, and Archaic Decapitator probably won't change that. But Light of a Different Sun is still a shining example of the style, integrating neo-classical melodies and proggy bass lines with shredding riffs and pure blast. With two EPs already under their belts, the band sound like they're ready for a full length. I know I am. [$6.99 ]


The old school revival is in its death throes, and from its corpse emerges far more interesting things like Cadaveric Fumes. On Dimensions Obscure, the French band combines old school death metal with even older school prog rock. Anyone mourning the loss of Morbus Chron should find consolation here. The EP is available as a "name your price" download.

Catching up with Kevin Hufnagel

Few people can match the prolific output of Kevin Hufnagel. In addition to his solo work, the guitar maestro is also a member of  Sabbath Assembly, Vaura, Dysrhythmia and Gorguts. With recent releases by Gorguts and Sabbath Assembly astounding and confounding, and an upcoming Dysrhythmia album scheduled for 2016, it seemed like a good time to catch up with the man. Kevin was kind enough to fill me in over e-mail.

Keep'n it R'lyeh

Within the heaviest of heavy metals, there’s a sound that's becoming increasingly prominent; that favours odd time signatures, discordance, and slow lurching riffs as much as blastbeats; and throughout it all, sustains a dark and oppressive atmosphere. It crosses the boundaries of death, black, doom, and sludge, heedless of categorization (and the nerds who need it). Death metal OGs Immolation and Gorguts epitomize this sound, as do rising stars Ulcerate and Mitochondrion. The last few years has seen an explosion of new bands like Creeping, Teeth and Abyssal who started on a similar path and crafted their own take. I'm even inclined to shoehorn bands like Blaze of Perdition and Deathspell Omega, who share similar tendencies...but I already did a lot of convoluted pontificating about "avant noir", so maybe I'll leave that alone for now.

Mixtape 13: Kevin Hufnagel of Dysrhythmia, Gorguts, and Vaura PART TWO

Mixtape 13: Kevin Hufnagel of Dysrhythmia, Gorguts, and Vaura PART TWO by Dreams Of Consciousness on Mixcloud

Here is the thirteenth installment of the Dreams of Consciousness podcast, featuring part two of an interview with Kevin Hufnagel, the guitarist for Dysrhythmia, Gorguts, and Vaura (among others).

Mixtape 12: Kevin Hufnagel of Dysrhythmia, Gorguts, and Vaura PART ONE

Mixtape 12: Kevin Hufnagel (Dysrhythmia, Gorguts, Vaura) PART ONE by Dreams Of Consciousness on Mixcloud

Here is the twelfth installment of the Dreams of Consciousness podcast, featuring part one of an interview with Kevin Hufnagel, the guitarist for Dysrhythmia, Gorguts, and Vaura (among others). I ran into Kevin while leaving the Red Bull Hardcore Activity in Progress event, when we were both waiting for the shuttle to take us from the venue back to the subway station. I've been listening to Gorguts since I was a teenager, so I asked him if he was interested in doing an interview. We met the following week at a coffee shop in Queens, and talked for over an hour.

Best of 2013: Challenging the Orthodoxy

Best of 2013 by Adrian Sol on Mixcloud

Gorguts - Colored Sands

Here's an honest confession: I bought Gorguts' Obscura when it came out, and didn't understand it for years. I appreciated it for its strangeness, and I sung the album's praises to anyone who would sit still long enough to listen, but Luc Lemay's intent and execution were beyond anything I'd heard or could wrap my head around at the time.

Likewise, on Colored Sands, Gorguts present a death metal album quite unlike any that have come before it. It's a work of astounding depth and craftsmanship, taking preconceived notions of prog, tech, and brutal death and throwing them out the window to attain a unique and mature vision of the genre that will stand as a high water mark for years to come. I'm not going to pretend I'm any closer to fully understanding Gorguts, but I've never been so at peace with befuddlement.

Highlights: An Ocean of Wisdom, Enemies of Compassion, Absconders

Deicide - In the Minds of Evil

Deicide has been wildly inconsistent since their 90's heyday. Like a formerly great fighter alternating between wins and losses, you never know what you're going to get from their albums these days. Well, I'm happy to report that their latest is solidly in the "win" column. In The Minds of Evil spices up the meat-and-potatoes approach of the band's early years with vicious hooks and just a hint of experimenting with new sounds. Other than that, it's fucking Deicide, unabashed haters of Christ and servants of Satan. What more do you need?


Highlights: Beyond Salvation, Even the Gods Can Bleed, Kill The Light of Christ

Dark Tranquillity - Construct

At this point the most long-lived and dependable of the Gothenberg bands, Dark Tranquillity continue making stellar albums that take their love for florid melodies into new directions. Boldly entwining keyboards and Michael Stanne's New Wave-ish vocals with their melodic death metal, Construct is a treat for those of us who have both Kreator and Depeche Mode on our iPods.

Highlights: Endtime Hearts, Uniformity, Immemorial

Ulcerate - Vermis

Like Gorguts, Ulcerate have deconstructed the death metal paradigm to arrive at a vision that keeps some of the genre's intrinsic hallmarks (blastbeats, growling) and ignores its more obvious cliches. Vermis shows that death metal's territory is too vast to be policed, and heretics like Ulcerate roam its far borders challenging the orthodoxy. Let the retro bandwagon take heed and be wary.

Highlights: Vermis, Weight of Emptiness, The Imperious Weak

Cult of Luna - Vertikal

Cult of Luna have been solidifying their position at the top of the doomcore heap for almost a decade now; Vertikal is an accomplished work with elements of kraut rock, prog, and psychedelia adding texture to its sombre and oppressive palate. Whatever influence Cult of Luna took from Isis or Neurosis in the past, they are now those bands' equal.

Highlights: I: The Weapon, Vicarious Redemption, Synchronicity

Necrophobic - Womb of Lilithu

Necrophobic have been an undeniable (if largely unsung) pillar of black metal's second wave, with solid releases stretching over two decades. Womb of Lilithu expands on their hallmarks of blistering speed and frozen melodies with a symphonic flourish that occasionally makes the album sound like a Satanic metal opera. While most eyes were on Watain and their traveling E-Coli sideshow, Necrophobic snuck in with the best black metal album of 2013.

Highlights: Astaroth, Furfur, The Necromancer

Demonical - Darkness Unbound 

Sometime last year, for the first time since Entombed introduced the 15 year old me to the wonder of Swedish death metal, I had had enough of the style. The onslaught of second rate bands flaunting their HM-2 pedals and lack of creativity seemed to mark the end of my interest in the NWOOSDM, and few recent albums seemed to interest me. Luckily, Demonical reappeared to remind me why I loved the style so much. Driven by hooks and a blackened strain of melody, Darkness Unbounds wisely makes sure the Riff holds more importance than any distortion pedal. With no clear successor to Dismember in sight and their peers overly comfortable with wallowing in old school pandering, Demonical deserve to rise to the top of the heap.

Highlights: Healing Control, Contempt and Conquest, Hellfire Empire

deafheaven - Sunbather

The black metal album all your indie friends are talking about. The post rock and shoegaze elements may endear deafheaven to Pitchfork types, but don't hold that against them. Mixing shoegaze with black metal is not exactly new, but where deafheaven really shine is the way they use those elements to create atmosphere. Like the best black metal albums, Sunbather takes you on a journey, one with unexpected twists and turns.

Highlights: Sunbather, Vertigo, The Pecan Tree

Sepultura - The Mediator Between Head and Hands
Must Be the Heart

It can't be easy for Sepultura. Somehow Derrick Greene hasn't accrued the same kind of defenders as, say, Dio-era Sabbath, and the band's popularity has waned except with the die-est of die-hards; and even those would prefer a reunion with Max and Igor back at the helm. Once one of the most important metal bands in the world, the albums since their infamous split have alternated between decent and disappointing, with few memorable moments. Maybe that's why The Mediator is such a surprise; somehow finding a way to make the cerebral death-thrash of Arise co-exist with the wild experimentation of Roots, Sepultura came out swinging at naysayers with possibly their heaviest album in years. The writing may be on the wall for this iteration of Sepultura, but the band seem unwilling to go gentle into that good night, and I for one couldn't be happier.

Highlights: The Vatican, Obsessed, The Age Of The Atheist

Sabazius - The Descent of Man

I probably spent more time listening to this album than any other released this year - and I don't think I listened to it all the way through more than once. No other extreme metal band strove to challenge the status quo and top their past accomplishments like Sabazius. At over 11 hours long, The Descent of Man is less about catharsis and more like an endurance test, taking doom and drone to misanthropic, mind numbing depths. Part performance piece, part musical prank, it's the apex for slow and heavy music. For now.

Highlights: Cranking the volume to make your neigbours think they have tinnitus. Causing music critics to rethink their profession. Listening to the whole thing in one sitting and emerging from the other side with your sanity intact.

Bandcamp Picks: Gorguts, Ulcerate, Orbweaver, Pathogen

After years of anticipation, the new Gorguts is finally here. Coloured Sands builds off of their genre-redefining meisterwork Obscura, taking both the band and death metal into strange new worlds. According to a recent Decibel playlist, Luc Lemay has been listening to plenty of Philip Glass and prog rock; it shows. Simply put, this is one of the most unique and important metal releases of 2013. I look forward to disappearing into its confounding depths over and over again. The album is available as a digital download for $9.99.



Not to be outdone in the "confounding death metal" department, New Zealand's Ulcerate return with the equally brilliant Vermis. Don't be fooled by their jazz influence, though; this is as relentlessly heavy as any Morbid Angel or Suffocation album you'd care to mention. Between this and the new Gorguts, 2013 might be remembered as the year that R'lyeh finally emerged from the depths. The album is available as a digital download for $8.99.



If your hunger for jazz-influenced metal still hasn't been sated, Miami's Orbweaver are self-described as "Zappa-esque controlled chaos". There's so much feedback and math on Strange Transmissions From The Neuralnomicon, expect your brains to melt and flow out your nose. Lovers of blast need not fear; for all its progressive leanings, it never wanders too far off the path of brutality. The 5 song EP is available as digital download for $5.



Filipino crew Pathogen have been around for over a decade, and have been actively working their style of old school death metal since then. Originally released on cassette in 2010, Miscreants of Bloodlusting Aberrations has been recently reissued by Germany's Dunkelheit Productions on CD and vinyl. Fans of early Morbid Angel and Immolation take note. The album is available as a digital download for €2.90 (around $3.87 according to Paypal).