Yea!

Hours of Free Proggy Swedish Metal

Count the strings.

Pandemonium from Sweden have been very busy the last 14 years making progressive, melodic Death/Doom Metal that at times might be just a little too euro-epic and over the top for some. I would recommend the 2002 full length album, "Insomnia". This release, at times, can be very crunchy and guttural, but also tastefully uses keyboards and Dream Theatre-like instrumental passages to stand alone as an eccentric offshoot of the classic Swedish Death and Doom Metal innovators. As opposed to genre-mashing bands like Between the Buried and Me, Pandemonium seamlessly blend dark Black and Death Metal influences with intricate, dream-like atmospheres, and consistently weave the different instrumentation and techniques they employ like a well written movie.Not the most brutal thing you're going to find, but something different and interesting for sure. They have decided to make available their entire back catalog for free download on their website, so you be the judge.
Pandemonium-metal.com

Nierty

Nierty from the U.K. This song is from the free album, "Acolytes of the descent". Great, dark soul burning music for anyone who went to Catholic school, like me.

You can download this as well as a number of other free releases by Nierty and many other artists at the Torn Flesh website here.

And Nierty releases are also available at Misantrof.net, another "net label" that offers lots of different types of Metal and experimental music for free.

Whereas Torn Flesh Records seems a little more democratic in their roster, in that they seem to release anyone who asks for the assistance, Misantrof.net seems a lot more streamlined towards certain dark artistic scenes and aesthetics.

Ghost

And while I'm at it, a big Garbage Style Rest in Peace to my friend Ghost, who was murdered in front of a bodega 6 blocks from my house last saturday. He had two kids.

Huntington-station-man-shot-to-death

Whitney Houston R.I.P.

I just finished that last post about Zajal and then I found out Whitney Huston died. Fuck.  I remember her being one of the first women I was ever attracted to when I was a little kid and I saw this video. Rest in peace, girl.

The True Egyptian Death Metal...

Tomb raider?

I fucking love Nile, and we all know Karl Sanders is the man, but let's face facts - you're a good old American whiteboy, Karl. You had a really good run of it so far, but apparently Egypt is ready to stop sub-contracting their Death Metal to Ozzfest via South Carolina. Egypt's Zajal have released a 7 song "demo" (could have been a debut EP if you ask me) and it's nothing short of a monstrosity. The overall production is thick and unrefined - if they were trying to sound like a meaty analog Death Metal recording from the early nineties then mission accomplished. The music itself is punishing, driving guttural Death Metal that draws influence from the oldschool European and Florida scenes with an updated sense of blasting and technicality- not very melodic, but with a very dark, mysterious atmosphere all the same. And, yes, they have intros and interludes that sound like what I imagine traditional Egyptian music sounds like. This is not The Rock and Brendan Frasier cashing in while rewriting history with a western bias, this is not big Karl's pharaoh fantasy, this is the true Egyptian Death Metal.  And they do a Death cover.

Download.