terça-feira, 31 de agosto de 2010

Encancrate - A New Cicle Of Fear -1996


1.In-Thru (Howls Of Silence)
2.Consistent Fear
3.Inhuman Life Form
4.Poin 'N' Blow

-Line up:
Cunha - Vocals
Frazão - Guitar
Bicho - Guitar
Claudio - Bass
Kampino - Drums

-Recorded, mixed and produced by Luis Barros at Rec'n'roll studios, March '96

-All lyrics & Music by ENCANCRATE, "in-thru (howls of silence)" by: Fernando Marques & ENCANCRATE.

A Death/Thrash band from Vila Franca de Xira. This was it´s only release.
Got contact with them through the "High Radiation" vol.II" compilation cd. In fact it's one of the high point of that disc. I'll give it some words as well later on.

Competent music, decent solos and a great track "Consistent fear".

Score/rating: 7

Check for yourselfs at Portugal Underground.


domingo, 29 de agosto de 2010

Afterdeath - Unreal Sight - 1994



1- Justice Manipulation
2 - Live For Today
3 - Speaks On Your Thoughts (inst.)
4 - Hunger Calling
5 - Deep In Natural Art (inst.)

Produced and mixed by João Martins
Recorded on 26 & 27 of February 1994 at Heavensound Studios, Almada.

Line-up:
Sérgio Paulo-vocals
Virgílio Neto-guitar
Roberto Monteiro-bass
Filipe Martins-drums

All keyboards effects by Jorge ''Koto'' Santos.

All fotos by Jorge "Koto" Santos.
Special thanks to Jorge Martins

Genre: Death Metal
Sub-genre: Progressive

One of the most interesting bands from what i call "The first Movement". And , now, i think i'll try to explain my definitions of "Ground Zero", "The First Movement" , "Second wave" and "Present".

If you've read my previous posts , you might notice the expression"Ground Zero". This is what i call to the bands from a certain period. More likely the time from the 1st Metal band/release in Portugal until the time i started to get into the Portuguese underground, which was around 1990/1991.

So ,
"Ground Zero" from ... to 1990
"The First Movement" 1991-1995
"The Second Wave" 1996-2000
"Present" 2001-today

This said, Afterdeath, Progressive Death Metal, or a Band trying to inovate. At some point they manage to do so in particular in the first 2 tracks, which by the way i consider the high points of this demo. The other tracks ,2 of them instrumentals kinda fall into a dull and tasteless hearing effort.

Score/rating: 6.5

Sepulcro - Flesh Meets Steel - 1987/2010


Side A (Demo 1985)

1. Flesh Meets Steel
2. Street Survivor
3. Space Line No. 13
4. Rock And Roll Raiders
5. Born On The Road

Side B (Demo 1986)

1. Pictures Of Silence
2. R.I.P.
3. I Wanna See Girls
4. Gimme Shelter


Label ; The forge (limited to 300)
Music & lyrics by Miguel Pinto
Line-up:
Miguel Pinto - Vocals
Manuel "Animal" - Drums
Isidro "Chibo" - Bass
Jorge "Marmitas" - Guitar

This is a re-release of the band's both demos from the mid 80's. Heavy Metal is what you get here. And really good stuff it is! Another great band from the "Ground Zero" Portuguese Metal.
I'm really glad i got this tape, is was really worth it. Although i'm not a Trad./Heavy fan at all, i do know and recognize a good recording and good music when i hear one.

Early Priest influence all over with a dark feel from Deep Purple's early stuff blended in.
Best tracks on the 85 demo are the 1st two. Which also makes them also the best on all recording. Sinse i consider the 86 demo not so good as the first. Weither way all tracks make a very enjoyable listen.

Ranking/score: 7,5

"NOS OSSOS QUE AQUI ESTAMOS PELOS VOSSO ESPERAMOS"

Via Dolorosa - Acropole Rock '97 - 1997


Side A

1- Intro
2- Deseased
3 - Under

Side B

1 - Storms within
2 - Shitsong
3 - Silence

Recorded at the MASS studios (lol, aka the garage of my parents), 1997.
Produced (?!) by Via Dolorosa
All lyrics by Marco, all music by Via Dolorosa.
Line up:
Marco Alexandre - guitars
Nuno Bertolo - drums
Sergio "Mé"- bass
Nuno"Rainha"- vocals

This is awkward... Writting and reviewing my own band... realy strange.
This band was my first attempt in trying to be somesort of Metal musician, nedless to say, that it totally failed at least on this 1st assault.

Like every metalhead , i too was no exception , and started a band. This was aroun 95 , i think.
But only came to real and physical form in 96. Basically the band were 2 freaks, me and the drummer, who i still call my brother in arms...
The other 2 came but never had the feel or enthusiasm of a real metalhead, in fact they were in 'cause we had nobody else...

OK, that's enough, on to the demo. SHIT, SHIT , SHIT!!!!
Not "Tha shiet" but a total piece of crap! I totally failed to create something listenable. It is not like those grindcore bands that only do noises and distortions making an enormous amount of racket , but, and although i had some decent ideias , the recording didn´t turned out to be acceptable. We had to have many, many hours of reharsal before trying to make a recording...
And that shows, The big defect on this is the lack of reharsal.

The musics, er... i dunno... how to describe it... but in 1997 the thrend was grunge/alternative/gothic , so i guess it isn't Thrash or Death Metal like we know it but a mixed of those thrends (from my fellow partners of course) with my oldschool stuff. I guess today people would call it Groove/Post-Thrash, i guess.

This was done in order to get us playing on a show on this bar called Acropole. We sent this to them and we got our 1st gig. As for that show in particular it went ok. But that was the high point of our carreer...

Also did some copies for friends and did some more to other promoters but i'm glad not many copies exist, and for the ones that were made i hope they're buried seven feet under!!!
I still hold the master, though. Eventualy i did digitilized it, but erased the files before someone could unleash the beast ... lol.

Hopefully One day i'll get a huge pile of cash for it....

Ratting/score: 2

V12 - V12 -1990


Side A

1-Sinais dos Tempos (Sings of times)
2-Causa Perdida (Lost cause)
3-Sol da Lua (Light of the moon)
4-Hhaar
5-Crack

Side B

1-Claustrofobia (Claustrophobia)
2-Invocação (Invocation)
3-Conto de Fadas (Fairy tale)
4-Negócio das Almas (Tradding souls) *
5-Rota da Fé (Faith course)


Another one that i call , "This is tha shiett!!!".
Oh, totally awsome. I remember back when this came out , 20 years (!!!???) ago, that i had this mixed feelings of disgust and joy. But this joy was in a negative way, sinse i considered this to be a joke.This was due to the fact that the album is totally sung in Portuguese.

Back then, i was into the most aggressive, brutal music that could exist, the time was for brutallity, gore, rage, anger and above all in english. And i got suprised that a band even tried to sing in it's native language... Well these guys did... and now , all this time later, i'm really glad they did!

Of course , that, for any metalhead that doen't understand Portuguese , this can be persived as... er... shit... like i did back then. But that was when i was just a kid who just got into Morbid Angel , Deicide, Carcass or Entombed. Now that i'm older (huh....) and a bit more open minded (lol) this really sounds incredibly good.

Great guitar work, Power Metal vocals, although they describe themselves as Speed Metal, and a couple of very good writting and lyrics. "Claustrophobia" is definitly the most cheasy, radio frendly track. And except for "Hhaar" (a totally unecessary filler) all great Power/Melodic/Trad/Heavy Metal classics.

Got this tape a few years ago on a local store here in my town for 1€!!! lol...
What a catch!!! After this got into my collection, it became one of my favorite Portuguese albums of all time. The fact is, if they got to sang in english, like they wanted to, (somehow they were forced by the label...) they would never, ever, became such a legend , that they are now. To me they are the Best from which i call the "Ground zero" era of the Portuguese Metal.

There are others similar in popularity and quality like Alkateya, Sepulcro, Tarantula, Casablanca, Procyon, just to name a few , but , and again, which made these guys so unique was that caracteristic that i once hated...

Oh, the irony.....

This was released by Polygram Discos in 1990.
Produced by Emanuel Ramalho.
Recorded and mixed at Angel 1 studios , Lisbon.
The tape version has a diferend track listing than the LP.
All music by V12, all lyrics by V12 except * by Jorge de Sena.

So far, there is only the vynil and cassete version of this album. A single (with 2 tracks) was released to promote the album also in 1990. The band had a prior demo, totally in enlish and also made a demo after the album. They broke up shortly after the album came out and reunited a couple years later with a female singer just to record that demo and for a few gigs. Sinse they wanted to go on for professional musicians and couldn't get a record deal or pay the bils with the few gigs they had, the band foulded for good around 93/94...

Score/ratting: 10

domingo, 22 de agosto de 2010

EXOMORTIS - "From darkness to darkness" 1991




SIDE A
01 - Intro
02-Ancient Tomb
02 - Petrified Pleasures
03 - A Tribute To Thrash

SIDE B
01 - The Abcess
02 - Enslavement Of Obscurity
03 - Psychotic Aberrance *


Ahh... this is the shit!!! Death Metal, simple and raw. What can be said? The production sucks big time , in fact , what production?!...
Despite the shitty sound , this is my all time favorite demo, no doubt, the nº1!!!

"A tribute to Thrash" is a great instrumental , maybe the best track here. I got a bit disapointed back then due to the sound quality but it grew on me. I got hooked in such a way that i would listen to it repeatedly non stop all afternoon when i get back from school.

Score: 10! (of course)



This is the line-up for the demo except for the bass player missing (Diegods was his name back then)
-Recorded in december 1991 at "Bacana Tropical Studios" (hum... sounds like their reharsal place to me...) , produced by Exomortis and assisted by C. Clerigo.
- All music by EXOMORTIS and lyrics by Phantas except * by Diegods.
- Guest vocals on* by Octavio from DESCRATION (and later DEFLOWER MIND, the "neighbours" and friends from Juncal)
- Line-up:
Lhô - Vocals (2nd on the left, sitting)
Phantas - Guitars (1st, left, sitting)
Diegods - Bass (missing)
Sexy - Guitars and back. vocals (3rd, left,up)
Mumiay - Drums (4th , left, up)

Pretty awkward nicks... they hailed from Maceira, Leiria...

No thanks list: "Army, our enemies"
Another curiosity: "Thrash" was a dog´s name!!! In fact it was Celia's dog (dunno who she was/is, a friend of the band...) that had died at the time...

PS: Just on more thing, it can be downloaded here:
Portugal Underground
(With license from the band!)

Good Morning!!! Still alive...

Ah, fuck this... Going to quit the dissection of my cd collection!
Too goddam trouble!!! Everyone knows the Metallica's, Carcass, Morbid Angel's or Maiden's discography/history....

Yeah , i have some pretty fuck up rare cds that i could discuss but i aint gonna do it no more. I think it would take like an eternity to get to the end of it... ( i'm still only on the beguinning of letter A).

Probably will do just a list and update it when new shit comes in. And that is going to be hard labor...

So, I've deciced to do a simpler and smaller thing. Going to review my still short DEMO-TAPE collection.
And short because i only care for the PORTUGUESE late 80's , 90's tapes. Death, mainly but also Thrash, Heavy, Doom a bit of Black and perhaps Power Metal (if they eventualy come along)

... and this is NOT going to be easy...
Let's proceed...