Unsigned and Unholy: Widower, Scumripper

At the end of the day, my heart will primarily side with black thrash. As much as I love gore metal, and doom, and grind, that arch, black-clad, Satan-loving thrash metal is always going to hit me at my core. It’s the Slayer fan in me, the dude who wants catchy black sorcery covered in spikes and ready to headbang.

So it was with much excitement that I recently discovered two unsigned bands playing exactly that kind of shit, and playing it well. Labels, sign these bands.

The first is Widower from Austin, TX, who I found through Mark Riddick’s website. Vicious, straightforward, and distilling a perfect mix of raw black metal and catchy thrash, these dudes are the perfect balm for a soul tired of prog and djent and so much of the other modern shit we cover on this site. Fans of Hypnosia, Tsjuder, Destruction, and the first Ketzer album will all get a big kick out of this band. Their new album, The Unholy Oath, just dropped last month, and it totally fucking slays. Listen below:

Second, we have Scumripper from Lappeenranta, Finland, who I got into via a tweet from Grim Kim Kelly (thanks, Kim). Where Widower go for dramatic and evil, Scumripper live up to their name by focusing on filth, drugs, and madness in that way that the Finnish are especially good at. Those thrashers who lean towards the gross punk stuff with a hint of the malevolent — new Darkthrone, for example — will have their itch scratched by these degenerates. Check out their debut EP below: