Today in Death Metal: New Music from Pyrithion (AILD), Entrails and Kevin Hufnagel pre-Dysrhythmia
As I Lay Dying frontman Tim Lambesis has somehow found time for yet another side project. This in between weight-lifting sessions (have you seen how jacked he looks in this video? jeez Louise!), recording another Austrian Death Machine album and touring with his main squeeze right this very moment. The new project is called Pyrithion and it’s as heavy as anything he’s done to date — I’d go so far as to call it straight-forward modern death metal — and it’s also really fucking good! It’s not just a solo project, though: Ryan Glisan (Allegaeon) and Andy Godwin (The Famine) have teamed up with Tim, and the three traded ideas over the Interwebs for months before finally laying down tracks in Tim’s own studio. Stream “The Invention of Hatred” below — warning: those riffs are catchy as dog poo to your shoe — and get The Burden of Sorrow when it’s released by Metal Blade Records on April 16th.
Next up we have Swedish death metal trio Entrails, a band who formed in the ’90s but split up before they could even release an album, then got back together in 2008 and started making music again when they unearthed some old tapes. The band’s genesis explains their sound: old-school, Entombed-style ripping death. Check out “In Pieces” below from their forthcoming third album Raging Death. This style of metal doesn’t have much replay value for me but it’s definitely got my head bangin’ and I understand why it appeals to a certain subset of death metal fan.
We wrap-up today with one of death metal’s most revered guitarists — Kevin Hufnagel of Gorguts, Dysrhythmia, Vaura and himself — who has just released something that is decidedly un-metal but excellent nonetheless. Hufnagel’s new release consists of a bunch of demos he recorded between 1996 and 1998, but these aren’t Dysryhthmia pre-pro demos or anything even close: this is music you might hear at the massage parlor, or that you might put on if you’re trying to meditate. And it’s really good: I had From the 23rd Floor going in the background yesterday for at least a half an hour before I said to myself, “What is this? It’s good,” then flipped open the Bandcamp tab and was reminded that it came from the mind of one of death metal’s greatest. Stream the release, which also includes some live tracks, below:
