75th part of short reviews.
KNIFE – Knife
Year of release: 2021
Label: Dying Victims Productions
Rating: 6 / 10
Lively Thrash from Germany - about all sorts of evil and scary things. Technically, the band is excellent, they know how to play. The music seems to be drawn to something serious, but it is jumping into Speed, Heavy or even punk all the time. Usually I welcome such throwing, but there are too many contradictions in the sound of KNIFE, I think they need to decide what is more important for them - Satan or beer and leather jackets. Besides, these screeching vocals are just disgusting, it should be forbidden to sing like that.
PNEUMA HAGION – Voidgazer
Year of release: 2020
Label: Memento Mori
Rating: 7 / 10
A serious project of THE HOWLING VOID member, who is considered an "atmospheric guy" in our latitudes because of the releases on Solitude Prods, although in fact he mainly plays Grind and Death Metal, and even participated in The Great Band ABOSRANIE BOGOM. In PNEUMA HAGION framework, he peers into the black abyss, broadcasting his feelings and observations through ultra-heavy brutal music, where doomy Death Metal is taken as a basis. However, the tempo is mostly high due to the blast beats. It seems to be simple Death / Black Metal in essence, but the musician managed to squeeze into a tiny niche in between, where PNEUMA HAGION has no direct analogs. Solid album.
EMBALMER – Emanations from the Crypt
Year of release: 2016
Label: Hells Headbangers Records
Rating: 6 / 10
The latest album of American brutal deathsters at the moment. By and large, it's songless bullshit, with a disgusting seething sound of guitars, but it will do just fine if you want something crazy and dirty with BLOODY FUCKING GUTS.
PERILAXE OCCLUSION – Exponential Decay
Year of release: 2020
Label: Blood Harvest
Rating: 6,7 / 10
Death Metal about 3D modeling and computers. Well, and a little about death, too, because it's Death Metal after all. Hmm. If we forget about the extravant topics, the music turns out to be very powerful and in a good way unhealthy, as well as very authentic. I think by the end of 2021 you already more or less understand how sci-fi / space themed Death Metal sounds, and PERILAXE OCCLUSION sounds exactly like that, completely inhuman. The vocals are excellent. The minimum program has been completed, now it's up to a small thing: to make the sound more recognizable, because you can't go far on these hilarious lyrical themes only.
V/A – In the Spirit of Old School
Year of release: 2021
Label: Metal Race Records
Rating: 777
Metal Race found a new way to pay homage to the old Soviet / post-Soviet metal scene by organizing a collection of covers. Such compilations are a thankless task, since 10 times more effort is invested in them than in a regular release, and the return is usually a total commercial failure. However, I think that in this case all the participants in the initiative themselves were happy to have a hand in this compilation, and the set of names here is convincing enough to ensure at least minimal sales. It is customary to evaluate such compilations either from the point of view of a connoisseur, comparing covers with the originals note-by-note, or from the point of view of a beginner, whom the participating groups are trying to introduce to the classics. I’m closer to the second, since with more than half of the tracks I either didn’t heard the originals, or I just don’t remember them. I will divide covers into good and not so good ones. The good ones are SOCIOPAT's take on ДАЙ (a very sincere and accurate performance; I wonder if it was recorded a long time ago, or the band reunited for such an undertaking?), WARWAR's on КОРРОЗИЯ МЕТАЛЛА (well, they just had to play it through, and they did), DISINTER 666's on ФРОНТ (very aggressive performance in the vein of death thrash), ZOMBIE ATTACK's on MASTER (breakneck speeds, and in some places reminds me of the wonderful ДЕ САД band), BLOOD POLLUTION' again on ФРОНТ (this is a wonderful band that always sounded great, but no one buys its records - a paradox). There is also a cover of SHAH by ЭТНА, which is a great performance, and overall I liked it, except for the overly groovy sound of the guitars. The rest - this is almost the entire second half of the compilation - did not really suit me. Somewhere the impression is spoiled by the horrible vocals (REABILITATOR), somewhere the sound is too modern (REWIND), somewhere there is everything you need except the necessary feeling (VIOLENT OMEN). However, none of the covers can be called shit, and this is already a huge rarity for any tribute. So “In the Spirit of Old School” can be considered valid in every sense. The compilation was released in a jewel case with 8-page booklet containing quality photographs of the bands and a small message from the Metal Race boss. I also give it a plus for a small but very authentic design element on the cover!
English (UK) 
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