Midnite Madness CV—2017, pt. II - Return to the Void

Another year see more of the same lunacy as the past. Yes, we're back, and with, well, the second part of last month's 2017 show. Not lazy, just lots of great stuff to play from last year. Thanks again to all the band and labels (and promo-senders) for keeping the flame lit, let's ensure 2018 is another cracker!
And thanks to Fenriz for pointing out that the Lucifer's Hammer track is a Legend cover...
I return to NTS on February 7th with more MIDNITE MADNESS. Stay alive.

Midnite Madness XCVI—HELLO VICTIMS

It's show 96, next one is 97. See you May 31st for Midnite Madness.

Midnite Madness LXXXIX—Lords of the Abyss

Show 89. Thank you all for listening and see you again on November 16th. Goodbye.

DOWNLOAD

Interview with Scott of Maim

Maim are one of many, many Swedish death metal bands. In fact, there are so many Swedish guys playing "old school" death metal that they have their own X Factor just for the genre. One of the bands to emerge from the steaming dung pile like a magic mushroom in season are Maim, whose second album is one of the finest releases of the year so far.

I caught up with guitarist Scott, who's also a live member for previous interviewees Morbus Chron. Both acts will be playing at this year's Live Evil festival, which takes place in Camden next month.

AFITFOG: Hey, you free yet?
Maim: Absolutely! Home from work, have had my dinner and a beer so all set!

Nice. Gotta start these things on the right foot, eh. So, where should we start?
Maybe some background info since there seems to be a very old biography out there which says that we are influenced by Defleshed and the death 'n' roll scene. No idea where that came from.

HA HA.
Yep! Me and Chris started the band back in 2006 and I pretty much invited my old friends Rikard and Otto. Rikard and Otto are cousins and NOT brothers like many seem to write. We started writing material basically straight away at the same time as we rehearsed some old death metal tracks—some Autopsy, Morbid Angel, etc. Then we had a quite long hiatus because Otto moved to Oslo. But when he got back towards the end of 2007 we recorded our first demo—which have never been released properly—some people got homemade copies on tape and a few songs ended up on MySpace, that was it.

Were you surprised by the underground being so kind to you from the off? I mean, its not like there was or still is a shortage of 'old school' death metal bands out there, particularly from Sweden.
Yeah. Out of the blue we got a comment from Scott Carlson of Repulsion on our MySpace saying something like "old and grimy death, just the way I like it", which was amazing, especially back in 2007 when the whole "retro death" scene was still in its cradle. Then we got the offer from him to release a full-length via Soulseller, which we were super-thrilled by as he had just released Epitome Of Darkness by Repugnant.

But it went from a MySpace comment to "let's release your record"?
Something like that, yes. Everything went so quick, a bit too quickly, actually. We did initially plan to release the demo recording as a full-length, but it was too short for an album so we decided to re-record some of the songs from the demo and add a few new ones. Erik Danielsson from Watain did the artwork and so forth, so we basically went from 0-100 in a few months.

So tell me, what got you guys making death metal?
We didn't have any particular ideas on what we wanted to play except that we wanted to keep it raw and straight when we first got together. It could basically had been anything from 80's punk—G.B.H., Discharge—to whatever. But it seemed like the death metal thing the way it used to sound back in the late 80s and early 90s was the one the we agreed on since we all were into that kind of music and that's what it naturally started to sound like when we wrote our first songs together as Maim. You know I'm a session guitarist in Morbus Chron, right?

No, I wasn't informed of that.
Did a show with Morbus Chron in Finland with Autopsy. Shared a spliff with Chris Reifert, Danny Coralles, and Eric Cutler - how insane is that?!

Yeah man, that is insane, ha ha - critical madness! So, what other bands are you into at the moment? What do you make of the Uppsala scene?
So many good bands out there: Obliteration is definitely one of my favourites. Nekropsalms is one of the best releases in years, can't stop listening to it. Miasmal is another great band from Gothenburg, Sweden. Great guys as well, played with them in Copenhagen, last year, at an awesome festival called Kill-Town Death Fest. Obliteration played there as well. Then you have Entrapment from Holland—Entombed/Dismember style—and Vanhelgd, a bit of a different approach to death but still great, also from Sweden. Regarding the Uppsala scene, I like the demos from Katalysator and Degial, but I must say I'm not really into the Watain/Dissection approach to metal, it's too pretentious for me. I'm more into the DIY punk/crust attitude. It lies closer to our easy-going approach to music and way of life in general, I think.

So, your second album, for me, was actually better than your debut. How do you feel it compares?
Deceased To Exist is way superior than From The Womb. As said, From The Womb was made in a bit of a rush. We didn't initially have enough material for a full-length when we were about to release the debut, so it's basically a bit patched together. Deceased To Exist is well thought through from the beginning—we knew how we wanted the album to sound like and the songs fits together a lot better. We also had the LP format in mind this time and "Crematory" is such a good break for the A-side and the title track "Deceased..." is a solid starter as the first track on the B-side, etc.

Say, on "Resurrected from Hell" there's, like, a gladiator crowd roar or something on the third chorus, is that correct?
Ha ha! Yeah, it sounds like a gladiator roar, but it's just Rikard going crazy! [I] Like the vocals on that one.

So, let's now talk about Live Evil, it is a helluva line-up again, huh?
It's great! Antichrist, Maim, Morbus Chron, In Solitude, Aura Noir… Nekromantheon as warm-up—can't wait! Such a killer line-up!

You psyched to play your first UK show?
Oh yeah! I lived in London for a couple of years so got a lot of friends there and have been to many gigs at the Underworld. Can't wait! Hope we come back for a whole tour sometime.

I notice you guys don't play in any other bands—well, you mentioned you play live in Morbus Chron—that is kinda unusual for Swedish metal musicians.
We have played and are playing in various unimportant projects, but nothing major, no. But yeah, I play live with Morbus and Chris has recorded some solos on the new Bastard Priest record, so you could say it's a nice death metal collective around here!

What stuff do you listen to outside of metal.
I listen to a lot of different music, but have been listening a lot to old American hardcore and 82 British punk over the last few months. Stuff like Inepsy, GBH, Negative Approach, Minor Threat, Antitode etc. Along with that, Blue Öyster cult and Jethro Tull. A nice mix in my world! He he. Metal got a lot to learn from punk!

And you Swedes got some great bands like Anti Cimex, Bombanfall etc.
Mmmm! Anti Cimex! Great!!! And Totalitär—best one! You should listen to it if you haven't had the chance.

Is there any friendly competition between your guys and say, Bastard Priest and Morbus Chron? Like, did you hear their album and go "FUCK! We need to come back harder next time"?
Yeah, a bit like that! I think that's why there are so many good releases out here and many to come. Good sparring!

Good to hear. Any last words? Not that I am going to send a death squad now I am done interviewing you or anything.
Well, a big hail to all the dedicated people out there! And fuck racism, sexism, and idealism! The terrorist attack in Norway is just a big proof that something needs to be done. People need to start communicating over cultural and social borders! We are not very political—leaving that to the punks—but want to take the opportunity to say something 'cause it matters!

Photos by Fredric Sommer

Dissections, May 2011

Okay, so I have been writing a lot album reviews over the last few years, some of which never make it to print for the two magazines I write for, so, instead of just discarding them as I did previously, I will be posting them here. Thanks to all the people who send me promos, and to Sindre for some of these reviews.

MAIM (Sweden) Deceased To Exist
Soulseller Records

Okay. If I reviewed every band that claimed to be 'old school' I would JUST be writing about bad death metal records. However, every now and again, someone comes along with a sound that just says 'I have been hiding in a vault somewhere for 24 years'. No, I am talking about the daughters of Fritzl, but a decent death metal record that actually sounds authentic in every way, Deceased To Exist being a prime example. Continuing on almost directly from the dealings of conptemporaries Bastard Priest's LP last year, this is in no way reinventing the metal wheel—echoing Repulsion, Autopsy, et al—but what really makes this stand out is its touches of originality. Now, can any of you supposed 'old school' death metal bands go find a dictionary and look up that eleven-letter word, please.
8

IN SOLITUDE (Sweden) The World. The Flesh. The Devil
Metal Blade Records

Swedish youngsters In Solitude grabbed everyone by the hair on their balls with their fantastic self-titled debut, and now with a new album on a major label featuring newly recruited guitarist Henke Palm of Sonic Ritual on board, they’re ready to conquer the world. Continuing with an evil mixture of Merciful Fate, Judas Priest and Iron Maiden-inspired heavy metal, they somehow escape going too far with the cheesy typical heavy metal clichés like their ancestors may have done at the height of their fame. The production is huge and organic, but it sounds nether old school or modern, more or less timeless. The World. The Flesh. The Devil is most likely the best heavy metal album since the late 80s. Essential.
9.5
STRESSMINISTER

NEGATIVE PLANE (USA) Stained Glass Revelations
Invictus Productions

Negative Plane's sophomore LP since their formation ten years ago is as nightmarishly spectacular as their debut, Et In Saecula Saeculorum. Retaining much of the paranoia and chaos of their previous work might've been a challenge to many of the scene's banal forerunners, yet Negative Plane achieve a very unique sound with this effort. It is a foul and rotten album thats stench is akin to a body left to rot next to a radiator on high in mid-summer with an air of intense confusion and enough originality [there's that word again…] to surprise even the most troglodyte of metal connoisseurs. This is unlike really anything else out there, and is not another tip at 80s or 90s extreme metal, but perhaps a portal to where the future of flagging genres like black and death metal may be headed before all die and burn to ash in the apocalypse next year.
8

SUMMON THE CROWS (Norway) One More For The Gallows
Ruin Nation Records/Southern Lord

Norway’s darkest, and in my opinion, best crust punk act Summon the Crows have returned—after years in obscurity—with a monstrous new LP. I’d never thought they would exceed their previous efforts, especially The Scavengers Feast album, but, here I am, blown away again. One More For The Gallows starts off where they left off five years ago - blistering groovy crust punk with loads of extreme metal influences, and for a crust punk band their instrumental skills are extremely impressive. Intricate riffing and sweet-ass bass lines that scream of Voivod influences, but without ever being close to ripping them off. The lyrical aspect of Summon The Crows are more like what you’d expect from a crust band - dark and political with a bleak and unflattering view of the world and its inhabitants. All in all, this record will chew you up and spit you out in a dirty gutter, and send you into oblivion. Check out “Beast of the Night” or “Enter the Shadow of a Tyrant” and you’ll know what I’m talking about. In crust we trust, indeed.
8
STRESSMINISTER

ALCEST (France) Le Secret
Prophecy Productions

Okay, technically this is a reissue, but, it does feature re-recordings of both tracks to have featured on 2005s "Le Secret" EP. This, as far as I am aware, started what is now a truly insipid sub-genre—shoegaze black metal or simply metalgaze. Either totally suck, but this really does not. There is enough here to satisfy even the melancholiest of My Bloody Valentine fans and perhaps, at the same time, Burzum fans alike, looking for what his recent releases may not have delivered. Time has not affected this, but the same cannot really be said for Alcest perhaps, as the re-recordings are almost throwaway. Worth noting that Neige was only 15 when he solely composed this EP. Have that Bieber, you fag.
8