Gurkkhas are a French death metal band, named after units of Nepalese soldiers in the service of the British Army and the Indian armed forces, who released two albums around the turn of the millennium (more about the current and earlier band history in the interview with the band, read here). The debut album “Engraved in Blood, Flesh and Souls” was released in 2000 by Massacre Records, and just one year later “A life of suffering” was published by the legendary German label Morbid Records, which has long since ceased to exist. Now, out of nowhere, a compilation of the two albums is being released on the French label Great Dane Records, or rather, the complete “A life of suffering” album plus four further selected tracks from the debut album.
This time I would like to present you the only album of the Swiss death metal band Sickening Gore. This band from Zurich, which previously went by the name Reactor, released "Destructive Reality" on Massacre Records in 1993, only to disband a short time later. I still remember a review of a concert in a big German metal magazine, the band played in Zurich as support of Carcass. A review in the then issue of Metal Hammer compared the band stylistically to Morbid Angel and Cannibal Corpse. This is quite accurate, even if the world class of the compositions of Morbid Angel could not be reached, but which band can claim this? Nevertheless, the band varied on their only album skillfully between high-speed bludgeoning, grindcore influences and dragged parts.
Since "Okkult" and the following EP "Masters of Darkness" Germany's ATROCITY are back on the path of creating more extreme sounds. In my review for the EP (here-review written in German) I looked back at the entire discography, and believe me, I am far away from being an uncritical listener, and yes, there has been some releases by ATROCITY I really didn't like.
Atrocity haben eine neue EP namens "Masters of Darkness" aufgenommen, die am 08. Dezember über Massacre Records veröffentlicht werden wird.
Eines kurz vorweg: Ich stand der Band immer etwas zwiespältig gegenüber-so wird es vielen gehen, denke ich-was eben durch die relativ vielen stilistischen Veränderungen bedingt war. Generell finde ich es gut, wenn Musiker versuchen, etwas Neues zu kreieren und sich weiterentwickeln, und im Falle von Atrocity hat dies auch oft sehr gut geklappt-aber eben leider nicht immer.
