REVIEW BLASPHEMATORY "THE LOWER CATACOMBS"

Blasphematory from New Jersey, USA, honoured us a few months ago with their second album called "The lower catacombs" on Nuclear Winter Records. The album title really says it all, because musically the band descends into the deepest maws of hell to present their rancid, dirty death metal, which is always presented with the right groove at the right place. The band, which consists of veterans of the scene - among others, there are personnel overlaps with the also highly recommendable death metallers of Siege Column and the long-established black metal band Abazagorath - knows how to convince the listener during the almost 40 minutes with a brutal mixture of fast parts, gruff, dragged-out parts and a always wonderfully creaking bass. In addition, there are abysmal vocals, what else would fit to this kind of music? So whoever wants to listen to a extremely dark and dirty bastard, consisting of influences from compatriots like Incantation, Funebrarum, Autopsy, Rottrevore, Obituary but also from Finnish bands like Abhorrence, Depravity or Necropsy has to listen to this masterpiece. Highly recommended!

INTERVIEW "ROTTING WAYS TO MISERY:THE HISTORY OF FINNISH DEATH METAL"

Towards the end of last year, the great book "Rotting Ways to Misery: the history of Finnish death metal" was published via Cult never dies. The book, named after a demo by Sentenced, impresses with well-researched facts and provides deep insights into Finnish death metal, which - in contrast to its Swedish equivalent - never became so popular. A good reason to talk to the two authors Markus Makkonen and Kim Strömsholm. Both have been members of the scene for many years and are known for bands like Hooded Menace, Sadistik Forest and Nerve Saw (Markus) and for their membership in Festerday, ...And Oceans, O or the black pop / electro formation Black Acid World (Kim). Have fun diving into the obscure depths where the rotten, slimy monstrosity of Finnish death metal originated back then and is still wreaking havoc today.  

Hey, first of all congratulations on this great and interesting book. The first thing I would ask you to do is introduce yourselves. Who of you had the idea for this book? Was there some kind of initial spark? Were you already acquainted or friends before or rather only casually acquainted ? And how long did it take from the first idea to the finished book ? 

Hi, my name is Markus Makkonen, co-author of Rotting Ways to Misery. It can be said that we both had the idea for this kind of a book. Both separately. I personally started planning the blueprint for this book around 2015 and collecting materials for it around 2016. Kim got in contact around 2017 and told he was planning a same type of a literary work himself. We quickly decided that instead of two similar books, we'd rather join forces and release a thorough work together. I knew Kim through his music. Went to see ...And Oceans play already in the 90's, but we really did not talk before we started our conversation about the book. Rotting Ways got started as there were so many stories that needed to be told and nobody was writing them down. It took about five years to plan, execute and finish it.