Koreisch - This Decaying Schizophrenic Christ Complex

Apart from eulogies on a few metal blogs you can’t find much information about Koreisch on the internet.

They released their sole LP in 1999 on Screams of Salvation. And subsequently re-released on Calculated Risk Records in 2004. Neither pressing gained much attention.

Which is a criminal shame as This Decaying Schizophrenic Christ Complex is as an inventive and extreme record that the metal world has yet vomited forth.

Grind, doom, samples and sounds capes are thrown together allowed to rot down and then sprayed at the listener like a sonic slurry.

Piercing guitar riffs, ominous rumbling bass, dirge crawl and grind spazz outs are interspersed with jarring, alienating sounds capes. Consistently painful and unpleasant, this is music as torture. And yet it is oddly compelling drawing you back into its dark, smothering, suffocating embrace.

I consider this one of the most extreme records I have ever heard. Bands have played faster and harder, but the continued dislocating shifts in tempo, pitch and tone mess with your expectations. And that is something very rare and precious.

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Preferred drink: Water

Rottrevore: Copulation of the Virtuous and Vicious EP

Rottrevore were a minor name in the death metal underground of the early 90s. They recorded a clutch of 7”s and an album before disappearing.

Their Copulation of the Virtuous and Vicious EP is marked by a full throated raw brutality like having your ear pressed against a Harley Davidson exhaust pipe. High pitched guitar solos emerge like angry, castrated bumble bees from the murky, filthy, bludgeoning, chug.

An album called Iniquitous later emerged which collected together their EP’s and some live tracks. A proper LP of newly recorded material subsequently emerged a few years later. You can read a good interview with the band here where they tell their own story.

A lot of records I used to like from this era have fallen out of favour with me. But nearly 20 years on this is one that‘s never lost its appeal.

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Prefered drink: Chivas Regal

Death Strike: Fuckin' Death

Death Strike was a short lived project helmed by death metal legend Paul Speckman. Despite being one of the scenes original movers and still active to this day, he has never really enjoyed any particular success.

In 1985 when death metal was still an underground scene, he recorded a 4 song demo called Fuckin’ Death. After getting a deal for his new project Abomination, Nuclear Blast issued the demo in 1991 as an album bulked out with some new tracks.

These new tracks are awful and for the purposes of this review we‘re going to ignore them. Because for pure visceral excitement there is little that can match those original demo recordings.

There’s a heavy thrash influence to the music, understandable given the time of the original recordings. But that thrash edge gives the filthy, dirty, fire snorting, death metal beast a relentless pummelling velocity.

Every time I listen to Fuckin’ Death it reminds me of the adrenaline rush I felt when I first heard death metal. There’s been better played, better produced death metal, however, just try and stop yourself head banging to Mangled Dehumanisation or Pay To Die. Go on, try.

Preferred drink: Water

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