Interview: UNMERCIFUL

Topeka, KS brutal death metal masters Unmerciful recently released their third album Wrath Encompassed on the venerable Willowtip Records.  The album is easily their most punishing album to date and is already poised to go down as one of the most devastating metal releases of the year.  I got in contact with longtime bassist Jeremy Turner to discuss the new album and the band’s efforts to create the most punishing music possible.

Schizogen – Spawn of Almighty Essence (Willowtip Records, 2020)

We’re just a little past the first quarter mark for 2020, but metal fans have already been treated to a deluge of quality brutal death metal; from the mind-bending technicality of Odious Mortem, to the crushing slams of Engutturalment Cephaloslamectomy, to the unmitigated violence of Unmerciful, it’s shaping up to be a hell of a year.  But sitting at the top of this monolithic BDM heap is Spawn of Almighty Essence, the sophomore album from Ukrainian skull-smashers Schizogen.

Oodles of Brutals XI: Only Built 4 Brutal Riffs

Hard to believe its been almost eight months since the last one of these roundups, but 2020 is finally starting to cough up some quality brutal death metal and slam, so you know what that means…

Oodles of Brutals IV: Brutal-Fu, da Return

Holy shit you guys, I haven’t done one of these brutal/tech/slam death metal roundup features since 2014!  Wasn’t this supposed to be a semi-regular feature?!  I guess 2014 was also the year that I realized I’m far too disorganized/scatterbrained to pull off regular features, so they’re more like whenever-I-feel-like-it features and apparently I haven’t felt like it in almost two years.

Oodles of Brutals III: Tech Death and Other Delights

It’s been quite a while since I did one of these (over a year, to be slightly more precise), but frankly there hasn’t been a whole lot of new stuff on the brutality front that’s really tripped my trigger of late.  In fact, it’s only been within the past month or so that enough gory goodies have piled up to make it worth doing. The initial two installments of Oodles of Brutals were all about slam and brutal death metal, but this time around we’ll mostly be focusing on tech death.  I’m pretty darn picky about this stuff, as there is an extremely fine line between mind-bending technicality and “Hey, look what we can do!” fret-wankery, so it’s a bit of a surprise that so much of this stuff has been able to grab me, but it’s a neck-snappingly pleasant one.  Let’s dive in…