THE BEST LOCAL METAL RELEASES OF 2017
Admin Recluse took a look at The Flying Lugaw’s 20 Best Local Releases of 2017, and The Insektlife Cycle’s “Vivid Dreams Parade” stood out the most for him. Aside from the fact that “Vivid Dreams Parade” is a punchy, well-crafted piece of psych rock goodness that would make Tame Impala want to pack it up and call it a day, all members of The Insektlife Cycle are also very much active in the local metal scene as one half of them wade some thick sludge with Hateure while the other half unleash their anger towards society’s ills as they do death/thrash with Barabbas. Both bands mentioned may not have released anything this 2017, but some other folks in the local metal scene have managed to put out stuff that made the past year a lot more tolerable despite the extra shittiness that it had to offer. So without any further ado, here are The Flying Lugaw’s 8 Best Local Metal Releases of 2017 – or 9 as you’ll find out in one of the entries listed there.
8. Repugnant – Pissed Be with You + Parasites
If anyone who follows The Flying Lugaw is also following the local mixed martial arts scene, the name Jiar Castillo might ring a bell. Nicknamed “The Twister”, Castillo made the rounds of local sports news last August 2017 when he attempted to take the URCC (Universal Reality Combat Championship) Flyweight championship belt from Filipino-American MMA fighter Derrick Easterling only to get defeated by way of knockout. While it remains to be seen whether Castillo can bounce back from that recent loss in his fledgling MMA career, his other stint as the drummer of grindcore/crust band Repugnant had produced two releases from last year that clearly won over the hearts and ears of fans of local extreme music. Put out a month after Castillo’s URCC bout, “Pissed Be with You” and “Parasites” somewhat remind me of Napalm Death’s “Scum” in terms of lyricism and imagery as Repugnant takes on a strong stance against fascism, organized religion, and corruption with songs that barely hit the two-minute mark. With 2017 being such a shitty year as alt-right neo-fascists all over the world are trying to get themselves heard, no thanks to most of the current batch of political leaders who are of the conservative persuasion, extreme music like that put out by Repugnant are a necessary counter-response that beckons each and every one of us to defeat every toxic ideology out there that isn’t helping us become a better society.
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7. Vile Reflux – We Don’t Matter
Regional underground music scenes can get rather tight-knit at times that almost everyone knows someone who does music on their own or is in a band. However, a few people have successfully managed to keep their identity under wraps and just let the music that they put out speak for itself. Someone from Batangas who operates under the name Vile Reflux had put out a demo called “We Don’t Matter” just a couple of days before 2017 came to a close. No long or even average-length songs can be found in Vile Reflux’s demo though as the fella does grindcore where every song has to be short and sweet. Fans of Pig Destroyer’s earlier stuff are sure to dig Vile Reflux’s demo, and that “putangina mo” sample opening the song “Gold-digger” is solid gold. Can’t wait to hear more from Vile Reflux soon.
6. Yomi No Kuni – Horrors
Part of me often wishes that most of those participating in the local metal scene embraced the said music genre’s slower-paced variants with open arms instead of forever getting stuck in their steady diet of death, black and thrash. Just because a subgenre like post-metal isn’t really meant to induce someone to start a circle pit doesn’t mean that it’s not worth listening to at the very least. And speaking of post-metal, I can’t recall any other local band playing stuff in the vein of Pelican and Isis right now. Good thing Yomi No Kuni is around to fill the void that has been lingering in the metal scene for quite some time already with their emotional brand of post-metal. But if you’re looking for vocals as you listen to Yomi No Kuni’s debut album “Horrors” in its entirety, you’ll only end up disappointed as there’s absolutely no one singing, growling or screaming in each of its eight songs. The beauty of listening to any kind of instrumental music is that you can come up with your own interpretation of what the song is about to you with only the album and song titles as guides. What truly sets Yomi No Kuni’s “Horrors” apart from a lot of other post-metal releases I’ve heard before that seem to rely too much on riffage is its use of a violin and some bluesy guitar solos that remind me of some of the later releases by Kurt Cobain’s best friend Dylan Carlson and the rest of his bandmates in Earth. With “Horrors”, Yomi No Kuni is out to prove that post-metal deserves to have its rightful place in the local metal scene.
5. Pulverized – Demo 2017
The boys of Pulverized made it again on this list with their Demo 2017 release. Even if not really an album or an EP, the band’s three-song demo crushes everything in its path in less than 15 minutes. As expected, the artwork for the band’s latest release – even if it reminds me a bit too much of Mark Riddick’s style – isn’t your usual brutal death metal cover that has blood and guts all over in full color. Now, I can’t help but notice a pattern with the first few entries in this list as Pulverized also opened their 2017 demo with a soundbite from some movie. I actually like it when metal bands include a proper introductory piece in any of their releases as it can warm the listener’s ears up, make the listener believe that they’re listening to something that’s not metal at all, or even throw in an occasional joke. It would be nice if more local bands did that instead of launching straight into a song to open their demo, EP or album.
4. Seventh Torture – Dark Ages
Nekroholocaust isn’t the only Visayan band who had put out an album in an Indonesian record label as Cebuano brutal death metal band Seventh Torture had released their debut full-length “Dark Ages” on Roommate Records a couple of months back. The said album’s cover immediately grabbed my attention as it’s the only one I know of that used a white background instead of the usual black or any of its shades. The band’s name as displayed on the right side of the album cover also reminds me of Guns N’ Roses’ two-part Use Your Illusion series of albums from the serif font used to its vertical orientation. As to the music itself, I was quite surprised that the eight songs included in “Dark Ages” sounded a bit lo-fi to me as compared to the usual overproduction present in a lot of local brutal death metal releases. It’s almost as if “Dark Ages” was recorded sometime in the 90’s instead of just last year which makes it all the more worth checking out.
3. Nekroholocaust – Hymns of Ruthless Pestilence
Bacolod City might be well-known for its sugarcane plantations and chicken inasal, but it has one other export that deserves some recognition too. More than a decade after their formation, Nekroholocaust had teamed up with Indonesian record label Brutal Mind to finally unleash their debut album called “Hymns of Ruthless Pestilence”. Strangely enough, the album opens with “Glorification of Barbarity” which is actually just one of those recordings of the poem “O Fortuna” as set to music by German composer Carl Orff. The rest of the album though is where it’s at as Nekroholocaust treats the listener to seven brutal death metal songs – except for an interlude somewhere along the middle – that would make you go on a killing spree as you slaughter your neighbor’s chickens and barbeque them.
2. Kampon – Sa Lumang Daan
I’ve been wondering ever since I first got into the local underground metal scene why is it that a lot of its bands put out songs in English. Is it because writing stuff in English usually comes easier for some people (including yours truly)? Or is it because of wanting to earn a place in the global metal scene, English being the universal language and all? I’d like to think that metal and the Filipino language complement each other perfectly as the latter often comes across as quite strong in tone compared to most other world languages except for German, especially with the right choice of words and delivery. While Kampon isn’t the only local metal band to put out songs delivered entirely in Filipino, they do it in such a way that sends shivers down the listener’s spine. Four years after combining blackened death metal and Filipino with their song “Babaylan”, Kampon crafted five songs and collected them all in an EP called “Sa Lumang Daan”. Put out just a couple of months ago, the EP takes the listener on a journey into the spiritual realm with the babaylan on the EP cover lighting the old path and leading the way. If you’re into Blut Aus Nord’s lyricism, The Black Dahlia Murder, and Behemoth, you’ll surely love Kampon’s “Sa Lumang Daan”. Now I can’t help but hope that Kampon would further expand on the idea of doing blackened death metal with Filipino lyrics by putting out an album’s worth of songs anytime soon.
1. Pathogen – Ashes of Eternity
While it took San Pablo, Laguna death metal band Pathogen a while to provide a proper follow-up to 2012’s “Forged in the Crucible of Death”, the five-year wait that their fans had to endure was surely worth it as the band joined forces once again with Polish record label Old Temple to put out “Ashes of Eternity”. Compared to “Forged in the Crucible of Death” in which the band just decided to start with their first song right away, “Ashes of Eternity” opens with an ambient piece called “Cinis Aeternus”. While opening an entire album with an ambient introduction can sound too cheesy in the hands of other metal bands of lesser stature, Pathogen doing the same for “Ashes of Eternity” feels as if I’m actually listening to some old-school death metal band from somewhere in Europe instead of one that’s based in a province located just a few hours from Manila. All the other songs on “Ashes of Eternity” shouldn’t be discounted though as they showcase exactly what made the band a household name for followers of local death metal that’s far removed from the typical Cannibal Corpse-worshipping third-rate clone bands that still unfortunately plague the scene much to its detriment.