The Black Wards - New Death Metal and the Origins of Hellmaster

Welcome to the charnel house where ghouls wearing impish hats churn human butter. We invite you to sit down on the comfy chair with the bloody spikes. Drink the hemlock laced liqueur.  An evening of exquisite pain awaits you at Jenkabala Palace as we contemplate some choice and quite brand new death metal albums. We'll mop you up when we are done.

First, we heard the triumphant return of the mighty Carcass. Surgical Steel is one of the best comebacks and return to classic form that major band has done in a while. The sound heralds a return to their melodic death metal days. The production is fantastic, the riffs are hearty, the melodies are catchy, the sinuous guitar solos are fucking fantastic. The songs are intricate gems of riff craft. On the other hand, there really are no new innovations, and a few nods to their grindcore days would have been appreciated. But thankfully no nods to Swan Song either. The lyrics are appropriately Carcass-like, way over the top but with a bit of sly wit. Winner of the night, though Vecton was not convinced. 

Lives of the Noble Centonians Part 2.1 - Darkflow Quadrivium

Ka-Taw gazed out over the open desert that was now his kingdom. There were still a few trees left here and there, dotting the landscape like tiny islands in a turbulent sea of sand. The northern prince knew that the desert had formed in a vicious battle of magic in the distant past, but nothing he had heard in the songs or poems of the time prepared him for the awe he felt when he saw the brilliantly colored wasteland change hue for the first time. During the course of the day the entire desert would change hue many times from deep red to green to gray to purple and so fourth. Sometimes the color change would be accompanied by a violent storm that would send the noble exile running for cover. He had been living on the dry rations the sauropeds provided him when they dropped him off in this lonely country. From his royal vestments he had fashioned a kind of loose cloak that hung pitifully

from his spry frame and a lightly colored beard was beginning to form on his resolute jaw. Wandering for days, he had become disoriented with grief and anger, mind consumed with thoughts of revenge. His water supply was dangerously low and yet he paid no mind to the dwindling flame of life, as a conflagration of hatred boiled within, pressing the royal heir onward. From his vista at the top of a small dune, Ka-Taw picked a clump of trees not too far off and made his way to the comparitive saftey of their branches. The scruffy wanderer was almost halfway to his destination when the winds kicked up and the ground began to split. The fissure races toward the unfourtanate nomad and he runs toward the solid ground just before him, jumping to grab the trunk, but the ground swallows up the tree and everything else around him and he falls into the wailing abyss, still screaming oaths of revenge.

Next, Portal was unleashed into the sonic fray. Portal are one of the most esoteric death metal bands on the planet, Vexovoid is a dark holocaust of sound, unleashing monsters from deep in the abyss of hate. But we've seen all that before. This album actually sounds a little less less murky than previous efforts, but they off pretty much more of the same thing, with few surprises. I never actually thought I'd ever say this, but this is just another Portal album. Just another foray into dark light of spiritual death and otherworldly madness. Just another album to swim in your own guts to. 

Lives of the Noble Centonians Part 2.2 - Multivectoral Reionization

The smell of grilled fish coaxes Ka-Taw into consciousness and he opens his eyes to the sight of three crouching figures, shrouded in black robes. The prince attempts to rise but he realizes he is tightly snared in a net. "Hey! Release me at once bastards!" The faceless strangers continue to eat, unmoved by the cries of their captive. For the first time, thoughts of self preservation begin to creep into the ragged warrior's mind. "What do you want of me? I have no treasure, I am a simple wanderer" One of his captors comes closer and feeds him a piece of the salty fish his companions are dining on, then lifts a finger to his lips, "All will be revealed soon my son" His finger, surmounted by a razor sharp claw reaches down and snaps the cables of the net, allowing Ka-Taw to rise from the stone floor.

Looking around him, he beholds a large, pillar filled chamber. Before him the three robed ones before him stand, arms folded in stern regard. He reaches for his sword, but discovers he has been stripped naked by these poachers. Again, their weird leader speaks, "Fear not, prince Ka-Taw, we are friends. Together we represent the council of gatemasters and we have chosen you to become the steward of this dimensional wilderness." Ka-Taw looks around at the spartan fortress and replies with scorn, "I have no interest in your barren kingdom, my only dreams are revenge and death. Be gone with you." A second gaurdian steps up and says softly, "You do not understand, you cannot go back to your home, not now. We have already transmuted your body to withstand the dimensional storms here, so you are now more in our world than your own." The former noble makes an anguished cry and lunges at his keepers, but their bodies are no more solid than a cloud of dust. He screams and smashes himself against the walls to no avail. At last, when his rage was spent, the naked exile slumped against a pillar and stared into the gloom at the end of the cavernous room. From out of the darkness came an exquisitely uniformed priestess, ceremonial armor gleaming in the torch light. She steps before him and extends her hand to the broken champion. Ka-Taw, in despair, reaches out to the pale hand before him. When she draws him up to his feet, he looks deeply into the wide, fierce eyes before him and a rush of power wells up inside his chest. From each side, the robed figures come to dress the new king of nothingness. "I am Lady Deathcrush." Says the mystic before him, "You have shed your skin and now we hail you as king of these decimated lands." Drawing a jeweled sword from a scabbard at her side, she touches the side and neck of the new ruler and recites, "Oblonga tenteran, millrose charnan!" Far off in the distance he hears the many voices of the spirit monks raised up in the old chant, Phantom Lord. "I dub thee, Hellmaster of the Time Desert." The torches on the walls begin to glow with an unnatural intensity and outside, a storm rages, howling the name of the new master.

And lastly, Spain's Wormed gurgled their way into our hearts. Wormed is a brutal death metal band with a fondness for sci-fi lyrics, ultra crazed drumming heroics, extreme technicality, and inhumanly chortled vocals. This is a good band to skin yourself to and Exdromos is welcome return a 10 year hiatus. Vecton the Bard cummed blood to this album, getting his bloody jizz all over Iron Dan's viking beard. They were both very drunk.

 Words of the Elders

The history of Centon is filled with the blood of heroes and villains, stories of battles untold and forgotten adventures of nomadic wanderers in the misty ruins of the Huskitel and Chevelargo battlements. In the second age of Centon, after the Wyvern elders usurped the power of the north from the T'Chah Karnac, after the cataclysm that left the Charn forest a wasteland that gave way to the Time Desert, there came a wanderer into this barren land. Ka-Taw was the heir to the once

powerful Clan Parth, who lived upon the River Trimpor in northern Jenkabala. For generations their family ruled the great trade route between Samur and Jenkabala, supported by the powerful wizards of the T'Chah Karnac and the might of the Sauroped tribes who had lived there since the days of the Chevelargo. When the Wyverns deposed the T'Chah Karnac, dark days fell upon Ka-Taw and his family and he was forced to flee into the time desert, where he became the mighty Hellmaster, at whose name the Wyvern elders were soon to tremble!

Until next week, extraterrestrial scanners,

Horns