Album Review: Engraved Darkness- Diabolical Scriptures

by Sam Werts

     When Engraved Darkness isn't beating you down with their crunchy riffs, they're, well... Beating you down with more crunchy riffs! This 4-piece death/black metal band is from Dayton, Ohio and sure show what Dayton metal is all about. Whether it's singer/guitarist Johnnie Wallace's nasty vocals, Colin Glover's beefy bass tone, Jimmy Rose's crazy guitar solos or Andy Hall's tasty drum fills, this band is a treat for those who love bands such as Belphegor or Morbid Angel.

     Diabolical Scriptures is their first release to date, and it's nothing short of brutal. The album opens with a beautiful piano intro, then starts right off with "Darkened Grave." Guitarist Rose really shines here with his epic solo, which only makes an awesome beginning track all the better! The next track, "Fate Divine," features an amazing call and response from Wallace and Glover, whose vocals fit very well together. A few more tracks in, you get to a personal favorite of mine, "The Purity of Evil." Its just shy of 8 minutes long, and it's worth every second. The album runs about 40 minutes long, and is 9 tracks of destructive metal.

     Fans of old school death metal will no doubt love this album, as well as any other release this band puts out. Links to listen and for the band's pages are below.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EngravedDarkness/
Bandcamp: http://engraveddarkness.bandcamp.com/album/diabolical-scriptures

Interview with Matt Moss from Slugdge

The genre of metal contains a great variety of lyrical topics. Black metal tends to focus on darker stuff, such as death, Satan, winter, Satan, human sacrifice, and Satan. Death metal has lots of focus on gore, ripping people asunder, using their opened torsos as latrines and so on. But what do you do when you when you don’t want to write about any of that? What if every damn topic has been done before? Well, then you write about... slugs.  

At first look, you may think this is some sort of a fucking joke. “How the hell can anyone write music about slugs? This is going to be shit.” I know, because I was saying the same thing when I was first introduced to Slugdge, a blackened sludge metal band from Lancashire, England. But, Slugdge is anything but a gimmick. Conceived in 2012, Slugdge is the work of two guys, Kev Pearson (guitars) & Matt Moss (Vocals), who worked together in Tower of Wankers & Call to Arms prior to create the maniacal story of cosmic slugs invading the Earth and making all of mankind their collective bitches.

Yes, Slugdge makes it clear from the first notes of their debut album, ‘Born of Slime’, that these gastropods mean business. With a refreshing, thick and aggressive style of extreme metal, the invasion and twisted lore of Mollusca’s following slithers in your mind with the intention to linger. Characterized by complex riffs and pounding, poly rhythmic drumming, the band immediately showcase their own unique brand of extreme metal. Violent and ominous guitars impose with a wall of sonorous force, backed by heavy torrents of blast beats. They provide the perfect backdrop for the-Lovecraftian lyrics about slugs, conducted through Matt’s foreboding growls, screams and clean singing. Yes, the slugs are here, and here to stay.