BEST OF 2010 (part 4)

BONE SICKNESS

2010 Demo
(Self Released)

Bone Sickness take their name from an inexcusably boring and incompetent straight-to-video horror flick that even frontal nudity and copious amounts of Jamesons couldn't salvage. But I suppose Autopsy and Master were already taken and Don't Go In The Woods is too wordy, so who can blame 'em? This is rabid metal from the grave steeped in the noxious sewer crust of Nausea and the glacial judgment of Winter. Six songs and not a dud among them! Organ-Wrenching Sick is the standout with its sludgy pummeling and infectious thrash riffing but The Collector and Scraping The Bones make me wanna get wasted on formaldehyde and play operation with a chainsaw. I was fortunate enough to catch these talented young derelicts performing in the outdoor parking lot of a pizza joint earlier this year and was grinning like an undertaker by the time they lurched off stage. It was broad daylight but they painted the sky black with plague while the usual gang of downtown Olympia, Washington riff raff assaulted each other in the pit and confused the hippies and homeless who couldn't boogie along fast enough. Keep truckin'. At the time Bone Sickness featured former Funerot (R.I.P.) shredder Ben Moore-Maley on guitar and he rips it up on this demo but has since relocated for school and been replaced. Don't worry, the new guy rules. For some reason I seem to recall the live set having something of a spastic Accused or Animosity-era C.O.C. vibe (maybe it was just the drummer's tattoos) but by the time this demo emerged a few months later the punk influence was mostly buried in a shroud of viscera. If these dudes can keep their shit together they'll be something to watch and I'm really looking forward to their full-length in 2011. Limited to 250 copies and featuring stylish cover art by Jorge Flores of Lit Fuse Tattoo. Choke on it!

Bone Sickness at East End on December 18, 2010.

Honorable Mention:

OBLITERATION

Nekropsalms

(Duplicated Records)

You know that feeling you get when you find yourself locked in an old fruit cellar and suddenly realize something is down there with you? That is precisely the same atmosphere of nauseating horror to be discovered on this second full-length from Norway's Obliteration. I somehow missed these dudes when they played MDF this year and while I'd like to say it was because I was off at the Edgar Allan Poe Museum soaking up some literary history, the truth is, I was probably engaged in a heated game of Chinese Face Punch. My loss. This is a band so deeply and intuitively connected to their dark graveyard vision that they can clamber down strange paths and still deliver us into the terrible gaping jaws of DEATH! The Worm That Gnaws In The Night is a nearly 10 minute disasterpiece of pig-squealing guitars, swirling leads and agonized death rattles that will make your Hellhammer records ride off into the sunset on a pale horse. Technically this was released in late 2009 but the vinyl version did not emerge until 2010 and only recently arrived at the Dread Compound where it has been in steady rotation. The LP also comes with a 7" featuring one crushing original and a fuckin' Dr. Shrinker cover from the 1989 Wedding the Grotesque demo. I don't particularly care for the cover art but at least it's not goatmen pulling a train on Jesus and besides, if the band photos are any indication, vocalist/guitarist Sindre Solem appears to be about 9 feet tall and ain't the kinda dude I wanna piss off. A real gem!