South America seems to be a hot spot for excellent black, Christ hating, thrash. This release however, stands head and shoulders above most recent South American black/thrash.

Band: Hades Archer
Album: Penis Metal
Genre: Black/thrash
Year: 2008
Origin: Chile
Label: Kuravilu Productions

Formed in 2005 by members of Atomic Aggressor and Force of Darkness, Hades Archer play some savage, raw, black/thrash.There's little here that hasn't been done before, but the delivery of Hades Archer is of a caliber that is seldom reached. For those of you familiar with Force of Darkness, this stuff is much less thrashy, and quite a bit rawer. It's like someone took early Sodom and early Sarcofago and threw it in a blender.

I was originally sort of put off by the album title, but when the release is this good, you can call it whatever you want I guess. This is a short one, blazing by in just under 15 min. 3 of which are spent on a cover of Sodom's Pretenders to the Throne, which is very well done. Definitely one of the best things to come from South America, a place with a fairly decent amount of good releases.

Best track(s): The Stench (Cadaver on the Cross), Pretenders to the Throne

Recommended for fans of: Perversor, Vomitor, early Sarcofago, early Sodom

Preview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmU9iXzK0FE

Previous Recommendations:
http://rateyourmusic.com/list/RlyehLiberationFront/rlyeh_recommends

DOWNLOAD:
Here

This download includes the Penis Metal EP, and both demos.

Black Death - Black Death

My next recommendation will go down in history as being one of the first all black heavy metal bands. Of course, I could only be speaking of Black Death.

Band: Black Death
Album: Black Death
Genre: Heavy Metal
Year: 1984
Origin: USA
Label: Auburn Records

These guys are more than just a racial milestone in metal though, their album is full of way above average heavy metal. In fact, this is one of my 50 favorite metal albums of all time, and one of the only heavy metal records to make that list. Everything about this album is done just right. The vocals are great, the guitar is great, etc. I can't recommend this stuff enough...really.

This stuff is beyond impossible to find a real copy of, and a download isn't easy to track down either because the name Black Death brings up just about every metal blog post ever. I'm hoping that uploading this will expose the band to more people. I've heard that Auburn Records wants to reissue this, so I'm hoping that actually happens, as this is one of the few metal albums to make my top 50 that I don't actually own.

Best Track(s): Fear No Evil, Black Death, Here Comes the Wrecking Crew

For fans of: Heavy metal

Preview: http://www.myspace.com/blackdeathcleveland

Download:
Here

Malaphar - Arisen from Flame

Band: Malaphar
Album: Arisen from Flame
Genre: Death metal
Year: 1992
Origin: Germany
Label: N/A

These guys are probably most famous for being the backing live band for Alex Schulze and Naked Whipper, but there music easily stands on it's own. This is top quality OSDM that has been relegated to literal obscurity (they have 15 listeners and less than 100 total listens on last.fm, and about 20 of those listens are mine). Musicially this is excellent, dark, evil sounding old school death metal. Good riffs, good vocals, and what I think is excellent drumming (I don't know why, but it stood out to me). The recording is also of good quality for a nearly 20 year old demo.

The demo is pretty tough to find, though if you check my blog I'm sure it will illuminate the path. I've also turned the entire Arisen from Flame demo into YouTube videos for preview purposes, as there was no way to check them out short of blindly downloading the demo before that.

Best Track(s): Below Pervetion, Outer Realms

Recommended for fans of: OSDM

Download:
Here

(Download includes both the Arisen from Flame demo and the Promo 1991 demo)

Satan's Satyrs - Demo 2010

I acquired this demo on CD-R at the end of last year, before it was decided that a tape release was best. It's a great mix of black/punk-n-roll.

I don't know what the band plans to do next, but I'm looking forward to it, as this has been one of my top demos of the last year. The only shortcoming is that it's only 3 songs. I wish it was longer. Everything else about this is perfect for the style.

Grab this here:
Download

Creepout - Discography

Creepout is Japan's finest Integrity worship. They even went as far as using a modified Asian version of the Integrity skull as their logo.

Musically, they are pretty much exactly what you would expect, metallic hardcore. Though lyrically they don't seem to follow in the typical "holy terror" footsteps, instead opting for more of a typical "tough guy" meets "youth crew" approach in that area. They do have a few songs that would fit the holy terror genre though. I can easily overlook the silly lyrics in part because they aren't native English speakers, and so they just go with what they know, but mostly because this album rages.

Once again, a quick internet search tuned up nothing, so this is, as far as I know, another R'lyeh Liberation Front exclusive...for now.

Grab it here:
Download

Mace - The Process of Elimination and The Evil in Good

Mace is a sadly overlooked crossover band that was active from the early to late 80's. Their first album, The Process of Elimination, was released in 1985 on Coma records. It was a pretty solid, but very strange, crossover thrash record.

Their second LP, The Evil in Good, released in 1987 on Black Dragon Records marked a shift to a more metal approach being noticeably more rooted in the thrash genre, though still including some punk/crossover elements. This album while being more metal for sure, is also stranger, and slightly more dark.

Their guitar player would latter have a hand in killing metal in the early 90's when he became a record producer and produced some awful grunge records (Pearl Jam being the biggest offender...to his credit he also did records for Alice in Chains and Blind Melon...).

Enough babbling...here's the records:
Download

Dominus - A View To The Dim

Before they became Vol-beat (what a shitty progression...), or even released a garbage death-n-roll record (I like death-n-roll...I didn't like their take on it...), Dominus put out a super crushing, and by all accounts, excellent death metal album. View to the Dim is unrelenting. The drums pound away, the guitar is heavy, and the vocals fierce. You'd think from the cover art, they'd be all about vikings, and other lame crap, and you'd be partially right. They do have some songs about vikings, but they also have songs about the occult and some with anti-religious overtones...so you're not in for some Amon Amarth style lyrical subject suckfest. Some of the members where also in Panzerchrist and Illdisposed.

Grab what may be the only non-shitty viking themed album here:
Download