Mocata's Den of Horror

 I have neglected this blog this year, mostly due to focusing on music and just daily stuff like work. Still, I wanted to get some Halloween music recommendations out there for this year.  I think I will do this a little differently this time, with most of these being releases I discovered through Bandcamp.      Fleshrot - Unburied Corpse First up, we have a new band that is putting together some pretty old-style death metal.  Nothing groundbreaking, in general, but it is just plain good.  This isn't a band preoccupied with being technical and playing faster than anybody else.  This is a band trying to make some good, old-fashioned, memorable death metal, which I think the band succeeds at. Hailing from Lubbock, Texas, Fleshrot released a demo on Bandcamp, which also was released as a cassette and a 7".  This was the release that introduced the band to me.  When the album came out, I snagged a copy and have been enjoying it quite a bit....

Since I did this last year, I figured I would feature some more recommendations this year.  Being a huge metal fan, these will be primarily metal. Necrophagia- Season of the Dead and Ready for Death Okay, I am going with a double-feature kind of thing with this one.  The first full-length studio album by one of the original death metal bands and the album recorded before it that remained unreleased until a few years later.   First, Season of the Dead came out in 1987 and was Necrophagia's one and only album until vocalist/mainman Killjoy teamed up with Phil Anselmo to reactivate the band with a new lineup in the late '90s.  The lyrics are filled with horror influences, as is the cover art.  The music itself is going for a bit moodier sort of feel rather than just out-and-out speed.  It is a classic and always a great listen.  The imagery and mood make it a natural choice for Halloween listening. Ready for Death was recorded in 1986, but was not...

For Halloween, there are so many movies to watch to get into the spirit of the season, as well as books to read, and, of course, music to listen to.  I already wrote a bit about Denial of God's most recent album, The Hallow Mass in my post about the book, The Reel Ghoul , so here are a few more that I think really capture the spirit of Halloween. Acid Witch: Evil Sound Screamers This is the third full-length album by Acid Witch, a band that has referred to its own music as "Halloween metal".  That makes Acid Witch a natural choice for Halloween music.  The lyrics often incorporate horror movie themes and Halloween.  There is also some of the stoner doom kind of stuff, which initially put me off from the band, but then I heard some of the band's music and was able to look past the stoner stuff, which I have never really been a fan of.  Evil Sound Screamers , to me, seems to be the most Halloween-oriented album thus far.  Though still present, the stoner ele...

The Beast Within is something of a forgotten gem of '80s horror.  Released in 1982, it features Ronny Cox (who would later appear in Robocop and Total Recall ), Bibi Besch, R.G. Armstrong, and others, including Paul Clemens as the main character, Michael MacCleary, who has inherited some monstrous curse from his unknown father.  Born as the result of an attack on his mother, Caroline (Bibi Besch), on the night of her wedding to Eli MacCleary (Ronny Cox), Michael is raised by the two as if he were any normal child, rather than the result of a sexual assault.  When, in his late teens, Michael starts exhibiting strange symptoms and the doctors are unable to determine the cause, Eli and Caroline return to the town where the attack occurred all those years ago, looking for answers.  Unknown to them, Michael heads there as well, driven by some instinct inside him. U.S. theatrical poster Michael begins to show signs of some personality change, developing an obsession with...

Time for a little self promotion. I recorded an EP last month, which has just been released digitally.  It is no nonsense death metal, with horror-inspired lyrics.  As it turned out, every song was inspired by Italian horror movies: Burial Ground ; Papaya, Love Goddess of the Cannibals ; Beyond the Darkness ; The Beyond .  Although it is a digital-only release at the moment, I would like to have it released as a 7" record, which was the format it was really geared toward.  If you like Mortician, Impetigo, Gorelord, and the like, head on over to Bandcamp and check out Revel in Horror and Gore.  And while you are there, check out the releases by Xenward and Grand Guignol as well. https://mocata9.bandcamp.com/releases

A long time favorite band of mine is Necrophagia, which initially formed in the early/mid '80s before splitting then eventually resurfacing with a new lineup in the late '90s, continuing on until the death of its founder, Killjoy, in 2018. Set list from Necrophagia show, plus flyer and stage-used drumstick from drummer Shawn Slusarek There are a couple of recent releases from two different labels released as tributes to the band and the memory of Killjoy.  The first is a best-of compilation and the other is a cassette release containing the band's demos from the '80s. Best-of collections are generally a bit of a weird thing for me, personally, as they are derivative by nature.  However, they are good for people who are trying to get into the band, but don't know where to start.  I also find them good for situations where you want to listen to a specific band, but want to hear stuff from different albums, which I find does happen to me from time to time.  Th...

Sad news recently, as Killjoy (real name, Frank Pucci), main man of early death metal band Necrophagia, died.  I have been a fan of Necrophagia for years, leading me to also enjoy other bands Killjoy participated in: Wurdulak, The Ravenous, Cabal, Enoch, Haxxan, and others. I am very happy that I had the opportunity to see him with Necrophagia and also got to meet him.  He was quite friendly and Necrophagia put on a great show.  I remember being at the front of the crowd right in front of Killjoy and singing (or growling, I suppose would be more appropriate) parts of the song when Killjoy held the microphone out to me and the guy next to me on multiple occasions (especially during the song "Cannibal Holocaust").  The headliner on that tour was actually 1349, but I was there to see Necrophagia and Necrophagia did not disappoint. Killjoy performing with Necrophagia, 2015 I remember being at the Housecore Horror Festival a few years back and wearing a Necropha...

2017 has been quite a year for death metal, particularly older death metal bands.  To date, this year has seen new releases from Immolation, Incantation, Obituary, Broken Hope, Origin, Suffocation, and others, with upcoming releases from Cannibal Corpse and Morbid Angel.  And these haven't just been new releases, but good ones, too.  Time will tell for the Cannibal Corpse and Morbid Angel releases, as those are due out in November and December, respectively. One of the most recent of this batch of death metal is the newest release from one of my favorite death/grind bands, Exhumed, entitled Death Revenge. Death Revenge LP with lyric sheet/poster and Death Revenge CD    Exhumed has been around for quite a long time at this point, starting its career with demos and multiple split releases before moving into full-length releases with the now-classic Gore Metal in 1998.  This was followed up by the superb Slaughtercult, then the more mature and melod...

Welcome to Mocata’s Den of Horror.   As the name would imply, I will be posting about horror and horror-related topics, however I will also discuss metal music, mostly death metal and black metal, just because, along with horror, that is one of my favorite topics. To start off, I would like to discuss a new release from a long-time favorite band of mine, Embalmer. If you are not familiar with Embalmer, you should be able to look the band up and learn its history.   Right now, I want to focus on the band’s newest release, and already one of my favorite releases of the year, Emanations From the Crypt . Like the band’s classic material from the 1990s, this album is aggressive yet memorable.   Unlike a majority of modern death metal, which is often focused on being “brutal, technical” death metal, the songs on Emanations do not blur together in one big long stream of thrown together notes, which may be difficult to play, but are generally tedious to listen to...