We Are the Damned are no strangers to the Euro extreme metal scene with two EP’s (Metal Classics Vol. 1 &2) and two albums The Shape of Hell to Come and Holy Beast to their credit. Their newest Doomvirate, the Portuguese grinders first with Lifeforce Records out in late May,bring an abrasive hardcore, punky crustcore, violent death rock sound with massive speed metal, that could appease fans of Napalm Death, Motorhead, EyeHate God and Entombed. Formed in 2007, they make brutal, blunt and honest extreme music played with a DIY ethos with hard hitting attacks and vivid eruptions. Doomvirate deals with concepts, questions and thoughts about human and social rights and political corruption. They take the underground filth lying in the mire and turn it into something grotesquely beautiful, like street art made out of societies throwaways.
Sung by screecher Ricardo Correia, Ghastly Remains’ classical beginning ends with guitars joining the fray 30 seconds in, with a sound deep in bass and sinister lurking sounds. Hell breaks loose from there with pungently poignant septic tank filthy vocals mixed with a computerized sounding voice that could only be sired from a Necronomicon conjured romance, grating on the mic. You put us in the ground by your own hands; now smell the decrepit voice of our wrath! The Portuguese grindcore gang bring out the sounds of the dark unwanted underground underbelly and murk.
Dreams Under Surveillance- an old black metal sound with some death metal shrapnel seasoning. All hope is gone under the government sector, insanity the only escape. Guitars drag out sound in the beginning of Revealing Morality like a killer dragging a body down a dimly lit hall. A doom metal pit fight ensues with a grindcore crowd with a bone breaking breakdown at two minutes followed by the next round. Those easily swayed by the soothing words of politicians and their shadowed lies, change their minds quickly meeting them face to face seeing through the disguise. Rain of Spikes’ bass and drums come out sprinting with guitars wailing in close pursuit, taking the lead. Experiencing your final moments in a hail of fire and smoke as your spiritual body ascends through the rain of hell, your burned heart, lying below, no longer needed. Imposter’s the type of song that would play if bodies fell from the sky on Judgment day, as the vampiric flesh eaters walk amongst us. Only the chosen can see through their deception. The Threshold’s, Hatebreed feel, talks shit in hells lavatory and at 1:50 changes gears getting slower and gloomy playing what could possibly be the doom/grind version of an Opeth tune. The power of a political regime and the effects it has on the sanity of those under it. The fence holding back the oppressive rebellion will only hold so long. Macabre Expedition has a circle pit friendly punk groove and pace, playing to the tune of the Sex Pistols possessed by Al Jourgensen. When there’s nothing left to kill or decimate for food will you cannibalize your own kind to survive and truly eat…. anything? Angelsick sounds like if all the personalities of a paranoid schizophrenic leaped out and jumped into the same pit. The glimmer darkness under my boots shines like the petals blooming death. Flight of the Phoenix starts slow flushing out sound towards the waiting, screaming brain hemorrhaging noise riot. Fear, government control through conformity is the new religion, screamed through loud speakers and megaphones. Religion’s gone underground in the basements of destroyed forgotten structures with cracked, fallen idols, lying broken outside, wings of hope and purity, eroding in the ash.
