Wurdulak

The improbable alliance of Phil Anselmo, Killjoy and Relapse Records has brought forth two releases (the other being Gorelord) to get their new record label off the ground. What a way to get things started: two of the rawest, most metal and quite offensive releases to see the light of day in a while. Wurdulak is the more enjoyable of the two, instantly catching your eye with that wild cover art (just don't look inside the booklet) and then drawing you in with some enjoyable, primitive death metal. It's more Norwegian than Floridian, with that cold anti-production and those frosty shrieking vocals. The riffs recall early Celtic Frost, but you could really imagine any early '90s group of freaky Euro-metallers playing this stuff. It's not extremely relevant, but it beats the generic American death metal and flaky black metal of today, and that horror vibe is to die for.