Untimely Demise
City of Steel
Sonic Unyon Metal

City of Steel, the full-length debut from Saskatoon thrashers Untimely Demise, was self-released by the band last year, but has been given a killer re-release courtesy of Sonic Unyon Metal, so let’s pretend this dynamite piece of soul fucking metal is new and bask in its ripping glory like whores presenting themselves at the Goat’s altar, shall we? Untimely Demise’s complex, brutal, and demonizing approach to slashing your gut and watching your innards drop out into the snow is made all the more vile by Matt Cuthbertson’s venomous snarl, a foamy gush of putrid vocals that couldn’t sound more perfect if they were puking out of the festering mouth of a zombie German drill sergeant. Add to that an insane — and by that I mean plenty and crazy — amount of tempo destruction, bat shit solos, and melodic hooks, and City of Steel becomes seven tracks of heavy metal mastery that ought to be universally regarded by fans of Kreator, Death, et al. (hell, Children of Bodom fans take note of the title track’s chorus) as pure evil, speed dealin’ pandemonium. Most everyone will hate you for playing this, which is exactly why it rules so damn hard, and why you should play it loud all the time.

Listen to “Virtue in Death” from City of Steel!

It’s currently -42°C where I live. It looks like there’s fog everywhere, but I think that’s just the air freezing. It’s a hoar frost apocalypse and death is inevitable. So I’m hunkering down beside a space heater and taking as many warm baths as I can before the hot water pipes freeze up because if I dare to venture outside, something like what you see on the cover of The Last Winter could happen to me. Probably in a matter of minutes. It chills my nerves just thinking about it. Although, freezing temperatures aren’t really an issue in this movie (it’s the warming weather that seems to be causing all the horrific problems), but north is north and snow is snow and bad things always happen in the north in the snow.

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