DEMO/EP ROUNDUP - Bastard Priest and The Passing reviews

Let's dive into the extreme metal underground once more my friends for some more short playing diatribes of disdain ...

We start off this episode with some gnarly Swedish death metal from Bastard Priest who've issued a four-track, sixteen minute Vengeance ... EP for perusal. Eliciting a scrunched-up face reaction and a hearty "that's filthy!" exclamation, the unit don't simply rely on the downtuned guitar tone expected from this sub-genre, instead adding a skin-and-bones lacerating chainsawing edge to their sound that ... rips. Not sure if the rage on display here can be blamed on the pent-up hatred of this being their first recorded work in nine years, but I sure as hell hope Bastard Priest don't wait that long for their next assault on the senses. (8)

Next up we go to Los Angeles for the self-titled debut from The Passing. Containing seven tracks in fourteen blistering minutes, the heart of this beast is careening d-beated hardcore punk ... seemingly played by a bunch of metal dudes. I guess we'll just label this as metal punk then. Ignoring labels though, what you have here is a great mix of crushing power and chaos that'll no doubt get long haired and mohawked dudes alike moving in the pit. Proving once again that, indeed, we can actually all get along! (8)