Like many Southern European states, Portugal got hit by the world financial crisis really big time. Debts, inflation, insecurity and unemployment especially affect younger people who are now going through some extremely difficult times. As fucked up as this situation is, it seems to be an ideal breeding ground for angry music – the new record by the Portuguese Grind-heads UTOPIUM is a perfect proof for that.

Vicious Consolation / Virtuous Totality delivers 18 raging tracks of Grindcore madness that doesn’t stay away from interspersing bits of Crust and Sludge. The final outcome is some of the most unadulterated, heavy musical brutality you’ll hear in a while. Bands like the mighty Nasum or Rotten Sound might have been a prime influence, but UTOPIUM are so full of piss and vinegar and tight musicianship that they really don’t need any comparisons.

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One of our favorite things about being a part of CVLT Nation is when our readers send us rad shit to share with all of you! So we were super stoked when Eli sent us The Springcore Mixtape for CVLT Nation compiled by Eli Zeger, Carrigan Miller and Margot Drukker! Check out this insane barrage of tunes below!

It’s spring. The birds are squawking, a bunch of fucking bugs are splattering against our windshields, and pollen is cursing our nostrils.

Here’s some rad hardcore ranging from thrashers Municipal Waste to indie-punkers No Age that will definitely massacre the next few months.

Stream Springcore Mixtape for CVLT Nation:

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Text & Art by Glyn Smyth

When starting out on a work commission I’m always looking for new ways to tackle the subject matter. Whilst it’s always tempting to jump on the first or most obvious idea that springs to mind, I’ve come to realise it’s always more rewarding to view the artwork process as an “exploration” of the idea. That allowing yourself the freedom to wander off the most direct path, uncertain of your exact destination makes for a far more interesting journey with a greater prize at the end…

I was fortunate in the fact that both Caleb and the label seemed receptive to a fresh approach and were happy to entrust me with a great deal of creative control from the outset. After some brief initial discussions I received the album tracks, lyrics and the title – “Savage Masters”. Whilst familiar with earlier Zozobra material these new songs were faster, leaner and more aggressive. Images of wild creatures immersed in fierce combat sprang to mind. A tangle of beasts fighting over a crown. The unhindered savagery of the animal kingdom.

Yet the lyrical content told a different tale. The lyrics hinted at an internal anguish and being subject to forces beyond ones control. References to serpents, venom and weaponry was suggestive of ritual more than that of warfare.

And there were repeated references to an unidentified female force…

“Screaming hear left defenceless..offer my seed to her sword”
“Drink from her rain when it’s burning and acid”
“And the goddesses weave wicked spells…”

In this light, the original etymology of the Spanish word Zozobra (meaning ‘anxiety’, ‘anguish’ or ‘worry’) seemed more relevant than references to the communal catharsis experienced by the burning of “Old Man Gloom” in Santa Fe each year. Nevertheless, this relatively modern ritual (the first Zozobra burning was in 1924) has roots in “The Burning Of Judas” festival once practiced widely in many orthodox Catholic countries but perhaps today most strongly associated with Mexico…

At this point the identity of this unseen female entity became apparent to me. The goddess in her dark aspect…whether appearing as the Santa Muerte of recent popularity, Mictecacihuatl of Aztec culture or as the Lady Of Guadalupe. She arrives from the West and may represent death, though is something more than this. An arbiter of divine justice. A shape shifting Divine Mother who’s chthonic nature is revealed by the light of the moon. An inverted cross of orthodoxy suspended over a river within Mictlan. The High Priestess. A savage master.

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CVLT Nation is stoked to present you with our interview with the infamous GEHENNA, who will be headlining this Friday’s CVLT Nation 2nd Anniversary show in Santa Ana! To read Mike Cheese’s story of Gehenna, click here! Check out the interview below as well as the info for this Friday…

To the unknowledgeable, explain who Gehenna is and what fuels its negative existence?

Gehenna was a desolate valley outside of Jerusalem that was used as a trash dump and eventually it became a place where the city exiled their diseased, their poor, their criminals and their blasphemers. The valley became a lawless parish and holy ground for ritual spells against society performed by the excommunicated. That in turn is what GEHENNA as an entity represent. We’re the ones who’ve been disregarded who’ve learned to embrace our painful existence by singing songs of the damned and accepting our place on the outside of society. GEHENNA is the love of hatred and the discipline of lawlessness that lets life carry us into the grave. True Trill Death!!!

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Damn Full of Hell is straight fucking killing shit on their new release Rudiments Of Mutilation that will be coming out on June 11th via A389 Recordings. Stay tuned for a full review on CVLT Nation coming soon! In the meantime, peep the the full stream of this sick record happening below. We salute Full of Hell for creating a mind-numbing listening experience that makes us feel uncomfortable in the best way possible!

The album opens up with “Like Embers” which has one of those Neurosis type riffs that you will stay going around in your head for a few days. It then builds and builds into an unrelenting Sepultura-esque ditty, but then turns back into that sense of decay again with the opening riff. Certainly a real impressive introduction to ‘Inhumanform’. Every subsequent song after offers something that is unique onto itself. By the time you get to the track “Black Rain” it opens with a real rocking High On Fire type rhythm. But again takes a different path and changes tempo completely. It should be mentioned that the album was mastered by Brad Boatright (From Ashes Rise) who has in the past mastered High On Fire, Sleep, Tragedy etc.

Age Of Woe have great independent ethics and have toured through ‘Rise! Bookings‘ so have played many DIY venues. Being autonomous does not bring in money, hence so many bands end up recording in cheap as chips type recording studios. But they recorded at Polar Studios in Stockholm, Sweden. Where in the past Led Zeppelin, Rammstein, Entombed etc have recorded, so you know the band have pumped every cent/krona they have into this recording. The result of course is a very highly polished production that will last the test of time.

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Well, the first stop on the tour technically is April 22nd in Minneapolis but this is their last local show for a bit; at least until their show in support of Ahna’s tour of Canada in May.

Anyway I was one of quite a few people sending off island grinders Six Brew Bantha this past Saturday night, they’re embarking on a “mid west/east coast (ish)” tour right now and hitting up a bunch of spots they missed last time, so they threw one last show on this side of the border, in a basement with friends supporting them: SHITLIVER, Griefer, and Bungus.

There were a few shows that Six Brew Bantha played (with a bunch of wicked local grind acts) when I got back to the west coast but I just wasn’t aware of them, so I was pretty stoked when I heard they were playing with some new grind locals and the resident death industrial titan Griefer not too far away. Plus Six Brew Bantha just recently laid down two new splits with New York’s Water Torture and Minneapolis’ Agitate and got some pressed in time for their tour, so I was able to witness them laying waste to a tiny basement with their latest designs and it was as brutal as you’d expect.

Make the jump for some videos and photos…

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- A love letter of sorts by Ralph Planks (with more words of adoration by Mike Hill/Tombs) –

”I have the official OK from Epitaph to do a Vinyl print of “Kollapse’”…was probably the most thrilling sentence I received in an Email this year. My friend Maik from Apocaplexy Records did the impossible and really pulled off something big. He and I share a common love for this band called Breach and it all comes down to this dream: “Kollapse”, the bands infamous last record, on Vinyl. A thing that was not done but demanded by a lot of people for a long time. In my case a ten year old dream. After the accomplishment of bringing “Godbox” (the bands second to last output) on vinyl last year, he set out for the ultimate task and won. “Kollapse” will see a first-ever vinyl release today, April 18th of 2013. [Find details at the end of the article.] First, let me guide you through the record that changed my reception of heavy music forever:

There comes one record, in every genre of music you engulf in, that will define and accumulate all the factors you love about this brand. Sometimes it will take the test of time to tell, some records just hit you straight in the face and heart at the same time and you just know. I remember when I first heard Joy Division after being in love with sad pop songs for years. I knew it was love and will last forever. The same happened when I first laid ears upon the thing that is “Kollapse”. Breach have been a favorite of mine for a while around the Millennium. They combined the right elements of (heavy) music to create an atmosphere unlike any other band I ever had the pleasure to know. You can see a full-on report of my heartbeats towards them here!

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I just got a triple sonic beat down, and it came at the hands of HEARTLESS! Their new Certain Death 7 inch rages out of the speakers and will crack your skull for sure! Everything about this record is fucking 10,000 leagues beyond brutal! HEARTLESS have outdone themselves, they created a perfect 7 inch that is all killer with not one ounce of filler! CVLT Nation is really hyped to be streaming Certain Death in full below…This record is being released by Halo of Flies for North America & by Alerta Antifascista for Europe…For pre-orders go HERE!

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I’m not going to even say too much, other than here is a cult classic movie for a generation. CVLT Nation now showing The Edge Of Quarrel after the jump!

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