Here is a statistic worth sitting with: since forming in 1987, Cleveland death metal veterans NUNSLAUGHTER have put out more than 200 releases. Most are splits, EPs and live records, with a comparatively modest six studio albums scattered among them. That output has made them one of the underground's most reliable constants — and one of the purest surviving expressions of death metal's founding principles: uncomplicated, uncompromising, unforgiving.
Which is why their latest move raised eyebrows. "Satanic Chaos Legions", released in late June, came out on BLKIIBLK, the new all-metal imprint of Italian rock label Frontiers Records — a company better known for veteran 1980s rock acts than for satanic death metal.
Founding vocalist Donald "Don Of The Dead" Crotsley told Blabbermouth the push came from his bandmates. "Personally, I was content with Hell's Headbangers. It's a great label, and they're good friends of mine. We never had any money issues, and we never fell out," he said. "But the guys in the band said, 'Let's see what else is out there for us.'" Bassist Mike "Malum" Jochum had a longstanding line to A&R man Mike Gitter, who called while the band were touring Germany, having just moved to BLKIIBLK. "By then, they had already signed bands like BIOHAZARD. I figured if they could attract bands of that stature, they clearly had momentum behind them."
He is not entirely comfortable with it. "I'm a little weirded out by it," he admitted. "A lot of younger bands sign to bigger labels because they're trying to establish themselves. In our case, NUNSLAUGHTER has been around for 40 years. Personally, I'm definitely in the twilight of my career."
The album — 14 songs in 34 minutes — was largely written by guitarist Noah "Tormentor" Buchanan, a punk-schooled player who joined 14 years ago after learning the band's catalogue at a rate of five to ten songs a week to earn a European tour slot. That punk influence is deliberate. "We took that simplicity, mixed it with rock and roll, added a little VENOM, a little SLAYER and some thrash influences, and that became our formula."
Crotsley calls himself a purist and does not pretend otherwise. "The music that got me into death metal was very primitive. It was often poorly played, had little or no guitar solos and featured relatively short songs." Yet he credits the genre's survival to exactly the bands he doesn't follow: "Every five or six years, a band comes along and pushes things further" — CRYPTOPSY's Flo Mounier, then ARCHSPIRE. "You hear that kind of playing, and you're just blown away."
Drummer Joe "Wrath" Lowrie, who replaced the late Jim "Jim Sadist" Konya in 2015, was finally cut loose here. "We basically told him, 'Go for it.' We let him loose, and I think he really excelled."
Source: blabbermouth.net