In stock for the first time ever here at Crucial Blast, this is a new repress of the 2003 mini-album of evil blackened hardcore filth from the notorious Cali gang Gehenna (not to be confused with the Norwegian black metal band of the same name). A perfect fusion of West Coast power violence and crude bestial black metal, Gehenna are one of the most infamous and mythologized bands to ever come out of the American hardcore underground, with stories of stabbings, hardcore drug abuse, random violence, and other anti-social activities surrounding the band. Their music was a delirious fever-dream of visions of mass death, plague, global apocalypse and societal collapse set to some of the most misanthropic thrash ever.

Upon The Gravehill was the bands last "full length", a fifteen minute long rampage of super short songs that typically clock in at around a minute and a half. Sloppy blastbeats and thrashy slipshod drumming combines with primitive Hellhammer-esque riffs and metallic hardcore of the ugliest sort, fronted by the awesome strangled snarl of frontman/provocateur Mike Cheese. It all comes together into one of the most violent, ferocious sounds ever, laced with bits of gnarled feedback-soaked doom, the maniacal influence of Japanese metalpunks GISM, and weird ambient parts. The song "No One Will Ever Miss You" is one of the heaviest songs the band ever slugged out, a chugging slow motion gallop building to a devastating war anthem, and there's loads of filthy early black metal DNA that creeps into songs like "To Lay Waste", "Sadist", and "Trample This Earth". The band never sounded more metal than they do here, but their brand of thrash is still rooted in the most vicious, depraved strains of hardcore and punk. The Lp comes with a huge foldout poster insert that includes all of the lyrics, and also has the following statement of intent, in case you have doubts as to the sincerity of Gehenna's kill-everything worldview:

"The music of Gehenna isn't made to make people feel good. There's something else for that. Our songs are about real fighting. Fighting that is brutal, violent, calculated and unmerciful . Not just fighting with your fists, or with guns or knives, but fighting with every fiber of your existence. These fights are everywhere: on the streets, against yourself, mental, legal, spiritual, financial, wars. Every living thing is fighting an unending battle. Gehenna represents the animal instinct, and the determination to fight and to survive, at any cost. Fight without remorse or compassion until death."

Absolutely crucial for disciples of apocalyptic thrash and the "Holy Terror" circle of bands from the 90s.