The latest crime scene from The Infamous Gehenna is the new 7" EP / CD Deathkamp Ov The Skull, the latter of which also collects their Funeral Embrace EP. These maniacs are still one of the most ferocious bands to come out of the American metal/punk underground, their brand of blackened hardcore and the ultra-violent nature of their live performances giving them a formidible reputation that's only grown over the years. With this latest offense, Gehenna deliver three new songs, opening with what might be the most subdued piece of music I've heard from these guys. The beginning of the nearly eight-minute long title track is all distant screams and fuzzy, low-fi murkiness shrouding a despondent guitar melody, reminiscent of Integrity's more atmospheric, slow-burning moments. When it suddenly veers into their signature seething heaviness though, this shifts into a torturous blackened dirge slashed with screaming guitars and singer Mike Cheese's intimidating snarl, building to an explosion of savage, blackened thrash.

"First Blood Part II" is a shorter but equally nasty blurt of feral black thrash, and "TormentORR" has them teaming up with both Dwid and Rob Orr from Integrity, busting heads with a bludgeoning, hateful metalpunk mid-tempo riff; hearing Cheese and Dwid trade off/team up on this blistering tune makes this a goddamn blast. Once again, these guys vomit up another killer blast of hideous hardcore that stinks with the fetid fumes of both old West Coast powerviolence and the evil filth of bands like Hellhammer and Nifelheim.

On the CD, that's followed by the Funeral Embrace, which I described thusly back when I first got the 7" in stock:

Like that rotted canine skull that leers at you from the cover of Gehenna's latest Funeral Embrace, this long-running West Coast band is all jaws, an embodiment of snarling, snapping chaos channeled through a stripped-down, red-raw hardcore assault that remains more than twenty years later one of the most savage sounds in the underground. I've raved about Gehenna for years; long aligned with the "Holy Terror" aesthetic that emerged in the mid-90s, Gehenna are peerless fomenters of violence and lawlessness, their songs anthems to bloodlust and barbarism. Their latest 7", Funeral Embrace delivers five more songs of their signature mix of drug-fueled hardcore punk and rabid black thrash, blackened and hateful, issued on the recently resurrected Dark Empire label now being operated by the teenage son of Integrity front man Dwid (a fact that continues to remind me just how old I'm starting to get). Opening with the blistering narco-worship of "Amphetamine Psychosis", these maniacs whip the air into a blood-frenzy of blackened hardcore, smearing their raw blast with bits of lysergic noise and those PCP-hammered guitar solos, and that seething, violent energy rips through the rest of the EP. Every one of these songs comes snarling out of the speakers at top speed, lashing the barbarism of classic American hardcore to a feverish blur of ultra-violent black thrash a la Nifelheim or Bestial Mockery, and the results are fucking ferocious. There's a bizarre, lupine howling that appears all through the 7", like a pack of wolves lurking behind Gehenna's slavering necroid assault, and the inhuman snarl of front man Mike Cheese echoes madly in a storm of reverb while the band careens through reckless tempo changes that constantly threaten to spiral into total pandemonium.

���� The CD comes in a gatefold jacket, and includes a miniature poster insert.