Planet Metal #2: Mother Russia!

The second installment of our Planet Metal series sees us traveling from Italy to Russian shores to provide you with five bands from the region that we think are very much worthy of your time as they have demanded our attention over recent releases. From Death Metal to Progressive Technical and Deathcore, these bands are out to prove that there is more to their homeland than the Cold War relics and Vodka that certain individuals and conspiracy theorists would have you believe!

First up in our bunch of 5 bands from Russia that demand your attention are Seversun. The quartet hail from the capital city Moscow and have announced their sophomore album “Headlong Through Blood” with the first single “Gunpowder Suite” for 5th March 2021 and it has to go down as one of the more highly anticipated records of the new year on this evidence! As they put it “It doesn’t really matter if you liked our debut album or not. It doesn’t even matter if you heard it earlier. The second milestone on our headbanging journey is gonna leave you stunned and spellbound because we’ve brought more of everything here at the same time. We’ve never been as aggressive as here, but also we’ve never been as melodic. We’ve expanded our metal experience in all directions simultaneously: from the grooving hit singles to the epic progressive operatics!“

Another band hailing from the Russian capital city are Behold The Void who offer brutal concrete slabs of Progressive Blackened Deathcore and have had the pleasure of Humanity’s Last Breath mastermind Buster Odeholm mixing and mastering their debut album “Disintegration” at Impact Studios. The album goes down as one of the highlights of the summer despite its crushing black oppressive tones while the presence of Bryce Butler (Abigail Williams, Shadow of Intent ex-Hunt The Dinosaur, ex-The Faceless) on the record as a session drummer is an absolute masterstroke. 

You can’t be talking about Russia without giving mention to Progressive Metallers with a certain Middle Eastern flavour in Shokran. They blew our minds with their last outing “Ethereal” and we were lucky enough to witness them performing a set on the main stage at Tech-Fest in 2019. The quartet started out as a solo project of Dmitry Demyanenko in 2012 but soon became a full band blending elements of Groove, DJent and Oriental sounds into the mix with 2016’s “Exodus“, a concept record depicting the 10 plagues of Egypt being a very special album indeed while also seeing Red Handed Denial vocalist Lauren Babic laying down guest vocals on “And Heavens Began to Fall“.

Fourth on our list and hailing from Samsara are Death Metal brutes God Syndrome. They stepped in from the cold and introduced themselves with 2013’s “Downfall Omen” before blowing our collective minds in 2016 with “Controverse“. A melodic death metal band formed in 2011 they take influence from the American, Swedish and Polish death metal scenes, something which they have show off with a covers compilation EP that includes their take on works by Hypocrisy, Dimmu Borgir, Megadeth and Sepultura. This year saw them unleash single “Still Depraved“, mixed and mastered by Usoundworks Studio, which served to remind us just how good they really are.

Last but not least we have to mention Yekaterinburg’s Deathcore quartet Slaughter to Prevail. Currently signed to Sumerian Records with numerous tours around the Globe under their collective belts, the band were due to be upon our shores in the summer at Tech-Fest… while that didn’t happen, we did get a brutal new single in “Demolisher” which seemed to bring some unexpected controversy around Alex Terrible’s vocal lows. 2021 should see the continuation of the pummeling percussive battery as they continue their journey to Riff City with pure musical violence!