Hey there, tech fiends. It's that time of the week again. Before we dive into today's focus, here's the usual weekly reminder that if you're looking for even more sick bands to hear, all prior editions of this series can be perused here.
I'm excited to host today's early album stream of Hateful – Set Forever On Me, ahead of its release this Friday through Transcending Obscurity Records. As usual, you can read on below for more about the album, or, skip to the music stream below which is what matters most.
Once again, today's coverage is from a band I wasn't familiar with prior, but they're definitely on to something noteworthy and exciting. The Italian-based crew in Hateful have been around since 1997, producing two demo efforts and a split release, prior to their 2010 debut album, Coils of a Consumed Paradise. This year the group will be dropping their 3rd album, Set Forever On Me, and it's easy to classify it as their best release yet.
The groups "panache" is clearly formed from the era of complex early death metal titans moving forward over time. The end result is not merely a retro worship sound, it feels like any given band's logical conclusion of how to go from the past to the present as musicians and fans active early on in the scene. That in itself is something the new ODSM scene is lacking in my opinion, given that early Atheist, Death, Cynic, Morbid Angel, Suffocation, Gorguts, Immolation and more were not aberrations in their time when it came to pushing things forward both complexity and stylistically wise while the death metal genre was young. Given this sort of inspiration, Hateful outclasses most of their peers with their own form of old-school inspired technical death metal. Set Forever On Me is a tremendous effort, one that really could appeal to old school and modern fans alike.
As usual, I asked the band for more information, they obliged, stating that "Set Forever On Me" is definitely our most ambitious and creative album to date. We started where we left off with the previous album, but everything developed into something much more layered, complex, and ambitious. Lyrics also reflect a deeper sense of tragedy and cover different thematics, from dark "pictorial" reflections on society to a couple of EA.Poe inspired songs. Also, a few traumatic and personal experiences emerge in between the lines."
If you want a suggestion as to who this release is for from the band's perspective, the group cites their music as being for fans of "Morbid Angel, Suffocation, Monstrosity, Gorguts, Eucharist, Incision, Sinister, Spawn of Possession, and many more." Clocking in at just under 40 minutes broken up between eleven songs, Set Forever On Me capably covers a wide sonic range without a song's worth of time wasted at all across the whole release.
So be sure to check out our full early stream of Hateful – Set Forever On Me embedded below. I think this release will stand the test of time but you be the judge as usual. For those who like it, you can pre-order the album HERE. You can also follow the group over on the Hateful Facebook Page.
