Greetings tech fiends, it's that time of the week again. Before we dive into today's column, here's the usual weekly reminder that if you're looking to find even more sick bands, you can do so here.
For those tuning in today, I've got the early full premiere of the self-titled Spiteful Visions record for you today. The release will officially drop this Friday, April 8 through Bandcamp. As usual, you're welcome to immediately scroll below and click play, though you can read on if you'd like to learn more about the release and the project as a whole.
As I understand it, Spiteful Visions was the brainchild of Minneapolis-based guitarist Stuart Stelter (ex-Aetheric/ex-Invidiosus) who unfortunately passed away last year. Several of his former bandmates in Aetheric linked up with Brett MacIntosh (Æpoch) from Canada on vocals to release Stuart's impressive self-titled Spiteful Visions EP which he had been working on for some time.
Vocalist Brett MacIntosh shares, "The music that Stuart composed here is some Melodic/Technical Death Metal of the highest caliber, even featuring a guest solo from master shredder Morgan Reid of Bloodshot Dawn on opener 'Suffocating Stench'. For fans of Allegaeon, Bloodshot Dawn, Alterbeast, The Black Dahlia Murder, Conducting From The Grave, Symbolik, Enigma."
The comparisons listed above by Brett are spot on, and I'd particularly emphasize Conducting From The Grave when it comes to explaining the sort of sound Spiteful Visions is all about on their self-titled EP. I've been a big fan of them for a long time and while there were a number of bands doing the sort of technical melodic death metal that's also really fucking heavy and littered with breakdowns around a decade or more ago, it's not really a thing now I'd say. Clocking in at just over 30 minutes split fairly evenly across five songs near the same runtime, this is a fun release that also has a lot of meat on its bones in spite of being an EP.
More importantly, this release exists to honor a friend who lost their life to suicide. A cause I'm passionate about since my brother died the same way a number of years ago and it still hurts but it helps to find some way to honor those we've lost. Any funds made from sales of this release, which can be pre-ordered via Bandcamp, will go to his family.
This is a great release that deserved to see the light of day and be enjoyed by death metal fans everywhere. We'll end things now with an additional comment about Spiteful Visions from vocalist Brett MacIntosh, "It is with a bittersweet sense of completion that we present to you the Spiteful Visions self-titled EP. This release is dedicated to the life and memory of our guitarist Stuart Stelter who composed the music. We are all very proud to be a part of this, and despite Stuart's untimely passing, we knew he was just as proud to have created this music which is why we ultimately saw it through to be able to be released. We are making it free and available to anyone who wishes to download and stream it on select services, but any donations towards the music will be rerouted to Stuart's family."
