### Osmose Records: Promo package (4 albums)

#### 07/07/08 || Lord K Philipson

The always so nice label Osmose has come up with a new way to send out promos. Nothing but the cd in a white paper thing. What if there’s no text on the actual cd? It’s just some brown shit where I’d prefer a logo… That makes it quite tough to figure out what’s on it. I don’t fucken care if they send promo cd’s as jewel cases, clown shoes or as a black monster dildo featuring a subwoofer with the disc hidden inside it, as long as there’s some fucken info as for what’s on the fucken thing, you know. I’ll just shake my head in frustration over this new, useless way of working shit. It’s not much different than sending out a fucken cd-r when you think about it. That’ll save the label even more money if that’s what they are after in these hard internet times where downloading and leaking is the new Black Plague. The record industry is dying and it’s not doing itself a favour by working like this.

Let’s make one thing clear though before moving on… No matter how much I like the label itself or how supportive they have been to GD over the years, this way of handing out promos is SHIT. They might think I’m an ungrateful bastard (which in my eyes is a compliment) for pointing this obvious crap out, they might even never send us another album to review. So be it, you ask for my opinion – you fucken get it. And that is exactly what makes Global Domination what it is. Can’t take the heat? Get out of the fucken kitchen, bitch. And while yer at it, leave our site as well.

I don’t initially rip the cd’s I’m sent, that I’m reviewing myself, into my computer (if I like it, I rip it and ofcourse keep it in my music folder though), I listen to those thru my actual cd player to get the most out of them soundwise. Maybe the lacking information on these releases can be found if I actually DID rip them, but I’m not doing it. If this is the case I’m expecting a letter with the package saying so. No effort from the ones sending us stuff = no effort on our part in return. So, since we have no tracklisting for any of the albums, no release dates or even release years (doesn’t even say on the cd’s when they were manufactured), we have no information whatsoever and we don’t even have any covers to look at: well, we’ll just cover all of these 4 releases in one review accordingly. Without covers, without tracklistings and without any relevant information whatsoever.

3 of the cd’s has a logo on them. That’s at least something. One of them is from a band called Benighted. I have no idea what the album is called though coz it doesn’t say on the disc. I have heard these guys before and I remember it to be good. High hopes for this one. The next one is from something called Total Self Hatred. That just has to be black metal. Hooray! This one seems to be released on a label called Ordo Decimus Peccatum, I guess Osmose are working with them in some way (there are no label logos on the other 3 so let’s presume they are all put out by Osmose). The third cd is just brown and has no text whatsoever on it, so I have no clue as for what it is. And the last cd is from a band called Portal. Well, let’s get started and see what’s on them.

Benighted: I just remembered we interviewed these guys some time back. They were cool and all that jizz. Anyways, the French fucks sure know how to play semi-technical, semi death metal with heavier elements and the occasional electronic loop. I understand why we covered these guys with an interview coz Benighted’s a good band, you can tell becoz the production on this one is crystal clear. It would be to stress things to say that they have the best vocals in the business, though. The mid-growl is fine but the lower one together with the pig-vocals ain’t nothing I’m going to put on my birthday cake any day soon. Benighted’s doing fine anyways. They are not offering us anything new but they sure create some decent metal. The French scene got its moments, Benighted’s definitely one of the highlights. I’ll give them a 7.

Let’s jump over to Total Self Hatred then. I suspected this to be black metal the first time I put it on. I also expected it to be fucken worthless black metal. Well, the opening track had me a bit surprised. A nice piano started it off before moving into slower, moody territory with catchy, melodic riffs, and the production was actually good too. TSH is not worthless at all. Definitely a nice surprise, but hey – don’t ever let the first track off an album fool you, there’s still a bunch of more tracks that might suck the Dick Of Giants, you know. Not so in this case. TSH (perhaps?) self titled piece is an album I’ll rip later on and keep in my collection. I suppose this passes for black metal after all, not the old Darkthrone kind of black metal though. TSH puts emphasis on mood, nice fucken riffs, melody and good song writing. I dig this shit. Weird, the one album I thought would suck the most prolly ends up being the best one out of these four. But hey, there’s always the brown album… I put a lot of faith into the brown album… TSH gets an 7.5.

So, let’s dive into The Brown Band and the brown album. Or actually, we shouldn’t have. The brown album fucken sucks. And I mean that as in a new level of “fucken sucks”. Maybe if these brown guys had a production, things would have been a little easier to handle. It sounds like shit. Uninspired, boring noise that doesn’t deserve to be labeled “music”. That’s all I have to say about this. What style is it? Who fucken cares? Never buy anything resembling the brown album, just in case it’s this one. 1

Portal then… Whoa! I believe the brown album and this one is from the same band coz it sounds the same. Same shitty production, same shitty songwriting, same shitty everything. If the brown album isn’t by these guys it’s definitely made by Portal’s inbred cousins. Portal prolly think they play black metal, or at least something close to it. That’s an insult to black metal bands all over the world. These guys play turds instead of actual instruments. Congratulations. 1

Note to labels: If you don’t feel like sending out any information with the albums, don’t bother to send anything at all.

Update, July 7th: Osmose have informed me that the info missing in the package was supposedly sent out by e-mail. Then I’m sure that my spam filter is really fucken ecstatic over having that information. I was right though, The Brown Band was Portal. The albums (nope, I’m not sorting tracklistings and whatnot) are Benighted’s “Identisick”, Portal’s “Seepia” and “Outre” and finally Total Self Hatred’s self titled one.

- Information
- Released: Yeah, all of them are
- Labels: Osmose? Ordo Decimus Peccatum? Penis?
- Websites: You betcha
- Bands
- Benighted
- Total Self Hatred
- The Brown Band (Portal?)
- Portal

- Tracklist
- 01 – 100. They all have different titles too