Dying Victims Productions is proud to announce the following new releases:
DVP 186 Karloff – The Appearing LP/CD/MC/T-Shirt
DYING VICTIMS PRODUCTIONS is proud to present KARLOFF’s highly anticipated debut album, The Appearing, on CD, music cassette and vinyl LP formats.
Hailing from Germany, KARLOFF formed in 2018 as a means for erstwhile Graveyard Ghoul member Tom Horrified to blow off some punk-oriented steam with a couple close comrades. Describing their sound as “raw obscure punk turns into blackness,” it didn’t take long for the band to record their first recording, Demo ’18, but it was the following Raw Nights mini-album a year later where KARLOFF kicked into high gear. Released to widespread acclaim by DYING VICTIMS with the preceding demo tracks tacked on, Raw Nights strutted with sleazy confidence and an infectious sense of bash/crash/slash that struck deep into the heart of what makes the best of both punk and metal. But, the best was still come from KARLOFF…
At last, it arrives with their long-awaited debut album, The Appearing. If KARLOFF’s previous two short-lengths presented them as a more gutter-level Midnight, then The Appearing recasts the band in a totally new, altogether more unique light – and one that’s still brimming with that ever-special twist of olde-worlde evil. Rich and robust and ripplingly muscular, The Appearing struts like a cheetah with a heart full of napalm and flexes like nobody’s business. In fact, the lead-heavy stomp here harkens to ancient-days metalpunk like Carnivore, Best Wishes-era Cro-Mags, or even early Nasty Savage; equally, one could also point to the more modern likes of Iron Age, Shitfucker, and The Rival Mob. However, the creepiness KARLOFF hinted at earlier reaches a fever pitch across the tastefully-applied chorus FX, a subtle nod to post-punk that ably broadens the band’s reach without sacrificing their vision. More than all that, it’s the songwriting of The Appearing which renders it an intensely re-playable record: exciting, invigorating, and skillfully finding that balance between the seemingly epic and the swiftly concise.
Ghouls and ghosts, thugs and thieves: KARLOFF are calling upon you to witness The Appearing!
– CD edition with sticker.
– MC edition with sticker, button and download code.
– T-Shirt, printed on Gildan Heavy Cotton.
– Regular edition on black vinyl, with insert, poster, sticker, post card and download code. (delayed at the pressing plant – out late August)
– Special edition sold out (delayed at the pressing plant – out late August)
DVP 187 Fate’s Hand – Fate’s Hand MLP/MCD
DYING VICTIMS PRODUCTIONS is proud to present the striking self-titled debut EP by FATE’S HAND on CD and 12” vinyl formats.
With the roar of parting waves and the call of a thousand ravens, Australian heavy metal thunders into new being, bearing the ever-ominous moniker FATE’S HAND. Reverberating opuses, wrought straight from tales lost in time but ever-present in the blood of fellow men, across the band’s self-titled debut EP does visceral melody grasp tightly on the spear of classic heavy metal, hearkening to the genre’s progenitors and in the same breath taunting, daring the very same gods. In a word, Fate’s Hand is both old and new, surprising and unsurpassed.
Perhaps not surprising is the fact that FATE’S HAND comprises various members from Australia’s esteemed extreme metal scene, such heavyweights as Mongrel’s Cross, Impetuous Ritual, and Stargazer. While the same peerless standards of quality run rampant across the band’s debut statement, this formation are their own masters, and empowered as such, FATE’S HAND deftly draw from the primordial well of Northern lore and attack in a savage foray of traditionalist heavy metal. And this is but the mere start of battles to be waged…
Expect less and your life is forfeit. FATE’S HAND draw first sword!
– Regular edition on black vinyl, with insert, poster, sticker, post card and download code.
– Special edition on golden vinyl, with insert, poster, sticker, post card, download code and patch. (delayed at the pressing plant – out late August)
DVP-R 005 Breathless – Breathless LP/CD
RELICS FROM THE CRYPT, the newly founded sub-label of DYING VICTIMS PRODUCTIONS, is proud to present a reissue of the killer self-titled debut album from Belgium’s BREATHLESS on CD and vinyl LP formats.
Hailing from Genk, Belgium’s BREATHLESS was founded in 1983 by Antonio and Dirk. Antonio already had experience as a drummer in the punk rock bands The Visions and Transylvania, and Dirk had previously played in Hammerhead. Antonio knew Stanis, brother of the guitarist and singer of The Visions, and asked him to join the band as bass player. Because many metal bands had two guitar players at the time, it was decided to look for an additional guitarist. Dirk was friends with Laky, but Laky had never held a guitar before… Friendship being one of the key values of the band, Dirk suggested to teach Laky how to play the guitar, and so he joined the band. Finally, Pascal (who was only 14 years old at that time) was brought in as singer.
The driving force of BREATHELESS was to impress, push the boundaries, deliver high-level tempo changes, and dark and angry vocals – both high and low, which was quite remarkable in the Belgian metal scene of that time. Supporting gigs of international acts followed: BREATHLESS joined Warlock, Helloween, Tyson Dog, and Axe Victims onstage.
BREATHLESS’ debut album was recorded in 10 days. Local record store Gigaswing wanted to release the album, and so the long-player Breathless was born. The LP was well received everywhere, good reviews appeared in the metal magazines, gigs followed, the fanbase expanded…and then came the decline, when the lineup quickly crumbled away…
However, what was captured on BREATHLESS’ sadly only album was pure metal magic: unhinged, unselfconscious, and unlike most of their Belgian contemporaries. Neither strictly traditional metal nor speed metal nor hard rock nor latent NWOBHM, Breathless was a blender of all the tastes of the time, and its indeed-breathless rush was sublime in its sheer energy and electricity. Take the needle of your turntable and drop it anywhere across the album and you’ll be met with raw finesse and total abandon and even exceptionally placed moments of epic quietude – simply, all-out freedom in the spirit of the mid ‘80s before metallic boundaries were firmly drawn out and laid down. Put another way, one look at the cover of Breathless and BREATHLESS’ attendant logo and you just KNOW what you’re in for!
Ridiculously rare in its original vinyl guise and never officially released on CD, BREATHLESS’ legendary lone document now arrives bearing the full RELICS FROM THE CRYPT treatment. Don your best striped spandex, raise your beers, and get Breathless!
– Regular gatefold edition on black vinyl, with insert, poster, sticker, post card and download code.
– Special gatefold edition on olive green vinyl, with insert, poster, sticker, post card, download code and patch. (delayed at the pressing plant – out late August)
DVP 191 Blitz – The Nachtmahr Sessions MC
DYING VICTIMS PRODUCTIONS is proud to present the awesome The Nachtmahr Sessions debut Demo by BLITZ on music cassette format.
Rising from the ashes of recently defunct MIDNIGHT PREY and AGGREGATOR, this new Hamburg-based four-piece BLITZ has combined their different influences and forged their very own blend of Heavy Metal, Speed and Thrash Metal. Big melodies, high velocity, varied vocals and tastefully applied gang shouts merge into strong and concise material.
Despite this being their first sign of life, the band entered renowned Soundlodge Studio and laid down the three powerful tracks on The Nachtmahr Sessions that show that there is a lot to be expected from BLITZ!
– MC edition with sticker, button and download code.
DVP 193 Stress Angel – Bursting Church CD
DYING VICTIMS PRODUCTIONS, in conspiracy with STYGIAN BLACK HAND, is proud to present STRESS ANGEL’s striking debut album, Bursting Church. DYING VICTIMS will handle the CD version while STYGIAN BLACK HAND will handle the vinyl LP version.
Out from the flaming kingdom of death arose STRESS ANGEL in 2020 with their eponymous debut demo. There, the NYC two-piece presented six songs of thrashing death metal that is classic without being retro, and uniquely dark and demented. An auspicious first start, no doubt, and almost effortlessly so.
Now, STRESS ANGEL strike with their full-length debut, Bursting Church. Ever aptly titled, Bursting Church is indeed an archaic monument literally bursting – with feral energy, unholy passion, and RIFFS! In one sense, STRESS ANGEL here up-ratchet all of the previous demo’s foremost characteristics – contorted riffery, pitiless battery, shrill screams, and frantic execution – and retain their still-new yet firmly-etched identity. But in another, perhaps-more-accurate sense, Bursting Church presents the duo in an altogether new light, where the classic metal elements underlining that identity are recast in more crazed and idiosyncratic colors: what’s old is new, and vice versa, and anything resembling the “familiar” is ripped asunder into the realm of foreign. It’s a record equally 2021 and 1987, if you will, and the finesse and charisma with which STRESS ANGEL charge through these 11 anti-anthems is utterly addicting. Whereas previous points of reference ranged Aura Noir to Autopsy, Sweden’s Damnation to Sweden’s Obscurity, Bursting Church reveals the band in rarefied, righteously rabid company, off on their own like nomads of the wasteland. No surrender, and no compromise!