Originally released in 2008 and finding second issue and wider distribution now through Diabolical Conquest Records, Chicago villains Drug Honkey’s third full-length, Death Dub, is fucked. I mean it. Thoroughly fucked. I’m no stranger to disturbing audio of various kinds, but the blown-out, malicious cyber-sludge this four-piece emit offers no romanticism, no hope, no potential for a positive outcome. It’s like listening to an overdose. When they get around to the live cut “China Black (Heroin Pt. 2)” – the inclusion of which does practically nothing to upset the flow of Death Dub because by then there isn’t a flow as much as a descent – it’s not any of that Pulp Fiction “heroin is cool” ‘90s-type of crap, it’s “this is the sound of your brain shitting itself,” and it’s not at all pleasant. From opener “My Sins” onward, Drug Honkey’s approach is relentless, dark and disgusting.

They’re not the first to blend industrial leanings with aggressive and slow metal, but their Eyehategodflesh-style takes on a nastiness all its own almost immediately. Hyper-modulated screams and growls from Honkey Head (who also handles synth and samples) dominate the mix, making Death Dub – a genre designation in itself – even less accessible to the listener. The rumble of bassist Brown Honkey features heavily, matched by the downtuned guitar of Hobbs (the only member of the band without the word “Honkey” in his name) for feedback lethality and low-end abrasion. Drummer Bonghit Honkey keeps his attack relatively simple, which grounds a song like “The Devil Lasts Forever” while the guitars buzzsaw their way through what one imagines to be a basement collection of human skulls, but that’s about all Drug Honkey offer listeners to hold onto, and frankly, it isn’t much. Their intent is unmistakable: They want to alienate, to test the endurance of their audience and to be as sonically malevolent as possible.

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Originally self-released in 2009 in an edition of 100 copies, The Dead’s Ritual Executions now sees an issue 10 times its original breadth thanks to Diabolical Conquest Records, the label imprint of the extreme metal e-zine of the same name. The Brisbane, Australia, trio’s second album, Ritual Executions was remastered by Aphotic Mote of Portal and is a skillful blend of death and doom metal that has enough stoner groove in its riffing to satisfy the one end, and guttural so-called “Cookie Monster” vocals that’d make George “Corpsegrinder” Fischer or Glen Benton proud. It’s not death/doom in the European tradition, which would imply a My Dying Bride or early Paradise Lost kind of pacing and drama, but a rougher take that sews American-style metallic extremity to traditional stonerisms.

Ritual Executions opens with “Burn Your Dead,” a sort of mission statement for the zombie-obsessed The Dead that reaches over eight minutes and culls the aforementioned elements as smoothly as I’ve heard it done. Guitarist/bassist Adam Keleher riffs Electric Wizard-style, but the context for those riffs comes with Mike Yee’s low growling and Chris Morse’s heavy-footed double-kick, so it’s not like anything Electric Wizard has ever done. As the album proceeds, tracks like “Cannibal Abattoir” and “Centurion” up the death metal level, and album centerpiece “Born in a Grave,” opens up with some blast beats, seeming to approach the stoner/death thing from the other end until it locks in a ‘90s-ish groove in its verses. Yee’s vocals are unipolar. He screams high every now and then, but it’s death metal all the way, which for a release like Ritual Executions, is probably how it should be. Crooning over riffs as dirty as Keleher’s wouldn’t work anyway.

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