Sometimes you just need to stop all the obsessing over wheel reinvention and just play the music that you love, regardless of originality. That’s exactly what Belfast’s Rex Shachath did on debut EP Sepulchral Torment. Said EP is nothing more than well played and memorable death metal of the traditional sort inspired by the original masters. When a band references the likes of Morbid Angel, Vader, Immolation, and Cannibal Corpse in discussing its music (as Rex Shachath guitarist Andrew Pennington does in the discussion that follows), rare is the death metal fan that wouldn’t be paying attention. Mr. Pennington gives us the down ‘n dirty of the nitty and the gritty of Rex Shachath.

Death metal has become so crowded with genre-splitters, tech freaks, and old school imitators that we sometimes forget the taste of the meat and potatoes stuff. It takes a band from Northern Ireland called Rex Shachath to serve that traditional meal up right. You know that whole thing about not over-thinking everything and just going […]