Review by Carl on April 2, 2025.

This little offering of South American darkness is another one that I bought just to round out an order I placed with an online distro, and as has happened before, it turned out to be one that absolutely does not disappoint in the slightest. Aren't I a lucky son of a bitch, right?

I was pretty surprised to find out that these recordings are actually some 25 years old because I presumed this was a recent full-length brought to us by an act I had never heard of before, but that was not the case. Not the case at all even, because this compilation collects a demo from the year 2000 and a couple of tracks taken from a split EP with the mighty Goat Semen, and it's all stuff that has never appeared on my noise detection radar before. Good thing I encountered this then because it would've been a bleeding shame to have missed out on this glorious slice of blackened delight.

Because these are different recordings, the stuff presented here does shift somewhat both in style and sound quality, but it's nothing too dramatic. Opening up proceedings here are the tracks from the Tribute To The Supreme Beast demo, and these are just awesome! After a pretty silly intro of him grunting and growling in what sounds like a cavernous castle dungeon, our good friend Levifer lets loose with a sturdy barrage of underground old-school extreme metal mayhem. Belting out a style that combines the dark and unhinged style of death metal that came bubbling up in the late 80's and early 90's Brazilian scene, think of bands such as Headhunter D.C., Lou Cyfer, Expulser, and Sextrash (especially their "Funeral Serenade" album) here, and you are immediately catapulted into a maelstrom of old school South American brutality. Interestingly, to this amalgam of grinding riffing, primitive blasts, and bulldozing thrashings, Mr. Levifer adds touches of the more brutal exponents of early US death metal bands such as Deicide, Immolation, and Cannibal Corpse circa 1990 - 92, injecting swathes of that typical swarming guitar riffing that pervades albums such as "Legion", "Butchered At Birth" and "Dawn Of Possession". The tracks themselves are varied efforts, combining uptempo US death metal stomp with old-school Brazilian fury, as well as lurching parts bringing to mind the slower material of bands like Necromantia, early Samael, and Rotting Christ. The most ear-catching aspect of Levifer however, is the crazy-ass vocal stylings employed. Going from low growls to croaks and shrieks, these do remind me a bit of what the Dutch death/thrashers Inquisitor had in store. Levifer goes from a menacing low grunt to sounding like a fat angry bird seemingly without effort, and it adds a suitable air of dementia to the blackened old school-isms that are being belted out, and this is just so goddamn awesome, although I can also easily imagine that some might be turned off by it. Personally, I am totally on board with this, this is just great!

After the tracks from the demo mentioned, we get the material off of the split with Goat Semen, and you can definitely hear that. Being cruder in execution and style, these tracks see an added influence of troublemakers such as Beherit, early Sodom, Impaled Nazarene ("Tol Cormpt Norz Norz Norz"), and Sarcofago on top of what was already presented on the demo. This sees the band becoming somewhat simpler in composing and execution while upping the demented brutality and aggression, but frankly, it's not a bad thing. Nothing wrong with some additional head-caving madness, right? I do prefer the Brazil-meets-early 90's Florida vibe of the demo, but the more rambunctious clattering approach to the second half of this compilation goes in just as easily.

Production-wise, this stuff sounds very professional, in particular the demo tracks. It's a good and balanced sound mix that gives the instrumentation all the space it needs, and doing this without any modern trickery involved. This provides the perfect platform to let the music play out the way it's supposed to be, keeping fully intact the early 90's atmosphere this stuff already emanates to begin with. On the second half of this collection, the music does get somewhat coarser sound-wise, but even then, it still does not deteriorate into a sonic mush at all. We probably have the spotless execution to thank for that no doubt. Mr Levifer knows what he's doing here, and dammit, he does it well.

This is no doubt more than a justified re-release of a collection of underground metal that would've stayed under the radar otherwise, I guess. The music kicks absolute ass for the majority of the time (ignoring some small slip-ups here and there), and is certainly helped in a big way by both thorough musicianship and a fitting production, and I can recommend this compilation to all into old school death metal with a putrid black metal edge added. If that's your bag, you need Levifer in your life for sure.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10