Maniac Within - Add Power To Spirit (CCP Records, 1995)

Okay, I didn't fall asleep, so here's another one of my 'lucky hits' in the darker corners of the web. So I googled this band, Maniac Within comes from Austria, a country musically known only for Pungent Stench, Disharmonic Orchestra or Disastrous Murmur (am I rite?), but there was another band more into thrash/death metal, the one I'm talking about here.

So they got some super obscure releases in the mid-nineties and nobody apart from Roco did have it on Discogs. But hey, that doesn't mean you can't find it on the internet, right? I found the actual page of their label, CCP Records, and it turned out they got three copies of Add Power To Spirit left, which of course I grabbed immediately. But imagine the luck I had, I mean, the page looked as if nobody did ever change anything since like 1999 or something, and so I wasn't really optimistic to even get an answer when I wrote a mail, but hey, I got the CDs, and I'm pretty sure you haven't seen one yet. :)

Sadistikal - Cuestion De Tiempo (Frost Bite, 1995)

A friend offered me this hidden gem for trade lately. As I listened some samples on the tube I really liked it. It quite reminded me of country neighbors Sepultura from Brazil .. oh sorry, totally forgot to say Sadistikal hails from Argentina, a country that isn't exactly known for bringing out lot of metal. But certainly there was something going on and Cuestion De Tiempo is still a quite interesting thrash/death metal record and the band members are surprisingly capable of playing their instruments and building cool song structures.

This little secret was released on the small label Frost Bite which also released the quite well known death metal discography from Vibrion, also from Argentina. I have no idea how hard Sadistikal is to come by as I have absolutely no references for it, but if not too rare or expensive, it would definitely be worth getting.

Tyrant Trooper - Insane Sickness (indie, 1995)

Like almost every music genre, death metal had an expiration date in the 90s. In 1995 when Insane Sickness came out the metal landscape was infested with groove and nu metal, mostly thanks to Metallica and Pantera. However, what Tyrant Trooper from Connecticut offers on their only full-length is unbelievably good. When they started out in 1987 they played a blend of thrash/speed metal until around 1993. You see they always came a bit too late in the game, but that doesn't make Insane Sickness any worse. From the awesome artwork to the riffs to the instrumentation overall, everything is pure US death metal without mercy. The only thing I could criticize is the length of the songs, with the longest one clocking in at almost eight minutes. But hey, skipping wasn't invented for nothing (not every song of course).

Insane Sickness was self-financed by the band, only a thousand copies were made. Most of them are in safe collector's hands, others are offered on eBay for ridiculous prices. If that doesn't stop you, go ahead and get it!