1- A Turkish Brutal Technical Death/grind band.


CENOTAPH was formed by vocalist Batu Cetin in the summer of 1994 with the aim of performing some piece of the most brutal and the sickest music that has ever been played in Turkey and the world so far. After various changes in the band’s line up, they released their first demo “Life Immortal” in 1995. Back then the line up consisted of Batu (vocals), Coskun (guitar), Bülent (bass) and Bülent G. (drummer, ex-Suicide). The band’s first demo received rather good responses from the local scene, and Cenotaph took part in quite a few shows and festivals in Ankara.

In 1996 drummer Bülent G. was replaced by Goremaster. This was the ideal line-up and didn’t change until 1999... With the new line-up CENOTAPH recorded their second demo "promo tape 96" in 1996. This 3 song professionally recorded demo was sent to many underground labels, fanzines, magazines. "promo tape 96" got great responses from both the press/record labels and fans...With this demo, the band’s technical style and brutal sound got steadier and tighter.

in the Summer of 1996, CENOTAPH entered YESILKART studios, Istanbul, to record their 8 songs debut album "Voluptuously Minced" , 8 songs of brutal and sick gore death/grind. With this recording they received offers from a few labels from outside Turkey but they preferred to go for HAMMER MUSIC. Finally "Voluptuously Minced" was released by Hammer music, got great interest as expected and has been distributed worldwide by many labels/distros . CENOTAPH has been featured in many magazines/fanzines and radio shows worldwide.“Voluptuously Minced” was distributed in CD format by various labels in approximately 25 countries, and reached a wide range of listeners in Turkey in tape/Cd format.

Cenotaph, in the meantime, was working on new songs and continued the shows. In 1998 the band recorded their second album “Puked Genital Purulency”, at STUDIO FORTE, Istanbul.. "Puked Genital Purulency" was released by Hammer music in MC and CD format. This album also got very well responses from local extreme music fans as well as from fans abroad. After a few months of the album’s release, CENOTAPH managed to reach a big number of fans worldwide. Puked Genital Purulency took part in many compilation cd’s, tapes and zines. The album is still counted as one of the mile stones of deathgrind .

After the album had been released, bassist Bulent and guitarist Coskun left the band due to some personal reasons. During the time, Batu gathered the new members for Cenotaph and the band carried on with the works full throttle with two new guitarists: Basar Cetin and Cihan Akün.

With this new line-up Cenotaph met with their diehard fans again at Ankara’s Rockstation festival in 2002. After the fest, the band began to work on new songs for the upcoming album and between January-March 2003 Cenotaph completed the recordings of their 3rd album "Pseudo Verminal Cadaverium" at Zoo Sound Studios Ankara. Following the completion of the recording sessions, the mastering sessions were made at the famous Mega Wimp Sound Studios in Germany. The album was released worldwide in the summer of 2003 by the American label United Guttural Records. After the release, the band was on numerous local and foreign zines. The album’s release and distribution in Turkey was done by Batu Cetin’s own label Drain Productions.

For the promotion of the release, Cenotaph played numerous shows at big metal fests in Turkey. The band played Turkey’s extreme deathgrind also at Germany’s extreme metal fest “Fuck the Commerce” in May 2005 and was the headliner at Ukraine’s “Metal Heads Mission” festival in August 2005.

Ex-guitarist Coskun, who formerly left the band back in 1999, rejoined the band in 2005 as the bass player. Subsequently, Goremaster quit the band in 2005, so Cenotaph decided to continue the band with Semih -who previously was their session drummer for the shows abroad- as the new and fulltime drummer. In 2006, due to high demands, the first two albums were gathered on one CD and re-released under the title of "Voluptuously Puked Genitals" by Burning Dogma Records from Texas, USA.

Cenotaph is done with their 4th album’s recordings and will be playing at Maryland Death Fest that is going to be held for the fourth time in 2006 in Baltimore, USA. The band will also play at Lebanon Metal Festival, Monsters of Rock Festival in Bulgaria, Brutal Assault Festival in Czech Republic and will headline a 3 week South America tour during October-November of 2006.

Cenotaph is perking up and improving its modern deathgrind sound every year with the shows worldwide.

2- An old school death metal band from Mexico. At one point they featured Daniel Corchado of present The Chasm fame, and earlier albums reflect some of the sound that would become characteristic of Corchado's later band. They also featured members of Mexican giants like Shub Niggurath, Hacavitz, Sol Negro and even Singapore's Impiety. Cenotaph relocated to Chicago right before they split up.

Cenotaph have developed brilliantly a national sound for Mexico in a pungent mix of the heavier, guttural, chugging, syncopated American sounds that bonds guitar bash to drum abuse under the aegis of a barfing vocal style noone can comprehend, infused with homegrown technique and a tendency toward melodic songwriting like a European band.

The murky malevolence of this music is unchecked by a need for demonstration and instead it plows forward with unwrapping layers of texture which suggest more than a superstitious prediction of boundary, this music suggests a position of setting and a nihilistic journey of observation. Its values are not self-pity, nor are they purely anger, but a mixture of self-reflection and negativity in the context of imagination of change.

Mixed into this form are European death metal influences in oddball melodics and precision drumming, with lead guitar aspirations toward a broken down but neoclassical thematism. Predominant doom influences are mixed in not as thrown-in ingredients but as integral contribution to a unique style: much as Sepultura defined Brazil on the metal map, Cenotaph have done so for Mexico by differentating sensibilities clearly. The shuddering roar that is their aesthetic comes from both the aggressive gore metal bands farther north and the rhythmic cannibals of the south declaring a self-destructive necrotic hopelessness.

Unsteady though this music sometimes is, its durable rhythm and ambitious structure makes its listening a sequence of realizations over multiple exposures. A narrative unfolds from a storyline that began with the simplest of continuities, holding space and shaping it in a mixture of traits to create atmosphere. Within that area of abstract logic, riffs through shape and direction change relativity to an objective comment in the subjective, reducing the complexity of existence to a single organic voice of chaos. For all of its technical and artistic power, what makes this music most enduring is its appeal to the listener and relentless creation toward a distinct, free spirit in underground metal.