Inspired by bands like Candlemass, Solitude Aeturnus and Memento Mori these guys lean more towards the Solitude Aeturnus style doom than the Candlemass. I’d almost call them power doom as they are a bit more energetic than your typical doom band. Whatever you want to call it, I like it. A lot. The music is heavy, melodic and forlorn with some slightly symphonic elements. I mentioned their energy; slow churning doom this is not. On the contrary I would say most of the material is a notch or two beyond mid-tempo. The vocals are clean, melodic and have that slightly tortured quality, that almost pleading doom style that My Dying Bride’s Aaron Stainthorpe does so well.

The production is pretty good. I did feel like I noticed some instances where the volume was not consistent between tracks. Like on “Getting Closer” I had to turn the volume down a little because the vocals were suddenly very loud. Better loud than buried though, right?

I’m happy to say that I would raise a second beer to Sorrow’s Path for the songs on this album. It may have taken a long time, but I’m glad I (and the rest of the world) got the opportunity to hear them. I hope this will only be the first step down a new road for Sorrow’s Path. They are a great addition to the doom metal community and I want to hear more. Get back to work lads.

“Redemption” is the follow up to their EP, “Reborn.” I haven’t heard the EP to know how it compares, but “Redemption” sounds very well done for a band’s first full album. Monoscream play a groove/death style that is not so different from the melodic death metal style for which Sweden is known. The music is heavy, melodic and packs a nice punch. The vocals are done in a harsh throaty style that is both heavy and understandable; they gel nicely with the music.

Viewed by itself on its own merits “Redemption” is a great album. The songs are there, the skill is there, the production sounds good. It is an album any band could look back on and feel proud to have released. But seen in the context of the rest of the metal scene I’m worried they will get lost in the shuffle with all the other melodic death styled bands who are also releasing good albums.

It seems to me that when bands release an album this good, and they are not on one of the larger metal labels, it shows just how much competition there is to be heard. A few years ago I would have listened to this and felt sure Monoscream would be picked up by a bigger label at any moment. But now I can never be sure what will happen. It’s great that bands have the ability to do it all themselves without major label money backing them, but it’s also a shame when good bands don’t get the widespread attention they might deserve because they just don’t get promoted as well as big label bands. I frequently hear something that I’m sure will launch a band and then never hear anything more about them. I hope such is not the fate of Monoscream. Good luck guys.

Give Monoscream a listen on MySpace, Spotify or check them out on iTunes.

So the thing that I don’t understand about this album is the production. The music is phenomenal, the playing is awe-inspiring, but the recording just sounds, well, awful. With the level of talent that is so very obvious here, and the style played, I’m used to hearing crisp, bright, soaring productions that I don’t even notice because I’m so dumbfounded by the playing. But in this case all I can hear is how bad the production sounds. And that’s a real shame because if not for the production this would be a great album. I have to assume the sound is related to budget constraints, because otherwise I just can’t understand why “Blood Rain” sounds the way it does.

If you can get past the production the songs are beautiful and epic in scale. Mixing power/prog metal with a little neo-classical metal and symphonic element this is an album the likes of which I have not heard in a long time. It transports me back to the late 80s when I hear it, to a time when Yngwie Malmsteen was still cool. I don’t very often get excited about guitar acrobatics anymore, but hearing the playing on these songs does wake up those dormant feelings once again. I have great respect for Taka Minamino’s playing so I hope for his next album the production quality does his material justice. Shred on!

“Coils of Entropy” combines complexity and brutality into death metal that knocks you on your ass, holds you down and then flaunts its shredding skill in your face. A lot of bands that play this brutal come with a sound quality the equivalent of mud mixed with white noise, but not these guys, no sir. The music has a bit of an old school death metal vibe with a modern technical flair. Did I really just say flair? What is this “Office Space?” No, not that kind of flair. The vocals are one of the most difficult death vox styles (in my opinion) to pull off well. Devlin Anderson uses that low, wet, scraping across the sidewalk style of vocal that in most cases annoys the crap out of me. But perhaps because everything else sounds so good it just fits really well and I enjoy it. He throws in some other styles as well, but that seems to be the majority of the vocals.

The production is pretty good. I think maybe they need to get this bad boy mastered because while the tracking sounds great I’ve got the volume cranked up to about 85% to hear this at my usual listening volume. Usually I hang out at around 50%.

This is definitely not your average death metal album. Aside from the things I’ve already mentioned, the lead guitar work also sticks out as not-your-typical death metal frenzy. While it fits these songs, some of these leads could just as easily be heard in metal much less brutal and not seem out of place.

Check out Nephelium on Facebook, ReverbNation or head over and pick up the album on iTunes.

The things I knew already: 1) the album is untitled and the tracks are creatively named “I”, “II”, “III” and “IV”. 2) Despite only having four tracks the album clocks in around 40 minutes. 3) These four songs are mighty heavy.

The things I did not know: 1) these guys are atheists seemingly bent on the destruction, or at least demystification, of religion 2) they are vegans and don’t want us to eat animals 3) they are from Seattle.

Metal is heavily into the battle between good and evil and the crimes perpetrated upon the masses by various religions, so there is nothing surprising there. And as far as I’m concerned people can eat, or not eat, whatever they want. So those interesting little facts just sort of bounce off me without much notice. The fact that this album is a ferocious slab of metal, however, draws my full attention.

That lone review I found mentioned a comparison to the band Isis, which I’m sorry to say is a band I’ve never paid that much attention to because what I heard seemed kind of boring. I know both bands play long songs that seem to have more music than vocals, so I don’t know, maybe I should be checking out Isis now, because I definitely dig this album. As I said, the songs are long and kind of wander in an ethereal yet monstrously heavy direction. The vocals when they make an appearance are harsh and do a great job driving home and emphasizing the heaviness of the music.

I tend to like my metal more direct and to the point; short and sweet if you will. But something about this album is both relaxing and exhilarating at the same time and the long instrumental passages do not bother me like they normally would. Ultimately, this album makes me want to start checking out other albums in the same style to see if I might like them as well. That’s a sure sign of a great album wouldn’t you say?

On the schedule for today we’ve got Hymnosis, an unsigned band from Montreal. “Unmasking Faces” is their five-song EP of thrashy hardcore groove metal. As is always the case with EPs, when I like the band I feel a little let down that there isn’t more meat on the bones. But hey, as EPs go five songs is at least a fairly healthy portion.

The music on “Unmasking Faces” skillfully fulfills the thrashy groove portion of their bio’s promise while the vocals easily handle the hardcore part. The music is quick and chunky and likely great for generating some spirited pit action. The vocals have a harsh hardcore edge most of the time (though there are some clean vocals in there which add some melody too) and are, in my opinion, placed perfectly in the mix.

The production is pretty good. I like how clear everything sounds and rather than crowding all the different parts into a wall of sound the mix sounds very open and roomy. Like most of the great thrash albums from back in the day it is a little light on low end. I’d like to hear a little more punch in the low end but whatever; the songs are fine as they are.

“Unmasking Faces” is a solid effort and I like what I hear. You should head over to their Facebook page where you can stream all five songs from the EP and see what you think.

Sometimes I’ll catch songs on Liquid Metal in the car and be disappointed by the sound on the first listen; but I wanted to avoid anything that might disappoint me about this release so I made sure not to hear clips or anything ahead of time. I don’t deal with waiting very well though, so naturally at 11:01 PM last night I was on my iPhone downloading “Blood for the Master” from the iTunes store. (I picked up a couple other albums too: “Black Mass Hysteria” by Knives Out (featuring Todd Smith of Dog Fashion Disco and Polkadot Cadaver), “Misery Wizard” by doom band Pilgrim and the self-titled album from Bréag Naofa.)

“Saving myself” for Release Day turned out to be very satisfying. I went to bed, while the tracks downloaded to my phone, knowing I would wake up with Christmas-morning-like anticipation of starting the day listening to new Goatwhore. I popped on the headphones this morning and sighed with relief as it immediately became apparent this album was going to live up to and possibly exceed my expectations.

“Blood for the Master” is a pretty heavy album, but at the same time it’s fairly accessible (from an extreme music perspective.) The pace ranges from chugging mid-tempo to fast and furious, all the while featuring the awesome guitar talent of former Acid Bath guitarist Sammy Duet. This dude plays some killer guitar. The vocals are harsh but very understandable and are capably handled by both Sammy and L. Ben Falgoust II. The album is intense and furious but also contains a healthy portion of groove as well; these ingredients mixed together make for a potent and formidable slab of killer heavy metal. The quality production on the album puts an extra shine and polish on there that I was surprised to hear as I had read they wanted to dirty-up this album. On the contrary, the production sounds quite good.

Now if you will excuse me I have to go back to listening to this album on repeat for the rest of today. Show these guys some support and pick up this album today! On an unrelated note I see they are playing the Alrosa Villa in Columbus, Ohio tonight. I hope they’ll throw out a tribute to Dime in that most unholy of metal venues.

Alas there are only three songs on this EP, so I won’t have much material with which to form an opinion. Listening to these three tracks I’m kind of digging it. I’m thinking maybe rather than avant-garde they should bill this as progressive death metal. The tracks have structure (something I rarely find in so called avant-garde metal) and incorporate different keyboard elements that supplement the somewhat technical heavy guitars and harsh vocals. I’ve never been real good with discerning time signatures but it sounds like they use some non-standard ones. Honestly, I think the only thing that prevents this from being a full-on progressive metal album is the harsh vocals.

And here we are, only just started and yet done already. Only fifteen minutes and some change from front to back this is a tasty metal appetizer before today’s main course. I think they’ve definitely got something going on worth listening to so hopefully they are hard at work putting together a full album. You can check out the three songs from this EP on their MySpace page.

I wasn’t entirely sure I would like “Dismal Hollow” when I bought it from the iTunes store. I listened to a few clips that sounded promising, but I had a feeling once I gave it a full listen I wouldn’t be all that impressed. Wrong. As it turns out I’m really getting into these songs.

The music is heavy but also sort of bluesy in a stoner/doom style. The vocals are clean with a slight edge on them that immediately brings to mind a more sedate laid back Glenn Danzig. By this point they have got my vote, but it just gets better from there with songs that are catchy, riff-tastic and a little bit dark. Or perhaps dismal would be more appropriate. Aside from the Danzig reference I really don’t know of anyone that quite sounds like this, which is a shame, because I would love to get my hands on more music like King Giant. I see they have a previous album “Southern Darkness.” Looks like I’ll be hitting up iTunes again in a few minutes. Though I dunno, I see on their Facebook page they’ve liked the Philadelphia Flyers, and here we are in the middle of Washington Capitals country. Treason I say, but I guess I’ll let it slide hahaha.

Questionable hockey tastes aside I highly recommend King Giant’s “Dismal Hollow” to anyone and everyone.

“Vol. 1” is a six song EP of hard rock tunes sure to get you moving when it’s time to get down. I can almost smell the beer and stale cigarettes (is there anywhere left in America where you can smoke in a bar?) while picturing the band playing on stage in some hole in the wall dive bar. The boys in the back are nursing their beer and nodding their heads in time to the music while the ladies are down by the small stage dancing with their hands in the air. Yeah, that’s just my imagination at work, but I could totally see that happening; like something out of a beer commercial.

The point is that this sounds like a fun band playing fun music. A lot of the music I write about tends to be on the darker side, but once in awhile I like to lighten things up a bit and just have fun. So that’s what we’ve got here with Black Water James. The guitars are loud and the vocals are clean, catchy and melodic. The production is clean and perfect. I want to say this is the sort of music you would hear on the radio, only they don’t play music like this on the radio anymore.

If you’re looking for some rockin’ music to warm up this cold weekend check out Black Water James on their MySpace, Facebook or ReverbNation pages. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

I have to say that I’m fairly impressed by this debut from the Italian Viking death metal band Vinterblot. Almost as soon as I heard “Nether Collapse” the name Amon Amarth rocketed to the forefront of my mind. There are differences between the two to be sure, but the musical style combined with the epically huge harsh vocals guarantees that the comparison will be made. Honestly, I don’t care who they sound like, I’m just enjoying the album on the merits of what I’m hearing.

Often the drums are fast and the guitars over top of them are also fast and mildly melodic. At other times it slows down and takes on an epic militaristic feel. Through it all the deep harsh vocals of Phanaeus loom like a frost giant on a mountaintop shouting his displeasure down on the mortals below.

For a full-length debut the production is quite good. That was a big part of what made me decide to pick up this album; most young Viking metal bands do not sound this good right out of the gate. If this is what they sound like now, how awesome will they be several albums from now when they’ve become more seasoned? I hope we have the opportunity to find out.

The album combines elements of both traditional doom and funeral/death doom into something that I can really get behind. I’m not much of a fan of funeral doom because it gets boring fast. But mixed in with some traditional doom it adds a nice variety. There are only seven tracks, but all but one are over seven minutes long; so have no fear about not getting your fill.

The music is slow and heavy and supplemented with somber keyboards that help set the mood. Ed’s clean vocals are in a higher range than I typically enjoy in doom metal, but after a few listens they grew on me. They are contrasted by Pim’s deep harsh vocals that grind along like a glacier moving across a continent. The production on the album is great.

I liked the album the first listen through, but I think it takes a few more listens before you start to truly appreciate “Lacrima Mortis.” It’s a creeper; the longer you spend with it, the more its tendrils coil around you and pull you down to feast upon every happy thought you ever had.

I think one of the biggest assets this album has is the incredible production. The music is fast and intense and technical which is worthy of merit on its own, but there are plenty of albums like that out there that, based on weak production, only climb to the middle of the heap. But combined with a stellar production like “The Inherited Repression” an album can achieve greatness. I could weep tears of joy over the guitar tone on this album; it’s crisp and tight and you can hear all the notes while at the same time it has a nice heavy punch. The drums sound much fuller this time around; not so tight and clipped as last time.

Other than the production the other noticeable difference, and not necessarily an improvement, is in Jason Peppiatt’s vocal style. If this was the first Psycroptic album I’d heard I probably wouldn’t think anything of it; the vocals are massive and awesome and sit wonderfully in the mix. However, for those who have heard earlier material it is almost immediately apparent that something has changed. Whereas previously the vocals had a range from very deep all the way up to a higher pitched scream, this time around they mostly stick right in the middle range the entire time. Having that extra dynamic range throughout an album helps keep things interesting, so I kind of miss that, but at the same time I can’t really complain about how this album sounds. The vocals on this album fit the music just fine, but I just kind of wonder what brought on the change.

Looking ahead to the end of year best-of lists for 2012 I have no doubt that this album will be making many appearances. I know it will definitely be getting a lot of play time on my phone. Technical death metal fans rejoice and pick up the bone crushing opus “The Inherited Repression.”

Most, if not all, the songs seem to be in Spanish. It’s actually kind of amusing as titles for the two instrumental tracks taunt me by being in English hahaha. That’s ok though, I haven’t listened to much music in Spanish before and the words sound rather beautiful even if I don’t know what they are saying.

Among their influences Alhma Mater list Symphony X, Kamelot and Dream Theater. Based on that I think you can get an idea of what they might sound like. More so like Symphony X than Dream Theater I would say.

The musicianship on the album is quite good; there are lots of great lead guitar moments. The vocals are all clean and melodic. The production is pretty good, though a little quiet. I had to turn up the volume some to get to my usual listening level, but once there the sound quality was good. A little more low-end to thicken up the overall mix wouldn’t hurt either; but on the whole, a very nice sounding album.

Hmmm. During the track “Un dia gris Pt. 2” they play a newscast that mentions (in English) the planes crashing into the World Trade Center, so I have to wonder what the rest of the song says. I used a translator website on the title which seems to be “A gray day.” It was actually a very clear sunny day, but from a mental and metaphysical viewpoint it certainly was gray.

Anyway, bitching about my breakfast adventures aside, let’s talk about the new Iron Fire album. “Voyage of the Damned” is the Danish power/speed metal band’s seventh album and I’m hoping it will be just the thing to nudge my week back down the happy path. You see, whenever I’m nervous or anxious or just having a bad day, some good power metal played loudly has a tendency to boost my confidence, courage and general mental well-being. I used to always listen to Manowar on my way to final exams and job interviews because that would get me pumped and ready to take on whatever was coming.

I haven’t listened to it lately, but I recall enjoying the last Iron Fire album, “Metalmorphosized.” So I wasn’t all that surprised to find I enjoyed “Voyage of the Damned” as well. There really aren’t any surprises here, power metal is what power metal is. At the same time though, it is comforting to know you can count on what you are getting. “Voyage of the Damned” songs range from slower quiet songs like “The Final Odyssey” to faster rockers like “Enter Oblivion OJ-666.” Whatever the tempo, they are catchy and feature a lot of clean melodic vocals. Occasionally there are some vocals with a harsher edge, but mostly they are clean in the traditional power metal style. The album features a lot of cool epic symphonic embellishment for a nice bonus.

Seven albums in, if you are a power metal fan I expect you’ve already heard of these guys, but if you haven’t I’d say they are worth your time to check out. I really like them because they are not overly saccharine in their melody like some bands. Check ‘em out.

Fast forward about a dozen years and I receive a copy of “Industrial City” from Sweden’s Zavod. Their bio lists them as industrial metal which grabbed my attention and made me wonder if I could get into them. Due to the volume of submissions I’ve been receiving I’m starting to get pickier about what I will review. I listened to a few tracks and decided I’d give it a shot.

Zavod certainly does have an industrial influence, but there is definitely a metal side as well. The Industrial element comes in the form of electronic instrumentation, ethereal backgrounds and driving almost danceable beats while the metal side exerts itself through chunky guitar chords and gruff rough vocals that remind me of early Tiamat. Obviously industrial music tends to give you the feeling like you are deep in the bowels of a grimy steel factory, but Zavod also install a spacious epic feeling as well. Like maybe the steel factory is actually the massive forge of Hephaestus. I really dig the harsh vocals with the style of music; it makes me think I could get back into industrial if it sounded like these guys.

Zavod are currently unsigned and doing it all themselves, which makes “Industrial City” a pretty damn impressive debut. The production sounds great and the songs are too. I like this a lot and very much hope to hear of bigger and better things for this band in the future. You should go check them out on MySpace or their ReverbNation page.

Most, if not all, the songs seem to be in Spanish. It’s actually kind of amusing as titles for the two instrumental tracks taunt me by being in English hahaha. That’s ok though, I haven’t listened to much music in Spanish before and the words sound rather beautiful even if I don’t know what they are saying.

Among their influences Alhma Mater list Symphony X, Kamelot and Dream Theater. Based on that I think you can get an idea of what they might sound like. More so like Symphony X than Dream Theater I would say.

The musicianship on the album is quite good; there are lots of great lead guitar moments. The vocals are all clean and melodic. The production is pretty good, though a little quiet. I had to turn up the volume some to get to my usual listening level, but once there the sound quality was good. A little more low-end to thicken up the overall mix wouldn’t hurt either; but on the whole, a very nice sounding album.

Hmmm. During the track “Un dia gris Pt. 2” they play a newscast that mentions (in English) the planes crashing into the World Trade Center, so I have to wonder what the rest of the song says. I used a translator website on the title which seems to be “A gray day.” It was actually a very clear sunny day, but from a mental and metaphysical viewpoint it certainly was gray.

Buke and I were expecting the show to open with Rise to Remain featuring Austin Dickinson, the son of Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson. We did not know at the time they had to drop off the tour because they lost their bass player and drummer. When we arrived at the show a band was already onstage and we thought it was Rise to Remain. But it quickly became apparent that it was actually D.C.s own Darkest Hour. We only caught part of the set, but they sounded pretty good and got the crowd pretty riled up considering how early it was in the show.

Next up was Suicide Silence I’m a more recent fan of Suicide Silence; I reviewed their latest album “The Black Crown” last year and liked it a lot. I was expecting a pretty wild set from these guys and I was not disappointed. I couldn’t find an accurate height online for singer Mitch Lucker, but the guy has to be at least 6’4” and rail skinny. He made an imposing figure as he prowled and slunk around that stage like a large predatory cat letting you know that this was his territory. And woe to the poor bastards in the pit; he owned them like a metal drill sergeant running his troops through their paces in boot camp with his constant demands for circle pits. He also did something I’ve been seeing more lately where he divided the crowd and had them waiting on his command to rush together at each other in what I’ve started calling the “Braveheart maneuver” which ultimately results in a giant writhing pit that looks much like troops crashing together in hand to hand combat. Suicide Silence brought a great deal of energy to the room and had an amazing stage presence. About this time I realized it was going to be a special evening.

Rams Head Live had been getting more and more crowded as the night went on, and by the time the lights went out heralding the imminent arrival of Machine Head the place was packed. The band hit the stage amid chants of “Machine-Fucking-Head” and right away launched into “Unto the Locust” album opener “I Am Hell.” I was now a great big bundle of happy.)

Machine Head played almost the entire “Unto the Locust” album (all except “Pearls Before the Swine”) as well as a selection of past material. One of the songs I was waiting to hear was “Aesthetics of Hate” which was Robb Flynn’s response to the article by the same name written by William Grim shortly after the murder of Pantera/Damageplan guitarist Dimebag Darrel Abbott. (Get ready, I’m about to take an extended aside from the review to rant here.)

While I was aware of William Grim’s article and that it was insulting and disrespectful towards Dime, I did not read the actual article itself until just now while checking some facts and I cannot begin to express with words how furious I have become.
I write this with tears of rage welling in my eyes and a strong urge to do very bad things to one of the most ignorant and self-righteous egotists I’ve ever heard. I haven’t seen this kind of bullshit in print since the PMRC in the 80s. I thought this guy was some music writer that didn’t like Dime for some unfathomable reason, but no he is a real piece of work. He is a self-admitted elitist who says that heavy metal is not music, heavy metal fans are “semi-human barbarians” and that Haydn and Beethoven were further along the evolutionary trail than Dime. He basically blames Dime for his own death because it was inevitable that someone like him would end up that way. This is not so much an article as it is a manifesto. The first crazy bastard that springs to mind is Hitler. Grim dislikes many things about the world today and would be perfectly happy to see these things all wiped off the face of the planet. Please tell me this guy never runs for public office. I’ve uploaded a copy of the article text, I encourage you to read it.

While listening to Machine Head perform “Aesthetics of Hate” I thought to myself I would spit in this guys face (something that has never occurred to me to do to a person before), but now I’m inspired to so much more. If I may quote the song, “I hope you burn in hell” you son of a bitch. In reference to Dime, “his honor we’ll always uphold.” Towards the end of the song a giant silhouette of Dime leaning back far with his signature guitar in the air appeared on the screen behind the stage. I’m proud of Robb Flynn for not only defending his friend but for continuing to honor him years later. We could all use friends like that.

Other highlights of the set included “Darkness Within”, which began with Robb alone on stage with an acoustic guitar, and one of my personal favorites “Who We Are” which closed out the main set. They finished with a two song encore of “Halo” and “Davidian.” I cannot praise this set enough. Machine Head recordings are amazing but live the energy is doubled. Robb really seemed to make a personal connection with the crowd and we loved him for it. They played for a good long while yet it seemed far too short.

After exiting the building Buke and I went next door to one of the bars in the area to grab a drink. We were sitting outside (unseasonably warm weather this week) and Buke noticed someone walk by and into the bar that looked like Mitch Lucker from Suicide Silence (hard to miss that neck tattoo). We hung around trying to slyly watch what was going on in the bar (karaoke) and see whether there would be a chance to talk to him. Buke saw an opening and did a walk-by. I waited outside to see what would happen. They chatted briefly and then both headed outside. Mitch was very nice and took pictures with both of us. This is where I realized just how tall he is; I look at the picture and feel like a Hobbit standing next to him. Anyway, thanks to Mitch for taking the time to talk to us. It was a great ending to a great night. If you get the chance to catch this tour I highly recommend that you check it out.

Being able to preview tracks saves me from some of the bad decisions I made when I shopped only by band name and album cover coolness, but I’ll still buy a crap album occasionally when there just isn’t anything good available. Last week offered up some great new releases by Lamb of God and Lacuna Coil, but those are both well-known bands. Last week also gave us the new Aborted which was great, but I got that from the label, which while also great, does not deliver the same satisfaction as discovering and buying an album yourself. So my impulse purchases last week were the debut by Dodecahedron and this debut from Desecravity. Both purchases turned out to be worth the money.

Desecravity is a Japanese death metal band whose debut album “Implicit Obedience” was produced by Erik Rutan of Hate Eternal. If you are familiar with Hate Eternal then you already have an idea of what this album might sound like- it’s fast, brutal and technical. The production is slightly crisper than a Hate Eternal release which I totally dig, as that is my one complaint with their albums. The vocals are harsh and deep; nothing groundbreaking there, but they do the job and are seated well in the mix. For me, the aspect of the album that draws me in is the technical guitar work and how well it pops out of the mix. The drums are pretty awesome too.

Have you ever played the game Katamari Damacy? It’s this simple game where you wander around an area with this sticky ball that you roll over things and as it comes into contact with items they stick to the ball. You start off rolling around picking up little things like pencils and books and as the ball gets bigger you are rolling in larger and larger items, like people, cars and houses. By that point in the game the ball is a massive maelstrom of wildly different components that all make up the whole of this oddly shaped rolling swath of destruction. I say this completely tongue-in-cheek, but if that giant rolling ball were to become sentient in a Borg-like-collective sort of way, I believe “Implicit Obedience” would be the voice with which it would speak as it mercilessly rolled over cities and continents. Wow, that was a total nerd-out there.

What I mean to say is that the Desecravity debut album is pretty bad-ass and was definitely worth the cash I plunked down to acquire it.

Billed by the band themselves as “difficult listening/pervert rock” I can’t help but agree. I mean, the songs are interesting and at times amusing, I’m not saying they are bad. It’s just that this is so novelty that I would not put it on as a music listening experience, but maybe if I was looking for a laugh or perhaps to disturb the people around me lol.

The music is stylistically schizophrenic including bits that sound metal, punk, rock, and electronic. The production sounds a little lo-fi but everything sounds clear at least. I’m sure there is an audience for this type of music as people keep creating it, but for me this is a one listen then put it on the shelf kind of album. I applaud their creativity and the effort spent to make something more thoughtful and different, but this just isn’t for me.

I live a couple hours north of Richmond, Virginia right up 95, yet other than driving through on the way to points further south I’ve never stopped in to check out what’s going on with metal down there. I’m not sure why, because there’s got to be a decent metal scene as the city has spawned three great metal bands in Lamb of God, GWAR and Municipal Waste. There was a GWAR-B-Q down there last year I wanted to hit, but it conflicted with something else.

Lamb of God has somehow managed to avoid peaking like all bands must eventually, because “Resolution” is their seventh album and they still keep getting better with every album. I’ve learned to expect their latest album to be a sonic improvement over the last, but no way was I expecting the jump in quality I’m hearing since “Wrath”. And I thought “Wrath” was pretty great.

What the hell is this? On track 10, “Insurrection” there was a couple brief lines of clean vocals. What trickery is this Randy? That was unexpected yet it sounded really good. And the harsh vocals crushed that much more when they resumed. “King Me” has quiet spoken passages that remind me of “Trendkill”-era Pantera (think “Suicide Note Pt1” and “Flood”) as well as a slightly gothic twist from female backing vocals and what must be keyboards.

Lamb of God is an interesting beast. Randy Blythe’s harsh deep vocals would be right at home in any death metal band. Yet if you remove Randy from the mix and just listen to the music you would not consider them death metal at all. The music is more thrash meets technical prog. I could easily hear Warrel Dane singing over this music. When combined, the music and the vocals create something that is melodic, technical, (dare I say) sometimes catchy and yet brutal as a shotgun blast to the face.

I saw Decibel only gave this album a 6/10. I did not read the review yet, and I can’t seem to find a copy online now, but I have to wonder about that. I saw another place I won’t mention that gave it 6.5. I suppose musical taste is all relative, but damn people, do you even like metal?? Maybe it’s just me; maybe I’m the one with no taste. Even if that were the case (and I don’t think it is) I would still say they are wrong to think “Resolution” is that mediocre. I think this album will only increase their popularity and standing in the metal community.

I hope they are planning to tour here again soon. Found out last Thursday they were playing a sold out show at the 9:30 Club in D.C. Saturday. I’m not sure how we missed hearing about that one until the last minute, but that sucks. They need to come back and play Rams Head in Baltimore.

One thing I’ve been curious about is that Andrea Ferro does a hell of a lot of singing in the band, yet I only ever hear about Cristina Scabbia when people talk about Lacuna Coil. I guess that’s because Cristina is ridiculously hot and both the media and the fans like to focus on her. But damn, the dude has got some great pipes. Before I really ever paid much attention to Lacuna Coil I thought Cristina was the main and only singer; once I started listening I was like “oh, who is this guy that is singing all over the place?” I really enjoy that there are male and female clean vocals and that rather than one or the other doing just back-up they both sing lead.

In case you are in the minority of metal fans who aren’t familiar with Lacuna Coil, and you are wondering what you’ll get with this album, let me give you a little info. The music is fairly heavy and grandiose in a melodic gothic way. It’s heavier than your run-of-the-mill Evanescence clones and, as I’ve pointed out, has plenty of clean dude vox as well. The songs are huge and sound like they fill every crack and corner of the room with their presence. There’s a good punch to the mix but not in an overly bass-heavy way; they are just really dense. And if you like melodic catchy songs you are in for a treat.

By this point you are reading this and either totally psyched for the new Lacuna Coil album or throwing up in your mouth a little at the blatant commercialism and wishing I would write about something like Dodecahedron or the upcoming Psycroptic album. Yeah, metal covers a great deal of sonic ground. I seriously doubt there is any metal band out there that is beloved by all metal fans; we’ve always got some gripe about somebody. I do it too, but I like to think I have a very wide scope of acceptance for different genres of metal. I’m going through more of an extreme metal phase at the moment (doom was my last phase) but I can still sit back and enjoy a great album like “Dark Adrenaline” any day of the week.

Fist to the Sky are an unsigned band out of Chicago and I’m guessing “Down into Hell” is the leading edge of what will eventually be their second album. Their first self-released album was 2010’s “Light the World Up.” Since I only have two songs to check out on this single I looked up some tracks from the first album on YouTube to get a basis for comparison. What a difference a year makes! The songs from “Light the World Up” while good (not quite as “metal” as these two songs, but still very interesting) really emphasize how the production quality definitely went up a couple notches for the single.

How to classify Fist to the Sky in the metal genus? The music is well crafted melodic metal and the vocals are mostly clean and melodic with the occasional harsh edge. The whole thing gives me the impression of old and new. Musically you don’t hear a lot of metal like this these days, except maybe in the prog metal category, but this doesn’t feel prog. It sometimes has more of an old school pre-grunge fingerprint to it. The vocals, though, are definitely more in the here and now, particularly the harsh edged ones. Most of the clean vocals in metal today I associate with mall metal bands for teens like Bullet for My Valentine. Bands like that sound very formulaic and forced to me like they want to be heavy but want to get on the radio too. Fist to the Sky don’t fall into that category of melodic sounding metal either; I get the impression these guys do what they do the way they do it because that is what they enjoy. Hang on to that; don’t let anybody force you into a product mold.

I very much enjoy what I’m hearing from Fist to the Sky. I hope they will fill out material for a full album this year and find themselves a label home that will do right by them.

They list their label as Gainful Employment Records, but I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that with a name like that and how neatly it ties in to their band name, that they released the album themselves. My first listen through the album I was a little put off by the less than pristine sound quality, but upon continued listening it mattered less and even sort of added to the blue-collar charm of the album.

The music on “Adapted” doesn’t cover any new ground in death metal, but what it lacks in innovation it makes up for with intensity and songs that are just plain enjoyable (from an extreme metal perspective.) The vocals are harsh and massive and the music is pretty heavy considering they don’t appear to have a bass player. Really the only complaint I have about the album is the production quality. Maybe they’ll get a “promotion” before their next album that’ll help out with that. Until then, we’ll all keep carrying on with the daily grind and work out our frustrations in the pit with We All Have Day Jobs.

I was really only ever a fan of the “Thundersteel” album, but that one album holds cherished god-like status in the heavy metal hall of fame in my mind. I never got to see them live and was hoping to school Buke in some more classic songs. What a shame, and a loss to the metal world in general. Let’s remember Mark by spinning up some old Riot tunes! (or even some new ones from their recently released “Immortal Soul.”)

If you were to look at “Global Flatline” in the music store, you might see the ravenous zombies on the cover and their extreme logo and band name and immediately jump to the conclusion that this is just another stock death metal album full of paint-by-numbers deathgrind. I myself have been guilty of making that assumption with bands in the past. That’s because there are a lot of mediocre albums like that out there, and I’ve been burned many times. So let me put your mind at (un)ease and assure you this is anything but stock. Yeah, it’s pretty brutal, though, it doesn’t keep a breakneck pace all that often actually; it mixes up tempos and really keeps things interesting. There are the expected death-style leads, but also leads like you might hear in a more melodic death metal. There was even a bit of piano in there on one track. Whatever they happen to be doing at the moment Aborted is still kicking you in the face the whole time.

The vocals as you may expect (particularly given the guests) are all of the harsh variety. They run the gamut of extreme metal styles (though I don’t recall hearing anything particularly high pitched, it was mostly mid-to-low) and are all performed and mixed perfectly for my tastes. The production sounds great yet still manages to sound raw. There is a complexity to the songs that I don’t normally expect from this style which makes me love this album even more. There, I’ve gone and said it. I love this album. 2012 is still young yet, but “Global Flatline” could easily be one of the death metal albums to beat this year. Check this album out now.

“Last of a Dying Breed” exhibits both metal and hardcore tendencies; the music is pretty heavy and contains both metal style riffing and hardcore style groove. The vocals are mostly of the hardcore growl variety that ranges from a Biohazard sound to Five Finger Death Punch (though they don’t ever break out into a Nickelback-style country ballad like FFDP). I like that they mix this up a bit as it keeps it more interesting. I tend to get bored with straight hardcore because it doesn’t change up very much musically. Darkness Descends gives me the awesome power of the hardcore vocal with the energy and technical riffing of metal. I can’t complain about that.

Other than to tell you that I like this album I’m not sure what else I have to say. I feel like a broken record talking about the production quality of albums. There’s one little thing I would tweak here, but really it’s not worth mentioning as the album sounds fine. Why don’t you go check it out and see what you think for yourself; you can currently stream the whole album from their Facebook site.

Based in Los Angeles via New York, Hidden Amongst Us plays an interesting blend of hard rock styles. The first song, “The Machine” doesn’t sound like Pink Floyd at all, but it does seem to share a kindred spark of Orwellian oppression with “Welcome to the Machine.” And “Godtrip” definitely channels a little bit of Alice in Chains. Throughout the album I pick up little nuggets of “Pretty Hate Machine”-era Nine Inch Nails. I suppose if I had to compare them to anyone current it would be early Blue October because both bands seem able to channel the best hard rock elements of the last few decades while also keeping things pretty modern; though Hidden Amongst Us has a bit more of a metal edge than Blue October.

The vocals are all clean and melodic. The music ranges from medium tempo hard rock to slower introspective songs. The production is great, no complaints there. I do think the whole mix could use a little more punch and volume though. I had to turn the volume up a good extra bit past my usual spot to find my preferred listening level.

I like that they know how to write good catchy hooks; that’s pretty essential for anyone other than extreme metal bands. You would think that was a given, but I’ve heard too many albums where the musicianship was good but the songwriting just wandered around without a hook to give it direction. I think these guys understand songwriting. I’m definitely digging on “The Machine.” Check ‘em out.

From time to time I get nostalgic for the black metal of old – Dissection, Darkthrone, Emperor, Satyricon, Burzum, Mayhem and so on. Some of those bands are still around, and some are even still good, but the world has moved on and nothing ever stays the same. Black metal bands today certainly try to capture the spirit and rawness of the early days, but most who try for that cold, raw sound just end up with poor cavernous recordings that fail to capture what I love about that old music. The old Satyricon and Burzum albums in particular (and De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas) have this buzzsaw guitar sound and lo-fi production that just seems so impossible to recreate now. Vreid (if you include their time in Windir) began during that era and “V” exhibits what seems like the most natural evolution of that early sound.

Rather than going with the overly atmospheric sound that current black metal bands seem to think epitomizes the old school black metal sound, Vreid take the simple stripped down format of old black metal but record it clean and proper like it’s all grown up. The music still has the almost classical meets metal element about it, and the vocals are harsh and freezing. I don’t want to say the music sounds thin, that is only in comparison to the much more beefy death metal style, but like old school black metal it doesn’t rely on low end very much. A great production sound combined with the treble-heavy style makes the album sound old school and modern all at the same time. They do mix in some clean vocals with the harsh, but they seem wholly appropriate and are not of the symphonic Dimmu variety.

I hope the younger bands out there looking to make new black metal will give this album a listen and take note of how subtly awesome it is. I don’t expect this album will change things much in terms of black metal and bad production values, and that is too bad. If nothing else, I will at least look forward to another Vreid album in the next couple years. Until then, I highly recommend you give “V” a listen.

“Asylum Cave” is the sixth album for French death metal band Benighted. I love that the music is fast, fairly technical and brutal yet also crisp and punchy. I get turned off by a lot of death and black metal bands that have so much “atmosphere” that they sound muddy and distant. I like my extreme metal tight and in your face. The vocals are very harsh and vary between extremely deep and somewhat high (with occasional piercing piggy screeches) and they are mixed perfectly with the music. This was exactly what I needed.

I’ve talked with people who aren’t metal fans who had the opinion that people who listen to such extreme metal must be prone to violence, or at least inspired to violence, by such brutal music; yeah, but there’s a time and place for that – the pit. But during the course of my everyday life brutal music actually has the opposite effect of calming me by directing my rage into the music and leaving me calm and spent afterward. Some people when they get overly stressed turn to cigarettes, alcohol or worse in order to take the edge off. I’m guilty of that myself from time to time, but extreme metal works just as well I’ve found. As I’ve mentioned in the past, I call this sandblasting my soul.

Hopefully today is a better day. If not, at least I’ve got Benighted to help get through it.

A lot of people cite the first album or “Vol. 4” as their favorite Sabbath album, but not me, I’m all about “Master of Reality”, which is rather ironic given that I didn’t really like the album when I first bought it. I remember I was living in Michigan and my school did a 7th grade trip to Toronto which involved a long bus ride, a hotel, and chaperones. I’m not sure how I got talked into this trip as that sort of school activity was really not my thing. But off I went and I remember really hating the trip. However, my parents had given me some money for food and essentials and somehow I found myself in a position to buy music. I think we may have been given the opportunity to buy souvenirs or something and instead I used the chance to buy some music north of the border.

I snagged the cassette version of “Master of Reality” which quickly made its way into my ever-present Walkman. I remember thinking it was weird because the cassette casing was black with white text rather than the white or beige case with black text that I was used to. At the time the album didn’t do much for me; I wasn’t old enough to appreciate it yet. That would come later. Sure, I liked the songs that I already knew from the “We Sold Our Soul For Rock and Roll” compilation (“Sweet Leaf” and “Children of the Grave”) but the rest of the songs, not so much.

It wasn’t until my late teens or early twenties that the true greatness of “Master of Reality” became clear. I mean, hello, “Lord of this World” is a killer track and one of my all time favorites. You hear it on the radio once in awhile, and Corrosion of Conformity did a killer cover of it for the “Nativity in Black” compilation.

Part of my initial discontent with the album may have been the two instrumental tracks, “Embryo” and “Orchid.” I had no patience for tracks like those at 13-14. Now I think they are cool little classically influenced baroque-like interludes that refresh the palette between tracks of monster riffage.

Whenever anyone would go on a rant about how Black Sabbath or Ozzy were purveyors of devil music I would just shake my head and point to “After Forever.” Maybe this song was a response to the people who were giving them a hard time, I don’t know, but this song basically smacks you in the face and tells you what a fool you are if you haven’t seen the light. They actually say the words “God is the only way to love.” I’m not a religious person but this is about the most anti-devil worship song I know this side of Stryper. I think it’s more of a layman’s perspective of God, which is cool, I can relate to that.

This leaves the last two songs on the album, “Into the Void” and “Solitude.” I’ve never been all that excited by “Into the Void”, but it does have some really cool guitar work. I tend to skip over it in my haste to get to “Solitude.” There’s nothing particularly metal about this song and it really surprised me when I heard it. This is the prettiest thing I’ve ever heard Ozzy sing. It’s slow and peaceful and practically New Age spa music. But it’s also one of my all time favorite Sab tunes. I can only think of maybe one or two other songs that I have ever heard that come close to touching the pure melancholy of this song. I don’t know what they wrote it about, but it touches on the loss of someone, probably a lover but it’s vague enough to be used with anyone, and how achingly alone they are in the resulting solitude. I break out this song when I’m at my lowest moments, which is probably why I have such a sentimental feeling towards it. Back in the day when I played I attempted my own recording of this song, but I couldn’t even hint at the greatness of the original.

So there you have it, my two cents on what I consider the greatest Black Sabbath album. Though that’s really like saying which of your children is your favorite. As soon as I name “Master of Reality” my favorite album I think of songs like “Snow Blind” and “Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath” and feel guilt over not including those related albums as well. It’s tough, because Black Sabbath has given us such a wealth of classic heavy metal music. I’m looking forward to the currently-in-the-works Sabbath album as one more jewel in their crown.

I’ve never been a big fan of any music whose genre includes “post”-anything. Not on principle, mind you, I just don’t tend to like that kind of music. It’s usually too weird, abstract, or minimalist for my taste. I think Sonic Youth were supposed to be post-punk, and I never understood why so many people made a big deal about them because the songs didn’t seem to have any real structure to them. Anyway, I’ll give “Black” a listen and see what I take away.

“Black” has four tracks, the first of which is “Sonic Boom.” This was my least favorite track of the four, though it also had the most going on. The music is pretty cool; I like the guitars a lot. Some of the vocals are really hardcore harsh and don’t work for me with the style of music. There are some definitely cool parts to the song though.

The second track, “Deadend” is a nearly eight minute long instrumental track. This is my favorite of the four tracks. It’s very engaging musically and while not what I normally listen to, I liked it a lot. It almost feels like it is telling a story without words.

Next up is “Corpse Flower” which is also mostly instrumental. There are some of the harsh screamed vocals near the end of the track, and they are a little buried, but they don’t really bother me as much here because the music has a nice flow and the brief vocals are just an accent rather than the focal point. This was also a pretty good track.

They completely change hears on the final track, “Mur.” This is one of those clean minimalist songs that are so slow it’s almost stationary. Normally I get impatient with this type of song because it really slows down and kills the momentum of an album. But, this is the last track so it has nowhere else to be getting to, and it’s also kind of soothing and relaxing, so I like this one too.

Given that I don’t normally get into this style of music I’d say liking three out of four tracks is pretty good. I wonder how a full album would sound. Maybe four songs is just the right size for me. Anyway, you can check them out on their MySpace page if you’d like to hear them.

The first thing to catch my attention about this band was the visual aspect. This drew me in on several levels. First, the EP cover art is rather unusual and eye-catching; it made me want to stare at it for awhile and try to figure it out. Holding my attention even that long is usually a good thing, because say I’m in the music store flipping through hundreds of bands CDs, by the time I’ve looked at everything they all start to run together in my head. So when I’m sitting there scratching my head trying to decide what to pick up I take a mental look back and likely the first one to pop into my head is the one with the cover I spent several minutes studying.

The band themselves have a dark and gothic look, but it’s not over the top obnoxious Marilyn Manson Goth, it’s a little more subtle. Some light white paint and black makeup along with the black clothing gets the point across while giving them a dark romantic look. Singer Jade Shady goes a little further, but this just sets her apart and points her out as the one out front. And of course she is just as beautiful as her voice. As a photographer myself, seeing the band photos of her makes me wish I could do a shoot with her. Her natural beauty and dark romantic style would work with so many of the as yet un-shot photo ideas taking up space in my head. Alas, Sweden is far away. If you ever make it to the D.C. area, let me know.

Anyway…so with only three songs I hardly got to know Circus of Lamia before the fun was over. The music ranges from clean and sinister to heavy and urgent. It never really crosses over into extreme territory, but the vocals do. Jade’s vocals are clean and melodic and are contrasted by Matt’s harsh growls. Over the course of the three songs I feel like they had fairly equal mic time, so Matt is not just backing growls but a full-on second vocalist. I like how they work together.

Track one is “Beware of Zombies” which is a timely theme to cover given the current “Walking Dead” zombie craze. I think I like this track the most, which is probably why they lead with it. Jade is really the focus in this song and it’s very catchy. Matt comes to the forefront more in the second track, “The Asylum.” The final track, “Dreamland” seems to have a pretty balanced mix of Jade and Matt. This song made me think of a band I haven’t thought about in a number of years, Dismal Euphony. This sounds like something that could be on Dismal Euphony’s “All Little Devils”, only not quite as polished.

The production on these songs is good, but it’s not as lush and rich as I think the songs deserve. Given a label-level studio budget I think Circus of Lamia would sound even better than they do now. I’d love to hear that. This is a great little EP, please let me know when you have more music! For the rest of you out there, head over to the Circus of Lamia Facebook page where you can stream these very same three tracks.

When I think of progressive metal I tend to think of Dream Theater. I’m not a big Dream Theater fan myself (though Buke is) but that’s where my mind goes when you say progressive metal. I don’t have anything against Dream Theater (other than them not letting Portnoy back in the band, WTF?) they are a good band, but just not really my thing. That being the case I don’t really listen to a lot of progressive metal, and that is probably a mistake on my part, because there are lots of great progressive bands that don’t sound like Dream Theater. Myrath for instance; I just picked their latest up a couple days ago, wow, great album! And then of course there is Defecto. They sound pretty damn good too.

Sure, they have all the elements of your typical progressive metal band – a crazy good singer, technical skill, and smack-you-in-the-face soaring melodies. But they also do cool shit that makes me do a double take and rewind. For example, every once in awhile dude throws in some harsh vocals that totally make their cojones instantly grow three sizes larger in my book. And in general the songs just have a more metal feel, while still remaining catchy and melodic.

The production of course is perfect. I don’t know who produced it, whether Flemming was at the wheel for this or someone else, but it sounds very professionally done. I wouldn’t mind a little more low-end punch, but I probably say that with most things. I’m like Christopher Walken and that damn cowbell. I gotta have more low-end punch.

So I love Defecto. I think they sound incredible and I can’t wait to hear them do a whole album. Maybe they could end up on InsideOut or someplace like that for the debut full length. That would be awesome. Someone please make that happen. In the meantime, you can check them out online at Facebook or Reverbnation.

Dischordia play a technical brutal death metal and have recently shared the stage with Dying Fetus, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Born of Osiris, Darkest Hour, The Human Abstract and As Blood Runs Black. That’s quite an impressive list of bands to play with; each one a great band. That reminds me, I just got our Machine Head tickets in the mail the other day, and D.C.’s own Darkest Hour is on the bill. Nice.

“Creator, Destroyer” is only four songs deep, but they pack a punch in those 23 minutes. The music, as I said, is technical and brutal so you can sit back and enjoy the playing if you’re so inclined, or just jump into the pit and mosh it up. The vocals are all on the harsher side of harsh. He enunciates the words pretty well so no complaints, however there were a few times when he sounded like metal being dragged over concrete. But that was actually pretty cool since he doesn’t sing that way the whole time.

The last track on the EP, “Radioactive Iodine 121” starts off with the “boom-stick” audio clip from the classic “Army of Darkness” movie. There was an audio clip on the first track that sounded familiar but I couldn’t place the movie. “Radioactive Iodine 121” shows the most diversity of the four tracks; there are some clean guitar parts and plenty of changes over the tracks eight-plus minutes.

So, yeah, I can get behind Dischordia. I like that they do brutal but not at the expense of technical. I just noticed they are a three-piece, which makes this sound even more impressive given how thick and heavy this sounds. Check these guys out. And let’s hope for a full length album in the near future.

Every year the bands start to look younger and younger, but I guess they are from my perspective. I just turned 40 last week, so I suppose from their perspective the reviewers look older and older. At my birthday dinner last week I was lamenting the milestone age to the waitress, who responded by saying that wasn’t old, her dad is 40. Gee, thanks, that makes me feel so much better. Anyway, the point was Deathember look pretty young but they sure don’t sound inexperienced.

This EP has six tracks clocking in at 29 minutes, so it’s almost a full album on its own. The production quality is very good. I have to admit that at first I thought “A Thousand Flatlines” was just another Swedish death metal album, but a few tracks in I changed my mind. They really are groovy, much more so than your typical death metal. The vocals are varying degrees of harsh, and the music is heavy, but yeah, these guys really are incredibly groovy. The spirit of death metal is there, but this is a somewhat different beast.

I think there is some really great musicianship on this EP, and the songwriting is pretty good too. For 29 minutes they held my attention and made me want to listen to hear what was coming next. I hope they continue to grow and expand outside of Sweden. I’d be very interested in hearing how they evolve over the next couple years. In the meantime, keep doing what you’re doing. Here’s to 2012 being a year of killer metal.

In case you’ve never had the pleasure to know who David Gold was, he was the mastermind behind the brilliant Canadian blackened doom band Woods of Ypres. I only became a fan of Woods of Ypres earlier this year, though I’d heard of them prior. I heard “Woods IV: The Green Album” and instantly fell in love with Woods; I immediately began devouring their earlier albums as well.

Shortly after this discovery I did a review of “Woods IV” and wrote up an email interview for David. I never got the interview back; I think maybe he was waiting to do it closer to the release of their upcoming album. Or maybe he just thought my questions were stupid. Guess I’ll never know.

You know how people talk about how their last conversation with someone before they died was an argument? Well, in my case, the only conversation I ever had with David was basically him telling me what an ass I am. Buke and I were at the Enslaved show and Junius was opening. Junius sounded terrible and out of tune and I Tweeted as much. David thought I was being harsh and needlessly mean, and he was right. I was in the middle of a one-sided bro-mance with the guy, so I was upset that he must be thinking badly of me. I felt justified in what I said, they did sound horrible, but not in the way I presented that information, so in a way I felt we were both right. We sent a few messages back and forth, but I never convinced him I wasn’t an asshole. We never spoke again after that.

Despite that unfortunate event I was still (am still) very much looking forward to the upcoming release in February. Only now it will be bittersweet rather than the beginning of something big I was hoping for. I was going to post today anyway that I am taking this week off from reviewing between Christmas and New Years, but now in addition I’m dedicating this week at RMC as a moment of silence for David.

“..and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest”

Their bio also mentions the bands anti-war stance, which gives additional meaning to the name Misguided Aggression. The intro track to the album is a spoken word piece which seems to be a soldier discussing how the media post-9/11 brainwashed him into hating the Middle East and made him want to go to war so he could kill people. I don’t know if this is actual interview footage or just something recorded in the studio. Or maybe even from a movie, I just don’t know. I expect given the recent withdrawal of troops these guys are probably pretty happy.

Misguided or not, the aggression is palpable on “Flood the Common Ground.” I think their bio really describes the music best, so I’m not sure I can do a better job of it. It’s heavy and punishing music and the vocals are all harsh and throaty. The production is great and works well with the tight heavy style that they play. The album is pretty short with nine songs clocking in at 27 minutes. No messing around here, just get in, smack people around with some brutal metal, conjure up a rowdy pit, and get out. Sounds good to me.

With a name like Machete Justice I was expecting some extreme death metal (something akin to Jungle Rot), but that wasn’t the case. They actually play a mix of heavy metal and hard rock, with maybe a little more emphasis on metal than rock. The first track, “Eyes on the Crown” comes off pretty heavy and thrashy but as the album progresses the hard rock influence starts to show up more. Though even the hard rock sounding stuff is still pretty heavy, it just has a little more groove and catchiness than the thrashy material, which is more a punch in the face. The change-over is fairly subtle and I didn’t notice the shift first time through listening so I had to start over to confirm that they weren’t playing that way the whole time. They pull this off without managing to sound cheesy or overtly commercial. “The Ballad of Bubba J. White” had a moment there where it reminded me of “Slave to the Grind”-era Skidrow. Then the next track “Reckless” kicks off like it’s going to go death metal. Nice mix.

I won’t dwell on the production of the album; it sounds good. The music is full of riffs and runs and lead work galore as well as chunky rhythms. The vocals start off with a harsh edge at the beginning of the album, and like the album itself, get more melodic as the album progresses. Harsh or clean the vocals sound good to me.

Machete Justice certainly has the skill to do New Zealand proud if they can get the right breaks. I could totally hear these guys on Prosthetic Records; I think that would be a good fit. I hope things go their way. If anyone were to ask my opinion, I’d be glad to recommend Machete Justice.

This is most definitely a thrash album, but it doesn’t sound dated like it came from the 80s. Some of the new thrash bands today sound like they are playing an older style, which is just fine by me, I love that stuff too. But this sound is like the natural evolution of thrash into the contemporary scene, and it sounds pretty damn good. It doesn’t really remind me of anyone specific, which is pretty interesting, because usually everyone has some element that reminds me of someone else.

The production is perfect for thrash. Everything is bright and loud and crisp in the music department. The vocals are seated well in the mix. This is like my perfect metal album if I had to describe one. The music really makes it hard to sit still in my seat. It’s fast and technical and rhythmic in such a way that must inspire some epic circle pits. The vocals are not exactly harsh, but they are frequently snarled and barked in a way that gives them an edge.

I’m really having a good week with new music so far; first Illnath and now Shredhead. Granted, neither of those albums was released this month, but still, December is not usually a period where I make good finds, so I’m pretty happy. I give “Human Nature” the whole-hearted approval of RMC. This album kills.

I listened to the album before reading about the band, so when I did go back to read up on them I was again surprised to find that the singer is not only not a dude, but a very attractive blonde not-dude named Mona Beck. It’s easy to make that mistake when dealing with harsh vocals because women can obviously tear up the harsh vocals just as well as men. There are some clean backing vocals that are easily identified as female, but the lead vocals were not so obvious. I scoped out some band photos on their website and was amused that Mona doesn’t seem to play down her femininity by dressing in jeans and a t-shirt like some women who sing this style. There are some shots of her wearing a red-checkered skirt and sporting red nail polish that if I did not know better would lead me to believe she was singing some kind of pop music. I think that is awesome, it adds to the whole WTF factor when you hear her. I can see myself opening a can of worms here. No, women singers in metal should not have to look hot or trashy to be accepted by the guys. But neither should they feel like they have to hide their beauty to be taken seriously.

I don’t want to toss about too many genres trying to nail down a description of Illnath. The music definitely has a symphonic edge to it, and I suppose you could call it black metal if you are one of those who think Dimmu Borgir is black metal. Though, they are neither as symphonic nor as grandiosely layered as Dimmu. The music is technical and melodic while being fast and heavy, but not low-end heavy. I’m getting a bit of melodic Swedish death feel as well, so obviously this music defies categorization and I’ve gone and used too many genres like I was hoping to avoid. It is metal with harsh vocals and it’s good, enough said lol.

Illnath is another band on Cyprus based Pitch Black Records. I don’t know what kind of distribution and promotion Pitch Black has, but I hope it is pretty good because this band needs to be heard ‘round the world. Mona only just joined the band this past year, so hopefully this is just the beginning of something big. Check it out.

“Rock Solid” certainly sounds like it could have been released in the early to mid 80s. The style, the production, everything about it is very old school. They don’t really bring to mind any specific band from the period they just channel the spirit of the time. The guitars really drive the songs and the vocals do the steering. When I was a teen picking up the guitar and trying to learn I was always trying to achieve a guitar sound like this where it was heavy and distorted but also crisp and cutting. I suppose that greatly influences my taste in guitar tones today.

The vocals, much like those of (now former) White Wizzard singer Wyatt Anderson, manage to represent the best of metal vocals from early the 80s. They hit the high notes competently without being ear piercing and annoying, and since they hang out in the mid-range too I don’t get burned out on the singing. When guys sing up high the whole time (with the expection of King Diamond) it gets old for me real fast. I like a contrast, and I get that with this album.

I realize that not everyone will show the same excitement that I do over this style of metal. Sometimes you just had to be there. But I expect that the real audiophile types who really get into metal as something more than just casual listening are, like me, interested in all periods and styles of metal. For those people this can be either a pleasant reminder of the old days or a good example of what they missed out on if they were too young or not yet born when the style first emerged. Or if you don’t want to over-think it, it’s just good metal.

Enjoying the music is not that difficult either. Arrayan Path is power metal, which can be very awesome, but sometimes it can also be too over the top cheesy for me. “Ira Imperium” is power metal with balls. If not for the soaring vocals I’d almost say they were progressive rather than power. It really sort of straddles the line musically, but the vocals tend to put them on the side of power metal. Either way I’m really digging it.

Released by Cyprus-based label Pitch Black Records, this album sounds good from all angles. The production sounds great. The music is very bright and clear and the vocals are crystal clear and perched perfectly on top of the music. The instrumentation is all that you would expect from a power metal album and the singer has a great voice and range. As good as this sounds I’m surprised I haven’t heard of these guys before.

Apparently main-man Nicholas Leptos has several other bands as well: Diphtheria and Prodigal Earth. I haven’t heard of them before either, but I’m inclined to look them up after hearing Arrayan Path. But for the moment, why don’t you just check out “Ira Imperium” and let me know what you think.

The vinyl version of “The Mission” contains four songs, but the CD version includes two bonus tracks. My first listen through gave me the impression that Venomous Maximus play a stoner/doom style of metal. But on subsequent listens I feel like this could also fall into that retro classic metal niche occupied by the likes of Devil, In Solitude, Green & Wood, The Devil’s Blood, and of course, Ghost. Each of these bands has their own style really, they don’t sound alike, but they all have a certain retro metal feel about them that binds them together. The music and mix have a very raw sound that also reminds me of a retro 70s/80s Pentagram style sound.

The songs themselves are pretty cool. Lots of cool guitar riffs and the vocals are clean. The pace doesn’t get too slow like some overly trippy stoner/doom albums; they keep things fairly mid-tempo. The album has a bit of a southern voodoo vibe about it as well. Yeah, like if Black Sabbath had been from New Orleans rather than Birmingham, England. I also hear just a wee bit of old Acid Bath sound in there too.

I hope these guys are busy writing more songs because I want to hear a full length album. With the exception of Ghost, I like “The Mission” better than anything I’ve heard from the more well-known bands listed above. I want to hear what else they can do. In the meantime, to quote from their bio info – “Hail Satan and pass the chicken feet.”

Let me tell you, while I would eventually come to love the album, it was so different from what I’d been listening to that I wasn’t sure what to make of it at first. It wasn’t like all the crap on the radio that I rebelled against (the stuff I now lovingly refer to as my 80s playlist) but it wasn’t like the punk that I knew either (Ramones, Pistols, etc). Rather than power chords there is a lot of clean guitar work. And the song lyrics tend to be very bizarre and often times humorous. I guess what I’m trying to say is that there really isn’t anyone quite like The Dead Milkmen.

By the time their next album came out the musical landscape was beginning to change and for one reason or another I didn’t keep up with The Dead Milkmen. In the mid-90s they broke up and that was the last I heard of them. Their bass player killed himself in 2004. They got back together a few years ago with a new bass player and their latest album is called “The King in Yellow.”

The first track transports me back twenty years; the vocals still have the same punk snarky attitude that I remember. In my opinion the vocals are really the trademark of The Dead Milkmen. You hear that voice and you know who this is (assuming you know who The Dead Milkmen are in the first place.) By the second track I can see the music has changed a bit, there are distorted guitars as well as clean (though for all I know that changed a long time ago since I actually missed the four albums between “Beelzebubba” and this one.) The songs exhibit more structure than I remember from the old days, but despite that, songs like “Meaningless Upbeat Happy Song” still sound Dead Milkmen to me. They’ve matured musically I guess, but kept the irreverent attitude, I like that.

I can’t guess how the kids of today will react to this new album, it certainly doesn’t fit in with that wears the punk name these days. More than likely, just like in the old days, the people who gravitate to this album will likely be the ones that enjoy music that most other people don’t. That would include me. I’m really quite enjoying “The King in Yellow”; I think now I’ll have to go back and investigate those last four albums that I missed.

“Empire of Wolves” has seven tracks clocking in at 23 minutes. I’m not sure if it’s a long EP or a short album, but whatever. Listening to the opening track “Ephysians” I thought I knew what these guys were about. This track has a modern metal sound – well produced heavy music and harsh slightly screamed vocals. I was like, ok, I get it, sounds good, and all is well. Then I got to track two.

The second track, “She Wore a Crown” changes things up a little with the addition of clean vocals and some clean music as well. It switches back and forth between the style of the first track and something else I’m having trouble describing. The clean vocals are not what I would call in a metal style; I want to say it sounds like 90s alternative rock or something like that. This isn’t to say it’s bad, they do a good job with it; I was just rather surprised.

The third track goes back to the style of the first track, and the track after that heads even further into alternative rock territory (I’m seeing a pattern here.) This fourth track is called “Oceans” and while it does break out briefly into metal territory, for the most part it reminds of alternative rock ala The Goo Goo Dolls or something. The song is actually really good and catchy. Going back and forth like this between styles is a bit jarring the first time through the album. But after a few more listens I’m getting used to it. By all that is metal and holy, I think I even like it.

I was initially going to recommend they choose one style or the other and stick with it, but like I said it’s growing on me, and now I don’t think they should change anything. It’s kind of refreshing to hear something a little different than the norm. And of course it comes from Michigan, because that state knows how to rock.

Not sure what these guys bill themselves as, whether they consider it metalcore or just death metal. It could go either way in my opinion. I prefer melodic progressive death metal so I’ll go with that. The music and vocals are both heavy, though where the vocals are of the harsh variety the music definitely has a melodic side to it. It has lots of great lead guitar work which earns bonus point with me. The music is definitely driving and tight, but the melodic lead work supplements and contrasts nicely with the harsher qualities.

The production is top notch. The drums sound thick and punchy while the guitars are tight and crisp. The vocals, like I said, are harsh but have enough space in the mix that they both gel with and stand apart from the music. I like this because it stands apart enough to be heard distinctly while still sounding like a part of the band (I’ve heard other bands where the vocals sound distant from the music. Sure, all the parts get recorded separately, but in the mix it should sound like everyone is playing together in the same room.)

This album is a hands-down winner in my opinion. I’m sure Within the Ruins will only get bigger and better as time passes. The invasion begins with this album; I expect the next album will bring destruction and domination. Or at least another batch of killer tunes.

The music is pretty cool, I have no complaints there. I can get behind the music. But the “vocals” are a total disappointment on this album. I use quote marks because I can’t with any reasonable certainty confirm there are words on this album in any known language spoken today. The first problem is that the vocal track is not mixed high enough. But it’s not so buried that you can’t hear it at all. The real problem is that the guy sounds like he’s just clearing his throat or maybe running the garbage disposal. Sometimes something sticks in the disposal before going down. I’m not some dainty fellow who has to have his words finely enunciated and spoon fed, but really, I cannot make out a single word in this, it is just one constant gravelly drone like someone dragging a shovel across the sidewalk. Occasionally the shovel hits a seam in the sidewalk and there is a quick break in the scraping drone, but mostly that is all you get.

When I come across albums like this one, I always end up wondering what the other people in the band think when they hear the album and the vocals sound like a cement mixer full of pigs and razor blades. They release it, so they must dig it (and I’m sure there is an audience for this) but I can’t help thinking there is at least one guy in the band who listens to it for the first time and goes “Awwwww man, I learned how to play and practiced my ass off for this?”

Sorry guys, the music is cool, but the vocals are a total buzzkill.

“Structures Collapse” has five songs but it clocks in at a respectable 25 minutes, so it has some meat on its bones. My first impression was that this was going to be a pretty straight-forward brutal slab of metal, but on closer inspection it has a little more nuance than that. The music tends to be fast and heavy and even brutal, but it also exhibits a complexity that transcends simple brutality. The songs also come in different speeds than just fast and stopped; there are even some slow clean parts, for example about halfway through track two, “Deceivement” and the beginning of the last track, “The Aftermath.”

The vocals sound pretty good; they are very harsh and definitely contribute to the brutality of the music. I like them, my only minor critique would be to maybe vary the pitch a little bit so the voice is not quite so monotone sounding. I mean, it’s rather impressive being able to sing harsh and keep a steady note like that, but mixing it up more would only make the songs more interesting. Other than that the vocals are nicely seated in the mix. The production is pretty middle of the road. The mix doesn’t have a lot of punchy compression to it, but the recordings themselves are quality and do a good job of representing the style of music they play.

I like the band name too; it’s a little more creative than some of the multi-word death metal band names we’ve been seeing in recent years. Any day now I expect to hear of a band called Mashed Into A Pulp or Bloody Chunks Of You (I just Googled to make sure those weren’t actually band names, and it didn’t look like they were so I think I’m safe.) I realize there are many, many bands and today people are forced to go multi-word to find something that hasn’t been used, but some of these names are just goofy. Anyway, I like Humanity’s Last Breath, check ‘em out.

I remember exactly where I was that next morning when a friend called me up and told me to look on CNN. I had just gotten in to work and was turning on my computer. I told my friend he must be mistaken about who it was (he wasn’t a metal fan) but once I got online the shocking truth rocked me back in my chair and left me feeling disoriented. I couldn’t believe something like that could actually happen, it just seemed so unreal. The world lost an amazing talent and personality that day, and every year since on December 8th I play almost exclusively Pantera/Damageplan in honor of Dime. I say almost exclusively because December 8th is truly a bad day for music, as today is also the 31st anniversary of the killing of John Lennon. So I listen to Beatles/Lennon music too.

I had initially planned to write up “Cowboys from Hell” today but decided that was too narrow a scope for the occasion. As most Pantera fans know there were really two eras of the band: The pre and post “Cowboys” eras. The first three Pantera albums featured Terry Glaze on vocals and were much more in the hair metal vein. Their fourth album, “Power Metal” featured their new singer, Phil Anselmo. They would not entirely shed the glam sound until “Cowboys” but “Power Metal” started the transformation.

Back in the late 80s while I was in high school my first job when I was 15 was working as a bagger at a Kroger grocery store in Ann Arbor, Michigan. There I met this guy that was a few years older than me, was a metal head, and he was from Texas. He kept going on and on about some friends of his back home in Texas who had a band and how great they were. Lots of people have bands that never become anything, and I’ve met many people who talk a lot of crap to sound cool, so I didn’t really pay much attention.

Eventually the guy told me that his friends were coming to town to do a show at some bar (I think it was probably in Detroit, but it may have been Ann Arbor) and he wanted me to go with him. He said it would be cool and he’d introduce me to his friends. As I’m sure you’ve figured out by now, the band was called Pantera. To my eternal remorse, I declined to go to the show. I was like “what kind of name is Pantera??” I looked it up and found out it was Spanish for Panther. That did not sound nearly as impressive as Metallica, Megadeth or Slayer. Panther. I figured that would probably be pretty awful so I made up an excuse not to go, much to my eventual chagrin. It was like finding out at your reunion that the prom queen had a crush on you in high school but you made fun of her because you were too metal to realize what you could have had.

So a couple years later in the summer of 1990 (the summer after high school) I saw “Cowboys from Hell” in the record store and recognized the name as being that of the band I could have seen. I looked it over and decided to give it a try to see if it was any good. I don’t need to tell you that it was. The early 90s were a bit of a rough time for me and “Cowboys” (along with Voivod’s “Nothingface”) really helped me get through that period with my sanity mostly intact. I have very strong memories associated with that album.

“Cowboys” and “Vulgar” would end up being my favorite Pantera albums, but they are all classics. I sort of figured Pantera would get back together eventually, but obviously that won’t happen now. Nathan Gale made sure of it. I regret that I missed my chance to meet the band. I think it’s terrible that Phil never got to make up with Dime. I’m sad for all the music we won’t ever hear now. But at least we have a bunch of music to remember him by.

Here’s a Black Tooth Grin raised to you Dime. R.I.P.

Venom was like a malignant mutant growth on the face of music back in 1981 when “Welcome to Hell” was released. I don’t know what was in the water they were drinking but there just wasn’t anything quite like Venom at the time. The closest I can get to anything this different is Motorhead. I looked up heavy metal from 1981 on Wikipedia to see what else came out that year and here are some of the things I found: “Mob Rules” by Black Sabbath, “Killers” by Iron Maiden, “Point of Entry” by Judas Priest, “Too Fast For Love” by Motley Crue, “Diary of a Madman” by Ozzy, and “Fair Warning” by Van Halen. And then you’ve got Venom with their overt Satanism and Cronos with his nowhere near melodic vocal snarl. WTF?!?!

Whatever made these guys decide that (left hand) path was the one they should follow, I’m glad they did. Their second album, “Black Metal” is credited with both creating and naming the genre. But really these songs don’t sound much like what we consider black metal today (I think more along the lines of Mayhem and Emperor.) The vocals really sound more like they should fall into the death metal category, and the music could really be likened to speed and thrash metal. Bathory came along a few years later to pick up the black metal torch, but it really all began here.

My favorite Venom album is actually “Black Metal” because it contains the title track and the greatest Venom track of all, “Countess Bathory.” But “Welcome to Hell” has some great tracks as well: “Welcome to Hell”, “Witching Hour”, “One Thousand Days in Sodom” and the second greatest Venom song, “In League With Satan.” Complete with backwards messages and a catchy chorus that just gets stuck in your head, “In League With Satan” was probably most evil song of its time. This chorus of this song just runs over and over on repeat in my head after a single listen.

Venom is still putting out albums today, with Cronos being the only original member, but I like to stick with the classic albums mostly. They may not sound as extreme as the metal of today, but you have to give respect to what they created and all the music that has resulted because of them. They suffer from the same problem the Ramones did; they created a genre and get a lot of acknowledgement from fans, but never really found much commercial success. That’s a shame. They’ve got my thanks and gratitude.

Let me start by saying for an unsigned band they’ve got some pretty nice visuals. Their graphics and band photos all look professional enough to have come from a label. I have to give my compliments to Cosmas Hiolos Art & Photography for some great work.

The three songs I got to listen to were pretty good. Again, they did not seem like the work of an unsigned band. The recordings sound really good and the music is an interesting mix of progressive and death metal. The vocals are a mix of clean and harsh. I think I like the clean vocals better, mostly because in “Lifetrap” the harsh vocals were maybe a little low in the mix. “Manhunt” featured more clean vocals than harsh so it was my favorite of the two songs in the promo.

The music is much more on the progressive side than death. The harsh vocals are really the only element that leans toward death. All the players on these songs sound like they know what they’re doing and then some. If not for the harsh vocals I’d almost call them straight up progressive metal. Music sounds really good, I like it a lot.

Moving over to MySpace I also checked out the video for “Through the Shadows (I Rise).” I enjoyed the song; I can see why they chose it for the video. This should have been included in the promo (I can’t help but think maybe I didn’t get sent the whole promo somehow, because I see mention in their bio of a fourth song recorded, but alas, I only received two songs.) The video, like the other two songs, looks pretty professional.

I really like what I’ve heard so far and am looking forward to hearing a whole album from these guys in the future. I really like metal bands from Greece; I mean c’mon: Firewind, Septic Flesh, Scar of the Sun, Rotting Christ, and Suicidal Angels. The list goes on. I feel like a broken record saying this, but this is another band I hope to see signed to a label soon.

The production on the album is pretty decent for the style. You can hear everything pretty well, but I did have to turn up the volume a bit more than usual to hear it well. That may be my fault though; I might have done a poor job ripping it from CD.

There isn’t anything new or innovative about Jungle Rot’s death metal sound, but it is done well and you know what you are getting. The vocals are harsh but fairly intelligible. The music ranges from mid-tempo to fast and has a very military feel to it that reminds me of Bolt Thrower at times. It’s not just pure death metal though I guess. There are also a lot of group shout parts that lend a hardcore aspect to the songs. The main vocals sometimes remind me of Cannibal Corpse.

I like this album for what it is. If you are looking for something with pretty clean backup vocals or melodic keyboard filler, there are plenty of melo-death bands that can do you right. But if you just want driving pissed off metal without any frills or gimmicks, you could do worse than picking up the latest Jungle Rot.

Testimony is one of those bands all metal heads should have a chance to hear. My ears did an aural double-take when hearing “Transcending Reality.” I was very impressed right away and just kept shaking my head at how a band like this is so far unsigned. Metal labels take heed: someone needs to go snap these guys up.

The production on this EP is a little less than what you would normally hear from a signed band these days, but for an unsigned band (or even a signed band from the late 80s) it sounds pretty damn good. It doesn’t have much low end, which is ok with me, I like that sound, but a little extra punch wouldn’t hurt. The drums in particular could use a little more oomph. Otherwise the instruments are all recorded and mixed well.

The music is pretty awesome; these guys certainly know how to play their instruments. The guitar and bass parts are full of little fills and runs that make my clumsy sausage fingers feel useless in comparison. I don’t see Death listed as an influence, but between all the crazy lead-work and the harsh style vocals this sure reminds me of something from the “Symbolic” era. The vocals are a harsh gruff bark that reminds me of Chuck Schuldiner with a hint of Paul Baloff.

I would love to hear these guys with a budget behind them. “Transcending Reality” is a great listen as it is, but it would be cool to hear what they would do on a larger scale. This may not be the latest style in metal (though maybe it is, retro thrash is holding its own lately) but I really like it and I think there is an audience for this music. The only thing I would change is maybe the name; it’s a little too close to Testament. Other than that I say check these guys out, sign ‘em up and let us see what they can do. Good luck guys, let me know when you’ve got more material.

I’ve always heard San Diego is a pretty nice place to live, but maybe it doesn’t agree with the guys in Carnifex because they sound pretty pissed about something. “Until I Feel Nothing” is their fourth album (third for Victory Records) and I’ve gotta tell you it’s a real kick in the head. All the other music this week did a bit of a palette cleansing on me and now when I listen to Carnifex I’m like “yeah, baby, this is what I’ve been missing.” Their last album “Hell Chose Me” caught my attention last year, and Buke has been telling me that he really likes the new Carnifex, so I guess it’s time I pay a little closer attention.

I’m a bit of a dork in that I like to make violent analogies to describe how heavy or brutal an album is, and in this case “Until I Feel Nothing” makes me think of those scenes in movies and TV shows where someone steps off a curb and is instantly mowed down by a bus and catapulted at extreme velocity off the side of the screen. In this case I’m the person stepping off the curb and Carnifex is the bus that blindsides me and turns me into red jelly.

The production on this album has a mid-heavy crispness to it that is both rare for the style these days and yet is something I really like in a metal album. Maybe it’s because I’m half deaf from punishing my ears with metal at extreme decibels for over 25 years, and so I can’t hear the upper and lower frequencies as well, but I like music that hangs around in the middle. Makes it easier for me to hear what all is going on. That makes this album perfect for me.

There are some clean quieter moments (such as the ending of the title track) but for the most part this album beats you down like you’ve done it wrong somehow. The vocals are just brutal and soul piercing and the music flows between staccato militaristic precision and the flight of a giant killer metallic bumble-bee. If when you finish listening to this album you actually “feel nothing” you may be experiencing shock due to the blunt force trauma recently delivered to your brain via the ear canal.

Thumbs up for Carnifex, I say give ‘em a listen.

The very first time I heard Ronnie James Dio sing was on the Black Sabbath album, “Mob Rules.” At the time I did not know that this was in fact who I would come to know by his solo work as just Dio. Back in the early and mid 80s I used to frequent a music store at the Briarwood Mall in Ann Arbor, Michigan called Record Town. I would sift through the very small section they had dedicated to metal albums and pretty much decide what to get based on word of mouth or coolness of the band name and/or album art. By this time the first two Dio albums had been released and being an impressionable young lad you know the “Holy Diver” album cover drew me like a magnet. For whatever reason it took me several trips before deciding to pick up a Dio album, but I always came back because of that album cover.

When I’d finally decided to take the plunge and pick up a Dio album, I got to Record Town and saw that there was a new third choice, “Sacred Heart.” If I’m checking out a new band I tend to start with their latest album and work my way backwards. The reasoning being that if they suck now they probably sucked earlier too. That doesn’t hold water anymore, but at the time it served me pretty well. So rather than going with “Holy Diver” I picked up “Sacred Heart.”

As you can probably guess by the fact that I’m writing about it, I loved “Sacred Heart.” I’ve always had a special connection with it because it was my first Dio album and I listened to it over and over and over again. Over the years I’ve found that the rest of the world doesn’t seem to share the same high opinion of the album and I’ve never understood why; every song on this album is a good, if not great, song.

If there is one song on the album that I like the least, it is the lead off track “King of Rock and Roll.” The faux live thing is a little weird, but it’s still a pretty catchy song. The title track “Sacred Heart” is one of my favorites on the album, and this album is full of songs I love to quote. “Whenever you dream you’re holding the key, it opens the door to let you be free.” With inspiring lines like that along with the fantasy theme there was no hope that I would not fall madly in worship with RJD.

“Another Lie” is a good one (I woke up the other morning with the riff for that one running through my head for some reason.) “Rock ‘N’ Roll Children” the lyrics are kind of cheesy, but I was a kid at the time so I could relate with wanting to run away from it all. Plus it is a pretty catchy song. “Hungry for Heaven” while seeming to have a religious slant based on the title didn’t really seem that way to me. Rather, lines like “Oh just hold on, you can make it happen for you, reach for the stars and you will fly” continued to inspire me.

From here on out the rest of the album are all personal favorites. “Like the Beat of a Heart”, “”Just Another Day”, “Fallen Angels” and “Shoot Shoot.” Ronnie James Dio had the power to take any group of words and instill them with so much power that it just drove them deep into your soul and tattooed them there forever. In “Like the Beat of a Heart” the dramatic timing of the music combined with the lyrics “Now love can be a whisper, but pain will always shout… to …you…like the beat of a heart” is just so amazingly awesome that I cannot find words to express my adoration. I can nearly weep for its greatness. But it really doesn’t matter what he says, he just sounds great saying it. On “Fallen Angels” he sings “Sins of the children never get washed away” and he could just as easily have been saying “The stains on the children’s clothes, Tide washes it all away” and I’d be like hell yeah, man, I gotta get me some Tide. The power of his voice was magical.

Another set of lyrics from “Fallen Angel” that really caught my attention was the verse “You know something came to me in a dream, the crack of a gun and a bloody scream, then I could see the faces and why, I was holding a gun and the world began to die.” In a pre-Columbine world that last line really appealed to the teen angst revenge fantasy. For me it was less about actually shooting at people (something I would never do and would never recommend anyone else to do either) and more about having the power to make your tormentors run in fear. The bullied and picked on kids always dream about getting their come-uppance and this song helped me deal with it and become a fairly decent person in the end I think. I haven’t killed anyone yet at least.

When Ronnie passed last year I cried like a little girl. For days. Not a constant stream for days, but all I listened to for a week was Dio and whenever it was on at some point I was bound to break down and just blubber like a baby. The man was an icon and one of the greatest voices metal will ever hear. He was a big part of my musical life for over twenty years and from what I hear he was truly a gentleman as well. His like may never be seen again. I’m glad I got to see him perform a few times.

Everything he ever sang on is a gift and a treasure, but my favorite album will always be “Sacred Heart.”

R.I.P. RJD \m/

Whitemare features ex-members of Architects and Johnny Truant. While the name is familiar I don’t know that I’ve heard any Johnny Truant to make a comparison, but this certainly doesn’t sound like Architects.

“Snider” was recorded in two days and features eleven songs clocking in at a meager 18 minutes. The production is fairly raw sounding but surprisingly good given the short period of time in which it was recorded. The vocals are pretty harsh in a screamed punk/hardcore style. The music varies between punk and rock styles, a lot of power chord type stuff but there are riffs and stuff too. Think of it as faster rock music with screamed vocals and you’ll probably get the right idea.

I’m kind of on the fence about this one. It’s pretty good at doing what it is they do, but for me personally I probably wouldn’t throw this on very often. I don’t have anything bad to say, it just doesn’t fall into the scope of my normal listening habits.

I was trying to check out the SimpleXity site to learn a little more about them, but much like I was this week, their site appears to currently be hacked and defaced. I was able to find out a little on their Facebook page. They mention playing prog rock in Egypt was tough, and without anything else to go on I assume that is because things like rock music are frowned on by the powers that be. Watching Sam Dunn’s “Global Metal” made me realize how much we take for granted in being able to play and listen to the music we love. Some places it is actually dangerous to be in a rock/metal band and that is so tragic. I don’t know how bad it is in Egypt, from what little I’ve read it sounds like maybe not as bad as other places (I hope) but still, that there is any resistance to the freedom to express oneself through music just blows my mind and makes me sad.

“Click to Start” is a very nice collection of five songs. The music is mostly clean and has a laid back groove in what makes me think of a Pink Floyd sort of style. I don’t listen to a wide range of prog bands, just the basics, so there may be a better comparison I’m not thinking of right now. There are some slightly fuzzed out guitars from time to time that break out of the box I just put them in. The first track, “A Lone Wolf’s Dying Will” doesn’t sound Floydian at all.

The vocals are all clean and melodic and fit very well with the style of music they are playing. These songs assist me in my plan for a stress-free holiday season because they make me want to just sit back and relax and listen to every little nuance in the songs. I’m very much digging these songs. It also helps that the production is very clean and professional sounding. No complaints in that department at all.

I can’t think of anything at all that I don’t like about these songs. They obviously have talent and know how to write good songs. I’d like to hear more music from these guys and more rock/metal music from Egypt in general.

Looking at the band photo I suddenly feel ancient as these guys look really young. I’ve probably been a metal fan much longer than they’ve been breathing. Be that as it may, and however old they are, their EP is sounding pretty competent so far. They bill themselves as metalcore/hardcore, and I just got done saying how I’m not a big fan of metalcore, but this does not sound like the metalcore that bothers me. In my book I’d hardly call this metalcore.

The vocals are mostly varying degrees of harsh, so they don’t do the “we sing harsh in the verse and sound like Sugarcult in the chorus”-thing which is my biggest problem with metalcore. There are some clean vocals, but not of the type I just mentioned.

The music is pretty cool. It’s got a bit of a groove to it and I enjoy the guitar playing. The songs are not all that fast, which is not a problem at all, but they might consider writing some quicker material too just to mix things up a bit. The last track of the five is “Victory and Vengeance” which features a lot of piano/keys and a fair amount of shouted spoken lyrics before getting kind of heavy near the end. Interesting track, wasn’t expecting something like that based on the first four songs.

The production is middle of the road for an unsigned band; it’s pretty clear and sounds good enough for demo purposes. I’ve heard far worse. I would like to hear a slightly crisper production and they could definitely benefit from mastering the mix to compress it and give it more punch. Other than that I think they’ve got the right idea. Just keep on writing and playing shows and with time and experience things will only get better from here. Good luck!

I’m not much of a fan of metalcore to begin with. The style just seems very contrived in order to be extreme and yet palatable at the same time. That just doesn’t seem very metal to me. That’s what happens when labels try to keep the rebel attitude and package it for the teens hanging out at the mall. That being the case a metalcore band has to try really hard to get me to like them. And some do. But I’m not a real fan of this album unfortunately.

One thing metalcore usually has going for it is that the production quality tends to be really good, but “Almost Heaven” sounds rather muddy to me. I’m listening on $500 Shure headphones, so I don’t think Some metalcore bands evolve into something better over time and maybe these guys will as well. I think they have the talent to do so, they just need to think about sounding more original, less commercial and maybe get a cleaner production. the problem is on my end. I gave it a listen yesterday and now again today and it just doesn’t sound real clear.

The album isn’t completely unlistenable. It sounds like they can play well; I’m not going to knock their musicianship. And the singer has some potential too. But I don’t like the style they play and I really don’t like the clean vocals they use. Mixing harsh and clean vocals is fine, but when the clean vocals sound like Fall Out Boy or Sum 41 or some other pop-punk band, that’s a problem. Give me Bruce Dickinson clean vocals, not Blink 182.

Some metalcore bands evolve into something better over time and maybe these guys will as well. I think they have the talent to do so, they just need to think about sounding more original, less commercial and maybe get a cleaner production.

One of those other interests happens to be chant and choral style music. It’s not something I listen to all that often (though I did recently purchase a collection of Haydn’s Choral Works after loving the soundtrack music to the video game Skyrim) but this style of singing is just so incredibly relaxing. Since you all know how I’ve been complaining about the stress brought on by the holidays lately this seems like a good choice for today.

“Dark Side of the Chant” contains thirteen tracks, most of which are cover songs, but there are four original pieces as well. The lead track, and the one that sold me on this album, is a cover of Carl Orff’s “O Fortuna.” I actually bought a Carl Orff CD many years ago to own this song. I absolutely love this song, and so do you whether you know it or not. The song is so very epic (perhaps the most epic of all) and gets used all the time in movies and television and probably advertising as well. I first came to know the song in the 1981 Arthurian movie “Excalibur.” It’s songs like this that bridge the gap between classical and metal.

Gregorian also do chant covers of “Hell’s Bells” by AC/DC and “All I Need” from Within Temptation. I have to say hearing “Hell’s Bells” in Gregorian style with lines like “Satan’s comin’ for you” was a bit spine tingling. One normally expects to hear lyrics of praise in this style, so it was pretty cool to hear it go the other way for a change (even if it’s only the ultra homogenized AC/DC.)

That rounds out the metal covers, but there are also covers by other popular mainstream artists such as Depeche Mode, Nazareth, Evanescence (bleck), Madonna and the Alan Parsons Project. I wasn’t real keen on the Evanescence cover due to my distaste for that band, but Gregorian does a good job of it anyway. Madonna translates surprisingly well to the style.

I realize the hardcore metal heads out there may not find this to their liking, but this isn’t exactly mainstream radio fodder either, so maybe you might get into it. You know what I would really like to hear? I’d like to see Gregorian team up with Ghost for an album or even just a song. The evil pope backed up by a chant band, now that would be awesome. Anyway, think what you want, I like this album and will probably be playing it regularly over the next month.

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely fucking HATE the album. I could not even listen to the whole thing all the way through because it was just So. Damn. Awful. The difference here is that I don’t blame Metallica at all. Not even a little. I lay all blame at the feet of the most ridiculous excuse for a singer ever: Lou Reed.

For most of my music listening life I’ve heard people praise Lou Reed, and he is always on the Rolling Stone lists of top however many rock albums of all time. I think this is so much pretentious bullshit, because the man does not sing. Not even a little. He fucking talks. He doesn’t talk with a slight melody, he just fucking talks. There is nothing interesting or innovative or talented there. He may write poetic “lyrics” and they may be great poems if you are into that sort of thing, but a singer he is not. (I will refrain from sidetracking too much with a rant about my other talker pet peeve, Kanye West. Dude doesn’t even rap; he just talks in a monotone from what little I’ve been subjected to. Another no-talent bilking the masses. But then rap sucks, so whatever.)

So by default anything that contains the voice of Lou Reed is going to instantly meet with my undying spite (bonus points for the “Dyer’s Eve” reference.) Even the harshest of death metal vocals are at least appropriate for the style of music being played, but just talking and not even trying to sing just isn’t acceptable to me.

So why don’t I blame Metallica for consorting with Lou Reed? Mostly because they are Metallica and (other than St. Anger) they are allowed to do whatever the hell they want in my opinion. They’ve shaped the sound of metal and played with orchestras so it just makes sense that in order to stay fresh and happy they would try something “avant-garde” like this album. I understand that. Then there’s the most important reason. Lou Reed’s voice may grind on me until I want to scream, but if they actually like what he does, well, more power to them if they want to work with him. That’s their choice and they are free to do whatever they want, just as I am free to not listen to it.

Heavy metal is about doing what they tell you not to, not doing what everyone expects of you. People tend to forget this when they are busy bitching about how their favorite band has betrayed them. So go out and burn your Metallica albums if you want, I think it’s a bit childish, at some point you’ll realize how dumb that was and you’ll end up buying (or stealing) another copy. Because most of the Metallica catalog is classic, and you always come back to the classics. Let Metallica enjoy this if it makes them happy, and eventually they will go back to doing what they do best and we will be happy too. Until then, just don’t buy it if you don’t like it. Nuff said.

I remember hearing about these guys when they were called Metal Skool. I also picked up a copy of their last album, “Feel the Steel” when that was released. These guys are hilarious on so many levels (which I’ll get into next) but at the same time they really are good musicians too. I mean the songs are cheesy (by design), but still well written and the production is very high quality. Sometimes I tend to forget how good they are because they are so funny.

How funny are they? Well I suppose that depends on your perspective really. Having grown up during the hair metal era I can very much relate to the over-the-top over-sexed persona excreted by Steel Panther. These guys are such a great parody of the way things were. Visually they look like any other hair band from back in the day, which is to say, ridiculous. Spandex and hair spray and bandanas make me chuckle before I even hear them.

If you are easily offended this is probably not the album for you. Most Steel Panther songs (if not all) are humorous tributes to chasing, catching, defiling and dumping the fairer sex. I wasn’t really into those types of songs back in the 80s, but not only are these songs hilarious on their own, they are such a great exaggeration of the way things really were. I mean honestly, some of the 80s hair metal was nearly this wanton and lewd. It was like a contest to see who could get away with the most lascivious innuendo.

In case you were wondering just how filthy these songs are, just peruse some of the song titles on this album: “Supersonic Sex Machine”, “17 Girls in a Row”, “It Won’t Suck Itself”, “That’s What Girls Are For” and the soon to be classic love song “Weenie Ride.” Hell, they are all love songs. From a certain point of view.

I love Steel Panther. I can never have enough Steel Panther. I can’t help but worship at the temple of Steel Panther, because something this wrong makes me feel so right. So check ‘em out and laugh your ass off while rocking out to “Balls Out.”

“Måsstaden” is their debut album, and as far as debut albums go this one sounds pretty impressive. The music is, as I mentioned, technical and heavy. It’s at times frenetic and choppy, maybe that is this so called djent style at play. While it prevents the music from having a smooth flow, it does sound interesting and makes the listener work a little. There are two vocalists, each using varying styles and pitches of harsh vocals. There are some occasional clean vocals as well.

The more I listen to this album I can’t help but compare this to what it might sound like if Korn were really, really heavy and played death metal. I guess I might add the avant-garde label to this as well. Maybe Wikipedia knows what it’s talking about after all lol. There are a lot of clean and quiet intros and there are also several instrumental tracks.

This is definitely a complex and interesting album and it falls into a category of music that I think really has to be studied to be truly appreciated. With only a few listens it is easy to hear that this is a good album, but to truly learn and appreciate it I think will take at least a handful more sittings. To me that sounds like a cop out, but really, I don’t think two runs through the album is enough to “get” this album. Casual dinner music this is not. So it seems I’ve got homework.

Conceived in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and brought to fruition in San Francisco, California, Midnight Chaser rather surprised me by playing some really old school pre-thrash era metal; late 70s early 80s kind of stuff. Their bio mentions Judas Priest, Deep Purple, Saxon and Diamond Head if that gives you an idea of what they might sound like.

Keeping that time period and the bands above in mind, I think Midnight Chaser really hit the mark that they are aiming for on this album. The music on this album transports me back to my middle school metal origins, and other than having more low end than anything in the 80s, the style is pretty dead-on accurate for the time. Some people may knock this album and call it unoriginal and stale, but not me. I feel like I never got enough of this style the first time around so anyone willing to pick up the torch and run with it is cool in my eyes.

The music is pretty basic riffs and power chords. This is the type of playing that made me want to pick up the guitar in the first place all those years ago. It’s not complex, it’s not original, but it’s still cool and it does the job. The leads hearken to a time before players all jockeyed to be the most technical shredder in the land; more soul, less theory. This music is supposed to be fun.

This leads me to the lyrics. Touching on the mainstays of early metal (partying, chicks and manly things like war and fighting) the retro image is complete. The vocals of Scott Attwood tie everything together and make it all work. I think he’s got a great voice and that is a big part of what keeps me interested in this album. He doesn’t hit the really high notes that can be really annoying in excess, and he doesn’t go real low. He hangs out in the middle singing clean, melodic and clearly which makes deciphering the lyrics a cakewalk.

I have to give kudos to Heavy Artillery for putting out an album like this one. Maybe I’m an old fart who is biased towards this style of music, but maybe this is just a good fun album. It’s a real palette cleanser for me to take a break from all the extreme metal and remember how cool the music was back in the day. Now when I go listen to some melodic death metal it will have that much more punch by comparison. Take a quick history lesson and check these guys out.

These guys are really hard to pin down; the styles just keep changing as the songs go along. “The Curse” has a guitar part that reminds me of Bob Seger’s “Turn the Page” or something like that. They also seem to have an obsession with Hayley Williams of Paramore (as evidenced by the track “Things I Would Do Sexually to Hayley Williams.”)

The album, which sounds pretty good other than sometimes it has a slightly distant quality that makes it sound like it’s actually playing in the next room, contains a variety of styles. It has a crusty punk sound, a metal sound, a poppy sound, and even some goth-like piano (and some Sisters of Mercy-like breathy vocals). While I wouldn’t call them technical, they do seem to have a grasp on playing and mixing different styles competently. They can turn on a dime and change a style immediately, which rather reminds me of local band Polkadot Cadaver, though perhaps with a bad case of ADD.

The songs are built to offend, covering date rape, STDs and the aforementioned defilement of Hayley Williams. But once you get past the lyrics and all the style changes this is actually a pretty interesting album. I can say with confidence that I have not heard anything quite like this before and the fact that they aren’t just making noise lends a little credibility to the tongue-in-cheek obscenity. If they were just going for shock value and not caring at all about the music I wouldn’t like them very much, but it sounds like they spent just as much time on the music as they did on writing silly lyrics, so I can get behind them.

I don’t expect this is something I’ll listen to all the time, but it is worth checking out. Where will they take this next? And will the world be ready for it?

So imagine my excitement a few weeks ago when I learned their new album, “Outer Isolation” was imminent. I contacted Heavy Artillery hoping they would hook me up with a promo so I could review it right away. Awesome purveyors of metal that they are they took care of me and then some. I received it yesterday and have been obsessively devouring it since. By the second track I was sporting some nice goose bumps on my arms. Safe to say I’m going to like this album.

Another comparison I’ve heard from just about everyone is that the vocals sound similar to Schmier of Destruction. Yeah, I can hear that now that I think about it, but it wasn’t immediately what came to mind when listening to this album or “Black Future.” I actually was picking up some Dani Filth in some of the higher pitched voice cracking screams. Whatever you want to compare them to, the vocals of David DiSanto are pretty damn amazing. The guy has got some serious harsh vocal range and seems to jump back and forth effortlessly.

And the music. Holy hell. Lovers of thrash metal could not ask for anything better than that provided by Vektor. It’s fast as shit, technical, heavy, melodic, crisp enough to hear every note and just in general simply awesome. These guys sound nothing like the aforementioned Voivod, but the lyrical content and some of the riffs do seem to give a sort of nod (or perhaps a slight bow) in the direction of Voivod. The album is called “Outer Isolation” which in my mind I keep accidentally calling “Outer Limits” (a Voivod album). Again, this sounds nothing like that Voivod album, I’m just amusing myself making connections because I’m such a huge Voivod fan. And also such a huge Vektor fan. Hey, both V words too.

So anyway, thrash metal mavens take heed: If you have not yet had the pleasure of slavering over one of the fine Vektor releases, now is the time to do so. Warbringer has been my thrash of choice these last few months but now it’s got some company on the upper shelf of my esteem. Highly recommended. Someone put these guys on tour and ship them to the east coast please!

Their site also compares their singer to Glenn Danzig, which is an awfully bold statement to make, but listening to the album I can hear it. They both have that way of holding a note and turning it into a sort of howl. That is very identifiable to Danzig and now that I’ve recognized it I’m having a hard time not hearing it. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it does make it harder to judge the album without mentally comparing it to Danzig albums. At least it sounds more like older Danzig than newer Danzig lol.

The music is pretty much middle of the road mid-tempo hard rock/heavy metal fare with plenty of distortion. It’s not as hippy sounding as some of the stoner bands, it definitely leans a little more towards a classic heavy metal style. There are some cool riffs on here. I’m not sure I’m entirely pleased with the guitar tone; it could almost stand to be a little crisper and a little less fuzzy, but that is just personal taste and not a technical flaw.

Based on what I read before listening to the album I was hoping for something that really excited me. That didn’t happen exactly, though this is a competent and fairly enjoyable album. I think they do a good job with it, and I’ve decided the Danzig thing endears them to me a little more, but at the same time it doesn’t really stand out from the pack of other bands doing this style. So I can get behind what they are doing, I’m just hoping for something that kicks me in the ass a little harder next time.

In the little I’ve talked with Savopipo over email and from the bio material included with the CD I can tell that underground heavy metal music is very important to him. I can very much relate to his point of view and applaud him for bucking the system to do things his own way. A true artist is more interested in the fulfillment of creative expression than in record labels and album sales. While I am of like mind, it is also an unfortunate fact that it is rare for such altruistic efforts to be rewarded with widespread attention from the music community. Money makes the world go ‘round and if you aren’t looking to make a lot of it for someone else you just won’t get promoted. I think that sucks, so that’s why I’m glad to promote a band like Black Anima as best I can here on my site. Keep doing what you do brother!

“Dark, Depressed and Lonely” is for the most part raw old school style black metal but it also includes elements of more traditional mainstream metal as well. My first impression was of early Satyricon mixed with old Priest and Sabbath. The music is cold and raw and sounds like it was recorded in a basement, and it would not surprise me if that is exactly what he wanted it to sound like. The vocals are a mix between traditional harsh black metal vocals and a clean almost punk-like snarl. At first I thought the clean vocals might bother me, but after a couple listens it doesn’t. This is experimental non-corporate music; I’m not going to knock him for doing something a little different. Maybe a little less reverb on the clean vocals though. Just when you think you know what the album is all about, they throw in a cover of Motorhead’s “(Don’t Need) Religion”. That was an interesting surprise and it sounded good.

This album probably isn’t going to appeal to typical metal listeners, but I don’t think it was intended to be for them. The people that are going to dig this album are the misanthropic loners that survive on the most raw and un-polluted metal. If you like your metal pure, raw and from the heart then this might just be for you. The rest of you can go listen to Slipknot or some other mall metal if you like, but I’m going to give this another spin.

Listening to “Unveiling Retribution” I wouldn’t have thought these guys were unsigned if it didn’t say it in the bio. This album sounds pretty damn slick. The production is great; better than you hear from a lot of signed bands. And the band sound really tight too as though they’ve got years of experience together. It looks like they’ve only been together since 2008, so that’s pretty impressive. One of the labels could just walk in, sign these guys, and distribute this album as it is right now.

The music is billed as melodic death metal on their ReverbNation page, but that label makes me think of Swedish bands that don’t sound anything like Bless the Child. There certainly are melodic elements, and the music sounds fairly technical as well. But it’s also really heavy and aggressive too. The vocals are harsh and vary up and down from lower to higher range; however the intensity in them is unrelenting in your face brutality. I expect these guys generate some serious pit Olympics.

Beginning to end this is a solid slab of aggressive metal. You should give them a listen. You can hear them on ReverbNation or Facebook. I would recommend they get this up on iTunes where people can buy it. I’m not seeing it up there, which surprises me. I would be really surprised if these guys stay unsigned much longer.

Leather Nun America (not to be confused with the Swedish 70s rock group Leather Nun) are a California stoner/doom metal band who formed back in 2003 and “Kult Occult” is their fourth album to date. Looks like I’m going to have to do some back-catalog shopping on these guys.

I’m still getting over the perception shift from what I was expecting and what I’m hearing. I’d glanced at some highly rated reviews for this album in some of the metal magazines, but a lot of what they rate highly I end up hating (that’s just personal taste mind you, not a judgment of the magazines or their reviewers) so I didn’t pay it much mind. Silly me.

Leather Nun America is less doom in the Candlemass sense and more in the Grand Magus with maybe a hint of Acid Bath vein. The songs are more mid-tempo than slow but the riffs are low, heavy, fuzzed out and plentiful. And unlike many doom records where nine songs would clock in at well over an hour, “Kult Occult” is a meager 37 minutes. No long drawn out songs on this album. I suppose you would call this more stoner than doom, but whatever.

Given how fuzzy the guitars are I’m surprised how good the production is on this album. They are fuzzy but don’t lose cohesion, so the mix is actually pretty tight. The drums could use a little love in the mix, they aren’t very punchy, but the stringed instruments compensate with a lot of punch of their own. The vocals are clean and melodic (in a stoner metal slightly bluesy sense).

The second to last track on the album, “Damiana” switches gear and goes acoustic. Then, after another audio clip from “Easy Rider” (the first precedes the opening track) the final song “Leadcatcher” returns to the heavier rifftastic frenzy of the rest of the album.

There’s a lot of so-so and passable stoner/doom metal out there but I think this one is better than most. Definitely worth checking this album out, and I’ll be looking into the earlier albums myself.

The three songs on this single are “Fxxx You Very Much” (their censoring, not mine), “Stand for You” and “Angry Face.” Let me start off by saying the recordings sound quite good. Everything is nice and clean and has good separation; my kind of recording. I really like the guitar tone on these songs and the singer’s voice is pretty incredible too.

The music reminds me of a cross between traditional hard rock/metal and 90s alternative with a twist. Whatever you call it, I think it sounds good. The guitars are heavy and kind of bluesy. The vocals are clean and deeper than I expected. They also have a bluesy quality to them, sort of like Bad Company if Paul Rodgers had a deeper voice. The last song, “Angry Face” starts off making me think of a slower, deeper and looser version of “Unsung” by Helmet. Then the singing starts and it sounds all HarryBigButton.

I have to say Korea, I’m pretty impressed with HarryBigButton. I really dig these three songs. I hope I’ll get to hear more when they round out a full album. Until then, stay heavy Korea!

Their bio lists them as death metal, tech metal, and grind with a heavy groove. That sounds about right to me. I’m digging this because it has the heavy and kind of brutal death metal aspect going on, but at the same time the music retains a tight form where you can get off on the chunky riffs (see “The Absence of Reason.”) The songs have structure to them that is often lacking in death metal these days. And the vocals, while thick and harsh are also intelligible enough to make out what he’s saying. That is always a bonus in my opinion.

For an unsigned band I would say the production sounds pretty good. I might expect a little more from it given the experience of some of these guys, but honestly it is good enough. I would like to hear a little more crispness in the mix and a little more punch in the low end instruments, but that is just nitpicking. The more I listen to this album the more I like it, so who cares about the little details like that right?

There’s been something stylistic about this album I haven’t been able to put my finger on and I’m starting to want to say it has an epic feel to it. Epic is something I would normally associate with power metal or doom metal, not death metal, yet some of these songs just sound…large. There is this feeling that I find hard to put into words, but it is big and open and speaks to me of larger than life songs. I may not be able to accurately describe it, but it definitely helps to set these guys apart from the herd when I am listening to it.

I hope Wretchedpain finds their way onto one of the larger metal labels. I’d like to hear where they go from here.

Dethmore play a raw old school sounding death metal. This is, after the week I’ve just had, just what I need. Think “Arise”-era Sepultura with deeper vocals and you’ve got “Know Your Enemies.” I like the basic tracks of these songs; they are raw and primal. I’m not as sure about the lead guitar parts. I’m not sure if the leads don’t fit some of the songs or whether it’s just a mixing issue, but some of the leads seem off. Other than that, I think the songs are pretty cool.

“Know Your Enemies” clocks in around 19 minutes, which seemed short until I remembered it was an EP. The production quality of these recordings isn’t all that great but it didn’t bother me. I liked how the guitars sounded and the vocals were mixed well on top of the music so I was happy. I would maybe work on integrating the leads a little better and maybe try to bring the drums up higher in the mix so they sound more prominent and heavy. Other than that I think they are on the right track and just need to keep writing more songs and get them recorded. Good luck guys!

This week I found myself facing a lengthy road trip and thought it would be a good opportunity to try this app. I enjoy games that work my mind, and I’m very visually oriented, but for some reason I’ve never been a big assembler of puzzles. It’s probably because I have a hard time associating abstract pieces with each other to form a whole. I’m also very literal, and abstract things often leave me scratching my head.

So let me throw some details at you. There are two versions of the Action Puzzle Metal app, a lite version which you can pick up for the low, low price of free, and the full version which goes for $2.99. The lite version, as you may have already guessed, has a limited amount of material and the full version has more. Well what material are we talking about, George? This is where things get interesting.

What makes this app stand apart from other puzzle apps is the fact that these puzzles are based on heavy metal music videos. So rather than static unmoving pieces you get to work with little chunks of video and assemble a working song. You start with one song and have three choices for puzzle style: squares, classic and challenge.

With Squares all the pieces are…you guessed it…square, and all you have to do is rotate the pieces to be upright and then slide them around in the correct order. I like this one, no in and out pieces to match up; it’s a lot more my speed.

Classic mode lets you choose from different style pieces, including the classic puzzle piece. This makes things a little more difficult, but I gave it a couple of tries and managed to finish, so it wasn’t too much harder.

In order to unlock more songs to play with you have to play in the third category, Challenge. This pits you against a timer and makes you solve the puzzle in time in order to move on. That sort of pressure doesn’t usually make for fun in my book, but it was pretty satisfying when I did manage to unlock new songs.

The songs are provided by a handful of Nuclear Blast artists including: Blind Guardian, Hammerfall, Amorphis, Sirenia, Korpiklaani, Sonic Syndicate and others. An interesting game gets even more interesting when you get to listen to some good music while playing.

For me personally, I think I like matching up video rather than static pieces. At first it seemed like it would be harder because it keeps moving, but I think the moving bits of video help me line things up better by matching up the motion in the different pieces.

I think this is a clever way to present puzzles and I have to admit it certainly made the long hours on the road a little more tolerable. So thanks for letting me check it out. You too can give it a try by visiting the Apple App Store.

Allow me to make a rambling aside for a moment and mention how I think the “Big Four” should really be the “Big Eight”. You’ll get no argument from me that Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax and Slayer deserve the title they’ve collectively been given, but I would like to put forth that thrash would not have been thrash as we know it without the contributions made by Testament, Exodus, Overkill and Death Angel. Just saying.

We were excited to see our first show in a brand new venue. The Fillmore looks big and flashy on the outside, and inside everything is nice and new. It’s like the 9:30 Club only bigger, newer and way nicer. No offense to 9:30, but damn, this place is nice. We headed up to the second level and grabbed a railing overlooking the left side of the stage. They even have two tiered railings so more people have something to lean on. Very cool.

One thing we couldn’t help but notice was that the best area in the house, the upper level dead center, was roped off and had tables and chairs. No one was in there and we wondered how one gets those seats, as gen admin was all that was offered online. Buke went over to ask someone, and it turned out this was the VIP lounge that you could upgrade to on the spot. I was having some wicked back trouble and was pretty tired too, so I immediately shelled out the extra cash to upgrade us. Next thing we know we are seated dead center in a cushy chair with a table, food and drink menu and someone to serve us. Each table had a little red light you could turn on when you wanted something and the waitress would come get your order. Now this was how you see a show. I ordered an IPA and told her to keep ‘em coming.

Death Angel was up first. This was my third time seeing them – the first time was in 1990 on the “Act III” tour and the second time was ten years ago at Jaxx on their comeback tour after a ten-year break. This third time was rather surprising for me because all of a sudden there were all these strange white guys in the band. What the hell? No offense to said white guys; this just was not the classic lineup I was used to seeing. They sure sounded good though. Death Angel has always been a killer live band and this show was no exception.

Next up was the mighty Testament. With four of the five long-time members present, and rounded out by the amazing Gene Hoglan on drums, it was a real treat to see Testament again. Unless I’m forgetting, and after all these years I wouldn’t be surprised, the last time I’d seen Testament was in 89/90 for the “Practice What You Preach” tour. It seems strange that it has been so long, but I guess it’s true. It was cool to see Alex Skolnick on board, I didn’t think he liked playing metal anymore. I saw him a year or two ago when he was on tour with Trans-Siberian Orchestra, which was also very cool.

Testament played a good mix of classics, even some of the real old stuff. Some of my favorites included “Disciples of the Watch”, “Over the Wall”, “Envy Life” and “The New Order.” Chuck Billy’s voice still sounds amazing. I had several beers by this point and was having a great time. I think Buke’s mind was blown by how awesome these guys were.

As great as the first two bands were, the best was yet to come. I’m not ashamed to admit I got a little teary-eyed when Anthrax took the stage with Joey Belladonna out front. I was lucky enough to see Anthrax on both their “State of Euphoria” and “Persistence of Time” tours and this was like hopping in a hot tub time machine for me. Joey and the rest of the band still sound incredible; it was like they’d been together this whole time.

They played a nice mix of material from the new album as well as the earlier Joey albums. New songs included “Earth on Hell”, “Fight ‘Em Til You Can’t”, “The Devil You Know”, “I’m Alive” and “In the End.” I tend to like older material when it comes to bands like these, but the new Anthrax material is just phenomenal. Classic tunes included “Among the Living”, “Caught In A Mosh”, “Madhouse”, and “N.F.L.” They also did their cover of Joe Jackson’s “Got the Time” and a sadly headdress-free version of “Indians.” When they got to the “war dance” part of “Indians” Scott stopped the show and let the crowd know that the “war dance” part cannot have less moshing than the beginning of the song. Suitably chastised, when the song started up again the floor went fucking crazy. I’ve seen many a pit in my day, but I cannot recall a show in a venue like this where the entire floor, from one side to another, was one teeming writhing pit. I was impressed.

During the encore they also did a quick cover of the Sepultura classic “Refuse/Resist” with Scott on vocals. That was an unexpected treat. Not surprisingly the closing number was “I Am The Law” and they tore it up. The show ended and sadly it was time to leave. But what a night it was; three great bands, great seats, tasty beer and my good friend Buke to share it with. I really hope more metal bands will add the Fillmore to their list of stops because I would really like to go back soon.

The first track, “Death of an Angel” had me thinking pre-grunge rather than post because the initial impression brought to my lips the name of Husker Du. Listening further I was also reminded of Afghan Whigs. But the more I listen I have to settle on Dave Valletta. Don’t know that guy? Well maybe you should, he’s the singer and drummer for Positive Chaos (hmmm who else was a singer/drummer? Grant Hart of Husker Du, perhaps?)

Whether by design or budget the production sound on this album makes me think of Nirvana’s “Bleach.” Just like that now classic album this is a raw no-frills production where everything sounds clear and is mixed reasonably well, but rather than glossy it feels like matte. Normally I would be pushing for a slicker production but something about this album makes me prefer raw over polished. I really enjoy Dave’s vocals just as they are.

I really like this album. Thanks for sharing guys. So I already told you what the best part of running this site is, want to know what the worst part is: Receiving music from great unsigned bands, and other than posting a review with a pat on the back, not being able to do much about it. That makes me want to start my own label and sign up some of these bands. What do you think? Does Rock Music Records have a nice ring to it? (Don’t even try to steal the domain you online filthy cretins, I already picked it up. Just in case.)

Anyway, Third Brigade hail from Norway and play an interesting mix of alternative rock and metal. Looking around online I’ve seen them compared to the Deftones, Tool and Chevelle among others. I can’t speak to the Deftones reference as I’m really not a fan of that band. Not really a Chevelle fan either but I think I’ve heard enough to say I can hear that one a little in the vocals. The Tool comparison is very subtle, but I do hear it now and again in the guitar and drum work. Third Brigade, however, don’t sound anywhere near as dark as Tool. I probably wouldn’t have picked out any of those comparisons on my own. The style of this album is somewhat familiar but it really doesn’t bring specific bands to mind.

The music is heavy enough to get my attention and catchy enough to keep it. I’m curious to know what Europeans make of these guys. I really have no concept of what music scenes are like in other countries, I only know that music in the U.S., if it’s popular it’s probably crap. All the best music in this country goes ignored by the media. I’d like to think that outside the sphere of influence of American Idol and X Factor music tastes are dictated by personal preference and not the packaged garbage we are expected to enjoy over here.

I don’t often listen to new rock music this accessible (mostly because accessible American music has no soul and sounds plastic) so I’m digging being able to really enjoy this album. The production sounds great and the songs are well written. I really like the guitars and the singer has a cool voice. I came of age at the beginning of the grunge/alternative era so this style takes me back (dear gods, is that era going to start sounding retro now too??) and reminds me that there is good music outside the realm of extreme metal.

I wish these guys well and hope they will be around for a third album. I wonder if they’ll get over to this side of the ocean, and if so, who they would tour with? I would be very curious to know that tidbit. For a nice change of pace, check out Third Brigade.

Ville joined in 1996 and recorded his first album with the band: “Down”. This is where I first became aware of Sentenced. I may have seen the earlier albums in the Tower Records in Ann Arbor but with a name like Sentenced it probably didn’t register as something that might interest me. I used to spend hours poring over all the music at Tower looking for new bands. (Other than magazines there wasn’t much in the way of music discovery back then. The internet was just starting to become widespread but I had not yet come to realize its potential.) All the metal was mixed in with the general rock population, so I would go A to Z through all the music and look for anything interesting (I used to get terrible neck aches from staring down at the CD racks for so long.)

Sometimes I found things I was looking for and sometimes, frustrated after looking through everything and nothing jumping out at me, I would make impulse purchases just to justify the time spent searching. After all that looking I couldn’t leave empty handed. On one of those seemingly fruitless days I saw “Down” sitting there with its unassuming cover and decided to give it a try since it was released by Century Media. I bought the CD and went out to my car, popped it in the CD player and headed home. By the time I’d reached home I was bouncing off the walls with excitement. I expected some really bad death metal, what I got was something else entirely.

I did not know this at the time, but “Down” was more mid-tempo than the earlier releases. The music was crisp and clear with catchy riffs and melodic leads. The vocals, while having a rough raspy edge were also very melodic in their way. I don’t know that I’d ever heard anything quite like that before “Down”; it seemed either you played brutal or you played melodic, but not a mix of both. I could not stop listening to this album; I was instantly obsessed with Sentenced.

I told anyone that would listen about this great new discovery, but the only one I recall that actually shared my devotion to Sentenced was my friend Josh. I picked up all the earlier albums, and liked them to an extent, but none of them came close to how I felt about “Down.” By the time the next album came along I had moved to Maryland.

If you are at all familiar with Sentenced you know many of the songs are very depressive and forlorn. This was the other half of what made me love them so much. I was one morose metalhead back in those days and hearing these songs which were so frank and honest in their despair made these Fins my kindred spirits. Just like in math, two negatives made a positive. While “normal” people would listen to Sentenced and comment that it was horrible and made them want to kill themselves, to me and thousands of others it was proof that someone else knew how I felt and could relate. For years, when life would serve up a steaming hot turd sandwich, rather than sitting on the couch with a tub of ice cream or drinking myself into unconsciousness I turned to Sentenced to heal my wounds.

“Down” is full of great classic Sentenced songs: “Noose”, “Shadegrown”, “Bleed”, “Sun Won’t Shine” and one of my all time favorites – “Warrior of Life.” The album also featured some back-up vocals from Vorph of Samael.

The best things never last, and in 2005 after eight albums, Sentenced had run its course and the band decided to call it quits and go out on top. I was shocked and upset by their decision, but at least I had a great catalog of music to look back on. I had come to appreciate the Jarva era, but the Ville era was still my favorite. In 2009 the hope of a reunion died along with founding guitarist Miika Tenkula.

Brief is the light.

The first word that springs to mind is melodic. They’ve got melodic down on this album; it practically oozes from the headphones. The second word to come to mind is catchy, which makes sense as melodic and catchy go hand in hand. I’ve mentioned before that some power metal bands take these qualities too far and produce music that is just too sugary for my tastes. This album comes awfully close to crossing that line. It dances up to the edge but stops just short.

The music is fast-paced with lots of drums and guitars and keyboards. I could almost picture these guys playing with an orchestra because the music feels like it wants to be huge and soar across the sky on wings of metal.

The vocals are very well done. Strong and melodic, I picture this guy standing atop a seaside cliff with wind blowing in his hair and belting out the lyrics while extending one reaching arm toward the heavens. Sorry, that sounds a bit corny, but hey, good power metal transports the listener, and I’d say I was just transported to a seaside cliff lol. And since the music has wings, it will swoop down and pick up the singer and fly out over the ocean and onward toward Valhalla. I’m being silly, yes, but I’m not making fun of the band. Those are just the goofy things that go through my head when I hear melodic and emotional music like this. I probably saw “The Never Ending Story” too many times as a lad.

In all seriousness, though, this is a pretty good album. It’s obvious these guys have talent. The songs are great, but I could use a little more oomph on the production. It seems a little thin. These songs seem to want a bigger, thicker, punchier production to really do them justice. That would be truly epic.

Buke and I arrived around 3:30 as we were set up to do an Opeth interview at 4. We originally wrote questions that were geared toward Mikael, but several days before the show I found out we would be interviewing Opeth drummer Martin Axenrot. So we frantically wrote a new set of questions that would be more appropriate for Martin. We arrived and got in touch with the tour manager, who informed me that Martin was still asleep and asked if we wanted to interview someone else in the band. Luckily, I had the Mikael questions on my phone, so we asked for him and he was available.

I was hoping to have some time to get set up ahead of time, but as soon as we started setting up Mikael came in and sat down. We were told we had ten minutes. So Buke engaged Mikael in conversation while we frantically set up the video gear. Because I was trying to hurry I made a few set up mistakes and the camera wouldn’t turn on. It only took a minute to find and fix the problem, but I was embarrassed and felt the clock ticking as well.

I feel like I rushed through the questions hoping to get in as many as I could. I skipped a few lesser questions because I wanted to get in some of the later questions on the list. Buke added some improv questions as well. We ended up with about thirteen minutes of usable footage.

I’d like to thank Mikael for being a total gentleman and enduring with a smile what seemed to me like a bit of a Keystone Cops interview. He was very polite and friendly and talked with us more after the camera was off. He took a picture with us and then went on his way.

We couldn’t hang around in the venue so we left to take gear back to the car and go get something to eat before the show. We had purchased early entry tickets before the interview was scheduled, so we were able to get in and pick our spot for the show without issue. We took up residence on the upper level on the balcony nearest the stage. I regretted that I wouldn’t be able to get photos from different angles (because I’d never get the spot back once I left it) so we picked the best spot and stayed there. Our friend Greg arrived shortly before the show and hung out with us until the end of the show.

Katatonia was up first, and I was very excited to see them for the first time. They sounded great and played a great set. It was nice to go to a show that didn’t have five or more bands playing, just two good ones.

There’s been a lot of online complaining about this tour because Opeth haven’t been playing any of the old material that involves growling . And I’m sure a lot has been said about it in the Blabbermouth comments section. But like I said above, I think this was probably the best Opeth show I’ve ever seen. So quit your whining.

On “Heritage” the songs have a vintage sound quality to them, but they are still “heavy”, just not death metal heavy. Well, live the songs ran the gamut from being very heavy (with clean vocals of course) to clean songs and even acoustic. Whatever they played sounded amazing, and say what you will, but I still felt like I was at a metal show.

During the interview I asked Mikael about whether his not doing harsh vocals meant he wouldn’t be doing Bloodbath anymore. He gave a rather noncommittal response, saying Opeth is what he does creatively while Bloodbath is just something for fun. I hadn’t really expected to get a firm response to the question, but I was curious.

So you can imagine how surprised we all were, when on this, the last show of the American tour, it wasn’t Opeth that came back out for the encore, but Bloodbath! I knew that Bloodbath contained members of both Opeth and Katatonia, but it hadn’t really occurred to me that the entire band is in either one or the other band. Looking back on it now, I can’t believe I didn’t think of it ahead of time.

The lights were off and the crowd was chanting “Opeth! Opeth!” Under cover of the dark, people came back on stage, but when the lights went back on, it was Bloodbath, not Opeth who stood before us. Let me just tell you, I got goosebumps. The crowd went absolutely ape-shit knowing what was about to happen. Mikael explained that since it was the last show of the tour they wanted to do something special for us. They proceeded to play “Soul Evisceration” and “Eaten.”

There had been some mosh pit action during both the Katatonia and Opeth sets, but now the floor became a swirling sea of bodies. Mikael’s clean voice is beautiful and amazing, but to be surprised with some full-on Bloodbath death vox at the end of the night was pure bliss. Up until that point I had been starting to tire from a long day, but I was suddenly pumped full of energy, which took quite awhile to come down.

What can I say? It was simply an incredible evening. Great music, friends, an interview, it was perfect.

Check out photos from the show using the link below:
Opeth & Katatonia photos

During the show I made some comments on Twitter regarding Junius. In a nutshell I said that the people at the show were not in to them, that they sounded like a metal Coldplay singing out of tune, and that they did not belong on the bill. Taken at face value, and due to the Twitter character limit, I can see how those posts would come across mean, cruel and more like something you would find in the Blabbermouth comments section.

I don’t feel like I should have to explain myself, but I’m going to anyway because I don’t want to give the impression I had or have anything against Junius. Anyone that has the guts to get up on a stage deserves the respect of the audience. Period.

I’ll own up to the first comment being mean, I could have phrased it differently, but it was true – the crowd was not into them. I was trying to be funny to amuse myself and rather than being funny it was just mean. I often make jokes with the only response being the sound of crickets, but I do not generally try to be funny at the expense of others. I’ll apologize for that one. The other two comments I stick by to varying degrees.

I also said they sounded like a metal Coldplay playing out of tune. This comment was not an attempt to be funny but an honest assessment of what I was hearing. The singing does rather sound like Coldplay, I’ve confirmed that now that I’ve listened to the album, and he WAS singing out of tune. Now, to be fair to Junius, after posting that comment it became apparent they were having constant problems with the stage monitors (not surprising at Jaxx) and so the singing out of tune with the songs was likely the result of the singer not being able to properly hear the music rather than a lack of singing ability. But I never questioned his ability to sing, I only stated that he was out of tune.

The other comment I made was regarding them not belonging on the bill. That apparently came across to people as my judging they were not good enough to be on this tour, and that is understandable looking back at the post, but that was not my intent. Twitter character limit again. What I meant by this was that they would have been better served (as in fans getting into the music) by being on a tour with similar styled music acts. The local support prior to them was death metal, and Enslaved, while a little proggy lately, are historically a black/death metal band. I thought Alcest was black metal too, but as it turned out they seemed more like Junius than the other bands. Given that I believed this was a death/black metal show, Junius just seemed the odd band out. I was concerned the extreme metal fans were going to boo them off the stage because they seemed more rock than metal, but indifference was as bad as things got.

A little over a month went by and I received a copy of the Junius promo for “Reports from the Threshold of Death”. I gave it a listen and you know what, it’s not bad. The press sheet for the album lists a quote from Rolling Stone that says they sound like a mix of Neurosis and The Smiths. I can hear that a little, but I think they sound more like Katatonia meets Coldplay. My wife, not a metal fan other than by association, came up to me while I was playing the album on the computer and asked (in all seriousness) if I was listening to the new Coldplay. I rest my case.

So after all the banter and explaining, what do I really think of the album? I think it’s pretty good. It can easily straddle the metal/rock/alternative genre lines. It’s kind of shoegazer metal. This probably isn’t the first album I’d reach for when I’m feeling whimsical or moody, but it is actually very well done and I can see why people would dig these guys. If I was feeling down or heartbroken this would probably be just the thing to help me cope.

These guys first came to my attention about ten years ago with the release of their fourth album, “Ageless Venemous.” They played an old school death metal that seemed like it was influenced by Slayer and Kreator and other early extreme metal progenitors. I remember seeing them play at Jaxx in Springfield, Virginia (I want to say they may have been with Deicide? Cannibal Corpse? I need to find the old ticket stub) and I was pretty impressed that three guys could sound so good doing technical death metal.

Members of the non-metal-listening community have been known to say it takes no skill to play heavy metal, and they are of course dead wrong. But it is undeniable that there are many death metal bands around who may have the ability to play loud and fast, but who do not cultivate any songwriting skills and so put out bland, generic sounding music. Hearing the rare band like Krisiun really reminds me that we should expect a little more from death metal. Brutal death metal is great, but let’s not throw songwriting out the window just for the sake of aggression.

Krisiun very obviously know what they are doing AND they have songwriting skill. The music is fast, the vocals are harsh, and there is separation of the different elements so you can hear what everyone is doing (maybe it helps to be a trio?) This makes me happy because they don’t just play fast; they play real riffs and real lead guitar solos like you would get in a thrash band, only in death metal style. And they are not afraid to mix things up a little either; track 6, “The Sword of Orion”, near the very end, there is some fast lead guitar work that sounds suspiciously like Spanish or classical guitar mixed in with the metal. How cool is that? Very cool I say.

It occurs to me that while the title “The Great Execution” refers to the act of ending a person, perhaps a great many persons, but it also applies in this case as the great execution of a new album.*Cue rim shot* I know, I’m corny, don’t all throw rotting fruit at me at once.

“A Fragile King” turned out to be quite the happy surprise. Vallenfyre is billed as a death metal band, but I feel there is a heavy doom influence at work here as well (not surprising giving the band members.) This is by no means typical death metal. First of all the music, while often fast, also has moments where it really slows down into low gear and the low end just rumbles. Hell, the low end rumbles when they are playing faster too. The tone of the guitars is heavy and distorted but also muted in a way; it doesn’t have that sizzling white noise kind of distortion, more like distortion with smooth edges if that makes any sense. I’ve heard similar tone surfing through guitar effect boards, but have trouble describing it. Anyway, this tone along with the bass lends itself to being extremely heavy while remaining tight enough to not sound sloppy or muddy. Gregor’s vocals are harsh and deep but very enunciated making it possible to easily straddle the line between death and doom. Everything together makes me think of what it would sound like if Frost Giants formed a metal band: larger than life and totally crushing.

I read that the album was inspired by the passing of Gregor’s father. As part of his grief therapy he was told to write things down, and being the musician he is, these writings turned into lyrics. The lyrics became songs and he gathered friends to form a band to record the songs. What an incredible, and dare I say, heart wrenching, story. It certainly gives a bit of insight into the poignant album title “A Fragile King.” Catharsis makes for great music.

The album isn’t incredibly long at only 42 minutes, but I enjoyed every one of those minutes. I was about to say I hope this isn’t just a one-off project, but while looking to see if there were any tour dates (coming in 2012) I saw on the Century Media website that this will not be a one-off, so that is great news. I expect next time around I won’t be taken unawares when they get ready to release new material. Oh yes, I’ll be waiting. Check this album out, and turn up the bass until the floor rumbles!

About a decade ago there were a couple Megadeth albums that didn’t really thrill me very much. But you can’t keep Dave down, and eventually he found his way again. The discs since then have all been on par with what I expect from a Megadeth album.

I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to see Dave back on top. The only thing that could have shocked me more than the news that the Metallica and Megadeth camps were now all friends again, would be peace in the Middle East. I never thought to see those two bands together. Ever. Can world peace be too far behind? If anything could bring the world together, metal could. I’ve seen there are readers of this site from just about every country in the world, and heavy metal music is the common tie between them all. If only that bond could translate into something even bigger.

Pipe dreams aside, there’s a new Megadeth album hitting stores today, their thirteenth in fact, and it is appropriately named “Th1rt3en”. This album marks the return of Dave Ellefson, long-time Megadeth bassist, who left the band for eight years after a disagreement with Mustaine. That’s another mending of fences that I am glad to see.

Dave’s musical inspiration has always seemed to feed off of the political and social issues of the day, and it seems he’s had plenty to get angry about lately because on “Th1rt3en” his disdainful snarl sounds sharp and ready to draw blood. The riffs and solos are equally as sharp; I don’t think anyone has ever been able to combine frenetic fret board gymnastics with catchy, melodic and above all rhythmic riffing in such a way as to compete with Megadeth. You may be faster, or more melodic, but nothing quite compares to the Megadeth riff catalog (see “Train of Consequences” from “Youthanasia”.)

“Th1rt3en” I’m not surprised to report, also has thirteen tracks. I like some songs better than others but I don’t think there’s a bad one in the bunch. Right now my favorites are the ones we’ve been hearing for awhile now, “Sudden Death” and “Public Enemy No. 1”. In the album closer, “13”, Dave acknowledges that he has been to the well thirteen times, yet after all these years we still want him to bleed. But he refuses to die. Cool track.

I recently heard Dave was having back troubles that almost caused them to not play the Big Four show in New York. Hopefully Dave is back in fighting form soon and takes this show on the road. I’ve seen them a few times in the last few years and the show was always incredible. It occurs to me that I’ve seen Megadeth perform in three different decades, and that seeing them again would mark a fourth decade. Man, we are getting old lol.

Some people may consider thirteen an unlucky number, but it doesn’t seem to be showing any ill effects for Megadeth. It certainly hasn’t slowed them down any.

I believe the album came out in 1984, so this was in a pre-“Master of Puppets” world. The music fell somewhere between wanting to be hair metal and something a little heavier; not quite thrash. The vocals were melodic and could be a little on the high end at times, but back then that was still pretty cool. Most of the songs have a Halloween theme to them, “Scared to Death”, “Trick or Treat”, “Haunted”, “Tales from the Crypt” and so on. A few of the tracks diverged from the theme, such as “Justice for All” which, as you might guess, complains about no justice in the justice system. Listening to it now, that song still holds up pretty well. Though to be honest, the nostalgia factor on this album is so high with me that I still really like all the songs.

My favorite song on the album has always been the title track, “Don’t Metal With Evil.” It had the added bonus of a backwards message at the beginning of the song, which cranked up the coolness since backmasking was being demonized in the media at the time because, you know, heavy metal is so evil and all. Those evil heavy metal bands were going to use hidden messages to get us all to kill ourselves. That would make a lot of sense from a career standpoint right? I don’t remember what the message says; I haven’t had the album on LP since I returned it my school friend. I just Googled it and it says “Our message is easy to understand. Don’t metal with evil.” So yeah, pretty evil stuff, better be careful.

For years this was a difficult album to track down. The only copy I had was a cassette recording I made from the LP. Eventually the internet came along and sometime after that eBay, which is where I eventually found a copy on CD. I was questioning whether I should write about this album because I didn’t think anyone would be able to find it, but lo and behold, it is now easily available on iTunes. That’s pretty cool, but hunting down rare albums just isn’t what it used to be. The hunt and discovery was almost as good, if not sometimes better, than enjoying listening to the end result. The times they are a-changing.

So Happy Halloween to everyone. Today of all days, play the metal loud. Now where did I put that Fastway album…

Bands such as Black Sabbath, St. Vitus, Trouble and others can all lay claim to a piece of the original doom metal pie, but Candlemass, specifically with Messiah Marcolin on vocals, was the one that captured my imagination. “Epicus Doomicus Metallicus” was the first Candlemass album, featuring Johan Längqvist on vocals, and is a classic in its own right, but “Nightfall” was their first album that I heard and will always be my favorite.

I can actually remember the day I picked up “Nightfall.” I was living in Michigan, in high school still, and it had to be sometime in late 1987 or early 1988. It was my first trip to the local Ann Arbor new/used record shop landmark Wazoo Records. I can’t say enough good things about Wazoo, the place has character and has been around forever. Ann Arbor being an extremely liberal college town, Wazoo always had a good selection of underground music, more punk than metal, but I still made some good finds there (I also discovered one of my all time favorite bands here, The Ramones.) As I recall there was a small metal section toward the back and I was flipping through the LPs when I came across “Nightfall.” The cover, featuring a classic painting by 19th century artist Thomas Cole, is very dramatic and held my attention. I’d read about this Swedish band somewhere so I knew it was supposed to be good, and how could I not be drawn in by the image of the singer dressed in a monk’s robe? I bought the LP.

In those days I had a combination turntable and dual cassette tape deck. I got the LP home and popped it on the turntable. How could I know the awesomeness I was about to experience? My first two thoughts on listening to “Nightfall” were “Wow, that is some heavy music” and “Holy crap, what a voice on this guy!” I was hooked. My only regret was that, while vinyl sounds cool, it’s not very portable. I kind of wished I’d gone for the cassette version, but I was just sucked in by the large album art. I would later remedy the portability problem when the album became available on CD.

The whole album is a classic, there isn’t a song on there I don’t enjoy, but I do have my favorites. And they are probably the same favorites that most Candlemass fans cite: “At the Gallows End” and “Samarithan.” Sure, “At the Gallows End” is a similar story to “Hallowed Be Thy Name” by Iron Maiden, which came out five years earlier, but it’s still such an amazing song that I can’t help but love it. “Samarithan” has a religious theme (I assume it’s from a biblical story, but I’m not that familiar with such things so can’t say for sure) and speaks of how showing kindness to a poor beggar can help ensure a spot on the right side of the pearly gates. I can do without the religious aspect of it (though the song is so powerful it makes me understand how a good sermon could move a congregation) I just think it’s a good story; more a metaphor for how all people deserve a little kindness, a roof and some food. Kindness is its own reward and all that.

Some of the other standout tracks on the album include “The Well of Souls”, “Dark are the Veils of Death” and “Bewitched.” You really can’t go wrong with anything on this album. And it’s so good to enjoy the whole album from end to end. It’s not a concept album, but it certainly has a mood which extends across all the tracks.

Over the years Messiah Marcolin has left, come back and left again. There have been other singers and other albums that have kept Candlemass going, but “Nightfall” will always be my runaway favorite. I hear they are planning to release an album in 2012 with current singer Robert Lowe (of Solitude Aeturnus) and then disband again. I’ll still hold out hope for one more Messiah album somewhere down the line.

On “Dust Devil” the vocals are clean and the guitars are fuzzed out and grungy. Kind of makes me think of Bad Company meets Black Sabbath meets Jimi Hendrix. There is no shortage of cool guitar parts on this album; some of them quite catchy even. The vocals are also pretty catchy most of the time. The songs can wander around for a little while, but you expect that with this style of music.

Ok, about halfway through the album something is going very wrong with my copy of the album. It’s skipping like crazy and driving me nuts. My files must be corrupted or something because I’m sure this wouldn’t be happening if I was listening on disc. Every thirty seconds or so the music just pauses for a millisecond like someone bumped the arm on a record player. Arghhhh. Well, I’m sure that’s my problem and not something inherently wrong with the album.

Despite the technical problems I had (It got better by track 7, so 5 and 6 were the only problem ones) the production quality of the album sounds pretty good. The mix gives the impression of space which fits the style of music very well. And while the album has a very retro feel to it, the sound quality is crisp and clear.

There’s not much that sounds original in the rock/metal world anymore, everything retreads and reinvents what came before, and this album is no exception. It travels the same old ground others have before, but not that many people are on this road right now and Lonely Kamel does it pretty well, so I can get behind this album.

I think my intense fascination with doom metal the last few years probably stems from the fact that so much of metal these days is about faster, harder, harsher and being more brutal. I love these things about metal, but if that was all I listened to all the time I’d get completely desensitized and forget what I liked about it in the first place. Like if you really loved pizza, and you decided to eat it every day, after awhile you’re so used to the taste of pizza that you don’t even notice the things that made you love pizza. Doom metal, aside from being crazy awesome in its own right, is also a good palate cleanser that helps me to keep perspective about heavy music.

One of the interesting things about Isole is that while they are mostly a traditional epic doom type band, they also include some harsh vocals that give them a funeral doom sound. The clean vocals are in the majority, but there are harsh vocals that add accent and emphasis in places and really do work well in the style. I’m not as fond of funeral doom bands because it mostly sounds like really slow death metal (or the eternal grinding of tectonic plates) and I tend to become bored. A nice sprinkling of it mixed in with traditional doom is actually perfect.

If you are a hardcore doom fan then you were probably already waiting for this album. Rejoice! It’s a classic waiting to happen. Other metal fans may still need to be turned on to Isole. Well here is your wake up call. Go. Check. Out. Isole. Now.

Hell yeah they can.

“Creators of the Downfall” has six songs, three studio and three live. By the end of the first song, not even the end really, I was a fan. So I’m pretty sad that I’m only getting a small taste now. I’ll have to wait until next year for more, when the full-length “When Eternity Ends” is released.

Other than the fact that they are also metal, Sacred Gate bears little resemblance to the bands mentioned above. There really aren’t any bands that jump immediately to mind when I try to think of something similar to the sound on this EP. Their bio sheet mentions that they want to show that traditional heavy metal is timeless. Listening to these songs I have to agree. You can say that this style is instantly dated to the 80s, but plenty of bands still play in this style now, so really this could have been recorded in the 80s, the 2010s or anywhere in between.

I like power metal, but some bands in that genre are a little over the top with the melodic vocals and flashy style. There are plenty of great power metal bands, but in some cases the singer sounds like they picked them up from a Journey cover band and the guy looks like a French poodle in costume from the set of The Three Musketeers or something. It’s just too much.

Sacred Gate is not that kind of band. The music is traditional heavy metal. The vocals of Jim Over are melodic, but they stand well on their own, they aren’t accompanied by masses of soaring backup vocals that detract from a metal song in my opinion. I’m straining my brain trying to think of a singer I can compare to Jim Over. Maybe a little bit like White Wizzard but not quite so high pitched?

It doesn’t really matter who or what they may or may not sound like. This is some really cool heavy metal and that is all you need to know. The EP is not widely available at this time, but you can check them out on their MySpace page to hear what they sound like. I hope Sacred Gate will hook me up with “When Eternity Ends” when it is released. I’ll be looking forward to hearing more.

Kingston, Ontario appears to be on the opposite end of Lake Ontario from Toronto, which explains why I see these guys have also played with Laugh at the Fakes, a great unsigned band out of the Toronto scene. So this makes the third interesting unsigned band from that area I’ve heard in as many months. What’s even more interesting is how none of the three bands sound like each other, yet they are all pretty heavy and enjoyable. Sounds like it must be a pretty creative area.

“The Good Girl You Were Before” doesn’t have as slick a sound quality as you would hear on a big label, but the songs are cool so I don’t really care. The only reason I really bring it up is because I could totally hear these guys with a big-time production doing something really crushing. Good songs are good songs but a good mixing and mastering crew can make a good album a great album just by adding another level of power and punch.

So let’s talk about the songs for a minute. They are mostly slow to mid-tempo with good heavy riffing and a definite groove. The vocals have a harsh edge, but not like a death metal edge, more of a Jon Oliva (Savatage, Jon Oliva’s Pain) kind of thing; a harsh edge but still melodic. My favorite things about this album are the guitars and the vocals. I enjoy the heavy chunky guitar parts (gives almost a doom feel at times) and the vocals are raw and gritty while also being very emotionally expressive.

My wish list for a third album is a more solid/thick/punchy production quality, and adding a second guitar player to help thicken up the sound. Something songs with a little faster tempo would be cool too, but not a necessity; I’d just like to hear what it would sound like. Other than that, I think these guys are on the right track for writing some great memorable tunes.

So I was pleasantly surprised, and a bit skeptical, when I found out that my current hometown of Frederick, Maryland would be graced with the presence of Warbringer, Lazarus A.D., Landmine Marathon and Diamond Plate. We had Motley Crue and Poison here a few months ago at the fairgrounds, but that place is always a draw for national country artists so a little hair metal wasn’t that unusual for the crowds you see around here. Thrash metal though, well I just never thought to see artists of this caliber roll through Frederick. I confirmed the show with Century Media and got hooked up to interview John Kevill of Warbringer as well. It just kept getting better.

Getting to the show was a ten minute cakewalk. Buke drove as usual and we parked around the corner from the venue, Café 611 on Market Street. I’ve been up and down Market Street (the main drag in downtown Frederick) but I had never noticed the place before. We sat for a few minutes taking in the area. There were several trailers being unloaded and gear was being humped into the building.

We didn’t see anyone we recognized so I called up the number for my contact, who happened to be John Kevill himself. We weren’t scheduled until 6:30 and it was only around 6, but I wanted to find out if we could start setting up the camera gear so we’d be ready for him on time. John said he was out and about but that he would meet us out front in 15 minutes. We grabbed the gear and waited out front and before long a tall familiar looking guy with long hair and a camo jacket walked up to meet us and we made introductions.

I wasn’t sure whether we would be doing the interview inside or outside so I brought a couple different setups to make sure we were covered. We ended up walking around to the back of the building where there was a patch of grass and a brick wall for a background. It was a little windy back there, so I was glad that on the way out the door I had grabbed a Rode Dead Kitten windscreen for the mic. Like I said I had hoped to be set up by the time John came around, so I worked quickly trying to get the tripod, camera, mic and lighting all set up in a hurry. I figured John had better things to do than wait around on us, you know? We got everything set up and I hoped in our haste we didn’t forget a setting or any other fatal error.

Personally, I thought the interview went great. John was very easy to talk to and gave thoughtful and interesting answers. Check out the interview video in the next post. Afterwards John and Buke geeked out a bit talking about Starcraft and then Buke and I went back to the vehicle to drop off some of the gear we wouldn’t be taking in to the show.

We headed inside Café 611 and I was impressed by the setup (for Frederick anyway). I know from pictures that normally there are dining tables on the floor, but it was all cleared out giving a reasonable amount of standing room and there was a bar in the back. I tipped back a couple Heineken and took some practice shots on the local opening bands. My apologies to them, I did not catch their names, but they sounded pretty good.

The first of the touring bands to hit the stage was Diamond Plate. I did a review of their debut album a few months ago and knew heading into the show that I was going to like them. I felt really old because they looked really young, but they sounded great. I should note that was another thing I liked about Café 611, the sound was perfect and all the bands sounded good on their sound system. I wandered around taking pictures until the band finished their set and then Buke and I went outside to talk while waiting for Landmine Marathon to set up. (It was pretty cool that we could walk out the front door and hang and then go back in. Most places won’t let you do that.) While we were out there we ran into Adam from Warbringer and chatted with him for a few minutes and took a couple pictures.

We went back inside when Landmine Marathon started playing. Singer Grace Perry is just as smoking hot in person as she is in the photos, and she can sing like a demon. She will give any guy a run for their money when belting out harsh brutal vocals, and you could tell she was in this…place…where she was just really living in the song. It was pretty intense. The rest of the band was crushing as well. Drummer Andy had a pretty amazing chest-piece tattoo as well. It was cool to see them play so recently after reviewing their latest album, “Gallows.” It reinforced my opinion that I wrote the right review. This band is one to watch. After their set we went back outside and ended up talking with Andy and Dylan for awhile (this was the second time now that I should have turned on the camera to film, but they just got finished playing and it didn’t feel right so I left it alone.) We talked with them so long we ended up missing the beginning of Lazarus A.D. It was good talking with them though, best of luck to them on the rest of the tour and in the future.

Lazarus A.D. was actually the only band on the tour I had not recently reviewed. But I really like both their albums already, so I knew they would sound good, and they did. Sadly the entire show did not generate as much of a crowd as I would have expected, maybe it’s the Frederick thing and no one knew they were here. Or maybe everyone went to the Sonar show in Baltimore the night before. Whatever the reason, the people that were there got really whipped into a frenzy by Lazarus A.D. This was another good set.

Finally, Warbringer took the stage and they owned the crowd. John Kevill is a really good front man and he really gets into the songs. He repeatedly jumped down off the small stage and moshed it up with the fans, at one point bloodying his nose and shrugging it off. The crowd may have been small but it was an intense and good natured set. They ripped out some killer thrash tunes, but rather than looking grim and unapproachable like some bands who might take themselves a little too seriously, they had more of an Anthrax approach, like “we are here to rock you, we are going to enjoy ourselves doing it, and we are all going to have a good time.” It’s a good vibe.

After the show we saw John again outside with Grace. We did the starry-eyed fan thing and said how great the show was and got our pictures taken with them. Then we packed up and headed back to Buke’s place to watch the Caps game on the DVR. It was a great show, a great night and even the Caps won.

I’d like to thank John Kevill for taking the time to interview with us as well as all the other band members who took the time to hang out and talk. Thanks to Nikki at Century Media for setting it up. It looks like this show will be on the road for at least a couple more weeks, so if you have the opportunity to check it out I highly recommend it. You don’t see many touring shows that are packed with this many great bands, so don’t miss out.

Check out the Flickr link below for some of the photos from the show:
Warbringer show photos

I’ll also be posting the video interview with John next, so make sure to check out that too.

My sister first introduced me to Insomnium back in, oh, probably 2003 when she brought over a copy of their first album, “In the Halls of Waiting.” She was living in Norway and was regularly picking up new music that I had never heard before. It’s a matter of pride with me that I always try to find new and exciting music before everyone else, so I felt a bit jealous of the access she had to European imports and local Scandinavian music. Anyway, she got me a copy of the first album and then Candlelight sent me a copy of the second album, “Since the Day It All Came Down” for review. So I’ve been keeping an ear in their direction for some time now.

In the past I had a real problem with the vocals being buried. I’ve always loved the music, but much like some of the earlier Amon Amarth albums the harsh vocals blend in so much with the music they are hard to make out. That problem isn’t entirely resolved on “One For Sorrow” but it is definitely easier to make out the vocals from the music. The music has always been so great on their albums that I’ve never understood why Insomnium are not a bigger band. Most people don’t care about the vocals like I do, and the songs are superbly crafted melodic death metal with a hint of doom.

Bringing up Amon Amarth again, “One For Sorrow” does remind me of them a bit. I mean, Amon Amarth is Viking metal, which Insomnium is not, and Insomnium is probably more melodic, but the songs are so…big…and epic. And the harsh vocals are of a similar deep rough style as well. Insomnium does some clean vocals but mostly harsh. I would never mistake one band for the other, it just occurred to me while listening and thought I would mention it.

The weather outside today is dark, cool and threatening to be wet and I have to say cranking this album in the headphones while gazing out the window feels appropriate. It’s satisfying to the soul. It’s like chicken noodle soup after coming in from the cold. Despite being death metal I can’t help but pick up a slightly melancholy feeling from the music (probably the keyboards) which goes well with autumn.

So many great albums have come out recently; I hope Insomnium doesn’t get lost in the shadow of giants. For my part, I think you should check this album out.

When I had the cash I would drive an hour to get to Rock of Ages and spend at least another hour poring over all the metal CDs you couldn’t find back in Ann Arbor. It wasn’t unusual for me to pay $25 or more for an import from Grave Digger, Running Wild, or any number of the emerging Scandinavian black metal bands at the time. This was also the first place I came across Cradle of Filth right before “Dusk and Her Embrace” was released.

“Stormrider” included the now classic track “Angel’s Holocaust” which completely blew my mind with the whole symphonic/choir element. I was a hopeful musician myself at that time and had been thinking how metal and classical Wagnerian style music would be incredible together, and Iced Earth showed me the tip of the iceberg of what was to come in terms of symphonic metal and confirmed my theory. Needless to say Iced Earth became the new hot item in my collection.

Soon after I learned about what would come to be a trend with Iced Earth: singers are fleeting, Jon is forever. I picked up the first self-titled album next and was unimpressed by the vocals of Gene Adam. John Greely was maybe a little high pitched for my tastes at the time, but I really liked him on “Stormrider.” So I was rather disappointed when I found out the next Iced Earth release, “Burnt Offerings” featured yet another singer, some guy named Matt Barlow. It took me awhile to warm up to Matt, only because I was used to Greely. By the time “Dark Saga” dropped, however, I was firmly in Camp Barlow.

For awhile things were good, but eventually all good things must end and Matt left and was replaced by Tim “Ripper” Owens. At first I thought this a bit strange. Ripper of course had been tearing it up with Judas Priest and it seemed like maybe being a replacement singer yet again wasn’t the best move. But “The Glorious Burden” proved that it was not such a bad idea after all. Ripper stuck around a little while and then Matt Barlow returned for one more album. And then left again. The quality of the music has been pretty consistent over the years, but hearing that Iced Earth has a new singer is no longer a surprise.

What did surprise me was learning that on the latest Iced Earth opus, “Dystopia”, the new singer was none other than Into Eternity’s Stu Block. Hell. Yeah. When Barlow left again my thinking was that Iced Earth might be getting ready to jump the shark. On the contrary, they were about to explode the shark like Roy Scheider at the end of Jaws. I should know by now you can’t keep Schaffer down.

“Dystopia” is as killer an album as anything else in the Iced Earth catalog. The music is everything you would expect from Jon Shaffer. Stu Block’s amazing vocals are an amalgamation of the best elements of Greely, Barlow and Ripper while also adding his own personal touch. Not to diminish the greatness of any of the previous vocalists, but Iced Earth is still very much alive and well.

It looks like Into Eternity is expected to have a new album in the near future, but I’m not sure what that means. Is Stu going to do double duty (pleasepleaseplease) or is “Dytopia” a one-off? Or is he done with Into Eternity? I can’t say at this point, so I’ll continue to live in the moment and enjoy “Dystopia” for what it is and let tomorrow take care of itself.

While talking to John Kevill the topic of older thrash vs newer thrash came up and it got me thinking about some of the great old thrash albums from the 80s. I was in high school through the late 80s and that period was the golden age of thrash in my opinion. One of my favorite bands from the time that never got the credit they deserve was Wrathchild America.

I first heard Wrathchild America when I saw them on tour opening for Testament along with Annihilator. Testament was touring behind “Practice What You Preach” and both Wrathchild and Annihilator were touring their first albums, “Climbin’ the Walls” and “Alice In Hell” respectively. I live in Maryland now, not far from where Wrathchild America actually started, but back then I was in Michigan and I saw them play at the Royal Oak Music Theater. They blew me away live, so as soon as I could scrape up the money I ran out and picked up the album.

“Climbin’ the Walls” instantly became one of my new favorite albums. Back in those days you didn’t have the giant wall of noise production you get on some albums these days, so the music was all very easy to make out and the vocals, while somewhat snarled by singer/bassist Brad Divens, were very easily understood. And did I mention their drummer? Perhaps you’ve heard of him? A Mr. Shannon Larkin of current Godsmack fame.

Lyrically the album has a couple of get wild and party kind of songs, but a few of the songs also tell stories of horror and fantasy. The album starts off with the title track which is really just a balls-to-the-wall fast tune about getting fed up and running amok. I never thought of these guys as a devil music band, but “Hells Gates” does deal with the topic of the Horned One and the unfortunate consequences of meeting him. “No Deposit, No Return” is the odd ball in the mix where they lament getting drunk and fooling around with underage girls. It’s kind of a goofy song but still sort of catchy. Track 4 was always my least favorite track, and that is the instrumental “Hernia.”

Starting with track 5 is where things get exciting. “London After Midnight” show Wrathchild America at their most gothic sounding. I’m not sure if it is about Dracula specifically or a vampire in general (I use Nosferatu as a synonym for vampire rather than a specific one, so…) but the gist is that this vampire has been hunted through many lands and is currently feeding in London. Great tune.

“Candy From A Madman” is both cool and cheesy at the same time. On the one hand this makes me picture some crazy Buffalo Bill type serial killer (this predates Silence of the Lambs) but on the other hand it could also be a public service announcement warning kids away from strangers. The character is a greasy crazy bastard and he’ll cut you up, which he happily does by the end of the song.

The seventh track on the album is one of my all-time favorite metal songs, period. As an angst-y teen in a pre-Columbine world I too felt shunned and bullied by people in high school. This was many years before Sentenced would release the revenge classic “Vengeance Is Mine” so the track I used for fantasizing about getting my come-uppance was “Silent Darkness (Smothered Life).” The song tells the tragic tale of someone who is buried alive as part of a drunken prank and returns from the grave to wreak bloody vengeance upon his tormentors. I took this as a metaphor for the suffocating culture and cruel treatment by classmates in my small town high school. It never would have occurred to me to actually seek my revenge in the bloody fashion we see all too often on the news these days, but this song helped dull the pain of teenage life.

Second to last track on the album is a cover of Pink Floyd’s “Time.” Not sure where that one came from, but it’s a pretty decent version.

The album closer is “Day of the Thunder” which is about two medieval armies meeting on the field of battle and the senseless carnage that ensues. Lyrics such as “sadly those heroes were young, sadly nobody won” take the contemporary sense of tragedy and futility of war and place it in a historic context that just goes to show that humans have been throwing away young lives, for no good reason, for far too long. I have the greatest respect and honor for our troops, but it’s songs like this that make me mourn the fallen even more. Great song.

Unfortunately, Wrathchild America was short lived. They released another album “3-D” which took them in a more jazzy-metal direction that wasn’t as interesting. Eventually they tried to reboot by changing their name to Souls At Zero and releasing another couple albums, but I never got into anything as much as this first album. It’s been out of print for years so if you want to find it best try eBay (that’s where I got mine) and I see Amazon might have used copies for a pretty penny. I found some of my favorite songs on YouTube and am including them below. Check ‘em out.

Silent Darkness (Smothered Life)

London After Midnight

Day of the Thunder

I remember back in the pre-digital age when your band was getting started and you recorded a demo, or more ambitiously, an album, it tended to happen on an old 4-track cassette recorder or some other similarly archaic piece of machinery. If you had a little money to throw together (which most new bands don’t) or you know someone, maybe you could get something down on a 24-track two-inch tape. But even then unless you had a good engineer or an experienced producer you frequently ended up with something less than professional quality. These days many unsigned bands sound as good as or better than bands that are signed. That’s pretty cool because it really helps promoting yourself on that other great tool we didn’t have back in the day, the Internet.

The reason I bothered with that little stroll down memory lane is probably obvious; for an unsigned band Define My Addiction have a really good sounding album in “Systemic.” They kind of straddle the line between hard rock and metal a bit, but I think they fall more solidly on the metal side. There are clean vocals but there’s also a lot of scratchy-voiced yelling/screaming too. The music, which is recorded and mixed well, has quieter moments but more often than not they are churning out some cool heavy riffs.

I was just thinking how I don’t hear all that much about metal coming out of Australia, so I looked up a list of Australian metal bands on Encyclopaedia Metallum and there are a shit-ton of bands down under that I’ve never heard of before. I know there are some cool labels in Australia, but are the big metal labels paying enough attention to this apparently untapped source of metal music? Most of what I’ve heard, including Define My Addiction, seems to warrant a closer look. There’s more to Australian music than AC/DC, Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue. For the moment, go look up Define My Addiction and stay metal Australia!