The meaning of the term "acrisia" is ultimately what defines this eclectic and highly enjoyable self-release by a young trio poised with intelligence, ability and talent: Acrisia, in a nutshell, is either the inability to judge (and therefore generate a conclusion) as well as a medical term referred to an undecided character of a disease. In other words: a puzzle.

When this album was recorded, Acrisia's members (a bass player; a guitarist/vocalist; a drummer) were around nineteen, but, boy! what an insight; how much passion; and such amounts of maturity and originality.

Acrisia's style is beyond categorization as their moniker suggests; it defies pinpointing and it dodges any pigeonholing; this music will not let anyone sum it up using one or two words. Hell, it isn't even metal per definition, or rock music. It is something much, much better.

Adopting progressive rock, hardcore punk, atmospheric hardcore and post metal/post rock elements (aren't all those musical categories the same thing under different guises, anyway?), Acrisia portray their unique interpretation of what they understand as heavy and unconventional, non-trendy and non-conforming music.

This album is by no means accessible for everybody as the plot is too serpentine and erratic for the common man's tastes; the themes seem to either skyrocket to outer space or wildly descend to bottomless pitch black pits. There are no plateaus here, only peaks; no backbone or a platform for the music to rely on. There's no home-base from which the guys go hunting and come back to. Their music resembles a hyperactive child, low on Ritalin, who has been suddenly abandoned in the woods and all he does is wreck havoc, but with a pattern; a thoughtful mayhem (usually a pattern only he can fathom).

Intricate, distorted guitar lines heavy with nuances, and ultra-technical strumming intertwined with somber bass guitar somewhere in the background; amazing drumming that oscillates from the very simple of beats to the most convoluted and elusive and massively charismatic vocal work that fluctuates from the almost velvety of whispers to spoken citations to lung-bursting screams that virtually melt the speakers with their acidic nature.

The plot is extremely rich; Acrisia posses an admirable ability to make highly illustrious and abundant, thick and profound music using the only very basic and "classic" rock instruments, namely one electric guitar, one bass guitar, a drum kit and a vocalist. The delivery is pure and concentrated, devoid of "shticks" or superfluous gimmicks. Acrisia's album is the best thing one can achieve with the basic of instruments; the secret lies in ideas, vision and passion rather than in the orchestration.

Acrisia is highly enjoyable, unique and indefinable (hence, acrisia) post-metal featuring progressive melancholy and beauty, packed into 36 minutes of wonder, excellence, originality and musical elitism. (9/10)

PS: The only other band that comes close to Acrisia's abilities and portrays the same musical aesthetics is the young Swedish young band Kongh (http://www.kongh.net/).

Who wouldn't want to be Akercocke, at least for a day? Just imagine it: dressing and behaving like an 18th century eccentric gentleman, driving a BMW (Beelzebub Minion Wheels, of course), living in a big scary house bequeathed to you by your uncle Algernon, the occultist, and surrounded by luscious women, pentagrams and fine liquor. And spending your free time blasting for Satan. Looks appealing, doesn't it?

The last time we checked, Akercocke still had their regular jobs, but the Hellfire Club aspect of their lives is as strong as ever. Admittedly, on Choronzon and Words That Go Unspoken, Deeds That Go Undone, they had done everything they could possibly do music-wise. In that light, Antichrist is not a big surprise, it's just Akercocke doing what they do — and no one else comes even close. The one thing that was left to improve was the sound — on Choronzon (or the albums before it) it was a compromise, while on Words... it was sharp, for the sake of finally being able to hear all that was going on. All the instruments on Antichrist sound warm, natural and almost intimate in comparison.

It's hard to connect intimacy with "blasting for Satan" on paper, but in reality it works amazingly. On one side you have monstrous, bestial riffs played with frightening precision and unbelievable speed. A combination of death, thrash and black played so fluently and incorporating so many different aspects of playing into long, mind-bending riffs so wild that they seem to want to jump right out of the speakers and knock you off your chair. Just jaw-dropping. But with just a pinch of imagination you're right there, observing Akercocke (named after doctor Faust's monkey if you didn't know by now) in a luxurious, antique environment playing in an almost meditative, stubborn, concentrated state of mind as a sign of total discipline in devotion to their Master.

On the other side, there are unexpected and completely mellow parts where Jason Mendonca abandons his undecipherable growls and maniacal screams in favor of a clean singing voice and the acoustic pickup of his Parker guitar with custom inverted crosses on the fretboard (the Devil is in the details, right?). It really doesn't matter if it is slow or brutal because it is all believable. Even if Mendonca's baritone might shake, when singing lines like "Reveal yourself, come to me..." you know he means it.

And then there is blasting. Of every possible kind, including some new ones. Oblivious to trends or rules, David Gray (drummer and also the exquisite lyricist) plays blastbeats during acoustic arpeggios, or two bass drums during brief jazz interludes. Yes, they fit in. And during faster parts... the man is simply possessed. There seems to be no triggering on the snare drum or the toms, but even if there was, the way he switches tempos and hits his kit hither and thither sounds like carpet bombing. No place to hide. Through all that, his style is still clear and present.

The "funny-haired new guitarist with a bad winter wardrobe," (as referred to by Mendonca) Matty Wilcock (well at least his last name fits in), is responsible for some blistering solos, culminating in the solo among the brutally thrashing, gloriously headbanging yet meditative ending of "Distant Fires Reflect in the Eye of Satan," and the latest addition to the band, Pete Benjamin, affirms himself by almost ripping the bowels out of his bass guitar on "Axiom."

So, is Antichrist a standard Akercocke album with just a different sound? Hardly. Although the songs seem to be more compact this time, it would take at least this much space or more to begin to describe everything that went into them. Anyone who has heard Akercocke before will know what to expect, and greedily add Antichrist to his or her collection. And the others... It's just a shame that all the Goths and similar creatures still think bands like Cradle of Filth or Dimmu Borgir have anything to do with the Devil or dark erotica. All you need is to take yourself a bit more seriously. You don't have to drive a BMW. The word "gentleman" signifies a state of mind above all else. (8.5/10)

This French one-man band offers its bleak vistas through the manipulation of the rarely executed black metal / funeral doom fusion of styles, namely black / doom. A style originated and displayed on Void of Silence's debut album, Towards the Dusk, and perfected by the now quasi-famous entity called Nortt.

It doesn't really matter what one would say about a release such as The Austrasian Goat; the factor that plays a key role in favor of this — and other releases filed under the black / doom sub-genre — is that this niche is incredibly sparse and almost barren; a wilderness of bands, so-to-speak, in comparison to the over-crowded black metal and doom metal scenes in general.

That's being said, almost every band offering its sonic vision within the chambers of the black / doom style would necessarily and quite immediately be regarded as unique in a way. 

Black / doom offers what most black metal bands fail at: it plays SLOW, the kind of velocity most black metal acts out there should have been playing in order to highlight their messages in the first place. The other merit is that most black / doom out there actually manages to create atmosphere, what lacks in most doom acts, on the other hand.

Hence, the black / doom amalgam has taken the best of both worlds and has infused them together, while the very best of those acts have actually succeeded in infusing both styles seamlessly, thus creating a new style altogether that is as apart from its originators as it is reminiscent of those very influences from whence it has sprung.

In that regard, The Austrasian Goat has accomplished an impressive auditory melancholy that serves both as background music as well as a respectful addition to the black / doom family.

The Austrasian Goat generates suffocating ambiance; it is monotonic and circular; it is partly organic and partly synthetic in sound and delivery (the drums are obviously programmed, the aura of the album is industrially-cold...). The vocals are mostly a tad less than the typical high-pitch black metal screams; incoherent, torturous and wretched.

The experience of sitting through the whole of the album is summoning thoughts of filth and uncleanliness that both stick to the mind and the body — as if you just have spent too much time in the company of a rotting corpse; the aural grime of the sounds seem to cling and soil the body and soul.

You'll have an almost uncontrollable urge to take a shower soon after hearing this album, or alternatively just wallow in its filth and revel with it. (7/10)

The booming trend recently overwhelming the underground in which an abundance of bands either revive the hardcore scene and/or transcend it towards what is known today as "atmospheric hardcore" or "post-hardcore" — is a welcome development within the extreme music movements out there, as far as this reviewer is concerned.

This inclination has increased and grown to such proportions that one almost cannot avoid hearing those elements even in (what was not so long ago regarded as) orthodox black metal (e.g., Deathspell Omega, to name but one). It is usually hard to pinpoint those elements — even more so capturing them using mere text — but it would be fairly sufficient to summon the likes of Neurosis — one of the "atmospheric hardcore" originators (considered both its archetype and Godfather of the genre) to get a grasp over this somewhat elusive style and musical approach in general.

What is so appealing in the aforementioned style, now perfected through numerous bands out there, is the spacious — and, to some extent, experimental — nature of the musical execution on one hand, while on the other hand the style manages to stay on the heavy side of the coin — both emotionally as well as musically — and as such has managed to maintain its metal-like, uncompromising aura; ultimately, "atmospheric" hardcore is often more interesting than metal, but not even a tad less heavy — on any account.

What's more, is the incredibly dense and suffocating atmosphere most "atmospheric hardcore" bands create, and this could be attributed to the doom-metal (some would also mention sludge) vibe which renders, in turn, an ominous and highly melancholic cocktail of sounds so thick and dark, that it overwhelms the audience, isolating and imprisoning them in a new musical dimension — namely: "atmospheric hardcore."

The Baroness / Unpersons split A Grey Sigh in a Flower Husk embodies the above mentioned exactly: two excellent bands on a joint venture to deliver the best of "atmospheric hardcore" of today.

The two deliver potent, noisy, robust and vigorous metallic hardcore with enough real atmosphere and mood to turn any black metal band green with envy.

The beautiful artwork and thoughtful lyrics always serve as important added values that only compliment the release and are a welcome addition to this exceptional split album.

This is hardcore; this is atmosphere. (9/10)

Cobalt’s changed styles noticeably on their second record. Their debut, War Metal, was just that: bludgeoning, fast, aggressive material more of less in the vein of groups like Absu, Angel Corpse and Conqueror. It was a good ride and more was in order.

Eater of Birds seems to go for a more heavy, plodding approach, which is fine. The record does succeed in consistently achieving a particularly tasty vibe of churning, rumbling, head-nodding weight and groove. However, it seems that those moments, while several, are spread too far apart on the record.

On a minor scale, the drums are a bit too implied for the record’s good. They’re there, but a more focused sound would have made the listening more of the visceral experience that one would imagine Cobalt was aiming for. The guitars are dirty, but again, more bite would have been better.

Focus is indeed the dealbreaker for Eater of Birds. There’s some good stuff on the album, but there’s a noticeably important amount of filler and wandering in-between. Cobalt does succeed in building momentum on several moments, but the tension is unfortunately lost a great deal of the time.

You can’t fault Cobalt for trying to do something different, but it’s a shame that in doing so, they lost the edge and fervor of their debut album. The second album’s result is a good one, but it falls short of what you can tell Cobalt’s vision was. (6/10)

PS: Eater of Birds is touted as featuring a guest appearance by Jarboe. Like most highly publicized guest appearances, those performances are more useful as accolades for the band, rather than actual amazing contributions. Jarboe’s performance, while certainly good, is an example of that.

All the four tracks from Dimentianon’s demo (review in issue #38) re-appear on this album, hence it’s not unreasonable to expect that what was written about those songs then also applies to this new release, to a certain degree.

Hossanas Novus Ordo Seclurum was recorded in July 2005 and mixed at the end of that year. Comparing the 2005 demo tracks with those on the new album, and it must be said: the difference is overwhelming. Although nothing was re-recorded, the increase in clarity and intensity would almost make you believe the opposite. The tracks have also been mastered at a much higher volume, making them more powerful.

Much has been taken great care of, including an interesting 16-page colour booklet. Dimentianon like to revel in symbolism, numbers and Latin-speak, yet they emphasise that they are not an occult band. They rather refer to some obscure School of Objectivism, which is about a complete philosophical outlook of life and society (including epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics).

Although I can’t make much of their message, it feels as if they are actually onto something. At least it’s something they fiercely believe in and if it means that Dimentianon like to create philosophical extreme metal with elements of black and death, then I’d be the last to dismiss that. Yes, familiar names like Lucifer and Baphometh pass us by, but I have never heard of Xepara. Many other names refer to the kabbalistic sefirot (see Madonna’s newly found school of wisdom) but I guess I lack either the intelligence or motivation to get a grasp of that. What is more likely to ring a bell is that vocalist M has a certain barky/shouty vocal resemblance with Obituary’s John Tardy.

What remains, then, is a very adventurous journey through Dimentianon’s confusing and hermetic world. It rages and thunders therein with plenty of blastbeat action, but they can also change into a lower gear, like in the massive album closer, "To Return That Which is Above, to That Which is Below" (which refers to a principle in alchemy), a near 24-minute song that remains interesting throughout with various sinister atmospherical sections (another point on the album even features some tubular bells and acoustic guitar playing over field recordings taken during a wind storm). Perhaps not yet a classic, but a very well executed project nevertheless. Remarkable! (7/10)

Behold, the long overdue full-length of Lord Cabal’s newest, Inferno Caput Mundi. This disc consists of two different parts. The first eight tracks are from his self-released 2004 demo, and the remaining four are the actual "Inferno Caput Mundi" part, which was recorded in 2005.

As I was far from raving about the previous split CD, I must say that this latest Doominhated product is much more enjoyable. The overall sound is really good and this way it is easier for the listener to recognise and appreciate the diversity of Cabal’s musical scope and talent. The man is rich in ideas and sometimes he takes his epic songs to the extreme, almost bordering on black metal opera.

The main part of disc consists of eight chapters revolving around the theme of "The Supreme Race," humanoids of the palest skin and great wisdom. The setting is an island called Grishell. It is besieged by their opponents, the armies of the Cross from Erodim. They have to seek refuge in an underground city called Ulmir where Sauriel, the Last Guardian, shall try to ward off the enemy, but to no avail. He begs Wurlak, the lord of war and magic to aid him. Unfortunately, soon after he comes to Erodim to trade places with his his sweetheart (who’s taken hostage in a final act of treachery) there comes the end of The Supreme Race. But in the last two acts, "Come Back From Beyond" and "Death Everywhere," events take an unsuspected turn for the worse for the victors. (Did you all get all that? There will be a quiz at the end of the review. – ed.)

The first two tracks feature the familiar high screaming style, but in "Wurlak," a lesser-heard melancholic kozak choir mode (low clean vocals with the accoustics of an oversized bathroom) is introduced. Admittedly, this may not be to everyone’s taste, but I understand this was chosen in relation with the lyrics and to avoid using the same screams over and over, which would become boring eventually.

"Prisoner of the Dark" also features some sweet female vocals accompanied with the piano. By track six, the black metal opera goes all the way with all three described vocals combined. Cabal did well to choose a piano instead of overly solemn keyboards, as it might have become a bit too much of everything.

The overall sound of the newer four tracks is slightly better and the music features real drums. The vocals are now done in a grainy mid-range rasp. Funnily enough, it’s not the noisy parts but in fact the subtle and silent parts that capture my attention, as if at this point, after the storm of "The Supreme Race," my hearing became a bit numbed out. The female vocals on "Angst" work very well, making the song the one getting closest to the album’s main section.

Still, why the album wasn’t named after that but after a session that basically comes across as bonus material (of which for reasons unclear the lyrics to the last song have not been printed).

I am quite sure that Lord Cabal has recorded newer work since Inferno Caput Mundi, but I hope that he will have developed further his "Supreme Race" style because the four-track "Inferno Caput Mundi" part is not more of the same because it’s simply not as good.

Hence, I’d give the main part a rating of (7/10) based on it’s originality and the title part a rating of (6/10) but only because it benefits from a slightly better sound and execution. (6.5/10)

Holy fuck.

Something good is happening in France. The post-metal revolution's tidal wave is threatening to drown all and sweep everything off the classic metal's scene — the one we used to love (and hate) so much.

With the emergence of bands such as Overmars, Year of No Light and the Swedish (and utterly amazing) Kongh and Switchblade (the European co-culprits of the revolution's prophets and originators, namely Neurosis, Isis and Pelican) one can notice more and more (not exclusively, but mostly European) bands adopt the "atmospheric hardcore" etiquette, blending American Southern psychedelic rock with sludgy (doom-oriented) metal and shoe-gazing into a very potent, ambiance-heavy, upgraded form of metallic-hardcore played usually slow and heavily concentrated with the ability to conjure a spectrum of emotions as well as induce a reflective state of mind.

Many of these, I guess, have just jumped on the wagon of the new style, as there are always those band-wagon jumpers in any artistic field, but some do it quite well — and others are downright amazing.

Dirge's And Shall the Sky Descend was actually originally recorded in the year 2004 (released firstly by Blight Records, a label owned by one of the band members and dedicated to releasing albums by Dirge exclusively; three offerings have been released till now, to be exact), so jumping the wagon is not exactly relevant to these guys because that era — when Dirge already had held proud the banner of this stupendous musical excellence in their hands — marked the turning point where the initiation of the new "fashion" and stylistic change in heavy music took place, soon after Neurosis' influential album, A Sun that Never Sets had been unleashed.

Dirge were there already (they actually go back a long time before that; established in the year 1994); previously recording this magnificent piece, as above-mentioned, now luckily re-released as a digipak by the French label Equilibre and available for purveyors of rare, elitist and mind-provoking music around the globe.

Dirge's music is revolutionary today as much as it was three years ago; they weave subtle, gentle micro-fibers of beauty and majesty into their vitriolic, distortion-driven lunacy and disaster-permeated, thick sonic cloth.

Four songs, ranging from twelve minutes (the shortest), to double that time, embody what this album is all about: experimenting with the furthest reaches of emotion, playing the whole spectrum; from the very exquisite to the very pronounced; from sheer joy to utter despair and pain. Pure melancholy and joyous appreciation of life is what this album conveys.

Dirge's beauty is captured in every single second of each track; only potent musicians can cram so many colors, sounds and tastes into twenty-four minutes of playing time (the first track on the album) with minimal vocals — ultimately delivering a bewitching joy-ride with not a single moment of filler sounds, redundancy or the dawning of boredom for the fast-food music lovers out there.

Not unlike the amazing album Nord by the aforementioned French act Year of No Light (see our review in issue #55), Dirge also employ this all-encompassing warm music that is as alienating due to its crude and aggressive nature as it is humane and soul-caressing, so-to-speak, due to its gentle and overwhelming ability to drown the listener with massive waves of silky, atmospheric dirge-like mushroom-clouds; bright, soft, hot and deadly.

However, while Year of No Light stayed mostly on the aggressive side of the coin, almost not enabling the listener to breath and relax, Dirge's massive sound alternates between the aforementioned brutality and a much more laid-back approach; long episodes of pure meditative ambiance, flaked with cello interludes, minimal and sparse female vocals, tribal drumming and many layers of droning guitar harmonies that induce a hazy, almost hypnotic state.

This is the future of authentic music; a wonderful, wonderful album. (9.99/10)

Evoken wants you to be left heartbroken; Evoken wishes you the best — and then the worst, and vice versa; Evoken needs you and apparently you need it. Evoken — there isn't such a word in the English vocabulary, but then again — there isn't such a band, either.

Evoken is unique: a singular entity that preys on human emotions and harvests their sorrows and joys, and drinks them up and spits them out in the form of what may be among the most beautiful tunes ever bestowed upon the world and mankind.

Evoken are poets and story tellers; each song on Embrace the Emptiness has its plot; a prologue, an epilogue, a theme, a climax (or an anti-climax); each song leads towards a catharsis, a purifying experience. After listening to Evoken's sounds, one has inevitably got an urge for a soul-search, a mind-purge; one desperately wants to instantly become a more developed human, to transcend beyond the here and now, beyond the earthly flesh. Listening to Evoken is like a crash course in human evolution; you are not the same person as you've been just prior to Evoken's infliction — you have been upgraded.

Seemingly, the execution of music on Embrace the Emptiness is simple: Slow-paced, thunderous drums accompany a low-tuned guitar; a growling vocalist and some piano keys here and there.

Seemingly...

The genius keyboardist, Dario Derna, has displayed on this recording one of the most impressive keyboard (be it a real piano or a synthesizer, I don't care) performances ever to be encountered; the minimalism of the keys is striking. Here, less is actually more, as he strikes those keys sparsely, but each note has its immediate effect on the music; it instantaneously uplifts it to the realm of spirits.

Derna's keys play the role of the antagonist to the crushingly heavy mammoth on display in the form of this marvelous blackened doom / death metal captured on Embrace the Emptiness. It creates a striking dichotomy between these extremes, a conflict so absurd that it is nothing less than breathtaking.

If anything, due to the fact Embrace the Emptiness is a spiritual experience more than anything else, the ultra-heavy music does not sound so heavy, but more spacious and unsubstantial (i.e., devoid of substance; ethereal); in contrast to the doom / death heaviness concept one would expect from a band in this realm of metal to embrace,

Evoken's sounds are transcendental, meditative and induce contemplation. Anyone who has not yet heard anything by these masters of doom will be surprised (and confused), for there is no musical heaviness here for the sake of it, but rather a soul-searing process and a mind-altering experience.

The sound on this re-issue is top notch, as it flatters the music and allows all subtleties to be noticed and highlighted (and there are a lot of those...); the production complements the atmosphere and the scorching guitars in particular (and how they flirt with the keyboards).

You need this album! (9/10)

As far as children’s metal goes, I don’t think you can get any more exemplary than Germany’s Freedom Call. Seriously, this is some of the most gay, whimsical, fruity music you’re likely to ever find in the metal pantheon. If you leave a Freedom Call CD on the ground, you’re likely to find a peach tree growing there before long.

But all this music’s being sissified and la-de-da doesn’t mean it’s not good. On the contrary, Freedom Call has been putting out highly accomplished albums in this genre since the band’s inception. The results have always been highly polished, with excellent singing and catchy choruses.

Dimensions, thankfully, sees Freedom Call going back to a more jovial style. Their last album, Eternity, while good, saw them starting to throw in some "harsh" vocals. And if there’s anything more silly than a children’s power metal band, it’s a children’s power metal band trying to sound hard. This new album is perhaps a little more edgy than their very light-hearted and fun second record, Crystal Empire, but keep things in perspective — it’s very on par. Freedom Call knows how to infuse its songs with a great deal of energy and carefree enjoyment. Just leave your brain at the door.

Stylistically, think a good deal of Helloween, but more simple, and with a tra-la-la vibe. The drums sound a lot like Gamma Ray (it is the same drummer, after all)... you could say Freedom Call is the best of both worlds (the two German power metal giants we just mentioned) of the super incestuous German scene, but stripped down. Break out the cotton candy. (6.5/10)

Do you actually think King Diamond, when releasing a new album, would ever come out and say, "ok, look. I know I can never top Abigail or Them. But, you know, I still like making albums. This is what I do and I can still do a good job. I still put as much ‘all’ at my disposal into making my records. Here’s a new one!"

Of course not.

King Diamond is probably the biggest jive turkey in metal, so instead, we get statements like this, upon the release of 2007's Give Me Your Soul... Please:

"I feel this is our strongest album. It seems like we tried for 20 years to get a driver’s license — and now we have one!"

How about, "give me a break, please"? Only the incorrigibly gullible will fall for such a declaration. King Diamond’s making statements like this is shooting himself in the foot for two major reasons. One, he’s putting down two+ of the most celebrated records in metal history, and therefore all those people who respect them. And more importantly, making each successive album the default superlative is a bad move, because he’s hurting his credibility as a metal genius who knows what the best shit is. The Puppet Master (the previous record, whose bad parts overshadowed the good ones, by the way) was, according to Diamond, his best album ever, ever... seriously, now, ever. But all that’s now shit with the new one. It’s very silly. Listen to Give Me Your Soul, Please, and you’ll think so, too.

One thing can be said for sure: Give Me Your Soul, Please is a much better record than The Puppet Master in terms of it not being a total cheese fest in that it focuses more on the songs and less on superfluous theatrics. Of course, with anything King Diamond-related, it’s ALWAYS cheesy, but there’s a difference between acceptably cheesy and insufferably cheesy. The Puppet Master was the latter, and Give Me Your Soul, Please is the former.

Give Me Your Soul, Please is also a better record as the music and songs on it are pretty good. Having Andy LaRoque on guitar alone gives you guaranteed tasty licks and solos, which Give Me Your Soul, Please has a good amount of. King Diamond isn’t singing as sharply or as over-the-top as he did in his classic days, but since he’s at the helm, you’ll still be getting his signature layered vocals and arrangements, so you’ll dig that here if you are a fan.

(It’s a given with King Diamond, but Give Me Your Soul, Please is the kind of concept album that you’d expect from the man/band, this time about something "terrifying" involving a girl in a bloody dress. Whatever. As always, you should buy albums to listen to good music or songs, not to hear about some story. That’s why you read books and watch movies. Or talk to people. However, if what drives an artist to record good music is to do so in order to tell a story, then by all means. But the music and songs have to be worth listening regardless of story)

The rest of the instrumentation is as spot on as you’d expect. Matt Thompson (drums) and Hal Patino (bass) provide competent, sometimes remarkable parts in the music.

The big, big problem with Give Me Your Soul, Please; the thing that preclude’s it from being the so-called provider of a driver’s license, is the production. Clear, maybe, but so flat and dull and powerless (The Puppet Master, in comparison, has better sound). Although you can hear everything pretty well, the energy of the recording is so lacking that it requires the listener to provide the enthusiasm that should in fact be sparked by the album.

Whether King Diamond has much less money since his heyday to record at proper studios (he records everything in his house now), or because he can’t be assed (he says his new method is better, but all you need to do is listen to the sound to figure out the truth on that), or for some other reason, we don’t know. And it doesn’t matter. But from the sound to the artwork, there are much less resources going into a King Diamond album, and unfortunately the total package is suffering greatly, and sadly, Give Me Your Soul, Please represents that. Consequently, his saying that this album is no doubt the best (until the next album) adds insult to injury.

We want King Diamond to make killer records. We want all artists to make killer records. Give Me Your Soul, Please, while containing some good music, and being enjoyable both because of that and for being a record from a highly celebrated metal artist, is not a killer record. (6/10)

We reviewed the original issue of Cold in the Vault back in issue #12. Here’s what we had to say about it:

"Imagine an entire album of songs that have the same sultry energy that Berlin's ‘Take My Breath Away’ has (you know, from the 'Top Gun' soundtrack), but Goth, minimal, and recorded on a four-track. While the atmosphere remains the same, the songs all stand out very distinctly due to excellent melodies and the unique vocals of Mike VanPortfleet and Tara VanFlower, who alternate doing vocals from song to song. While not excellent singers, the Lycia duo makes its vocals wonderful with their choice of lyrics and spacings that complement the simple melodies and click-clack of the drum machine to perfection. Mike's voice has a quality to it that has a slight wheezy, breaking timbre from the effect put on it, and his phrasings grab your attention and draw you into this ethereal, misty world.

Lycia has released more than a few records, but Cold is clearly their defining work. Dreamy, relaxing yet freezing, Cold is the perfect record to put on during an equally chilly, rainy day in which you reserve yourself to hunker down at home and somehow enjoy the weather."

Silber Records’ re-issue of this classic album ventures into the precarious territory of the re-master. Buyer, beware, for re-mastered re-issues are more often than not inferior to the original releases: generally, these re-masters are merely louder versions of the originals, which often leads to a less enjoyable listening experience as unpleasant frequencies are accented more than they should be, and originally unnoticeable parts that didn’t sound so good are now all too clear. Other times, there is no noticeable difference between original and re-issue, or the CDs aren’t really re-mastered at all.

In the case of the Cold re-issue, you can tell the difference between versions 1 and 2, and the re-master isn’t a failure. However, the original issue of Cold is the superior one. Here’s why:

On paper, Cold version two seems like an improvement. The music is fuller (and of course, a bit louder) and warmer, and you can especially notice more beef on the kick drum. Objectively, this is a good re-mastering job. The big "however" though, is the word "warmer." This album is called "cold," isn’t it? Indeed, what made the original issue work so well is that feeling of chilliness that it conveyed, a feeling that made you want to bundle up in a blanket and enjoy. While that feeling is still largely conveyed through the music (which of course remains the same from version 1 to 2), the tone set by the warmer production detracts from the mood, and therefore is counter-productive to the success of the album. Why can’t labels just re-issue an out-of-print album?

If you haven’t heard the original issue of Cold (on the Projekt label), you probably won’t mind this difference so much. Again, it’s an objectively fine re-mastering job. But if you’ve got the choice, go for the Cold with the red cover. (Not so cold anymore/10)

This French quartet serve up an excellent mix of blackened doom of the sort midlife-crisis era Celtic Frost might have produced if had they been more focused and less experimental. The eight tracks presented here emphasize heaviness and thick layers of deep guitars. Neurosis come to mind, as do Velvet Cacoon, but I daresay this project steps far enough from its influences to shine with its own light.

Especially noteworthy are the black metal detours Mourning Dawn takes. The track "Innocence Leaves" trudges highly depressive doom terrain, then jumps into an abyss of mean blastmort. The emotion of exile is key on many of these tracks, forlorn and Burzum-ic wailings of the dejected wanderer. Brief, lo-fi interludes of viola and piano increase the creep of tracks "…As the Ocean" and "Grey Flood," and the massive opening (!) epic "From the Torrent & The Fountain" sucks the hearer into a whirlpool of misty dread. Lost souls bump and coalesce in this metal, and wheeze the sickness of damnation.

Dejected ones, rejoice! Highly epic, heavy, interesting, and full of stories. Also note that Mourning Dawn’s follow-up CD may be out on the Total Rust label by or near the time you read this. (8.5/10)

The sadness is hesitant; it’s not yet ready to come out and wash across the grey matter. It is still growing, it is still waiting for the day the darkness stays the longest. From time to time it slithers its way through the dirt and through the rotting leaves, but it is weak and it then disappears again without having any substantial effect.

But it knows. It can smell the tears and the worries and the loneliness that is bubbling and swirling like a maelstrom. It will eat the sadness, and stretch it out in its stomach. It grows, it grows, and then it explodes in great waves across us. We are pained. We are not hopeful. The betrayal of light.

We wake up cocooned. We are together, millions of us, but we cannot see, we cannot speak, we cannot hear, we cannot taste, we can only sense the sadness as it slithers past us and through us. We are connected through that force, we are fueled by it and we are depended on it. We are enclosed, we are included. Because the sadness is true, we together are true. The sadness with us is what remains. It pulsates, so we pulsate. It retches, so we retch. It howls, so we howl. We are truly together.

We have become the vessel. We are touched by the sadness and we vibrate and the sounds we emit are clean and strong and beautiful. We glide because it allows us to glide. We move across bunkers with swirling red lights and loud alarms. We move through abandoned flats filled with religious bodies in despair. We move underneath it all and feed off the days that darkness stays the longest. We whiz and we whirl, we throb and we spike. We screech white noise when the emotion becomes too strong. We are truly full.

The sadness has become wet. It has reached the deep and it will undergo a transfiguration. It will have two (ambiguous) faces; it will have a thousand faces, all of which will look distorted from any perceivable angle. It will sing and dance before us, and we will not hear and we will not see. We are blind to the sadness, and blind to the metamorphosis. We will be exalted and we will not recognize it. Our bodies will deteriorate and change to reflect our emotion (anatomy). We will turn inside out and the darkness will itch at the edges. It is truly dark now and we are truly lost.

We finally react. We are half-dead and ready for the end but we are hopeful. Our actions betray us as the light has betrayed us. Our actions are the opposite of what we intend to do. We think alive and we act dead. We are infernal. (ende/10)

PS: Having Nordvargr and Darkh on a disk together is always a special occasion, even more so this time because it is released by the wonderful tUMULt, the label that likes the guitar and adores the heavy. I urge you to buy this release because it truly brings the latter.

For quite some time I have felt that Paradise Lost is overrated, and a recent attendance in one of the band's live concerts only sharpened my observation. The recognition people hold towards the band probably has a lot to do with the freshness the band delivered in its earlier days. Paradise Lost’s 2007 album, In Requiem, does revisit that primitive ‘90s Goth as Nick Holmes' rough vocals are back on the menu and the guitars are dominant and at times (such as on the title track) so crunchy that you might mistake the band for Pantera.

However, while a lot has been done integrating Goth music with heavy metal since Paradise Lost started back in the days, the band's music resonates primitiveness. Sounding like a dark, metallic version of Depeche Mode (but with the aforementioned, crude guitar work), the songs here are quite predictable (there's really no need to expand on the similarity between the album's final song and the band's 2002 single, Mouth); and while they do manage to hit you, they do so purely on a surface level. (5.75/10)

Thrash metal from Spain. Rancor from Madrid have been around since 1998 and previously released two demos. They are so proud of Death is Everywhere they wouldn’t want to call this EP another demo.

All the songs are sung in English and lyrics are included dealing about cruelty, suppression and the bleak perspectives of the afterlife. The music sounds a little like the melodic thrash stuff Metallica did in their early days. It’s a decent enough recording, dating from the autumn of 2005, but it could have been produced much meaner and dirtier.

Vocalist Dani sounds obviously influenced by a less mature James Hetfield. Aside from the five tracks, you’ll also get a bonus track in the form of a version of "Moonlight Nightmare"("Midnight Lover") with porno-fied lyrics and laughter and hilarious grunts from the members on top of it. Of course Rancor should do what they do, but hey, how much fun can a man take? I’m happy for Rancor that they’ve had much pleasure getting this EP together, but if they feel so serious about it they don’t want to call it a demo they’d better stay away from cheesy stuff like that.

Hopefully, Rancor will evolve their grimness to an extent that they can create an album able to compel the listener from beginning to end. At this point it’s as grim as a reaper with hands like yours and mine. That’s not a real skeleton, is it? This EP is by far not as scary as the title and cover try to suggest, which I find very dissatisfying, even though the music itself isn’t utterly bad. Rancor just haven’t convinced me yet. (5/10)

Rose Funeral's brand of groovy, breakdown-heavy death must be a hit at shows. Listening to Crucify Kill Rot, it is hard not to imagine a sweaty, violent mosh pit. It is also hard not to be impressed that a band as young as Rose Funeral has created such a gratifying, varied album.

The band's verses tend to be repetitive, but they never last too long, and they often employ blazing-fast elements that allow a fan to revel in them before moving on. But the ever-shifting nature of Crucify Kill Rot is what will really hook you. A verse will be moving along as expected, when suddenly the brakes are put on and a loud scream introduces a ripping groove that almost makes you jump out of your chair.

Rose Funeral also does well at slower sections, as is evident in "Dawning the Resurrection." Despite a slow tempo, the song manages to move along nicely and doesn't depart from the heavy feel of the rest of the album.

The beats and instrumentation of Crucify Kill Rot aren't particularly complex or technical, but taken altogether, the CD does display a good amount of skill on the part of Rose Funeral. It advances rather seamlessly from the first track to the last, with the obligatory lull in the middle before the speed picks back up.

This well-put-together album is a good introduction to Rose Funeral, and it gives one a firm sense of what to expect from the band in albums to come. I hope to see it really step on the gas in the future — a more dramatic shift from blazing-fast verses to slow, sludgy grooves could be the additional element that pushes Rose Funeral over the edge. (7.5/10)

Holland’s Sammath plays super-charred, raw black metal that should please fans of Leviathan, Marduk, Belphegor... even Skyforger. There’s nothing fancy or keyboard-y on Dodengang. Although the production value is pretty high, Sammath’s instrumentation serves up raw, primal, guitar-driven death.

The standout title track is the most epic in scope, sweeping valleys of merciless hyperblast shift to a battle-themed section of majestic leads and bitter edict. "Ashes to Ashes" also alternates well between slow and fast blackness, while the distort-bass presence on "Imminence War Death" and "Ravager" strikes without mercy.

[[

I am much larger than I used to be, filled with gasses that reek and rumble and I ripple the water in such heavy ways. I am bloated now. My eyes are slowly bulging out of their sockets and soon they will pop out into the water to become food for beautiful black-scaled fish. But I have eyes on my chest, and long black hair that tangles on the surface of the water, each strand like a purple tentacle of an octopus, tangled around weeds and salty leaves.

The waist of cloth around my expanding waist of flesh is constricting; the puffy and moist flaps of skin are folding, and spilling over. My outside has grown soft and delicate, slowly grinding against the waves that roll over me in slow motion. All the fleshy parts that once loved so passionately, adored by man and woman, are drooping and deteriorating. My body is rotting, and after many months of floating I will simply disappear. The matter of my being will have become energy. My chaotic, my anarchistic, my free for all body is now dying long after the thrill of living, and life itself, has gone. And in this moment, I am happy I can experience my own decay, but I am scared of what will happen when the last piece of skin is taken by the creatures of the sea. I can recognize the darkness coming, and I realize that the time for acceptance is but very short.

**

I am thankful that I will pass on to another existence, as energy. For me it is impossible to be immortal in any other way, so I accept, and admire. The loss of self is an act I am able to witness, and it feels ok. The ocean carries me now, and soon it will let me go.

//

My life and my passions, they are trivial memories now. It is not important if the records still stored in the decomposing matter of my brain are truthful or riddled with lies. That matter will soon be gone. The fact that I am floating in water instead of wine is also trivial. That the clothes I am wearing are still intact is trivial. That my fingers have touched and fingered and felt so warm and gentle just hours before my passing, is trivial.

..

The events of my life have now been separated from the memory of my life, by the death of my physical being. Those events will remain as universal truths that no one knows about; all those events have lead up to the point of my death, and some of them are responsible for it. But my memory is now being cast away, just as my body is being cast away, and my clothes and my wallet, and my shoes. The connection is cut, and then forgotten. My life is cut, and then forgotten. Nothing remains but my swollen, bloated body and the universal truth that this is the end of my human existence. And the ocean is my last remaining friend and witness.

;;

My memory feels heavy and sinking; I am forgetting my personality, and maybe that means I am forgetting my soul. I will leave it behind for the living and then forget it ever existed. It does not matter now, at this hour. I will be darkness. ([[**//..;;/10)

Is Joe Satriani hugely popular because people like him, or because people are told to like him? Is it a self-sustaining, symbiotic circle?

Take a look at any popular guitar magazine. Any issue. Any month. Any year. There’s some goddamn article about Joe Satriani. Every. Single. Month. You’d think the man is perpetually recording a new album. And in 20+ years, he’s done 14 studio albums. Not bad. But a feature every month? My guess is guitar magazine editors dispatch a writer every time Satriani brushes his teeth.

Icons like Joe Satriani mystify me. Rather, it mystifies me how the public will continue to buy publications that single-mindedly go on and on about the same core group of people that are deemed as superstars through some combination of talent and corporate backing that spins that talent far beyond what the music really is. The drum world is filled with a similar set. Is Jason Bittner really that amazing? Was Jon Bonham so great that we need to be reminded of his greatness every month for the past and next 30 years?

What’s particularly hilarious about all this apparent paradox is when you actually hear the recorded work of an icon like Satriani. Surfing With the Alien is considered a "classic," and to further drive that point home, the Sony record label has deemed it worthy of "Legacy" status, and thus the re-issue of the re-mastered album comes with a bonus DVD and fancy packaging, which is attractive. I admit I’m a huge fan of the Silver Surfer.

Certainly the popularity and impact of Joe Satriani’s music is not entirely fabricated. Certainly albums like Surfing With the Alien did inspire and capture the imaginations of many guitar players. At the same time, however, you have to wonder why... and more poignantly, who?

Surfing With the Alien is a pretty lame record. Here’s why.

Even re-mastered, the album sounds like demos. Like someone who could play guitar well bought a pretty decent keyboard back in the day, a keyboard that came with a setting called "full band backup," and recorded a bunch of half-baked tracks along to that on a four-track. It sounds like you’re playing "Gran Turismo" while listening to some generic, mainstream "rockin’" tracks that Sony hired someone to whip up.

Joe Satriani can definitely play, and play well, but beyond his guitar parts, the other instrumentation on this album is bland and simplistic to the extreme. Yes, it’s a guitarist’s album, but isn’t instrumental godliness even more so when the medium the musician is playing in offers more of a complete experience of musical depth?

The cheesy simplicity of the tracks on Surfing With the Alien further accentuates the naked feeling the album has from being devoid of vocals. Listening to this album is a little like checking out the utterly dispensable "Love of Lava" CD of Trey Azagthoth guitar leads that Morbid Angel put out with the limited edition of the Formulas Fatal to the Flesh album. You listen to it, get its gist, and then ask, "ok, where’s the real album so I can hear this one-dimentional representation of a body of work in its proper medium?"... except with Surfing With the Alien, that’s all you get (and fairly, it’s much more enjoyable than "Love of Lava.") It’d be like having an album released of Richard Christy’s The Sound of Perseverance studio drum tracks with just the guide guitar, except that would be better since the music that Christy recorded to isn’t the most banal, simplistic material imaginable.

This is a lot of energy focused on railing against Joe Satriani’s popularity. But in some way, no matter how small, it has to be said. People are morons and will go along with whatever they’re told to believe is amazing. Joe Satriani is definitely a superb guitarist, and he shouldn’t be stopped from recording the music he wants to record. However, there are a practical infinite variety of guitarists (in the rock/metal world alone) that are at least as good as he is, and, far more importantly, release vastly more interesting and worthwhile music. Want a recommendation of tasty, soulful, meaningful guitar work? Try Opeth. Or about 500 others. Don’t buy into the hype. (3.5/10)

PS: Hey, I think Joe Satriani just sneezed. Better get someone with a camera and recorder on that.

The new Sodom sucks.

The new Sodom rules.

And what sucks and what rules about it are the very same elements.

The irony: My roommate and I were discussing how modern thrash bands should get a clue about what made thrash so appealing in the first place, and go out and record an album with a budget of $2,000 (or less) in order to re-create that raw and aggressive sound that people who like thrash would probably be really into. And a day or two after this discourse, the new Sodom shows up. Coincidence? We think not. It’s providence from the gods of metal. But the gods are spiteful deities.

The Final Sign of Evil is a back-to-roots album with an appropriate lineup: both Grave Violator (guitar) and Witchhunter (drums) — from the "classic," mid-‘80s In the Sign of Evil / Obsessed by Cruelty recordings — return to join Sodom main man Tom Angelripper in revisiting the songs from that infamous album, as well as some unreleased songs that were written during the same era but never recorded.

Witchhunter’s return to the Sodom recording line-up in itself is fucking amazing. Please note that this and all other statements about Sodom in a historical context are just about entirely due to our viewing the quintessential documentary on the band, Lords of Depravity, which was just about the best goddamn metal release of 2006. Seeing the sorry state of present-day Witchhunter, and the goofy, kind-of gay persona of Grave Violator (in front of his personal CD collection, with "key" albums like Venom’s Black Metal turned out so everyone can know that Grave Violator knows that it’s, like, a really important album) and imagining them back in action in the studio with Sodom is, well, kind of like the metal equivalent of a housewife waiting in line at Safeway and discovering that Jen Aniston has gotten back together with Brad Pitt.

Remember the duality of this album’s worth, though. It runs along with all aspects of the music. See, In the Sign of Evil is a fucking terrible, terrible record. I can’t sit through that shit. It’s sloppy, the riffs are bad... not that you could tell with such deplorable sound and execution, with the only real charm coming from the raw, dirty, black metal-esque vibe. For me, Sodom was utterly unlistenable until they released Persecution Mania. Please start there.

Listening to The Final Sign of Evil makes it painfully obvious that Grave Violator obviously hasn’t gotten any better in the 20+ years since he last recorded with Sodom. What’s more alarming is that Witchhunter seems to have gotten much worse. This is the same guy that made killer, kickass albums like Agent Orange and Tapping the Vein, but now it’s plain for all the world to see that he can’t hold a double bass tempo steady anymore. Watch the Sodom documentary and it won’t seem like such a surprise to you, either.

The musicianship on this album is nothing short of hilarious. The songs are very simple and simple-minded, but as a band, Sodom can’t even pull that off. The fills are totally retarded, the band has no idea where they’re at as far as tempo goes — even during the same riff — and the solos are a joke. I guess the bass playing is ok — I mean, it’s got to be... Angelripper has been making tight records since, well, In the Sign of Evil — but you can’t really tell because it’s all an un-fixable mess. I wonder what the fly on the wall at the recording studio saw. Was Angelripper having a good ol’ nostalgic time, or was he pulling his hair out not to be recording with the infinitely more talented lineup of Bobby and Bernemann?

Time to flip the duality coin again. The fact that The Final Sign of Evil sounds like the raw, fucked piece of crap that the original In the Sign of Evil does, AND with the same line-up is genius. Jesus Christ, Sodom’s been getting great production work by highly decorated Harris Johns for ages, but the reunion album was mixed by... the band’s webmaster... Toto?!?! If that’s not a commitment to shitcellence, then I don’t know what is. Probably the only thing that could top it is if came out that Angelripper obligated the group to record in their original concrete practice space using guitar strings that actually had been used back in the day.

What’s glorious about this all is that Angelripper gets it. He gets where Sodom came from and what initially made them a success, and he embraces it. Meanwhile, on the other side of the fence, is Destruction, which could really use a revision in what the fuck actually made them so hilarious / awesome / loveable in the first place, and cut it out with the plastic-fantastic production and go back to doing the trademark atrocious / godly vocals and cut the generic act out.

What sucks about this all is that The Final Sign of Evil is a terrible album as far as music goes. So while its very existence as an album is something for metal fans the world over to celebrate, it is really only a record that those with a historical frame of reference can appreciate, and even then, don’t stop reminding yourself that it’s classic Sodom again, or else the painful truth about this album’s quality will make you reach for the stop button right quick. That’s the final hilarity of the album: The Final Sign of Evil is an album not actually meant to listen to, but whose existence to appreciate. Angelripper and co could have just taken some reunion photos, but they did you all one better and actually recorded an album... the worst album that you’ll be pumped about. (Sucks/rules/10)

PS: Be thankful that within Angelripper’s getting it, he also gets that the "classic" Sodom lineup is a sorry, sorry affair, and that Sodom — the proper band — has the same professional lineup that has released the last four or five albums, and will continue to tour and record as such. That Angelripper, what a guy.

The once enigmatic and avant-garde Finnish doom metal label Firebox (now having a sub-division named Firedoom, which handles most of their "doom" releases) has rapidly faded to grey in recent years by signing more of the generic and almost faceless doom metal acts and thus declaring "quantity over quality" as their policy.

All we see nowadays coming from that label are, more or less, Swallow-the-Sun-type of bands and their many, many clones.

Terhen are no different; the sad thing is the fact all their passion — well, noticed on this recording — has been wasted on a mediocre and highly derivative recording that adds to Firebox's roster of generic melodic doom/death bands the kind many have grown tired of.

If anyone wishes to cut corners here and waste no further time reading a redundant review, I'd strongly suggest they check out Swallow the Sun's debut album, The Morning Never Came, and spare all the hassle both from yourselves — the readers — and from me — the reviewer — due to the simple fact Terhen's Eyes Unfolded is both stylistically and aesthetically the same animal as the aforementioned Swallow the Sun's; same thing, different year.

If you need to wallow or philosophize over the reasons to Terhen's redundancy, I'll say this: genuine doom metal need not be a beautiful creature, heavy on orchestration and a luxuriant, crystalline production. This is watered-down doom metal, really; not DOOM.

This kind of album always reminds me of some rich kid whose rich parents have given him loads of money with which he could mindlessly spend on ridiculously expensive leather garments, so he could attend a rock concert and "blend in"; drive his dad's Lexus on his way to the venue; and sympathize with his idols on stage. No, child! You are still the same spoiled rich kid; never mind your outfit. Eat some real shit and then try telling us you are the real deal; we might just believe you — metaphorically speaking...

I beg Firebox Records to at least re-consider and pursue and sign again bands like Aarni, Umbra Nihil and My Shameful, and return to their ways of old with their original and glorious roster, or at least a roster up to par with those giants. (4/10, for trying so hard)

There goes the journey.

It's clear that Turisas can do much better. The vocal line in the mellow part of "Cursed be Iron" is exactly what you'd expect from a bard telling tales of the old times, but the loud screaming thrash part doesn't connect to it at all. One song that clicks completely is "In the Court of Jarisleif" with an insane virtuoso hyperfast accordion melody taken straight from the court of some Russian Tzar. You can actually hear his soldiers clapping and the Russian vocals along with the guitars and drums simply jumping around... folk metal track of the year? Three more songs to go, and Turisas get tired. The symphonic part of "The Dnieper Rapids" could have sounded more like something by Mussorgsky, and less like something from a Tom and Jerry cartoon.

Finally, finally, the destination has been reached and the chorus of "Miklagard Overture" consists of just one word — Constantinopolis. A tedious journey it was, and The Varangian Way has proven that it does have soundtrack qualities, but not much more than that. In the end it's all in the choruses. (5.5/10)

Look here: Sludge and stoner (doom) metal are NOT the same monster. Sludge is a filthy, grimy and crude musical expression of the suffering mind, devoid of a glimpse of hope or a ray of light in the end of the fucking non-existent tunnel. Stoner metal, on the other hand, is the very opposite; party music, infused with fun and games and smiles and good times and hippie clothing and many, many colors... I love them both but they stand at the very opposite extremes of the doom metal archetype.

One cannot define one's music as sludge / stoner; the dissonance is too great, the dichotomy too absurd. Is there a color both black and white; a flavor both salty and sweet?

So do not make the common error of mistaking sludge for stoner and vice versa...Which brings us to Weedeater.

Weedeater's main theme is Marijuana; Weedeater play slow, southern-influenced, hillbilly redneck — almost classic — stoner doom metal; not sludge, although one could mistake them as such due to their filthy sound and the unpolished and strange alchemy practiced between the music and the acerbic vocals, a flirtation whose outcome is skull-crackling dissonance.

As above-mentioned, the only genuine characteristic that sets this entity apart from being the ultimate party animal are the venomous and harsh vocals that are not, by any means, typical to stoner metal. The other elemets of the album are.

Incorporating the classic stoner doom riffage, Weedeater use repetitive and circular song structures that remain on a constant plateau without a musical apex, with no lows or highs, nor any surprisingly sharp turns in the plot. Weedeater are the epitome of stoner, the very essence of the style... which makes their music a bit problematic and for purist fans of the genre.

Listening to this album is like driving an eighteen-wheeler Mack truck; you know what you get; you want the ride to end; you want to drive a bit faster but a heavy load holds you down and slows your advancement; you're too lazy and hazy to do something about that, but you feel damn safe so high above the road, but strangely not that comfortable.

Even though this is pure stoner, by no means is the music an easy listening experience. This Southern drunkard’s stoner is too pure and too generic for its own good or for the sake of the listener’s, and the supreme dichotomy between the music and the vocals is nothing one can get accustomed to; it stings your ears each and every time you spin the album.

This kind of aesthetical approach would narrow its audience and leave only the strict and avid admirers of the style to ponder upon this album and revel within it, but there it stops. God Luck and Good Speed is niche music; the niche being classic and heavy stoner, as pure as first snow and almost as barren.

Stoner lovers, you would wet your pants with this offering for it is a well-worth addition to your collection, although it offers very little in terms of originality. Instead, it compensates with a rare display of gargantuan and venomous vocals that add another dimension to the music by making it dense, suffocating and disturbing. To everyone else... well, just stay away. (6.5/10)

Till writing these very lines I have not yet figured out whether D. Smolken — the man behind Wolfmangler, Dead Raven Choir and Goatbomb — is a clown with serious intentions to turn the whole underground metal scene into a festival of mockery (which is fine by me, as it is not too far behind that status as it is), and consciously is doing just that with his above-mentioned, perhaps joke bands; or, that he's a serious musician with a "sweet-tooth" for the very weird faraway reaches of extreme avant-garde and unconventional, left-field music.

He could be either or neither, for all I care. The music is what counts, in the end.

Cooking With Wolves has nothing to do with music, though. It is all about random cello passages broken into endless interludes; each more senseless than the next one, or the previous one, for that matter.

Indecipherable and incoherent whispers accompany the aforementioned absurd and dissonant cello abuse — and that is pretty much all there is to it. There are no added values to be found on this recording (other than the music, which couldn't have been more absent than it is here...) and even the "experimentation" is not really that; it is more of the same senseless disharmonious anti-melody randomly executed and repeated till kingdom come.

There's no boldness here, no daring, nothing remotely in the realm of musical ideas, a plot, an atmosphere. It isn't even noise; it's without a pattern and without an aim, unless extreme annoyance is a worthy aim.

Should anyone wish to listen to a really bad cello "musician" tuning his or her instrument and / or practicing before the actual recital performance? Then by all means, pick up Cooking With Wolves and knock yourself out.

For the rest of you, no matter how open-minded you may be, stay away from this recording as if it were the black plague itself. (0/10)

Leftovers, Relics & Rarities is one of those niche products Angel Air excels in delivering. This time it is ‘80s British heavy rock fans that are bound to get what they look for.

Mammoth was a late ‘80s band, led by John McCoy (Gillan, Samson) and Nicky Moore (also of Samson), and characterized by ponderously heavy music that fits in well with the huge physical proportions of its players. The band lasted for one album and a few singles.

All this reflection on Sodom this issue makes recommending one of their old albums a lock. More specifically, recommending a raw, brutal album... that also is tight and efficient. Get What You Deserve may be one of, if not the best, example of that.

"Dirty" doesn’t begin to describe it. Much of the time, you can barely hear the guitar, but then you realize it’s really that super fucked up buzzing that’s been there the whole time. But it’s on time, dammit, and with the filthy bass, it makes for a highly satisfying, no-frills thrash metal romp.

Undoubtedly what will make the fists fly is the drumming. In the Lords of Depravity vol. 1 documentary about Sodom, Angelripper refers to drummer Atomic Steif as "the Dave Lombardo of Germany." That seems dead on. The drum performance on Get What You Deserve is probably the most brutal and extreme of any Sodom record ever. Atomic Steif isn’t playing anything you haven’t heard before, but the way he plays it, and the way the production conveys the deadly mix of precision and bludgeon, makes it seem like you’re hearing it all again for the very first time.

Get What You Deserve qualifies as some other superlatives in Sodom’s discography. Namely, it has the band’s most controversial artwork. As the story goes, the label refused to release it because of the violent, depraved nature of the photo (so Sodom released a toned-down version with a simple photo of the band as the cover art). Almost as a parent assuaging an upset child that the blood in the movies isn’t real, the tray insert art has a photo of the fat man on the cover, standing around after the immortal photo was taken, with the SM sex slave woman smiling next to him. See, everyone was ok, kids.

Some of Sodom’s greatest songs are on this record. None can be as catchy or ass-shaking as "Die Stumme Ursel," or as fucking brutal as "Jesus Screamer." But the greatest piece on the record has got to be "Silence is Consent," Sodom’s anti-whaling song. The sinister, aggressive track is preceded by an instrumental, "Tribute to Moby Dick," in which the band is backed up by a track of whale song, which results in one of the most eerie, creepy listening experiences, made all the more so as you know the sound sources are organic.

Sodom’s M.O. on this album is short, to the point, and extreme. There are 16 songs in 44 minutes on Get What You Deserve, and some of the best ones are two minutes or less. Think of it as Sodom’s version of grindcore: filthy, raw, pummeling and intense.