Ahleuchatistas was a revelation since listening to 2006' What You Will. But don’t dismiss Even In the Midst because it lacks the thrashing compositions that made What You Will so great. It’ll eventually hit you.

What You Will’s excitement was immediate, mind-blowing and fun (in its twisted way). This time, Ahleuchatistas assimilated its complex, highly technical playing and its edgy, avant garde leanings into compositions that stretch out a bit more and deliver in a more dramatic and lyrical way.

The compositions are varied and intricate, carrying tones that range from reflective and sensual to disturbing and aggressive, sometimes within the confines of a single track ("Take Me to Your Leader Never Sounded So Alien," for example). Moreover, the album has a rare, expressionist, narrative feel that helps the twelve tracks function as a whole. Just check out how the tense "The Bears of Cantabria Shall Sleep No More," on which drum strokes counterpoint gentle, resonating guitar plucking and unconventional, squeaking bass, all building upon the power of its preceding track and feeds its dynamic, nearly cathartic, successor ("Prosthetic God").

On the more ambience-oriented moments, most noticeably on the circulating and slightly meditative (yet still packed) closing, "Where We Left Off," a comparison with the UK trio Guapo is evoked, but Ahleuchatistas — as reflected by the compositions, their execution and the production — comes off pointier and brighter.

Oh, an Ahleuchatistas review cannot be completed without mentioning Sean Dail — it seems like this guy can't play anything basic, and his dense, complicated drumming sounds unbelievably natural. In other words... Simply amazing! (9.25/10)

If Maelstrom darlings Bohren Und Der Club of Gore still made still, luscious albums like their Midnight Radio triumph and inserted a bit of Sigur Ros into it, you might end up with Oren Ambarchi’s In the Pendulum’s Embrace. Part glitchy country lullaby through hell, part humming mantra of low-end drift and shimmering metallic tones, all marvelous and blissful entrancement. (9.2/10)

Fear Will Cast No Shadow is the third full-length album from this melodic death metal /metalcore five-piece from Daytona, Florida.

This album is the latest in an increasing rate of mastering jobs by Alan Douches (see also albums of Paths of Possession and Demiricous in this and the previous issue). The production job was in the hands of Jason Suecof, who may be known for his work with bands like Trivium and God Forbid. Also remarkable is that this album includes a guest appearance from Ralph Santolla of Deicide and Obituary on the last track.

There are 11 songs on Fear Will Cast No Shadow and all but one clock in under four minutes, which possibly indicates The Autumn Offering’s desire to make music without too much pretense.

The themes are pretty much based on everyday issues like relationships and identity. Instrumentally, there is not too much to complain about — prominent and roaring guitars, and rousing drum bravoure all around. Not immensely original, but sufficient to maintain drive and energy.

The singing is alternated between low grunting and anguished clean, disorientating, schizophrenic, and high vocals, which to my horror, reminded me of Linkin’ Park. Nevertheless, it has not hampered The Autumn Offering’s connection with a wider audience.

Fear Will Cast No Shadow has become quite an accessible album. In fact, it’s a middle ground where the listener can bounce evenly from slightly aggressive metal to metal that is pleasing to the ears of those who enjoy more mainstream, melodic and emotionally driven arrangements.

How meritorious it may be that their current vocalist is able to do his gruntstunt, he is seemingly more at ease with high and cleanly sung choruses, the result of that being that at some point the stunt becomes a gimmick of sorts that gradually becomes deprived of its effect.

Speaking of effects, what doesn’t improve things is the regular use of several and often rather unnecessary vocal effects, the worst example being the dreaded and utterly silly transistor voice effect on the fourth song, "Silence and Goodbye." Just what the hell do they want? It seems that at this stage they are still struggling to channel their creativity. "What’s this button for? And that one? And…" ***KABOOM!***.

Another drawback is how The Autumn Offering tries to make its music come across as having depth that it in fact lacks. Although this band may certainly be for real, they are still just scraping the surface of their true potential with a rather predictable result. At the worst moments, the vocalist’s high register antics border on the pathetic and whiney, but truth be told, that when he is just using a regular, more medium toned voice it is feasible that one could relate to the woeful tales of lost love.

In fact, it seems that The Autumn Offering are attaching such an importance to the catchiness of their sopranic choruses that it sometimes seems that everything else around it comes in second place. But there are positive exceptions, like "March of the Clones," which has a basic riff that has a sly touch of that classic old Alice in Chains depression. The album ends on a hopeful note with "Dystopiate," with some excellent death metal solo-ing from Ralph Santolla and with just one (brutal) style of vocals. It just goes to show that things can be better when all noses point towards the same direction. Perhaps they are just trying too hard. (5/10)

What makes Balrog’s Ars Talionis an attention grabber is also what detracts from it at the end of the day. The album is scathing and hateful, most represented in the opening noisescape, "Le Chant des Anges de la Mort," which is frightening even to those inured to black metal after years of immersion.

The album’s proper songs continue in this scathing, painful mode... but that’s just the thing, Ars Talionis is too sonically painful to properly enjoy. The shame of this description isn’t that this is a result of the fierce intensity of the compositions or instrumental tone (which sound effectively violent) — it’s because the album is compressed way too much. You keep wanting to turn the damn thing down, and eventually you want to turn it off. Ironically, it’s also likely as a result of this compression that the actual music is more difficult to make out than it should, or was meant to, be. What you will notice most of all is a very high-pressure assault of drums and what ends up sounding like rather amorpheous guitar and bass, and multi-tracked extreme vocals, all exhausting your audial faculties. I wasn’t playing the album particularly loud while writing this review, but my ears are hurting even 10 minutes after I had to turn the stereo off.

Balrog is the personal band of Sebastien Tuvi, a very prolific French guitarist who’s also in Aborted, Genital Grinder, and I believe another band. Balrog’s previous album, Bestial Satanic Terror, might feel a little constricted, but it’s a much more enjoyable and appreciable way to approach this band. What a bummer that Ars Talionis is the latest album to err on the side of trying to be louder than everything else. (Ouch/10)

Dismissing Blackmore’s Night’s amalgamation of Renaissance Faire music and rock as cheesy or "gay" isn’t enough. Chances are even Renaissance Faire poppers think the whole bit they’re into is pretty damn ridiculous. Go for it, people! It might not get as cheesy as metal, and that’s the way it should be.

And Blackmore’s Night’s music is pretty absurd. Lots of synthesized acoustic period piece sounds, tambourine in abundance, lite rock sensibilities hand-in-hand with Renaissance Faireitude and all the stereotypes that go with it.

But Blackmore’s Night is so much sillier than the sum of its parts. This is vastly propelled to even greater lengths by the staunch fanaticism of the two main players in the group, namely Richie Blackmore and Candice Night, to make you believe Blackmore’s Night ISN’T the lamest thing ever, but by trying to make the notion swallowed via explicitly cheesy elements. The only wonder left unresolved is why the duo haven’t started coining their music as "Barock."

After taking in a couple songs from this DVD, one begins to consider the notion if, that, if something that sucks, and does so determinedly, does it in fact get better... albeit at sucking?

Consider some of the obvious elements on display on Paris Moon, the latest release by this project, a live DVD and CD package.

- The drummer has plants and bales of hay around him on stage

- The supporting band members have hilarious renaissance faire names. (Ex: Squire Malcolm of Lumley - drums)

- Candice Night’s talking voice on stage is in the same register as her singing voice, and her forced persona feels stiff and patronizing.

- Richie Blackmore’s "Renaissance Shades" — the sunglasses he wears while looking on floppily (and perhaps asleep) while wearing an otherwise entirely Renaissancey outfit in the background of an otherwise entirely Renaissancey music video for one of the project’s songs in the bonus portion of Paris Moon.

- The entire documentary of the making of this concert.

Speaking of the documentary, it is telling of a facet of the duality of the hilarity of this release. The packaging is quite attractive, yet the contents of the video is a recurring theme of "they left THAT in?" Consider:

- "Richie is a really articulate individual. He can more or less tell you what he wants." - Blackmore’s Night session musician.

- The poor, poor French woman at the beginning of the documentary, who is made to laud Blackmore’s Night impromptu and in struggling English.

- The entire passive/aggressive onstage near-blowup drama as Night tries to get Blackmore to talk to the audience.

- Blackmore’s pointed declaration, as he refuses to ever look into the camera, seemingly uncomfortable at the task of drawing breath in general, that the music of his band is folk and rock and Renaissance, yet simultaneously none of those, and saying that there’s a great deal of pompousness out there, all the while in full Renaissance garb, sipping a large glass of Renaissance wine, with old-timey props and lit candles in the background.

- The quick, between song pan of the first row of the audience, which reveals many empty, quizzical stares of 40-50 something French men.

Chuckle all we want, though, Paris Moon was captured at a fine-looking auditorium in Paris, in front of a sold-out crowd (we’d guess 400-500) of seemingly well-to-do, 30-60 year old, preppie-sweater wearing French citizens, looking rather stiff but giving off the air of feeling like they were more liberal and hip than the next guy.

If you’re in a similar demographic, you might like Blackmore’s Night. The fine Australian fellow that bought this off me on eBay has just started his collection and is psyched. His correspondence has been polite, enthusiastic, and has contained elements of hifalutin, Renaissancey interjections. May you and your prize live happily ever after, sir. (Barock/10)

1998 was an important year for hardcore or, rather, post-hardcore, if only for Converge's When Forever Comes Crashing (what would be the last non-mainstream Converge album), and Botch's American Nervoso.

Sure, Botch never really got the same kind of attention Converge did; after all, they were far less marketable than the slightly more human early Converge. American Nervoso was Botch's first full-length, and it marked the start of their serious experimentation with technical hardcore, in what would later become acknowledged as "mathcore," albeit with a different connotation nowadays.

It might tell you something that you won't find a single real hardcore fan that won't name Botch as a seminal band: half the post-hardcore (and related) bands you see nowadays borrowed at least a bit from Botch. So seeing Hydra Head re-release their albums can only be good for those who hadn't heard Botch before and would like to. But then again, _everyone_ who hasn't heard Botch should want to.

Think of Botch as a crash course through the good parts of hardcore, with enough experimentation, tempo and time signature changes and craziness to keep even those with short attention spans interested. Sure, American Nervoso is not as psycho as those new mathcore bands, as in, they don't spam the hell out of you with random riffs for the sake of sounding weird, but they still manage to create both creepy and schizophrenic atmospheres. Botch actually were weird, but not cheap weird. Maybe it'll be easier just to say they were Dillinger Escape Plan before Dillinger Escape Plan, without the sometimes formulaic songwriting of Dillinger, but with a lot of the experimentation that Dillinger hasn't really done for a long while.

American Nervoso, and Converge as well, would also be quite important when it came to redefine hardcore riffs: they didn't use powerchords as a cheap vehicle to sound heavy, they used completely atonal and harsh sounding downtuned rhythmic lines, dissonant chords, illogical chord progressions and maniac pick slides and harmonics. American Nervoso and When Forever Comes Crashing were just two of the albums that proposed a deep counterpoint and harmony reinvention. Sadly, it wouldn't advance much further than that, so the tale's ending is not a happy one, including the millions of talentless copycats that we unfortunately have to endure today. Even so, Botch's breakthrough marked a giant step forward for the already moving hardcore scene of 1998. (Classic/10)

We are the Romans is the third re-issue, at least chronologically, done by Hydra Head of the seminal mathcore band Botch.

While on American Nervoso (review above) they show the world that technically hardcore can sound much better than it sounded on early Converge, it's with We are the Romans that Botch established themselves as the pivotal band for the genre. Every single aspect of American Nervoso gets much more developed here, the craziness is multiplied by ten and the technicality is as prominent, if not more, as it was on the previous album.

It's fun to see just how much bands rip the hell off We Are the Romans, even bands not associated with the whole mathcore thing, like Pig Destroyer. Right, see the slower parts on the earlier Pig Destroyer albums? Well, they were done years before on the first track of this album, "To Our Friends in the Great White North." Pig Destroyer weren't the only ones to shamelessly copy Botch, of course, all those technical metalcore, lots of post-hardcore, and even metal / hardcore bands owe Botch's nihilistic, technical, even nerdy approach more than half their career.

The main difference between Botch and all those copycats is crucial: they never stayed at the same point for more than two or three minutes. Their songs were more like experiments on a single thing, but not all songs experimented with the same stuff. The first track, for example, is more metalcore-ish, while "Transitions from Persona to Object" is like the bastard child of old school death metal's harmonies and Converge, and that same song's mid-part will sound quite similar to people who have heard Meshuggah's Chaosphere. Botch even tried doing an emotional track, successfully, with "Swimming the Channel vs Driving the Chunnel," surely one of their greatest tracks, and a stoner doom-influenced one with "Man the Ramparts."

Botch was mathcore, but they weren't just mathcore, they weren't formulaic, and that's precisely why Botch is remembered.

Edition-wise, We Are the Romans got the best treatment of the three reissues: it includes a second disc with live tracks and almost all of We Are the Romans in demo version. The first track includes a pretty weird but outstanding remix of "Thank God for Worker Bees" as well, so, even if you own the original, if you're a big Botch fan, it'll be worth it. And if you're not, then this is the perfect opportunity to get both their full lengths, and maybe even the other reissue of demo stuff. (Just get it/10)

The fact that this quintet of British rock icons decided to tour under a brand new moniker serves to say these guys (and gal) aren’t in for the nostalgia, but rather for the fun of playing unprejudiced blues rock.

Guitarist Miller Anderson (Keef Hartley Band), keyboardist Zoot Money (Alexis Korner), and drummer Colin Allen (Stone the Crows) are all in fine form and tight interaction (check out the slow, southern rock flavored Anderson original "Fog On The Highway," on which he scats to Money’s organ sounds) on this 2007 live set; but it’s Colin Hodgkinson (Back Door, Spencer Davis Group, and briefly of Whitesnake) who offers one of the showstoppers here in the form of "San Francisco Bay Blues" — a jumpy, solo blues number featuring his funky, trademark bass chord technique — this is one number that could even make Les Claypool envy! Hodkingson repeats his stunts on "Walkin’ Blues," this time with the support of his colleagues.

Scottish singer Maggie Bell is featured on a few of the songs, and while her voice might be a bit worn in range, her performance sounds as enthusiastic as ever: She howls like a wolf on "I Just Wanna’ Make Love To You"; and uses Free’s "Wishing Well" (originally an intimate, reflective song) to convey her message of peace, surpassing her plain studio reading of the song (found on her 1975 release, Suicide Sal). The entire band injects the appropriate loose spirit, and is, of course, the great enabler of Bell’s interpretations. (7.25/10)

Metal Blade is making a big deal out of this Brain Drill band, from a sticker on the front of the album touting a quote by Alex Webster of Cannibal Corpse praising this group, to a press release that goes on and on about how great drummer Marco Pitruzzella is; how he can play faster than anyone, does it in one take, and doesn’t need editing or even a metronome to play to. Wow.

Except... and there are a few excepts.

Here’s one: Apocalyptic Feasting doesn’t sound like an album of music played by actual human beings. This might sound like praise, but what it means is it sounds utterly fake. The drums sound like a drum machine, and if there were such a thing as a guitar machine and a bass machine, Brain Drill would exemplify those.

Brain Drill is the latest band to uphold quantity over quality. Following this mentality, the more blast beats, sweeps, pinch harmonic noodles, and direction changes possible, and at the highest speeds ever, the better. In this regard, Brain Drill has triumphed: The music is chock full of sonic information, and it’s all perfectly concise, performed in a surgical blur, and laid out for the audience to dissect.

But music ain’t a goddamn Olympic event. There aren’t any quantitative records that really mean a rat’s ass. Brain Drill’s music might be faster and more "technical" somehow than anyone else’s, but it also is bereft of taste.

But the guys can fucking play their style. We checked out some vids of them on You Tube, like a live cut that shows how hard their hands have to work to get all that stuff out of their guitars. We also checked out videos of the vaunted Pitruzzella on drums. Get ready for except #2.

He plays an e-kit. Sure, it’s probably more expensive than any acoustic set, but it’s a goddamn e-kit. No wonder why the drums on Apocalyptic Feasting sound like a machine, because it practically IS one. It’s ALL samples. And it sounds ridiculous. It also looks ridiculous, and you might not find too many metal drummers to say otherwise. Yes, the guy can tear it up, and I found it instructive to watch his technique, but the man’s choice of instrument is a reflection of the unfortunately askew values that are upheld more and more in death metal, namely that if it can sound clearer and faster all the time, then who cares if it also sounds horrible and artificial.

But what do I know? Bands like Beneath the Massacre seem to be doing well, and their music is even less flavorful, and sounds even more plastic. Dragonforce is also doing great, even though they, like Brain Drill and Beneath the Massacre, are merely playing what has come before them, with the same few determined, cookie-cutter musical motifs, albeit faster and more extremely than anyone before, but with no real substance. And people eat that shit up.

Maybe I’m getting old. Or maybe there’s something very wrong here. (4/10)

PS: For even more inaneness turn to the back of the 10-song Apocalyptic Feasting album’ booklet:

"All lyrics by Steve Rathjen, except for ‘Consumed by the Dead,’ ‘The Parasites,’ ‘Swine Slaughter,’ ‘Forcefed Human Shit,’ ‘The Depths of Darkness’ and ‘Revelation’ by Dylan Ruskin." So, all the lyrics are by one guy, except for the 60% of lyrics that another guy wrote. Nice.

Now this is the sort of thing worth waiting for. It’s such a great relief when the best aspects of metal are compressed into one band’s sound. You end up wishing life had this sort of chemistry.

Centurions Ghost hail from London, England, and this is their second release through Swedish label I Hate. This is some heavy as fuck-all doom with dustings of Melvins, Lair of the Minotaur, Neurosis, Celtic Frost, even Deep Purple! How many times did we have to fucking BEG for this? The Great Work is a re-coronation ceremony for heavy metal.

The album starts off with an eerie melodic run from "The Wicker Man" before exploding a bomb of seriously frightening doom violence in "The Supreme Moment." The band’s influences are as obvious as their intentions, the style familiar yet engaging, supreme heaviness. Guitarists Jonny Whittle and Dan 138 really have a great tone — indeed the album sounds so meaty it makes me want to copy and paste their settings.

Vocalist Mark Scurr sounds like a cross between John Connelly (Nuclear Assault), and Tom G. Warrior — it’s a commanding presence and complements the band’s sound perfectly. A lot of interludes between tracks are sample-based, ranging between creeped-out sermons by megalomaniacs and medieval synth pads... pure fucking atmosphere.

The scariest meat descends on "Let Sleeping Corpses Lie," a Melvins-y dirge from hell that proves this unit just doesn’t fuck around. Then the band goes totally Motorhead on "Only the Strong Survive" and "Bedbound in the House of Doom."

This material has Masters-of-Reality-CLASSIC seeping out of every pore. Not just essential, it falls under divine mandate. (10/10)

Isolate is the second album by this wonderful Norwegian progressive metal band. Their debut, The First Chapter, already established the group as having its own sound, showcasing superb talent and song writing skills.

Isolate is perhaps not quite as strong as the debut, but it’s on par. The music is clean and melodic, yet maintains enough aggressiveness and heaviness to propel it. Stylistically, you might be able to pick out some similarities in tone and vocal delivery with another Norwegian metal singer’s penchants — Khan of Kamelot. Check out "Abyss."

Probably what causes Isolate to come in second place is the unshakeable feel that it’s a bit of a rehash. The album is largely laid out much like the debut: elements like a similar feel on the opening track, an instrumental on track four, two soft songs, the penultimate track ends with a circusy motif. It’s no cut and paste, though, but more adventure would be called for next time around. Still, one of this journalist’s favorite albums of 2007. (8.8/10)

Dave Corp’s The Sweet Life is a six-track instrumental record that covers jazz, funk and some psychedelic territory, and does so deliciously. It’s hard to decide which is better, the tasty musicianship (via the three-piece band that plays keyboards, bass and drums) on hand or the wonderful production, which is warm and exquisite. Instrumental music is largely lost on this reviewer, but The Sweet Life kept my attention throughout, and happily so. (7.8/10)

Loren Dent’s Empires and Milk is an exquisite ambient/drone album. It mixes electronic fuzz that has a slight harsh coldness with heavy warmth of played instruments like piano and guitar. Droning, melodic hum and shimmering, crystalline wafts further anchors the blissful laudanum. Sometimes the tone of the album goes a touch sinister ("Shoot the Piano Player"). At other times, gorgeous, reverberant tones pervade ("If We’re Ever Alone Again") "A Silent Extinction" features echoing talking (evoking a public address in an airport) far in the distance. (8.5/10)

C-T Prevail’s Mean Season is metalcore that doesn’t suck: vocals that give more than the banal, cookie cutter stylings, heavy, textured guitar and drum tones, and if there is any At the Gates worship, it isn’t painfully obvious. It’s heavy music that isn’t old immediately, can groove like Sepultura used to, isn’t cluttered by arrangements that try to be complex and fresh but come off as just scatterbrained.

The biggest issue facing C-T Prevail is its band name. I mean, come on. (7/10)

If you watch extreme metal acts’ DVDs, chances are you’ve seen one shot at a particular club in Katowice, Poland. Vader, Behemoth, Enslaved, and no doubt more bands have put out DVDs in recent years that were shot at this club. The appeal seems obvious: the club has a big stage, good lighting and super cameras that can swing around the venue like Spiderman.

The problem is that each and every show captured at this place is stale in the extreme. The drum set is the club’s backline, and the crowd always feels like it is made up of people that the organizers found at random to fill out the front of the stage. The sense is that it isn’t a proper show, but a dress rehearsal or a Hollywood re-enactment of a metal gig.

All this isn’t helping Dark Funeral’s case. There isn’t a more generic and meaningless band in the upper tier of black metal. Their songs are fast, the drumming is phenomenal, they play tight, but their image and content, both lyrical and musical, is as hollow as it gets. Before watching Attera Orbis Terrarum, there was a personal bet as to which DVD would be cheesier, this one or Blackmore’s Night’s Paris Moon, also reviewed in this issue.

But Attera Orbis Terrarum, being a DVD, isn’t for casual fans. It’s for people who are into Dark Funeral. And there are plenty out there. And for those fans, the DVD’s content improves drastically during the second of three sets captured on video here, which took place in the Netherlands. The atmosphere represented in this concert seems much more like an actual metal show, and the camera work and sound are very good... and the sound is heavier and less artificial than the show from Poland.

The same positive aspects apply for the third show on the set, captured in France. Yes, you realize that the singer’s "heartfelt" appreciation for his fans and how they inspire him is little more than a recycled line, but at least it’s a line delivered at an actual metal show. (Paris Moon goes black metal/10)

They say it's old school mixed with black metal. There is a slight touch of black on the second song, "Dressed in Blood," but the riff is too close to Marduk's "Ars Moriendi" to not notice. Some double-kick rhythms also give some hope, yet, if it was meant to give the rest of the album a black metal feeling, it failed. After that, there are ten other songs mostly passing in the same tempos. Admittedly, there are numerous breaks, licks and solos, hooks and what not, but not enough to make each song stand out on its own. Structurally, they are a bit more complicated than Arch Enemy, but with less dynamics and memorable parts.

Devian are great musicians, no doubt. But if you're interested in them because of two ex-Marduk members, think twice. Ninewinged Serpent might aspire to have conviction or innovation, but in the end it just sounds like Swedes being Swedes. And the ol' serpent, Lucifer, had twelve pairs of wings anyway. (5.8/10)

If you're into power metal, you probably have one or two albums of this kind in your collection. Here are a couple of hints: They don't have a perfect sound but it's warm and sincere. Acceptable. The songs don't really kick you in the gut like the major players do, but it's not that the band isn't trying. They are doing their best, clearly they can play and they know how to arrange the songs. It's just that they don't have as many outstanding ideas as the bands in a class above them do.

Nonetheless, albums like Dominus Praelii’s don't end up in a pile of forgotten CDs. They get played once in a while, just for the fun of it... or as a soundtrack while you're doing something else. If it's not great, at least it is consistent and undemanding.

In the case of Dominus Praelii (Latin for "lord of the battle"), we're talking about a true heavy metal band in the vein of Hammerfall. Luckily, it's not about the Templars, but the thought of a Brazilian band singing about Genghis Khan is equally ludicrous. But please ignore the lyrics and pretend that you haven't heard "verrior" a number of times — or some English words so twisted that I have no idea how to spell them now.

Holding the Flag of War is a re-release of Dominus Praelii's debut, this time accompanied by their demo, The First Battle (from 2000). The sound is somewhat shady but efficient enough, the musicianship tight and the songs quite diverse, ranging from slow marches and mid-tempo headbangers to double-kick anthems. Turn the volume up and there's nothing to complain about, it's loud and proud. Ricardo Pigatto's vocals are nowhere near what your friends would call "gay" — the man's voice is relatively deep and coarse. Actually, everything is as it should be. It's just that you've heard it before.

Although the riffs and arrangements are diverse, there aren't many non-standard ones. Of course there are many way more popular bands making money on using standard riffs, but they usually have some sort of a personality and catchiness as an excuse. On Holding the Flag of War, Dominus Praelii just have potential. Initially, all is well, but after two or three songs the vocalist starts sounding like he never re-considers his approach, doing everything the same way. The initial fury of the songs sinks into too many deja-vus. And, as the riffs come, they go by without leaving a reminder. Shortly, it's good while it lasts, but there's nothing afterwards. Coming to think of it, a "gay" singer could just be the missing link, as Pigatto's voice blends into the sound too much.

A word or two about the bonus demo tracks: It’s the same as with the album but with a decent demo sound. You can either skip it or try guessing what other bands used the same riffs. But the last track, "Mighty Odin," should have been left out. Damn it, don't try to sing the prayer from "The 13th Warrior" using that awkward melody and using THAT English. The first time someone actually notices something original doesn't have to be this disgrace. Oh well, that's true heavy metal.

Now, if you love power metal, and you're willing to ignore the shortcomings of Holding the Flag of War, it will give you a few enjoyable, non-demanding moments and something to tap your feet to while you're reading or (...writing a review? Maybe I should have used more simple English for this?) doing something that demands your attention. As many parts and tempo changes as there are, they aren't enough for someone's full concentration. (6.3/10)

I doubt the founding fathers of electronic music could have imagined that, somehow, electronic experimentation would earn recognition among music enthusiasts. After all, they were far closer to the avant-garde movements of classical music than to today's pop aesthetics-based electronica. Not saying that the latest Cold Meat Industry release or even most trance albums could compete on the basis of sale numbers with Madonna's latest abomination, of course.

It's still mindboggling that something like the first wave of electronic music and everything derived from it ended up recognized as major genres. Ambient, noise, even things like breakcore and speedcore can be traced back to Nono, Stockhausen and Varese. Even so, it'd be safe to say that ambient and electronica in particular are no longer avant-garde movements, mostly because there's no "avant-garde ethics" behind them. See, it's hard to find a noise artist without extreme views on something, yet ambient musicians are both conceptually and ethically more conformist.

It might sound weird to you, but Drawing Voices is the perfect example for the whole ambient-not-being-avantgarde situation. You won't find anything on Drawing Voices that reminds you of the experimentation that ambient's leaders have always been forced to do. Instead, you get an overly simplistic although enjoyable piece of a conformist kind of ambient.

"Conformist" might sound so negative, but it doesn't mean it's bad. Drawing Voices is a good album, but that's not the problem. It is just... well, what you've already heard some times already. Phone-sounding backgrounds, random hiss, background guitar improvisation. It's not _bad_, don't get the wrong idea, but one doesn't listen to ambient just to listen to stuff already done, one listens to it for novelty value, for innovative concepts and, of course, for a developed atmosphere. And out of those three, Drawing Voices only has the most important — atmosphere. The rest are missing: the much needed novelty value, to actually remember what the album is, and the innovative concepts, to make the album more than just worth the time you spend on it.

On one hand, Drawing Voices sounds good. The production is superb, with a layer-based sound where low sounds and loud sounds don't collide but actually complement each other. There's stuff going on, so you won't get just a random sinusoidal wave at some random frequency, and not all their songs are the same thing. On the other hand, there's nothing boundary-breaking about it; Drawing Voices represents the not-avant-garde kind of ambient. But it's not just lack of originality, it's also lack of, well, something to justify it. So, it's good if you haven't heard any ambient for a while, but it's definitely not what you're searching for if you've heard every single Shinjuku Thief or Raison d'Etre release under the sun. (6.1/10)

Can't go wrong with this one. As Endstille start, Endstille keep going. On their fifth album since 2002, the German quartet continues in very much the same direction, and it is a good one.

Think about classic black metal, with no extra (distracting) ingredients and no experiments, just relentless from start to end. The guitar tone absolutely never, ever stops apart from the breaks between the songs, and each of the long, majestic riffs finds a way of becoming self-sufficient and memorable. The drum (blast)beats do change, very often, but, generally, each song stays within its own tempo — always a high one. Some of the lyrics are in German, some in English, delivered through painful, hollow screams coming in somewhat predictable patterns. Therefore, nothing actually progressive or unpredictable happens, but, Endstille are great in making the listener willingly suffer throughout anything they are capable of spitting at him.

Once again, we have contrasts and conviction at work. The war-obsessed Germans' musicianship is exceptionally tight, and the songwriting deliberate and concise, so much that it almost sounds too easy. But, it's just experience and knowing exactly what they want to do. As Endstilles Reich unfolds, there are more parts revealing than you'd think there would be. The cold riffing style matches the warm guitar sound, the occasionally mechanical (read: militant) drumming comes through a natural drum sound with a strangely seductive snare, and the results are natural, dark, and not quite willing to let you come closer.

With all of the above being said, it still isn't quite clear how is it that Endstille apparently bring nothing new, yet there's a feeling of listening to something that is just there, standing on its own, in its own space and time. Let's just say that we wish there were more albums of this kind around. (8.3/10)

Transfovista’s packaging is an attractive silver and black design that evokes a photo negative theme. The fact that the release is on Temporary Residence does even more to lend it importance.

Envy is one of the better emo bands, so it’s fitting there’s a DVD about them. Transfovista gets right to it and is a collage of shows, tour footage and a couple song videos. The live sound ranges from tinny and blown out to warm and bassy.

As honest and unpretentious as this DVD is, Transfovista boils down to a visual this ‘n’ that compilation of a band that isn’t portrayed as having much personality beyond stage antics including kicking over equipment and jumping on front-row fans. Even fans of the group might not be able to maintain a solid 2-hour interest. (5/10)

A winter report from the Heisenberg psychiatric ward:

"A patient has slipped through the exit from the laundry unit. They discovered this when someone working in the unit noticed that a cage with laundry was pushed over and that a trail of dirty linen bloodstained by unstable minds subjecting themselves to auto-mutilation was leading outside. Hence it was assumed that the escaped patient was wandering outside the clinic terrain wrapped in dirty laundry against the cold of a winter’s mist.

This patient, let’s call him Scythrawl for convenience, had a strange habit of being squat-seated in an unlit corner of a room with his head buried in his hands and randomly screaming in a most anguished manner. The personnel never managed to get much wiser verbally why patient S. was doing this. His screams were horrible and non-descript. One of the guys working in the clinic once jokingly suggested during a break in the clinic’s cantina that patient S. could be a great singer in a particular kind of music. As his suggestion was merely answered with puzzled faces he added: ‘Oh, well, I used to be into this music called black metal. Very cathartic stuff. Perhaps we could try and see how patient S. is responding to the music, because talking will get us nowhere.’ And so it was done.

The following day, patient S., wearing a straightjacke, and in an isolated cell, was made to listen to an old copy of Burzum’s Aske over two crappy speakers and observed. First, it seemed he wasn’t responding very well, with his head bashing against the softened walls. Gradually he stopped doing this — as if a voice was calming this lost, forgotten, sad spirit. Then patient S. slowly sat down on the floor, and after a while, with a crazed gaze and a brainless diagonal smile, he started nodding to the Burzum songs. Had he found a kindred spirit? Had they found at last a medium for communication?"

Ether is a fine new one-man band with depressive suicidal black metal, this time from Canada and with an individual operating under the name Scythrawl. It’s a continuation along the path of previous band Trails of Anguish.

Scythrawl is interesting because of his very elaborate philosophy behind this musical outing. On his own site one can download his concept and be treated to a sort of essay which is even less accessible than his anguished music. It deals with what is called the "Heisenberg uncertainty principle." An entirely new phenomenon within black metal, because for a change there is no mention here of satanic rites or bible bashing, but instead an unlikely dedication to quantum mechanics! How the world can be seen and the perception of reality and how it is changing constantly. About how mankind is not even near a state of understanding that you’re living in a stolen life and that all your actions are dictated by moral standards, broadcasted by medias and documentaries that could be related as the new face of evil in our dark age of placid reason.

There are six kinds of emotion around which this album revolves, namely "Disgust," "Discomfort," "Love," "Hope," "Nostalgia," and "Distress." All titles are ranging in length from six to nearly nine minutes long. In between there are atmospherical interludes with bizarre titles like "…Leading to…" or "…Culminating in…", followed by their respective theme.

This conceptual approach may seem new to some, but only a few months ago I also discussed the newest album from Farsot from Germany with four central themes like Hate, Fear, Death and Sorrow complete with tracks with interconnecting titles.

It seems that both bands seem to be on a mission to intellectualize black metal to the point of hermetism in an attempt to bring back the genre to obscurity. Are they mad, or are they brillant? Averse Sefira, the well-respected Texas black metal band specialized in Q'uaballah mythology and battle themes, lent their voices to this debut release of Ether, so an ambition to achieve something grand is certainly there.

A feeling like discomfort is illustrated by chaotic riffing and lightning fast blastbeats and somewhere behind Scythrawl’s Burzumesque jibberisms resounds a voice singing in a high, pseudo-Gregorian style with bathroom acoustics. In the middle of the song, the chaos suddenly halts, making space for a simple melancholic pattern on acoustic guitar over which a voice is vaguely murmuring things. After one minute of an opportunity to catch a breath, the song is concluded by a final blast of chaos.

The song entitled "Love" is possibly the most unlikely love song ever or it has to be about an utterly destructive kind of love. It’s chaos yet again and there’s such a lot of unrest in the long main themes that the interludes come as a welcome variation.

Depraved, Repressed, Feelings is not an easy album to wallow through. It bears distinct aspects of classic black metal, but it contains a rather oppressive madness of a different kind and an elitist, avant-garde attitude that makes me curious how things will further develop for Ether. Repulsive yet fascinating. (6.75/10)

Dead Rotten and Hungry is the second full-length from this thrash/death metal five-piece from Sweden. Little doubt can there be about their subjects: "Walking Dead," "Slowly Rotting," and "Unanimated Flesh" to mention a few titles... pure zombie death metal.

Just recently, I discussed the zombiphiled newling from Denial Fiend, They Rise, and after a series of spins it became clear to me that Dead Rotten and Hungry from Facebreaker has all that which was missing on Denial Fiend’s musical monstermash: It’s not merry, it’s not funny and instead of cartoon colours, it has a gloomy duoprint of pale yellow and dark sepia (thanks to Mick Kenney from Anaal Nathrakh).

While hearing it I felt like saying: ah, that’s more like it. Brutal and dirty, uniform like a ball of minced meat that’s being squished through the fingers of a clenching fist.

Dead Rotten and Hungry has the best elements of Entombed’s classics Left Hand Path and Wolverine Blues, and with Roberth Karlsson (from Edge of Sanity and Incapacity) Facebreaker they have an excellent grunt in the tradition of Cannibal Corpse when Chris Barnes was still with them. This means that there’s something distinctly nostalgic about this production, and while in the genre of black metal there is often little point in revisiting the old crumbling altars, there does seem to be a point in exhuming old corpses of death metal. The sound is rich and slides forth on a blood-splattered crypt floor where odours of hostile fungi and humid walls encapsulate your senses. The crypt floor where this putrid music was conceived was actually the Black Lounge Studios by Jonas Kjellgren, a place that has also been used for the sinister rites of bands like Carnal Forge, Scar Symmetry, Centinex, and Steel Attack.

This album is highly recommended, even though it’s a little on the short side with its 37 minutes. Dead Rotten and Hungry shows that Sweden is still big with the sound that has been such a popular export product for nigh on two decades. Simple, ugly and most of all, very dead. (7.5/10)

It's no surprise that hardcore band Get Back Up comes from New York, better known as "the place that spawns 300 hardcore bands a minute." It's no surprise that they play the same genre you know way too much for your own good, either. The surprise is that they are actually rather enjoyable. But hold your horses! Notice I didn't say good, but at least we aren't talking about trash bin material.

Get Back Up would be a middle point between the NYHC we're all used to and the far-from-emo emotional hardcore of bands such as Comeback Kid. That is good (in a way) because it's not as standard and unidimensional as either side, but it's also too safe of a position for this group.

Get Back Up is not really emotional but they are not really energetic either, just... somewhere in the middle, where they can afford not to be cheesy or angry. The thing is, they are obviously undecided as to where they want to go. Safe or not, Get Back Up manages to create some fun atmosphere for the 17 minutes Weathering the Storm lasts, with some ups and downs depending on how much they abuse cliches, or how much they feel like playing actual riffs or just breakdowns.

Weathering the Storm isn't the most mature album around, but it works just because it's something you'd expect teenagers with some good instrument practice to record: energetic, straightforward, but with some bad choices and an obvious lack of experience.

Enjoyable as it is, it's still predictable though not as much as the genre average. The vocals are much better than the average as well, but Get Back Up feels the need to include those horrible cliched NYHC-breakdowns with the typical chorus hardcore vocals every so often, so they manage to botch something that would have been quite good otherwise. It's weird: on one hand, they don't really play anything different, but on the other hand, they are actually fun to listen to and not really frustrating, with the obvious exception of those breakdowns.

If you're up for a band that works only if you don't do any serious objective analysis, then go for it. Otherwise, you'll be too annoyed at the breakdowns to care about it being fun. (5.4/10)

There's a clear difference between a drone project and a drone band, be it a one man outfit or a "full" band, whatever a full band means in drone. Sunn O))), Jesu, early Boris, like them or not, there's a feeling when listening to them that they are serious about it. There's a certain maturity both conceptually and in those bands' sound that remind you all the time that you're not listening to a bedroom project. On the other hand, there are millions of projects of varying degrees of originality and complexity that, even with good ideas, you just know the artist is trying something new, experimenting, just to see how it turns out. Godheadscope hasn't crossed that line between projects and bands yet.

Not to say A City Out of Sight isn't full of great ideas: it is. Mostly relying on production and multiple unrelated tracks to make a single aural experiment, Godheadscope is definitely the good kind of project: the ones where you can see they're going for something new. They don't play the same kind of drone you're used to hearing. It's not the drone doom of Sunn O))), it's the organic drone, just drone, of Stars of the Lid, with a more classical approach, even within its musique concrete structures. They are obviously developed conceptually, but it doesn't come out as well as it should.

It's simple: Godheadscope’s concepts are not so well explored. They show those great ideas, but fairly quickly end up running out of ways of exploring them, and the fact that their songs are all over nine minutes doesn't help much. Sure, they're enjoyable because their sound is quite good, but such an extensive use of repetition without a hint of variation isn't really the best approach for a mostly traditionally tonal album. Now, if they added variations and transpositions... the music would sound as good as the band’s talent.

But they didn't, so A City Out of Sight ends up as a great project with some big flaws but also some seriously solid ideas in stock, and a certainly rewarding listening if you don't overanalyze it. (6.8/10)

Praise Satan, Under the Sign of Hell got re-released as well. The third Gorgoroth album, originally unleashed in 1997, was a significant turn in their career — for the first time, there was nothing minimal or meticulously calculated on it. It was the first album of Gorgoroth as we know them today. And the only Gorgoroth album of its own kind. Nothing ever sounded like this, before or since.

Although impossible (unless Infernus could play guitar AND bass at the same time), Under the Sign of Hell sounds as if it was recorded in one storming session, track by track. Even more curiously, the sound isn't the same on the entire album — on the opening track, "Revelation of Doom," the drums were WAY too loud, and it's almost as if, having done that, someone tweaked the amplifier volume and just continued recording while they were still in a possessed state. Or, maybe, it was done on purpose, because the drum sound was as brutal as possible, almost machine-like, and it was necessary to set the mood from the very beginning, as there is no intro. Doesn't matter.

What matters is the adrenalin rush caused by the sheer, outrageous brutality. Not much processing has been done to the guitar sound, trebly and rough like everything was recorded at a rehearsal, live, alive, and utterly bestial. Be careful with that volume knob!

During its majority, Under the Sign of Hell goes straight ahead, with no mercy. The tempo is always slightly above necessary, and the riffs are always way above necessary. Classic after classic, Infernus was spitting them out like there was no tomorrow. Either the whirling tremolo-picked melodies or the devastating apparently random chord sequences, they wouldn't let you go. The same goes for the vocals. Arguably the best Gorgoroth vocalist ever, Pest was a man on (hell)fire. Those dry, naturally distorted screams sound like they were too much for the poor recording equipment, always on the verge of falling apart or being overloaded. And if you hear a strange or a howling noise coming from nowhere, it's still done by the same inhuman. Just amazing.

What is most important, it is not all and always just about brutality. For most listeners, it would have been enough, but there is a method behind the madness. One song might be a black metal assault descending upon you like poisonous rain, but the next one will be full of dignity, and another almost poignant, while always maintaining the intensity. "Profetens Apenbaring" even contains an insane thrash feeling, repeating an ubiquitous, marching, headbanging riff so much that it hurts just trying to follow the chords, and then explodes into black as if it was always meant to be just that. (Ed’s note: this is not only one of my favorite black metal songs ever, but one of my favorite songs, period.)

The penultimate track, "The Rite of Infernal Invocation," is another curiosity. As if it weren't possible to inflict any further damage doing "new" black metal, it's, for a change, an old-school pseudo-rock song played at a million BPM (think Venom at twice the speed), with a guitar solo to match — but, by the point you've reached that one, whatever Gorgoroth played would feel the same. Hurting. There is some relief on offer in the slightly industrialized last track, a Satanic march entitled "The Devil is Calling," but you won't be allowed to feel that relief until it's over.

Cold but on fire, raw but omnipresent. From a distance, beautiful. Close up, devastating. With mesmerizing drums, relentless guitars and unbelievable vocals, Under the Sign of Hell could have been a perfect album. Yet, there are a few unnecessary minutes (out of just 32) on it, namely one neither-here-nor-there interlude, and a couple of instances when the noises after the songs go on for too long. Also, a couple of riffs and breaks aren't that perfect, but considering the overall "live and spontaneous" feeling it can be forgiven. What are a few boring moments on a masterpiece? (8.666/10)

Grotesque might not quite have quite the technical whizzardry as Hate Eternal or Brain Drill, but damn it if Museum of Human Disease isn’t a way more enjoyable album than the ones those other two bands have released this year.

Why? It’s much heavier and real sounding. Grotesque has a good side of its style with an old-school mentality, and it mixes that up with plenty of frantic, Dying Fetus-esque whinnying assaults that simulate being attacked by a hive full of bees on amphetamines.

Don’t construe from the first paragraph that Grotesque has anything to be ashamed of as far as their chops go. Museum of Human Disease is water tight and technical. Most importantly, it shows that when a band upholds quality over quantity, the results are often more musically pleasing. With that said, Grotesque pretty much approaches all its songs with the same mentality, but they all sound hearty and heavy, and that’s what metal IS, right? (7.5/10)

Fury and Flames is another album of mind-numbing brutality. The music again abounds with instrumental skills that make death metal enthusiasts shake their heads in disbelief, but you might not care if it seems to you that the songs are unmemorably interchangeable.

Hate Eternal has always based the measure of its career in quantity, not quality, but if quality for you is more blast beats per second than anyone else, then make the score a 10/5.5.

The drums on Fury and Flames are very, very heavy. This is overdone, for, mixing the highly produced weight of the kit with the surfeit of notes played throughout the album, the guitar gets buried. Meanwhile, the vocals exist as some of the most monotonous and uninteresting in death metal. And the opening riff to track eight is just gay.

Hate Eternal has been playing the same song over and over for four albums now. It’s a whirl geeking out on watching the instrumentation on You Tube, but chances are you’ll be mentally numb way before the album is over. Further heightening the sense of quantity before quality, the minute-long attempt at a lovely respite of non-brutality at the end of the album feels as much as a tacked on afterthought as possible. The clumsy contrast between the two is nearly as brutal as the music. (5.5/10)

Just recently I discussed the newest offering from Gorefest. It was mixed by Tue Madsen and featured guest vocals by Jacob Bredahl. Serpent Smiles is Jacob’s main band Hatesphere, who also produced it together with the band although he got ousted from the band the following month.

Allegedly he was no longer into the spirit of things and after an audition of 100 applicants they opted for the 19 year-old Jonathan "Joller" Albrechtsen. Just how things will turn out for the new and current line-up remains a guess, except for those who have been able to see them live in Europe last January. They will continue, but as an entirely new incarnation of the band on this album.

Serpent Smiles is not a bad testimony, and Tue Madsen has made it a nice and full production. Their blend of death and thrash full of heavy riffing and a distinctively Scandinavian sound features Bredahl delivering his barking and spitting vocals that are in turn similar in style to their US colleagues from Hatebreed. Occasionally, like on the chorus of "The Slain," (which is by the way very reminiscent of Arch Enemy) Bredahl partly "scream-sings" the chorus, which is good, because the use of clean vocals would have otherwise ruined one of the better songs on the album. "Damned Below Judas" sees him applying more of a grunting style, and I’d wish he would have used it all way through the song and dropping those hardcore finger-pointing scream vocals for a minute.

The dragging song "Drinking with the King of the Dead" however is where doubt begins to appear about whether versatility was taking the better of Hatesphere with nonsense like the use of a harmonica and cricket sounds in the background during the intro. Come on, lads, we’re not gonna get cozy around the campfire, are we? Then, learning that they did a video in support of the song I had to raise an eyebrow again: Is such blandness supposed to be a highlight of the album? Come on! I’ll take the title for what it is, but this is just silly.

As the album progresses, there may indeed be noticeable signs of metal fatigue as the riffs and grooves start sounding a bit formulaic, like a tiger jumping through the same old fire hoop over and over again. Hatesphere’s older records are without a doubt better. (5.5/10)

Hulda’s Always Haunted cannot overcome its flat, bland, hollow vocals that are delivered with the most basic of syntax ideas. The recorded instruments sound good tonally but don't transcend the general theme of very basic, banal music that repeats its accent patterns again and again, and sit on the sideline while this recording crashes and burns. (2.8/10)

Framing Armageddon is a grandiose piece of work, both for better and for worse.

Getting rid of the "worse" part first: the concept album — the first of the "Something Wicked" saga — does contain some lame and surprisingly artificial sounding connective parts, such as "Invasion" (its machinegun sounds do correspond with the rhythms of the following "Motivation of Man," but they sound so childishly fake) or "Cataclysm" (which should have marked the turning point of the story in a much forceful manner). Also, the music depends too heavily on the galloping rhythms — great by themselves, they sometimes lack a complementary, more refined melodic touch, and at some points this results in a bit of a bore.

But the bore never lasts too long, and even "Cataclysm" soon makes its way to the exceptional "The Clouding" — one of the most dramatic and emotionally charged epic metal songs to come out recently. This, the longest track on the album (at over nine minutes), starts with a slow, reflective awakening, featuring delicate, melodic playing that has a tad of a bluesy edge and a bit of David Gilmour styled celestial guitar-hoverings, and eventually transforms into a full-fledged metal attack, carrying a vicious declaration.

Now, on a macroscopic level, Framing Armaggedon is one of the most contagious albums I have heard for quite some time. This is largely due to Tim Owens' vocals, which are spread all over, drawing their grip from effective, maniac overdubs. At times, Owens singlehandedly delivers the yearned for melodies, riding on the rhythm-bed of the band, and he proves himself as a diverse vocalist (still Judas Priest fans will, with no doubt, treasure his wails on the title track, which slightly resembles Priest's "Metal Meltdown").

A lot of credit also goes to the songwriting — while it is quite clear that Iced Earth's main man Jon Schaffer wanted, above all, to tell his apocalyptic story, the songs manage to stand separately in addition to being a part of the whole, and some of them are highly engaging and effective metal hymns ("A Charge To Keep," "Ten Thousand Strong," and "Infiltrate and Assimilate" are but a few examples).

The second installment of "Something Wicked," featuring Matt Barlow, once again in the vocals position, is expected later this year (preceded by another single that should include Barlow's retakes of few a Framing Armageddon songs). I wait for it impatiently! (8.5/10)

If you have such a thing as your personal darkened space, Illusions of Silence will have you quietly sitting there, listening, observing, marveling and wondering if there a better ambient/doom album has ever been recorded. But you won't be able to think of one because all of your attention will be directed to the source of the sound. Again, you'll have to check out if those are the same speakers or headphones you've used for hundreds of hours, and how is it that you've never heard them play — or, better, speak volumes — like here.

Detail after detail, InSomnius Dei are very careful about what they are saying. There's two of them, and both have had massive experience in the Australian metal scene. Illusions of Silence is the first result of their collaboration, a thought, an interpretation of the feelings someone gets when he thinks he's seen it all and when nothing is really capable of moving him. It's not resignation, the things haven't reached that point yet. It is observation and drawing conclusions from their own solitary perspective "...for this wall you shall never break through, my illusions of silence. I will always be dead to your kind. I shall not fall into this night."

The first couple of minutes are misleading. The sound of My Dying Bride melodies and a soft, clean vocal singing against a deadly growl almost cause a negative reaction — after having reviewed a couple of Firebox releases, it was reasonable to presume that this will be another result of third rate gothic/doom. But no. Hell, no. One more minute and the riffs, although familiar, start shifting into something else. At face value, predictable. But still... it's like they have a life of their own. And then it begins.

It is, in its own space and time, beautiful. InSomnius Dei never rush things. They have all the time in the world to use, and everything comes, strictly and naturally, when necessary. It is experience, it is patience, it is knowledge of how things work. Just when the time required for the mood to set in passes, the travel begins. Surpassing Opeth's attendance to detail or Pink Floyd's will to experiment, InSomnius Dei craft each sound and nuance to their purpose. Steadily, the fragments reveal and join, ricochet, or work together. One simple guitar fill becomes alive and bewildering. The guitar becomes the voice, the voice becomes a guitar. There are tides, there are ebbings, there's night, there's day. There is solitude and there is majesty.

Right now, as I'm writing this, there is one guitar thrashing like mad, the drums doing a steady rhythm but the other, wah-driven guitar is left resonating and changing the tone, for seemingly forever, and at one moment all hell breaks loose and the growls and screams start furiously whirling around... before a quiet moment with easy strummed chords ends the song.

Perfect. Music, sound, lyrics. All. The words are nothing. Listen to what the silence has to say. (9.5/10)

If the music on Ophiolatreia was as well thought-out as the presentation, we'd be talking about a highly interesting Hellenic Pagan album. The idea itself is very interesting: a tribute of sorts, a collection of anthems dedicated to the ancient Greek gods and entities. You have heard of them, and the track titles are as clear as possible — to name a few, "Poseidon," "Nemesis," "Hephaistos," "Ares (The God of War)."

The digipak looks quite appealing: On the front, a band in historically correct tunics looking up into the strangely-colored sky, the cardboard inside with a cleverly placed CD and the booklet with lyrics written in the Greek alphabet. There's a feeling that something special must be behind all this.

But, what's inside is just average. For each of the nine songs, Kawir have come up with an intense, driving melody and a few more built around it. They are good. They sound good. Unmistakably Greek, anthemic, proud folk-inspired and emotional, wrapped in an incredibly sharp lo-fi sound. Although almost mono, you can hear both guitars piercing the air, the drums are rattling like they are in your room and you can't escape the screams if you wanted to.

And then, Kawir do it again. And again. They set a tempo, be it a blastbeat or a marching beat, and just repeat the melodies until the song is over. Each repeating sequence lasts exactly as long as necessary for the singer to take a deep breath and spit out a pre-defined number of syllables.

You can look at it in two ways — either as nine fervent, hypnotic anthems, where the instruments and the vocals don't matter as much as the sound and the message, or the statement. But, unless you can read the Greek alphabet or actually speak Greek, it's just monotonous... but we have a hunch even being fluent in Greek won’t help the album’s shortcomings. (5.6/10)

It’s difficult to seem objective when reviewing an entity such as this, but there are extenuating circumstances surrounding this release — most of them unfortunate. Subterranean rumblings indicate this may be the last we hear from Leviathan indefinitely, except in the form of CD re-releases. I certainly hope this isn’t true, because Wrest still has more to contribute to the world of metal than all of the puerile, bloodless Pantera/Machine Head drivel created, EVER.

This release has been so long-delayed, I’m afraid people’s expectations may be overblown by now. Whatever. Everyone will experience this album on his or her own terms, so fuck yourselves in the ear.

In "Vesture Dipped in the Blood of Morning," the album starts much like the erstwhile Lurker of Chalice release on Southern Lord, via "Piercing Where They Might." The blastmort is more fierce, unmistakably Leviathan, but Wrest’s vokills straddle the lower Lurker. Chromatic riffing descends like a mass of angry hornets until gear shifting ultimately sets off a blackened declaration of war against the listener, especially in the closing bridge where a nasty three-chord bludgeon sets the tone for the impending torture session.

"Merging With Sword, Onto Them" is a much more dirgecore-disciplined work, possessed with Wrest’s supernatural ability to channel hostile alien soundscapes. This is one of the most intimidating songs on the record, because it plays out almost like a narrative. The song draws you in, lulls with a seeming calm, then suddenly squeezes your throat with insane, blasting minor chord abuse. It is very dark and unsettling.

With "Made as the Stale Wine of Wrath" and "VI-XI-VI," the momentum hits a bit of a lull. The first of these is a darker, math-y, Christian Death-sounding arrangement, and "VI-XI-VI" meanders through a Velvet Cacoon forest drone that doesn’t pack much of wallop. Thankfully, "Receive the World" attacks with all 32 teeth — classic Leviathan with insane thrashing, demented time signatures, and hostile velocity.

"Vulgar Asceticism" may be the most Voivod-tinged song we’ve ever heard from Wrest. The hate-filled, buzzed-out dissonance really slashes through here, almost trademark Leviathan we’ve grown to love and dread. The closing "Noisome Ash Crown" is the most Lurker of Chalice he gets on the record, a rising tide of funerary drumming and brusque requiem that devolves into ugly static. It sounds like he’s leading Leviathan itself to the gallows, as was likely his intention.

While not the most cohesive representation of Leviathan’s vast catalog, "Massive Conspiracy Against All Life" is an awesome record. If it is indeed a swan song, then it’s worthy of remembrance. There is a large permanence to the work Wrest has put out, and for anyone who holds the fortune of crawling within earshot of this monster, know you the unassailable insignia of black metal. (RIP?/10)

The colorful front cover that adorns this third release by French trio Morglbl says a lot about the music, as this is easily one of the most colorful fusion releases released in ages.

"Tapas Nocturne" opens with groovy drum patterns and rhythmic guitars that lead to its wriggling, catchy hook. The compositional qualities that dominate the entire release sprinkle right away, indicating that this is no free-and-loose technical showcase, even though the band spares us none of its virtuosity (there are far too many outstanding solos here to mention, all of which are flawlessly assimilated into the body of the compositions).

Indeed, Morglbl is ecstatic as it gets, but it is not all about the whack — just listen to the contemplative "Buffet Froid" or "Le Project Pied de Biche," which feature delicate playing by the trio, spiked by spins of wackiness.

"The Toy Maker" is one of the most twisted and curly tracks here, and makes its appearance in just the right time, injecting some new blood before any momentum is lost. "Haute Voltige en Haute-Volta" is colored vividly by a well calculated usage of harmonics and tone games on the bass and guitar that manages to avoid a sense of technicality; and "Fevrier Afghan" exhibits more of the naughtiness, with frenzy, nonsense vocals that go hand in hand with tricky, dazzling guitar, slightly resembling Kruzenshtern and Parohod's music.

But if a more general comparison is to be made, Morglbl relies on Allan Holdsworth's fusion material as the basis of its sound and compositions: the guitar lines are distorted, stretched and bent, and yet they flow like a stream and kept well under control; the rhythm is intriguing and misguiding, keeping everything tight yet fresh; resulting in highly packed, engaging instrumentals that rock hard without sacrificing their nuanced textures ("Lieutenant Colombin" and "Totale Bricole" are fine representatives of this). (9.25/10)

"Retro thrash" is quite the phenomenon at the moment, although why categorize every band that thrashes in the slightest by this term? Must Missa are champions of thrash, but what is so "retro" about them? Martyr of Wrath thrashes in a familiar and uncompromising way, but this album conspicuously lacks originality and rawness.

Martyr of Wrath opens with the track "Devil’s Reject" with a soundbyte and launches into a blasting intro, which with a vocal roar and a swift shift, turns into an upbeat thrash beat. Vocals are barked over this upbeat thrash framework that alternates between that and brief passages of blast. Breaks occur with one lone rhythm guitar to open the next passage and the rest of the band to follow. This builds dynamics and varies the song up in an interesting way. A brief, tasteful solo flurries past at one moment, with trem noise and fast scale work.

The next track is a simple, mid-paced thrash number and lyrically bears the proclamation, "this isn’t fucking Sunday school." Other such intellectually driven pieces of textual waxings including "Die, You Scum." The slower tempo of this track and straight forward riffing calls to mind early Celtic Frost at times, although lacking the rawness and effectiveness Frost always possessed on early works.

Track three, "Regret or Deny," begins with a riff that is extremely reminiscent of track one from Destruction’s 2005 Inventor of Evil, down to the background spoken vocal pieces.

This album as a whole is like the later work by Destruction and Exodus. The "new" thrash production focuses more on the "hugeness" factor of the drums, guitars and vocals, which contributes to a certain forceful effect but compromises rawness that old school thrash possesses. Even the vocals bring to mind that of Destruction frontman’s Schmier’s new style of vocal delivery that is prevalent on later discs. The guitars are mixes in a similar fashion to later Destruction works and the same assessment applies here: the more low-end driven riffs are better suited to a death metal style mix.

Martyr of Wrath is not a bad piece of thrash. It delivers well played riffs and tightness. But the apparent lack of originality and rawness in the recorded form prevent it from achieving greatness and lasting appeal. If new-style thrash is your glass of beer, then this disc is for you. (5/10)

Nadja’s ascent from boutique cult to worldwide distribution has happened quickly over the last few years, and the latest releases on The End records show why. This drone/doom project emanates a sound like no other, that skirts an awesome line between peace and terror.

Skin Turns to Glass feels like drifting underwater with whales. The molasses slow and sometimes sweet droning doom changes to howling swaths of dissonant downpour, yet still maintains the blissful enveloping fuzz.

The album abounds with superb instances of tension and release as the body of the track is deliciously insidious, then fades out into drifting waves of ambiance, but still carries the undercurrent of uneasiness that you feel could erupt again at any moment.

It was a smart move to make the half-hour last track of endlessly repeating drone drift that doesn’t explode into a miasma of splattering fuzz until the last couple minutes a hidden one, that way people have a harder time complaining that the album goes on too long in a certain way. (9/10)

It doesn't say anything good about your country's death metal scene when the latest brilliant album to come out of it wasn't released this decade or the previous one, but in 1987. We're, of course, talking about Sepultura's Schizophrenia, and about the Brazilian death metal scene, home to the most monotonous death metal bands in the history of mankind.

If you find yourself disagreeing with that, then stop reading this review, imagine I rated Nervochaos’ Quarrel in Hell a 8/10 and go buy it, it's just like every single Brazilian death metal album, but better produced. Yes, I am generalizing, I know, but this is one of the exceptions where generalizing works almost perfectly.

With that out of the way, let's just say that Quarrel in Hell is boring like all metal based on two riffs per song is. Thrash-derived metal's always been about, well, riffing, so when your riff count for an album is lower than 50, then something's failed unless you make up for it somehow, which isn’t the case here. Even those few riffs Nervochaos use are either Sepultura rip-offs or those typical Cannibal Corpse-influenced South-American riffs that go nowhere and sit there just for the sake of heaviness and making the audience headbang. Sure, they work for that, but come on! We want something out of it, not just brown noise with blastbeats!

But OK, imagine you were forced at gunpoint to name something good about it, and it'd be the vocals and the drums. They are, though nothing out of this world, above-average death vocals closer to Mortician than to Sepultura, and drums with a certain variety and even good fills. Unless you have to listen to Quarrel in Hell completely (and I sincerely hope you don't), because you'll quickly notice how everything follows really strict patterns, including the seemingly quite liberal fills the drummer does.

One of their guests saves one of their songs, Averse Sefira (or actually two Averse Sefira members) on "Evocations," but that's about it, since their songwriting is about as progressive as a Michael Jackson song.

There's not much to save here. If you like it, you like it as it is, if you expect musicianship... then go somewhere else. Then again, we're all too used to conservative South American death metal to even notice Nervochaos out of all the stuff released there. (3/10)

Om is stoner for people not into stoner, and drone for people not into drone. You know the story: they were Sleep, then they started playing more spiritual drone / stoner / something metal as a drum and bass duo, then they managed to release awesome album after awesome album. It's true, however, that all of them are very similar. Like they made them with a machine that constantly pumps out great, droney stoner doom albums. Kind of.

Pilgrimage, like every Om release, is made of two parts. I know I'm not the first one to say it, but "Pilgrimage," the album's first part, is Om's "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun." It's surprising to see such a big Pink Floyd inspired track on a drone album, but you should be prepared for it. Remember "At Gizah" from their previous album? Like that, it's not a blatant rip-off, though, but you must be deaf if you don't notice the similarities.

"Unitive Knowledge of the Godhead" and "Bhima's Theme" form the metal side of Pilgrimage (I know, I know, they don't have guitars but they are heavy anyway). Honestly, this is the part where you see why Om is Om, and why people drool over them. Melodic but heavy, slow but not so much, headbang-inducing crushingly heavy bass riffs that either induce you into sleep or into meditation. This part is the part that will make you stop thinking about how much the other part was like "Set the Controls"; this part is the one that will teleport you to some unknown universe where basses are used like guitars and where drone is actually fun and, gulp, not ambient.

While not substantially different from both stoner/doom and drone, Om redefine what both terms mean.

When they say "motifs that were initiated on the band's previous albums are continued here unabated," they mean it. "Unitive Knowledge of the Godhead" is just a continuation of riffs you've heard on their older songs, pretty much. That's what makes Pilgrimage not as good as it should and could have been. In the end, you won't even care; it's Om, you know what to expect from them, and you'll probably buy Pilgrimage and enjoy it as much as you enjoyed Conference of the Birds. And I'm not blaming you, you should do that. (8.2/10)

Sometimes I wonder how bands can subsist being the same thing as everyone else. I don't blame easily pinpointable bands that are actually good: say, Devourment is obviously brutal death metal, but they're good at it, so although they won't break your concept of death metal apart, but you'll enjoy them (or not). But bands that are Devourment clones need to be really good to be worth their name being mentioned anywhere. On the other hand, there are bands like One Step Beyond: pinpointable, yes, but really original at what they do. Even if they sucked (which they don't), at least it'd be worth the time it takes you to listen to them.

Beyond Good and Evil is alienating. They strive to be alienating, and that's why they are good. See how you're used to death metal, even technical death metal, keeping the same atmosphere for albums and albums? Well, not here. Beyond Good and Evil changes all the time, most of the time several times a song, so much it will make you nervous, and that's the point. High, incoherent vocals and evil sounding low gurgled vocals, completely angular Cynic-on-speed riffs and quite odd polymeters are there just to fuck with your head, making Beyond Good and Evil a death metal album on steroids... and some other things.

But, wait! It's not just death metal. Funk, metalcore, Mr. Bungle, deathcore, stoner rock, grindcore, even reggae right at the end. They've seriously infused their music with pretty much everything they could. The first track might trick you into thinking that they are a death metal version of Dillinger Escape Plan, but they are not even close. As the album goes on, however, it's impossible not to notice that they are, well, everything.

If you, like me, are a sucker for multigenre approaches, One Step Beyond is a good alternative to both pure mathcore or pure death metal bands. Beyond Good and Evil summarizes everything good about technical / experimental death metal without ever getting anywhere near the inconsistency of most technical metal bands, or really playing cliche death metal. On the other hand, it's also not as polished as it should be, mostly production-wise. Even if not perfect, Beyond Good and Evil is one of those albums you need to get just to see how things should be. (8/10)

Once in a while, there comes a band that gets how this century's hardcore should sound. To name a few, Curl Up and Die, Shellac, and, to a lesser degree, Prize Country. We aren't talking about a groundbreaking band, but at least Prize Country doesn't sound like every single other band in the genre.

Prize Country comes to be a middle point between the craziness of post-hardcore bands and the energy of the first wave of hardcore, in the way that they are not completely abstract but they don't share the retardedly angry atmosphere of Hatebreed. Instead, they share a lot more similarities with early hardcore (Bad Brains and such) and post-hardcore (or more precisely, the most conservative parts of Converge's mid period) but still sound like they are playing actual songs. Bluntly, they take the best of each camp and do their own thing with it. That could turn out really, really nasty, but they somehow managed not to abuse their position and actually develop both parts of their sound.

While Prize Country aren't precisely the most memorable band in the world, they can make their songs different between them, they don't abuse cliches and their anger seems more natural than anything old school-styled hardcore has done in years. Their sound is not groundbreaking, but it's original, and it seems like it's almost impossible to sound original nowadays when it comes to hardcore. After all, it's all either tough-guy Hatebreed clones, cheap Botch ripoffs or Gothenburg-gone-hardcore stuff. Just because of that, Lottery of Recognition earns quite some points in my book.

Lottery of Recognition is energetic but never gets stupid: forget those idiotic breakdowns, forget the random shout contests between the singer and himself, and most of all, forget the unjustified powerchords all over. Prize Country, after all, is much more hard rock influenced than it seems, especially when it comes to crafting rock-opera-like choruses for their songs. The best part is that they don't stay in a single place for long: when you least expect it, they throw some dissonant riffs at you just so you don't think Lottery of Recognition is a simple album, because it's not. You should try it if you disregard hardcore for reasons such as that. However, don't expect it to turn you into a hardcore fan. (7.8/10)

To talk about Rosetta without mentioning the monolithic, epic, and definitely overlooked The Galilean Satellites would be like talking about Black Sabbath without mentioning their self-titled album. It doesn't matter much if you're a fan of it or not (I myself prefer Wake-Lift), but each is undoubtedly one of the genre's landmarks.

The Galilean Satellites in particular is one of sludgecore's most important and complex albums, not to mention its concept was great as well. Sure, it was overambitious and definitely not for the casual music fan ("Two CDs to listen to at the same time? Like half that one The Flaming Lips release? That's bullshit!") but it was a great album. It almost seemed like a puzzle you had to finish just to listen to the album, and for some people it wasn't worth it, but it was still as important as they say.

For some, it'll be Wake-Lift's weak point, for others it will be the selling point, but the truth is, Wake-Lift comes to turn the whole situation around. No longer will you need two sound systems to play the album like it was intended, nor will you need almost two hours to listen to it wholly or about twenty spins to understand it. Somehow, Rosetta managed to make Wake-Lift a much more accessible yet more satisfying album.

Rosetta, since their first album, showed a great ear for emotional newer Isis-like riffs but with a harder edge than most Isis / Neurosis clone bands, many fans considering Rosetta's riffs the best of their genre (including me). In Wake-Lift, technicality has developed even further: a less vocal-centered approach, much more developed riffs and, the main difference, a three-times as prominent post-rock influence. What that means is that Wake-Lift doesn't take more than a listen to like; Rosetta are no longer impenetrable. And, for a band that redefined "impenetrable" in just two hours, it's surprising to see that this one here is about as straightforward as a sludgecore album can be.

Wake-Lift uses a wall of sound production that makes it sound like Rosetta is actually formed by 20 members, with harmonic constructions more similar to post-rock or even bands like Tone than to Neurosis. That means that they'll still be a hit or miss for most people, but it's no longer elitist music, for lack of a better term.

I'll be one of the first ones to say that the newest Rosetta release easily surpasses The Galilean Satellites, mostly because it actually accomplishes what it sets itself out to do. It's no longer just an outstanding concept carried out decently well, it's a slightly less-outstanding concept carried out to perfection. If I were you, I'd get Wake-Lift as soon as possible. (9.4/10)

Secret Annexe's songs are portraits of everyday life, bearing a resemblance to Radiohead’s The Bends. The mundane lyrics touch poetry, adorned by an accessible songwriting that is spiked with a bit of weirdness, and — most importantly — performed wholeheartedly.

A rather unusual lineup (which expands the traditional rock formation with viola, piano, keyboards, which I assume are the ones frequently utilized as vibes, and electronic "noise") and dedicated arrangements that add beautiful harmonies and anomalies to the engaging melodies, keep everything remote from banality.

The band’s tight and distinctive sound is evident right from the start, and while all instruments are created equal (and treated gorgeously here), the syncopated drumming and, even more so, the dominant use of the viola provide a macabre tone.

And so, navigating between the upbeat ("I Think It’s Safe" feels like a sophisticated The Cure song) and the delicate ("On Death & Trying"), Seven Headed Monster is a statement full of emotional charm as well as one that makes a lasting musical impression. In fact, after such a reflective, in depth experience, you feel you can actually rely on the band’s concluding mantra and expect that "…something good is gonna happen here starting today." (8/10)

Hallelujah, a band that makes it easier for us reviewers. Screw bands where you actually have to think to describe them, here you can just mention the band name or the album name! Yep, Abyss is pretty much a shipwreck, and not precisely one of those worth making documentaries about.

Shitty jokes aside, Shipwreck A.D truly is the inconsistent mass of post-hardcore and metal the title suggests. Their main problem is that they try to be deep and play angular riffs, but only their traditional parts are developed enough to feel like parts of a song, like the fast part at the end of "Helix." You can only be as ambitious as your songwriting and technical playing let you, so, and with the limited songwriting on display here, there's no room for much to be done.

Shipwreck A.D. know what they would like to play, but they manage to build only skeletons of good songs and end up being better at what they obviously don't prefer playing. "Miasma," for example, shows several times a Today is the Day influenced hardcore/metal band with some

original riffs, but they quickly descend into formulaic hardcore land after each one. It's as if they wanted to ruin some otherwise great ideas by not doing them completely at all.

And their riffs range from tasteless powerchord-abusing fillers

to great sounding... powerchord-abusing actual riffs. Yeah, it's pretty much all powerchords, save for one or two solid dissonant chord-based rhythms here and there. The vocals are good, the drumming is good, but hardcore is too guitar-centered for them to save Abyss from its own excessive ambitiousness when compared to the rather limited technicality.

You really know how Shipwreck A.D sounds like, it's just a matter of liking it or not, and I know the low rating won't make a single hardcore fan stop buying it. Developing those newer-Today is the Day parts would help them, especially since they would be forced to drop most of the things that make Abyss sound like a sketch for an album. (4/10)

This release seems to build on the concept of Christian fanatacism in Sweden. Each song contains an extended sample of some radio or TV sermon (also in Swedish). I pay more attention to the instrumentation, which borders on the primitive. Sometimes the band repeats a riff for so long it grates on the nerves. But in a way, that’s pretty cool. The tracks crawl along like a snail high on weed, as if written for the sake of sonic ugliness.

I’d want to experience this music in a live setting before making a more informed decision, because alas, this release lost me after several listens. (5/10)

We all should thank Faith No More for making the musical genius that is Mike Patton someone noticeable, but at the same time, we should probably hate them for letting the barrage of Faith No More-influenced nu-metal bands flock the "metal market." Being a mix of Faith no More, Korn and the Finnish gothic-but-not-quite metal scene, Skypho comes out as a sometimes satisfying, mostly unbearable band with a confusing sense of direction, but obviously related to that barrage of bands.

Nowhere Neverland is the living proof that slight changes on a melody, song or even rhythm can either undermine everything or save it. The songs don't really change that much, but the addition of jazz solos over clean parts turns many of their segments into great atmospherical pieces, while the addition of nu-metal vocals turns many other ones into a crapfest of pseudo-brutality and teen angst. For example, the addition of portuguese Patton-ish vocals on the third track make it a great part, but the whole slow buildup in the beginning is totally unneeded and even harmful to the song's integrity.

It's frustrating, because you know Skypho can play quality stuff, they just love to ruin it with commercialism, completely mainstream song structures, and horrible nu-metal vocals.

It's safe to say they are much more fit to be an atmospheric rock band than they are to play nu-metal or even metalcore. We've all already learned that making Faith no More sound like nu-metal doesn't work at all, and that's precisely what Skypho tries to do on some tracks here, and fails horribly. Summarized, Nowhere Neverland has one good intro, a good song, a good song ruined by HOLY SHIT, THOSE ANGSTY VOCALS, and two songs that should equal an autoskip from pretty much everyone into stuff that's not nu-metal. If you find generic nu-metal to be a valid and worthy of your time genre, however, you'll enjoy this much more than I did. (3.5/10)

After the obligatory spooky intro with apocalyptic soundcuts, the first thing to notice about Spiculum Iratus is the very ugly production. Very tinny, with a vocalist who has overloaded his vocals with

mid-tone distortion. It all sounds like it was recorded in some stable in the countryside. The drumming is mostly very generic, ‘90s style snare/hi-hat skipping.

The guitar parts consist of dramatic minor key noodlings in an old Graveland style, circa Following the voice of Blood, only then even much more simplified. Of Spiculum Iratus’ seven songs, "Scrolls of the Dead" is the only song that sees some variation in the drums. Otherwise it’s mostly dangerously boring.

Bestial Incarnation is a little better to stomach. There is more energy radiating from their music, although here is also an insufficient job done on the vocals, which sound too low in the mix. A plus goes out to the drummer because he does his best to be all over the place. The guitar melodies on the other hand are also fairly unremarkable and repetitive and I don’t think it’s a good thing if in a give-piece band the only thing worth the attention is the drumming. They only recorded the hi-hat and ride cymbal a bit too loud. Nice is the fast-forward approach towards the end of the song named after the band.

Things start to get interesting from track three as "Opprobrium Bestowed upon the Subhumans" sounds like an old Leviathan demo and judging from this I’ll be damned if Bestial Incarnation doesn’t totally worship the works of Wrest! Very good about the song is the quiet, effect-free, guitar-only part, which works well in building up a certain tension (it’s the best song on this release).

"Divinity Scorned" has also some good blastbeat action, but the melodies here are all a bit too simple to truly captivate the imagination. The last song has brilliantly faded in blastbeats and after the guitars are messing around a bit with some stringsliding, everything comes together. But "Eradicating the Human Race," as it is called, has such a loose structure that again, one will notice mainly the drummer.

There is also a hidden extra track but it’s purpose escapes me, because it neither surprises nor adds anything to the previous tracks.

In short, this split album has a few nice moments, but in general it’s little but a rough, and more often than not, messy introduction to these two new bands. It depends on what both bands are planning to do next — whether Monuments of Decimation will not decimate itself into oblivion. One thing I am certain of is that after this debut of both bands they absolutely have to put their songwriting skills to a higher level, otherwise they are not likely to get noticed by anyone else but a few promo reviewers.

Finally this: The booklet reads "by believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired." From this one could deduce that they have no desire for the nonexistent, yet they believe in something "that still does not exist." Does this mean they have no desire for what they believe in? I think that would be a rather questionable philosophy. Both desire and belief apply to unfulfilled matters and as a result of their statement they just leave me feeling more dissatisfied about this release. They lost me here. (4.5/10)

What in the name of all that is unholy could conceivably happen if Burzum was crossbred with Hawkwind, or Judas Iscariot with Sebadoh? Once sucked in by Tjolgtjar, you wish it happened more often. This guy’s crazed mix of black metal and space rock is unique, at times amusing and baffling, done with such unimpeachable earnest you just want to . . . get up and dance?!?!?

This is Freedom Rock soaked in pig’s blood, a super necro Dr. Demento. Ethnomusicologists take note.

Tjolgtjar is the vision of Reverend JR Preston from Blood Cult. He plays all of the instruments pretty fucking skillfully. Faithfully lo-fi in places, this metal possesses some seriously twisted mojo and / or very strong hallucinogens.

A lot of material on this CD if culled from the "Ave Tjolgtjari" compilation, but that isn’t such a big deal. What really matters is that Tjolgtjar reaches the metal masses by whatever means necessary. Songs like "Dark Tjolg Mindtrip" and "Strong Signals From the Other Side" will start all classic-rock guitar and inevitably turn into nasty hyperblast. "I Am the Ruler of Earth" begins with a downright hilarious guitar solo and then totally brings the two-chord Von worship to the forefront. Each one of these tracks stands in its own fucked-upedness, worthy of an entire academic seminar. How can you listen to "Voyage of Satan's Elves" or the Judas Priest cover "Deceiver" and not be convinced that this is genius?

Tjolgtjar’s newest CD at press time is Holnijimnjok, on Baphomet / Red Stream. (WTF/10)

Ophidious is the second full-length album by this New York black metal duo. Both members have already been active in another band called Sin Origin from Ohio. They relocated and decided to change Origin into Velonnic and to swap the word positions.

Just what the word "velonnic" means is unclear, but if it comes from the word Velonia it would mean "a sin committed by bubble algae," and I am not very aware of any theological awareness within the realms of those life forms.

The title Ophidious, however, is well-chosen, for snakes have been very much overlooked subjects in this genre.

It is quite evident that the song titles show some ambition when inspiration is drawn from Greek mythology. In the opening track, "Vengeance and the Gray," is a tale about Sthenoa, one of the Gorgons, vicious female monsters with brass hands, sharp fangs and hair of living, venomous snakes. In "Lernaean Fiend," there is one about the Hydra, a horrendous serpent with nine heads. Other titles are about snake-like / ophidious creatures from other regions, like those appearing in the Beowulf saga from Ireland or in the Edda saga from Iceland (about Nidhogg, the silver-winged serpent that’s gnawing on the roots of the Earth Tree Yggdrasil). In the song "Impurity," there’s a tale from ancient India about the Nagas in the Mahabharata saga, about serpent-beings living under the sea.

All these mythological sources explain the seemingly Shakespearian style in which the verses have been penned. Those not aware of the reason for this lyrical style may easily dismiss the contents, deeming them unintelligable at first sight.

Although the visual presentation of Ophidian is designed with great attention to detail, there are a few downsides to the aural presentation. Firstly, the guitars have been recorded very thinly. As a consequence, the quality of the riffing doesn’t quite show as it could be. More use of the clear guitar effect at the beginning of the song "Impurity" would have been welcome.

Secondly, the vocals: Although there is fundamentally nothing wrong with vocals sounding nasty and evil, it’s hard to see where they’re going when in every song one can mainly hear what seem to be variations of a fairly generic grawl ("aahrwhraarwhraar"). It’s very hard to distinguish anything of the lyrics, which is a pity because a lot of thought has been devoted to it, as we know now. There are few surprise elements in the range of vocals, with the exception of some occasional in-sync grunting and some film soundcuts passing by. The frequency of the countergrunts are not sufficiently present to say that it’s an album with an overall great vocal performance.

Another thing is an inconsistency in in sound of the drums (which are by the way handled with great dexterity, especially on the double basses). Initially, on "A Dream in Leucism," they sound beautifully sinister and solemn, as if being played from the back of a church hall. But after that, they sound are entirely different. Weighed against the toms, which sound very nice and textural in a song like "Wyrm," the important snare drum starts developing a bit of a flat and demo-like character over the course of the songs.

Regardless of this technical observation, Ophidious is a drummer’s album, because that’s where most is happening musically.

Ophidious is an album that has its good and bad. In a way, this production reminds me of Dimentianon, whose Hossanas Novus Ordo Seclorum was reviewed here not too long ago.

On one hand the whole concept and visuals are quite interesting and inspired, but the music does suffer from a lack of variation and production dynamics, making it not as powerful as it could have been.

It’s possibly due to Velonnic Sin being a duo who have taken care of most of the productional tasks themselves with limited means. They’re a duo with style, but they have yet to refine their sound. (6/10)

Every genre, or even subgenre, has a certain something, or actually certain somethings, it needs to have to work. Of course, there's a certain something that traditional doom bands need to have in order to be enjoyable. If they don't, they're bound to fail. It's impossible to describe it without saying that it's a kind of energy — not hyperactive energy, but a certain energy that turns a doom metal album into a listening experience where you eagerly await the next riff, feeling every single note of the present one. See Black Sabbath's whole Paranoid album, or Pentagram's first few full lengths. I'm sure you really felt every note. You don't need to rip Black Sabbath off, but you must have a comparable energy or it just won't work. The Wandering Midget is an example of a by-the-books doom metal band that's missing the necessary oomph to make it work.

I Am the Gate feels like a Black Sabbath and Pentagram-derived riff repository. Every single track has at least one good riff, but also at least one incoherent one. The song writing here is reduced to riff ordering and making vocal lines for it. Not to the extent of, say, Dark Angel, but not so far either. Traditional doom is more often than not just that, but that's not how it should be. They really try to be epic, it just doesn't work here because I Am the Gate not consistent enough.

The vocals and the riffage are fairly standard doom ones: powerchords, palm muting here and there, a fair amount of groove, the usual, but what's not so standard is the production. In fact, it's substandard, and supposedly on purpose. Raw but not to the point of actually doing anything worthwhile atmosphere-wise, it destroys any attempt by the band of not sounding like a good amateur band.

On the other hand, it's not like they don't show any talent. There are some scattered tracks that show great riffs, an actually epic atmosphere, and songwriting. That'd be "I Am the Gate" and "Wolfslayer," pretty much, and the rest of the tracks show sparks of talent here and there, but not enough to make you say "damn, THIS is doom metal." It just needs a whole lot of polishing and a more professional approach, but they're going somewhere, at least based on this release. And that's much more than you can say about many bands. (5.2/10)

This debut by Israeli duo Windy and Destiny (in music affairs as in real life) would have most probably gained much more respect and recognition had it been marketed more mysteriously, hinting at a recently discovered recording from the ‘60s. Psychedelia psychos worldwide would have, then, spent their well earned money trying to obtain it, and eventually feel they had gotten their money's worth.

Yep, Words For Such a Riot sounds as authentic as anything from that much yearned for, trippy era. The only thing that might give away its modernity is the crystal clear vocal production. Other than that, it's pure ‘60s vintage.

The music is acidic, featuring slightly vague yet totally enchanting, electronic / electric surfing lines, side by side with more natural guitar picking and strumming, and carries eastern flavors that were common in early British psychedelic rock. The percussion is handled modestly yet highly attentively: ticking, shading and inflating the body of work to fuller, band-like proportions.

Alogon is more of the exquisite drone punishment / bliss from the first Wrath of the Weak album, which made Maelstrom’s best of 2007 list. As with the self-titled debut, the music is an interesting duality of simplicity and depth within the many layers of such. Refer to our review of the debut for more detail on that matter.

Alogon sounds bigger and more apparent. As a result, it is less meditative than the debut. The vocals sound more aggressive, and the buzz is more actively warm, which manifests itself in aspects like the bass guitar being more concrete and occasionally cutting through as a bass guitar normally does. Perhaps it is here that the greatest development in Wrath of the Weak can be measured: the instruments are less like "a real amp tone so much as a hell of a lot of noise that sounds good" (as Wrath of the Weak creator "j" described in his interview with us in issue #53) and more like real amp tones. These are minor differences between the two full-lengths, and personally I prefer the spell turned on the debut (not detracting the factor that my preference is due to that being the first time I heard Wrath of the Weak) as it achieves more of a mantra-like result through its sonic values... but this is basically splitting hairs.

There are some new elements, too. The album’s epilogue, "The Journey Toward Non-Existence, in Slow-Motion Technicolor," presents a new ambient element of more clean, sustained, progressive, percussionless tones that navigates vast territories of deathlike peace in a new way for this project.

Alogon is the new installment of this superb black metal / noise / shoegaze project, and look for it once again to be on our end-of-year-best list. (9/10)

Although this is not the earliest material that has been brought out, it was Malefic’s first attempt to run all things on his own. In 2003, an even rarer split release with Orosius featured Xasthur tracks dating from 1999 with a guest drummer, Mike from California’s Ritual. An even older rehearsal song going back as far as 1997 was included as a bonus track on the Mirrors 2LP edition from 2004 (it’s now thankfully available on the second disc with the A Darkened Winter promo). As Malefic got disenchanted working with other musicians, he settled with a drum machine on Mirrors and has done so uptil last year’s Defective Epitaph.

It even seems that the most unapproachable musician in black metal has become a bit less misanthropic, judging from projects like Twilight, Mord and Sick and his collaborations with Nachtmystium and SUNN. It even seems that Xasthur as of now doesn’t consist of Malefic alone, but that’s another story.

A Gate Through Bloodstained Mirrors was made available again to a public that had begun picking up the blissful harshness of Xasthur following the success of the official debut, Nocturnal Poisoning. It was not the same music, however. Many vocal and keyboard segments had been omitted on that re-release and the music was even re-mastered at a slower speed.

The first Xasthur thing I ever heard was the original 2001 demo version of Mirrors, and I still regret that Malefic removed many atmospherical elements that were actually quite effective, like for instance the ice cold keyboard middle part in the excellent "Cursed be the Memory of Light," one of the album’s unrecognized masterpieces. Indeed it may be that Malefic’s brainpiercing shrieks were a bit predominant on the old mix, but on this version there is just too much instrumental, as if one would be looking at a karaoke version of Mirrors.

It is said that this re-release of the remix 2003 has also been re-mastered, but to my ears there is no audible difference, thus there is little added value here apart from the bonus disc with the Darkened Winter promo. However, all its titles have been available on various previous releases in different, sometimes even better form, so it’s really only useful for the most fanatic among Xasthurian archeologists.

"Conjuration of Terror" also appeared on the 2004 split with Leviathan. "Tyrant of Nightmares" was previously issued on 2003’s "Funeral of Being." "Doomed by Howling Winds" appeared on the 2003 split with Acid Enema. "Middle Ages Return" was on the "Suicide in Dark Serenity" EP in 2003. "The Funeral of Being" was in 2004 also on the split with Angra Mainyu.

Perhaps one of the most surprising elements about this re-release is that for the first time we can see the original (and strangely blurry) colour version of the fortress in mountains picture. However, like the version of A Gate Through Bloodstained Mirrors that it houses, it is less grim than the original promo with its black and white etching.

All criticism aside, this remains an important Xasthur release. But without Malefic’s intention, it will lift his official debut, Nocturnal Poisoining to an even more mandatory status. (7/10)

Necrodaemon Terrorsathan is Austrian satanic metal outfit’s Belphegor’s third album, and the first to truly hint at what was musically to come.

The production of the band’s first two albums, The Last Supper and Blutsabbath, is raw and at times even grating. The songs were full of intensity and black / death metal bombast, but the production of the two albums is traditionally associated with underground and primitive black metal.

With Necrodaemon Terrorsathan it became clear that the band had much more in mind. The songwriting on this album and general technicality is more advanced, and the production supports this direction. Not that the production is slick, it is quite understated, but the guitars have much more definition and more room to stand out in the mix, and to make their evil mark upon the listener’s ears. The drums are standing properly in the mix, and the vocals have made sonic progression as well. This is not only owed to the fact that the recording circumstances are apparently for the better, but frontman Helmuth began to assume lead vocal duties.

The album artwork is also typical Belphegor. Naked girls and goats, naked girls doing things with crosses and wearing a gas masks, all in black and white is the theme of the cover, CD itself and booklet. The band can be seen on the back cover of the CD case, depicted also in black and white.

The riffing is inspired and inventive enough to make one wonder if the Belphegor demon himself had offered up some "ingenious inventions" to the band, to fuel their songwriting efforts. The drumming is more skilled and precise than the previous two album offerings, and the vocals more distinctive. As a whole, Necrodaemon Terrorsathan makes its mark in the extreme metal pantheon with its skillful guitar playing, cohesive song writing, blasting drumming and perverse lyrics. It is definitely worth hunting around for, if not readily available.